Hello! This is a guide for all those new to the game. This'll cover some basic things that aren't explained all that well by the game as well as a few tips from veteran players.

Important clarification regarding "Leveling": In the game, there are TWO types of leveling. There is the evolution bar leveling, which gives you increased health, moves and allows evolution, based on combat XP (hence the leveling term). There is also essence based leveling, which is the displayed level of a Solari, and controls stats like Strength, Speed and Resist. I'll refer to both of them as leveling in this guide.

1) Affinity Matchups

Okay, so the affinity matchups in the game are a bit complex. There are also move based affinities and Solari type affinities. Solari can be Basic, Nature, Fire, Water, Stone or Electric type. Water beats fire and stone, fire beats nature and electric, nature beats stone and water, stone beats electric and fire, and electric beats water and nature. Basic is equally effective against all types. There's a bonus for using good type matchups (Fire>Nature) and a damage detriment for bad type matchups (Nature<Fire). There's also poison move types, which have an advantage over Stone, and void move types, which have an advantage over basic types.

2) What do the different stats mean?

Strength and Spirit are the two stats that govern attacking damage. Moves are governed by one stat or another. Certain Solari lean one way or another in terms of what stat they work best with, and Solari abilities can also affect their damage.



Similarly, Armor and Resistance are the equivalent defense stats for these two. Armor mitigates Strength, and Resistance mitigates Spirit. While battling Solari, you may see one of two defensive moves: Block and Deflect. Block stops one Strength attack, Deflect stops one Spirit attack. There's also evade and technically petrify. Evade has a chance to avoid one of either type, and Petrify blocks all incoming damage, but prevents your Solari from using any moves.



Then there's Speed. One of if not the most important stat. Speed controls the time it takes to deploy or withdraw a Solari as well as decreasing cool down times and boot times. Electric Solari are naturally high in this stat and Stone are usually lacking. Moves can have their launching time changed with effects like haste or abilities like impatient



There's also health, which can't be upgraded directly like other stats can. You get this passively through leveling up your Solari.

3) The importance and rarity of stars

Stars are the main rating for Solari, and rank between 1 star to 5. While battling Solari, you can't see their stars, only after the fact. If you can, always capture 3 stars and up. Even if you don't like the Solari or already have one like it,you can release it back into the wild after catching them. This can net you gold, essences, Fortunato keys, and more. The main bonus tied stars is EXP boosts at the end of a battle. One and two stars don't get a bonus, but three to five do. You can find these in both the external areas and in dungeons, though there's a higher chance to get higher star ratings by battling Solari in the dungeons. Four and Five star Solari are exceedingly rare, though you do start with a four star. When using Fortunato's keys, you're always guaranteed a three star or better Solari. Stars also modify the increase in stats per level up.

4) Dungeons!

Dungeons are your friends. Inside dungeons you'll find lots of loot, skills and Solari. You have to clear most if them out to get to the boss door, but its often a good idea to clear out the extra rooms for more loot and XP. Your Solari don't heal between each room like they do out battling Lunari or Wardens, so you have to heal them up with health crystals, as well as your own health. Prioritize your health over theirs. Yes, I know that Toddlerock is adorable, but he can be knocked out and then brought back with the crystals, you can't. This is also where you pick up evolution materials, as well as from releasing recruited Solari. As stated before, higher star ratings are more common here.

Dungeons can also have effects. These are located in the area report tab on the floor select (the little arrow in the upper right corner, not all of the dungeons have these). The can be things like increased chest finds to everyone getting poisoned and suffering DOT.

5) Solari Variations and Evolution

Solari can be pretty varied. This ranges from the stars talked about earlier to twists on their affinity. Take, for example, Sportle and Shockle. Sporle is a nature Affinity and Shockle is an electric Affinity. They have somewhat similar skills, appearance and evolution, but are still fundamentally different from eachother. There are also variations between passive abilities, such as Ryzo having the potential for Healthy (a passive health regenerator) or Water Bond (A water damage boost).
As Solari level up, they can evolve into variants of themselves, provided you have the specific materials to do so. For example, you could take the Shockle and turn it into a Sporoderm at evolution, which is the nature Affinity's Sporle natural evolution).

As stated above, there are differing affinity variations on the Solari (Sporle, the nature affinity and Shockle, the electric affinity) seen above. Each Solari, as it gets to the point where it can evolve, can hange afinity to their counter part. Let's say you have the Sporle, and he wants to evolve. You're going to need moondust regardless, but you want him to become the electric type of his evolution. You're going to need (I believe) lightning dust, which has a more random chance of dropping, although reading up on where to find it by hovering over it's icon in evolution is going to provide you with a sample list of it's location. You also need to swipe over on the evolution screen to see the other evolution options.

6) Moves, Solari "Cannibalism" and Gold

Moves are the way Solari battles, and each one has different stats. On a card, it shows name, damage, type, Boot time for the move and cooldown time and who it can hit. The + sign indicates an apply, a cube indicates a chance to apply. The circle and singular triangle indicate it's applied to the target, and the circle with two triangles indicate it affects the Solari that used the skill. Boot times affect how long it takes to be ready to use at the start of a battle (0 means its instantly available) and cooldown is how long it takes to be used again. Different effects and what they all do can be found here:

https://forums.undeadlabs.com/threads/combat-effects.46767/


As you level up Solari, you'll be offered to swap in new moves. If you choose to replace a move, you'll be given the possibility to extract the move. This costs a bit of gold, and gives you a move to place elsewhere. You can also extract from out of battle from the change skills section while examining Solari. This can give you the ability to give Solari moves they can't naturally learn, making them a bit more varied in skill. You're also able to buy moves from the shop and find them in dungeons.

Gold is the standard currency in the game, and you'll get it quite frequently. You'll get it mostly from battling Wardens, quests and from arena battling. Gems can be acquired at a low rate, mostly from daily log ins and allow for premium purchases, like extra warden keys and dungeon passes.

7) Arena!

In a similar vein to the dungeons, the Arena is a key place to go to FREQUENTLY. Learn how to play it. This mode is a bit tricky for new players and can get you a lot of things quickly if you're good at it, or even okay at it. At 10 wins you can get 90 gems, a mini solari booster pack, 19 Warden keys and essences. (over 1000 gems worth of stuff!) If you get good at it you shouldn't need to spend any money on the game (but you should to support the game because it's awesome). You receive a random selection of level 50 Solari and relics for your Warden, meaning how well you do in there is dependent on your own skill and luck. There is no auto mode for combat, since it takes away from your own skill requirements (and where auto was is replaced with the concede button, so yeah. Don't click there.) As you fight, you'll receive different rewards based on how many successful fights you had before losing three times, or getting to 10 wins.

8) Misc. stuff

There are a few tips that new players should know about that didn't really fit in with the rest of the crowd.

• Level up your starter and keep them with you. They start out as as a four star, meaning they're stronger than others, and likely will be for a while unless you feel like spending a good chunk of cash on boosters and Fortunate keys (or are extremely lucky).
  
• Try not to catch anything lower than three stars. Yes they're a bit uncommon but not exceedingly so. All it might take is a bit of grinding out to finally find that Solari you've fallen for. This should apply even if catching one is only for a quest.
  
• You can input a lot of essences all at once. All you need to do is press and hold to put in more than one essence at a time for leveling. As you get to higher levels this will save you a lot of clicking.
  
• For Steam players: There are keyboard shortcuts! They aren't advertised I game (yet) and can be a boon for those who prefer a keyboard over the mouse. The full list an be found here: https://forums.undeadlabs.com/threads/moonrise-keyboard-shortcuts.47466/#post-688958.
  
• Stick to the script. This one makes me a little sad, honestly. You'll get lots of quests like "Catch a Podpetal", then you do that and place for a while until you evolve him. Then, right after you get a quest that has you evolve him. This means you have to catch a brand new one and re-level it all the way back to an evolved state, then evolve a second one. Hopefully this'll be fixed in the future but it can be a hastle. This also sort of applies to the dungeons (as of 5/22/15 they still require the timed tickets, this will change shortly shortly to gold entry costs and will make this much easier to deal with).

I'll update this with new information as the game develops and people post new things, but for now hopefully this will help new players. There'll be a lot of unsung edits

VERY special thanks to Chronolizzard for her wonderful artwork on this (bringing up it's quality immensely)

Special thanks to @Dreadalus, @SwissArmyKnife @MasterWill, @ThatChristmaskid, @Undead Brian and @JasonWivart for their input on making this.