Ultimate Beginner's Guide to CounterSide

Starting a new game in CounterSide can be daunting, especially if you're not familiar with the RPG gacha genre.

Whether you're a complete novice to the game or looking to refine your strategies, this comprehensive guide, inspired by insights from experienced players, will set you on a clear path to success.

Let's dive in!

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Beginner's Guide to CounterSide: Everything You Need to Know

Understanding Eternium: The Stamina System

What Is Eternium?

Eternium is essentially a resource that allows you to participate in missions, events, and other challenges.

Think of it as your energy or stamina in the game. It replenishes over time, up to a maximum cap.

This system is designed to balance gameplay, encouraging you to log in multiple times a day and plan your game sessions.

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Why Managing Eternium Is Crucial

The key to effective Eternium management lies in ensuring it never reaches its maximum capacity.

Once Eternium hits its cap, any potential regeneration is wasted, as it cannot accumulate beyond that point.

Efficiently using Eternium means you're always making progress, leveling up characters, and acquiring resources without unnecessary delays.

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Gold Management: Maximizing Your Resources

Understanding Gold Usage

Gold is primarily used for:

• Upgrading Units: Essential for leveling up your characters' abilities and enhancing their performance in battles.
• Salary Negotiations: A unique feature in CounterSide where you negotiate salaries to level up your characters, affecting their loyalty and stats.
• Research and Development: Investing in your tech and gear can provide your team with crucial advantages.

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Given its importance across multiple aspects of the game, managing your gold efficiently is key to avoiding resource bottlenecks.

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Strategies for Effective Gold Management

Prioritize Your Upgrades

Concentrate your resources on upgrading units that offer the most value to your team composition.

It's tempting to spread resources thin across many characters, but focusing on a core team ensures you have a strong lineup for tackling more challenging content, which in turn, rewards more gold.

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Smart Salary Negotiations

In salary negotiations, always avoid the middle option. It offers neither significant loyalty gains nor cost savings.

Instead, opt for the right option for a cost reduction or the left option when aiming for a loyalty boost with a specific character.

Understand when loyalty benefits outweigh cost savings. Higher loyalty levels unlock additional bonuses and character strengths.

Use the less expensive option for general leveling but switch to the loyalty-boosting option when working on key team members.

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Dupes and Limit Breaking

Understanding the Value of Dupes

Dupes in Counter Side are not merely copies to be disregarded; they hold substantial value in strengthening your units through the process known as limit breaking.

This process enhances a unit's stats and abilities beyond their initial thresholds, making your team more potent.

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The Mechanics of Limit Breaking

Limit breaking a unit requires you to use duplicates of that unit or a special item known as an apt core.

When you have duplicates of a character, you can use these to limit break the original unit, enhancing their stats and sometimes unlocking new abilities or improving existing ones.

Apt Cores are universal items that can substitute for a dupe in the limit breaking process. They're particularly valuable for rare units where dupes may be hard to come by.

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Best Units to Pull

SSR Units to Focus On

Awakened Hilde

Awakened Hilde stands out for her durability and the ability to sustain in long fights, making her a cornerstone for any defense-oriented team.

Her relevance spans across various game modes, underlining the importance of rerolling for her if you're starting fresh.

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Nanahara Chifuyu

Chifuyu excels in PvE content, especially in raids, due to her defense shred ability.

Enhancing her skills can significantly reduce enemy defenses, making them vulnerable to further attacks.

Her utility in both PvE and PvP, coupled with her DPS output, makes her a valuable asset.

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Gaeun

Gaiun's power in PvP is notable for her ability to deliver high ranged damage.

While she might find competition in PvE roles, her effectiveness in PvP scenarios, especially if not banned, can be game-changing.

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Rosaria le Friede

Specializing in PvE, Rosaria's ability to target flyer units with ranged attacks makes her indispensable for certain content.

Her damage output is substantial, helping clear waves of enemies efficiently.

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Kyle Wong

Kyle Wong is versatile, offering both support and tank capabilities.

His range attacks and ability to protect and buff allies make him a top pick for any team composition.

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SR Units to Focus On

Evelyn Keller

As one of the best healers in the game, Evelyn Keller not only heals but also buffs allies, excluding herself, increasing their attack power.

This dual functionality of healing and buffing makes her an exceptional support unit, making her a meta-defining unit.

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Hilde (Standard)

Hilda provides AoE damage and buffs to allied counters, including herself, which is valuable for PvE content like raids, where enhancing your team's damage output is crucial.

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Kim Sobin

Kim Sobin's damage increases as the fight prolongs, making her especially potent in drawn-out battles where maximizing DPS is critical for victory.

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Lin Xien

Lin Xien's unique ability to refund deployment costs upon entering battle and her ultimate skill that provides additional deployment resources make her excellent for managing deployment costs effectively, offering strategic advantages in both PvE and PvP settings.

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R Units to Focus On

Claudia Nelson

Despite her singular focus on healing, Claudia Nelson excels in this role, providing much-needed survivability to your squad.

Her healing power is decent, particularly in teams lacking SR or SSR healers.

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Ingrid Johanna

Ingrid's ability to be deployed anywhere on the battlefield makes her uniquely versatile, especially in PvP where positioning can dictate the flow of battle.

Her tankiness and disruptive potential are key assets.

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Squad Management

Building a Unit at a Time

Concentrate on leveling and equipping units one at a time to ensure that each unit reaches its maximum potential before moving on to the next.

This approach guarantees that you have a strong base to rely on for various content, rather than a broad array of underdeveloped units.

Choose units based on their role and synergy within the squad.

Start with a balanced approach, ensuring you have a mix of DPS, tank, and support to handle different challenges.

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Core Squad Composition

Having a set of eight units allows you to adapt to both PvE dives and PvP encounters effectively.

This ensures that you have specialized squads that can tackle specific content efficiently, reducing the need for constant adjustments.

Beyond the core eight, gradually expand your roster to include units that offer specific advantages in raids, guild content, or challenging PvP matchups.

This depth allows for strategic flexibility and counters to popular meta formations.

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Managing Squad Cost

Keeping the average cost of deployment low is essential for maintaining the momentum in battle.

It ensures that you can continuously deploy units, keeping the pressure on your opponent in PvP and efficiently clearing waves in PvE.

Integrating SR and R units alongside SSRs can help manage the average cost while providing unique abilities and roles that complement your main units.

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The Role of Ship Management

Gleipnir

The Gleipnir is exceptional for teams heavily reliant on counter units.

Its ability to boost all allied counters' attack by up to 15% is a substantial early-game advantage, especially in scenarios where counter units dominate the field.

Ideal for early to mid-game progression where your roster might still be developing, and the reliance on counter units is high.

Its active skill, which places a drone that can hit and stun enemies, adds a layer of crowd control, making it invaluable for both offensive and defensive strategies.

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Normandy

The Normandy's ability to increase all ally units' HP and provide self-healing capabilities is great for survivability.

This makes it particularly well-suited for PvE stages where endurance and the ability to sustain through long encounters are key.

A must-have for difficult PvE content, including high-level dives and stages with sustained damage output from enemies.

It helps in clearing stages with higher survivability requirements, ensuring your units last longer in battle.

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Undercontrol

Offering an increase to all ally units' stats, Undercontrol is a versatile ship that benefits every unit type.

This broad applicability makes it an excellent choice if you're looking for an all-rounder ship that supports various team compositions.

Especially useful in situations where your team composition varies significantly between matches or stages, Undercontrol provides a consistent performance boost across the board, making it effective in both PvE and PvP.

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SSR Enterprise

SSR Enterprise offers comprehensive buffs to ally counters and mechs, alongside skill haste and a significant debuff to enemy evasion and defenses.

Its versatile skill set supports a wide range of strategies, making it a powerful addition to any fleet.

The Enterprise is particularly effective in late-game content where its buffs and debuffs can turn the tide of battle against tough opponents.

Its ability to reduce target attack and defense by 30% is particularly useful in high-stakes PvP battles and challenging PvE content.

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Efficient Eternium Use

Prioritizing Operations

Main Story Missions

Completing main story missions should be a priority, especially for new players.

These missions not only progress the game's narrative but also unlock essential game features and provide valuable rewards, including characters, equipment, and Eternium.

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Daily Dungeons and Challenges

Daily dungeons offer resources essential for upgrading characters and equipment.

Prioritize dungeons that provide materials you currently need for your main squad.

Balancing Eternium spend between advancing in the story and maintaining daily resource inflow is crucial.

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Optimizing Special Events

Special events in CounterSide are time-limited opportunities that offer unique rewards, including rare units, equipment, and large amounts of upgrade materials.

Efficiently spending Eternium during these events can provide a significant boost to your account's strength.

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Event Participation

Focus on events that align with your immediate needs, such as acquiring a specific unit or stockpiling resources for future upgrades.

Understanding the event's mechanics and rewards can help you decide how much Eternium to allocate.

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Maximizing Event Rewards

Some events offer scaling rewards based on participation or performance.

In such cases, investing Eternium to reach higher reward tiers can be more beneficial than spreading it across various activities.

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Final Thoughts on CounterSide's First Steps

Starting strong in CounterSide is about strategic resource management, focused team building, and making the most of the game's systems, such as Eternium, gold, and squad management.

By following these guidelines, you'll establish a solid foundation, enabling you to enjoy and excel in the diverse and engaging world of CounterSide.