Story Mode Guide (Skills, fastest Zeni/EXP farm, builds)

Are you trying to get through the slog that is Story Mode as fast as possible? Or are you someone who's coming back to it to farm for Zenny to get that one cosmetic you're missing? This guide goes over exact findings for every skill that matters, how the skill system works, and details a few basic tips you should know about when selecting what 3 skills to go with.

Intro

I got mad that there were no places on the internet that provided the stats on how effective the skills in Dragon Ball Fighterz story mode actually are, so I decided to research it myself. I then decided to make a guide about that kinda stuff for all the other people who are as crazy about numbers as I am.

I'll provide a few basic numbers provided from my own testing, more in-depth descriptions of what abilities do (where applicable), and a few builds for new-comers to use!

Oh, and I break down the fastest way to level to 100 in story mode + the fastest Zeni farm in the entire game. So even if you don't like skills or story mode, if you want that cash for cosmetics / the achievement, keep reading on!

How do Skills work?

If you're either OCD or a min-maxer (like me) you might be aggravated that Fighterz only DESCRIBES many of the skills instead of giving you some hard numbers. Crazier people (again, like me) might even wonder some obscure questions like "do multiple of the same skill stack additively or multiplicatively?" or "are these abilities percentage based or flat bonuses?" or even "are level 1 skills 1/6 as potent as level 6 skills, or do they scale less than that?"

Before I show the table of how much of a bonus each skill gives, I will use this section to explain the more advanced details of how skills work. If that doesn't sound interesting to you, scroll down to the next section.

QUESTION 1 - HOW MUCH STRONGER DO SKILLS GET AS THEY LEVEL UP?

To answer this question simply, a Level 1 skill is 1/6 as potent as a Level 6 skill. These skills also scale in a linear manner. So, for example, a Level 3 skill is 3/6 as potent as a Level 6 skill. So if you want to make your character as strong as possible, it is very important you grab the highest level version of good skills (which skills are 'good' will be covered later) as soon as possible.

QUESTION 2 - DO MULTIPLES OF THE SAME SKILL STACK? IF SO, HOW DO THEY STACK?

Yes, multiples of the same skill stack.

As for HOW they stack, this is thankfully just as simple. They stack additively. If you aren't aware of the difference between 'additive' and 'multiplicative' stacking, let me explain.

Let's assume your light attack deals 100 damage. Let's also assume that the "Melee damage up" skill increases your melee damage by 50%.

If a skill stacks ADDITIVELY, each skill you put on would increase your light attack's damage by 50. So, with 3 Melee Damage up skills stacking additively, your light jab would deal 250 damage (100 + 50 + 50 + 50)

If a skill stacks MULTIPLICATIVELY, then instead of adding 50, we would multiply damage by 1.5 at EVERY step. In this case, the light jab's damage would be 337.5 damage ( 100 x 1.5 = 150. 150 x 1.5 = 225. 225 x 1.5 = 337.5)

QUESTION 3 - ARE THESE SKILLS FLAT BONUSES, OR PERCENTAGE BASED?

All of the game's GOOD skills are percentage based, so they scale no matter what point in the game you're at.

And now with those questions out of the way, onto the bonuses themselves!

The Stats

A few things to consider.

All of these numbers are assuming you're using the Level 6 version of a skill. If you don't have the Level 6 version and want to know how effective your current level of the skill is, divide the effect by six, then multiply by whatever level your skill currently is.

For skills I was able to determine exact numbers from, I will use exact numbers. If I was only able to get a rough estimate, or if the actual number is very messy, I will put a ~ before it. (For instance, during testing an attack of mine with no skills did 1560 damage, and then when I put Attack Power Up on, it did 2026 damage. This is an increase of 29.87%. Instead I will write is as ~30%, since 29.87 is roughly 30)

Also, the skills are divided into 3 categories. Good, Situational, and Bad. Good Skills can be used whenever to great effect. Situational skills are only useful in specific circumstances / with specific builds. Bad skills are never useful.

I did not bother testing many of the 'bad skills' because the skills are awful in concept, or I tested them and the testing revealed how bad they were. I've given a brief summary on why those skills are so bad, for the curious.

GOOD SKILLS

Attack Power Up gives a ~30% boost to all normal attacks. This means with 3 Attack Power Up's, you can deal an additional ~90% of your damage on normals, nearly double. Simple and boring, but effective.

Sp. Attack Power Up has the same bonus and stacking properties as Attack Power up, a ~30% boost, but with special attacks. This means any attack you use a motion for, or any ki attack.

Defense Up decreases damage you take by 25% exactly. 3 of these gives you a 75% damage reduction.

Health Up increase your health by exactly 60%. 3 of them gives you an additional 180% health, nearly TRIPLING your HP.

Health Regeneration, I will admit, is one I measured lazily. I did not go frame-by-frame, so this is a VERY rough estimate. But it appears each Health Regen skill gives you 250 HP per second. It is important to note that this health regeneration is always going EXCEPT for when a character is in reserve, OR whenever hitstop happens. If you don't know what hitstop is, it's when the game temporarily pauses whenever an impact happens.

Partial Drain gives you health equal to 20% of ALL damage you do. 3 of them give you 60% lifesteal.

SITUATIONAL SKILLS

Victory EXP Up gives you a 60% increase to EXP. 3 of them gives you a whopping bonus 180% EXP. 3 battles for the price of one! Useful for grinding characters up to Lvl 100, but don't bother with this until after you've beaten hard made and have stage select.

Victory Zeni Up actually has the exact same bonus and stacking properties as Victory EXP. 60% increase, up to a 180% bonus. Useful for grinding Zeni for cosmetics. Don't bother doing this until you have 3 Lvl 100 characters, though.

Opponent Level Down makes opponents easier by decreasing their level by 3 (at all stages of the game.) To explain this skill's value as far as 'making the game easier' we have to look at what leveling actually DOES.

Each level grants a character
+8% Health, Attack Power, Sp. Attack Power
+1% Ki Gauge Fill rate, Assist recovery rate
AND every 5 levels grants a character +1% Defense. Keep in mind characters start at lvl 1, so you get this defense point at levels 6, 11, 16, 21, etc

Now, this is ranked situational because this is AMAZING early on, but pretty awful later on. Because unlike other skills (which multiply your bonuses from leveling) this one reduces an enemy's bonuses. Meaning that, effectively, this is a flat bonus whereas most other skills are percentage based.

Sorry, example time again. Let's say your opponent has a base stat-line of 1000 health, and their attacks all deal 100 damage.

If your opponent is level 11, they have 1800 health, all their attacks deal 180 damage, and they also have 2% defense, meaning their health is effectively 1836. If you take Opponent level down to reduce them to level 8, they have 1560 health, all their attacks deal 156 damage, and they only have 1% defense, meaning their health is effectively 1575. You reduced the health, regular damage, and special damage of all your opponents by ~15% AND since you're fighting level 11 opponents, that means your best boost is probably only level 1 or 2. A level 2 attack boost increases ONE of your attack damage types by 10%.

However, what if this same opponent is level 51? They have 5000 health, all their attacks deal 500 damage, and they have 10% defense, meaning their health is effectively 5500. If you take Opponent level down to reduce them to level 48... they have 4760 health, all their attacks deal 476 damage, and they have 9% defense, meaning their health is effectively 5188. You reduced the health, regular damage, and special damage of your opponent by only 4.8%. The ability has lost over a third of it's effectiveness.

In my opinion, if your opponent is over level 28, or even 23, don't bother. (I chose 28 and 23 because they are levels where you get extra value out of Level Down by reducing your opponent's defense by 1%)

BAD SKILLS

Victory Health Recovery Up increases the amount of HP you recover at the end of battles by an additional 10%, upping it from 20% to 30%. Sounds great... until you realize the the health you recover at the end of a match is based on a percentage of your max HP, and Health Up gives you 60% HP per skill equipped.

Example. Assume you have 1000 HP. If you take 0 Victory Health Recovery Skills, you recover 200 HP at the end of a match. If you take 3 Victory Recovery Skills, you recover 500 HP at the end of the match. If you take 3 HP Increase skills, you recover 560 HP AND your max HP is boosted to 2800 instead of 1000.

The ONLY way I can think of making this skill useful is to combine it with 2 of HP Increase. Using the last example again, your HP will be 2200, and you'll recover 660 HP at the end of the match. But even then, there are better ways to make a defensive build.

Ki Fill Rate Up. Ki Fill rate in the game appears to be based on the FLAT damage you give and take. Meaning that, as the game goes on and everyone levels up, you start building ki faster naturally. From level 30 onwards I was sitting on 7 bars of meter near constantly. At level 80, if an enemy hits me with a level 3 super, I get full meter instantly. You get meter so easily in story mode that any ki boosting skills are not needed.

Ki Charge. See "Ki Fill Rate Up" above for reasons why this skill is garbage.

Assist Fill Rate Up. Assists are only really useful against computer opponents for extending combos. Extending combos only gives a slight increase to damage. You know what gives a higher increase to damage? A flat 30% increase from either Attack Up or Sp. Attack Up.

Opponent Level Up makes opponents harder by increasing their level by 3. Yes, 3, at all stages of the game. This is, supposedly, so you can level up faster. You know what makes you level up EVEN FASTER? The flat 60% EXP bonus from the Victory EXP Up skill.

Battle Time Limit Up. You never need more than 300 seconds in a match unless you're a pro fighting other pro humans. Not computers that dragon-rush you for no reason. Especially since these are fighting game seconds, not REAL seconds If you somehow ARE letting things go on so long that time is an issue for you, here's a pro-tip.

When the timer gets below 10 seconds, any time a character is KO'd from that point on, the timer is reset back up to 10 seconds. That means by tactically taking our opponents (or letting your friends die) as the timer ticks down, you can potentially add an extra 50 seconds onto the clock.

Although, Level 6 battle time up DOES add 120 seconds to the clock, giving you a 420 time limit. So you can use that for your meme videos.

Build Guide / Theory Crafting

Can you tell I play DOTA? Here I'm going to give the builds I've used to great effect, along with a few I haven't because they don't fit my playstyle, but SHOULD be good in theory. The builds will be separated into three categories - offensive, defensive, and silly. Don't worry, farming builds are explained in another section a bit further down!

OFFENSIVE BUILDS

Basic build

• Attack Power Up
  
• Attack Power Up
  
• Partial Drain

Gives a 60% increase to your attack power, and you heal for 20% of all damage you do. Healing from winning matches is very minor, so you'll want some other form of regen to make sure you survive in battle/to the final boss of each area. For most characters, if you like winning or losing your matches as fast as possible, this is the build you should use.

Sp. Attack build

• Sp. Attack Power Up
  
• Sp. Attack Power Up
  
• Partial drain

Same general idea as the basic build, but this is specifically for character who deal high damage with special attacks instead of normal attacks. Gohan, Tien, Android 16, and Blue Vegeta in particular. I would say you should absolutely use this build if you're using Tien in order to completely negate his biggest weakness in story mode - the fact that ALL of his supers cost him some health. Keep in mind partial drain's heal is based on damage you deal, so taking an extra level of it over Sp. Power Up doesn't accomplish anything.

DEFENSIVE BUILDS

Turtle Hermit

• Defense Up
  
• Defense Up
  
• Health Regeneration

This build is good because of the synergy between health regen and defense. Do NOT sub in a health up, that makes the build worse.

Two Defense Up's halve all damage you take, so there's the defense part of the build covered. Without any damage skills, partial drain becomes less efficient, so we need to look elsewhere for health recovery. Health Regeneration works perfectly.

So, why defense up instead of HP up? Because Health regeneration is a flat ~250, adding bonus health doesn't make the regeneration better. But adding in defense DOES make the regeneration better. While you're still getting 250 hp per second, due to damage against you being cut in half, that 250 damage regen is actually an effective 500 hp per second. If you replaced both the Defense Up's with HP Up's, you'd do more than double your HP pool... but you'd also lose out on defense AND halve the effectiveness of your regeneration.

The Long Haul

• HP Up
  
• HP Up
  
• Victory Health Regeneration

Much like the Defense up/Health Regen synergy, there is synergy between HP up and Victory Health Regen. I described this above earlier, but allow me to reiterate here.

Say you have 10000 HP. At the end of battle, you recover 20% of that, or 2000HP
With 3 HP UP's, you have 28000 HP, and at the end of battle you recover 20% of that, or 5600HP
With 2 HP Up's, and 1 Victory Health Regen, you have 22000 HP, and at the end of battle you recover 30% of that, or 6600HP.

I personally feel like 3 HP up's is a little overkill. So, by combining your naturally high HP from your two HP up's along with victory health regen, you can have an even mix of raw stats and an effective way to recover it. If you get lucky and an enemy has a "Victory Health Regenertation" boost (yes, they stack), you can recover more HP from a single fight for EVERY character on your team than most character's have HP in their entire builds!

I called it the long haul because, for the most part, this build is most effective when fighting a bunch of clones in a row. Especially on the long ending crawls of an arc, where they do tend to also have the "Victory Health Regen" boost. But since you don't have any damage skills, that means the battles will take a while to finish as well. Good for a patient player who doesn't like taking risks. Or 16's who constantly self-destruct for funsies.

Just keep in mind to switch to a different build, or at least take off the Victory Health Regen, when you're fighting the final boss of a map since you always get healed back to full when starting a new map.

SILLY(?) BUILDS

these are builds I made to amuse myself, but can sometimes work. If you wanna play the most optimally, use one of the above builds. These ones are for gimmicky fun primarily, but can work if you try hard enough.

One Punch Prince

• Sp. Attack Power Up
  
• Sp. Attack Power Up
  
• Sp. Attack Power Up

A raw Final Flash Attack from Blue Vegeta will instantly kill enemies of a similar level with this build. Make sure to hold down Right-bumper to get the second part of the super! Less safe than giving yourself that level of partial drain, but if you can recognize when the AI is going to attack, it's extremely effective and hilarious.

Gohan Blanco

• Ki Charge
  
• Attack Power Up
  
• Sp. Attack Power Up

I don't take back Ki Charge being bad, but it's helpful for this one gimmick. With a high level character, and an Attack Power boost, you can get 4 bars of meter in a single decently optimized combo, and the AI tends to LET you get the first hit in story mode. Max level Ki charge gives you 3 bars of meter at the start.

Have Gohan walk up to your opponent and do a full combo, ending up with the enemy in a sliding state. You then hit them with Potential Unleashed BUT instead of pressing Right Bumper, HOLD RIGHT TRIGGER. You will spend all 7 bars and IMMEDIATELY get Gohan's fully awakened state about 10 seconds into a match.

The Sp. Attack Power up in this build is to make Gohan's Level 7 awakening Masenko even MORE ridiculous, but you can replace that with an Attack Power up if you're having trouble hitting 7 meter off of one combo.

If you aren't aware what having Gohan at fully awakening does, or why it's so hilarious to have that early into a match, I highly recommend you watch the following video.

Live. Die. Repeat.

• Ki Charge
  
• Victory HP Regeneration
  
• Victory HP Regeneration

Android 16.
Walk slightly up to opponent at round start.
Last Resort.
Tag in another character at start of next round to build meter / let 16 recover.
Got 6 bars? Tag 16 back in.
Stay at mid-range so the enemy starts to run at you.
Last Resort.
Was it a 2 clone team? If yes, then you're done.
If no, then pop sparking to have 16 recover / build meter if you whiff constantly.
Last Resort.

In all seriousness, this would actually be pretty hilariously busted if 16 was available for the entirety of the Android Arc in story mode. It doesn't matter how many HP/Defense/Regen buffs the enemy has if you always kill them in one hit!

Farming for EXP / Zeni

The builds for farming are very, very simple.

3 Zeni Boosts for Zeni farming
or
3 EXP Boosts for EXP farming

So making your farming time more efficient is not about the build. Instead, it is about WHERE you farm. After you've beaten any arc, you unlock the map select for that arc to go back and go through a certain level. Once you've beaten that arc on hard, you can press a button (Y on a 360 controller) to cycle the difficulty between normal and hard (pro tip : be on hard mode when farming)

EXP FARMING METHOD

Now, unless you're looking to farm EXP for Android 16 for some reason, you're going to want to go to Arc 3, Map 16, on Hard Mode. AKA, the boss battle against Evil Android 21. While she does have max regen, and one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, unblockable, uninterruptable, screen-covering attack, the benefits to farming her are

1 - One enemy to defeat instead of 2-3 (keep in mind, MANY clones by this point spawn with HP regen or max HP up, so even with HP regen you can usually kill Evil 21 faster than any group of Clones by this point)

2 - A predictable pattern, once you've farmed her for a bit. Another benefit of fighting 1 enemy instead of more than 1 is that you actually have time and a good learning space for learning their patterns. Evil 21 especially has a major weakness in that she'll do an Air Barrier at random, giving you time to run away from her, where she'll then almost always Homing Dash to you so you can easily 2H (uppercut) her for big damage.

3 - No assists to deal with.

4 - Considerable EXP. Being the only lvl 100 enemy in the game, and being the final boss, she gives a bunch of EXP. In my experience, she gives roughly twice as much EXP as a 2 Clone group, and roughly 66% more EXP than a 3 clone group, while also being faster to beat.

ZENI FARMING METHOD

I did not come up with this method, but quick head's up, this should be the FINAL thing you do in story mode. Get all the characters, level up as many people to max as you want, try out all the silly builds you want, and so on. Because this method takes roughly half an hour to set up properly, but once it's set up, you'll be able to create a save to come back to any time you want more Zeni in future updates. From this point on, story mode stops being story mode, but something you dip into every now and again while listening to podcasts to get all the money you need, to unlock all the costumes for whatever new character came out or whatever.

As a brief description for those who don't have the time to watch the video right now - you go to Chapter 8, Map 15 of the Android Arc on Hard. You go through the path up to the final boss of the area (which conveniently has Zeni boost.) Once you are ready to fight the final boss, you then SAVE. Once you come back in, you move one unit away from the boss. If the boss DOESN'T level up, you RETURN TO STORY MODE TITLE SCREEN. If the boss DID level up, you SAVE. You rinse and repeat this until you have TWO turns left and you are sitting NEXT to the boss.

You then switch off of your REAL team and make a new one. Set up your team with (ideally) two jobber idiots you've never used that can die quickly, and one character who you're pretty good with and is fairly high leveled. Get the three clones down as close to dead as you possibly can WITHOUT killing them. Make sure to use a lot of snapbacks to permanently get rid of any blue, recoverable health they have. Again, repeat, do NOT kill even a SINGLE clone as that will reduce the zeni you get from them.

Then, once all of the clones are comfortably close to dead (without being dead) let them wipe your team. You will then get kicked out of the battle to try again with a new team.

You now have 1 turn left, 3 level 97-98 clones WITH level 5 zeni boost, all of them are on extremely low health, and your main team hasn't even been touched.

Once you have your loadout all set up, SAVE one last time. Congratulations on your brand new, permanent money farming save! Depending on how low you got them, you can finish the battle in 15-30 seconds every time you load from this save. Once they're dead, hit RETURN TO STORY MODE TITLE from the cutscene, then hit continue again. Rinse and repeat until you're tired of farming, and then this amazing save will be waiting for you whenever you're ready to farm again!



Now that's what we call loads of money!

Testing Methods

In case anyone wants to independently verify my scientific results of identifying the exact figures for stat boosts in an anime fighting game, here is how I got my numbers.

Step 1 - Go to Saiyan Arc, Map 4

Step 2 - Go to the tutorial fight against Ginyu where he walks up and smacks you so the game can teach you reflect.

Step 3 - Instead of reflecting, get smacked, and record how much damage you took. Don't do anything so you don't get counter-hit, as this increases damage taken.

Step 4 - Instead of reflecting, punch Ginyu, and record how much damage you did. Be careful to NOT counter-hit him, as this increases damage dealt.

Step 5 - Instead of reflecting, shoot Ginyu in the face with a ki blast / special move of your choice, and record how much damage you did. Be careful to NOT counter-hit him, as this increases damage dealt.

Step 6 - Now that preliminary recordings have been taken, leave the game, come back to the same map, and equip whatever skills you wish to test.

Step 7 - Depending on which skills you want to test (defense/offensive) either smack, or get smacked by, Ginyu accordingly.

Step 8 - Using advanced scientific methods, such as division, find out how much the skill you equipped boosts its advertised stat.

Congratulations on actually reading this whole thing! I hope it was helpful! If you have any other burning questions about Dragon Ball Fighterz's least played game mode that nobody likes, especially me, feel free to let me know in the comments!

[SirTokesAlot]

TLDR GUYS JUST ENABLE WEMOD AND BAM INF ZENNY AND INF COINS ;)

[Leftyx]

I can confirm what mikelmanson, or the comment before me says. Any grab - Piccolo' Arm Extension Grab made me figure it out - counters the charge.

[mikelmanson]

Evil Android 21 attack can be countered or interrupted by using dragon rush attack. When she is powering up just get close to her and attack with dragon rush (Right Bumper on xbox controler or X + Y). Just make sure your character is on the ground, flying dragon rush will not work.
Sh was hard to beat on hard but once I figure this one out I can beat her easily. Dunno if it was some sort of update but it works. ;)

[Blur Comet]

@Buggy Thanks for mentioning to DR when final boss 21 does invul super! I hadn't even made it to her yet and just happened to read that; just beat her and have yet to see what the move even does lol So, thanks for sparing me the headache!

[SilentOwl]

Sorry for commentating so much but I did some testing. I used 3 level 6 sp attack ups in my set ups. Level 100 Tien can 1 hit KO 21 without sparking if 21 is not sparking. Sparking Tien does not 1 hit KO sparking 21 but comes very close. Blue Goku can only one hit ko 21 if he's sparking and 21 is not sparking. Sparking Blue Vegeta does not quite one hit KO 21 without sparking but comes very close.

Thus, I think the top 3 one shotters (excluding 16 of course) are Tien, Blue Goku, Blue Vegeta in that order. Tien is slightly better than Blue Goku.

[SilentOwl]

I did some testing in training mode. I was a bit wrong about Tien. His 7 meter super combo only does 6600. That's still enough for one shot potential with two SP power ups. Blue Goku can also make use of the one shot set up. His 5 meter super combo is stronger than Blue Vegeta's. Additionally, I also tried to one shot hard arc 3 android 21. Blue Goku can one shot 21 with 3 SP power ups and sparking. You need that much fire power to get through her regen. I need to level up Tien to see if you can one shot full health sparking 21 with 3 sp attacks. This is really just for my fun since 21 is easy enough without one shotting.

[SilentOwl]

Android 21 in hard arc 2 can also become level 100 through map/save manipulation. Save before a level 100 enemy 21 on the last map of arc 2 and you get another nice farming spot. This is useful if you want to level arc 2 exclusive characters to 100.

For arc 3 android 21, I think I recommend actually starting on chapter 8 map 15 unless you have a save file that's close to the end of it. Before the map 15 boss, set up your characters for the android 21 fight. After you beat the map 15 boss, save in the middle of the cutscene. After you beat android 21, you can just keep replaying that save until your characters are 100. I remember wasting a lot of time trying to always set up my android 21 farming team after each 21 fight. The drawback is that you use up your hard save slot. So don't do this if you're doing the zeni farming set up described in the guide.

[SilentOwl]

Android 16 can help 21 and 18 farm exp by killing Cell in chapter 5 map 11 over and over again. I am using your ki charge 16 build with 2 victory exp skills instead of victory health regeneration. I'm guessing this will be good for farming exp for 21 and 18 until Cell's exp becomes bad for their levels.

[SilentOwl]

I think Tien can also one shot like blue vegeta. Standard health pool is 10,000. Tien's meteor does 3300 plus 1100 per extra bar you can spend. Thus, you can get to 7700 damage in a single meteor combo. Vegeta's meteor combo is 5522 total damage IIRC. You only need one slot of sp attack to get Tien to be able to one shot even level opponents with a meteor combo. This lets you use the other two slots for something else.

[Set]

I believe these are correct as I followed the formula in the guide, Lv 6 #, divided by 6, times the desired level. Enjoy the free maths and feel free to add these to the guide if you like. Splitting into multiple posts due to character limits.

Defense Ups
------------
% less dmg taken (approx)

1x Lv 1 Def = 4%
2x Lv 1 Def = 8%
3x Lv 1 Def = 13%

1x Lv 2 Def = 8%
2x Lv 2 Def = 17%
3x Lv 2 Def = 25%

1x Lv 3 Def = 13%
2x Lv 3 Def = 25%
3x Lv 3 Def = 41%

1x Lv 4 Def = 17%
2x Lv 4 Def = 33%
3x Lv 4 Def = 50%

1x Lv 5 Def = 21%
2x Lv 5 Def = 41%
3x Lv 5 Def = 63%

1x Lv 6 Def = 25%
2x Lv 6 Def = 50%
3x Lv 6 Def = 75%