Verdantglade Is The Filter
Boltray designs Verdantglade (the first kingdom) to filter out roughly half the player base before the second kingdom starts. Almost every long-term system you will care about (Premium banner, gold-quality auctions, beast companion economy) opens in Cinder Ridge or later. Treat Verdantglade as a long tutorial and do not commit Stellatie or Voucher spends to it.
Day 1 through your first week. This guide covers the four picks you actually make at character creation: class choice, where to push your level, where to spend your stat budget, and what NOT to do with the launch gacha. The trap here is treating skill-side power as a long-term investment. Almost every system rewards patience: leveling, map exploration, relic resonance, and the gacha currencies all pay out more in Cinder Ridge than in Forest. Hoard, do not spend.
Once you are past the first week, the Important Tips guide picks up with class-specific build calls, relic resonance, Mysterious NPC, Arena strategy, and the deeper spending order. If you are weighing whether to reroll, read the Reroll Guide first.
Should You Reroll? Probably Not
Servers fill up. If your friends and guild are on a server already, rerolling can lock you out of joining them once that server hits capacity. Each reroll run takes 15-20 minutes, gets you roughly 45 free pulls plus the 10 forced tutorial pulls, and the non-reroll catch-up window is short because launch login rewards arrive on a fixed cadence.
Skip rerolling if: you are on a populated server with friends or a guild, you want to start playing the actual game, or you are F2P and would rather front-load Goddess Statue exploration than spend three hours hunting for one specific skill.
Consider rerolling if: you are not committed to a specific server and have a hard pull target in mind (Heavy Impact for Warrior, Water Assault for Mage). The detailed targets and step-by-step process live in the Reroll Guide.
Pick A Class (You Can Switch Later, But It's Not Free)
You start on the Beginner Island and are gated into Warrior or Mage (your 1st class). The first town you reach in Verdantglade is Drasilgard. Your second-class advancement unlocks at Lv.44 in Cinder Ridge: Warrior into Duelist or Knight, Mage into Sorcerer or Sage. Reclassing unlocks at Aqualis (Tier 3), but it is not lossless. Skills transfer like-for-like (Legendary→Legendary, etc.), so F2P players who don't already own the target-class skill end up RNG'ing into one. Class-specific stat tuning (relics, pet affixes, Block / Crit / Heal focus) also doesn't carry cleanly to a different class's core mechanic. See the Classes tab swap-route table before committing.
Switching before Aqualis is painful. The early reclass option restarts the new class at level 1 with no usable skills. The Aqualis reclass is the one you want even with its costs — plan to live with your launch pick until then.
If you want a clean default, pick the role you actually want to play in guild content. Duelist and Sorcerer are the two solo farmers. Knight and Sage are the two group-content specialists.
See the Classes tab for the full breakdown.
Every Class Needs A Solo Loadout
Story progression is solo. Even pure tank or healer classes have to clear the campaign on their own, which means no class escapes the need for a damage-oriented loadout. The game gives you up to seven loadout slots. Use them.
Default loadout split most EOG members run:
- Solo / story. Damage focused. The one you push the map with.
- Daily Dungeon. AoE focused for mob clears.
- Boss / single target. Multi-hit skills that proc passives every turn.
- Group content. Tank-aware or healer-aware depending on class. Slot in the team-comp utility your kit can offer.
A dedicated "Dummy" slot for the Skill Test at level 40 is also worth one of the remaining slots. See the DPS Dummy Test guide for the setup.
Map Exploration Is Your Real Level
Every player level unlocks more of the map. Each unlocked area activates more Goddess Statues. More Statues mean faster experience gains, which compounds for the next two months of the game.
Push exploration before anything else. Players who fall behind on map unlocks at Verdantglade never catch up to the leveling curve in Cinder Ridge. This is the only permanent advantage that does not require spending.
Temporal Crystals. Two-hour idle reward grants. Use them while you still have map to unlock, or stockpile them. The two strategies are roughly equivalent in total reward output. Pick whichever fits your play schedule. The one thing not to do is forget you have them and let them rot in your inventory.
The Stat Triangle
Three combat stats determine almost every damage interaction. They counter each other like rock paper scissors.
Base crit damage. Massive damage on proc. Gets reduced to 50% if the hit is blocked.
Reduces the enemy's block chance. Does not increase damage. Creates a damage floor.
Blocked crit deals 50% damage instead of 150%. Knight scaling stat.
For every DPS class, Accuracy is the second-highest priority after Crit Rate. A blocked crit deals 50% damage instead of 150%, so the higher your Crit Rate climbs, the more each missing point of Accuracy costs you. Duelist and Sorcerer both run the Crit + Accuracy stack. Sage stacks Crit Rate too, even though the class trait does not provide it. Knight is the only class that stacks Block.
Speed. Determines turn order. Reach 2x the enemy's Speed and you get two rounds for every one of theirs. Not urgent in Verdantglade because the stat gap between you and Verdantglade mobs stays small, but it matters in later kingdoms.
Mastery. Physical Mastery scales physical skill damage. Elemental Mastery scales every elemental skill. Conversion ratio is every 40 points of Mastery = +1% damage to that damage type. Tap the stat in the menu to see the live percentage. Above flat HP and Attack on gear sub-stats. Below Crit Rate, Accuracy, and Block for class-specific scaling.
Power Spikes To Aim At
Three account levels are worth more than any other in the first week. Plan your sessions around hitting these before chasing anything else.
- Level 15: join a guild. Guilds grant resources, stat buffs, donation rewards, and access to Guild Boss drops (Skill Shard Vouchers). The EOG Discord posts an open-recruitment list in the Sword x Staff channel if you do not have a guild lined up.
- Level 40: Skill Test unlock. The in-game dummy at Character › Skills › Test lets you compare loadouts without burning stamina. See the DPS Dummy Test guide.
- Level 50: Fantomons unlock. The giant tree at your home base opens up Fantomons, the pet companion system. This is the single largest non-gear power spike before the second map. Do not spread Fantomon upgrade materials across the whole roster. Pick one Fantomon per role you actually run, level it to 50 for the first major stat unlock, and only spread out once your main is at 50. The Fantomon tier list has the shortlist.
Where You Are In The Season Timeline
Sword x Staff progression runs on class tiers measured from your server's creation date, not from global launch. If you joined two weeks late, you are roughly two weeks back on this timeline, not at the same point as a launch-day account.
Why this matters. Build advice and skill tier lists shift between tiers. A T1 reroll target like Heavy Impact is not the same as a T2 boss-killer; T2 Sorcerer stat priority differs from long-term Sorcerer stat priority. When you read any SxS guide on this site or elsewhere, check which tier it is written for.
Skill Pulls Feed Class Advancement
A common F2P mistake is sitting on every skill pull "to save for later." That works for Stellatie (see below), but the free Wish Goddess Statue 10-pulls are different. Class advancement requires you to actually have skills in the pool to upgrade. Moving between class-advancement tiers (e.g., 2nd class → 3rd class) requires reaching a class level threshold that you cannot hit without spending the skills you have already pulled.
Claim every daily free 10-roll. Spend the skill upgrade rolls on the class branch you actually committed to. Hoard Dawnium and Stellatie, not the free-roll skill drops.
Level Slots, Not Individual Skills
Skills and gear in Sword x Staff are slotted. The level applies to the slot, not the individual skill or piece of gear. Swapping a new skill into a leveled slot inherits the slot level. This changes the early-game upgrade math: upgrade slots without fear of obsolescing the work when you swap the contents.
Practical rule for week 1: keep your four active skill slots and four gear slots leveled roughly evenly. A maxed slot with one okay skill in it does more work than four under-leveled slots with one perfect skill in one of them. Skew toward your most-used slot only after every active slot is at the same level.
Do Not Spend Stellatie In Verdantglade
This is the single biggest trap. The blue orb (Standard banner) pulls from every skill in the game and has a pity counter. The pink orb (Premium banner) pulls only your class's skills, has a smaller pool, and only unlocks in Cinder Ridge or later. If you havent found the pink orb yet that is normal.
The skills available at the first job tier do not carry forward. Every long-term endgame skill comes from later class advancements. Spending Dawnium to buy Stellatie in the Verdantglade to roll for higher-tier skills now is the most common F2P-killing mistake.
- Free-to-play: Do not buy Stellatie with Dawnium. Hold Dawnium and Radiant Stars until at least Cinder Ridge; hold Skill Shard Vouchers even longer — ideally Tier 3 (Aqualis) or later, since Cinder Ridge-tier skills get replaced again at the next advancement.
- Fund-only spenders: Same. Hoard. Your budget cannot keep up with skill rerolls at this stage.
- Pop-up bundle buyers: Pull until you hit Miracle quality on a launch skill, then stop. Save the rest for the next map.
- Heavy spenders: Begin pre-committing pulls for Mythic-quality skills now. The Voucher milestones reward stockpiling.
- Fun-first players: Spend on whatever does the most damage. Just know it will not matter long-term.
Skill Shard Vouchers: hold for Tier 3 (Aqualis) or later. Burning them in Tier 2 (Cinder Ridge) wastes the voucher value — 2nd-class skills get superseded by 3rd-class skills you'll want to redeem into anyway. T3 is the earliest sensible burn target; T4 is even safer.
First 24 Hours Checklist
- Claim the daily 10-pull. Sword x Staff grants a free 10-roll on the Wish Goddess Statue every day you log in. Do not skip a day.
- Burn your launch login rewards and KonoSuba collab pulls. The collab is the largest free-pull window the global build has shown so far, with pulls spread across login and event milestones.
- Push map exploration. Every Goddess Statue activated this week pays compounding EXP later. Higher leverage than any other day-1 activity.
- Pick a class and push toward Cinder Ridge. Drasilgard is the first town reached in Verdantglade; your second-class advancement (Duelist / Knight / Sorcerer / Sage) waits at Cinder Ridge once you hit Lv.44 — the first real chunk of kit power.
- Join a guild as soon as you hit level 15. Resources, stat buffs, and Guild Boss drops. Free progression that costs nothing to claim.
- Burn stamina on Rolla first. Rolla is the early bottleneck for shop refresh purchases and most beginner crafting recipes. Run Rolla stamina nodes before anything else when stamina caps out.
- Buy Destiny Fruits when the Treasury offers them. A future event requires 300. F2P should start stockpiling on day one. Whales generate enough through dungeon runs and do not need to think about it.
- Do not use Dawnium on Stellatie. Hoard for Cinder Ridge.
- Do not rush the Auction House at level 40. Gear in the early Auction House gets replaced within a kingdom or two. Save Dawnium for dungeon refreshes instead. Detailed dungeon refresh ladder is in the Daily Dungeons guide.
- Set Guild assignment to the Smelting Workshop. Verdantglade default. Other production buildings open up once you understand the beast companion economy in later kingdoms.
- Do daily Fantasy Ladder once. No ranking rewards. Just take the dailies and stop. If a stage ending in 4 or 9 walls you, that is expected and the EOG Discord has consolidated stage-clear advice.