Super Robot Wars/DD/How to Play/Tips

Getting Started

When first starting DD, much of the game will be unavailable. After finishing the tutorial, you will need to complete one of the Main Worlds. Then you will unlock the ability to do events and dailies. That is when you can truly start strengthening your units. You should aim to finish all Main Worlds first, then proceed to play all the Parts. As stages become more difficult, then you can focus your attention on playing events, dailies, and grinding EXP Hammers in Extra Stages. Using EXP Hammers to level up your Parts will give you the quickest noticeable stat boost. When you can no longer do that, focus on upgrading the mechs themselves, then the pilot, and finally you can use Breakthrough to level break your Parts to get more stats from them.

Completing stages, battle missions, limited-time missions, using pilots 1000 times, and exchanging materials in the shop will get you items necessary for making your units stronger. You should pick one unit of which you have an SSR for and focus your efforts on increasing that one unit first. When you have one strong, capable unit, you'll find they can carry you further than a team of weaker units. Furthermore, you can use powerful Rental Units to carry you through events, story, and extra stages. These can help you get rewards and clear objectives you otherwise wouldn't be able to.

Rerolling
If you wish to reroll, either for your favorite unit or one that is considered really good, it is recommended you roll on limited-time gachas. Rolling in the standard gacha offers little benefit, whereas just about every other gacha has guaranteed SSRs. For this reason you may want to wait until a gacha comes out for a unit you have a particular interest in before you start playing. Some of the better units in the game will be mentioned below. However, if there is a powerful unit you can get for free, such as Wing Gundam Zero Rebellion, it is not recommended that you miss it.

Team Composition

There are a few key factors to consider when forming a team. DD is a game that expects you to use different units to handle different situations. You should always make your team based around what you are fighting, however, this may be impossible when you are just starting out. In that case, you should aim to raise a variety of units that handle different roles first.

Attack Attribute
The first thing to consider is attack attribute. Every boss in DD has a Break Gauge that greatly reduces damage dealt to them. However, these Break Gauges are weak to at least 1 attribute. The attributes are 斬撃 (Slash), 打撃 (Strike), ビーム (Beam), 実弾 (Projectile), and 特殊 (Special). You should consider leveling units that can attack with different attributes, so that you are never in a situation where you have no one with type advantage over the enemy. Some enemies also have abilities that reduce damage from certain attack types even further, so you don't want a team that can use nothing but Slash for example.

Unit Type
Each unit has a type that lets you know what kind of stats they excel in. The types are 攻撃特化 (Attack), 攻撃＆防御 (Attack & Defense), 攻撃＆命中 (Attack & Hit), 攻撃＆回避 (Attack & Evade), 防御特化 (Defense), 防御＆命中 (Defense & Hit), 防御＆回避 (Defense & Evade), 命中特化 (Hit), 命中＆回避 (Hit & Evade), 回避特化 (Evade), and バランス (Balance). Certain enemies will prioritize different stats, such as high Mobility. Against that, you would be better off fielding someone that is a Hit type or hybrid Hit type to raise your odds of hitting the enemy. You should aim to level units that are different types, so you can use them in appropriate situations.

Popular Units

This is outdated, there are much better units available than the ones listed below currently.

Defense Tanks
There are two pure Defense type mechs in DD, as of time of writing. Mazinger Z and Evangelion Unit-00. Both units are excellent at shrugging off hits from opponents. Mazinger Z is capable of dealing more damage than Unit-00, however, if defending, Unit-00 is better at defense. With the right setup, it is possible to raise Unit-00's damage resistance so high that almost nothing in the game can hurt it, with the caveat that it must be defending to gain total damage resistance. A popular strategy is to use one of these two to tank blows from the enemies while your other units focus on damage dealing.

Hybrid Defense types can also be used for tanking purposes. These units can take hits from most enemies in the game and hit back with more force than the pure defense types could ever dream of. Didarion and Great Mazinger are two of the standout ones. These two can raise their defense stats with the appropriate SSRs equipped, making them very tanky.

Mobility Tanks
There are three pure Evade type mechs in DD, as of writing. The reigning king of dodging is Billbine, a unit which has the advantage of being S sized in addition to an Evade type. Billbine is naturally dodgy as is, and with the appropriate setup, can be untouchable by even the hardest enemies in the game. A very popular strategy is to have Billbine solo everything in a map simply because nothing can hit it. Zegapain Altair and Cybuster are also excellent dodgers, but trade being nigh untouchable for the benefit of being able to deal more damage than Billbine.

Hybrid Evade type mechs can also be used as dodge tanks, but always have a much higher chance of being hit, making them less reliable. Two standout ones are Devilman and Merafdin. Devilman is SS sized, giving him an innate advantage by that alone and Merafdin's 2nd SSR allows its Mobility to reach absurd heights. Devilman has an issue with paper thin defense however, and Merafdin has a problem with dealing pitiful damage.

Attackers
There are a number of good pure Attack type mechs in DD. You can't really go wrong with any of them, but the two that get the most attention are Gundam Barbatos and Gawain. Barbatos has the advantage of Mikazuki's absurdly damage oriented Spirit Command list. When fully leveled, and with all available Spirits applied, Barbatos can gain a +50% increase to its Attack stat and a 1.6x damage modifier. This allows it to deal significant burst damage in a single turn, very useful for phase skipping enemy bosses that trigger Spirits at low HP. Gawain, on the other hand, has less damage modifiers and damage in general, but has the massive advantage of being able to attack from 4-5 spaces away with its 1st SSR equipped. With a proper tank, it will never be in danger of being hit and can consistently damage the enemy overtime.

Hybrid attack types are generally useful as well, but will all fall short of the damage pure Attack types can dish out. Black Getter stands out for the same reason Gawain does, in that with its 2nd SSR it can attack from 4 spaces away, making it hard to kill and still deal significant damage.

Snipers
What constitutes as a "sniper" unit in DD would be someone capable of attacking from 4 ranges or further away with its Normal Attack. While there are 3 pure Hit type units in DD, the only one with an SSR at time of writing is Nu Gundam. Nu Gundam fights from a distance, keeping it out of harm's way, and can whittle away at an enemy overtime. The high Accuracy can come in handy against particularly dodgy units, and it is capable of dealing significant damage to both Beam and Special Break Gauges.

Gawain and Black Getter are also good, if not better, snipers. They both trade the sheer Accuracy Nu Gundam has for a solid increase to how much damage they'll be dealing over time.

Supports
What constitutes as a "support" unit in DD is a bit hard to define. There are no dedicated support units. There are however a number of units that do not generally deal much damage, but have some other ability that makes them worth considering. Guren Mk-II is a prime example, as an Attack & Hit type it has good Accuracy and Attack, but it can also lower enemy Defense with its 1st SSR and can deal bonus damage to Break Gauges weak to Slash with its 2nd SSR, which is very useful for quickly dispatching a boss. Layzner also has great utility, as it is able to lower enemy Morale, disable continuous buffs temporarily, and deal extra damage to Beam Break Gauges all with its 2nd SSR.

Dealing extra damage to Break Gauges is a feature a number of mechs have and they all come in handy against particular foes. The units with access to these effects are Guren Mk-II, Layzner, Scopedog RSC, Zeta Gundam, Unicorn Gundam, Evangelion Unit-01, GaoGaiGar, Nu Gundam, and Aile Strike Gundam.

Morale Lowering
There have been a number of enemies in DD with powerful effects that trigger once their Morale raises to a certain point. Some events have been made nearly impossible due to bosses receiving such massive buffs, which makes this enough of an issue to be worth considering raising a unit for. There are only two units that can lower Morale with Special Moves. These are Layzner and Combattler V. Both of their 2nd SSRs can drop an enemy's Morale by 25 with one hit. Layzner's 2nd SSR has other good effects that were previously mentioned, whereas Combattler V gets a stat boost. Due to Combattler V's low Speed stat, it can be difficult to get it into position to lower Morale when you really want it to, so it is generally considered the worse of the two.

Another option for lowering Morale is to give Spirit Command Books to Rinalia or Kurz, who learn the Spirit Command Daunt at level 2. This can be used twice, to lower an enemy's Morale by a total of 40. But neither of them have SSRs at the moment, so it's hard to justify such an investment.

Gameplay Tips

These are some general tips about fighting enemies.

Enemy Behavior
Generally, enemies in DD focus on the unit that is directly next to them. This is what allows you to use tanks to draw aggro and keep your allies alive. Even if there is no reason to, enemies will move to closer to the target or move to another side of them even if they are already adjacent. An enemy will not attempt to change its position if another unit occupies the other paths it could take to move when attacking, and instead will prioritize remaining adjacent to its target. If multiple units are next to the same enemy, then they will target the unit the AI believes it can deal the most damage to.

You can abuse this behavior on certain maps to force the enemy into disadvantageous terrain while you stay in good spots. Say that an enemy is directly adjacent to an ally, like below, with two more allies next to the ally it is targeting.

Ally
Ally-Enemy
Ally

In this situation, the enemy will not move. If for example the allies are all lined up on a beach, this means the enemy in the water will be unable to leave that spot. This can be greatly beneficial on harder stages, when those stat modifiers from terrain ratings are affecting much bigger numbers.

However, certain enemies in the game have different AI and will target specific units. There is no way to know beforehand if an enemy will ignore proximity targeting or not. In this situation, you just have to figure out yourself what unit the AI is going after and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Dodge/Snipe Strategy
One very popular and effective strategy is to use one tank and three snipers. The tank usually being Billbine, equipped with an SSR Thruster in the Main Slot, to gain maximum Mobility and perfect dodge everything from the enemies. The sniping units will then keep firing from 4 or more spaces away from the enemy, eventually defeating them with no damage taken. Some people even use Billbine's evasiveness to exhaust all of an enemy boss's Special Moves, only evading so as to not raise the boss's Morale, then move in your other units to fight it without fear of taking serious damage.

Conquest Healing/Morale Raising
During an Area in Conquest, if you are doing a battle with no bosses, you can choose to bring only one capable unit you know will survive and use the other slots to either heal or raise Morale. Once those units use their Spirit Commands to either heal or raise Morale, it won't matter if they are defeated or not. You can use the units listed below to keep one of your actual fighters back in the fight or get their Morale high early on to make the Area easier for you.

Units that can heal: Aphrodite A, Psyco Gundam, KG-7 Areion (Yuki)
Units that can raise Morale: M9 Gernsback (Mao), Evangelion Unit-00

These units can use the necessary Spirits at level 1. You can also equip certain SSR Support Parts to give another character a healing Spirit Command and get more heals that way.