Complete Guide to The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden

The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden is a turn-based, anime-style gacha game published and brought to us by Crunchyroll Games.

The game features great standalone storylines that are exclusive to the game, as well as real-time turn-based RPG combat mechanics.

In this guide, I’m going to show you everything you need to know as a beginner – including some tips and a list of things you should and shouldn’t do in the early stages of the game.

Starting Out (Rerolling)

Here’s everything you need to know about rerolling in Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden.

Is Rerolling Necessary?

I highly recommend that you reroll in this game for at least 2 SS-Rank units.

This is because while A-Rank and S-Rank units alone can carry you quite far in the game, your options for one-element parties in the future will be severely limited without SS-Rank Units.

The rerolling process is also pretty fast in this game, so there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t do it.

How To Reroll (Step-by-Step)

To unlock the Summon feature, you must first clear Chapter 1 – Lesson 5:

After clearing Chapter 1 – Lesson 5, you’ll then be automatically guided to the Summon page by the Tutorial system.

There, you’ll be able to do a 10x summon from the Tutorial Summons banner:

After pulling from the Tutorial Summons, you’ll finally be released from the Tutorial and be able to navigate the game yourself.

To proceed with the rerolling process, simply go over to your Gift Box in your Home Screen and claim all of the rewards there:

With your claimed Phantasm Gems and/or Summon Tickets, go back to the Summon page and use them all to pull to your heart’s content.

Pulling in the Normal Banner is fine, but I recommend pulling from Event Banners more if there’s a top-tier unit being featured – just like the one shown in the image below:

If you’re unsatisfied with the units you got, go back to your Home Screen, then go to your Menu by clicking the “Menu” button located in the far-right corner of the Home Screen:

Home Screen > Menu

Next, click “Return to Title Screen” at the bottom-right part of the Menu options:

Menu > Title Screen

After being redirected back to the Title Screen, click the “Menu” located on the upper-left side of the Title Screen:

Title Screen > Menu

There, you’ll see a “Delete Account” option which you can click to delete your current account – resetting your progress and allowing you to pull for characters again:

Menu > Delete Account

There will be two prompts that’ll appear before you delete your account. Pay them no mind and click “OK” twice if you want to proceed:

And there we go – you can now reroll as much as you want!

This game has an incredible feature where you only need to clear Chapter 1 – Lesson 5 once to be able to reroll quickly.

To use this feature after following the steps above, make sure to click the “Skip” button that will appear in a prompt.

From here on out, this prompt will be displayed every time you delete your account and log in with a new account. No need to clear the tutorial over and over!

Who to Reroll For

Most SS-Rank units possess a clear advantage over A-Rank and S-Rank units, but here are seven of the best SS-Rank that you should reroll for:

Recommended SS-Rank Characters	Element	Role
[NPC Technique] Cid Kagenou	Green	Tank
[First of the Seven] Alpha	Blue	Tank
[Innate Sword] Iris Midgar	Red	Attacker
[Small Predator] Delta	Blue	Attacker
[First Member] Alpha	Yellow	Attacker
[Training Hard] Gamma	Yellow	Support
[Young Researcher] Sherry Barnet	Green	Support

Note: You will be given [Rose’s Retaliation] Rose Oriana – a very strong Yellow Tank – as a beginner. Make sure to invest in her and one other Tank, as you’ll need to alternate between two Tanks for easier Main Chapter clears.

Team Building Guide

If you want to build the best party as a beginner, you need to create a multi-element team like this one:

This arrangement is optimal for clearing Main Story Quests early on, where mono-element teams usually suffer.

I also recommend using the default 1 Tank/3 Attackers/1 Support role arrangement, as you’ll only need one Support and one Tank in every stage you’ll encounter in the early and mid-game.

Finally, you need to invest in one other Tank so that you can swap them in whenever your main Tank has an elemental disadvantage.

All Character Roles

Characters in Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden have three separate roles:

Roles	Role Descriptions	Recommended Quantity per Party
Tanks	They have the highest HP and DEF stats in the game. They are responsible for absorbing most – if not all of the incoming single-target damage from enemies.	1
Attackers	They have the highest offensive stats in the game. They excel at mowing down enemies with their high DPS, but they’re quite easy to kill without a decent Tank protecting them.	3
Supports	They mostly focus on healing or providing buffs for your party. They’re pretty negligible in easy fights, but are indispensable once you’re facing enemies that can damage your Tank and Attackers.	1

Element System (Strengths & Weaknesses)

This game also has an Element System that decides which enemies your characters are strong or weak against:

Character Elements	Strong Against	Weak Against
Red	Green	Blue
Yellow	Blue	Green
Green	Yellow	Red
Blue	Red	Yellow
White	None	None

If you want your Tanks to survive longer or your Attackers to deal more damage, make sure to consider their elemental strengths and weaknesses.

Combat Guide (How Battles Work)

The in-game tutorial covers most of the combat mechanics pretty well in the Lesson stages, but there are four main combat mechanics that you need to know and master early on:

Legend	Combat Mechanics	Description
1	Combo Gauge	This gauge fills up whenever your units deal or take damage. When full, clicking this button will allow your units to perform a 3-hit, 4-hit, or even a 5-hit combo. You can either heal your party, increase the combo’s DPS, or increase the party’s defense using this mechanic.
2	Hidden Technique Gauges	Hidden Technique gauges also fill up whenever a specific unit deals damage or takes damage. Once a specific unit’s gauge is filled up, you can click on it to unleash the unit’s unique Hidden Technique.
3	Gameplay Controls	This panel includes the Camera controls which you can use to zoom in or zoom out of the battle, the AUTO feature that allows your units to execute combos and Hidden Techniques automatically, and the Speed Controls that can either speed up or slow down the game.
4	Boss Special Attack Gauge	This gauge represents how soon the boss monster’s Special Attack will be executed and is filled up whenever the boss takes damage or deals damage. Always keep an eye on it!

All Stats Explained

Each character in the game has a total of 13 stats that you, as a beginner, should know about:

Stats	Recommended Roles	Description
Combat Power	All	It is the sum total of all the unit’s stats. The higher it is, the more likely they’ll be able to survive and clear stages.
HP	Tanks, Supports	It signifies the amount of Health Points a unit has. The higher it is, the more damage they can take before fainting.
ATK	Attackers	It signifies the amount of damage a unit can do with their normal attacks, combos, skills, and Hidden Techniques.
DEF	Tanks	It signifies the amount of damage that will be mitigated before the value is deducted from the unit’s HP. The higher the DEF, the tougher the unit is.
CRIT Rate	Attackers	It shows the chances of a CRIT happening in every attack type (combos, skills, normal skills, etc.)
CRIT ATK Rate	Attackers	It shows the amount of additional damage that will be dealt to an enemy whenever a CRIT is triggered.
CRIT DEF Rate	Tanks	It shows how resistant a character is against CRIT attacks.
Healing Boost	Supports	It shows the amount of additional healing a character has whenever they execute a healing skill, combo, or Hidden Technique.
SP Boost	All Roles	It shows the amount of additional effectiveness that a character’s skills have.
SP Discount	All Roles	It shows the amount of cooldown reduction that a character’s skills have.
EVA	Tanks	It shows how often a character will be able to evade attacks from enemies.
ACC	Attackers	It shows how much an enemy’s EVA stat will be nullified by your characters.
Position	None	It determines the behavior of the character when it comes to positioning themselves automatically on the battlefield.

Skills Guide/How Skills Work

Each character has 1 Hidden Technique, 2 Active Skills, and 1 Passive Skill that you can unlock by doing Rank Ups.

Skills are executed automatically during battles and do not require manual input from players.

They do have cooldowns which you can shorten by upgrading the skills themselves or via equipping Magic Gears, so make sure to take advantage of them early on!

Powering Up Units (How To Get Stronger)

Here are the five best methods of powering up units in Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden:

Best Ways To Farm EXP/Level Up Fast

There are two ways that you can level up in the game.

First is leveling up as a Player, and the second is leveling up your Units.

Increasing your Player Level quickly is very important, as the maximum level that your units can achieve is limited by your own level.

To farm Player EXP fast, all you need to do is clear as many Main or Chronicle Stages as you can. You can even use the SKIP feature for stages you’ve achieved a 3★ clear on to earn tons of Player EXP!

Hard [H] stages give you more Player EXP, but they do consume more Stamina. This makes them pretty much comparable to Normal [N] stages in terms of Player EXP farming.

The Unit Level determines how strong your units are generally without Magic Gears or Rank Ups.

The best way to get some Unit EXP is to feed your units Magic Candies, which you can get mostly from Monster Hunts in the Material Quests.

Your units also gain Unit EXP after every battle, but the amount isn’t comparable to what Magic Candies can give. It’s not a bad way to earn some extra Unit EXP though!

How To Enhance Magic Gears

To Enhance your Magic Gears, begin by moving to your Character Page and clicking the “Enhance Magic Gear” option right below the “Characters” option:

Character Page > Enhance Magic Gear

Next, select the Magic Gear you want to Enhance from your Magic Gear List.

In this case, I’m going with Rose’s Retaliation – an SS-Rank Magic Gear for Yellow Tank Rose that can be earned by all players from the Beginner Quests.

Magic Gear List > Rose’s Retaliation

Next, check the Required Items before clicking the “OK” button.

In this case, the following items are required for me to upgrade Rose’s Retaliation:

• x5 Polish
• x1 Fine Polish
• x100,000 Zeni

And voila – the Magic Gear is now upgraded!

Magic Gears are incredibly expensive to Enhance, so make sure to only Enhance S-Rank Magic Gears and above if you can help it!

How One-On-One Sessions Work

One-On-One Session is an interactive feature in the game that allows you to talk to your characters and get to know them better via dialogue options.

Going over each dialogue option increases your Bond Level with a specific character, but doing so costs Affection Points – which you can farm mainly from Daily and Weekly Missions.

If you want to max out your Bond with a character, just go over all the dialogue options that the character has. No need to worry about picking the right one!

Increasing your Bond Level with your characters is very important, as it gives you plenty of rewards:

• Zeni
• Phantasm Gems
• Stat & Skill Boosts
• Additional Scenes & Voices

I personally recommend reaching at least Bond Level 5 with every character you use frequently for the Phantasm Gems and the stat boosts.

From there, you can choose which character whose Bond Level you’d like to focus on!

Important Items to Farm

Here are five of the most important items that you should start farming as soon as possible:

Important Items To Farm	Best Sources
Phantasm Gems	Main Stages Chronicle Stages [N/H]
Zeni	Bandit Hunt Stages
Magic Candies	Monster Hunt Stages
Equipment	Chronicle Stages [N]
Unit Shards	Chronicle Stages [H] Akashic Crystal Exchange Shop

Primary Objectives For Beginners

Listed below are the things you need to accomplish as early as possible in the game – especially if you want the most efficient start possible.

Objective #1: Clear Main Quests

The best thing you can do for your account early on is to clear as many Main Quest stages as you can – preferably up to Main Quest Chapter 4 ASAP.

You’ll be able to unlock most of the in-game features and game modes upon reaching Chapter 4, not to mention you’ll also be able to farm a decent amount of Phantasm Gems this way.

Objective #2: Clear Chronicles [N]

As soon as you get stuck while clearing the Main Quest stages, the next thing you should do is clear as many Chronicles [N] stages as you can.

This game mode will allow you to farm equipment that you can use to Rank Up your characters – unlocking their skills and allowing them to clear more difficult stages.

You should also do a few SKIP clears while farming Equipment here, since you’ll be able to farm tons of User EXP that way too!

Objective #3: Unlock & Clear Material Quest Stages

Material Quests can only be unlocked upon clearing the Main Quest stages. The further you are in the Main Quest, the more resources you can farm here:

• Monster Hunt (Magic Candies)
• Bandit Hunt (Zeni)

You only get 2 attempts per day for each of these game modes, so make them count by playing as much as you can before clearing them right before the daily reset (20:00 UTC).

Objective #4: Compete In The Versus Game Modes ASAP

Armageddon, Bunshin Festival, and Bunshin Festival: Battle Royal are this game’s versions of PVP game modes.

As a beginner, you should make it a priority to unlock at least the Bunshin Festival ASAP so that you can compete in it as fast as possible.

This’ll allow you to farm a lot of Phantasm Gems and Bunshin Coins early on – both of which are very helpful for your growth in the long run.

General Tips for The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden

If you want your early game to go as smoothly as Cid Kagenou’s frequent monologuing, here are several tips that you should follow religiously as a beginner.

Tip #1: Always 3★ Every Stage

Getting a 3★ clear in a stage allows you to clear it again via the SKIP feature repeatedly – as long as you have enough Stamina for it.

All you need to do to get 3★ clears is to:

• Complete the stage
• Complete the stage with no knocked-out characters
• Complete the stage within 50 seconds

This is very useful not only because you gain more Phantasm Gems if you 3★ a stage, but you’ll also be able to farm equipment and User EXP much faster with the SKIP feature unlocked.

Tip #2: Execute Your Hidden Techniques Wisely

Whether you can execute your Hidden Techniques with impeccable timing or not can mean the difference between not clearing a stage and clearing them with ease.

A character’s Hidden Technique often has a specific purpose according to their role:

• Tank (DEF Boost, DEF Debuff, & Self-Heal)
• Attacker (Single-target DPS, AoE DPS, & Crowd Control)
• Support (Party Heal & Party Buff)

Tank and Support units generally fill their Hidden Technique Gauges faster than Attackers, but you should always wait for the perfect time before executing them to optimize your stage runs.

Tip #3: Optimize The Order of your Combos

Just like how it is for Hidden Techniques, mastering the Combo feature as a beginner will help you tremendously in the long run.

Combo Types	Effects	Recommended Use
Tank Combo	Raises the Party’s DEF	Right before a boss executes their Special Skill Against enemy mobs with high damage Against enemies with AoE attacks
Attacker Combo	Raises Combo DMG	Against bosses with low Special Attack gauges Against enemy mobs with high DEF or HP
Support Combo	Recovers the HP of all allies	Right before a boss executes their Special Skill Whenever a unit (especially a Tank) has low HP Whenever the entire party takes an AoE attack

The closer the Combo option that you chose is to the end of the combo sequence, the better the effects will be. Make sure to pick the order of your Combos properly depending on the situation!

Tip #4: Watch Out For Increased Item Drops

In The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden, a limited-time event that doubles the drop rate of items is conducted every once in a while.

This event often lasts over 24 hours only, and will allow you to farm twice the amount of resources from a game mode where the event is in effect.

You must take advantage of these events as a beginner – especially when farming Equipment from Chronicles [N/H] stages to reduce the Stamina you consume early on.

Tip #5: Clear Chronicles [H] For Character Shards

Chronicles [H] stages may require double the amount of mana to clear or SKIP, but they also allow you to farm a variety of useful materials.

This includes Character Shards, which are required materials for increasing the rarity of a unit to make them stronger and increase their max level.

Each Chronicle [H] stage features different Character Shards as drops. My personal advice is to pick at least one stage you’ll farm every day so you can focus on increasing the rarity of one unit only.

Tip #6: When In Doubt, Follow Your Beginner Missions

If you’re at a loss on what to do next, you can use your Beginner Missions as a loose guideline on what tasks you should do in the early game.

If that isn’t enough, there are also a lot of very useful rewards you can get here:

• [Rose’s Retaliation] Rose Oriana
• [Rose’s Retaliation] Rose’s Rapier (Magic Gear)
• Magic Candies
• x1 SS-Rank Character Summon Ticket
• x10 Normal Summon Tickets
• Polishes
• Zeni
• Phantasm Gems

I would recommend that you clear the missions ASAP so that you can get these rewards right away, but feel free to do them at your own pace. The Beginner Missions have no expiration date.

Tip #7: Try To Do 10x Summons Instead of Single Summons

Phantasm Gems are quite hard to farm – especially so once you get past the early stages of gameplay where you’re initially showered with free resources.

If you want to use your Phantasm Gems efficiently early on which will help you in the long run, I recommend saving up for 10x Summons instead of summoning one character at a time.

Summon Types	Total Cost Per 10 Summons
Single Summons	3,000 Phantasm Gems
Multi (10x) Summons	2,800 Phantasm Gems

Sure a discount of 200 Phantasm Gems per 10 pulls may not seem like a lot, but this value adds up tremendously over time – especially considering how rare Phantasm Gems are.

The Eminence in Shadow: Master of Garden Do’s & Don’ts

Now that you know so much about different aspects of the game, here’s a brief list that summarizes everything that you should and shouldn’t do as a beginner.

Do’s:

• Do clear as many Main Stages as you can early on
• Do clear as many Chronicles [N] stages as you can early on
• Do make a multi-element team in the early game
• Do join a Guild ASAP
• Do execute your Hidden Techniques properly
• Do clear your Daily and Weekly Missions consistently
• Do keep an eye out for Story Events and participate in them
• Do keep an eye out for Increased Drop Rate events and take advantage of them
• Do spend your Stamina and Stamina refreshers wisely
• Do save up your Phantasm Gems for Event Banners
• Do talk to your characters every day via 1-on-1 Sessions
• Do save up for 10x Summons instead of summoning one character at a time

Don’ts:

• Don’t forget to clear your Material Quests every day
• Don’t forget to participate in Bunshin Festival (PVP) battles early on
• Don’t waste your Akashic Crystals on shards of characters you don’t use often
• Don’t – or at least avoid using characters in stages where they have an elemental weakness
• Don’t rely on the AUTO feature for moderately and highly difficult battles
• Don’t forget to invest in at least two Tanks so you can swap them out freely
• Don’t waste your Phantasm Gems on the Normal Banner
• Don’t forget to consult the Beginner Missions if you don’t know what to do next
• Don’t use your Enhancement materials on B-Rank or even A-Rank Magic Gears
• Don’t forget to farm at least one Chronicle Stage [H] three times a day for shards
• Don’t use x2 Speed for difficult boss battles
• Don’t – or at least avoid spending your Phantasm Gems on Stamina if you’re F2P