Ultimate Axie Infinity PvE Guide
What is the PvE like in Axie Infinity?
Filipino translation by Kookoo Tzu: https://medium.com/@kookoo.tzu/gabay-sa-ultimate-axie-infinity-pve-e83093cb34c1
Spanish translation by danifdezp: https://medium.com/@danifdezp/gu%C3%ADa-definitiva-sobre-pve-en-axie-infinity-44d77b37f65
TL:DR
The BEST PvE setup (2 Beasts, 1 Tank):
1. Beast(s) with: Scarab, Dual Blade, Nut Cracker, Hare and 1 or 2 bird parts for higher speed causing your axie to go first to get the maximum effect out of your Hare ability. (Two of these would be good as well)2. A Beast with: Scarab, Dual Blade, Double Nut cracker for maximum and consistent DPS using the double nut cracker bonus. Or a second beast with hare and high morale for more DPS.
3. Tank with: Snake Jar and either Hermit or Bulkwark.
It is recommended to AT LEAST have 1 beast with Hare to get those extra card draws. Two of these (Scarab, Dual Blade, Hare, Nut cracker) beasts work very well too. Especially when they have 1 or 2 bird parts for extra speed.
It is assumed that these same abilities will likely be good during land play. Big bosses are known to have a lot of healing abilities. Therefore, I expect Scarab/Dual Blade beasts to be very effective during land play too.
Buy PvE Meta Beasts: https://marketplace.axieinfinity.com/profile/0x9aef36b26eeb139f5ab5fff76b5a0f2c273474b9/axie?class=Beast&auctionType=Sale
The PvE adventure takes place in the Lunacia Ruins and it consists of 36 levels of monsters you got to battle through to make it to the end. Most levels consist of 3 waves of monsters which you have to defeat to complete the level. Each Axie has cards based on their body parts. You get energy to play cards each turn. For each level you complete, you get a SLP reward. There are also boss levels which offer extra SLP rewards, more about that later on. What’s fun about PvE is that some Axie abilities that may poor in PvP, are GREAT to use in PvE since the battle dynamics are completely different. The levels are really well made and the monsters have unique designs with each their own unique abilities.
With SLP pumping every now and then, you may be wondering how to get as much as possible of this valuable resource. Most people play arena games to grind their way up but there is a lot of potential to be had in PvE. Most levels, starting from around level 10 will give you at least 4 SLP per game, this can vary quite a lot. At levels 20–36 you’ll get about 10–19 per level. With level 21 and level 36 earning a one time BONUS of 200 & 300 SLP respectively.
For Axie Team compositions we used scroll to the bottom
You can collect a SLP rewards from EACH level at least once a day. How the SLP reward mechanics work exactly, is unknown. After doing the same level a few times in a row, rewards will gradually go down until you eventually hit 0. It is also unknown at this point if switching Axies or entire Axie teams could be a work around this. Needs some more testing.
Level Guide
Level 1–16
These levels are honestly just a matter of levelling your axies. Any team should be able to do these levels at some point. If you get stuck on a level, don’t even bother trying to complete it if your Axies are too low. Just level them up and you will complete them very easily. Don’t be afraid to use the surrender button when the first turn goes bad, or your card draw isn’t ideal. Takes a few seconds to get back into the game. A good start helps a lot.
Each level is an additional 5% to your Axie’s stats. This compounds so this can be quite beneficial over a few levels.
You can use this handy spreadsheet i made calculating your Axie stats per level they are at. Just copy the file and change it to the stats your Axies have.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J6BrbKG0ls5Xn2f0viEtO6ojSBzOLSj8t_kihvD6lNI/edit?usp=sharing
Level 17
This is where the fun starts. Level 17 has been known to be a difficult level where most people get stuck and stop trying. These monsters got a “Goo-destruct’’ ability which makes them explode and deal double their leftover HP. Considering these have 554 HP to start with, this will likely mean the end of your tank within the first round.
The best counter against this is the ability Jar Barrage (Body part Snake Jar).
This will make you tank 1 of these exploding abilities. You should be able to kill one of them on your own turn and with a bit of luck the third one doesn’t self explode and you can finish it off in your second turn. If it does explode, it will likely send your tank in last stand which is still fine.
In the picture above, you can see Ivo’s tank getting hit by a 1185 damage card. Snake jar, however made it so just the shield got hit and the tank is left with it’s full HP.
Note: Whenever an Axie is in last stand, the max an attack can do is 2 bars of last stand. EVEN a self exploding hit of over 1000 damage will just do 2 bars of damage.
Level 18 & 19
Should be doable after completing level 17. Just keep trying or if you’re really struggling, try levelling your Axies up another level.
Level 20
Is very interesting. 8 out of the 9 monsters over the 3 waves use the exploding ability. This may seem scary but later on, this is a extremely useful level to farm EXP for your Axies since the waves go by really quickly. A full completion of the level can be done in about 1.5–2 minutes easily and this will grant your Axies 401 EXP per completion.
Basically all you need for this level, once again is Snake Jar on your front tank. This will make it survive through the first wave most likely and tank a lot of hits while alive/in last stand for your other Axies. The last wave can be seen below. The two furthest away monsters do use the exploding ability. The front one doesn’t. It is KEY to have enough DPS to kill the first one on your first turn. After your turn is over, the other two will explode about 90% of the time. If you still have your beast left at this point you will likely still make it. Explosion one will send it into last stand and explosion two will just take out some last stand bars after which you have completed the level.
Level 21 — The First Boss
What’s special about this level is that it has 6 waves. The first 5 being just one monster and wave 6 being the boss with 2 additional monsters next to it.
Wave 1–5 is once again, all about DPS. If you can do enough DPS by having for example 2 beasts or a beast & bird setup, you will be able to kill the monsters before they even get to attack. You do get slowed by attacking sometimes so this can take a few tries.
Wave 6 of level 21 kan be quite difficult. This is where you encounter your first real boss.
The boss has A LOT of health, which can be a scary look. Besides that, he is able to add a lot of shield, heal itself AND hit over 1000+ in a single attack. Not a very nice outlook.
The damage is something that you can’t do much about. Hopefully at this point, your tank is still alive so it can tank the first round of hits.
It is key to get the boss down AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. It can be really tough hitting through the shield that’s why it’s recommended to only attack when you have a ton of DPS cards available to use in one go so you don’t waste a lot of hits on the shield each turn.
The heal will be insanely difficult to counter if you can’t kill the boss in one turn (which is nearly impossible unless you’re really high level). The absolute best counter for this is the ability Scarab Curse (Body part Scarab). What this does is it cancels all heals the boss could potentially do that round. Besides that, it has some great DPS for such a good utility card. It’s just not very useful in PvP, that’s why you may not have seen it a lot. For PvE though, it is VERY good for some levels.
The boss also has an ability to block all range damage. This is something which can also be difficult to counter. So make sure your DPS Axies have at least 2 melee attacks so you are able to do damage to the boss even if it uses this ability.
Congratulations! You’ve completed your first boss level. Enjoy the 200 SLP.
Level 22
This level has quite a few monsters with a speed stat of 113, making them quicker than most of your Axies will be at this point. This can make this level difficult and it’s possible you want to train your DPS Axie to the level required that it has more speed than these monsters.
For example, a 40 speed beast, would be faster than these 113 speed monsters, when reaching level 23. This is quite high, and you can probably complete the level easily before that. Useful to look at though.
Level 23
This is where these “Glorious Fang” monsters will come in. These are a pain in the ass because they have a very high morale, therefore criting nearly every time. This can add up to a ton of damage and send your Axies packing really quickly.
Once again, a good counter against this is Snake Jar. But since this monster attacks after others, your snake jar has likely been hit already therefore exposing you to these hits. A good back move for this is either Bulkwark (Body part Indian Star) or Shelter (Body part Hermit). Bulkwark will offer a good shield and reflect 40% of the damage done which can add up to quite a hefty sum of reflected damage. Shelter will block critical hits which works really well against these monsters.
Level 24+ To be continued…
Level 36 Sneak Peak to get you excited…
Axie Team Setups
So, what Axies should you be using to be able to accomplish the ultimate victory and battle your way through level 36? This is just based on our own experience and there might be other possibilities but this worked really well for us.
Possible Team Compositions
It’s recommended to have a tank with Snake Jar and a Beast with Dual Blade & Scarab. Dual Blade offers exceptional damage. At level 25 you already hit a critical strike about ~95% of the times on a beast with good morale. Therefore making Dual Blade the best DPS you can have.
Besides that we use Hare on our beasts. If you make sure your beast is the fastest Axie on your team, this will make it possible to draw a card very often. Alternatively, you can choose to just play Hare when you’re not attacking on the faster Axie. The card draw works great in PvE, since energy isn’t really an issue. Cards very often are.
Ivo and I have both had levels where our beast was the last surviving Axie for about 2 waves and it was still able to complete the level because of the length of last stand. Since morale is so high on levelled up beasts this makes it have 7 last stand bars at level 25 on a 57 morale beast. Could be 8 bars when starting with a 61 morale beast but this is yet to be tested.
I also recommend to have at least 1 good DPS move on your second Axie, even if it’s a tank. If all your DPS cards are just on your beast you might get an unlucky draw and be unable to kill an easy target first turn, therefore resulting in taking a lot of damage.
0 Energy Cards have not proved to be useful to us. Like i said, energy isn’t really ever a problem in PvE and these cards will likely cause you to lack the DPS you need to take out monsters quickly.
Tank, Tank Beast
The setup I went with initially. The tank works really well at staying alive with the self heal and swallow for the health steal. The second tank provides great utility for the beast in terms of cards & energy once my first tank has died. It also has Lam which acts as a nice DPS move while your front tank is still alive.
The importance of the Beast with it’s moves is already explained just above. The Nut Crack move works really well too because you can use it with the same card to still get the 120% damage effect.
Tank, Bird, Beast
This is the setup Ivo went with for his journey. The Bird and Beast offer great DPS and the Bird is able to be quicker than a lot of the high speed monsters at early levels which can help you clear these levels a lot earlier.
BEST SETUP: Beast, Beast, Tank
This definitely is the best setup. After recently completing all the levels it was very clear that some levels could really use more DPS. Especially level 34 is a good example of this. In this level the monsters don’t do much damage at all but just debuffs you and uses A LOT of shields. Having two beasts with dual blade you’d nearly always have enough DPS cards and since these critical hits do about 1000+ damage per hit at level 25 this could bring these monsters down really quickly.
The BEST PvE setup (2 Beasts, 1 Tank):
1. Beast(s) with: Scarab, Dual Blade, Nut Cracker, Hare and 1 or 2 bird parts for higher speed causing your axie to go first to get the maximum effect out of your Hare ability. (Two of these would be good as well)
2. Beast with: Scarab, Dual Blade, Double Nut cracker for maximum and consistent DPS using the double nut cracker bonus. Or a second beast with hare and high morale for more DPS.
3. Tank with: Snake Jar and either Hermit or Bulkwark.
It is recommended to AT LEAST have 1 beast with Hare to get those extra card draws. Two of these Scarab, Dual Blade, Hare, Nut cracker beasts work very well too. Especially when they have 1 or 2 bird parts for extra speed.
It is assumed that these same abilities will likely be good during land play. Big bosses are known to have a lot of healing abilities. Therefore, i expect Scarab/Dual Blade beasts to be very effective during land play too.
Buy PvE Meta Beasts: https://marketplace.axieinfinity.com/profile/0x9aef36b26eeb139f5ab5fff76b5a0f2c273474b9/axie?class=Beast&auctionType=Sale
Buy Snake Jar Plant:
https://marketplace.axieinfinity.com/profile/ronin:ed171727ca68961233d36e5ec19692b760501ab9/axie?part=tail-snake-jar&auctionType=Sale
If you have any questions feel free to DM Ivo or me, Daan, on the Axie Infinity Discord.
