Bioware returns to the scene with a new always-online loot shooter, and we’re here to provide a few beginner tips to ease you into the Anthem experience. We’ve been playing the game for a solid week, and there are some pretty critical tidbits fans should know before suiting up into their own personal Iron Man suit. The game isn’t just a Destiny clone, there are tons of features that are completely unique to this game, and this game only — whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, we’ll leave that for you to decide.
Either way, Anthem is all about blasting enemies and collecting loot. You’ll equip new gear parts and guns to your Javelin suit to improve performance while earning XP. Leveling up gives you access to better and better loot — until you hit Level 30, which is the cap. Then you’ll need to ramp up the difficulty for Strongholds and other activities to get the best stuff. We’ll get into all the details you need in the complete beginner’s guide below.
More Anthem guides on Gameranx:
- Anthem: How To Complete The Tomb Challenges Quickly & Easily | Progression Guide
- Anthem: Where To Find Titans & Corium | Shield of Dawn Guide
- Anthem: Here’s The Best Way To Farm For High Level Loot | Loot Cave 2.0 Guide
- Anthem: How To Enhance Your Favorite Weapons & Skills | Blueprints Guide
Clean Your Javelin Up
After acquiring your first Javelin, you’ll begin the game with a pretty dirty suit of armor. There’s an easy fix for this mess — the customization screen! You can also swap colors and patterns before beginning your first missions on Bastion. You can make your Javelin look pristine or battle-damaged right from the get-go. That’s your choice, just know that customization is available from the start, and it’s totally free — swapping in new items won’t change your look.
Playing Solo Is Totally Possible
While Bioware encourages players to play in groups of four, solo play is completely possible in Anthem. You’ll want to avoid support Javelins like Storm, but classes like the Interceptor are incredibly fun for solo play. Things get pretty difficult the further you progress in the story — if it gets tough, just drop the difficulty down at any time. Once you complete the campaign, you can always replay levels and work on earning the best loot.
Select The Interceptor For Fun Solo Combat
There are four Javelins — the mech suits you use to fight multiple factions of diabolical enemies. The fastest of the four classes is the Interceptor. You can air-dash constantly and move swiftly, dropping smoke bombs and throwing elemental-powered shurikens. They’re an awesome class for beginners, and give you a rush of combat excitement at the beginning of the game. Best of all, Interceptors have both primers and detonators — so they can combo with themselves. Great for solo. They also have the best ultimate in the game, which makes them invincible and lets you spam melee attacks like crazy.
Want To Be OP? Play The Storm
The Interceptor is awesome, but the Storm is the most OP of all the Javelins. This space-wizard mech uses powerful AOE, and using them in a team is ideal. They can crush basically everything in their path with crazy gear abilities and an unstoppable ultimate. They’re not as quick as the Interceptor, or as tough as the Colossus, so you’ll want to join up with a team and support them with your destruction-heavy special abilities.
How To Stay In The Sky & Fly Longer
Flight in Anthem works off a cooldown system — you can stay in the sky longer if you’re flying through the rain, sticking near water source, or cool off in waterfalls. If you overheat, you’ll have to land and recharge for a good amount of time. Better to play it cool and enjoy the breeze as you fly close to the many lakes and water reserves of Bastion.
How To Combo | Primers & Detonators
Combos aren’t well-explained in the main game, but they’re the most devastating technique you have. They work like this — primers are special gear abilities that “prime” a target for a combo. After then, unleash another ability called a “detonator” to deal massive damage on a primed target. Just check and see if your gear has “primer” or “detonator” in the description to combine those skills. In a team, you can prime and detonate other player’s powers, too.
Guns Aren’t Great, But Gear & Ultimates Are Amazing
Guns aren’t that amazing until you’ve reached the end-game in Anthem. Until then, it’s all about your gear. Cooldown skills are called “Gear” in Anthem, and you can equip a variety of different gear abilities as you progress. You can even upgrade your gear with blueprints, but we’ll get into that discussion later. For most of the game, you’ll want to pay the most attention to your gear. Guns are your weak-ish primary attack method, but you’ll want to unleash that gear (and those ultimates) as often as possible.
Crafting Is A Waste Of Time
You can craft in Anthem, but it is essentially pointless right now. You can craft blueprints and make items, but it takes a lot of effort — much easier to just level up and farm for loot that’s going to be better than your crafting items anyway. It uses up resources you might need for later, and you’re very unlikely to make anything that’s worth the cost. Loot chests, play Strongholds, finish World Events, and don’t bother crafting.
Save Your Coins For Later In The Game
You can purchase crafting materials in Fort Tarsis — and at a certain point in the story, you’ll be required to craft an expensive item. Don’t waste your coins on junk. Save them for this late point in the story. If you’ve been saving, you’ll have about enough to finish this crafting project and move on with your life. It helps that crafting (otherwise) is completely pointless.
Increase Difficulty To Get Better Gear
Here’s another end-game spoiler. After completing the main game, you can increase the difficulty to Grandmaster 1, Grandmaster 2, Grandmaster 3 etc. The higher the Grandmaster difficulty, the better gear you’ll earn from treasure chests and from completing missions. This is how you get Masterwork weapons, which are this game’s version of Exotics. Masterwork weapons are actually really good, and they’re the first weapons that actually matter in Anthem. You’ll want to get as many of these as possible if you’re going to continue playing in the endgame.
