Resources

There are several in-game resources in GunBoundM, in addition to cash money, each with different ways they are obtained and spent. What is true of all of them is that they cannot be easily obtained in large quantities quickly and without limitations, although some are more precious than others. The following guide will briefly overview each resource, followed by an overall strategy for spending efficiently and wisely for various types of players.

Gold

Gold coins, usually referred to simply as "gold", is one of the easier resources to obtain. Gold is used as the ante for participating in PvP matches. Generally speaking, gold is used to buy weaker/lower-class avatars, mobiles, and jewels. Additionally, large quantities of it can be converted into gears.

Obtaining: The following activities cause you to earn gold:

• Victory in PvP matches

• Victory in most PvC matches

• Exchanged for gems in the shop

• Season reward

• Rank increase reward (only for 1st time reaching that rank)

• "Free Items" on main menu

• Daily reward

• Daily Challenge reward

• Selling Jewels from your inventory

• Extracting pet cards

Of the above methods, the fastest way to accumulate gold is by grinding PvC training battles, which offer larger per-minute earnings than any other method (in particular, 'hard' training, though even 'medium' is notably faster and easier than PvP methods). The free gold offered in "Free Items" and as the daily reward are naturally recommended to supplement intake. When grinding for gold in training mode, mobiles used that are B or higher class will cause a 5% increase in gold winnings each, as will certain types of purple jewels if equipped to an avatar being used.

Spending: Gold can be spent in the following ways:

• Purchase of random C and B (with a small chance of A-class "gold") mobile cards* (1,000 gold for 5 cards or 3,000 gold for 15 cards)

• Purchase of random C and B class jewels (500 gold)

• Exchange for gears

• Creating a new clan (50,000 gold)

• Used as the ante to participate in PvP matches

• Used to level-up a pet

• Charged as a small fee for moving avatars or pets from one mobile to another

*The obtainable mobile cards in these packs are Armor, RaonLauncher, NakMachine, Bigfoot, Grub, Turtle, Ice, Boomer, Mage, Lightning, JD, Asate, J.Frog, and Aduka. Of these, only J.Frog is unavailable as an A-class "gold" card.

In general, the primary thing gold should be used for is to participate in PvP matches and to buy large quantities of mobile cards from the "Mobile Card Pack" in the shop. It is not advised to spend gold on jewels or avatars cards, or to spend it leveling up pets until much later in the game when you have acquired all of the S-class mobiles you will want. Spending gold on gears is a choice whose recommendation depends upon the player's goals and preferences (see "Spending Strategies" section below for more details).

Gems

Gems are highly valuable and precious, dwindling in supply after approximately 1-2 months of playing, and are crucial for a number of important purchases. In the "Spending Strategies" section below, recommended spending approaches and strategies will be discussed.

Obtaining: The following list contains all of the ways to gain gems.

• Season (monthly) reward, ranging from 10 to 140 depending on league

• Reward for reaching a new rank for the first time

• One-time-only rewards for completing "normal" challenges, found in the "Achievements" tab of the main menu.

• Small quantities as the free daily reward

• Small quantities through mail as compensations for server maintenance and other occasional technical issues

• Cash purchase through the shop

• "Free Items" reward for watching advertisements (up to 2 gems per day)

When a player begins a new account, within the first couple of months of playing or so, they will steadily gain around 400-500 gems from the initial, quick succession up earlier ranks and for fulfilling a large quantity of the easiest normal achievements. Once this windfall is over, the only significant gain in gems one will receive is from the monthly season rewards.

Spending: The following are all of the ways gems can be spent and used.

• Class A mobile sets (sets of 3 cost 200 gems, sets of 2 cost 150 gems)

• Class A vega mobile sets (sets of 3 cost 250 gems, sets of 2 cost 200 gems)

• Class B and A "Premium Mobile Card Packs" (30 gems)

• Card packs containing class B, A, and S avatar cards from the same set (30 gems)

• Card packs containing randomly assorted C, B, and A avatar cards (10 gems)

• Avatar sets containing 2 or 3 A-class avatars (200 gems)

• Challenge tickets in the "Special" tab of the shop

• Exchange for large quantities of gold coins

• Pet cards (20 gems)

• One random B, A, or S class jewel of selected color (5 gems)

• Changing user's in-game name (100 gems)

• Donating to user's clan for 40 CP (20 gems)

• Direct purchasing of a tank skin (ArmyElite, 100 gems, or C-class skin, 30 gems)

The strategy for spending gems will be discussed in full below, but in general it is advised that you do not spend gems on pet cards or jewels until you are very far into the game and already have all of the important S-class avatars and mobiles you want, or to ever spend them on the low-quality mobile or avatar card packs (the ones that contain C-class cards).

Gears

In the long-run, gears are the most important and hardest to come by resource in the game. Gears are the only way to obtain S-class mobiles, which are important to have when competing in the highest leagues.

Obtaining: The follow is a list of all of the ways to obtain gears.

• Season (monthly) reward between 50 and 1,000, depending on league

• Extraction from mobiles and attached avatar, mobile cards, or avatar cards*

• Small amount as a possible free daily VIP reward

• "Free Items" daily for watching advertisements

• 500 gears for exchanging 50,000 gold through "Gold Gear" tab of shop

• Small quantities as seasonal achievement challenges, found in the "Season" tab of the "Achievements" option found on the main menu

*Important note: when extracting a mobile, you permanently lose that mobile AND the avatar and pet attached to it as well as any jewels attached to that avatar. To avoid losing important avatars or pets, be sure to move them from the mobile you intend to extract onto a different mobile first. This action requires only a small fee of gold.

The only way to quickly grind for gears is by using gold earnings from PvC training matches or PvP matches to purchase large quantities of the 1,000 or 3,000 gold mobile card packs, assembling the mobiles, then extracting them all for gears. Alternatively, the gold can be exchanged directly for gears, of a comparable amount. Even this method is time consuming to reach the 2,500 or 5,000 gear amount required for an S-class mobile. Other than this, the only way to gain significant amounts of gears is by playing to reach as high of a league as you can for the once-a-month season reward.

Spending: The following are all of the ways Gear can be spent or used.

• Purchase of 5 matching S-class mobile cards (i.e. one S-class mobile), determined at random from among the mobiles included in one of the three "Gear Dragon" packs (2,500 gears)

• Purchase of 5 matching S-class mobile cards (i.e. one S-class mobile), chosen directly from among any of the game's mobiles, found in the "Gold S" tab in the mobiles section of the shop (5,000 gears)

• Purchase of 5 A-class mobile cards, determined at random from among the mobiles included in either the "Gear Cookie" or "Gear Ghost" packs (200 gears)*

• 5 A or S-class avatar cards, randomly selected from among any of the "Premium" avatar sets (200 gears)

• Used to automatically level-up mobiles

*Not all mobile classes and class-sets (e.g. "Cookie", "Gold", or "C-Class") contain all of the mobiles.

For any relatively serious or competitive long-term player, gears should be spent exclusively on S-class mobiles. For considerations of alternatives, see the "Spending Strategy" section below.

Jewel Pieces

Jewel pieces are used to create random Jewels (of the matching color) from the "Jewel Gacha" tab of the shop. 5 of them can be used to obtain a random C or B-class jewel of the corresponding color, or 30 can be spent to obtain a random B, A, or S-class jewel of the corresponding color. Jewel pieces themselves are obtained either as free daily rewards, or as prizes to winning-streaks in various PvC and PvP modes. The easiest way to farm jewel pieces is through the "20 Masters" PvC challenge, which offers the largest jewel piece rewards.

Having high-class jewels is important in high-level play, but for novice players, they will mostly simply offer a small bonus. Because they are not particularly crucial in lower leagues, it is advised that jewel pieces only be spent 30 at a time on the "Advanced" gacha, and not 5 at a time on the lesser jewels. In either case, they are a fairly easy to obtain and farm resource.

Challenge Tickets

Challenge tickets are used to participate in PvC battles found in the "Battle Training" menu. Their primary function as a resource is to be used to grind for gold, jewel pieces, or world boss prizes. Challenge tickets can be obtained in the following ways:

• Randomly as a prize in PvP battles

• As a free daily reward

• "Free Items" daily for watching advertisements

• By exchange for gems in the "Special" tab of the shop (30 gems for 180 tickets, or 5 gems for 25 tickets)

• In small amounts as reward for reaching a new rank for the first time

The only way to gain significant amounts of tickets is by exchanging them for gems.

Tickets are spent in PvC modes and will cost two tickets for one entry to any of the battles, except for 'easy' training, which costs nothing, and the "World Boss", which costs four tickets. All ticket costs are reduced by half while a player has VIP status. For more on VIP status, refer to its entry in the glossary.

Cash

Real cash can be spent in the game from either the "Special" tab or the "Gem" tab of the shop. Any cash purchase will add the displayed amount of days for VIP status. Cash purchases are the only way to obtain VIP status. Absolute prices vary by country. While the offers here are entirely up to the player to decide, it should be noted that virtual all items in the game can be obtained without cash payment by simply playing consistently. It is the author's opinion that GunBoundM is exceptionally reasonable in its approach to the free-to-play model compared to the vast majority of popular mobile phone games. The one currently notable cash-only offering is the "Mung Knights" avatar set, namely for the avatar "Yunin". For more details, see the "Mung Knights" section of the avatar guide.

Resource Exchanges

Exchange Values:

Gold

• 5 gems -- 2,000 gold = 400 gold per gem

• 25 gems -- 10,000 gold = 400 gold per gem

• 50 gems -- 23,000 gold = 460 gold per gem

• 150 gems -- 70,000 gold = 467 gold per gem

Challenge Tickets

• 5 gems -- 25 tickets = 5 tickets per gem

• 30 gems -- 180 tickets = 6 tickets per gem

Gems

• $2.49 -- 30 gems = 12.05 gems per dollar

• $4.49 -- 50 gems = 11.14 gems per dollar

• $8.99 -- 100 gems = 11.12 gems per dollar

• $25.99 -- 330 gems = 12.70 gems per dollar

• $43.99 -- 600 gems = 13.64 gems per dollar

• $89.99 -- 1,300 gems = 14.45 gems per dollar

Spending Strategies

GunBoundM does not have one universal type of player. Each player is playing for different reasons, with different attitudes, and with different goals. Here we will overview recommendations for spending for a few varieties of players. For each of these, there will be an assumption that cash money isn't being involved, or that any decisions regarding cash money are additive to the strategy and are the prerogative of the player.

Optimal, Long-term, Competitive Player

If you intend to attempt to play into the highest leagues and want to spend your resources in the mathematically optimal way, this is the recommended way to use your resources. Your goal is to eventually obtain a full team of your desired mobiles in S-class, which are strictly-better-than versions of their lower-classed counterparts (though there are arguable exceptions to this in the vega variations, namely in mobiles like Ice). Additionally, you will need the three best avatars for those mobiles, which varies greatly depending on mobile, team order, and game mode. It is not the case that S-class avatars are always better than avatars that only class as high as A (for example, the generally agreed upon "best" all-around avatar is an A-class). For details and suggestions regarding avatars, please refer to the avatars guide. After you have gotten the three S-class mobiles (or more) that you want and the ideal stable of avatars, you will want to gather up the S-class jewels that you want. Finally, the very last thing you will invest in is pets (A notable exception with pets is that for some mobiles, the available free pets do not suffice for shield breaking with SS where certain pets that can only be obtained through packs do. Examples include Grub and Nak, who will want a pet like ElectroCat or Ice Elemental respectively. In these cases, it may be worthwhile to make an early investment in pet cards).

To accomplish this in the most resourceful manner, you will follow this order of action:

1. For the first two months or so, play PvP matches for gems via achievement rewards and season rewards

2. Buy 1,000 or 3,000 gold mobile card packs until you can assemble the three most-preferred B-class-or-better mobiles. These mobiles give a 5% gold reward increase each when used over C-class mobiles

3. Use the gems to purchase challenge tickets 180 at a time

4. Use the challenge tickets to complete "hard training" battles

5. As you play, use 30 purple jewel pieces for advanced purple jewels. The strongest "gold bonus" jewels should immediately be placed onto your avatars

6. Use the gold gained from training battles to buy as many 1,000 or 3,000 gold mobile card packs as you can

7. Assemble all mobiles cards that you can into mobiles

8. Extract all mobiles that you are not using into gears (note: once you've completely cleared the achievement for assembling mobiles, you can begin skipping this phase and directly exchanging gold for gears since both methods result in virtually identical yields. You may want to stick with this method if there are more A-class mobiles you would like to acquire however)

9. Obtaining S-Mobiles: There are now two options available: gambling in the dragon packs for 2,500 gears, or getting a guaranteed choice for 5,000 gears. It is the author's *strong* recommendation that you save up 5,000 gears and buy the exact mobiles you want. If it is truly the case that you are not choosy or picky, then certainly feel free to go through the dragon packs instead.) Another point to make on this topic is the mathematics and probability for optimizing the choice between Dragon-S and Gold-S if it is the case that you wish to obtain every mobile in S-class, and which skin or order you get them is not important. In this case, you would want to stick with Dragon-S pack pulls until you have just two or three remaining to obtain in a given pack, and then purchase the missing ones directly as Gold-S. This is the most statistically effective approach to achieve this particular goal.

10. Notes about the dragon packs: A.) before purchasing you may select one mobile that you do not want to pull from that pack, slightly increasing your odds of getting one that you do want. B.) If you receive an S-class mobile you are absolutely positive you do not want, the assembled S-class (either Dragon or Gold) mobile can be extracted for 1,000 gears.

Once you have all three mobiles, you can gain and spend resources freely, primarily first on getting your ideal avatars. This method requires hundreds to thousands of training mode battles, but is much more cost-efficient than exchanging gems into gold. If you exchange gems directly into gold, you will yield, at best, 467 gold per gem spent. Assuming approximately 500 gold per training battle victory (if you use all B-class or better mobiles plus at least a couple of gold-bonus purple jewels), each gem spent on training tickets will yield 1,500 gold. Even if you can only win the hard training battle 50% of the time, this method has better results. Furthermore, the time spent in training mode is crucial to newer and novice players to improve their shooting, outside of the pressures of PvP matches. Buying and extracting mobiles for gears is also recommended over directly exchanging gold for gears initially for the reason that assembling mobiles is an 'achievement' that rewards additional gems.

Sub-optimal, Long-term, Competitive Player

This is where most GBM players will generally fall. Your goal is still the same as the optimal player's, but you are willing to sacrifice some efficiency to stave-off boredom or tedious grinding. This type of player will follow the outline above but make adjustments and exceptions to personal preference. Foregoing the training battle grind is an option, but one that will cost a great deal of efficiency to the extent to which it is abandoned. Sub-optimal, competitive players may want to use some of their early-obtained gems to gather A-class mobiles that they are interested in using, particularly the ones that are not available in the gold coin mobile packs. They may also spend around 200 gems or so early on to secure a set of decent avatars, some of which they may use in the long-run and some they may not. How much and where you deviate from the 'optimal' path is entirely a personal preference, ultimately.

Casual, Short-term Player

If you do not intend to become deeply invested in competitive play, or otherwise do not intend to play long-term, your options are very wide open. These types of players may freely spend gears on "cookie" or "ghost" mobiles and gear avatar packs rather than saving them for S-class mobiles. A casual player may freely ignore any and all grinding. The game provides enough resources that a casual player in the short-term essentially can't make any major mistakes no matter how they spend their resources.

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