Super Dragon Ball Heroes: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Created entirely by Goresh

Contact: [email protected], https://twitter.com/Goreshx

Information and images used throughout this guide were obtained directly from the Dragon Ball Heroes official website: http://www.carddass.com/dbh/index.php

I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have, so please contact me using any of the methods listed above so that I can improve this guide for future readers.

Super Dragon Ball Heroes: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Table of Contents

Part I: What is a Super Dragon Ball Heroes Card? 3

Part II: Different Game Modes and Navigating the Menu 9

Part III: Gameplay Flow and Battle Fundamentals 14

Part IV: Various Ability Types and Their Uses 20

World Mission Tier List 36

Card Index 45

SH1 46 UM11 159

SH2 50 UM12 165

SH3 54 BM1 172

SH4 58 BM2 179

SH5 62 BM3 189

SH6 71

SH7 76

SH8 81

UM1 88

UM2 95

UM3 100

UM4 106

UM5 116

UM6 122

UM7 128

UM8 135

UM9 145

UM10 151

Part I: What is a Super Dragon Ball Heroes Card?

Due to a rising interest in the arcade game itself as well as the announcement that Super Dragon Ball Heroes World Mission for the Nintendo Switch and Steam will be getting an international release, I figured that it would be a good time to create a comprehensive guide so that beginners and those who have never played Dragon Ball Heroes before can obtain a general understanding of the basics. The first thing I want to cover, before even diving into the mechanics of the game itself, is the structure of a Super Dragon Ball Heroes card and what you can learn from looking at the front and back of a card. Admittedly, there are subtle differences between traditional Dragon Ball Heroes cards from before the game was updated to Super Dragon Ball Heroes and cards that are being released today, but for the sake of this guide I want to focus on cards that have released post-update since that is most likely the design the developers will be using moving forward. I think that most people who are interested in the game will see this and hopefully you guys, particularly newcomers to the game, will appreciate it.

In order to best explain all of the characteristics that can be found on the front-side of a Super Dragon Ball Heroes card, I have highlighted various areas of the Super Saiyan 4 Vegito: Xeno card above and placed reference numbers in the bottom right corner of each yellow box that corresponds with the numbers on the right-hand side so that it is easy to tell what is what. I will go through all of these items individually but just so that you guys are aware, most of the important information pertaining to the usability of a card is located on the back, which I will get to later on in this part. Think of the front of each card as a summary of the information on the back.

1: Card Number - Every card has its own unique number, which is how you are able to differentiate between any two cards that are of the same character. Card numbers can be very useful because you are able to tell what set a card is from simply by looking at it. Currently, the game is in the middle of the Universe Mission series, which is reflected by the card number of every single card that is released while this mission is going on. For example, there was a Vegito Blue card released during Universe Mission 4 that had the number UM4-068 (UM4 for Universe Mission 4). The game is able to differentiate that Vegito Blue card from the Vegito Blue card released in SDBH Mission 1 because the latter has the number: SH1-SEC2 (SH1 for SDBH Mission 1).

2: Card Name - Nothing special here, this area simply displays the name of the character. Note that the front of the card does not primarily ever have the name of the character's form written on it. For example, in the image above, the card is clearly depicting the SSJ4 form of Vegito: Xeno but the front of the card only has Vegito: Xeno (ベジット：ゼノ) printed on it. The forms of all cards can be found on the back.

3: Card Type - On the bottom right corner you will find the typing of each card. There are 4 types in total: Hero (HR), Berserker (BS), Elite (EL), and Special (SP). I won't go into full details about each type here since I cover them in Part II, but the most important thing to understand about typing is its impact on something called "Cooperative attacks." A Cooperative attack is where multiple characters on a team attack together and can perform deadly combo attacks and deal massive amounts of damage. Only units that are of the same typing can perform Cooperative attacks together. For example, if you have an HR type card and a BS type card, they would not be able to perform a Cooperative attack together, but two BS cards would be able to. This adds an extra layer onto team-building and forces you to think of what would make the most constructive teams based on your strategy going into battle. Lastly, the only type that has a restriction is the SP type because you are only allowed to have up to one SP type card per team.

4: Card Stats - Every card has an HP, Power, and Guard stat that determines their "base" power level going into a battle. The HP stat is an outlier here since the HP of all cards on a team gets pooled together to create a team-wide HP bar; in Super Dragon Ball Heroes there is no such thing as individual HP (IE individual cards cannot be defeated). While both Power and Guard stats are important, the Power stat is what really sets good cards apart from great cards. Power is what determines how much damage a card inflicts with its attacks and can be amplified in many ways through various abilities. The Guard stat determines how much damage a card can mitigate, and can be very powerful on certain cards when combined with their effects.

5: Card Action Ability (CAA) - There are many different CAAs in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. Obviously some are more powerful than others but they each have their uses depending on your team and the situations that you find yourself in during battle. Each card has a CAA, but not all CAAs have the same activation conditions. These conditions dictate the style you must utilize in order to get the most out of each of your cards. Two examples of basic CAAs that make it easier to understand are Burst and Freeze. The Burst CAA activates whenever a card is about to launch their Super Attack and further powers up their attack. The Freeze CAA, on the other hand, activates when you are about to take damage from an enemy. It freezes the enemy and counter attacks, therefore saving you from taking damage for one round from that enemy. The reason why these effects are called Card Action Abilities is because in order to activate them, you must perform the actions denoted on the screen at specific times during battle with the card that has the ability.

6: Card Ability - A card's ability is its heart and soul and generally determines how good a card is. The front of the card never explains what the ability is; it just has the name of the ability itself while the effect is described on the back. Forming teams that have synergistic abilities is essential to prevailing in battle and is the first step to becoming a great Dragon Ball Heroes player.

7: Super Attack - This is the attack that the card will perform when your team has amassed enough Hero Energy and you are about to attack the enemy. It is much more powerful than a normal attack and is what generally determines which team wins and loses a battle.

8: Super Attack Cost - I won't go into excruciating detail about the mechanics of Hero Energy in Part I, but every team can have 1-10 Hero Energy at any one point, which is attainable through the Power Level Phase. The amount of Power Level you accumulate every round is determined by your Stamina consumption so an easy way to think about it for now is that more Stamina consumption --> higher Power Level --> more Hero Energy. As you can see, this card requires 8 Hero Energy to launch his Super Attack, the Galaxy Spirit Sword (ギャラクシースピリッツソード). Obviously that is a lot of Hero Energy considering the maximum you can have at any one time is ten, which means that it will be relatively hard to launch a Super Attack with this card. Hero Energy is not consumed when a Super Attack is launched.

9: Ultimate Unit Effect Necessary Characters - Ultimate Unit Effects (UUE) are extremely powerful effects that can easily turn the tide of battle depending on how your team is constructed but not every card has a UUE. The actual details of the UUE are printed on the back of the card much like the card's ability. In order to activate a UUE, you must have the necessary characters denoted on the front and back of the card in addition to the necessary Hero Energy. If your team contains all of the characters that are listed and you have the Hero Energy required, the UUE will activate and give your team an added effect in battle. Each UUE is different and provides a powerful effect but the catch is that you must have the units necessary to activate the effect. Because of this, you have to consider if it is worth including possibly sub-optimal cards on your team in order to activate these effects. There are also effects called “Ultimate Unit Effect S” that are exactly the same as ordinary UUEs but do not consume Hero Energy upon activation.

The back of each card is where the meat is. The details of the card's CAA, ability, and the UUE are all found here along with some other minor details. Most of the information found here is already explained above so as to not repeat anything and make Part I longer than it already is, I will simply say "see above" for information that has already been covered.

1: Card Name - See 2 above.

2: Name of For