Street Fighter Duel F2P Steps of Honor Challenge Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the beginners guide for F2P Steps of Honor tutorial in Street Fighter Duel! In this guide, I will go over what you need to do to get those sweet top 3 rewards.

Getting top 3 rewards in a new server is extremely lucrative as you get resources that would otherwise cost a lot of money. In fact, you can earn enough as F2P to get SS+ Bison in 2-3 weeks, depending on your luck if you get top 3 rewards up to chapter 24-40.

Read also: Street Fighter Assist Guide for F2P Players

There are 2 rewards (Story Challenge and Supreme Fist). Here is the list:

Things to Keep in Mind

Having ran 3 F2P (2 C. Vipers and 1 Guile) accounts to all getting up to chapter 26-40 and 300 floor rewards, it has been great and you can save the gems for either further upgrading the account or try and pull for SS+ Bison. It is up to you.

Keep in mind that 27-40 and 28-40 rewards are extremely hard to get during the first 30 days, so don’t worry about them if you can’t get there in time. I only managed to clear some tough stages (27-36, 27-39, 28-20, 28-28) using strong mercenaries from other players.

Realistically, 24-40 rewards is more achievable for your very first run after the end of 28 days. It also depends on whether you can get good events that give you plenty of breakstones, which is the deciding factor on whether you can push further. The other factor that will affect you is the number of spending players on the server.

So far, I have made 7 accounts and 6 of them have dolphins and whales after 2-3 days of playing. As long as there is only 1 whale on the server, you will always have a chance to keep getting those honor rewards. Some accounts had a few spending players taking over the server and hence losing out on later chapter rewards. It is what it is.

You also do have to spend a lot of time grinding (2-3 hrs daily usually), so it is quite time intensive.

Much of your account also depends on whether you can get these key units early on:

• Beast Zangief
• C. Viper or Guile
• Cammy

I will explain why these characters are key to your early runs from chapter 6 to 11-40. Getting the Chapter 11-40 rewards and Supreme floor 100 and 150 rewards will ensure you have enough breakstones to stay in the lead and “force” whales/dolphins to spend more than $30 to compete with you.

I have personally seen dolphins go on a FOMO spending spree just to overtake me for top position. It can be crazy how much money some people will spend on a new server.

Beast Zangief is mandatory for the challenge. If you do not get 1 copy of him by chapter 8, it is time to re-roll. You will need his interrupt to get pass tough bosses. Street Poison can also interrupt via S2 “Charm”, although she can only do that to the front unit. If the front unit is not part of the enemy combo chain, she won’t be able to interrupt. However, she can still charm the front unit and let the enemy team hit their own tank instead.

4 Week Check List

In order to get as much rewards as possible, you want to do the following:

• Refresh the general shop 4+ times daily, buying breakstones using cash as soon as you can get 250 breakstones for 1+ million cash (and later 500 for 2.5 million)
• Avoid spending cash unnecessarily for purple or gold gear (save them for breakstones)
• Always do the Wonderland Training for extra resources
• Try to get SS gear for your main DPS as early as chapter 11 (from Shadaloo City secret shop)
• After getting your first 200 pulls to unlock wishlist, start saving gems for SS Bison.
• Setup your wish list for units you want alongside 2-3 food characters
• Focus all your resources on your main DPS, and then M. Bison later when you get Divination pull after beating 15-40

Game Progression Guide

So early on, you want to check the new servers to see what chapters players are at when you join a new server. After 5-10 minutes, you can access the event tab to see it. If the top 3 players are not in chapter 5 yet, then you stand a chance to catch up to them in 2-3 hours. Check their squad and see who they have. If the top 3 has M. Bison or they already have level 80 or higher SS+ or SSS units, you should consider waiting for a new server. New servers seem to pop up after the previous server gains a specific amount of players, so it is random.

Also, playing on manual is mandatory to get far early on and fast!

Chapter 4-28 (Chun Li Boss) is the first wall for many players. Unless there is an event that allows you to get a lot of experience resources, allowing you to get past it easily on day 1, most people will get stuck here.

To beat 4-28, you just need to sacrifice the front unit if you cannot outspeed Chun Li. You want your combo chain to come from the 2nd, 3rd and tag fighter. Once your main DPS (Viper, Guile, Chun Li etc.) is around level 80 or 81 and the rest of the team is 60 or 61+, you should be able to scrap by. Playing manual will make this fight much easier.

If you find yourself lacking XP, make sure to finish floor 3 of Shadaloo City for that extra experience from the battles. Also, don’t forget to do the Wonderland Training as they unlock. They give additional gems and a free unit selector that contains C. Viper, Elena and a few others.

Your goal for day 1 is to get to chapter 6 and Supreme Fist floor 85+ (if there are no events). If there are special events (Tarot Event, Monster Hunter Ken, Akuma etc.) that gives plenty of experience resources, then clearing 6-40 day 1 is very possible.

It is not the end of the world if you didn’t get the 6-40 rewards. You must, however, go for the Supreme Fist Floor 100 reward, as it gives breakstones that will allow you to limit break your characters without needing to use the per hour breakstones boxes. If you fail to get both 6-40 and floor 100 rewards, then the run is pretty much over.

Day 2-7 Guideline

On day 2, you will want to pick up the special offer from the 7 Day Growth event. It will give you the extra experience you need to power past 6-40 and get the honor rewards. You might also want to do this during server reset time for the best odds.

You also get a nice power spike from clearing 6-32 as it unlocks the 2nd stage of Global Operation (Trial Grounds), which gives you the Fast Enchant. Put it on your fastest unit and it will outspeed all NPC units until chapter 20, where you will start to meet enemy Beast Zangiefs with 176 speed.

If you already gotten 1 copy of Beast Zangief around this time, pushing to the next hard boss at 8-40 will come in time. Again, it depends on whether you were able to get some extra experience chests to use. It is best to only pop the per hour experience chests when you are absolutely stuck and cannot progress anymore.

All per hour chests gain more value as your progress each chapter. As a rule of thumb, never use the per hour breakstones over the flat ones as you will need them later on. Have a look at the breakstone requirements you need before you can unlock monument, which allows you to level up all your characters to the same level at once past level 240.

• Level 10 – 10
• Level 20 – 40
• Level 40 – 100
• Level 60 – 250
• Level 80 – 500
• Level 100 – 1200
• Level 120 – 3000
• Level 140 – 6000
• Level 160 – 12,000
• Level 180 – 25,000
• Level 200 – 30,000
• Level 220 – 40,000
• Level 239 – 50,000
• Level 240 – Limit Break Cap

Use up all your flat breakstones first. You will be getting quite a lot of flat breakstones from Global Operation Trial Grounds. When your characters are at level 200, you will start to run out of breakstones and if you used the per hour chests, your progression will start to slow down a lot.

Usually, we get 1 Tarot Event per month, which has the 24-hour Breakstone Chests x5 per 50 Tarot Essence. You will want to buy these and use it when you are in chapter 20+. The longer you can hold off on using them, the better value they will be.

Here are the video guides (click on link) if you want to quickly finish Trial Grounds expeditions.

Shadaloo King 7-12 – Gives Echo. Grants defense bonus and crit resilience. Great for your tanks.

Frozen Cave 8-12 – Gives Broken Formation. Grants increased attack when enemy is above 80% HP. Great against bursting down enemies.

Arctic Lake 9-12  – Gives Shelter. Grants a shield to your team. You also get your first gold gear here.

Shadaloo Warehouse 10-12 – Gives gold gear and martial fragments to upgrade your Fighting Souls.

On day 5, you will have access to the 24 hour experience chest x10 for 1000 gems from the 7-Day Growth event. Buy that and use these to level up your main team. By now, you should be able to tackle 11-40 with these bonus experience.

Tip: When doing the Shadaloo City runs in Chapter 11+, they should start giving you the option to buy SS gear. If you can get 40% off from the Shadaloo City shop, it is worth buying it for your main DPS. It will have a small chance to gain faction gear. Even a plain SS gear will improve your damage or survivability by quite a bit.

Day 6-7 is all about trying to get to chapter 15-40. This becomes almost impossible if you don’t have Beast Zangief. You will constantly be fighting 30-35% below your combat power.

When you complete 15-40, you will unlock divination and you can pull your first unit, which will be 100% M. Bison. This is where he will replace your main frontline unit. You can also start pulling for him with all the gems you have. If you saved all your gems after unlocking Wish List and only pull regular banner units using Arcade Coins, you can try to get SS Bison here.

Also make sure to buy the day 7 hero selector chest from the growth event for 1800 gems. Pick C. Viper out of it as she will be your main DPS.

Another thing to pay attention to is to do your best and climb the Battle Royale ranks when it unlocks in Chapter 8. In all my servers, none of the whales give a damn about this mode. I think it is because the battles are on x1 and the auto is very slow. The rewards are great and if you can get top 3, it is at least 1 divination multi or some extra boost stone kits every month. You also get a steady income of arcade coins based on your rank.

Day 8-14 Guideline

By now, it will be clear whether or not you can keep your top 3 lead. The 11-40 honor rewards where you got the 24 hour EXP/Cash/Breakstone chests will give you a heavy advantage against all F2P players and light spenders.

The goal by the end of week 2 is to get to at least chapter 18-40. This is where the next power spike is. The 18-40 reward is the equipment selection chest x2. If you get your hands on these, it will give you additional damage for your main DPS and you can use it to push to chapter 20+ easily.

When picking this reward, you want to pick the following:

• Power Units -> Gloves, Necklace (gives the most offensive stats)
• Agility Units -> Gloves, Boots (gives attack and dodge)
• Tech Units -> Gloves or Shoulder Pads + Boots (boots give dodge)

For the tech equipment, gloves and boots are recommended, but the shoulder pads are also decent with hp, attack, crit and defense. Dodge is really good because it can evade M.Bison blasts, which can literally determine whether you can go past very hard stages.

Using the same element equipment for your unit will give an additional +30% stats, which becomes really strong once you get your hands on the +1 and +2 engraving kits. These bad boys will improve your main DPS damage and survivability once you max out their gear.

+1 and +2 engravings are hard to come by. You have a small chance of getting +1 engravings starting from chapter 21-4 and +2 engravings start dropping from chapter 29-4.

Some big events will also have them, but you also need to be in chapters 20+ to unlock them in those shops. The 24-40 honor rewards give +1 engravings x3 and the 28-40 honor rewards give +2 engravings x3. Realistically, the 24-40 is within reach for most F2P players that try hard.

Day 15-21 Guideline

On the third week, things will start to get tougher and tougher. You need to interrupt at least once on most battles and usually twice or more. Your DPS will start to matter much more. If your main DPS has full SS gear with +1 engravings, things will be a bit easier.

Starting from Chapter 20 onwards, enemy Beast Zangief stages will outspeed your team unless your own Beast Zangief is at level 221 or higher. And guess what, you won’t have a 221 Beast Zangief if you he is not at SSS level. So for the most part, you will need to use other methods to deal with them.

Method 1: Use Cody to help you out in these stages. He is able to give your team a free combo chain right at the start of battle, thus being able to interrupt the enemy combo. Still requires many tries to get it right though.

Method 2: Run 3 Fast Enchants on your main team. You need to already finish your Global Operation Trial to upgrade 3 star Fast Enchant. Although only 1 of the Fast Enchants will give you extra combo gauge fill, the extra speed from your other team members will give you an advantage on turn 2. You will also need Juri on the assist slot alongside M.Bison as the tank to gain the +10 speed bonus from infernal units.

Have your Beast Zangief on the main team. You should have enough speed to try and interrupt their combo 1 or 2 unit on the first turn. On the second turn, you should have enough speed to again try and interrupt their Super, Combo 1 or 2. There is a lot of RNG involved. Re-try until you succeed.

Method 3: Borrow a mercenary Beast Zangief when your main DPS is level 221 or higher. It will match the level of your highest unit and therefore you outspeed.

There will be a lot of frustrating stages you will have to deal with. Some stages have Cody on the enemy team and he can start his combo AFTER the enemy has used their first combo bar.

M. Bison stages are no joke either. There is tonnes of RNG involved. M. Bison explodes after the enemy team uses their first combo chain. If you didn’t interrupt the combo, you can kiss your units good bye.

Day 21-28 Guideline

This is where you will spend a majority of the time stuck on specific stages and trying to go for 24-40, 26-40 and 27-40 rewards. If you conserved your breakstone chests well and consistently bought breakstones for the general shop, you will have enough breakstones to get 3 characters to 239.

Also, Street Poison now becomes the main support as she provides additional attack and crit damage boost for your team thanks to her combo 1. Otherwise, you will lack damage past chapter 24+.

Hard stages include:

• Any Beast Zangief stage past 20+ (if your own isn’t 221+ yet)
• 24-40 (Zangief with M. Bison + Poison)
• 27-36 and 27-39 (M Bison stages)
• 28-20 (Double Elena with Mayor Cody)
• 28-28 (Zangief, Elena and 2 Combat Guiles)
• 28-40 (M. Bison)

If you have Guile, most of the Zangief or E.Honda stages will be a bit easier thanks to his defense shred. C. Viper mostly can’t do Zangief stages at this point. Using a mercenary will help tremendously here.

Team Building and Wishlist Optimization

The F2P team is cookie cutter and deviating from it might lower performance. Here is the setup structure:

Main Team

• DPS – C. Viper or Guile
• Interrupt – Beast Zangief
• Tank/DPS – M. Bison
• Support – Street Poison, Summer Yang, Elena and Abel

Assist (with Fighting Spirit)

• Mad Ryu (Bonus damage when below a certain % Hp)
• Cammy (trigger armor break, put her on M Bison or B Zangief)
• Abel (Shield for survivability against Mad Ryu, Adon etc.)
• Any Infernal Unit (Gives + 10 Speed with 2 infernal units)

For the most part, the main team usually looks like this:

However, against non beast Zangief stages, I like to run this as having B.Zang in the back makes it easier to interrupt:

The combo order is almost always something like this:

• C. Viper Super, Street Poison C1, B. Zang C2 and C. Viper C3.

For certain units that get pushed too far back out of B. Zang C2 range, you want to use:

• M. Bison Super, Street Poison C1, B. Zang C2 and C. Viper C3.

You will lose out on initial damage, but it ensures you can hit the ranged unit in the back.

Should B. Zang die, you can always use Street Poison’s C2 charm for interrupts.

Unit Breakdown

Beast Zangief – The guy that makes it possible to push further than you are suppose to. His combo 2 that can interrupt and vacuum people in for the juicy combo 3 for C. Viper of Guile makes it so good. Learning how to time the interrupt is vital to your push in steps of honor.

When it comes to building him, you want to prioritize getting him to SSS so that he gets bonus 50 speed at 221 so that you can outspeed units all story mode missions. Also, when going for garage summons, you want to get at least 3 cars so that it bumps up his stun chance to 20%, allowing your interrupts to be more consistent. Trust me on this, if you don’t want to spend 2 hours of RNG on very hard stages, you will want it.

His fighting spirit is optional to have. Sometimes the stomp prevents you from using his skills and can mess up your interruption timing .

C. Viper – Probably the best starter hands down. She excels in killing the backline and dealing with M. Bison stages. She is also strong in PvP until you can get your Fashion Blanka to SS gear with at least 3 cars. Due to these factors, she is much easier to use and play through for steps of honor. Since you can also get her from the hero selector on day 7, she has a much higher chance to get to SSS earlier.

She will struggle against Honda and Zangief teams with combat power much higher than yours. So that is the drawback.

Guile – Also a great choice. Guile excels in DPS and is comparable to C. Viper. Since his saber stacks helps ignore defense, he can deal with Honda and Zangief teams a lot better. He is also farmable from the city shop, making it easier to get to SSS.

However, he is weaker than Viper in PvP and has some trouble with M. Bison teams. He also requires 6/6 cars and Fighting Spirit 30 to become a total beast. So the investment is high here. Getting 6/6 cars is a bit RNG and you are never guaranteed to get them even after 1-2 months of playing.

M. Bison – A great tank, even at A rank. However, for steps of honor push, having him to SS is the minimum as you will want a secondary damage dealer past chapter 23+. As long as you have an ally, he will not die. He will also do damage without needing to be in the combo chain.

He is perhaps the best unit the game has to offer. He can tank, he can do damage and he doesn’t need to be in the combo chain to do damage. Did I also mention once you unlock his fighting spirit, he can give your team bonus damage at +20 and then also allow the team to deal true damage at +30. If you want him to do more damage, you can remove his gear for boots and armor so he dies more often.

His fighting spirit is the first priority to get to +30 just for that. You can’t go wrong investing in this broken character.

Street Poison – She won’t be needed early on, but as you progress to chapter 20+, her C1 bonus damage for the team starts to shine and you can clear stages due to the added bonus damage. Aside from that, her C2 can also charm the front unit, which can be vital as a form of interrupt on certain stages.

If you choose to invest some gear on her, she can also do some damage. She also does very well in major events against bosses. If you upgrade her fighting spirit to +20, it will improve the overall DPS on bosses. At +30 fighting spirit, she can sky rocket your team damage output after 20 seconds in battle, as she will cast C1 as her normal attack. Great in boss fights and the later chapters in story mode (30+ and higher).

She also works well even as an A rank unit if you only use her C1. However, she will die easily to AoE attacks though.

Abel – While Abel isn’t necessary for most fights, he shines in specific scenarios against heavy hitters that hit hard in 1 hit. Units like Charming Dudley, Adon’s counter attacks, Mad Ryu’s passive all can be blocked via Abel’s shield from his C1. He also doesn’t require much investment for this.

Once you unlock his fighting spirit, he can be used as an assist to generate free shields to block a hit or 2. While he may not be the best main tank, he does very well as a supportive one.

Elena – While healing isn’t necessary for early game, she will be needed in other modes such as Inverse World, Event Bosses and PvP. She has fallen off a little bit since the emergence of Street Poison or Summer Yang. However, she still has good utility in the Thunder Tower and PvP mode. Either way, you will want to build her regardless.

Summer Yang – A great alternative to Elena and also a life saver in the Flame Tower. He provides shields and heals and is a great alternative to Elena. Since his shield scales on his defense, you want to focus on gearing his body and gloves first to get more defense.

Mad Ryu – While he may fall off past the later stages in story mode (25+) for steps of honor, he is still a great addition to the squad for your Thunder Tower and in PvP mode. Since you will be getting free copies of him, he will always be easy to SSS. His assist is also good for Bison or any attacker in general.

Cammy – Great for boss fights but dies easily since her C3 animation is long and usually ends up killing herself in tougher battles. Her assist from her fighting spirit is great and is best placed on Bison or B. Zang for the extra armor break stacks.

Wishlist Optimization

After you get your main team in place, getting dupes will be key in your steps of honor progress. Here is what it should look like when you haven’t gotten your main team.

Pick the key units you need for each faction. However, once you pull your first 200, you will want to transition to including B rank units.

Here is what it should look like after you have gotten your main team.

You want 3 food units since after your initial 2 week honey moon period is over, it gets harder to find fodder food for your units.

Interrupting Specific Units

Interrupting is a must for steps of honor challenge. Without it, you won’t be able to do it as F2P, especially on servers with people that spend money. This section goes over some tips on how to interrupt certain units. There are generally 2 types of units when it comes to their animation. The instant types and the slower wind up types.

Instant Types – Has very quick animation and can be hard to catch. This includes Guy, Mad Ryu, De Capre, Makoto, Cammy, Chun Li etc.

Slow Wind Up – They have slower cast times and give you a much better window to interrupt. This includes Dhalsim, Poison, Combat Guile, Guile, E. Honda, Blanka etc.

Here are some tips when it comes to interrupting.

• Having B. Zang in the tag spot gives him instant cast times and much easier to interrupt from personal experience. I always put him in the back when facing enemy teams without B.Zang.
• For story mode, the first interrupt interval is usually around 78 seconds, while for supreme fist, it is around 76 seconds.
• If you don’t want to look at the timer, than pay attention to the power bar. When the enemy’s bar charges for the first time, you want to interrupt about 1 second after their bar gets to 1.
• After that, the enemy always casts their combos the moment the bar gets to 1. So you want to interrupt about a fraction of a second before it hits 1.

Interrupting Guy

Probably the most annoying guy to interrupt. His cast animation is instant and if you time it wrong, he will always already in the backline. The above video showcases the timing you need to get him.

The other option is to have B. Zang in the tag postion. I find him much easier to interrupt when he comes from the tag position.

Some folks also like to sacrifice the tag member in certain cases when you time the combo to right.

Mad Ryu

Another one that is painful to interrupt, due to how his quick his animation is. Often times, you will interrupt him but his hadoken kills your B. Zang. I always go in a fraction of a second earlier compared to other units.

Makoto

Same as Guy. You need to go in a bit earlier or she will dive your backline and mess up your combo string.

Chun Li 

Due to her passive giving power bar to her team, she can sometimes mess up your timing with a crit here and there. You want to be quick and interrupt earlier if that happens.

Mayor Cody

Another annoying one to interrupt. Similar to Mad Ryu, sometimes he will damage your B.Zang too much even if you interrupt him. Often times, you will want to interrupt the C1 or C2 combo instead of him. Makes life so much easier. You also want to interrupt a fraction of a second earlier for better odds.

Juri

Her first super doesn’t do anything, so sometimes you need to interrupt C1 or C2. Otherwise, on the second rotation, she can still damage your B. Zang badly even if the interruption lands. Having B Zang in the back row can make your life easier.

Hope this helps and good luck with your steps of honor push.

Read also: Post 240 Progression Guide