Regardless of which gaming platform you spend most of your free time on, chances are that you have played and enjoyed games from Ubisoft Entertainment. Home to numerous hit games and game series that cut across a wide variety of genres like Just Dance, Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, and many others, Ubisoft has long since cemented itself as a respected entity in the gaming community.
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad is Ubisoft Entertainment’s unique action RPG on iOS and Android platforms that brings together popular characters from numerous franchises inspired by Tom Clancy’s works. Both heroes and villains from the Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, The Division, H.A.W.X., and EndWar series join forces under your command to take on a different kind of challenge.
An evil organization known as UMBRA has initiated a campaign of chaos and conventional military intervention is not enough to stop them. As a commander of a newly formed task force, your task is to collect and train your very own elite squad from various specialized groups to take down UMBRA. Recruit favorite protagonists and antagonists such as Sam Fisher, Nomad, El Sueno, Megan, and many more. Choose how to build your very own 5-person elite squad and challenge UMBRA’s forces as well as other elite squads.
Fans of the heroes and villains present in Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad should know them from first-person or third-person shooting games. Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad, however, is a team-based action RPG that strays far from the mechanics of shooters. Despite that, the in-game mechanics and interface of the game makes it easy enough for just about anyone to learn everything there is to know as far as battles and basic menus are concerned.
What can be a challenge is building up your team as new recruits join your roster and strategizing around different scenarios as you progress through the campaign. Now, stay with us and read our Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad beginner’s guide for tips, cheats and strategies to build your elite squad in no time!
1. Prioritize Progression In The Main Campaigns
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad actually lets you dive in straight to battle as you engage the initial stages of the UMBRA campaign. As the most basic campaign in the game, this is essentially less delimiting and you can choose any of the characters in your roster to take into action.
There are 4 unique campaigns in Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad but as the 3 others are initially locked behind level restrictions, your focus ought to be on pushing forward with the UMBRA Campaign. The UMBRA Campaign is divided into 8 chapters and outside of the first 2, which serves as the tutorial chapters, the rest provides 14 stages each that you need to clear one after another.
There are clear conditions on each stage that works much like star ratings in other games. You can still proceed to the next stage after clearing the present one but the auto win option will only be available once you secure a 3-star victory in the stage. Earning all 42 stars per chapter also rewards you with Scott Mitchell Intel that you can collect to unlock him as well as gold, which is a premium currency. Pushing forward is more important than securing all clear conditions as there are first time rewards that include huge amounts of XP for your commander level.
Note that your commander level is a determinant of the maximum level your agents can be trained to so one of the reasons you need to push forward with the campaign is to raise your and your elite squad’s respective levels.
With regard to some chapter stages, each one offers unique rewards that you need to craft weapons and gears for your team. On every seventh (G) and fourteenth (N) stage, though, you can randomly obtain intel on specific characters. While you may be enticed to start farming items early on, note that it is best to do so only when you are stuck and unable to complete higher stages.
2. Maintain A Balanced Squad
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad features 77 unique heroes and villains to collect and upgrade. Although it may take a while before you secure additional units to swap into your first 5 operatives, the selection of members you will get for your basic elite squad is actually pretty decent. As you continue to make progress in the campaign and other game modes, and obtain resources to recruit more soldiers, be sure to keep a keen eye on their various roles and skills, among other details, as these information relates to how well you can have a synergistic team to command.
First and foremost, soldiers either have a hero or villain alignment and while you can use a mix of both on the UMBRA campaign and the arena, the other campaign modes and special events have more restrictions.
There are also 6 basic skill point values that determine each operator’s overall strength and while certain roles specialize in one or a couple of these points, some can stray far from it. Weapons and Abilities relate to offensive strength. Aid and Survival essentially boosts team survivability. Mitigation and Control both deals with reducing the enemy’s capacity.
An important classification of units, especially in relation to how well they sync together is the roles that each unit plays. There are 3 main roles where each soldier falls into and each one is further divided into 2 sub-categories. Each attacker is further classified into Pointman and Striker. A Defender may be either a Guardian or Enforcer. A Specialist is either a Support or Technician.
Attackers naturally excel in dealing damage to enemy units whether through the use of their weapons or thru utilizing their skills. Their main task involves eliminating enemies, whether one by one or several at a time, as fast as possible. Defenders are your front line units that typically have high defensive stats in addition to abilities that boost their defense.
Defenders serve as tanks and can also provoke enemy units to target them instead of their allies. A specialist can provide a wide array of skills that can help the squad in a variety of ways. Support types provide healing and other buffs to the team while Technicians are more varied in terms of the services they provide.
As you will consider 5 different operators to form your elite squad, there are plenty of ways to go about it. Although you can disregard roles and still manage to make progress in the campaigns and other challenges, it is best to go for a more cohesive team early on. For starters, consider an attacker, a defender, and a support unit as irreplaceable members of your team and then have the 2 remaining slots open for adjustments based on your current needs. The first five characters you will recruit basically has 2 attackers, 2 defenders, and a support unit, which is a decent lineup. If you acquire better suited operators to swap in on the team, initially try to consider maintaining that balance.
Choosing which soldiers to focus on should not be based on their roles alone as each one offers unique skills that may also complement the rest of the team’s abilities. Note that some units have leader abilities that boost the performance of the whole team. While these are sometimes applicable to all types of units, some buffs are limited only to specific factions, traits, or weapon types.
As such, be sure to read through each and every new operator’s abilities and, if you have the time, look into everyone else’s skill sets so you will know how best to deal with them in the battlefield.
3. Choose The Right Commands To Equip
Every battle you engage in Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad proceed automatically and for the most part, you will have to rely on each of your operator’s innate skills and abilities as well as the team’s overall synergistic approach towards making it thru the encounter. You still, however, have a hand in the battle and that is through the commands you can order during the battle.
There are 6 types of tactics at your disposal and while you will only start with 2, the rest can easily be unlocked as you reach new levels. The first command is a barrier that provides a shield to a selected allied unit for 5 seconds, boosting the unit’s health by 50% and tenacity by 50%. The second tactic is an air strike that causes an AoE damage to enemies. The air strike fires 4 missiles and can damage 4% of the enemy’s health per hit. The radius is 4 meters around the target.
Focus Fire is another offensive tactic that will instantly have all allied units reload and synchronize fire on the targeted enemy unit for 3 seconds. Combat Aid is a support tactic that will restore 24% health to all allies in a 4 meter radius over 4 seconds and cleanse all negative status effects from the targeted allied unit.
Recharge is another support order that can instantly bring the selected ally’s ability charge to 100%. Last, but not the least, is the EMP, which is a control tactic that can empty an enemy unit’s ability charge. This will cause an interruption to the targeted unit’s active skill and will also silence them for 2 seconds.
Considering all these different orders, there are no 2 solid pairs that can be considered the best ones across all stages and likewise applies to all players. What you should consider using, in general, are commands that also sync well with your teams abilities and needs in battle, whether the same should be constant through different challenges or consistent enough for you to use on every situation.
Beyond choosing the correct pair of commands to equip in combat as well, note that how you time utilizing them in combat has a critical impact to their overall effects. As an example, enemy units may be scattered in such a way that your air strike will only hit one of them.
At some point in time, however, the enemy support unit will approach another unit to heal them, giving you an opportunity to strike 2 birds with one stone. The barrier, on the other hand, may also be utilized more effectively when you witness an enemy initiating a skill targeting one of your units that have already been heavily damaged.
As you reach levels 22, 27, and 33, each of the command tactics will unlock a variant that will change how they ultimately work. This may later change your preferences relative to which ones you want to pick before battle so be sure to take note of these variants once you unlock them.
4. Be Selective When Upgrading Units
Every new stage in the campaign, every new campaign you unlock, and all other game modes you will want to partake in as you explore the world of Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad will always have an increasing challenge level. As you earn commander EXP and reach new levels, you also gain access to an abundant means of making each soldier you have in your command stronger. Every means of strengthening your heroes has a price and you will need to gather and consume resources every step of the way.
The most basic method of increasing a unit’s skill rating or overall power is by raising his or her level through training. You can train each unit up to your current commander level and will need to consume training credits for it as well as some cash. Note that by default, training a level 1 operator will consume the required resources to bring him her up to max level and you will need to tap on the “-“ button at the left side of the window to tone it down if you want to do so.
Each unit will have a weapon that can be upgraded, or rather changed 3 times. At the character page, you can tap on the icon underneath the operator’s gun to see the the next level weapon he or she can equip, the needed blueprints to craft the weapon and its added effects on DPS and other offensive stats. You can tap on the materials needed to view the game modes or campaign stages where they can be obtained as well.
Every operator can also be equipped with 4 different gears and while some can be looted and equipped as is, some will require crafting. Missing gears and crafting materials are indicated by a magnifying glass icon, making it easier for you to look into areas where you can obtain them. Once all 4 gear slots are filled up, you can raise your soldier’s gear grade for some added stats and will have to equip him or her anew.
The most challenging way of increasing a soldier’s skill rating is through raising their star grade. Units are unlocked and acquired with a default star grade ranging from 1 star to 5 stars. 5 star units are definitely difficult to obtain so chances are that you will have to play through a lot of content with 1 to 3-star units. Each unit, can be raised to 5 stars, though but requires you to secure additional intel (unit shards) to upgrade them. Some units have intel that can be obtained from campaign stages or events. Some, however, can only be obtained through special O.R.B.s that you can purchase using gold.
5. Join A Guild As Soon As You Can
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad can be played and enjoyed entirely on your own. The current game modes and contents actually only cater to single player challenges and have no coop quests of any sort that require you to team up with anybody else. As an online game that offers a social feature, however, Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad provides an extra means for you to mingle with other players thru its guild system, and further improve your capacity to progress with the game.
It is an almost effortless feat to join a guild in the game provided that you make it through the quick tutorial session and reach the required level. While some guilds may require you to wait from an approval before you can join them, others are less restrictive and will accept you as soon as you apply to join them. You can instantly reap the benefits of being a guild member as soon as you join one.
One of the biggest perks in being a member of an active guild is the request system where you can ask your fellow guild members for character intel that you need. At the guild window, you can simply tap on the request button at the bottom left side of the screen and choose a unit that you need more intel of.
Likewise, you can also help others with their requests by donating extra intel based on their needs. An enlistment game mode is exclusively available to members of any guild. You can immediately partake in the guild event and obtain intel of some soldiers. You have 5 attempts daily to challenge any zone available. Note that this event requires you to have a level 20 team, so expect it to be a lot more challenging than the campaign stages of equal level requirement.
6. Accomplish Objectives For Extra Rewards
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad already provides a good amount of outright rewards for every battle you partake in and every new level you reach. Beyond all that, however, a lot more incentives await you based on your completion of specific objectives that relate to the general activities you engage in.
Although we recommend focusing on the main campaign initially, there will come a point in time where progression within the campaign stages may become too challenging. As such, consider those instances as your cues to look into other activities and game modes that require your attention as well.
You can access the objectives via its icon at the lower right side of the screen. For starters, you may see an indicator on the icon as you are likely to accomplish some feats and be entitled to some rewards without even knowing some of the targets that you have already met. Just the same, it is best to look into each set of objectives as accomplishing each one, and claiming the respective rewards for each achievement, is best done sooner than later.
The daily objectives are always the easiest to complete and each objective relates to the most basic activities you should engage in on a daily basis. At some point in your progress, these tasks will form part of your daily routine and will most likely be the your primary focus on subsequent log ins. Note that on top of claiming rewards for each objective achieved, there are bigger rewards to earn if you complete all the objectives.
The campaign objectives basically relate to your progress on the main campaign modes and as there are currently 4 campaign modes to unlock and battle through, you will only see one objective for each campaign. As objectives revolve around chapter completions, you are rewarded for each campaign chapter you accomplish. This means that once you unlock the other campaigns, you should make an effort to jump from one to another with the intent of completing chapters to earn the rewards sooner.
Objectives under the commander progress and faction duties may take a while to accomplish as these tasks revolve around accomplishments that serve as milestones based on your overall experience. A lot of these objectives will unlock a higher tier of difficulty once achieved, providing a different set of rewards as well. You can actually accomplish most of these feats without paying close attention to the objectives so long as you stay as active as possible and expend energy engaging in battle after battle.
7. Test Your Mettle In The Arena
The arena in Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad stands as the only PvP content for the moment. Beginners may have apprehensions relative to partaking in PvP combat especially if they just dived into the game with the mindset that everyone else has progressed ahead of them. If you feel the same way, the you shouldn’t as progression in the early part of your game will be tremendously fast and the opponents you will face in the arena will depend on your league as well.
The arena is also not a real-time duel, which means that you will only be facing A.I.-controlled teams of other players, putting you at a discrete advantage. This means that you still have the advantage of command timing and targeting while A.I.-controlled enemy teams will just lodge whichever commands are set based on their availability.
Unlike most arena features in games, Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad incorporates an energy system in delimiting your play time within the arena much like the energy you need to consume in engaging all PvE content and contrasting with the conventional limited attempts per day. Win or lose, there are arena points to earn and each point gained brings you closer to earning more intel rewards.
There are also objectives you can accomplish to earn you currencies you can exchange for arena O.R.B.s. and each season, there are extra rewards to earn based on your rank and league. Just like energy you consume for the campaign and event stages, it is best to always expend every bit of arena energy you have. You will likely have an abundant supply of it early on to even exceed the limit so be sure to battle as much as you can as every deployment counts.
8. Spend Extra Campaign Energy On Farming Resources
As you progress through the campaign stages and the event battles, you will eventually be able to deplete your campaign energy on a regular basis and even reach a point where you would want more. For starters, however, events and other in-game rewards will drown you with a plethora of campaign energy that can be overwhelmingly more than what you can normally consume.
Progression, most especially in terms of strengthening your elite squad is a lot faster in the early hours of gameplay. As you reach farther through Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad’s content, however, it can become a little more challenging to make progress as the pace at which enemy units grow in power will not be as easy to match given your squad’s levels and respective upgrade statuses.
Chances are that you will have an excessive amount of energy left for spending and while you can choose to expend it in a variety of ways, the best approach is to do so targeting specific items your soldiers need to boost their gear grade and skill rating.
If you are currently using operatives that have intel you can farm, then that should be the priority target as far as grinding goes. Simply tap on the “find” button and check the accessible areas where you can farm for intel. If you find one, you can simply utilize the auto win function to quickly clear the stages. Note that you can do this up to the maximum number of attempts a stage can be challenged.
After farming for intel, you should look into the missing gears of the units that form part of your main team. Most gears will have to be crafted and you will definitely need to farm for components for each piece. You will have to focus on one soldier at a time and try to level up their gear grades equally based on your needs. The higher the gear grade grows, the more challenging it will become to collect the needed materials and the farther into the campaign stages and chapters you need to clear through.
9. Expend Daily Attempts On Daily Ops And Events
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad’s campaign mode and the grind you will constantly engage in to get extra resources you need will certainly keep you playing for hours at a time. Beyond all that, however, the game still holds more content and game modes you should be inclined to engage in, as these features can earn you specific resources as well as operator intel that can be difficult to obtain anywhere else.
First off is the daily ops mode that works like daily dungeons in conventional RPGs. Seven different game modes can be engage in on different days of the week, but there is no need to keep track of the timeline as you will easily see which ones are available on which days. Basic Training earns you training materials while Material Matters can help your grind for gear materials easier.
Tools of the Trade is your key to obtaining crafting tools while the Factory Blueprints will earn you blueprints needed to upgrade your elite squad’s weapons. There is an energy boost campaign to give you extra campaign energy, Pay Day for lots of cash, and Tactical Drills can give you more auto win tokens.
While we would recommend focusing your resources on upgrading your 5 main operatives, the daily ops will be a little more demanding for you as the types of units you can use on these game modes can be very restrictive. Early on, you may even come to discover that you have yet to earn a unit for a specific game mode or if you have one or a couple, they will probably be still at level one, with hardly anything equipped as well. If you really need to upgrade extra units, regulate it only to be sufficient to your needs.
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad holds a variety of time-limited events where you can earn some operator intel and eventually unlock new units. A lot of these event scenarios work like the UMBRA campaign chapters, and will allow you to use all your favorite units without restrictions. The challenges will typically be more than what you are used to in the campaign, so take extra care even if your total skill rating exceeds that of the enemy team’s.
Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad certainly still has a lot of content to offer in the upcoming updates but for now, this is where we will end our beginner’s guide. We hope that the tips and strategies we shared has sufficiently endowed you with knowledge to propel your progress further in the game. If you have played the game extensively enough and came across some other tips and strategies we have not mentioned, then be sure to drop us a line!