From my perspective power is the best way to go. The ninjas will eventually come. You can make a great team 100% f2p without even spending coupons. Darui blitz team... Mei, ten ten meta etc... These teams are 100% f2p and will take you a long way. That's why they are so common. Even the mei meta is used in china to this day. Once you have your team focus on power! More ninja will come via free events or treasure pulls. The premium ninja you c*so get over time by getting a few frags in events that dont offer a lot of power.

f2p player just get ninjas in draws or when they are cheap like sailor sakura is almost impossible get a p2w ninja so the best thing is get power i have 60k of power in lv 91 and still have equipment and things for upgrade.

That depends what ninja. Everybody who has been playing for a few months had a chance to already obtain free nagato or hidan. Not every event-only ninja can be obtained by pure f2p, but some of them (sage naruto, nagato, dpb hidan, kazegaara come to mind) were so often and in events that give free points over time (mission dealer, time limited etc), that you could easily get them without spending a cent. It takes time and it's good to do research what ninjas are often available and focus on getting their frags. Other ninjas require either way, way more time to complete or a coupon investment (eg. mei, 1-5 hokages).

on topic:

Events give you a choice: free ninjas or free power (to some extent). Personally I like getting new ninjas, even when piecing them takes almost forever (hanzo 30/80, still a long way to go). I also pick charms whenever there's 0 ninjas that interest me and get threads from monthly. That strategy resulted in having most of available roster (guess luck with seals - 6 rares=0 duplicate - and mission dealer had a major influence in that) except new ninjas and super rares from sage treasure and further. Also got the best BA at my server for now. Downside of that are my refines, which are clearly lacking. That was my strategy and it seems to work out pretty good so far. The point is, with playing as f2p or low spender, you cant have both. Every player is given a choice what to pick and if they don't think it through, it's not everybody else's fault. Even though some events are what they are, most of them offer free stuff to choose and Im happy with that. Hope to get kage minato someday ^^

as f2p i'm top 10 in server but only ranked 30 in merged ranking...

i focused on the ninjas first, after i have a quite decent sage naruto+5k gaara team (both in free summon) then i focused to increasing my power

basically search for ninjas first until you got decent team then start increasing your power, ninja composition is key in this game since i can beat some lightning main team that has >5k power difference with in sage

i've got my current team in draws i use Kage Gaara, Naruto Sage and Bee. ik whe can get only event ninjas with time i current have 5 fragments of minato jonin is going to take time but is almost impossible get it if i dont spend coupons in him for the time i get him we get GNW treasure and most of the current event ninjas are going to useless just obito masked and minato jonin are good in that point so is not point go for nagato or hidan blood for me all current meta is going to die just roshi meta and han meta is going to survive so is not point for me keep drawing in Kage treasure. im just getting power because i want to be competitive im rank 39 in space time is pretty awesome for a full f2p

Thread is about personal approach, and I fully agree with meta shifting thoughts and how current ninjas will be less and less viable, and why it's more beneficial in a long run to go for power once u get a decent team. But there's also one important thing for me - having fun. And for me, that is getting new toys from time to time to play with. Im not neglecting power items, but as OP wrote in first post I won't ever be able to compete with top tier players. I won't be even a match for an active pure f2p player from server <50, who had half a year more time to farm refines/coins. I'm happy with that approach, because this way game is fun for me- and a fun factor is a thing, which a lot of people on this forum unfortunately lack (not pointing out anyone in particular, just general idea).

I stopped reading when you said scionstorm and kaizer

Go for power I am a f2p and I have almost 70 k power and 101 ninjas , ninjas will come anyway , while a lot of ninjas will become outdated you still will have power . Power is better than ninjas . It's useless to get every ninjas that come out if everyone beats you . Make sure you have some power behind you if you go for ninjas . But overall power is better . My advice is to stack your coupons and at the every begining of the mounth go for lucky bord , you get a lot of power and if you want get some ninja .

its more a question about your goal in this game ... If you focus on having fun, definitly you go for the ninjas xD If you go for competition, just stop the game, People like Armand will spent a lot money to have the new ninjas which are always broken af.

Im a low spender (just the medal for naruto chakra) and im number one in my server, but since they merge the pvp event, im not interresed in pvp event at all now. Its more based on who got the best wallet, then the best strat. So yeah if you focus on pvp event just stop this game xD

if you want ninjas then you should really be thinking about spending money on the game - power can be farmed up for free (or relatively low money) whereas there are many good ninjas who are premium and are not going to be farmed in any sort of reasonable time frame.

There are many mid level teams made up of "free" ninjas who are quite proficient to hold you until you pick up a premium one, but if you do not have the power then your sage naruto or roshi will quickly end up getting killed by higher levels and feel like a bit of a wasted effort.

If you want to be relatively competitive on your server (regardless of if you ever beat p2w people) with other f2p people you choose power, period. You can focus primarily on power and still strategically plan which ninja you need to get to maximize your power's effectiveness.

Bottom line is, you can have all the ninja in the world but I will still stomp you into the ground if you don't have the power to compete with me. I've played this game since a week or two after it first came out and I have spent less than $500 in that time (with a spending strike during that time because of oasis' shady tactics) and i have put a majority of my resources into power while strategically picking up ninja along the way.

By being smart with my resources I have been able to crack the top 20 on S2 and I've been there for a while and I haven't spent thousands and thousands of dollars as some others have.

This bro got it absolutely right.

If you want to compete ON YOUR SERVER, you go power 100%. Being top power translates to alot of extra benefits which kinda snow* as you beat on other players weaker than you during GNW or plunders.

If you just want to have a good time and have fun, then go ninjas since you are not even thinking about being competitive.

There is a very fine line between F2p competitive and F2p bottomfeed.

As a free to play you should always go for power,the more power you have the more access you have towards better ninjas.but then again, it's just a game,you should do what makes you enjoy the game the most.

@TheD tur

neither of those teams are 100% F2p as they require luck to get those ninjas, if you have an actual f2p team I'm happy to listen

@Zathroth

I tend to agree, a lot of people seem to kot care about fun in the forums, most most of the heavy forum users are probably on the more spendy end as well... Or at at least the more vocal ones...

@AhMazein

like it or not, alot of people listen to them and make choices based oj what they say instead of thinking for themselves...

@EpixSaxGuy

then at what point do you start playing for enjoyment, or is the only form of enjoyment using a single team and winning? I certainly agree that a lot of ninjas now will become bad later, this is why I want people to research content and only get the ninjas they like and will use

@DodgeOh

I can get this argument(never gonna get roshi), but, premium ninjas in the future are realistically accessible, heck, you can get minato or obito in 4 months f2p, if you are talking usano Hitachi, sage hashirama, twunsdr homage, I completely agree, without spending these are unrealistic goals and should be replaced in your goals, but 10-12k coupons for a ninja who will last 1-2 years like minato or obito? Is still amazing value, and badass to boot

@JushinUchiha

personally I have spent under 25 on the game so id say you have quite a high commitment there, and in some ways I agree power is useful, in many ways it is, but as you said, strategically picking up ninjas, this is what I advocate for, but when people like yourself claim that powrler is the best choice period, it makes a lot of people think this id the only thing that matters, then they suit cause they can't wind have no ninjas and hate the game

If you are a f2p, power should always come first most of the time. I know that f2p can't beat p2w, but still you need to go for power in order to stay competitive among other f2p. It will allow you to get rewarded in a long run (gnw,swb,matsuri,convoy/plunder,space time). You will also get seal and summon scrolls as well as coupons from these events which will result in earning more ninja from treasures or buying them using coupons. Only go for ninja if the events offer no or really weak power items or stuff that you have no use for. Exception should be that you c*e that ninja for several months or strong end game ones.

Eventually, by being patient, you get both power and ninja at your disposal while also remain competitive.

Power = Rewards from events and competitions and later on treasure ninja and premium ninja

Ninja = You just get to play with newest characters before other f2p, but later on competitive f2p will surpass you in power and NINJA.

The number of really good ninjas you can buy for a reasonable price with coupons is pretty low so, after you got them, you can wholly focus on power and just gather fragments for free in events that let you do it. In my specific case, for example, i just bought with coupons gnw tenten (edo tensei treasure wasn't out at the time) and sakura sailor uniform and i wholly relied on seal scrolls and free draws to get competitive teams.

If you need a few specific ninjas try to focus on them first, otherwise just focus mostly on power and farm frags of ninjas you really want as you go. Ninjas will come as you go but if you fall too far in power, you'll just lose no matter what team you have. I collected DP Hidan after about 7 different events where he came up. Power helps you earn more. Such as being able to finish Matsuri every week twice will give you extra scrolls to pull for ninjas, finishing all of trial breakthrough will let you farm other ninja frags, being able to plunder for extra coupons, etc. Make use of all the rebate events to get the most out of it as well.