Strengthening your LT's

One of the best ways for a Skinny Guy to get stronger is to strengthen his lieutenants. After you get to 1000 energy, it kind of makes more sense to use an energy refill than when your energy is 250 - you get a lot more for your Favor Point dollar. I use the arbitrary goal of 1500, because I think I can get through the Street Fighter DICE Job in Slums 3 times.

DICE JOBS

I've done a lot of math about the energy cost of LT's, and with some unusual exceptions, I only try to do two dice jobs - Slums and Westside. Slums costs 35 energy per roll, and takes 13 rolls, for a total energy cost of 455 per LT. You might get the uncommon LT Pain (Great for a sniper or assassin, he gives criticals), or the common LT John (you get him almost 50% of the time). You may also find Colt, an uncommon recombinator, or Mia. Many players have only disdain for the LT's of the Slums, and fuse them. My advice to the new player is to build them up. 

If you spend $5 on FP, you'll get 33 FP. That's enough for 3 refills. If you have 1500 Energy (and the beginner won't), you can get 3 LT's with the energy from a level-up, then burn your stamina, and then use an energy refill to get 3 more LT's. This should take you to the next level, where you can rinse and repeat. Three of these cycles should produce 18 LT's. You'd have 9 Johns, 2 pains, 4 Mia, 1 Uncommon recombinator, and 3 Colts. These are estimates - in small numbers of rolls (less than 100) you might see a lot of variation. 

But if you had 9 johns, you could make a 3* John by combining them. That's still a pretty weak LT. You'd need to have a 6* common LT to be stronger than a 1* epic LT. To get a 6* john, you would need about 65 LT's from Slums, at a cost of about 11 refills (maybe $15).

I don't stick to these two jobs exclusively. First, at level-up time, I try to get as far into the next level as I can. If you have Baron seated, when you roll you get 3 rolls for a 1*, and 4 rolls for a 2*. If you have 800 energy left, you could cruise over to Mexico or France and roll the dice job to go deep into the next level.

Another reason for me to play other dice jobs is that you can try to get different rare LT's in different districts. My reasons for focusing on Slums and Westside still make sense to me, but they are guidelines, not rules. 

CRATES

You can get lots of different LT's from crate rolls on the Favor page. Crate rolls cost 30 FP, or 3 for 80 FP. In real dollars, that's $5 or $15. Your odds of getting an epic LT are 5%. Some people get 2 in a row. Some people don't get one for months. This is an expensive source of LT's. You could end up with a 1* John, for example, for the same FP that you could use to make a 3* John at DICE jobs. 

There is still a good reason to do crates. If you're a Skinny Guy, your key to winning in PvP is "War." That means you get one LT for every 5 Allies. You aren't likely to have more than 15-20 LT's from doing dice jobs. Getting a 1* version of 20 MORE LT's gives you that much more power in WAR. Since you are weak, the relative strength from adding LT's and weapons is much higher than it is for BSI builds, who might as well not bother. 

PLATINUM SCRATCHERS

You can get LT's from Platinum scratchers. They cost 45 FP for 10 (or 5 FP for 1). Most of the time you get nothing. But sometimes you get LT's. This makes sense for Assassins more than the other classes, because if you can get Scorpion you can decap at higher levels. 

HOW TO CHOOSE?

If you have $50, you can get 320 FP. With 320 FP, you could buy:

32 Refills, or

7 sets of 10 scratchers, or

4 sets of 3 crate rolls

That would give you .7 LT's from scratchers, 12 from crates, or 60 from refills (if you do slums, and you have 1500 energy). That's why you see comments on the forums like "Scratchers are a no-no" and "Crate rolls are evil." I advise you to spend your FP in about a 5:1 ratio of refills to crate rolls. 

You don't HAVE to buy FP. The game gives you lots of it in achievements and other rewards. 

FAILING TO PLAN IS PLANNING TO FAIL

After I had been playing about 3 months, I decided to try to get my LT's to a certain strength. I wanted whoever was seated to either be a 4* rare, a 6* uncommon, or an 8* common. If you pick a goal like that, and you look at the LT's you have, you can combine, fuse, refill, and gamble your way to a strong inner circle. Having a plan makes a lot of decisions easier. 

A NOTE ABOUT FUSING 

I fuse when it will make my team stronger. But beyond that, I avoid it. My reasoning is that I can combine 2 LT's for nothing. To fuse I need 3 LT's and a recombinator. That represents twice as much energy. Like I say, if it makes me better right now, today, in the next empire game, I'll do it. Well, I might need a day or two to level them up after I fuse them, but you get the idea. 

You could talk about LT's and dice jobs until your eyes cross. There are lots of ways to get them, and lots of ways to grow them. These are a few, and hopefully your eyes aren't crossed yet.