By Attabrain Zee, from server 4. Updated 2018-11-14
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DragonSoul is a fun and addictive game for iOS and Android, published by PerBlue. In DragonSoul, you collect heroes, and team them up to fight in a variety of scenarios. It is possible to enjoy this game without paying any money, and a minimum payment of $3 (USD) gets rid of some of the little annoyances to enhance the experience.
Individual chests will be analyzed in detail below, but in summary, here are the best exchange rates of diamonds for whatever you might want.
If you really need stamina, you might consider paying 50 diamonds more than you're used to. For example, if you already got the four 50 diamond buys, you might want to spend 400 diamonds getting the four 100 diamond buys – 200 diamonds more than you're used to spending. So I'm going to value a Stamina Reset at 200 diamonds.
A soulstone costs 100 tokens in the shops. The cheapest way you can get soulstones of your choosing from diamonds is with an Elite Reset, which costs around 15 diamonds per stone. So 100 tokens are worth roughly 15 diamonds. This means that trying to get tokens out of chests will always be worse than farming Elite Campaign. However, this only works if you have plenty of Elite Reset items (which most people do). The best place to buy specific soulstones using nothing but diamonds is the All Hero Chest. Using that measure, 100 tokens are worth 57.8 diamonds, making chests a slightly better deal. It's a tough comparison to make, because stones in the shops are almost never the same as what you get out of the All Hero Chest's bonus deal.
Ten silver chests cost 90k. This will get you a whole bunch of mostly useless stuff, which is good for enchanting, epic quests, and crafting a few annoying items.
You also get 1-2 soul stones. This last part makes the chests interesting. Whenever I see a soul stone in the trader for 40k gold, I buy it, no matter what it is. At worst, it can be spent in the market. If the 10x silver chest averages 1.5 soul stones, that's 60k per stone, plus you get a lot of random junk, which usually includes some ore, reducing the average cost. Put these together, and silver chests are nearly free.
Are silver chests worth it? During a “spend money” contest, definitely. Otherwise, only if you have a lot of money to spare. Any gold you spend on silver chests is not being spent on skills, equipment crafting and enchantments.
Gold chests are expensive and unpredictable. You can get scraps or a whole item, which will usually be something you already have plenty of. You can get three soulstones, or unlock a complete hero. If you're lucky enough to unlock an 80 stone hero, then you've just gotten something worth 80 soulstones and a bunch of gold.
Is it worth buying gold chests? If it's early in the game, and you've only unlocked a few heroes, then your chances of getting an 80 stone hero are pretty high. The 10x gold chest might be a good buy in this case if you have a lot of diamonds to spare. But if it's later in the game, don't bother. Fortunately, gold chests are a common contest prize.
You have a 1/4 chance of unlocking a hero, so the chance of getting the hero you want from gold chests is:
( (1 - (1 - [number of heroes you're interested in] / [total number of heroes] / 4) ^ [number of chests opened]) ) * 100) %
If you've already unlocked a hero, the hero is worth 7 soulstones for 1-star, 18 for 2-star and 30 for 3-star. Some of the odds below will assume that these three types are evenly distributed and that you've unlocked 90% of the heroes, making the average about 20 soulstones per unlock.
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
payout = 100/x
When you buy ten chests, one of them is guaranteed to unlock a full hero. This changes the odds per chest to:
Extremely expensive, and they'll rarely give you an item you actually need. These chests are never worth buying for diamonds. Just open the free ones.
Cost: 400 damonds, and level 11 VIP (cost is $500 USD)
If you have access to Soul Chests, then you've spent at least $500 on the game, and have diamonds to spare. Soul Chests are the easiest way to max out new heroes, and at 39 diamonds per soul stone with some measure of choice in what you get, they're the second best way to advance (elite farming is the first).
The odds on soul chests are strange, because of the guaranteed drops and the variable stacks of soulstones. To calculate the payouts, I'm going to assume that the average stack has 4 soulstones, and that the guarantees are not factored into the odds.
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
payout = 100/x
You will get six items, including at least two stacks of soulstones, and at least one of them will be for the monthly hero. Given this fact, the reported odds are not accurate.
Real odds, assuming the two guarantees don't affect the other four drops:
Cost: 70 for one, 630 for ten.
These are pretty bad. They cost 5.3 diamonds per stamina, which is a lot worse than the normal stamina buys unless you're very high VIP level. The enchanting points are cheap, but it's even cheaper to get those from silver chests. The gold is only worth it if you normally do a lot of alchemy. And skill points are worthless, since you're better off waiting.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 200 for one, 1800 for ten.
There's nothing premium about this chest. If you want gold chests, just buy gold chests (which you shouldn't). If you want double drops or stamina, buy Raid Chests. The drop rate on double drops is so bad that you need nearly 180 thousand diamonds on average to get one.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 50 for one, 450 for ten.
Raid chests give you the best odds on double drops, stamina and raid tickets, but there are cheaper ways to get the later two.
If you are VIP 0 (never paid money for the game), raid chests are one of the only ways to get raid tickets.
If you've used up all of your stamina buys for the day and still need more stamina, raid chests give you a pretty good deal. However, if you desperately need that stamina, pay 150 diamonds, because half the value of this chest is the 80 stamina jackpot. If you're unlucky enough to never see one of those, then this chest is 2 diamonds per stamina on average instead of 1.
Any time you're considering paying 150 or more diamonds for stamina, raid chests are better
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 50 for one, 450 for ten.
This is a Raid Chest with worse payouts, but with a few extras added in. For the most part, it's not worth much, unless you want enchanting points, since it has the second best odds by a small margin.
However, there's one thing that makes this chest worth it: The stamina cost reset. The reset will cost you 187 diamonds on average, while buying four of the next cost up in stamina buys will cost 200. For example, let's say you were going to make 8 stamina purchases. Normally, that would cost 4×50 + 4×100 = 600 diamonds. With a reset, you can instead buy the 50s twice, adding up to 8×50 + 187 = 587. So you save 13 diamonds on your stamina purchases. Add that to all the other goodies you'll get while looking for stamina resets, and this is one of the only chests that's actually worth it.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 10 for one, 90 for ten.
This chest costs very little, and can get you a skin. If you really want the skin or tokens, it's worth it, but for stamina, you're better off buying Raid Chests. The nice thing about the Jackpot Chest is that, if you don't get what you want, you'll still get something of value. Raid Chests just give you worthless Raid Tokens.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 20 for one, 180 for ten.
This is the same as the Jackpot Chest, but with lower payout in skins and higher payout in tokens. Possibly worth it during token contests. Not worth it otherwise. Using this chest, you'll pay 133.5 diamonds per soul stone, and about 1.65 diamonds per stamina, neither of which is a good deal.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 50 for one, 225 for 5
The best deal that alchemy can get you is 385,000 gold per 100 diamonds. This chest is half again as good as that. So if you're desperate for gold, and don't have any raid tickets or gear to sell, then you might as well pick up a few of these. At higher levels, there's so much gold going around that ore chests are worthless, unless you feel like you need to save up for a gold-spending contest.
This chest is about 15.4% better than buying ore from traders (so says cid_darkwing), and more than twice as good as alchemy.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 5 chests:
Cost: 150 for one, 1350 for 10.
Named after the hero inside. For example, “Dragon Lady Chest.” This is like the Boosted Hero Chest, only worse. Why bother?
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 150 for one, 1350 for 10.
The main purpose of this chest is to get you soulstones for a specific hero. It's very bad at that, giving only 0.74 stones per 100 diamonds. It's still one of the best deals you're going to get if you really want that hero, and it may be slightly better than Soul Chests if you only want one of the heroes in the Soul Chest.
For everything else, you can do better.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
Cost: 199 for one, 1791 for 10
The odds on these are pretty complicated, since there are special rules for the first five you buy, and the first three groups of 10. Your best possible payout will be from buying 35 chests for 6368 diamonds.
This is one of the few chests which could actually be worth it. It has the best payout by far for random soul stones (other than silver chests, which have a limited selection), and one of the best payouts if you're looking for specific stones, assuming you want the the first x10's bonus hero. If you want all three bonus heroes, then this is a very good deal, especially compared to gold chests.
Soul stones per 100 diamonds:
Average cost of a single soul stone in diamonds:
What if you're looking for a specific hero? Similar to Gold Chests, your chances are: ( (1 - (1 - [number of heroes you're interested in] / [total number of heroes]) ^ [number of chests opened]) ) * 100) %
But these chests are complicated, because of the bonus heroes in the “buy 10” offers. So to save myself some pain, I'll just calculate one simple case: when the only heroes you want are the three bonus heroes, and there are 75 heroes total.
Bonus hero soul stones per 100 diamonds, when buying 35 chests:
(7.757*27/75*3 + 120) / 1791 * 100/3
Average cost of a bonus soul stone in diamonds, when buying 35 chests:
Fine. One more case – what if you're only looking for the first x10 bonus hero? Then you just want to buy the first x10 and forget the rest.
Based on what I've seen come out, I'm assuming that all results of 10 or lower become 10.
Cost: 220 for one, 1980 for 10.
The pay-to-play chest! This is the only way to get boss soulstones, but you'll be paying 284 diamonds per stone. This chest has the worst or close to the worst odds for everything it offers, making it the worst chest there is, unless you're forced to buy it to get boss stones.
Per chest:
Per 100 diamonds when buying 10 chests:
(per chest)*10/19.8
If your goal is to get a specific reward, here's the average cost in diamonds when buying 10 chests at a time.
1/((per chest)*10/19.8/100)
The 5x chest costs 1350 diamonds, and gives you a 4* rune which can be used as 30 points of fusion, along with 4 other items. The stone shrine gives you a minimum of 5 points of fusion for 100 diamonds, or 60 diamonds in those rare shrine sales. Based on shrines, a point of empowering is worth 20 diamonds (12 diamonds on sale). A 4* rune (38 fusion points) therefore costs 760 diamonds (456 on sale). If you're going to fuse it into another rune, it's worth 600 diamonds (360 on sale).
Let's assume the 4* rune you get is going to get fused, and subtracting that value. Now the 5x chest gives you 4 random items for 750 diamonds (or 990 based on the sale price). I haven't bought enough of them to know whether it's worth it. If you only buy shrines when they're on sale, probably not. If you buy shrines at other times, my guess is that you break even.
Now some rune chests have a guaranteed 4* rune for the first “Buy 1.” These are absolutely worth it! 300 diamonds for 30 points of fusion is only 10 per point, which is much better than a shrine, even on sale.
Example
Last time I bought the 5x, I got a useless 4* rune, four stone shrines, and 12 offerings. The stone shrines are worth 5 fusion points, and the offerings are worth 1, so I got a total of 30+12+4×5 = 62. At the non-sale price, that's 1240 diamonds worth, so it was at a loss.