Getting Started: All runs are NG+, so the first step is to complete story mode on normal and hard for yourself. This gives you access to every map for grinding character levels. The best map for EXP is the second to last map of Arc 3, the boss fight. Timing starts when "Dragon Ball FighterZ" appears (for Arc 1) or "Chapter 1" appears (Arcs 2 and 3).

Player Skills: An important part of runs is having the proper player skills for your play style. Each encounter has its own rewards, and the highest level player skills can be found in Arc 3 Hard Mode maps. Search for encounters with a "KO Bonus" of the skill you are looking for. Be careful not to mix up skills, which have unique icons, with bonuses to end-of-match rewards. These look like a curved green arrow. Common setups use "Attack Power Up" and "Sp. Attack Power Up" at their maximum level of 6. "Victory EXP Up" can help with getting characters to level 100.

Map Encounters: Each map in every chapter of every arc has a base set of encounters which are always present. Each map has additional encounters for every blank space on the map with a random chance at adding these encounters to the map upon every map load. Each encounter's chance is independent, meaning you can end up with a map with every space filled with an encounter if your luck is that bad. This can subtract from runs tens of minutes of time loss, but CAN be manipulated through hitting "Retry" in the pause menu. On normal mode this method is encouraged, but may not make as much difference on hard mode. This is due to the increased chance at adding encounters after a fight.

General Strategies: Similar to Arcade Mode, the goal is to end each fight in as few hits as possible rather than flashy combos. This gives added purpose to "Attack Power Up" skills since they scale much better than special moves. Also carrying over from arcade is the AI's general inability to deal with superdashing from a distance. If you try this up close it is common to be reflected, blocked, or out framed. Outside of each fight, the goal for moving across the map is to encounter as few fights as possible. Whether through retrying a map with bad encounter numbers from the start or just taking out of the way paths to get around fights, each encounter skipped can save minutes in load times alone. If the fight itself has bad block RNG this time cost only increases.

Take this guide as a good starting point to develop your routes, character choices and strategy. Be aware that any characters earned during an arc will be re-locked upon starting a new game for that arc.