A common choke point for players in Umamusume: Pretty Derby is the various types of resources the game requires for different types of upgrades, and the fact that these resources are not easy to collect or readily explained. One of the most common questions I’ve seen new players ask about the game is: “What’s the difference between Potential Levels and Star Levels”, often coming after they’ve sunk an unfortunate amount of monies and materials into a Potential Level in the hope that it will help them train a better racer. The reality is that while Umamusume: Pretty Derby has fairly serviceable tutorials for many things, the enhancement of trainees is not one of them, which can cause a fair amount of frustration at what seems like wasted resources, and thus wasted time.
In this guide, we’ll talk about what Potential Levels and Star Levels are, what they do, and how you can go about raising both of them, as well as whether you should be leveling Potentials, and which trainees are important to prioritize Potential Levels for over others. We’ll also cover how to collect star pieces and how they can help you unlock new or improved versions of your trainees, and how to prepare for Legend Races in order to maximize your ability to collect these valuable materials without wasting Monies (First free tip: stop buying them from Tazuna’s shop).
If you need any refreshers, we have guides for Career Mode, Support Decks, Inheritance Sparks, PVP Training, and More as well, so if you’re seeing UM for the first time, check those out for help with other questions you may have! And if you’ve got questions about UM, we’d love to hear them! Drop us comments below or even email me at marcy@goonhammer.com!
Potential Level Versus Star Level
The first thing to understand about Potential Level and Star Level relates to something that makes Umamusume: Pretty Derby slightly different from other games with role-playing or management qualities is that you don’t directly improve trainees through either of them. Since training eventual Veterans happens in Career mode through the combination of Support Decks, Inheritances, and the Career results itself, each individual trainee’s basic form starts at a static place. Both Potential Level and Star Level can impact this eventually in their own distinct ways. Put simply, Potential Level affects innate Skills that your trainee has access to, and Star Level affects their starting stats. However, there is one specific difference: At Star Level 3, all Trainees gain an upgraded version of their Unique Skill, changing it from a more generic version to a vastly improved one. Aesthetically, Star Level 3 trainees also race in their unique racing gear, rather than the default uniform you’ll see on 1 and 2 star trainees.
While both Levels have benefits to increase, Star Levels have the most ‘immediate’ benefit by improving base stats. However, some Trainees have desirable skills locked behind their Star Levels, meaning that you’ll need to be familiar with both and realize what Potential Levels are worth taking, and what you’ll need to do to unlock them. You can’t accidentally waste resources from one to the other, in that you cannot use the same resources, but you can certainly waste resources with Potential Levels if you do not absolutely require the skills that are unlockable from them. The most important reminder, again: Star Levels increase stats and Unique Skills, Potential Levels unlock new innate skills.
Star Shine Get
Star Levels are simpler to explain in detail, so we’ll start there. Each Umamusume is assigned a specific Star Level when you first obtain them. Silver or Rare Umamusume are 1 star, Gold or Super Rares are 2 star, and Rainbow or Super Secret Rares are 3 stars. No matter what level you obtain them at, no Umamusume will arrive higher than 3 star, so you’ll have to work to raise that level anyway. As I mentioned in earlier guides, Umamusume’s base stats generally mean that any trainee can be competitive with smart training, a good deck, and inheritances, and this is especially true if you level up some of the starting units to 2 or even 3 Stars; in fact, most of the Rare Umas like Agnes Tachyon and Mejiro Ryan become ideal parents to raise once they reach 3 Stars due to the increased power of their Uniques, making them great for inheritances.
Star Pieces are the primary currency to level up Star Levels, and they can be obtained in a few ways. Every time a trainee is pulled from a Banner, they give Star Pieces, which are related to their base Star Level: 1 and 2 Stars give 5 and 10, while 3 Stars give 60 pieces. Aside from pulling on Banners, Star Pieces can also be purchased from a few of the in game shops. These all use in-game currencies, so there’s no way to “buy” Star Pieces with real money transactions, instead using the bespoke currency of that particular shop. Tazuna’s Daily Shops, which can happen 3 times a day, will offer Star Pieces of random trainees you already own, ranging in cost of 5,000 Monies or 15,000 Monies. I cannot stress enough that unless this single Star Piece was the difference between you levelling a trainee to 3 Star or higher or not, these are never worth the cost, especially not 15,000 Monies for a single Star Piece.
The more direct way to buy them is through the Goddess Statue shop. Every time you pull on trainee banners, you’ll get extra Goddess Statues that can be exchanged for Star Pieces. The first 25 of a trainees stars you buy are 1 statue, the next 25 are 2, and so on, rising by one every 25 pieces until the 5th batch. It often isn’t exactly worth it to throw all of your statues into levelling a Star Level alone, but if you are close or wish to really get a trainee to 3 stars and haven’t had a chance to do many pulls, it can be the best option to obtain their ideal form. Everything after that just adds “more”, and sometimes you don’t need to win more, unless you’re very, very dedicated to a single trainee.
Legend Races
The best way to earn Star Pieces, however, is to participate in Legend Races. Legend Races happen periodically for around 3 days, giving players 3 chances a day to participate in them. The first run of the day will give 7 Star Pieces, and winning gives extra bonuses of a few pieces, as does your first ever win in the Legend race. After that, Winning or Losing nets you Star Pieces for the racer you’re challenging, meaning that 2 very good runs of a Legend Race is often enough to unlock a 3 Star Legend, providing you win all of your races and are patient enough for their races to rerun. This is also a great way to earn pieces for lesser rarity trainees, usually helping push 1 and 2 Star Trainees up a level and helping you earn their full kit faster.
Legend Races work much like Daily Races, Team Trials, and PVP, meaning that you challenge them with Veterans. One of the first things player learned in Global when the Legend Races debuted is that many of the trainees they had who easily cleared career mode were getting absolutely rinsed by Legends, and stats–especially length and turf style–can have a huge impact on the outcome. Often, Legend Racers are B or B+ in terms of Stats, meaning that a fairly competitive trainee is needed to conquer them. It can also be important to check their skills to see what you’ll be running against; while they are made for you to win and overcome, keep in mind that they also can help you get 3 star trainees without having to pull for them, so they do tend to have a fairly decent difficulty curve! As a final note, you can’t run the same racer as the Legend, so you’ll need to ensure you have multiple options to challenge Legends with, otherwise you may find yourself unable to compete if you’ve only backed one Uma!
Star Light, Star Bright: An Example Upgrade
Once you’ve completed enough Legend Races, collected Star Pieces, or otherwise assembled enough of them, you can level a trainee using them to improve their stats and Unique skill. As an example, let’s take a look at Curren Chan here. My Curren Chan is Star Level 3, meaning that she already has her base Unique, #LookatCurren, at Rainbow level 1, and her stats are fairly even across the board (aside from her Stamina). As I have 166 Star Pieces, I’m only 34 away from getting her to Star Level 4, meaning that I could easily get her up a Star Level by purchasing some extra pieces with saved up Goddess Statue currency. The game helpfully shows me all of her improved stats and changes, namely that her Unique now begins at Lvl 2, but also that (aside from Stamina) all of her stats jump a letter grade, from G+ to F.
While this Upgrade helps my Curren Chan’s next Career, it doesn’t impact any previous runs I’ve done with her, so keep in mind that Star Level upgrades (and Potential Level upgrades) are not retroactive; if you unlock a new level of either, you’ll need to run a new Career to reap the possible benefits. That said, it becomes obvious that I’ll have a far easier time training Curren Chan on my next run, as the overall straight +10 to stats is equal to about 5 days of training in every category. Even for her most lacking stat, Stamina, +10 is quite a big jump that means I will have to spend a little less time shoring up that weakness in training, able to better focus on her primary stats (Speed and Power), and ensuring that I likely have less to worry about from her initial performance in early races from the boost.
Realistically, the goal in most cases with Star Level priority is to get 1 and 2 Star Trainees to 3 Star; after that, you’re mostly just looking to either “win more”, or show off that you are really, really devoted to a single Trainee by having them burst out of the gate with a LVL 5 or 6 Unique skill. But, who doesn’t want to show their love for their favorite racer, right?
Potential Levels, Potential Problems
The other way to upgrade your trainees permanently is through Potential Levels, which are a little less easy to understand than Star Levels. While Star Levels give flat stat boosts and better Unique skill levels, Potential Levels are a little more nebulous. They provide new unlocked skills that your trainee CAN have access to learning in a campaign, but are not guaranteed to learn, as you have to decide to spend Skill Points on them. Each Trainee has 5 Potential Levels, and each one costs an increasingly steep amount of in-game currencies like Monies, Shoes, Banners, and Dream Glimmers.
The problem with Potential Levels for new trainers is that it becomes easy to potentially waste resources on them, thinking that they’re always necessary. In most cases, skills unlocked by Potential Level are things that help your racer perform potentially better, but many of the skills that provide the most benefit come at Potential 5, which requires heavy investment. Sometimes, trainees get skills that don’t even directly match their preferred styles of racing, instead providing alternatives that are only viable through inheritance upgrades, or are used to pass to heirs who may benefit from the skills instead.
The main currency used for Potential Levels is Monies. Aside from that, other collectible currencies involved include Shoes, Banners, and Dream Glimmers. Potential Level 1 to Level 2 isn’t that bad: 20,000 Monies and 15 of a specific type of shoe (usually corresponding to the type or distance of preferred racing), which is why it becomes easy to simply assume Potential Levels are worth investing in all the time. While Potential Level 2 or even 3 are “affordable” and easy, Level 4 and above become real roadblocks, demanding 100,000 Monies and multiple race banners.
Unlike Shoes, which can be obtained pretty easily from Daily Races, Team Trial rewards, Event roulettes, career race wins, or requesting them from members of your club (if you belong to one), banners are far harder to obtain in large quantities. Banners are obtained by winning specific races, generally G2 or higher, and can only regularly be obtained by challenging those races in Career Mode. At best, you’ll likely obtain 2 copies of a banner in a single run (winning the race provides you 2), and sometimes if you schedule extra races, you can obtain more if the race is challengeable twice. At Potential 5, however, the requirement balloons by another 100k, a whopping 40 of a specific banner or more, and Dream Glimmers, which are a generally limited resource that are obtained rarely for completing challenge goals or daily races, as event prizes, and sometimes distributed by the game as login rewards.
Be Sure to Read the Package
While Star Levels are desirable in almost all situations in which you can easily achieve them, Potential Levels can be far more difficult to decide on. In some cases, they’re great and provide extra flexibility and depth to a racer’s kit. Narita Taishin’s Potential 5 Skill, Encroaching Shadow, is an amazing skill that truly unlocks her power as an End Closer racer and one of the better racers in certain Challenge Meets. The investment to get there also rewards you with a unique, personal Gold healing skill, deepening her kit. While not superior to a skill like Swinging Maestro (what is, really), it still gives options for building her that make her slightly more self-reliant on what her innate skills bring to the table, and thus what you need to consider for Inheritances and Support Deck construction.
On the other hand, Mejiro Ryan has a fairly odd set of Potential Level skills that make it difficult to consider spending resources on her kit. The Potential 3 Skill, Killer Tunes, states that it increases positioning ability when towards the front mid-race in Medium races. This skill is 160 skill points–a big investment–and mostly provides the potential to be better positioned; it provides no velocity, acceleration, or healing, and positional abilities can be iffy even if they do activate (remember, Skill activation is determined by Wit and is never 100%). Ryan’s level 5 ability, Rising Dragon, can be useful but only if you place her into Late Surger, as it is locked to Style; again, while this could be situationally valuable, it may not be worth all of the resources to get it.
A good rule of thumb on Potential Levels is to consider if the skill directly impacts the way you like to play the trainee; if the skill doesn’t seem to match the playstyle you like to shoot for, then it may not be worth trying to unlock; in Ryan’s case, for example, if you don’t tend to run her as a Late Surger, it may be a waste of resources. Meanwhile, for Narita Taishin, her End Closer style makes her Potential 5 skill very enticing and helps her get wins, meaning that the investment is worth it if you plan on training her long-term and using her for numerous challenges.
Final Considerations
The final thing to consider in regards to either level is if you want to invest in the trainee or not. While every trainee is viable in Umamusume, taste and preference are going to play a huge role in how much enjoyment you get out of investing time and in-game resources into raising their levels. Generally, Star Levels are worth investing in to get Trainees to Level 3, because this gives them access to the Rainbow version of their Unique Skill, which then becomes far more effective both in their own races, and when passed on to new generations of Umas if they’re used as a parent.
Beyond that, Star Level 4 or 5 are likely not worth pursuing outside of working towards them slowly. Legend Races happen frequently enough that you can look to build your collection of Star Pieces from that, and while pulling dupes from banners doesn’t always feel great, it can at least be useful to get your Star Levels up when or if it does happen. And, if you don’t own the racer at all, Legend Races are an amazing way to freely earn new trainees as long as you are patient and collect a steady supply of Star Pieces; the reason I was even able to get Curren Chan to Star Level 4 was because of the Star Pieces from pulling her from her Banner, and then winning the rest from her Legend Race event, only needing a few exchanges to get the last 35 I needed. As a final note: Different versions of characters do NOT share Star Pieces. This isn’t exactly explained at first, but the current example of this in the game right now is Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen and their “Anime” counterparts, but just remember that the characters are all unique, even if they are the ‘same’ Uma!
As for Potential Levels, those are going to be far harder to discern quickly. Just remember: if the skill doesn’t seem like it impacts the way you like to train the horse to race, then you should save your resources. Even 20k Monies can be the difference between levelling a Support Card you need or not, so wasting it on a Potential Level just to “do it” can feel very foolish when you realize you’ll have to wait a day or two to get that card you need levelled. Monies aren’t always easy to come by or collect, so don’t waste it!
Invest in Your Future
By better understanding Star Levels and Potential Levels, you can ensure that your trainees are growing to match your playstyle and how you want to approach the game. Very likely if you’ve been playing since launch, you’ve settled into a few specific trainees that you prefer over the others; in this case, you may want to put some resources into their Star Levels (especially if they are 1 or 2 star, such as Sakura Bakushin O or Gold Ship), and beyond that, their Potential Levels if their skills match your preferred play style. If you’re a newer player, this information is more useful once you’ve completed a few runs of Career; none of this will really matter during your early Career clears, and is instead mostly helpful for fine tuning your trainees to become more and more useful Veterans and Parents.
By this point, if you’ve been following our guides on Career Mode, Support Decks, Inheritance Sparks, and even PVP, Potential Levels and Star Levels will help you start to really fine tune some long-lasting trainees that you can clear almost any challenge with and then work towards even higher goals as the game evolves, with the second career scenario likely looming on the horizon in the next few months. Until then, remember to spend your resources wisely and that it never hurts to save anything in this game, whether it be Carats, Monies, or Banners; even shoes are more valuable to save than frivolously give away!
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