I could see two ways handling event fairies. Go with the option you suggested as one, where they are eventually put into some re-release system, but that crafting, blackmarket or random mini events. The other option is to essentially have them be different skins of existing crafted fairies when they get a game changing ability. So higher ranking at certain thresholds means you can get a good meta fairy ability earlier and for less investment on a 5* fairy or again just as stat sticks. From what I've read, para's aura is really good, but there are a few fairies now that are on par with it or fairly close, so chances are decent that it's unlikely to be the difference between two peoples score. If someone uses command on an anti-deathstack echelon, while someone else uses a spare para (we'll assume debuff isn't present), any differences in score are likely going to be a result of RNG or skill, assuming everything else is equal.
Anyways, the idea of 4 paras is already making cringe. Granted, I've got several 4* now, so I'm closing to hitting the point where fairies beyond the typical four fodder can go into paras. I need to see if we need two illumination fairies, if not, once the first one hits 5*, I'll probably feed illumination dupes to paras until they are 3* and then feed the second illumination again, which is currently 3*. Taunt dupe is probably the only, non-para dupe that I want to get to 5* ASAP. Airstrike dupe can wait, regret investing in that one somewhat. Also still need combo fairy, so I guess if could just go with the recipe that will get me shot at both that one and paras.
Edit: Also anyone else having issue with the game just closing out on its own with no user input? It was a sporadic occurrence starting few months ago, but now it seem super frequent. Not sure if that is memory bleed issues or if there is something stupid with bluestacks causing it.
These past few ranking maps I've only really needed one illum fairy, and I kinda regret fielding two this time. Generally I think it has been worth the points to withdraw and redeploy a single illum echelon to spectate everything given the huge conga lines that we've had the past few rankings. However, two illums were useful in singularity ranking when the meta approach was to setup both a north and a south paradrop without the benefit of a conga line that lets the illum team rotate around the entire map.
The stance that I took with my illums was to get both to 2* and then start investing in the primary one. It doesn't take much to get a fairy to 2*, and IMO that's worth the investment to get it over 1* for situations where the echelon needs to fight.
I'm not sure if I'll chase a 4th paradrop fairy or not during the next fairy rate up. The thought of burning all of those skill points on ANOTHER strategic fairy, and quadruple dupe at that churns my stomach a bit. There are dolls that I'd rather build up.
Not to mention the intermediate and advance data. Sure you're probably sitting at the spot I am, where you're getting non-meta dolls skilled up or getting stuff to SL10, and it's either never going to see use or do that much for you. It still nice to have a deep roster, so that if something gets changed last minute in a weird way, it becomes more of "I'm glad I invested in this unit because it's useful now."
I also don't really want to dump resources into more paras because I know I need to sit down and get my HoCs setup better. I think 2B only has 149 lethality and I could get that higher if I can get the game to give me the right chips. That said, powerup the chip is going to cost tons of resources and I'll probably end up needing calibration tickets. I really wish they would fix the most obnoxious part of HoC's, which requires third party support or a ton of personal time, but I think they keep delaying because they fell into the sunk cost fallacy and probable also suffer from the trolley problem. The sunk cost fallacy is likely going to be the chip tetris, they probably put in a ton of work and foolishly thought players wouldn't min/max and to make chips a choice, that likely needs to go. The trolley problem is they probably are worried about players getting butthurt because all the time and resources put into HoCs just went poof. I think they focus too much on that because this is a very F2P friendly game and basic resources aren't that hard to get and I doubt many many whales that might be upset by such a change, bothered to spend really money on data samples because the consensus was that you'd be pissing money away to buy those off the shop or any packages that were all about "look at the data samples." Also by trolley problem, I'd argue they picked the worst solution, the one where you loop it back on to the lone person on the separate track, so that everyone gets screwed.
I forget if I mentioned it earlier or not, but there is another rateup for CAWS that started today and is continuing through the 24th it looks like. I guess it's related to her getting a costume? I suppose one could consider splurging what's left of their post-ranking resources on another attempt to get her. Although IIRC there may be a general rateup after new years sometime in January? It might be wiser to save for fairy crafting.
Yeah, only did two heavy rolls. The consolidation prize was a Mosin Nagant and Kar, so 8 cores for my fairy habit. Could have done more, but want to build resources back up and do that while still fishing for fairies. I really need to get a rescue to roll native damage II or fervor talent because I'm up to 8 of them sitting around. Granted close tot he point where if I get a few more and the talents are garbage, I'll just feed them to which ever one I can best line up talents to maximize the leveling (right now accuracy 1 looks to be the best bet, since two of them have it. So feed one to the other, reroll and feed any fairies that have a matching talent to the reroll. Repeat until I'm out or I get a good talent. Pretty sure that's enough rescues to get 3* and be fairly close to 4*).
Also need to decide what I'm going to do with my beach fairy dupes. Sounds like only one is needed and the other deathstack farm echelon in the next ranking will have landmine. I'm just hoping that duping isn't required here, with luck we'll get KSVK MOD because IIRC she has setups for killing deathstacks. I probably should consider fishing for combo, since I think her recipe has a chance to get landmine or go for the recipe that has a chance of landmine, para and combo. I already have 3 landmines, but want to see if I can get one with a decent talent natively before consolidating them into one fairy.
Anyways, worth noting that currently we're two major story events behind now with polarized light next and then dual randomness. Granted next major event is Division collab, so a chance they'll get the next story event out before we get dual randomness, but likely not before we get PL. Also haven't heard any mentions of collabs, so good chance that the order of major events is going to Division Collab, followed by PL and then DR, but that could change easily.
Finally, I saw some talk on reddit, where it looks like they are getting SPEQs for the monthly login instead of t-dolls. I was curious when we'd hit a point of that happen because you can only have so many units before it starts to get to be an issue and power creep hasn't really favored 3* dolls, which all the log in ones have been. Throw in how all the login dolls are drops in major campaign maps and thus farmable 24/7 after a certain point and there isn't an option to re-offer them. Will be interesting to see if this will be the new trend, it's not exactly an awful idea, since SPEQs could help make weaker dolls more useful. Will be interesting to see if these move to drops like the login dolls or if they intend to set thing ups to have them be reran as login rewards. Though with three slots, I'm pretty sure they could get great mileage out of this. Though have to wonder when they might have to pull a page from Azur Lane and start giving people furniture as the monthly login.
Well rate up is going about how I expected it. Ignored the one for general t-dolls because there is nothing left there for me as a no duper. the general equip one has been meh thus far, was hoping to get some gold HV, but all I've gotten so far is one gold AP and one gold silencer. I know I've got space for more gold silencer and I think I might be in need of more gold AP once DR rolls around. Slow rolling it because well rate-ups for equips are a crap shoot when you need certain items. Maybe I'll get at least one gold HV before the rate up ends today, maybe. I know at some point, I'll have to start rolling for cloaks but HV ammo and exos are kind of the priority right now. HP ammo and PEQs are at the bottom of the list for me right now.
Debating how I want to go about heavy doll construction. Don't know if I'll do just one roll or do two because the chances of getting an SG are crap, what I'm missing in SGs isn't too far into the meta and well they don't play a big part in game play for the next two events IIRC. Also heavy production for SGs is pretty awful both on costs and drops. Plus, the resources are probably better spent on fairies. On fairies, I'm debating on what recipe I want to go for because I do plan on getting another para or two. Just don't know if I should go with the recommended para recipe or go for a recipe that will give me a shot at para and combo, still don't have a single combo fairy.
Anyways, chapter 12 drops this month and 12-4E is going to be the big core and xp grind map. At some point, I need to get K11 raised to be my second dps because apparently she beats SOPMOD and Uzi for clearing the trash. Apparently, the dps order is 416 mod 2 (she is advantaged on this map) > K11 > SOPMOD > Uzi. So I'll probably use the map to get 416 and Uzi to 120. Tanks are pretty much either SGs or M16, but outside of 5* armor fairy, you can't reduce damage on M16 to 1.
Finally, I wouldn't go wild on getting landmine fairy for anyone that doesn't have it, same deal with rocket fairy (just why PL?). EN is getting a tweak to scoring where we only get 10% of CE on defeated enemy echelons. AKA Mika is changing things so that if you weaken an enemy with landmine, rocket, map provided items or environment stuff, you don't get 10% of it's original CE, you get 10% of it's current CE. In short, EN is going to have to figure out a new strategy for running up the score in PL's ranking. Sadly, this probably means that those willing to do a shit ton of resets will have an advantage because the deathstacks can be killed without weakening them, but it's really reset heavy and I think that does advantage dupers because I want to say Kord is mandatory for the fight, though I'm hoping KSVK might be a possible replacement. Though I'm hoping EN sees another tweak to the map that negates the need for strategies that have to contend to heavy amounts of resets (Mica really should work towards getting a rid of such a need because that isn't good for the game).
I'll need to check but I want to say the new HoC is considered slightly better than AGS once she is fully raised or on equal footing. Worth noting that we'll be seeing less shielded enemies that need shield breaks. This ends up being bad for BGM because that makes here less relevant, given she has the downside of only two range. So you could in theory get a map where you only get 4 or 5 HoCs and QLZ ends up getting a spot because she is more useful than BGM because of enemy composition. Granted BGM has some of the best enemy structure killing ability, but that's only good if it saves you resources and doesn't cost you movement points. Plus, it would have to be a significant amount of resources to be worth it. AT4 actually has a shield breaking niche that BGM can't cover well. She also does better at trash clearing than BGM, BGM hits things hard but she doesn't hit that much with each shot. The HOC we get for theaters 5 & 6 might put BGM out of job on any ranking maps where we can't use them all and either don't need shield breakers or do need an HOC that can absolutely crush shields the way BGM can. That set of theaters gives us another TOW, which is what AT4 and BGM are, but that TOW has a range of three.
All that said, I doubt we get Theater 4 before PL and I'm pretty sure PL doesn't give us the option to have all HoCs out. So QLZ is probably staying at home for that map.
On another note, got a chip calculator up. I hate HOC chips even more now because it proves that you can't really set them up well unless you have lots of tools to see where everything falls. Maybe a 7th of what I had in enhanced chips saw use between the 5 HOCs I have and setting chip sets for the future HoCs when they are at 5*. Couldn't get AT4 or set for the future MK153 (I believe that's the name) at 100% optimization, both ended up being 2 precision points short on that setup, but frankly that's good enough that I don't care to see if I can fish for a more optimal setup, given that precision tends to be a dump stat anyways. So with all HoC used chips and designated chips for future HoCs locked. Once fairy rate-up is done, I can start getting BGM, 2B and AT4 setup with fully enhanced chips. Any chips I have are fair game at this point, if they are locked when it comes to fodder stuff. Probably months out from when Mica will announce HoC #8 and we're probably a year out from getting it. So I can build up the 5* chip stockpile again. Also banking that they'll revisit the whole chip setup because it's fuck awful. I just want to point out that on some stuff I had to wait over a day for the app to process all options for chips, when I was at over 300 and still had two HoCs that couldn't hit full optimization. I also have sneaking suspicion that there are others who had many more chips than me that also fell short of that mark.
Yeah, I decided to go for slightly less optimal this week. Might switch the doggo I ran with out for the snapping turtle later. The midmission stuff is actually pretty rewarding and I could use more data, tickets and meme fragments.
I will suggest that people that want to mix/max HoCs get the chip calculator sooner rather than later. I know I haven't been the best at getting the intelligence quests done every time, probably sitting at a 99.5% or competition rate. Add in some missed crates from one of the story events. Anyways, I have run out of blue chips that aren't either being used for a current HoC or locked away for the future TOW HoC we'll get with theater 5 & 6. Granted, AT4 only has one chip not at max at this point and that's sitting at enhancement 10. BGM has 3/7 chips at full enhancement, one at 10 and the rest at 19. Don't know if I'll get them to a point where they have maxed out their stats by the time I really need to push things in theater. With luck, they'll both be similar to 2B, which has all the stats she is going to get, unless overage somehow gives one armor pierce, and of the six chips she has two are at 19, while another is at 18. I've gotten all the stats I can out of her.
I suspect the same will probably play out with at least BGM where there isn't a need to get all her chips to max enhancement to get all the stat I'm going to get out of the chips. I'd get the one chip with reload on 2B that is 19 to 20 if it gave me that last point of reload, bad sadly it doesn't.
M2 isn't in bad shape, of the 7 chips that the calculator picked out for here. Five already have some level of enhancement. Ranges are 13, 15, 17, 18 and 19. So probably won't be too bad to get her maxed before PL. AGS also isn't terrible with 2 of 7 chips maxed and another at 19. Also haven't really burned any of the enhanced chips not being used, so I can probably get her squared away for PL as well. Anyways, one definitely can afford to redo chips that often now if you want all your HoCs at the best they can be. I feel bad for new players because not only is doom tetris awful, I can already see how HoCs might end up being a bigger barrier of entry than fairies. Fairies are straight forward. One thing HoCs do have going for them, is they don't have the BS rng with calibration that fairies have.
Anyways, tomorrow should be fun. Less so because of the next theater and more of the fact that we're getting the griffin memories system. So more fluff if people wanted that. Need to see what all the rewards are, I think the last time I saw stuff for it was the huge data dump around the last Christmas of the before times in 2019. So they might have changed a few things because I don't think that was the complete version that got release. I want to say it might have some annoyances, but the rewards have value even for people that just care about min/maxing. I want to say it had benchmarks that would rewards things like cores, data and a few other things.
Well, I did my theater for the day. I'm not planning on putting too much thought into the backstabbing mind games. For what its worth, like last time, I will adopting the "RUSH B!!!" tactic. It worked surprisingly well last time and almost had my teams in the top 100 for total score. But since it's not something realistically within my control, I'm not going to waste much energy on it.
I almost forgot my way around the UI. I forgot that the advanced zone was open today until I did a sanity check after doing my opening round against the easy zone for the support bonus.
Finally, I acquired Liberator. Think lesson learned here is to just farm up a shit ton of cores and t-doll contracts and go with T2 or T3 crafts. I'll stick with heavy construction until I get DP-12. If I don't have CAWS by the time I pull her or get her via core mask, then she'll just have to wait till the next core mask. Once I get DP-12 from the weekly pull, I'm not going to bother with heavy t-doll crafting because it sucks.
As usually GFL is doing there theater betting thing. For those not in the know, just fill out the CBT form and pick a zone. It doesn't even need to be the zone you scouted. I recommend doing it because if you do it enough days, even if you whiff the results every time, you're still going to get some freebies.
Anyways did the Griffin Memories stuff. From what I can recall when they announced this way back when, in 2019, looks like they scaled back on some things. Guess they decided the skill idea, where certain skills would be available if you put the team together or some such wasn't feasible with their goals. Also a bit sad that the goodies don't seem to include data this time, maybe a future batch will have, but willing to bet it'll stay mostly as resources, t-doll construction tickets and quick construction tickets, with some cores thrown in at the end.
The story was amusing enough. You get some vanity rewards like a chibi custom item, some dorm furniture and profile stuff. Also get some basic resources, t-doll construction tickets, quick production tickets, some cores and a decent batch of expedition food for getting increased odds at midmission rewards and end mission currency rewards. Finally, you get some unique conversations if you use specific t-dolls pairs in the adjunct slot that lets you have two. This is surprising accessible. I'd have to see how many points one could get with just raising and using P38 and Spectre M4 and not doing anything that would cost gems or tokens. You're given a series of tasks to do that rewards points, but this is more or less an ala carte setup, so you can do the easy stuff and avoid things that would use gems and tokens. The two dolls mentioned earlier are the easies two to get out of the five. Probably the next easiest one to acquire would be Gr HK45, but that involves doing deep dive. Then you have Stechkin and Desert Eagle, one is a really rare crafted handgun and the other is in the time limited drop pool that gets cycled through for events. I wouldn't recommend this as something to do if one is still raising t-dolls or just started because the time spent on the two easiest units to acquire, P38 and Spectre M4, would be better used on units that are actually good. HK45 appears to be a low budget handgun that maybe some no dupers would raise, but if you dupe, she isn't really worth it. The two hardest to get in this batch are the two most useful ones. So unless someone got lucky on getting Stechkin & Desert Eagle and/or have HK45 and don't dupe, this is one thing that can really wait. That said, it's a decent chunk of basic resources, which could help someone if they need more for any reason. Also for the record, I got 500 points by only have all five at 100 affection. Stechkin at 100, Desert Eagle at 90 and the rest at 70. Then running through several of the combat tasks. I think one probably needs more than just Spectre M4 and P38 at lvl 100 with 100 affection and having done all the combat tasks with them paired up, but HK45 or one of the others might be enough to get 500 points and complete the 11 chapters.
My only two complaints with this fluff system. Is that the oath related tasks and custom acquisition tasks should be at the bottom of the list because I know a couple people got upset thinking this system required whaling, it doesn't. That said, it does make things easier for whales because you probably could get away with getting everything done if you just bother with raising Desert Eagle and Stechkin, maybe run a few battles with them paired up with one of the other three. The second complaint is that 3 cores at the end of the last chapter is a sucky reward. IMO I know they probably get a decent chunk of change off of people buy sim energy, but I would have given people 10 of each data, 5 calibration tickets and 5 memory fragments along with the three cores. It's not a ton, but it would be a decent trickle of those things for most players. Sure it isn't much for those things, but add in all the other sources and it would be worthwhile for most players.
Will be interesting to see how this new system is going to trip up beginner guides because even though the current one is absolutely terrible for beginners to bother with unless they get super lucky because they craft stetchkin and are on when desert eagle is a possible drop for something. We probably will get a time where the player is leveling the whole thing or should invest in them. Like I said, it's a decent chunk of resources that could be handy for jump starting stuff.
Welcome. Post your user ID and I can add that to the OP and people can send you friend requests. In a nutshell, your priorities are pretty much the following:
Rush through the first 6(?) chapters of the main story to cash in on the new player rewards that you get from completing them. If need be call in support echelons from your friends list, who will likely all be massively overleveled from the content and will often steamroll their way to the enemy HQ one turn at a time. Among other prizes, you'll receive the AR-Team members for completing these first few chapters. Unlike most gacha games, despite being welfare units the AR-Team are REALLY GOOD. Once upgraded with all of their bells and whistles, the AR-Team are S+ tier units that see near universal use in high end content. The only real exception is M16, who is more niche. M16 does currently hold the title of being the best tank for an exp grinding technique that is the most resource efficient way to grind exp.
Prioritize spending batteries on the expedition room since it will reward you with other goodies over time.
Invest in getting an ARSMG and a HG/RF team up and running first. Those two types of teams will cover most of your bases. The AR-Team is a good choice for your initial ARSMG team. M14, despite being a 3* unit, is also an S tier unit who sees a ton of use. Pair her with another rifle and a couple of handguns and they'll go far.
Fairies, HOCs (Heavy weapons teams that provide indirect fire support), and neural upgrades are late game resource sinks. They're not a priority concern for you right now.
Good luck partaking in the ongoing theater event. You should be able to rake in some points from the easier difficulty. The main goal is unlocking the new grenade launcher team. But you should be able to get along just fine even if you don't get her. She's going to enjoy a limited period of exclusivity of being a theater reward unit. Eventually she'll be added to the normal HOC crafting pool.
Post your investigation choices (or lie if you wish) to the google doc where the main english community is hosting an participation event thing. Backstabbing each other with investigation choices is kind of a tradition with theater mode. Whatever you choose, it's free resources.
Definitely do theater when you have access to it. You'll probably have to stick with the easier stages being a new player, but it'll be worth your while because you can still earn points for the point reward stuff which going to help you in the future. You'll probably be able to earn enough points, even doing the easier stages to get the new HOC unlocked. On that HOC, don't stress too much if you can't get all the point rewards because she is going to spend most of her time in the garage, since every other HOC will be a better choice than her in most situations. I think there are handful of cases where she'll be more useful than the TOWs (BGM & AT4, granted AT4's kit might put her ahead) and you'll have AGS, 2B and M2 deploy. Granted, since you're just starting out, you might unlock the new HOC as either your first one or second one. Also the thing Armchair linked, you could probably still hit at least tier 3 rewards if you're lucky with enough guess, maybe even tier 4, but any of those tiers is going to give you some useful rewards.
Something that is easy to miss and I did it as a new player. Check all the events, I think the newbie starter one is called frontline supplies, that will give you rewards one per day for 7 days. The catch is, that if you don't collect on the day the reward is offered, you won't be able to collect it on later days. This event doesn't require you to spend resources for those seven day rewards. IIRC M14 is the first day reward from that. Granted, I got screwed by that because I started late enough at night, that buy the time I got passed some of the initial tutorial stuff, the server had switched to the next day.
Definitely, list your user ID number. I have people on my friend's list that haven't played in months, that I can boot for new people.
Apparently I'm terrible with Android emulators, because not only is Bluestacks running like a pig on laptop, I'm also being looped over and over through my attempts at using my Google email account as needing to "this account needs screenlock security" or something.
Wish I could help but it's not really my wheelhouse. I have bluestacks and I'm not having issues, other than it being a resource hog, but again I got it setup a year ago. I really wish either MICA would make a client for GFL or Microsoft would setup their OS so that emulators weren't needed.
So not sure how many people on this board still play and aren't informed of stuff coming down the pipeline.
We get chapter 12 next week, 12-4E is going to be both the new xp grind map and core farming map for people that are at end game and have the stuff to run it that way. Also the chapter exclusive drop, is a 4* direct fire SMG. Given the nature of all the other ones, most of which are time limited drops that get cycled in. This could be a solid boon for newer player that need one. I need to see if I can track down any information on how people have rated her. Though worth noting she wants position 2 spot, so always possible we get a new meta or semi-meta unit that makes us want an SMG there and that could make her very relevant.
Also Mica did a live stream of upcoming stuff. None of this has dropped on the Chinese server yet, so anyone's guess on when we get it. Though based on when the last two collabs dropped and the lag between clients. I'd estimate we'll probably see most of this stuff 1-3 months after it drops on CN servers. Obvious it'll be much longer for story related things because we haven't caught up yet. Might get an odd thing or two that gets delayed for some reason or another. Link to someone's translation of the live stream. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e5lrldF3Gr7TXkfCv1Y1XShTOmsVgzPXwE7j_4Om5_E/preview?pru=AAABd04oemU*JOomLuNs5euQCE5NJxrmlQ#
Things of note:
-New human adjuncts.
-Yes, you can have Kryuger looking over your shoulder now.
-Image change to store and inventory pages
-Warehouse will do a better job telling people how to get in game items.
-Store will now show costumes and chibi in the store.
-All costume packs before 2020 will no be on the store permanently.
-After a year, each new pack will get added permanently to the store.
-Old banner will not go into the radiant collection and will be released as separate banners (not sure that means we'll see a slow down of new banners be added because old one are getting rerun or if we'll see three banners up at a time: new, old rerun and radiant).
-We might finally get our custom simulator, so we can actually practice against stuff that is causing problems.
-Something for HOC central data, it's not clear what it really does. Assuming bone to ensure that as more HOCs get added, new players don't get bogged down with all their HOCs at 2* when they really need some of them to be at 5*.
-New minigame Raverbury Aeroplane Chess. Probably a ways off. I'm mixed on this one because PvP isn't my thing and they did mention this probably gets events and ranking tied to it. It might not be terrible depending on how they design it and ranking and events work out for it. Namely, will whaling be irrelevant because doll levels, gear, links and oaths don't matter and maybe outside of class, the only thing someone gets for unlock a doll is essential a skin. We'll see.
-The next story event, which people probably want to skip if they don't like spoilers.
-Another minigame, which is card flip. Will have a ranking system, but score is cumulative. Curious to see if tie events to this and what we might get out of it. They did state that they want it to be relaxing play, hence cumulative scoring, so if we do get rewards, expect it to be a completion thing and nothing really important tied to rank.
Finally, they are doing a GFL anime. Not sure when that will drop, depends on how long this has been in the works before getting announced, but want to say we're probably looking at a minimum of two years. They stated that they want this to draw in more female fans. So I'd wager they'll probably pull the commander from the manga and avoid the whole creepy affection system. I'm a little hyped for this because if they do a good job at sticking with the source material and do a great job with the action stuff, they could probably turn out a solid series. Granted, I've seen a ton of adaptions just end up being shit, so it might not pan out. Have to wonder if that's a big reason for why they mention reaching reaching out to the female audience, they figure if they push that hard they can avoid having the studio turn it into another shitty power fantasy centered around a male commander that has virtually no redeeming qualities, which is my big concern. IMO the best play Yuzhong could go for is to push hard for wanting to appeal to the female demographic because that will keep the story focused where it should be.
I was kind of hoping that we wouldn't reach the final stage so fast. I was hoping to be lazy and re-use yesterday's formations again. At least we're reaching the point where we'll pretty much stop having to edit the formations until the end of the event.
manwiththemachinegun, if you started playing, I hope that you got some score in during the earlier days of the event since the current selection of opponents are just a tad out of the league of what you can be expected to defeat at this stage in the game.
I like how I finally hit a point where the swap brute striker wave is easy enough to deal with. Seriously, until they redo how HOC chips work, getting a fully optimized 2B is worth it alone to have to use the chip calculator. Full optimization shows on other HoCs, but it really shines with 2B. Anyways, got swap brute striker waves down to where I'm not losing much HP. Except now, Minotaorus waves have replaced it as the most obnoxious wave to deal with. Still working out the best approach with RecceCenter waves, my hybrid formation has the issue where even if twin is active, KSG still gets bopped by the cynetis at the top. Next time I get them, I might try with my grape echelon, as long as 2B is active, I should be fine. Probably should do that, so that I'm not even tempted to use the fairy commands early on, twin speeds things up, but grape probably speeds things up even more.
Anyways, curious if today or tomorrow will be the last of Core 8 filtering people. I suspect there are a handful ahead of me that are able to get ugly core 8 clears and they are there because they've had incredibly luck with scouting, mine has been pretty garbage. Also figure tomorrow or Friday, will be when we get enough RNG that most of the lucksacks that have been running stuff that isn't quite up to snuff, get two runs that they brick on. Granted, with HGRF echelons being the big CE stack preference, I suspect we get less people that go overzealous on CE stacking and then get hosed by bad RNG on two waves. I think some might still be in a spot where SGMG will get them more CE, but most are probably in a spot where it's HGRF is the best option; especially, if they've been getting all the mods. I'm like 98 points behind the top ranker for total boss damage, not sure I can do much better at this point because most of my best options for me CE are kind of hard to get. I need more XP to get KSVK to 115 and her third mod. SV is at 67 and once I get her to a point where I can mod her, she is probably the biggest CE gain since that means I switch out a non-modded rf with her. I have some equips, mostly exos that could be enhanced further and like one rifle on a +3 scope, but given I think I might get KSVK to 115, I'd rather save resources for her speq. Don't know if I'll get into top 5% for total damage, I'm at 6% but it's whatever. I'll have to remember to not dawdle on the final day for clearing my two runs. I was at 3% yesterday and dropped to 7% today, granted a good chunk of that was not dumping mats down until I had 1K (I go with this because the scouting thing always pops up first thing in theater, so it's to cut down on menu hopping). I kind of suspect that things are close enough where I'm at, that running right after ceasefire might actually get one a bit higher than normal. We'll see how things go because I do suspect core 8 still has some room to knock some people down. Doubt I'll ever see top 100 in theater, it's a combo of not super great at kitting, terrible luck with scouting and not willing to whale and spend even more time on CE stacking. Still want to get in top 5% for total score because of the training data and HOC data.
Anyways, 12-4E is great for farming. Definitely a better core rate than 10-4E. Better xp with no penalty for mod unit nearing 120. Single turn as well, so less rations. Downside is you'll spend slightly more manpower since it's only 4 fights and I suspect it's going to a bit harder on parts for most. If one is willing to dupe 416 mod 3 and her two speqs, then it'll be very cheap on mats (not willing to do so). I have mine at 115 with both speqs maxed and there are like two waves where she'll kill everything before it gets a chance to do much.
I need to revise my minotaur echelon since it isn't clearing them clean enough. I haven't had issues with Rec centers, although I suppose my top shotgun has been getting lovetapped. I could always just retreat her immediately I suppose.
Currently I'm running my anti-Uhlan group for the rec centers. Kar98/QBU/Pasta/FP6/Jill, although a handgun that can actually shoot would probably be better for this fight. They're using a twin fairy but I'm not using the twin skill for the fight. I haven't tried that fight without HOC support, but I usually have AT4 providing support. Those lingering flames mess up the little ball dudes right after they spawn. I think that the shotguns with night vision gear are mopping up the rest of the little balls.
Yeah, either 2B or AT4 with decent chips will keep the pathfinders under control. M2 probably works too. Maybe even AGS. I've been using my anti uhlan team against gundams, which works well enough, granted I need more good cloaks because I've had to do two resets on that fight given my rifles are NTW and Type88 in that team and I only have to do that when it's just BGM as the only HOC. As for handgun, I've been using Calico because she doesn't just provide more CE stacking, the move speed buff has been great for moving the SGs around if I need to do so. This makes them a non-issue against Gundams, since I can get them out of the way without having to retreat. Also got ot say, it's nice to have BGM at a point where a single shot from her eats an entire gundam shield.
Actually, getting some more gold cloaks would probably do wonders for my theater stuff in regards to CE stacking, probably need to shuffle a cloak or two around for main team or just refine some of the cloaks I have.
Anyways, only issue with the recce centers and it might just be for echelons with an SG at the friend is that top SG getting lovetapped. It's not enough to lose a link outright but it's a sizable chunk of a link. Upside though, is that this time around a lost shotgun link is only like 5-6 points it seems.
Dawns on me, that unless theater 4 drops before PL and anniversary, I should have DP-12 for my hybrid theater echelon. So that will make it preform better having an SG that actually buffs something in echelon. Don't think I'd swing Type88 out for KSVK though. I doubt it would have the dps I'd need it have with her in, partly because she wouldn't have any playmates debuffing enemy units to eat more dps. Still, I think she'd probably bring more than KSG because of her tiles. I'd have to see how her skill works because she might even take less damage if the shield doesn't need her in the front column.
Orphanerivers of redthat run to seaRegistered Userregular
for the Rec center fight i just run my PEQ equipped M4 team and retreat the 2 smgs after the cerynitis go down so she blasts the rec centers
it's slow but it's pretty safe
the extremely shitty fight is the Minotaurus aka Tesla Troopers because it is a literal hard check, and you probably want to use the same team for the Patroller because the best loadout I've seen sof ar for combating the Minto. Thankfully Taunt fairy is usable in both those fights, but don't forget the Patroller shoots a piercing laser so you want to move everyone out of the center row if Taunt is up
Yeah, saving grace with the ideal echelon for dealing with patroller being the minitauros team, is that you lose nothing moving grape out of the center row, given you don't really want skills going off while the patroller has it's shield up. Actually, patroller is pretty snooze once you learn to toggle auto skill on and off. That said, if the god awful minotauros team didn't exist, a echelon with NTW and Desert Eagle can make the patroller an absolute joke.
Though IMO the real star of that team is M200 since she is burning down the crap behind the big tanky dudes, which can be a bigger threat than the tanky dudes. Granted this assume one has the dps, at least in regards to the minotauros because their tesla act hurts and there is an even hard cap when they get a chance to do two shield rotations because then they'll grenade your side of the map. It's glorious when grape nukes something from 100% to 0% but usually the targets of her skill will have taken a decent beating before she fires.
The funny thing is though, with how CE stack works this time around. If one is pairing up the right handguns because I don't think CE calculation particular care if one is pairing ROF rifles with FP HGs. Also skill training matters. That one actually will have viable echelons if the main one gets trashed. Hell, I think if one plays their cards right the brute striker wave, pure strelet wave and night trash wave could be handled with a HGRF echelon that has 2B support. I wouldn't do it because I think HGs will take a beating. Everything else can be done with HGRF, though again patroller and Uhlan will suck with things that aren't tailored for them, Patroller you really want that taunt fairy and you really want the SGs for Uhlans, but it's possible without them for a fight or two.
Also hearing some I trying these fights with just AT4, so they can bring in M2. I think we're capped at only 6 fights that need a dedicated shield break HOC. I'll have to look into that, granted my M2 has been put on the sidelines in favor of getting 2B and BGM setup with their new chips.
I need to try using grape for the minotaur squad. Tonight I used M200 with NTW20. It worked but one of my HG's took some damage.
A shame that minotaurs have that stupid grenade attack. My original team that I tried using was a SG/RF team with HS2000 providing some shields. I had hoped to use shotguns as an option to tank both the minotaurs and the patrollers without the use of fairy commands if need be. But I wasn't able to burst down the Minotaurs fast enough and the minotaur volley was a bit too much for HS2000 to fully stop. It was successful for pulling me through day one, but the team was revised for day 2.
I'm going to try the grapeless team one more time. I think that I made a mistake trying to hold HS2000's skill for the grenade strike. Tomorrow I'm going to burn her skill instantly, and hopefully the damage buff from the shield persisting will be in effect by the time that the minotaurs lower their shield and everyone else alpha strikes. P22's shield will be used to protect the tanks from the first lightning barrage.
Well took KSVK from 112 to 115. Got her final mod, fully enhanced her SPEQ and partially calibrated it (Mica either needs to seriously give us some free handouts on calibration tickets and meme fragments or make the RNG with calibrating less awful because I can only imagine this being pure hell for the new players). Fed her a bunch of cake and upped my final boss fight damage by 1 point, in a run where I didn't lose any links. with my score being 35517. I could probably get SV-98 to either mod 1 or 2, maybe even three depending on RNG with expedition drops and random node drops. Just not sure it'll do much for me. I probably get more than a single point because it would be switching out a non-modded rifle for one that is modded and it would be dropping an oathed unit for one with an oath (I gather oaths gives quite a bit). Gains would be hurt somewhat because she wouldn't be at SL8 or higher. I think at this point, there isn't much I can do for score padding because all my options are either super RNG, financially not worth it or would take take time.
-I'm using a few green cloaks, so if RNG is nice, I could in theory get some decent gains with gold cloaks alone, assuming I not too far into the diminishing returns of CE, which I might.
-I have a number of gold pieces being used that are either not calibrated fully, enhanced full or both. Some of these are SPEQs. Not worth spending money on resources and with some of them, it'll be a bit before I invest regular resources in them because outside of theater, they don't really matter, even if I'm using the unit. Gold HP ammo that is full calibrated and enhanced on P22 would be nice, but for the most part it doesn't matter 99.9999999999% of the time.
-Oathing units is only really worth it if they are modded. Mostly for cutting down on XP needed to level them, but the 15% boost to evasion, fire power and rate of fire is noticeable. I'll admit that it probably would be worth it for the likes of M200, Grape and Python because they both see a decent bit of use and have enough modifiers to turn that damage into some crazy numbers. Thing is, I don't think I have the means to go get them oaths with the current rate of mod releases and the looming addition of 4 more echelons in the future when we get SF Capture.
-Most of my mod units are 115, not sure how much CE I would get from them being at 120 and it would mostly be from whatever they get from HP and if they do get stuff from straight level because I don't think modded unit see much gain in stats from the last five levels. Right now better things to focus on power leveling
-Getting 5* fairies, mostly RNG at this point, though some fairies I'm using would need me to level them. Also a big factor in why I don't go on a crafting spree for equips or enhancing the ones I use that aren't important in most ranking.
-Skill training, Most of what I've slotted in for theater is sitting at lvl 8 skill wise. Though maybe anywhere from a third to half have their skills maxed. There are a handful of skills under level 8 because it's either a unit I don't use or the skill is really lackluster. This is mostly an issue of better priorities. Other units where even if I don't use them, getting them to SL8 is going to do more for me than bumping something up to SL9 or SL10, that will see very little benefit from that in events. Heck, IIRC SL8 is recommended for most HGs that just buff because the boosts to leveling up a skill just won't be seen. If the HG isn't being used against bosses or high HP stuff, you aren't going to benefit from the reduced CD since shit is dead before it matters and in some cases that ends up being the deal with RoF, accuracy and FP buffs, it's not nothing but chances are pretty good you rarely see the gains going from SL8-S10 because what you're fight dies before it can really be seen.
Debating how hard I want to push for further CE optimization because I really suspect that I'm not going to be able to get much; especially, if I'm at the point where it going to take crazy amounts of improvement to see anything.
Anyways, I'm getting better at dealing with minotauros echelons. Haven't quite perfected the timing to avoid taking damage, but I'm at the point where it hardly matters. At worst I lose a few points in the final score. I'll admit I'm slightly tempted to get Mk23 up to a higher skill level, IIRC I think she sits at SL8. Might help to get stuff to drop quicker because I don't bother to turn off skills for mintauros because there is just too much to right as they go into tesla shocking stuff. Not to mention I think Mk23 still sees significant use against stuff at night with large amount of HP, so there is some value outside of theater.
I did try an experiment with AT4 to see if I could get away with her on solo duty for Gundams. With my current anti-gundam squad the answer is no. I suspect if I threw a pure HGRF team at them instead of my mixed echelon, I could do it easily. Also think the only thing really holding back my echelon of KSG, Type88, NTW, Calico & Pasta might be mostly a gear and fairy thing. Type88 got stuck with a green cloak because I had put her on logistics and KSVK really doesn't need a +10 gold cloak when she is sitting pretty in a CE padding echelon. Probably could also eek out more damage by getting Calico's first skill up to max from SL8 to SL10. Granted, not sure how much that would be worth and both SGs have +5 gold slugs, so maybe some extra damage there as well if I fully enhance them, but kind of doubt it. Granted, might be worth considering a different RF here since she gets nerfed when it's not a night map. I'll have to consider it for theater 4 when I have M2 fully setup because it does appear that she will work for people as their only shield break, at least if your fairies at 4* and she probably doesn't need to be fully iterated.
I'm going to revise my assessment on using rifles against what amounts as trash waves. With 2B support any rifle comp could probably take the pure not trash wave (prowlers, dinergates and the mortar in the back), assuming 2B is built right. 2B's first hit pretty much will flatten everything but like one or two units and that might as well be dead and the mortar. So a rifle team could do this without getting scratched. I suspect with 2B and M2 as support, most rifle comps could probably deal with the strelet horde. If not, the team with two shotguns for the pyxis node will likely work here. IMO if you don't use either 2B or M2 here because you go with the hybrid team, then you'll probably want QBU or like rapid fire rifles to minimize scratch damage on the SGs. The swap brute striker wave is the real open question. I suspect a good M2 will make the strikers in the back a none issue, but the issue ends up being the brutes because they will make it to the HGs and which ever RF doesn't have an HG in front of it. Sure their accuracy is garbage but this might be a reset heavy approach. Saving grace though, I think give how they spawn in, one brute group will get targeted by rifles before strikers start getting hit. Recce Center you'd have to use grape echelon on it with either 2B or AT4 support and early on it's going to be 2B. Grape gets Recce Centers out of the way really fast, so she'll get you to a point where things are easily managed. All that said, I'm not sure a 6th rifle echelon would be worth it unless you can get into the top 100 because I feel like that is the point of massive diminishing returns on the benefit of CE; especially, if that turns a fight that should be simple into a reset mess. I'm pretty sure you'd get stuck resetting the swap brute striker wave and that could be really annoying because that probably moves fast enough that could get get absolutely screwed. A brute that closes the distance gets a chance to land a swing right as it and everything that is still up dies.
Last day a theater. Will be interesting to see if I end up in the top 1% or not. Doing the math, if I didn't sit on 1K worth of materials each day, save final day, to make less menu hopping because of scouting. I'd be about 9K away from the rank 100 person. My scouting luck has been terrible, probably would have gotten one more win and one less loss, if I didn't botch it two times by forgetting to select B, which resulted in it defaulted to A. Also think the one C gamble might have been a bust because I think B won that day. Pretty much, like 95% of the people ahead of me are there because of scouting. There's probably 1% that did a better job at not losing links on the like two days I was a little sloppy with kiting and the rest literally comes down to CE stacking. Anyways, I doubt I break top one hundred because it would need my scouting choice to win and a ton of people ahead of me to probably fail scouting for yesterday, which isn't factored yet, and today.
On CE stacking. Went through and calibrated all my gold clocks and did some additional calibration to KSVK's ammo. Got 25 more CE but that wasn't enough for getting one more point, despite losing zero links. So I'm definitely in the mass diminishing return realm. 35518 seems to be close to the point where one either needs to oath everything or have 5* fairies. I don't have full golds, not all of my golds are fully maxed, nor are all units at max level, if they are modded, or skill level. That said, I'd hazard there might be another 5ish points to be had before it pretty much comes down to oaths, max skills and 5* fairies, possibly even less. Gonna also hazard a guess that around 50ish points before rank 1 on total score, is where you hit the whale zone because that's where it's oath everything and max at all skills, regardless of whether you use the unit or not, while also not caring if those final skill levels are worth the data.
That said, I suspect two things have happened. Mino waves, aka Teslas, probably filtered people hard. I'm sitting at 9% on total boss score and currently 99 points behind the rank one. I'm pretty sure I'm not that average. I'm running with 4* fairies, skill investment in stuff that isn't meta because I don't dupe and some mods that the average player probably ignores; especially, if they dupe. So probably a ton of people don't get to the final boss and are chilling in core 6. That said, minos are bs if you don't have the dps because the grenade spam will totally wreck a unit. It's possible to do them with zero damage, if you fairy skills are used. I've found the trick is you stay in bullet time, let the zap burn down the shield on top HG by 70-80% then retreat. Followed by retreating bottom HG because their shield will be at the point of failure (mind you have both shielding HGs in my echelon). Tesla's are BS in that they'll move up while zapping, so if you retreat too soon they move up enough to zap the backline. Move to late and the HGs will eat damage. The other dps check on that wave is the cynetis, or however the hell it's spelled, if you don't kill them fast enough they prevent you getting enough dps on the Teslas, but also might allow them to stay up long enough to do damage to HGs and you want those shield at full and taunt/twin dummies up to keep blocking what they can. I'll admit it's a bit scary to see a Tesla get into melee range of the backline or prep grenade spam, but if done right it'll die before it can do anything. The only other two filters I can see are the glad+gunner wave, if one doesn't have the dps the gunners will totally ruin their day and kiting/retreating time totally matter here; especially, if use only one or no AoE HoC support because I suspect someone with a 5* fairy sees the gunners stay up long enough that he either have move HGs back or retreat them altogether to avoid damage. Then there is recce center, it should be easy but I can see people not bothering to have 2B or AT4 support, while going with a rifle echelon. Also if you want to take no damage, which is key for RFHG echelons, you need to do a bit of kiting to get the two cynetis out of the way to avoid damage, this also means getting them dead a bit quicker, so that pathfinder management can start sooner. Depending on RFHG comp, one might have to reset if they don't have grape and are using 2B. Grape + AT4 support is a joke on this fight. Grape + 2B is almost as much of a joke.
The other thing I think is going on, is that given that the HOC rewarded isn't considered that good. We only get 4 HoC capacity in PL and you'll want AT4, 2B, M2 and AGS as your HOCs anyways even if you had the new HOC maxed (only way a maxed QLZ would stand a chance, is if we could field five HoCs on that map because she would be more useful than BGM, thanks to the lack of shielded units we can use HOCs against and lack of structures to kill IIRC). Anyways, a chunk of players have decided the new HOC really isn't worth it, so they are going all in on final boss score. I don't really get it because it's basic resources as the reward, easy enough to get with logistics and even if one thinks the current QLZ reward is garbage, you still get data which is still a pain to get. Also special combat reports aren't anything to sneeze at either, more of those we get from events, less surplus xp needed to create more of them and theater 5-6 HOC is going to be worth using those reports on. Anyways, is strongly suspect we have more players than usually, that went all in on total score because they don't care about getting the HoC and one could field 6 echelons with rifles. Just that if you get back RNG, pure night trash wave, strelet horde and swap brute striker waves could setup for you getting filtered. I mean it's possible to run just AT4 as the shield breaker HoC, but based on the one botched one I did (yay, for one free retreat each day) see how well she'd do, I want to say the margins are pretty close and the trash waves eating just one rifle link could be enough that gundam waves are no longer doable.
Total score is just dumb. I haven't been even paying attention to the stuff that much. It isn't worth the grief of worrying about it IMO. My teams can clear the content and that's enough to 5* the HOC come next theater. My biggest slip up was accidentally sticking to the "play one match helping out with the support bonus and then play one match on the hardest difficulty" gameplan on one of those days where the math worked out to be better to just play the hardest difficulty twice.
What I don't like about the Mino fight is that the formation is pretty rigid in that in order to cleanly kill them you need to be running a taunt fairy and shield handguns. Probably two shield handguns. If my memory is correct, that requires having P22, HS2000, or maybe Sei. The former two are limited and the later is collab limited. Fortunately the preferred two are not locked into a collab, you would haven needed to have farmed those handguns during their limited events. That doesn't sit right with me.
Fortunately they've been pretty damn good at re-running limited dolls that aren't third party IPs, but I don't like such an instrumental asset being locked into a limited release.
With total score, I'm more interested in figuring out where the "whale wall" is, which I define as get everything oathed and raise skills that you don't ever actually use to max (this is a bit nebulous because beyond useful varies and even at a certain point, the basic and intermediate data becomes a trivial thing to throw at a unit you'll never actually use). I guess we'll say whaling skills would be SL9+ on something you don't actually use (like say IDW mod). I guess there is also the try hard wall, where one is having to reset quite a bit to actually make it work and it does look like it's partially luck. I was watching Ceia's stream and full rifle setups are pretty much requiring using taunt on trash waves. I'm thinking try hard wall only really nets maybe 12ish points max because my ARSMG was at 1950 and I think a good RFHG pushes mid 2000s easily, but there is a drop off point in CE. So I wouldn't be surprised if try hard wall only nets 5-6 points once the whale wall is hit, if one hasn't bothered to try hard. So fully agree, that there is a point where it's just kind of dumb to push CE, which is the try hard wall; especially, if one doesn't whale because they aren't going to get into top 100 in all likelihood and it'll make the experience really unfun because resetting is annoying to do. Only reason to to try to eek out stuff outside those two walls, is that over three weeks it does add up. Like if my hunch is right that 50 points is about where that wall is, another 50 points on my total score would come out to 700 points before materials. Depending on how things work out, the material turn in score could bring that to almost 2K if I'm doing the math right (700/10*30). At the top end, that could be the difference in getting top 100 and that is actually doing for anyone that can consistently clear core 8 with no link loss. At that point it comes down to luck with scouting. Even the biggest of whales that get the best possible total score can't claim top spot if someone does well enough on scouting to erase CE gains. Plus, I do think there are some that have gotten high in final score, but at the expense of their total score.
As for Mino comp. Yeah, it's pretty rigid. You need at least taunt SL10 and P22 SL10. Luckily, I think P22 can be farmed in campaigns now. Everything else that makes up the flagship comp is mostly for making things more convenient. I know there are alternative to both of the recommended rifles and same deal with Mk23. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was hard blocking people that didn't invest in taunt or P22. Granted, Twin would work just as well. The only demerit with twin, is that it's buff aura is weaker IIRC, so more dps would be needed. Granted for some weird reason many on EN do not have twin and it's for the dumbest of reasons, "but she isn't as good as taunt!" IMO it's pretty dumb because she came out fairly close to theater, where you can't dupe fairies and twin is an outstanding taunt substitute. Then throw in the fact that she has niches that she performs better in than taunt.
As for collab stuff. I really wish there was a setup with IP law, that would let companies rerun collabs. I'm not a fan of the idea that collab units should be garbage, but not thrilled with the idea of making them meta because people that miss out our screwed. Though one thing I would like them to consider with collab fairies is to setup them so that they almost mirror existing fairies. We have a few that do that now. IMO it's a good compromise because then the unit isn't useless, assuming it mirrors a worthwhile fairy, but at the same time people aren't screwed if they miss out. It would actually make the unit a flex unit.
Do have to wonder how big they'll let the rotation pool get before some units get added to either heavy construction or normal construction.
Apparently, this collab is going to be great for new players. You can stockpile a ton of grenades and clear the whole thing on EX with dummies echelons that just chuck them at everything. I need to see how some of the items might be gamed because this might be a good temporary way to farm cores cheaply. 12-4E is awesome, but one is going to get bored of it at some point and depending on your setup, it can be pretty parts intensive. So it would be awesome if we had some map or maps on the collab that would give people an alternative for at least the month we have the collab.
I really need to unlock 12-4E. Also finish up chapter 11 since I've been lazy.
If manwiththemachinegun is still planning on getting started, hopefully he can get things up and running during the Division collab. I haven't looked ahead at how hard it is, but I suspect that easy mode can be cleared with the new-player rewards that are handed out for clearing the first six chapters of the main story, which should be do-able within a few days if he leeches off of overpowered friend support echelons like he's supposed to.
The collab units in this game are generally pretty good. They're not always meta tier, but they're usually not bad except for a few like Noel and Claes that really stick out as being disappointments. At a glance Agent Vector and Agent 416 look like they'll be useful additions to a new player's roster. At least once they've solidified their position enough where they can freely invest into 5* units.
Pretty much use the gamepress guide, that'll walk one through how to do the first map on EX with two dummy echelons. (single doll echelon that doesn't have supplies, usually level one for the new people that don't know what dummy echelon means). This unlocks a means to farm the map for grenades with a single dummy echelon. Takes 2 turns to get ten nades, then restart and repeat. There is a hidden achievement to get 404. Once you have sufficient nades, you can run through any map on EX and delete stuff with the throw 20 grenades option. Grats you can clear the whole collab with dummy echelons and only spend manpower.
Don't think it's really worth gaming this to get a farm map because chucking grenades one at a time to get stuff down, is going to take a really long time to do. Though might be a great option to make farming infinity maps super cheap for the shop currency. Those actually are pretty awesome.
So with the nuke it for 20 grenade option. A brand new player to this game can clear all maps on EX for the collab, which will net most of the rewards and the really good stage clear rewards. The only major downside is that one needs to know how to unlock the hidden objective on the first map so that grenade farming is less tedious, Even then it's pretty tedious, I think all told you'll need like 600-700 of the things. The only other thing you have to farm is the turrets, you need a minimum of 14, but if you go back and clear the map that has Springfield's echelon, getting the green haired cringe doll up to the work bench should give you more than enough turrets for the final map.
One big caveat is that infinity maps don't allow for the use of items. The good news is if one gets far enough in the main story career quests, they should have a lvl 90 ARSMG team that can handle most of the infinity maps. I could see the bosses in the chapter five infinity maps being a bit of a hassle, but I might be overestimating them a bit because I just finished farming agent vector using a HG echelon and I'm doing the same with agent 416 (not if you do this, a lvl 90 4* artillery fairy helps a ton with it's damage buff, but command and beach might be better options if they are similar or higher. So possible that green gear is all you need for an ARSMG team to clear the final two infinity maps. Upside is the SPEQ drop rates are really good and it's a bonus roll on top of whatever doll you get. Don't know if they'll drop without S rank, but if you can meet the criteria for them to drop, won't have to spend long.
Also we have the most brain dead daily currency farm map. I mean, unless I missed something, the infinity 4 map where you need to defend for one turn, seems to be completely with a single dummy echelon. I dropped the HG echelon down expecting it to get attacked and nothing happened. Granted that only got me rank A, but if you want to get things done fast and on the cheap, it is the way to go. Me personally, even though I could stand to save a few more mats, I think I'll just go beat up agent vector with my HG echelon six times a day. It's a little less boring, less map clears and decent enough rewards elsewhere for the effort (not great xp, but still xp none the less for the dolls).
KakodaimonosCode fondlerHelping the 1% get richerRegistered Userregular
Ok, this collab event is a grindy, glitchy annoyance. So a perfect collab with The Division. I've biffed a couple of runs already when the input lag managed to make my echelon move onto a deathstack instead of throwing a grenade.
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Anyways, the idea of 4 paras is already making cringe. Granted, I've got several 4* now, so I'm closing to hitting the point where fairies beyond the typical four fodder can go into paras. I need to see if we need two illumination fairies, if not, once the first one hits 5*, I'll probably feed illumination dupes to paras until they are 3* and then feed the second illumination again, which is currently 3*. Taunt dupe is probably the only, non-para dupe that I want to get to 5* ASAP. Airstrike dupe can wait, regret investing in that one somewhat. Also still need combo fairy, so I guess if could just go with the recipe that will get me shot at both that one and paras.
Edit: Also anyone else having issue with the game just closing out on its own with no user input? It was a sporadic occurrence starting few months ago, but now it seem super frequent. Not sure if that is memory bleed issues or if there is something stupid with bluestacks causing it.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
The stance that I took with my illums was to get both to 2* and then start investing in the primary one. It doesn't take much to get a fairy to 2*, and IMO that's worth the investment to get it over 1* for situations where the echelon needs to fight.
I'm not sure if I'll chase a 4th paradrop fairy or not during the next fairy rate up. The thought of burning all of those skill points on ANOTHER strategic fairy, and quadruple dupe at that churns my stomach a bit. There are dolls that I'd rather build up.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I also don't really want to dump resources into more paras because I know I need to sit down and get my HoCs setup better. I think 2B only has 149 lethality and I could get that higher if I can get the game to give me the right chips. That said, powerup the chip is going to cost tons of resources and I'll probably end up needing calibration tickets. I really wish they would fix the most obnoxious part of HoC's, which requires third party support or a ton of personal time, but I think they keep delaying because they fell into the sunk cost fallacy and probable also suffer from the trolley problem. The sunk cost fallacy is likely going to be the chip tetris, they probably put in a ton of work and foolishly thought players wouldn't min/max and to make chips a choice, that likely needs to go. The trolley problem is they probably are worried about players getting butthurt because all the time and resources put into HoCs just went poof. I think they focus too much on that because this is a very F2P friendly game and basic resources aren't that hard to get and I doubt many many whales that might be upset by such a change, bothered to spend really money on data samples because the consensus was that you'd be pissing money away to buy those off the shop or any packages that were all about "look at the data samples." Also by trolley problem, I'd argue they picked the worst solution, the one where you loop it back on to the lone person on the separate track, so that everyone gets screwed.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
But that siren call of the pokedex...
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Also need to decide what I'm going to do with my beach fairy dupes. Sounds like only one is needed and the other deathstack farm echelon in the next ranking will have landmine. I'm just hoping that duping isn't required here, with luck we'll get KSVK MOD because IIRC she has setups for killing deathstacks. I probably should consider fishing for combo, since I think her recipe has a chance to get landmine or go for the recipe that has a chance of landmine, para and combo. I already have 3 landmines, but want to see if I can get one with a decent talent natively before consolidating them into one fairy.
Anyways, worth noting that currently we're two major story events behind now with polarized light next and then dual randomness. Granted next major event is Division collab, so a chance they'll get the next story event out before we get dual randomness, but likely not before we get PL. Also haven't heard any mentions of collabs, so good chance that the order of major events is going to Division Collab, followed by PL and then DR, but that could change easily.
Finally, I saw some talk on reddit, where it looks like they are getting SPEQs for the monthly login instead of t-dolls. I was curious when we'd hit a point of that happen because you can only have so many units before it starts to get to be an issue and power creep hasn't really favored 3* dolls, which all the log in ones have been. Throw in how all the login dolls are drops in major campaign maps and thus farmable 24/7 after a certain point and there isn't an option to re-offer them. Will be interesting to see if this will be the new trend, it's not exactly an awful idea, since SPEQs could help make weaker dolls more useful. Will be interesting to see if these move to drops like the login dolls or if they intend to set thing ups to have them be reran as login rewards. Though with three slots, I'm pretty sure they could get great mileage out of this. Though have to wonder when they might have to pull a page from Azur Lane and start giving people furniture as the monthly login.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Debating how I want to go about heavy doll construction. Don't know if I'll do just one roll or do two because the chances of getting an SG are crap, what I'm missing in SGs isn't too far into the meta and well they don't play a big part in game play for the next two events IIRC. Also heavy production for SGs is pretty awful both on costs and drops. Plus, the resources are probably better spent on fairies. On fairies, I'm debating on what recipe I want to go for because I do plan on getting another para or two. Just don't know if I should go with the recommended para recipe or go for a recipe that will give me a shot at para and combo, still don't have a single combo fairy.
Anyways, chapter 12 drops this month and 12-4E is going to be the big core and xp grind map. At some point, I need to get K11 raised to be my second dps because apparently she beats SOPMOD and Uzi for clearing the trash. Apparently, the dps order is 416 mod 2 (she is advantaged on this map) > K11 > SOPMOD > Uzi. So I'll probably use the map to get 416 and Uzi to 120. Tanks are pretty much either SGs or M16, but outside of 5* armor fairy, you can't reduce damage on M16 to 1.
Finally, I wouldn't go wild on getting landmine fairy for anyone that doesn't have it, same deal with rocket fairy (just why PL?). EN is getting a tweak to scoring where we only get 10% of CE on defeated enemy echelons. AKA Mika is changing things so that if you weaken an enemy with landmine, rocket, map provided items or environment stuff, you don't get 10% of it's original CE, you get 10% of it's current CE. In short, EN is going to have to figure out a new strategy for running up the score in PL's ranking. Sadly, this probably means that those willing to do a shit ton of resets will have an advantage because the deathstacks can be killed without weakening them, but it's really reset heavy and I think that does advantage dupers because I want to say Kord is mandatory for the fight, though I'm hoping KSVK might be a possible replacement. Though I'm hoping EN sees another tweak to the map that negates the need for strategies that have to contend to heavy amounts of resets (Mica really should work towards getting a rid of such a need because that isn't good for the game).
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
All that said, I doubt we get Theater 4 before PL and I'm pretty sure PL doesn't give us the option to have all HoCs out. So QLZ is probably staying at home for that map.
On another note, got a chip calculator up. I hate HOC chips even more now because it proves that you can't really set them up well unless you have lots of tools to see where everything falls. Maybe a 7th of what I had in enhanced chips saw use between the 5 HOCs I have and setting chip sets for the future HoCs when they are at 5*. Couldn't get AT4 or set for the future MK153 (I believe that's the name) at 100% optimization, both ended up being 2 precision points short on that setup, but frankly that's good enough that I don't care to see if I can fish for a more optimal setup, given that precision tends to be a dump stat anyways. So with all HoC used chips and designated chips for future HoCs locked. Once fairy rate-up is done, I can start getting BGM, 2B and AT4 setup with fully enhanced chips. Any chips I have are fair game at this point, if they are locked when it comes to fodder stuff. Probably months out from when Mica will announce HoC #8 and we're probably a year out from getting it. So I can build up the 5* chip stockpile again. Also banking that they'll revisit the whole chip setup because it's fuck awful. I just want to point out that on some stuff I had to wait over a day for the app to process all options for chips, when I was at over 300 and still had two HoCs that couldn't hit full optimization. I also have sneaking suspicion that there are others who had many more chips than me that also fell short of that mark.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I will suggest that people that want to mix/max HoCs get the chip calculator sooner rather than later. I know I haven't been the best at getting the intelligence quests done every time, probably sitting at a 99.5% or competition rate. Add in some missed crates from one of the story events. Anyways, I have run out of blue chips that aren't either being used for a current HoC or locked away for the future TOW HoC we'll get with theater 5 & 6. Granted, AT4 only has one chip not at max at this point and that's sitting at enhancement 10. BGM has 3/7 chips at full enhancement, one at 10 and the rest at 19. Don't know if I'll get them to a point where they have maxed out their stats by the time I really need to push things in theater. With luck, they'll both be similar to 2B, which has all the stats she is going to get, unless overage somehow gives one armor pierce, and of the six chips she has two are at 19, while another is at 18. I've gotten all the stats I can out of her.
I suspect the same will probably play out with at least BGM where there isn't a need to get all her chips to max enhancement to get all the stat I'm going to get out of the chips. I'd get the one chip with reload on 2B that is 19 to 20 if it gave me that last point of reload, bad sadly it doesn't.
M2 isn't in bad shape, of the 7 chips that the calculator picked out for here. Five already have some level of enhancement. Ranges are 13, 15, 17, 18 and 19. So probably won't be too bad to get her maxed before PL. AGS also isn't terrible with 2 of 7 chips maxed and another at 19. Also haven't really burned any of the enhanced chips not being used, so I can probably get her squared away for PL as well. Anyways, one definitely can afford to redo chips that often now if you want all your HoCs at the best they can be. I feel bad for new players because not only is doom tetris awful, I can already see how HoCs might end up being a bigger barrier of entry than fairies. Fairies are straight forward. One thing HoCs do have going for them, is they don't have the BS rng with calibration that fairies have.
Anyways, tomorrow should be fun. Less so because of the next theater and more of the fact that we're getting the griffin memories system. So more fluff if people wanted that. Need to see what all the rewards are, I think the last time I saw stuff for it was the huge data dump around the last Christmas of the before times in 2019. So they might have changed a few things because I don't think that was the complete version that got release. I want to say it might have some annoyances, but the rewards have value even for people that just care about min/maxing. I want to say it had benchmarks that would rewards things like cores, data and a few other things.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
I almost forgot my way around the UI. I forgot that the advanced zone was open today until I did a sanity check after doing my opening round against the easy zone for the support bonus.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
As usually GFL is doing there theater betting thing. For those not in the know, just fill out the CBT form and pick a zone. It doesn't even need to be the zone you scouted. I recommend doing it because if you do it enough days, even if you whiff the results every time, you're still going to get some freebies.
Anyways did the Griffin Memories stuff. From what I can recall when they announced this way back when, in 2019, looks like they scaled back on some things. Guess they decided the skill idea, where certain skills would be available if you put the team together or some such wasn't feasible with their goals. Also a bit sad that the goodies don't seem to include data this time, maybe a future batch will have, but willing to bet it'll stay mostly as resources, t-doll construction tickets and quick construction tickets, with some cores thrown in at the end.
The story was amusing enough. You get some vanity rewards like a chibi custom item, some dorm furniture and profile stuff. Also get some basic resources, t-doll construction tickets, quick production tickets, some cores and a decent batch of expedition food for getting increased odds at midmission rewards and end mission currency rewards. Finally, you get some unique conversations if you use specific t-dolls pairs in the adjunct slot that lets you have two. This is surprising accessible. I'd have to see how many points one could get with just raising and using P38 and Spectre M4 and not doing anything that would cost gems or tokens. You're given a series of tasks to do that rewards points, but this is more or less an ala carte setup, so you can do the easy stuff and avoid things that would use gems and tokens. The two dolls mentioned earlier are the easies two to get out of the five. Probably the next easiest one to acquire would be Gr HK45, but that involves doing deep dive. Then you have Stechkin and Desert Eagle, one is a really rare crafted handgun and the other is in the time limited drop pool that gets cycled through for events. I wouldn't recommend this as something to do if one is still raising t-dolls or just started because the time spent on the two easiest units to acquire, P38 and Spectre M4, would be better used on units that are actually good. HK45 appears to be a low budget handgun that maybe some no dupers would raise, but if you dupe, she isn't really worth it. The two hardest to get in this batch are the two most useful ones. So unless someone got lucky on getting Stechkin & Desert Eagle and/or have HK45 and don't dupe, this is one thing that can really wait. That said, it's a decent chunk of basic resources, which could help someone if they need more for any reason. Also for the record, I got 500 points by only have all five at 100 affection. Stechkin at 100, Desert Eagle at 90 and the rest at 70. Then running through several of the combat tasks. I think one probably needs more than just Spectre M4 and P38 at lvl 100 with 100 affection and having done all the combat tasks with them paired up, but HK45 or one of the others might be enough to get 500 points and complete the 11 chapters.
My only two complaints with this fluff system. Is that the oath related tasks and custom acquisition tasks should be at the bottom of the list because I know a couple people got upset thinking this system required whaling, it doesn't. That said, it does make things easier for whales because you probably could get away with getting everything done if you just bother with raising Desert Eagle and Stechkin, maybe run a few battles with them paired up with one of the other three. The second complaint is that 3 cores at the end of the last chapter is a sucky reward. IMO I know they probably get a decent chunk of change off of people buy sim energy, but I would have given people 10 of each data, 5 calibration tickets and 5 memory fragments along with the three cores. It's not a ton, but it would be a decent trickle of those things for most players. Sure it isn't much for those things, but add in all the other sources and it would be worthwhile for most players.
Will be interesting to see how this new system is going to trip up beginner guides because even though the current one is absolutely terrible for beginners to bother with unless they get super lucky because they craft stetchkin and are on when desert eagle is a possible drop for something. We probably will get a time where the player is leveling the whole thing or should invest in them. Like I said, it's a decent chunk of resources that could be handy for jump starting stuff.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Good luck partaking in the ongoing theater event. You should be able to rake in some points from the easier difficulty. The main goal is unlocking the new grenade launcher team. But you should be able to get along just fine even if you don't get her. She's going to enjoy a limited period of exclusivity of being a theater reward unit. Eventually she'll be added to the normal HOC crafting pool.
Post your investigation choices (or lie if you wish) to the google doc where the main english community is hosting an participation event thing. Backstabbing each other with investigation choices is kind of a tradition with theater mode. Whatever you choose, it's free resources.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0OjEXcEh3xVYcc4dWk4x-qQt86Jp9nYjUSHY3sIDKPpOLgA/viewform
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Something that is easy to miss and I did it as a new player. Check all the events, I think the newbie starter one is called frontline supplies, that will give you rewards one per day for 7 days. The catch is, that if you don't collect on the day the reward is offered, you won't be able to collect it on later days. This event doesn't require you to spend resources for those seven day rewards. IIRC M14 is the first day reward from that. Granted, I got screwed by that because I started late enough at night, that buy the time I got passed some of the initial tutorial stuff, the server had switched to the next day.
Definitely, list your user ID number. I have people on my friend's list that haven't played in months, that I can boot for new people.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
So not sure how many people on this board still play and aren't informed of stuff coming down the pipeline.
We get chapter 12 next week, 12-4E is going to be both the new xp grind map and core farming map for people that are at end game and have the stuff to run it that way. Also the chapter exclusive drop, is a 4* direct fire SMG. Given the nature of all the other ones, most of which are time limited drops that get cycled in. This could be a solid boon for newer player that need one. I need to see if I can track down any information on how people have rated her. Though worth noting she wants position 2 spot, so always possible we get a new meta or semi-meta unit that makes us want an SMG there and that could make her very relevant.
Also Mica did a live stream of upcoming stuff. None of this has dropped on the Chinese server yet, so anyone's guess on when we get it. Though based on when the last two collabs dropped and the lag between clients. I'd estimate we'll probably see most of this stuff 1-3 months after it drops on CN servers. Obvious it'll be much longer for story related things because we haven't caught up yet. Might get an odd thing or two that gets delayed for some reason or another. Link to someone's translation of the live stream. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e5lrldF3Gr7TXkfCv1Y1XShTOmsVgzPXwE7j_4Om5_E/preview?pru=AAABd04oemU*JOomLuNs5euQCE5NJxrmlQ#
Things of note:
-New human adjuncts.
-Yes, you can have Kryuger looking over your shoulder now.
-Image change to store and inventory pages
-Warehouse will do a better job telling people how to get in game items.
-Store will now show costumes and chibi in the store.
-All costume packs before 2020 will no be on the store permanently.
-After a year, each new pack will get added permanently to the store.
-Old banner will not go into the radiant collection and will be released as separate banners (not sure that means we'll see a slow down of new banners be added because old one are getting rerun or if we'll see three banners up at a time: new, old rerun and radiant).
-We might finally get our custom simulator, so we can actually practice against stuff that is causing problems.
-Something for HOC central data, it's not clear what it really does. Assuming bone to ensure that as more HOCs get added, new players don't get bogged down with all their HOCs at 2* when they really need some of them to be at 5*.
-New minigame Raverbury Aeroplane Chess. Probably a ways off. I'm mixed on this one because PvP isn't my thing and they did mention this probably gets events and ranking tied to it. It might not be terrible depending on how they design it and ranking and events work out for it. Namely, will whaling be irrelevant because doll levels, gear, links and oaths don't matter and maybe outside of class, the only thing someone gets for unlock a doll is essential a skin. We'll see.
-The next story event, which people probably want to skip if they don't like spoilers.
-Another minigame, which is card flip. Will have a ranking system, but score is cumulative. Curious to see if tie events to this and what we might get out of it. They did state that they want it to be relaxing play, hence cumulative scoring, so if we do get rewards, expect it to be a completion thing and nothing really important tied to rank.
Finally, they are doing a GFL anime. Not sure when that will drop, depends on how long this has been in the works before getting announced, but want to say we're probably looking at a minimum of two years. They stated that they want this to draw in more female fans. So I'd wager they'll probably pull the commander from the manga and avoid the whole creepy affection system. I'm a little hyped for this because if they do a good job at sticking with the source material and do a great job with the action stuff, they could probably turn out a solid series. Granted, I've seen a ton of adaptions just end up being shit, so it might not pan out. Have to wonder if that's a big reason for why they mention reaching reaching out to the female audience, they figure if they push that hard they can avoid having the studio turn it into another shitty power fantasy centered around a male commander that has virtually no redeeming qualities, which is my big concern. IMO the best play Yuzhong could go for is to push hard for wanting to appeal to the female demographic because that will keep the story focused where it should be.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
manwiththemachinegun, if you started playing, I hope that you got some score in during the earlier days of the event since the current selection of opponents are just a tad out of the league of what you can be expected to defeat at this stage in the game.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I'll just admire the Waifus dreamily from afar.
Anyways, curious if today or tomorrow will be the last of Core 8 filtering people. I suspect there are a handful ahead of me that are able to get ugly core 8 clears and they are there because they've had incredibly luck with scouting, mine has been pretty garbage. Also figure tomorrow or Friday, will be when we get enough RNG that most of the lucksacks that have been running stuff that isn't quite up to snuff, get two runs that they brick on. Granted, with HGRF echelons being the big CE stack preference, I suspect we get less people that go overzealous on CE stacking and then get hosed by bad RNG on two waves. I think some might still be in a spot where SGMG will get them more CE, but most are probably in a spot where it's HGRF is the best option; especially, if they've been getting all the mods. I'm like 98 points behind the top ranker for total boss damage, not sure I can do much better at this point because most of my best options for me CE are kind of hard to get. I need more XP to get KSVK to 115 and her third mod. SV is at 67 and once I get her to a point where I can mod her, she is probably the biggest CE gain since that means I switch out a non-modded rf with her. I have some equips, mostly exos that could be enhanced further and like one rifle on a +3 scope, but given I think I might get KSVK to 115, I'd rather save resources for her speq. Don't know if I'll get into top 5% for total damage, I'm at 6% but it's whatever. I'll have to remember to not dawdle on the final day for clearing my two runs. I was at 3% yesterday and dropped to 7% today, granted a good chunk of that was not dumping mats down until I had 1K (I go with this because the scouting thing always pops up first thing in theater, so it's to cut down on menu hopping). I kind of suspect that things are close enough where I'm at, that running right after ceasefire might actually get one a bit higher than normal. We'll see how things go because I do suspect core 8 still has some room to knock some people down. Doubt I'll ever see top 100 in theater, it's a combo of not super great at kitting, terrible luck with scouting and not willing to whale and spend even more time on CE stacking. Still want to get in top 5% for total score because of the training data and HOC data.
Anyways, 12-4E is great for farming. Definitely a better core rate than 10-4E. Better xp with no penalty for mod unit nearing 120. Single turn as well, so less rations. Downside is you'll spend slightly more manpower since it's only 4 fights and I suspect it's going to a bit harder on parts for most. If one is willing to dupe 416 mod 3 and her two speqs, then it'll be very cheap on mats (not willing to do so). I have mine at 115 with both speqs maxed and there are like two waves where she'll kill everything before it gets a chance to do much.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Currently I'm running my anti-Uhlan group for the rec centers. Kar98/QBU/Pasta/FP6/Jill, although a handgun that can actually shoot would probably be better for this fight. They're using a twin fairy but I'm not using the twin skill for the fight. I haven't tried that fight without HOC support, but I usually have AT4 providing support. Those lingering flames mess up the little ball dudes right after they spawn. I think that the shotguns with night vision gear are mopping up the rest of the little balls.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Actually, getting some more gold cloaks would probably do wonders for my theater stuff in regards to CE stacking, probably need to shuffle a cloak or two around for main team or just refine some of the cloaks I have.
Anyways, only issue with the recce centers and it might just be for echelons with an SG at the friend is that top SG getting lovetapped. It's not enough to lose a link outright but it's a sizable chunk of a link. Upside though, is that this time around a lost shotgun link is only like 5-6 points it seems.
Dawns on me, that unless theater 4 drops before PL and anniversary, I should have DP-12 for my hybrid theater echelon. So that will make it preform better having an SG that actually buffs something in echelon. Don't think I'd swing Type88 out for KSVK though. I doubt it would have the dps I'd need it have with her in, partly because she wouldn't have any playmates debuffing enemy units to eat more dps. Still, I think she'd probably bring more than KSG because of her tiles. I'd have to see how her skill works because she might even take less damage if the shield doesn't need her in the front column.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
it's slow but it's pretty safe
the extremely shitty fight is the Minotaurus aka Tesla Troopers because it is a literal hard check, and you probably want to use the same team for the Patroller because the best loadout I've seen sof ar for combating the Minto. Thankfully Taunt fairy is usable in both those fights, but don't forget the Patroller shoots a piercing laser so you want to move everyone out of the center row if Taunt is up
Though IMO the real star of that team is M200 since she is burning down the crap behind the big tanky dudes, which can be a bigger threat than the tanky dudes. Granted this assume one has the dps, at least in regards to the minotauros because their tesla act hurts and there is an even hard cap when they get a chance to do two shield rotations because then they'll grenade your side of the map. It's glorious when grape nukes something from 100% to 0% but usually the targets of her skill will have taken a decent beating before she fires.
The funny thing is though, with how CE stack works this time around. If one is pairing up the right handguns because I don't think CE calculation particular care if one is pairing ROF rifles with FP HGs. Also skill training matters. That one actually will have viable echelons if the main one gets trashed. Hell, I think if one plays their cards right the brute striker wave, pure strelet wave and night trash wave could be handled with a HGRF echelon that has 2B support. I wouldn't do it because I think HGs will take a beating. Everything else can be done with HGRF, though again patroller and Uhlan will suck with things that aren't tailored for them, Patroller you really want that taunt fairy and you really want the SGs for Uhlans, but it's possible without them for a fight or two.
Also hearing some I trying these fights with just AT4, so they can bring in M2. I think we're capped at only 6 fights that need a dedicated shield break HOC. I'll have to look into that, granted my M2 has been put on the sidelines in favor of getting 2B and BGM setup with their new chips.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
A shame that minotaurs have that stupid grenade attack. My original team that I tried using was a SG/RF team with HS2000 providing some shields. I had hoped to use shotguns as an option to tank both the minotaurs and the patrollers without the use of fairy commands if need be. But I wasn't able to burst down the Minotaurs fast enough and the minotaur volley was a bit too much for HS2000 to fully stop. It was successful for pulling me through day one, but the team was revised for day 2.
I'm going to try the grapeless team one more time. I think that I made a mistake trying to hold HS2000's skill for the grenade strike. Tomorrow I'm going to burn her skill instantly, and hopefully the damage buff from the shield persisting will be in effect by the time that the minotaurs lower their shield and everyone else alpha strikes. P22's shield will be used to protect the tanks from the first lightning barrage.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
-I'm using a few green cloaks, so if RNG is nice, I could in theory get some decent gains with gold cloaks alone, assuming I not too far into the diminishing returns of CE, which I might.
-I have a number of gold pieces being used that are either not calibrated fully, enhanced full or both. Some of these are SPEQs. Not worth spending money on resources and with some of them, it'll be a bit before I invest regular resources in them because outside of theater, they don't really matter, even if I'm using the unit. Gold HP ammo that is full calibrated and enhanced on P22 would be nice, but for the most part it doesn't matter 99.9999999999% of the time.
-Oathing units is only really worth it if they are modded. Mostly for cutting down on XP needed to level them, but the 15% boost to evasion, fire power and rate of fire is noticeable. I'll admit that it probably would be worth it for the likes of M200, Grape and Python because they both see a decent bit of use and have enough modifiers to turn that damage into some crazy numbers. Thing is, I don't think I have the means to go get them oaths with the current rate of mod releases and the looming addition of 4 more echelons in the future when we get SF Capture.
-Most of my mod units are 115, not sure how much CE I would get from them being at 120 and it would mostly be from whatever they get from HP and if they do get stuff from straight level because I don't think modded unit see much gain in stats from the last five levels. Right now better things to focus on power leveling
-Getting 5* fairies, mostly RNG at this point, though some fairies I'm using would need me to level them. Also a big factor in why I don't go on a crafting spree for equips or enhancing the ones I use that aren't important in most ranking.
-Skill training, Most of what I've slotted in for theater is sitting at lvl 8 skill wise. Though maybe anywhere from a third to half have their skills maxed. There are a handful of skills under level 8 because it's either a unit I don't use or the skill is really lackluster. This is mostly an issue of better priorities. Other units where even if I don't use them, getting them to SL8 is going to do more for me than bumping something up to SL9 or SL10, that will see very little benefit from that in events. Heck, IIRC SL8 is recommended for most HGs that just buff because the boosts to leveling up a skill just won't be seen. If the HG isn't being used against bosses or high HP stuff, you aren't going to benefit from the reduced CD since shit is dead before it matters and in some cases that ends up being the deal with RoF, accuracy and FP buffs, it's not nothing but chances are pretty good you rarely see the gains going from SL8-S10 because what you're fight dies before it can really be seen.
Debating how hard I want to push for further CE optimization because I really suspect that I'm not going to be able to get much; especially, if I'm at the point where it going to take crazy amounts of improvement to see anything.
Anyways, I'm getting better at dealing with minotauros echelons. Haven't quite perfected the timing to avoid taking damage, but I'm at the point where it hardly matters. At worst I lose a few points in the final score. I'll admit I'm slightly tempted to get Mk23 up to a higher skill level, IIRC I think she sits at SL8. Might help to get stuff to drop quicker because I don't bother to turn off skills for mintauros because there is just too much to right as they go into tesla shocking stuff. Not to mention I think Mk23 still sees significant use against stuff at night with large amount of HP, so there is some value outside of theater.
I did try an experiment with AT4 to see if I could get away with her on solo duty for Gundams. With my current anti-gundam squad the answer is no. I suspect if I threw a pure HGRF team at them instead of my mixed echelon, I could do it easily. Also think the only thing really holding back my echelon of KSG, Type88, NTW, Calico & Pasta might be mostly a gear and fairy thing. Type88 got stuck with a green cloak because I had put her on logistics and KSVK really doesn't need a +10 gold cloak when she is sitting pretty in a CE padding echelon. Probably could also eek out more damage by getting Calico's first skill up to max from SL8 to SL10. Granted, not sure how much that would be worth and both SGs have +5 gold slugs, so maybe some extra damage there as well if I fully enhance them, but kind of doubt it. Granted, might be worth considering a different RF here since she gets nerfed when it's not a night map. I'll have to consider it for theater 4 when I have M2 fully setup because it does appear that she will work for people as their only shield break, at least if your fairies at 4* and she probably doesn't need to be fully iterated.
I'm going to revise my assessment on using rifles against what amounts as trash waves. With 2B support any rifle comp could probably take the pure not trash wave (prowlers, dinergates and the mortar in the back), assuming 2B is built right. 2B's first hit pretty much will flatten everything but like one or two units and that might as well be dead and the mortar. So a rifle team could do this without getting scratched. I suspect with 2B and M2 as support, most rifle comps could probably deal with the strelet horde. If not, the team with two shotguns for the pyxis node will likely work here. IMO if you don't use either 2B or M2 here because you go with the hybrid team, then you'll probably want QBU or like rapid fire rifles to minimize scratch damage on the SGs. The swap brute striker wave is the real open question. I suspect a good M2 will make the strikers in the back a none issue, but the issue ends up being the brutes because they will make it to the HGs and which ever RF doesn't have an HG in front of it. Sure their accuracy is garbage but this might be a reset heavy approach. Saving grace though, I think give how they spawn in, one brute group will get targeted by rifles before strikers start getting hit. Recce Center you'd have to use grape echelon on it with either 2B or AT4 support and early on it's going to be 2B. Grape gets Recce Centers out of the way really fast, so she'll get you to a point where things are easily managed. All that said, I'm not sure a 6th rifle echelon would be worth it unless you can get into the top 100 because I feel like that is the point of massive diminishing returns on the benefit of CE; especially, if that turns a fight that should be simple into a reset mess. I'm pretty sure you'd get stuck resetting the swap brute striker wave and that could be really annoying because that probably moves fast enough that could get get absolutely screwed. A brute that closes the distance gets a chance to land a swing right as it and everything that is still up dies.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Shame it's going to be a bit until we get her.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
On CE stacking. Went through and calibrated all my gold clocks and did some additional calibration to KSVK's ammo. Got 25 more CE but that wasn't enough for getting one more point, despite losing zero links. So I'm definitely in the mass diminishing return realm. 35518 seems to be close to the point where one either needs to oath everything or have 5* fairies. I don't have full golds, not all of my golds are fully maxed, nor are all units at max level, if they are modded, or skill level. That said, I'd hazard there might be another 5ish points to be had before it pretty much comes down to oaths, max skills and 5* fairies, possibly even less. Gonna also hazard a guess that around 50ish points before rank 1 on total score, is where you hit the whale zone because that's where it's oath everything and max at all skills, regardless of whether you use the unit or not, while also not caring if those final skill levels are worth the data.
That said, I suspect two things have happened. Mino waves, aka Teslas, probably filtered people hard. I'm sitting at 9% on total boss score and currently 99 points behind the rank one. I'm pretty sure I'm not that average. I'm running with 4* fairies, skill investment in stuff that isn't meta because I don't dupe and some mods that the average player probably ignores; especially, if they dupe. So probably a ton of people don't get to the final boss and are chilling in core 6. That said, minos are bs if you don't have the dps because the grenade spam will totally wreck a unit. It's possible to do them with zero damage, if you fairy skills are used. I've found the trick is you stay in bullet time, let the zap burn down the shield on top HG by 70-80% then retreat. Followed by retreating bottom HG because their shield will be at the point of failure (mind you have both shielding HGs in my echelon). Tesla's are BS in that they'll move up while zapping, so if you retreat too soon they move up enough to zap the backline. Move to late and the HGs will eat damage. The other dps check on that wave is the cynetis, or however the hell it's spelled, if you don't kill them fast enough they prevent you getting enough dps on the Teslas, but also might allow them to stay up long enough to do damage to HGs and you want those shield at full and taunt/twin dummies up to keep blocking what they can. I'll admit it's a bit scary to see a Tesla get into melee range of the backline or prep grenade spam, but if done right it'll die before it can do anything. The only other two filters I can see are the glad+gunner wave, if one doesn't have the dps the gunners will totally ruin their day and kiting/retreating time totally matter here; especially, if use only one or no AoE HoC support because I suspect someone with a 5* fairy sees the gunners stay up long enough that he either have move HGs back or retreat them altogether to avoid damage. Then there is recce center, it should be easy but I can see people not bothering to have 2B or AT4 support, while going with a rifle echelon. Also if you want to take no damage, which is key for RFHG echelons, you need to do a bit of kiting to get the two cynetis out of the way to avoid damage, this also means getting them dead a bit quicker, so that pathfinder management can start sooner. Depending on RFHG comp, one might have to reset if they don't have grape and are using 2B. Grape + AT4 support is a joke on this fight. Grape + 2B is almost as much of a joke.
The other thing I think is going on, is that given that the HOC rewarded isn't considered that good. We only get 4 HoC capacity in PL and you'll want AT4, 2B, M2 and AGS as your HOCs anyways even if you had the new HOC maxed (only way a maxed QLZ would stand a chance, is if we could field five HoCs on that map because she would be more useful than BGM, thanks to the lack of shielded units we can use HOCs against and lack of structures to kill IIRC). Anyways, a chunk of players have decided the new HOC really isn't worth it, so they are going all in on final boss score. I don't really get it because it's basic resources as the reward, easy enough to get with logistics and even if one thinks the current QLZ reward is garbage, you still get data which is still a pain to get. Also special combat reports aren't anything to sneeze at either, more of those we get from events, less surplus xp needed to create more of them and theater 5-6 HOC is going to be worth using those reports on. Anyways, is strongly suspect we have more players than usually, that went all in on total score because they don't care about getting the HoC and one could field 6 echelons with rifles. Just that if you get back RNG, pure night trash wave, strelet horde and swap brute striker waves could setup for you getting filtered. I mean it's possible to run just AT4 as the shield breaker HoC, but based on the one botched one I did (yay, for one free retreat each day) see how well she'd do, I want to say the margins are pretty close and the trash waves eating just one rifle link could be enough that gundam waves are no longer doable.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
What I don't like about the Mino fight is that the formation is pretty rigid in that in order to cleanly kill them you need to be running a taunt fairy and shield handguns. Probably two shield handguns. If my memory is correct, that requires having P22, HS2000, or maybe Sei. The former two are limited and the later is collab limited. Fortunately the preferred two are not locked into a collab, you would haven needed to have farmed those handguns during their limited events. That doesn't sit right with me.
Fortunately they've been pretty damn good at re-running limited dolls that aren't third party IPs, but I don't like such an instrumental asset being locked into a limited release.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
As for Mino comp. Yeah, it's pretty rigid. You need at least taunt SL10 and P22 SL10. Luckily, I think P22 can be farmed in campaigns now. Everything else that makes up the flagship comp is mostly for making things more convenient. I know there are alternative to both of the recommended rifles and same deal with Mk23. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was hard blocking people that didn't invest in taunt or P22. Granted, Twin would work just as well. The only demerit with twin, is that it's buff aura is weaker IIRC, so more dps would be needed. Granted for some weird reason many on EN do not have twin and it's for the dumbest of reasons, "but she isn't as good as taunt!" IMO it's pretty dumb because she came out fairly close to theater, where you can't dupe fairies and twin is an outstanding taunt substitute. Then throw in the fact that she has niches that she performs better in than taunt.
As for collab stuff. I really wish there was a setup with IP law, that would let companies rerun collabs. I'm not a fan of the idea that collab units should be garbage, but not thrilled with the idea of making them meta because people that miss out our screwed. Though one thing I would like them to consider with collab fairies is to setup them so that they almost mirror existing fairies. We have a few that do that now. IMO it's a good compromise because then the unit isn't useless, assuming it mirrors a worthwhile fairy, but at the same time people aren't screwed if they miss out. It would actually make the unit a flex unit.
Do have to wonder how big they'll let the rotation pool get before some units get added to either heavy construction or normal construction.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
If manwiththemachinegun is still planning on getting started, hopefully he can get things up and running during the Division collab. I haven't looked ahead at how hard it is, but I suspect that easy mode can be cleared with the new-player rewards that are handed out for clearing the first six chapters of the main story, which should be do-able within a few days if he leeches off of overpowered friend support echelons like he's supposed to.
The collab units in this game are generally pretty good. They're not always meta tier, but they're usually not bad except for a few like Noel and Claes that really stick out as being disappointments. At a glance Agent Vector and Agent 416 look like they'll be useful additions to a new player's roster. At least once they've solidified their position enough where they can freely invest into 5* units.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Don't think it's really worth gaming this to get a farm map because chucking grenades one at a time to get stuff down, is going to take a really long time to do. Though might be a great option to make farming infinity maps super cheap for the shop currency. Those actually are pretty awesome.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
One big caveat is that infinity maps don't allow for the use of items. The good news is if one gets far enough in the main story career quests, they should have a lvl 90 ARSMG team that can handle most of the infinity maps. I could see the bosses in the chapter five infinity maps being a bit of a hassle, but I might be overestimating them a bit because I just finished farming agent vector using a HG echelon and I'm doing the same with agent 416 (not if you do this, a lvl 90 4* artillery fairy helps a ton with it's damage buff, but command and beach might be better options if they are similar or higher. So possible that green gear is all you need for an ARSMG team to clear the final two infinity maps. Upside is the SPEQ drop rates are really good and it's a bonus roll on top of whatever doll you get. Don't know if they'll drop without S rank, but if you can meet the criteria for them to drop, won't have to spend long.
Also we have the most brain dead daily currency farm map. I mean, unless I missed something, the infinity 4 map where you need to defend for one turn, seems to be completely with a single dummy echelon. I dropped the HG echelon down expecting it to get attacked and nothing happened. Granted that only got me rank A, but if you want to get things done fast and on the cheap, it is the way to go. Me personally, even though I could stand to save a few more mats, I think I'll just go beat up agent vector with my HG echelon six times a day. It's a little less boring, less map clears and decent enough rewards elsewhere for the effort (not great xp, but still xp none the less for the dolls).
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.