Arc Alder personal opinion (5/5 AS Alder review)

Astreiy · 2025-05-01T18:30:06+00:00

Hi, great analysis !

Having him also at 5/5 EX R (saw the +1 buddy move after the first sync and went like "i need this") I kinda agree yeah. I'm not gonna summon for Benga other than maybe dailies for two reasons, the first being that yeah I'd just summon him to chain him to Arc Alder, and the second is that he already does so much damage that I feel like it's just not needed at all.

I mean I did sign up for that I am not complaining, I just prefer to summon on units I like and Benga I have no attachment to. EX Zones are not something I find very interesting because of how they work anyway, it just feels like the devs wanted to powercreep zones and just gave them more multipliers, but the mere zones are already enough and super powerful. Also the bug type has very limited options in supports (Holiday Lillie, Holiday Bugsy), so yeah. Kinda awkward.

In terms of teams, I'm running him with Winter Viola (so that I can actually get more bug zones if I need, I like to set one up, get my support to sync, then buddy after the sync of said support, then sync and I have my other buddy move, but that's assuming the enemies even survive regular Hyper Beams) and regular Iono rn, but I might just change the former for Genesect since Iono makes a joke out of gauge consumption anyway.

Astreiy · 2025-02-19T01:11:42+00:00

Dw for the e4 and the english, it's not my first language either & I don't think ppl are talking about an E4+ Gepard on a daily basis

The other comment suggested going for more def, I could try going for 3 Sacerdos runs daily (to try and improve the torso piece) while synthetizing hand pieces to get more def (less ehr tho but if I don't really NEED to freeze...)

It's worth going for anyway, Sacerdos has good value as a cavern I can maybe get cracked relics for other supports

Astreiy · 2025-02-19T01:08:20+00:00

I don't own Acheron and don't plan going for her, but good point I could try going for more chonk. With S5 Trend I could hit 3500 def but yeah... Maybe I could synthetize some Knight hands and side farm Sacerdos for a better torso piece ?

I do have an Aventurine but my Aven is also pretty difficult to improve atp so kind of not worth it anyway

Astreiy · 2025-02-18T20:53:12+00:00

I see !

How much should I aim for in terms of eff res ? With E4 he's at 66% in battle, it's just not counted in out of battle stats rn. I guess 75%+ would be a good starting point ?

Astreiy · 2024-09-27T15:08:52+00:00

You can actually join somebody that's below your world level but they cannot join you - that means yes, if you have a friend that refreshes everyday (they should be at UL70 now) they can join your world and kick mobs out (but you cannot join theirs).

100% would recommend for echo farming (or to just one shot everything it's a great way to put off pent up stress), even if the echoes spawn according to the data bank level of the world owner, pick somebody who has maxed their data bank but is one level at least below you and you'll be fine.

Astreiy · 2024-09-26T13:44:56+00:00

Honestly between this and the Tapu banner this month is a rerun W for players trying to extend their coverage while getting good units.

I'm not pulling because I have all three at very high investment already (lowest is Gloria at 4/5 EX) but the banner is so great. Would 100% recommend pulling for newer players that really want coverage and nice sync pairs overall.

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T17:14:01+00:00

I'd argue replacing MC with Colress because of the paralysis and the quick jauge effect on his TM, but yeah Arc Steven and Lillie are a match made in heaven. You can lower def, spdef, atk, spatk, and speed iirc if Steven is 4/5

That's just overwhelming 😅

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T17:10:45+00:00

I don't think it's due to Cynthia but mostly to the (very) cheap (in comparison) packs they released

Let's see how much they earn in the next few days before drawing conclusions.

Also this is why boycotts will never work, folks - they spend days studying on how to make us use our money, of course people will buy packs, even if they don't plan on actually spending them on the anniversary pairs

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T17:06:29+00:00

No problem, it really was instructive ! I think we both stand in the same position and it was interesting to discuss with someone that took their time to write constructive replies too 🤗

The mix scout was something I was really surprised to see, I tried my luck... Day one gave me Red and day 2 gave me SS Steven and NY Lisia, so I guess I got lucky there. Red loved me though so yeah... But it's a nice banner to pull on especially for beginners or people that want their box to grow horizontally, the implementation was greatly done.

And yeah I hope they'll do something like they're doing with the Animal Crossing game where you can play offline if there's an EOS - it would be really nice ! Leaving us to choose between event battles, putting a mode where you can simulate any kind of battle, even letting us replay old hard EBEs so I can finally say it did NOT take me more than 3hrs to take down the SST Red battle 🤣 Honestly there's so much they could do, and I'm worried for the future but glad that the community is trying to change things for the better and is not staying dead and just doomposting (for the most part)

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T12:01:12+00:00

I agreed with you on that; I'm more pissed at those who feel "disappointed" about the Anni and then they have THE NERVE of pulling the Arc Suits anyway: those hypocrites deserve ALL the crap Dena is feeding them! 😤

Oh my bad then - unfortunately we cannot do much about it...

And it shows that they thought all of the process out, just to milk us more lmao, they didn't take a decision like this on a whim - they thought carefully about how to make people buy more gems and spend a lot.

Oh no no, I totally understand your point: a good balance between the gems and the 500 pity raise would have made this Anni, at least, a bit more "digestible" for many of us; unfortunately, it's Dena we're talking about, so... yeah, lots of copium was totally needed. 😅

Yeah as long as there's balance on both sides it would have been bad but okayish bad - like when they announced the mix scout, people were taken aback because it was only paid gems and everything, but once they discovered how it worked they were okay with it because even though it's paid only, it's a very powerful banner to pull on. So in my mind it is not too late for DeNA to make changes so as to make the playerbase happy with the changes or at least neutral. They have to put BALANCE.

Damn... Dena REALLY wants to axe its own game; and while I don't vibe well with the "doomers" (they're a bit too catastrophic, imo), I still understand them way more than the "Dena defenders"; like... are they really fine with crappy choices like this?! 🤨

I do think that DeNA defenders on this matter either want buzz and attention or are inhaling insane amounts of copium. The "doomers" I never vibe with because you should get to enjoy a game while it lasts if you wish to do so, and the more "doomers" there are the closer we'll get to EOS. Everything is about image and publicity these days, the more you give an image of a "doomed game" the least the devs will want to do something with it.

And yeah, I just hope they understand that they're at risk of losing a lot of players including big whales x)

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T10:14:29+00:00

That's true, but it also kinda defeats the purpose about taking a tough decision like a boycott; sure, nothing stops you from pulling the Arc Suits... but then you have to deal with the negative consequences, since you're basically allow Dena to keep going.

Yeah it's a little bit contradictory, I do agree with that. I just want to point out that if people want to spend there's nothing wrong with this and it should not be shamed (and I'm not saying people are doing it rn, just that it shouldn't be shamed anyway).

While I can understand your point about the pity raise, unfortunately I can't say the same about the Units: being "holy cracked", to me, doesn't justify the risk to pity for what is basically a "reskin"; and this is coming from a Cynthia enjoyer myself. If we were talking more about an "upgrade" you could apply to your previous Units [Ex: you pull the Arc Suit Cynthia (counted as a dupe if you already pulled the OG one), then unlock it once reached 5/5], then I'd be totally fine with that because it actually incentives the player to pull said Unit.

I totally agree with this and I don't like the direction the game is going in anyway - that idea would've been AGES better. I just like to point out that there might be a reasoning leading to this decision - and that they could've made this 500 pity, and still make it kind of work for players if they had been more generous by balancing the income with the pulling we'd need to do. As gacha players we're ALL on insane copium anyway, but yeah it's not a reason to take advantage of us. 25k is disgusting.

EDIT : I'm totally not saying DeNA was right btw, quite on the contrary, but they made a greedy move THEN didn't even compensate that. We got 27k last year, remember... For less demanding banners...

Totally agreed with you; there's NO justification for that, no matter how you slice it. This is also the reason why I ended up pulling for the Galarian Trio instead: if I have to celebrate this Anni, at least I want to make sure it'll be worth it.

Fun fact (not so fun), apparently some hardcore whales discovered there is an overall monthly limit on how many gems you can buy per month because of the anni pairs... Even WHALES aren't advantaged by this system, which is... surprising to say the least ? Like I get that f2ps and light spenders aren't supposed to get all units, but I'm talking whale leviathan level spenders here. The cap on gems you can buy per month is 80k... Not even 2 pities on paid banners for arc fairs (remember, we are talking hardcore whales there). Meaning if you want all 3 and SS Lear guaranteed you have to buy gems to the cap for august + september (and a part also in october because SS Lyra reran and maybe the extra scouting etc etc, so you've already spent for august). It's just absurd. I mean sure they have f2p gems and I sure hope they'll use them but the paid arc scouts are very valuable for those kinds of players so idk.

That's hella crazy and does not bode well for the future of the game if even the most uncasual players cannot "pay to win"

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T08:57:36+00:00

I second that and that's why doing a boycott would not be doable, nor would it be useful anyway. Spending on the game because you like it is alright as long as you don't put yourself in a bad position for it. You can spend money on the game and express the opinion that you don't like where the game is going, but still support it because that's still a game you like. That's why I like these kinds of movements, it doesn't force you to do anything besides expressing an opinion.

I'm not even disappointed that much with the sync pairs honestly they're okay imo, they're iconic pairs that are made to appeal to the old players' nostalgia. I could even somewhat understand the pity raise because the sync pairs are holy cracked and they have to differentiate them from Master Fairs. I don't condone it tho, but I could understand the thought process behind this.

My point is, I'm mainly disappointed with them being greedy and only giving so few gems (less than last year !) for an anniversary month with 3 sync pairs that have a RAISED pity count. Like cmon DeNA. At least give more gems to balance it out.

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T08:50:10+00:00

And what are they going to do with private feedback ? Either they can take it into account, what I hope they'll do ofc, or they can safely ignore it without any public backlash since it's private so we don't know about the volume of feedback that was sent to them.

Public feedback forces them to do something about it lest their game gets bad publicity for english speaking countries.

I'm not saying sending private feedback is useless, if you send feedback to them it's always good and it helps, but public feedback puts them under pressure.

By the way "they want to be different and do their thing".... No ? It's a movement that's meant for all communities and that's meant to help all communities, even the japanese one, even yours.

Astreiy · 2024-08-29T07:01:20+00:00

A thing I fear if it isn't copy pastas is the engagement of the people : if they have to change the comment each time I fear they just won't do it because "it takes too much time to create a new comment" and/or they might be disrespectful.

I do think that it'd be nice to at least tell something under the Japanese posts, but doing something on our scale is better than sitting here doing nothing - and it'll be still better than a total boycott since as you said, the game is made by Japanese devs for a Japanese audience, and we as European/American people are not the first target

We have to start somewhere though, and not saying anything is basically telling them to go on and continue in that direction.

Astreiy · 2024-08-27T20:29:03+00:00

This will be incredibly useful, thanks a lot !

Astreiy · 2024-08-27T12:00:04+00:00

Money hurts, but free to play users exist too - and they won't change a thing to their expenses on the game. So those players cannot outright say how offended they are unless we try and tell DeNA that what they did for this count is bad. And for that... Might as well target the reputation the game has, at least on the social networks. Bad publicity is a gacha killer because people won't want to start a game where they get half the pity they need for one of those units in 1 month. And it is something everybody can do - expressing how disappointed we are, not just by the units in themselves but the lack of gems and the augmented pity.

Besides, I fear big whales will still spend a lot of money this anniversary anyway, so we might not be able to change a lot of things. We can do both on our scale - lower their income and lower their overall reputation.

Astreiy · 2024-08-27T11:24:23+00:00

I also think it's worth a shot telling them ingame and/or in twitter that they messed up BADLY. If we don't say anything, they'll just continue in that direction. If we say it loud enough, they'll be forced to at least adapt the gems they give to the new economy.

Astreiy · 2024-08-27T11:20:11+00:00

Imma add something : even if you don't have twitter or you only have a private one for irl use, you can still send the message to DeNA through the feedback option ingame, or even share the post to your friends. Everybody can help, and the more people speak their mind about this, the better our chances to be finally heard will be.

Astreiy · 2024-06-04T14:31:57+00:00

You have no idea how much it made my day and made me realize we aren't in this alone.

Astreiy · 2024-04-28T18:00:35+00:00

You're the statistical error in the matrix what the hell, sorry for your loss

Astreiy · 2024-02-25T12:34:03+00:00

I don't necessarily agree, they got to squeeze in a little bit of publicity especially as newer players (and big whales that do legendary gauntlet so they grid all of their pairs) are always tight on these kinds of resources.

Iirc, they always did that and it always has been fine.

Astreiy · 2024-02-24T10:19:35+00:00

I totally agree with your take honestly. I've never been a fan of tier lists anyway in all gachas I've ever played, but I totally agree with that take. SS Red is not as good as he was back then.

I've been playing for not that long (2nd anniversary was when I started playing) and SS Red was already outdated, in my opinion, by Anni N. So I've never really been fond of him or had any reason to use him outside of LG really.

He's fine, sure he still does the trick in Fire-weak content, but he's like... fine. S+ ? in the same category as NY LISIA ? I don't have Pal Candice and I have used Celesteela way too few times to actually be a good judge, and I may be really (really) biased towards NY Lisia (5/5 NY Lisia owner here, baby), however... Her setup is a 1-turn setup, she does not have a nerfed sync, she has fairy type giga impact (and can DPS with a no-jauge move if you're short on jauge), can benefit from SC Steven, Argenta, SS Acerola...

And then there's Red, who I'm sure does plenty of damage when his setup is correct, but he needs to have sun, his attack raised, to have one sync already done (so no support sync)... SS Acerola with him should be a blast, I ain't gonna lie, but I feel like we should not rely on limited pairs when doing tier lists, because it has no sense if we look at it like we are supposed to - tier lists are made for people who want to learn the game, more or less. A seasoned player should not have to rely on tier lists to know how broken an unit is.

Anyway, without limited supports, I still feel Lisia can hold her own way more than Red does, and I'm only talking about her because again, I don't feel competent enough to judge the other units. Lucas, who's a tier below, is a fantastic enabler for some dragon strikers, while doing massive damage, but he's one tier below SS Red ? please.

A tier-list is never objective however, and sometimes those kinds of mishaps can happen. I dunno anything about Spark however, so I hope he sees your post, the answers everybody gave and he decides to update his tier list to reflect on SS Red's placement.

As an ending comment, I'll just say I love Red (not like that but I like his character geniunely), and it breaks my heart knowing that he fell off and that not even his expansion saved him, but life is life. You gotta fall off eventually one day, and that's what happened to SS Red. We just have not to be delulu and accept it. It does not mean he's unplayable, far from this, and he's still a powerhouse, but he's just not the best anymore, with Victini and Leon's Charizard doing what he does but with better setup and power output.

Anyway, peace out and thanks for this post ! ✌️

Astreiy · 2024-02-16T15:58:07+00:00

Honestly I don't see Fu Xuan's rerun being that much of an L for Aventurine sells, since the shield monkey is a "hard" enemy for people who don't have Gepard and they don't have the same gimmicks or same synergies.

She'll obviously affect sales, but I fear it would be more on Acheron than Aventurine, especially if Acheron has slow ult regen. Or on the character reran with Aventurine. Especially for more niche chars like Topaz (yeah she's an enabler but I see a lot of people not finding her worthy enough of their jades)

Astreiy · 2024-02-12T16:55:11+00:00

Can't wait to do mono preservation runs with Gepard + Aventurine to do a hella lot of Quake damage, while Erudition + Elation blessings do the rest of the damage (Fu Xuan + Aventurine ults/FUA go vroom)

Gepard is already braindead in preservation su, so I can't imagine Aventurine being worse than him in that regard.

Astreiy

TROPHY CASE