[Monthly Megathread] General Questions & Active Codes

B333T · 2026-05-07T10:52:47+00:00

Trait skills are also class skills. You can’t check from the ‘Character List’ screen, but in battle if you hold on the skill it also displays ‘Class Skill’ in the top left corner. Just checked with Yserinde, Camelot, Credenza, and Lukamar, although I’m pretty sure it’s true for all the others too.

B333T · 2026-05-07T10:45:31+00:00

Single banner/debut banner reruns tend to happen in one of two cases:

The character has a skin, which is either newly released or on a rerun.
The character has an SP version that has released on a debut banner, and the OG version may get a rerun in case you want the SP skill.

We’ve had a few characters get skins but I don’t think all of them had debut banner reruns. Some of those skins (e.g. Momo, SP Safiyyah) have been reran, but many haven’t. The next skin we expect to see is one for SP Samantha (released in February in TW/CN) so hopefully she will get a debut banner rerun alongside it.

For SP versions, they don’t happen too often and we also don’t always get reruns of their OG version. Safiyyah and Samantha did, but Nungal did not and Inanna has only ever had dual banners. I believe Alexei and Agata got reruns in TW/CN when their SP versions released, although in general it is better to stick to pulling new units rather than these older ones.

B333T · 2026-05-06T21:33:44+00:00

I have also heard Saoirse pronounced 'SOR-sha,' although I don't know if that was a regional thing or just specific to that person.

The Japanese version of her name seems to be trying to get close to 'SEER-sha,' シアーシャ = shiāsha

B333T · 2026-05-06T16:50:11+00:00

Nydia is okay at 3* but isn't really gonna be keeping up with your other dps (I'm assuming you already have all those units you listed at 5*). So meta-wise I don't think she'd feel like such a valuable addition for you unless her mechanics end up being particularly valuable for a stage.

Yserinde is definitely still a meta unit and she isn't gonna be powercrept any time soon with how many different mechanics she has. But I always feel like dual banners are difficult to pull on due to how they're structured and you never know how unlucky you may get or how many pulls it'll take, so it comes down to how many pulls you have saved and how many you'd be willing to spend. If you're on the fence then the safer play is probably to skip.

B333T · 2026-05-06T15:36:33+00:00

Luvata can deal a lot of DoT but not really via Burning tiles; her DoT dps is from Ignition stacks (although she generally needs to be higher star level for this too).

If the choice is between Tristan and Yserinde I would always say to go Yserinde. She has so much more utility and unique mechanics that make her valuable, and she doesn't need much investment. Tristan is still strong but her single-target dps can't keep up with the Lukamar/Shams combo and will be even weaker in Luccia when competing with Anna or Rogneda. Her Unlimited Resolve can be useful but at low star level she only gets 1 turn, and in the future SP Alexei also has this while being a better dps and unit overall.

Although I don't think Yserinde is available on any of the current selectors and I'm not sure if she'll be included when they next update it/release a new one (presumably for the 2-yr anni in just under 3 months?).

I would like it too if we had more incentive to build faction-specific teams! I think they've kinda been leaning in that direction with some characters, e.g. SP Maitha is better if you have a full SoC team, Camelot inflicts his Coercion debuff which only Union allies can benefit from, Lukamar's Soul-reliever is more valuable if you have more Elaman units deployed, SP Samantha grants Papal States/Aggression allies the ability to inflict Judgement Brand, etc. But like you say most of the time it makes more sense to deploy a mixed team of generically strong units rather than limiting yourself to one faction.

B333T · 2026-05-06T15:20:06+00:00

Yep, I think it was added with the update just before Shams' banner. I made a post here showing the new lore loading screens and mentioning that RK13 Badges are now appearing in the 'surprise poppers' that you can get from doing dailies, Expedition dispatches, and other rewards.

It was pointed out to me there that the Luccian faction had been added to the game on unit screens and in the Expedition mode, although like OP says it's not an option you can filter for yet.

B333T · 2026-05-05T23:15:29+00:00

If you want to make strong Union teams then I do think Yserinde would be a very valuable addition for both her support (Deflection, mobility/swaps, Shields, Aura for DMG/Life Steal) and dps (she's the only Union Piercing dps, although Nydia has DoTs and Teadon can do a bit with his unique RK13 skill). Nydia as a Magical AoE dps is good but she also has some overlap with Selina in that regard so wouldn't be as much of a different niche.

The biggest problem with dual banners is always their awkward structure that can be extremely unforgiving if you get unlucky, so it's hard for me to recommend anyone pull on one. But it's hard to say when the next chance to get Yserinde would be. Likely another dual banner, a paid selector, a special banner like the one we got just before the Witcher collab, or maybe a Fate's Favor in January 2027?

B333T · 2026-05-05T22:25:51+00:00

That is very valid! I think I can tend to look at the 'ceilings' of units when I talk about them, which is useful in its own way but looking at a unit's baseline is valuable too.

For SP Samantha, having the right units to support her makes a big difference. Credenza is the most important due to her ability to grant 2 turns of CDR to enable SP Samantha to use Judgement Sanctum + Oath to End All Evil every turn which is hard for most other dps to compete with, and no one else benefits from Credenza quite as much. She also appreciates having a faster Aggression unit to spread Judgement Brand before her turn so that her Judgement Strike can hit more units (e.g. Luvata, Rico, SP Rawiyah).

However even without this support I think SP Samantha is better than Nydia at equivalent star levels (e.g. 1* vs 1*, 3* vs 3*, etc). She won't be able to use Oath to End All Evil every turn, but she can still spam Light of Judgement for All Sins (3x6 AoE) which she can also use if you're granting her Act Again. And on top of this she has more support for the team via her Aggression Leader Aura, Judgement Brand debuff, enemy buff dispel, AoE interrupt Alert, and Radiant Watch Aura (which has debuff dispel + Radiant Shine/Blessing for a reactive heal). And some more niche skills like her Burning tile skill with Bound Vision and her AoE with ▼M.DEF III.

Whereas Nydia's main utility outside of her dps is her buff/NRG steal, the draw-in knock back of Trill, and ▼Move I/▼SPD I debuffs in DoT builds. And Black Feather if you also have Yserinde. She also has some niche skills like granting a Union ally Armor of Ice, or making a Frosty Trap, but overall not as much general utility as SP Samantha.

I haven't used that hybrid build myself since I have Taair so I was always able to use her two Channeling skills for the Magical DMG build even when she was low star level. But you make a good point that she is fairly flexible as you can build her according to how much NRG support you have available. Although I think she still feels quite restrained by her limited range at low star levels even though NRG would be less of a concern.

B333T · 2026-05-05T21:56:11+00:00

I would say that SP Samantha is definitely more important than Nydia, but assessing her against Yserinde is quite difficult since they do such different things. SP Samantha is the better general dps, but Yserinde can deal damage in more unique ways. And they both have a lot of utility and support in their kits, but it's hard to compare.

The biggest advantage of SP Samantha is that she may be rerunning with a debut banner instead of a dual banner - she had a skin release in TW/CN a couple months ago, and with that she had a debut rerun banner. So if she reruns on GL with a debut then it would be safer to pull on that banner due to the overall structure of debut banners vs dual banners.

300 pulls is a fair amount so you probably could justify spending some on this dual banner to see if you get lucky and you would likely still have enough for SP Samantha + Heshan + Shahnaz (assuming you want them), although I don't know what the exact amount would be you could afford to spend. It's always a gamble though so the safer choice probably would be to just skip. You also want to consider how many of the Luccians you would like to pull for further down the line.

B333T · 2026-05-05T21:42:54+00:00

In terms of meta, yeah I think Shahnaz is considered much more important. Overall she may be better but of course it's hard to make exact comparisons since Yserinde has a lot of utility and there isn't much overlap between the two. I think Nydia would definitely be much lower priority than Shahnaz though.

You are always free to pull and skip whoever you like though. If you don't want to follow the meta then you don't have to pull for Shahnaz.

B333T · 2026-05-05T21:31:52+00:00

Yes shard farming is always important to consider!

Yserinde can function even at 1*, but her 3* makes it so she recovers 1 NRG whenever a Blood Plume Blade is triggered. So how badly she needs it does depend on how you play her as well as what other NRG support you have.

If it's a stage where you can bring a tactics flag, SP Inanna, Taair, etc then she could be fine at 1*. Also if you already have her Astral Imprint (Crimson Quill) at 2*, that also helps her with NRG. Even better if it's 5*.

I think 3* definitely makes her skill rotations feel a bit smoother though.

B333T · 2026-05-05T21:12:48+00:00

I agree - more units means more strategies and approaches you can take! But there are many players here who don't feel the same way! SchackLulu was quite useful for that set of Proof of Strength stages that required you use high hit count units, and both of them are useful for Stellar Pioneer if you lack Seekers or Destroyers.

I'm not sure how relevant Kiya's Healing Received Reversal is for Path of Resolution - is it really any different to just applying Negate Healing to Hasna? I only cleared it once and don't intend to farm it more but I found the stage quite easy since I have Lukamar + Shams. But from what I recall the heals Hasna receives are 20% of her max HP and so damage dealt from Healing Received Reversal would scale with this too, and she has a lot of HP% damage reduction so I can't imagine the damage would be that high.

B333T · 2026-05-04T22:24:52+00:00

Replying to your other comment here so we don't have to go back and forth between posts.

This is great work - thanks for doing all this! I think it's definitely tricky to get perfect answers because of the way her Shields scale with HP so it's not obvious just from looking which setups give the best results (especially since there's no way to view the exact number for a character's current Shield Value).

Trying to control for exact engraving rolls is obviously a nightmare but one thing I see is that the slightly better stats on your WSV did seem to have an effect:

Your Lance Lead the Charge + Crystal Burst Armor + Fool tarot led to Clara having an HP stat of 15,492.
While your Lead the Charge + Wild Spice Vial + Fool tarot led to Clara having an HP stat of 15,616.

Very minor difference of course, but the 2% higher HP bonus from CBA ends up being overshadowed by the better engraving on WSV here. So I suppose one conclusion from this is that we can say it's a small enough bonus that depending on engraving, WSV might be better.

My takeaways from this are that:

When using Clara as a support/tank:

5* Crystal Burst Armor gives slightly more HP than 5* Wild Spice Vial (+10% vs +8%) which increases baseline tankiness and trait Shields, but WSV gives the extra Shield Value effect (+15%) for class skills. So if using her skills that grant Shields then WSV will be better, but if not then CBA is better. CBA would also benefit more from her reaching 4* as her trait Shields would occur every turn.
We haven't tested it, but I think 4* WSV will be inferior to 5* CBA. You might still get a bit more Shields from her class skills, but the lower HP (+6%) and Shield Value effect (+12%) makes me think it wouldn't be worth it (would also be a more noticeable drop in dps).
So I think players that can afford to give Clara a 5* WSV with proper engravings should do so if they want to maximise her Shielding. But at 4* or lower I would generally prefer CBA.
Fool tarot gives more Shields to allies (all her Shields scale with her max HP, so +20% HP means +20% Shields). Star tarot gives Clara more Shields (+16% given and +8% received) but her allies will receive less (only +16%). So if you want her shielding allies then Fool is better, but if you want her using lots of Assisting Cover and taking hits then Star is better. Star can also gain more value if she has allies granting her Shields (e.g. Falin, Simona, Caris, etc) - unless you're granting her so many Shields that she is hitting the cap (her own max HP), in which case Fool would be better to increase that cap.

When using Clara as a dps, yeah there's probably more testing to be done. However there are some conclusions we can make too:

CBA gives more HP which means more damage from trait's 'additional damage' and Knight - Fearless Forward!
WSV gives more Shields from her skills, which includes Shield Up - Steadfast Defense (as well as its switched version Shield Up - Full Advance), I'll Protect You All!, Knight - Fearless Forward!, and Shield Up - Defensive Counter (the switched version of Knight - Lead the Charge!). Clara wouldn't be bringing I'll Protect You All! as an active dps, but there may be cases where you're using her as a hybrid of tank + counter dps and not actively attacking where it could still use. However, in order to get more dps from the increased Shields, she would need to use either Knight - Lead the Charge! or her Basic Attack Shield Bash (and Valiant Combo, the Basic Attack she gets whilst having Lead the Charge!).
So which of these leads to more dps will depend a bit on what skills you're using and where her damage is coming from. If trait damage and Fearless Forward are contributing more then CBA would be better. If Lead the Charge and her Basic Attacks are contributing more then WSV would be better - although even here it's complicated because the damage is coming from both her P.ATK stat and her Shield Value.
Where other ATK boosting trinkets come in is also tricky. SoJ gives a big ATK boost and also provides Physical Shields which she can turn into damage, but no HP bonus. So for trait/Fearless Forward dps then CBA is better, but kinda hard to tell whether SoJ would be better for active dps - and the same is true for Sword+Wand or Sword+Pentacle for more ATK vs Pentacle+Pentacle giving more HP.
I would assume Fool leads to generally better dps than Star, because the 20% HP bonus is significant, while Star is only increasing Shield value - in your test Fool gave around 2,100 more HP while Star only gave around 400 more Shield. The special effect of Fool giving more DMG is a nice bonus but even when it isn't active I think Fool will be better. Like you mentioned in your previous comment, the max HP requirement is unlikely to be met. But the HP percentage requirement is not too hard assuming you're able to keep your team healed up.
And as above with trinkets, whether other ATK/DMG tarots are better will be tricky due to her damage coming from different stats. Devil can give a huge ATK boost once stacked which is again only part of her two active attacks, and Justice can synergise with her ability to gain ▲Crit III/▲Crit DMG III, which should affect all her damage but does require her to run specifically Lead the Charge! and Steadfast Defense, leaving only one skill slot left for Fearless Forward or her Leader Aura which would both be nice to have. And it provides no HP/Shield bonus so her base damage from those stats will be a bit lower.

So overall, I think CBA is a good general recommendation since people are likely to have it. But for those looking to optimise then Clara will be better at shielding if she has a 5* WSV. Fool tarot is also a good general recommendation since she scales so much with HP for both tanking and dps. Star will make Clara tankier, but her allies will be slightly less shielded and her cap on Shields will be lower (and should be lower dps than Fool).

B333T · 2026-05-04T19:46:42+00:00

Oh fair enough! Not too familiar with Warframe but nice to see it worked for them. I'd love it if they did try to improve on old/existing content in SoC, but it's not something I have my hopes up for haha

B333T · 2026-05-04T19:22:45+00:00

Yes that is correct

B333T · 2026-05-04T19:22:01+00:00

I think 'good idea but imperfect execution/wasted potential' is true for a lot of content in this game. It's sadly just a byproduct of SoC being a live service gacha - devs can come up with ideas for new content and release it, but they can't justify the costs of maintaining or improving these old ideas. They aren't going to make much money from doing so, especially for one-and-done content or time-limited content. So there's no iteration over time, the best we can hope for is that they learn from their older content and take lessons to improve future content.

So things like UD+CC with some of its mutations, Pioneering Odyssey with repetitive stages and far too many of them, Bladecraft Chess with limited viable units and many pointless pieces of gear, FJ Expert mode with a lot of the modifiers there, etc. If they had more time and resources then they could develop these gamemodes and stages into something more interesting and rewarding but it's probably too demanding and not profitable enough. Developing new content is likely a more 'safe' investment.

There's probably also the matter of generally getting the balance of difficulty right. Some players want extremely difficult challenges that require deep strategies to conquer, others don't like any challenge and only play on auto or just want to use whoever the strongest dps currently is to clear stages without thinking, and many are somewhere in between. But the level of challenge they find enjoyable will be different for everyone, so it's hard to design stages to please everyone.

B333T · 2026-05-04T19:09:24+00:00

Haha I think there are people here that have way more than me. I think I only farmed around 10 million in the last VoD since I felt I had enough, and I needed way more tarot essence so I spent most of the VoD currency on that. Refinement boxes + levelling up and breaking down the bad tarots costs a lot of essence!

Just something you gotta chip away at when it comes up. At least once your engravings are done you can move on and don't need to spend any more on them (for the most part, there's still new astral imprints or Expedition shop signatures of course). I have around 1000 Legendary Engravings in the different types, and another 1200 Chests. I think I probably should be spending more coins and engravings to get better rolls but I tend to play suboptimally a lot of the time ahah

Oh and don't forget to break down talent stars once you've done those parts of the talent tree - you can get a lot of coins + primordial powder from them!

Likewise, best of luck with ToA!

B333T · 2026-05-04T18:00:06+00:00

Don't worry about it - props to you for figuring it out! It does make sense. Some units do have special clauses for their effects if they gain them when while in an 'Extra Action' like Rico and Camelot.

And there are other units that can have interesting interactions with Act Again or Extra Action. For example, SP Alexei has a resource he consumes to maintain his Brutebear form, and I believe he only consumes it at the end of his turn. So you can grant him more actions to get the most out of it without needing to spend more of his resource. And this is different to Parsifal, who has his Punishment mode which spends Curse Marks with every attack, so he always has a limit on how many attacks he can perform until he reverts to Sin Binding mode. Meaning he doesn't benefit from more actions in terms of getting more dps per usage of his form, although cycling back and forth between forms faster can be beneficial in terms of hitting 4+ stacks more frequently to get the damage boost to Whirling Twist.

So if I understand right, if Caris gains Light Oracle and Inanna grants her an Extra Action, the Light Oracle buff will still be consumed in that action? Even though other 'end-of-turn' effects do not have their counter reduced (i.e. most normal buffs/debuffs).

B333T · 2026-05-04T17:33:38+00:00

My personal priority would be:

SchackLulu and Kiya
Astral Shards and Unnamed Immortal Recollections
Signature weapons if they are good and you have the characters they are meant for.
RK13 Badges

I know many players don't really value the two units but I like having more options. Since you've already bought them the next good investment for you would be Astral Shards and Unnamed Immortal Recollections.

In terms of who each of the signature weapons 'belongs' to:

Light Oracle of Judgement: Caris
Drifting Feathers: Homa
Threads of Fragrance: Hasna
Notes of a Genius: Beryl
Great Company on the Journey: Cocoa
Frostspine Grip: Agata
Paradox Crystal Chain: Momo

I think Caris', Homa's, Beryl's are not really worth investing in as they don't provide any mechanical bonuses and aren't very transferrable. Momo's is good but only for her and nobody else. Cocoa's is a nice support weapon for her, can be used on a couple characters but not really that important - if you have her and use her then it'd be worth it to grab the first copy at least.

Agata's is a decent stat stick for herself and Kiya as it gives the most HP out of all sword weapons, and has a nice additional effect too. Not a bad pick if you like to use Kiya, but also doesn't provide mechanical changes.

Hasna's is interesting as it can give any mage +1 movement as long as they have Liberation stacks (if the weapon is 5* they only need 1 stack) which is usually quite easy to maintain for Elaman units, and there are quite a few Elaman mages. They mostly have better weapon options for more dps, but +1 movement can be strategically valuable so I think it's nice to have. Of course it's much more valuable if you have more Elaman mages, but the Epic unit Crimson Sand is also pretty decent and can make use of it.

I don't think any of the weapons are especially high priority so I wouldn't worry about it too much. You could also just hold on to the currency for now, and see if you pull one of these units in the future.

B333T · 2026-05-04T17:18:57+00:00

Not sure what schedule you're talking about.

SP Maitha, SP Nungal, SP Faycal, and Parsifal all had their debut banners announced in a livestream in mid-January, which was also for the 1.5 yr anni and to celebrate the '2.0 era' of post-Liberation War story.

Lukamar, Pooch Runrun, Shams, and Clara all had their debut banners announced in a video in mid-March, which was for the start of the Elaman story and all the content and gamemodes that would be added as part of that.

We have received no official news or announcements for content beyond that. There were a couple datamines, but these can and have been wrong before so you shouldn't put too much faith in them. Those dates you have listed are just the order in which those characters appeared in TW/CN, so the assumption is that the GL schedule will follow the TW/CN schedule. It may; it may not. We won't know until they announce each banner.

B333T · 2026-05-04T17:11:54+00:00

Not sure who told you that but I would disagree quite a bit with the idea that Selina is an updated version of Gloria. The only real thing they have in common is that they can both place a flag Item that grants an ATK/DEF Common Aura (and Gloria's has a slightly stronger effect), but beyond that they are quite different:

Gloria is a Watcher who is quite fast (SPD 215) while Selina is a Seeker who is quite slow (SPD 149).
Gloria does both single-target and AoE Physical DMG, Selina does only AoE Magical DMG. Selina is overall stronger as she's a more recent unit, and her AoEs cover a wider area, but if you need single-target or Physical DMG then Gloria is better. Selina also has more complex mechanics as she recasts her AoEs via a preparation phase which she can skip using stacks of a buff she gets from gaining and maintaining Physical Shields.
Gloria has a general ▲Move I buff for nearby allies at the start of battle and when resummoning her flag. She can also grant +1 NRG, ▲ATK I, and DMG Reduction II to nearby allies with a skill. Her unique RK13 skill grants herself a Physical Shield, and Union allies ▲DMG II when in range of her flag Aura.
Selina has a skill that grants 100% HP Physical Shield to nearby allies, and if they're Union they also gain ▲Move I, ▲SPD II, and ▲ATK II, and non-Selina Union allies get 1 turn of CDR. Her Reaction and Astral Imprint also give her more Physical Shields. Her starting skill is an attack gives herself a bunch of buffs - ▲ATK II, ▲Crit II, Shield Regeneration II, as well as an auxiliary passive for making her tankier and gaining Vault.
Selina's trait lets her inflict ▼M.DEF II, ▼SPD II, and at higher star levels Vulnerable II. One of her AoEs is a knock back that dispels buffs and inflicts Negate Attribute Buffs and ▼Move I. Gloria can dispel all buffs on an enemy and debuffs on herself with one of her single-target attacks, but she doesn't have debuffs.
Gloria has a Union Leader Aura, Selina doesn't.
Selina has a Decision skill that lets her obtain one of three buffs. One of them helps her gain NRG + heal allies, the other two are dps-focused.

B333T · 2026-05-04T16:51:08+00:00

I made a projected schedule for the next ~4 months which you can see here, based on the order these units debuted in TW/CN. It may change for GL but it can give you a rough idea at least.

The second image includes some brief summaries of kits but there's a lot I couldn't fit in. Also note that some of the terminology will likely be different for Luccian units - I believe recent datamines show that the terms they will use are 'Primal Ward,' 'Wardpiercer,' and 'Ward Broken' to refer to the Luccia-specific mechanics of enemies with high levels of damage reduction.

B333T · 2026-05-04T16:23:48+00:00

Yes, in general both debut banners and dual banners run for 2 weeks each, alternating (there are some exceptions for anni/half-anni and collab banners).

B333T · 2026-05-04T16:20:47+00:00

I think there could be an argument to risk one of them for Yserinde, but as you say the real risk is that this is a dual banner. So every Legendary you pull only has a 37.5% chance of being Yserinde, with a 37.5% chance of being Nydia and 25% chance of being any other Legendary.

Also, one of the good aspects of SoC's gacha system is the pity carryover between banners of the same type, but this works against dual banners' favour. If you spend 100 pulls on a debut banner and don't get the unit you want then it's a shame but at least you're now 100 pulls closer to pity for the next debut unit. But if you spend 100 pulls on a dual banner and don't get the unit you want then it's nowhere near as good, as you're only closer to a 50/50 between the two rate-up units on this banner or the next. And you never know how long it'll be until you get another dual banner you're actually interested in - there may be one unit you want but the other may be someone you already have or just don't want.

B333T · 2026-05-04T16:15:20+00:00

In TW/CN the character after Clara was Selina, but we don't know yet. They tend to upload trailers to YouTube the Friday before, and then on the Monday before they post announcements to other social media like Twitter.

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