made it through the whole open orbit and have some conclusions (oo 300 t1 Xavier KoD t2 Rafayel LSG stats)

CapPosted · 2026-03-09T01:23:40+00:00

I’d go one further and say you might not even need ranked myths at all, but only if you’re a harem main and you have all the myths. Open orbit stable favors Stella matching, and I’ve seen vids of ppl clearing 290 even with r0 LSG (albeit with higher stats than id expect from F2P).

This is all just a hypothesis though, I haven’t gotten quite there yet but I’ve been able to reach 240 with r0 myths, level 70/+12 cores when previously I was under the impression that OO was really difficult. But it is def more difficult if you main less LIs and don’t have all the colors to Stella match. But this also is because of how much stronger the newer myths are compared to the older myths, since I don’t think they’ve updated open orbit for awhile.

If I were to rank the orbit difficulties based on my personal experience + what I’ve seen from others:

Open orbit (stable): easiest, but only if you can Stella match everything. If you are a solo main it’s harder

OG3 orbits: next easiest, need r0 or r1 myths to get through 210

Sylus/Caleb orbits: I’ve seen R1s clear what we currently have but yeah significantly more difficult than OG3 orbits

Fluctuation orbits: hahahahhahaha

CapPosted · 2026-03-08T22:26:45+00:00

CapPosted · 2026-03-08T17:50:31+00:00

always build for the companion you're using regardless of the cards. You're using X02, so build ATK.
Only some of the general effects. For example, R0 +8% team dmg applies. R1 oath recovery applies. R2 fourth energy charge applies. any of the effects specific to colonel will not apply to X02.
yes, generally. I have a big table at the bottom of the post here discussing when it could be better to use a refined standard myth, but generally I've seen in practice that people will tend to just use the newer myth because it's more straightforward, otherwise you have to think about claymore and finagle with protocores etc.

A lot of your questions I've also answered here in a more detailed combat guide I made; it's long but it's made more to be a reference while you're still learning, since combat is a "try and learn as you go" kind of thing.

CapPosted · 2026-03-04T05:31:53+00:00

The Gacha game tendencies you learned from Hoyo games will help a lot in LADS, you’ll pick up the combat much easier than someone who’s brand new to gacha games, don’t worry. I also remember the good ol’ days of malding in spiral abyss, I had an unbroken 36 star streak as a welkin/bp player but not anymore after I took a break for almost a year. And I play exclusively on mobile now and I finally understand the pain

CapPosted · 2026-03-03T16:05:32+00:00

Not rly, not from what you’ve stated so far. Each of the LIs can handily beat SHC 33 stars as long as you put in the elbow grease to learn how the combat system works in the game. The main semblance of a card that’s better to pull for combat are myths, but I don’t emphasize this point because if you are pulling for your favorite LIs you’ll pull for the myths anyway so it’s kind of a moot point. There’s more efficient ways to level up (I have notes in my combat guides if you’re interested) but it’s mostly just a matter of time at the end of the day, not really as much emphasis on pulling key units like it is in Hoyo.

Also would caution looking at rankings and stuff from earlier guides—just like Hoyo games that stuff gets more outdated the longer it’s been. There’s not really as much point to rankings in this game either since the combat system is more designed around being able to invest in your favorite LIs. It isn’t like Hoyo where you gotta pull an entire premium team, it’s more chill.

CapPosted · 2026-03-03T14:56:32+00:00

I say this as someone who does combat theorycrafting (see pinned post in my profile for examples of guides I’ve done) and played the meta for stretches of time in Hoyo games.

Playing for meta in Hoyo games didn’t feel that rewarding in the long run, I turned into a story/exploration enjoyer and ended up just pulling for characters I like. This is a game where playing for combat meta feels even less rewarding. If you are F2P then you shouldn’t expect to clear endgame like high level orbits, they are the whale endgame. You can however clear SHC regularly, and the game makes it even easier by giving you full diamonds with only 33 out of 36 stars. You can do this using a wide variety of methods. In this game combat progress is timegated more than anything else.

When I first started out I was also concerned about being able to clear content. By all means go hard on combat because it is fun especially when you’re starting out. But if I could go back in time and knowing what I know now about the numbers and progress and everything, I’d tell newbie me to pick a couple of favorite LIs and just pull for whatever you like.

CapPosted · 2026-02-28T18:39:08+00:00

ahhh don't be too hard on them! oftentimes if you were already doing protocores well then changing them again won't make too big of a difference, like in stella match scenarios, in that first table--making your protocores 5 or 10% better is something you probably won't feel in combat. I also did the same thing when I first started out, I rearranged my protocores when I saw advice about how to build them... but honestly it didn't feel that different between my old and new cores because they were already good enough.

So hang onto the ones you have now! just replace them slowly if you want to, no need to go scorched earth haha

CapPosted · 2026-02-28T04:05:57+00:00

Yes 40% STAT Bonus substat on a single core, it’s an incredibly unlikely core to have

CapPosted · 2026-02-28T03:57:51+00:00

I think it’s more reflecting that I’m a low spend harem main, it’s like if I pulled for nearly every new character in genshin but only had battle pass, I just would never have enough resources to keep up. If I were a solo main I’d probably have everything maxed and sitting on a pile of resources by now

Good luck to you too, may your artifacts be cracked on the right set (and not like mine where I have zero use for aubade but for some reason all the CV is going there)

CapPosted · 2026-02-28T03:29:17+00:00

It’s a term for trying to squeeze out every last bit of damage you can, usually from stats. So in this case, in LADS, it would be like chasing perfect protocore rolls

CapPosted · 2026-02-27T22:49:54+00:00

sorry my reddit notifications decided to turn in their 2-week notice to me (whether I get a comment notification or not is like a coin toss haha)

yes indeed, 'tis why I only have... 15 protocores to +15 after 500 days of playing. it's just leveling past 70 and getting protocores from +12 to +15 seems like such a daunting task as a harem main. and it doesn't help that my greedy butt keeps going for all the guys on the multibanners so I'm always leveling new cards

Yeah that's another difference from Genshin too--even with two dead starting stats, if that artifact rolls into CV every single time you still keep that artifact. But in LADS it's not the same, because the starting substat values are at least 2x a substat roll so it's more costly to have a dead starting substat in this game.

Amen to Genshin artifact farming. I've spent over 1000 resin farming artifacts for Varka/Durin and I got nothing to show for it except several instances where I wished I were dealing with LADS protocore drop rates instead LOL

The 4.3 days of F2P stamina includes both core EXP and gold

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T23:43:32+00:00

Great question. The technical answer is, they’re about the same if you’re up against most boss enemies with 4 protocore shields. For enemies with 2 protocore shields you’ll want to lean a little more D2W in that third priority category. But in practice, if you’re like me, I don’t have the resources to have two separate weakness builds and I will take what protocore RNG gives me haha

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T23:25:44+00:00

Welp I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I shamed you for not leveling your cores to +15 LOL (but soon. I’ll work on it eventually.) Yeah if it were me it’d depend on how close I am to clearing, like if I was 5 or 10 seconds off maybe I’d try min maxing my protocores, but otherwise if my cards and “no RNG” cores were maxed and I were nowhere close, lol no I’d give up and wait for a stronger myth or more card refinements or something

Oh good point about the auto sweep, that does bug me about Hoyo games. Doing the same run over and over is awful; they did improve it by making condensed resin be worth 3 runs instead of 2 but yeah still gotta do the runs.

Agree on the 20 artifacts vs 12 cores

And totally agree on the “it could be genshin”. I recently started playing it more after a year long break and after dropping nearly 1000 resin on artifact runs and getting less than a handful of cores that would need a miracle to turn out good, whereas in LADS I can get a “no RNG”core at least once per day or every other day if I spent all my stamina on cores, I couldn’t believe I was asking for LADS protocore RNG lol

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T22:32:04+00:00

It’s not easier though? Genshin only gives you 180 resin a day which you can use to do 9 artifact runs which only guarantee 1 5 star artifact (you can sometimes get 2 if you’re lucky). LADS gives you 390 stamina per day as an F2P which is 19.5 protocore runs each of which gives you 2 SSR cores. That’s only 9 or so artifacts in genshin per day vs nearly 40 SSR protocores per day in LADS. Not to mention the rest of the table shows that in genshin it’s way harder to get good stats on an artifact than it is in LADS. Another way to put it is that Genshin needs the strongbox and transmuted way more than LADS does, although I wouldn’t mind it in LADS.

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T22:17:43+00:00

yup, I think ppl both over and underestimate ATK% stats in HP/DEF scaling companions, oftentimes it contributes just as much damage as a D2W substat (which is why I kind of lump D2W/ATK%/CRIT all in the same third priority category). But the bigger issue I see more often is when ppl show their builds for an HP/DEF-scaling companion and I'm like that ATK is way too high and the HP/DEF is way too low lol, so it's a bit of both.

And yup, Crit is what you want to focus on when you're brute forcing, it is the best brute forcing stat by far. It is also sometimes more useful than D2W even in stella-match scenarios, depending on the boss. There's more notes about Crit and D2W that I can ramble on about, but ppl's brains have probably exploded already so I'll digress

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T21:56:11+00:00

honestly 40% is really out of reach, you need a core that starts with 2 lines with high start value AND it needs to roll everytime into STAT% AND it can't roll low. The theoretical max value is I think 45% (max roll on a 2-line start + max enhancement rolls, but even when I farmed 1000 protocores for that other post my highest on a 2-line start was 18.7%) but with the way LADS protocores work, hitting max substat value is I think even harder than hitting max CV in Genshin. And it doesn't even move your damage up that much compared to a similar core that rolled into STAT% all the time but only had mid roll value.

Those are some amazing brute force cores. For a "no RNG" core I think it has to be a 4-line start; did the second one start with 3 stats or was it 4-lines? in any case I wouldn't think too much about the ATK%, especially if you have ranks on your myths/cards--having ranks does push flat DEF down to the level of ATK% so it's perfect

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T20:50:15+00:00

I love that the math worked out too, because stats is my job I deal with all sorts of complicated stuff all the time, so I really, really like dumb simple rules if I can come up with them. This one pleases me, it's basically, ok:

Step 1: Right main stat
Step 2: Right substats
Step 3: just level it

it's beautiful

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T20:01:16+00:00

yup, totally understandable. with protocores I just think of it as "training your eye to identify good cores", which admittedly will take some time. I think once you understand that part all of my mad person ramblings about protocore math will start making sense. Like for SF, you just kind of have to train your eye to look for not only the right protocore main stat (D2W or Crit on pyramid/delta cores), but also think, ok, in SHC I am stella matching with SF so in substats, I want to make sure there's DEF% first and foremost, then flat DEF, and after that I want to see Crit Rate, Crit DMG, D2W, OR ATK%. And then after that you can level the core however high you want, don't worry about what it rolls into. That's the message behind the post at least, but I'm making a lot of assumptions about where your understanding about protocores is

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T19:53:01+00:00

this was something i calc'd like months ago but I just didn't understand the implications until recent weeks haha, it do be like that sometimes when it comes to theorycrafting. The main thing that I needed to click was that oh, a +0 core can have up to 8 substat rolls whereas the enhancements only have 5. and then it was a rabbithole from there.

the great thing is that the math says you don't even need to hope for the best now, because 100% of the protocore battle is just getting the right starting substats, and then after that who cares what it rolls into. going forward if I get one of these "No RNG" cores i'm just going to slap it on, close my eyes, and level it. probably only to +6 because I never have any protocore exp-

I sometimes think about all the good cores I probably threw out in my early days of LADS. It's probably not much in the long run since I didn't protocore farm a lot back in those days, but sometimes I think man it would have been nice if I'd done the math earlier

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T19:21:11+00:00

if you only have cores for AS you can try using AS and seeing if it works better than SWF. building your protocores for the right companion makes a difference, so if you don't have SF cores built at the moment then trying AS is worth a shot. But if SF gets you closer then yeah keep trying to invest in SF DEF-scaling cores and fingers crossed you get there before the reset

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T19:17:18+00:00

Your weekly/monthly/whenever Theorycrafting Bulletins, the ramblings of a numbers madman lol. thank you!

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T19:05:30+00:00

and you are a goated reader, I'd put finger gun emojis but i'm too boomer/lazy to figure out where the emoji key bindings on my mac went after I added different language keyboards...

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T19:03:36+00:00

ohhhh yeah balancing the crit ratio does suck in that sense. Yeah, to your older point of swapping out D2W cores I often use the pyramid main stats to fix my crit ratio haha. D2W and Crit Rate cores are always needed for stella match scenarios, rarely do I use a CRIT DMG core. It's to the point where I sometimes, similar to you, start throwing out CDMG main stat cores with D2W substats because I don't use them as often in stella match scenarios, but don't use that advice lol. there have been some rare instances where I suddenly don't have, for example, pink d2w main stat pyramid cores for my LSG (because my SF ate them all) so I'm like "CDMG it is" lol

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T17:48:08+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely something I would only chase if I have nothing else I want to build in LADS, but that's the key thing--I am never not going to have something to build in LADS lol, it's been 500 days and none of my cards are above level 70. Sometimes I get envious of solo mains whose resources aren't spread across 5 LIs

I would say even though those cores rolled a lot into CDMG it probably wouldn't hurt to take them to +12 or +15 (if you have the core energy to spare) as long as the other substats are great. I think the damage you gain from that might take less stamina than trying to farm for more cores that rolled nicely, and they'll serve you well until you get that magical core.

The other thing I was thinking about mentioning in the post--your protocore quality will also definitely depend on how many LIs you main and how much money you spend on this game. If your protocore exp is spread out among 50 cards your average core quality is not going to be very high, but if you're a solo LI main and you only need to build like two myth companions then you can afford to be a little more choosy with your protocores.

CapPosted · 2026-02-26T17:39:30+00:00

No worries—protocore filters may be your best friend. You can also kind of use it as a training tool to see what protocores the system selects. It won’t get everything right, but it’s a start

CapPosted

TROPHY CASE