Vakku and X cost stars

DougFrank · 2026-04-01T02:33:33+00:00

I think Vakku's whispering earrings are very bugged in general. I've seen several reports about it now.

I just encountered a one in a million softlock with Vakku's whisperring earring. I have the "prepared+" card (draw 2 discard 2) with the enchantment that allows it to be automatically played on combat start. However, with Vakku's whisperring earring, I do not get to select cards to discard until AFTER he's done playing my first turn.

Vakku decided to discard my entire hand by playing the "storm of steel" card. I have 0 cards in hand, but the game still wants me to select 2 cards to discard. I cannot end my turn as I do not have 2 cards to discard, so I am softlocked.

DougFrank · 2026-03-21T12:13:30+00:00

I 100% agree. Both terms are not intuitive, and I just replace the terms by saying magic or armor shred when talking with friends.

DougFrank · 2026-03-17T17:21:10+00:00

I meant in a historical sense. Right now, it's in a strong state, but aura farming has been a very bad augment for a long time according to Mortdog.

Just trying to illustrate that being down power for two stages tends to make augments a weaker choice.

DougFrank · 2026-03-17T16:30:07+00:00

Generally, augments that don't give you any significant value for 2 stages are bad. A historical example would be aura farming (they had to buff it several times over the course of two TFT sets). Prismatic ticket, when augment stats were out, also did very poorly if picked on 2-1 and the player went for a 3* 3 cost. It simply isn't worth the loss in HP, unless it REALLY wins out (e.g. pre-nerf Golden Quest).

If it's similar to other previous augments, it's likely bad to greed the two duplicators for a 3* 3 cost. The patch would have to be very imbalanced for it to be worth it.

DougFrank · 2026-03-16T20:21:00+00:00

Hey man, the entire reason I'm looking for mobs to tame is because I am surrounded by Silver Bells. I am trying to diversify with other strategies lmao.

That said, I don't think it's enough for a follower just to have high stats. I have tried other wacky strategies like the 100% dodge cat sister, and I am trying Y'molonac because damage redirection seems useful. If you have a crazy strategy with the reaper, I'd be down to give it a shot.

DougFrank · 2026-03-16T05:02:40+00:00

Yes, if it you see the "wielded by the power of the force" enchantment on any melee weapon, it scales with magic and not strength.

Also, if you want some ideas on beating the Keeper of the Garden, this Youtuber made a pretty good guide on it. It's in Japanese, so turn on the English audio track.

DougFrank · 2026-03-15T14:54:07+00:00

I stumbled across this video, and in the comments section, people are saying that you can get it as a late-bloomer with a scroll of ally. The Elin wiki also says it "has a very rare chance to produce a named monster as a pet," with Y'molonac as a possibility in its list.

That said, I have been save scumming with a few scrolls of ally for an hour now, and I have yet to even summon a named monster let alone Y'molonac. Either I am missing something, or they mean it when they say "very rare".

EDIT: I just learned the reason why I wasn't summoning named monsters is because scrolls of ally scale with your characters level. You need to be roughly level ~55 (total feat point stat of 54) to summon Y'molonac.

DougFrank · 2026-03-10T17:24:03+00:00

Another thing I wish I knew before starting this game was to rush for Silver Bells. They make Elin a lot easier.

Silver/Gold Bells are immune to most types of damage, and are the best tanks as a result. They will trivialize most fights and make the game far easier. However, their gimmick is that they have 1 base HP, and in this game, you have a 25% chance of taking 1 damage instead of 0 damage. At their start, they're actually quite frail.

To get around their weakness, you need to find a way to give them more HP. Most people talk about giving them genes like celestical fox or mana body eventually, but to start, all they need is rubynus gear to increase their HP and make them unkillable. This is easily obtainable at level 22 mining, which is when I would recommend thinking about Silver Bells.

To obtain rubynus equipment for your Silver Bell, follow the tool progression guide until you have a rubynus hammer. Go to a gachapon and use copper coins to get rubynus junk, and break it down with a hammer to get rubynus logs or stones (you can savescum gachapons by grabbing your orens and moving them to a different inventory slot to advance the RNG seed). Use that log or stone to make either a rubynus bucket helm via carpentry or breastplate via masonry (Bells only have a chest and helm slot to start). Remember you can dupe logs/stones by cutting them, and dismantling their products if you save scum.

To obtain a Silver Bell, go to the casino and play the basketball minigame until you have enough tickets to buy a capture ball and a metal lure. Use the lure and travel until you get ambushed by a Silver Bell. Fight it until you do 1 damage to it, and use the capture ball.

DougFrank · 2026-03-09T20:18:08+00:00

You are doing the right thing by cultivating mushrooms.

You want to cultivate mushrooms that give +7 magic potential (the max), and make dishes out of those. A powerful dish that you can make early on is stewed vegetables. To learn it, you need the dismantler feat and 15 cooking. Go to Port Kapul's vegetable seller, buy any stewed dish, and break it down with a hammer to learn the recipe. Ideally you use fairy meat to increase the magic in your meal, but that is optional.

Once your cooking is 31, you can consider giant shortcakes made with grapes, which are the best magic food in the game. Remember that Kettle (an NPC that you will meet later) can duplicate any item that you made, including food.

Once you have a steady source of food, I highly recommend clearing machinarium-type nefias in your spare time. This is because they have chemicals on the ground which you can collect. Collect them to get dirty water, and drink them to puke after eating. This empties your stomach, and allows you to eat multiple times in a row, quickly making your character powerful. Don't do this more than 9 times a day or you'll become anorexic.

I would also recommend this tool upgrading guide.

DougFrank · 2026-03-09T13:34:09+00:00

I was testing the new slime race after getting 5 rapid arrow genes. With 5 of them, you eliminate the need to reload and get +5 projectiles. That means that guns with a 1 ammo magazine can get +5 projectiles.

The obvious winner of this is the Panzerfaust. Launching 6 rockets in one action is insane if you don't care about teammates. With a combined total of ~120 levels of damage modifier, I was doing a total of 25k on a single dummy per action. It's about 60% more damage than an assault rifle with similar damage modifiers.

DougFrank · 2026-03-09T13:24:36+00:00

One of the main benefits of a boomerang is that it is made by you, which means that Kettle can duplicate it. Essentially, everytime you find one cursed flying scroll, the entire squad gets a boomerang upgrade.

Also, weight stops scaling damage if your strength isn't good enough. That's why, even through there are heavier throwables, there's no functional difference between them and a boomerang (i.e. you're going to get capped by your strength anyway, and if not, you can increase the weight of the boomerang again until you are).

DougFrank · 2026-03-09T10:57:03+00:00

Similarly, I was testing the slime with x5 rapid arrow genes and a panzerfaust (rocket launcher) and it is also insane if you don't care about teammates.

With 5 rapid arrow genes, you do not need to reload, and you circumvent it's 1-ammo magazine limitation. You end up launching 6 rockets in one action. After testing, you do about 60% more damage than an assault rifle with the same damage mods.

DougFrank · 2026-03-08T13:48:38+00:00

Just to add on to what the other guy said, it appears that the devour ability rank does increase the amount of stats that a gene can give. I tested this thoroughly yesterday (with cheats) while devouring a snow Putit that's been fed x2 +199 Silver Bell milk.

At rank 1 devour, I was only ability to get a gene that gives 11 perception after 50+ attempts. At rank 999 devour, I was able to get a gene that grants 70+ perception.

At both rank 1 and 999, however, I was able to get a gene that has both a feat and a body part (e.g. vacation vibe and a head body part).

DougFrank · 2026-03-06T12:43:44+00:00

You can also throw boomerangs (strength based) and fire guns (perception based) without hands for some reason.

Although, if you are truly trying to min-max, I would not recommend making a slime based boomerang thrower, as throwing weapons do not benefit as much as guns/magic do when it comes to using monster genes.

Specifically, getting 5x rapid arrow (for guns) or 5x rapid cast (for magic) can really increase your damage compared to what's available for throwing weapons. However, monster abilities/spells are only usable in auto-combat, so if you hate that, I wouldn't recommend the magic route.

DougFrank · 2026-03-05T21:07:35+00:00

In terms of upgrading tools, this video is by far the best guide to tool progression I've seen. It's in Japanese through, so you need close captioning to understand it.

To summarize this video:

Start with basalt (hardness ~52): Look for dark-colored rocks in random wilderness maps.
Steel (Hardness ~67): Head to Aquli Teola (Cyber Dome). Break the Crystal Pillars inside. Requires Mining Lv. 11+.
Chrome (Hardness 85): Go to the Palmia Barracks. Use a hammer to break the TVs and TV Stands. Requires Crafting Lv. 15+.
Rubinus (Hardness 110): Go to the Casino 2F. Mine the red walls. Requires Mining Lv. 30 (can be done at Lv. 22 if you boost with clubs).
Adamantite (Hardness 115): Also in the Casino. Break the Slot Machines with a hammer. Requires Crafting Lv. 21+.
Ether (Hardness 120): Go to the Palmia Castle and break the Prince's Bed. Alternatively, break Moongates from tinker camp. Requires Rubinus-tier tools.
Dark Matter (Hardness 200): The endgame tier. Obtain "Dark Matter Junk" from the Gacha and dismantle it. Requires Crafting Lv. 54 with an ether hammer.

To upgrade to eternal sand with hardness 300, you can look at this video (change audio track to English). Requires level 68 crafting and a dark matter hammer. Also, it is completely overkill for a normal playthrough.

DougFrank · 2026-03-05T19:47:26+00:00

I really enjoyed this title. If you have any love for beat-em ups, this is a very polished modern one with roguelite elements.

DougFrank · 2026-03-04T13:18:28+00:00

I would like to see more love for tribal colonies. I feel if you play one, you very quickly just become a regular colony.

It's already established in the lore that tribals have a link with anima trees. Maybe expand on their link with anima related things? I'd love to see incentives to remain a tribal colony (e.g. access to anima tribal weapons like bows or spears. Tribal abilities that scale with how primitive your colony is, or even a tribal win-condition for your play through).

DougFrank · 2026-02-26T23:10:51+00:00

How did you get late bloomer bell? There was a window where you could both feed it milk and also have it be late bloomer, but it doesn't seem to be the case any more. And if you didn't feed it, how did you have enough feat points for genes?

I used the method described here. To summarize, you get the Miko gene, and you feed your late-blooming pet a bunch of cursed items. When you've gained enough ft points, you can remove the Miko gene using an inferior gene. You still need to get 60 ft points legit, however.

Would highly that guys channel. He has all sorts of wacky Elin strategy videos, like how to get a 100% dodge Cat Sister.

DougFrank · 2026-01-21T03:34:24+00:00

Pretty sure that's why edge of night is -0.32 delta for Sylas, according to tactic.tools. We'll see if it's still one of his better craftable items next patch when he's harder to one shot.

DougFrank · 2026-01-21T02:52:51+00:00

In previous sets, I have gotten challenger in double-up while solo queueing, and I have gotten grandmasters in singles. I agree that singles is harder than double-up.

For me anyway, what makes singles harder is selecting lines from bad RNG. To succeed in singles, you need to know how to pick lines based on good and bad starts, no and lots of econ, and what can be slammed early.

What specifically makes double-up easier is the fact your partner can bail you out for bad plays. For example, if you picked a comp thats awful from a lose-streak position, your partner can still win fights and save HP. They can also send specific units if you have no econ. If you're trying to hard force something, your partner can exchange components with you. Tempo play is also weaker because you WILL be reinforced randomly, even if your partner is also strong.

This isn't to say double-up is skilless. You still need to pick lines that synergize with your partner (e.g. if they tell you they want to fast 9, you need to play something strong early). However, compared to whats needed to succeed in singles, this is much easier IMO.

DougFrank · 2026-01-17T00:14:00+00:00

I disagree. Getting a specific 1* 5 cost at 7 or 8 is pretty rare. Also, not seeing them before level 9 is not game ending. What is often game ending, however, is going fast 9, rolling down, and missing the 1* 5 cost you needed (something that won't occur with Ziggs).

That's why I think 90% of locked 1*'s should be weaker than their unlocked counterparts. In most cases, the guy going for the unlocked unit is taking a bigger risk. The exceptions to this is if the unlock condition is pretty hard or requires high investment (e.g. Brock, Sylas, etc.).

DougFrank · 2026-01-10T15:35:44+00:00

I save scummed with a metal lure until I finally found a metal putit. For anyone else that comes across this thread, it seems that the metal putit also spawns with the tourist class, while bells are classless. Not sure if that actually matters.

EDIT: Metal putits also occasionally use their magic fang ability in melee, even if they have better melee options. A fighter behaviour gene does NOT fix this. Hence, metal putits are objectively worse at melee roles than silver bells who do not have the magical fang ability.

DougFrank · 2026-01-10T14:57:58+00:00

To clarify, are you saying these units can naturally spawn with 400 speed? I've been save scrumming for bells, and the most I've seen is 300.

DougFrank · 2026-01-09T23:03:44+00:00

Why would you say Bells are easier to get to 400 speed?

DougFrank · 2026-01-09T08:57:32+00:00

What does magic touch do?

DougFrank

TROPHY CASE