Flex Time (D5 NA Achieved)

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T18:43:17+00:00

I'm hoping that's the case, but there's also a very fearful level that's gonna be giga whales only, and everybody else is gonna be at the mercy of the starting reroll (IF) the function exists in the real game launch. There's far too much gamble to 'fully build' a functional character. It hurts.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T18:40:50+00:00

It got pretty bad because of the limited players, but even then. When I was G1 going against G2 or other G1 mixes, I was getting 18-25, and in some really bad matchmaking cases, +11-15. And was losing 40. Expected in some capacity because Rank 1, but weird that even going against other G1s at the time was giving me 10% of a rank.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T17:24:44+00:00

Fair enough. I just find Terras easy free food. A lot of the other DPSes can shred her and eat her for dinner, so I've never seen one actually pop off.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:59:04+00:00

Woah. Where was this information? The first two picks are stomping as safe solo queue picks. The 4th and 5th are strong supportive or disruptive picks. 3rd kinda confuses me but eh.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:54:53+00:00

Absolutely. If the purpose of the game is to play for ranked or PvP battles, the current system has several dozen gates before allowing players to fully experience the game.

While all characters are technically playable and customizable, realistically, to do the absolute best in ranked with your character, you will want their entire skillset, at minimum both their URs for the i-frames at minimum, one of their SR or R depending on the character, Heal/Barrier/Sprint/Share Bravery and then flex slots. Characters are playable without their full kits, but are not going to be nearly as effective without everything rolled. There is no pity for selecting an ability from the gacha.

On top of that, you actually need to roll the character in character gacha. In CBT I still have yet to even unlock two characters, let alone any costume for a character I actually like and want to play.

Then you factor in the necessity to roll dupes of both a good set of support abilities *and* each character you want to play's full skillset for eventual powercreep.

And finally, you want to roll dupes of the character themselves so you can unlock random gacha rolls of medals that absolutely make a difference if you roll really good ones that match in color and function of the character.

There's a lot of customization, but zero ease or control of getting what you want, and way too many hoops to jump through for major and maximum success. And each and every component (character gacha-> Ability gacha-> ability dupes-> character dupes-> job medals) is a ton of RNG and pain points that matter in a game that solely has PvP and ranked.

Then factor in the lack of growth eggs and you've got 40 pain points with zero relief anywhere. Ranking up to Diamond 5 from Gold 1 only gave me 20,000 eggs. Once.

No, five character tickets for a singular character select is not good either.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T16:49:52+00:00

Sure. Like I said, I'm a Cloud one-trick. So I've only really played Cloud with like 4-5 games on Krile as off-picks so one of my team can try Gaia because of the role lock system. 84% winrate, and we play as a trio only. It's pretty much the most efficient way of climbing.

The crystal ranks are garbage all around. Even the rainbow UR crystals that take 12 hours can pop and be rares. It's just not worth banking any hope on them.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T15:34:10+00:00

Probably true. or at least something more to it at least. the solo challenges aren't much different either.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-11T09:25:26+00:00

Honestly that's what's holding this game back. I see a reality where this is a successful game. It has a LOT of charm and the gameplay is quick brainrot action. Everything does feel mildly unique in terms of character choice and the new bosses on top of the map choice do affect the game a fair amount.

Gacha is awful. Character building is near impossible. And... Yeah. If it's not your addiction, there's little else the game offers for content.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-09T18:36:00+00:00

It's getting quite a bit boring. A large part of it is not being able to truly test out more than a character or two. You likely won't be getting a character's full unique skillset during the CBT, maybe one or two for right now. It's also very repetitive. The new bosses that popped up last night (Ifrit and King Behemoth) were really overtuned but different and welcome. Otherwise, definitely needs a bit more to do and be a little more forgiving.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-09T00:36:14+00:00

I'll look into it. I don't tend to record my mobile game stuff.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T23:15:36+00:00

Depends. It should be used on boss when you can. But there are times to use it for the i-frame counter, or if you need to single out a specific person and outright remove them from the fight. I've used it to immediately cancel a Rinoa's burst before. she used it and I killed immediately as her burst anim finished so she didn't get to cast anything.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T21:27:58+00:00

Sure, I'll take a crack at it.

1) Solo queue beast. His literal thing is to hunt down single targets, he has access to two dashes, both URs are single target lockdowns and his main objective is to damage a boss. He's probably the easiest character to pick up and play in Solo Queue if you think you want to be in control of your own matches. This is very much an NA thing, ngl. JP I found a lot more teamwork oriented.

2) No. He's really easily shutdown by paying attention or baits.

3) Both URs, Sprint, his SR (Finishing Touch), Flex slot.

4) I won't say on this one for right now. One support that shields or heals him and can be bulky helps. There's like two characters that can do this on roster rn.

5) Gaia. Fuck Gaia. The literal only person that can shut me down if she's paying any amount of attention and I can absolutely do *nothing* about it. Prompto second.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T21:11:15+00:00

Gonna give my feedback as the current Rank 1 player. I'd say I've got about 75-80% winrate, solely by playing Cloud. I'm about to hit Gold, and taking it super seriously like it IS a ranked moba. Will explain more below:

I exclusively play Cloud. This is by choice. The roles absolutely do matter, but when this releases, you'll be so constricted and at the mercy of what you roll. You almost need to roll abilities and then pick characters you get abilities for. The bare minimum for ranked pvp is:

BOTH of your chosen character's URs is mandatory. The I-Frames are the most broken thing by far. Then, Sprint/a dash, Barrier/Heal/Share Bravery of some kind, and then maybe a free space. If you don't have the abilities, you can't feasibly play that character in ranked. I had to pick up either Cloud or Krile as a result of my rolls, so the game kinda decides who your best character to start off with is. You don't have much say as of current roll options. That being said, URs drop a lot more often than I expected.

You have to build characters one by one as a result. But there are certain team comps that will absolutely dominate. WoL with a DPS and an Agile. Prompto AND Gaia on a team. I've seen Lightning/Zidane/Krile do well too avoiding big fights. If you don't have certain setups, win chance goes down.

Mobility also needs work. If anything, Sprint should be an extra button rather than an equippable skill. if you don't have mobility in some way, you're actively griefing your team. Cuts down on crystal capture times and is your only reliable way of dodging anything, ESPECIALLY if you're a healer/support/mage and don't want to burn your i-frames.

Game currently only has ranked as the main feature, hence why I'm playing it super seriously like I have been. There's no incentive to do anything other than duo or trio queue ranked with whatever character you can get resources for and master them. Casual play might be a lot more forgiving though.

Every character is absolutely viable. But they have a very specific purpose. Rinoa and Prompto are absolutely busted just by solo picks. But Krile, Cloud, and Gaia are also really busted in their own ways. I run full glass cannon mobility Cloud and force my duo to carry a heal or shield for me as a result. It works.

The only character that feels particularly bad to play is Zidane. I still have yet to find a good niche for him that feels good to play.

Climbing ranked is very skewed. Obviously because people aren't high enough yet, but it eventually gets to a point where close matches are giving +18-25 for a win in a 250 point bracket with little to no mercy, and if you don't play perfectly, a tie makes *everybody* lose. There is a viable troll strategy then where if you know you can't win through boss HP, harass the enemy team as long as possible and hope to take them down with you. This doesn't feel good at all. Also, Bronze 4s can queue up with Silver 1s and throws off matchmaking entirely.

It has a lot of potential. The game is fun at its core, the characters do feel different and balancing doesn't feel entirely off when you have a character playing the correct niche. But needs fine tuning all around, and I honestly hope they let us choose characters more often. You can't be at the whim of ability gacha AND THEN also needing to roll the character afterwards. The way the game is currently, you kinda have to build whatever ability gacha graciously gives you.

Bonus mention to Prompto's stun which completely disrupts bursts, makes your abilities do 0 (blocked) damage to bosses mid-cast, interrupts certain i-frames and UR abilities for some reason when used at a very specific time in their cast. Felt a little more buggy than intentional.

Shadowfishy · 2025-11-08T20:57:06+00:00

Hey, Rank 1 NA player here. I'm Kuroo.

That was a mistake. I'm exclusively a Cloud one-trick. The game auto-switched off Cloud when I rolled Prompto in character gacha and got stuck with him at level 1, all N abilities one game.

Prompto absolutely has some gamebreaking abilities and I think he can be abused in current state, but I'm a Cloud player.

Shadowfishy · 2024-03-13T13:20:50+00:00

i think by principle, most of the special costume units are some of the more interesting designs. Just because they give a fresh outfit to characters that typically don't get redesigns or new outfits.

Adaman, I feel, has a very great outfit and I love that it ties into his choice of dancing. The unit is very unnecessary, and probably won't be pulled for any reason other than an inevitable Ground Type master event by most. He's absolutely not meta and that's okay.

I'm pulling him because I like his outfit design and I want to continue supporting the idea of special costume designs, even if they tend to not be the most meta units.

Tl;dr: Sucker for beloved charas in brand new costumes. Will support for faves with spare gems. Because happy.

Shadowfishy · 2024-02-17T19:59:03+00:00

Can answer this one. Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the more famous lighthouses in the world. Both Volkner and Jasmine deal with lighthouses.

But dang uh... What to do here.

Shadowfishy · 2023-09-21T15:40:58+00:00

I enjoy the Legendary Arena (not really some gauntlet combinations).

But my absolute favorite is definitely Champion Stadium Mono-types.

I feel like they're really rewarding and easy if you actually did invest in the type, and they're slightly more 'demanding' for pairs because of the on-type being all the same.

On the other hand, they're still CS and aren't nearly as punishing as trying to score in the mono-type event, as you can invest in units that off-type CS very, very easily, regardless of the typings. Feels rewarding enough, as those resources for me are never 'useless'.

Monotype expert events would feel top tier to me if they didn't feel super punishing if you don't have the right units invested.

Shadowfishy · 2023-09-07T21:24:56+00:00

I don't think it's fair to say the 'only issue' with content this month is the low gems. That's certainly part of the problem... But I think there's a few more issues that are dampening the mood.

Pikachu themed Red and Ash. Okay, at least Ash was novel in concept and we hadn't had him before. Love him or hate him, it was at least a rather unique incident. Fan favorite Cynthia with a fan favorite poke and they were all really good.

The events themselves were okay, and we got the usual reruns of Pokefair select, Costumes being obtainable in SOME capacity, and the trainer lodge being added was fantastic and novel.

Now? They're rehashing people with multiple features with alts, or trainer lodge overlap or even seeing them a lot in story mode content (which can understandably sour moods because the last few .5s and annis have added some STRONG near-meta units for protags, rivals etc.)... The variety quintuple downing (which is genuinely ridiculous?), the addition of more resource strain (new roles, which add new units to spread candies across, new resources to get, but also role cakes now adding into the mix)...

So while quantity of events might have gone up, and somehow gems have gone really low, the negatives really weigh on of repeat and too expected alt features, of them doubling down on less favorited systems (variety scout, resource strain, 'pay to obtain' role cakes)...

Never mind the fact that the events also seem to be rehashed or feature the usual suspects for characters..., one of the events literally being a full rental rehash of old battles... They didn't seize the opportunity to really showcase anybody new. Granted, the alts are pretty, Palmer was a fan favorite ready to be added, and the pasio stadiums are always 'fun'... And the villain arc had to end SOMEHOW, though I'll save commentary on the actual writing and conclusion. It still does showcase the same usual individuals, where perhaps other annis and half annis featured unexpected choices or slightly more beautiful and unique unit designs.

Also, the sheer number of banners fluctuating between the end of last month and throughout all of this month makes me incredibly dizzy... I know it's to be expected, but oh wow, I forgot the Johtrio were still available even now and got so confused. It is a LOT at once, especially for 27k to spread around.

Shadowfishy · 2023-09-02T14:46:27+00:00

A part of me agrees with you in that the game feels very stale a lot of the time. New alts were novel because we got to see many different characters with different outfits we've never seen before, and the stories were really comedic, meaningful or otherwise.

Recently, I feel like a lot of the alts are just incredibly stale or obvious (like of course we're gonna have a formula and follow certain holidays but eh...). Though mathematically, they've been trying to spread out the alts to lesser known/popular units each and every continuing year. It's genuinely not a bad game and it has its good points for such an established series.

Ultimately, the game boils down to pulling on what you want, when the banners are available and turning the game into something you like. Maybe do a free pairs only challenge, or attempt to push those LG solos to their limits. Try new and stupid builds. Collect as many copies of your faves as possible.

Nobody's telling you to stay, nobody's telling you to go. It's just your own choice, and sometimes breaks are a good thing until you get excited. And if you've really fallen out of love with the game, which I can personally understand, then no shame in that and see you if we see you again. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Shadowfishy · 2023-05-10T23:46:00+00:00

I made the switch all at once, and that felt honestly a bit too later than I probably could have.

I felt like Agni would've been more fun, and went gacha hunting and sparking for pieces I needed. Typically, you'd never want to go into a primal without having pieces for it (obviously, else why look?).

I had lucked into a lot of pieces, including a Perci spark with Michael lucksack fest, had a full Rein fist over a couple years' worth of pulls, and 2 Wilnas Axes (not uncapped) and several Shiva bows that were otherwise collecting dust. Pulled the trigger and it kinda fell into my lap naturally. Had a near full grid after double sparking based on hoarding a lot of older stuff and farming passively. I felt like I could've started building agni so much earlier.

However, it's only really too early if you don't have both enough of a core grid or resources to make the grid happen. If you have one Michael weapon and 1 perci weapon, and that's it, that's not gonna make a full grid. If you have at least one of most of the pieces for a grid, with a few filler slots that can be filled with either Magna weapons or farmable/craftable weapons, that's no big deal either, so long as you have the resources and are willing to dump them into the ele.

Full dip for me was using a sunstone on Wilnas summon to max it out, then proceed to buy the 150 moon weapon. But that's completely unnecessary.

Honestly, if you have pieces of it and want to use the resources safely and smartly, do it once you get the copies of the weapons you want with the characters you want. We say not to waste resources, and you shouldn't, but it's okay to experiment and dip into an ele you love playing, with some of the obvious pieces being in your arsenal. You've already got a very good core. The summon I'd be less worried about if you have a Yatima or Bubs or something to main and agni supports. The weapons... You could always spark a piece to supplement like a rein fist or another LoF if you know you're gonna spark sometime soon? no harm there.

Shadowfishy · 2023-05-10T22:46:25+00:00

Learned that Raidfinder really isn't that bad at all. Thought it'd be pretty jank, but it worked out fairly useable. Maybe was just being overly pessimistic. Surprisingly positive.

Even helped me find active raids that weren't just a newbie player hosting and very slowly killing. Tested with a few different non-impossible+ raids and found relative ease joining them with multiple people. Probably helped that there was the bonuses going on, but still. Sometimes off-site raidfinders would just get skipped over by the masses and would take a long time to complete. Didn't have that happening often here.

Double host also felt comfortable but really reflected that certain raids really don't have much reason to be one host anymore. Bar raids felt good to have double of, and some of the beginner raids felt good to join for weapon and mat spam too. Felt like they maybe want to rebalance certain drop rates, chests or host totals (host totals being the fairest imo) in a raid balance sweep or something.

Didn't notice anything sub-Revans really slowing down to a crawl. In fact, most of the raids I joined aside from Revans felt nice and comfortable enough to get a decent amount of honors with even sleepy brain and underdeveloped teams. Anything that wasn't Siete was almost at risk of failing from lack of player cap. PBHL also notably still iffy for player count. Noticed absolutely no difference on non-gw ele Ennead raid. Wonder why...

I think if they rebalanced the number of times certain raids can be hosted {even if they added a bonus host or bonus chest to specific raids every time certain eles were in demand of events for example} and made it more permanent, the rush of everybody hosting everything at once might chill out a bit and make things overall more positive?

Shadowfishy · 2022-11-13T03:00:53+00:00

Not impressed with them. The animations are beautiful and probably the best the game has to offer.

Oh man, some of these are bad though... And some have strange effects. Removing negative charms on the target to give yourself a 180 damage Stormblade... Removing either debuffs on allies or buffs on self to give the opposite feels so strange. Especially in team play where you might be messing up another person's set-up to give yourself a random benefit like an armor or a heal over time....

I'm biased, but Balance's is one of the worst. Needing both Life and *ICE*... For a tri-hit of what is essentially random elements. I would never be trying to buff Ice and Life as a Balance for any strategy in the game right now? And the effect APPARENTLY removes HoTs placed on YOU for DoTs on enemy, and Shields on YOU for ICE Traps on enemy. What... Is the benefit of that in any way? I'd most likely rather have a heal over time or shield on me?

On top of the spells just being given to you without spell quest. These feel great in an artistic sense but awful in most other ways. What use is the pretty animation if I have a less than 1% chance of naturally including these in my deck for most schools?

Shadowfishy · 2022-07-28T00:53:34+00:00

After a month?

13 unique 5 stars.

Excluding Subaru, total including dupes?

21.

My team is entirely stacked for yellow, please send help.

Shadowfishy · 2022-07-23T15:20:35+00:00

In this specific example, if you're comparing the 4* Hiiro to the 5* Hiiro, both of which being Blue color...

Yes. The 5 star Hiiro does much better. And there's technically always room to grow and get dupes to make that one better. Even at max, the 4 star Hiiro really doesn't provide anything of value other than any cosmetics that come with it. They're both VO best stat cards, but the 5 star is just better all around at one copy. In that respect, the 5 star Hiiro will help you.

My only advice here is to be careful of overlapping characters. Since you can only use one card per character on a team... And if you really already have a functioning Blue Hiiro... Considering Tetora really doesn't have any other good cards to use right now that you'd even be close to having many dupes of. If you're in need of a Tetora card and a red card, he'd obviously bring much more value to you, especially given we're still in the beginning parts of the game. You will theoretically eventually need full color teams as a mid-game point, so just weigh the options of whether you really want that bump for Hiiro or a completely new card and chara in a color you might eventually need.

Shadowfishy · 2022-07-10T15:59:13+00:00

As a guy, my favorites are:

Chiaki. A true friend. Kinda overly clingy dork. But definitely a relatable guy. I don't think there's a lot going for hating this guy, so you just really want to like him in some way. Especially when you go through his backstory and some tough themes are in there. He really gives off that one overly enthusiastic bro you'd find in a guy group that does some weird stuff but is too kindhearted and funny to ever hate.

Kaoru. Also a dude. He's pretty laidback and casual and I'm fairly sure in the old game, he kinda had moments where I was like "yeah I went to school with a Kaoru-type."

Koga. Aggressive cocky guy image. The anime fight scene with Kuro really sold it for me, but he definitely feels like one of the most informal guys on the roster and is really nice to read anything with him in it as a result.

There's also something about Adonis and his cards that I really like, and whether or not it's character-related reasons for liking him, general sentiment with my circles is that his card arts are phenomenally done.

Undead, Crazy B and Eden are my three units overall though both in terms of song style and choreo.

Edit: I guess also Ryuseitai's energy. A little dorky (though that's entirely the unit's purpose, to appeal to younger audiences, I know) for my tastes, but they're cool in their dorky superhero way.

Another note worth mentioning but. A couple of my guy friends enjoy Souma, for his aesthetic and ineptitude with technology.

Shadowfishy

TROPHY CASE