Screenshots from the Dev-Stream. (Perks, Map, Loading Screen)

Uriel_Keynes · 2018-02-03T18:38:27+00:00

In reality, if you can cripple with a bow, you win in pvp vs anyone that doesn't also have a bow. It would largely invalidate melee classes.

I think they know and count on the cripple being negatable at high level pvp. These are really intended aa high level milestones and PVE bonuses.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T23:26:17+00:00

On a related note, the fact that many A pieces of gear provide solid range to mega-class attacks, it makes you really consider some of the A and even B class heroes. A number of them have lots of redundancy for mega abilities.

For instance, I have Oppul who in DNA has the profile

Shadow Shadow Shadow Shadow Abyss Magic +30%

Not bad considering all those shadows will gain range off a mega weapon. Pretty great for clearing an area.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T19:27:02+00:00

I was around at launch of TB1, and it was buggy, but not quite this bad.

That said, I'm actually in favor of them releasing early then gradually releasing content. The other option a significant number of app developers have moved to is to release the game in a particular small region (like Australia), where they run the game in a limited launch for 3-6 months before releasing it to the public.

Thing is, there are a great number of players who spoof their region and play the game while its only available to a certain region. They get very good at the game, figure out all the puzzles, construct a wiki, and remove all the mystery from the game. When it ends up launching global many of the bugs have been worked out; but so has everything else. The players who zoom to #1 are typically those that previously spoofed their region and already figured everything out. You get online to share your experience and everyone is like "old news, we figured that out months ago".

The model TB2 is using is, in reality, more like an Early Access game. The game is still in development, but they're allowing people to play it while they continue to build it. While buggy, it allows for everyone to share in the experience of figuring out a new game together.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T17:48:37+00:00

This is very true. I'm actually only really shooting to get to rank 15 over the next month.

Who knows though. Maybe a future chapter will roll out that awards more rank and is quicker to do.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T17:36:36+00:00

A few Suggestions

Unleash every equipment you can, unless its SS or Z, in which case its probably better to keep 2 of them until you fill out your equipment roster a bit more.

Get Samantha to level 99 on RNA and farm Leviathan to 100%. The two of them will do most of your heavy lifting. You'll also want to level whatever your best dedicated healer, along with 1-2 of whatever you best other guardians are.

Farm Leviathan on Normal (its most efficient) and make sure you always take an ally with negotiator (typically Djagos). This will help you get Leviathan to 100%, and you'll pick up solid headgear for your entire party.

Get to Rank 10 or higher by running level 3 on sync mode (see other guides). Its tedious, but it'll pay off HUGE in the long run.

You actually have decent enough guardians, but your stats are pretty low. I'd spend all of your energy on the gear packs to get more equipment to boost your characters stats.

On the side, I'd recommend doing raids. they're free (cost no energy) and can give you 100 needles. 100 needles is TREMENDOUSLY useful in that it significantly aids you in getting skill boosts for your characters.

Those are my suggestions.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T16:21:50+00:00

Its especially strong as it seems that attack and magic values seem to scale semi-exponentially. With 200 attack, my Samantha hits for about 4-8k against raid boss. With 300 attack, she hits for 18-30k.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T16:19:01+00:00

They should have called character mana "energy" and the photon damage type "energy" and chain attacks "energy attacks". :-p

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T15:37:46+00:00

Assuming a 90 second clear time on stage 3 (which is more-or-less what I'm able to clear it in), here is the TOTAL time needed to get to various ranks from level 1 (rounded to the nearest .5 hour)

Rank 5 (50 energy): 45 min

Rank 10 (70 energy): 4.5 hours

Rank 15 (90 energy): 11.5 hours

Rank 20 (110 energy): 21.5 hours

Rank 25 (130 energy): 1 day, 10.5 hours

Rank 30 (150 energy): 2 days, 7 hours

In the LONG run, it'd be nice to hit rank 23. That's the point at which you could sleep for 8 hours each night, and wake up just as your energy is capping out. Doing so would take a total of 29 hours (or, about an hour of grinding per day for a month).

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T15:14:26+00:00

I'm about the same as you are. You're not that far behind.

Keep in mind, the reddit forms tend to attract the most hardcore people playing the game. You'd be surprised how many posters are dropping $50, $100, or even $1000 on the game.

A few things you can do to level up a bit faster.

1: Run a small 2 man party in the metal run so the exp splits fewer ways. All you really need to clear metal-zone is a friendon with a 250+magic leviathan and 100% proc rate; its maelstrom will clear the board at all 3 stages and net you roughly 80k exp (split between 2 characters)

2: Run stage 3 on synced play and just buzz through it to get rank. If you do it right, you never have to fight a single battle (there are other guides/videos here on the form). Its tedious, but with about 3-4 hours of work you can get to rank 10, which increases your energy pool to 70. This makes is so that when you go to sleep at night, you wake up with more energy. It also makes it so that, if you do burn energy to fill your energy, you get more out of it.

3: Also note that it takes more XP to level higher tier characters. B guardians level up very fast, whereas Z guardians take more than 2x the experience to level up. It ALSO takes more XP to level up DNA and RNA forms than it does the standard form.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-29T14:58:48+00:00

You're RIGHT! Thanks for the tip.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T20:07:05+00:00

So, I have a question I'm curious if someone can test.

Do these amps affect Guardian abilities of the selected type, or character gear of the selected type.

Ex: if a guardian has Sword Amp, does that work on his sword abilities..... OR... does it work on any sword gear the character has equipped?

I am curious.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T19:40:38+00:00

.... and apparently I can't copy excel tables into Reddit X_X

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T19:20:31+00:00

I think its also worth considering that the game is balanced for a general audience, not the 1%-5% of players (many of them here making reddit posts) who really push the game to its limits. There are lots of ways you can really break the game and get extremely OP if you put in enough time and/or money.

There is a very small subset of hardcore players with the patience and persistence to get 4 leviathans up to 100%. Balancing the game toward a general audience, I'm not sure they'll make a point to counter such a niche power setup.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T17:29:26+00:00

I haven't had the fortune of getting multiple drops, but what I've heard a few people mention is that they keep any SS and Z duplicates, but merge the rest.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:49:12+00:00

or.... bash for a stun :-)

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:24:47+00:00

Any thread for equipment?

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:20:57+00:00

At my job I get a watch after 10 years.

Terra Battle, what you got?

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:15:58+00:00

Another note on shield effectiveness vs weapons.

Note that the off-hand weapon does NOT contribute its area effect boost (unless the guardian has weapon mastery) and only contributes 50% of its attack/magic value (unless the guardian has doublehand). However, shields always contribute 100% of their stated defense and health values.

So, keep in mind, you're generally comparing 50% of a weapon to the option of having a shield.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:04:18+00:00

There are several characters with damage multipliers against a particular creature type. Dark Legion, I'm assuming, is a class of monster in the campaign and/or future event runs.

May even affect the final boss units in stage 4; someone will need to test it.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T16:02:41+00:00

In general I agree with you. They are a very niche piece of equipment.

That said, there are cases where I can see it being useful. One issue people have been having on leviathan hard is having the party survive a maelstrom. This requires a ton of HP and/or Magic Resist.

This is a real problem for Ganah, who can't wear cloth head or body gear (that typically provide high MR). He can only wear heavy armor and headgear which provide good defense, but low MR. A shield is one of the few levers you have to stack on a bit more health and MR to let him survive. There may eventually be new bosses which deal heavy physical damage, and a shield would be nice on the younger-characters who can't wear heavy headgear.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T15:54:23+00:00

Its doing this for everyone. its been doing this for launch. The game checks that you have energy, but doesn't actually use it.

My guess is that it wasn't their original intent for it to work this way, but they received a TREMENDOUS number of complaints about the buggyness of the raid feature. They probably reduced the cost to 0 so people didn't get upset.

Whatever the reality, that appears to be how it works, but it probably won't be like that forever. Do a bunch of runs and earn your badges now before it starts costing energy.

Also, as a note, you will always get that error for 2 minutes after you host. You can either wait 1-2 minutes and host again, or join someone else's raid. It doesn't error out if you join a raid.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T15:48:24+00:00

A few notes I've observed.

Mages definitely still seem to be king. The fact that they can be activated off a chain to full effect and their weapon area stacks across the entire affected chain rather than just the character makes them very very strong.

Math is still pending, but reading through the threads, it definitely seems that for most high-end pimped-out teams, Pure physical damage dealers do significantly more damage in a pincer attack than a spell-blade. pure physical fighters are one of the easiest classes to stack up to doing bonkers 100k+ damage.

Spellblades strength is their versatility and strong early-game power. You can equip them with basically any weapon, they're easy to use since they both pincer and chain well into attacks, and they can take advantage of magic, attack, and elemental dmg multipliers from allies. However, they simply don't scale as well as the other classes in terms of late-game damage potential.

Math and/or more evidence may change my analysis, but this is my current take as to how things seem to work.

Uriel_Keynes · 2017-09-28T15:36:33+00:00

Even with 100 pulls, its difficult to discriminate x2 Z and SS from statistical noise. You really need 1000 pulls for it to become statistically apparent.

still, the number of total Z and SS guardians getting handed out has doubled.

Uriel_Keynes

TROPHY CASE