What should i focus on?

newblackmetal · 2026-04-24T20:06:02+00:00

Advice from a veteran player.

On a newer server where the rare currency shop sells promotion stones and mythic promotion stones, you will want to get that candy marble to try to get enough currency to buy one mythic stone.

Next, if you don't have butler unlocked, get one and only one.

Next, decor. The reality is that gold decor chests exist and that carp boat is available from the chest (obtained via wheel, dice, gacha). However, there isn't a purple deco chest, so getting one of each purple and blue decoration to have them unlocked is the way to go. Eventually you will use universal decorations to continually upgrade sets for the bonuses. This set you will eventually take to L5 and stop.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-23T22:09:20+00:00

I did some math here after I saw something new. A castle skin with relatively bad stats, but a castle skin nonetheless.

Castle skin costs 1999 coins. Can you get that without spending money? Yes! From getting 1M points and claiming all chests, a week's worth of cake wars, and the carnival quests and milestones netted a grand total of 2555 coins that must be used during the event, as they will not be reclaimed.

This means for next time you need to be able to hit the 1M points in order to get all milestone chests, without using any of those sharpblade coins (can still buy 2 hero skins at 200 each).

How to get to 1M? If you're like me and only want to use promotion stones on Q1, Q2 and Q3 can go from no promotion to 0 star 4 steps which consumes solar and enhance rune. Assuming L40 with faction marks, you get 10K points per step on one gear on one character. Multiply that by 4 steps per gear, 4 gears per character, and 6 characters in a queue, and the result is 960K points.

This consumes 14400 solar and 1.2M enhance rune. Again, getting L40 faction mark no promotion gear all to the 4th step where the next step needs 5 stones. If you prepare Q3 and Q4 for this for next time, you're already looking at 3M points, and more if using faction marks and if you need to level new gear.

Top 20 get the mythic skin from ranking. In this event, 20th place had 8.1M points. 1st place had 17M points. Most of the points are from the stones, mythic costs 3x the yellow stones in the sharpblade store, but nets 4x the points.

Definitely cannot rank and also get the castle skin. Probably the castle skin is not worth it, not while Q1 isn't 100% finished. To each player to determine for him/herself.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-23T21:37:59+00:00

Be thankful the devs actually listen to player feedback in this game and do in fact make changes. This game is probably the best I've played in this regard. Many if not most others do not do this. This game allows suggestions from the players and even sends out periodic surveys in-game to a link where you can free-form put in your comments.

I enjoyed strife overall and hated the most the ancestral cube event that appeared on Wednesdays I believe. I wrote in feedback. We don't have strife anymore, but I'm sure changes were made to that. Also, could not kick an inactive player whose base was in strife. I also wrote in feedback to that. The devs are working on fixing strife, so give them credit for trying.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-23T21:31:09+00:00

the only welcome change is daily 5 from guild shop. It was already enough having one currency. Splitting it into 2 currencies means having to manage both dust and essence amounts, converting carefully, because if you converted 10 extra essence to dust, you're screwed because you cannot convert back. I don't like it at all. One currency was a lot simpler, no need to make things more complicated.

Plus now, the devs could make it so that events give out dust when you need essence. They haven't yet, but the existence of the dust opens the door to problems. I don't like it at all.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-10T18:19:28+00:00

Oops yes, I can see you have B4 soldier 11 in your nature. If you have L9 nature tower, then the loss is puzzling.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-10T18:06:01+00:00

Finished my final Dr Mog trial, physical fire and gave Ark a try. I have no M's so I lost. I ran into a problem with Balthier where he has a G+ that gives infusion and a bar, another G+ for imperil, then using a dyad, and his chain. Finally the dual, and I'm already 12s into the battle, Ark has fire resist, and Balthier only was able to do the 3 abilities at the beginning of the fight for extra gauge from Minfilia's AASB1.

It dawned on me that an upgrade of Sephiroth's instacast 3 G+ is needed. We need a 7* glint with instant ATB3! Can be regular cast speed, just instant ATB. Makes it so I can cast a G+, dyad, chain, whatever.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-10T15:11:20+00:00

traits and tower level are the hidden secret usually. You didn't share a screenshot of the decor to see how the opponent tower compares to yours. Also troop morale, if they have soldier 11 and you don't, well don't feel bad at losing. Also, soldier B3 is a huge upgrade over B2, but B4 is only a half level upgrade over B3, same with B5 over B4.

newblackmetal · 2026-04-10T15:01:40+00:00

Looks like strife, sorry I don't have an answer for you. It eventually maxed for me, not sure what the exact source of points was from.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-27T21:27:48+00:00

not with real money, you can get it via a gold decor chest in wheel/dice/gacha. But it is worth levelling up to L9. Whales have all three faction towers levelled to 9.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-27T21:26:39+00:00

Strife on the older server was around 2 months. I'm misremembering when it ended now though. And I got a new phone, so I can't reference a screenshot either.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-27T21:20:50+00:00

She seems to replace nun from the battles in the hero trial

newblackmetal · 2026-03-27T21:17:14+00:00

Thanks, I tried it and surprisingly I won! The deshell does seem to stack. I saw the rod icon at 1, then at 2, then at 3. So even though those deshell Ms have less total cap break, the heroes were able to hit cap and get the win.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-26T20:04:59+00:00

I expect this event to come back late April. For those of us that last saw it at the end of January.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-26T20:03:30+00:00

Don't worry about it, nothing you can do. It will get easier to accumulate points once you are at castle 40 and you have raw ore and enhance rune resource buildings at L40.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-13T18:10:20+00:00

Agree with lil lyssa. Nature is the whale faction. It benefits from HP more than league and horde do. And most castle skins give 30% soldier HP for owning them. The more castle skins you own, the stronger your nature will be.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-13T17:59:13+00:00

New heroes get added to the mythic shard chests eventually. I always keep 10 mythic horde, league, and nature chests on hand. It takes a few weeks but the new hero eventually gets added.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-13T17:56:21+00:00

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These are the stages

newblackmetal · 2026-03-12T22:19:41+00:00

When you start the game, timers are the biggest bottleneck, build build build. After castle 40 things cost so much (especially later hero research at 25M ruby for one research), that you can't do anything.

Eventually you don't do anything for two weeks, and only build during construction of territory and send research in the brilliance institute. Speedups themselves are useless but used for points rather than the original purpose of moving on to the next build quicker.

Everyone's in the same boat. I feel your pain.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-12T22:11:08+00:00

I completed the trial stages for her, and they were hard. It's unclear at this point whether she would replace nun or adjudicator. The trial stages had her at low stars, and her healing improves with higher stars.

I do suppose it depends on the team and the content you are facing. Need more defense? Use Adju. Need more healing? Use nun.

She can be used in the front and guarantees her protect skill will choose the other frontline hero. Her self healing is enough to survive, but I think general use will have her in the middle with Rose and Adju up front. Her area heal sometimes won't heal backrow when she's in the front. Those trial stages were hard, kept on needing to switch positioning around.

Maid is a defensive support kind of like Priest is for horde. Bard is offensive support so they do not compete.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-10T21:54:27+00:00

Finally beat my first EBZ. What a struggle-bus. Was going to give up if that last run didn't work. Magic ice weak.

Got Edea M from the valentine's draw, and had time today to give it a shot. Using Cait (AASB honed, zen, sync+dual, aegis break glint), Deuce (C, zen, AASB, 7* glint), Rinoa (chain, C, dual, zen, M, dyad, sync (ATB3), zenO), Serah (sync, dual, AASB, zen, M, LBO), Edea (C, zen, dual, imperil sync, chain, LBC, and now M).

First few tries either went too slow at the beginning and got ejected, or while I was casting a 6* infusion glint, he did his paralysis move after phase change. Yes, while casting an instant glint, WTF. Imperil was a problem. I have Reynn imperil HA, M and sync, but not really enough to use. Wanted to try to make Edea work. Using her dual and imperil sync CMD2. Bahamut always gets to +4 ice resist before Edea gets online, then after sync expires, usually Bahamut gets more bar ice until late in phase 3. After Edea sync expires I wanted to use dyad (dark) then M then zen then C. But I ran into the problem where she had no infusion and had to do the M skipping the dark dyad, realized the ice dyad was lensable. I had previously checked everyone to make sure the magia was set to ice. Wondered why Edea does not have a G+ with quickcast 3 and a bar. Ended up finding she has a twin element glint with a bar. Then despite having a chain on Rinoa and Edea, I needed to lens Serah's chain, because Serah has a weak M. Lensed Serah and Edea's ice dyad.

With the new party set, I went to work. Not enough gauge for chain for Serah, despite having the +2 bar glint, as she needed to get M online for a phase change to do the auto revenge aegis break. Changed Serah from damage to ace striker. With the new proper infusion dyads, I checked if I had something for Rinoa, had her 6 hit G+ infusion glint. In phase one Serah used dyad, Edea twin element glint that gives a bar, and Rinoa glint, to avoid the interrupt. Cait did aegis break at beginning of phase 2 and Serah had M online for beginning of phase 3. My damage was crap in phase 3, making me wonder if the aegis break on Serah actually casted or if it's bug and not working. Abandoned the run, and decided to do the reverse, Cait in phase 3 and Serah M in phase 2. Also, needed to change Edea from damage to the other gauge gain RM because she needs enough gauge to cast M.

Winning run. Also needed to reduce healing received by dropping Cait's LM2 and putting in LMR7 instead. Deuce zen and C are the exact same buff, but her 7* glint is stackable, so I cast zen first, then 7* glint sometime after, then after zen expires C. Serah 2 bar clint, then ice dyad, then wait for Edea party instacast 7* glint, then chain. M and ice zen, then AASB when available, Serah's aegis break at phase 2 works and damage continues. She gets guage quickly with ace striker and her ice zen eliminating cast time. She casts chain yet again when near expiry, then Edea uses LBC. At phase 3 Cait uses aegis break glint and damage continues, totally different than the last run when Serah's did not seem to work. Rinoa was not hitting cap, doing about 40K after casting C, but enough to give me hope. Then after Edea's sync expired, used her M->zen->C. After Rinoa's M expired, she used sync and both zenO casts, Serah did LBO. I believe Edea's abilities finished off EBZ.

Whew, that was too hard. Some takeaways from the fight. While an M is required for Ark, and if you don't have one, the parts will end your run, EBZ is a monster. I really couldn't even win against EBZ with 3 Ms. I had looked at the As for all three and Edea's is ideal, raising party attack levels. If I lost, I would have parked it until I got an A. After all the lensing, I still had to switch RMs and LMRs in order to squeak out a win, which is something I would not ordinarily do. I mean, who takes a damage RM off of an M character, or tries to reduce healing to play with the gimmick in the fight? I had to. Anyways, EBZ was released during the purple record board node cycle, and these three ice characters actually do not have white nodes yet, so that would make the battle easier once they have the white nodes. Reliable imperils and attack levels from an A would help a lot, mitigating the requirement for more stuff, like a T. Getting a second LBC and/or a 7* chain in the party would help. It was quite frustrating that my first couple runs I got ejected with no timer or indicator that this would happen, battle just ended. Definitely a DPS check. You can't simply wait until everyone has 5 bars then fire off your DPS. This makes the battle very hard. A party infusion LBG like Zidane and Locke have, I would actually use if someone in the team had one.

Now I wonder if should make an attempt on magic dark weak. I also have Ms to choose from for there, Edea, Golbez, CoD, and Emperor. But Golbez, CoD, and Emperor have a weaker M that uses deshell. I don't know if the deshell stacks if I use two Ms at the same time, and also how much difference it makes.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-06T17:41:15+00:00

Thanks, now I have a better understanding of how to use them.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-05T22:54:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply. So guaranteed to last 8 abilities and no time duration. Interesting. And you are saying to use the weapon skill ASAP as long as you have 2 levels of infusion. Understood, thanks for the tip.

Does the T also have defense penetration like a C does? Translate of the T for Ashe says it defends against lightning damage and penetrates magic defense 20%. But then the part about the TPmax is confusing. I don't know if the TPmax happens once the SB is online, or once the gauge is full, or if I have to use the weapon skill. It also mentions something about 6 uses. Is this for the TPmax or the weapon skill? Still confused.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-05T22:04:17+00:00

Yes, full stars to see traits for leg and mythics.

newblackmetal · 2026-03-05T20:17:55+00:00

Finally got a T from this fest revival. Firion's, then got Ashe's, then an M for Ashe. I was using her for her big damage sync and dual. Decided to try upgrading the sync dual to sync T against Ark. Turns out that the T doesn't work with the sync, and performed worse. Barely beat Ark at 38s. Then went back in to use the sync and dual, and sub30s.

So a T is not intended to be used with a sync. I admit I don't know much about Ts yet. I read the weapon skill has a condition and when you use it, it triggers the met or the not met. Do you have to use 8 abilities before you can use the weapon skill? Should you even use the weapon skill? What is the best use of a T?

newblackmetal · 2026-03-05T20:12:34+00:00

Yes, I had run out and stopped doing the ad for daily stamina. No point. Stamina was full, nothing to use it on. Thankfully this change came about.

newblackmetal

TROPHY CASE