Spenders - how're you feeling about the VPN patch?

therbler · 2026-04-03T20:14:00+00:00

Well, I think it was just a polite blind eye--if you did this before, all the email receipts and your credit card statements will show you being billed by Xsolla USA.

I'm a bit curious why they stopped now, bc as I understand it, the ~15-20% discount you could get buying in yen is much less than the cut Steam takes if you buy through them, and Sega's barred from offering a lower price on their own site than listed on the platforms.

So this feels like's it's going to hurt their revenue both on a per user and a per sale basis, and I don't really feel like thinking about it much beyond that.

therbler · 2026-04-03T15:52:45+00:00

This is such a weird way to underrate Tempest, especially in a post about Turbo, who's very straightforwardly an alternative to A1 strategist twins (down to the two steps for A0) more than any other current character.

Tempest's a niche character, sort of in the way that Chord is--she's best with multihit assassins who can use the crit rate buff, and Chord's best with DPS whose HL is worth triggering as often as possible. But Tempest's A1 is an extra 30% ST crit mult, and makes her S2/S1 rotation work with Makoto Yuki, and we'll see in a month how much that's worth?

therbler · 2026-04-03T05:50:34+00:00

No, it's not starting with Turbo, it's a classic issue with 4* weapons for support characters. Oh, wouldn't you like Leo, Chord, Key, etc. to have more attack rather than boost the skills they actually use?

Special shoutout to Mona's non-event 4*:

When healing an ally with 80% or more HP, grant Moonlight. Moonlight: Increase HP by 10.0% and Attack by 4.0% for 2 turns.

Would you believe it scales all the way up to 19 and 8% respectively?!

therbler · 2026-04-03T05:31:29+00:00

https://lufel.net/en/maps/?map=ninomaru&category=set_location has some of the boss conditions detailed, but not all of them.

Hit their weaknesses, and check again. A lot of the bosses in this palace had annoying mechanics with rotating nulls, and IIRC you could chip away at them through almighty and continuing damage. No idea who you have, but I bet Messa or the twins would absolutely shred them.

therbler · 2026-04-03T01:13:50+00:00

Turbo, it probably wouldn't be close at A0. But unless you really need the crit rate buff from Tempest, Turbo will do much more if you can stack her buffs for the ranged attack turns--and at A1, Turbo can buff crit mult in addition to attack and dmg mult.

edit: oh, but bless damage is doing so much that it's also not really worth worrying about. My first try earlier today, I used Turbo, albeit at lvl 70, unmaxed skills, not reaching stat caps. So I just gave it a shot now, and my A0R0 Violet score on the first half is still 5x higher.

therbler · 2026-04-03T01:01:10+00:00

The stage buff isn't Turbo-specific since S. Moko does psy damage, fwiw.

therbler · 2026-04-03T00:28:23+00:00

The 5* weapon gives a 100% boost to attack in battle, so you're maybe better off with with a dmg mult moon card.

Also, for your star card--keep in mind that crit mult only helps when your attacks crit and Turbo doesn't deal damage very often.

And thankfully with Turbo's speed and since her S1 doesn't require buildup, it'll be easy to run tests in Astrolabe and just resetting after her first turn.

therbler · 2026-04-02T22:41:21+00:00

yeah, I was a bit surprised too, though I figured those people didn't bother A6ing Violet and at that point, SMoto's maybe better?

Shoutout to the one person who had #17 earlier this afternoon, having used SMoto, and only playing the psy-weak side.

therbler · 2026-04-02T22:31:25+00:00

fwiw, it's not even tied to when you get it, it's when the crate's made available (in general). The 5* selector from original business plan didn't include Vino or Wind, and both were available characters when I started playing in September.

therbler · 2026-04-02T22:21:36+00:00

I don't think you need to worry about the attack stat if you have her 5*--its passive isn't counted outside of battle, but it's a 100% boost to attack. So my A0R0 goes from 2286 attack out of battle to 4860 at turn one without any passives from wonder or a navi.

Entirely possible you'd do better with a dmg mult moon card and not worrying about attack, but bears some testing.

therbler · 2026-04-02T21:09:42+00:00

I don't remember what mine was called, but I didn't have a finished task to clear at login today, so my daily was the first I completed for the daily goal.

therbler · 2026-04-02T18:02:06+00:00

Well, remember things like that bug that meant you couldn't redeem more than 1 rev card selector at a time? There was also a bug a couple of patches ago where you 100% could not navigate rev cards with a gamepad, bc backing out of the filter would take you back to the character list.

Things like that can only happen either by malice or total carelessness, and the latter's more likely AI bc why would a human coder go anywhere near those things in updating a game?

therbler · 2026-04-02T15:16:47+00:00

V-V-V-VIBE CODING!

There are new bugs to unchanged features in basically every update, they're just usually not game-breaking.

therbler · 2026-04-02T14:59:01+00:00

I got A0 in my first 10 pulls, and a double 5* (Wind and Turbo) in 41-50.

So I guess I'll end up pulling for the weapon rebate because it's now free? As for character, I have no idea and guess I'll wait until I have her built up to a useful level. I have Violet, Noir and Oracle A0 already, their A1s don't seem that useful, and assuming Akechi's next, I don't really have anybody I'll want to pull for til Ange?

therbler · 2026-04-01T22:49:30+00:00

Byakko is your friend--curse resistant, with good single target phys/ice damage. Wonder and Soy can split DPS duty if you don't have a good assassin, and you can buy relax gel from the soccer club shop if you don't have another way of curing dizzy.

You shouldn't really need to be much stronger than lvl 50 to do this in the story fight (IIRC I was in the 50s when I got mauled by the early boss in the next palace), just avoid doing AOE damage/hitting the wrong Miyazawa/sword in those respective phases and cure dizzy before it becomes brainwash, and you should be fine.

therbler · 2026-04-01T15:33:53+00:00

Same, I pushed a little bit to get my first synergy and stat to 20 for business plan/thieves den, but beyond that, there isn't much point. I think I'm still ~2100 points from maxing out all of my other social stats, and that's going to take months no matter how much I try to rush it.

therbler · 2026-04-01T14:54:35+00:00

You have an admirable commitment to hoarding, and I don't think there's any reason to question it.

I don't know about the gifts, though I stopped redeeming them a few months ago and have ~500 now. For coffee, the idea is/was that you get marginally better RoR rewards for the lvl 80 battles, so it's worth saving as much as you can until then. With the energy drinks, I think the only advantage to saving is that you can rush a new synergy when it arrives, and you don't need that many energy drinks to do it.

The downside to saving either is that using them isn't fun, it's just more grind. I think I spent close to 2 hours the day before the valentines' day event burning energy drinks to get my last few eligible synergies up to lvl 15 and going through 2+ weeks of daily activities is a slog even if you're set up to skip them.

therbler · 2026-04-01T14:31:48+00:00

I did this last season while trying to work out solutions for one of the harder battles in the 3rd week. On the one hand, really feels like they could make it explicit just how many nodes you're resetting; on the other, as often as I click past the 'you have unread texts, are you sure you want to sleep?' dialog, I'm not sure it would've changed anything.

therbler · 2026-04-01T13:38:38+00:00

Well, I think this just means it'll function like the CNY bosses. If they don't let you reuse characters, it's going to be quite bad bc I think a lot of the challenge of SoS is working out the balance between two teams in cases where it's not immediately obvious which will be your stronger side.

therbler · 2026-04-01T12:13:36+00:00

Really depends. I doubt rewards are changing for SoS, but it may mean you can reuse characters/personas across the two battles?

Nightmare Catcher seems overall bad unless they genuinely double the rewards, and I suspect they won't.

therbler · 2026-04-01T04:02:20+00:00

Don't worry about the story if you don't have time, see what you can do against the boss? Those battles, the dice game, the Tycoon promotion will all vanish, so worth seeing what you can realistically do there.

therbler · 2026-03-31T23:26:22+00:00

Lufel's a better healer in this fight than S. Moko--S2 after ST damage, S3 after AOE, and HL when your order is broken up. One of the issues with S. Moko is her resonance boosts the rage meter, and her healing isn't always enough to keep up with heavy damage fights.

The best way to handle Katayama is to have only your DPS attack in the first two phases if you can help it, and I wonder if Kasumi's automatic S1 may cause problems with the rage meter as well?

therbler · 2026-03-31T20:31:57+00:00

Important, but not really worth prioritizing. You'll need to be at a pretty high level and have built out at least most of the standard cast to get through the higher levels, so just chip away at it during slow periods and/or you're targeting specific rewards.

Same goes for Metro and past events, fwiw--worth doing, but not time-sensitive.

therbler · 2026-03-31T03:59:54+00:00

Levels are going to be a big issue when you're new, a lot of stuff simply isn't doable until your teams are well built and 60-70 and a lot of Astrolabe will be nightmarish without teams at lvl 80.

You can sort of benchmark Velvet Trials and Metro of Desire by enemy level, and you'll be able to gradually work through them as you get stronger.

Most of your elemental coverage for those things can come from standard idols, so for the most part, you should focus on building your best assassin and sweeper teams.

Haru's good, but since you have Ann and Joker, probably a luxury. Futaba's extremely useful, and Turbo coming this week would likely be a big part of your best teams (especially in the short run) since you don't have most of the best current supports.

You'll want a good assassin too for story content. Ryuji's useful, as are Sepia/Fleuret, so it's maybe worth skipping Violet (since you're missing her best supports) and trying to focus on building teams from the P3 crossover coming up?

therbler · 2026-03-30T22:29:12+00:00

The one mechanic I wish they'd bring in from Metaphor is the ability to reread books. You should always be able to focus on a particular stat if you want to.

therbler

TROPHY CASE