Post by Fabell on Nov 21, 2019 4:23:34 GMT
I've been playing since around launch (a couple weeks after, sadly), and noticed many many people who have either friended me or who I friended (initially) are confused about how to play the game and how to gear up your friend unit. I say this as someone using Lukiel at only level 51, but who has around 1.3k INT, 145 MP, and more than 2k HP, but many (if not all) of my initial friends I made during the last two weeks initially had quite high INT (700-900, at the time added them) but whose INT hasn't grown any higher but their level far eclipses my own (for example, when I added them as a friend their level was the same but now it is past level 60) although the INT is still about the same as it was before.
So I just wanted to throw out some basic tips on how to gear up and build your friend unit, in case you are confused about the process.
1. Build your unit to his or her strengths
For example, if you are using Robin as your friend unit (for the Steal ability Robin has) it's important to focus on strength, impact, double impact, triple impact, and other skills that will enhance your Robin's ability to rapidly damage enemies. Robin is especially suited to strength because of his Special Valsar Clock, which does incredible damage. On the other hand, if you are using Zekus or another unit whose best skills/abilities are from his INT stat, you should focus on getting skills like Moonlight, Magic Up, Fast Aura, Pose of Honor, and other kinds of skills that boost your INT stat, since Zekus's claim to fame is that he gets High Level Magic Chant passively (so he doesn't need the massive 9 SP required) to equip it and you don't need to level up the Hidden Treasure Makyuodyne ark to level 6 to get it. You also want to make sure if you have Zekus you are unlocking his Ice magic he gets passively, because of his MP reduction for ice spells, as well as getting the Ice Cane of Absul for further ice spell MP reduction - so he can cast more spells in a given turn, if needed.
2. Get all current BiS gear (non-ark) currently available
I have made a post here talking about some of the best gear in the game currently that you can get outside of whaling. Some it that gear is very easy to get. Some gear (which I didn't list) is also very important, such as the Hunting Headband and the Ice Cane of Absul, both of which are currently BiS slotted gear for your units. You earn those two by beating the bounty bosses on each of the two continents. The bosses are not difficult, as long as you are using a high level friend unit who has the requisite spell against the boss's weakness (I believe both may be weak to earth spells - I know for sure the first bounty boss is weak to earth, not so sure about the second one). Just find a friend who has high INT and Tornado Storm and as long as you are using your units to soak up the damage, your friend unit can kill the boss and grab those awesome items.
3. Don't forget to actually equip your skills
You need to go into your skillset screen, accessible from the main unit page for each unit, and you need to equip all of the skills you learned (if you learned through an ark). I see a lot of people forget to do this, for some reason.
4. Use the Royal Capital Aldana and Blaze Garden Conquer quests to awaken your units
It's not that hard to awaken your unit at least two times if you are using the Conquer quests in the two capitals. Awakening your unit is huge for their stats. Getting to your third and fourth awakening though, is going to take some time. If you plan your Conquers right (time them I mean) you can earn anywhere between 8-10 shards a day for each unit who is going on a Conquer quest. For me, I like to set up a 10 hour period at night, and during the day change it to 15 hours. That way on most days, I can grab around 10 shards for each unit (although obviously not everyday). You can also just be lazy and set it up for a continuous 20 hour Conquer time (which will give you 8 shards a day, and sometimes more), but if it comes up in the middle of the night when you are asleep, you may end up losing a huge number of potential shards that way.
5. Unlock abilities in the direction of the stat you are aiming for
Unlocking abilities can be very expensive. While you do need to unlock abilities for all of the units in your party, make sure your friend unit has the highest priority. The better your friend unit is, the more stages your friends can beat, which will enhance your friends' chances of upgrading their own units. Don't unlock stats in a direction your unit doesn't currently benefit from. This game isn't designed for a well-balanced unit that can survive anything. Most of the bosses are either resistant to physical damage OR resistant to magical damage, and by resistant, I mean they might take 1 damage from the most powerful spell in the game, or they might take 20-30 damage from a physical hit (whereas normally your normal attacks might be hitting them for 300-500 damage each time). Currently the bosses are kind of broken in this game and require a particular type of unit on your team. So it's good for your team to be balanced, but not so good if all of your units are balanced.
There's a lot of little tricks to playing this game, but you should at least focus on doing those five and maximizing the potential of your friend unit. Often people will add your unit as a friend because it is an upgrade to their own unit, which means they are relying on your unit to carry their team through a Hard or Nightmare mode stage. Don't let them down!
Right now, the events are kind of meh, and most players are just grinding their units to gain levels and going down the very long road of getting their soul spots to level 10 so that they can freely equip arks without worrying they will run out of orb energy. It's a little boring, so having a really exciting friend unit with a lot of power often makes a huge difference in grinding.