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Alchemy Stars is a fully-localized strategy game game from Tourdog Studios. The core gameplay loop is simple: there's a tile board with blue, green, yellow and red tiles. You make a chain as long as you can. Doing so kills monsters for some reason. I don't know.  I'm bad at hyping games up so I'll let Destructoid do it: quote:With its unique tile-connecting gameplay mechanic, Alchemy Stars lets players use different characters with their own attributes to match tiles and colors in a world where magic and technology collide. The one-of-a-kind combination of elemental attributes and tactical attacks makes for a refreshing combat experience. All this is done in a beautiful anime art style that combined the talent of 150 artists to ensure the character designs are top-notch in full Live2D with breathtaking environments. Combat takes place on a fairly ugly little grid with chibi-style figures. https://i.makeagif.com/media/7-08-2021/mV66qn.mp4 But your waifus and husbandos are represented ingame by fairly great character art, there are lots of cool and varied designs, so you don't only have to jack off to the ugly little chibis. Each character has tons of little story tidbits you slowly unlock by giving them gifts.  Upcoming Water character Bethlehem, who I will kill or die for Every character has a Faction, a Class and an Element. Elements are by far the most important. The four elements are Water (Blue), Thunder (Yellow), Forest (Green), and Fire (Red). The color corresponding to your element is the color of tile you want to connect the most. So if you're running a team with mostly Water characters, you really want lots of Blue tiles. Class is next most important. The four classes are Sniper (single target DPS), Detonator (AOE dps, great at fighting large monsters), Converters (essential units who change tiles into your preferred color), and Support (weirdos who do all sorts of weird poo poo from healing to buffing to taunting to poisoning, depending on the unit). Each element has slightly different strengths and weaknesses. --Water, currently, has the best support units in the game and is widely considered one of the best elements. Really good at healing, buffing, and mobility. Water's most unique mechanic seems to be that it has a few units that power up just by having Blue tiles on the board. It doesn't currently have its own DoT like Fire and Forest. --Fire is a very strong element that focus on DPS over all else. Fire's one and only healer is poo poo and most Fire comps don't bother to bring her. Fire has two unique mechanics: Bleed and Burn, different flavors of DoT that you can build your team around if you get 1-2 relevant units. --Forest is the weirdo element. Forest has an insane number of mobility options and teleports, some really good DPS units, and a unique mechanic in Poison (the best of the game's 3 DoTs). The downside to Forest right now is that you really need some specific 5 and 6 star units to make it shine, but once you have them it's a great element. --Thunder is currently the most underdeveloped element in the game, in my opinion, and I say that as a Thunder main. It's sad because all the thunder characters have great designs. It doesn't have a unique mechanic and doesn't really even have a unique flavor. I think there are some Thunder units to come that will fix this. And I have to say, underdeveloped or not, Thunder is still very good and you can absolutely main it. All four elements are great. Faction is mostly a lore thing. True Order supremacy Alchemy Stars is a gacha, but it's far less predatory than some other popular gacha entries, even my beloved Honkai Impact. Gacha currency is fairly plentiful and the events we've been getting are insanely generous. I've been told the gacha is most similar to Arknights, but I've never played that. There's absolutely no PVP or competitive Abyss yet, so you can absolutely F2P this game and have a blast. This game is really fun, there's a strong goon presence (but no real coop yet), the devs are very generous, and new content keeps coming out all the loving time. We are currently (as of August 20, 2021) in the middle of Alchemy Stars' big summer event. Gacha currency is on sale, free gacha currency is being slung around, free units are available, it's generally just a terrific time to start playing. The devs have also proven receptive to feedback: we whined that Prism (the game's Stamina mechanic) was too slow and they significantly buffed how much prism we can generate very day. So far all signs are good on this one.
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Aug 20, 2021 22:07
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| # ? May 18, 2024 00:29 |
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would anyone like to suggest a subtitle for me to PM the mods about since I fuckin forgot to add one
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Aug 20, 2021 22:09
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Alchemy Stars: Somehow Has Neither Alchemy nor Stars
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Aug 20, 2021 22:21
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Yay a thread/home. Umm I have nothing more to contribute. My friend id is 150998518 They made so that it wasn't actively hurtful to use a friend support, so friends are no longer useless!
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Aug 20, 2021 22:47
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#1 Alchemy Stars tip: Don't watch the auto battle, it's too painful.
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Aug 20, 2021 23:05
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Mix. posted:Alchemy Stars: Somehow Has Neither Alchemy nor Stars It annoys me that official subtitle Aurora Blast makes way more sense.
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Aug 20, 2021 23:19
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The only thing I can think of for alchemy is the ascension materials, but they're not exactly plot critical. The stars, uh, you get for clearing story stages.
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Aug 20, 2021 23:35
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The game is such a blatant rip off of Arknights it is hilarious. And I wish more games did as well. And like Arknights even 3 star dudes can be extremely useful. Hell two 4 star Thunder peeps are awesome and currently it’s best DPS over even 6 stars. This game is great and at least for me Arknights tower defense got stale. The way battles are setup the board will always be dynamic and there’s room for a ton of interesting mechanics so I think this will be good for the long haul.
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Aug 20, 2021 23:54
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Hand Row posted:The game is such a blatant rip off of Arknights it is hilarious. And I wish more games did as well. And like Arknights even 3 star dudes can be extremely useful. Hell two 4 star Thunder peeps are awesome and currently it’s best DPS over even 6 stars. This game is great and at least for me Arknights tower defense got stale. The way battles are setup the board will always be dynamic and there’s room for a ton of interesting mechanics so I think this will be good for the long haul. How exactly? Arknights is a completely different game style..
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Aug 20, 2021 23:59
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Other than the battle system, almost everything else in the game is extremely close to arknights, from the banner + pity system, the half rear end base system, character leveling and promotion, idk I dont have the game in front of me so I cant precisely detail it all but yea having played AK since launch, this game is obviously derived from it. In a good way; the stuff they have copied is generally stuff I like, and they have improved on almost everything a bit also. I do like the arknights gameplay better tho and not a fan of the skin monetization here but everything's L2D here so maybe they've earned it
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Aug 21, 2021 00:12
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I know this is a big “it depends“, but what’s the standard lineup, element wise? I have just started and pulled a Sariel, and with the reinforcement boxes I’m wondering wether it’s better to go full water with two converters or diversify to 4 converters of two different types and then an extra person.
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Aug 21, 2021 11:41
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Generally your team should be all one element with your captain being the one who can go off-element (since they get their attacks in regardless of if the squares match or not). If you're really early in its less important obviously, but eventually you're gonna want that, especially since some content requires your teams to be mono-element. Also, all 5*s/6*s pick up a second element at A3 (though sometimes they just get the same element twice instead of a different one), so that also helps with turns where you're off-color. So far there's no units that reward rainbow teams, and there hasn't been anything to indicate they intend to make that a viable team comp (yet) In terms of team comps generally the way I've seen it is two converters and then either two dps and a healer/support or a dps, a healer/support, and a flex. Obviously this kinda depends on what you pull/have access to, though, and sometimes you can be really risky if you skip on the healer (my fire team doesn't have a healing unit and I rely on heals from Eicy to get me through it). Fire and Thunder don't have a healer above 4* at the moment, though, so Nadine and Alice are pretty solid investments if you get them. Mix. fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 12:34
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Fat Samurai posted:I know this is a big “it depends“, but what’s the standard lineup, element wise? I have just started and pulled a Sariel, and with the reinforcement boxes I’m wondering wether it’s better to go full water with two converters or diversify to 4 converters of two different types and then an extra person. This is by no means the only workable team comp, but my standard one is Captain sniper/detonator element X 2x converter element Y 1x DPS element Y 1x flex element Y It's is a nice comp since you've got at least 2 DPS and everyone fully benefits from your converters. If you see a nice path of element X you can switch your captain to your element Y DPS. This isn't really evident when you're starting out but converters have pretty lousy damage for the most part. The only class that does less damage is healer since they don't have a chain combo attack. So I don't think the 4 converter team is going to work very well long term. The Moon Monster fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 13:07
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I'm the weirdo who went rainbow. My main team that I beat the current content with (minus the spires) is Wrath leading (formerly Vice), Sharona, Michael, Barbara, and Uriah on heals. Still wrecks.
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Aug 21, 2021 13:41
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Also preemptive converters like Sariel are the best ones to obtain. Blanc is also one and so with Vice who is fine as a DPS, boom you have a nice little blue team. But make sure you pull on each banner until you get a 5 or 6 star, it is guaranteed in first 10 pulls. The rotating banner has Eicy a fire 6 star preemptive and Klekken a water 5 star preemptive featured. You’d replace Blanc if you pull the latter. IMO you want to target obtaining preemptive converters, but focus on leveling/ascending your main DPS. Also be forewarned that the limited time growth quest has a get each mono color team to Spire level 15 quest. The character chests give you a poo poo ton of exp in addition to 5 star characters that should help you tremendously now though. I would pick Areia basically no matter what for the dmg chest, probably Maggie or Nemesis for the converter, and anyone but Vivian for the chain combo chest. Probably ideally a dupe and or the color I am most invested in for the combo so I picked up Istvan for my Fire. With Areia being the clear choice, cross converters being blah IMO, and chain combo buffers a luxury don’t stress about it. My favorite part was getting all level up materials. Hand Row fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 14:22
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Thanks for the tips. I’m probably going with Jona, Sariel, Vice, Blanc and then either Hydrad or Zoya, depending wether I need healing. I have lvl. 40 barbara for AoE dps, but I’m probably swapping for Taki on the basis that he’s not a 10 year old girl.
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Aug 21, 2021 16:07
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if you're not strictly opposed to spending money, there's also a 1usd pack in the shop to get philyshy, a water healer with teleport. being able to position blancs conversion makes both of them quite a bit better, though the cooldowns don't line up particularly well till you can get a breakthrough on phily.
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Aug 21, 2021 17:24
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So I played this a bit at launch but events in other stuff quickly ended up getting my time and I just kind of fell off. Decided to come back for this event, did some pulls, cleared chapter 3 (but have not picked from the reward box yet), and am kinda trying to decide on a mono team to really invest in. Was hoping to get an opinion on what folks would go with in my situation. Water notables (dead honest only in contention because I rerolled for Carleen initially and I've just stuck with it through chapter 3): Vice (largely for posterity) Carleen Philyshy Ms. Blanc Kleken And obviously some other stuff 4* or lower Fire notables: Victoria Maggie Eicy Regina Benny and Curo Istvan Barbara And, obviously, 4*s and lower Forest notables: Hiiro Pact Cuscuta Areia blah blah 4*s blah blah And gently caress it, Light because I do have some stuff: Gronru Dayna Keating Nemesis Schwarz Feel like Fire is probably the best but I'm not the best at these judgments. Oh Snapple! fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Aug 21, 2021 |
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Aug 21, 2021 18:02
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Oh Snapple! posted:So I played this a bit at launch but events in other stuff quickly ended up getting my time and I just kind of fell off. Decided to come back for this event, did some pulls, cleared chapter 3 (but have not picked from the reward box yet), and am kinda trying to decide on a mono team to really invest in. Was hoping to get an opinion on what folks would go with in my situation. Victoria, Eicy and Maggie is a great core. Between Victoria and Eicy you might not even need a healer. Pepi is a great add even though she's 3* since movement is great. You can build Regina or B&C as main DPS tho I might make Victoria do it until you get a decent sniper/detonator 6*. I'm finding having enough converters is the recipe for success. Hiiro is also fantastic enough you can make a whole team around her though and she hits hard.
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Aug 21, 2021 18:29
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Getting my new favorite aurorian Fleur motivated me to work on my water team and finally push past spire 43. Now I've finished it with every element and water was actually my lowest level clear with Sharona/Fleur A3 1, Philyshy A2 30, and Sariel/Klekken A2 1. Fleur seems really good, he's a lot like Wrath but without all of the crippling weaknesses (enormous cooldown, harsh chain combo requirements, terrible chain combo multipliers). He's also just a lot of fun to use with his super short active cooldown, easy chain combos, and cool visuals. Makes me want to raise Hydrad for the quad-fist attack. Beryl, the new forest detonator, seems pretty undertuned to me, although to be fair I don't have her so I'm basing this off of youtube videos and not experience. Her crystal gimmick is cool but she just doesn't seem to deal enough damage. Don't get me wrong, she seems totally usable, but it feels hard to justify spending pulls on her when Hiiro, Odie, and Areia (who you can now pick from one of those chapter clear reward boxes) all exist and seem significantly better. Oh Snapple! posted:So I played this a bit at launch but events in other stuff quickly ended up getting my time and I just kind of fell off. Decided to come back for this event, did some pulls, cleared chapter 3 (but have not picked from the reward box yet), and am kinda trying to decide on a mono team to really invest in. Was hoping to get an opinion on what folks would go with in my situation. I think my number 1 team out of all of that would be Victoria Vice Carleen Klekken/Ms. Blanc/Philyshy for the last two slots For straight up mono though yeah fire looks like the strongest. Do you have the 4* Nails? He's good in general but also really boosts Victoria's healing since he can instantly blast out a 4 or 5 stack of bleed with his active.
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Aug 21, 2021 19:29
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At what point do you bother grinding for equipment, my resources are heavily tied to just getting people to A3
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Aug 21, 2021 19:40
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need a damage dealer for water, could grab corax from the box or the current monthly shop & run him/carleen/phily/blanc/kleken. or roll for the new mechanic boy. or just use an off-ele captain for now, schwartz or victoria victoria/eicy/maggie/barbara/istvan are all main team material for fire. if vic+eicy don't cover your healing, you'd bring in alice (4* bunny girl) or nails (4* sniper, stacks bleed for vic). getting leona as your damage dealer is another option, comes in the same box as corax iirc hiiro/pact/areia/uriel (4* healer) is a solid core, would round it out with sikare from the box lightning would be schwartz/gronru/nemesis/nadine (4* healer) and either tessa or kafka, who are both strong 4* damage chars any of these teams are good, and not worth stressing over too much, since you'll need all of them eventually
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Aug 21, 2021 19:50
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Tae posted:At what point do you bother grinding for equipment, my resources are heavily tied to just getting people to A3 Once you get them to A3, pretty much. The cost of leveling skyrockets past A3, and there's no big breakpoint leveling leads towards anymore, so the stats from equipment are low hanging fruit in comparison. The elemental counter bonus is great for spire, where once you hit level 40 or so almost every enemy will be weak to your element. High level spire is also really the only content in the game that warrants any progression beyond A3ing, at the moment.
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Aug 21, 2021 19:53
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Yeah, basically I view Equipment as incidental and something I'm not gonna prioritize til the whole team is A3; the only exception is I've been slowly levelling Eicy's because she's my only source of healing on my Fire team so the more she can heal with her equipment passive the better (please release a 5/6* healer in Fire already im dyin here)
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Aug 21, 2021 20:03
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No kidding. Smokey seems like she will be Fire but doesn’t strike me as a healer.
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Aug 21, 2021 20:08
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Fat Samurai posted:I have lvl. 40 barbara for AoE dps, but I’m probably swapping for Taki on the basis that he’s not a 10 year old girl. If that's how you pick characters you're going to have a hard time with this game haha.. Barbara wrecks honestly, that AOE is stupid powerful. Long wind-up though but it has saved my bacon plenty of times.
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Aug 21, 2021 21:30
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My friend code is 67135264 for anyone who hasnt added meFat Samurai posted:I know this is a big “it depends“, but what’s the standard lineup, element wise? I have just started and pulled a Sariel, and with the reinforcement boxes I’m wondering wether it’s better to go full water with two converters or diversify to 4 converters of two different types and then an extra person. I typically go 1 dps, 3 converters, 1 flex (usually a 2nd dps, sometimes a support, depends on the color) The only time I run less than 3 converters on my main element is if I have a dps like Hiiro who is also a converter
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Aug 22, 2021 01:00
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Just had a conversation with a character that lampshaded gatcha games. This game is weird.
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Aug 22, 2021 16:51
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Really loving Fleur. He’s really what Snipers should be rather than what most currently are. Just nice consistent damage that complements your Detonator DPS nicely. I just wish I had a good Water detonator for Spire.
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Aug 22, 2021 18:36
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Hand Row posted:Really loving Fleur. He’s really what Snipers should be rather than what most currently are. Just nice consistent damage that complements your Detonator DPS nicely. I just wish I had a good Water detonator for Spire.
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Aug 23, 2021 15:23
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I've been playing this since launch! I'd been falling off of Granblue lately and it's nice to just have a game I don't have to put too much of my time every day into. My account number is 150999133, if anyone wants to add.
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Aug 23, 2021 20:12
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I just started the other day, I made a rainbow team at first assuming I wanted one of every element so I always attacked, but then this thread got made and I learned otherwise. Decided to go red since thats where most of my 5 and 6 stars are on my couple day old account, I run Gronru as captain then Uriel Leona Maggie Barbara as my team Its, very effective, at least at this low level... but I feel like I need another converter and I worry no healing will eventually leave me prone to RNG on tiles and very little margin of error. Game is fun tho, I like the tile mechanic, its a nice mix of strategy vs not too much thinking necessary.... more involved then just mash button to attack but not so complex I feel like I need a 3rd party program to optimize my paths for me like in puzzle and dragon. What kind of end game is there if theres no competitive aspect?
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Aug 24, 2021 01:34
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Beating the Spire currently which is no stamina cost battles that tend to be more like a puzzle you have to overcome. Besides some being tough as balls, you can’t always just blitz the same party and you need to adjust to the maps by bringing different abilities than just DPS and converters.
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Aug 24, 2021 01:57
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Hi posted:I just started the other day, I wouldn't really recommend Gronru as a captain of a fire team. She has pretty poor damage (although it will be fine early on) and mainly just makes a bunch of tiles that don't help the rest of your team. She's extremely good as a member of a thunder focused team, though. Vice makes a great captain. The main endgame is the spires which are a series of challenges for mono element teams. There are 90 floors for each element so far, and they'll presumably add more in the future. There's also a mode called Elysium Trials or something like that that unlocks when you get your first Old Seal aurorian. I haven't got mine yet (only like 6000 more prism...) but apparently it's very difficult.
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Aug 24, 2021 02:01
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This game also has the thing that stuff like Arknights does where sometimes your engagement with the game is 'I guess I'm gonna A3 this character next' and you just slowly start building up a box full of characters even if you have a primary team put together for general content- Never know when you might randomly need an extra converter or need to swap in the character who can create shields or need a particular status ailment or whatever. Sometimes its just fun to set yourself smaller goals like that in between events and new story chapters.
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Aug 24, 2021 02:09
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Im just using gronyu cause shes one of my few 6 stars... Im hoping to pull Eicy cause I need another converter as well... We will see though. I dont think I have the characters for a yellow team, aside from gronyu I have Vivian Dayna Beverly Kafka Rabbie Nadine Lilliam and Tessa my other fires are Nails Chandra Alice Patty n Patsy Brock I have like Uriah and one other 4* or higher green somehow... Blues I have Kleken Vice Ms Blanc Michenny Jane Chloe Constantine Kuma n Pengy
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Aug 24, 2021 02:13
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Hi posted:Im just using gronyu cause shes one of my few 6 stars... Im hoping to pull Eicy cause I need another converter as well... Nah, I’d say you have a pretty good Yellow team: Vivian Dayna Gronru Beverly Nadine It’s got healing, Vivian’s active turns on Dayna’s equipment passive, and it’s got good conversion. Tessa’s pretty good too.
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Aug 24, 2021 02:31
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AweStriker posted:Nah, I’d say you have a pretty good Yellow team: I made that group, and it may very well be better and or more balanced than my fire team, but none of the characters look as cool as uriel and leona and to a lesser extent maggie, which I mean, if I cant look sexy and cool while winning, is it even really winning?
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Aug 24, 2021 02:57
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That’s fair, especially considering I don’t have any of those three
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Aug 24, 2021 03:32
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Hi posted:I made that group, and it may very well be better and or more balanced than my fire team, but none of the characters look as cool as uriel and leona and to a lesser extent maggie, which I mean, if I cant look sexy and cool while winning, is it even really winning? Yeah this person gets it. Kleken is my favorite.
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Aug 24, 2021 03:35
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