[ChicletPrime]

So, combat.

I grok the gist of it. I was actually quite surprised and very pleased at the inclusion of combat at all. I am a MMO player and have been mostly sunk into FFXIV for the last few years, so having to dodge out of pools of lava constantly is ingrained in my fingertips.

It's awkward (well, more awkward at the start but getting less so with time) because I'm playing using an emulator on PC and my keyboard/cursor keeps drifting out of the bounding window so suddenly I stop moving and shooting (no bueno) but I'm getting better at swinging the view around.

I've been mostly using the staff (does that LOOK like a "wand" to you?) as I really like the skills it has (heals are good too) but I'm fine with the guns as needed. I would LIKE to be better at the claymore but I read up on it and it seems fairly hard to learn to do well with and I don't have the patience or skill right now to be better at melee-range dodging. the regular sword seems kinda lackluster for "whee!" factor but I might be missing something.

- so level the cards, but don't waste resources on a 3 star unless you have to.
- matching card color to fight color is THE primary thing
- pay attention to which boy has which color cards, see point above
- there aren't enough resources, concentrate Chiclet, don't spend frivolously
- dodging is your best friend. dodge often, if not well
- protocores have sub-stats.  this is murky. which stat goes well with which guy? which protocores can you crush into powder to feed the equipped one without making a large mistake?

I probably have more questions but I have to leave work again.

[Coldsaturn]

So, combat.

I grok the gist of it. I was actually quite surprised and very pleased at the inclusion of combat at all. I am a MMO player and have been mostly sunk into FFXIV for the last few years, so having to dodge out of pools of lava constantly is ingrained in my fingertips.

It's awkward (well, more awkward the start but getting less so with time) because I'm playing using an emulator on PC and my keyboard/cursor keeps drifting out of the bounding window so suddenly I stop moving and shooting (no bueno) but I'm getting better at swinging the view around.

I've been mostly using the staff (does that LOOK like a "wand" to you?) as I really like the skills it has (heals are good too) but I'm fine with the guns as needed. I would LIKE to be better at the claymore but I read up on it and it seems fairly hard to learn to do well with and I don't have the patience or skill right now to be better at melee-range dodging. the regular sword seems kinda lackluster for "whee!" factor but I might be missing something.

- so level the cards, but don't waste resources on a 3 star unless you have to.
- matching card color to fight color is THE primary thing
- pay attention to which boy has which color cards, see point above
- there aren't enough resources, concentrate Chiclet, don't spend frivolously
- dodging is your best friend. dodge often, if not well
- protocores have sub-stats.  this is murky. which stat goes well with which guy? which protocores can you crush into powder to feed the equipped one without making a large mistake?

I probably have more questions but I have to leave work again.

High five to a fellow MMO player. I've been trying to resist FFXIV since it came out because I know it would devour me, but I still kept close enough to the community to know more than the layman about it. My poison of choice is instead the almost totally dead MMO Secret World Legends.

OK combat. You got the gist of it, but let me add to it.

Use the Training Room (inside the Battle button/menu) to get a feeling of the various weapons and skills. You learn basically everything in the various main story battles, but with the sword and claymore the training room becomes quite important. Also you can train for perfect dodge (if you dodge right before you get hit, you trigger a reaction from your companion that can be quite useful). I was happy with the option of a heal weapon, but the more you go, the more it will become a bit obsolete. Get used to dodging and you won't lose HP, and instead you'll find out you need to max the amount of damage you do in order to win the battle within the time limit. And that will be the tricky thing.

As you progress, all the battle options you'll have (hunter contest, bounty hunt, deepspace trial, core hunt) will rely on you knowing how to DPS your way to a three star rating. And sometimes other weapons will be necessary for that. I haven't really found a single battle that required me to really mind my HP, but dealing enough damage in the short amount of time I have is constantly the main objective.

Each weapon is kinda geared toward a certain battle position (whether tank, heal, dps, single target, aoe, you know the drill), and it is also geared toward possible synergies with specific companions. If you're a "battle girlie" as they're affectionately called in the fandom, then studying each weapon and then each companion is worth the time. For example, I think I'll be forced to use the claymore if I want to clear orbit #43 without having to spend resources on over leveling up cards because the claymore can push away enemies, which is what I need.

You can easily pass any battle if you have cards of higher levels compared to the requirement. Problem is, you'll soon find out that leveling up to those levels without spending real money will get harder and harder. But you can clear battles even with under leveled cards if your team is well equipped.

So:

Cards.
3 stars will become almost useless pretty soon. Until you get enough 4 and 5 stars they'll be all that you have, though. You can reasonably level them up to level 30 but I would suggest you don't ascend them past that point, as it won't really help you. Some will tell you to level up 4 star cards up to level 40 not ascended, so that you can then focus all your energies on leveling up 5 star cards (they cost so much resources, omg), but a girl's gotta battle for glory and red diamonds, so I'm personally juggling between ascending 4 stars past level 40 and 5 stars based on the need of the specific battle I have ahead.

Stellactrum.
Yes, matching the colors required by the battle with the colors of your team is HUGE. You'll often find yourself losing a battle if you don't, unless your team is waaaaaay above the level requirement. If you match the stellactrum you won't just get a big boost to your stats, you'll also destroy 2 shields of the enemy instead of just 1 with your charged skills (and since you're on a timer, you need to make it fast). If you happen to have solar pairs (solar cards of the same companion that go together, you'll know on the card if it has a matched pair), using them together will also add to your DPS.
Companions have their own primary and secondary colors, as you know. It's their area of expertise, where their stats will shine. What it actually means is that you'll pull 3/4 of the cards for your companion in a certain pair of colors, and then all the others as minorities. As you progress, the battle might require out of 6 colors 4 of the same, forcing you to choose the companion for which you actually have that many cards with the same color.

Stellarium of each LI:

• Xavier: GREEN dominate, YELLOW auxiliary, RED tertiary, PINK 4th
  
• Zayne: BLUE dominate, RED auxiliary, PINK tertiary, YELLOW 4th
  
• Rafayel: PURPLE dominate, PINK auxiliary, YELLOW tertiary, RED 4th
  
• Sylus: PINK dominate, GREEN auxiliary, BLUE tertiary, PURPLE 4th
  
• Caleb: RED dominate, PURPLE auxiliary, GREEN tertiary, BLUE 4th
  

(another implication is that often enough 5 star cards in the companion's primary color are spicier :cool: )

Protocores.
They're so important it's insane. They will make or break a battle.
They've just uploaded the protocore section just yesterday to make it easier? Apparently? I still haven't checked it, but you might find it more intuitive than before.
The important thing with protocores is: just like cards, try to avoid the lower level ones (the blue ones; rarity R) and focus on the purple (mid level; rarity SR) and even better the gold ones (rarity SSR). R type protocores are upgrading fodder. Purples will be useful until you can clear enough Core hunt levels that you start getting SSR types consistently. Go with those then. They'll cost more resources to upgrade, but will also give you a way higher return on investment.
(in case it isn't clear, we're not talking about the color of the protocore itself, but the color of the slim band at the bottom of each protocore. That will tell you if it's R, SR, or SSR.)

Something I was ignoring when I started playing with protocores is how each companion is geared toward one type more than the other. It was ignored by players enough that now the new game version has a "match helper" added to the protocore section of each card. Basically when you go to the Protocore tab of a selected card, you'll see the Attribute stats for that card, and then a very important section: "Talent"
It will tell you what stat that specific card scales on. Scaling on that specific stat with your protocores will add to your weakness DMG of that card by an increasing %
At the beginning you can get away with only choosing protocores that focus on ATK, but you'll soon find out that giving your companion's card the right protocore for its talent is what really makes the difference. Some will scale on DEF, others on ATK, others on HP, etc.

Choose protocores that have those stats as primary or at least secondary. Otherwise by leveling up the protocore you still won't increase them. In absence of anything else, you might still choose a protocore whose third or fourth stat matches the talent of the companion card. Better than nothing.
Sometimes you'll receive a protocore that has only one or two stats out, while the others might get unlocked as you level it up. I'd suggest to favor those protocores that have all the stats already out, so you know what you're getting right from the start.

In order to level up cards and level up protocores you need to spend your stamina to clear those battles and receive the resources you need. Don't do what some players do, where they keep their stamina above the max amount you can own (ie they have 340/170 stamina). Spend the stamina when you have it, otherwise you won't get more. Yes you have your daily rewards giving you stamina, but so long as you're above the max number of stamina you can own, it won't increase passively by 1 every 6 minutes. In the course of 24 hours, so long as you stay below the max level you can contain, you'll receive up to 240 stamina daily just by waiting it out. SPEND IT WHEN YOU HAVE IT or you won't have space to receive more.


Ok that's a lot. I hope it's not too confusing lmao

[ChicletPrime]

You are my new most favorite person, THANK YOU. this is exactly what I didn't know I was hoping for.

I do not have enough four star cards for this next fight, so I have leveled I think 3 of them as 3 stars to level 40 so oh well there. A question might be: other than Radiant / Silver Galaxy to pull cards at the rate of 1 per 8 hours, where AM I supposed to get better cards? I know that Silver gives 4star items, and Radiant has a chance for 5star, but they are definitely stingy on the golden magnets needed. Is there some "easy" way to keep the cards rolling in?

I am unclear if I should be constantly using up my Empyrean Wishes or not. I splurged what I got as a new kid just for the hell of it before I realized I might be in this game for the long(er) haul which is why I do have a handful of 4's and couple of 5's but now I'm hoarding, unsure.

The protocore system update means nothing to me, for good or ill. I have only really just gotten to a place where I can attach them at all, let alone figure out best-match. When I get home tonight, I will hunker over my screen and look for the band-match for rarity and which type pairs best with which card and find this "Talent" label and shuffle any mistakes around to be lesser mistakes, and then I guess just kill all the low-rarity cores into my highest ranked cards. Right?

Sometimes you'll receive a protocore that has only one or two stats out...

Okay, so leveling a protocore will reveal any hidden stats, up to four I'm guessing?

amen on the stamina -- as an MMO player and having dabbled in gatcha games every now and again (Love Nikki Dress Up Queen had me for a few years there), spending a renewing resource nearly as fast as you get it it to avoid overcapping was second nature so I'm at least ahead of the curve there. I also realized a few days ago that I was collecting stamina drinks in my VERY HIDDEN inventory that had expiry dates, so I've been using those up as well, as needed.

[Coldsaturn]

You are my new most favorite person, THANK YOU. this is exactly what I didn't know I was hoping for.

I do not have enough four star cards for this next fight, so I have leveled I think 3 of them as 3 stars to level 40 so oh well there. A question might be:  other than Radiant / Silver Galaxy to pull cards at the rate of 1 per 8 hours, where AM I supposed to get better cards? I know that Silver gives 4star items, and Radiant has a chance for 5star, but they are definitely stingy on the golden magnets needed.  Is there some "easy" way to keep the cards rolling in?

I am unclear if I should be constantly using up my Empyrean Wishes or not. I splurged what I got as a new kid just for the hell of it before I realized I might be in this game for the long(er) haul which is why I do have a handful of 4's and couple of 5's but now I'm hoarding, unsure.

The protocore system update means nothing to me, for good or ill. I have only really just gotten to a place where I can attach them at all, let alone figure out best-match. When I get home tonight, I will hunker over my screen and look for the band-match for rarity and which type pairs best with which card and find this "Talent" label and shuffle any mistakes around to be lesser mistakes, and then I guess just kill all the low-rarity cores into my highest ranked cards.  Right?

Sometimes you'll receive a protocore that has only one or two stats out...

Okay, so leveling a protocore will reveal any hidden stats, up to four I'm guessing?

amen on the stamina -- as an MMO player and having dabbled in gatcha games every now and again (Love Nikki Dress Up Queen had me for a few years there), spending a renewing resource nearly as fast as you get it it to avoid overcapping was second nature so I'm at least ahead of the curve there. I also realized a few days ago that I was collecting stamina drinks in my VERY HIDDEN inventory that had expiry dates, so I've been using those up as well, as needed.

If you have problems orienting yourself in the game, I can pull a couple of screenshots with arrows and circles. Old but effective style. A lot of this gets more intuitive as you experiment though, and I understand that a wall of text might get confusing the longer and more packed with info it is.

You'll start getting a constant influx of silver/radiant magnets once you reach the end of the main storyline. I'm constantly sitting on at least 10 silver magnets, and get a couple of radiant every few days.

If you want other cards, you need to buy empyrean wishes from the shop, or spend red diamonds. I would suggest against spending red diamonds because that's the main currency you can use during limited events (as you've seen with the current spring one), and your constant influx of them will soon dry up. Hoard them as much as you can and use them during important events where you want to get specific cards.

Emp wishes can be obtained as rewards from the battle menu, by ascending cards at certain levels, by spending the blue gem you get every time you pull (Shop > Exchange > Wishing Well) (you can also buy 4 and 5 star cards from there), by spending chocolates (currency you get from the mini games in the Date menu - do that weekly until you reach the 2400 chocolates cap, it will raise affinity big time), from the Heartsand Shop (last tab in the Exchange) although they're very expensive and it's unlikely you're sitting on heartsand SR or SSR as of now, by spending red diamonds in the shop (Shop > Selected > Items), in the Pack section of the shop with real world money.

Should you hoard them? Debatable. They work in the non-limited wishing pool, and sometimes you get banners that work there instead of xspace echo. At that point it's the same as red diamonds: the more emp tickets you have, the more you can pull for cards during the events. But as of now, especially because you're at the start of the game and you need to find good cards to win main battles to unlock all the other challenges in the Battle menu, I'd say to spend them to get decent cards rolling. 

And yes, leveling up protocores will reveal hidden stats, but sometimes you'll get unlucky and find out that the protocore you're leveling up isn't that great compared to the other one you just got, so it's better to work with protocores you know upfront. Leveling up your cards so you can clear bounty hunts and core hunts is extremely important: that will give you the resources to get the machine going.

[ChicletPrime]

Okay, I think I am grasping this.

I have a card, its TALENT reads .. hang on, lets embrace a picture.

The TALENT is when ATK is above a threshold, every step-value above grants more damage to a weakened enemy. So I found this Protocore which has both a base ATK bump (+25) and an ATK bonus (4.9%).  This would be a good match? I don't have any other pcore with two ATK stats listed.

Hmm. Just realized that the two cores I have that list two ATK bonuses ("big" and "little" cores) that would seem to match this card correctly are both BLUE bar, which is the not-good ones. I have no gold, only a couple of purples and their stats don't match the Talent. so.. go with the blues for now?

[Coldsaturn]

Yes, so long as you don't have anything better, go with the blue protocores, but don't throw too many resources on them to level them up, focusing instead on clearing Core Hunt levels so you can get better protocores.
Needless to say, while your card stats are low, getting protocores that bump up full numbers is more useful than percentages, whereas with high level cards the opposite is true.

Also, protocores will sensibly increase stats in bursts of three upgrades per time, so that's what many of us do. We enhance thrice, see how things are going, and eventually decide to stop or go with other 3 bursts.

[ChicletPrime]

/scribbles notes

on it, boss!

[ChicletPrime]

okay, we're working on this. slowly.  took the time after gleefully doing my raids in FFXIV to finally settle down and figure out which cards i have, at which star level and their combat level.



so of course you have to focus on getting stuff up to rank for a fight you're actually facing, but if i'm understanding the general idea, i want to focus on ranking 5* cards first (4* if i have no 5*), in the primus and secundus colors for each guy, and level anything tertius or quartus only as needed. yes?

as you can see, Rafayel really wants to come home with me.

[Coldsaturn]

Exactly. Of course it also depends on your resources. For some it's easier and therefore better to upgrade a 4 star to high level rather than a 5 star (which will become a black hole for resources past lvl 60), but you'll always get more stats from the 5 stars. It should also be noted that once you get far enough down the individual orbit trials, you'll be forced to upgrade even minor colors for the single LI because you'll be forced to use only them (RIP Zayne and boss lvl 30 of his orbit; I am unfortunately working on other cards and I can't upgrade two entire teams of his cards for the boss). You decide your level of priority.

Also, how did we not talk about Sylus' Immobilized? Are you still waiting to play the Memoria because you're still following the main story?

[ChicletPrime]

I am waiting to play the Memoria and Myths after I complete the story, yes. I have been reading the Anecdotes and listening to the By Your Side audio stories though.

I JUST got Immobilized today actually, which is why its rank 1. I watched the little mini-video of it that is just on the face of the card and went whoooo boy, i need to watch this when the FBI agent assigned me to goes on his bathroom break, definitely.

i am really surprised they didn't give his model an earring. his neck is sooo long, it seems somewhat a crime that it isn't decorated with something long and dangly.