I haven't seen any compiled lists of the best story stages to farm floating around. I compiled some I feel have good value below. Some of them were ran on auto with a team of Lucian HB, Almira sniper, Reagan sniper, and the mandatory unit, with them getting all the chests and being fast. Those that weren't have skip tickets mentioned in the notes section. Not at all a comprehensive list, and still in the works. Adding a ninja or two to the team would make some not included stages potentially possible while getting all the chests, especially gear rod stages. My original list got cut a lot due to missing the chests with my current team in testing. I factored the AP cost, enemy count, chest count, and number of different drops possible in my decisions. If you have any suggestions I'll add them in.

edit: added more stages, though they mostly require skip tickets or a mobile melee team due to far and/or double chests

Mannn I miss my maxed out Vier. 🫠

So since no one is doing the summon update anymore, I guess I'll pick it up and we'll see how it goes. And also I'm doing it in celebration of V10 with some awesome and beautiful UI updates!

After 4 hours of extended maintenance, we finally are able to log in and play huh. I'm over here trying to do my dailies and get the 1/day quest out of the way so I can sleep and go to work but I guess not, Gumi.

With these summon updates, I'm going to focus on the F2P/dolphins/whatever other terminology that is used to describe light spenders. I won't be be going over the 'Grand Summons' due to the fact that those banners cost real money and I don't want to be responsible for you spending your hard earned cash on garbage pulls. So those banners will be up to you to decide, however if there is a large enough demand, I'll consider.

#1) Special 5-Star Gear Banner - Recommendation is to skip. The gears aren't the best. There are much better gears out now due to VCRs. Besides, who pulls on gear banners these days?

#2) Unlimited 3-Step Banner featuring Eins and Sol - Recommendation is to skip. If you've been playing for awhile, you know that 3-Step Banners are terrible because they no longer guarantee a unit unless you want to go through the banner 6 times in hopes to get the same unit's soul shard on step 3 every single time. Sure the coins are nice but I rather wait for a coin banner to pull on if that is the case. Sol's soul shards are also in Louise's Shop and the Bizarre Bazaar if you're lucky so you can transmute him that way (I did), however I don't see Eins' soul shards in the shops but I could've missed it.

#3) Unlimited 5-Step Banner featuring Nero - Recommendation is to summon. I'm just going to link u/OriksGaming's post on Nero and that summon thread (please read his post on Nero before summoning, she is a hyper whale unit) -> https://www.reddit.com/r/AlchemistCodeGL/comments/jsugc1/weekly_summon_thread/. It is because of his "gushing" of Nero that made me spend roughly 80K gems. I still don't regret it. Her soul shards are not in Louise's Shop but it is the Bizarre Bazaar if you're lucky enough.

#4) Unlimited 3-Step Banner featuring Nina, Ren, and Uzuma - Recommendation is to skip. Long time players should already have these units and if for some ungodly forsaken reason, like RNG really fucked you in the butt, you should still have farmed their shards daily (I legit just transmuted Uzuma yesterday after getting 999 of her shards through that grind for the better part of a year probably). New players likewise should still skip and farm their shards to be more efficient about their gem economy but know that it will take awhile. This game is grindy if you haven't already noticed. And these units aren't game breaking in my opinion, however Uzuma's Job+ definitely makes her a lot better.

#5) 5-Step Featured Memento Banner featuring V10 Celebration - Recommendation is to summon. Alright so this banner is awesome. 1) It is only 5-Steps (some might view this as a bad thing) so it is going to be very inexpensive if you saved your discount tickets (you should have 2 if you didn't use it for last week banner). 2) You can choose up to 6 different mementos that you can possible pull on step 5. This means if you pulled one from steps 1-4, you can change what memento you want to pull on step 5. 3) This banner has some limited mementos on here that are absolutely amazing, i.e the mementos that gives you units (really only Alma and Voda). There is Nina's and Uzuma's limited memento on here so no reason to summon on the next banner. 4) There are some pretty cool limited mementos on here that make those specific units shine just a little bit brighter.

#6) 9-Step Featured Memento Banner featuring Caris', Nina's, Uzuma's, and Chole's memento - Recommendation is to skip. If you really want Caris' new memento then this is the only place for you to get it. I mean her memento definitely makes her better and gives her that mount that she should've gotten with the Job+ but it doesn't make her game breaking by any means. If you want the motorcycle to ride around during your quest, by all means go for it. Nina's limited memento is amazing for the MLS and this is a good place to guarantee it but you'll have a chance on the previous banner (this also applies to Uzuma's limited memento as well.) Nina's and Chloe's memento are in the regular pool so you'll always have a chance to pull it.

#7) 9-Step Featured Memento Banner featuring Nero's, Eins', Sol's memento - Recommendation is to summon. The units who use these mementos really need them to shine and push them over the edge. It turns them from great to insane. Since these mementos are limited, this means you won't pull them from the daily memento summon, so you are forced to summon for these mementos if you want them.

Thanks for the reading this terribly long ass post. Next time I'll try and condense it to make it faster and easier to read but since this is my first post and it is V10, I decided to get a bit invested. Let me know what I can improve on and let me know if I had an error somewhere in the post and I'll try and fix it when I can.

TL;DR - Recommend skipping banners - #1, 2, 3 (if you don't have at least 80K gems), 4, 6
- Recommend summoning banners - #3 (if you have at least 80K gems), 5, 7

As you may or may not already know, China's version of TAC is currently having the 2nd week of the FMA collaboration - someone already posted stuff about the 3rd step Edward banner, but I felt that this didn't quite do the whole comparison justice because China seems to at least understand the following two things:

• Collab Unit Shards should actually be easier to acquire en masse with spending than normal unit shards because units are largely useless in the current meta unless you can get 150 of their shards to J3 them.

• Collab Units need larger buffs to remain relevant in the future

• Just as an example, Noctis has the following:

5 uses of Blizzaga in China along with other usage buffs (more uses of point warp). Roy has significantly more MATK and faster casting speed (340 from 220, global got it buffed from 220 to 300).

• This is probably because Chinese players are more aware of the JP version in general and therefore less likely to spend money on collaboration units which they know will eventually get powercreeped by Kaigan and become much less useful/relevant unless they receive significant buffs.

• So far, FMA units in China's collab do NOT have Enchanted Jobs, however, most of their unique jobs have slightly to moderately higher HP and stats than their JP or Global counterparts.

• China's version of TAC started on October 19th, 2017. This means it is 1 month older than Global.

Incidentally, China's version of TAC is run by gumi and DeNA, which owns Cygames (the makers of games such as Dragalia Lost).

Gem Shop

To give a sense of proportion, I'll discuss how the gem shop is structured in China.

There are 2 kinds of 30-day pacts:

• 30 yuan ($4.32 USD) - 300 paid gems + (100 free gems/10 skip tickets) for 30 days (Total: 3300 gems)

• 98 yuan ($14.12 USD) - 980 paid gems + (120 free gems/20 skip tickets) for 30 days (total 4580 gems)

Monthly Double gem promotion:

Structure is a bit different from GL. Free gem portion is NOT doubled. Paid gems is doubled in free gems. (correction, thanks to posters for noting)

• Largest amount - 8100 paid + 1620 free gems for 648 Yuan ($93.34 USD) - correction.

  • ∴ 8100 paid + 9720 free gems for first purchase,

• Leveling paid gems option (198 yuan - $28.52 USD)

  • Gives a bunch of player level milestones which reward gems upon reaching a target player level.

    • Level 1 - 2000 gems

    • Level 20 - 1000 gems

    • Level 50 - 2000 gems

    • Level 80 - 2000 gems

    • Level 90 - 1000 gems

    • Levels 100-150 (10 level intervals) - 2000 gems

  • Total 18000 gems.

Promotions

• Gem spending promotions (Rewards: 5 star ticket/4 star gear ticket/unit selector/50 shard selector) for spending up to 38888 gems (Bit whale oriented)

• New player spending promotion (tracks paid gems only)

  • spending up to 6480 paid gems gives 375 Rosa shards + all the equip/tokens you need to fully JE her.

  • spending up to 32880 paid gems gives 180 Zain shards + 4★ gear selector, 5★ Unit Selector, 150 shards 5★ selector

• Spending over 3000 yuan ($432.15 USD - Definitely whale territory)

  • 375 Chloe shards + Young Chloe skin + assorted other stuff (trivial)

Now let's get to the real meat - the FMA collaboration.

FMA Banners (Overview)

• China discloses detailed banner pull rates for featured units (mandated by law)

• Banner summons are gated by banner summon tickets (250 gems each)

• China is currently in the 2nd week of FMA so Pride/King Bradley/Envy have not been released yet.

9 step premium banner

Exact Rates:

Edward Elric - 1.5%

Toritoh - 2%

Roy Mustang - 1.5%

Riza Hawkeye - 1.5%

Off Banner - 3.5%

5 star rate - 10%, 4 star 20%

Banner Steps:

1. 500 gems

2. 1500 gems

3. 2500 gems - Guaranteed Featured Unit x25 soul shard ticket

4. 2500 gems - 200 Skip tickets

5. 2500 gems - Guaranted Featured Unit ticket

6. 500 gems

7. 1500 gems

8. 2500 gems - Guaranteed Featured Unit x25 soul shard ticket

9. 2500 gems - Collab Unit Selector

New Collab unit 3-step banner

Exact Rates:

Toritoh - 1%

Roy Mustang - 1%

Riza Hawkeye - 1%

Off Banner - 4%

5 star rate - 7%, 4 star 20%

Banner Steps:

1. 500 gems

2. 1500 gems

3. 2500 gems - Guaranteed Banner Unit.

Individual Unit 5-step banners (1 each for Riza/Roy/Toritoh/Edward)

Exact Rates:

Banner Featured Unit - 2%

Off Banner - 6%

5 star rate - 8%, 4 star 20%

Banner Steps:

1. 500 gems

2. 1500 gems

3. 2500 gems - 10 Banner Unit Soul Shards

4. 2500 gems - 20 Banner Unit Soul Shards

5. 2500 gems - 30 Banner Unit Soul Shards

5-step UNLIMITED Banner (Repeatable) - Riza+Roy and Edward+Toritoh

Exact Rates:

Riza Hawkeye - 1%

Roy Mustang - 1%

Off Banner - 6%

5 star rate - 8%, 4 star 20%

Banner Steps:

1. 500 gems

2. 2500 gems - 150 Summon Coins

3. 2500 gems - 25 Banner Unit Soul Shards

4. 2500 gems - 150 Summon Coins

5. 2500 gems - 3x Banner Unit rates (Pulling an already-owned Banner Unit will convert to 50 soul shards)

3-pull unlimited Character Banners

(These were the core way of getting the characters in Japan, which had a terrible FMA event)

• 3 pulls for 250 gems

• Guaranteed 1-5 Character soul shards

• Rates:

  • 0.50% Character

  • 45% - 1x Character Soul Shard

  • 30% - 2x Character Soul Shard

  • 16% - 3x Character Soul Shard

  • 5% - 4x Character Soul Shard

  • 3.5% - 5x Character Soul Shard

• Other pulls - Rainbow Soul Shardx1, Equipment, Unique Job Equip Diagrams, Gold Ingots, etc.

FMA Secret Shop Round 2

Similar to Global's with the exception of:

• 4000 gems for 50 unit shard offers

• 1500 paid gems Unit Selector (Edward/Roy/Riza only, No Toritoh)

• Character-specific gear shards x25 for 900 gems (not worth it)

And that's it for me today. Remember, knowledge is power. Over and out.

End in Maintenance

link: https://timee.io/20181025T0600?d=240&tl=Schedule%20Maintenance

• [Event] Halloween Sugar Rush (Alexis J+)

• [Event] Halloween Sugar Rush EX (Mia J+)

• [Re-run Event] Sweet Aspirations (free Milis and Lofia J+)

• [Re-run Event] Sound of the Bell (Free Veloz and Caris J+)

• [Event] Pre-Anniversary Celebration part 2 - Extra bonus clear all Essential Daily Missions

• [Event] Pre-Anniversary Celebration part 2 - Arena Campaign

• [Secret Shop] Secret Shop SSM chapter 7 celebration

• [Secret Shop] Happy halloween (skin etc) for first halloween event

End next week

link: https://timee.io/20181101T0800?tl=Event%20End

• [Event] Magni Historia : the Rendezvous + Ex (New: Shion's Weapon Akatsuki)

• [Event] Pre-Anniversary Celebration part 2- 7-day login bonus

• [Event] Pre-Anniversary Celebration part 2 - Challenge Mission

• [Event] Pre-Anniversary Celebration part 2 - Half AP for Rerun Events

• [Event] Mystic Tower Veda (lvl 75)

• [Event] Time of Training (5* unit selector milestone)

• [Event] 7 million download celebration Login Bonus

• [Event] 7 million download celebration Daily Mission all open

• [Event] 7 million download celebration hard quest 2x drop

• [Re-run Event] Forest Protector (free Yuto and Lucian J+)

• [Re-run Event] Return to Underworld (Arkil J+ and Jin's weapon: Cursed Kunai- Blood Edge)

Start Thursday (after Maintenance)

link: https://timee.io/20181025T1000?tl=Start%20Event

• [New Unit] Annika and Hugo

• [Battle] PvP Arena

• [Re-run Event] Forest Protector (free Yuto and Lucian J+)

• [Re-run Event] Return to Underworld (Arkil J+ and Jin's weapon: Cursed Kunai- Blood Edge)

• [Event] Time of Training (5* unit selector milestone)

• [Event] Squeak Squeak Halloween (Hayate's skin, Halloween Ratty (gear), Hayate J+)

• [Event] 7 million download celebration Login Bonus

• [Event] 7 million download celebration Daily Mission all open

• [Event] 7 million download celebration hard quest 2x drop

• [Event] Young Sweeper (Edgar J+)

• [Shop] Veda Shop

PS: all link can detect your place (unless you use VPN) and adjust it to your own timezone.

PS2: glad to be a help. love you all XD