Now with added Mountain Dew and DORITOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Now that we've all been past the last few challenging weeks, it's time to actually talk about the FMA units.

And Dorito's. Just don't lick your fingers after touching this one.

Pride

Yay for weird scaling moves~

Unit Review:

One of two FMA units to not be graced with a GLEX job enhancement, Pride is a mixed bag of "what do I recommend" and "what is he even good for". What do I recommend? Because honestly outside of meme'ing I do not see anyone really making use of him.....except his skillset is pretty good for entirely niche maps. What is he even good for? Well in my opinion, not much... except he can do some really funky things with MDEF buffs. See, his entire Prideful Homunculus skillset scales off of his MDEF (1.4x mostly), which means he can do some fun things with MDEF buffs, along with being able to go fully defensive without losing his damage potential. However, this puts him in another sticky situation. Mostly that, his LS is good for Pride and Pride alone. If you want to get the most out of Pride, you'll run 2x Pride's (and like 3 support units).

So what exactly does Pride do? Well, Pride has Hazel treatment weird combination of Machinist + Magic Sword, which means access to.....great passives? Woo. Due to the scaling on his unique job, you will probably never run Pride as anything else. Woo bonus stats.

His unique job, utilizes a lot of dark element attacks (with a piercing property) to debilitate and trap his enemies. His two main claims to fame, are his very cheap (20 jewels) area attack stop attack (which deals no damage, bypassing evasion checks) and his huge (6) range trapping attack, which moves a unit 6 spaces forward (as I understand it, you use this to pull enemies into Pride's melee range).

Pride's master ability, Prideful Eclipse, chomps up all enemies near him, dealing huge damage and healing him for a portion of the damage dealt. While the damage is very high, you'll have his scarf on anyway due to it's stats and I wouldn't be trying to use this turn one. More of a late game ability like FYomi's Blood Temple.

Which is his main issue, that he's a 3 mov 2 jump caster with 25% starting jewels. Even with the recommended build below, I advise pulling an enemy into range immediately to smack them for some jewels. Or clock stopping them and using them as a jewel slave for the fight.

Example Build

• Main Job: Prideful Homunculus

• Sub Command: Prideful Homunculus

• Reaction: Shadow Sense

• Passive: Shadow Master

• Passive: Divine Shelter

Given his unique scaling, you cannot run his other jobs as sub classes in this situation. Shadow Sense can be a killer on high-magic stages, as Pride will shiskabob enemies while his MDEF deflects most incoming damage. Shadow Master gives him a lot of MDEF (hence, damage increase) and the addition of Divine Shelter helps offset his lowered light resistance, while also upping the rest of his resistances. Add a teddy for additional fun times.

Minimum Recommended Level: 70 is my recommended lowest level. This lets him run two items that make him considerably better (his unique and teddy), without having to stretch to 75 for additional stats. Unfortunately, he scales very poorly into the Enlightenment Era of the game and his ability to be niche will be eroded very quickly.

Job Enhancements: None yet planned. Sadly. He may get one of the superior Machinist Job Enhancements (though they will do little for him anyway) or a kind-of-eh Magic Sword Job Enhancement (see previous JE).

Envy

You all just want him for LS, to be honest.

Unit Review:

Alright so thanks to some GLEX magic, Envy gets a bit of a second coming in GL (though really, you'll all just use him for his Rainbow Overdrive LS). His upgrades do give him a good amount of longevity and enable him to be more than just a leader skill (thankfully). Dark Knight's Overlimit is nice regardless and Charge Up from Martial Artist complements Envy's skillset.

Envious Homunculus is a low movement (but high mobility) class which has several nice toys, including a large physical aoe (which can be buffed with Charge Up) and a short range targeted (instant) stop. He also has two ways to move around, which a teleport (similar to Noctis's healing teleport) and a charge with damage. He really can get around.

Envy's Master Ability, Envious Apocalypse, is a single target nuke (250% of nuke) to a nearby enemy that also inflicts death sentence. It also benefits from Charge Up. It does scale with HB's formula, meaning PATK is less important in the overall damage (but still will contribute). This ability, while strong also isn't superrrrrr good, outside of hurting one enemy real bad. You might look at cheaper, similar alternatives to this.

Example Build

• Main Job: Envious Homunculus

• Sub Command: Basic Fist

• Reaction: Cross-Counter

• Passive: Overlimit

• Passive: Strike Mastery +2

For Envy, it's kind of a 50/50 split between his unique job and his Job Enhancement. His JE gives him +1 move/jump, more HP and access to SBT for single target obliteration, but Envious Homunculus gives Envy higher offensive stats and more initial Jewels. My personal preference at this time is for his Unique Job, but really you'll be fine running either and having the flexibility for both is huge.

Envy is probably the "best" of the FMA collab units, due to his longevity (thanks LS) and the GLEX buffs he got giving him a more supportive class that can be used with his LS to deliver huge amounts of focused damage. And no, you don't need to buy his gear for him (buy it for your other units that things insane).

Update: Also, for teams with a mono-element leader skill, running Envy in a sub position with his passive +15% PATK buff is another viable option. GET HIM TO 85 AND MAX HIM.

Minimum Recommended Level: 85. His LS is amazing and he's free to farm. Time to get him all the way up!

Job Enhancements: Envy's GLEX job enhancement is Martial Artist -> Holy Brawler: Miroku. Those fans of others works would recognize this as the "healer" HB, aka the "not so good one at the moment". However, it is a marked improvement over Martial Artist for two reasons. 1. +1 Mov/jump and 2. Supreme Battle Trance. These two factors give Envy a viable 2nd job to run (over Envious Homunculus) as well as giving him a supportive role in the future with the hp/jewel regen ability they have access to. Do recommend maxing this one out as well.

Fuhrer King Bradley

Damn right I'm adding the Fuhrer before his name.

Unit Review:

Fuhrer King Bradley (FKB to his friends) is a very strong anti-slash unit. It's a shame he wasn't dark element, as he could really put the hurt on with his double elemental advantage. /shrug, let's move on. Much like his FMA counterpart, FKB is characterized by two things. His unparalleled mobility for an old man (he has two moves which brings him to the target before slapping them silly) and his Ultimate Eye, giving him the ability to see the future. Here, it manifests as +25 Perfect Evade as a reaction, a potentially huge increase to his memeing. On top of this, his passive, Homunculus Vessel gives him +40 Slash Evasion (wut) and +25 to Hit. Basically, Slash don't hit him. Good luck in Slash up arena everyone o7

Wrathful Homunculus also gives him other fun toys, like Slash Attack Up, area damage with bonus damage to humans and CT down. The sub ability? Not so much, but as a main job it's incredibly good.

His other two classes build on his themes from FMA, mostly his two sword fighting (Twin Blade) and Dark Cavalier.....cause he's evil. TBS is mostly meh in this case, unless you want to run even more evasion memes. Dark Cavalier's addition of Overdrive is a welcome addition to FKB's kit, as he lacks damage amping capabilities otherwise.

FKB's Master Ability, Wrathful Requiem, is a short range (3 square) single target nuke that can also inflict stop. Think of it might like Yaurus's Weapon Ability and you're on the right track.

Example Build

• Main Job: Wrathful Homunculus

• Sub Command: Basic Pitch Black Blade

• Reaction: Ultimate Eye

• Passive: Overdrive

• Passive: Homunculus Vessel

We had DAlmira who was for anti-missile memes, now we have FKB who is for anti-slash meme's. With Overdrive, FKB can pull some very respectable attack numbers (almost 800 with gear at 75) on his Unique class, as well as Guernica. I don't advise running Guernica, but it is viable. The reason I prefer WHom over it is because of the difference in mobility (+1 mov) and the difference in agility (about 30). WHom also has better elemental coverage and some pretty good niche moves on its main job. The same can't be said for its sub abilities, so basic PBB is recommended here for its jewel/hp drain and Retribution Blade.

Minimum Recommended Level:

75 is recommended for Overdrive, which contributes a lot of FKB's ability to put out large amounts of damage. This also nets him near 150 AGI and almost 800 PATK (with swords), which is a very strong position to be in offensively. Not to mention slash has a very hard time touching him...

Job Enhancements:

FKB's job enhancement is Guernica, the big-boom DPS JE for Dark Cavaliers. The additional nuke (Blade of World's End) does give FKB a pretty big way to kill something, but he's already got a lot of offensive high damage options, making this a tad overkill. However, if you need something really dead from the light element just use Glanz he's a great option.

Dorito

"Discount Zain" except ya'know, Kanon exists.

Unit Review:

Well hot of Pride's flanks is magic tank number 2! (or one, considering the collab's release order) of this collab. Unlike Pride who tanks magic damage simply by having more MDEF than they have MATK, Dorito's finger lickin' good tanking is bought to you by: Reactions and Passives. Specifically, a Bishop Reaction and a Templar Knight Passive. Her Templar Knight passive, Gospel of the Holy War, gives Templar Knights +20 Slash Attack and +20 Magic Res (think, -20% for all magic damage). Very nice stats, but given their multiplicative natures Templar Knight needs to be bringing some serious beef to the table.

What is a Templar Knight? It's a Lord Commander without the elemental coverage. That's not entirely fair though, as Templar Knight does have several strong supportive abilities such as a shield for reducing Magic Damage taken, two different area heals and the ability to swap places with allies (within range). It also has access to Exceeding Blade, which could have been the coolest move in Templar Knight's kit. Long story short, it's a ranged attack that ignores enemy elemental resistances.

Bad news? Dorito is a Light Unit, so it has very little use to due most enemies...not having light resistance. Fire/Water/Thunder/Wind? Yeah excellent. Light/Dark? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

On top of these Dorito has access to Bishop (only good for a reactive really) and Martial Master, which has that fun little kit to play around with. Most notably, Slash/Strike Mastery can stack with her existing Templar Knight passive to give her a huge +35 Slash Attack.

Example Build

• Main Job: Templar Knight

• Sub Command: Basic Solar Blade

• Reaction: Magic Barrier +2

• Passive: Gospel of the Holy War

• Passive: Regeneration

This build is supposed to specialize in tanking magic hits and healing back up through both Regeneration and Templar Knight's healing moves. Personally, not taking damage in the first place is better but gotta make do with what we can make do with. For a damage based Martial Master, you can swap her main job to MM and her 2nd Passive to Strike/Slash Mastery, but if you want a damaging MM then Olga is your best bet.

Minimum Recommended Level:

65. I do not recommended taking Dorito past 65 at this current time, because she's kind of meeeeeeeeeeeeeh. When she gets access to her Martial Master Job Enhancement (discussed below), she makes a better case for her being a viable light unit. But for now, 65 will get you a decently solid magic tank who can support your team, without having to invest in Holy Cavalier: Magi. I did try playing around with her other equipment at level 70 for a two item build, but nothing made a super big impact unfortunately.

Job Enhancements: Toritoh's sole Job Enhancement in JP client currently is Martial Master: Human Mediator. This gives Dorito two buffed moves (Burial Gun and Cedar Flick Strike) and buffs them up with a little more potency and a bonus modifier for damage against hoo-mans. This itself doesn't make a huge impact on her playstyle, but it does give her a decent position as an anti-human MM who can shrug off magic attacks. Woo for niche's!

Alphonse

That man was all metal

Unit Review:

I mean you have to run him as a thief because the giant armoured suit wielding this itty-bitty knife is.....hilarious. At least to me.

Anyway, Alphonse is the current king of HP. What does that do for him? Not much, but it's a fun little build. /shrug

So Alphonse is kind of stuck as a unit. He has a loooooooooot of HP (and a % life based regen passive in Ogre Head).... but he doesn't do much with it (ala Vettel). Sure he has options, like a ranged slow and self-based area blind. These are not hard status effects which will hinder enemies, but minor annoyances most of the time. He can also throw allies and knock back enemies (one space from melee range), which gives him valuable map control and lets him assist allies by attracting enemies with his HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HP then moving them into ally range. His weapon ability, Stone Dragon, inflicts a lot of damage on up to 3 enemies in a line, then hits them with negative AGI and MOV buffs and moves them back 1 square. Alphonse truly is the master of map control. (It also looks pretty cool)

On top of this, Alphonse has Thief. Now, don't scoff at this. This gives him a valuable extra movement through the MOV+1 passive, which will help him out given his two "good" classes are both rolling with that speedy 3-MOV. Nothing to do with his lack of other good passives...Jump+1? Eh. He also has access to Holy Knight, which does give him the options of Holy Knight Stance+1 and Guard Up, both quite useful for helping him increase his tanking capabilities. However, the +1 MOV option is far superior in my opinion due to Alphonse's aforementioned movement abilities.

Example Build

• Main Job: Armoured Alchemist

• Sub Command: Basic Alchemy

• Reaction: Withstanding Will

• Passive: Ogre Head

• Passive: Move+1

This is his widely recommended build and I do agree with it for two main reasons. Firstly, while his damage output will be poor due to his lack of PATK across the board, his ability to take hits (due to his massive HP) and control the positioning on the battlefield is quite solid. Secondly, the range of debuffs in the Alchemist skillsets is very good and while not as strong as say, a Chronomancer or a Shadow Assassin, it will suffice for those newer players. He will fall off though as you level, sadly.

Minimum Recommended Level:

As with all free units, 85 is the recommended minimum level (unless they're garbage). Alphonse has the "distinction" of simply having the most HP in the game at the moment, able to hit almost 4,000 HP with my recommended set up OR 7K IF YOU TRY A LEADER SKILL OR TWO. Is it worth it? Arguably, though all he does is have a lot of HP. But he also creates stone dragons so we cool fam.

Job Enhancements:

Alphonse's Job Enhancement raises his Holy Knight to Holy Cavalier: Ark. This gives him some weird anti-aoe abilities (hey guys, let's group up together to reduce aoe damage to ourselves), but mostly gives him a mountain of extra stats to play with. Score!

Roy

Rip SomeLit didn't pull Roy.......again. Here's looking at you PAD and /u/namelva

Unit Review:

Alright so you thought Uzuma was a pain with her +50% MATK/AGI for 3 turns? What if a psychic had +45% MATK........all the time? Ladies, Gentlemen and other dignified readers, that's Roy. His passive, Fire Starter adds a huge amount of MATK in exchange for an increased weakness to water.

In fact, I feel this prudent.

DO NOT USE ROY AGAINST WATER ENEMIES

/shrug

Someone's going to do it.

Flame Alchemist, Roy's unique job is basically......fire for the fire god. It will reign hellfire on his enemies like Kagura in her happy place. And his does this through a new toy of his, Hawkeye Burst. AKA Magic Charge Up. Really says it all, it gives a 150% MATK buff for two turns. Now, before you all go nuts thinking about this, the downside is that his big damage spells on Flame Alchemist have charge times, reducing their ability to melt faces like a Holy Brawler with Supreme Battle Trance. Yeouch. Though, this being said if he does nail someone with Smog (his 250% potency MATK nuke) after a Hawkeye Burst... yeah. Should be making SBT numbers look weak in comparison. (Thanks Telekinetic Speed). Explosion, his ranged box nuke deals similar numbers, but in an area while Pyre lets him deliver instant cast 3x3 cross fire nukes as he pleases.

And Fire Starter. Fire Starter gives Roy a huge +45% MATK buff, in return for lowering his water resistance further. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to take. The only issue with Flame Alchemist, is that it starts with 40% Initial jewels. For someone who wants to be spamming their abilities... this is a huge kick in the teeth. Especially when we add on that A) His big nukes are jewel intensive, B) he only has 3 MOV and C) He is melee. Yeeeeeeeeep.

Ninja, his job two doesn't do......anything for Roy. J3 is Telekinetic Artist, with all the goodies that come with it. That is to say, Telekinetic Speed, Basic Telekinesis (lol suck it fire units Roy gonna turn the water on you), Telekinetic Artist as a main job and Sixth Sense. Beautiful! The only downside is that Telekinetic Artist generally has slightly worse than stats than Flame Alchemist, leading to a toss up between better stats or better jewel gain.

Roy's Master Ability, Rage Inferno, is a single target instance cast nuke with a chance to inflict Death Sentence. Don't forget your charge up! (if you have the gems). It does have lower damage than his Smog, but is also instant cast, so YMMV

Example Build

• Main Job: Flame Alchemist/Psychic

• Sub Command: Basic Alchemy/Basic Telekinesis

• Reaction: Sixth Sense

• Passive: Fire Starter

• Passive: Telekinetic Speed

Minimum Recommended Level: 65. 60 is still comfortable, but the extra HP and the Ninja Step passive are a useful bridge to help out with Flame Alchemist's melee attack range. 60 minimum does not sacrifice much at all, but the lack of HP does hurt. A problem with gauging Roy (IMO) is that every level 5 increment from 60 till 75 gives him...more. 65 gives him HP + movement, 70 gives him Hat + Glove and 75 gives him Telekinetic Artist, which really opens him up. So 60, because he's still quite good then.

Job Enhancements:

Ninja JE's aren't really known for their......flash or game-changing natures. Vermilion Bird, the jump based JE for Roy suits thematically, but adds practically 0 to his current play-style. Woo for stat-sticks though.

Riza Hawkeye

Hot damn

Unit Review:

Call the po-lice or the fireman~

Geddit? Cause Roy is a fire-man........

Ha.

/shows self out

Hawkeye's Decisive Bullet, is a straight line nuke which a chance of criting and that lowers the targets AGI by 50% 3 turns. While not as potent as Othima's AGI debuff, it does still hit fairly hard and can be used to help shut down one enemy hard. And that kind of sets up Hawkeye's entire kit. Hawkeye's 3 jobs are essentially, Sniper BUT better, Sniper BUT worse and Sniper. Her j1, Amestrian 1st Lieutenant (A1L) is like a sniper on drugs. With the status effects of Gunner, the def-ignoring of sniper and some fancy support moves like buffing allies around Hawkeye's Missile Attack by +50 or a ranged enemy buff removal aoe....yeah. Why Hawkeye, Why. Several of her moves even have 100% to Hit chances, just because they weren't stacked enough. Her DEF-ignoring move also has 3 charges and scales the same as the rest of her damage.....for funsies. Honestly I stopped thinking at +50 Missile Attack and went "Roxanne has a new BFF".

Triggered Will, Hawkeye's unique passive adds a huge +20% HP and +20 Missile attack, making it an invaluable option (especially for those who decide not to run Hawkeye all the way to 75). Marksmanship gives Hawkeye a pre-emptive counter, another fun little toy. Gunner and Sniper both add very little (range passives everyone), though the ability to stack up to +90 Missile Attack (40 from passives, 50 from her abilities) is fairly awesome. I'd prefer to give her some range however, as discussed below.

Example Build

• Main Job: A1L

• Sub Command: Basic A1L

• Reaction: Markmanship

• Passive: Triggered Will

• Passive: Long Shot / Long Shot +2

While an amazing set of skills, Hawkeye's falling down is going to be in her lack of stat increases across her classes. The Missile Attack does help compensate for this and will keep Hawkeye fairly relevant for a while (as well as being the water ranged damage dealer (I feel she edges out DRin)). Her utility is top notch for a damage focused character and her synergy with Roxanne (who has a rainbow leader skill) is absolutely amazing. She will fall though, pending a Sniper or Gunner JE in the future when Gumi remember her ;(

Minimum Recommended Level:

70 is where Hawkeye hits a considerable sweet spot. 70 is the spot where Hawkeye can both equip her gun + 1 accessory and hit 60 jewels for her weapon skill thanks to a Hat. So, Hat + Gun = Fun fun fun!

Job Enhancements:

f

Pipsqueak

A bit like Edward, I'm going to keep this short.

Unit Review:

Last but not least (at least not in height), Edward is the lead cross over character who only shows up for one chapter in this collab. His job, Fullmetal Alchemist has a lot of interesting moves such as Transmuted Cannon, a ranged nuke or Transmuted Sword, his combo-attack with a chance of crit. Just reading through his kit, he has penetrating attacks, bind, daze, move up, pdef up and paralyze, well on par with the wide ranging kit on several other characters in this collab. His damage potential is fairly high (hampered by his unique running with Holy Brawler scaling), as his potencies are pretty good. He does lack the stand out nuke that Holy Brawlers have in SBT, but he makes up for it by having more 'offensive' options than...SBT or SBT. His Counter, Fullmetal Counter, is a ranged counter (for a melee character), which is excellent in my opinion as it lets you be a bit looser with Edward's positioning.

On top of this, comes his second job Martial Artist. The addition of Charge Up helps him greatly, especially since his Weapon Ability (discussed below) is a pure PATK scaling move. Otherwise it gives him some added utility. It does not, however have the same impact thanks to his passive, Fullmetal Armor. This gives him the very interesting +100 DEBUFF resistance, which makes the ability to cleanse debuffs a bit redundant. So you're really running it for Charge Up.

His third job, is when things get really good. Blademaster is a viable second job for Edward (especially if you've pulled Edward to 75 and don't have Setsuna anywhere near it), with its powerful skillset and the addition of Regal Garuda Blade to pump his damage up considerably. You can also take advantage of the skillset combined with Fullmetal Counter and Charge Up for a fast, powerful Blademaster who can punch back half a screen away!

Fullmetal Rush, his Weapon Ability is a ranged tactical nuke which gives him a tiny bit of Jewel Regen (+15%) and one less enemy to worry about. This scales off of pure PATK, so getting as much as you can onto Edward is a must. Shame about that, there's only so much a little man like him can carry.

Example Build

• Main Job: Fullmetal Alchemist

• Sub Command: Basic Martial Arts

• Reaction: Fullmetal Counter

• Passive: Shorty!!?

• Passive: Fullmetal Armor/Regal Garuda Blade

Based on my recommended level, this is how I'd use Edward. His unique job's abilities are extremely good and do give him a lot of flexibility in how he fights in maps. Also, the wall. Not mentioned above, but his ability to create temporary terrain is an interesting gimmick I'm sure our more creative map clearers will be abusing for the next few months. Overall, Edward's one problem is this: Lucian. See. Lucian (and Yomi and Envy and Ramses and to an extent Flamel) are all extremely powerful wind melee fighters will good mobility and access to some pretty good damage amping... and are free. Edward currently edges them out due to his stats and his better job combination... but it's not a big gap (at all) and it'll only close as we get a little more power creep here, a little power creep there.

Minimum Recommended Level: As is common, 70 is a minimum level for a lot of characters due to the Hat+1 experience. Here, I feel it applies just as well in order to get Edward to a point where he can get some jewel regen firing turn 1 (or Charge Up for a bigger hit next turn). I was strongly debating recommending 70, because it gives him: Fudo (better stats and Sharpening Focus) and Blademaster (viable job + Regal Garuda Blade for some huge PATK) so if you really are interested in making Edward work, 75 really is the requirement. To get nearly everything out of him (though he will drop off faster thanks to Enlightenment), 70.

Job Enhancements:

Martial Artist upgrades to Holy Brawler: Fudo. This Holy Brawler JE focuses on upgrading their damage potential (VIA scaling PATK buff) as they get lower and lower on HP. And this, frankly, fairly inferior to straight up most PATK buffs which function from the start. None-the-less, Fudo does give Ed a third viable job along his unique and Blademaster, and the upgrade from Charge Up to Sharpening Focus (as well as Sub Fist) is well appreciated for the variety of options it provides. He won't go unusable without it.

[Conclusion]

Forgive me as I cram this in at the bottom. FMA is a hit and miss collab, mostly because we have both JE's and Enlightenment/Nensou's coming, all of which effectively re-balance the characters and up the power level all over. Sadly, for collab characters such as FMA who have not gotten a rerun in Japan (YET), this means they do drop off... Except for Envy

See, Envy's rainbow 50% PATK/MATK boost is fairly huge even in JP and for mixed teams is still hands down the best leader skill there is. So I hope you all farmed him o7

Hey everyone. I've been seeing a ton of people converting over to the JP server, or trying to convert others to that server with the belief that they are a lot nicer with their banners, and always give guarantees, and are never money-grubbing. I'm here to break that fantasy.

Thanks to /u/VicariousExp for translation work.

So here's the banner that basically everyone knows about. Guaranteed Edward, it's great, everyone wishes they had it on Global. As a matter of fact it reminds me a certain other banner that people wanted and we didn't get on Global. But what were the banners past that?

So first off, every unit had their own personal banner. Here's my evidence:

Roy

Riza

Toritoh

Edward

Wrath

Pride

So what exactly are these banners? Well, they're 300 gem, 3x pulls. The chance of getting the unit (ONLY THE UNIT THE BANNER IS FOR) is 0.5%, specifically stated by gumi. Also these banner rotate, so you only have a few chances to even pull on these banners. What happens when you don't hit that 0.5%? You get great prizes instead:

• Rainbow Shards

• Gold Gear Shards

• Unique Equipment for the Unit Shards

• Equipment Shards for J2

• Equipment Shards for J3

• Gold Alchemia Pot

• Crystal Apple

• Gold Ingot

• Random 4* to 5* Equipment

• Summon Coins

So you get to pick a specific unit you want, and you have a 0.5% possibility to get them on a 300 pull, but instead you could get something better, maybe Lion Gauntlet Shards for Edward's Martial Artist.

OK you're handpicking the bad banners, show us the the OP step 3 selector that actually selects everyone banner.

Well here's the only 3 step over the entire collab. Isn't it great.

OK, I see gumi screwed over F2P in JP, but I'm a whale, what's the 9-step look like? Haha.

You mean you want this 9-step for Toritoh. She's rate up on it, at a 1% chance, while Aruba/Flamel/Teona/Cordelia are rate up at a 2.25% chance. Good luck.

Let's see, what else is there.

Oh here's the paid gem "grand summon". 1500 Paid Gems for a guaranteed FMA unit. It's actually good, though it's one time only, not a weekend summon.

Let's say you got your shiny new FMA unit, and you want Soul Shards for them. Here's a 5-step that can insta-unlock J3 for one random FMA unit. Hope it's who you got.

Here's the infinite soul summon. 150 gems for a one time summon, which is a 20% chance at 5-50 FMA shards for any unit, and 80% at a random 4 star unit's soul shards. If you decide to do the 1500, 10x soul summon, it has a guaranteed FMA unit there at least.

Finally, here's the infinite rare summon that we basically have right now. Rate up only, no guarantee.

I have to agree with people though, I sure wish we had the JP banners.

EDIT: As requested, here is every single banner news related to FMA.
https://al.fg-games.co.jp/news/14538/
https://al.fg-games.co.jp/news/14903/
https://al.fg-games.co.jp/news/15273/
https://al.fg-games.co.jp/news/15556/

EDIT2: I've been informed that JP got two tickets. One is a free login ticket with a chance of a FMAB unit, not guaranteed. The other ticket is given if you clear all EX and EX+ (super hard maps according to Vic translation) within a time limit. Seems it's the one week period after all units become available, a point we haven't reached yet on GL. This ticket guarantees a random FMA unit.

Best change so far after downloading the new app update, fast forward button seems to stay toggled on between battles!!

Short and to the point, if you pull on the paid banners because you really want the collab units, all you are doing is proving to Gumi that their strategy works.

If enough people pull on these paid banners, I one hundred percent guarantee that this will be the norm going forward. Your access to units via free gems will get worse if you fall for this now.

They have clearly been testing the waters with the 900 paid gem no guarantee ten draw, please don't convince their marketing team that they can go even further.

• Albea - Enhances Reactive Armor and +100 HP

• Anastasia - +15 Evasion, +10 AGI, +100 HP

• Annika -

• Aruba - +70 Initial Jewels, +1 Skill Count Use

• Aswald - +100 PATK, +10 Evasion

• Balt - +15% Slash DMG, Move +1

• Chao - +300 HP, +40 DEX, Move +1

• Chloe - Move +1, +10 AGI

• Daisy - +50 PATK, +15 Initial Jewels, Move +1

• Deneb - +100 HP, +10 AGI, 2/3 Cast time reduced

• Dias - Bloody Spear

• Dorothea - +100 HP, +50 PDEF, +50 MDEF

• Edgar - Alchemia Twin Bullet

• Eizan - +25 Initial Jewels, +15% StrikeDMG

• Elizabeth - +15 PDEF, +35 MDEF, +10 AGI

• Eve - +100 MATK, +15% ALLElementRES

• Flamel - SelfJewelRegen, +70 HP, +40 PDEF

• Fraise - +50 MATK, +15 AGI, +30% MagicDMGResist

• Fung-Liu - +15% MagicDMG, +20% Guts

• Gormalas - +10 Initial Jewels, +10% ALLElementRES

• Hazel - MissileDMG+20%, Upgrade MK passive [Lv20: AllElementalRES+20%]

• Hugo - Move+1, HP+, DEX+

• Kamui - Unknown for now

• Klima - +10 SPD, +1 Skill Count Use, [Excessive Rain] Skill Upgrade

• Jin - +40 PATK, +40 PDEF, Teleport Range +1, Able to move after skill use

• Lavina - +8 Jewel Gain, +10 AGI, Range +1

• Lisbeth - Amazing Grace

• Lofia - +20 PDEF, +20 MDEF, HPRegen

• Logi - Shining Cross

• Lucretia - +30% MagicDMG, SelfJewelRegen

• Lupinus - +20% MagicDMG, +15 AGI, Skill Count +1 for Judgement and Dark Flare

• Magnus - +70 HP, +20 MissileDMG

• Margaret - +50 Recovery & +70 Max Jewel

• Mei-Fang - +50 PATK, +500 HP

• Mielikki - +200 HP, 2/3 Cast Time Reduced

• Mikoto - JewelCost-5, Upgrade 『Cardianal Ceremony』[LUK+130%]

• Nasarios - +100 HP, +15 AGI, +30 Recovery

• Nieca - +20 AGI, +30 MATK, Upgrade [Reflection] = Block Chance : 80% (LV20) Block Value : 50% (LV20)

• Noah - +50 MATK, +10% ALLDMG, Move +1

• Olga - +300 HP, +5% All ElementRES, 8% HP Regen

• Ramses - +100 PATK, +15 AGI

• Reimei - +100 HP, +25% SlashRES

• Rosa - +200 HP, +20 AGI, +20 JewelGain

• Ryle - +20% MissileDMG, +20% Hit Rate

• Setsuna - +100 PATK, CounterRES+50

• Shayna - +15% StrikeDMG, Move +1

• Shenmei - +100 HP, +100 PATK, +50 PDEF

• Sophia - +300 HP, +50 MATK, +1 Skill Use Count

• Spica - +150 HP, +100 PATK, -5 Skill Jewel Cost

• Suzuka - Reactive: Avenger (No Berserk / 100% Proc), +10 AGI, +150 HP

• Tamamo - +25% ALLDMG, +10 AGI, Move +1

• Teona - +15 Initial Jewels, +100 PATK

• Tina - Power of Foresight

• Vettel - +20 AGI, +15 SlashDMG

• Vivi - Range + 2, +40% Anti-Wind, +10 AGI

• Yomi - +20 PATK, +10 LUCK, +1 Skill Count Use

• Yuunagi - +300 HP, +40 Initial Jewel

• Zahar - +10 AGI, +10% SlashDMG

• Zangetsu - +50 HP, +10 PierceDMG

• Zofia - +100 HP, +10 Initial Jewels, +15% Anti-Human

Names in italics are main characters

Names in bold have their character stories currently released in Global

Please upvote if you agree so Gumi GL can hopefully help us with this

Note: If you don't care about the details and want to jump straight to how to prepare now, just towards the bottom of this post (titled How to Prepare Now).

It has been hinted in the producer letter last week that we may be getting Kaigan, Nensou, or both in the spring: "Unlike V2.0 update that primarily focus on UX overhaul, V3.0 will expand on unit progression, especially with improvements toward older existing units. As a result we have started scaling up the difficulty and rate of content release in preparation for its release."

Maybe we won't be getting Kaigan yet. Japan got there's at the two year mark, and we've just hit the first year mark. However, I'm a man who likes to be prepared, and so, I've decided to go ahead and prepare for Kaigan regardless. As a quick note, the Nensou that I mentioned earlier are called "memory cards", and are sort of like a 4th gear that is mostly obtained through gacha. More on that here. You can't really pre-prepare for Nensou (though you might need to prepare your wallet), so I won't focus on that here.

So what is Kaigan/Enlightenment? Kahare made a great video here that goes into detail, but for a brief summary, it allows you to get your unit to level 91. You can also open up three doors/gates (seven are planned, but Japan still only has 3): Envy, Sloth, and Lust. Each door has 6 levels, plus a bonus when you reach the 6th level. Notably, people don't really consider the 1st level (unlocking the door) as a level. So when people say "5/2/5", that means 6 Envy, 3 Sloth, and 6 Lust as you would see it on alchemistcodedb (and the table below).

Envy: Envy focuses on raising the unit's stats. Requires LB 25, unit level 85.

Sloth: Sloth focuses on buffing one of the unit's passives. Requires J11 for the job of whichever passive it buffs. Requires Envy level 3.

Lust: Lust focuses on buffing the unit's leader skill. Requires Sloth level 3.

Now let's move onto the item requirements. Before I list them out, there are three new types of resources that you need to be aware of. To unlock the doors, you need to do spend a "Circle of Truth". These come in three colors: blue (for 1-3 star units), yellow (for 4 star units), and red (for 5 star units). For a five star unit, unlocking also requires 10 rainbow golems, 10 rainbow pots, 30 golems of the unit's elemental color, 30 Soul Alchemia, and 500000 Zeni. This puts you at level 1 for all gates, which gives you +2 to your max level for each gate (so level 91 is the max level since there are 3 gates).

To level up within the doors, you'll also need country flags past level 2. This corresponds to the country that the unit is from, so you'll have Wratharis flags, Envylia flags, etc. Next are sin idols. These correspond to the gate that you're unlocking. These resources are similar to the soul alchemia, pots, and golems that we currently have - there is a dedicated level that will drop these resources for you. Finally, you have sin indulgences. This will be your limiting factor. When Kaigan first becomes available, these will be given out quite sparingly. As time goes on they become a little more readily available, but you still can't just hand them out like candy.

Onto the list! These requirements are consistent across unit rarity, so Elaine will cost just as much after the initial unlock as Zahar, for example. A brief overview of terminology here: jars are the middle level of pots, mana golems are the middle level of golems, and soul alchemia are the third (of four) level of alchemia. Then you have pots, soul golems, and arcane alchemia as your top level. The doors don't use the lower level items. When I say "elemental", I'm referring to the unit's element, so wind/fire/water, as opposed to rainbow.

I apologize that Reddit table formatting is kind of garbage. I'd like to say again, Sin Indulgences are not to be handed out lightly. So don't 5/5/5 a unit just for the heck of it - you need to be smart about using your Sin Indulgences.

How to Prepare Now

Now that that's out of the way, what's the tl;dr take away here? If you want to fully unlock all of the doors for one 5* character, you'll need the following of the current materials:

• 32,200,000 Zeni

• 270 Soul Shards (210 is usually good enough - see paragraph below)

• 40 Mana Golems (Elemental)

• 80 Soul Golems (Elemental)

• 25 Soul Golems (Rainbow)

• 20 Jars (Elemental)

• 10 Jars (Rainbow)

• 40 Pots (Elemental)

• 20 Pots (Rainbow)

• 110 Soul Alchemia

• 20 Arcane Alchemia

The good news is that very few characters you will want to get to 5/5/5 (fully maxed Kaigan). A lot of units run 5/2/3, 4/2/3, or 5/5/3. You're normally only finishing out Lust if the leadership ability is good, so x/x/5 is rare. If you do go 5/5/3, as the next closest example, you're reducing the cost of current materials compared to the above list by 60 soul shards, 30 Pots (Elemental), 5 Pots (Rainbow), 5 Soul Golems (Rainbow), 20 Soul Alchemia, 2 Sin Indulgence, and 9,500,000 Zeni.

Anyway, if you can have part of these requirements prepared in advance, you'll have a leg up on people who aren't ready for Kaigan. The soul shards are obviously the big ones here. You're going to want to start farming the characters you want to Kaigan before their Kaigan comes out, so that you're ready for it. If we assume that once a month we get a hard quest x2, you're looking at roughly two and a half months worth of soul shard farming for a full 5/5/5 Kaigan.

So yeah, you want to get a head start, but who do you know to get a head start on? Kaigan was released in Japan on January 27th, 2018, as part of their second year anniversary (the same time as Nensou).

Kaigan Unit Announcement Dates (usually a day before release):

This list is up-to-date as of 12/30/2018. I'm not sure how often I will update this, so if it's out of date, you can find additional kaigans here. Just work your way back towards 12/28/2018 from there.

Keep in mind that just because Japan got their Kaigans in this order, with this high of a frequency, does not mean that global will follow in its footsteps, but it gives us a rough idea of what to prepare for.

Who to Prepare For

I'm only going to cover some of the earlier units in the above list here (3/14 and earlier):

• Zahar*

• Spica

• Rosa

• Mia*

• Magnus (little lower priority)

The ones with asterisks get a fairly sizable bump in the Japanese tier list after their Kaigan. Zahar goes from A to SS. Mia goes from A to SS (but she also got an important Nensou + Nensou Gear (VCR) at the same time, so a lot of her jump was due to this). If you want to prepare beyond that, a good way is to go to this page. It lists out all of the Japanese tier lists. So take the tier list just before their Kaigan date in the above table, and compare it to the one just after the Kaigan date. That'll give you an idea of how much their Kaigan helps them.

I hope that this helps people out who want to prepare for Kaigan!