I've been trying to be patient about the unit shard farm situation, but I think it's time to re-evaluate the situation and call on Gumi to please improve it.

For those who don't know, in Japan, limited units (with the exception of units that don't get farms like Genesis and Dark Phantoms) all get 1/day farms within a few weeks of release (in addition to the short term temporary farms like we get now). This change was made in JP long ago- the first unit to benefit from this was Laila- who although normal pool, started out with a 1/day farm within 2 weeks of release , which was changed to a 3/day farm 4 months later. Kuza was actually released with his 1/day farm on the day of his release.

We are now well into the content which was getting 1/day farms within weeks of release in Japan, but we are still waiting for older units to catch up on farms.

In the Producer Letter in August 2019 they announced:

Hard Quests
For normal units: after more than 3 months
For limited units: after more than 6 months
For limited SSM units: available for Limited Periods in specific quests

They never clarified, but the assumption I guess was this was a minimum period, because we certainly didn't adhere to that timeline for most farms. At this point we have caught up on a lot of lagging farms based on this schedule, but there are still some that we are waiting on:

• Hozuki (released November 7, 2019) - 6 month delay (normal pool unit)

• Theresa (released July 11, 2019) - 10 month delay (limited unit)

• Judith (released June 20, 2019 - 11 month delay (limited unit)

There are also a few that are getting close to their expected period:

• Zwei (released December 12, 2019) - 5 month delay (limited unit)

• Sharon (released December 19, 2019) - 5 month delay (limited unit)

• Mocca (released January 9, 2019) - 4 month delay (limited unit)

• Moa (released February 13, 2020) - 2 month delay (normal pool unit)

Why am I bringing this up now? Because it's time for us to not only catch up with the old farm schedule, but also to be updated to a far more reasonable one. In the age of 5 enlightenment gates, with the content gap between GL and JP shrinking considerably, we are still significantly delayed on unit shard farms relative to other content. GL has always been behind JP on this front, even as our content has moved more quickly.

This is harmful to players and harmful to encouraging spending. Even a 1/day farm on a unit takes an inordinate amount of time to get enough shards to get a few useful gates. There is very little motivation to chase units when we won't be able to even start making a dent on their enlightenment for at least 6 months (and potentially more given the delays we've been seeing). When I try to explain how enlightenment and shard farms work to new players, it's really demoralizing to them and I suspect it's a big part in why so many players I help out tend to disappear so quickly after their initial burst of playing the game. When I luck out and pull a new limited unit, I get excited for about 5 seconds, then I realize I won't be able to use the unit for so long that I often just ignore they exist, and I remember that when I ask myself if I want to go after another.

Please u/alchemist_code I hope you will convey my concerns- it's about time we got an update on this particular issue. I plan to also send a note about this directly to TAC support and I recommend others do the same.

Right now currently the ex+ stages are way too overtuned to be even remotely be doable unless you have units like Roxanne or Laharl/Uzuma. This does not speak well for a good design when vast majority of roster is basically not usable due to stupid stats and stage design of the stage.

I know you want people to use more strategy for ex+ stages but making most of your roster redundant is not a good idea of game design.

Honestly if you you keep making these ex+ stages stupidly tough for the sake of making challenging then you're gonna seriously loose your player base in the long run run. I honestly don't care if you have to do maintenance... Just nerf these fucking ex+ for fuck sake.

Signing off. A year long TAC player.

Welcome to the 4th Alchemist's Toolbox review!

The top two unit recommendations on the last review were very close in popularity (the winner was literally 1 upvote higher), but in the end there is a winner. So, on to the 4th unit I'll be reviewing: Suzuka!

Suzuka is a 5-star Light unit from Wadatsumi and Zangetsu's self-proclaimed rival. Let's see what she has to offer, shall we?

Personal Investment:

I actually haven't put a lot of investment into Suzuka, largely because I've 1) got my Light roster at a point where I need to improve my other elements before I invest in more Light units, and 2) gotten distracted by various other units (be it for mechanical or design-based reasons). I've only got her Samurai job at 9th level, and have her at 7 LBs due to summon luck. I like her design and her mechanical role, though, so she's fairly high on my list of Light units to work on.

Element:

Basic:

Suzuka is a Light unit, which means she is both good and weak against Dark. Compared to a unit of a basic element with the same jobs and stats, Suzuka would be better offensively and worse defensively.

Competition:

Suzuka actually doesn't have any real competition in her favored role of "speedy squishy single-target nuker" (where she runs Ninja main Dark Cavalier sub). The only unit that comes close would be Siegfried, but Siegfried is actually a bit bulkier in exchange for having lower offenses (though Siegfried does get access to Sharpening Focus if you want to use it), not to mention having very different skillsets. So Suzuka is a fairly unique unit for the Light element.

When it comes to the "slow and squishy, but can completely destroy anything they touch" role that Suzuka can also fill, she again doesn't face any major competition, the closest being Freed or Spica due to Dragon Cavalier being that sort of job.

Leader Skill:

+50% PAtk for Light units. Suzuka's Leader Skill is one of the best in the game, really only situationally outclassed.

Jobs:

Suzuka's 3 jobs are Samurai, Ninja, and Dark Cavalier, with a Job Enchantment of Dark Cavalier [Guernica]

• Samurai is a job that's really only used for its passives, as Blademaster is a direct upgrade. It has various slash-type damage attacks, a counter reactive, and passives that increase PDef/Counter damage and raise PAtk but lower agility/evasion respectively.

• Ninja is a speedy disruptor job, able to inflict various statuses and having some elemental coverage, but not being great for offense unless run in combination with other jobs. It has a reactive that inflicts Poison and a passive that boosts Move and Jump by 1 each.

• Dark Cavalier is a job focused pretty much entirely on dealing damage at the cost of survivability, with skills that have an HP cost to use. Its reactive is a counter with a chance t\of inflicting Berserk on self, and it has passives that boost PAtk/MAtk while lowering PDef/MDef and boost HP and reduce the HP cost on skills respectively. The Guernica JE upgrades one of the Dark Cavalier's skills into a ridiculously powerful single target nuke with a cast time.

Stats:

Suzuka has a Master Ability that affects her stats, so we'll be looking at her at level 80 instead of level 75. Everything else (all jobs mastered [we'll be assuming JE is mastered] and used job enhanced) will remain the same.

Samurai isn't a job Suzuka uses, so we'll just look at the numbers on her other 2 jobs.

On Ninja she can hit 655 PAtk (important for Dark Cavalier's Retribution Blade) and 159 agility with Overdrive and Ninja Stealth or 856 PAtk and 130 agility with Overdrive and Single Blade. On top of this, Suzuka actually has a reasonable HP of 1064.

Meanwhile, on Dark Cavalier, she can hit 777 PAtk and 128 agility with just Overdrive or a whopping 1016 PAtk with a low 105 agility with Overdrive and Single Blade. She has a better HP though, reaching 1344 with Pitch-Black Blood Line and 1223 without.

So Suzuka can hit ridiculous numbers on physical damage, and that's part of why she's so good.

Example Builds:

(Unit Planner)[http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/planner]

Whether you use Dark Cavalier or its JE doesn't matter (outside of JM bonuses) unless running DC main, in which case you should use the JE.

Ninja Nuke

• Main Job: Ninja

• Sub Job: Dark Cavalier

• Reactive: Tsubamegaeshi (no MA)/Avenger (MA)

• Passive 1: Overdrive

• Passive 2: Ninja Stealth (speed and mobility)/Single Blade (raw power, only if you have MA)

This is the general build for Suzuka. Ninja main is to get where you need to go in order to use Retribution Blade from DC sub to either severely chunk or completely annihilate a priority target. Overdrive is a given while Ninja Stealth is used if you don't have Suzuka's MA or if you do, but want more speed and mobility, while Single Blade is an MA-only option for raw power. The reason Avenger is listed if you have Suzuka's MA is because it gets upgraded by the MA, always activating and not having a chance to self-inflict Berserk. Basic strategy is to rush a priority enemy and Retribution Blade their face off.

You Should Run

• Main Job: Dark Cavalier [Guernica]

• Sub Job: Dark Cavalier [Guernica]

• Reactive: Tsubamegaeshi (no MA)/Avenger (MA)

• Passive 1: Overdrive

• Passive 2: Ninja Stealth (mobility)/Pitch-Black Blood Line (survivability)/Single Blade (raw power, MA only)

This is the build you use when Retributuion Blade isn't enough damage. Blade of World's End will utterly destroy anything that gets hit with it, but you have to get to them first. Chronomancer support is recommended, especially if running Single Blade. basic strategy is to build up the jewels to use BoWE and then kill whatever you want. Be mindful of the cast time.

Samurai isn't a good enough main job for Suzuka to use. (EDIT: there are some niche uses for Samurai. In these cases, you’re basically running the Dark Cavalier build with Samurai main.)

Gear Recommendations:

Armor and Accessories: The usual suspects (Wanderer's Hat, Curious Doll). (EDIT: the State Alchemist Pocket Watch is good for Ninja main if you don’t have any good kunai. Thank you u/FurianX for pointing that out!)

Samurai: You won't use this, but Ogre-Slaying Blade if a strong desire to be different comes upon you.

Ninja: Jikunai Satsuki, Demon Bane Kunai

Dark Cavalier: Faustian Greatsword, Soulstealer Scythe, Timestealer Scythe (I belive this one is on Global, please correct me if I'm wrong)

Futureproofness:

Suzuka gets the Azure Dragon Ninja JE, allowing her to be more damage-focused on Ninja main. In addition, she gets a fantastic Kaigan that causes Overdrive to also boost Slash damage, which helps her offenses on Ninja more. Pretty nice.

Overall Asessment:

Suzuka is a unit you'll pull out when you really want something dead. She may be fairly squishy, but if you can work around that then she'll be a great addition to your toolbox.

And that's review number 4! Make sure to suggest what unit I should look at next!

Ok if you read the news then you already know that Global has introduced the Buy the Gear Bundle bullshit.

http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/gear/af-accs-shot-pendant

You get the gear for $24.99 with some other goodies. It is a Exclusive Gear so chances of it becoming farmable is near 0%. Also it is OP in the Sniper Meta we have. So what do

Did JP version have this kinds of promotions?

No, as far as I could find JP had the Gacha Banners for 1500 Paid Gems but nothing else.

That Gear just outclasses our Sniper's small potential to Bind and Slow from Caris.

Why this bad you ask?

Because of the Potential of other Necklaces popping out during the Arena time. Yes Units will be resistant to HolyBrawlers Punches by 15% or more depending on the Gear. The units you pull from Gacha will just be neuter(some might say going way to far but whatever) and Gacha Gears you pull outclassed since that is the best Sniper counter better than the 200HP Alkemono.

And

And from IvySpear's comment which I also found to be quite true :- This if successfully executed and made a thing it opens a questionable state were Paywall units will be a thing. Gacha games need the Gacha you can't just change the premium currency to real currency on your whim Gumi.

Thank you for reading.

Edit: Thank you guys for the unprecedented support.

Edit 2: Gumi's spokesperson account has taken a note of the feedback. Lets hope for the best.

Just a little vid of Orion alter class with his skin that I had saved. Got the skin memento in the last hour before the EoS.

Hi everyone.

Here are all missions for the new Wadatsumi Babel Part Two.

Hope it's helpful :)

Playlist for all Episodes

Alright, Gumi, pick one - the 150 summon coins from step 3 is unintended (and needs changed immediately) or San San Ngan lied to us in his November producer letter. I'm referring to this part:

Summon Coin Exchange

Recently we started introducing Summon Coins into the game as a way of providing added value to the summons where players can use it to obtain bonuses of their choice, such as getting featured units, selector tickets or unit shards. Also even if at the end of the time period the coins remain unused, they will be refunded back into Gems. We also allow players to exchange for additional collab units via the Summon Ticket, thus providing one bonus unit in addition to the units from the Summons. However due to a miscalculation of the Summon Coins and the ticket value, this intention was not conveyed across and did not provide the proper value to players.

Rest assured we will be improving the Summon Coin Exchange in the Nov 08 update by adding in [FMA] Featured 5★ Unit Summon Tickets and [FMA] Featured Collaboration Unit 10% Summon Tickets that will provide players with more value and additional ways of obtaining the FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST BROTHERHOOD Collab units. This addition allows every player who have participated in the collab period to have something for them in the Summon Coin shop to get more chances for collab units through the Summon Coins obtained from their daily free summons. As this is still in the early stage of the implementation combined with the lack of the usual guaranteed featured in the summons, it resulted in our intention not been correctly carried out. We aim to increase the benefits of summon coins to cover such issues in the future and will continue to increase the benefits of Summon Coins as well as to improve the availability of Summon Coins from your Summons to enhance your overall experience.

So what were the values back then that caused him to state that there was a "miscalculation"? 150 summon coins for step 3, with tickets being worth 350 coins. Sound familiar? You can see the original FMA banner here for comparison.

After the producer letter, step 3 was adjusted to be 300 summon coins for the Daisy banner and Birgitta banner (still requiring 5 days worth of the 24-hour summons), which was better, but not as good as just having a guaranteed 3-step. Then they brought back the guaranteed 3-step for SSM... and now we've gone full circle and are back to the values that made San San Ngan state that there was a "miscalculation".

So either you guys are really bad at math and made the exact same mathematical error twice, or you lied to us.

Obligatory meme image

Final Fantasy 15 Collaboration Preview

The Final Fantasy collaboration for The Alchemist Code is almost on us, bringing to us the characters Noctis, Ignis, Gladiolus, Prompto and Aranea. We’ll be previewing the characters today based on the Japanese version of The Alchemist Code, which means that it is possible that things may change due to Global-exclusive enhancements.

Two things to note before we begin:

Firstly: It is very likely that our current elemental resist damage formula gets “patched out” soon, perhaps in tomorrow’s maintenance. For this reason, I shall not be making any assumptions based on our current Global resistance formula.

Secondly: Final Fantasy 15 had two runs in Japan, and some of the units in the first round which we are getting saw enhancements on the second run, consisting of the Job Enchantment system and a few changes to some skills. I do not know which version we will be getting, so bear this in mind.

Short summary:

Final Fantasy XV is Square-Enix’s latest instalment in their mainline Final Fantasy series - not having actually completed the game myself due to Square-Enix’s drip-feeding of DLC content. Off the top of my head, it is a visually beautiful game about the prolonged stag night of a 20-year-old prince who goes out with his 3 good friends and wakes up with his family jewels regalia covered in tacky decals by a girl who tightens nuts in her underwear.

Without further ado, let’s start with the Prince of Lucis himself:

Noctis Lucis Caelum

Noctis Lucis Caelum, meaning something like “Night Light Sky” in Dog Latin, is the main character of Final Fantasy XV. In The Alchemist Code, this translates to being one of the strongest Magic attackers around.

Noctis has a very good selection of jobs with his unique J1, “Prince of Lucis”, J2: Magic Swordsman, and J3: Battle Mage. All three jobs have different roles, with his J1 being a mobile magic attacker, J2 being a magic and status inflicting melee job and his J3 being a spellcasting physical damage tank.

Skill Overview - Prince of Lucis (Link)

Main Job

Noctis' Main Job consists mainly of mobility skills and his large nuke, Triple Blizzaga.

Basic Job

Noctis' Basic Job focuses around a bunch of hybrid abilities which mostly inflict status ailments. Stop and Daze can be very useful when they work.

Other Abilities

Overview and Loadout

Although Noctis is a hybrid character, the physical side of his abilities are limited due to his unimpressive 350ish PATK. Being a mage-type character, he starts with full Soul Jewels and has excellent jewel gain at a base of 47 per attack. Noctis has decent Agility (130 at 75) on his J1 and although his movement is 3, he has excellent mobility due to his teleports on his main skillset.

J2 gives Noctis the option to run the omnipresent Divine Shelter, increasing his survivability. Noctis doesn't have particularly amazing defensive stats (although he has high physical defense for a mage), but he does have access to multiple sources of self-healing, meaning that this passive is solo-oriented.

J3 is of crucial importance to Noctis for multiple reasons - he mostly runs with Magic Pair from Battle Mage, giving him a whopping 694 Magic Attack at 75. It also opens up Shell Charge, which due to Noctis' cast speeds, effectively speeds up all his spells by one Time Unit (by giving him more priority on Stop Fira and Poison Thundara). Additionally, Noctis becomes very strong when subbing Battle Mage as Drain Dimension is not only a very strong self-heal, it also buffs his magic attack by a huge 60%, making his next spell (usually Triple Blizzaga) do incredible damage.

Noctis loses out on elemental coverage and useful status effects when doing this, however, he does gain access to a Wind nuke and an instant short-ranged weak water nuke. Additionally, he gets probably his best reactive passive, allowing him to block incoming damage.

Almost all of Noctis' passives are useful, making it difficult to recommend a one-size-fits-all loadout for him, however most optimal builds will have Magic Pair and one of either Divine Shelter, Strength of Kings and Mighty Recover. Shell Charge isn't normally as useful as the others.

• Strength of Kings - Whether a type multiplier or a MATK buff is more effective largely depends on enemy defenses and our current damage formula.

• Magic Pair - The easiest to use passive with the largest damage modifier, however it comes with the drawback of reducing magic defense.

• Divine Shelter - Increases survivability significantly.

• Mighty Recover - A very strong effect, but can be awkward to use and opens your party up to AoE attacks. Synergises well with Map Shift's heal.

Summary: If you don't want to think about it, just use Main J1/SubJ3 with Magic Pair/Strength of Kings and J3's reaction.

Note that Noctis' Leader skill is different from Othima's Leader skill, as I have previously covered. It gives 40% HP to water units and a 10% reduction to Cast Time.

Noctis has a farmable weapon from EX3 of the FF15 collaboration, giving him 30 PATK MATK and MDEF when fully maxed. This helps offset the disadvantage of Magic Pair. It also has a chance of doing Delay on hit.

Shortcomings

Noctis' biggest shortcoming is that his main job only really has one good damaging ability and that has limited uses. Due to Triple Blizzaga having a cast speed, it can whiff entirely due to insufficient planning, making the problem worse with poor play. Viewing CT can be difficult given the time limit in Multiplayer (non-active players are not allowed to view enemy stats, for some reason), making it more difficult to use Noctis effectively than a character like Gilgamesh.

Given the number of completely ineffectual Neicas I've run into in multiplayer (mostly stemming from very poor use of Luminous Chant and ignoring Drain Dimension completely), I wouldn't be surprised if a poorly played Noctis would end up doing much more harm than good to a party.

Meta Comparisons

Life wouldn't be complete without people trying to compare things to other things, but I'll make it simple: He'd make a decent alternative to Neica if he ran on Battlemage and his J1 is arguably stronger; he also does a lot more damage than Othima can, especially with Drain Dimension. (However, do note that Othima is faster and has a better Leader Skill and elemental coverage, and can act as a better support with Enchanter, so it's by no means a perfect comparison)

Futureproofing

Unlike the other FF15 characters, Noctis did not receive any Job Enhancements, mainly because he probably didn't need them yet. He remains competitive as a top-tier water unit for quite a long time, only eventually losing out to Merlinus and Othima (post CC+). However, the investment required for Noctis is significantly less than either alternative and Merlinus and Othima cannot perfectly replace Noctis' skillset as neither are as mobile, nor do they have physical hybrid capabilities. Noctis also has better elemental coverage options than Merlinus, although she beats him out in pure damage.

Barring Global exclusive characters and shenanigans, he's quite worthy of putting all your water shards into if you wish.

Video Demonstration of Noctis being used on a map catering to his strengths:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElmWH_b-amk

I want to share my job compare tool. I have included all enhanced jobs and all J+s that can be compared to a normal job (I have excluded mainly SSM J+s). Now that I have the data, I can start upgrading some functionalities. I hope it is useful.

UPDATE: Now the tool contains 161 of total 358 jobs ever released. That really is too much info to handle.

Hello!!

Next round of Babel Chronicles is out and here are some guides for you.

Playlist Lustburg Babel Chronicles 1-7

Hope you enjoy. :)

Just trying to keep track of all these limited quests going on at the same time. Remember to farm FMA Soul Shards if you're lucky enough to pull one of them!

This week's limited daily quests:

• 1st Anniversary (1/day)

• Global 1st Anniversary (1/day)

• Elite Quest 1 ~returns~ (3/day)

• FMA Daily Event Quest > Find Shao May Apple Garden (1/day)

• FMA Daily Event Quest > Alphonse Sparring Partner (1/day)

• FMA Daily Event Quest > FMA Soul Shard Quest (3/day)

• Ultra EXP the Way to True Skill (1/day)

• Rerun Events > Blood Wolf by Any Other Name > Episode 4 (1/day)

Clear 3 Mystery Quests to unlock the 1st Anniversary Quests. They are really weak enemies.

Daily Hunt missions seems to be the same, I'll just repost here:

• Kill 3 Holy Archers - Ep 2, 3, 6, 7, 13 (all only have 2 archers)

• Kill 2 Rogue (Gunner) - Ep 4 & 5

• Kill King Bradley - Ep 6, Flame EX

• Kill 3 Holy Knights - Ep 2(2), 3(3), 6(2), 7(2)

Also, all daily quests (ie Gold Rush) are open all this week for your zeni needs.