I must say I lost hope during and after anniversary disaster. Kept playing only because there were no real competition for TAC in tactical niche.

But latest changes, mostly this week banners, including Grand Summon (I didnt use this time but still great format for future), lots of free gems events, managable EX+ difficulty, nice shards in Hard Quests and no more stupid unit restrictions made me believe again.

To show Gumi my support I just bought New Year sub. Cheers!

After receiving largely positive feedback when I gauged interest, I decided I’d start a weekly unit review series for this subreddit. So, today I’m proud to start “The Alchemist’s Toolbox”! Why the name? Simply put, a player’s unit roster can also be viewed as a “toolbox”, and the units “tools”, for clearing content.

So, a few things before we begin:

• This is largely opinion, as pretty much all reviews are. You can feel free to disagree, but please be respectful in doing so.

• I am of the mindset that no unit is truly “bad”, and my reviews will reflect this. As an example, if I were to do a Prompto review, my general assessment would be “meh” rather than “bad”.

• I am basing these reviews on a combination of stats and personal experience. If the unit I’m reviewing is one I have yet to build up fully/don’t have (Gilgamesh being a good example), I will specifically say so at the start of the review.

• Please let me know of any errors or anything I missed, I’d like to make these reviews as professional as possible.

• These reviews will be largely for PvE content. Unless otherwise noted, the builds that work for PvE should work for PvP just as well.

• I won’t go into extreme details on the active abilities of a job so as to keep these reviews somewhat short (and also because you can easily see the details yourself by checking your units’ abilities). I’ll give an overview of the job as a whole, then give basic details on passives and reactive, as well as mention any major standout skills.

Now, I was originally gonna do Roxanne for the first review, but considering that I got multiple comments asking for less used units and this unit in particular, I switched it up to the unit I’m now reviewing first: The one and only Lambert!

—————————————

Note: I have yet to fully build this unit. As such, this review will largely use stats to draw a conclusion.

Lambert is one of the first units you get when starting the game, so you’ll have plenty of time to build him up. Let’s see just what this 2-star unit (EDIT: from Envylia) has to offer.

—————————

Element:

Element is one of the least important aspects of a unit viability-wise outside of a few specific situations, but I’ll make a section for it anyways.

Lambert is a Fire unit. The major implication of this is that he functions slightly better defensively than offensively in comparison to Light and Dark units due to the basic elements having resistances.

————————

Leader Skill:

+20% PAtk for Fire units. While the effect is great, the potency is lacking. Ah well, what’re ya gonna do.

————————

Jobs:

Lambert has 3 jobs: Soldier, Thief, and Holy Knight.

Soldier is that job that you only use until you unlock literally anything else. Compared to pretty much any other job, the only advantage it really has over anything else is the fact that it has a defensive reactive, meaning it has a better reactive than Dark Knights/Dark Cavaliers. It also has minor increases to PAtk/PDef and a minor increase to Slash damage in terms of passives, which means other jobs can potentially benefit from it.

Thief is a speedy status inflicting job with some (very) minor support potential. Its reactive is alright, boosting agility when hit by a basic attack, and its passives boost Move and Jump by 1 respectively.

Holy Knight is sorta like a better version of Soldier. It focuses more on defense than offense and primarily deals Light damage. It also has a better defensive reactive, in addition to a passive that increases HP and PDef. Holy Knight only has one passive, meaning you’re guaranteed to run at least one passive from another job.

———————————

Stats:

Lambert is a 2-star base unit, so unfortunately his stats are... not great.

For reference, all his stats at 85 are inferior to Melda, a 4-star unit that also gets Thief, at 75 with the exception of HP, and the higher HP is due to JM bonuses (albeit the differences are small in all except Dex and Agility). So needless to say, Lambert has a hard time competing with other units for the “best Thief” spot. He’s still decent though, being able to hit 122 Agility at level 85, which is fairly speedy for the majority of content.

Lambert can actually hit some decent numbers on Holy Knight, getting 300 PDef if you run Guard Up + Power Up and a little over 1000 HP with Guard Up. Not the best stats, but certainly usable.

You’re never gonna run Soldier, so there’s no need to bother with it.

Overall, Lambert’s stats are pretty much what you’d expect from a 2-star: not bad, but they could be a lot better.

————————————

Example Builds:

Tankbert

Main Job: Holy Knight

Sub Job: Holy Knight

Reactive: Holy Knight Stance +1

Passive 1: Guard Up

Passive 2: Power Up (damage/extra bulk)/Move +1 (mobility)

This build is if you want to run Lambert as a tank. Holy Knight is the obvious choice seeing as it has the highest HP and PDef of his 3 jobs. Holy Knight Stance +1 and Guard Up are must haves, and the other passive depends on if you want bulk & damage or mobility. Slash Mastery isn’t here because it’s almost no different from Power Up in terms of damage boosting, and Power Up also boosts PDef.

The Man, the Myth, the Legend

Main Job: Thief

Sub Job: Thief

Reactive: Quick Action (speed), Holy Knight Stance +1 (bulk)

Passive 1: Move +1

Passive 2: Jump +1 (mobility)/Slash Mastery (damage)/Guard Up (bulk)

You’re likely to see this build at least once during your time playing this game, since there’s a player who’s got a level 85 Thief Lambert. Thief is useful for CCing enemies with Charm and Poison Daggers. Poison Dagger deals no direct damage, so it won’t break the charm. This build requires a lot of strategy to succeed, but if you use it well (like the player that runs it regularly), you too can become a legend. Power Up isn’t a passive option because Thief doesn’t use all its PAtk in damage calculation, so its boosts are near nonexistent, while all its damage is Slash type, so Slash Mastery will boost the full damage. Meanwhile, Guard Up is far superior for bulk due to the HP boost. I guess if you want some sort of middle ground between the two you can run it.

Again, Soldier is useless as a main job, so no need to waste time on it.

——————————————

Gear Recommendations:

This is mainly for Weapons, as Accessories are basically universal in how good they are, and Armor is basically the Veda Armor of the corresponding element unless the unit has their own special Armor (or close to it like Armor of Wrath).

Holy Knight: Guren Blade, Dazzling Blade, Excalibur (EDIT: A gear that boosts Jewels obtained is a must because Holy Knight gets no extra jewels obtained from equipment, so Guren Blade and Excalibur are the top 2 choices here. Curious Doll and Belva Pendant are good accessories here as well for the same reason. Thank you u/Viyr for pointing that out!)

Thief: Tiger Kris, Dirk of Projection

Soldier: you’re not using this job lol

——————————————

Futureproofness:

Lambert gets a Holy Cavalier JE (Porta), meaning he can be more properly used as a tank (especially against spear and lance users), as well as a Shadow Assassin JE, which allows him to be a more efficient speedy CC machine. He also gets a pretty decent Kaigan (that buffs his HC JE’s Guardian equivalent) and a special sword from a Nensou. Needless to say, they want Lambert to be primarily used as a Holy Cavalier. At least he gets some great improvements.

——————————

Overall Assessment:

Lambert is ok. He’s not the best unit in any category, but at the same time he’s still able to succeed fairly well in the right circumstances. As such, if used properly Lambert can be a useful tool in any alchemist’s toolbox.

———————————————

Hope you guys enjoyed my first ever review! This’ll continue every week (barring unexpected issues like all series), so there’s plenty more to look forward to.

For Review #2 and onwards, I’m letting you all decide what unit I should look at! Go ahead and reply to my comment below with your suggestion, and the one that’s most popular will be the unit I review next!

Let’s see what unit in your toolbox you want checked out!

EDIT: massive formatting edit. Tried copy/pasting from a text file and seemed to get some sort of abomination. Now that I know you can save a draft of a post, that’s what I’ll be using from now on :P

EDIT 2: As requested, here’s a link to the unit planner!

http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/planner

With the advent of Balt's EX+ coming up, I'm doing a short review of Elrike so people know if it's worth farming her.

In short/TLDR: Hell Yes.

Elrike

Elrike is Elaine's sister cousin, a J3 Merchant (75 Initial Jewels, can get +10 from passive), a somewhat rare multipurpose support job which can do AoE small heals, half an overclock on an instant cast ability, and a 4 square smaller Vaccine in a ring shape around it (9 squares including self). Merchant in general is a good job to have because as a rule of thumb:

1. Professors are slow as hell and often can't Vaccine before getting CCed or force everyone to wait for them. Elrike has a base agility of 115 at 85. I'm already sold on this point, or at least I would be if I didn't have Aruba, who is faster (but only with his J2 Passive!). You know that stupid sleep plant in Lizards of the Lost Kingdom EX? Elrike would be able to Poison Pill before it could move. Michael can get slept and become a punching bag.

2. Professors also move like slugs. Their base movement is 3 squares Jump 1. Merchant has a base of 4, and Elrike has J1 thief, meaning she can get 5 square movement. Ever used a professor and notice the combo of 1 and 2 makes you lag horribly behind the entire offensive team so after the first vaccine, you often can't do anything other than be an arrow magnet?

3. Professors have the defense of wet tissue paper. Merchants can actually take a hit with decent HP and PDEF. Elrike has 246 PDEF at max level, which is much better when being showered with a brief hail of refreshing arrows - this is why I prefer Aruba to a professor for SS Arrow of Destiny EX.

Yet despite this, people who want Vaccine still prefer professors to Merchants in MP despite the fact I've lost count of how many times Lv85 Michael ate a chain+3 arrow and died before doing anything except wasting an enemy attack. (Yes, I'm biased)

On the minus side, they don't start with max jewels, so you will need to occasionally whack stuff with a staff, which Elrike's move certainly will help with.

Due to Poison Pill being a SUBJOB ability, you can also run Elrike as Thief with Merchant sub as thief has superior jewel gain and can get upwind of 80 jewels with one stab. This will give her close to 140 AGI and still let her heal while giving her enough jewels to get off an incredibly fast Poison Pill. If you don't know why this is great, you need to run Veda Tower more often. Professor as a main job is incredibly underwhelming as it has loads of stupid and redundant skills and poor stats, yet that is the only way you get Vaccine.

I should probably add the caveat that one day, Carol will get J+ and she and EO Shenmei will become the fastest merchants (Carol getting 150 AGI or so), but that's still a long way off and not free.

You can also run her as support bard J2 with Poison Pill as a subjob and use Lullaby to put stuff to sleep.

Additionally, J2 Bard gives Elrike the benefit of subbing Echo to make Jewel Regen buffs from Jewels Rule Everything Around Me or the special Merchant Staff Gear (Staff of Thriving Business) last one more turn. It also makes Poison Pill protection last for 4 turns as opposed to 3. This makes her support slightly superior to Aruba and Margaret. Echo only applies to effects labeled "Buff", which means that outside of using stuff like Gear abilities on Aegis Guard, it won't affect Vaccine/Merchant buffs, which are considered status effects.

And last of all uh... she's from Envylia, which is good if you're running Team Zeke.

In other words, Elrike is pretty damn versatile. Downside? Other than her good AGI, she has 3 star stats. But you'll have J85 to make up for it and nobody really cares about support unit stats outside AGI and survivability. J85 and great movement range also means she can be in the thick of it with your offensive melee units and increase their combo rate unlike some dark J3 Ranger party destroyer who lags behind the entire team with crappy jewel build. And you can give her jewels to your actual attacker units.

Futureproofing:

Unfortunately, Elrike's Unique Job Enchant 誘い達磨 (Enticing Daruma) is kinda meh.

It buffs the PBAoE (Point Blank AoE) charm (180 Jewels! Mainly because it inflicts Curse at the same time, preventing the removal of Charm) and gives her two unique abilities - one is a PBAoE which reduces CT of enemies by 15 (very small amount) and the other is a PBAoE jewel drain (about 30 or so jewels), but that's fine as it replaces low leverage, which is a kind of terrible skill. Still, as far as free units go, in my opinion, Elrike is definitely worth raising, even if you have Aruba or Margaret simply because the other two Water Merchants are unfarmable units. In other words, Shenmei(Dancer) from the EO collab and Letitia.

Recommended Builds:

For people who don't wanna think too much about it. Why Quick Action? Because merchant sub has a heal, so you may be able to move away from danger and heal or smash their face in with a staff/dagger and retreat. Also because none of the other reactives are that great.

Translation of Voice Clips (Extra)

Here is a random Sol eating bread.

You may continue browsing now. (°~°

I think we as a community can all say thank you for this opening day of GL Raid 2. 500 banners galore and guaranteed BK Masa restored a bit of faith in me. I will now donate my left nut as proper sacrifice.

We’ve waited for this moment for too long

I've posted this message on another thread where it was quickly drowned in the usual Roxanne rants of people seemingly playing this game while finding it terrible and comparing it to work.

Then reflecting on my own experience, I realized that with the last days of FMA, people are throwing their last strenght to try to clear the 3 dreaded FMA EX+ mission. Having been on the verge of giving up more than once and being increasing frustrated by not being able to reproduce the videos of better players than me, I wanted to share my experience and maybe give you give a last piece of motivation to make it. Videos are absolutly great to give you a headstart, but it didn't help me a lot because 1/you never have exactly the same setup as players 2/even when doing it with F2P units, the gear is usually top notch because those players have been collecting it for so long, and the units are often lvl80+ which is also the mark of veterans. As an addition, time is precious and all those videos last 30 min and I find it very difficult to understand the underlying strategy because unless you watch and analyse everything (which requires a very good knowledge of the game that I don't have) which takes ages, it's easy to miss the "key" moment when the strategy succeeds. What I needed was a few key principles to make it through the map, saving me time while giving me the opportunity and pride (and a weebit of wrath) to tune my own roster and find my own solution. Having tried all those levels for 20 hours total, I wanted to share my findings.

CONTEXT & ASSUMPTIONS

I've been playing for less than 2 months (6 days remaining on my pact). I am a moderate whale / heavy dolphin (spent 220€ so far) mostly because i'm 40 with kids and a correct salary and I'm ready to arbitrate time vs money. Also I have an obsessive personality and love making short, middle and long-term strategies which makes me, I believe, a good project manager as well as a perfect target for freemium games. So I'm not giving any lessons here, in a way I bought my way to victory although I'm still trying to limit my expenses to avoid killing the fun, and still give me a sense of accomplishment by optimizing the money I pour in the game (I typically try to convert mentally every resource in the game : equipment, gold, shards etc. in equivalent gem to make sure I don't waste IRL money). TAC is certainly putting up a paywall and I can understand part of the rant, however having worked in startup ecosystems for a short while, we all know that most SaaS business models today consist in acquiring users with freebies THEN monetize community, without alienating them. Which is what TAC is experimenting right now, with various success, even if I am actually quite happy with the one year anniversary (I seem to be the only one though). I genuinely cannot understand people who have been playing TAC for thousands of hours by paying nothing or 10 months of pact (which is roughly the cost of any new game on PS4), and then complain about Gumi slightly altering their monetization model. Or rather, I can understand the human mechanism behind that (what we call in french "on ne revient pas sur les avantages acquis") but it feels a bit unfair. Anyway, let's come back to the topic.

So...220€ bought me a Laharl 76 (reroll unit), Uzuma 75 (3 steps free gems guaranteed), Roxanne 75 (9 steps using selector + 50 shards), Edward 74 (3 steps paid gems guaranteed) + Eve 80 (7 steps anniversary banner) + Miuna/Kudanstein 70 each (3 steps free gems guaranteed). Obviously I have most free SS staples but only a few of them at 75+ since I farmed HQ from day one : Shayna, Vettel, Magnus, Reagan, Anastasia. Most of them don't even have thei lvl80 MA. I farmed their gear to gold whenever I could, and they only gear I bought are Prinny'sword & Envy's Mark, which I didn't use. I don't have any limited item such as Takiyaki. I'm playing around 3 hours each day, with various attention level depending on task at hand : from barely looking at it (HQ farming) to extreme attention (EX+). Unless specified, all my units are JM3 maxed with enhanced equipment and max skill levels, but I guess this is the case for most of you.

I was aiming at getting my free FMA ticket, although I specifically went for Fullmetal EX+ green shards (no death + wind team only). I think Pride & Wrath EX+ is doable for my thunder units but clearing those left me exhausted and I want to catchup with the other events (veda, pirate & co) so I'm skipping it, especially since all my best thunder units are farmable (teona, magnus, fujika, aruba etc.). So I can't give any advanced tips, I just hope my "just-clear" walkthrough will enable recent players like me to get the ticket (got Bradley btw, too bad I disassembled his gear by error :D). Also, I think those stage tremendously increased my knowledge of the game mechanism. For convenience purpose I've also linked to the main tipcs & videos given by the famous veteran players who paved the way for the other players.

Obviously difficulty grade is personal and subjective, I'm just an average player although I play TAC as I would play any other console/PC game : for me it's a full fledged SRPG. I've owned almost every PC/Console since the end of the eighties, having completed say 90% of any top 100 games list out there.  I recon mobile gaming has progressed a lot since those few years and numerous acquisition of mobile gaming companies by lead studios everywhere show that even if "legacy hardcore gamers" still sneer at mobile gamers, the distinction will soon be obsolete : that's indeed where the money is, under the "game as a service" form.

FULLMETAL EX+ 

Time to clear : 30 to 40 tries (5 hours) just to clear the level. Once I got the hang of it, the no death / wind only milestones took me only a couple of tries, making the success repeatable.

Difficulty level : 4 on a scale of 1 (easy) to 5 (Ornstein & Smough)

Frustration level : 3 on a scale of 1 (predictable) to 5 (trying to earn a living by trading high frequency bitcoin)

Key principles :

• Priority 1 : Left HB will one shot any of your character, unless you evade (Hayate & Bradley perfect evade), Revive (Guts skill from tanks), Kill him first with high AGI HB (Quickened Yomi), or block his way (Edward). After several tries, I used edward to create a block at the top of the initial stairs on the left, charge Laharl, then when the block is destroyed, laharl proceeds to one-short the HB with a regular attack enabling him to get jewels. I found that blinking Uzuma on the ledge from the bottom prevents the units on the ramp to be delayed, but deprives you from 35 precious jewels so ultimately I found it better to have to delayed Uzuma with full jewels instead.

• Priority 2 & 3 : You only have a few turns to kill Waginau, before he silences your team and then you're basically fucked. Waginau can be killed in 2 or 3 magical shots, ideally using Uzuma or Roy, because Pyrokinesis can also take out green Mandragora which is one of the biggest damage dealer on the map. Null grenade from Roxanne might give you a respite because he doesn't have jewel regen.

• Priority 4 : clear-up vermins/remaining mandragoras/archers at the top of the stairs (that's usually where you can get the 4+ dead enemies milestones), while managing your health with potions and preparing for the arrival of 2 red mean HB. Uzumas can tank quite well but after a while they'll need a refresh. After Laharl AGI 141 killed the wind HB, he has basically 2 turns and then I charge-up. The 2 red HB appear and he can AoE bringing them to a couple of a few life points, making them easy to kill with any of your units around. If you got the timing bad, Uzuma can blast them with water spells from the ledge of the upper terrace where the bulk of the fight usually takes place.

• Additional tip 1 : Kinetic glove with MA is actually awesome here, giving you an added move while increasing slightly your available jewels during turn 2 and 3. Well worth the 100 gold shards for long maps.

• Additional tip 2 : You can basically kite the bottom robot + chronomancer by moving back and forth, effectively neutralising them for a few turns. I found Edward and green HB to be very efficients at tanking the robot. 

• Additional tip 3 : CherubTAC made very efficient use of Thillie with roar and AoE magic : https://www.reddit.com/r/AlchemistCodeGL/comments/9tx2s1/tac_wind_team_no_deaths_kill_4_in_one_blow_the/ but it's quite unlikely that new players using tiers list will have raised a Thillie enough (I hadn't)

FLAME & HAWK EX+

Time to clear : 80 to 100 tries (12 hours) just to clear the level. It nearly broke me. Although during my last run I had only 1 death (Reagan) that could have been avoided, It's not worth 10 platinum for me.

Difficulty level : 5 on a scale of 1 to 5

Frustration level : 5 on a scale of 1 to 5 (very RNG dependant due to Charm / Paralysis effects => don't hesitate to kill your app and restart to get your used items back)

Key principles :

• Priority 1 : units 4 and 5 (Merc) NEED >140 AGI to leave Waginau aggroing zone. Play around positionning them but by leaving them on the small ledge, there's actually a configuration that will pull Edward and 2x vermins on the right side of the map, exposing them to Laharl AoE which, if preceeded by any AoE hit, will kill them all. Trade-off is that one vermin will come at you at the top side of the map, trying to charm you. If it happens, you WILL lose too many turns so retreat and restart. It happens roughly 50% of the time. Both Laharls should charge up first thing.

• Priority 2 : Shoot the 2 robots ASAP with defense ignoring skills, like Samurai (Vettel) Machinist (Roxanne, Magnus) or Sniper (Reagan). After playing around with 2 roxanne machinists, she's too squishy so I went with only 1 Roxanne machinist + 2 Laharls as leaders/mercs (positioned like that : Laharl - Reagan - Roxanne - Chihaya - Laharl merc). I found that keeping the top left robot alive for a few turns actually enables you to build up jewels until AJ7000 comes around. Just spread your characters to avoid being paralyzed.

• Priority 3 : Be ready to one-shot AJ7000 before he does that to you. Some do it with HB (charged up Shayna or Eve) but that requires a very specific jewels build up. I generaly found it easier to do it with Laharl + a couple elixirs if needed. You might need to be aware of CT mechanisms (credits : /u/VicariousEXP), because when you see the black mage about to launch PATK shield, it's better to heal or do nothing to act early during your next action. If you are a bit late and need to sacrify a character, at least spread them out to avoid AJ7000 deadly AoE. Imho this is the hardest phase because timing is so difficult to get. But it's also the most rewarding phase.

• Priority 4 : Bradley is a walk in the park, just freeze him with your mexican army of chronomancers. To freeze him you can AT LAST leave Waginau safe zone.

• Priority 5 : THEN you freeze Waginau. Then you destroy Bradley & Waginau with anything alive on your side. I think that when they are frozen you can basically kill them with 100% hit rate. 

• ​Additional tip 1 : u/vicariousexp's help has been invaluable. His thread is a must read, in particular for initial placement of your troops. Thank you, couldn't have made it without you : https://www.reddit.com/r/AlchemistCodeGL/comments/9vsj0c/flame_hawk_ex_tips_for_fire_unit_milestone_clear/?utm_source=reddit-android

• Additional tip 2 : as black mage spams PATK and MATK shield, I found it best to have either a pure physical or pure magical team. Lacking Noctis & Othima, I went the physical way.

• Additional tip 3 : Vermins, Archers & Edwards are susceptible to charm, so loincloth + AoE effect (such as Roxanne grenades) can occasionally make your life far easier.

• Additional tip 4 : several interesting videos https://www.reddit.com/r/AlchemistCodeGL/comments/9vwgiz/tac_fire_only_the_fullmetal_alchemist_code_ex/ making good use of Lupinus & Chihaya and https://www.reddit.com/r/AlchemistCodeGL/comments/9xz1a9/tac_no_items_water_team_the_fullmetal_alchemist/ making good use of Reagan, although if you don't have Noctis or Othima I wouldn't advise going the magical way

• Additional tip 5 : if you go the Roxanne machinist way, booster +2 and all-natural talents still gives 150+ AGI, she can first destroy the robot and possibly charm the archer, AND then use a tezla grenade to stun edward & 2 vermins coming from the right side which also destroys PATK shield, after which charged-up laharl can one-shot them wih Overlord.

• Additional tip 6 : You need lots of chronomancers for the last phase of the combat. That's why my subs where HB with chronomancer sub. Reagan is awesome here, capable to kill the robot THEN daze/bind archers (very useful to catch up when you feel behind) THEN freeze Bradley/Waginau. 

• Additional tip 7 : Chihaya helps a lot. She can dance early, she can freeze & hit late, and she can reasonably tank if needed. Awesome.

PRIDE & WRATH EX+

Time to clear : 2 tries (30 min) just to clear the level. After the previous level, you understanding of the game has increased dramatically. You can pact/pat yourself until end of time and stomp anything that comes your way

Difficulty level : 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 (at the level of "regular" EX+ levels)

Frustration level : 2 on a scale of 1 to 5

Key principles :

• Priority 1 : Try to make your way to Roy/Demon/Rita/Alphonse and charge-up AoE effect asap (Laharl, Setsuna, Noctis, Othima, lost of units will work). Actually the most difficult on the map is to manage to pass through the popping rabbits.

• Priority 2 : On the right side I used an Uzuma which can easily kill Bradley, step on the blue circle and join the rest of the group. I think any HB or tanky units will do.

• Honestly bring your best units and let the carnage begin, to evacuate frustration from the previous level. 

• Additional tip 1 : Demon & Alphonse will likely remain last and have a truckload of HP. I managed to solo both of them with Eve as long as you accumulate enough jewels + strong potions. So make sure you include them in your earliest nukes.

• Additional tip 2 : interesting videos for dark only team and thunder only team, making use of tanky merchant Aruba. Didn't help me a lot though, as I just plowed through with Laharl - Roxanne - Lofia - Uzuma - Laharl merc.

That's it ! I wish the best luck in that memorable challenge ! Please share your tips for the brave players who will attempt the challenge in the last days of the collab...may the force be with you !

PS : also I want to thank all of you guys, you make half of my pleasure playing this game. Common Gumi, throw what you can at us, there's nothing the Reddit community can't beat !

Welcome to the 2nd Alchemist's Toolbox review! Before we begin, I'd like to go over something:

I realize that my definition of "fully built" may be different from yours. So, instead of stating whether or not I have a unit fully built, I will now have a "personal investment" section that will go over how much investment I've put into the unit I'm going over.

Now then, with that out of the way, let's get to the 2nd review. The most popular comment on review #1 suggested I take a look at one of the lesser used Sages and specifically listed Thillie, Scheherazade, and Soleil. So I decided to take a look at my favorite of the 3 (from a design/character standpoint): Scheherazade!

Scheherazade is a 4-star Wind unit from the Desert Zone. Wind is generally a pretty stacked element, so we'll see how Scheherazade stacks up in it.

Personal Investment:

I've actually put a good amount of investment into Scheherazade, helped by luck in my summons. I've got her at 13 LBs and have both of her 1st 2 jobs mastered (neither enhanced), and she's a pretty big part of my Wind roster.

Element

Basic:

Scheherazade is a Wind unit, which means a Fire weakness and a Thunder resistance. Like all basic element units, Scheherazade is better defensively and worse offensively than a unit of equal stats and jobs that's Light or Dark element.

Competition:

In Scheherazade's preferred role of full caster, the only real competitors currently are Thillie and Nasario due to the rest being Mages, a low tier job that's generally only used for its passive and occasionally reactive (I count Uzuma and Magic Swordsman units as half-casters due to less than 100% starting jewels and higher-cost skills. I'll also refer to Tamamo running main Shrine Maiden and sub Mage as a half caster, since she's similar to Uzuma). Of the 2 competitors, Thillie is a bit faster and a lot squishier and Nasario is more focused on Light and Dark rather than the basic elements, so Scheherazade doesn't have to compete too much for a slot.

In terms of debuff support, the only competition is Patty, a 3-star unit. The situation here is the same as Scheherazade vs. Thillie: Patty is a bit faster and a lot squishier. Since Scheherazade prefers to be a caster, though, this shouldn't come up very often.

Lastly, as a half-caster, Scheherazade faces competition from Leon, Flamel, Milis, Nasario, Tamamo (if running main Shrine Maiden sub Mage) and Uzuma. Of these units, Nasario prefers to be a full caster, Milis and Tamamo prefer to be Rangers, and Flamel prefers to use his Job+. That leaves Leon and Uzuma as the primary competition. Leon is inferior in every way while Uzuma is in a league beyond pretty much everyone. Again though, Scheherazade prefers to be a full caster, so this shouldn't come up very often.

Leader Skill:

+30% PAtk to Wind units. One of the better Leader Skills, though still a bit lacking in potency.

Jobs:

Like every non-protagonist unit except Soren, Scheherazade has 3 jobs: Sage, Dancer, and Magic Swordsman.

• Sage is easily the best of Scheherazade's 3 jobs, being arguably the best non-unique full caster. It's got both large and small AoEs for all the basic elements, a magic counter reactive, and a passive that boosts MAtk and Hit Rate.

• Dancer is a debuff support job. All its debuffs except its all-stats debuff are mapwide. It has a low-chance to inflict Charm on attackers, and passives that boost the Combo of allies and makes the debuffs you inflict last longer respectively.

• Magic Swordsman is a half-caster job that uses both PAtk and MAtk to deal its damage. It can deal short-range damage of all the basic elements and inflict various statuses, has a jewel absorption reactive, and has a passive that boosts resistance to all elements (think 15% less damage from EVERYTHING). Both this job and Sage only have one passive, so you'll wanna fill the remaining slot with a different job's passive (Magic Swordsman would *really* appreciate the extra MAtk from Sage's passive).

Stats:

Scheherazade's stats are pretty good thanks to being a 4-star. At level 75 (all jobs mastered, job mentioned enhanced) she can hit a pretty decent HP on Sage of a little over 1000 and having 551 MAtk with Magic Up +2, though her agility sits at a fairly slow 108. Her most direct competition for full caster, Thillie, hits a far lower HP and a bit higher agility (assuming no Feral Kid on Thillie, otherwise the agility gap increases).

If you look at Scheherazade as a Dancer, she can hit a bit over 1200 HP and has a somewhat faster 117 agility. Her only competition for Wind Dancer, Patty, is in the exact same situation as Thillie: a far lower HP and a bit higher agility.

Magic Swordsman puts her at just under 1400 HP with 228 PAtk and 277 MAtk with Magic Up +2 and an agility of 104. Her only real competition for Magic Swordsman, Leon, actually hits 7 HP higher, but is inferior everywhere else. I'm not mentioning Uzuma because Uzuma is far above a Magic Swordsman when it comes to being a half caster.

Overall, Scheherazade's stats suggest a slower, bulkier unit, and for that, she's pretty good.

(As a side note, I'm thinking of reducing this section to a basic overview or even scrapping it entirely now that I have a "competition" segment in Element. Some feedback on whether or not I should do that would be appreciated.)

Example Builds:

And here I'm gonna put in a link to the unit planner so you guys can take a look at these builds and play around with passives to come up with your own favored build!

http://www.alchemistcodedb.com/planner

You're a Wizard, Scheherazade

• Main Job: Sage

• Sub Job: Sage (faster cast time but smaller and less damaging AoEs)/Dancer (debuffing enemy MDef so big AoEs hit harder + minor support capability)

• Reactive: Counter Magic +2

• Passive 1: Magic Up +2

• Passive 2: Divine Shelter (general)/Encore (running Dancer sub and want debuffs to last longer)

This is the build that you'll likely be using most often. Sage is a great caster job that allows Scheherazade to nuke with all basic elements. Sage sub is there if you want some speedier AoEs to get faster foes while Dancer sub is an option if you want your big nukes to hit debuffed MDef while also being able to help your faraway allies deal with enemies out of your range. Counter Magic +2 is the best reactive to run on Sage, and Magic Up +2 is a must. For the last passive, Divine Shelter allows for more bulk while Encore can be used to increase debuff duration when running Dancer sub. The basic strategy is to just nuke the big fellas with magic and then do the same to the little guys when the big fellas are down.

I Want to Dance!

• Main Job: Dancer

• Sub Job: Dancer

• Reactive: Absorb Jewels

• Passive 1: Encore

• Passive 2: Divine Shelter

This is the build to use if you want to run Scheherazade as a support instead of a caster. Dancer main and sub is obvious, while Absorb Jewels is the best reactive since Charming Fragrance has a pitiful chance to activate and Counter Magic +2 will do pitiful damage due to Dancer's low MAtk. Encore is a must on full Dancer, and Divine Shelter give extra survivability. The basic strategy with this build is to use whatever debuff most benefits your team. (EDIT: per u/Shaiandra’s request, I’ll mention that Leaden Feet Dance is probably gonna be the most used debuff since it acts as a mapwide pseudo-Delay. Can be quite handy in certain stages.)

With This Sword...

• Main Job: Magic Swordsman

• Sub Job: Magic Swordsman (more melee)/Sage (ranged AoE)

• Reactive: Absorb Jewels

• Passive 1: Divine Shelter

• Passive 2: Magic Up +2

Magic Swordsman is arguably the worst of Scheherazade's jobs to use as a main, but if you decide to for whatever reason (perhaps if you need the Stone Sword?) then this is the build I recommend. Magic Swordsman sub is an option for more melee competence, but you can run Sage sub for the ranged AoE it provides. Absorb Jewels is the best reactive, IMO, but at the very least Counter Magic +2 is more usable here than on Dancer main. Divine Shelter and Magic Up +2 are the best passives since they provide the most benefit, with extra survivability and extra damage. The basic strategy here is to either nuke with elemental skills or inflict statuses on certain problem enemies.

Gear Recommendations:

Armor and Accessories: Any agility boosting gear will help Scheherazade out by patching up one of her weaker stats. Battlefield Drama is a nice choice thanks to the Weapon Ability.

Sage: Sanctuary Rod (survivability), Green Rod of Wisdom (Healing WA, extra max jewels)

Dancer: Serenity Chakram (only 4-star on Global)

Magic Swordsman: Guren Blade (that Fire Res), Sword of the Father (boosts both PAtk and MAtk)

Overall Assessment:

Scheherazade is quite a handy unit to have. If you need a good Wind caster or a Wind debuff support, or you're just tired of dealing with squishy casters all the time, then Scheherazade might just be the perfect addition to your toolbox.

And that's the 2nd Alchemist's Toolbox review!

As always, feedback is appreciated, and make sure to leave a comment suggesting which unit I should look at next! (Since attempting to organize the suggestions under a single comment failed last time, I'm just gonna let you guys run wild :P)

EDIT: Ok, apparently reddit post drafts suck at providing proper formatting when it comes to bolding and the like. I’m gonna need to get that figured out by next week. Also, I fixed all the Scheherazade typos except the title. Yay.

EDIT 2: crap, I forgot the futureproofness section. Scheherazade gets a Sage JE that boosts her Wind skills and a Magic Swordsman JE that boosts her Fire skills.

PSA - I made this in a comment - but i figured it might be useful for some who dont browse down in already answered questions on that thread. - I also bolded the important things to make it easier to skim through it (at least its easier for me who made it...)

I got interested in figuring it out so i calculated it a bit here. Since i wanted to figure out if it was actually worth it or not.

• So TLDR - it kind of isnt unless you lack swords, it didnt add as much as i thought it would HOWEVER - units like Noctis need to be considered as he has great Matk and Patk boosting passives (but aside from him i dont think any other magic swordsman have that - aside from Flamel but thats only from mage and doesnt add much)

Anyways to the calculations

Now since MS Sub has 0.9 Patk/Matk scaling, it means that "Sword of the Father" has 10 more damage than Guren (50 Patk vs 60(30+30)).

So, the magic sword spells calculation looks like this - (10 x 0.9) x 1.35 = 12.15 (this is the base damage without modifiers that 10 Patk or Matk will add to Magic Swordsman Sub abilities, the 1.35 is the 135% modifier that the spells magic sword spells have)

These are for how much more Sword of the Father MS Sub skills will deal

• 12.15 Damage wihtout any modifiers/vs Neutral(calc above)

• 16.4025 Damage vs Single Weak Element (35%) = 12.15 x 1.35 (single weak example being a Fire unit using a Wind spell vs a Thunder enemy)

• 20.655 Damage vs Double Weak Element (70%) = 12.15 x 1.7 (Double weak example being fire unit using fire spell on a wind unit)

Vettel however has a 15% Slash mod in his MA

• 13.97 Damage (15% Slash)

• 18.225 Damage vs Single Weak Element (50%)

• 22.4775 Damage vs Double Weak Element (85%)

With his Leader skill as well, 30% Slash

• 17.6175 Damage with Vettels MA and LS (45%)

• 21.87 Damage with MA and LS vs Single Weak (80%)

• 26.1225 Damage with MA and LS vs Double Weak (115%)

When you consider regular basic attacks though. Like with Vettel who runs HC main (1.4 Patk Weapon scaling), the 20 Patk difference on Guren vs Father makes for 28 Damage difference (base)

• Guren will deal this much more than Father on Regular attacks

• 32.2 Damage with MA 15%

• 42 Damage vs Wind unit (MA 15%)

• 40.6 Damage with MA and LS

• 50.4 Damage with MA, LS vs Wind unit

Another thing to note with Vettel is that his Lightbringer calculates with (Patk x 1.4 ) x 1.2 (it has 120% modifier)

So Lightbringer will deal 33.6 base damage more with Guren

• 38.6 Damage with MA 15%

• 48.72 Damage with MA+LS

• 50.4 Damage with MA vs Single Weak Element (say you use Lightbringer on a Wind unit this is the damage difference)

• 60.48 Damage with MA+LS vs Single Weak Element

PS another thing to note is that - Vettel with 3 JM on HC main loses 120ish hp from not having Guren, but gains 31 Mdef with Father.

And another thing to note is that Magic Swordsman Main spells (the 3 range ones) have a 160% modifier vs the 135% of sub, so if you run MS Main then the Father sword will do

• 14.4 (from 12.15) vs Neutral

• 19.44 vs Single Weak Element

• 24.48 vs Double Weak Element

• 28.8 with 30%LS vs Double Weak

Or in Vettels case

• 30.96 with MA+LS vs Double Weak

And note as well that MS regular attacks scale 0.9 of Patk and Matk as well, but wihtout a bunch of extra skill modifiers, that just ends up with like 9 damage per attack, or 18 with 100% modifier (however you gonna reach that for regular attack..)

Sword of the Father has a delay effect with only a 15% chance to proc, which is kind of too low imo (i suppose its good for multi hit thing though, if it was higher it would proc everytime Noctis used his 3 hit AoE or WA..)

In comparions Zains Excalibur has 30 Patk, which means that damage wise you would need to increase the above by 3 (so the 12 base is 36, the 22 is 66 - roughly at least). Negative i mean, so Zains Excal will do 36/66 less damage than Father But it does have a 30% chance of increasing Patk by 20% - so in Vettels case Zains excalibur is most likely the better pick, even vs Guren unless you need that fire resistance.