Third Anniversary

In keeping with last year’s anniversary event, LW is being great to the player base once again.

I’m personally looking forward to the Great/Super chance increase – I’ve been hoarding EXP materials from the event shops for a while now, and it’ll be nice to clear out my inbox a bit.

There are a few things I want to talk about today; namely, the platinum tickets and the event reprints. Tickets first!

Platinum Tickets

I wrote a post on this last year that’s mostly still relevant. The quick tl;dr, if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, is:

Husbando > Practical Unit > +5 to relevant charge skill level > items

I also recommended Thunderbird, Seth, Arsalan, Musashi, and Volos as practical units.

There are a couple of additions this year in AR as well as some good new 4★ units to choose from.

I’d recommend AR somewhere around the same level as +5 to a relevant charge skill. There aren’t a ton of AR cards that are going to significantly affect anyone’s teams, but there are a few effects that are worth considering. If you are thinking about them, take a look at the list on the wiki, and consider how they’re going to work with your team (and make sure you can equip them!) before you go ahead and grab one.

Generically, The Dog’s Battlefield is probably the easiest equipment to recommend, with a reliable and useful effect that can go on a bunch of units.

I would not recommend getting a duplicate of an AR card – their effects scale linearly, unlike unit skills and charge skills, meaning +5 won’t add very much value (a 5% increase, in fact).

We’ve had some good 4★ units added to the roster since the last anniversary. Other than Volos (there are other units that can give your team Barrage now), last year’s recommendations still stand. Other options:

Ose: Ose’s a pretty good defensive support option as an alternative to Seth. He’s also a pretty good early-game option, as a lot of his power comes from his default skill, that applies Dazzle on attacking.

Licho: I was pretty keen on Licho when he was released, and I’m pleased to say that he absolutely lived up to my expectations. He’s probably the safest recommendation of the current 4★ roster.

Behemoth: If you have 5★ Gyumao, then this is a no-brainer – double Behemoth (yours along with a friend support) and Gyumao makes for a very efficient team for farming wide maps. Even if you don’t have Gyumao, pulling the entire enemy team into your range is a pretty useful effect to have around.

I have yet to decide what I’ll pick up this year – I got coins last year, but I’m leaning towards seeds this time around. I’m also tempted to pick up a duplicate Thunderbird – though I’d get next to nothing out of it (he’s at sacred artifact level 96), it would satisfy the completionist in me to have him at level 100.

Gacha Reruns

Power levels across these gachas vary pretty considerably. I’m largely basing the below recommendations on the 4★ units – 5★ units are 1) pretty powerful across the board, and 2) not worth chasing, unless you are a glutton for punishment.

If you’re rerolling for a 5★, I’d recommend trying for Valentine’s Shino, either of the 5★ units from Fashionista, either of the 5★ units from the Andvari Resort event, or a Jiangshi Krampus.

As always, if you’re husband chasing, feel free to ignore the below advice!

Setsubun – NO

In niche cases, such as the Setsubun event, Motosumi does spectacularly. Outside of those, he’s a bit average. Since he’s the only limited 4★ here, it makes it pretty easy to recommend skipping this one.

Valentines – YES

All four of the available 4★ featured in this gacha are pretty great. Surtr is probably the highlight, though Behemoth and Kenta both have a good number of uses.

Ueno Fluffy Kingdom – NO

None of the three 4★ units here have really made an impact. None of them are explicitly bad, but they’re also not worth chasing. Alp is probably the best of the bunch, but he’s in the regular gacha anyway (and you can pick him up with a platinum ticket, if you’re desperate).

Fashionista – YES

Probably the easiest of the gachas to recommend rolling in. Suzuka is one of the best 4★ units in the game right now (I missed the range on her Charm when reviewing her – it’s 6 squares!), and Amatsumara and Tsathoggua are no slouches, either.

Andvari Resort – YES, BUT

This was a really tricky one – Along with Suzuka, I’d put Beach Seth towards the top of the 4★ units in the game, and the 5★ units in this gacha are nothing short of spectacular, but ultimately I think Kotaro and Goemon are average enough to bring it back down. If you’re fine with getting either of these (they’re not awful, but not really something to chase), then feel free to roll.

Volos is a really strong combo piece, but really needs other pieces of the combo to shine – namely, other units that inflict debuffs on the enemy. If you’ve got these (or are using your platinum tickets on them) then Volos is pretty good; otherwise, don’t chase him.

Jiangshi Night – NO

We just had this one – if you’ve just started, roll Fashionista instead (or reroll for your choice of 5★), and if you didn’t roll in it while it was here, your decision probably won’t have changed.

Good luck to those rolling, and I look forward to seeing what awaits us in 2020!

Second Anniversary

I don’t even have a pithy remark to open this one with – what a great time to be playing Housamo.

Apologies for the radio silence; life has been a bit hectic! I’ve written a review for the Chapter 8 gacha, but a) there are more important things to discuss, b) there’s only 2 days left to roll in it and c) I’m not really happy with it, so I’ll probably end up skipping this one. Fortunately, it’s really quite easy to summarise:

Both rarities (a pleasant surprise!) of Surtr are amazing (compares well to Aizen and Snow); Arc and Azathoth are both interesting but not spectacular.

In case you’ve missed it, here’s the Second Anniversary announcement, but the two big things from it are:

• Two Platinum Salomon tickets, which can be exchanged for a 4★unit of your choice (or some items)
• Some insane login bonuses, including 100 stones (yes, 100), 10 million coins, and a bunch of other things

Quite a lot of the event is self explanatory, but I want to talk about what to do with your platinum summoning tickets. The answer, as always, varies from person to person, but as a general recommendation, here’s what I think you should do:

1) Pick a unit you like the look of. For now, at least, Housamo remains a game that doesn’t require specific units to clear content; almost any 4★ unit is going to be viable somehow (Please don’t pick Eita and complain to me though).

2) If the above doesn’t apply for you (e.g. you’ve already got your favourite husbando) then pick a unit you think will fill a niche in your team. This is hard to make a general comment on, but here would be my picks:

Thunderbird (DPS/Offensive support)

Thunderbird is probably one of the easiest units to recommend, even without knowing what units you have. Giving critical to vertically adjacent allies can be a serious boost to any team, and his charge skill giving both Status Reflector and CP increase to adjacent allies is a great boost.

His Default skill combined with his LB1 means he can deal out respectable damage himself, while his LB2 gives him decent survivability. His charge skill also affects himself; between that and his LB3, you can trigger his charge skill several times in a battle quite easily.

It’s also sometimes nice to have a unit with horizontal mobility, but that’s really just an added bonus.

Seth (Tank/Defensive support)

I was a bit cool on Seth when I first reviewed him. I still think his Default and LB1 skills are a bit lacking, but his LB2 and LB3 skills more than make up for it. Combine him with a source of healing, and there’s not much in the game that he can’t tank.

Arsalan (Tank/Healer)

Speaking of healing, Arsalan’s main draw card is his Holy Oil from his default skill – he’s almost worth running for this alone. Be careful not to apply the Holy Oil buff from his charge skill, however; since his charge skill isn’t likely to be levelled, the effect from this is going to be significantly weaker than his Default skill.

Giving Fighting Spirit to allies is also a very welcome boost.

Musashi (DPS)

I don’t really have much to add to my initial review of Musashi; he’s a really solid damage-dealing unit.

If you’re really averse to him, for some reason, Ibaraki and Shuten are also good pickups for DPS.

Volos (Combo)

Volos is an interesting recommendation as he is largely an unremarkable unit (though cute!).

Where he absolutely shines is his LB2. Volos is the only unit in the game (for now?) that can give Barrage to another unit. For the most part, this is a bit unexciting, but for skills that trigger When Attacking, it can be awesome.

He’s not always the best choice to bring along, even when he does combo, but he gets my vote for most interesting unit.

3) Pick a unit you already own that will get significantly improved by +5 to their charge skill level. +5 is a bigger deal than you might expect, but I’m going to need to go into the maths a bit to explain. The formula for charge skill “power multiplier” is this:

1 + 0.5(log₁₀(Skill Level))

Charge skills get improved in 2 ways when they level up – their skill effect (usually) improves, and their damage improves. Both of these components improve logarithmically, up to a maximum of 2x effectiveness at level 100.

If you’re not too familiar with logarithms, the graph of how charge skills improve with levels looks like this:

A +5 improvement to charge skill level (so charge skill level 6) translates to a power multiplier of 1.39 – in other words, the unit will deal 39% more damage with their charge skill, and their charge skill buff/debuff effect will be 39% more effective.

For some units, +5 doesn’t mean much (Thunderbird’s Status Reflector doesn’t improve with level), but for some, it can be a significant improvement (Musashi’s Diamond goes from OK to quite strong). If you’re going to improve one of your units charge skills with your tickets, make sure to look them up on the wiki before you do to make sure you’re getting the best value (and don’t spend your ticket if you’ve already got a decent charge skill level!)

4) Items (really!). If none of the above options work for you, then the item trades are not terrible value: if you’re considering this case, then the tickets are worth about the same as a 10-pull to you, or 50 stones. For me, at rank 77 with 90 stamina, the coins are better value than running the weekend 45 stamina coin dungeon with 50 stones. I definitely recommend running the numbers yourself if you’re considering this option (and remember that we’re getting a ton of free stuff from the event login bonuses!).

Hope that helps! If you’re after specific recommendations (or just want to leave some feedback), feel free to drop me a line in the comments below.

New Semester (Part 2) Gacha

That dropped quicker than I was expecting.

Also, we’re getting Hot Springs again. I wonder if they’ll give stones for quests previously cleared in the Past Events area? I guess we’ll find out.

Stamina refresh rate increased to 8 minutes is a welcome QoL change. We’ve now also got the ability to spend multiple stamina drinks at once:

Note the bottom option to spend two mini stamina drinks

Let’s get into the Gacha discussion.

	Amatsumara (3★)		Amatsumara (4★)
Attack Type	Blow	1.0x Damage	Blow	1.0x Damage
Default Skill	Blow enemy back 2 squares		Blow enemy back 2 squares
	After Attacking	45%	After Attacking	45%
Skill 1	Apply Concentration to self		Apply Concentration to self
	After Moving	50%	After Moving	50%
Skill 2	Apply Critical to self		Apply Critical to self
	When Attacking	20%	When Attacking	20%
Skill 3	Apply Herculean Strength to allies 1 square behind the user		Apply Herculean Strength to allies 1 square behind the user
	After Attacking	25%	After Attacking	25%
Charge Skill	Apply Intimidated to enemy and blow back enemy one square		Apply Intimidated to enemy and blow back enemy one square
	Ranged		All

An underwhelming start to the lineup. Blowing enemies back 2 squares isn’t useful a lot of the time, and Concentration isn’t worth taking up a movement slot for (and his other abilities aren’t important enough to warrant the 10% increase). Self critical is nice, and Herculean Strength is a great buff for a DPS team member, but these don’t redeem his first skills.

His charge skill is decent, and will disable the enemy frontline a good chunk of the time, but overall I wouldn’t run him unless I had no other option (I didn’t roll his 4★ form at all, which doesn’t help).

 

	Musashi (3★)		Musashi (4★)
Attack Type	Slash	0.45x Damage	Slash	0.45x Damage
Default Skill	Apply Barrage to self		Apply Barrage to self
	After Moving	50%	After Moving	50%
Skill 1	Inflict Weakness on Enemy. Deal extra damage to enemies inflicted with Weakness		Inflict Weakness on Enemy. Deal extra damage to enemies inflicted with Weakness
	After Attacking	32%	After Attacking	32%
Skill 2	Apply Guts to self		Apply Guts to self
	Phase Start	66%	Phase Start	66%
Skill 3	Apply Critical+ to Self and take reduced damage from Slash attacks		Apply Critical+ to Self and take reduced damage from Slash attacks
	Phase Start	45%	Phase Start	45%
Charge Skill	Apply Diamond and small heal to nearby allies and self		Apply Diamond and small heal to nearby allies and self
	Slash		Wide Slash

Speaking of DPS team members, Musashi fits the bill very well. Barrage coupled with Critical+ means he’ll be striking twice for triple damage on the first turn of the phase. If his first strike manages to inflict weakness on the enemy, his second strike will be at 10.8 times his normal damage — higher than Ibaraki’s multiplier, though a bit more burst-y.

Past the first turn, Barrage means two things. One, you’ll keep enemies Weakness’d most of the time (two chances to trigger means enemies won’t have weakness after he’s done about 13% of the time when he’s max skilled), which will allow any other DPS you’ve got on the team to clean up.

Second, you’ll build his charge skill really fast. It’s common for Ophion to build about 50% of his charge skill back the turn after he gets Barrage, and I expect Musashi will be no different — other than the fact that he has Barrage on move, rather than a charge skill.

His charge skill isn’t useless, but it’s not the best. Diamond is a solid defensive ability, and coupling it with a heal makes it better. However, his charge skill needs to be levelled before this will actually become effective; at the moment, the only way to level this is to roll dupes, meaning most of the time this will just be a slight damage reduction and a small heal (and not activating barrage/weakness for a turn). If Lifewonders ever releases a way to increase charge skill levels, this guy will be first in line.

Oh yeah. He also gets Guts every phase, and takes less damage from Slash attacks.

tl;dr: This is a very good card.

	Shino (3★)		Shino (5★)
Attack Type	Slash	0.45x Damage	Thrust	0.55x Damage
Default Skill	Apply Guts to self		Apply Guts to self
	Phase Start	66%	Phase Start	66%
Skill 1	Applies Attack Up to adjacent squares. Deal extra damage to units with Gardener		Applies Attack Up to adjacent squares. Deal extra damage to units with Gardener
	Phase Start	30%	Phase Start	30%
Skill 2	Apply Stubborn to Self		Apply Stubborn to Self
	After Moving	50%	After Moving	50%
Skill 3	Apply Heal (200~400) to Self		Apply Heal (250~500) and CP increase to Self and take reduced damage from Slash attacks
	After Attacking	50%	After Attacking	50%
Charge Skill	Apply Curse to enemy		Apply Omen to enemy
	Slash		Thrust

And we’re back to our standard fare. He’s not terrible, just probably not worth running over other options: Guts every phase is fine, Attack Up is decent, given that it lasts for four turns (and there are actually a few enemies that have Gardener), and Stubborn… isn’t worth moving for (I really hope that Beastman in line for some sort of buff).

His last skill is legitimately good. A guaranteed heal that doesn’t require movement is quite good, especially when coupled with an actual defensive support (Aizen, Snow). The CP increase on his 5★ version is also welcome, as it lets him get Omen (!!) on the enemy faster (10k damage/turn is no joke).

He’s also (our first) shadow-attribute card, meaning he’s basically got unskilled Berserk on at all times (1.5x damage dealt/received to/from all other main attributes)

We also get this alternate skin with the 5★ version:

And, in the end, isn’t that what we’re all playing this game for anyway?