NA Alt Update 12

Account background: I’m playing this account for my friend. It is non-IAP outside the various special deals. The purpose of this account is to see how far I can take it being non-IAP, but I eventually envision spending money on it in order to co-op farm with my main. The initial box review can be found here; the entire series here.

Previous update

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It’s been a long, long time since I updated. I’ll try catch up as quickly as I can, although I’ve forgotten many of the details.

Since the last update about two months ago, I’ve gained 95 ranks and almost 500k MP. It doesn’t even feel like I worked particularly hard and, to be honest, I really didn’t.

Yeah, I had some pretty good luck over the break.

PCGF Rolls

Against my better judgment, I decided to roll the PCGF a few times in hopes of snagging another Liu Bei or something.

Card	Notes
	Sharon is actually a pretty nice pull considering the rise of water-based farming teams. I think I’d still prefer a Leeza, but Sharon is a lot better than she once was (spoilers: it turns out I’d rather have another Laila, but a Sharon is fine, too).
	Well, I was not expecting this at all. Apoc is a coveted Myr sub, but I don’t really have the sub pool to run her. At least, not good enough to warrant running her over Summer Myr. This makes my DQXQ much better.
	lul (spoilers: this will turn out to be pretty good, too).
	My first good wood damage enhancer and she also makes MHera farming with a Dios-based MZeus team possible. I don’t really need MHera, but I may try to farm some Orpharion pieces in the future.
	With Ariel in addition to Apoc, a light Myr team is taking shape. I won’t be able to run a full TPA team like on my main, but a hybrid team built around Ariel, Apoc, DQXQ, and Venus should be fairly solid. I could run Saria in the last slot, but I’d rather run her as an inherit. This leaves Orpharion or another Myr as candidates for filling the final spot.
	Rozuel makes my Ronove team better, but I have no intention of running it at this point.

I decided to stop here on a good note (no silvers!). There really wasn’t all that much I wanted from the lineup and I was way above EV so it was easy to hold back.

Bleach Rolls

When this REM was announced, I went all in on stone farming and cleared most of the Challenge Modes that I had remaining. I have very few farmable stones left, though, so raising funds for future REMs will be rough, although Bleach was worth it (and getting 20 compensation stones was an unexpected gift). I went into this thinking that I might IAP on this account for the first time since I really wanted some Grimmjows for button farming; luckily, I didn’t have to.

Card	Notes
	My free roll. Meh.
	Not off to a great start. Yoruichi would’ve been the first wood damage enhance for this account had I not rolled Freyja earlier.
	A fine silver, but not one I have much use for. Yet.
	I’m pretty hyped for water-based farming teams, but I’ll need at least one more Toshiro to even consider it on this account. Even then, I just don’t have the inheritance bases to make it happen; at least not at a level to make it worth running over Liu Bei.
	Ugh.
	Meh. His awoken form would be a fine leader and goes well with the Eschamali I just rolled (and the Persephone I already have), but I have little else in the way of subs. For endgame farming Liu Bei is just better and I have Summer Myr for everything else. There’s some potential here, but we’ll need a lot of help in dark before it can be realized.
	Getting pretty anxious at this point.
	Now the worst 6-star in the REM for this account. Sadly, she’s one of the better inheritance bases I have for water farming.
	Considering this account doesn’t have a Leeza, this isn’t the worst roll ever, but I don’t really see myself using him that much even on Liu Bei.
	Suicide watch.
	Yeah. That just happened.
	Okay. Here we go. The one card that I was aiming for. This account really lacked nukes and Grimmjow shores up a huge farming weakness.
	Welp, I guess I can’t complain too much. Aizen immediately becomes my best endgame lead even with a lack of quality subs. The main reason being that he’s best equipped to take on the Radar Dragons and farm Arena 3 for killer latents. I’ll go more into this box’s potential teams later in this post.
	Alright, now we’re talking. I wish I had more by this point, but two Grimms and one Aizen is way above expectations.
	Hmm.
	Okay, I’ve gotten very few silvers so far so getting the best one in the machine isn’t the absolute worst. At the very least if I roll some more quality fire subs in the future I can use these on a Shiva Dragon team.
	The harbinger…
	Yes. Oh yes. In addition to the four Chads I just rolled, this account has a Yamato, 3x Tsubakis and 2x Lailas. Liu Bei is cool and all, but I can do some really nice things with Yamamoto. Saving seconds per run compared to Liu Bei may not seem like much, but time is my most valuable commodity at this point so I’m going all in on this team.
	Really should’ve stopped after Yama, but at this point I was going to roll all my stones in hopes of more Grimmjows.
	Rewarded for greed. Now I have two major pieces for water farming. The main problem is that I’m lacking the top inheritance bases to go with them. After rolling Yama, I won’t be chasing this team even though I was very hyped for it only a few weeks back. Yama is “fast enough” and between him, Aizen, Liu Bei and MAthena I should have almost all of my farming bases covered. If for some reason a few Sarasvatis or BOdin appear in my box, maybe I’ll change my mind, but, for now, I won’t be investing in the team (although considering how much MP I’m stockpiling maybe I’ll buy the Neptune Dragon anyways).

Why IAP when you can just get lucky? 12/19 golds (12/20 if you count the free roll) was way above the estimated gold rate of 40-50%. I even managed to roll at least one of everything except the dreaded Kenpachi (I guess my main rolled them all).

I stopped rolling after the last Toshiro. The desire for more Grimmjows was strong, but rolling more just seemed overly greedy. With the 20 compensation stones, I’m already near 40 stones again. I don’t know what I’m going to roll in next, but here’s hoping NA gets some nice collabs in the future as I’m just about done rolling the standard REM.

Free Rolls

Well you can’t always be lucky.

Card	Notes
	Rank 150 roll. I wasn’t pleased when I rolled him, but now that I have Yamamoto he’s looking a little better. The counterattack could have niche applications (unlikely), but he could serve as a good base for bind clearing.
	Rank 250 roll. Pollux #3. Welp.
	FF roll. Vaan #2. Welp. More useful than Pollux #3, at least.
	Christmas roll. Alraune #2. Welp.
	Bleach roll. Arguably the worst card in the machine. Welp.

Liu Bei vs. Yamamoto

With my alt’s acquisition of Yamamoto, Liu Bei has pretty much taken a backseat. Special Descended Rush is a pretty good example of why Yamamoto is generally superior.

Special Descended Rush – Yamamoto
Leader	Sub 1	Sub 2	Sub 3	Sub 4
					Team 1

	Sub 1	Sub 2	Sub 3	Sub 4	Leader
Team 2

As you can see, using a full board change not only has downsides as far as time wasted due to skyfall combos — which is only magnified in this dungeon with the increased skyfall chances — but things get even trickier when locked and poison orbs enter the equation. To increase consistency, locked orbs needs to be cleared which wastes time and effort and, of course, the threat of dying to poison is quite real.

Special Descended Rush – Yamamoto
Leader	Sub 1	Sub 2	Sub 3	Sub 4
					Team 1

	Sub 1	Sub 2	Sub 3	Sub 4	Leader
Team 2

Whereas Yamamoto really doesn’t have to worry about skyfall combos, locked orbs and poison. Locked orbs will never interfere with the bottom row and it’s extremely unlikely you’ll get more than a single poison skyfall per run.

Which team I use really comes down to the dungeon and the matchup, but Yamamoto has been a joy to use so far. Unless there are leader binds or anti-fire mechanics, I’ll probably try to find a way to use him over Liu Bei. This mostly frees my Liu Bei for inheritance use on my MAthena team which is a nice side-effect.

Where to Go from Here?

Being a lucksack sure feels good (especially since my main has been running fairly bad for quite a while now). I feel that I’ve reached the end of the first phase of this project which was to increase the overall quality of this box. I have MAthena for Py farming. Liu Bei and Yamamoto for endgame farming. Button teams for low-end and guerrilla farming. My Summer Myr team is pretty respectable in the endgame and I have Aizen and Myr teams in the works. I have almost 700k MP ready for anything.

Things have progressed much quicker than anticipated. Much of the accelerated advancement can attributed to Liu Bei and being able to pair with my main, but nurturing this non-IAP account has made me realize quite a bit about the playstyle. Mainly, that if you’re smart and dedicated, you don’t need to buy stones to develop a quality box within a reasonable timeframe. Also, stones aren’t nearly as plentiful as on JP, but NA still gives more than enough to get by.

The path forward is a bit unclear. I’d like to hit rank 867 for 450 stamina ASAP. I’ve never been one to encourage pure rank farming, but with the Arena 2x EXP bonus it’s now possible to string together rank ups, even at my current rank, while still getting a decent return. Once I hit 450 stamina, I’ll feel more comfortable stoning for refreshes which in turn will allow this account to better support my main (which is the end goal). However, Arena farming is extremely dull, so I’ll almost certainly mix in other dungeons like Special Descended Rush. If I can do about a rank per day, I should be able to hit this goal in three to four months, although it’s more likely to be around six.

As for rolls, I really don’t see myself pulling the standard REM. After giving pull advice for (over? about?) a year now, I easily recognize the predicament I’m in: I only want a couple of specific rolls and none of them are worth rolling specifically for. Maybe I’m just spoiled after Bleach, but god it felt good to have no dupe risk going into it. For this reason alone I’m contemplating rolling in the Heroine REM even if the rolls don’t seem all that great for my box. Here’s hoping NA gets some sweet new REMs in the coming year.

Thinking long term, I’m a little afraid. This account doesn’t have the breadth of cards to mitigate the buff carousel so I’ll be relying on good fortune and more quality farmables. Rolling the standard REM seems so bad nowadays that it’s hard to imagine keeping up with meta without buying stones. It’ll be interesting to see how the game evolves and whether these fears will be abated.

Aizen for Arena 3

I was fairly fortunate to roll an Aizen and with latent killers on the horizon, it’s time to start thinking of an Arena 3 team I can use. This account’s dark sub selection isn’t great, but I’m hoping I can at least slap together something halfway respectable so I can get carried by my main.

Aizen Teamcrafting
Leader	Sub 1	Sub 2	Sub 3	Sub 4	Friend

Yeah, not the greatest, but Eschamali and Persephone should serve as a solid core. 2x Zaerog∞ are sufficient filler. Alternatives include Satsuki, Zuoh and Akechi. For non-Arena 3 purposes, I’m actually quite fond of Dill Sirius for his kills. What really hurts are the lack of utility actives on this account, namely damage shields — of which I’m limited to Balboa and Kushinadahime — and delays — of which I’m limited to Exa Hydra. I’ll have to rely on my main account to provide them.

I’ll definitely be doing more research on this team in the future and I’ll share my findings in future posts. Which reminds me, I still need to clear Arena 2 again on both my accounts…

Plans for the Future

I’m going to use this section to keep track of the cards I want to raise as it’s too easy for me to forget what I have to do. This list is ordered loosely by priority.

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I pretty much finished everything over the break, but I’ll still try and use this to keep track of things I still need to do, but most of the major things have been taken care of.

Overarching Goals

• Ganesha prep – Done
• Arena 1 farming – Done
• Yamamoto farming – Done
• Myr prep – Done
• Aizen prep – Done

MAthena

• Bartz – Done
• Amaterasu – Done
• Ceres Ana – Done

Liu Bei

• Fafnir – Done

Cao Cao

• RSonia – Done

Summer Myr

• Christmas Paulina – Done

MHera Arena 1

• MHera
• Dill Sirius
• Grisar

MZeus

• MZeus
• Raphael – Done
• Venus – Done
• Thouzer – Done
• Kopis – Done
• Pollux #2

Other

• Elia
• Nordis
• Myr – Done
• Sakuya
• Goemon #2 – Done
• Vishnu – Done
• Roots – Done
• Zuoh – Done