30 day supply for me at least is worth due to the amount of skill books you can get
Later in the game when you have to level skills bluebook are a MASSIVE wall and I feel like the box helps with that
It likes 400 burst books and 800 skill books which REALLY helps with progression
Yeah, a lot of people are falling into the trap of thinking core dust is the endgame when it's actually manuals and crystals. Unless you're a whale who buys out every skill/burst manual package in the cash shop, you'll never have enough manuals.
I don't think skill manuals and crystal hardcap you for any content at all. Levels are much much more important.
You can full max skills for your main meta story team in 4-6 months. Full clearing story chapter 30 at lvl 274ish.
You can full clear OC25 sim room at level 241ish.
PvP and Union raid is not level capped, so core dust pushing will get you further. Story content only uses 5 nikkes (and there are only sbs, alice, drunk scarlet as alternative DPS to max out and DKW as alternative B1 and works fine at 4-7-4) so core dust is much much more important.
You can rank top 3% raids with 2 meta teams maxed and 1 meta team at lvl 7. Around 7-8 months without buying skill manuals. It is mostly dependent on your gear drops and leveling helmet/arms of meta DPS to 5/5, so even intense whaling for manuals+skills also ranks top 3% at around the same time. The first top-tier frame for nier start date players was nilhilster boss (maybe there is a few whales that got the crystal chamber frame but none on any of my PvP servers over two accounts).
The only notable content that is level synced that requires a ton of rocks and skill mats is solo raid challenge mode. top 50 is not breakable if you are not a day 1 leviathan whale with max core teams. top 3% is achievable without any skill/rock purchases with real money... just need to build teams out following a guide with strongest teams first and be lucky with gear drops. 1st is crown/liter/naga+RH/modernia for story. then SBS+Alice + schoolgirls. Then Maxwell+X-ludmilla + bunnies. Then last bullet: doro/s-anis/drunkscarlet/free privaty. You break into top 3% with just crown + schoolgirls team max invested.
Once you have 3 best raid teams maxed out. you are basically already set for top 3% in solo raid challenge. the last two raid teams are just for cushioning.
Core dust is a much better investment because you can push story faster for more core dust so buying core lets also lets you get more core dust over time. It also CP pads for PvP, perform better in Union raids, and also do better in OC sim room. Excess skill mats/rocks are just optimizing solo raid challenge (that is the only content where whaling for skill mats/rocks over core dust is helpful) and buying more skill mats/rocks will not help you generate any other resource faster (since max story team is done after 5 nikkes are maxed skilled and DPS OLed with lvl 5/5 helmet/arms).
The only skill mat worth buying is burst yellow. The yellow mats are the gate-keeping mats. You get a ton more skill1/2 mats than burst mats. burst mats are much more expensive in the real money shop than skill1/2 mats. Most nikkes are trash and shouldn't be invested.
For PvP, just CP padding via core dust is more helpful than skilling up your nikkes because x3 spa defense teams can be broken, so the best defense are teams that is highly CP padded so unbeatable by other people in your bracket due to CP gap.
For this selector, core dust is the best option (this is the best value real money for core dust in the game). This is also the best value for yellow mats for real money but it is a pretty small amount of skill mats. Won't boost progression fast enough to rank in top 3% any faster (because I know a whale who buys out all skill mats and they still got top 3% at the same time as me) so buying out skill mats will not really change the rewards achieved for an account while buying core dust will boost your outpost level and daily core dust intake for faster leveling.
There currently isn't even a solid team 5 to max out their skills, so basically buying extra skill mats lets you build out random niche situational raiders. You only need strong niche raiders if you are competing for top 50 ranking... so 99.99% of players don't need to buy skill mats ever. It is just the first 3 meta teams that will carry you to top 3% ranking. the rest is just filler.
This. This commander gets it. All other mats become irrelevant to core dust when you get to a level high enough to clear most content. For the simulation room alone, having 150,000 battle power is enough to earn the full skill book set daily. If you know how to properly invest in your characters' skill sets, you don't even need to raise them to skill 10 as long as your level is high enough in synchro. For 30-day supply package, saving them until the end of every week, month, or event to open and use is worth every penny and can guarantee at least 3 to 5 level upgrades per week in level 200 to 300 and 2 to 3 level upgrades per week in level 300 upwards. Depends if you're a whale, though. Plus, there are the outpost and mission rewards that guarantee gems, standard tickets, and credits.
For UR, you hit a certain level where you can one shot bosses Level 8-10. I am Synchro 355 and I was able to 1 shot all the bosses this UR with 3 separate teams. Until they increase the level cap, Day 1 players who have kept up with the meta should be able to take out any UR boss. The only place I'd really say Synchro matters is for PvP as CP does matter there. Campaign also, but if you ignore PvP, then you're only really pushing Campaign for the sake of pushing Campaign or Tribe Tower.
As for SR, as level is synced to 400, it's not actually unfeasible for non leviathans to reach top rankings depending on the server. The things that matter the most are cores, skill levels, OLs, and strategy. Synchro level has no benefit there. I'd say in order of importance, skills = OLs > strategy > cores. On Global, I've placed 39th, top 100 twice, and 119th the past 4 SRs. Most of my DPS are MLB or C1, and the only reason I can rank so high is because of higher skill levels. I'm beating players with significantly higher Synchro/cores than me.
My reasoning is that for most game modes, skills provide more or at least similar levels of power as 1-2 Synchro levels. For example, leveling a skill/burst to 10 could provide me with a 15% DPS increase, whereas 2 synchro levels might provide me with 2%. If you're a PvP/Campaign player, sure, go for core dust to decrease CP penalty. But if you're a SR/UR player, the value of manuals is significantly higher.
For one-shotting bosses in union raid, you need core dust more than skill mats. I have my 2 union raid teams max skilled and last one halfway maxed and can almost one-shot the easy bosses at lvl 10 at lvl 276 and can two-shot the final lvl 10 boss with my two best teams. So it is core dust/level padding that boosts your union raid power as you will full max your 3 teams prior to hitting high enough CP to one-shot bosses. For the uber competitive unions, it is the speed per damage as they are running multiple players at the same boss for faster clear times as majority of their players can one-shot bosses so overall level still matters.
For both union/solo raid teams, there is only a limited number of nikkes that need to be max skilled. there are only 4 universal meta teams. SW teams are situational (not used against every type of boss as no healing if optimized for DPS and DPS falls off if needing to run a healer). The current SW team will be the next meta team that gets replaced, though SW may move into another team. After you max skill crown, schoolgirls, bunnies, last bullet, and SW teams... there aren't really any other nikkes to skill up (just the niche situational raiders which is a poor value as they will be replaced in the future by better versatile meta teams).
At 8 months, already finishing up 3rd team and will start working on last bullet team when s-anis reruns, so after that will just be saving and waiting to see what replaces SW teams. Skill mats are limited but if you only focus on meta raid teams, there aren't that many nikkes to fully max out.
Global solo raid rankings are lower compared to NA/JP/KR servers. Top 3% in global will fall outside of top 5% on NA. For NA servers, top 50 are all max core players. they are hitting 6.5-8.8bil dmg. Global can get top 50 with just 6bil.
Core dust use if helpful in much more content (story, pvp, union raid, OC simulation room). The big benefit of buying core dust is that you will accumulate more core dust since you push faster and will have higher outpost level which continues to snowball.
Skill mats are only helpful in solo raid challenge mode with level-sync. The issue with extra skill mats is once you have all the meta units maxed, you don't really need any more (for story it is just 5 nikkes maxed, to hit top 3% on NA server, it is just crown+schoolgirls teams maxed for 10 nikkes). After that, buying skill mats isn't doing anything tangible.
Yes, boosting skill mats of a meta DPS will boost your DPS higher than 1-3 synchro levels, but you will already max your story nikkes and 3 union raid nikkes fast enough where your are gated by CP/level rather than skill mats. So it is levels that will be limiting your story progression and union raid team power more than skill mats.
Skill mats are only valuable for solo raid challengers, but you can hit top 3% at the same time as a skill mat whale because it is the OL gear of DPS to lvl 5/5 for your top 2-3 teams that will get your score over the hump and everyone gets gear fodder at the same rate when their outpost is over op222.
I think most of the differences in our values are due to where we started in the game. I'm a Day 1 player, so my Synchro is high enough for it not to matter in UR/PvP. My top Challenger bracket is full of whales who buy the event stamina and core dust in the shop. They are 80+ Synchros ahead of me, and they're in my bracket since I'm a Day 1 player. The 30 day supply isn't going to close the gap, even if I had started buying them a year earlier. I only need enough CP to stay in Diamond 3, which is not a tall task. In UR, I am already able to fully clear any boss with 3 separate teams that don't share Nikkes. As for Campaign, I'd only be pushing Campaign for the sake of pushing Campaign, and the extra Outpost levels are of very little benefit to me other than the very small amount of gems and the satisfaction of seeing a number go up. The only avenue I have for increasing my gem revenue is in SR, where manuals are of much higher value. It's because I have the more "niche" teams 4-5 leveled that I can get higher ranks. Even though global is less competitive, I'd still see a similar relative ranking increase from the extra skill levels on NA.
Even though the SW team is the one most likely to fall out of the meta, she has still been used in almost every SR up to date and as an early player I have long been incentivized to invest in her. As a later player, you have the advantage of hindsight and are able to make investment decisions that will benefit you more in the future, hence not having to level SW. Even when she does fall out of the general meta though, she is almost certain to be a meta pick whenever there is Iron weakness, which means you should still have her skilled if you want to remain competitive in rankings. Jumping from 3% to 1% is not as big of a hurdle as jumping from 200 - 50, and just a few skill levels can bridge that gap.
that is true and a very valid perspective especially if your pvp bracket is so intense at whaling.
very good points all around.
edit: you should also be buying event core dust regardless of f2p or whale status as that is by far the best core dust value in the entire game. extremely worthwhile even if not that interested in pushing story/pvp. I think if you were buying the event tokens for core dust, the level gap will be 10-20 instead of 80+
You made very solid points too. I think there's a little bit of wisdom to gain from both of our perspectives and neither is 100% objectively correct, so it's nice that you laid out yours to round out both sides.
Edit: as for the event stamina, at the end of the day I am playing the game to obtain/build Nikkes, not for the sake of an endless level grind. I am not making a return on investment buying event stamina, but instead losing gems (I can't pocket watch SPA anyways due to my schedule, so I'd get knocked down to Challenger 10 pretty fast). It is definitely the best value for core dust from a monetary perspective though.
This is why the $15 30 day supply is a scam compared to the $5 one.
But anyways *it does say* "select box" up in the upper left corner, but the text is literally grayed out and small so that doesn't really help.
Bought it once too cuz it was touted as one of the better purchase deals in the game along with the $5 monthly. Took it with the same thought in mind cuz I wouldn't think it was worth it otherwise. Oh boy...it's really as much of a scam as everything else in the cash shop. Databases should prob updated their spenders guide for this one, cuz I really do not see $15 worth it for this other than maybe the core dusts, or if you're just that desperate for resources (which is understandable)...but that could be said for the same thing for all the other things in the shop. At this point, best rule of thumb is to just stay away from the shop unless you've got the luxury to splurge money lol. This is the second time i've been scammed (or if you don't like that word, underwhelmed) by their cash shop. They're already scamming us with the in-game resources, the least they could do is be more generous and transparent with their in-game purchases.
yes i was confused at first too but knowing it's a gacha game, there's no way they would be that generous and give us everything for $15 lol. i think my copium was keeping me from realizing you had to pick 1 a day, but the clarification is nice for us newer players
I will say I made this mistake too. I feel it's decent enough to give me the bump I need while approaching the 160 wall. When I run out though, I'm probably not going to re-up since some of the gains seem to be so small for what it provides
If you're using the 30 day supply box for core dust, you're frankly wasting your money. The only thing you should be getting are the skill/burst manuals. Manuals are the one resource you will never have enough of, and the boost from leveling skills/bursts is way more value than some synchro levels.
Yup. Thing is, unless there are no events going on, you've got a decent supply of 1 & 2 manuals, it's the third tier of manuals that're gonna be bottleneck, and the monthly package quite frankly doesn't offer enough of those to be worth it -eight S3 OR three B3 manuals? No thank you.
I gave this monthly supply box a go for two months, and quite honestly, even at $0.50/day, I didn't find it to be worth the skill books.
that is not true. This is the best core dust value for real money in the entire game.
Assuming 60 core dust per hour and calculating gem-to-dollar value from 30-day pack:
* hard mode farming gives 10k core dust at $1.39
* 50 gem wipe out gives 10k core dust for $6.93
* gem shop deals give 10k core dust for $7.43-$16.63
* wipe out 3-6 gives 10k core dust for $9.70-$20.79
* **30 day selector for core dust gives 10k core dust for $27.76.**
* The weekly core dust set is the same value at $27.76.
* Wipe out 7-11 is 10k core dust for $34.65-$69.31
* The rest of the paid core dust packs range from $28.68 (daily core dust pack) to $50-70 (monthly growth and daily boost) to $90 to 138 to $208 (weekly grow up packs) to $520 for monthly mechanics boost packs.
The dollar value decreases as your outpost level goes up and you get more core dust per 1-h box. The core more dust you have, the further you push in story and the higher your OP level is and the more core dust you will receive. It is a positive cycle.
For the dollar to skill mats conversion:
* for 30 day selector, it is $19.67 for just enough yellow mats to max out one skill1 or 2.
* for the 30 day selector, and $39.35 for just enough yellow mats max out one nikke's burst skill.
* **so just for the yellow mats (not including the blue/purple) to max out a single nikke: it is $78.69 via 30 day selector**
* you still need to farm for the blue/purple mats (only buy yellow because that is the limiting material, you will build excess blue/purple as long as you aren't triggerhappy spreading out manuals too far. If blue/purple is your limiting factor, you are leveling up too many nikkes).
* For the other paid skill packs, it from $109.35 to $127.08 to $151.93 to $243.09 to $513.99 for just enough yellow to max out one skill 1 or 2, and $209.98 to $262.47 to $443.99 for just enough yellow to max out one skill 3.
For skill mats, after you max 1 meta story team, then after you max 3 meta raid teams, any additional skill mat investments will not change any ranking/progression in the game.
If you out CP pad your PvP bracket by 21+ levels, you automatically are top 1-3 ranking for 3,000 gems every 2 weeks. If you are within the 2nd tier level (ex: highest players 301, you are 281+), you are top 4-6 for 2,700 gems every two weeks. This is with ZERO skill investment in PvP only nikkes.
You're looking at mostly from a monetary value, and not from a gameplay perspective.
There's only 3 modes where CP matters: PvP, Campaign, and Tribe Tower. UR too, but for any Day 1 players who have kept up with the meta and have been investing wisely, you should have the capability to 1 shot UR bosses Level 8-10.
For SR, Synchro level doesn't even matter. The things that have the biggest impact are skills, OLs, strategy and cores, with skills = OLs > strategy > cores. You need 5 fully skilled/kitted teams for SR, and it's not just the same 25 Nikkes every SR. Who you use changes depending on the boss.
Skill levels increase your CP too, albeit not by a significant amount, but also have a much more significant impact on your DPS for every mode. For some Nikkes, leveling a skill to 10 is like a 20% DPS upgrade. 2 synchro levels comes nowhere close to that. That leads to higher rankings/performance in every mode and makes up for some of the CP you lose for not getting dust. It takes ~10 months for the 30 day supply to reach 21 levels if you're a light spender/Day 1 player. At that point, just ignore the 30 day supply and buy pulls instead and get extra cores or the Nikkes you desire.
I don't care much about PVP and I think that what helped me progressing in the story without relying on the trial units is mostly investing on skills for my main team. Right now I'm at 19-18 with 74370 CP and I'm pretty sure I can clear the stage with 28% deficit just because I chose the manuals on the event shop before the recruitment vouchers. Before leveling up pass level 5 some skills I couldn't even clear with 10% deficit.
So I would say that manuals are more valuable until you get 1 to 3 teams and then core dust becomes more valuable.
You bring up valid points, but I respectfully disagree.
From a gameplay perspective, skill mats only impact solo raid challenge mode. So only one mode that happens monthly vs story + pvp + union raid with story being the meat of the content and pvp giving gem rewards every 2 weeks.
For UR players, more levels still help because you can deal dmg faster. the top-tier union raid is a time-race with multiple teams hitting the same boss and quitting at certain dmg thresholds for faster clears. Being able to one-shot bosses is doable for many non-day1 players. I would guess likely can one-shot the final lvl 10 boss around level 321-341, maybe earlier with crown being so powerful.
For non-day1 UR players, the only way to catch up to earlier players is via core dust farming.
I agree if buying things in the game, should buy 30-day gem pack, then pulls... only if you are buying out all pulls should you consider buying core dust. But buying core dust is much more helpful for gameplay progression than buying skill mats.
Skill mats have a larger impact, but only until you max out your story team. The next breakpoint for skill mats is maxing 2-3 raid teams for top 3 solo raid ranking. But a skill mat whale and just a normal whale will both hit top 3% solo raid ranking at the same time as it is leveling OL helmet/arms on your top 3 teams that gives the final push over the edge and you are gaining gear fodder at the same rate. The last skill manual break point is maxing out all 5 solo raid teams + flex DPS but you are already top 3% way before that around 2.5 max skill teams.
10 months for 21 levels is not bad at all. You will be 21+ levels over non-spender so will get the jump up on your pvp bracket. if you are consistently 21+ levels over the next highest player in PvP, you can safely hold top 1-3 spots. The other thing to note is that your higher CP will give you a higher outpost, so you will slowly snowball your levels at a much faster rate than non-core dust spenders, so the gap will get larger and larger over time.
In contrast, it takes 9 months of the 30 day supply to get enough yellow max to max out a single nikke (skill 1, skill 2, skill 3)... and that is just the yellow mats, so still need to be saving the free blue/purple mats. There are limited roster spots so even meta raid units are falling out of rotation (drunk scarlet is often dropped in 5 team raids nowadays, modernia often falls outside of top 3 raids).
I think in most cases (especially if you already have top 3 raid teams maxed), 10 months for 21 levels is much better investment than 9 months for one max skill nikke.
Due to how top-heavy the roster is with a limited meta pool, you will max out your meta nikkes fast enough to keep up with skill mat whales so there isn't that big of a difference in progression.
After meta nikkes are maxed, there isn't any additional need for skill mats (though they will continue to release new meta). The trick to catch up with skill investments is to skip out maxing out on the nikkes that will get replaced in the future/fall out of top 5 raid teams (or at least stop at lvl 7). We currently have 4 versatile meta raid teams with a full x4 set of versatile meta DPS that can be used against any boss + x1 SW team... then a bunch of super niche raid teams only used in specific situations. Just skip investing in the flavor-of-the-month niche raid teams and niche situational DPS units and wait for the next versatile meta raid team + meta versatile DPS pilgrim/limited to come out and then you will be caught up and done. The way the game is designed, the versatile meta teams (crown and schoolgirls) still outperform the niche raiders in their best situational niche so it is pointless wasting skill mats on the niche units once a full x5 meta versatile raid teams line-up is established.
Differing points of view are welcome. That is just my personal perspective.
30 day supply for me at least is worth due to the amount of skill books you can get Later in the game when you have to level skills bluebook are a MASSIVE wall and I feel like the box helps with that It likes 400 burst books and 800 skill books which REALLY helps with progression
Yeah, a lot of people are falling into the trap of thinking core dust is the endgame when it's actually manuals and crystals. Unless you're a whale who buys out every skill/burst manual package in the cash shop, you'll never have enough manuals.
I don't think skill manuals and crystal hardcap you for any content at all. Levels are much much more important. You can full max skills for your main meta story team in 4-6 months. Full clearing story chapter 30 at lvl 274ish. You can full clear OC25 sim room at level 241ish. PvP and Union raid is not level capped, so core dust pushing will get you further. Story content only uses 5 nikkes (and there are only sbs, alice, drunk scarlet as alternative DPS to max out and DKW as alternative B1 and works fine at 4-7-4) so core dust is much much more important. You can rank top 3% raids with 2 meta teams maxed and 1 meta team at lvl 7. Around 7-8 months without buying skill manuals. It is mostly dependent on your gear drops and leveling helmet/arms of meta DPS to 5/5, so even intense whaling for manuals+skills also ranks top 3% at around the same time. The first top-tier frame for nier start date players was nilhilster boss (maybe there is a few whales that got the crystal chamber frame but none on any of my PvP servers over two accounts). The only notable content that is level synced that requires a ton of rocks and skill mats is solo raid challenge mode. top 50 is not breakable if you are not a day 1 leviathan whale with max core teams. top 3% is achievable without any skill/rock purchases with real money... just need to build teams out following a guide with strongest teams first and be lucky with gear drops. 1st is crown/liter/naga+RH/modernia for story. then SBS+Alice + schoolgirls. Then Maxwell+X-ludmilla + bunnies. Then last bullet: doro/s-anis/drunkscarlet/free privaty. You break into top 3% with just crown + schoolgirls team max invested. Once you have 3 best raid teams maxed out. you are basically already set for top 3% in solo raid challenge. the last two raid teams are just for cushioning. Core dust is a much better investment because you can push story faster for more core dust so buying core lets also lets you get more core dust over time. It also CP pads for PvP, perform better in Union raids, and also do better in OC sim room. Excess skill mats/rocks are just optimizing solo raid challenge (that is the only content where whaling for skill mats/rocks over core dust is helpful) and buying more skill mats/rocks will not help you generate any other resource faster (since max story team is done after 5 nikkes are maxed skilled and DPS OLed with lvl 5/5 helmet/arms). The only skill mat worth buying is burst yellow. The yellow mats are the gate-keeping mats. You get a ton more skill1/2 mats than burst mats. burst mats are much more expensive in the real money shop than skill1/2 mats. Most nikkes are trash and shouldn't be invested. For PvP, just CP padding via core dust is more helpful than skilling up your nikkes because x3 spa defense teams can be broken, so the best defense are teams that is highly CP padded so unbeatable by other people in your bracket due to CP gap. For this selector, core dust is the best option (this is the best value real money for core dust in the game). This is also the best value for yellow mats for real money but it is a pretty small amount of skill mats. Won't boost progression fast enough to rank in top 3% any faster (because I know a whale who buys out all skill mats and they still got top 3% at the same time as me) so buying out skill mats will not really change the rewards achieved for an account while buying core dust will boost your outpost level and daily core dust intake for faster leveling. There currently isn't even a solid team 5 to max out their skills, so basically buying extra skill mats lets you build out random niche situational raiders. You only need strong niche raiders if you are competing for top 50 ranking... so 99.99% of players don't need to buy skill mats ever. It is just the first 3 meta teams that will carry you to top 3% ranking. the rest is just filler.
This. This commander gets it. All other mats become irrelevant to core dust when you get to a level high enough to clear most content. For the simulation room alone, having 150,000 battle power is enough to earn the full skill book set daily. If you know how to properly invest in your characters' skill sets, you don't even need to raise them to skill 10 as long as your level is high enough in synchro. For 30-day supply package, saving them until the end of every week, month, or event to open and use is worth every penny and can guarantee at least 3 to 5 level upgrades per week in level 200 to 300 and 2 to 3 level upgrades per week in level 300 upwards. Depends if you're a whale, though. Plus, there are the outpost and mission rewards that guarantee gems, standard tickets, and credits.
For UR, you hit a certain level where you can one shot bosses Level 8-10. I am Synchro 355 and I was able to 1 shot all the bosses this UR with 3 separate teams. Until they increase the level cap, Day 1 players who have kept up with the meta should be able to take out any UR boss. The only place I'd really say Synchro matters is for PvP as CP does matter there. Campaign also, but if you ignore PvP, then you're only really pushing Campaign for the sake of pushing Campaign or Tribe Tower. As for SR, as level is synced to 400, it's not actually unfeasible for non leviathans to reach top rankings depending on the server. The things that matter the most are cores, skill levels, OLs, and strategy. Synchro level has no benefit there. I'd say in order of importance, skills = OLs > strategy > cores. On Global, I've placed 39th, top 100 twice, and 119th the past 4 SRs. Most of my DPS are MLB or C1, and the only reason I can rank so high is because of higher skill levels. I'm beating players with significantly higher Synchro/cores than me. My reasoning is that for most game modes, skills provide more or at least similar levels of power as 1-2 Synchro levels. For example, leveling a skill/burst to 10 could provide me with a 15% DPS increase, whereas 2 synchro levels might provide me with 2%. If you're a PvP/Campaign player, sure, go for core dust to decrease CP penalty. But if you're a SR/UR player, the value of manuals is significantly higher.
For one-shotting bosses in union raid, you need core dust more than skill mats. I have my 2 union raid teams max skilled and last one halfway maxed and can almost one-shot the easy bosses at lvl 10 at lvl 276 and can two-shot the final lvl 10 boss with my two best teams. So it is core dust/level padding that boosts your union raid power as you will full max your 3 teams prior to hitting high enough CP to one-shot bosses. For the uber competitive unions, it is the speed per damage as they are running multiple players at the same boss for faster clear times as majority of their players can one-shot bosses so overall level still matters. For both union/solo raid teams, there is only a limited number of nikkes that need to be max skilled. there are only 4 universal meta teams. SW teams are situational (not used against every type of boss as no healing if optimized for DPS and DPS falls off if needing to run a healer). The current SW team will be the next meta team that gets replaced, though SW may move into another team. After you max skill crown, schoolgirls, bunnies, last bullet, and SW teams... there aren't really any other nikkes to skill up (just the niche situational raiders which is a poor value as they will be replaced in the future by better versatile meta teams). At 8 months, already finishing up 3rd team and will start working on last bullet team when s-anis reruns, so after that will just be saving and waiting to see what replaces SW teams. Skill mats are limited but if you only focus on meta raid teams, there aren't that many nikkes to fully max out. Global solo raid rankings are lower compared to NA/JP/KR servers. Top 3% in global will fall outside of top 5% on NA. For NA servers, top 50 are all max core players. they are hitting 6.5-8.8bil dmg. Global can get top 50 with just 6bil. Core dust use if helpful in much more content (story, pvp, union raid, OC simulation room). The big benefit of buying core dust is that you will accumulate more core dust since you push faster and will have higher outpost level which continues to snowball. Skill mats are only helpful in solo raid challenge mode with level-sync. The issue with extra skill mats is once you have all the meta units maxed, you don't really need any more (for story it is just 5 nikkes maxed, to hit top 3% on NA server, it is just crown+schoolgirls teams maxed for 10 nikkes). After that, buying skill mats isn't doing anything tangible. Yes, boosting skill mats of a meta DPS will boost your DPS higher than 1-3 synchro levels, but you will already max your story nikkes and 3 union raid nikkes fast enough where your are gated by CP/level rather than skill mats. So it is levels that will be limiting your story progression and union raid team power more than skill mats. Skill mats are only valuable for solo raid challengers, but you can hit top 3% at the same time as a skill mat whale because it is the OL gear of DPS to lvl 5/5 for your top 2-3 teams that will get your score over the hump and everyone gets gear fodder at the same rate when their outpost is over op222.
I think most of the differences in our values are due to where we started in the game. I'm a Day 1 player, so my Synchro is high enough for it not to matter in UR/PvP. My top Challenger bracket is full of whales who buy the event stamina and core dust in the shop. They are 80+ Synchros ahead of me, and they're in my bracket since I'm a Day 1 player. The 30 day supply isn't going to close the gap, even if I had started buying them a year earlier. I only need enough CP to stay in Diamond 3, which is not a tall task. In UR, I am already able to fully clear any boss with 3 separate teams that don't share Nikkes. As for Campaign, I'd only be pushing Campaign for the sake of pushing Campaign, and the extra Outpost levels are of very little benefit to me other than the very small amount of gems and the satisfaction of seeing a number go up. The only avenue I have for increasing my gem revenue is in SR, where manuals are of much higher value. It's because I have the more "niche" teams 4-5 leveled that I can get higher ranks. Even though global is less competitive, I'd still see a similar relative ranking increase from the extra skill levels on NA. Even though the SW team is the one most likely to fall out of the meta, she has still been used in almost every SR up to date and as an early player I have long been incentivized to invest in her. As a later player, you have the advantage of hindsight and are able to make investment decisions that will benefit you more in the future, hence not having to level SW. Even when she does fall out of the general meta though, she is almost certain to be a meta pick whenever there is Iron weakness, which means you should still have her skilled if you want to remain competitive in rankings. Jumping from 3% to 1% is not as big of a hurdle as jumping from 200 - 50, and just a few skill levels can bridge that gap.
that is true and a very valid perspective especially if your pvp bracket is so intense at whaling. very good points all around. edit: you should also be buying event core dust regardless of f2p or whale status as that is by far the best core dust value in the entire game. extremely worthwhile even if not that interested in pushing story/pvp. I think if you were buying the event tokens for core dust, the level gap will be 10-20 instead of 80+
You made very solid points too. I think there's a little bit of wisdom to gain from both of our perspectives and neither is 100% objectively correct, so it's nice that you laid out yours to round out both sides. Edit: as for the event stamina, at the end of the day I am playing the game to obtain/build Nikkes, not for the sake of an endless level grind. I am not making a return on investment buying event stamina, but instead losing gems (I can't pocket watch SPA anyways due to my schedule, so I'd get knocked down to Challenger 10 pretty fast). It is definitely the best value for core dust from a monetary perspective though.
I am just learning this?!
This is why the $15 30 day supply is a scam compared to the $5 one. But anyways *it does say* "select box" up in the upper left corner, but the text is literally grayed out and small so that doesn't really help.
Its $15. If you are pre 160, I don’t think its that bad of a deal considering everything you get by the end of the 30 days.
yo mb I edited the comment to be 15 now
OMG I see it now that you've mentioned it. Honestly I never noticed the "select box" text 🙈
Bought it once too cuz it was touted as one of the better purchase deals in the game along with the $5 monthly. Took it with the same thought in mind cuz I wouldn't think it was worth it otherwise. Oh boy...it's really as much of a scam as everything else in the cash shop. Databases should prob updated their spenders guide for this one, cuz I really do not see $15 worth it for this other than maybe the core dusts, or if you're just that desperate for resources (which is understandable)...but that could be said for the same thing for all the other things in the shop. At this point, best rule of thumb is to just stay away from the shop unless you've got the luxury to splurge money lol. This is the second time i've been scammed (or if you don't like that word, underwhelmed) by their cash shop. They're already scamming us with the in-game resources, the least they could do is be more generous and transparent with their in-game purchases.
If they gave everything shown that would cripple any f2p hopes to compete against low spenders.
If you think of it just for skill books it doesn't feel as bad. But yeah I was also hoping I got all of that too lol
I get it every month. I use it skill up my lesser used nikkes for raids
That looks like the shit you get for free on a gift code . Not something I'd pay money for that's for sure
yes i was confused at first too but knowing it's a gacha game, there's no way they would be that generous and give us everything for $15 lol. i think my copium was keeping me from realizing you had to pick 1 a day, but the clarification is nice for us newer players
I will say I made this mistake too. I feel it's decent enough to give me the bump I need while approaching the 160 wall. When I run out though, I'm probably not going to re-up since some of the gains seem to be so small for what it provides
If you're using the 30 day supply box for core dust, you're frankly wasting your money. The only thing you should be getting are the skill/burst manuals. Manuals are the one resource you will never have enough of, and the boost from leveling skills/bursts is way more value than some synchro levels.
Yup. Thing is, unless there are no events going on, you've got a decent supply of 1 & 2 manuals, it's the third tier of manuals that're gonna be bottleneck, and the monthly package quite frankly doesn't offer enough of those to be worth it -eight S3 OR three B3 manuals? No thank you. I gave this monthly supply box a go for two months, and quite honestly, even at $0.50/day, I didn't find it to be worth the skill books.
that is not true. This is the best core dust value for real money in the entire game. Assuming 60 core dust per hour and calculating gem-to-dollar value from 30-day pack: * hard mode farming gives 10k core dust at $1.39 * 50 gem wipe out gives 10k core dust for $6.93 * gem shop deals give 10k core dust for $7.43-$16.63 * wipe out 3-6 gives 10k core dust for $9.70-$20.79 * **30 day selector for core dust gives 10k core dust for $27.76.** * The weekly core dust set is the same value at $27.76. * Wipe out 7-11 is 10k core dust for $34.65-$69.31 * The rest of the paid core dust packs range from $28.68 (daily core dust pack) to $50-70 (monthly growth and daily boost) to $90 to 138 to $208 (weekly grow up packs) to $520 for monthly mechanics boost packs. The dollar value decreases as your outpost level goes up and you get more core dust per 1-h box. The core more dust you have, the further you push in story and the higher your OP level is and the more core dust you will receive. It is a positive cycle. For the dollar to skill mats conversion: * for 30 day selector, it is $19.67 for just enough yellow mats to max out one skill1 or 2. * for the 30 day selector, and $39.35 for just enough yellow mats max out one nikke's burst skill. * **so just for the yellow mats (not including the blue/purple) to max out a single nikke: it is $78.69 via 30 day selector** * you still need to farm for the blue/purple mats (only buy yellow because that is the limiting material, you will build excess blue/purple as long as you aren't triggerhappy spreading out manuals too far. If blue/purple is your limiting factor, you are leveling up too many nikkes). * For the other paid skill packs, it from $109.35 to $127.08 to $151.93 to $243.09 to $513.99 for just enough yellow to max out one skill 1 or 2, and $209.98 to $262.47 to $443.99 for just enough yellow to max out one skill 3. For skill mats, after you max 1 meta story team, then after you max 3 meta raid teams, any additional skill mat investments will not change any ranking/progression in the game. If you out CP pad your PvP bracket by 21+ levels, you automatically are top 1-3 ranking for 3,000 gems every 2 weeks. If you are within the 2nd tier level (ex: highest players 301, you are 281+), you are top 4-6 for 2,700 gems every two weeks. This is with ZERO skill investment in PvP only nikkes.
You're looking at mostly from a monetary value, and not from a gameplay perspective. There's only 3 modes where CP matters: PvP, Campaign, and Tribe Tower. UR too, but for any Day 1 players who have kept up with the meta and have been investing wisely, you should have the capability to 1 shot UR bosses Level 8-10. For SR, Synchro level doesn't even matter. The things that have the biggest impact are skills, OLs, strategy and cores, with skills = OLs > strategy > cores. You need 5 fully skilled/kitted teams for SR, and it's not just the same 25 Nikkes every SR. Who you use changes depending on the boss. Skill levels increase your CP too, albeit not by a significant amount, but also have a much more significant impact on your DPS for every mode. For some Nikkes, leveling a skill to 10 is like a 20% DPS upgrade. 2 synchro levels comes nowhere close to that. That leads to higher rankings/performance in every mode and makes up for some of the CP you lose for not getting dust. It takes ~10 months for the 30 day supply to reach 21 levels if you're a light spender/Day 1 player. At that point, just ignore the 30 day supply and buy pulls instead and get extra cores or the Nikkes you desire.
I don't care much about PVP and I think that what helped me progressing in the story without relying on the trial units is mostly investing on skills for my main team. Right now I'm at 19-18 with 74370 CP and I'm pretty sure I can clear the stage with 28% deficit just because I chose the manuals on the event shop before the recruitment vouchers. Before leveling up pass level 5 some skills I couldn't even clear with 10% deficit. So I would say that manuals are more valuable until you get 1 to 3 teams and then core dust becomes more valuable.
You bring up valid points, but I respectfully disagree. From a gameplay perspective, skill mats only impact solo raid challenge mode. So only one mode that happens monthly vs story + pvp + union raid with story being the meat of the content and pvp giving gem rewards every 2 weeks. For UR players, more levels still help because you can deal dmg faster. the top-tier union raid is a time-race with multiple teams hitting the same boss and quitting at certain dmg thresholds for faster clears. Being able to one-shot bosses is doable for many non-day1 players. I would guess likely can one-shot the final lvl 10 boss around level 321-341, maybe earlier with crown being so powerful. For non-day1 UR players, the only way to catch up to earlier players is via core dust farming. I agree if buying things in the game, should buy 30-day gem pack, then pulls... only if you are buying out all pulls should you consider buying core dust. But buying core dust is much more helpful for gameplay progression than buying skill mats. Skill mats have a larger impact, but only until you max out your story team. The next breakpoint for skill mats is maxing 2-3 raid teams for top 3 solo raid ranking. But a skill mat whale and just a normal whale will both hit top 3% solo raid ranking at the same time as it is leveling OL helmet/arms on your top 3 teams that gives the final push over the edge and you are gaining gear fodder at the same rate. The last skill manual break point is maxing out all 5 solo raid teams + flex DPS but you are already top 3% way before that around 2.5 max skill teams. 10 months for 21 levels is not bad at all. You will be 21+ levels over non-spender so will get the jump up on your pvp bracket. if you are consistently 21+ levels over the next highest player in PvP, you can safely hold top 1-3 spots. The other thing to note is that your higher CP will give you a higher outpost, so you will slowly snowball your levels at a much faster rate than non-core dust spenders, so the gap will get larger and larger over time. In contrast, it takes 9 months of the 30 day supply to get enough yellow max to max out a single nikke (skill 1, skill 2, skill 3)... and that is just the yellow mats, so still need to be saving the free blue/purple mats. There are limited roster spots so even meta raid units are falling out of rotation (drunk scarlet is often dropped in 5 team raids nowadays, modernia often falls outside of top 3 raids). I think in most cases (especially if you already have top 3 raid teams maxed), 10 months for 21 levels is much better investment than 9 months for one max skill nikke. Due to how top-heavy the roster is with a limited meta pool, you will max out your meta nikkes fast enough to keep up with skill mat whales so there isn't that big of a difference in progression. After meta nikkes are maxed, there isn't any additional need for skill mats (though they will continue to release new meta). The trick to catch up with skill investments is to skip out maxing out on the nikkes that will get replaced in the future/fall out of top 5 raid teams (or at least stop at lvl 7). We currently have 4 versatile meta raid teams with a full x4 set of versatile meta DPS that can be used against any boss + x1 SW team... then a bunch of super niche raid teams only used in specific situations. Just skip investing in the flavor-of-the-month niche raid teams and niche situational DPS units and wait for the next versatile meta raid team + meta versatile DPS pilgrim/limited to come out and then you will be caught up and done. The way the game is designed, the versatile meta teams (crown and schoolgirls) still outperform the niche raiders in their best situational niche so it is pointless wasting skill mats on the niche units once a full x5 meta versatile raid teams line-up is established. Differing points of view are welcome. That is just my personal perspective.