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Sword Art Online: Memory Defrag |OT| A Little Kirito in Your Pocket

Ranking Rewards are out! Used my medals and got Kirito. Really wanted that Asuna but oh wells, will update on his skills once I level him a bit. Also, seems like they use specialised items for both limit breaking and skill slots. Skill slot 1 is the standard atk/crit up using void medallions. Skill slot 2 gives you MP on parry and needs the sword dance medallion which you can only get (AFAIK) in the current ranking event, and you need top 3 X_X. Maybe I'm being really greedy here, but I wish they gave them out last ranking event too. My current group seems to be full of whales, so would probably do worse in this one. Current top has Lvl 90 Philia with OS Dagger, Lvl 85 OS Lis with OS Mace, lvl 80 OS Sinon AND lvl 95 OS Kirito with OS Sword. Going to be near impossible to beat that kind of team. Seriously thinking of farming 6 x R4 Light Accessory to help compete. I had farmed 3 sets of cheerleader equipment previously, but now I need to equip 2 teams

Going to roll for CheerLeader Strea to solve my rapier blues if a rate up for her occurs.. Hopefully complaining here helps =)
 

Jeffrey

Member
Everyone bragging about no hit master + clear while I'm thrilled at beating ex lol.

I still kinda hate how I occasionally jump instead of dash :/
 

Pejo

Member
Man, I was loving this game at first, now the content is getting too difficult and grindy for me. Namely the level 80/100 versions of dungeons that you have to group up to beat.

I don't find the controls precise enough to be able to land parries consistently, and it's annoying as hell to play with a gunner/mage without blocking.

The only OS character I got was Sinon, and I just can't play well with her.

Also, the lack of a stamina mechanic means that these grind events are pretty ridiculous with time commitment. Think I'll just be doing dailies and easy events from here on out.
 

Jeffrey

Member
Not interested in the grind. My goal for this game is to solo the bosses at a decent difficulty than than satisfied lol.

Not sure what people are grinding for. You get medals so you can summon bad 4* units? P
 

Kitoro

Member
My lucky F2P team landed me top 10 in the samurai ranked event, and I'm sitting in 1st now for the new event, hopeful to remain in the top 10 by the time this one raps up.

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chrono01

Member
Yeah, time to quit. Game is trash.
The game is fine for me, but there's way too much grinding/events going on at the same time. If I had more time (and less gatcha games) to really focus on it things wouldn't be so bad, but since I don't I find myself stressed all of the time. :/
 

Kitoro

Member
The game is fine for me, but there's way too much grinding/events going on at the same time. If I had more time (and less gatcha games) to really focus on it things wouldn't be so bad, but since I don't I find myself stressed all of the time. :/

It's not like you have to grind. I play through the events for the guaranteed rewards, but I haven't bothered and won't bother with the cheerleader armor set, or any set that comes afterwards.

I'm just going to keep blasting through content and saving up for a def debuff banner to unleash on.
 

chrono01

Member
It's not like you have to grind. I play through the events for the guaranteed rewards, but I haven't bothered and won't bother with the cheerleader armor set, or any set that comes afterwards.

I'm just going to keep blasting through content and saving up for a def debuff banner to unleash on.
True, it's not required (in a lot of cases) but given that I'm a completionist in games, I can't help but collect every event unit and grind/max all of their stats. This goes for equipment too, where I need at least one of every piece fully evolved to 4*, sometimes multiple of them depending on how nice they are (such as the OS pieces).

I'd love to play the game more casually and just log in and take things at leisure, but I can't. The no-stamina requirement makes things even more tempting for me. :(
 

Articalys

Member
It all just relies too much on luck, and I got completely sick of it. Better games to play that don't require you to restart your account over and over until you get just the right kind of luck from a roulette wheel.
 
True, it's not required (in a lot of cases) but given that I'm a completionist in games, I can't help but collect every event unit and grind/max all of their stats. This goes for equipment too, where I need at least one of every piece fully evolved to 4*, sometimes multiple of them depending on how nice they are (such as the OS pieces).

I'd love to play the game more casually and just log in and take things at leisure, but I can't. The no-stamina requirement makes things even more tempting for me. :(

Yeah I get what you mean, I'm a little burnt out too. I grinded a full team set of R4 event gear for every event so far, just so I have equipment to outfit a full elemental team that I'll probably never get)

As for re-rolling, It sure is tempting to reroll whenever a nice new banner came out. Especially when its a real powerful one like the OS banner we just had. That said, the gatcha gives and the gatcha takes away. Luck will even out in the end. I'm sticking with my original account since it has stuff you can no longer get (like a fully level event Asuna). Plus I guess all those event diamonds eventually add up, and I'll end up with more 4*s even if they aren't the best ones. Kobold + Werewolf + Asuna + Daily logins probably total up to a couple of hundred MDs at least.

Even if it was somewhat unintentionally, I'm having a fairly easy time with the minotaurs since I have Leafa, and Undine Asuna for magic damage. And Yuuki is doing surprisingly well with the Rhino in the new ranking now that I upgraded her SS3 (for people with her, its pretty worth it. Mother's Rosario goes from 2k a small hit to like 7k a hit, and it speeds up just like OS Asuna's). These are all units that I wouldn't have if I rerolled.
 

Kitoro

Member
It all just relies too much on luck, and I got completely sick of it. Better games to play that don't require you to restart your account over and over until you get just the right kind of luck from a roulette wheel.

Sure, but that's the case for pretty much every gacha game out there.
 

Articalys

Member
Sure, but that's the case for pretty much every gacha game out there.
Love Live has been pretty fair to me for the two years I've been playing it. I've virtually never felt at a disadvantage because of luck (though admittedly, that's because the game has its own problems in that event performance basically comes down to who's willing to spend the most in-game gems to play more).
 

Jeffrey

Member
Problem I have is that most weapon types kinda suck for ranking events.

No reason why range weapons can't parry imo.
 

chrono01

Member
sadly, we have to be whales :/ no chance for minnows like us
I understand that, as a F2P, you can't pull on every single gatcha. I'm conditioned for this, with the other gatcha games I play. However, this game (in-particular) has more "limited-time only" gatcha in a smaller time-frame than anything else I've played previously, and the methods of earning enough Memory Diamonds isn't even close to the amount needed for a F2P. Hell, even for the whales on Reddit it's too much for them.

We still have the OS banner, then came the Cheer one, and now we have the Festival version. That's three character banners, and three weapons banners, with no promises that we'll ever see these characters again. :(
 

W-00

Member
So which of the three banners, OS, Cheer, and Hinamatsuri, is best to pull on? I've already got two OS characters (Silica and Sinon). I don't have their "proper" weapons, but my item box is already overflowing so I'm not really looking to pull weapons right now.
 

chrono01

Member
So which of the three banners, OS, Cheer, and Hinamatsuri, is best to pull on? I've already got two OS characters (Silica and Sinon). I don't have their "proper" weapons, but my item box is already overflowing so I'm not really looking to pull weapons right now.
OS Kirito/OS Asuna are better than anything the Cheer/Festival banners have to offer, but you do already have OS Silica (who's also amazing) and OS Sinon. Ideally, if you could grab either OS Kirito or OS Asuna you'd be set, but up to you if you want to take the chance of getting a dupe. As for the other banners, only pull if you like their character/art. They're nothing special, nowhere near the quality of OS.
 
So which of the three banners, OS, Cheer, and Hinamatsuri, is best to pull on? I've already got two OS characters (Silica and Sinon). I don't have their "proper" weapons, but my item box is already overflowing so I'm not really looking to pull weapons right now.

Here's my take

OS: Best in terms of raw power. Combo timer boost means they will do very well on ranking events as well. Self healing makes them pretty self-sufficient

Cheer: Only Holy element chars in game besides Seven, so good for events with Dark-type bosses. I think (but am not sure) elemental advantage is 1.5x damage. Team buff means all your other characters gets better, so if you were already planning to use non-OS chars (since they all have a ATK buff and it doesn't stack) it can be fairly useful

Hina: Only Wind-types besides Leafa. So you might want one to exploit elemental advantage. Move-speed buff might be useful if there's hard hitting attacks you have to dodge

Basically unless you want to have an elemental 4* of all types, you should probably stick to OS to have an above average team that sort of does everything. I'm planning to go elemental route since I already have wind, water, dark covered, but no luck with the Cheer banner as of yet

New Event boss hits crazily hard at Master. Only managed to clear it twice, none of it at S Rank. Need to figure out this aggro mechanic thing. The only thing I can reliably parry so far is the vertical smash that leads to a wall of fire, but only Liz block the previous horizontal swing without getting guard broken. Dashing gets me past the earth pillars, but the auto jumping keeps making me get hit
 

Jeffrey

Member
I don't mind spending money but man are diamonds a bit too pricey. Especially when they offer no safety nets for summons.
 

darkwing

Member
I don't mind spending money but man are diamonds a bit too pricey. Especially when they offer no safety nets for summons.

it is pricey, and unlike in some other gatcha games like FE where a 4 star hero can still be useful, 3* heroes here are useless
 

W-00

Member
Thanks for the advice. I don't need to look for Holy since Seven was my starter, so I guess it's either OS or save for the future. But since OS is brand new for Japan as well, it will probably be quite a long time before we get another banner of comparable quality. So I suppose it's OS, again.

And we have Argo sparkles!

...aaand it's Silica again. At least that's a limit break. The only one that wasn't a dupe was a 3* Heathcliff.
 
Also all the slow 4* are useless too. Along with range attackers kinda lol.

Mace users are pretty good, esp now that aggro is in. Your guard gauge lasts way longer than others.

On the new boss you can parry both vertical slashes and the spin. Spin comes up way too fast for me to do it normally though. For this boss, jumping is key. When you see him wind up with the scythe behind him, jump, then if he follows up with the vertical slash, parry. Else you can get off your basic combo.

Also the boss targets one user, so if you are targeted focus on dodging and parrying. The other 2 should go behind the boss for free hits. if you are targeted try not to dodge behind the boss cos that will make your teammates have to move.

For the earth pillars just keep moving and try to stay away from the boss and your teammates. The boss does an additional hit when she flies back down that is almost a one hit KO combined with pillar damage.
 
Can I ask what are the timings in JST (Japan Standard Time) for the EXP rabbit dungeons?

It depends on the server you're on. If you are playing on ASN server, I think its 12 noon, 9 pm and some time in the morning.


How's everyone's ranking going? I'm sitting in second place with 2.63M, pretty happy with this score since I did it without an OS Kirito or Asuna
 

W-00

Member
So there I was, feeling down about how there weren't any more low-hanging diamonds to farm, when I accidentally clicked on the main quest tab and saw something I hadn't noticed before: the word "NORMAL". I pressed it, and lo and behold I can do the main quest battles again for more diamonds! At a harder difficulty, sure, but this time I have characters at max level!

I promptly farmed up enough diamonds for another 11-pull, and did the responsible thing and chose the OS box. Argo sparkled! Please not Silica or Sinon, please not Silica or Sinon (I already have them)...

Asuna! I wasn't trolled this time!

I think that will probably be the last roll I make in the OS character box. I know having Kirito would be nice (I haven't seen anyone use Liz), but the chances of a dupe are just too high at this point.
 

chrono01

Member
So there I was, feeling down about how there weren't any more low-hanging diamonds to farm, when I accidentally clicked on the main quest tab and saw something I hadn't noticed before: the word "NORMAL". I pressed it, and lo and behold I can do the main quest battles again for more diamonds! At a harder difficulty, sure, but this time I have characters at max level!

I promptly farmed up enough diamonds for another 11-pull, and did the responsible thing and chose the OS box. Argo sparkled! Please not Silica or Sinon, please not Silica or Sinon (I already have them)...

Asuna! I wasn't trolled this time!

I think that will probably be the last roll I make in the OS character box. I know having Kirito would be nice (I haven't seen anyone use Liz), but the chances of a dupe are just too high at this point.
Congrats!

I'm the same as you, only the opposite. I have OS Kirito/Sinon/Lizbeth, but really want Silica/Asuna (Asuna, in-particular). However, chances of a dupe are too high, so I'm not going to press my luck. :/
 
how is the new free 4* character? Rekha?

Having used her (lvl 80, attributes maxed, still LBing) she's ok but not great. She's kind of an OS-lite with a damaging SS3 that self-heals, though she heals for a lot less. Her main problem like most event units is her stats. At Lvl 100 if you LB attack all the way, she'll have a decent attack, but be relatively squishy, and by squishy, I mean OS Silica levels, which is not what you are looking for in a tank. I'm not sure how much LBing defense gets you, but it should make her fairly tanky, but deal lousy damage, and I'm not sure she can grab aggro that way.

Also, being Light/Holy element kinda hurts her. If she was say a Fire type, you could bring her in on Wind bosses and use elemental advantage to cover her weaknesses (take less damage and deal more), but using her against a Dark element boss means you are even squishier than normal.

I would say she's like the other event chars, use her if you need a mace user (for example if theres a boss that needs a lot of blocking), and if you don't have anyone better.
 

darkwing

Member
Having used her (lvl 80, attributes maxed, still LBing) she's ok but not great. She's kind of an OS-lite with a damaging SS3 that self-heals, though she heals for a lot less. Her main problem like most event units is her stats. At Lvl 100 if you LB attack all the way, she'll have a decent attack, but be relatively squishy, and by squishy, I mean OS Silica levels, which is not what you are looking for in a tank. I'm not sure how much LBing defense gets you, but it should make her fairly tanky, but deal lousy damage, and I'm not sure she can grab aggro that way.

Also, being Light/Holy element kinda hurts her. If she was say a Fire type, you could bring her in on Wind bosses and use elemental advantage to cover her weaknesses (take less damage and deal more), but using her against a Dark element boss means you are even squishier than normal.

I would say she's like the other event chars, use her if you need a mace user (for example if theres a boss that needs a lot of blocking), and if you don't have anyone better.

it's what I noticed too, I've got OS Liz and even at lvl80 she is really a tank, and her SS3 protects her when she does damage
 

W-00

Member
So I had 250+ diamonds again. And I found myself looking at the Scouting boxes again. I knew better than to roll in OS again (because of the risk of dupes). I knew it would be a bad idea to roll at all right now.

But I liked the look of the Hina-Matsuri characters. So, on a whim, I made an 11-roll.

Argo sparkled.

Premiere came out. Then Silica came out. Then Silica came out, again.

Three 4* in a single roll (or two and a limit break, if you want to look at it that way). I don't think I'm going to be getting a better roll than that for a long time.
 

MSMrRound

Member
Are the rates of getting at least one 4* character in a 250 diamond pull pretty good? I mean, there's the off chance you can get absolutely nothing at all as well right?

Slowly building up to another 250 pool...
 

W-00

Member
Are the rates of getting at least one 4* character in a 250 diamond pull pretty good? I mean, there's the off chance you can get absolutely nothing at all as well right?

Slowly building up to another 250 pool...

Unless there's something going on behind the scenes that they aren't telling us about (which I'm pretty sure would be illegal, at least in Japan), the odds of pulling at least one 4* in a given 11-pull are a just over 36%. So really you're more likely to end up with nothing good than you are to get something good. My recent results are far, far from average. I've been insanely lucky lately.
 
That's great luck! On another note, Rechka may not be as bad as I thought. It doesn't say so on the description, but her SS3 also gives her a DEF buff in addition to the heal and damage, so she's tankier than expected.

I did my medal scouts and got Kirito X_X. That Lambent light in my inventory is never getting any use...
 

chrono01

Member
I'm giving up on this game, not just for the rush of content but for the gatcha rates.

I saw that the equipment trading was in, so I figured I'd do some multi summons on the weapon gatcha to try for Kirito's sword (since I had his OS version). 750 Memory Diamonds later and I got one single 4* weapon. Considering four are needed to trade in I'm nowhere near close. Well, I'd be able to if I traded in OS Lizbeth and OS Sinon's weapons, along with the healing staff and dagger I have, but I'd rather keep the OS weapons (given that I also own those characters). I was hoping to get, at least, three 4* weapons out of that many diamonds (so I didn't have to trade in my current OS ones), but I guess that wasn't meant to be.

Like, holy shit, what a waste. So many useless 2/3* weapons cluttering my inventory now and nothing to do with them. I'll probably give it a day or two and then just remove the game from my phone. I like the series, but this is just depressing.
 

Articalys

Member
Further demonstrating my belief that the trade-off for a game like this having no stamina system is a much, much stingier gacha system... or rather, a gacha system with only three tiers where the rarest tier far outclasses the middle one.
 

chrono01

Member
Further demonstrating my belief that the trade-off for a game like this having no stamina system is a much, much stingier gacha system... or rather, a gacha system with only three tiers where the rarest tier far outclasses the middle one.
Yeah, I'm beginning to see that.

Honestly, I was a bit lukewarm on the game anyway, despite having an okay set of characters (OS Kirito/Lizbeth/Sinon, SAO Silica, Philia). Having to constantly login to farm points for events or rankings, then do the same for equipment drops (as well as character Limit Break materials), it was just a little much. I get that I didn't HAVE to do all of those things, but just knowing that they were there (with rewards sitting behind them), I couldn't not complete them.

As it is, I'll probably just resort to daily login's until I get bored enough and call it quits for good. Honestly, the grinding aspect probably wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't already have so many games in my backlog waiting to play. :(
 
Further demonstrating my belief that the trade-off for a game like this having no stamina system is a much, much stingier gacha system... or rather, a gacha system with only three tiers where the rarest tier far outclasses the middle one.

I kinda get you guys. I think they really need a way to reward F2Pers better. Event chars are just a little too weak right now. Or maybe OS chars are way too strong (and self reliant). They are tops at self healing AND dps, usually you trade off one for the other. This makes the medal scout characters look way underpowered compared to OS, I'm not sure how they they vs Hina Banner, but its at least comparable I think.

It may not feel like it, but 4% is decent for a gatcha game. I recall CC global was like 1.7% initially and I never got a 5* besides my initial re-roll. But CC had good event units that carried you through events and event weapons gave a gigantic boost to dps. Maybe if the cheerleader armband gave 10, 20, 100 % boost (for R2-4) it would close the gap between dedicated F2Pers and causal whales.

Counting my 4*s I have:
3 Grindy Event 4* (those with events to grind to max them to 100)
3 normal Event 4* (those that use normal crystals to lvl, like Yuna and Camisole Asuna)
8 Gatcha 4*

If you count rerolling + guaranteed pulls, that means I got 5 Gatcha 4* normally (out of 91 total pulls including the guaranteeds), so slightly above expected rates. I also somehow got no dupes besides the free Kirito, So the avg F2Per probably only has like 4 usable characters at anytime (if you drop duds like Skill Connect Kirito) That lack of variety in characters will kill the game in time, since this game has a lot of grinding.

Hopefully, they will introduce better ways to get characters. 1 250 pull a month with a guaranteed 4* would be nice. I think something like new Daily Mission for 2 Hacking Crystals to play 5 Multiplayer quests would also help. Long term F2Pers can then max out any of the good 4* they get to Lvl 100
 

Jeffrey

Member
I like how fe literally turned character polls into a game mode.

Love all the fan art on reddit lol.


But yeah Sao events are too involved lol. Almost wish the game had a energy system lol.
 

Articalys

Member
Oh wow, they just jumped straight to Alicization characters.
Practically guaranteed there's going to be the anime S3 announcement at the Dengeki festival in a couple hours.

edit: for what it's worth, there were two Dengeki event SAO panels today. The earlier one, just for the video games, was what this announcement was from, by way of announcing they were adding the Alicization characters to ALL the SAO games (including Hollow Realization and the upcoming vs. Accel World game). The later one starting shortly will be where they'll certainly announce S3.

edit 2: or I guess not? Kind of surprised they're just randomly adding them.
 
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