Analysis: Fullmetal Alchemist Collab

Introduction
After some screwiness with the NA stream a couple weeks ago, it turns out that we're getting the fairly anticipated FMA collab after all. What a nice surprise! At first this might appear to be a pretty decent machine; with four diamond rolls among just ten cards total, the odds of pulling something decent must be at least passable, right?

Well, I wouldn't fault anyone for assuming that, but sadly it's not quite how GungHo's rates work. As more and more official rates become revealed, we're getting a better look at how they're actually assigned. It appears that higher rarity rolls are assigned whatever low rate GungHo deems appropriate (typically around 2% for the highest rarity in a collab) and then the rest is simply filled in with the lowest rarity cards.

This isn't inherently bad; it's actually kind of nice if a machine has a diversity of reasonably good low rarity cards, for instance. Unfortunately, FMA only has four diamond rolls, meaning that the non-diamond rate is a massive 90%. To make things worse, the low-tier rolls all push the lower end of mediocrity and are even more useless in dupes. If you specifically want one of the six five-star cards (Scar in particular is pretty nice for farming) this can be sort of nice, but the average value of this machine is, to put it bluntly, poor. It's slightly cruel to make a machine this top-heavy without even a diversity of low-star cards.

It's not all bad, though; if you do manage to brave the awful rates, Edward is quite the prize. Our short Elric brother stands out as one of today's best leaders. None of the other diamonds are quite in his league, though they do all have their uses. I'll personally be tossing in a few rolls regardless since I'm a fan of the franchise. This should really be the only reason for most players to roll this machine anyways.

irinya's notes: Kiri Teambuilding in February C10

Introduction
As with last time, here's a guide on how to build Kiri for this month's Challenge 10 with a very gentle REM requirement aside from Kiri herself. I've presented a few different options to hopefully make the build accessible to as many players as possible. As such, these builds do not require you to own Zeus Verse. In the same vein, this guide assumes that you do not have the unbindable leader badge.

I do actually think that Kiri is one of the better ways to approach this month's final Challenge. Even for players who do have the tools in their box to take down the diversity of mechanics this dungeon has to offer, clearing with Kiri is likely to be at least as reliable (if not more). Further, contrary to some of the horror stories you might have heard about cheese, this clear should take no more than 20-25 minutes total even if you zone out a bit, as you are simply making 1c without any further thought on the vast majority of your turns.

Because I'm only covering one dungeon this time, instead of three, I'll also take this opportunity to go into build options in more depth and detail, and it's thus my hope that this writeup will outline the thought process behind sub selections and cheese teambuilding better than the previous one did, and in doing so be more informative to players as well.

Analysis: New Year's Gacha

Introduction
I'm hesitant to label this one as an "in-depth" analysis, since a lot of these cards don't really have anything interesting to go in-depth about.

Traditionally one of the most trashy seasonal gachas in the game, NY comes back this year with a smattering of new content. Unfortunately, this fails to fix the REM's main problem: almost all the reasonably good pulls are locked behind higher rarities and poor rates. There are only five rolls below the 6* rarity (none of which are especially phenomenal), but together they add up to a staggering 73% pull rate. There's not too much else to say from a gameplay perspective; the NY REM is suuuuuper dated and simply isn't remarkable or worthwhile for most players.

It's disappointing that the rates remain so awful even after three silvers were stripped and tossed into the event dungeon as invades. In case you've missed the message thus far, probably don't roll this thing.

aFireBlaze Quits

Simply put, I (aFireBlaze) am done with PAD. As a player that was active on PAD for 1150+ days, the amount of content being released recently is not only overwhelming, but also becoming increasingly stale with inflated mechanics + the interests in pursuing other hobbies are of my main focus since the past couple of months. JP has also failed to uphold their anniversary stream (not surprising, but also very disappointing to expect it so) which was something I hoped for fresh, interesting content to come out.

I apologize for not updating the blog with the farming guide and other resources. The delay for Monster Hunter review in particular was also due to us being caught up in life shenanigans. I had plans for them originally, but they dwindled over the past month as the upcoming content being released continued to be stale. Analysis for theorycrafting was going to be based off of the videos I made here, but that will be dead too.

TL;DR this blog is still active and Irinya has plans to update this blog with resources and other helpful information, but aFireBlaze will be quitting. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting us, and we hope that this blog is still helpful in any way for people who crave a different insight on the game.

[from irinya: we'll all be so sad to see you go. Thank you so much for all your contributions both here and everywhere, from your guides to your ludicrous farming builds and more. You'll be missed so much.]

In-Depth Analysis: Monster Hunter Returns

Introduction
Monster Hunter is finally back in NA (after, for some reason, skipping a cycle) and there's some interesting stuff this time around. While we don't want to rain on your parade too much, the machine's hefty 10-stone cost combined with our recurring theme that interesting doesn't always mean good sadly puts this machine's value a bit lower than we'd like. It's still not bad at all, and nearly all the cards have some kind of usage case, but for non-whales it's not reliably good enough to be worth rolling to any considerable extent. (Most collabs, including this one, pale in comparison to something like DBDC.)

This isn't to say the best cards aren't good, of course. Diablos, though beginning to be overshadowed by new leaders and new mechanics, is still an absolute powerhouse. Amatsu can probably be argued to be the best sub in the game. The new Nergigante is stellar in pretty much all departments. In a time where the "best" cards are susceptible to change more rapidly than ever, the glitter isn't worth the risk and stone input for most players. On the other hand you should be very pleased if you do happen to roll one of the excellent prize cards.

Every single card in this machine has received an equip evolution, and we'll be discussing those in the cards' respective sections below. Remember that equip evolutions are not reversible. We will talk about which equips are and aren't worth making, but as a rule of thumb, since they are irreversible, you should generally not proceed with an equip evolution until you know you'll have some use for it.

Finally, and honestly more exciting than the REM cards, are the Male and Female Hunters. Each player gets both a Male Hunter and a Female Hunter for free, with additional Hunters being buyable for 200k MP. Though they are technically farmable, we'll include a review of each Hunter as well, since 200k MP can be a steep investment for many players and there is thus a corresponding opportunity cost.

In-Depth Analysis: King of Fighters

Introduction
Apologies for the delay. Both of us got caught up by the holidays and by KoF's unexpectedly early NA release.

While all the cards in KoF have flashy, striking art, most of them are not that worthwhile. You can tell that GungHo is trying to make cards a bit more interesting and flavorful, giving every card in this machine some kind of side evo (for the five-stars) or pixel evo (for the six-stars). Unfortunately, interesting doesn't always correlate well to usable, and KoF is on the whole a pretty skippable machine. Almost all of the five-star rolls make for pretty useless subs and fairly niche inherits at best. They all have shorter reviews because there's simply not that much to say about them. The six-stars, on the other hand, are actually fairly great overall and have correspondingly deeper analysis, but of course are also fairly excruciating to roll. These factors add up to a highly top-heavy machine, and top-heavy special machines are typically not worth the bait for most players no matter how shiny said bait might be. This is especially true now, when the "best" cards in the game shift more rapidly than ever.

Additionally, do not get fooled by KoF's "no silvers". The gold rolls are not meaningfully better than typical silvers and have comparable rates, while the diamond rates are still 2% or lower each. All of the five-star rolls have extremely poor weighted stat totals; every card has a weighted of around 705, which, for comparison, is poorer than Christmas Hatsume's. This is especially bad in context of today's typical power level; at least Hatsume has the excuse of being a year old. "No silvers" here is effectively just a marketing tool.

All the five-star rolls have a "Second Player Color" or "Third Player Color" ult evo with different awakenings (but keeping the same stat lineup, active skill, etc.). In the reviews below, we'll give some insight into which form might generally be preferred. The six-star rolls all have Pixel forms that are different enough to merit separate analyses entirely.