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.

---

Card Ratings and Analyses
You can click on a rarity or a card's name to jump to the corresponding section of analysis. The arrow ↑ at the bottom right of each analysis will take you back up here. Please see this page for an explanation of the rating criteria.

Rate data is provided by GungHo.

Rarity	Card	Roll %	Sub	Lead	Assist	Overall
5	Hawkeye	15.00%	D+	C-	B*	C
	Winry		C-	D+	B-	C
	Hughes		D+	D-	C-	D+
	Ling		C	C+	B+	B-
	Armstrong		C-	C-	C	C-
	Scar		C	D+	A*	B
6	Mustang	2.50 %	B-	C	B+*	B
	Edward		A	S	B+	S
	Alphonse		A-	B	A-	A-
	Bradley		B	C+	B	B

   * denotes substantial or unique (or both) farming usage.

---

Riza Hawkeye [ Sub: D+ | Lead: C- | Assist: B* | Overall: C ]

HP: 3238 | ATK: 1394 | RCV: 307 | WT: 704 | Balance LS: 2.5x ATK when 5 combos, 3.5x when 7+ combos; 2x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [1/49/1] AS: Recovers Awoken Bind for 3 turns; 40 fixed damge to an enemy 3 times. [CD: 7]

Overview. The seemingly terrible active actually has a few awfully convenient usage cases, but Hawkeye isn't very good aside from them (and certainly not particularly usable in most other roles).

Sub. Her weighted stats are extremely mediocre even for a low-rarity collab roll, and this holds her back from nearly all serious purposes. Strange awakenings -- dark resist and team RCV are both quite nice but also quite situational -- and a generally subpar base active hamstring her even further. Not quite as kickass in PAD as she was in FMA proper, sadly.

Lead. Hawkeye's passable leader skill for newer players is overshadowed by the inconvenience of Hawkeye herself not bringing any OE to the table. Her awakenings are just minimally passable and this isn't something you'd want to be using for an extended period of time; most likely you can do better anyways.

Assist. Though an active like this obviously lacks general usage, there are a few situations where it can come in handy. Notably, this will one-shot any instance of Dark Metatron TAMADRA (such as in Sevenzard's dungeon) or Reincarnated Zeal (especially in Machine Athena's descend, where Zeal has 110 HP and cannot be buttoned any other way). Riza is singular for these purposes as the extremely low damage of her multi-nuke allows her to slip past the damage voids of these otherwise slow (and potentially dangerous) spawns. Quite handy for farming as well, as this is one of the only single-button solutions for Dark Metatron TAMADRA (the other one messes up your board and is in an arguably even worse collab).

In something like a longer one-shot challenge, you may be able to take advantage of this skill's very low cooldown to squeeze even more utility out of it. There are a handful of monsters that preempt a short awakening bind, and so Hawkeye's skill can be used there and then recycled later to deal with one of the aforementioned void spawns (or vice versa). All of these uses are pretty niche and none are necessary pretty much anywhere; still, this active thankfully isn't quite as useless as it first appears.

↑

---

Winry Rockbell [ Sub: C- | Lead: D+ | Assist: B- | Overall: C+ ]

HP: 2843 | ATK: 1058 | RCV: 626 | WT: 704 | Healer/Machine LS: 1.5x HP, 2x ATK for Healer & Machine Type; 2x ATK & RCV on the turn a skill is used. [2.25/16/4] AS: Recovers 30% of max HP for 4 turns; Reduces damage by 30% for 4 turns. [CD: 14]

Overview. Winry is unimpressive overall, but has a respectable niche with her somewhat unique active, which can be a lifesaver for tanky teams with no RCV multiplier (such as Light Hera Dragon or Rushana).

Sub. These days, Winry is just outclassed by virtue of her awful weighted: her damage contribution is awful (mitigated somewhat by her ability to take Dragon Killers) and there exist cards with literally triple her HP stat or more. The only place she might be slightly useful is on a Rushana team if you happen to lack better subs, as her minimalistic but passable awakenings and stat distribution are both appropriate for Rushana, and the base active happens to fit the team surprisingly well too. Still, Winry's rarely going to be the best choice for a sub slot.

Lead. This would be barely passable without the active skill clause. Said active skill clause happens to make her straight-up terrible. Do not lead with this.

Assist. Although seemingly numerically insignificant, this active is better than one might think. A 30% shield might seem too weak for any kind of reasonable usage, but can actually help high HP, low RCV teams such as the two previously mentioned to tank and recover from repeated hits or preemptives. 30% healing might not seem like much, but will add up to well over 100,000 HP over the four-turn duration when used on a Rushana team. The active fits this team archetype very well, though two weaknesses are numerical inferiority (a 30% shield is okay but not standout by any means, especially when compared to Awoken Raphael) and a very high cooldown (again, compare Raphael's 13 turns to Winry's 14). On the whole, not fantastic for general use, but certainly not unredeemable.

Note that because your team's damage is calculated and dealt before the heal goes off, this active is not as useful as you might think for teams such as Yog. However, you do get healed before the enemy attacks, so the autohealing effect is potentially relevant for leader skills with HP-conditional damage reduction, such as Edward Elric, Nergigante, and the Green Odins.

↑

---

Maes Hughes [ Sub: D+ | Lead: D- | Assist: C- | Overall: D+ ]

HP: 3281 | ATK: 1270 | RCV: 370 | WT: 705 | Balance LS: 4x ATK for Balanced Type; extends time to move orbs by 2 secs. [1/16/1] AS: Removes lock status on Orbs; add 1 combo for 1 turn. [CD: 6]

Overview. This is just terrible at its niche and inferior to other options in pretty much ever way. Not awful if you don't happen to have another unlocker, though. Sorry, Hughes.

Sub. The triple SBR might have some kind of niche if there were actually anywhere good to use this in the first place. Raguel, despite not having a Skill Boost, does this job better for most farming purposes; for most actual teams, you will want to simply teambuild properly for a distributed 5 SBR instead of subbing this incredibly mediocre card.

Lead. Just terrible, even for the newest of players. Do not use this. It is not redeemable in any way. (No, do not sub Dioses and use this as a farm lead. I will find you and cry.)

Assist. There are probably more useful unlocks, but this one does get an honorable mention for being low cooldown while still being usable for delay protection in a way that Diaochan, for instance, is not. Probably also one of the easiest unlocks to roll, though at the same time probably not worth rolling for.

... yeah, this isn't a very nuanced active. I'm not ultra impressed either, but it's at least usable enough.

↑

---

Ling Yao [ Sub: C | Lead: C+ | Assist: B+ | Overall: B- ]

HP: 3031 | ATK: 1442 | RCV: 341 | WT: 705 | Balance LS: 2.5x ATK for Wood Att.; 3x ATK & 35% reduced damage received when matching 5 Heal orbs in a cross formation. [1/56.25/1, 57.75% shield] AS: Void all damage for 1 turn; 2x ATK for Wood & Dark Att. for 1 turn. [CD: 18]

Overview. Ling's active is not bad at all, though the cooldown is slightly over the top. Nothing else about him is particularly standout; he suffers from the typical low-rarity collab problem of awful stats.

Sub. Wood is not really lacking in Devil Killers, already possessing both Shazel and Mito; furthermore, both Shazel's and Mito's collab machines are returning to NA within the next couple of months. In a pinch, the five OEs can come in handy, but it's likely that another card (perhaps one with SBR?) would make a greater contribution to your team than Ling's somewhat dismal 705 weighted.

Lead. This is actually not awful, but it's worse than the farmable Myr in just about every way. Myr has over 50% more weighted, is unbindable, and gains substantial value in the future with a FUA Super Awakening, so if you're dead set on experiencing this sort of playstyle, just make a Myr instead.

Assist. The combination of damage void and spike can be quite useful in content as high-level as Alt. Arena, and so this isn't a bad active at all. Even in lower-end content, such as the regular Arenas, this active can be used to ensure survival on the Kalis and act as a nice dual duty all around. Although most of today's combo leaders are not particularly choosy about color, dark is a great color for combo teams, featuring powerful subs such as Nohime, Uranus, and the farmable Azathoth. There are relatively fewer relevant green subs currently in NA, but Ragnarok Dragon and Odin Dragon are common and important exceptions that maintain the relevancy of this spike. All parts of the active also come together perfectly as a situational option to enable Kamimusubi teams to burst and tank a gigantic preemptive or resolve hit.

Remember that the upcoming and extremely nice Green Sonia has these colors as well, and really appreciate a bit of a damage boost.

In all, Ling's active has a good blend of utilities, with the only real complaints being the limited colors and an extremely long cooldown -- compare with either Ganesha's 13 turns.

↑

---

Alex Louis Armstrong [ Sub: C- | Lead: C- | Assist: C | Overall: C- ]

HP: 4020 | ATK: 1505 | RCV: 5 | WT: 704 | Physical LS: 2x HP & ATK for Physical Type; 3x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [4/36/1] AS: Enhanced Orbs more likely to appear by 50% for 3 turns; changes Jammers & Poison Orbs to Light Orbs. [CD: 5]

Overview. Fireblaze's kind suggestion for this overview was "shining muscle of garbage", and that's disappointingly accurate here. While I wouldn't go so far as to say "garbage", Armstrong does turn out to be one of those collab cards who's both extremely straightforward and extremely lackluster.

Sub. This is actually better than a lot of the other five-stars for having respectable HP, a base active that's plausible to inherit over, and both SB and SBR. Two Team HP awakenings are also pretty nice. Unfortunately, beyond this, he's just really, really minimal. Bad typing (and subsequently bad latent killer selection) only hurts his potential uses further. The base active is a nice low-cooldown hazard clear, but even this is a consolation prize at best.

Lead. This would be somewhat acceptable without the typing restriction, but only being allowed to use Physical types kind of kills it. At least FUA Paimon is on type. Better hope you have a heal active somewhere, though.

Assist. Low cooldown hazard clear and enhanced skyfall are the only interesting features of Armstrong's active. Even so, it's not strong enough to be worth taking into most longer dungeons. This sort of active only has two real uses as an inherit: farming (enhanced skyfall can give the damage boost necessary to surpass a team's ordinary limitations) and very short dungeons where the hazard clear is needed early (such as a monthly challenge dungeon).

↑

---

Scar [ Sub: C | Lead: D+ | Assist: A* | Overall: B ]

HP: 3106 | ATK: 1922 | RCV: 29 | WT: 704 | Attacker LS: 1.5x HP, 3x ATK for Dark Att.; 2x ATK when erasing 6+ connected Dark Orbs. [2.25/36/1] AS: Void enemies' DEF for 1 turn; Dark attack of 50x overall Dark ATK to all enemies. [CD: 24]

Overview. Scar is largely terrible, but his active is actually stellar for a variety of farming teams, essentially being an inheritable Anji (though with a somewhat punishing cooldown). Not useful outside of this, though; he's probably the most strangely unhelpful rainbow haste card I can think of.

Sub. Dark rows are so mediocre right now and Scar is just too awkward to use. Typically, the tradeoff for having a rainbow haste awakening is a powerful, multi-faceted active on an unusually high cooldown. Scar's active, though, is... just not that useful for general gameplay, and so unfortunately instead of benefitting from said awakening, it effectively acts a detriment to his sub potential instead. Sadly, it turns out having an extremely long and not generally useful base active doesn't get you very far.

Oh, also, his stats suck. Pretty sure this isn't surprising anymore, though.

Lead. Appears to be one of the less bad leader skills of the FMA five-stars (which is in itself a disappointing statement), until you realize that rainbow haste is annoying to teambuild for when your playstyle is dark rows and that his base active is just useless for most things. Even something like Pandora is much better than this.

Assist. In most situations, this is not something you'd want to be inheriting on your team for anything other than SDR or stats. Better defense break actives exist on quite literally half the cooldown and nukes are typically unhelpful in regular gameplay.

Farming. Scar's real claim to glory! As either sub or inherit, Scar is a significant improvement to Anji, the only competitor for this slot.

Both Scar and Anji have a combination of 100% defense break, followed by a nuke. This is extremely useful in a diversity of dungeons. Every rogue with a Super King floor (such as Volsung Descended) has the PreDRA floor immediately following. The defense break status will persist until the enemies make a move, and as the PreDRAs do not have a preemptive, said defense break will carry through to their floor, completely negating their ordinarily problematic 10M defense and allowing for easy clearing with any kind of nuke active. (This is just as helpful during py invades.)

Anji is serviceable for this purpose and his release was actually quite revolutionary to rogue farming in general. However, he suffers from two main drawbacks. Firstly, sometimes he'll just fail to kill the Super King. A sufficiently leveled and plussed Anji will always kill the Super Kings. However, because leveling in rogues is spawn-based and can fluctuate wildly, occasionally he will not gain enough levels to do what you want. I and many others have experienced this problem in Volsung, Nordis, Zaerog Infinity, and Gainaut, even after inheriting bonus Attack equips such as Samurai Zaerog. Leaving Super Kings at a small sliver of health can be disruptive at best and potentially fatal at worst. The chance of this is low but not negligible, and this is something that many relatively dedicated farmers will have experienced.

Furthermore, Anji only has one Skill Boost and is not inheritable. These two limitations can be severely detrimental to teambuilding. For instance, building for Volsung's descend using Anji to button the Super King floor is by far the best archetype, but has traditionally been a bit of a challenge. This is because an optimized build will ideally also utilize Noah Dragon, who herself carries only one Skill Boost and has an extremely long cooldown.

Scar can mitigate both of these problems. If you are subbing him directly, he has better Attack, a second Skill Boost, and levels faster in rogues (same experience curve and rarity with less team cost). Of course, Scar himself comes with an extravagantly long cooldown by virtue of his contextually useless rainbow haste awakening, but on most farming teams this is mostly a minor inconvenience. Scar can also be inherited on something like Tengu, opening up even more teambuilding options.

It's also important that Scar's nuke is based on the entire team's dark Attack stat, not just his own. This can be a significant advantage with the right setup, as he can reach hundreds of thousands of damage with the right team setup (think Jize, Misteltein, Nergigante Hunter, etc.). He is not as good or practical as Nergigante Hunter itself for a variety of reasons (worse base card, effectively lower multiplier by not counting wood, longer cooldown), but is often a usably powerful alternative.

If you are a dedicated farmer, it is not unreasonable to chase Scar for all these uses, as he has a substantial 15% roll rate. Just be mindful of the other drivel you'll likely acquire along the way.

↑

---

Roy Mustang [ Sub: B- | Lead: C | Assist: B+* | Overall: B ]

HP: 2835 | ATK: 2523 | RCV: 348 | WT: 904 | Attacker LS: 3x ATK & RCV when 2+ Fire combos; 4x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [1/144/9] AS: Changes Wood & Dark Orbs to Fire Orbs; enhances Fire Orbs; other allies' skills charge by 1 turn. [CD: 11]

Overview. Compared to, say, Edward, Mustang is probably a bit underwhelming, possessing weirdly situational awakenings, an extremely orb hungry leader skill, and a bizarre stat distribution (nice HP, buddy). He's not all bad though. The active in particular is phenomenal.

Sub. Mustang's dismal HP makes him generally not a very good choice for a teamslot. Even his high Attack is a bit wasted due to a complete lack of offensive awakenings. Most of what's good about Mustang is that delicious, delicious active, which can be straightforwardly inherited onto more useful or synergistic subs.

Three blind resists can be noteworthy in some situations. Dungeons with many blinds or sticky blinds can be made significantly easier by slotting 100% blind resist onto your team, and in this context Mustang's not a bad choice at all (though you still need to make sure that his awful HP doesn't hamstring you too much). Blind resist awakenings can also be used to fuel Azazel's (admittedly powerful) spike active, if this is something you desire for any reason. Aside from this rather niche usage, Mustang does not excel as a sub.

Lead. This leader skill is numerically powerful but just impractical. Recovery tied to activation is bad; requiring such a massive number of orbs is bad. Mustang's damage output is fine, but he's not going to be a truly viable choice for content of any significant difficulty. Pass on this.

Assist. Double orb change, haste, and enhance on the same active is amazing. For the currently relevant fire leads, such as Diara, this is a very, very efficient active, spawning tons of orbs with some great secondary effects. Not breaking hearts is valuable on almost all teams, but especially relevant if leading with an HP conditional such as Enra. This active is very straightforward in its regular gameplay usage.

For farming specifically, this active is notable for being able to combo with Christmas Sonia boards, resulting in a three-turn haste and a fully enhanced fire board. Comboing with Barbara instead produces a board capable of massive damage in just two actives, which was not possible for red farming before. There are a handful of other uses for this, such as comboing with the upcoming Satan evolutions to create a strong button and enhance for red teams. In general, if you're interested in any kind of red farming, this is a great active to have around and the only real complaint is a slightly long cooldown.

↑

---

Edward Elric [ Sub: A | Lead: S | Assist: B+ | Overall: S ]

HP: 3788 | ATK: 2138 | RCV: 293 | WT: 904 | Attacker/Machine LS: 3x ATK, 35% reduced damage when HP is 50% or more; 2x ATK when 4 combos, 4x when 6+ combos. [1/144/1, 57.75% resist] AS: Changes Heal, Jammer & Poison Orbs to Light Orbs; recovers all HP; 3x ATK for Light Att. for 1 turn. [CD: 20]

Overview. Here he is -- one of the best cards in the game, and one of the only truly worthwhile pulls in this machine. Edward's mix of power, survivability, and flexibility clinches him a spot as one of today's top leaders. Edward is extremely powerful, though the extent of this power isn't necessarily apparent from just reading the leader skill.

Sub. It's not that Edward is a bad sub, by any means. Unbindable with two 7c awakenings is absolutely amazing (imagine more great light-focused combo cards, right?). There's the the minor gripe that his base active takes a small eternity to charge even with rainbow haste, but he's certainly usable despite that.

The more relevant issue is why you'd want to be subbing him at all, of course, when he functions better as a lead in almost all content. There's an argument to be made for subbing him in content such as the recently released (and horrifying) Multiplayer Dragon Rush, where you don't have either the tankiness or the time (to charge Edward's full heal active) to lead with him efficiently; in general, though, you should be leading with Edward instead of subbing him unless you're messing around or have a bunch of dupes.

Lead. Simply wonderful. It's not necessarily obvious why Edward is so good, as his multiplier and tankiness certainly appear fairly middling by today's standards. What makes him stand above the rest?

One factor is Gungho's card design. It's not necessarily enough for a leader skill by itself to be numerically powerful; sometimes, the lead itself being subpar can hold a team back via hamstringing a third of its slots. Fortunately, Edward doesn't suffer from this problem. His perfect mix of awakenings ensures that he is relevant to the team damage-wise while also providing team utility via unbindability and Time Extend.

Edward's active, though on a long cooldown, is crafted specifically for his own leader skill, providing a good amount of orbs, a large damage enhance, and, most importantly, a button-press heal straight back to full HP. Ordinarily, actives this long on a leader might be seen as detrimental for practical purposes, but Edward has one final tool up his sleeve: a rainbow haste awakening. With proper teambuilding, this ensures maximum consistency and availability of Edward's extremely impactful active. This is one of the most well-designed leaders GungHo has ever released in terms of self-synergy, and all these aspects come together to make him truly great.

Secondly, Edward is incredibly convenient to use. The highly prized Diablos is often praised for flexibility: whatever subs you can think of, he can use! And indeed, Edward has this same flexibility. With no color or typing requirements, all an Edward team needs to do is have above half HP, hit six combos, and preferably cover all colors (for rainbow haste). Due to the nature of Edward's active, it's obviously beneficial to have a team be majority light, but even with entirely off-color subs the active is so synergistic that it's not absolutely the most important consideration (and will boost Edward's own damage considerably regardless of what your sub composition is). Additionally, almost every other leader skill with a substantial shield has some sort of activation condition: two-color match, heart crossing, hitting a certain combo count, and so on. Edward gets the shield pretty much just for existing.

Two usage notes on the damage reduction. Firstly, a total reduction of 57% allows 99% gravity to be tanked at full health without dipping below 50% HP. This is of immense relevance, as 99% gravity is an extremely common mechanic and it is crucial to be able to absorb said mechanic without needing to burn an active or try exceptionally hard to heal sufficiently above the threshold. Another nuance of this HP conditional is that the damage you deal is calculated before healing is applied, but enemies will hit you after healing is applied. Consequently, it's possible in a variety of scenarios to reach a kind of equilibrium and efficiently stall, since as long as you heal you will be able to both deal and take significantly reduced damage.

With most leads, this is where I would provide some general teambuilding tips. Edward, though, is so flexible that such a section would probably be a disservice. You may pull from nearly any combo-oriented sub in the game; even TPAs, to a lesser extent, function fine if your combo options are exhausted. Remember that all the standard principles of teambuilding still apply: build for the dungeon you're running, build for what your box has, and make sure you bring as many necessary utilities as you can. His true potential is attained with the light attribute's fantastic combo subs: Tachibana, Yuna, Light Ideal, and the like. You absolutely do not, however, need to have these cards to get a ton of mileage out of Edward.

I do want to reiterate, though, that while Edward has many, many features in his favor, the cornerstone of his power is his active, even if you do not use a light-focused team. Thus, as long as a coherent sub selection is maintained, covering all colors is typically a big priority. Even if you never use his base active, it's extremely helpful to have it be plausible to inherit over instead of leaving you with some 30+ turn monstrosity.

Assist. This active is powerful. This active also takes forever to come up, and is tailor-made to support Edward's own leader skill. This means that there aren't many scenarios in which this would be the best choice to inherit on almost any non-Edward team archetype (yes, even Yog, as you're simply not going to get this up in time for it to be useful without significantly sacrificing in other important areas), and so, while the active is objectively pretty fantastic, it just doesn't have a clear usage case where it's the best at what it does (at least, not in the same way that Edward himself is as a leader).

It's worth noting that if you're running some extremely long dungeon with something like Ameno, you can combo unawoken Raphael into Edward's active for a full heal, massive damage enhance, extremely powerful board (which can be further combined with other actives to make a VDP board), and two turns of damage immunity. The use case for something like this is pretty slim as well, though.

↑

---

Alphonse Elric [ Sub: A- | Lead: B | Assist: A- | Overall: A- ]

HP: 5243 | ATK: 1885 | RCV: 13 | WT: 905 | Physical/Attacker LS: 4x ATK for Light Att.; 3x ATK & RCV when 4+ colors attack at once. [1/144/9] AS: Reduce damage received by 50% for 1 turn; changes all Orbs to 5 colors + Heal Orbs. [CD: 10]

Overview. Though not as amazing as his big brother, Alphonse is a unique and actually very powerful card in his own right. Providing a unique combination of light/wood attributes, unbindability, offense, and team support, he's highly slot efficient if utility is what you want. He has some notable limitations, such as his generally poor typing, but can often still find a spot on a variety of teams.

Sub. Only a handful of cards provide both 7c and FUA, and Alphonse is arguably the most utility-laden of all. Unbindability is nice but of course not exclusive to Alphonse. What is exclusive to him alone is the combination of damage, unbindability, FUA, double TE, and double SB. What's the big deal with that? All of these things are replaceable individually. Alphonse is notable for having all of them together, making him a great utility stick who is actually unique in this respect.

With that in mind, he does have a few relative weaknesses. Firstly, his stats, though fairly solid, really suffer in terms of RCV. Depending on the team he's on, this can range from a non-issue to being fairly noticeable. Secondly, his typing makes him unfortunately unsuitable for various rainbow teams, which use typings such as God, Dragon, or Devil. This makes many such archetypes unable to take advantage of his fantastic awakenings and excellent base active. Finally, this isn't specifically an area of weakness, but his well-rounded utility-heavy nature means that he doesn't excel at any specific purpose. This can be a turn-off for some players or for some kinds of content, where more specialization is desired.

Despite these flaws, Alphonse still has plenty of legitimate uses. Perhaps most relevant to this collab, he is one of the best possible subs for an Edward team, bringing pretty much everything that his older brother could possibly want.

Lead. Though numerically decent, this leader skill is really nothing special and is held back by its RCV multiplier being tied to color activation. Having FUA and such a diversity of helpful awakenings on a leader can simplify teambuilding, but at the end of the day this is still just a light-focused color match leader without much subtlety or nuance. Slightly reminiscent of Yuna.

Assist. While Alphonse himself might not be suitable as a sub on type-restricted rainbow teams like Rikuu, inherits have no such restriction, and this active has significant applicability. The combination of rainbow board and shield has various utility; one example is in Alt. Arena. A rainbow board can be used to burst the blue mask while guard breaking the green one; the shield subsequently enables a player to tank Goemon. The active does feel slightly underwhelming in the face of something like Awoken Tachibana's, but certainly has its uses regardless.

↑

---

King Bradley [ Sub: B | Lead: C+ | Assist: B | Overall: B ]

HP: 4268 | ATK: 2704 | RCV: 23 | WT: 904 | Attacker/Devil LS: Board becomes 7x6; 1.5x HP & ATK for Dark Att.; 2x ATK when 2 Dark combos, 5x when 5+ combos. [2.25/56.25/1, 7x6 board] AS: Deals 150,000 fixed damage to an enemy 5 times. [CD: 10]

Overview. Bradley's a really good demonstration of how good FUA is. He has exactly the same awakenings as Alphonse aside from FUA, and while Alphonse is a very solid sub, Bradley looks significantly more generic in comparison.

Sub. Essentially a bag of utility. Dropping FUA for guard break (compared to Alphonse) is a bit of a shame, but guard break still manages to have its uses (and is probably better now than it's ever been, honestly). Bradley's additionally held back by a very strange base active, though it's not too much of a hassle to inherit something useful over (and please, inherit literally anything useful over this if you sub him).

Bradley is, therefore, acceptable but not great. Note that he suffers from the same fundamental weakness as Alphonse, being not exceptionally good at any particular function. Lacking FUA only accenuates this further.

Lead. Looks good and usable but is actually pretty impractical. Even on a 7x6 board, you won't reliably be getting more than two combos of any particular color, leading to Bradley's total multiplier contribution being... 3x. Yeah, that's not great, even on 7x6. Unless you have a very specific team build or dungeon plan in mind using this, it's not going to be very good. Just trust me on this one and use Diablos instead.

Assist. Really, really situational (but works well when it works). This can be used to finalize a kill on Sopdet or Parvati, but if your team struggles this massively with Sopdet you might want to instead consider bringing Fujin, bringing a strong delay, or reworking your team. Parvati is, of course, totally unthreatening to stall out for most teams, so Bradley is even less necessary there. This inherit can fill some farming functions, such as bursting the Super King floor in rogue dungeons. Too bad he's slow and there's already a five-star roll, Scar, who steps up and fills a very similar role. In all, usable for its niche purposes but quite poor aside.

↑

---

Summary
If this machine had more cards, perhaps I could unironically recommend rolling for some of the higher value picks. The problem, though, is that you're about as likely to get two of the same five-star in a row as you are to get any of the diamonds. Given that almost all of the five-stars are terrible, I can't in good conscience suggest that most people roll this machine for actual gameplay purposes. (If you just happen to like the franchise, then by all means roll away.)

Best of luck in avoiding the torrential flood of trash dupes!