Friend ID Thread

[Lied]

That's very interesting, so it wasn't just a feeling on my part and the helper squads are indeed better than their power suggests. Thank you for testing it.

I have been noticing that the power sort likes to put St. Paulia at the top because of her huge HP even though she's far from the strongest girl on my team. I've started sorting by atk instead and it seems to do a better job of ranking everyone.

I've noticed that too, but I actually like it. HP usually seems like the most valuable stat to me since you can't increase it with equipment. There are a few girls I have that feel almost crippled by their low HP, like Cepha Lanthera. Her other stats are great, but it doesn't really matter when everyone else lives multiple turns longer than her.

[Miu]

Yeah, despite her low defense St. Paulia is incredibly durable. Now that I summoned Snowflake though I wonder if she might be a better version. Slightly less HP but better everything else, most importantly speed.

[Lied]

Yeah, despite her low defense St. Paulia is incredibly durable. Now that I summoned Snowflake though I wonder if she might be a better version. Slightly less HP but better everything else, most importantly speed.

I've got both at level 60 + 2 equip slots and St. Paulia still feels better to me, but I think it's because she gives an ATK buff while Snowflake gives a DEF buff. 1340 is still a pretty big HP difference, often resulting in 3 or more turns. The better movespeed is a definite draw for Snowflake though.

[Corintis]

HP in battles has never been an issue for me, regardless of using Defense/HP oriented units, except for dealing with mosquitoes; the only solutions to those buggers are Toad Lily, or some first-aid with Edelweiss.

At the level caps and max affection stats, units that focus on Defense over HP are often able to reduce damage by up to 50% against regular mobs and around 25% against the Bosses of 12-5, when compared to other units with a difference in Defense of 300 points or more. This usually leads to Atk/Def-oriented units, such as Cepha, holding up in battle just as well as Paulia.

BUT THEN, there's also units that just never die, like Di Yu and Mountain Lily, not only because they have a million points of Defense and HP, but also because their abilities are buffing their already absurd Defenses to the max. This also happens to be a prime example of how I prefer to arrange my squadrons. Except for some, most units usually break out even in terms of fighting power, so it's usually their abilities that set them apart, which is why I'm always concerned with the team synergy, instead of stats.

From there, I have to be on the lookout for units that can maximize the use of abilities..........or those that don't. Glomphrena is my prime example, as she has a Defense ability and while on paper, has a good base amount of Defense to utilize it, doesn't get enough out of the Affection Bonus to actually utilize it efficiently (on top of having fragile HP).

Damage bonus to the Solar Drive is also very worth mentioning, because of how the damage is calculated. Unlike Attack or Defense buffs, which adds all of the % Buffs into a giant pool if you place multiple stacks of these abilities on a squad, damage buffs to the Solar Drive actually MULTIPLY ON TOP of each other, using 100% as the base starting point. So for instance, if we could stack 5 Lavenders onto a single squad, the power bonus wouldn't be 100 + 100 = 200%, but 100 x 1.2^5 = 248%.

[Lied]

The reason I like high HP isn't for a single fight, it's the overall sustainability over multiple fights. The main reason I find defense less useful currently is that each fight in 12-5 (except for the final boss) only lasts 2-3 turns so I don't find the long term sustainability of defense to be helpful when since the enemy only gets in 1 or 2 rounds of attacks. With equipment, all of my girls have over 2k defense anyway, so the only real issue is the mosquitoes. Assuming mosquitoes do % based damage that isn't affected by defense, the only way to really mitigate them besides Toad Lilly and healing is more HP. Yes they'll do more damage, but a girl at 30% of 13k HP is still more health than a girl at 30% of 10k HP.

With high overall HP girls + Edelweiss's heal and heal pickups (which I'm assuming are also % health based), the main goal is to not have any of the girls die before they can get healed, and I've had the most success with that using high HP units. Also, because of the way it's designed, an Edelweiss squad with high HP girls can literally solo the entire map by healing up with nests between the fights, making the rest of my teams pointless except for picking stuff up and maybe finishing off the final boss if I get unlucky.

Maybe other people's personal experiences have been different, but in my experience I've found that high HP/low DEF units are a lot more survivable over multiple fights than the low HP/high DEF units. Maybe it's because of the ability to put defense equipment on high HP girls, but it seems like the increased defense never makes up for having less HP. I also think defense would be more relevant if fights actually lasted longer than a few turns (which is also the main problem I have with Lily Rubellum...her ATK buff is basically useless for most fights).

However, I do think it's stupid that "total power" is just their HP, ATK, and DEF added together. 1 point in HP is not the same as 1 point of ATK or DEF...

[Corintis]

As mentioned before, thanks to the High Defense of a character like Cepha, she's able to take about half the damage from regular 12-5 mobs as Paulia would, making her right on par with her for survivability. However, when fighting against bosses with their higher attack, the damage reduction isn't nearly as plentiful, only about 25% at most compared to Paulia, which is where the High-HP units shine (with maybe a 30% HP/Dmg buffer), especially in 12-5, where nearly every dam pest is actually a boss.

[Lied]

As mentioned before, thanks to the High Defense of a character like Cepha, she's able to take about half the damage from regular 12-5 mobs as Paulia would, making her right on par with her for survivability. However, when fighting against bosses with their higher attack, the damage reduction isn't nearly as plentiful, only about 25% at most compared to Paulia, which is where the High-HP units shine (with maybe a 30% HP/Dmg buffer), especially in 12-5, where nearly every dam pest is actually a boss.

That would be true if the bosses actually had high attack values, but they don't. The most dangerous enemies are actually the "Important" pests at the very start of the level. Those usually hit for ~900 damage with the defenses I have but they usually die or just get one hit off. The mini bosses (and everything else in the level) in 12-5 actually have much lower attack and can't really scratch people (they do ~ 400-500 damage to most of my chars or ~400-500 to multiple of my chars if they use a skill) but those die in 2-3 turns so they usually only get 1 or 2 attacks off as well. Similarly, the final bosses also have low-ish attack and do only slightly more than the minibosses. The thing that makes it actually matter is that it has 3 times the life so it can actually get lots of hits off.

[Miu]

I have been wondering, is defense simply subtracted from damage or is it more complicated than that?

[Lied]

I have been wondering, is defense simply subtracted from damage or is it more complicated than that?

Was curious so I logged numbers from the first pest fights of 12-5 over 2 runs, since they only do normal attacks:

First Run
Everyone but Edelweiss gets 12% def buff
929 - Bipinna (Important)
478 - St Paulia (Junior)

Everyone but St. Paulia gets 12% def buff
1119 - Orchid (Important)
570 - Orchid (Junior)
979 - Canola (Important)

Everyone but Canola gets 12% def buff
914 - Edelweiss (Important)
449 - Bipinna (Junior)

Second Run
Everyone but St. Paulia gets 12% def buff
461 - Canola (Junior)

Everyone but St. Paulia gets 12% def buff
913 - Bipinna (Important)
474 - Canola (Junior)

Everyone but St. Paulia gets 12% def buff
430 - Bipinna (Junior)

Base Defense + Equipment Defense
Edelweiss - 1720 + 691 = 2411
Bipinna - 2220
Orchid - 1750 + 111 = 1861
Canola - 1576 + 619 = 2195
St. Paulia - 1480 + 690 = 2170

Enemy Attack Values
Important - 3125
Junior - 2138

-------------------------------------------------

So it's more complicated than that (otherwise high defense would actually be really good) and there's a damage range or random factor. I know with enough defense you can end up taking only 1 damage from stuff though.

EDIT: Also, my Orchid has 550 less DEF than my Edelweiss (616 less DEF with Bipinna's buff), but is only taking 205 less damage from Important (less than a 20% damage decrease). St. Paulia has 5300 more health than Cepha Lanthera but 660 less DEF. With similar scaling, Cepha is going to go down 2-3 turns earlier, which is often a full extra battle earlier.

[A Time to Screw]

Edit: Now that I think about it, it'd actually be super interesting to see how all of our squads look before and after when affected just by the scaling system alone. Pics plz!

Incase you're still interested, here's how your squad looks to me right now.



I'd appreciate it if you could do the same for me. I have a feeling that including my favourite bronze girl on my team really fucks with my public image.

I also just realized that we'd need a max level rainbow unit ourselves to see the true power other Helper squads with rainbow units.
RIP