Sword of Convallaria – Gameplay FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

By NoahIvaldi.

Q: Did this really have to be this wordy?

A: Yes, holy crap, you have no idea. Every time I come up with a more concise way to explain something, it just results in people having incomplete info and needing to ask more. I’m trying to explain things in a way that works for everyone, including those with language barriers. Sorry, but tactics games are reading games, so you’ll just have to get used to it.

Q: Does this game have a pity system, and how does it work?

A: Universal pity may be labelled as “random,” but it actually respects the rate-up of the current banner (50% or two 37.5%s), so it’s a handy way to snag one of the destined banner characters on your way to the G180 for a debut banner, for example.

• G100 resets G180 if G100 gives you the rate-up char on its banner.

It doesn’t if it doesn’t.

• G180 doesn’t reset the G100 because pities don’t count as pulls, oddly.

If they’re both getting full, split up. Send the G100 go the inferior (usu. Destined) banner and the G180 to the banner that is accumulating it (usu. Debut).

There’s no way to exactly prove it, but there’s also plenty of data to suggest that there’s another, unstated pity function: If you have 100+ pulls and are about to dip below a 2% success rate, you get a guaranteed legendary. I have seen this happen with single pulls enough to believe it to be true. However, it does reset the G100 pity, which indicates to me that there will be no acknowledgement of this as a pity function.

Q: Under what circumstances do I pull on the weapon banner?

A: Lobotomization.

Q: Is [this] good? Should I pull [this]?

A: Refer to the list of credible tierlists. The credible ones have very little deviation from one another because they are not mere opinions, but performance data-driven. While you can get use out of the less useful units, the tiers are clear delineations of which units have capabilities that are more commonly applicable or outright better than others, making them easier to use and harder to replace.

Q: Do I really have to be a meta slave?

A: No, no one’s saying that you have to only use the best units all the time or whatever, but the meta exists for valid reasons, and we’re all playing the same game. Don’t be so concerned with being a special snowflake that you forget to do what helps you have fun and keep playing. Don’t be so concerned with doing things as optimally as possible that you forget to do what helps you have fun and keep playing. All advice that I give has the motivation of letting you have as much fun as possible. You should both feel free to pull/build your favorites and enjoy the powerful/useful units.

Q: I am new and got [this], whom the tierlists cite as very good (t0.5 or better). Is my account good, or should I reroll?

A: Your rerolling standards may vary depending on how much time/patience you have and how many instances on an emulator your computer can manage, but the typical standard is two t0.5+ chars within the first cluster of pulls that the game gives you (the first ~25, though, if you went past the normal reroll point and got a second one from the beginner banner, that’s fine). This is substantially easier to achieve when there is a debut banner for a mighty unit, and all new players can take their chances at getting Beryl, so this is not as difficult as it may sound. Absolutely keep your account if you get an off-banner t0 char.

Once you have a solid account, bind it. Your next goal is the beginner banner, and after that, it’s pulling on useful units (plus favorites, if any) and using the pity system to capitalize.

Q: Okay, so [this] is here/coming soon, but [that], another unit that I want, is coming soon. Should I save to guarantee the latter?

A: It’s unwise to skip any good char. Guarantees may make you feel good, but your statistical best odds of improving your account (and thus getting to have more fun for more time) are heavily upon pulling for every t0 char as it debuts, without exception, and you should really think twice before skipping any t0.5.

Feel free to read the addendum below if you are unsatisfied.

Q: About tierlists … Is there a good one for weapons, trinkets, and/or tarot whispers? What about engraving resonances?

A: Nope. There are tierlists for these things, but they all suck. The ones that don’t suck a lot still suck a little. Refer to individual character guides. That’s where you really figure things out.

Q: How do I spend my endurance?

A: Assuming that you’ve done all the event and TFJ levels that you can, it basically goes radiant forging to voyager lv50, more radiant forging/common EXP to 55, and a mix of star trials and radiant forging thereafter. Star trials are not worth hard farming before stage 10, and your main bottlenecks will be ores, engravings, powder (at first), and stars.

For the record, the EXP recommendation is a light one. Most players see little issue with their stock. However, we know that the climb to 60 is very steep, and some content rewards us for being able to use even crappy units with half-decent stats. It is prudent to store up some common EXP, but don’t neglect your radiant forging.

Q: What stages should I do to raise my voyager level?

A: No stages have special bonuses. You get 1 EXP per 1 endurance. Just keep pushing content and collecting all rewards, especially all the free voyager EXP and free endurance from dailies.

Q: I keep hearing about bond stuff and see my units get purple hearts at the end of missions, I see these bond charms, I saw something about furniture affecting my stats or something, and I just have no idea what … like, what even?

A: Let’s try this in small bites. Chars get bond EXP. Bond levels go from 0-5, giving you a 1% stat boost per level and their avatars for your profile at lv2. They get bond EXP in the following ways:

1. You get 500 Spirits of Hearts (worth a total of 50,000 bond EXP) per day, to a maximum of 3,000, which must be distributed via the Bond menu. You’ve probably been ignoring this and are capped out, letting a handy source of stats go to waste.
2. You can assign up to three chars to visit the home section of Elysium via the Furniture menu. They passively gain bond EXP over time. The rate goes up as your coziness level goes up. Your coziness level is determined by the total of the furniture that you own, regardless of how much or how little you actually place.
3. Whenever they participate in a normal (non-canned octopus) sweep or a manual playthrough of any stage that costs endurance, they gain bond EXP equal to the amount of endurance spent, just like their char EXP and your voyager EXP.

Q: What’s the deal with sweeps?

A: Canned octopus sweeps employ the help of your talking cat, and that’s inefficient. You get the same voyager EXP no matter what, but canned octopus sweeps involve no characters, so no one gets character EXP or bond EXP. You should only use octopus when you need to dump endurance in a hurry and are out of valid chars to select for regular sweeps.

Regular sweeps put chars into a cooldown mode that prevents them from being used in additional sweeps for a few hours, but doesn’t stop them from being used normally or anything else, so if you’re going to sweep, at least have a few chars get char EXP and bond EXP from it.

Manual runs accrue char EXP and bond EXP for all units involved, and since this is usually the difference between a team of 5 and a sweep team of 3, it’s the most efficient. The difference is pretty small, but then, the time that it takes for most daily missions should be small too. Tarot risiduals and weapon trials, the lengthy dailies, allow you to sweep with 5, so you should always sweep the highest level you can three-star to save time with no efficiency loss for those.

Q: I’m hitting like a wet noodle.

A: That’s not a question, but okay, look at the damage formula and see where you’re going wrong. If you try to stack up a bunch of things that just add together, that’s not nearly as effective as taking advantage of things that put in extra multipliers.

• ROUNDDOWN(MAX(FINATK * 0.05,(FINATK – FINDEF) * SKLDMG)) *
• ROUND(sum of all DMGMODs) *
• ROUND(product of target’s vulnerabilities * product of target’s DMGRED) +
• IF(CRIT=1,ROUNDDOWN(CTRDMG),0)

• FINATK = (base ATK + sum of stagnant ATK (de)buffs + ATK grants) * (dis)advantage multiplier) + conditional ATK (de)buffs
• FINDEF = (base DEF + sum of all DEF (de)buffs) * product of all values of DEF ignorance
• Rounding may be a bit different than represented, but this is the closest approximation that I can make. Some spaghetti code is likely responsible for discrepancies.
• ATK grants are just like other stagnant ATK buffs, but their values are based on other values (like HP for Newborn Blade, PDEF+MDEF for Hollow Axe, or MATK for Rage Outburst).
• Breaker/defender/seeker advantages and disadvantages are 1.3 and 0.7 multipliers on non-conditional ATK.
• Watcher/destroyer advantage and disadvantage are 1.4 and 0.6.
• Highland/lowland is a 1.15/0.9 conditional ATK (de)buff.
• AOE attacks ignore highland/lowland.
• Injured/dying states are 0.2/0.3 DMGMODs (positive from target, negative from attacker).
• Backstab is a 0.3 DMGMOD.

There is allegedy a minimum of 0.5 for DMGMOD and a maximum of 3 for vulnerabilities, ignored by mutations. Since such values are not regularly achievable, this can not be proven.

• Base CRTR is 5% for most and 10% for seekers.
• Base CRTDMG is 0.3 of the previously calculated damage.

Effects that cause an adjustment “at the start of battle,” such as Hollow Axe, actually give you an invisible buff at the start of battle that causes a dynamic adjustment.

• Most gear confers stagnant stat buffs or DMGMODs.
• Pendant Halberd confers conditional ATK.

Most tarot whisper effects are DMGMODs. The 8% ATK from one Wheel of Fortune buff and the ATK from Devil stacks are ATK buffs.

Talents are often overlooked as providers of effects at various stages of the formula.

Q: How much HP% damage does infection really do?

A: Infection damage per stacks, 1-9

• PVE: 4, 9, 12, 18, 26, 36, 46, 58, 72
• PVP: 3, 6, 9, 13, 18, 25, 32, 41, 51

Q: What else about attacks is not explained well?

A: Note also that it’s difficult to tell from descriptions when a multi-hit attack is actually a multi-attack.

“Dafuq you mean, Noha?”

I get that a lot! Basically, some abilities are actually multiple attacks that are each individually calculated and can each individually have different triggers (e.g. more scorch chances from Ever-Burning Blade, more TP from backstabs, more TP from highland suppression …), and some are just a single attack broken into multiple strikes that can crit separately, but only apply most triggers once.

An example of a multi-attack is NonoWill’s double and triple blade basic attacks, as well as her Thousand Blades AOE attack. The first attack of each is an active attack and triggers things as such, but not the follow-up hits.

Reactions that apply a debuff, such as Glare, can affect subsequent hits because they’ll trigger on the first hit.

An example of a multi-hit is Chuu Chuu Chuu!

Multi-attacks can benefit partially from Emperor/Sun. Multi-hits can’t.

Crazier still, there can even be multi-attacks in which even the first part isn’t treated as an active attack (so it doesn’t trigger many reactions and stuff), like Hashalaram Carnival.

Q: What happens when I reapply a (de)buff or apply a smaller/larger version of the same buff (e.g. PDEF^1 and PDEF^2)? Stack the buffs? Stack the durations? What if I have opposing buffs and debuffs? What other stacking behaviors are there?

A: Durations never add up. Smaller versions of the same buff are entirely ignored. Reapplying the same effect (PDEF^2 applied over PDEF^2) will just set the duration to the most recent application. Almost all buffs and debuffs stack additively within their own stat, and there are no conflicts as long as they don’t share a name. Positive and negative sides of similarly-named buffs, e.g. DMG^2 and DMGv2, are fine to be present simultaneously and stack against each other. All sources of damage reduction are multiplicative with one another. This is best illustrated by example:

KA Fire Conjurer casts Potential Burst on Gloria, adding [ATK^2], [PDEF^2], [MDEF^2], and [immunity to attribute debuffs].

Gloria uses Knight’s Glory, reapplying [ATK^2], and Brilliance, which fails to give [ATK^1] because she already has [ATK^2] and successfully gives her [DMGRED^2].

Cocoa uses Snow Lotus on Gloria, giving her [DMG^3] and overwriting [DMGRED^2] with [DMGRED^3].

Someone uses a buff that I’ve never heard of to give Gloria [PATK^2], a currently imaginary buff that gives +20% PATK.

Gloria uses Lance – Longinus, turning her Flag-Waving aura off and giving a banner aura for 15% ATK and DEF to the team, and gaining [Potential Burst], a unique buff that grants +20% ATK, +40% DEF, and immunity to attribute debuffs.

This Gloria didn’t bring Vow of Justice, her leader aura, and no other leader aura is present.

She is equipped with a Silence of the Hermit tarot whisper that grants 10% DMGRED, because you don’t yet have a good Judgement for her, I guess.

What buffs does she have?

• [ATK^2], [PATK^2], [Potential Burst], and her flag on the ground grant a total of +75% ATK.
• [PDEF^2], [MDEF^2], [Potential Burst], and her flag grant a total of +95% PDEF and MDEF.
• [DMG^3] gives +30% damage.
• [DMGRED^3] gives 30% damage reduction. Hermit gives 10%. These are multiplicative, so it’s 90% * 70% = 63%, which is 37% DMGRED.

What did we learn? For one, despite having the “Potential Burst” skill name, the spell that KA Fire Conjurer used is just four semi-common buffs smashed together, which is great, but not as amazing as the totally unique buff that Gloria gives herself; by being unique, hers has no problem stacking with everything else. Second, we know that her turn of Knight’s Glory and Brilliance was mostly wasted on herself; Knight’s Glory also gave her a small physical shield, Brilliance granted 1 NRG, and Brilliance also helped nearby allies, but all of the stat buffs from that turn were redundant or overwritten on Gloria. She could have thrown her lance sooner and taken the second turn to cut someone down.

Q: How do auras-

A: Normal auras, including Gloria’s held Flag-Waving aura, usually affect “other allies” (not the self) within a certain range. You may apply as many as you wish, but they won’t stack the same stat. If one aura boosts DEF and MDEF by 12% and one boosts MDEF by 30%, you have +12% DEF and +30% MDEF from the auras.

Leader auras are global effects, and they affect the bearer. Units can be affected by multiple leader auras if they meet the criteria, but they follow similar (but separate) stacking rules to regular auras; having a bunch of +10% ATK, +20% DEF effects and one +15% ATK, +30% DEF will just give you +15% and +30%. All the side effects, like +8% damage, +12% damage during active attacks, +10% skill damage, and so on will apply without issue as long as they don’t overlap the exact same effect. If, say, one provided +10% CRTR and another provided +15% CRTR, you just get the +15%, following the same pattern as most things.

Banner auras, including Gloria’s placed flag after Lance – Longinus, affect all allies and stack with everything, including other banner auras. Many are global, and many have radius limits; you have to inspect them individually.

Q: Which tarot whispers do I use on my DPS units?

A: Tarot whispers, after damage calc was determined:

So, if you’re trying to decide between a few damage tarot whispers and you want an easy answer, it’s kinda’ Magician, but if you want a right answer, it’s a little messier.

Emperor or possibly Sun only if you’re pretty strictly attacking enemies of the appropriate HP%, Magician in general, Justice can surpass Magician if you have sufficient values of A) additional CRTR/CRTDMG, 2) other on-crit effects, and/or γ) many other DMG buffs.

Note that these calculations are performed at the start, so a multi-hit that takes enemies below healthy status will still get the full benefit of Emperor, and a multi-hit that injures enemies partway through will get no benefit from Sun.

So Sun is even worse than it looked, which was pretty bad in the first place.

Sun has some decent use against some particularly high-DEF bosses right now because we’re at a sufficient level disparity that it actually adds up pretty well, but the stronger that you get, and the more that you try to apply Sun, the more disappointed you’ll be.

At least Emperor remains useful for one-shot tricks.

Q: What are the maximums for tarot whispers?

A: 2nd slot can’t have higher than 8% defensive (HP/DEF). 3rd slot can’t have higher than 8% offensive (ATK). Flat caps are 80/50/100 for ATKs/DEFs/HP, roughly (2nd slot nerfs defensive ones, 3rd slot nerfs offensive ones). The first slot is always flat. The fourth is a wild card, and you want it to be the hidden upgrade unless it’s a Devil or Tower. It’s best to just examine the Nopotion site.

Q: What engraving resonances should I use?

A: Refer again to the individual characters’ guides. Sword-wand is generally the highest recommendation for most DPS chars, but sword-pentacle is best for those that don’t get to move much for some reason or another (e.g. Nungal with Sniping Stance), wand-wand can be good for buffing people that employ a “death by a thousand stings” strategem (e.g. Momo’s many alert attacks), wand-cup is optimal for most units that depend on a single powerful skill or NRG management (like Inanna or K.A. Light Conjurer), pentacle-pentacle is the only viable tanking one unless you swap things for mostly physical or mostly magical battles, and cup-cup is fine for dedicated healers with no NRG/CD issues (e.g. Angel with Flagellant).

Sword-wand’s description makes it sound like a conditional ATK and DEF buff, but the way that it actually works is this: Whenever you move and perform an active ability (basic attack, skill, trinket skill, whatever), you get buff to each of PATK, MATK, PDEF, and MDEF equal to 4% per tile moved, to a maximum of 12%. This buff stays until your next turn. If you move twice, you’ll get the buff twice (following the usual rule of stronger overwriting weaker and weaker being ignored) as long as you also act twice. Using Standby does not trigger it, so March Command, the Maneuver passive, Beast Trap, or similar sources of movement that end in Standby won’t matter.

Don’t get trapped into thinking that sword-cup is good. People see “lifesteal” and fire off both of their neurons, but this isn’t a MOBA or a dungeon crawler; lifesteal isn’t as big of a deal as you think it is. The only characters with viable lifesteal-based strategies already have it baked into their reactions/alerts/all attacks, and this just adds a little bit to active attacks. No, don’t think that Evergreen Pendant changes this. To put it into perspective, if you compare sword-cup with the pendant to wand-wand with True Lens, you’re giving up some of every stat by downgrading to an epic trinket, the highland CRTR advantage on active attacks, and all that plus the random buffs on other attacks just to get that touch of lifesteal on actives. That’s a bad trade.

Q: Is there a talent guide?

A: No, ’cause you’ll get them all eventually, and the resources are spread pretty evenly. You just have to apply common sense of prioritization. Like, get the tactics, enhance your TP gain, focus your offenses correctly (e.g. I don’t have a physical destroyer, so I’m not prioritizing PATK for that tree, and I don’t have a magical breaker, so ditto),and fix your defender’s defenses before anyone else’s. Primo tactics include War Horn, Urgent Order, Maneuver Command, War Horn, Flag of Convallaria, Ragnarok, War Horn, Invincible Hero, Summon Explosive Barrel … War Horn … There’s not much “playstyle” to it. If you try to build your defenders not named Alexei for PATK, you’re gonna’ be disappointed. If you try to build them for MATK, you’re an idiot. HP wins for defenders. If you focus on defenses for non-defenders when those resources could go elsewhere, your priorities are wrong. If you don’t have any PATK destroyers, focus their MATK and keep the PATK on the back burner.

Addendum: The former paragraph is still true, but we do now have a video to help educate some late-game decisions too:

Q: What’s with the “Use 20 charge skills in one Spiral of Destiny” mission? I am charging all over the place!

A: Yeah, no, I know. I don’t know why they haven’t fixed this translation. It wants you to use skills that cause you to go into a preparation state, like Flaming Meteor or any Alert skill. Yup.

Q: Now that I’m getting legendary gear, is there use for epic gear?

A: To an extent, yes. 5-starring cheap gear doesn’t much hinder your breakdown material income (“Radiant Crystal Dust.” Imagine that being on a pop quiz.) and helps you get some hope luxites via some achievements. I have only seen said achievements count up to 30 items at 5 stars, so after that, break them down individually for more materials. Epic gear that’s worth 5-starring and actually using in the long term includes Disaster Bottle, Coexist Armor, Rejection Mask, Unique Coat, Evergreen Pendant, and anything that fills a niche that you haven’t yet usurped with a legendary item, e.g. Dueling Dagger, Antimagic Axe, Gazing Orb, Explosive Crystal, Steel Crossbow, or Spring Tonic. Honorable mention goes to Mist Necklace for its synergy with the Protection of Darkness reaction (see: Abyss).

Q: What do I prioritize in the shops?

A: Regular: Unused. You can swap hope luxites for secret fates, but they automatically convert when you’re summoning.

Gear: random legendary trinket every cycle, random legendary gear when you can (should be nearly every cycle), Elysium coins, can spare extra radiant crystal dust (epic breakdown material) on extra epics if insufficient on Disaster Bottles or just patch up radiant powder needs early on

Gear 2: Electric Bugaloo: Save your astral shards for unnamed legendary gear chests and buy them once powerful signature gear is available!

Reputation: unnamed epic engraving chests > unnamed legendary engraving chests > legendary radiant ore > bond charm > Elysium coins > depends (legendary tarot whispers if you can get them, radiant powder/tarot essence if low, lower radiant ores in a pinch, star particles/common EXP if you have a large surplus, never rank medals)

Reputation 2: Electric Bugaloo: legendary series II tarot whispers > unnamed legendary engraving chest > legendary radiant ore

Note: We rarely get these “prestige crowns,” and the shop keeps refreshing, so unless this changes, it’s best to only buy the series II tarot whispers.

Insignia: random legendary trinket > gear > weapon > unnamed stars > unnamed epic engraving chests > unnamed legendary engraving chests > Elysium coins > depends (about the same as reputation shop)

Memory Crystal: secret fate if you have Inanna, legendary character selection if you don’t

Q: Is it worth it to use hope luxites to refresh endurance?

A: Nope. You’ll just hit the level cap and burn out sooner, with much less pulling currency, than if you were to just play correctly. It’s not even a good idea for whales.

Q: I can see that the Cornucopia battle passes aren’t very cost-efficient, especially the larger upgrade package, but how good are those weapons? Should I be tempted to spend on them?

A: Nope. Only the sword and staff are respected at all as choices, they’re only best in slot (BIS) for a couple of units (and not even t0 units), they’re very minor upgrades over the competition for those units, and probably worst of all, it takes 5 purchases (so over $50) over five months just to really use one, because you gotta’ 5-star them, or else they’re not really the BIS. It’s not even efficient for whales, much less light spenders.

Q: Okay, if I’m still looking to spend, what else is worth it?

The spending tierlist is as follows:

• Big-brained gigachad tier: $5 Google Opinion Rewards money for the monthly pack
• Gigachad tier: $0
• Beeeeeeeg dummmm tier: anything else

The differences are astronomical. Even the monthly pack is a bit debateable as to its value, but everything else is so inefficient that even whales don’t tend to grab more than a handful of other packs.

Q: What about the skins? Are they good? Do they affect anything? Are they worth it?

A: No, no, no, no. You barely get to see Col’s generic face instead of her signature wooden mask, and the rewards that you get on the side for the purchase are cheap, common farmables. The Beryl outfit only looks cute in the splash art; it looks awful in-game, and the slight adjustment of her skills to looking more aquatic (mostly just bubbles) is insignificant and low-effort. The items that you can pull from the “wish” system are weighted, so your odds of getting anything useful are so low that you can’t justify more than 1-3 attempts.

Addendum About Pulling / Saving

• The probability of pulling a good char on its debut banner is the best possible instance of probability to obtain that char ever.
• The probability of getting spooked by it elsewhere is abysmal. The difference is staggering.
• The probabilities are further supported by pity.
• Pity carries. The sooner that you luck into a good unit on a debut banner, the more resources you have to pull later. Once you get the unit, you may still have one flavor of pity, which is progress in the bank for your next target. Even if you go to full pity chasing one good unit, your odds of getting the next are influenced only marginally by the “starting from scratch” pity position.
• Luxite income can sustain relatively decent odds of obtaining each char at its debut even without pity.
• Even if we didn’t have the numbers to back it up, which we do, just on analytic principle, it is clear to see that the statistically superior option is to pull on debut banners for each t0.5 or t0 unit.