Hi, Im Kaci. I play too much Kingdom Hearts. If you've got questions, I've got answers.

theme credit

Guide to Nova

Nova is a new feature that gives you a one time use AOE attack per mission.  When you get into combat, you’ll find the button on the right side, as shown below:

image

If you hit that button, it will perform the attack.  When you fight the next enemy in the same mission, the button is no longer there:

image

This adds an element of strategy to using Nova - specifically, you want to use it against the strongest enemies in the stage and usually in groups.  This is where you’ll get the most benefit.

Nova damage is very special because it isn’t affected very strongly by enemy level.  Often, if an enemy is a high level it has high defense.  This makes normal attacks and sometimes non-buffed special attacks do no damage.  It’s annoying in Coliseum and High Score Challenges when you just need that one little hit left and you don’t want to waste Special bars to get it!  But where a 10k attack with a medal might get turned into 1 damage at high level enemies, a 10k Nova does not.  It is very reliable damage.

Nova damage is also calculated as non-attribute damage.  It can be buffed by strength up medals such as Pooh, Piglet, and Illustrated Kairi.  It can also be buffed by defense down medals like Mr. Smee and Megara.  However, Nova damage is not affected by type-strength or type-defense: no Jack&Sally, Illustrated Black Coat Mickey, or Sora&Donald&Goofy.

For example: 

Nova: 28,384 damage
iKairi + Nova: 45,821 damage
iKairi + J&S + Nova: 45,821 damage

Lastly, Nova can be leveled up.  Each unique medal that you have guilted will give 1 level to your nova, and each unique medal that is at its maximum guilt will give 5 levels to your nova.  This is sometimes hard to keep track of, but luckily the Album is updated to keep track of it for you:

image

The empty circle next to 6* Riku shows it has not been guilted and has contributed 0 levels to Nova.

The bright circle next to 6* Goofy shows it has been guilted to maximum (50% in this case) and has contributed 6 levels to Nova.  One for guilting, five for maximum.

The dim circle next to 6* Mushu shows it has been guilted, but not to maximum (42% rather than 50%) and has contributed 1 level to Nova.

My Nova level is at 154, meaning I have guilted 49 medals, with 21 at max guilt.  21x5=105+49=154.

Leveling up your Nova gives it more damage.

Lv. 42: ~10,000
Lv. 61: ~13,000
Lv. 154: ~28,000

The general consensus is that with +3 Strength, Nova goes up ~25k per 100 levels.

However, you can only get this bonus from each medal ONE TIME.  That is, if you guilt Mushu twice, you only get one Nova level.  If you get two Mushus to 50%, you still only get 5 levels, not 10.  I have two 100% Meowjestys, but I only got 6 levels, not 12.

Once you get the Nova bonus, you keep it forever.  You can sell the medal if you want and you won’t lose any Nova levels.

Now there are a couple obvious ways to get your Nova level up, so let’s do a quick run down:

1.) Farmables.  You can do story missions to endlessly guilt and reroll.  There are 15 farmables, which is 90 levels of Nova!  The best part is, you don’t have to waste any magic mirrors if you have the patience and luck.

2.) Events.  Often there are events such as the Jungle Book one or the Meow Wow one where they give you an infinite number of a single medal.  Getting those medals guilted and rerolled is a great way to boost your Nova.

3.) Save everything.  It might seem trivial to keep Dumbo around, but when you pull your fifteenth one you might regret selling them!  I actually have a 100% guilted Megara - though it serves no practical purpose - because I held onto multiples.

4.) Magic Mirrors.  They can tip your 98% rolls into 100%.  Don’t spend 20 MM just for five Nova levels though!  Spend your MM on medals you will actually use!  I would use no more than three or four MM on a medal you won’t use - for instance, I used three MM on my Megara.  But I wouldn’t use 8 MM to get Mushu for 42% to 50%.

5.) Wait until Guilt Events, when minimum guilt rolls are much higher.  This isn’t important for T1 Farmables, but T2, T3, etc. are limited chances.  And the higher you roll for guilt, the less Mirrors you need to get the extra 5 levels from Max Guilt.

Remember: Nova is great.  It’s an amazing advantage and a great new strategic attack.  But investing your resources - specifically Magic Mirrors - into Nova over something useful (like Marluxia B) actually puts you at a disadvantage.  Nova is a supplemental attack: it is not your main damage.  You can only use it once per mission.  Your medals come first.

Alright that’s everything I can think of!  If anyone has comments or questions feel free to message me!  I’m going to try putting up more guides like this in the future.

Thank you and good luck on those guilt rolls!!

<3 KCM

Maleficent HSC Guide

It’s that time of week.  A new High Score Challenge!  This time the rewards are Maleficent and Pete!  Maleficent is a big deal.  She’s a premium Tier 4 and the magic-reversed equivalent of Illustrated Black Coat Mickey.  And instead of being locked behind 200 dollars or luck, you can get it with a lot of perseverance and… well, still luck.

Here’s the multipliers:

image
image

HD Sora and the three new Epic children are up at 21% and 14%.  iBCM is holding strong at 10%.  And guess what: all those Meow Wow’s you farmed up are 7% too!  And if you got Marluxia from the event, that’s 7% too.  Honestly, it’s a very considerate list.

As for the challenge itself, it’s another gauntlet-style “kill all you can before you die” sort of thing.  At the beginning, you’ll choose which pathway you want.  One for each type.  Each room only has one enemy group to kill, then you move onto the next one.  There is no returning back to previous rooms.  Sometimes there are Special chests, but no health ones (to my knowledge).  Unfortunately, I didn’t get far with Speed or Magic medals, so I’m not sure exactly how far these things go.  If you have more to add, please comment and I’ll put them on the list.

List of enemies:

**Left: Speed**

Lv. 25 Loudmouth x5

Lv. 50 Wibble Wobble & Hook Bat x2

Lv. 100 Air Soldier

Lv. 120 Stinging Bee & Armored Archer x2

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 150 Cannon Gun

Lv. 180 Gargoyle & Neoshadow

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 200 Invisible & Gargoyle

Lv. 250 Armored Archer x3

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 300 Gargoyle & Dire Plant

Lv. 320 Armored Archer x2 & Bandit x3

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 350 Neoshadow & Air Soldier x2

Chest - 6 bars
Lv. 400 Yellow Copter Fleet & Search Ghost

Lv. 420 Nimble Bee x5

Lv. 450 Invisible

~~~

**Up: Magic**

Lv. 25 Violet Waltz x5

Lv. 50 Ice Plant & Blue Gummi Copter x2

Lv. 100 Fire Plant

Lv. 120 Poison Apple & Candy Apple x2

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 150 High Wizard

Lv. 180 Fire Plant & Poison Apple

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 200 Wayward Wardrobe & Fire Plant

Lv. 250 Wizard x3

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 300 High Wizard & Wizard

Lv. 320 Darkball x2 & Bag O’ Coals x3

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 350 Poison Apple & Fire Plant x2

Chest - 6 bars
Lv. 400 Blue Copter Fleet & Poison Apple

~~~

**Right: Power**

Lv. 25 Nosy Mole x5

Lv. 50 Armored Knight & Bad Dog x2

Lv. 100 Gummi Hammer

Lv. 120 Large Armor & Large Body x2

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 150 Fat Bandit

Lv. 180 Gargoyle Knight & Defender

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 200 Morning Star & Gargoyle Knight

Lv. 250 Large Body x3

Chest - 3 bars
Lv. 300 Wyvern & Large Body

Lv. 320 Armored Knight x2 & Aerial Knocker x3

Chest - 3 bars

Lv. 350 Defender & Gargoyle Knight x2

Chest - 6 bars

Lv. 400 Red Copter Fleet & Morning Star

Lv. 420 Bad Dog x5

Lv. 450 Wyvern

Rewards:

You get a Pete at 5, 7, 8, and 10 million points.  There’s a lot of magic mirrors along the way.  The top 1000 ranked get the equivalent of 4 Petes.  The top 2000 get 3.

As for Maleficent, the top 5000 get one, up to a guilted version for the top 200.

Strategy:

Very unlike the previous HSC, this one is based on skill and medals.  Multipliers are important, but more so is killing the enemies and moving onto the next group.  Combining the two is difficult, but with Marluxia and Meowjesty it’s not too bad.  Status plus or second chance are basically required for lv. 400 and higher.

I’m hungry and Gilmore Girls just came out on Netflix so that’s it.  Good luck!  Ends 12/01!

<3 KCM

HSC - TWEWY Guide

image

(Firstly, I’m very happy because TWEWY is really fun and to anyone who hasn’t played it I recommend you do! It has an iOS and Android version that simplifies a lot of the DS elements. It’s 18 dollars, but you’ll get way more out of it than a week of VIP in KHUX!)

This is a classic High Score Challenge - that is, you can walk around freely, fight what you want, and come back for chests later.  It’s also very easy, which is nice, but also not nice at all since the top scores are going to be dependent on good multipliers rather than skill.  Though you’ll find Power and Magic heartless, the whole final room is Speed.  Power medals are best.

So let’s get into it.  Here’s a list of the multipliers:

image
image

As expected, the four banner medals are your 21% and 14%, then as a huge fuck you to its playerbase Sora&Riku&Kairi is in there for 10%.  Then lots of 7%s.  Remember all medals have to be 6 star to count toward the multiplier.

Here’s the heartless list:

Room 1: Main
Lv. 25 [S] Bandit x4
Lv. 25 [P] Aerial Knocker x4
Lv. 25 [M] Possessor x4
Lv. 50 [P] Red Gummi Copter & [M] Blue Gummi Copter & [S] Yellow Gummi Copter*
Lv. 50 [S] Bag O’ Jewels & [P] Bag O’ Coins & [M] Bag O’ Coal

Room 2: Lower Right
Lv. 75 [S] Air Soldier & [S] Bandit x6
Lv. 100 [P] Fat Bandit & [S] Invisible & [M] Dark Plant

Room 3: Lower Left
Lv. 75 [S] Search Ghost**
Lv. 100 [S] Search Ghost**
Lv. 150 [S] Search Ghost**
Lv. 200 [S] Search Ghost**
Lv. 250 [S] Search Ghost** x4

Room 4: Upper Left
Lv. 75 [S] Armored Archer & [S] Bandit x2 & [P] Armored Knight & [M] Wizard

Room 5: Up from Room 4
Lv. 100 [P] Large Body & [M] Red Bandit & [S] Wibble Wobble

Room 6: Left from Room 5
Lv. 150 [S] Bag O’ Jewels & [P] Bag O’ Coins & [M] Bag O’ Coal
Lv. 180 *CAUTION* [S] Bandit x3
Lv. 180 [S] Invisible x2
Lv. 200 [S] Yellow Copter Fleet x2***
Lv. 220 *CAUTION* [S] Bandit x4
Lv. 250 [S] Bandit x5

*Each Gummi Copter has type defense for its attribute
**Search Ghosts have x2 Strength up
***YCF has x2 attribute defense for Magic and Speed

Rewards:

There are two medals you’re looking at here: just like J&S and Zero, one of the medals is given out at score intervals as well as in ranking, and the other is given out exclusively for ranking.

Beat & Rhyme is a Tier 3 guilt that does more damage the LESS lux you collect (useful for Coliseum) and Neku & Shiki & Joshua is a Tier 4 guilt that does more damage the MORE lux you collect (useful for Raid bosses).

B&R is given at 9, 11, 13, and 15 million points.  Additionally, the top 20k ranked get 1 B&R, up to 5 for the top 200.  To guilt this medal would require Top 1k ranked and 13 million score (or Top 2k ranked and 15 million score).

N&S&J is ranked only, from 1 at Top 5k, and 7 at Top 200.

Strategy:
Power medals.  Meowjesty still kicks butt.  Use your Nova on the Search Ghosts since the Bandits are easy.  There are Special chests all over the place but if you’re still having trouble just start heading to the last room and come back to pick off weak groups to refill your bars.  This HSC is very based on multiplier rather than completing the enemies since most people will full clear.  Don’t be afraid to give up some good medals for some good multipliers!

Alright that’s about it!  Good luck!  Event ends 11/24!!

<3 KCM

XIII Event Guide: Marluxia

image

Hey everyone!  New event is up!  Apparently every 13th of the month from now on we’re going to be getting Organization events, which I think is pretty great.  They last a week, so be sure to keep up on those! 

This one is for our flower king Marluxia.  His strength is high, his cost is low, and he’s a free guilt.  He does more damage the more enemies die per stage, which is great for HSC.  He’s a little better and a little worse than Hydra/HT Sora, depending on how many enemies were killed, but definitely worth guilting for the lower gauge cost!

The downside: no rerolls!  Good luck!

In KH2 Final Mix, Marluxia would put a counter above your head to indicate a “death timer” based on how many attacks you’ve used against him.  In keeping with the spirit of his character, the enemy you fight - Wandering Spook - has a counter above his head.  Each attack against him - each attack, not each medal! - lowers the counter by one.  When it reaches zero, you get struck by a killing blow.  Second Chance can mitigate this, however.  So the goal is to use as few attacks to do the most damage!  If a medal goes beyond the number above his head (say you use a 13 hit medal on and he has four hits left) and it kills him, it does NOT kill you!  There are 13 stages, and in each stage the counter goes down by 3 (with one exception).

One turning does not matter at all.  All rewards are “complete without continue” and “use appropriate keyblade”.  The keyblade ones always reward 20 jewels (for a total of 260), so they are more like recommendations.  Additionally, killing every enemy in the room is also pointless (unless you need Special!)

Now that we know the rules, here’s the breakdown:

Stage - Counter - Reward
1: 50 - HDL
2: 47 - MM
3: 44 - *Marluxia*
4: 41 - HDL
5: 38 - *Marluxia*
6: 35 - MM
7: 32 - MM
8: 29 - *Marluxia*
9: 26 - Hairstyles!
10: 23 - *Marluxia*
11: 20 - *Marluxia* - If you’re having problems, use LL instead of Starlight

12: 17 - *Marluxia*
This is where it gets hard.  Instead of one Wandering Spook, there are two, each with a counter of 17.  Both of your enemies are Speed type and are level 180, so you should use Power medals.  

Good medals for this event are obviously buff medals (iKairi, Pooh, Piglet) but avoid J&S.  They use too many hits.  Fully buffed, Meowjesty (two hits) is still crazy strong and staggers hits amongst the two of them, so I recommend him.  Rock Titan (1 hit) and Cid (1 hit) are extremely helpful.  Even Riku Replica (two hits) and BC Mickey (1 hit) are great, even though they don’t have a type-advantage.

Don’t forget to use your Nova with +3 Strength!  

13: 13 - *Marluxia* - Title: No. XI
This time you only have one Spook, but there are nine Red Roses, too.  Everything is Level 200 and Power type.  Additionally, you only get 13 hits this time: not 14.

Same as before, use buff medals and no J&S.  Taking out the flowers is essential, because the Spook himself does very little damage.  A +3 Str. Jack (1 hit) will take them out, or a strong +3 Nova with a swipe or two.  Once the flowers are down, take your time with buffs and medals like Hag (1 hit) and Jack.  Antiform Sora is very useful (3 hits).  SDG (3 hits), Ill. Aerith (1 hit), Vexen (1 hit), CoM BC Riku (1 hit) and Halloween Donald (3 hits) are all great.  Wisdom Form (1 hit) and Magician Donald (1 hit) can be good if you have them guilted.  Though honestly, a combination of Jack, buffs, and good friend medals will do the trick.  It’s not a very hard mission: just takes some strategizing.

If worse comes to worse, Second Chance can save you for a turn and it will reset the counter to 13.  I encourage everyone to put up their best guilted medal with 1 or 2 hits or a Second Chance up for your friends!!

That’s it!  Good luck on your Marluxia rolls everyone!  Event ends 11/20!

<3 KCM

November ‘16 Coliseum

image

Alright let’s get started!  Coliseum is a little new this time around.  Instead of 10 tiers, they have 11, wherein Tier 10 has 10 rounds and Tier 11 goes to 999.  This is actually a good thing, but I’ll get to that in the rewards section.

So here’s the enemies:

x1: Speed
~Soldier x4
~Air Soldier
~Armored Archer x2 & Soldier x2
~Armored Archer & Soldier x2

x2: Power
~Dire Plant
~Dire Plant x3
~Gummi Hammer & Dire Plant x2

x3: Magic
~Minute Bomb
~Wizard x2 & Minute Bomb
~High Wizard & Wizard & Minute Bomb

x4: Speed (unless stated)
~Yellow Gummi Copter x4 (+1 S-Def)
~Red Gummi Copter (P) x2 (+1 P-Def)
~Aeroplane (+2 Def) & Yellow Gummi Copter x2 (+1 S-Def) & Red Gummi Copter (P) x2 (+1 P-Def)

x5: Power
~Bad Dog
~Bad Dog x3
~King Pretender & Great Pretender & Pretender

x6: Magic
~Darkball
~Darkball x2
~White Rose (+1 S-Def & Sleeping) & Red Nocturne & Yellow Opera & Blue Rhapsody & Violet Waltz

x7: Speed (unless stated)
~Blue Rhapsody (M) x2
~Bag O’ Jewels & Tornado Step x3
~Wibble Wobble & Bag O’ Jewels x3

x8: Power
~Shadow x7
~Mega-Shadow (-1 M-Def)
~Mega-Shadow (-1 M-Def)
~Mega-Shadow (-1 M-Def) & Shadow x4

x9: Magic (unless stated)
~Dire Plant (P)
~Fire Plant
~Ice Plant & Dire Plant (P) x2
~Dark Plant

x0: Speed (unless stated)
~Possessor (M) x4 *CAUTION*
~Creeper Plant x2
~Invisible

Strategies aren’t really a thing for coliseum anymore.  It’s mostly Sleep/Poison luck.  The Bad Dogs might be an issue with their paralysis.  The Invisible does more damage the lower it’s health, which will be a problem at high levels.  And that Aeroplane hits like a truck.  Everything else is pretty tame.

Rewards:

Each board costs 1,100, like every other week.  The in game notice tells you exactly what is on each board, so I won’t bore you.  But the titles are as follows:

Legend - completing Tier 10

image

Amazing - Blue board

image

Beefy - Pink board

image

Because completing tier 10 gives 900 coins, you can fill out both boards and start your Tier 10 bonus board once you finish the Tier 10 missions.  This is 20 missions earlier than previous months, so they’ve technically made (non-competitive) Coliseum easier.  You’ll also get five Cids along the way, up from four.

As for ranked:

The top 2,500 this month get Defense Boost III, which is nullifying 80% of damage, up from the 66% of DB2.

The top 10,000 get DB2 and the Timothy Mouse Earrings, which look like little red dangling orbs.

Basically everyone gets the hat.

LASTLY!!!

Anyone who completes up to Tier 11 (which isn’t hard at all) before November 4th will get a Timeless River Mickey!  This was an event medal from the very start of the game, for completing one of the Lv. 140 Proud Quests in the first couple weeks.  At the time, it was impossible for a lot of people, so make sure to pick it up now!  TR Mickey is a fixed damage medal like Beast and KH2 Yuffie.

Additionally, until Nov. 4th, all Coliseum missions are 1AP to promote this event.

Thank you for reading!  And good luck this month!

<3 KCM

HSC - Jack & Sally

I am beginning to detest these things.  They used to be my favorite content and now High Score Challenges just take me hours and hours to make the guides. >_<  Anyway…

Jack&Sally (J&S from now on) and Zero are your two medals this HSC.  Both are buff medals: Zero being Dispel+Cura AOE for 5 bars (similar to Belle) and J&S is +1 PSM (all attributes) strength and -1 PSM (all attributes) defense on all targets for two bars for two turns!  Thankfully, neither is worth guilting.

Zero you can take or leave - with No Cost, it can be useful.  But J&S is a downright godsend.  It’s basically going to be the new RAX - you’ll want it on every single keyblade.  

So how do you get these nice new medals?

Zero is pretty easy.  Top 20,000 will get one.  There are also four in the HSC Rewards.  You can get seven by getting 10 million points + ranking in the top 1000.  But like I said, there’s no point in guilting him.

J&S is just a top 5000 reward.  If I recall, this was the same with RAX.

Your multipliers:

image
image

You’ll notice that the two top multipliers this time are both Sephiroth.  That’s pretty cool, since a lot of people have the first one (including me!) so you’re more likely to either a.) have it or b.) have a friend with it.  The 14% ones are obviously from this weeks EMC.  Then a lot of sevens.

So onto the main event.

When you go in, you’ll find three chests in front of you.  Each one has a corresponding pathway.  The green chest, for instance, is the pathway for Speed.  Once you leave the room, you can’t come back.  Basically, this is another “pick your path” HSC.  There seems to be some variation with Heartless in each pathway, but all in all the scores seem very similar.  Just go with what you are best at!

The Heartless you’ll find are as follows: 

Left (Speed)

Lv. 25 Chomper Egg x3 ~ 12794
Lv. 25 Soldier x5 ~ 8529
Lv. 25 Armored Archer & Chomper Egg x2 ~ 42647

Lv. 75 Creeper Plant x2 ~ 80769
Lv. 75 Hook Bat x5 ~ 24230
Lv. 75 Invisible ~ 288461
Lv. 75 Neoshadow & Hook Bat x2 ~ 139615

Lv. 150 Cannon Gun x2 ~ 468750
Lv. 150 Armored Archer x3 ~ 137500
Lv. 150 Stinging Bee x2 ~ 235000
Lv. 150 Pumpkin Soldier & Stinging Bee x2 ~ 468750

Lv. 250 Yellow Copter Fleet & Cannon Gun ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Air Soldier x3 ~ 345000
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier & Aeroplane ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier x2 ~ 656250

~*TARGET*~ Lv. 25 Jack O’ Lantern

Up (Power)

Lv. 25 Bag O’ Coins x3 ~ 12794
Lv. 25 Jack O’ Lantern x5 ~ 8529
Lv. 25 Armored Knight & Bag O’ Coin x2 ~ 42647

Lv. 75 Large Body x2 ~ 80769
Lv. 75 Aerial Knocker x5 ~ 24230
Lv. 75 Hammer Frame ~ 288461
Lv. 75 Large Armor & Aerial Knocker x2 ~ 139615

Lv. 150 Wyvern & Morning Star ~ 468750
Lv. 150 Armored Knight x3 ~ 137500
Lv. 150 Gummi Hammer ~ 235000
Lv. 150 Pumpkin Soldier & Gummi Hammer x2 ~ 468750

Lv. 250 Red Copter Fleet & Defender ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Defender x3 ~ 345000
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier & Wyvern ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier x2 ~ 656250

~*TARGET*~ Lv. 25 Jack O’ Lantern

Right (Magic)

Lv. 25 Blue Gummi Copter x3 ~ 12794
Lv. 25 Possessor x5 ~ 8529
Lv. 25 Darkball & Blue Gummi Copter x2 ~ 42647

Lv. 75 Wizard x2 ~ 80769
Lv. 75 Bag O’ Coal x5 ~ 24230
Lv. 75 High Wizard ~ 288461
Lv. 75 Poison Apple & Bag O’ Coal x2 ~ 139615

Lv. 150 High Wizard x2 ~ 468750
Lv. 150 Ice Plant x3 ~ 137500
Lv. 150 Fire Plant x2 ~ 235000
Lv. 150 Pumpkin Soldier & Fire Plant ~ 468750

Lv. 250 Blue Copter Fleet & High Wizard ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Poison Apple x3 ~ 345000
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier & Poison Apple ~ 656250
Lv. 250 Pumpkin Soldier x2 ~ 656250

~*TARGET*~ Lv. 25 Jack O’ Lantern

Each second, third, and fourth room has a Special chest, which seem to increase in how much they give.

Hopefully my numbers are right.  It’s been a very long night…

Strategy: Pick a path.  Magic or Speed is probably best given what Sephiroths you can get your hands on.  Clearing rooms 1-3 is pretty easy and you shouldn’t have much trouble.  Clearing room four is impossible without a lot of DB2 luck, maybe Sleep+, and enough Save/Loads to wash away your sanity.  When you get there, grab a pack and do as much damage as you can before you die to pad out your score.  Picking a x3 enemy can give you a good boost if you have AOE, but the x2 packs can give you a second or third turn with some lucky DB2/Sleep+ procs.

Rewards are the usual.  Magic Mirrors, Chips, Dales, Cids… nothing special.

Alright, good luck!  Have fun!  Please don’t kick me out of the top 5k!  ^_^

ENDS 10/27!

<3 KCM

  Anonymous said:
Hey, sorry to be really dumb, but I just had a question! For strength (like the value next to the sword icon? I assume that's strength?), how come the value changes when you go into battle? Like out of battle my Marluxia is mega weak and like 7200, but in battle it says the strength is 12000 (aroundabout) and he does more damage than shared medals which outside of battle said they had higher strength? I hope that makes sense :( Thanks :)

Great question!  This confused me for a long time.

The in-battle sword icon is your attack value, or what damage you’d do ignoring the defense of your enemy.  It’s actually a combination of your medal strength, your Chips on that medal, and the multiplier slot it’s in.  

For instance, my Terra is 7338 +1000, in a multiplier slot of x2.35 on Three Wishes. In battle his attack value is 19,594, which is just 8338 times 2.35.  It’s a handy measurement, so you know how much damage each medal is likely to do in-battle.

Friend medals are a little more complicated.  There’s no on-screen representation of a multiplier slot for a friend medal, which is why they are often thought of as less powerful.  But there is a multiplier for each Friend medal factored in based on keyblade level.  Roughly, a level 2 keyblade has about a x1.04 friend slot, while a level 20 keyblade has about a x1.30 friend slot.

My friend’s TVA+1000 is as follows on different keyblades:
MoG +5: 9050 ~ x1.13
SL +22: 11076 ~ x1.38
LL +25: 13198 ~ x1.64
DR +26: 13487 ~ x1.68

Special Attack Bonus and guilt are not factored into any of these, since it’s an optional multiplier in battle.

I hope this helps! (I actually learned a little bit on Friend medals while confirming this!)

<3 KCM

P.S. Anything above 7000 base strength is very very good.  Often base strength is what makes a medal better or worse than another.

Halloween Sora Event!

Ohhhhkay.  Get ready for some hardcore grinding!

The Halloween Sora event has three missions, all of which are identical except for the Power/Speed/Magic type.  This allows you to tackle the mission that suits your best keyblade.  Each mission has three objectives:
~Completing the mission gives you 50 jewels each
~Using only appropriate type medals gives you a 6 star moogle
~Beating 5 Pumpkin Soldiers gives you a 3* Sora

I recommend doing each mission at least once for the jewels and Sora, but I’ll get to that.

What you’ll come across is:
(All enemies are typed to the target)
(Jack O’ Lanterns have x2 type-defense)
(Soldiers have x2 type-defense, then x1 type-defense for their weakness; i.e. if the enemies are Power, they will have x2 Speed & Power defense, but x1 Magic defense)

Jack O’ Lanterns:
Lv. 25 x3
Lv. 25 x3
Lv. 50 x1
Lv, 50 x1
Lv. 50 x1
Lv. 50 & Lv. 25
~*Target*~ Lv. 25 x1

Pumpkin Soldiers:
Lv. 100 x1
Lv. 120 x3
Lv. 150 x1
Lv. 200 x3

Health chest x2
Special chest -10 bars over 5 chests

Also, each mission gives ~20 event coins that can be used to complete an Event Board, giving things like Chips, Dales, and Cids.  The board requires 5000 coins to complete (so about 250 runs).  I don’t recommend trying to complete it: it’s mostly there as a consolation since you’re running these missions for Soras.

Each enemy also has a chance to drop a 3 star Sora medal.  In my experience, you net 1.3 medals each run if you kill every enemy group, and .65 medals if you ignore the Lv. 200s.  That isn’t to say you are guaranteed one by killing all the enemies, but that you essentially double your chances.  I have, however, gotten two medals without the Lv. 200 group!

Let’s talk strategy, then we’ll get to the medal evolutions.

Strategy:
Everything is very, very easy with the exception of the Lv. 200 group.  They hit very hard - two hits will kill you.  This means one of them needs to be dead before the first hit (unless you have Second Chance) and you will still need DB2 procs to survive.  Medals that deal non-attribute damage are great since it ignores the defenses.  Jack/BC Mickey/Shadow.

My strategy: 3x strength, Terra for 2x type strength, Jack, Shadow, and a friend’s Jack.  By the second turn, one of them is down and the other two are at about a bar and a half of health.  And I still can’t reliably kill them without DB2 procs saving me all the time.

I tried Defense Up with Nick&Judy.  It didn’t help.

Honestly, if you’re having too much trouble with the last mob - where you have to Save/Load more than once per run - then don’t bother.  Just take out the rest of them instead.  Luckily, to defeat 5 Pumpkin Soldiers, you don’t have to do the last group!  This lets you get that bonus 3 star Sora.

So now let’s talk about evolution.

Halloween Sora doesn’t evolve like normal medals: it uses other Soras!  And to make it worse, it still uses evolve medals, just not fairies.  In other words, a 3 star to a 4 star requires a 3 star Sora and two Fairy Godmothers.  A 4 star to a 5 star requires a 4 star Sora and two Yen Sids.  Et cetera.  Not following along?  Here’s a picture:

image

^5 star to 6 star

This means that not only do you need the seven Soras to guilt, but you’ll need even more Soras to evolve!  Here’s a handy little chart I made:

image

(Red is Combine, Blue is Evolve)

You’ll see on the left the amount of Sora’s needed for that stage of evolution.  For example, getting a 4 star to a 5 star will actually require two Soras - one 3 star turns the other 3 star into a 4 star to act as the catalyst.  If that’s confusing, just take my word for it.

This means you’ll need 8+6+4 = 18 Soras to evolve, plus the seven necessary to get Guilt.  So you’re looking at 25 Soras for one Guilted version!  That’s about 40 runs of the mission, ignoring the Lv. 200 group, plus 8 Fairy Godmothers, 6 Yen Sids, and 6 Fantasia Mickeys.

Rerolling your guilt is thankfully less painful (but not much less).  You have your original Sora, plus one to make it 4 star, plus two to make it 5 star, and plus four to make it 6 star.  That’s eight medals per reroll.

So is he worth it?

Sure.  He’s a Tier 3 guilt, so he can roll up to 100%.  He lowers defense for his attack by one tier.  He’s an AOE, and Speed AOEs aren’t really common.  And honestly, if you know what you’re doing, this is a lot less work than grinding out those avatar boards from the Watermelons.  Plus you get something actually useful!

The mission ends on 10/20 so you’ve got two weeks, so take your time!  Make sure you stock up on Fairy Godmothers, Yen Sids, and Fantasia Mickeys this weekend!  Good luck and have fun!

<3 KCM

Coliseum Challenge ~ Gems!!

image

Gems are finally here, for all ten of you who have actually beaten all 35 adamantite challenges and are eager to upgrade your keyblades even further! (For the record, I’m at 33/35 and will stay there for all eternity.  That Darkside sucks!) So, what is this new event and why is it different to the Adamantite Challenges?

For starters, gems (which will be the only upgrade material in the foreseeable future) are limited to certain keyblades and are not associated to permanent challenges.  That is, when this mission goes down, any missed gems will likely be missed forever.  Not to worry, though!  Unlike adamantite, gems are infinite, so long as they continue to create events and rewards with gems associated to them.  They can be obtained from events (such as this one), lux rankings, coliseum rewards, and avatar boards!  Think of them like rare skills that upgrade your keyblades!

This challenge is giving us three gems, which will allow you to upgrade any three keyblades to level +26.  Treasure Trove and Olympia use Power, Three Wishes and Moogle O’ Glory use Magic.  Starlight, Lady Luck, and Divine Rose use Speed.

There are 50 missions total, and each one is a one on one match with a Heartless (or Cloud).  The levels of the enemies continue to increase, from a Lv. 1 Shadow to a Lv. 300 Cloud.  The goal is to get as far as you can, with the added bonus of Chips and Dales along the way, as well as 100 jewels every 5 missions.

After completing 10 Missions, you get the Magic Gem from a Lv. 100 Wayward Wardrobe.

After completing 25 more Missions, you get the Power Gem from a Lv. 225 Morning Star.

After completing 15 more missions, you get the Speed Gem from a Lv. 300 Cloud.

You should be able to get Magic no matter who you are.  You should be able to get Power with mild effort if you have some good buff medals.  It’s that last Speed medal that’s a problem.  Here’s a couple of things to know:

~Starting on the third set, defense is very high.  Friend medals are more useful for buffs, skills, and heals, since they don’t get a bonus from the slot multipliers.
~All 1 Turn rewards are now 2 Turn rewards.
~Skills - specifically Attack Prize Plus - and heals become VERY important in these missions.
~Continues are allowed.  The only rewards you miss out on for Continues is 100 jewels on the 5th, 10th, and 15th stages.  You can use a continue to get the Speed gem.  Actually, assuming you haven’t used a continue until now, you have 700 gems.  If you can finish all 15 missions in 7-9 continues or less, you technically broke even and can upgrade your Divine Rose/Lady Luck!  
~If you use a continue and you die a second time, it is in your best interest to use a second continue.  Don’t think “I can do better” and start again, because you likely can’t.  Just power through and finish the mission unless you intend to give up on the challenge entirely.
~Lastly: if you can’t make it to the Speed Gem, don’t worry so much.  It will come up again another time.  Next challenge, it might even be the easy gem to get!  Seriously, it’s not a big deal.  Don’t spend 2k jewels on this stupid thing.

All that being said, here is a small guide (that has now turned into a long guide) on the final 15 missions:

1: Lv. 230 White Rose (M)
Can heal, can cause sleep.  Other than that, just single target Speed.

2: Lv. 235 Search Ghost (S)
x2 Attack
If he’s hitting too hard, dispel him with Alice or Bell.  Single target Power to take him down fast.  Minnie DB2.

3: Lv. 240 Cannon Gun (S)
Nothing special until Turn 3, when his attack goes way up.  Single target him down before then.

4: Lv. 245 Stinging Bee (S)
x1 attack
x1 defense
This changes to x3 attack after the second turn ends.  If you can’t kill it before then, make sure you have some DB2.  His hits can paralyze you as well.  Turn 2 he has no buffs, so that’s where you should focus your Special if you’re counting your bars.

5: Lv. 250 Armored Warrior (P)
This is the first time we see this guy, I think?
x3 Type defense (first turn & third turn)
x3 Attack (when he attacks)

He hurts.  DB2 or Alice/Belle is mandatory to make it to the second turn.  I used no attribute attacks like Shadow and Jack, but you can probably do most of your damage in Turn 2, when his defenses are down.  Be careful though - if you can’t kill him, his attack and defense are both at x3 in Turn 3.

6: Lv. 255 Morning Star (P)
When low on HP, raises defense and heals itself.  Try not to let that happen.  His hits are a lot stronger than his fat bandit friend, so Minnie and DB2 should be important if you can’t single target him down with Magic.

7: Lv. 260 Hammer Frame (P)
When low on HP, he boosts strength and defense.  Try not to let that happen.  If he hits you, he has a chance to paralyze too.  Save/Load if you have bad luck.  

8: Lv. 265 Wyvern (P)
x1 Attack
He hits twice, and he hits hard.  Paralyze or Minnie, DB2, and lots of strong Magic.

9: Lv. 270 High Wizard (M)
Single target Speed.  DB2.  If you’re having trouble, bring Minnie, but there’s not much of a mechanic here.

10: Lv. 275 Dark Plant (M)
Same as above.  He lowers your defenses though.

11: Lv. 280 Blue Copter Fleet (M)
x2 Magic defense
x2 Speed defense

If this guy hits you, it takes down a lot of your HP.  Counter this with Paralysis and use Minnie and DB2 to keep your health as high as possible.  If you want to do Speed damage, you should debuff, but I used high single target Magic (Shadow is good here too) and it went just fine.  It took three turns, though.

12: Lv. 285 Gargoyle (S)
His hits won’t kill you, but they can paralyze you.  Save/Load if you get paralyzed and it messes you up.

He’s way easier than the BCF before him.  High single target Power damage with x3 Strength (x5 if you have Ill. Sora) and you’ll be fine.  Use TT or Olympia.

13: Lv. 290 Invisible (S)
Starts putting on x2 and x3 attack when he gets to low health.

For this one, I mirrored the paralysis trick from round 11, but with Olympia and Power medals.  Leon +1000 AB2 50% in the x2.7 slot, and paralysis in the free slots.  Remember Minnie and DB2.  No debuffs necessary.

14: Lv. 295 Black Copter Fleet (S)
x3 Speed attack
x3 Power defense
Refreshes after two turns

This was the first one I had to use a continue on.  You need Alice (or Belle).  Even if it’s a friend card, you need it to survive the first attack.  If you have your own Alice, put it early in the keyblade so you can use Power damage to whittle away at his health.  Paralysis and is very helpful, but don’t bother with Minnie - if you need her, you’re already dead.

Strategy:
Olympia.  Alice.  Strength x3, or x5 if you can.  Use your best single target in the 2.7 Power slot.  Everything else should be paralysis or poison, including your friend card.  Especially your friend card, since you’ll be doing next to no damage without a slot multiplier.  Bring DB2.

With this plan, you’ll get two full attacks of your Power medal.  Then you need a Paralysis proc, because his x3 Speed buff refreshes.  If you don’t get a proc, Save/Load.  Get a third hit in.  Pray for another proc.  Get a fourth hit in.  He’ll probably kill you unless you’ve got really good luck or a really good Power medal. (I had Leon maxed out.)  He’ll kill you.  Continue.  Start all over again.  Make sure to re-debuff him when you come back to life.  Rinse repeat until he’s dead.

I only needed one continue for this fight after spending almost 100 AP trying different tactics.  I, however, don’t really use Defense Up or Defense Down.  Those might be viable alternatives.  Nick & Judy could be very useful!  Don’t bother stealing the x3 Speed and using it against him - it’s not worth it.  Go for Power.

An alternative friend card for this is anything with Sleep or Sleep+.  Even more useful than paralysis.  Don’t use the special though if it’s Sleep+.  The damage isn’t worth the SP loss.

15: Lv. 300 Cloud (S)
He will kill you.

Strategy:
Literally everything he does kills you.  DB2 can proc for every single hit, and it will still probably kill you.  Defense up could work.  Like I said - I don’t use Defense buffs and debuffs enough. Again, Nick & Judy maybe?

Same plan as the BCF, except no Alice/Belle, and no chance for two turns.  Thankfully, he has about half the HP bars as the BCF, so it sort of evens out.  Sleep on your friend card is a must.  Paralysis is basically necessary.  A lot of Save/Loading.  I had him down to three health bars before using my continue - that was after two sleeps and a paralysis.

Don’t use ANY special that isn’t a.) a buff/debuff medal, b.) 0 SP cost, or c.) the medal in your 2.7 Olympia slot.  Because you won’t do a lick of damage. (If you’re using TT, you can experiment with the last three slots.)

I’m a C2P player.  I’m sure there are people that are better than me.  I’m sure there are people that will survive Cloud’s hits (magically) and won’t use any continues.  I’m sure there are people who will even two-turn him!  Please use this guide as a reference rather than a rulebook.  This is more for the hundred thousand people on or below my level.

Now that you have your gems, how should you use them?

Magic ~ Moogle O’ Glory.  Three Wishes focuses a lot on Slot 3 for all of the gem upgrades, and it’s not until +28 that it gets into useful territory.  MoG on the other hand has its multipliers in slots 2-5 above x2, and never focuses on Slot 1 during its upgrade process. (Of course, we still don’t have any orichalcum… so by the time we get another story update, another gem will probably be released!)
Power ~ Olympia. Olympia gets +x.35, including on slots three and five.  Treasure Trove only gets +x.20 on slots two and four. 
Speed ~ Divine Rose. Divine Rose and Starlight both upgrade slots 4 and 5 by +x.30, but DR has more usefulness in game atm, especially with the release of the guilted Jack medal.  Lady Luck only gives +x.25 to slot 3.

“It’s also worth mentioning that, instead of leveling three blades to +26, someone could instead use the three gems to level starlight to +27.” - by Reddit user bobguy117

I hope all that helped!  Have a great week guys!  Event ends 10/9!

<3 KCM

P.S. If you have any questions concerning the Kingdom Hearts franchise, from KHUX mechanics to plot arcs from KH1, feel free to send me an ask! ^_^  That’s what Kingdom Hearts FAQ is here for!

October Coliseum Guide

(This is my third guide tonight so pardon me if I’m a little curt.. >_<) 

We’re back for another month of Coliseum!  This one has some pretty Halloween vampire outfits and a lot of Attack Prize skills!  So let’s get down to business.

image

Like always, you need 2200 coins to complete both avatar boards.  That’s clearing Round 30 of Tier 10, which is a lot easier now than it was when Coliseum T10 came out.  Especially with the Jack event, there is no reason anyone shouldn’t be able to get to Round 30.

Here’s the enemy list based on Round number:

x1: (All Power)
~Dire Plant
~Dire Plant x3
~Gargoyle Knight
~Gargoyle Knight x2

x2: (All Speed)
~Chomper Egg x4
~Air Soldier
~Air Soldier & Chomper Egg x2 & Gift Shadow

x3: (All Magic)
~Bag O’ Coal x3
~Bag O’ Coal x4
~White Rose & Bag O’ Coal x2

x4: (All Power)
~Nosy Mole
~Nosy Mole x5
~Large Armor & Nosy Mole x2

x5: (Speed unless stated)
~Bandit x3 (*CAUTION*)
~Bandit x4 (*CAUTION*)
~Wibble Wobble x2 & Shadow x2 (P)

x6: (Magic unless stated)
~Gift Shadow (P)
~Darkball x2
~Wayward Wardrobe (+3 Magic-Defense) & Blue Rhapsody x2

x7: (Power & Magic)
~Possessor (M) x4 (*CAUTION*)
~Armored Knight (P) & Possessor (M)
~Large Armor (P) & Possessor (M) x2

x8 (All Speed)
~Gargoyle
~Rainy Loudmouth x4 (*CAUTION*)
~Armored Archer x2 & Rainy Loudmouth x2

x9: (All Magic)
~Bag O’ Coal
~Bag O’ Coal x4
~Ice Plant & Bag O’ Coal x3 (+2 Magic-Strength)

x0: (All Magic)
~Minute Bomb x2
~Candy Apple x2
~Wretched Witch (+1 Speed-Defense) & Minute Bomb & Candy Apple

A couple of those aren’t fun to deal with; Wretched Witch and Wayward Wardrobe are the worst IMO.  Unlike last month, there isn’t a Hammer or Cannon.  No Bad Dogs either, thankfully.  Defense Boosts and 0SP medals will help out a lot as you advance.  Those Poison+, Paralysis+, and Sleep+ will really come in handy.  This month has less heavy hitters, more health bars.  A test of endurance, maybe.  But with Jack and TVA in the mix, I think we will be seeing a lot of contention at Round 100 or higher!

So, let’s get down to the good stuff.  The rewards.

Rewards:
As always, getting to Tier 10 gets you some Cids and some Moogles.

Vampire Board (Blue):
~Vampire outfit
~Vampire talons (wrists)
~Vampire mask
~Poison
~Attack Boost I
~Attack Boost All I
~Chip +250
~Dale +400
~Cid x2
Title: Grand

Vampire Board (Pink):
~Vampire outfit
~Vampire bracelets
~Vampire headpiece
~Sleep
~Paralysis
~Defense Boost I
~Chip +400
~Dale +250
~Cid x2
Title: Brawny

Rankings:
~Top 2,500 get the new skill: Attack Prize + & Attack Boost II - this triggers both AB2 and APP at once
~Top 10,000 get Attack Prize Plus, which is great on its own
~Top 10,000 also get Vampire Wings

That’s it!  Have fun!  Good luck!

<3 KCM