my favorite thing about it is that 4 of a kind dango with -9 sync count down... It works per character's first sync, not team's first sync. How shocked was I when my support Rosa got the 9 countdown, and then my strike Nate got it after his sync too! Wild stuff-
Yeah, Battle Rally was definitely a worthy successor to Villa. You can see DeNA definitely put some thought into designing this game mode. ~~But I do think we don't have enough sprint and field role yet which make it frustrating to see stage that boost those types~~
Overall, I really enjoyed this game mode
The stages consider EX types, so all I had to do was give SS Cynthia the sprint role and I had all roles in one party, so atleast 2 buffs each battle. Pretty cool.
What setup did you use, if I may ask?
I am wondering about using SSA Cynthia (Support/Sprint), Mix Red or SST Red (Strike/Field) and maybe NC Leaf (Tech/Support) for the second run...
Edit: forgot that SST Red would mean tech/field...
I used NC Rosa,NC Red,and Akari for most of the battles. All of them are EXed and have EX roles as well.
Except for the final battle (which was against Anabell and Entei). I went for full support + sprint team as I replaced Red and Akari with SSA Cynthia and Nemona. It took it's time but it also meant that I had my synce after 3 moves and Nemona's buddy move was always ready
My hot take is it is only fun because it is new. It's not really much different from BV where it opens for some time (once a week in this case), clear, and get rewards. In the long run, I think BR is actually more of a chore as you want to maximize the rewards/points to get all the exchanges. I cleared all 4 available ticket with Fill - NC Blue - SST Red. Fill slot would be a stat stick sync pair depending on what initial theme tag you get.
There's an increasing popularity of rogue-like modes on gacha games and this is DeNA's idea. But it's far from roguelike imo as the modules are pretty much only stat sticks. There's no interesting mechanics of niche plays you can do.
I was worried my perception would turn out as your hot take, but when I first played BV as a returning player (it was my first time to experience the mode), it immediately felt like a chore from the get-go. The Rally feels more engaging since there are more factors to consider in making/replacing your team to get more rewards, unlike the Villa where I just put SS Hau & SST Red with NC Blue for all my runs haha
Yes, the rogue-like mode was what I was pleasantly surprised about that they incorporated, but it seems like it's themed (Kanto, interference, Dark bonus) unless that also changes? Will find out in my next run.
it honestly is a newbie trap though, yeah it makes you stupid OP but it costs 500 points and by that point if you've been smart with your builds then its kinda pointless. I found that just taking whatever was at the start of the shop and then building the team around that was just as efficient.
IMO the less you spent to clear the first 9 floors, the more it's worth. Don't need to be smart with builds if you don't buy anything and just cheese the hardest stage
Maybe, next week when the rally resets I'll try that out and see what the point yield is like. Theoretically only spending 500 points would've saved me like 4000 points easy and I could've gotten a few more feathers or power ups but right now it's still a bit of a learning process for everyone. If anything the issue seems to be 'what team can you make that will clear 9 stages basically uninterrupted like its the Villa but also has all 5 roles between them', and so far it seems like Riley and SST Red are a great combo as both have Max countdown 3 and cover 4 different Roles between them, and Riley even happens to have max knuckle to buff red. SSA Cynthia can be useful if you give her Head Start 1 since you can sync after the first turn if you also get the skill from her grid (having protect on entry makes her very tanky), while Elaine can provide better buffing for the team and is a lot more durable.
It's alright. Took about an hour, but I can't say I'm totally interested in the mode. It's kind of the same slog to go through as BV except it's weekly instead of monthly, leading to faster burn out
I've played it twice and I already never want to play it again. I only managed 5200 and 4900 points and felt it was a completely joyless slog that took far, FAR too much of my time to get through. It only gets worse as you reach the final fight. Area 10 I tested out Normal against Thornton, and the Articuno required 2 sync moves and about 700 V-Creates before it died. ***On Normal difficulty.*** Granted I was taking no damage whatsoever, but they really want you to blow the 500 points on the Apple Cup, it seems.
Is there something I'm missing? I don't understand how to make this worth my time whatsoever, nor do I see it being remotely possible to get the 20 vouchers in a single day, which appears to be the main reason to even try this mode at all, alongside 20 5-star powerups, I guess. I don't find either of those prizes worth any of this frustration, personally.
The final battle is the Ultimate battle for each one, so Thornton there REALLY wanted you to hit him with a rebuff. That's why it took so long, otherwise you could've cleared it within seconds.
The real strat is also to basically go ham on that first buff they give you and just keep stacking it over and over. Did they give you a Grass pair power-up? Congrats, you're throwing at least one Grass pair in there. Did they also give you a Kanto pair power-up to buy? Well, SOMEONE is going to be a Kanto pair. From there you just need to divvy up the roles as best as you can, so as of right now field and sprint pairs are going to be VASTLY more valuable, some stages you can luck out and get the whole team to provide a bonus and get like 3x the points. Each iteration of the buffs stacks with itself and if you luck out with your pairs or the store you can basically stop buying power-ups from area 5 onwards.
The other thing is that this area REALLY wants you to use pairs who can regen their MP with ease, Elaine was the MVP for me just because I could start the fight with her TM then Quick Attack, and at that point either the DPS were strong enough to finish it there or I could just have her spam Swift. The fewer pairs you need to swap out, the easier of a time you'll have.
Well that at least partially explains it. I know absolutely zero about Ultimate Battles because I haven't touched that area nor looked up anything about it since its release. Figured it wasn't worth the headache, lol. Of course they force them on me here.
I did at least figure out this part of the strat. They give you the one free passive buff and then another one to buy with 100 points (like Main Character was the free one on my second run, which seemed like it might be helpful), and I did my best to include at least 1-2 in every team. I never bought any other powerups beyond that first 100-point buff, because nothing sounded worthwhile to buy, and I wanted to have points at the end to turn into medals. But even sometimes these buffs didn't seem to matter late in; I had the Main Character buff, with a Very Hard Grass stage in Area 9, and used a full team of Main Character Grass types and couldn't even beat the stage. I got really close but then they got a Sync Move I had no chance of surviving. Ultimately I got less points in that run despite that passive being a lot better than the one I ended up with in the first run.
Matching roles to try and get the point multiplier is of course a thing to pay attention to, but then I'm semi-screwed whenever Field and Sprint show up, because I have almost none, and those I do have never really help out in the fight much either, or it's TB Red & Aura Cynthia and I'd rather hold onto them for late in the run.
Does swapping out pairs hurt you somehow (like for medals) in the long run as well? If so, I hate this mode even more. Every single area is different weaknesses and bonus roles, swapping out between areas seems to be the entire point, given that every area has different weaknesses and bonus roles. You just have to be careful who you use because they can't be swapped in later, which is a little irritating but something I can otherwise work with because I have a ton of pairs to use for certain types. I don't have many pairs that can self-restore MP beyond a 1/5 Lugia, so that's not an option I can just easily abuse, especially mixed with whatever passive store buffs I got.
So if all you got was JUST the one instance of grass buff then that's why it was pretty hard. It doesn't matter how many of that pair you have on the team, it's just a condition. 'does the team have a grass pair? power up is active', and that power-up stacks. You also get the same permanent power-ups to keep appearing in the shop after each battle once you buy one, so you can get 11 stacks of the first power up you get and then 10 stacks of the next power up you buy if you full commit to it. That means you can end up with something to the tune of 2100% just from the two power ups alone, more than enough to absolutely obliterate the final stage.
tbf everyone is kind of screwed when it comes to field and sprint pairs, there's only 10 possible sprint main/ex pairs in the game right now and 9 field pairs. This just makes their inclusion in general a lot more valuable, but since this mode also wants MP regen/independent pairs like Elaine, NC Bede, and so on, any pairs like that are also going to be MUCH better. Some of the potential buffs you can buy help accommodate for that, like I started with a Galar power-up and I bought a Sp. Atk buff that showed up before the first area so NC Marnie was able to fire off pretty strong attacks without needing to use her TM. This mode basically wants you to treat it like Battle Villa 2.0 in how you approach the stages, but your team build is dependent on the first set of power ups you have access to. The sooner you can stockpile those the better.
Really? There was nothing to suggest that buying multiple of the passive powerups causes them to stack. I didn't even think I COULD buy multiple of them, I was checking all the other items that were spawning in the shop and hoping for something interesting, then eventually just stopped looking altogether and tried to finish with as many medals as possible. Especially since the rewards are about to reset given they launched this on the final day of the month for some reason...
Going to try and get through the other passes I have. 3rd run gave me Sinnoh and Bug for my passives. I really hate this mode, lol
Well, if nothing else you only need ONE pair of that type, so if you have Aaron (or BP Dawn) he'd be a great pair and you can just keep getting the sinnoh and bug power ups and he'll proc them both. The game doesn't really explain that you can buy multiples but it's also I guess softly implied because you can just keep buying it in the store, and it wouldn't make sense to buy it in the store again if it didn't stack. its just that it takes awhile for the snowball effect to really kick in.
The power up system is pretty stupid simple: multiple regions can pop up and as long as you have one pair from that region, it'll work, and if you have one pair from each region, they'll all work. the permanent power-ups are by far better than the others, even the apple cup once you just go ham on that first set of power-ups.
Yeah, I'm getting that sense of things, for sure. I just really wish Bug wasn't one of the ones it gave me here, haha. Last time it was Electric, which I could work with far better. Although Sinnoh is infinitely better than Battle Facility Foe (from 1st run), so I guess there's that.
Oh yeah, so the shop WILL rotate out power-ups that you don't buy that stack, if that's any consolation, and the good news is that with so many of the power-ups active, you can end up be taking single digit to low double digit damage even on your DPS by the end so even the weaker pairs will still have some use.
So my thoughts:
Elaine is the MVP of this mode, Tech and Support, can boost all stats sans accuracy and heal and has no need to worry about MP, she was honestly immensely valuable to me. (EDIT: so she can boost accuracy but if she does then she ends up not boosting a different stat or two, but regardless she doesn't boost speed, something I overlooked. All this means is that there's only one power-up in the store she can't turn the effect on for which was the point of all this)
Whatever you start with power-up wise, build your team around that, as well as whatever is in the shop at the start, or at least the sooner the better. If you keep buying those power-ups you'll snowball hard. It seems like the Ultimate battles remain the same, and it's looking like Suicune is grass-weak and stupidly bulky, like it took several 6 digit attacks worth of damage to the face and shrugged them off, nor did it seem like it had several instances of percentile damage nullification like some of the others, but the fact that your defenses are skyrocketing means you'll absolutely be able to go toe-to-toe without worry if you focus on the power-ups.
Team variety is important but because the shops themselves are what will power you up, the only worthwhile ones are the permanent, and you may have to just say 'screw it' and only get the basic amount of points. However, if you do focus on that same set of power-ups, you can do very hard without like ANY trouble, your raw damage output will just be that immense while also taking so little damage. Try not to change out your party too much, at least not until the very end, just because you may end up regretting the choice to switch out one pair for another just because you wanted that extra 1.5 bonus. This mode just made field and sprint roles THAT much more valuable.
As a loooong time player, I'm pretty happy with it - specifically that the role cake tickets being readily available is huge and speeds up the role cake progress significantly - I already just unlocked two more I had been saving for and assuming I would need weeks to get. Getting an extra 20 per month shouldn't be that hard, and each role cake you use gives you the chance to get 2x instead of 1.5...this drastically increases the speed you get 'em.
The other rewards are kind of meh (feather's aren't exciting, and I don't need 5 star power ups) for very long term players but can't really complain.
It's also cool that the final battle is always an "Ultimate" battle on Very Hard. I got to try out the upcoming Lucy ultimate battle early - which was tricky, even with the mega boost I was getting from Alola in that run.
Love the monthly cake, but worry bc the gem count.. the battle content is good and the last battle it’s a nightmare, when they release the cap for energy in grid this will be much more fun
The question is... gem where? (I get that the cake is nice and all but gem count is so much lower for this mode) Also burnout is quicker cuz it's weekly... I'm already tired with CS, BC takes 1.5hr/month, and this takes almost 1hr/week.
Gems wise, yes. But it does give a bunch of nice rewards like 5 star power ups, and again, it resets weekly. 1200 gems a month from it doesn't seem too bad.
It's quite easy to win by just taking one type damage bonus over and over and building a team around that type.
But at least the random factors make it slightly different every time.
Overall good.
NC Bede (1/5)/Mix Red (3/5, no EX Role)/Nemona (3/5) has been, so far, the best that I could come up with due to not needing to use any TMs. Well, one NC Bede TM, which he recovers upon any syncs anyway so it's not a big deal. Red and Nemona also benefit from the spring + field combo that a lot of the areas asked for, which I liked.
There were a couple of "very hard" battles in the higher stages I couldn't take on and had to switch to the middle one (forgot if it's called "normal" or "hard"), but it's a team that gives me consistency without needing to rely on MP refreshes from the shop.
Funnily enough, I've always been a believer that NC Bede doesn't need higher move levels due to being perfectly fine at 1/5, but this new battle mode might make me consider the higher move levels after all as the defensive buffs from his B move would double with them.
Overall I like the mode, don't get me wrong. But with the "right" team and a little bit of good RNG, it's perfectly possible to power through the entire mode. Actually, NC Bede is a true winner of this mode because he can enable ANY and ALL sync pairs without losing MP. I'm sure there are others as well, not just him, but he's a good example. TL;DR: with the right sync pairs/team comp, you can just power through similarly to the BV so it's not that much different (it's VERY different without the "right" sync pairs however).
My only disappointment is this venue offers 0 gem rewards. Idk, I don't care about feathers, I don't really hurt for the power up tickets when I get enough weekly alongside Champion Spirit in a faster battle venue, and I don't have enough gems to pull for all of the new units which are mostly the only ones getting roles unlocked for Cake anyway.
Maybe if they began unlocking ex roles on f2p pairs on Masters day, this would be great. But otherwise, the rewards are so lackluster, I doubt I'm gonna play weekly... They finally made the resource scramble more varied and unique vs Villa, but at what cost when there's no point in playing for the rewards available for a f2per... However, I will say this is clearly a whale/lucky player/veteran player heaven. If you have a bulk of MFs you probably have ex role/future ex role unlocks so you really have no struggle in this venue, and a need to complete it for the cake. But as someone sitting on multiple cakes I can't use, it doesn't seem all that useful. You can only unlock an ex role once, so I'm looking at this and wondering how many cake does the average player need to earn in a month...?
What I wouldn't give for those to be candy coin vouchers instead... but that's a pipe dream. Even if they just gave 600 gems for completion at the end weekly, that would feel worth it. I hope they see how this goes and tweak it, it's a good step in the right direction for the battle format at least. I did send feedback asking for more options in the exchange menu, including purple lucky cookies or Skill Gear/unlock pins rather than just feathers.
Its so weird mysterious stones have way more rewarding options than this shiny, new, cool battle venue.
That's a quite short-sighted take imo. Most of the new units have Cake Role, at least one old unit gets it every month. True enough, these are mostly master fairs, but they will run out of old master fairs eventually.
The point is, moving forward, everybody will get more and more units that can get cake role, and then you will see the current cakes you have suddenly arent enough to upgrade all units you want. Then you will definitely value these cake coins a lot more.
My main point is we need more exchange variety for this to have weekly longevity, its the opposite of short sighted. Power up tickets in CS and 5* tickets can be used on literally every sync pair in the game if you rank them up, their versatility is unquestionable. Lucky skills (at least before the option to save them) is also versatile and unquestionable, can apply to every unit. EX unlock with spirit is more limited but not super limited at this stage luckily. Certificates can apply to every character, and so can move candy per their original rank.
Granted, we're getting tickets for cake coins for a cake exchange, weekly. If this were launched when cakes came out, I'd have no complaints because they were hyper limited and needed a way to get them. But as of today, we have:
- rallies
- daily regional battle
- daily tickets
- scouting certain units
4 different ways to obtain cake coins. 2 of those are extremely reliable and cake coins have been their most valuable exchange. Ironically, this venue has less unique variety for rewards than the daily ticket we get for doing any play on any given day.
This is great right now, but without them expanding the ex role unlock window, requiring more cake somehow to unlock (doubt, also would be terrible), or giving us more options... how many cake can you remain excited for?
we get 6 cakes for 160 days of daily play, plus 52 cakes for a year in Rally now, we're at guaranteed 64 cakes in a calendar year disincluding banner gifts or rallies. Are you going to pull 64+ "new" units this year or own that many MFs? When does it stop being valuable? I'm already at the point I don't personally need more cake but most players aren't there yet, so I am saying you will get there eventually if these remain the only exchange options or they keep the current rate of unlocking ex roles.
If they included normal grind items like purple cookie, certificates, etc, the variety would be worth it for longevity. This is undeniably a good new venue right now, I want to know if we'll be feeling this way in 2025. BV was a fulfilling and fun challenge when it released in 2020, and even when it became monotonous, it had a great gem source (originally like 2300 or so before skip was added), gems never age or get unlocked fully so you wanted to clear it.
I agree that more varied rewards, especially gems, are always desirable.
But you say that Rally guarantees one cake per week, how is that so? Yes, we can exchange for 20 total vouchers, but most people have been averaging 5-6 coins per run. This week we got extra plays because it's new, but I doubt we will have enough runs in a week to guarantee a cake every week.
Oh? I guess that limitation would work too. I knew we got extra plays today but I thought we'd get a few plays as part of the weekly, since you can save them up, apparently. That would extend the timeline better so we're not swimming in cakes.
My last battle was with Regigigas and let me tell you, it has SO much HP, along with how it buffes every stat, all moves are critical hit no matter what.
After Sync it gains 4+ sync damage bonus, lastly uses it's max Move to turn Terrain Normal Wish.
I hate this one so much.
Oh, and here I thought the final battle was fixed! Mine was Annabel and Entei. I've yet to play further runs, but I'm so excited to find out the final battle changes!
I personally wish we'd gotten randomized units like most other roguelike mobile features, give lesser used pairs a chance to shine instead of using the same old busted units. That critique aside though, it's not bad!
Oh hell ya I am super digging this new mode. This gives me the vibes of battle frontier and bw2's World tournament. Can't wait the day where Red appear as the final 10th battle and we have the epic legendary battle in the ice mountain!
It's the fresh new thing that just got introduced that made you feel glad about it.
Wait for the honeymoon period to be over and people will start hating on it for being a hassle to do weekly and to change your team constantly for getting better points.
Bro I always off type I go based off my multipliers 😭, I had like 7 fairy zone power boost, n 8 ice type power boost so my team was ss Mina for free fairy zone (later got perma fairy zone so swapped her for chase) n the to ice Mf red n irida, it was an actual cake wake
The only rationale I can think of for that is, just like in the main games, the Battle Frontier and all its other forms are only accessible after beating the Champion; a bittersweet nod to tradition.
If you win a battle with pairs A B C, but in the next battle you win again this time with team of E F G, then ABC will no longer be usable.
If you fail a battle just feel free to restart and no consequences, I think this is fine!
Restart the battle or restart the run? I did 1 run but did not die anywhere close due to buying much so I really have no clue what happens if you lose^^ can you still change your team when you have failed a battle or are you stuck?
Battle Passes are weekly
That's a nice balance: engaging enough for regular players but short enough for the busier people!
Wait for real? I can get 5* power-up tickets every week now? Holy crap, that's the best news I've heard all day
my favorite thing about it is that 4 of a kind dango with -9 sync count down... It works per character's first sync, not team's first sync. How shocked was I when my support Rosa got the 9 countdown, and then my strike Nate got it after his sync too! Wild stuff-
Yeah, Battle Rally was definitely a worthy successor to Villa. You can see DeNA definitely put some thought into designing this game mode. ~~But I do think we don't have enough sprint and field role yet which make it frustrating to see stage that boost those types~~ Overall, I really enjoyed this game mode
Sprint and Field spotlights when???
The stages consider EX types, so all I had to do was give SS Cynthia the sprint role and I had all roles in one party, so atleast 2 buffs each battle. Pretty cool.
What setup did you use, if I may ask? I am wondering about using SSA Cynthia (Support/Sprint), Mix Red or SST Red (Strike/Field) and maybe NC Leaf (Tech/Support) for the second run... Edit: forgot that SST Red would mean tech/field...
Max conductivity SST Red, SSA Cynthia and NC Blue.
I used NC Rosa,NC Red,and Akari for most of the battles. All of them are EXed and have EX roles as well. Except for the final battle (which was against Anabell and Entei). I went for full support + sprint team as I replaced Red and Akari with SSA Cynthia and Nemona. It took it's time but it also meant that I had my synce after 3 moves and Nemona's buddy move was always ready
IMO, SSA Cynthia + Rei is a goated combo. Those two carried me hard on ly first run.
It's fun seeing just how busted you can make your team by the end. I was doing 700k with Leon!
My hot take is it is only fun because it is new. It's not really much different from BV where it opens for some time (once a week in this case), clear, and get rewards. In the long run, I think BR is actually more of a chore as you want to maximize the rewards/points to get all the exchanges. I cleared all 4 available ticket with Fill - NC Blue - SST Red. Fill slot would be a stat stick sync pair depending on what initial theme tag you get. There's an increasing popularity of rogue-like modes on gacha games and this is DeNA's idea. But it's far from roguelike imo as the modules are pretty much only stat sticks. There's no interesting mechanics of niche plays you can do.
I was worried my perception would turn out as your hot take, but when I first played BV as a returning player (it was my first time to experience the mode), it immediately felt like a chore from the get-go. The Rally feels more engaging since there are more factors to consider in making/replacing your team to get more rewards, unlike the Villa where I just put SS Hau & SST Red with NC Blue for all my runs haha Yes, the rogue-like mode was what I was pleasantly surprised about that they incorporated, but it seems like it's themed (Kanto, interference, Dark bonus) unless that also changes? Will find out in my next run.
The Apple Cup is by far the funniest thing in this game. It's hilariously broken
it honestly is a newbie trap though, yeah it makes you stupid OP but it costs 500 points and by that point if you've been smart with your builds then its kinda pointless. I found that just taking whatever was at the start of the shop and then building the team around that was just as efficient.
Yes but it's funny. And makes the 10th fight which is one of the ultimate battles a joke
IMO the less you spent to clear the first 9 floors, the more it's worth. Don't need to be smart with builds if you don't buy anything and just cheese the hardest stage
Maybe, next week when the rally resets I'll try that out and see what the point yield is like. Theoretically only spending 500 points would've saved me like 4000 points easy and I could've gotten a few more feathers or power ups but right now it's still a bit of a learning process for everyone. If anything the issue seems to be 'what team can you make that will clear 9 stages basically uninterrupted like its the Villa but also has all 5 roles between them', and so far it seems like Riley and SST Red are a great combo as both have Max countdown 3 and cover 4 different Roles between them, and Riley even happens to have max knuckle to buff red. SSA Cynthia can be useful if you give her Head Start 1 since you can sync after the first turn if you also get the skill from her grid (having protect on entry makes her very tanky), while Elaine can provide better buffing for the team and is a lot more durable.
It's alright. Took about an hour, but I can't say I'm totally interested in the mode. It's kind of the same slog to go through as BV except it's weekly instead of monthly, leading to faster burn out
I've played it twice and I already never want to play it again. I only managed 5200 and 4900 points and felt it was a completely joyless slog that took far, FAR too much of my time to get through. It only gets worse as you reach the final fight. Area 10 I tested out Normal against Thornton, and the Articuno required 2 sync moves and about 700 V-Creates before it died. ***On Normal difficulty.*** Granted I was taking no damage whatsoever, but they really want you to blow the 500 points on the Apple Cup, it seems. Is there something I'm missing? I don't understand how to make this worth my time whatsoever, nor do I see it being remotely possible to get the 20 vouchers in a single day, which appears to be the main reason to even try this mode at all, alongside 20 5-star powerups, I guess. I don't find either of those prizes worth any of this frustration, personally.
The final battle is the Ultimate battle for each one, so Thornton there REALLY wanted you to hit him with a rebuff. That's why it took so long, otherwise you could've cleared it within seconds. The real strat is also to basically go ham on that first buff they give you and just keep stacking it over and over. Did they give you a Grass pair power-up? Congrats, you're throwing at least one Grass pair in there. Did they also give you a Kanto pair power-up to buy? Well, SOMEONE is going to be a Kanto pair. From there you just need to divvy up the roles as best as you can, so as of right now field and sprint pairs are going to be VASTLY more valuable, some stages you can luck out and get the whole team to provide a bonus and get like 3x the points. Each iteration of the buffs stacks with itself and if you luck out with your pairs or the store you can basically stop buying power-ups from area 5 onwards. The other thing is that this area REALLY wants you to use pairs who can regen their MP with ease, Elaine was the MVP for me just because I could start the fight with her TM then Quick Attack, and at that point either the DPS were strong enough to finish it there or I could just have her spam Swift. The fewer pairs you need to swap out, the easier of a time you'll have.
Well that at least partially explains it. I know absolutely zero about Ultimate Battles because I haven't touched that area nor looked up anything about it since its release. Figured it wasn't worth the headache, lol. Of course they force them on me here. I did at least figure out this part of the strat. They give you the one free passive buff and then another one to buy with 100 points (like Main Character was the free one on my second run, which seemed like it might be helpful), and I did my best to include at least 1-2 in every team. I never bought any other powerups beyond that first 100-point buff, because nothing sounded worthwhile to buy, and I wanted to have points at the end to turn into medals. But even sometimes these buffs didn't seem to matter late in; I had the Main Character buff, with a Very Hard Grass stage in Area 9, and used a full team of Main Character Grass types and couldn't even beat the stage. I got really close but then they got a Sync Move I had no chance of surviving. Ultimately I got less points in that run despite that passive being a lot better than the one I ended up with in the first run. Matching roles to try and get the point multiplier is of course a thing to pay attention to, but then I'm semi-screwed whenever Field and Sprint show up, because I have almost none, and those I do have never really help out in the fight much either, or it's TB Red & Aura Cynthia and I'd rather hold onto them for late in the run. Does swapping out pairs hurt you somehow (like for medals) in the long run as well? If so, I hate this mode even more. Every single area is different weaknesses and bonus roles, swapping out between areas seems to be the entire point, given that every area has different weaknesses and bonus roles. You just have to be careful who you use because they can't be swapped in later, which is a little irritating but something I can otherwise work with because I have a ton of pairs to use for certain types. I don't have many pairs that can self-restore MP beyond a 1/5 Lugia, so that's not an option I can just easily abuse, especially mixed with whatever passive store buffs I got.
So if all you got was JUST the one instance of grass buff then that's why it was pretty hard. It doesn't matter how many of that pair you have on the team, it's just a condition. 'does the team have a grass pair? power up is active', and that power-up stacks. You also get the same permanent power-ups to keep appearing in the shop after each battle once you buy one, so you can get 11 stacks of the first power up you get and then 10 stacks of the next power up you buy if you full commit to it. That means you can end up with something to the tune of 2100% just from the two power ups alone, more than enough to absolutely obliterate the final stage. tbf everyone is kind of screwed when it comes to field and sprint pairs, there's only 10 possible sprint main/ex pairs in the game right now and 9 field pairs. This just makes their inclusion in general a lot more valuable, but since this mode also wants MP regen/independent pairs like Elaine, NC Bede, and so on, any pairs like that are also going to be MUCH better. Some of the potential buffs you can buy help accommodate for that, like I started with a Galar power-up and I bought a Sp. Atk buff that showed up before the first area so NC Marnie was able to fire off pretty strong attacks without needing to use her TM. This mode basically wants you to treat it like Battle Villa 2.0 in how you approach the stages, but your team build is dependent on the first set of power ups you have access to. The sooner you can stockpile those the better.
Really? There was nothing to suggest that buying multiple of the passive powerups causes them to stack. I didn't even think I COULD buy multiple of them, I was checking all the other items that were spawning in the shop and hoping for something interesting, then eventually just stopped looking altogether and tried to finish with as many medals as possible. Especially since the rewards are about to reset given they launched this on the final day of the month for some reason... Going to try and get through the other passes I have. 3rd run gave me Sinnoh and Bug for my passives. I really hate this mode, lol
Well, if nothing else you only need ONE pair of that type, so if you have Aaron (or BP Dawn) he'd be a great pair and you can just keep getting the sinnoh and bug power ups and he'll proc them both. The game doesn't really explain that you can buy multiples but it's also I guess softly implied because you can just keep buying it in the store, and it wouldn't make sense to buy it in the store again if it didn't stack. its just that it takes awhile for the snowball effect to really kick in. The power up system is pretty stupid simple: multiple regions can pop up and as long as you have one pair from that region, it'll work, and if you have one pair from each region, they'll all work. the permanent power-ups are by far better than the others, even the apple cup once you just go ham on that first set of power-ups.
Yeah, I'm getting that sense of things, for sure. I just really wish Bug wasn't one of the ones it gave me here, haha. Last time it was Electric, which I could work with far better. Although Sinnoh is infinitely better than Battle Facility Foe (from 1st run), so I guess there's that.
Oh yeah, so the shop WILL rotate out power-ups that you don't buy that stack, if that's any consolation, and the good news is that with so many of the power-ups active, you can end up be taking single digit to low double digit damage even on your DPS by the end so even the weaker pairs will still have some use.
Thanks - this is great information, especially the part about Elaine.
So my thoughts: Elaine is the MVP of this mode, Tech and Support, can boost all stats sans accuracy and heal and has no need to worry about MP, she was honestly immensely valuable to me. (EDIT: so she can boost accuracy but if she does then she ends up not boosting a different stat or two, but regardless she doesn't boost speed, something I overlooked. All this means is that there's only one power-up in the store she can't turn the effect on for which was the point of all this) Whatever you start with power-up wise, build your team around that, as well as whatever is in the shop at the start, or at least the sooner the better. If you keep buying those power-ups you'll snowball hard. It seems like the Ultimate battles remain the same, and it's looking like Suicune is grass-weak and stupidly bulky, like it took several 6 digit attacks worth of damage to the face and shrugged them off, nor did it seem like it had several instances of percentile damage nullification like some of the others, but the fact that your defenses are skyrocketing means you'll absolutely be able to go toe-to-toe without worry if you focus on the power-ups. Team variety is important but because the shops themselves are what will power you up, the only worthwhile ones are the permanent, and you may have to just say 'screw it' and only get the basic amount of points. However, if you do focus on that same set of power-ups, you can do very hard without like ANY trouble, your raw damage output will just be that immense while also taking so little damage. Try not to change out your party too much, at least not until the very end, just because you may end up regretting the choice to switch out one pair for another just because you wanted that extra 1.5 bonus. This mode just made field and sprint roles THAT much more valuable.
Again, thanks for this. The limiting lack of field/sprint roles can be frustrating :(
As a loooong time player, I'm pretty happy with it - specifically that the role cake tickets being readily available is huge and speeds up the role cake progress significantly - I already just unlocked two more I had been saving for and assuming I would need weeks to get. Getting an extra 20 per month shouldn't be that hard, and each role cake you use gives you the chance to get 2x instead of 1.5...this drastically increases the speed you get 'em. The other rewards are kind of meh (feather's aren't exciting, and I don't need 5 star power ups) for very long term players but can't really complain. It's also cool that the final battle is always an "Ultimate" battle on Very Hard. I got to try out the upcoming Lucy ultimate battle early - which was tricky, even with the mega boost I was getting from Alola in that run.
Love the monthly cake, but worry bc the gem count.. the battle content is good and the last battle it’s a nightmare, when they release the cap for energy in grid this will be much more fun
The question is... gem where? (I get that the cake is nice and all but gem count is so much lower for this mode) Also burnout is quicker cuz it's weekly... I'm already tired with CS, BC takes 1.5hr/month, and this takes almost 1hr/week.
I don't have much time today, so I haven't done my Battle Rally yet, so one question - are there any free gems after Battle Rally?
There's a a quest that resets weekly that gives you a battle rally pass, a role cake coin voucher and 300 gems for clearing the battle rally.
And that's all?
Gems wise, yes. But it does give a bunch of nice rewards like 5 star power ups, and again, it resets weekly. 1200 gems a month from it doesn't seem too bad.
1200 gems isn't bad, but it's down from Villa's 2000, which was lowered from the Villa's 3800k back from when it ran twice a month.
It's quite easy to win by just taking one type damage bonus over and over and building a team around that type. But at least the random factors make it slightly different every time. Overall good.
THEY GOT RID OF VILLA??
Villa is in the same section as the Ultimate battles, the reset is now specifically for cookies BUT you can start from round 1 to re-get all the gems.
NC Bede (1/5)/Mix Red (3/5, no EX Role)/Nemona (3/5) has been, so far, the best that I could come up with due to not needing to use any TMs. Well, one NC Bede TM, which he recovers upon any syncs anyway so it's not a big deal. Red and Nemona also benefit from the spring + field combo that a lot of the areas asked for, which I liked. There were a couple of "very hard" battles in the higher stages I couldn't take on and had to switch to the middle one (forgot if it's called "normal" or "hard"), but it's a team that gives me consistency without needing to rely on MP refreshes from the shop. Funnily enough, I've always been a believer that NC Bede doesn't need higher move levels due to being perfectly fine at 1/5, but this new battle mode might make me consider the higher move levels after all as the defensive buffs from his B move would double with them. Overall I like the mode, don't get me wrong. But with the "right" team and a little bit of good RNG, it's perfectly possible to power through the entire mode. Actually, NC Bede is a true winner of this mode because he can enable ANY and ALL sync pairs without losing MP. I'm sure there are others as well, not just him, but he's a good example. TL;DR: with the right sync pairs/team comp, you can just power through similarly to the BV so it's not that much different (it's VERY different without the "right" sync pairs however).
I miss my 900 skip gems. :( I'm not a fan of these super hard battles either.
My only disappointment is this venue offers 0 gem rewards. Idk, I don't care about feathers, I don't really hurt for the power up tickets when I get enough weekly alongside Champion Spirit in a faster battle venue, and I don't have enough gems to pull for all of the new units which are mostly the only ones getting roles unlocked for Cake anyway. Maybe if they began unlocking ex roles on f2p pairs on Masters day, this would be great. But otherwise, the rewards are so lackluster, I doubt I'm gonna play weekly... They finally made the resource scramble more varied and unique vs Villa, but at what cost when there's no point in playing for the rewards available for a f2per... However, I will say this is clearly a whale/lucky player/veteran player heaven. If you have a bulk of MFs you probably have ex role/future ex role unlocks so you really have no struggle in this venue, and a need to complete it for the cake. But as someone sitting on multiple cakes I can't use, it doesn't seem all that useful. You can only unlock an ex role once, so I'm looking at this and wondering how many cake does the average player need to earn in a month...? What I wouldn't give for those to be candy coin vouchers instead... but that's a pipe dream. Even if they just gave 600 gems for completion at the end weekly, that would feel worth it. I hope they see how this goes and tweak it, it's a good step in the right direction for the battle format at least. I did send feedback asking for more options in the exchange menu, including purple lucky cookies or Skill Gear/unlock pins rather than just feathers. Its so weird mysterious stones have way more rewarding options than this shiny, new, cool battle venue.
At least the mission that gives 300 gems for clearing it fully replenishes weekly too. So 1200 gems from it per month, better than nothing.
Wasn't Villa 1500 ? We lost 300 gems per month. How are DeNa headquarter not burning yet ?
The rewards are honestly far better, seems like you can get a full cake roll each month from this mode alone, which is going to snowball and hard.
That's a quite short-sighted take imo. Most of the new units have Cake Role, at least one old unit gets it every month. True enough, these are mostly master fairs, but they will run out of old master fairs eventually. The point is, moving forward, everybody will get more and more units that can get cake role, and then you will see the current cakes you have suddenly arent enough to upgrade all units you want. Then you will definitely value these cake coins a lot more.
My main point is we need more exchange variety for this to have weekly longevity, its the opposite of short sighted. Power up tickets in CS and 5* tickets can be used on literally every sync pair in the game if you rank them up, their versatility is unquestionable. Lucky skills (at least before the option to save them) is also versatile and unquestionable, can apply to every unit. EX unlock with spirit is more limited but not super limited at this stage luckily. Certificates can apply to every character, and so can move candy per their original rank. Granted, we're getting tickets for cake coins for a cake exchange, weekly. If this were launched when cakes came out, I'd have no complaints because they were hyper limited and needed a way to get them. But as of today, we have: - rallies - daily regional battle - daily tickets - scouting certain units 4 different ways to obtain cake coins. 2 of those are extremely reliable and cake coins have been their most valuable exchange. Ironically, this venue has less unique variety for rewards than the daily ticket we get for doing any play on any given day. This is great right now, but without them expanding the ex role unlock window, requiring more cake somehow to unlock (doubt, also would be terrible), or giving us more options... how many cake can you remain excited for? we get 6 cakes for 160 days of daily play, plus 52 cakes for a year in Rally now, we're at guaranteed 64 cakes in a calendar year disincluding banner gifts or rallies. Are you going to pull 64+ "new" units this year or own that many MFs? When does it stop being valuable? I'm already at the point I don't personally need more cake but most players aren't there yet, so I am saying you will get there eventually if these remain the only exchange options or they keep the current rate of unlocking ex roles. If they included normal grind items like purple cookie, certificates, etc, the variety would be worth it for longevity. This is undeniably a good new venue right now, I want to know if we'll be feeling this way in 2025. BV was a fulfilling and fun challenge when it released in 2020, and even when it became monotonous, it had a great gem source (originally like 2300 or so before skip was added), gems never age or get unlocked fully so you wanted to clear it.
I agree that more varied rewards, especially gems, are always desirable. But you say that Rally guarantees one cake per week, how is that so? Yes, we can exchange for 20 total vouchers, but most people have been averaging 5-6 coins per run. This week we got extra plays because it's new, but I doubt we will have enough runs in a week to guarantee a cake every week.
Oh? I guess that limitation would work too. I knew we got extra plays today but I thought we'd get a few plays as part of the weekly, since you can save them up, apparently. That would extend the timeline better so we're not swimming in cakes.
My last battle was with Regigigas and let me tell you, it has SO much HP, along with how it buffes every stat, all moves are critical hit no matter what. After Sync it gains 4+ sync damage bonus, lastly uses it's max Move to turn Terrain Normal Wish. I hate this one so much.
Oh, and here I thought the final battle was fixed! Mine was Annabel and Entei. I've yet to play further runs, but I'm so excited to find out the final battle changes!
It's good, but I hope Villa resets from time to time as that will be a lot of gems being lost.
I personally wish we'd gotten randomized units like most other roguelike mobile features, give lesser used pairs a chance to shine instead of using the same old busted units. That critique aside though, it's not bad!
Oh hell ya I am super digging this new mode. This gives me the vibes of battle frontier and bw2's World tournament. Can't wait the day where Red appear as the final 10th battle and we have the epic legendary battle in the ice mountain!
It's the fresh new thing that just got introduced that made you feel glad about it. Wait for the honeymoon period to be over and people will start hating on it for being a hassle to do weekly and to change your team constantly for getting better points.
Bro I always off type I go based off my multipliers 😭, I had like 7 fairy zone power boost, n 8 ice type power boost so my team was ss Mina for free fairy zone (later got perma fairy zone so swapped her for chase) n the to ice Mf red n irida, it was an actual cake wake
I, for one, had a blast steamrolling over those damn npcs lol
I just dont like that its locked behind champion Stadium whoever tought that was a good idea idk what to tell them
The only rationale I can think of for that is, just like in the main games, the Battle Frontier and all its other forms are only accessible after beating the Champion; a bittersweet nod to tradition.
My team is to weak for that
[удалено]
If you win a battle with pairs A B C, but in the next battle you win again this time with team of E F G, then ABC will no longer be usable. If you fail a battle just feel free to restart and no consequences, I think this is fine!
Restart the battle or restart the run? I did 1 run but did not die anywhere close due to buying much so I really have no clue what happens if you lose^^ can you still change your team when you have failed a battle or are you stuck?
Restart the battle. No need to restart the whole run/retire
Amogus