A lot of folk are being thwarted by the latest lessons, especially on hard mode, so let's run down some basics that might help 😊
This differs from my Tips and Tricks for beginners so read that if you're earlier in the game!
The top part of the above pic is the screen you'll see whenever you hit battle. The two important stats are your Total Strength and the Opponent's Total Strength. The little emoji will get happier the stronger you are versus the opponent.
There's a lot of other info here including the two symbols in the top right telling you what sins the stage are - in this case Greed and Lust. If you go with your default team, the game will pick your strongest cards against those sins, and give a boost to your own Greed and Lust cards.
But what we really want to look at is the magnifying glass.
The magnifying glass will pop up a box listing your own team's skills and, crucially, the sins and skills of the opposing cards. In a non-boss fight, this will tell you which sin has two cards and which has one.
This is important as the different sins all have different attack modes, and it's handy to know what to expect going in!
In a boss fight like this, it will also tell you what skill the boss might play - here Solomon has the Berserker skill which turns one member of your team into a Berserker.
Does the colour of the boss card matter? Not really. Bosses stick to a preferred pattern regardless of their card colour, and their skills don't always match either.
To see what we mean by card skills, let's take a look at my cards.
The game defaults to ordering by rarity, so order by strength instead for a better picture of what you've got. Here you can see my most used cards are the first three, and following that is a mix of my other preferred battle cards and cards I levelled up just to unlock them.
There are two reasons to unlock a card via the devil tree. Firstly, because you like the card! And secondly, because doing so allows you to max out the card skill IF you have a higher card skill.
Skill is separate from the level, strength, and sin stats. Skill is increased only via duplicate cards. It can be very difficult therefore to have a high skill UR card as you tend not to get duplicates. But often SSRs will duplicate over time, making up for them not having the same strength as the UR cards.
You can see in the above screenshot that Asmo UR is the strongest card, but from the top screenshot that Satan SSR is the highest level. The ability to now break the level limit on high ranking cards is great, as I've been able to keep levelling up my SSRs and URs after being stuck for ages at one final level.
My memory cards are a bit of a mess, which is a good lesson in what not to do! Like demon cards, it's a good idea to have a strong card for every sin.
The reason my memory cards are lagging behind is that for the last few lessons I've invested heavily in strengthening my demon cards, which I now need to do with my memory cards.
There are two types of card skills - Special Skills and Auto Skills. Demon cards hold Special Skills which have a chance of activating when you attack during battle. Auto Skills belong to the memory cards, which have a chance of activating at the beginning of each battle.
The higher the level of skill, the greater the effect of the skill. The chance of activation remains the same.
Skills vary by card, but when it comes to opponents, they also vary by sin.
Skill symbols: clover leaf (luck), timer (speed), crossed out water drop (ban skills), sun (charm), two arrows up (increase charm), two arrows down (decrease charm), circle arrow (refresh), stars (weaken, good), shield (protect gauge), happy emoji (great), frown emoji (bad), angry emoji (berserker), lightning (paralyze), frog (frog), zombie (zombie).
(A blue dot on the skill implies a decrease/disable.)
Basically, every skill either increases your own team, or decreases the opponent team, and vice versa. Speed effects gauge filling, luck effects skill chance, charm either effects skill strength or attack strength, and so on and so forth.
Let's break it down by sin!
There are exceptions to every rule but generally speaking, the opponents in each sin act similarly (excluding bosses who do not have to match the colour of their card or stage).
Pride pattern: Patience. The Little D's of Pride will wait and wait and wait. Occasionally they attack around the ten second mark. Often they wait til the last few seconds. Sometimes they don't attack at all. Two will tend to attack together. (Strategy: wait til ten seconds to attack, they may or may not counter.)
The Shadow Pride demons will almost always attack after ten to eleven seconds. If not, they are similar to the Little D's. (Strategy: attack at ten seconds.)
Common skills: refresh team, decrease charm, enable good, protect gauge, FROG
Bosses: Lucifer usually acts like a Little D of Pride, Levi like a Shadow Pride demon, and Beel somewhere in between.
Greed pattern: Reactive. Little D's of Greed will attack whenever any other card attacks on either side and its gauge is full. They will always attack together. (Strategy: attack once every ten seconds for guaranteed counter.)
Shadow Greed demons are similar but will go off by themselves if unprovoked. (Strategy: attack quickly every ten seconds for guaranteed counter.)
Common skills: enables unlucky, enables good, weakens, decrease speed, BERSERKER
Bosses: Mammon, Asmo, and sometimes Solomon usually act like Greed demons.
Envy pattern: Reactive. Little D's of Envy are almost identical to Greed but for one thing - they will attack whenever you attack, but they won't attack if only their own teammates do. They will attack together. (Strategy: attack once every ten seconds for guaranteed counter.)
Shadow Envy demons are identical.
Common skills: disable lucky, decrease charm, increase speed, protect team gauge, ZOMBIE
Bosses: Diavolo, Luke, and sometimes Solomon most often act like Envy demons.
Wrath pattern: Patience. Little D's of Wrath are similar to Pride, but they will always attack, usually after ten seconds. They will attack together. (Strategy: wait til ten seconds to attack, they may or may not counter.)
Shadow Wrath demons are similar.
Common skills: enables great, enables good, bans skills
Bosses: Belphegor most often acts like Wrath demons, occasionally a little faster.
Lust pattern: Chaotic. Little D's of Lust are entirely unpredictable, following no set pattern whatsoever. They usually don't attack together but often one straight after the other. (Strategy: ignore, too unpredictable.)
Shadow Lust demons are identical.
Common skills: increase speed, increase charm, disable lucky, ban skills
Gluttony pattern: Aggressive. Little D's of Gluttony will attack as soon as their gauge is full. They will attack together. (Strategy: don't counter unless all three of your cards are ready, don't panic!)
Common skills: disables lucky, enables lucky, increase speed, protect team gauge
Shadow Gluttony Demons are not as immediate but they're still very quick.
Note: Gluttony demons fill their gauges the fastest.
Bosses: Satan and Barbatos most often act like the Little D's of Gluttony.
Sloth pattern: Aggressive/Patient. Little D's of Sloth are the most annoying opponent to deal with as they have the skill of paralyze, which freezes 1-3 members of your team. They either attack as soon as their gauge is full, after a long wait, or occasionally not at all. They usually don't attack together, except for the times they do 😒 (Strategy: fuck knows tbh.)
Shadow Sloth demons appear to be similar.
Common skills: paralyze, increase charm, decrease speed
You want to aim to attack with all three of your demons at the same time, once in every ten seconds of battle - so twice in a regular battle, four times in a boss battle.
Don't ever attack with only one or two demons, even if one is paralyzed! Unless you're right at the end of the battle ofc.
Each demon that adds to the attack increases the combo bonus - this includes the demons on the opponent team. It's better to attack than counter, as it might flip more opposing demons into attacking at once and thus increase your bonus. It also gives the opportunity to collect more hearts as any time a single demon attacks, it delays heart appearances.
Highest reward: all six demons attack
Lowest risk: attack with three when no opponents can or will counter
Remember the strategies above - Greed and Envy will always counter; Gluttony may attack before all three of your demons are ready so ignore and don't panic!"; Pride and Wrath may attack at exactly ten seconds; Lust is chaotic, ignore; Sloth has paralyze which can totally screw you over.
Bosses are a little unpredictable, sometimes seeming to have a set pattern, other times more in line with their card or the sin of the battle stage.
There are really no set rules here, so it's always a case of trial and error.
In general, bosses have higher skill levels, and more annoying skills. Greed, Envy and Gluttony are common attack patterns for bosses as they allow for more attacks, and in later lessons the newer skills like Frog, Zombie, and Berserker usually make an appearance in boss and later stage battles.
Ya boi, ya better use your glowsticks! If you need to use glowsticks to make up for a shortfall in card strength, pay close attention to the two sins of the stage - ie, which of your cards are getting a boost.
Your highest status card (UR) or highest level card may not get the biggest overall bonus via glowstick, sometimes it is the strongest card with a stage sin boost. So add and subtract and see which gives the highest overall strength total.
Rainbow glowsticks always give a bigger bonus than sin coloured glowsticks.
The upside to using glowsticks is that there are rewards in the to-do list for each demon that add up to a LOT of devil points later on if you keep using them.
There's nothing wrong with using glowsticks to get that three star rating. Sometimes I use glowsticks on one battle and the next is a walkover. It just depends on which of your cards are strong.
Invest in your cards. Aim to have one demon and one memory card (at least) for each sin. Unlock the devil trees fully. Pay to level up. Grind without quick battles so that as well as player EXP you get card EXP which levels up cards and/or makes buying levels cheaper.
Throw money into Chapter G and get yourself some skill ups by building SSRs from pieces. Doing event gachas usually skills up your SSRs too.
Investing in cards costs a LOT. So grind the events, Levi's Boot Camps, do the jobs, and make that grimm.
(Grinding events is also a great way to get demon SSRs as page one of rewards always has one, no "bonus" cards needed.)
And don't forget your memory cards!
build cards for every sin
always attack with three demons, every 10 secs
Lust and Sloth are annoying
germansingergirl
prguitarman
tangentwithtanner
