User blog:Luxionmk2/Researching Efficient Fusing

So I'm constantly grinding the special map, The Iron-Fisted Lady, in an attempt to capture a Lord, Anima or Breaker Boxer Nemia. The only one I've gotten is an Oracle, which is one of her weaker forms. In my opinion, Oracle makes her a more fragile glass cannon, and Guardian is even worse.

In the process, I'm piling up scores of Mandragoras. I used them to boost my Succubus to BB Lv 10... and now I'm funneling all these extras into my Vine Pike Lance to slowly get him to MAX Level. Unfortunately, each full fuse session is costing upwards of 15K Zel!

There's got to be a better way to use these units and to use my Zel more efficiently. I always had this feeling that the slime units, like Mossy and Glowy, are the key to efficient fusing. They evolve at Level 10 (low and cheap) and only cost 1,000 Zel to do so.

So I went off to test my theory, all the while trying to get Boxer Nemia.

1-star slime units are easy to capture. Leveling them to 10 to evolve was trickier, since you want the *right mix* so that you don't overshoot the needed XP and waste resources. The goal is to use 2493 XP worth of units.

Generally, you'll probably be farming the Earth Nymph (or other Nymph units that correspond to your element). 3 Nymphs and 1 Level 4 1-star unit will suffice. This equates to 1,100 Zel. However, since I'm dealing with Mandragoras, ten Level 4 Mandragoras gets me to max Level 10, at the cost of 7,000 Zel.

Now, long story short, I found that evolving the Mossy to King Mossy is NOT worth it. King Mossy levels up on par to other 2-star units and provides the same XP when fused (actually a bit less). It's actually better to capture 2-star units outright and use those as fodder... saving you the Nymph, 1,000 Zel and the 2493 XP worth of units to get to the evolution part.

However, as a result of this experiment, I did discover something else! A Max Level 10 slime unit will provide over 2,000 XP to a unit of the same element (base 1360+). The Level 10 King Mossy only provides about 1,800 XP, and as stated earlier, much more work and XP went into the King Mossy.

So why should a player invest 1,000-7,000 Zel and burn 2,500 XP worth of units to create a slime worth only 2,000 XP? High level fusing!


 * 1) Cleans up unit space, turning ten Mandragoras into a single unit is worth the 7K Zel and 500 XP loss.
 * 2) Fusing those ten Level 4 Mandragoras into my Level 20 Vine Pike Lance would cost 24,000 Zel, and I would get 2,520 XP.  The cost of fusing the Level 10 Mossy would be 10,000 Zel, for 2,046 XP - that's 7,000 Zel from fusing the ten Mandragoras, and another 3K to fuse into the Vine Pike Lance.
 * 3) * Math breaks down into 9.5 Zel per point of XP in the first scenario, and 4.9 Zel per point of XP when "investing" in the Mossy.
 * 4) * The cost-savings will increase when fusing into a higher level unit! In the case of a Level 70 Gun God Douglas, the Mandragoras will cost 37K to fuse (or 14.7 Zel/XP) while the Mossy only costs 14,100 Zel (or 6.9 Zel/XP).

It's also cheaper to use Nymphs, so if you got lots lying around, invest in slimes!