Karma
Karma:
- is mainly obtained by selling Demons in the Pandemonium, which is the easiest way to get rid of demons you consider useless.
- isn't a "farmable" resource, but more a resource that is accumulated.
- is mainly used to purchase Arch-Shifters to change the Archetypes of Demons, though it may also be spent to summon some Common Demons.
- may be spent in the Compendium, at the Hideout, or in the Exchange area, accessible in the Store (button below) or in the Sell Demons facility at the Pandemonium (button at the lower left).
Contents
Archetypes
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Each demon may exist in 5 Archetypes : Common (素体 [sotai] = primal form, Clear/Grey), Aragami (荒神 [aragami] = wild god, Red), Protector (加護 [kago] = divine protection, Yellow), Psychic (異能 [inou] = supernatural power, Purple), and Elementalist (防魔 [bouma] = defense demon, Teal/Cyan). The color/archetype of a demon is shown on its status page or, in some places, on its avatar, as a hexagonal icon with Japanese ideograms inscribed.
- The Archetype of a demon only determines the Awaken skill it possesses (see each demon wiki entry to see the different Awaken skills it may have).
- Awaken skills are locked until the demon is Awakened in Pandemonium in exchange of Aethers (items you can farm in Strange Signal).
- For a given demon, some archetypes may be better than others (see Tier List or the demon's wiki profile page to know what is the best Archetype for a given demon).
- Archetypes are attributed to demons when you summon (Gacha) them. Except for "Normal Summon" and "Hell Bun Summon" (both only summon Common/Clear demons), the Archetypes of summoned demons are chosen completely randomly among the 4 non-Common Archetypes.
- Fusing a demon allows you to fully decide which Archetype the demon will get: you need 1 of the two fusion materials to be Common, and the result of the fusion will inherit the Archetype of the other fusion material.
Whenever a demon is summoned, you only have a 1/4 chance of getting the demon's optimal/desired Archetype. This problem can be solved by items called Arch-Shifters and Arch-Selectors, which allow you to change the Archetype of a Colored Demon (Common Archetype Demons cannot be changed). They are either obtained through events or in the Karma shop.
Archetype Shifting Items
Arch-Shifters are consumable items that can be used on a non-Common Archetype demon and, when used, randomly change the demon's Archetype.
- 2 types exist : one that can only be used on Natural 4★ (Arch-Shifter 4★) and the other on Natural 5★ (Arch-Shifter 5★), that is, it doesn't matter that a demon was evolved, if it's originally a 4★ or a 5★ demon, it'll still require a 4★ or 5★ Selector/Shifter, respectively.
- The random aspect of the Archetype change means you will often need to use more than one Arch-Shifter on the same demon to obtain the desired Archetype.
- Arch-Selectors will allow you to change to the Archetype of your choice. They come in 3 types, Arch-Selector 3★ (only changes the Archetype of Demons below Grade 60), 4★ (only changes Demons of Grade from 60 to 79), and 5★ (only changes Demons of Grade 80 or above).
- Arch-Selector 3★ is usually only available in time-limited events.
- On a price per utility basis, Arch-Shifters are better than Arch-Selectors (on average, you only need 3 Arch-Shifter to get the desired Archetype, while Selectors cost 5 times more Karma).
- Beware about the availability of the Arch-Shifters/Selectors, though, as they are offered in limited quantities per month. Although expensive, it may be a good idea to have one or two Arch-Shifters in case of need.
Managing Arch-Shifters
Arch-Shifters 5★ are very expensive: 3000 Karmas represent 10 non-Common 4★ demons sold... And 3 of them are usually needed. The 4★ version is also expensive for what it does. As such, Arch-Shifters should be kept for:
- Non-fusible Demons. Fusible ones should be fused with the correct Archetype instead.
- Demons you plan to use immediately and who would benefit a lot from having the correct Archetype. If you don't plan to use the demon in the near future, it is smarter to wait as there is a chance you would summon the Demon again but in its correct Archetype.
- Very expensive fusible demons. It can be acceptable to use Shifters on very high Grade 5★ demons (Lucifer, Metatron, Shiva etc.) if you absolutely need them now.
Aside from the very expensive Karma shop, Arch-Shifters can be obtained through events. It is not impossible to get one Arch-Shifter 5★ each month, from events, if Sega is being generous.
Karma management
Accumulating Karma
There is no place to directly harvest Karma in the game. You accumulate Karma by selling 3★, 4★ and 5★ demons. The profit for selling demons depends on several factors, including which demons are sold, how they are obtained, how hard it is to obtain them, and how much and what it costs to obtain them.
There are basically three ways of obtaining demons, 1) talking and convincing them to join you, 2) summoning them using items, and 3) fusing two or more demons to create a new one.
The cost of summoning is, simply put, time: it takes playing time to obtain items for summoning, like Gems and Summoning Files.
The cost of fusing is Magnetite, which also requires time to harvest, but thanks to the auto-playing feature, it can be collected without the player actually having to do anything, just leaving the game playing by itself.
The cost of talking is kind of a mix between those two: the game has an auto-talk feature, but it fails a lot, as it doesn't learn from previous conversations. Thus, although the game has a way of automatically gathering demons, it doesn't perform as well as manually talking to them, yielding less demons per Stamina spent.
Summarizing, Magnetite requires, usually, less effort to harvest than talking or summoning demons, so fusing demons, at first, seems like a better way of obtaining higher grade demons and, therefore, collecting more Karma.
The table below contains the costs for fusing some of the cheapest demons (rounded up):
| Demon | Cost | Profit | Rates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3★ Clear | rare demon talk | 1 Karma | 1 Demon/Karma |
| 3★ Colored | (50~100 Gems for summoning) | 10 Karma | zero Mag (5~10 Gems/Karma) |
| 4★ Clear | fusing Sandalphon: 171k Mag + about 13 1★ Clear Demons | 30 Karma | 5700 Mag/Karma |
| 4★ Colored | fusing Sandalphon: 50-100 Gems + 2 1★ Clear Demon + 330k Mag | 300 Karma | 5-10 Gems + ~1100 Mag/Karma |
| 5★ Clear | fusing Alilat: about 1M Mag + 60 1★ Clear Demons | 250 Karma | ~3850 Mag/Karma |
| 5★ Colored | fusing Lilith: 50-100 Gems + about 36 1★ Clear Demons + 3.7M Karma | 2500 Karma | 5-10 Gems + ~1500 Mag/Karma |
Because the procedure to obtain "Gacha Demons" will surely crowd up the inventory with lots of useless 3★ Colored Demons, their 5 Gem cost's irrelevant (they'd be spent anyway). That yields to the conclusion that the most inexpensive way to collect Karma is by selling 3★ Colored Demons for 10 Karma each... What yields to another conclusion, that it's dumb slow to do that!
For example, to purchase an Arch-Shifter 5★ for 3000 Karma, it would be necessary to sell 300 3★ Colored Demons for 10 Karma each. At a summoning rate of 10 demons per banner, that'd be 30 banner summonings. If one is trying to save Gems, that'd be about four 500 Gem banner summonings per month, so, to get a single Arch-Shifter 5★ for the best exchange ratio, a player would have to wait about seven months... Of course, this estimate supposes that only 3★ Colored Demons will be pulled from the 500 Gem banners (what's not so likely to happen, but abiding to Murphy's Law, it does happen), or that the player won't want to sell away any of the eventual 4★ Colored Demons it gets (maybe it's a beginner, seeking numbers more than quality at the time).
Thus, if you have reached a point in the game where you can harvest Magnetite fast enough, have a lot of it to spare and is in a hurry to get Karma, it may be worth spending about 330k Mag to fuse one 3★ Colored Demon into a 4★ Colored Demon to sell it for 300 Karma. In other words, you have to ponder between spending 330k Mag, one 3★ Colored Demon and at least two Common Demons in a fusion process or sell thirty 3★ Colored Demons to obtain the same 300 Karma.
Regard that an Arch-Shifter 5★ will still be pretty expensive, at the equivalent cost of 3.3 M Mag for fusing 10 3★ Colored Demons into 4★ for quick Karma drawing, or, putting in another perspective, about the same effort and cost of fusing 3 Alilats, one of the cheapest 5★ Demons in the game that's useful (and no, never ever fuse an Alilat to sell it for Karma, because it can only be fused Common/Clear, meaning, it'd yield only 250 Karma, 50 Karma less than selling any 4★ Colored Demon).
From time to time, some demons get fusion price discounts, usually ranging from 10 to 20% cut, making the conversion rates more attractive, but still not worth it.
It's best to plan for the Colored Demon fusion to be the last, that is, the Colored Demon should directly yield a 4★ Demon, otherwise, more Mag will be spent fusing 1-3★ Colored Demons to finally obtain a 4★ demon for selling.
Important tips:
- Do not sell 5★ Demons, EVER! Unwanted 5★ Demons should be spiritized to unlock Panels of same type Demons or to enhance Armaments in Alter-World.
- Karma shouldn't be "farmed," that is, do not pull/summon Colored Demons with Gems for the sake of "farming" Karma. Colored Demons, mainly 3★, will naturally pile up as one goes through banners to try getting rare Demons, so there will be plenty to be sold for their Karma.
- Don't sell 3★ and 4★ Common Demons, as they are a lot more useful as fusion material than the 1 and 30 Karma they would yield if sold.
- Karma is not worth enough to justify spending Magnetite to gather it routinely. Magnetite is extremely important to fuse 5★ Demons for spiritizing, so, although selling 3★ Colored Demons for 10 Karma sounds like a bad deal, when the 1000 demons storage limit is reached, and it'll be inevitably reached, sooner than later, it's not worth converting all excess 3★ demons to 4★ just to sell them for 300 Karma, not exactly because of the Mag cost, but because only one Colored Demon can be used for every 4★ Colored Demon's fusion (two Colored Demons cannot be fused), that is, it'd require Magnetite enough to fuse at least ten Colored Demons per week to keep the storage from overflowing, just to avoid selling those useless excess Demons... So, sell all those excess 3★ without a second thought, as there will be many more coming every other day.
Not every 3★ and 4★ Demons are suitable for being sold, though (they are not all useless):
- if they have rare or useful transferable Gacha skills, you should keep them as transferable skill fodders (see Skill Transfer#Advanced skills - Hoarding Demons for their Gacha skills for a list of rare transferable Gacha skills).
- Common (aka Clear) Archetype demons should not be sold as they yield little Karma and are more useful as fusion material.
- Gacha demons (aka non-fusible) are not to be sold.
- Some 4★ Demons can be useful for Democalypse (bi-weekly Faction Event), at least as long as you still lack 5★s. Anubis and Titania are the most notable decent 4★ to keep for Democalypse (check the Democalypse article and the Tier List to evaluate which ones you want to keep).
- That being said, as you go through the game, gathering Magnetite to fuse 4★ will become quite easy. So, you shouldn't worry too much about selling fusible 4★.
A few "useless" fusible demons should be kept for future fusions you may want to perform. Good fusion materials are high Grade demons, so you may want to keep the highest Grade 3 and 4 ★ demons. You would probably want them to be of diverse colors, in case you need to fuse a demon in a precise Archetype.
Only sell demons if you immediately need an Arch-Shifter or you feel flooded with too many Demons and are urged to do some cleaning.
As of Patch 3.2.00, you can sell 4★ Genomes (100 Karma) and 5★ Genomes (1000 Karma) in the Items menu. However, due to the scarcity of 4/5★ Genomes, it is ill-advised to sell Genomes for Karma. It is possible to obtain a supply of 4/5★ Genome by spending 250 Duel Points on Elemental Skill Boxes which hand out 4/5★ Genomes. The Almighty Skill Box contains not very useful almighty attacks such as Necro Dogma which are considered 5★ Genomes at the cost of 500 Duel Points. As of September 2020, reaching Diamond 1 in PvP at the end of each ranked season will net you a "H" elemental skill such as Maragidyne H which is useful for Democalypse, but also are 5★ Genomes worth 1000 karma.
Spending Karma
Arch-Shifters are the primary items for Karma spending. But you can buy a few other items with Karma:
- Tendency Selectors: this item allows you to change the AI-type of a demon. 10 Karma in exchange of 10 Tendency Selectors; a very good price, good item to spend a few Karmas on.
- Low rarity demons (1 and 2★): they may be purchased in the Compendium (not the Karma shop). Kanbari is one of the best Compendium demons to purchase (see Leveling).
- Other than that, it can be worth it to spend on 2★ if they are complicated to talk/fuse and belong to the road map for a demon you want to fuse.
- You should be very conservative with your purchases at the Compendium. Try to avoid it, as 1★ and 2★ demons are usually easy enough to recruit and/or fuse, though at the cost of Stamina and time.
- 4★ Common (Clear) demons in the Karma shop: a selection of 4★ are available in the Karma shop (as of August of 2021, Odin and Anubis for 1500 Karma, Azrael, Rangda, Sandalphon and Wu Kong for 1000 Karma). Don't buy them, ever, unless you are extremely desperate and in a hurry for whatever reason. Even Odin, the most valuable of them, would cost a little less than 500k Mag to fuse, but would cost the equivalent of the boggling amount of 150 3★ Colored Demons sold for 10 Karma each to purchase. The only practical reason for wasting that much Karma would be to save the time that'd be spent gathering the necessary demons to fuse (but if one doesn't have much time, why is it playing this game?!)
- Hell Buns: These are ridiculously expensive, don't buy them.
See also
- Resource Management Guides for other advanced guides.
For another uses of fodder demons:
