User talk:Mokoi

Democalypse

Change Log:

v. 0.10: initial commit
v. 0.20: Update formating and change some lines
v. 0.30: Extend some listings and start porting "tierlists" to wikitables
v. 0.40: Add Fire and Ice element information

Introduction

Democalypse is a Faction based gamemode that is all about who can do the most damage for a specific element. In the following write-up I will try to give in-depth information on how to build demons and teams for this gamemode

For general information on how Democalypse works, rewards or an in-depth explanation on how the multiplier works in Prelim phase refer to: https://dx2wiki.com/index.php/Democalypse

Generalists

With the addition of Bonus Areas a lot of factions will tackle every single element and switch between them every week. With 12 Demons needed per element and 6 non Physical elements that would be 72 different demons specialized for each element. Not only is it basically impossible for Beginners to build enough demons for each element this way, it will also be fairly wasteful since the personal returns are low compared to the required investments.
Therefore it is usually good idea to invest in a group of Generalist type demons first, that only need minimal investment, like a transfer of a skill of the appropriate type and element, to perform well. This way you can save resources like Mitama, Evolving materials or Magnetite.
Generalists are the first demons you should focus on building for Democalypse.
A good guideline is to have around 6 or more generalists to vastly decrease the initial investment to prepare for an element. Once you have enough left over resources you can start optimizing your teams by slowly switching out the lower performing generalists with more specialized demons.

Generalists

	Boss	Prelim	Any
Fusable or Exchange
Gacha

Damage Optimization

In this section I will try to explain ways to increase your damage using a very simplified way of looking at the damage formula that breaks it down to the parts you can influence the most with how you set up your teams and demons.
For the full non simplified damage formula check out: https://dx2wiki.com/index.php/Formulas#Damage]

DAMAGE = Offensive-stat * Skill-Power * (1+(Damage Boosts/100)) * Buffs

Offensive Stats

Base Stat

The offensive stat a demon uses will usually be either Phys ATK or Mag ATK. There are special exceptions like Phys DEF for demons that use Earthquake or Muscle Punch and Ragnarok which scales with both MAtk and PAtk.
Base stats are dependent on a demons stats (STR, MAG, VIT) and their level.

PATK = STR * 2.1 + LVL * 5.6 + 50
MATK = MAG * 2.1 + LVL * 5.6 + 50
PDEF = VIT * 1.1 + STR * 0.5 + LVL * 5.6 + 50

This means the most basic way to increase a demons damage is the obvious way of awakening your demons and leveling them to 50.
From Personal testing damage increase from a higher base stat scales linearly. This means that damage dealt increases by less percent for each additional point of Magic or Strength the higher the stat already is, meaning percentage based damage transfers are generally better for demons unless they have a really low base stat.
Offensive stats can also be increased through Panels by a flat amount (usually Panel-2 on most demons).

Brands

The main way to increase your demons stats after they are fully leveled and awakened is Brands. In general a well branded demon will deal 3 times or more damage compared to an unbranded one during Democalypse.
For information on how to Brand your demons and specifics for Brand stats refer to this: https://dx2wiki.com/index.php/Brands#The_best_Stats_to_look_for

The following is a quick reference table to evaluate the quality of your PAtk and MAtk brand sets.
For most demons every [8 Flat]-bonus will be about equal to a [1 %]-bonus on your brands.

Primaries

	Brand %	Flat	Set Bonuses in %
Optimal	95-	200-	30
Good	75-95	100-200	20-30
Usable	60-75	0-100	20
Bad	-60	0	0-20

Brand Management

Assembling a decent full brand set for Democalypse is already hard enough, even more so 12 or possibly 72. Therefore it is much more ideal to make 6 Brand Sets each for Phys Atk and Mag Atk and use the switch brand function to move them between your teams and between elements depending on Democalypse. Doing this requires a large administrative overhead, but will increase your scores significantly.

Steps to proper brand management:

• Assemble at least 6 brand sets for both Magic Atk and Phys Atk. You might need to make additional ones for demons with special brand requirements (Surt, Gogmagog) and for demons you are using to cast Buffs
• Organize your teams in such a way that you can quickly look up from who you have to switch brands to whom
• Run a simulation before every actual run to make sure you didn't mess up one of your brand switchups

Skill Power

The Base Power of the attack skill your demon will use is a large factor in determining the final damage value. Unique skills frequently have higher Base Power than transferable skills so demons with Unique Skills for the specific element and stage of Democalypse are always preferred. If you also do not have access to higher power transferable skills, you should instead use demons with those skills innately when possible, even if they are theoretically lower when it comes to maximum possible damage.
Multi Hit skills should generally be avoided when the option for normal Single Target skills exists for the Boss phase, since they are worse than the best Single Target options on average (~165 BP vs 180 BP) and they will lead to a much larger variation in scores (Damage range for Single Target 95% - 105% vs Multi Hit ~60% - ~140%)

For non physical transferable skills availability depends on Element, Base Power and type of attack move.

Single Target:

• Tier 4 - 180 BP: Usually only available as Gacha skills from 5* demons are as the transferable of banner exclusive demons. Exceptions: Hell Gaze and Thunderclap as Wukong's Gacha skills
• Tier 3 - 160 BP: Available as transfers from fusable 4*s. Zandyne and Mudodyne are more expensive to obtain via fusion than others.
• Tier 2 - 140 BP: The lowest you should go and even then only if you have no resources to spare. Obtainable as transfer skills from 2*s available in the compendium

Multi Target:

• Tier 3 - 120 BP: Rare as gacha skills on various demons or as transferable skills on 5* demons. It is possible to obtain equivalent versions to these skills by ranking in at least Diamond1 at the end of a PvP week
• Tier 2 - 100 BP: Similar availability to Tier3, except some elements also have easily fusable sources (Ice - Tiamat, Elec - Tlaltecuhtli, Force - Jikokuten)
• Tier 1 - 80 BP: Obtainable as transfer skills from 2*s available in the compendium

The best way to get good transferable skills for specific elements consistently is by buying Genome Cubes from the Duel Point exchange shop for that element.
The best ways to find out availability for each specific skill is by looking it up on the Dx2wiki or on the skills tab in the fusion calculator.

Damage Boosts

Damage Boosts refers to anything that mentions a %-increase towards damage. These can come from the following sources:

• Skill Levels
• Skills
• Panels
• Team Boosts from unique skills

All of these percentage boosts are added together and then multiplied with the original damage, therefore leveling a skill until it gives 20% increased damage is the exact same as transfering Merciless Blow when it comes to damage for Democalypse.

Damage Transfers

Usage	5%	10%	15%	20%	25%
Element specific	-	-	<Element> Boost	-	<Element> Amp & <Element> Enhancement
Single Target	-	Assassin	-	Master Assassin	-
AoE or Multi-Hit	-	Serial Killer	-	Butcher	-
Universal	-	Back Attack & <Element> Enhancement	-	Merciless Blow	-
Physical Attacks	-	-	-	Death Blow	-

Buffs

Buffs and Debuffs are one of the most essential ways to further increase your damage. Exammples for some damage calculations depending on buff situations that can appear during Democalypse

• Own Attack up: +20% to damage you deal
• Enemy Defense down: +20% to damage you deal
• Own Attack up + Enemy Defense down: +40% to damage you deal
• Own Attack down: -20% to damage you deal
• Enemy Defense up: -20% to damage you deal
• Enemy Def up + Own Atk up: No change to damage dealt
• Enemy Def down + Own Atk down: No change to damage dealt

Since you are unable to give manual commands to your team during Democalypse, the process of obtaining buffs is frequently a bit more involved.

Prelim

The most effective way to obtain buffs during the Prelim phase is by using Auto-Taruka and Auto-Rakunda. These skills are only rarely obtainable as transferable skills and therefore the easiest way to integrate them into your teams is by using demons with those skills innately.
Examples: Garuda, Agni, Ananta, Hresvelgr, Pale Rider for Magic based elements or Zhong Kui, Nergal, Orochi, Fenrir for Phys

During Prelim you usually do not want to use Press Turns for anything but casting Multi Target spells to maximize the Weakness-multiplier and since the damage multiplier has a Maximum anyway. Therefore actively casting buffs or using Single Target or Multi Hit skills to obtain buffs is not advised.

Boss

There are two essential differences to consider between the Boss and Horde waves when it comes to buffs.

• 1. Auto-skills of any type do not activate on Boss waves. This is true for any skill that uses the words "at the beginning of the 1st turn", which also means Auto-Rebellion for example will not work. On the other hand skill that activate at the beginning of a boss battle like Moment of Fate or Lord of the Abyss will work.
• 2. It is not necessary for every attack to exploit the weakness of the opponent for the highest possible score. While it is still optimal to use demons that apply buffs/debuffs as part of their skills (i.e Susano-o, Panel 3 Vasuki, ...) it is still possible to make a demons AI actively use it's turn to cast a buff spell.

Manual Buffing/Teching:

While it is impossible to get a demon to cast any debuff skill (Rakunda, Acid Breath, War Cry, Debilitate, Offensive Cry) it is possible to get the demon AI to cast a buff skill as long as a few conditions are met.

These conditions are:

1. The buff has to increase at least one other stat aside from Attack (Defense, Ev/Acc). This means skills like War Dance, Blood Rush, Luster Candy, Barong Dance are viable for Manual Buffing
2. Demon AI has to be changed to Support using an AI tendency selector from the Karma shop.
3. The demon casting the buff has to be below a certain offensive stat threshold. This threshold varies depending on the attack skill the demon uses to attack, their HP (higher HP = higher threshold) and how many things their buff increases (Luster Candy has a higher threshold than War Dance for example). Depending on how much extra HP the demon gets from brands (Life set bonus, +HP%) or skills the thresholds are somewhere around: 
	 War Dance / Blood Rush : 1000-1500
	 Luster Candy-type buff : 1500-1800
(4. The demon casting the buff needs to go second. This is not a requirement, but otherwise you will have suboptimal Press Turn usage, making you lose out on a solid amount of damage. Exception: Panel 3 Mot wants to go last)

Using a demon for Manual Buffing will give higher returns the harder the other demons in the team hit, because increasing the damage of your hardest hitters will frequently give higher returns than just using a third mediocre damage dealer.
Demons that are commonly used for manual buffing are: Abaddon A, Panel 3 Mot, Agni
Demons that can be used for manual buffing without a buff skill transfer: Rama, Huang Long, Vishnu, Barong, Cerberus

Element Specific

Here I will go more into demon evaluations and differences between each area and what to look out for.

Tierlists:

• Tiers are generally sorted by Left > Right
• For demons without a skill of an innate skill of the appropriate type and element the highest tier transferable skill is assumed for the evaluation.
• Depending on Transfers/Panels/Skill Levels/Mitama/Level/Archtype each demon can move up and down in the rating. Gaps between tiers are generally larger than gaps within tiers.
• These lists are based on testing and extensive calculations in places where no testing could be performed. While there is still room for error due to the subjective nature of this type of list, I believe it should still be mostly accurate and should at most have minor issues. I'm always open for debate and input on these ratings though.

General Tier Explanation:

• Utility Demons: These demons are in general used to provide buffs for your team either through manual buffing or through Unique Skills. You want to have a maximum of one Utility Demon per team. The one exception to the rule is Panel3 Mot who can still be paired with other demons that provide buffs just to gain more Press Turns for heavy hitters.
• Innate Auto: List of demons that have a damage increasing Auto skill in their innate kit.
• Tier 0 in Prelim: Demons that have ways of achieving a higher maximum multiplier than normally possible through just attacks (10.8). This is usually done through Chain Effect that generate Press Turns or activate attacks of the specific element.
• Tier 0-X: Ranking of general damage potential for assorted demons. The lower the tier number the better.
• Filler: Demons that have an innate skill of the required type, but are generally not worth investing in for the purpose of maximizing your score and instead only used when no other options are available
• Panel3- and 3xHerald-: These prefixes apply to the demon listed immediately after them and imply that only under the condition the demon actually ranks there. Panel3 denoting having Panel 3 of the demon in question completed and 3xHerald implying the use of the demon in a team that consists of only Divine or Herald demons.

Phys

Phys Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0
Special
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Phys Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	Panel3-Panel3-
Tier 0	Panel3-
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Filler

Phys Notes

• Crits: Physical attack type skills have the chance to land a critical hit which is 1.5x the normal damage of the attack, which is a significant difference. This leads to a large damage variance depending on how often your teams manage to score critical hits. Therefore I chose to evaluate demons that can minimize this variance slightly higher. Some examples:
  • High Critical Rate Attacks: Susano-o A
  • Crit Aura: Asura Lord
  • Rebellion from Skills or Panels: Panel3 Zaou-Gongen, Kali
• Missing: Physical attacks also have the possibility of missing. This needs to be taken into account, because a miss will be disastrous during either part and vastly hurt your score. If during simulations you notice one of your demons repeatedly missing even if you have to decrease the damage for additional accuracy it will be worth it for the sake of consistency. Ways to increase a demons accuracy are Brands or skill transfers like Good Aim or Great Aim
• Prelim Special: Jack the Ripper's unique ability Terror of London will hit randomly 1-3 times at the start of prelim giving you +0.1 multiplier for each hit, which also leads to a higher maximum multiplier. But his base stats are fairly low which means unless the other two prelim members deal large amounts of damage they might be unable to make up for his lack in damage. Therefore this is only a strategy for the very top end of teams.

Fire

Fire Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Fire Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	Panel3-Panel3-3xHerald-
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Ice

Ice Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0
Tier 1
Filler

Ice Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	Panel3-3xHerald-
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Elec

• WIP

Force

Force Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Force Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	Panel3-3xHerald-
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Filler

Force Notes

• Red Oberon vs other colors: Red Oberon will use Twister which will be slightly higher average damage, still I would recommend against it for consistency

Light

Light Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0	3xHerald-
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Light Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	3xHerald-Panel3-
Tier 0
Tier 1	3xHerald-
Tier 2
Filler

Dark

Dark Prelim

Tier	Demons
Innate Auto
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Dark Boss

Tier	Demons
Utility Demons	Panel3-3xHerald-
Tier 0
Tier 1
Tier 2
Filler

Dark Notes

• Prelim Horde will cast Dekunda to get rid of debuffs you applied. The only way currently to reapply it effectively is using Agni

Thanks

• For various information and general resources: Sushimuffin, Reika, Puddi, Maaster, Rancher
• imheeout faction members that helped with testing and ideas: Maho, Big B, Ryuchi, Putri, Noa, Nobody