XMas REM Review 2017 – Break what ain’t broke

Seasonal REMs have been very lackluster lately and unable to attract as many people to rolling. This is largely due to horrible top end rates (8 stars being <1% chance) and so much filler (80% silver rate) meaning you end up with FAR more than you’d ever want to see while chasing for a specific 8 star.

However, over the last year we’ve seen changes to this and hopefully Gungho will be more rewarding to players that decide to spend on REMs that are traditionally trappy as I called this very REM last year.

What changed? For one, the silvers were removed from this REM. Yes, you heard that. 80% of rolls were silver in seasonal / collab REMs so this is a nice change. It will be worth looking out for whether the percentages of everything else just get increased or if the golds take on the 80% rate, 6 star gets the ~15%, etc. But one further step is that instead of the 1.25x rate ups for the 8 stars, they’re giving a whopping 3x rates which, taking the roughly 1% we’ve been seeing lately, brings us to 3% on boosted days. This should hopefully take chases from roughly 344 rolls to 100 or so.

For time constraints, I will only comment on previous years’ cards if they had any evos / buffs or if a lead came out that really took advantage of them.

See the previous XMas review here.

During this review, super awakenings are referred to which ONLY WORK IN SOLO MODE.

The Current Lineup

5 stars

 (Venus Place Holder)

In the one year I had them, I never used any of them so not much to say for them.

The new Venus is interesting. Unbindable 5 OE base with 4 turn cooldown means she can make a really solid “poverty” sub for Ameno. There are not that many alternatives for 5 OE and having it all in one spot with unbindable tacked on is nice. However, very poor stats, especially in the HP department.

6 stars

 (Solais)

Christmas Genie is actually really interesting now that we can not get normal Genie anymore. She’s inheritable while the farmable skillups for dark void are not. If for anything, the skill is really good to have if you did not get a normal Genie.

Solais… whew, where do I start. They just HAD TO GO AND DO IT. YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. TWO DAMN MULTIBOOSTS. IT FINALLY HAPPENED. This gives her an effective 8784 HP/ 5299 ATK / 1305 RCV in coop when hypered. With attack latents, she hits 5676 coop attack which, with Grimmjow button, does a whopping 1.42M damage. We could be seeing some big changes in some button setups with this card. This gives her 2373 weighted stat when taking into account plus eggs and multiboost. Absolutely bonkers. She’s also unbindable with bind clear awakening. So even outside of buttons, I feel she can see use in teams like Acala where the stat boosts really impact the team. In the end, the meta to move to heavy offensive awakenings limits her impact on other teams outside of cross leads (Rushana / Acala).

7 stars

 (Fagan)

Fagan is really interesting. Throw everything on that works with rainbow leads and you have Fagan. Rainbow awakening (skill charges by 1 when matching all attributes), 7c, SB, TE, unbindable. Awesome card. Let’s see the active…

Change all orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light, and Heart orbs. Reduce enemy’s HP by 20%. 3 turn bind recovery.

Hmm, no darks is really RIP for most rainbow teams nowadays. It’s awkward that the awakening needs darks as well but the active provides everything but.

His stats are okay but nothing to write home about. If they gave him a rainbow active, he would have been god tier, but he instantly fell off the map with that difference. It works very well for the Edward Elric in the FMA collab that JP got, but that’s not relevant here so I won’t go into building that.

(I’m ignoring Santakuya buff because she’s still bad)

8 stars, the reason everyone rolls

  (Floof)

Kali, Sonia

This year, Gungho actually brought all (except Sonia which can be purchased) the 8 stars up to speed in the current meta.

Last year, we saw RKali get a stat buff to make her a slightly more enticing sub for Radra over DKali (besides the Vishnu issue). Around the middle of the year, RKali got a buff to bring her leaderskill to 2.25/225/2.25 for rainbow activation to gods and dragons. This puts her as the best standard rainbow lead in the game (Reimyr is still the best IMO) and far stronger than either Roots or Radra for survivability / damage. It merges the subpools of both and gives them a better leaderskill. What more could you want? Wait, they actually went further…

RKali can be limit broken and when the patch hits NA, will get a super awakening which can mean adding a 7c to RKali. Nuts.

Sample megawhale team:

RKali / Ideal / Ideal / Ideal / Blujin / RKali

Here the Blujin is bindable and easily the weakest link. Can use Awoken Isis / RKush / Balboa to cover the last two attributes while keeping with the unbindable and typing aspects. You keep the unbindability of Radra, have silly damage in comparison and get to really show off your moves stones.

XGrem got a new evo, stat buff (up to 1200 weighted) and also got limit break with super awakening. IMO the best awakening to get for that would be the FUA. This provides an unbindable fire FUA card and she still acts as a solid lead. You can read the review from last year which goes into depth about XGrem team comps. A lot has changed but the gist of it remains. Her leaderskill now surpasses the damage of normal Grem, hitting up 57.75% shielding with 324x damage. The subpool got slightly better with Eldora / Inahime being added to the mix, but otherwise was not impacted THAT much (assists changed however).

And, the new “goal”, XFloof.

This fluffy cutie is now the first to feature cross and 7×6 in the same leaderskill, even if just heart cross. She can be a very strong lead to start with in a 7×6 Kenshin (Li) setup. Otherwise, even just as a sub she’s amazing for such setups with her button and tricolor board that fits Ilm / Yog / Kenshin leads perfectly.

7×6 board. Light ATK x3. Cross heart reduces damage taken by 35%, ATK x2.5.

It’s interesting adding the unconditional aspect to it. I personally don’t see her replacing Diablos for most teams. It’s just an option available for Li swap setups, particularly Kenshin.

Conclusion

Overall, the changes to the REM should hopefully mean targeting 8s cards is more affordable / easier to do. Keep in mind, while I speak highly of the three 8s cards, they’re not gamebreaking / need-to-haves. The most interesting thing is actually Solais to me in terms of button setups.

Remember that I only covered important changes in old cards / the new cards. See the previous XMas review here.

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