Merch Guide

How does Merch Benefit You?

Stats. Merch just has some sweet stats that are pretty easy to obtain. It also has some pretty niche stats if you're pushing certain types of content like Raids or Coliseum. Oh and there are super costumes, which are pretty nifty.


Obtainment

You can either obtain Merch by completing your daily World Exploration or you can pay for them with packages. The packages give you two slots: 1 for a type of blueprint, 1 for a type of material (that you'll need for crafting the Merch).

You'll need 1, 2 and 5 materials for any crafting so you'll need to have a decent amount of all three materials to craft much Merch.

While we're currently in the lower levels of World Exploration, we get about 2 Merch crafts a day but it's possible that might increase as we complete more difficult daily World Exploration quests.


How Upgrading Works

The UI is kind of awkward on this one so it's best not to do any Merch upgrading until you understand the basics.

There are two experience bars on Merch. The 1 - 30 levels operate precisely like enhancing your weapons / items. The Evolution (experience bars with stars on it) can only be increased by enhancing that item with the same kind of Merch, i.e. precisely like limit breaking your weapon / items.

So for instance, if you get Aoba's Eye Mask (+Earth Atk), with it equipped you'll be doing an extra 8% Earth type Atk. If you enhance it with another Aoba's Eye Mask that will bring your evolution level up to 2 and your Earth type Atk to 14%. If you wanted to evolve it again, you'd need to add two more Aoba's Eye Mask (as the experience quota increases the higher your item's evolution).

So in terms of Evolution upgrading on Merch:

Upgrading from
2
to
3
stars: 1 similar Merch item enhancement
Upgrading from
3
to
4
stars: 2 similar Merch item enhancements
Upgrading from
4
to
5
stars: 3 similar Merch item enhancements


Raid, Coliseum & Arena

ome Merch are more beneficial in Raid or Coliseum content. Such as:

Oghma Plastic Model
- Increases damage to tank Hero by (up to) 24%
Sample Statue of Bravery
- Increase damage by (up to) 20% to enemies with 40% or more HP remaining

Oghma's Plastic Model is going to be useful in Arena, Coliseum, Orbital Rifts but NOT Raids. Whereas Sample Statue of Bravery is going to be super useful in raids where the boss has a great deal of hit points and you most likely won't reduce them below the 40% threshold during your fight.

Currently, this is the first tier of Merch and we may see more interesting types of Merch in the future but it's good to think about what content these very niche skills give and then evaluate it versus the damage of either the blue Mayreal (+Skill Atk) or the individual blue items that give you up to +20% Element type Atk.


Upgrade Strategy

If you take a glance at the items available and plan things out a little bit, I feel it sets itself in a nice and tidy prioritization:

  1. DO NOT UPGRADE ITEM LEVEL / EVOLUTION LEVEL, just collect ze Merch!
  2. Get all of your useful characters their respectable blue item with +Element type Atk.
  3. Use the Mayreals to cover anyone that doesn't get their own damage or the bulk of their damage comes from skill usage.
  4. If you get any useful Unique Merch for the respectable content (raid, coliseum, etc) that you're working on, you can level that with 1 star items.
  5. Once all of your characters have gotten their individual Merch items, start to Evolve those blue items to 3 stars while prioritizing your most useful characters.
  6. Once all of your primary characters have gotten their individual Merch items to 3 stars, start to Evolve them to 4 stars.

There are exceptions to the rule but this is my plan and how I'm pushing through it.


In Closing

Once you get your upgrade strategy and it's priorities down, the hardest part is just being patient to obtain more Merch. They give a strong bonus to your overall stats and depending on your setup, you can get a good 10% increase in overall damage per guardian (which is no joke).

Just pay attention to which Merch item are best suited for the content you are working on and switch them out accordingly.

Good luck!

- Noogie