Fairies: What they do and why you want them

What's the deal with fairies?

Unless you joined during an event with one as a reward, your first fairy will be a Command Fairy with the “Damage 1” talent. This is obtained as an achievement reward for your first Heavy Equipment Craft (HEC for short) and will be one of the most valuable fairies as a new player. Its passive aura gives a strong buff, its talent has a slightly higher activation rate than rarer talents, and its skill isn’t necessary to support the team. These terms may seem foreign at first, but are important to understand when dealing with fairies.

 A fairies aura is a passive buff that is always present on a team so long as the fairy is on the team. It scales additively based on level, and multiplicatively based on rarity. A fairies aura is ~40% when 1* rarity, and 100% at 5*. It can increase damage, critical damage, accuracy, evasion and armor of all dolls in the echelon.

A fairies talent is an additional buff provided by the fairy which has a potency that scales with rarity, and the talent type itself. It is at max power when the fairy is at 5* rarity. Talent buffs are varied, and will buff only a few specific stats and/or doll types depending on what talent it is.

A fairies skill is a toggleable ability which can influence either within battles or outside battles in the map at the cost of fairy commands. These abilities can either be buffs to your team, debuffs to the enemy, additional battle effects, or used outside of battle to influence your map control. Many skills are optional and can be largely ignored initially.

How do I get these Fairies?

After unlocking fairies, you're free to craft for them as you would for dolls or equipment, with a guaranteed drop rate for every craft. You may initially be tempted to play around with the recipes, but the lowest cost is the most efficient recipe for most important fairies you can acquire. 500/500/500/500 (colloquially known as 500x4) gives every craftable combat fairy and one of the only important strategy fairies in the game. Once you have built up your fairy armory a sufficient amount, you can start crafting for a Parachute Fairy, one of the only fairies outside of the 500x4 recipe that is worth crafting for. Its recipe is far more expensive at 3000/500/2000/1500, but its utility is worth the cost.

Okay cool but what’s the best fairy?

To keep things nice and simple, you’ll primarily be using 3 fairies. Command, Artillery and Taunt are all very powerful fairies that are versatile enough to go on any team formation. Command and Artillery have some of the best auras in the game with ignorable skills, and Taunt has one of the most useful defensive skills in the game with a solid aura to back it up.

This however doesn’t mean the other fairies are useless or underpowered in any way. From the 500x4 recipe, every fairy except Barrier is worth raising. Their auras are all useful for any extra team, and many have unique skills that can be used in different scenarios depending on the echelon composition. 

Outside of this, the Parachute fairy is hands down the most powerful fairy in the game. It has the single strongest crit-based aura in the game and one of the most important skills for mobility; the ability to transport your team to any visible heliport on the map. It is a must for those looking to attempt a competitive ranking run.

So how do I raise these fairies?

Fairies require both levels and development exp (colloquially known as dev exp or fexp) in order to raise their rarity. Each rarity breakpoint has a specific amount of dev exp that must be hit, as well as a level threshold prior to the rarity increasing, regardless of dev exp amount. 

You gain exp similar to how you would with a doll, gaining a percentage equal to the amount gained by the total exp gained by the team (does not reduce doll exp gain), however the amount needed is 3x the amount a doll needs to get to 100, without link exp bonuses. Dev exp on the other hand is sourced by feeding one fairy into another, similar to enhancing dolls or equipment with fodder. The same fairy being fed into itself will give 100 dev exp, whereas a different fairy will only give 10. A fairy with the same talent will multiply its provided dev exp by 1.5x, giving 150 and 15 respectively.

For your fairies sourced from 500x4, your first rarity increase to 2* occurs when you hit 100 dev exp (a single dupe), at level 20. 3* requires 500 dev exp at level 40, 4* requires 1500 dev exp at level 70, and 5* requires 3000 dev exp (30 dupes) on a level 100 fairy. 

The talent of a fairy doesn’t matter until its rarity is 4*, where you have a high talent potency. However, to futureproof, it is recommended to start raising a fairy with the talents Damage II or Fervor if available, as these are the two best talents for increasing DPS. Damage I is also viable, however has a lower overall dps increase compared to the alternatives. If you started raising a fairy without one of these talents, you can recalibrate the talent once it hits the 4* threshold where you take talent into consideration for your team-building. This allows you to spend calibration tickets and resources to reroll the talent to a random pool of 17 total. Being RNG, it is best to avoid having to do this all together by starting with one of the suggested talents.

Seems tough. What's the easiest way to raise these fairies?

New players can consistently craft four 500x4 a day, using the daily passive regen of 3 rsc per 3 min to negate the cost of three out of the four crafts. The fourth craft can be sourced from daily quest rewards, causing the fairy crafts to be net neutral on all resources except parts and cores. 

As you progress further into the game, with less reliance on crafting new dolls you find yourself with more resources than you spend a day. Assuming you have a solid core income from a corpse dragging map, it is at this point you can upgrade your crafts per day to 6-8 500x4s, or to attempt a Parachute craft once a day alongside your four 500x4s.

Reaching late game will stagnate the need to craft outside of your daily doll and equipment crafts, resulting in fairy crafts being the only real use for the resources gained from logistics. Many late game players craft 20 or more 500x4s a day, with the goal of getting as much fodder as possible.

What about Parachute?

Parachute fairy is a fairy stemming from an expensive (3000/500/2000/1500) recipe, and is therefore not suggested to be raised by dupes due to the high cost and the lower rates of specific fairies with a larger drop pool.

Your first Para will be the ideal fairy to feed any Barrier fairies you acquire during your first months of crafting. As you start getting fairies to 3000 dev exp, any dupes then get fed into the Para too.

Prototype fairy, a unique fairy obtained by event clears and career quests, is specifically made as a “fodder” fairy. It acts as a dupe fairy giving 100/150 dev exp, and given the costs associated with Para crafts, it is ideal food for your Para.