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Sinoalice Global Guides

Character Strengthening

(Last updated November 10, 2021)

Table of Contents

Introduction

(Largely adapted from https://plzmshinoalice.hatenablog.com/entry/2021/01/29/073416)

Character Strengthening is a system introduced to the game in June 2019 on the Japanese server, right around the game’s second anniversary. In it, players can use materials primarily earned through Colosseum to gradually strengthen specific in-game characters. Benefits a character gains through an account’s Character Strengthening progression applies to all of that character’s jobs, though some Character Strengthening benefits apply to all jobs across a single account.

Character Strengthening can ultimately be responsible for a significant portion of a player’s stats and more. However, the material grind is fairly slow. Additionally, once materials are spent, there is no way to reclaim them with very few exceptions. Going into Character Strengthening with a plan can provide a major advantage as compared to tackling it at random.

System Basics

After selecting one of the characters you own, you will be taken to a sort of branching skill tree with individual nodes. Pulsing circles around a node means that it is unlockable by spending Character Strengthening materials you currently own, and more nodes and branches are made sequentially available as you progress down a tree. Character Strengthening materials are primarily earned through Colosseum, with Colosseum wins providing four times the materials as compared to a loss. Letter rank (S/A/B/C) does not affect the amount of materials gained. Unlocked nodes can provide a variety of bonuses, such as stats, weapon type bonuses, additional cost, SP reduction, and more. You can view character trees and what each node gives here. You can also see the total stat bonuses a specific character has from Character Strengthening at the top right.

If you look closely, you may notice that some nodes are colored gold. Plain colored nodes apply their bonuses to only the character whose tree is selected, while gold nodes apply their bonuses across all characters on your account.

Some nodes are marked with a ? symbol. When unlocked, these give you a choice between different stat bonuses. These can be changed after the initial unlock, but it costs 10 TC to do so.

Some nodes have a lock symbol in the top-right corner. If the lock is jiggling back and forth, you can click to unlock it. If it’s stationary, you can click to see the unlock conditions. Unlock conditions are generally related to Character Strengthening completion, some across all characters and others across that specific character (unlock 50 Magic Defense nodes across all characters, unlock 30 of a character’s locked nodes, etc.)

At certain points along a Character Strengthening tree, you may run into a red gate. Unlocking these requires book items unique to that character that are mostly earned through missions, purchased in event medal and Charm Medal shops, and purchased in gacha medal exchanges for 500 Desire Medals or the equivalent. There are also white gates, but those only mean that more content may be added from there later.

At the bottom-right, you will see a counter of how many more nodes you can open for a specific character. Each job you own for a specific character will provide 10 node unlocks. Further unlocks can be earned by using bookmark items that are earned monthly through missions (5 for completing 120 story verses, 4 for purifying 60 times, and 4 for completing 90 co-op story verses) and on the monthly Colosseum participation bonus (2x).

If you’ve selected one of the game’s main (non-collab) characters, you’ll see a selection bar for different trees above the currently selected tree. Currently on JP, they are, from left to right:

  • Balance: Available from the start, low node cost, a balanced variety of bonuses.
  • Physical: Requires an equipment set of 110,000 Points or more and 2 unlocked HP+ nodes, medium node cost, a focus on bonus physical stats (atk/def).
  • Magical: Requires an equipment set of 110,000 Points or more and 2 unlocked HP+ nodes, medium node cost, a focus on bonus magical stats (atk/def).
  • Super: Requires an equipment set of 160,000 Points or more and 6 unlocked HP+ nodes, high node cost, a variety of high-power nodes that eventually lead to two unique and powerful unlocks per character, at least one of which is shared across your account.
  • Spirit: Each branch of this tree is linked to individual large-scale raid events that are later introduced into the game. Their nodes require event-specific materials to open and are primarily focused on the event, though they do end in account-wide shared stat nodes.

Filling Out Your Trees

What Character First?

Assuming that you’re a Colosseum-focused player, you will want to focus on the character(s) with the job most important to you (changing your character’s appearance to another character does not give you the latter character’s strengthening, if you were curious). There has only been one time on JP when players have been allowed to reset their grids due to buffs to Minstrel and Sorcerer Dorothy Workshop jobs (from 8%/4% to 10%/5%) that essentially made everyone want to switch to them, so it is important to not go into Character Strengthening haphazardly. While it will ultimately depend on when Character Strengthening is released versus when certain jobs come out, my practical suggestions to consider for your first tree(s) to focus are:

  • Physical DPS main: Red Riding Hood (HNM + eventual Dorothy Workshop job released Jan. 2020) for MT, Kaguya (HNM) for farm

  • Magical DPS main: Alice (HNM) for MT, Cinderella (farm HNM, eventual Dorothy Workshop released Jun. 2021, though note that Alice has a +1% spear node that Cinderella doesn’t)

  • Cleric: Sleeping Beauty or Aladdin (HNM). This has been a tricky situation on JP, as while Aladdin got an HNM after the release of Character Strengthening, he has since had a slight theoretical edge on Sleeping Beauty due to her HNM getting a Support Skill before him, and because some Clerics may want to flex Sorcerer and use Dorothy Workshop Sleeping Beauty at times (and choose offensive stats for switchable nodes where a cleric grid would focus defense). This is admittedly a rather minor difference for the vast majority of players, though.

  • Minstrel: 3 Little Pigs (eventual Dorothy Workshop, might as well get started early if all characters are equally beneficial), Nutcracker (minor benefit if you’re playing minsorc and Workshop 3LP is nowhere in sight–though he has fewer shared stats than other characters he does have an extra Colosseum SP reduction node that no other characters have), Little Mermaid (HNM, not recommended by me but you do you)

  • Sorcerer: Sleeping Beauty (eventual Dorothy Workshop, see above), Nutcracker (see above), Gretel (HNM, see above)

Some tips regarding filling out trees:

  • Avoid nodes that don’t provide benefits to you in Colosseum whenever possible (story SP reduction nodes, weapon type bonuses that don’t help you, stats that are irrelevant to the role you use the character to play. Do note however that weapon type bonuses apply even when using off-type jobs).

  • If you need cost quickly, every character has an easy to get +1 cost node if you go straight to the bottom of their Balance tree.

  • I’ve read some fretting about having enough jobs and therefore nodes unlocked for the character whose tree you’ll be focusing on. The general consensus I’ve seen (as well as my own experience) is that you’ll run into other constraining factors (books to unlock red gates, materials for nodes) first, and that it’s not too pressing of a concern. Even if it will be a factor for you, you should be able to see the issue coming months in advance with a bit of math and can try to compensate then.

  • The SP reduction nodes for Colosseum are quite powerful and should be prioritized if possible. These appear to be a 40% SP reduction when activated, with a 2% activation chance per level.

  • One sometimes overlooked benefit to Raid/event branches and nodes is that they are a “free” way to earn nodes that count toward the number of unlocked nodes for that character, something that comes in handy when trying to grind toward powerful Super Tree nodes locked behind the “unlock 280 of this character’s nodes” locks, which leads to…

Notable Super Tree Nodes

You may recall that earlier I wrote that each character has two unique and powerful Super Tree nodes. Some of these are character-specific, such as the aforementioned additional SP reduction node for Nutcracker or additional 1% weapon boosts for that character’s HNM job (none for Minstrels and Sorcerers, sorry but I guess even the game is telling you to not main HNM!). One of these nodes is located about halfway down the Super Tree and relatively easy to get, while the other is at the very bottom right of the tree and locked behind a very annoying “unlock 280 of this character’s nodes” lock. While you’ll most likely end up grabbing these in due course for characters you’re focusing on, there will probably come a point where you have spare materials that should be used toward unlocking these strong account-wide nodes. These nodes provide additional Sub-Gear slots, additional Main Gear Limit Break slots, additional Sub-Gear Limit Break slots, and +2000 HP. I personally prioritize those in the order just given. The following is a list of characters whose trees have these nodes halfway down the tree (“close”) and all the way down the tree (“far”), making it the order in which I’ve been unlocking them on JP:

  • Close subslot: Little Mermaid, Gretel, Hamelin
  • Close LB skill: Dorothy, 3 Little Piggies, Aladdin
  • Close sub LB skill: Pinocchio, Rapunzel
  • Far subslot: Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Little Match Girl
  • Far LB skill: Snow White, Kaguya
  • Far sub LB skill: Alice, Sleeping Beauty
  • Far +2000 HP: Pinocchio, Little Mermaid, Gretel, Hamelin