Fullmetal Alchemist Collab Review by Irinya

Edward Elric [ Sub: A | Lead: S | Assist: B+ | Overall: S ]

Stat	Lv.99	Lv.110+297
HP	3788	5725
ATK	2138	3168
RCV	293	663

[4020]Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric 鋼の錬金術師・エドワード・エルリック

Attacker / Machine

Active Skill: Change Heal, Jammer, Poison, Mortal Poison orbs to Light orbs; Recover all HP; For 1 turn, 3x ATK for Light Att. (25 ➧ 20)

Leader Skill: 3.5x ATK and reduce damage taken by 35% when above 50% HP; 2x ATK when 4 or more combos up to 4x at 6 combos [1/196/1, 57.75%]

Overview. Here he is — one of the best cards in the game, and one of the only truly worthwhile pulls in this machine. Edward’s mix of power, survivability, and flexibility clinches him a spot as one of today’s top leaders. Edward is extremely powerful, though the extent of this power isn’t necessarily apparent from just reading the leader skill.

Sub. It’s not that Edward is a bad sub, by any means. Unbindable with two 7c awakenings is absolutely amazing (imagine more great light-focused combo cards, right?). There’s the the minor gripe that his base active takes a small eternity to charge even with rainbow haste, but he’s certainly usable despite that.

The more relevant issue is why you’d want to be subbing him at all, of course, when he functions better as a lead in almost all content. There’s an argument to be made for subbing him in content such as the recently released (and horrifying) Multiplayer Dragon Rush, where you don’t have either the tankiness or the time (to charge Edward’s full heal active) to lead with him efficiently; in general, though, you should be leading with Edward instead of subbing him unless you’re messing around or have a bunch of dupes.

Buffs: Edward got two very nice super awakenings in 7c and VDP. Triple 7c combined with machine typing makes Edward a respectable God or balanced (aka. Hashihime) killer, while double 7c VDP isn’t bad but not very unique given the existence of Yusuke .

Lead. Simply wonderful. It’s not necessarily obvious why Edward is so good, as his multiplier and tankiness certainly appear fairly middling by today’s standards. What makes him stand above the rest?

One factor is Gungho’s card design. It’s not necessarily enough for a leader skill by itself to be numerically powerful; sometimes, the lead itself being subpar can hold a team back via hamstringing a third of its slots. Fortunately, Edward doesn’t suffer from this problem. His perfect mix of awakenings ensures that he is relevant to the team damage-wise while also providing team utility via unbindability and Time Extend.

Edward’s active, though on a long cooldown, is crafted specifically for his own leader skill, providing a good amount of orbs, a large damage enhance, and, most importantly, a button-press heal straight back to full HP. Ordinarily, actives this long on a leader might be seen as detrimental for practical purposes, but Edward has one final tool up his sleeve: a rainbow haste awakening. With proper teambuilding, this ensures maximum consistency and availability of Edward’s extremely impactful active. This is one of the most well-designed leaders GungHo has ever released in terms of self-synergy, and all these aspects come together to make him truly great.

Secondly, Edward is incredibly convenient to use. The highly prized Diablos is often praised for flexibility: whatever subs you can think of, he can use! And indeed, Edward has this same flexibility. With no color or typing requirements, all an Edward team needs to do is have above half HP, hit six combos, and preferably cover all colors (for rainbow haste). Due to the nature of Edward’s active, it’s obviously beneficial to have a team be majority light, but even with entirely off-color subs the active is so synergistic that it’s not absolutely the most important consideration (and will boost Edward’s own damage considerably regardless of what your sub composition is). Additionally, almost every other leader skill with a substantial shield has some sort of activation condition: two-color match, heart crossing, hitting a certain combo count, and so on. Edward gets the shield pretty much just for existing.

Two usage notes on the damage reduction. Firstly, a total reduction of 57% allows 99% gravity to be tanked at full health without dipping below 50% HP. This is of immense relevance, as 99% gravity is an extremely common mechanic and it is crucial to be able to absorb said mechanic without needing to burn an active or try exceptionally hard to heal sufficiently above the threshold. Another nuance of this HP conditional is that the damage you deal is calculated before healing is applied, but enemies will hit you after healing is applied. Consequently, it’s possible in a variety of scenarios to reach a kind of equilibrium and efficiently stall, since as long as you heal you will be able to both deal and take significantly reduced damage.

With most leads, this is where I would provide some general teambuilding tips. Edward, though, is so flexible that such a section would probably be a disservice. You may pull from nearly any combo-oriented sub in the game; even TPAs, to a lesser extent, function fine if your combo options are exhausted. Remember that all the standard principles of teambuilding still apply: build for the dungeon you’re running, build for what your box has, and make sure you bring as many necessary utilities as you can. His true potential is attained with the light attribute’s fantastic combo subs: Tachibana , Yuna , Light Ideal , and the like. You absolutely do not, however, need to have these cards to get a ton of mileage out of Edward.

I do want to reiterate, though, that while Edward has many, many features in his favor, the cornerstone of his power is his active, even if you do not use a light-focused team. Thus, as long as a coherent sub selection is maintained, covering all colors is typically a big priority. Even if you never use his base active, it’s extremely helpful to have it be plausible to inherit over instead of leaving you with some 30+ turn monstrosity.

Buff: Edward’s HP dependant multiplier is buffed to 3.5x, increasing his max damage multiplier to 196x. Doesn’t fundamentally changes his playstyle, but makes some damage checks easier to overcome. In the context of leading with Edward, his ability to get VDP via SA potentially opens up a sub slot.

Assist Evo

Flamel’s Cross

This active is powerful. This active also takes forever to come up, and is tailor-made to support Edward’s own leader skill. This means that there aren’t many scenarios in which this would be the best choice to inherit on almost any non-Edward team archetype (yes, even Yog , as you’re simply not going to get this up in time for it to be useful without significantly sacrificing in other important areas), and so, while the active is objectively pretty fantastic, it just doesn’t have a clear usage case where it’s the best at what it does (at least, not in the same way that Edward himself is as a leader).

It’s worth noting that if you’re running some extremely long dungeon with something like Ameno , you can combo unawoken Raphael into Edward’s active for a full heal, massive damage enhance, extremely powerful board (which can be further combined with other actives to make a VDP board), and two turns of damage immunity. The use case for something like this is pretty slim as well, though.

Buffs: Edward’s new assist evo gives team HP and attack boost ≥ 80%, two awakenings very relevant for Edward’s own team and generally nice for light teams, especially Sherias Roots who greatly appreciate the full heal. Given his long cooldown, it’s quite possible to use Ed’s assist evo on teams that don’t desire his active but want the awakenings. As useful as this assist evo may be, if you only have 1 Edward then definitely keep him for lead/sub purposes and even if you have a 2nd Edward I’d make 1 7c Edward and 1 VDP Edward over this assist evo.

Alphonse Elric [ Sub: A- | Lead: B | Assist: A- | Overall: A- ]

Stat	Lv.99	Lv.110+297
HP	5243	7544
ATK	1885	2851
RCV	13	313

[4022]Armor Bound Brother, Alphonse Elric 鎧の弟・アルフォンス・エルリック

Physical / Attacker

Active Skill: For 1 turn, reduce damage taken by 50%; Change all orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light, Dark, and Heal orbs (15 ➧ 10)

Leader Skill: 5x ATK for Light Att.; 3x ATK & RCV when matching 4 or more colors [1/225/9]

Overview. Though not as amazing as his big brother, Alphonse is a unique and actually very powerful card in his own right. Providing a unique combination of light/wood attributes, unbindability, offense, and team support, he’s highly slot efficient if utility is what you want. He has some notable limitations, such as his generally poor typing, but can often still find a spot on a variety of teams.

Sub. Only a handful of cards provide both 7c and FUA, and Alphonse is arguably the most utility-laden of all. Unbindability is nice but of course not exclusive to Alphonse. What is exclusive to him alone is the combination of damage, unbindability, FUA, double TE, and double SB. What’s the big deal with that? All of these things are replaceable individually. Alphonse is notable for having all of them together, making him a great utility stick who is actually unique in this respect.

With that in mind, he does have a few relative weaknesses. Firstly, his stats, though fairly solid, really suffer in terms of RCV. Depending on the team he’s on, this can range from a non-issue to being fairly noticeable. Secondly, his typing makes him unfortunately unsuitable for various rainbow teams, which use typings such as God, Dragon, or Devil. This makes many such archetypes unable to take advantage of his fantastic awakenings and excellent base active. Finally, this isn’t specifically an area of weakness, but his well-rounded utility-heavy nature means that he doesn’t excel at any specific purpose. This can be a turn-off for some players or for some kinds of content, where more specialization is desired.

Despite these flaws, Alphonse still has plenty of legitimate uses. Perhaps most relevant to this collab, he is one of the best possible subs for an Edward team, bringing pretty much everything that his older brother could possibly want.

Buffs: Alphonse can now get a 2nd 7c through super awakes. FUA’s better distribution lowered Alphonse’s uniqueness but he still gets the job done.

Lead. Though numerically decent, this leader skill is really nothing special and is held back by its RCV multiplier being tied to color activation. Having FUA and such a diversity of helpful awakenings on a leader can simplify teambuilding, but at the end of the day this is still just a light-focused color match leader without much subtlety or nuance. Slightly reminiscent of Yuna .

Buffs: He got more damage but nothing to fix the lack of HP/Shield.

Assist Evo

Soul Binding Rune

While Alphonse himself might not be suitable as a sub on type-restricted rainbow teams like Rikuu, inherits have no such restriction, and this active has significant applicability. The combination of rainbow board and shield has various utility; one example is in Awoken Tachibana’s , but certainly has its uses regardless.

Buffs: Alphonse’s triple blind resist assist evo is pretty underwhelming compared to the other new assist evos. While his active is likely more useful than assist Narga , blind itself just isn’t that dangerous as a mechanic.

King Bradley [ Sub: B | Lead: C+ | Assist: B | Overall: B ]

Stat	Lv.99	Lv.110+297
HP	4268	6325
ATK	2350	3433
RCV	23	326

[4026]Führer President, King Bradley 大総統・キング・ブラッドレイ

Attacker / Devil

Active Skill: Deal 150000 damage to an enemy 5 times; For 1 turn, increase combo count by 2 (15 ➧ 10)

Leader Skill: [Board becomes 7×6]; 1.5x HP & ATK for Dark Att.; 3x ATK when matching 2 Dark combos, up to 5x at 4 Dark combos [2.25/56.25/1]

Overview. Bradley’s a really good demonstration of how good FUA is. He has exactly the same awakenings as Alphonse aside from FUA, and while Alphonse is a very solid sub, Bradley looks significantly more generic in comparison.

Sub. Essentially a bag of utility. Dropping FUA for guard break (compared to Alphonse) is a bit of a shame, but guard break still manages to have its uses (and is probably better now than it’s ever been, honestly). Bradley’s additionally held back by a very strange base active, though it’s not too much of a hassle to inherit something useful over (and please, inherit literally anything useful over this if you sub him).

Bradley is, therefore, acceptable but not great. Note that he suffers from the same fundamental weakness as Alphonse, being not exceptionally good at any particular function. Lacking FUA only accentuates this further.

Buffs: Bradley also got another 7c, but 7c is so common nowadays that he’s still nothing special.

Lead. Looks good and usable but is actually pretty impractical. Even on a 7×6 board, you won’t reliably be getting more than two combos of any particular color, leading to Bradley’s total multiplier contribution being… 3x. Yeah, that’s not great, even on 7×6. Unless you have a very specific team build or dungeon plan in mind using this, it’s not going to be very good. Just trust me on this one and use Diablos instead.

Assist Evo

Uroboros Tattoo

Really, really situational (but works well when it works). This can be used to finalize a kill on Sopdet or Parvati, but if your team struggles this massively with Sopdet you might want to instead consider bringing Fujin , bringing a strong delay , or reworking your team. Parvati is, of course, totally unthreatening to stall out for most teams, so Bradley is even less necessary there. This inherit can fill some farming functions, such as bursting the Super King floor in rogue dungeons. Too bad he’s slow and there’s already a five-star roll, Scar, who steps up and fills a very similar role. In all, usable for its niche purposes but quite poor aside.

Buffs: Bradley’s assist evo is another collab diamond that grants 3 poison resists but manages to be worse than the 5 star assist Rathian due to a less useful active, even with the +2c buff. He does grant a TE and is on color for dark subs though. That said, unless you have an excess of triple poison resist assists lying around, Bradley’s sabers are likely going to be more useful than Bradley himself.

Summary

If this machine had more cards, perhaps I could unironically recommend rolling for some of the higher value picks. The problem, though, is that you’re about as likely to get two of the same five-star in a row as you are to get any of the diamonds. Given that almost all of the five-stars are terrible, I can’t in good conscience suggest that most people roll this machine for actual gameplay purposes. (If you just happen to like the franchise, then by all means roll away.)

Best of luck in avoiding the torrential flood of trash dupes!

After all the buffs Most of the 5* still suck, but at least Scar is more practical now and 6 stars got nice assist evos. Rates remain garbage and no new cards were added so if you aren’t chasing any of the 5* cards, feel free to use the monster exchange for 6* offerings instead of rolling this machine.

The farmable Homunculi(Lust, Gluttony, Envy) got substantial stat buffs through limit break, at lv110 their weighted stats double. Lust is especially notable for being having the highest base attack in the game in coop, though her lack of SB in coop is annoying to build around. Father also got nice super awakenings in VDP and 2nd machine killer.