Dark UnF 2024 Pages

Main

EX+

NM90

NM95

NM150

NM200

How to Farm

GW consists of 7 rounds.

The first two are colloquially refered to as meat farming. For most players, this round consists of farming out Extreme or Extreme+ to get host mats for the raids of Finals. In the first round, Preliminaries, all honor is counted to both crew and individual honors. In the second, Interlude, honors only count towards individuals. Farming preliminaries is a lot more important for this reason where interlude can often be skipped unless ranking. NM90 is also available these days but will usually be ignored by everyone but the top rankers due to the small honors it provides for it’s meat cost.

The bulk of GW is the four rounds of Finals. In this stage, teams go head to head to see who can get more honors during the round period. These rounds introduce Nightmare raids which uses the meat farmed during the previous rounds. Day 1 introduces NM95, Day 2 brings NM100 and NM150, and Day 3 provides the final fight NM200. While the best players will aim for the highest level every day, the general rule for all players is to farm whatever stage nets you the most honors per hour. So for example, if your best NM200 takes more than 3.25 times longer than NM150, it would be better to run NM150. The other main meta concern of this round is meat usage. It is helpful to both set meat usage goals and limits for each round so that you can both meet your individual goals as well as retain meat for the later rounds with a much higher honors/meat ratio.

The final round is Final Rally, a rematch against the GW boss with your whole crew. The fight is generally not notable in terms of diffculty and can easily be FA’d or refresh spammed.

Notable Changes This Year

The biggest change so far was for Celeste grids with the recent release of M3. The primary weapon Celeste Grace Ater provides a great source of cap up and mod to help close the gap between farmable and gacha grids. Skill damage setups also recieved a solid upgrade with the tempering weapon Celeste Saber Ater which outperforms the prior skill supp weapon Agonize in boosted setups. The last and generally least important of the new weapons is Celeste Dagger Ater which packs medium garrison which will make it a good slot for NM200 FA setups.

With the MKII upgrade, Forbidden Agastia Mk II has become the best mod slot around. Celeste will always want them for burst if you can have them while Hades would still use a copy or two. But for either case, they are very strong for Kaguya x Kaguya setups for OTK and NM90 with 4-5 typically being slotted. The other weapon, Forsaken Agastia / Forsaken Agastia Mk II, is geared towards FA. It provides 10% CA cap and normal cap as well as providing 20% EX ATK and 15% DEF for double Celeste/Hades setups on top of the awakening you pick for it. It is also an excellent mainhand providing 20% bonus damage to party and gaining 15% charge bar to party at MKII.

Hades presently hasn’t changed much. Outside the adoption of Forbidden Agastia MKII, the biggest change so far has been the awakenings for Fallen Sword. The MA awakening for it is a good choice to increase grid TA for characters for characters without GTA. This said, Dark is still expecting its Exalto weapon which will lead to some big changes.

So on the note of characters without GTA, the biggest new character in the last year for Dark has been Cidala (Valentine). They are basically a direct upgrade of Bowman. They pack 50k normal supp, 2 hit flurry, and autocast their skill 3 Mission Chocolate which is a 2 hit skill nuke that inflicts 10% (40% max) stackable ATK down, 10% (40% max) stackable DEF down, and 3k (30k max) stackable supplmental dmg as well as dispeling. All around she has great damage output for no buttons and the auto dispels are incredibly useful. Her main drawback is the lack of GTA without a button press. This makes it important to reach 100% TA with her via grid and earrings. The other main skill I want to note is her skill 2 Served on a Silver Tiger which has a sub all and dodge all which will be invaluable for bypassing a terrible enemy Special Attack.

The other character I want to note is Tyra because T-Rexes are cool. But also because she’s an excellent discount damage dealer thanks to her skill 3 The Evolution giving her 2 hit flurry. As well, she deals skill damage with a dispel on enemy special attacks. She is not gonna outdo the top tiers of dark, but if you don’t have Cidala or Ilsa she is a very appealing choice.

Both Celeste Omega and Hades recieved transcendances. The most important change is the increase of their main aura to 170%. This leads to a good boost to both elements, particularly Celeste which had a lower boost than Hades before. They also both gain sub auras that add a bit more ATK and DEF or HP which can help push a bit more damage in setups. This is particularly beneficial for Celeste setup where it won’t have to compete with Fediel.

The other main summon release was Triple Zero. Many setups for NM95 do not call summons so the 10% damage amp winds up being the best main summon option for those. Additionally, for non Eresh setups, the call providing instant charge gives you another round of teamwide double strike.

Weapons

Celeste

To start, let us cover the weapons needed for Celeste grids.

General

• 1 Katana of Renunciation
• 1 Scythe of Darkherald
• 2-4 ATK Forbidden Agastia Mk II
• 3-5 Celeste Grace Aters
• 3 Celeste Zaghnal Omegas
• 1 Zechariah
• 1 Pain of Death
• 1-2 ATK Abydoss
  • Less copies with more copies of Pain and Suffering
• 1-2 Ramsund Militis
  • Less copies with more copies of Pain and Suffering
• 2-3 Abyss Spines
• 2 Fediel’s Spines
• 2 Celeste Saber Aters
• 2 Agonize
• 1 Worldbreaking Tauros
• 1-2 Celeste Dagger Aters

Rank 200

• 1 Ultima Claw
• 1 Ultima Gun
• 1 Ultima Axe
• 3-4 ATK Forbidden Agastia Mk II
• 0-1 ATK Forsaken Agastia Mk II
• 0-2 DEF Forsaken Agastia
• 0-1 Festering of Mournful Obsequies

Gacha

• 1-2 Pain and Sufferings

Gold Moon

• 0-1 Ereshkigal

Celeste Grace Ater is the most important cap up source and second strongest mod slot for Celeste grids. Typically, three will be enough to cap the cap up in most grids. Before Rank 200, these will make up the majority of your grid with up to five covering your mod options. After, any more copies after three get replaced by the stronger mod option of Forbidden Agastia Mk II. They pack an incredible amount of mod per slot with the typical grid running 3 Graces and 2-3 Forbidden Agastias. For Kaguya x Kaguya grids for OTK and NM95. Running 2 Graces and 4 Forbidden Agastias end up being ideal.

If you are unable to farm M3 or get enough Graces before GW, the older mod options are Celeste Zaghnal Omegas and Zechariah. While they are much weaker, they are still solid and served as main pieces for Celeste in the past. Additionally, Forbidden Agastia is much less valuable than than the MKII variant. It is still better than many other options like the ones listed above.

The last mod slot to bring up is Pain of Death. When someone dies, typically by Death (SSR), it grants a unique stackable 15% (45%) ATK and DEF. Since it is a unique mod source, it provides a very valuable source of mod that will be very good at the higher Nightmare levels. It also provides 5% cap up.

Dark has two main farmable supplemental sources available. Agonize which is geared towards Stamina play and Ramsund Militis towards enmity setups with Forbidden Agastia. Agonize are more valuable without M3 access. With M3, typically you won’t run them as supp sources as the sizable mod from Graces will outdo the supp from Abydos. A bit part of this is Dark doesn’t have much for strong teamwide buffs so increased mod to push you closer to cap usually wins out. Ramsund on the other hand is still good to run with Forbidden Agastias due to the much stronger mods they provide. Both weapons can be replaced with the premium supplemental option Pain and Suffering. The weapon provides larger supp than either farmable option and will be better than either.

Continuing from this, the other major source of important supp to dark is skill supp. While high end setups lean normal attacks over skill damage, for others skill damage is key part of your damage output especially for FA. The two main weapons for this are Celeste Saber Ater and Agonize. Sabers are boostable and Agonize are unboostable. Thus if you are running a boosted setup the former is stronger where unboosted will lead to the later being better. Another option is Worldbreaking Tauros. It provides 10% skill amp and 20% skill cap to melee and harp allies. It is less valuable than the prior too but still a good option for pushing more damage.

For OTK and FA, charge attack setups are an appealing choice. Dark has two pretty good charge attack weapons. Abyss Spine is a boostable CA damage and CA cap weapon that also provides HP. It is a common slot for FA. Fediel’s Spine is a stamina based CA supp weapon maxing at 600k supp. It is great for any OTK with a CA focus as well as CA focused full auto setups.

Continuing off the thought of FA, your main FA pieces for HP and Defense are Abyss Spine, Zechariah, and Celeste Dagger Ater. As said before, spines are best for CA setups but still solid without. Celeste Dagger Aters are good for the harder fights due to the garridon and healing cap. Once you reach Rank 200, two other defensive weapons for FA present themselves. DEF awakened Forsaken Agastias, in addition to being a good HP source due to the awakening, also bring in 5% CA cap and 5% normal cap. It is also easy to reach the 280% requirement on its first skill with double celeste and at least two Graces. And then Festering of Mournful Obsequies is a big source of boostable HP and you can slot in light damage reduction for its skill 2.

Ultima Claw, Ultima Gun, Ultima Axe will generally be the most useful ones for this UnF. Claw is for general Dark setups thanks to the large number of Melee Proficiency characters. Gun is for setups with Ilsa (Yukata). And lastly, Axe is for setups with Cidala (Valentine).

Last but definitely not least, I’ll cover some useful mainhands. A few that will be good for Manadiver FA setups are Exo Hamartia, Forbidden Agastia Mk II, Celeste Dagger Ater, and the premium option Parazonium. Each has their own benefits especially as mainhands and grid pieces. Exo Hamartia for example is great for those without double PnS for the additional supp damage. For NM200, Forsaken Agastia Mk II will be great for anyone who has to use Lumberjack to clear it thanks to its partywide echoes and charge bar.

When it comes to burst, there are two options. One is using your opus Katana of Renunciation with the Falsehood chain. This provides teamwide double strike on CA which is very valuable to make use of Dark’s many gorillas. The main drawback is needed to find ways to get to 100% charge as many as you can with -100% charge bar gain. The 150 GM Ereshkigal has the same CA affect, but will start the battle with instant charge and provide instant charge the next two turns. It also provides a massive 30% normal amp and 20% normal damage cap. It is a major upgrade from the Opus mainhand is reccomended for anyone going hard this UnF or wants to cut buttons in general. It is such a dominate force in Dark in right now with it being the best mainhand for almost everything except Hard Content that the Gold Moon cost is more than worth it.

Hades

Like with Celeste grids, Hades grids will likely see major changes before UnF with the probable release of its Exalto weapon. So keep in mind that, unless they make it really bad, when it drops it will be instantly slotted into grids with three copies being ideal.

• 2-3 Eternal Signature
• 2 Pain and Sufferings
• 0-1 Ereshkigal
• 1 Parazonium
• 1 Pain of Death
• 1-2 Forbidden Agastia Mk II
• 1-2 MA Fallen Swords
• 0-2 Bab-el-Mandebs
• 0-2 Skeletal Eclipse
• 2 Agonize
• 1 Scythe of Darkherald
• 1 Katana of Renunciation
• 1 Katana of Repudiation
• 1 Ultima Claw
• 1 Ultima Gun
• 1 Ultima Axe

Pain and Sufferings provide 50k supp and 7% cap up making them invaluable sources of cap break with two slotted in every grid.

Eternal Signatures are presently one of the main grid pieces thanks to providing 7% special cap up, 40% EX ATK and 25% DEF as well as a small majesty. However, based on the past history of Resonator weapons and Exalto weapons, they will likely drop heavily in usage once Dark Exalto releases.

For burst grids they will probably be dropped completely. Dark grids would have two open slots with 3 Exaltos slotted. Since dark teams generally lacks strong teamwide buffs from its characters these will more than likely want to be strong mod slots.

That said for FA, because they provide HP and DEF, they will still be present as well as for higher level bursting for the same reason. Additionally, if you don’t get 3 copies of it, which will be most people, Eternal Signatures can replace the missing the copies.

Since we talked about the mod slots,. the following are the typical mod sources for Dark. Here there is some flexibility so I wanted to mention them seperately from the main list.

• 1 Parazonium
• 1 Pain of Death
• 1-2 Forbidden Agastia Mk II
• 1-2 Fallen Swords
• 0-2 Bab-el-Mandebs

With the present Eternal Signature grid, the main mod sources are Parazonium and Forbidden Agastia Mk II. Parazonium is an excellent mod and cap up source thanks to its ATK awakening. It is also a dagger which means with triple ES you reach the four of the same weapon types required for ES. Its main competitor is Pain of Death since its another cap up dagger. Pain of Death is stronger in cases where you call death and weaker when you don’t so pick whichever one is appropriate. Parazonium as well is the stronger choice as a mainhand thanks to the teamwide echoes it provides. And to not forget about Fobidden Agastia, there isn’t too much to say about it other than it provides a lot of mod for one slot.

Once Exaltos hit, Fallen Sword may return as the dominant mod source. Its a strong mix of primal mods and the MA awakening may prove helpful for reaching 100% for Cidala (Valentine) in particular. Time will tell though.

The last one I’ll mention are dark’s crit weapons Bab-el-Mandebs. These are generally phased out, but I choose to mention them since Light’s crit weapon Ivory Arks recieved a major boost from having a crit focused Exalto so there is a change that it could happen again. I would not consider them a priority however.

As for the skill supp weapons Agonize and Skeletal Eclipse their value heavily depends on whether you have Eresh or not. With it you don’t need to worry about them. Without, you will definintely want them. As well if you plan to primiarly play in FA you will want them too.

On that top, the last weapon overall to mention but not least is the 150 GM weapon option.

• 0-1 Ereshkigal

To not repeat myself too much from what I said in the Celeste section on it, Ereshkigal is a top tier mainhand that caps normal cap and normal amp and makes both burst and FA better and faster. You aren’t required to get it but it will make every aspect of UnF easier as well as any Dark farming outside it.

Characters

Burst

Dark burst setups typically revolves around mostly independant attackers that operate well at low button presses. While some noteworthy attackers do offer strong teamwide buffs, the independent gorillas are the bulk of burst characters for Dark.

Additionally, for NM150 and above, strategies will typically use Death (SSR) both for the four turns of Guarenteed Triple Attacks as well as to add additional buffs as needed.

Coming later.

FA

Coming later.

Backline

• OROLOGIA PLZZZ
  • 20% boost to Omega and Optimus skills.
• Forte FLB
  • Caps incoming damage at 10k and provides 2% (10% max) stackable cap up.

Summons

Example Grids

Here are a few examples of weapon configurations for this year.

Past Years