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MD3 Farming [Strategy Deep Dive]

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2023-12-23 10:10:31
MD3 Farming [Strategy Deep Dive]

Letter From The Editor

Most of this guide is formatted and pasted from a series of Reddit posts by Effective-Engine6745! The author of those posts didn't express any interest in uploading the guide themselves, but gave me permission to do so in their stead. Each thread will be linked at the bottom of its respective section, and this guide will be updated over the next few days as the threads are uploaded. I will be doing some editorializing, but will make sure to note where my own input comes in where it makes sense to.

For clarity, I will be changing all first person references from the original text and will instead only use first person when it's something that I have written myself. If you see words like "I" or "my", that's me writing, not the original author.

Part 0: Introduction

MD3 is a week old as of writing. Starlight looks to be in high demand, so this here's a guide to help y'all accrue it. Not every strategy that'll be covered was developed specifically for this guide, and inspirations/sources will be listed where appropriate.

This guide is aimed at players with a decent number of IDs. Maximizing starlight via rest bonuses necessitates having several to cycle between each run, forming at least 6 disjoint teams (Editor's Note: This does mean you have to own literally every Outis ID if you want to maximize the rest bonus). Of course, feel free to make modifications to fit what you currently own, or avoid IDs you don't enjoy playing, etc. The aim here is more to highlight that all status teams are strong/viable when built correctly - thus the IDs in this guide are arranged non-repeatedly (as strategically as possible) into 7 teams. All of them take roughly 30 mins per full run, with very little variance (possibly shorter with the complete starter buffs).

The first things to cover are the general principles/goals that we're aiming for in this guide. Each run aims to:

Minimize effort spent - stable/repeatable strategies (e.g. team X can winrate everything).

Minimize run time - real world duration of run.

Maximize resource gain efficiency - battle pass (BP) exp/starlight per module.This brings us to tackle the first of many common axiomatic traps gripping this community.

Misinformation/mal-opinions tend to calcify in most communities, but in Limbus, we see a trend of public opinion being set easily early on, from which point it gets regularly restated as fact (though we do see efforts to debunk them at times, be it narrative or gameplay opinions). "Top Reddit Comment Response Syndrome" if you will, but in an effort to maintain conciseness, this point won't be belabored going forward.

That is to say, in these guides, there will be times when the proposed strategy runs counter to popular takes. Each of these teams have been run casually in the background since day 1 of MD3, timing most to check their run time, and the strategies seem sound. So try seeing past preconceived notions, give it a try yourselves, and hopefully it serves you well.

So let's first have this as a preface (more so for newer players looking for guidance):

Precept 0: You don't really need to be -that- efficient. (Editor's Note: I disagree, but I have an abundance of time and I go way too hard at this game)

You can easily get a lot of modules in Limbus. If you've played for longer than a few weeks, you easily hit a point where 2-3 enkephalin refreshes are theoretically more lunacy-efficient than extracting, even when you're not 100% module-efficient with regards to spending them (yes, these numbers assumes paid BP, simply adjust the thresholds accordingly if you're entirely F2P).

Module-efficiency really isn't the deal breaker for getting the most out of the game, or in other words, there are other things you might prefer to optimize for instead of modules.

MD3 is (slightly) faster than MD2 - if you forfeit after clearing floor 3. You miss out only about 3.5 shards per run if you bounce after you trounce the F3 boss, easily shaving 10 mins or more. The EGO gift tailoring allows for very quick runs, so if time-efficiency is a focus, this should really be the go-to farming method for most players.

If you prefer to optimize for inattentiveness, simply preset 6 teams with the same 6 deployed sinners (winraters), with only the benched members swapping between runs.

In fact, if your only concern is starlight acquisition, there is a more absurd limit of time-efficiency (that can't be recommended earnestly): start a run, choose a fully rested team, forfeit run. You've just spend 5 modules to collect 70+ starlight, in about 20 secs (but netting 0 BP exp).

The Starlight calculation is 25 Starlight for clearing Floor 4, 1 Starlight for each cleared node, 2 Starlight for each encounter, and 1 Starlight for each EGO gift obtained. You also gain 12 Starlight for choosing a different EGO gift category than your last run and 60 Starlight for a full roster of fully rested IDs. This means your average Floor 4 clear will net you around 150 to 175 Starlight, with an extra 25 to 50 for hard mode.

With that out of the way, the strategies described in this guide still extend to a full F4 clear.

Universally good EGO Gifts:

Prioritize enhancing "stacking EGO gifts" of the team's status effect. The rate of potency/count application is usually incredible. Following that, below are EGO gifts that are good to take on any run:

The "free damage" group:

Eclipse of Scarlet Moths, Carmilla, Special Contract, Phantom Pain, Rusty Coin, Sunshower, Grey Coat, Illusory Hunt.

Bloody Gadget - also free damage, amazing if you have a unit with lust skills. Upgrade it.

Voodoo Doll - Cheap way to win clashes. -2 power down.

Nebulizer - Cheap potential crits. (Editor's Note: Nebulizer++ is absolutely busted. Did you have a Poise team? You do now!)

Cost gainers are better if gotten early, but do fuse/sell at final floor for something better.

Bell of Truth, Melty Eyeball - many EGOs incidentally have tremor bursts on them, so free fragile(s)/def downs.

Tomorrow's Fortune - This EGO gift was rarely worth taking for MD2, but with the changes to how reliably you can get EGO gift choices in difficult and focused encounters, along with the ability to sell or fuse gifts, Tomorrow's Fortune is now extremely good.

The Teams:

I've moved team screenshots down to their respective sections, but the general information regarding them will remain here.

Blue starred units/EGOs in the images are considered "necessary" to that team's strategy. Yellow starred ones help the strategy - include as many as you can. Of the 7 teams, when choosing one to opt out of the rotation (as you only need 6 rotating teams), the sinking team is at the top of the list. It is the team that requires the most (relative) micromanaging if aiming for F4 clears. All of them still breeze through F3 of course.

Part 1: Burn


MD3 Farming [Strategy Deep Dive] image 35
MD3 Farming [Strategy Deep Dive] image 36

Burn has been getting meme'd on a lot lately, but it is actually one of the fastest clearing teams in this guide. It's strange, 7 Yi Sang is somehow the best Burn unit in the game. (Editor's Note: Burn teams have been amazing since MD2H. Anyone who's surprised by this information hasn't been paying attention to some of the "bad" IDs)

Necessary Tools / EGO Gifts (explanation in Analysis):

7 Yi Sang

4th Match Flame (Yi Sang) [UT4]

Liu Hong Lu

All burn stacking EGO gifts (especially Fiery Down & Hellterfly's Dream, upgrade these asap).Powerful Tools / EGO Gifts (nice to haves):

9:2 (Faust) - Def down debuff (only used for F3/F4 boss).

Lifetime Stew (Sinclair) - Lotsa burn, Stew corrosion gives count in a pinch.

All other burn EGOs - the more the merrier, so as to stack 99 potency turn 1 on final boss.

Liu Gregor at [UT4] - with stacking EGO gifts (Hellterfly), even his S1 applies so much potency.Analysis

The main conceptual mistake with how players have been using burn is putting all the burn count on one target. While yes, you could think of burn as having low DPS for ticking only once at turn end, it is precisely because burn only ticks once per turn, unlike for example rupture, that it really doesn't matter if the enemy has 2 count or 9. This is why Liu Hong Lu isn't particularly useful on field as a burn unit: his schtick is the "burn count supplier".

However, because his support passive is "highest SP ally applies 1 more burn count", Yi Sang, with the only 5 weight burn AoE, suddenly is able to take that previously "low DPS" and multiply it by 5 in mob fights (ironically lore accurate to what Liu Association is stated to specialize in). Helps that it's possibly the fastest EGO animation in the game too. For this to work he needs to be "first" in the sinner selection screen. Though we set N Clair as "first" to get the earliest double slot, his sanity is usually not 45, so Yi Sang still always gets the passive (just throw out a Lifetime Stew if he ever hit 45 - that's a lot of targets too).

Not even the ideal setup, only had Hellterfly's:

Why 7 Yi Sang?

Easy gluttony sin generation (for his 4th Match Flame).

Fastest Yi Sang, applies the burn before all the Liu's (who gets +coin power if enemy has enough burn). Likewise, Crow's Eye View can nerf enemies before the other clashes.Why N Faust?

Also fast - on the final boss fight, lets you apply the defense down first with 9:2.

Applies burn w/ EGO Gifts: Pinpoint Logic Circuit (Envy applies burn), Fiery Down (Lust applies burn)

Gripping boosts Blunt, most of team is blunt

Whistles passive keep Sinclair sane - any time he's above 0 sanity is EGO time.So a typical non-boss encounter looks something like this:

Yi Sang EGOs, applying 2 burn count to 5 targets, they also get 10~40ish potency due to stacking EGO gifts. Then the Liu Gang dashes in with boosted coins (and applies even more burn). Turn ends, they'll probably be at 50~80-ish burn with 2 count. Most regular encounters up to floor 4 have less than 200 HP per enemy, burn damage + regular damage + quick staggers usually mean most fights end in 2-3 turns.

Another strength of burn is that it does fixed damage (ignores def level, etc). So even during pre-nerf MD3, most of the non-boss fights were really easy with this build. F4 boss still took a while of course.

Quick Strategy Outline

Floor 1/2: Winrate.

Floor 3/4: Set 4th Match Flame on Yi Sang, then winrate.

Floor 4 Boss: Swap Yi Sang out, Ryoshu in.

T1: Faust Fluid Sac, Rest use burn EGOs. Ryoshu base EGO.

T2+: Faust 9:2 if she goes early, Ryoshu S3 if its up, else use any burn EGO.

That's it for the burn section, this guide will hopefully be updated daily to complete the other team's explanations ASAP. Fortunately other parts should be less intensive than the burn analysis, or are ideas that are already noticed/pointed out by other people, so it would be more familiar, thus shorter.

Source for this section and the previous one: https://redd.it/18nvuos

Part 2: Bleed


MD3 Farming [Strategy Deep Dive] image 68

This section is currently empty, but have the bleed team early!

Credits

Each section of the guide will have it's own credits, but I'll also list them out here for easy access.

Introduction + Burn: https://redd.it/18nvuos

Permission: https://www.reddit.com/r/limbuscompany/comments/18nvuos/md3_farming_strategy_deep_diveguide_part_0_1/kegaiwx/

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3120055561

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