Hey guys,
I'm a new player and a bit confused about what to do. I'm sure this is the first time that's happened in this thread.
I know it's much to ask but could someone give me some guidance/walkthrough in regards to
1. Sockets
2. Limit breaks
3. Leveling up specials?
I managed to pull and max level up Kuzan but aside from that he has no socket things, limit breaks or anything. I got a special lvl up from some exp thing at the least.
I guess my most concerning issues are:
1. Do obtained sockets, lb's, specials as Kuzan carry over to Kuzan 6+?
2. I only need the azure skull to evolve him, is it worth it to sell some 5-star characters for the skull? I can get 5k training points from a Corazon right now and the rest from 300-point characters. I've heard his 6+ form is good utility though? I only use F2P though so not sure how likely it is for me to evolve him..
3. What socket skills to use? I've understood that for Kuzan as a captain you want some auto-heal and reduced cd's for stalling and such.
The game is great, just a bit too bloated for a newcomer. It's almost stressful to try to understand what the hell you should be doing.
Sockets are straightforward once you interact with them a bit more; your units always keep their sockets, LB, and special ups when evolved to a 6+, and this applies to every unit in the game with one notable exception; some early units had unique specials compared to their evolutions. The only time you'll ever lose skillups is if your unit changes special, otherwise you're fine. People use 5* universal skillbooks on their unevolved Legend units for this reason. Sockets always either stay the same or go up between evolutions and limit breaks are tied to the unit's evolution path.
To wrap up sockets, Bind/Despair/Autoheal/Charge Special are the ones everybody defaults to, with Damage Reduction and Orbs being the tossup on 5 socket units. I personally opt DR in 90% of cases. As to what to do if your unit has <4 sockets, it always varies. I personally put Autoheal on everything, followed by Charge Special because of this simple assumption: Your leads are always Legends, ergo 10 bind/despair sockets are accounted for. You have 4 more units to get 10 more sockets on your team, and the only meta relevant units that don't have 4+ sockets are a handful of raid units. Ergo in the name of always being able to stall and speedrun, I always favor AH and CS. As for socket exceptions, the only real exception to this rule is Legend Enel. Enel wants to maximize how much he heals so you can run RCV sockets on him as well as common subs for him such as Legend Marco, Shirahoshi, Corazon, 6+ V1 Law, etc. But it's strictly a concern if you have Enel.
Limit Breaks are a two part process of giving your max level units LB points(henceforth referred to as 'The Juice') then using LB materials and cold hard belli to unlock the actual nodes that you get access to by having fed The Juice to your units. Each node is tied to one buff. Both The Juice and LB materials are obtained via clearing Treasure Map mode. As to who to prioritize, general rule of thumb is TM units which are generally useless without max LB, followed by units who receive major buffs such as large CD reductions, 'X socket as matching for Y class/color' sailor abilities, etc. The lowest priorities IMO are Legends, because they take 5M Juice Points versus 5* units which only take 2M points and generally have pretty minor buffs bar something like Legend Nami who gets universal DEX matching, or V1 Law who gets a serious CD reduction. As for what LBs are worth more than Rayleigh Points, CD reduction and double special. CD reduction is king in this game
Special ups are probably the most important part of improving your units and make your units actually usable. 20 turns of stalling is impractical for most hard content so the sooner you get them the better. You get skillups via skillbooks or duplicates; the usual gameplay loop is farm dupes/books -> wait for a special up event(you'll see it labeled as such in the Power Up button; we currently have one going on). Never ever ever use RRs for special ups unless you're flushed in Rayleigh points and the unit's new with skillups far off into the future.
Which brings me into the next point, skulls and Rayleigh points. As far as balancing the P2P currencies goes for F2P, it goes Rainbow Gems <- First copies of units <- Rayleigh points <- LBs. I'd never sell your only copy of a RR/Legend no matter what unit they are. I'd also add that Kuzan's not exactly easy unit to use even in a developed box and he relies heavily on max special subs. I'd personally shift immediately to 6+ Corazon as soon as he drops on Global as a lead over 6+ Kuzan because stalling is going to be absolutely necessary early on as a new player.
I'd suggest that you try to diversify your Legend and RR pool as quickly as possible and would suggest the following: Hoard gems until you hit 130 gems and wait for Treasure Map Sugofests. You'll get a guaranteed TM boosted unit on the second multipull and a guaranteed Legend on the 3rd multipull. Stick to 3 multis per Sugofest to pull from a wide pool of boosted RR units while also giving you lots of chances to pull stronger Legend leads. The boosted TM unit will also help you clear Treasure Map efficiently so as to get guaranteed Red posters. 6+ Corazon is unexpectedly really good as a lead, but he's also far from a carry Legend and he's also not really accessible given that you have few to no Ralyeigh points. Assuming no dupes until your ~10th Legend, 6+ Corazon might be a ways off and you'll have to use TM units as leads. The good news on that front is that TM Enel is the next unit and he's fantastic. for clearing easier content, and TM Enel as a sub on 6+ Corazon teams is going to be great for the early game too assuming RNG gives you the absolute worst case scenario.
As for resources for more info, r/OPTC is the go-to, Youtube is good for team guides, and
OPTC-DB is vital as it provides a damage calculator, a lookup table for all units in the game, and information about drops for every stage in the game including where to find a RR unit's skillbooks.