Theater 6

By BigStupidJellyfish | 2021-October-31

Theater 7 update, 2022-March-08: when possible, I'll have unedited clears uploaded to this playlist. My schedule is unfortunately no longer compatible with early/edited daily Theater uploads. For a fast overview of each day, you may be best off with Greez's twitter. A lot has changed with this season, so my videos for Theater 5/6 will not be terribly helpful.

I will unfortunately not be able to upload daily clear videos for Theater 6 this November, so here are some more static resources you can reference. The optimal zones each day will be different, but my Theater 5 runs will still be useful. Enemies/waves/zones in Theaters 5 & 6 are completely identical, and the doll pool has hardly changed. For another reference, Assassin Eclipse also has a playlist of Theater 5 runs (who is also a much better scouter than me).

What zone?#

(See also this spreadsheet. Does not factor in advantaged dolls, boss score is included with good CE stacking.)

Scouting Record#

Day Drones W/N/L A B C Prev win Prev loss All win Construction
1 1 ACB 60 20 50 60 50 60 30
2 15 ABC 900 600 375 900 600 900 450
3 21 ABC 1260 840 525 1260 525 1260 630
4 24 ACB 1440 480 1200 1440 1200 1440 720
5 24 BCA 360 1920 1200 360 1920 1920 720
633BAC990264082526409902640990
745ABC2700180011251800112527001350
857CBA85522805700855570057001710
963ACB3780126031503150378037801890
1063ABC3780252015753780252037801890
1169ACB4140138034504140345041402070
1272BCA1080576036001080576057602160
1375BAC2250600018756000225060002250
1478ABC4680312019503120195046802340
1578ABC4680312019504680195046802340
1681ABC4860324020254860202548602430
1784CBA1260336084001260840084002520
1887CBA1305348087008700130587002610
1990ABC5400360022502250540054002700
2093CBA1395372093001395930093002790
2196ACB5760192048004800576057602880
Total52935530606402558530659609186037470

General Recommendations#

Fairies: a SL10 Taunt fairy is strongly recommended. It can trivialize a number of fights here. For general DPS, Command/Artillery/Warrior (with skill) are very strong. It's possible to place high (top 15% or better) even with low-rarity fairies, but getting them to 3*+ will make your life significantly easier.

Specific dolls that are good to have:

  • Carcano M91/38 (Grape)
  • M200 or SSG3000
  • P22 (farmable in Isomer campaign)
  • 2 SGs
  • A few strong MGs with armor tiles (e.g., Kord, Negev, RPK) for the Core 8 SWAP SF stack. M500-based teams are nicer but may be less accessible. You may want a skilled armor fairy as well for this.

Enhanced gold equipment is critical for the upper stages of Theater. Running expeditions and exchanging for universal parts will give you more enhancement materials than you could ever need.

HOCs should be leveled to 60, so that they can equip 5* chips. Use a chip calculator to find optimal configurations. BGM, AT4, 2B14, and M2 will be the most useful for this season. AGS and QLZ are a very low priority.

For all challenging enemies, make sure to pause and save them to Target Saving when you first encounter them! This lets you practice compositions and kiting against them at no cost. If you use GFAlarm, you can use its "Custom Target Train" feature to add them to Target Saving before your first in-game encounter. (Also for GFAlarm users, here's all the Theater 5/6 IDs by zone.)

Elementary 4#

Looks like we skipped over this stage last time, so no video reference. 1 RFHG (Aeigs/Cyclops) + 1 ARSMG with PEQs (everything else) should be sufficient.

Advanced 1#

While this stage is mostly harmless, the KCCO Hydra/Kratos/Minotaurus mob is abnormally hard. Some examples:

Advanced 3#

Most things here are simple enough for a lv90+ ARSMG & RFHG, but the Gladiator/Gunner node is abnormally difficult. A strong RFHG + Taunt/Twin is recommended, although fairy commands may be short. Some examples:

The rest:

  • Orthrus x12: The lack of archers makes this group mostly harmless. Use an ARSMG with PEQs (2 examples).
  • Strelet x20 Doppelsoldner x2: These doppels are 70% shielded, so BGM/AT4 is strongly recommended. Otherwise they're rather weak as far as doppels go.
  • Manticore x2: Only come with 25 armor, so these are fine to use ARSMG on.
  • Dinergate x135: Of course, don't try with RFHG.

Advanced 8#

New as of Theater 5 is a Coeus/Cyclops wave, which has the potential to really ruin your day. The strats used in my first encounter weren't fantastic, so I'd instead recommend using a team with 2 SG, Taunt, and HOC support. Simply retreat the rest of the dolls at the start and let your HOCs kill everything. Example fight. Alternatively, a coalition echelon also works with some Manticores. M2 is particularly useful for giving M500 additional sets of shields via her skill2.

Core 8#

If you have a high-rarity armor fairy, RFSG echelons are very nice. Here's a few comparisons against the SWAP stack:

Such a team can also handle Uhlans (without spending fairy commands), Pyxis, Gladiator/Gunners (a bit closer - may need active or FP debuffs from 2B). I have a few examples of those fights here.

A few more examples here.

Other specific enemies/stages#

While there are some new enemies in Theater 5/6, lots of old ones are still around. Some playlists from Theater 4:

About CE stacking#

Do not CE stack. Do not listen to people who say that something-or-another is bad for CE (e.g., Coalition echelons).

In general, the only meaningful outcome from Theater is getting its HOC to 5* after rewards of the second Theater in each series is distributed. To do that, you need to score 15% or above both times. Better performance in one theater can make up for worse performance in the other, to an extent. That may sound intimidating, but is very doable if you have all or almost all advantaged dolls, and can tackle the optimal stages each day.

That's where the requirements end. CE stacking and scouting are not even remotely important to score in the top 15%. My low-spec runs don't/can't CE stack, make substantial use of Coalition echelons, follow basic voting strategies (like all-B), and usually have landed in the top 4-5%.

For the very top ranks, voting is by far the dominant factor. There can be some edge cases where you just barely slip into top 100 because you stacked super hard and would have been 1% otherwise, but it's more likely to be sitting in #60 with a large enough point gap that even without CE stacking you'd still be top 100. The odds of this being a factor in terms of percentage brackets gets even lower.

Assuming that people reading this page aren't aiming for top 10 (not %), what's much more concerning is that CE stacks can be unstable and annoying. A hardcore CE stack runs a higher chance of failing a run entirely. That may be tolerable if you're amazing at kiting, have maxed fairies, and all that, but makes for a poor general recommendation. Losing a run after the free retreat becomes a more realistic risk that actually will tank your final ranking, especially if it happens on Core 8. As fully CE-stacked teams are designed to just barely clear the waves while maximizing CE, many otherwise easy fights turn into bothersome reset-fests.

If safe, non-CE stacked clears are plenty for top 5%, why add risk when all you need is 15%? Build teams that will get you through the run, with an extra squad for advantaged dolls. People talk about CE far too much.

Advantaged Dolls#

Advantaged doll list:

Each advantaged doll gives 5% more score, +0.03% per level, up to a combined maximum of +24%. You can hit this with 3 lv100 advantaged dolls, 4 advantaged dolls with combined levels of 134 or more, or 5 advantaged dolls of any level.

Advantaged dolls do not have to participate in fights, but they must be put in a team. It's perfectly fine to have a bunch of them thrown in a team at the end that's useless for actual combat. Strong advantaged dolls can be useful in combat teams as they get a 20% boost to certain stats. Getting +24% advantaged on each stage (or as close to it as possible) is critical if you want to score well.

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