It depends. At the lower levels, you might want to carry around 10-15 sets of stars so you can use it for at least an hour straight (accumulated time) for convenience. At the mid-higher levels past level 135, you'll notice you need fewer sets of stars (perhaps 7-10) because shadow stars enables your use to be more efficient w.r.t. damage/total stars used. This usually occurs in short/semi-short bosses like areas bosses (e.g. Bigfoot or Anego), Papulatus, Shao or Zakum where 1-5 sets of stars is sufficient for a run/kill. However, at the higher levels where you take on bosses with higher hp/weapon cancel (or that dispels your SS, thus wasting your stars) like Horntail (need further clarification on the Neo Tokyo bosses), you require a greater number of sets based on how strong your team is, whether you're duo-ing a boss, whether attackers/SE in your team dies/DCs. For perspective, I have about 22 sets of stars and I think that's more than enough for me to finish a HT run with 2 attackers left (assuming we have SE) or 3 attackers left (assuming our SE dies/DCs) which might increase our run time from 1 hr 15 mins to 2 hours. Also, regarding whether using a better star is actually worthwhile, cilbi adds ÷2 to your weapon attack (wa) from ilbis and b fury adds ÷1 wa after that. - At the lower levels, +1wa might seem marginal, but as you get to a higher level, the same increase in wa from say a set of stars will increase your range higher than if you were at a lower level. (Think of it as if you've upgraded from a 3wa mon to a 4wa mon, and then a 6wa mon after that. That would be quite an improvement.) - For perspective, using a b fury rather than a cilbi gives me +50 (clean mw20) range, which can improve my duo krex timing from 22 mins to say 20 mins. Hope this helps a little!
Actually, when you factor in using apples and both players (in a duo using it), I hold my stand. If you've tried it yourself, you'll find it's true.
Thank you everybody that replied and especially Kermes, I now understand the amount of stars required for each stage of the game and it helps a lot So you guys are saying +1 attack from b.furies isnt worth it cause of the small effect it has on range? how much are c.ilbis these days? i have a total of 8b to spend on stars
lol 50 range is almost nothing, with apple you can have like 13k so what would 50 more do? It's like hitting 65200 crits instead of 65000 max, the difference isn't even noticeable. I don't even notice any damage difference between my fury and Cilby in boss runs, and even if I use ilbis I hit almost the same damage and can kill stuff like shaolin in the same time
In terms of overall value, it is more worth making 12 sets of cilbis than 3 sets of b furies, for instance. - Firstly, the additional amount of stars will help you in the situations I mentioned where people dc and/or the boss dispells. - Secondly, the cost of making a cilbi (215-230m) compared to its market cost (up to 260-275m) can be more profitable than a b fury (market prices going down to 800m+ now from a previous 1.2b - due to the release of magic throwing stars). Also, it seems that many people are T>1 b fury for 4 cilbis. Referring to the rates I referenced, owning cilbis (and merching them if u wish) is more worth it than owning/merching b furies. My recommendation would be to: 1. Collect a suitable number of sets to last you through a boss, taking into account the possibility of emergency situations- my recommendation would be at least 18-20 sets of stars for Horntail (if this is your goal). 2. Once you have enough, you can then buy/make a b fury, or if you have 4 extra sets, convert them into a b fury. Once again, hope this helps!
Hey there, your analysis on the stars are quite insightful, thanks! The part about your timing reducing by 1.5mins just from +1 wa is hard to believe though. The Krex duo timing can be affected by minor things like rebuffing at ideal timings, precise movement and attacks, random weapon cancel, and that may be why the timings differ so much. 1 wa does help but not by that much. To put it into perspective, if 1 wa reduces your timing by 1.5min, then wouldn’t you one hit Krex when you get +15 more wa? That doesn’t make much sense. Even the strongest NL took 11mins 38sec at 10.6k range!
