Heyo. Getting a bit distracted with all the new stuff coming out and wanted to know - how important is proper 15* gear and 12/13* star units and such for story only content?

I am aware story difficulty in HC changes in response to your level, with certain quests posing quite a challenge if your chosen class is 75+.

How bad is it though? Would I need to minmax affix enhance augment insert-yet-another-mechanic-and-then-some all the way to be able to just clear story? Or would skillful play save the day?

And for additional/unreleased story content - can I reasonably just get the 'low-end' 15*/16* from exchange shops and such to handle story stuff? Based on released content on JP I mean, what do we know about that?

Final question: Can I get away with doing story content with say, Hero or Luster, and having a Dex mag instead of a recommended S-ATK mag? Just hoping to do all story content on one chara, and I get the feeling ima love Luster a lot more than Phantom.

It comes more down to skill than gear, as many of them go by how much or little damage you take and others by time. The time ones favor gear more heavily.

If I can't S-rank it on my main char, I do it again on an alt with level 48 Hero geared as if level 80 and curbstomp it.

There is no 16 stars.

The level sync only works up to a certain point. Unless they change it for global, the final fights of EP6 you will be facing level 100 bosses. Whether or not global unlock 100 before then or not, JP took it on at 95.

As for gear, a Hero beat the last boss with no units and using only 1 star weapons. The mission rank is based on how little damage you take + non stop clear.

DEX mag is pretty bad for Hero and Luster, it's basically like having no mag stat bonus, but of course doable provided you have the skills

Back when I was doing ep 1-3, I started having issues on braver when using a 12* sigma weapon around the end of ep2 / most of ep3, but eventually I got a raven katana and went back and trounced it. I actually did some ep2+3 on an alt which I leveled as a dex mag braver too so I could give them the raven+my units to completely body things at like level 40, but I'm pretty sure it was unnecessary and I was just overcautious from when I had the 12* and ended up doing the rest on my main character. My units have generally been decently high-end units, but not with good affixes.

Ep4 basically just fell over against the raven katana for my max level main, I think I did the second to last boss twice because I ate his ultimate attack and went over the damage threshold the first time. Ep 5 had a few missions near the end I had to do twice because I relied too much on auto-mate, had to do the last boss 3 times because I ate too much damage. I'm pretty trash though. I think I had the 15* atlas ex katana by this point, but I was still wearing clifard units from deus (and a 15* atlas weapon is easy as heck to get now that the recommended quest campaign exists).

Thanks for chiming in guys, it's a relief to hear this. Huzzah for skill remaining king for story quests!

@Akonyl aye, thanks for the reminder regarding the campaign. I forgot I still haven't done it enough for the 15* rank wep lol.