Beginners Guide to Tension Cards
Ву Lucky7K.
Tension Cards are effects that can be activated under certain conditions and heavily affect the style of gameplay. You can have up to 5 Tension Cards equipped to a team, allowing for a variety of different effects to take place.
Tension Cards are linked to the amount of tension in your team, and will activate/deactivate when the threshold is met (although most cards have additional requirements to activate).
What Do Tension Cards Do Specifically?
How do I upgrade them?
Effect Details:
There are many parts under effect details, so let’s break them down one by one.
Tension needed to activate effect:
Shows the required tension phase needed to activate a card. Do note that tension cards will still be activated at higher phases then the one required to activate it. There are 4 stages of Tension when fighting: 0, 1, 2, and EX (basically 3 but cooler).
Do note that the bar doesn’t need to be completely filled for the Tension Card to be activated. For example, let’s use this cool but garbage (for the most part) tension card.
The Tension needed to activate the effect is Phase 2. However, in the photo below, we see that even though the bar is at 1 ½ progress, it is still phase 2. This is because whenever you reach the cap of a phase, you’ll be in that phase until you either reach the next higher or lower cap.
So in this example, we are in phase 2 even though the bar is filled to the 1 ½ section. If it were to hit the next bottom (left) line (indicated by the frowny face), we will be in phase 1 and the card would deactivate (even if other conditions are met). If it hits the very right bar (indicated by the smiley face), we will be in phase EX (3) and the card can still be activated if the other conditions are met. The previous card would be activated at any point from the frowny face to the smiley face after hitting phase 2 (The line between the frowny and smiley face).
Effect Target:
Show who will get the benefits from the card. It can range from the whole party, or to the operating character, or to any character that can activate the additional conditions.
For example, this card will affect all party members.
This card will affect the character who met the condition (in this case, the operating character only and when they get knocked out).
This card will affect a specific target who granted the debuff to the enemy (in this case, a character who gave an enemy the debuff attention). Do note, for this card, any character who uses a secondary attack will cause the effect to be activated, not just the character who granted attention.
This card will affect everyone on the team except the operating character.
Description:
This is the text located underneath the Effect Target section. It tells additional conditions for the card to be activated, the buff/debuff/effect that the card gives, and/or the duration of the condition.
The Description of this tension card is as follows: “When the operating character executes Counterattack successfully, grant party members {Star Actor} for 3.6s.”
Understanding What a Tension Card does:
It is important to know who gets affected by your cards, as well as ALL the conditions required to activate it. Cards have additional conditions to be activated that are in the description of the card. Let’s use the previous picture as an example. This card is activated when the following conditions are met: When your team is in Phase 0 and when the operating characters successfully use a counterattack. Now, who benefits from this card? By reading the description, we see that it gives party members {Star Actor} for 3.6s. Does this mean everyone?
Star Actor increases the attack point of all characters except the operating character by 5%. Additionally, when switching characters, the effect will be removed from everyone. It is important to understand what each tension card in your team does and who it affects. For example, if you are operating the only DPS on the team, then it is probably not worth using this card, as it doesn’t boost your DPS damage.
Leveling / Unlocking Tension Card Level Cap / Ascension
Leveling a Tension card increases the blue sections of the Tension Card.
Leveling uses Kane (General Currency) and TP (General Currency). The higher level you get your cards, the greater effect it’ll have, but also more resources will need to be put into the card.
Unlocking Tension Card Level Cap allow the cards to reach higher levels:
Unlocking Tension Card Level Cap uses materials given from exploration and/or rifts (the first 3 required materials in this example), and at higher levels, drops from Ferocious Enemies (the 4th required material in this example).
Do note, the higher rarity (⭐) of a tension card, the more materials it will take.
Ascension does the same thing as leveling: increases the blue sections of the Tension Card. In order to ascend a card, you need duplicate copies of that card. Ascension goes up to V (Five).
How Do I Select Cards for My Team?
Tension Card Consumption:
Most cards that are activated in Phase 1 and higher consume Tension. This means that when the card is activated, some amount of tension will be absorbed. Is that a good thing? Let’s look at an example.
This card increases Critical Rate to anyone that deals damage and further increases damage based on the number of stacks of Nobles Obligation. Wow, this looks amazing! However, when this effect is activated, consume Tension by 3. That seems like a low amount, but you have to consider who this card affects and the duration of condition in the card.
Every character on your team is probably attacking (unless you are afk), so this card will proc 3 times every 3 secs. So, every 3 seconds, you’re basically consuming 9 tension. That’s 45 tension over 15 seconds. This is a lot of tension. So, if you are trying to use ultimates (Which are tied to the tension bar), it will be detrimental to use this card. Make sure you know the amount of tension your card uses when activated and make sure it doesn’t interfere with the strategy of your team!
Why Phase 2 and EX Cards might not be the best:
It takes a while to enter phase 2 or EX (3) when fighting, especially when bossing. It takes 4 chain skill procs with no tension cards being activated to reach phase 2, and 6 chain skill procs with no tension cards being activated to reach EX. This is basically breaking the enemy twice.
If you have ANY tension cards proc beforehand that remove tension, add (at least) another breaking section to the enemy. By this time, the boss (or you) is pretty much dead. Additionally, these cards typically have high tension drainage, making it difficult to maintain good uptime on them, while also hindering you from using ultimates.
Why Phase 0 and 1 Cards might be better for you:
Phase 0 cards are always able to be proc (given you fill the other simple requirements), allowing them to have higher uptime. The same goes for Phase 1 cards (once again, given you fill the other simple requirements), as one break session typically allows you to stay in Phase 1 or higher for the whole duration of the fight.
It is easier to get value out of these cards compared to Phase 2 or EX Cards. Additionally, these cards also serve as anchors for other powerful cards (See Combinations of Tension Cards for an example). For typical teams, it might be better to use Phase 0 and 1 Cards over other cards.
Combinations of Tension Cards:
Some tension cards work very well together. Some cards serve as the anchor for other cards. For example, let’s look at a very good combination of cards that should be on everyone’s team.
This card (which is given as a pre-registration reward) grants Critical Rate and Defense Point increases to the whole team. However, when characters are granted Unity, it doubles the amount.
This card also consumes Tension, but it’s an amount that is vastly a lower con to the pros this card gives. But how do you get Unity?
This card seems lackluster, until you realize that it grants Unity to the whole team at the start of the battle and lasts infinitely. That means that whenever “Full Party” is activated, the whole team will get double the allotted Critical Rate and Defense Point! It is important to find good combinations of Tension Cards that work with your playstyle.
General Good Tension Cards for Any Team
The following cards are very good, have a lot of value, have good uptime, and are easier to proc for many teams. You don’t have to use these cards, but they are worth looking at.
The following cards are good, but are more niche:
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