Soul Analysis

 

Overview

 

Souls, could also be translated as Mitamas, are very much the equipment of Shikigamis.  The goal of selecting Souls is to achieve advanced synergy by choosing 4 of the same Souls for a Shikigami. Which Souls to use would depend on the skill set of the Shikigami as well as the role it has in the team.

This is one of the more intriguing parts of the Onmyoji Game.  In the beginning, aim to achieve good Basic Synergy for the team by placing attack enhancing Souls to DPSers, defense Souls to support, etc.

For example, Ibaraki Doji can equip with either Shadow or Watcher depending on if the players want him to burst or act as a finisher. Although Ibara is very strong, players would not be able to one shot teams with him in late game PVP. Therefore, more and more players would find him useful in the role as a finisher.

In general, slot 2, 4, and 6 are the % slots so there is not too much impact with 3 – 5 starred Souls. As long as the Random Attributes are suitable, it is not a bad idea to level up. Afterall, 6 starred Souls are a late game deal. It is more important for Shikigamis to get strong early. Slot 2 deserves special attention because of the Speed Attribute. Even a slight speed advantage means faster action so it is vital for the players to consider team composition and individual speed when equipping Souls

Players may ask whether they should level up Souls first or Guardian Beasts first because they both use the same resource to upgrade. Overall leveling Souls is a more effective way to increase overall strength. However, given the fact that every 5 level for Guardian Beast would increase one of the main characters’ skills for 1 point, increasing Guardian Beasts to around level 10 would be ideal to strengthen the main characters.

Soul	Name	Analysis
	Dice Sprite - 骰子鬼	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Shuten Doji, Vamp, Tanuki; Buy from Shop
	Mimic - 魍魎之匣	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Ootengu, Ryomen, Shiro Mujou
	Sea Sprite - 蚌精	Very useful in PVP as counter; the shield disappears after the Shikigami acts so it's useless if acted before enemy - Recommended Shikgamis: Samurai X, Yumekui, Pheonix
	Azure Basan - 火靈	Suitable for teams not using Zashiki but needing the initial fire. There will only be one activation of Fie Fairy in a team. - Recommended Shikgamis: Samurai X, Yumekui, Pheonix
	Jizo Statue - 地藏像	Outstanding in PVP; In the 2000+ environment, PVP arena will have hp buff and that everyone would stack critical - Recommended Shikgamis: Samurai X, Oguna, Yumekui, Ebisu, etc
	Holy Flame - 涅槃之火	Useful in PVP and selective situations such as increasing survivability of Zashiki without a healer - Recommended Shikgamis: Zashiki, Doujo, One-Eyed, Samurai X, Ebisu
	Boroboroton - 被服	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Zashiki, One-Eyed, Enma
	Mirror Lady - 鏡姬	A very strong Soul; players shoul have 5 4-sets for carrying fodders with a high level Kagura; In late game PVP, basically all the supporting Shikigamis have a set of Mirror Maiden - Recommended Shikgamis: Zashiki, Samurai X, Ebisu
	Priestess - 鍾靈	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Yamawaro, Yuki Onna, Shiro Mujou, etc
	Tree Spirit - 樹妖	Suitable for Kusa and Momo; Note that Ebisu's flag is not buffed by Tree Spirit - Recommended Shikgamis: Momo, Kusa, Chocho
	Fenikkusu - 傷魂鳥	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Blade, Hakuro, Mio; Buy from Shop
	Tomb Guard - 鎮墓獸	Not as suitable for Ootengu as Seductress; there are better ways increase critical such as Shuzu's passive - Recommended Shikgamis: Vamp, Jikikaeru, Nine-life Cat; Buy from Shop
	Seductress - 針女	Mulit-hit Shikigamis can never go wrong with Seductress to take advantage of critical hit rate. - Recommended Shikgamis: Ubume, Ootengu, Umibozu
	Shamisen - 三味	Suitable for slower, counter team; The 4 set effect activates when the Shikigami is under status effect so Ame Onna is most suitable at this point - Recommended Shikgamis: Chocho, Momo, Kusa, Ame Onna
	Claws - 網切	Suitable for late game to ignore defense as high defense is common in high level game play - Recommended Shikgamis: Arakawa Lord, Hone Onna, Aoandon, Hakuro, etc.
	Shadow - 破勢	Suitable for the first DPSer in the attack - Recommended Shikgamis: Ibaraki Doji, Kuro Mujou, Hakuro, Aoandon, Jorogumo, etc.
	Pearl - 珍珠	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Samurai X, Tanuki, Zashiki; Buy from Shop
	Temptress - 魅妖	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Yuki Onna, Yamawaro, Kyohime
	Snow Spirit - 雪幽魂	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Yuki Onna, Yamawaro, Kyohime
	Fortune Cat - 招財貓	One of the best Souls in this game; Two supports with one 4-set each can replace a Zashiki in terms of Orb generation; Suitable for a wide range of Shikigamis such as the fast ones as well as Supports - Recommended Shikgamis: Zashiki, Kamaitachi, Yamausagi, Shuzu, Koi etc
	Shy Soul - 反枕	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Aoandon, Evil Tengu, Kamikui
	Dawn Fairy - 日女巳時	crowd control type Soul; suitable for cc type or multi-hit type Shikigamis - Recommended Shikgamis: Yuki Onna, Yamawaro, Shiro Mujou
	Nightwing - 蝠翼	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Kyonshi Ototo, Three tailed fox, Evil Fox
	Soultaker - 輪入道	Additional attack chance is very useful for Shikigamis focusing on normal attack damage such as Shuten and Vamp; - Recommended Shikgamis: Hannya, Shuten Doji, Kamaitachi, Vampira, etc
	Scarlet - 猙	This counter Soul works well with Shuzu teams since the carrier needs to receive damage; the carrier should also be high in ST DPS damage; naturally, this Soul is good for the slower, counter teams - Recommended Shikgamis: Shuten Doji, Vamp, Shuzu, Samurai X, Inugami, etc
	Shakey Home - 鳴屋	This Soul requires the team to be able to constantly inflict status effects; hoever, additional 30% damage is not as impressive as it sounds, and certainly not as good as Shadow/Watcher/Web cutter - Recommended Shikgamis: Ibaraki Doji, Kuro Mujou, Hakuro
	Watcher - 心眼	Suitable for finishers in the attack with the need of damage dealt in advance; due to the fact that Watcher can easily deal excess damage, Ibaraki Doji is the best choice right now - Recommended Shikgamis: Ibaraki Doji, Kuro Mujou, Kappa
	Harpy - 陰摩羅	Not much practical use; can be used as 2-set - Recommended Shikgamis: Ibaraki Doji, Kuro Mujou, Hakuro
	Senecio - 返魂香	One of the three Sougenbi Souls. Senecio is mainly used in PVP since PVE bossess are immuned to Status Effects. He, along with Tree Nymph, is one of the counters for the likes of Ubume and Ootengu.
	Soul Edge - 薙魂	This is considered to be a "tank" Soul. Kaguya is one of the popular users when she's released. This Soul is surprisingly useful in increasing survivability
	Tree Nymph - 木魅	Similar to Senecio but affects Orbs instead. Again, she is mainly for PVP since Bosses are less affected by losing Orbs. One advantage she has over Senecio is that Orb removal is not a status effect and therefore can't be resisted. In late game PVP, messing up the opponents' Orb sequence may be a turning between win and lose.
	Kyoukotsu - 狂骨	Suitable for attackers that do not rely on orbs. Passive damage such as Poison would not trigger Kyoukotus. I would imagine Aoandon would make a good teammate with her passive to nullify orb consumption. For now she is only available in Royal Battle.
	Yamabiko - 幽谷响	Very similar to Shishio's passive. The difference is Shishio's can be resisted. With such a high chance to proc, I could see him posing very high threat in Royal Battles. For now he is only available in Royal Battle.

 

Soul Positioning

A Shikigami can equip up to 6 Souls in 6 unique positions. Each position has one main attribute that is can be upgraded to a max level of 15 and that is highlighted orange in the menu (see image below). A Soul can also have up to 4 secondary attributes which can only upgrade randomly once at level 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15. Each position has its own main attributes that are relatively set. Secondary attributes are random.

 

For main attributes, position 1 is set to be Attack, position 3 is set to be Defense, and Position 5 is set to be HP. Position 2, 4, 6 are random according to the image below.

 

 

 

Choosing Souls

Soul is very much pieces of equipment in other RPGs. It is used to enhance the 8 attributes to a Shikigami: attack, hp, defense, speed, and critical % are differ amongst Shikigamis, but critical damange (150%), status infliction accuracy (0%), and Effect RES (0%) are the same across all Shikigamis and Characters. There are 6 positions of a particular Soul, each with a different set of variable attributes. Therefore, having a good set of Souls is what makes a Shikigami strong, not the Shikigami itself.
Due to the difference in stats and skills, Shikigamis are grouped into 3 main categories: Damage (AOE DPS and ST DPS), Support (Tank, Action Bar (AB), Secondary DPS, and Healer), and Crowd Control (inflicting status effect and debuffs).

Another main role that I will not cover is the Orb Provider. This role is relatively straightforward as its only job is to generate Orbs for the team. Zashiki is made for this role but as teams evolve, it can be replaced by other means (such as two sets of Fortune Cat).

 

For Damage

Regarding DPS, the players should focus on attack, crit %, crit dmg, and speed

Below is a damage oriented build of Ibaraki Doji:

 

 

Attack: This is the key attribute for Damage type Shikigamis because the skills would also depend on this stat. Ideally, attack should be stacked to as high as possible.

As an example, the Ibara above is close to 9000 attacks. His AOE attack would do about 27k damage on paper. The real damage inflicted on an enemy support in PVP would be around 18k and with PVP buffs, the enemy support would have around 30k hp. If the players want to one shot this support, the Ibaraki Doji would have to rely on other buffs such as the Soul Shadow with 40% attack buff, 20% from the Shikigami Yamausagi, and 150% critical damage. Total damage would be around 45k (27k x 1.4 x 1.2 x 1.5 = 45k) on the enemy support of 30k hp. In addition, Ibaraki can apply the excess 15k damage to other enemy units, and with the help of Shadow, the damage inflicted on others would be around 21k.

Of course, other buffs can be applied to increase damage. With such a high damage output, Ibara is one of the best finishers that acts last, receiving all the buffs from supports, and deal an ultra-high damage to finish off enemies (hopefully in one shot).

The example above makes use of the Soul Shadow which does 40% more damage when target has more than 70% hp, which is ideal for burst teams to finish off enemies quickly. As for choosing stat boosts from Souls, the players really have to experiment a bit on their own as team composition plays an important part in the selection process.

 

Critical %: Critical % can be seen as a support attribute to increase damage output. This attribute is less relevant to one-hit Shikigamis than multi-hit Shikigamis. The reasoning is all about probabilities and is very simple: the chance of not having a critical hit in a 5-hit attack is much less than not having one in a 1-hit attack. Therefore, multi-hit Shikigamis can produce more consistent critical damage with high enough critical %. Therefore, there is really no point to sacrifice attack to boost crit % for single hit Shikigamis.
Below is an Ubume with less than ideal built.

 

 

Although this Ubume has close to 6k attack, its crit % is a measly 31%. Normally, Ubume’s best Soul combo is the Seductress, taking advantage of its multi-hit attack and the Soul’s 40% chance to inflict additional damage upon critical. To make full use of Seductress, a Shikigami needs to have consistent critical output, which is not reflected in the example above. In this case, the players may want to sacrifice some attack to boost crit % with more suitable Souls.

 

Critical Damage: Because that critical damage comes with 50% right off the bat, the players should be able to see the increase in damage output faster.  The best case scenario is to stack additional 90% or so on top so the critical damage is at around 250%.

 

Speed: Speed is an important attribute and a complicated one. Generally, higher speed would allow the Shikigamis to act faster and more often. Therefore, Souls with speed attribute are more sought after. The complication of speed is that team composition plays a big role. For example, the players would want Ibara to act last to take advantage of the buffs offered by allies. Therefore, the players should look at the team and make sure that Ibara don’t act faster than it should. However, acting too slowly would be giving up the initial attack to enemies. The players should analyze base on their own team and experience.

 

For Support

Supports look at these three attributes: HP, Defense, and Speed.

 

HP: HP is the key attribute to support since higher HP means more survivability for both PVE and PVP. In Soul stage 9, Supports with 12k HP should not go down very easily, while in stage 9, the HP should be increased to 15k. PVP is more varying depending on which tier the players are at.

 

Defense: Benefits from Defense is considered more visible than HP so stacking Defense is not a bad idea, given having enough HP.

 

Speed: Although Speed is generally the most important attribute for Shikigamis in a support role, it is handled differently for different types of supports.  For Accelerator, all six positions should have speed attribute with 6-star speed in position 2. For Tanks, Samurai X can benefit from speed to taunt enemies. In that case, it should have the same speed requirement as AB Boasters.  For Oguna, though not really classified as a tank, players should stack HP and Defense.  For Healers, Speed requirement depends on team composition. Kusa usually should act last to recover team HP, while Ebisu should act first to use Fish Flag.  For Secondary DPS such as Aoandon and Ryomen, the players would want to stack sufficient speed for damage output, so position 2 should be all about speed.

 

For Crowd Control

Crow Control Shikigamis should focus on: Status infliction accuracy, Speed, and Effect RES

 

Effect HIT: This attribute is central to Crowd Control Shikigamis. Calculation for inflicting a status effect is as follows: Innate skill accuracy + innate skill accuracy*Effect HIT. For example, Samurai X’s Unbreakable has a 60% chance to inflict a status on enemies. This means the players need to stack its status infliction accuracy to around 67% to ensure the status effect is inflict, given no Effect RES for simplicity sake. The calculation goes: 60% + 60%*67* = 100%. See below for an example. This Samurai X is able to stack 40% on top of its 60% accuracy (see from the battle screen). Note that Soul position 4 is where Effect Hit locates.

 

 

 

Speed: Speed is as important to CCs as it is to AB support.  The faster the unit, the faster it acts, and thus better chance to successfully apply status effects. Therefore, do not ignore speed when stacking for Effect HIT.

 

Effect RES: This is the chance of resisting a status effect from enemies (providing that they can be resisted).  This is a good to have because there is no point if the Crowd Controlled Shikigami is out of commission. However, this should be prioritized after Accuracy and Speed. Again, this depends on Shikigamis and team composition.  I consider Effect RES to be a late game element.

 

Buying Souls

The answer depends on how much money do the players want to spend in the game. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to whales. Dolphins and F2P should only buy 6-stars with high return on investment such as Soultaker, Shadow, or a good position 2 Speed.  Though I suggest buying Grade 3 Souls in early game since they are so cheap.

 

Farming Soul

Soul missions are the main source of Souls. Tuesday and Thursday have better ones currently. Players should start seeing 6-star drops in Stage 7, with better drops every Stage up. There would not be 3-stars starting Stage 9, and Stage 10 are mostly 5-stars. Therefore, the goal should be to clear Stage 10 consistently.  The key is, of course, having whale friend when friend assist comes in the near future.

A sample F2P team for Stage 9 could be: Koi (Fortune Cat), Shuzu (Fortune Cat), Healer, Orb Provider, DPSer, and Seimei. Supports should have at least 12k HP with Koi at 15k.

Stage 10 sample team would be: Samurai X (Azure Basan), Shuzu (Fortune Cat), Healer, DPSer, AB (Kamaitachi would be best, but Rabbit would do).

Turn 1: Buff defense with Seimei, then use normal attack only focusing on Futakuchi. DPS should release special attacks trying to kill her.

Turn 2: DPSer to focus normal attack on Aoandon conserving Orbs. Seimei should put up the shield then normal attacks on Aoandon. Once the shield breaks, AB support has to work the move bar no matter how many Fires you have left. Then work the move bar again after Aoandon does her normal attack. It is very dangerous to let Aoandon use her Special Attack too many times.

Turn 3: AB support work the bar at the beginning, then again when there are 8 Fires. Seimei to buff team defense at the beginning, then normal attacks. After the two Tengu dies, the players can turn on auto.

 

In Summary

Choosing Souls for a Shikigami would depend much on team composition and overall strategy.  In general:

• Damage type – Maximize Attack for one-hit nuke Shikigamis and Critical % for multi-hit ones.
• Support type – Speed is usually the most important because of the need to buff/debuff before enemy acts.
• Crowd Control type – Focus on Status Infliction Accuracy to maximize the chance of putting enemies out of commission.

There are of course exceptions to the general rules.  Please read the guide above and judge from your own experience.

 

Tip of the day

When raiding Realm, an efficient way is to refresh after 3 victories. This would ensure that 9 victories would grant the players with 15 Jades, the same as 9 consecutive victories. This is more for high rank players. At low rank, it is relatively easy to secure 9 consecutive wins.