Miku
vocaloid
Seeing that anguish has been changed almost completely recently, I'd like to update my recommendations. Note that previous threads of mine, most notably where I say that the weapon pattern is all the way up to 3/3/3 in the first half of each episode and 4/4/4 on the 2nd half of each episode, on any anguish, even anguish 1, are now obsolete. Doing quests like LSB on A1 are no longer all that helpful as you'll still be stuck in lots of weapons with pattern 3.
Does this mean it's ruined and you should give up and you'll never get your dream weapons? Absolutely not, there are advantages to the new way that may actually make things even easier than before.
The changes:
Enemies now stay frozen and arrested significantly longer than before on anguish, and they lost all their movespeed buff. In other words, it's much easier to just not get hit and mostly only have to deal with enemies having higher HP.
Patterns are now just +1 to the current lowest per level of anguish. With a max of 3 in the first half of each episode, and max of 4 in the 2nd half. The cap here really sucks and pretty much means high anguish is just not worth it in the first half of each episode as you still won't get good weapons from them. That being said, since anguish is just much easier in general, you can still play the early areas for massive amounts of PDs that are possibly quite a lot more easily obtained than ever before.
Area-by-area analysis:
Forest: This is a great place to farm PDs if you can easily handle anguish 3+ as the PD rate will be a lot higher and quests like TE should be quite easily doable on A3 with a decent party. This didn't really drop good nonrare weapons even before the change anyways so the weakening of the enemies on anguish pretty much just makes this even better.
Caves: Honestly just not really worth it on anguish anymore as it will probably slow you down more than it's worth and neither can give the good weapons of the mines nor the PD rate you can get in the forest.
Mines: Here is where it gets either interesting or terrible depending on your point of view. This is where we really reach the point where the rich get richer and playing with randoms is now so much worse it's painful. Since if you have a good team that can do quests like LSB on A4 then you can get up to pattern 4 weapons and a tremendous lame and PD rate, but playing on A1 has been greatly nerfed. However, with the enemy movespeed and freeze/arrest duration up then this is probably much more manageable on A4 than before, but still harder than A1 was before. A1-3 do still help here so I recommend doing the hardest you can out of A4, A3, A2, A1, and vanilla ultimate but there still is no need to go higher than A4 here. Thing is, you need competent people that can FT or at least SQ to freeze a lot of the threatening enemies right away and don't just die constantly to do it. If someone would like to join a group good people spamming this on A4 every time it's dar week, please let me know. Doing so would have huge benefits compared to most other ways of playing the game at this point. And yes, dar week far better than rdr week as you get more PDs and nonrare weapons which are parts of the point of this. But also it is higher rare rate than rdr week as on anguish you get a higher rdr boost than a dar boost and since the real rare chance is based on dar*rdr then dar week gives the more important boost here.
Ruins: The good news is you don't have to go above A2 here, which is probably fairly manageable on most quests. Try playing on A2 for quests that start in ruins 1 and A1 for quests that start in ruins 2, if you can handle it.
Temple: This is probably best on vanilla unless you're just farming the first room of a quest on A10. Thing is, rappies and rare enemies have 100 dar already so you don't really get much more drop rate of most of the good items from playing on anguish. The extra dar DOES NOT roll over into rdr or anything so it's almost completely wasted. Could add a couple levels of anguish with a very strong team but even then it might not give enough of a payout to be worth it.
Spaceship: Basically same as temple, not really worth anguish making it harder for little reward as you can't get to pattern 4 weapons anyway. Will give a small boost to drop rates but probably slows you down more than it's worth.
CCA: This is another complicated one like the mines. Different areas of CCA have different rates but all but jungle north can go up to 4/4/4 weapon patterns. In other words, I recommend you just don't ever bother with jungle north quests as they're just vastly inferior now. Although if you're playing on vanilla ultimate and its the rbr or something then go ahead. But in general it's just far worse than the rest of CCA now. I recommend quests like PW2 and then do the highest of A3, A2, A1, vanilla ultimate you can handle. Gibbles might seem scary since it's really hard to demon's, but with the longer freeze rate it shouldn't be that hard to just beat them down while keeping them frozen. And then it's bad to do any hard quests with harder enemies as they'll likely slow you down more than they're worth, so honestly quests like PW2 that aren't that hard are kind of the only ones worth doing in the CCA now as the rest are just vastly inferior.
Seabed: Mostly same as ruins but kinda harder as a lot of the enemies here are really hard to hit or need things like hell in order to beat to the point where playing on anguish at all probably slows you down more than it's worth. Sure you could do something like PW3 box runs on anguish or whatever but I best if you did the entire PW3 even A1 is going to slow you down more than it's really worth. Again maybe with a super strong party it could be worth but even then you're not really missing anything by playing vanilla ultimate.
Tower: Do not use anguish except if you want a challenge. This has enemies like epsilon which are virtually indestructible on anguish 5+ as demon's has almost no chance of working and they're designed to be almost undamageable otherwise so it'd take so long to kill it just couldn't possibly be worth it. You also already have pattern 4/4/4 and you'll kill very many fewer enemies per minute here than most areas so you still won't get that many PDs so I'd just play it on vanilla.
Crater: Try to focus on crater interior, quests like lost berserk baton or MA4c as then you'll only have to play on up to A3 in order to reach weapon pattern 4/4/4. So again I'd say to try the highest of A3, A2, A1, and vanilla ultimate you can handle here and then try to avoid quests that do much outside of crater interior as they're mostly just worse.
Desert: Mostly same as ruins as try to start on A2 for desert 1, A1 for desert 2, and vanilla for desert 3, lowering the difficulties as little from these as you can get away with. Do not use high anguish here as enemies like Girtablulu will be almost indestructible and it'll take way too long.
So basically, here's the short version of my recommendations as probably most didn't read all of that. Specialty is stuff I find particularly great to go after in anguish. Normal drops like pwand in the caves or whatever are not listed as you can just go after those in the same old way as before and anguish doesn't really help. This is intended for things where I'd really recommend going for them in anguish. Also only quests I highly recommend using anguish for and by no means a complete list of good quests or anything.
Closing remarks:
Just play on vanilla during times of getting cookies/eggs/coal/badges as anguish doesn't seem to increase the drop rate of those so it's just not worth it.
You can also play all the normal quests (like TTF, PoD, MAE ep4, CCC, etc.) without anguish as those are still around and the same as before. Of those I'd say MAE ep4 is the most underrated and should be played far more and may even be better than most of my anguish suggestions with just playing it on vanilla.
But honestly if it's not one of the events that gives cookies/eggs/coal/badges, I think it's best to stick to RBR, TE on the highest anguish you can handle easily, LSB on up to A4, PW2 on up to A3, MA4c/LBB on up to A3, or NMU3 on up to A2. And the whole rest of the game is a far bigger inefficient use of time than before so playing most of the other stuff is almost completely useless now.
And finally, if you don't know how to start with all this, start with TE and work your way up 1 level of anguish at a time and see how high you can get. And if you can't do it or just hate anguish then you can still do the RBR quests or MAE: Ep4, or even LSB/PW2/NMU3 on vanilla ultimate are also still pretty good value.
Edit: new section added. Weapons now have tiers, based on how hard they are to get.
Here I'm going to talk about "gear tiers." Basically, how good of gear you have and what anguish areas I'd recommend from there. A0 is vanilla ultimate.
Does this mean it's ruined and you should give up and you'll never get your dream weapons? Absolutely not, there are advantages to the new way that may actually make things even easier than before.
The changes:
Enemies now stay frozen and arrested significantly longer than before on anguish, and they lost all their movespeed buff. In other words, it's much easier to just not get hit and mostly only have to deal with enemies having higher HP.
Patterns are now just +1 to the current lowest per level of anguish. With a max of 3 in the first half of each episode, and max of 4 in the 2nd half. The cap here really sucks and pretty much means high anguish is just not worth it in the first half of each episode as you still won't get good weapons from them. That being said, since anguish is just much easier in general, you can still play the early areas for massive amounts of PDs that are possibly quite a lot more easily obtained than ever before.
Area-by-area analysis:
Forest: This is a great place to farm PDs if you can easily handle anguish 3+ as the PD rate will be a lot higher and quests like TE should be quite easily doable on A3 with a decent party. This didn't really drop good nonrare weapons even before the change anyways so the weakening of the enemies on anguish pretty much just makes this even better.
Caves: Honestly just not really worth it on anguish anymore as it will probably slow you down more than it's worth and neither can give the good weapons of the mines nor the PD rate you can get in the forest.
Mines: Here is where it gets either interesting or terrible depending on your point of view. This is where we really reach the point where the rich get richer and playing with randoms is now so much worse it's painful. Since if you have a good team that can do quests like LSB on A4 then you can get up to pattern 4 weapons and a tremendous lame and PD rate, but playing on A1 has been greatly nerfed. However, with the enemy movespeed and freeze/arrest duration up then this is probably much more manageable on A4 than before, but still harder than A1 was before. A1-3 do still help here so I recommend doing the hardest you can out of A4, A3, A2, A1, and vanilla ultimate but there still is no need to go higher than A4 here. Thing is, you need competent people that can FT or at least SQ to freeze a lot of the threatening enemies right away and don't just die constantly to do it. If someone would like to join a group good people spamming this on A4 every time it's dar week, please let me know. Doing so would have huge benefits compared to most other ways of playing the game at this point. And yes, dar week far better than rdr week as you get more PDs and nonrare weapons which are parts of the point of this. But also it is higher rare rate than rdr week as on anguish you get a higher rdr boost than a dar boost and since the real rare chance is based on dar*rdr then dar week gives the more important boost here.
Ruins: The good news is you don't have to go above A2 here, which is probably fairly manageable on most quests. Try playing on A2 for quests that start in ruins 1 and A1 for quests that start in ruins 2, if you can handle it.
Temple: This is probably best on vanilla unless you're just farming the first room of a quest on A10. Thing is, rappies and rare enemies have 100 dar already so you don't really get much more drop rate of most of the good items from playing on anguish. The extra dar DOES NOT roll over into rdr or anything so it's almost completely wasted. Could add a couple levels of anguish with a very strong team but even then it might not give enough of a payout to be worth it.
Spaceship: Basically same as temple, not really worth anguish making it harder for little reward as you can't get to pattern 4 weapons anyway. Will give a small boost to drop rates but probably slows you down more than it's worth.
CCA: This is another complicated one like the mines. Different areas of CCA have different rates but all but jungle north can go up to 4/4/4 weapon patterns. In other words, I recommend you just don't ever bother with jungle north quests as they're just vastly inferior now. Although if you're playing on vanilla ultimate and its the rbr or something then go ahead. But in general it's just far worse than the rest of CCA now. I recommend quests like PW2 and then do the highest of A3, A2, A1, vanilla ultimate you can handle. Gibbles might seem scary since it's really hard to demon's, but with the longer freeze rate it shouldn't be that hard to just beat them down while keeping them frozen. And then it's bad to do any hard quests with harder enemies as they'll likely slow you down more than they're worth, so honestly quests like PW2 that aren't that hard are kind of the only ones worth doing in the CCA now as the rest are just vastly inferior.
Seabed: Mostly same as ruins but kinda harder as a lot of the enemies here are really hard to hit or need things like hell in order to beat to the point where playing on anguish at all probably slows you down more than it's worth. Sure you could do something like PW3 box runs on anguish or whatever but I best if you did the entire PW3 even A1 is going to slow you down more than it's really worth. Again maybe with a super strong party it could be worth but even then you're not really missing anything by playing vanilla ultimate.
Tower: Do not use anguish except if you want a challenge. This has enemies like epsilon which are virtually indestructible on anguish 5+ as demon's has almost no chance of working and they're designed to be almost undamageable otherwise so it'd take so long to kill it just couldn't possibly be worth it. You also already have pattern 4/4/4 and you'll kill very many fewer enemies per minute here than most areas so you still won't get that many PDs so I'd just play it on vanilla.
Crater: Try to focus on crater interior, quests like lost berserk baton or MA4c as then you'll only have to play on up to A3 in order to reach weapon pattern 4/4/4. So again I'd say to try the highest of A3, A2, A1, and vanilla ultimate you can handle here and then try to avoid quests that do much outside of crater interior as they're mostly just worse.
Desert: Mostly same as ruins as try to start on A2 for desert 1, A1 for desert 2, and vanilla for desert 3, lowering the difficulties as little from these as you can get away with. Do not use high anguish here as enemies like Girtablulu will be almost indestructible and it'll take way too long.
So basically, here's the short version of my recommendations as probably most didn't read all of that. Specialty is stuff I find particularly great to go after in anguish. Normal drops like pwand in the caves or whatever are not listed as you can just go after those in the same old way as before and anguish doesn't really help. This is intended for things where I'd really recommend going for them in anguish. Also only quests I highly recommend using anguish for and by no means a complete list of good quests or anything.
| Area | Recommended anguish | Recommended quests | Specialty | Usefulness |
| Forest | as high as possible | TE, RBR quests | Massive PDs/FS | high |
| Caves | none | none | none | low |
| Mines | as high as possible, max A4 | LSB, RBR quests | Lame or V101, PDs, pattern 4 weapons | high |
| Ruins | A2, A1, or vanilla | RBR quests, or any quest really | Spread Needle/PoM/HS/MKB, pattern 4 weapons | medium |
| Temple/Spaceship | none | none | none | low (except if you want to solo the first room of some quests like LSR or RT on A10 repeatedly) |
| CCA | A3, A2, A1, or vanilla | PW2, RBR quests, or something with some easy Sinow Spigells if going for HP | lame or heaven punisher and PDs | high |
| Seabed/Tower/Crater (not interior) | none | none | none | low (except maybe niche cases like PW3 box runs) |
| Crater interior | As high as possible, max A3 | MA4c/LBB, RBR quests | Vise, Lame, Cannon Rouge, Clio, Liberta Kit, V101, V801, Limiter, DoB, L&K38, Ophelie Seize | high |
| Desert | A2, A1, or vanilla | NMU3, RBR quests, or any really | HS, V101, V801, Limiter, Vise, Vjaya, DoB, Yas9kM, SoF, Ophelie Seize, L&K38 | high |
Closing remarks:
Just play on vanilla during times of getting cookies/eggs/coal/badges as anguish doesn't seem to increase the drop rate of those so it's just not worth it.
You can also play all the normal quests (like TTF, PoD, MAE ep4, CCC, etc.) without anguish as those are still around and the same as before. Of those I'd say MAE ep4 is the most underrated and should be played far more and may even be better than most of my anguish suggestions with just playing it on vanilla.
But honestly if it's not one of the events that gives cookies/eggs/coal/badges, I think it's best to stick to RBR, TE on the highest anguish you can handle easily, LSB on up to A4, PW2 on up to A3, MA4c/LBB on up to A3, or NMU3 on up to A2. And the whole rest of the game is a far bigger inefficient use of time than before so playing most of the other stuff is almost completely useless now.
And finally, if you don't know how to start with all this, start with TE and work your way up 1 level of anguish at a time and see how high you can get. And if you can't do it or just hate anguish then you can still do the RBR quests or MAE: Ep4, or even LSB/PW2/NMU3 on vanilla ultimate are also still pretty good value.
Edit: new section added. Weapons now have tiers, based on how hard they are to get.
| Tier | Weapons |
| 1 | nonrares (arms/gungnir/vulcans, etc.) |
| 2 | Easy to get rares (DoB, Vjaya, Vise, etc.) |
| 3 | Medium to get rares (Frozen Shooter, Spread Needle, Rambling May, Vivienne, etc.) |
| 4 | Hard to get rares (Lame, Heaven Striker, etc.) |
| 5 | Super rare weapons (TJS, PoM, Pwand, HP, etc.) |
Here I'm going to talk about "gear tiers." Basically, how good of gear you have and what anguish areas I'd recommend from there. A0 is vanilla ultimate.
| Gear Tier | Tier 1 weapons (with useful specials) | Tier 2 weapons | Tier 3 weapons | Tier 4 weapons | Tier 5 weapons | TE recommended anguish | PW2/LSB/NMU3 recommended anguish |
| 0 | 40h or less | 0h | 0h | none | none | A0-A1 | A0 |
| 1 | 50h | 20-40h | 15h | 0h | none | A0-A2 | A0-A1 |
| 2 | 50-60h | 45-50h | 20-30h | 15-20h | 0h | A1-A4 | A0-A2 |
| 3 | 60-75h | 55-60h | 35-45h | 25-40h | 0-20h | A1-A6 | A0-A3 |
| 4 | 80-85h | 65-70h | 50-55h | 45-50h | 25-35h | A2-A9 | A3 for PW2, A3-A4 for LSB, A2 for NMU3 |
| 5 | 90+h | 75+h | 60+h | 55+h | 40+h | A3-A10 | A3 for PW2, A4 for LSB, A2 for NMU3 |
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