How to Infinity Mission, Basically
Unfortunately, since a large amount of Weapons, especially ones of the highest rarity, are locked behind Infinity Missions, learning how to use it effectively is all but inevitable. So, here we are!
Mission Synthesis
There's a few noteworthy things about mission synthesis that we need to keep in mind.
RNG Screw
When synthesizing missions, the only things that will always be consistent, is the Mission Boss (always the boss of the second mission) and Area (always the area of the first mission).
Everything else, however, is entirely random. Enemy Tables are randomly selected, Enemy Levels are randomly changed, Special Effects are randomly assigned, etc.
On top of that, when two Infinity Missions are synthesized in the same order, the Result Mission will always be the same. Flipping the order of the two infinity missions will change the Boss and Area, and reroll the Enemy Tables, but will not change the special effects. Saving and reloading the game, or conducting the synthesis multiple times does not change the outcome.
This trait of IMs is a double edged sword. On one hand, we can't RNG abuse two material missions to produce the mission we want. Instead, we have to produce a large number of missions, which takes far more effort than otherwise. On the other hand, we can use it to produce multiple copies of the same mission, which is very useful for special effect purposes.
Anyway, if you ever wind up with a mission you don't want, Break in the case of RNG screw.
Synthesis Points
You need adequate synthesis points on both missions before you can synthesize them. There's not really much to say beyond "running them at Infinity Difficulty for maximum efficiency".
To be honest, if you can't clear an IM at Infinity Difficulty to synthesize them, you probably don't need to deal with them yet anyway.
Basic Synthesis
Target Mission
Before we start mixing, let's find a target mission we want.
First thing is the special effects, which are the most important part of Infinity Missions. While we are picking, let's talk about them a little bit:
Since the Meseta and Type Points earned from Infinity Missions is pathetic, making those effects, Meseta + and Type Points + effectively worthless. Seriously, you can clear a mission with 81+ LV249 enemies and only get 171 Type Points. Clearing significantly easier Story Missions would get you that much already.
XP Rate + is decent on paper, but there's not a lot of point making Infinity Missions specifically for EXP purposes, when Tactical Missions with very good EXP already exists. Especially since the Infinity Mission can be much more difficult dependent on the Enemy Tables.
If we aren't using IMs for Meseta, Type Points, or EXP, what we are here for? Rare Weapons and Drops, of course!
For Dropping, obviously Drop Rate + is an absolute must. Enemies with Boosted Auras also has a significantly higher drop rate (like, several times higher), therefore Boost Enemy Rate x is also a must.
Enemy HPx, Enemy ACCx, and Enemy ATK TECx can be good, but the first two Levels all make the enemies more difficult, which makes it more difficult to obtain the adequate Synthesis Points to Synthesis their missions. These effects also don't appear on Mission Discs, which makes them incredibly difficult to obtain without Downloadable content. Also note that an Infinity Mission has a maximum of 5 effects, thus requiring the player to choose between the 3 effects, rather than stacking all of them.
Weapon Attribute Rate +, Armor Attribute Rate + provides manipulation of the Drops' elements, which is quite useful. Apply when needed.
Attribute + boils down to 5% more weapon ATK when facing the correct elements, which is an important step for extreme late-game optimizing, but not really required most of the time. Also irrevelant for weapons you intend to chain with, such as Wands or R-Mags. Apply when needed.
Second is Area, Boss, and Enemy Table. These are simple: it's simply based on the drop we want.
Also, since Bonus Enemy Levels increases drop rate, we absolutely want +49 for the enemy levels: Simply having +49 already provides 200% Drop Rate, which makes that more important than Drop Rate +.
We also want 3 blocks on the mission, which would provide us with the largest number of enemies (so inherently more drops), and provide additional kill count drop bonuses.
So, with all these in mind, we now have a clear target mission. If we want, say, a pair of Sacrificial Daggers, which would drop from VR Wilds area, from Parum enemies Table 5.
Our mission would look something like this:
Boss | Whatever |
---|---|
Area | VR Wilds |
Enemy Table 1 | Parum |
Enemy Table 2 | Whatever |
Special Effects | Drop Rate +30%
Boosted Enemy Rate x3.0 |
Enemy Level | +49 |
Blocks | 3 |
Ingredients
- Infinity Missions with the Special Effects we want, and only the Special Effects we want.
- For example, in this case, we want a Mission with Drop Rate +, a Mission with Boosted Enemy Rate x, and more missions each with any effects you might want to load, such as Weapon Attribute Rate +.
- It's also fine to have Missions that includes multiple of the effects we want, for example, a Mission with both Drop Rate+ and Boosted Enemy Rate x. However, the number of special effects they have should not exceed 2.
- These can be obtained via Mission Discs (a random % chance of having special effects) or Downloadable content (which comes pre-loaded with special effects)
- Infinity Missions with the appropriate Area / Boss / Enemy Table 1, that has no special effects.
- If your Infinity Missions from the previous step already has the Area / Boss / Enemy Table 1 you want, then you only need a mission with no special effects.
- These can be obtained via Mission Discs (a random % chance of not having any special effects).
Steps
Note that, for simplicity, we are going to ignore the obtaining of Synthesis Points. Synthesis Points severely prolongs the Synthesis process, and makes each mention of Mission Synthesis in the following steps represent anywhere between 1 to 4 Infinity-Difficulty run of each of the two component missions. However, there isn't anything worth mentioning beyond "Just do the highest difficulty you can". There's no other way to earn points faster, and the Code Level, which decides the amount of Synthesis Points needed, is largely outside of player control, due to many of its contributing factors being RNG-based. Which means that we can't really manipulate the Synthesis Points requirements either (outside of Save-Scuming).
Highest Level Effects
First thing we want to do, is to pump the effects to the highest level. Skip this step if you already have a mission with all the Highest Level Effects you need.
- Get a mission with 1 or 2 special effects you want (and only those special effects), and a mission with no effects.
- If you have 2 missions with 1 special effect each, you can synthesis them to create a mission with 2 special effects, which will make the next parts easier.
- Synthesize these two missions, which will produce a mission with the same 1 or 2 special effects as the first mission.
- Synthesize the two missions with the same special effects, the first mission from step 1 and the result mission from step 2. Since the special effects are the same type and the same level, the result mission will have these effects at a higher level.
- Synthesize the result mission containing the higher levels from step 3 with the mission with no effects from step 1. This will produce a mission with the same 1 or 2 higher level special effects.
- Synthesize the two missions with the higher level special effects, the one from step 3 and the one from step 4. This will produce the mission we are shooting for, one with the highest level special effects.
- Rinse and repeat for any other special effects you may want.
Notes:
- This method can bump up the levels of 1 or 2 special effects at once. It cannot, however, bump up 3 special effects at once, as the Synthesis result missions will only keep 2 out of the 3 special effects, making it impossible to mix and upgrade all 3 effects within one Synthesis.
- It's possible to bump up 3 effects at once, if you have a total of 4 or 5 special effects between both missions, as that will allow the result mission to keep 3 out of 4 or 5 special effects. However, since the effects chosen for the result mission are randomly decided, a lot of save-scumming is required for it to work with this method. (Which might be faster compared to grinding out another cycle of Synthesis Points anyway.)
- This method still works with missions with mismatched special effect levels, such as a Mission with Lv3 Drop Rate + (Drop Rate +30%) and Lv1 Boosted Enemy Rate x (Boosted Enemy Rate x1.5).
- If you have missions that has more effects than you want (for example, a mission with Drop Rate +, Boosted Enemy Rate x, and XP Boost+, which is one too many for us to bump levels reliably), you can synthesize that mission with a mission with no effects. If that mission has 3 effects, synthesizing with a mission with no effects will allow the result mission to randomly only keep 2 out 3 special effects, which allows us to filter out the extra effect we don't need. Same applies if there are 4 or 5 effects, but 4 or 5 effects will reduce to 3, which will require one more synthesis for us to reduce it down to 2 effects.
- Feel free to delete the in-between missions with Lv1 and Lv2 special effects, created from step 2, 3 and 4 once you are done.
Enemy Table, Area, Boss and Blocks
Secondly, we want to mix the effects into the mission with the correct table, area, and / or bosses. Note that all of the following steps involve some kind of RNG, so get ready to save-scum or repeat grinds a lot.
Also, ideally, we want to exclusively use Infinity Missions without any special effects, to make attaching special effects easier later. This is not required, of course.
- Enemy Table:
Easiest thing to do, is to simply grab a Mission that has the exact table 1 and table 2 already, LOL.
Enemy Table 1 is randomly chosen between the Table 1s on the two missions, while Table 2 is chosen between the left-over Table 1 and Table 2 on both missions.
Essentially, if you want just the Enemy Table 1, grind out some Mission Discs or grab one from Downloadable content, since you can't spawn it out of Synthesis without having one already. If you also want a specific Table 2, you should Synthesize that mission with another mission that has the right table in its Table 1.
- Blocks:
The Block number is randomly chosen from the two missions. So if you don't like your mission's block count, get a mission that has the right block count, and Synthesize till you get it.
- Area/Boss:
The Area is based on the Base Mission's Area. The Boss is based on the Result Mission's Boss. Once you have a mission with the appropriate enemy table and blocks, synthesize that mission with a mission with the correct Area as the base mission, and synthesize until you get all the correct attributes. For Bosses, synthesize with a mission with a correct Boss until the correct result mission is synthesized.
Enemy Level
Last thing we want to do, is pump the Bonus Enemy Levels on the Infinity Missions. We want the enemy level to be at +49, as that provides the largest built-in drop rate bonus (200%).
The process of pumping level is fairly simple:
For our attribute mission, we repeat the last synthesis, and synthesize a mission with the exact same Attributes. Then, we can synthesis the two identical missions into each other. This allows us to increase the level of the mission without changing any other attributes. The enemy level is the average of the enemy levels of the 2 missions, with a randomly chosen modifier between -10 and +10. Meaning that, by synthesizing even just the same mission, we have a chance of the enemy level increasing. Once it does, we synthesis using that one and the higher level of the two old ones. Rinse and repeat until it hits +49.