Divergent Spirits Guide

Reading time: 8 minutes

Preface
Divergent Spirit is supposedly the endgame of Touhou LostWord, but why do several players find it so easy (or rather annoying to do)?

Divergent Spirit offers limited story cards that allow your friend to soar up their damage potential, with the % buff reaching as high as 100% (and possibly higher in the near future).

However, to actually get into the grinding, the player must get through 40 painstaking levels to reach level 100. Therefore, this guide will guide you on how to clear Lvl.120 in most DS, and farm Lvl.100 in the fastest way.

Clearing Lvl.120
To clear Lvl. 120, it is important you know how impactful each rule is; and adjust your team accordingly.

As a matter of fact, a Last Word with matching elements and favorable bullet types will nuke Lvl. 120 easily. Rebirth friends will expand your options when clearing 120, but keep in mind they might be tough to work with, as most Rebirth Enhancements only provide damage buff.

Rules Breakdown
There are three main types of rules often found in DS:

Choosing Friends



 * 1) Choose a favored nuker for each gauge. Simply ticking off classes that are shafted will reduce your unit pool to a more manageable one. Those with favorable elements or killers proccing have an advantage here.
 * 2) When you are done, it’s time for breakers and supporters. If one of the rules disables a certain element, you may want to look out for your most reliable anomaly breakers. Friends with these roles are fine being weakened. Make sure the enemies are not immune to your anomalies.
 * 3) Ideally, this is the position you may want to aim for:


 * For the sake of conciseness, this guide will not provide steps on how to do a low-unit clear. Such a strategy works as some units are capable of multiple roles.


 * If the DS rules do not disable Passive and Switch effects, supporters or breakers with P link are highly valuable here.


 * In cases where the enemies’ skills are too brutal, consider using frontline to deal with Gauge 1 & 2, let them be killed off and use the rear units for Gauge 3.

Gauge Nukers

 * Last Word: Slot your best Bullet Type UP (+ DEF DOWN) card. Cards that have DEF DOWN are more valuable for gauge 3 or against enemies not full broken yet.


 * Spell cards:
 * Dealing with Evasion rules: Slot more Accuracy UP and/or Evasion DOWN cards.
 * Essential buffs: Yin, Yang ATK UP and/or CRIT ATK UP (if hitting killers)
 * Spirit Power UP
 * Barrier Recovery

Supporters
These are the best cards that you can feel free to slot on your supporters. These units are fine being weakened.

Another important role of a supporter is to extend buffs. Here are cards you can use to extend buffs for your party:


 * Accuracy: Ability Cards
 * Yin ATK: Mansion of Memories, Shrine Maiden Reborn (Chap 4 Act 4 Lunatic), Tengu Mountain Starfall
 * Yang ATK: Nameless Adventurers (Interlude pt.1 Lunatic)
 * CRIT ATK: Worlds in Hand (Fire EX), Divine Spirits Tajikarao

If your party is lacking in barriers, you can opt for Party Barrier Recovery, such as Moriya Anniversary (Water EX), Tropico Fantasia (L1 Reimu DS), or Summer Rocket (E1 Meiling DS).

Debuffers
Dedicated debuffers are encouraged due to having access to widely available cards with more debuffs.

ST refers to Single Target; AoE refers to Area of Target

Farming Lvl.100
There are three things you need to keep in mind when recording a farm for Lvl. 100.


 * Consistency (Win rate): Consistency is the FIRST AND FOREMOST issue you should aim to resolve in any sort of farming setup. Try to aim for winning even in the worst case (Accuracy, P gain, Damage), as this will help you both have an easier time farming.
 * Accuracy: Make sure your farms have no, or minimal misses when attempting a Full Break or doing damage.
 * P Gain: Make sure your units have enough P for their attacks. Look out for passives that fuel P at a lower than 100% chance, or AoE spell cards that have a high variance in P gain (doing several runs should make the difference evident here), which can throw you off when recording your farm.
 * Damage: Inconsistency often arises from crit variance or lack of accuracy (refer above). Some units have 10% base or “crit modifiers” (Precise, Elastic, Exploding) despite having no practical way to achieve and sustain 100% crit acc, resulting in damage variance. Let it be known that 10 CRIT ACC UP is only a 3x multiplier to base CRIT ACC at most.

→ This is also why killers are far more reliable here, as it guarantees critical damage. You don’t need killers to make a farm for Lvl.100, but it will save you a lot of trouble while troubleshooting the farm.


 * Time spent: Thanks to "debrick" (lower sp cost of a team), your ideal farm time should be somewhere around 3 or 4 turns. Spamming Last Words will be the most effective case here. Some friends are powerful enough to offer spell card nukes as well.


 * Lacking damage however hard you try? You can deliberately lower base levels, and select useless rules so that the total level adds up to 100 to lower the requirements to your liking!

Practical Example
Let’s say you want to farm VS: Divergent Spirits Sanae (A10).

2. Map out strategy
Star is the dominant element here: Everyone is weak to Star on Gauge 1; and 2/3 of them as well on Gauge 2.

Despite all enemies having different weaknesses on gauge 3, it is trivialized as we can bring debuffs for this gauge.

All enemies have Gensokyo tags. It is, therefore, advisable to bring friends with Gensokyo killers here. (Youkai + Human also works equally well).

The stage spams Accuracy DOWN, therefore it is necessary to bring friends providing party Accuracy or use story cards that have Accuracy up. Duration does not matter, since the 10T debuffs automatically extend the buffs for us.

Be extra wary when using friends that inflict Paralyze or Blind, as Reisen gains Evasion per Paralyze or Blind stack.

Since Sanae locks Graze whenever a Gauge Burst happens, we should bring powerful friends (matching weakness and/or killers) to burst or full break the remaining two gauges immediately.

3. Choose your friends
Make a checklist based on your strategy.

4. Choose your story cards
Similar to Lvl.120 preparations, go for Yin/Yang ATK UP, CRIT ATK UP, Spirit Power UP and Accuracy UP (to deal with ACC DOWN). If you are nuking with spell cards, slot your best bullet type up on said spell card.

A common strategy for this stage is to full break Gauge 1, nuke it with normal spell cards or a Last Word, then brute force Gauge 2 and 3 with Last Words.

Any unused spell card should be slotted with your best stat stick.

5. Rule Cheese
Determine which bullet type your friends use to nuke, and which classes they belong to. Simply tick rules that weaken other bullet types and classes.

Make sure the total level adds up to 100.

FAQ
Why does everyone advise me to farm Total/Base Level 100?


 * According to community drop data, any levels higher than 100 do not increase the drop rate. Therefore, farming at 100 eases up story card costs and damage requirements.

How do I know which rules to choose when farming at 100?


 * Identify which bullet types your friends used as their main source of damage. Choose rules that do not apply to your team. This is the same for class-weakening rules.


 * Rules that weaken killers or reduce P gain are generally very annoying to deal with, so I suggest avoiding those rules if you do not own many broken support cards.


 * You might want to choose rules that weaken other mechanics (like max barriers) if you have the cards to deal with those rules.


 * Be wary of rules that have both +10% HP and +10% DEF UP. You can safely choose rules that only have DEF UP, especially those that favor your Yin or Yang team.

How much stamina cost should I reduce for my team?


 * If your team absolutely steamrolls the stage, it’s reasonably safe to go for the lowest cost possible.


 * You can test on a case-by-case basis: reduce the cost to the lowest, and then increase by increments of 3 or 5 if it doesn’t work.


 * It is also important to note that the game provides you with a lot of stamina, so small differences in deploying cost would not matter much for a standard player.

Do I need previous DS cards when doing DS?


 * No. If you spam three or four favorable & fully awakened LWs (that are properly supported) onto the stage, you won’t need the broken 90%+ buff cards for your team.


 * Nevertheless, it is advisable to grab support cards from Fire EX and Star EX. These will allow you much more room to experiment with your brute force comps.

I can’t clear 120, is it joever…?


 * You can opt to farm lvl.100 for the final copies instead.

I can’t be bothered to do 40 levels, how can I do it faster?


 * The only way is to record an overkill run, then use Auto Rematch set to 1 run (this skips the reward screen) for a somewhat faster speed.