Phaethon's Melody

Beyond waiting on a random drop from Routine Cleanup, the set on this page can also be exchanged directly at the Bardic Needle shop using Plating Agents — you can't hand-pick every set this way, but at least it isn't blind grinding. Plating Agents come in the same rarity tiers as discs: B-tier drops straight from the same Routine Cleanup stage that drops this set, while A- and S-tier build up much slower — mainly from Rally Commissions, disassembling (scrapping) spare discs you don't need, and the seasonal City Fund reward track.

Since Plating Agents accumulate over time regardless of which stage you're farming, the efficient approach is running Routine Cleanup for direct drops while banking whatever Plating Agents you collect for whichever set or slot you're actually missing at the shop — the two sources complement each other rather than compete.

The table below is the gain PER upgrade roll (not the total), for an S-rank disc, based on Korean community reporting — a single source, NOT yet cross-verified against official game data, so treat it as a relative reference rather than an exact match to your own rolls:

One note on the last row: the original source labeled it 'Anomaly Mastery,' but cross-checked against the sub-stats that actually exist on discs in-game, this is really Anomaly Proficiency — the two names are notoriously easy to mix up across languages, see the ZZZ Glossary for the full breakdown. B- and A-rank discs roll within a similar range but at lower values — no confirmed exact table for those two tiers yet.

Only an S-rank disc reaches the full +15 cap — the same threshold GameVika's own disc-scoring page uses as the 'graduated' mark, where a disc is good enough to stop swapping. B- and A-rank discs cap out well below that, so long-term, serious upgrade materials are only worth pouring into S-rank pieces; treat any B/A drop as a placeholder, or scrap it back into Plating Agents for something more useful instead of forcing it to full level.

Quick checkpoint at +9: if both rolls so far landed on the stats you actually want (say, CRIT Rate/CRIT DMG for a crit DPS), it's worth pushing on to +15. If most rolls went the wrong direction, stop at +9 and redirect materials to a disc that deserves it more instead of forcing a full set.

If a rival set's 2-piece effect adds a flat, fixed number, while this page's 4-piece effect stacks in LAYERS (a percentage per layer, sometimes counted separately per attack type, sometimes capped at a max stack count), resist the urge to compare the printed percentage at max stacks directly. Ask three questions before deciding which set is actually 'stronger':

• In a real combo or rotation, how many layers do you realistically hold on average — not the theoretical max you'd only hit with a flawless, uninterrupted string of hits?
• Does the buff RESET when you swap characters mid-combo, or when your attack rhythm breaks (dodging, getting knocked around, waiting on cooldowns)?
• Does the 4-piece effect require a specific condition (landing a crit, a specific attack type) that your team's playstyle can't reliably hit?

A 4-piece set that looks strong on paper but can't hold its layers in a real fight can absolutely lose out to a lower flat 2-piece bonus that's simply always active — this is exactly why communities across languages still argue over which set is 'actually better' even when both percentages are printed in black and white.

A few phrases in the 4-piece effect box above this section get skimmed past but completely change its real combat value — read them carefully before judging the set:

• 'Calculated separately per skill': the buff from Basic Attacks, Dodge Counters, and EX Special Attacks stacks INDEPENDENTLY, not off one shared counter — meaning alternating between attack types can hold more total layers than you'd expect from spamming just one.
• 'Up to N stacks': a hard cap for that specific layer type — landing more triggers past the cap refreshes the duration but adds nothing further.
• Duration measured in seconds: it always resets from the most recent qualifying hit (usually a crit), not fixed for the whole combo — standing idle or missing the trigger condition past that window drops the layer, and that's not a display bug.

Get these three right before comparing which set is 'stronger' just by eyeballing the percentage.