Basic gearing

Counter:Side is a live-service game which means things can and will change, for better or worse. Two most prominent examples are the CC-Resistance (now renamed to Debuff Resistance) and the DMG Calculation rework. This means the guide might become obsolete / less relevant.

If it does happen, do let us know so we can make changes to the guide to keep them up-to-date.

You may have the units and level, but you still cannot win this particular stage. Be it either your frontline dying too fast or your damage dealers not killing opponents fast enough. Granted there might be some hidden mechanics on that stage, but in most cases it's because your gears are not adequate enough.

Gears boost your units stats and add some more stats they don’t usually have; Typically a unit only has HP, ATK, DEF, CRIT, HIT, EVA, and CRIT DMG. While things like Skill Haste, ASPD, X-DMG, and X-DMG RES are obtainable from gears. These additional stats are the game-changer you want to aim for so your gears can be called as more than adequate.

Here is an example of Kestrel Xiao Lin damage without and with gear (Crit DMG set + her EE):

Before we begin, do note that Counter:Side has a unique way of using stats to calculate damage:

• When animation meets hitbox > register a hit (can sometimes be funny: things hit something they shouldn't have or vise versa)
• Check EVA rate > if success the hit is ‘miss’ (cannot crit, damage reduced)
• If it was a ‘miss’ > DMG = (0.1+HIT%)*DMG (the more HIT you have, the less important opponent’s evasion became)
• If not ‘miss’ > check CRIT rate > if success the hit is a ‘crit’ (gain cdmg multiplier)

The dmg calculation in this game is explained with this:

• * only when crit; can't go below 1
• ** can't go below 0.20
• *** only vs AoE attacks, and Skills/Ults respectively
• **** only if the attack is evaded

This shows that as the ‘attacker’, you want to have as many DMG multiplier as possible:

• Having ground dmg is generally more useful than air dmg as most fights occur on the ground.
• Having role dmg will boost your dmg on that specific role ‘opponent’, good for stages where you know what role your main ‘opponent’ has (defender/striker/ranger/etc.).
• Having type dmg will boost your dmg on that specific type ‘opponent’, good for stages where you know what type your main ‘opponent’ has (counter/soldier/mech/c.o.).
• Having CDMG will definitely improve your damage but this is still tied to your CRIT rate and whether your ‘opponent’ evades your attack or not.

While as the ‘opponent’ (the one receiving damage), you want to have as much RES as possible:

• Having ground res is generally more useful than air res as most fights occur on the ground.
• Having role res will boost your survival against that specific role of ‘attacker’, good for stages where you know what role your main ‘attacker’ has (sniper/striker/ranger/etc.).
• Having type res will boost your survival on that specific type of ‘attacker’, good for stages where you know what type your main ‘attacker’ has (counter/soldier/mech/c.o.).
• Having universal and AoE res is better than specific res because they are calculated outside the “max 80%” res type.

Gear tuning needs binaries which are hard to get early game and will still be to the end if your luck is bad. For this reason you need to be wise on which gears you tune and not.

What gear to use Set Binaries on?

• Prioritize set tuning your maze gear for counter first
• Tune your maze hands to aspd/cdr but can stop at atk/cdmg and tune other gears first.
• Tune your maze case to hp/aspd/cdr but can stop at atk/cdmg and tune other gears first.
• Tune your maze crowns to aspd/cdr but can stop at atk/cdmg and tune other gears first.
• Tune your humming hands to hp/cdr but can stop at aspd and tune other gears first.
• Tune your gordias last, aim for hp/cdr but can stop at aspd and tune other gears first.
• Once your counter gears are set, you can also work on soldier and mech.

Use T1- T6 Dante gears as they are, do not tune/enhance (they are placeholder gears until you get better ones).

Here are some lists of gear tuning based on personal experience:

ASPD Gear

Use Sc. Dante asd for raw dmg (cdmg 1st substat + ground dmg 2nd substat):

Use maze aspd if you also need haste (ground dmg 1st substat + haste 2nd substat):

Use Swift aspd for max aspd (can get 40%+ aspd in total).

Use any random aspd gear to get a 20% aspd from set.

CDR Gear

Use Sc. Dante cdr for budget cdr (cdmg 1st substat + haste 2nd substat) remember that the gear can’t get haste substats on hands. (example was using T5 Dante hands)

Use maze cdr for max haste (ground dmg 1st substat + haste 2nd substat) this one can go to 72% (T6) or 76.2% (T7).

Use any humming/maze/gordias/whatever that has haste substat to get more than 30% using non-set.

Use any random cdr gear to get a 30% haste from the set.

Spectral Gear

• They are the best cheap offensive gears against enemies with class roles (defender/striker/etc.).
• 1st substat can get anti-role dmg.
• 2nd substat can get anti-ground dmg.
• You can farm/craft a lot of spectral gears weekly so do not use set binaries on them, tune their substats as you see fit.

Defensive Gear

You don't need a set at start, aim for the substats, having additional 20%hp/def/eva from set is not worth more than having a complete aspd/cdr gear first (and some units can profit more by using defensive aspd or defensive cdr gear).

On the topic of hp/def/eva discussion, generally hp is better as only certain units have a big enough base DEF or EVA stat to profit from def/eva set.

Example: lv100 Hilde (SR) is using this gear for lv150 Inhibitor raid and she’s alive until the end as the foremost frontliner (the one getting hit by the boss’ single target basic attack)

Defensive Weapon

Inhibitor best, no need set (of course better if you have set, but already good without), get the ground res on 2nd substat, try latent to boost survival more

How about Humming? they are better as defensive cdr/aspd gear (they can have haste on 2nd substat)

Other gears? Use cdmg res substat on weapon

Defensive Armor

Maze has more cdmg res, but Inhibitor can get ranged/melee res from latent, while Polymer can get type res from 1st substat.

So what to use? if you have hp maze, use it, if not, Inhibitor armor can get 16% ground res on 2nd substat with no latent.

Defensive Accessory

This piece depends on how much resources will you spend.

• How about Inhibitor? you need to use tuning bins to get ground res, if you managed that, T7 Inhibitor has more ground res than T6 Gordias (but no melee/ranged res on 1st substat)
• How about Gordias? you need to spend tuning bins to get ground res, if you managed that, the gordias is much better non-latent ground res Inhibitor cause gordias already has melee/ranged res
• How about Polymer? This gear has lower stats than the two above, but has a lot of type res on 1st substat, this made the gear a niche PvP gear

Free Gear

The latest game version gave us TASKFORCE mission that rewards players with gears they can choose, this makes the whole grind for gears a lot easier and faster. The T3 gears are indeed low in stats, but they are a good placeholder gear you can use before you can get the much better T5/T6 counterpart. The T5 Replica and Antagonist set are useful even until the end game so they are worth tuning for.

T5 Replica

T5 Antagonist

We have limited slots for gears, and although you can increase the space to 1000+ it will still get cluttered if not managed properly. Some useful gears might even get buried among the rubble. Here is a quick rundown on how to keep your inventory in check. Remember that this is just a tip, not a must-follow rule. You might want to keep more/less gears depending on your experience later.

Maze/Gordias/Humming/Exclusive Equipment (EE)/Antagonist/Replica/Challenger/Seasonal gear

Keep every single one of these gears, do not throw them away. While it’s true that you can farm more EE gears when the stage is open and you can buy Antagonist/Replica more when the packs are available, the rest are only available in limited number.

ASPD gear

Try to get either offensive substats for your dps, or defensive substats for your utility units.

Keep several (2-5) sets for each type (Counter/Soldier/Mech), obviously keep the best and the rest can be sold/used as enhance fodders, check their substats to determine.

CDR gear

While you want as much haste as possible in PvP so your units use their skills quick and earlier, in regular PvE a 60%+ is already fast enough.

Keep plenty (10+) sets for Counter and 1-2 sets for Soldier/Mech each. As they will be used in raids and other similar contents.

Anti-X gear

Keep 1-2 sets for each type (Counter/Soldier/Mech) as this might be useful in certain scenarios.

Spectral Gear

Blaze/Bullet/Chain are the useful ones, while Spirit/Smite/Gear are too niche.

Blaze gives you a balanced ATK and ASPD boost, Bullet and Chain are the better ATK set as they also boost HIT and CRIT respectively. Meanwhile Spirit gives too little haste to be impactful, not a single unit in the game needs Smite, and Gear boost EVA.

Keep several (2-5) of the useful sets for each type (Counter/Soldier/Mech).

ATK gear

Keep 1 set for each type (Counter/Soldier/Mech), this gear is usually combined with an EE + 2 SP gear (like for Gaeun/Xiaolin).

Defensive gear

Keep several (2-5) sets for each type (Counter/Soldier/Mech). Some with hp/def/eva set, some with cdr set, and some with aspd set.

T7 Relic gears (Britra, Inhibitor, Swift) can roll latent after their +2 / +5 / +7 enhancement.

The first time (+2) will unlock a random stats while the other two (+5 and +7) will only improve the number (will not reroll/add different stats).

While it's fun to have more stats on your gears, it gets frustrating to min-max them. More details will be explored further in the “Relic Gear and Latent Guide” guide:

Latent gear

A word of warning

Gear tuning has no pity, unlike when you roll for a unit. This means that improper investment can potentially brick your account. Tip for new players will be:

Always try to ask people with better knowledge and experience before committing to use your tuning/set binaries and before you sell/enhance a gear. We have a discord server with lots of helpful people willing to share, so do check it out.