Support Effect was introduced on May 22, 2019 as part of the version 9.0.0 update.
How it works[]
- Certain units can boost other units with their support effects.
- Some support characters can support any character, but most are limited to certain other characters
- Support effects are unlocked by feeding characters that have the support Effect ability copies of that character from the same evolution line or with "Proof of Friendship" items.
- Bringing support characters on your crew counts toward your overall crew cost.
- If you have a certain character on your crew, you cannot use another version of that character as support, and vice versa. For example, if you're using V2 G4 Luffy as captain, you can't use 5+ Luffy's support effect.
- Support characters can't be added to your friend/guest captain.
- Support Effect is only available to players P-Level 100 or higher
- The most common support effects boosts base stats, but others give added effects when certain conditions are met, such as when activating a special or when afflicted by certain enemy debuffs.
Where to get Proof of Friendships?[]
They are awarded either as Chopperman Missions rewards for some events, or can drop during some events (usually the ones which have EX in their name).
Which support units are good or bad?[]
Support units can be divided into two types: stat boosters and unique abilities (i.e. everything else). For stat boosters, determining if they are good or bad is simple: the higher the stat boost, the better, with ATK being, as usual, the most important stat, which is why Big Mom Four Emperors and Straw Hat Luffy Gum-Gum Power's Potential are among the best since they give a high ATK/overall stat boost for many/all units.
As for the unique abilities, they tend to be situational - generally not needed, but on niche occasions, very helpful or necessary. One of the best examples of this is Donquixote Rocinante support, which is used relatively often, since it deals with a common debuff and ca be applied to a relatively common and powerful unit (T. Law).
That takes us to the another consideration: the support effect has to be useful for characters that are good in the first place, so, for example, Raki, even though she has a decent 10% stat boost, is pretty useless, since she supports only Wyper and Aisa, all weak characters that nobody ever uses.
Also, remember that you supports are still affected by the rule of 'one character per team', so you can't use two Luffy supports, or if you use a Luffy on the team, you can't use Luffy as support. This also means that for example 5+ Luffy support, not terrible in itself, becames instantly obsolete when you get Luffy G4v2 6(+), since he provides a strictly better stat boost for the same range of characters. (So it doesn't matter if 5+ Luffy support is better than another character; if you have G4v2 you'll never ever use 5+ as a support again).
If you want to add a list of best supports or their analysis, go ahead, it's a wiki - anyone can edit it to make it better.