Burn my luck:

I decided to spend all my quartz (12,000) in an attempt to get my Russian loli, Charlotta, her SS Memoria.  Instead of all things I got the Indian loli, Vritika.  In frustration I went to the purchasable with cash SS Memoria tickets to see if I could get the Memorias I wanted the easy way.  I had a 1/3 chance each time of getting the Megumi SS Memoria I was aiming for, but all three times I got the Erika SS Memoria instead.

Of course, I do like Erika so that wasn't a horrible result.  But what the hell?  I'll have virtually won the game if I could ever get a Megumi SS, thus completing an SS version of squad 31-A, and I had a 70% chance to do so with those purchases, but still Megumi eludes me.

So in even greater frustration I switched back to at least getting Charlotta.  I bought two more packs of quartz and platinum ticket rolls and aimed everything at Charlotta, with the knowledge that there was only 1 day left to get her and after that she'd forever be beyond my grasp.  All the rolls failed me (I got more Vritika's, which were exchanged for limit breaks, as well as another Muua I could exchange for a limit break, and a new Chie (the Fallen Innocence SS Memoria), but never the one person I originally wanted, the Russian loli.  Only by accumulating all 150 exchange points (meaning I rolled for Charlotta 150 times and failed 150 times) was I finally allowed to directly purchase her SS Memoria fair and square (exchange points are an in-game currency, so I finally could stop spending actual money.)  Those exchange points would have all been dissolved into mist tomorrow if I hadn't accumulated enough (150) to purchase Charlotta, so it was all or nothing.  I had to choose how much Russian lolis meant to me today, there could be no dithering on the question.  The answer is I'd basically spend anything for a Russian loli.  And now I've got her.

As a Russian patriot who wants Russia to conquer Ukraine, it's the least I could do.  Rarely does my love for Russia and this particular video game so perfectly intersect, and when those powers combine I'm defenseless.  ^^;

The gift pack I purchased also included protean shards which allowed me to choose two more characters to limit break.  I decided on Chiroru and Charlotta.  (What would be the point of spending so much to acquire Charlotta if she were too weak to actually wield?)  Now hopefully, once I level everyone to max, I can field a Dark Element squad of potential strength similar to my Fire Element squad.  I'm close to getting enough protean shards to limit break another character, and I have a variety of good options to choose between -- Seika, Misato and Miko being the most reasonable.  I guess I'll lean in to my Dark Element theme and go with Misato next.

It would probably have been more reasonable to limit break a select six people to the max limit break of 4 and try to make one ultra-squad, but there are good reasons not to do that.  For one, I like more than six characters in this game, so restricting myself to only playing 6 isn't fun.  (There are only 4 characters I like who I still don't have an SS Memoria of, so I'm actually making good progress on this front.  It's just that not having Megumi after all this time is so utterly ridiculous.)

For another, limit breaks don't transfer between Memoria.  So if I get an SS Memoria to max limit break, only to discover that a later version of the same character has a new, stronger SS Memoria, I have to choose between sticking with the old version because I've maxed out its limit breaks (a sunk cost), or starting all over with the hope of reaching the higher potential strength of the new SS.  I'd rather keep my options open and be able to start over, which means not putting all my eggs (limit breaks) in one basket.

It costs twice as many shards to go from limit break 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 as it takes to go from 0 to 1 or 1 to 2.  So the reasonable balance is to get your character to a level 2 limit break and then stop.  I now have 8 characters with level 2 limit breaks and zero with 3 or more.  The sole exception is Ruka, who the plot gave me a max limit break version for free, so she hardly counts.  This is all part of the plan.