FIFA 18 Chemistry Guide for Ultimate Team

Our FIFA 18 Chemistry Guide for Ultimate Team is the biggest and most comprehensive one you will ever find. We went in a deep search and found everything there is to be discussed about this theme, including how chemistry is affected, the substitutes, the team management and how to reach the best chemistry possible. Cause chemistry is extremely important in FUT 18, be sure to read this guide.

 
 
FIFA 18 CHEMISTRY
DEFINITION | BASICS | FACTORS | BONUS | BEST CHEMISTRY | SUBSTITUTES | STYLES | TIPS | MISTAKES | OPINION | FAQ

 
 
 

FIFA 18 Chemistry

What is the FIFA 18 Chemistry for Ultimate Team?
 

Our skills as gamers is not the only thing important to win a match. The efficiency of our players on the pitch and of the team in general depends directly on three main factors:

✔️ The player’s attributes;
✔️ The Chemistry;
✔️ The Player’s Fitness.

The FIFA 18 Chemistry takes a fundamental role on your team’s performance, so it can never be despised. It represents how well a player will perform in-game. Low chemistry values will hinder players’ ability, whilst high chemistry values will result in players performing well.

It evaluates the health of every relation in a club. In other words, the chemistry is a factor that helps the game play by interacting with the familiarity of the player with his positioning, the relation with the other players and the manager.

In the end, that is what the chemistry does. Take all these situations, weigh how much they can benefit the performance of a team and transfer them to the four lines of this evaluation. In general, the introduction for chemistry in Ultimate Team is there to give more logic to the game and to make the building of a team more complex, challenging and diverse.

Basic Concepts

What everyone needs to know about FIFA 18 Chemistry
 

The first idea that has to be present is that the chemistry is important for the success of any team. At least, that’s what EA say. In previous editions, they have announced that “a bronze team with chemistry 100 can win without great difficulties a gold team without chemistry”. That is why it has to be taken seriously when you plan to start a new team.

Another important concept, which is not always present, is that there are two kinds of chemistry: each player’s individual chemistry and the chemistry of the team. Both influence the performance of the players on the pitch.

Individual chemistry varies between 0 and 10 and team chemistry between 0 and 100. The chemistry values can be viewed on the active squad menu, just like the image below shows. The team’s chemistry is always visible in the right side (1), while the individual chemistry is right under the player card and can only be displayed if you select the ‘player info’ view (2).

Any player should have as a goal building a team with the highest chemistry possible. The higher is the value, the better. The priority should be given to an individual chemistry close to or equal 10. It is also a good thing to get a team chemistry of 100.

The chemistry of the team depends exclusively of the gamer choices. It’s higher or lower depending on the players he picks for the starting eleven, the manager he picks for the bench and the positioning of each one of the players. That way, it varies from match to match.

Now that you already know what the chemistry is, it’s time to know what it does in practice.

The chemistry interferes directly on the potential efficiency of the team during the match. More precisely, on the players’ attributes. That way, in the beginning of each match, the players’ attributes are directly affected by their individual chemistry and also by the team’s depending on the chemistry style that is active. The chemistry value that is used in game is the weighted average of the individual chemistry (75%) and the squad’s chemistry (25%).

Unlike many people think, having individual chemistry values of 10 is much more important than having a value of 100 on the squad’s chemistry display. Even because the individual chemistry doesn’t only weights three quarters of the chemistry utilized on the game, but it also affects directly the chemistry of the squad.

How FIFA 18 Chemistry is Affected

What influences the Chemistry and How to Improve it?
 

The Chemistry measures several factors that are considered enough important to affect the performance of a player.

Here is what influences a player Chemistry in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team:

✔️ His POSITION
If he is playing in his natural position or at least in a similar position.

✔️ His LINKS with teammates
If the players next to him have the same nationality or play in the same league or/and club as him.

Player Position

Players are used to play on a determined position but they can adapt themselves to similar positions. That is also what happens in FUT 18.

According to his positioning, a player may be in one of the following situations:

✔️ Playing in his natural position;
✔️ Playing in a position that is very similar to his natural position;
✔️ Playing in a position that has some similarities to the natural position;
✔️ Playing in a position that is very different from the natural position.

The position health is found directly underneath the player card: green means that he is playing on his natural position, orange means that he is playing in an adapted position and red means that he is playing on a position that is very different from the natural position.

The natural position of a player is shown on his card. The position where he’s about to play is shown on the active squad menu. The first situation (green) refers to when both positions are the same. That is the greatest situation to benefits the chemistry.

When a player is assigned to play in a strange position for himself, the chemistry is strongly affected. The goalkeepers is a good example of that. They can only play well on the goal, and are the only players that can’t get adapted to any other position.

When a player’s preferred position doesn’t match with the position he’s about to play, it’s possible to fix this applying a position modifier card. These cards can only be applied with success if they show the current preferred position of the player and the one he will play. You can learn more about it here.

In order to know what positions a player can get adapted to, consult the folowing table:

Green – natural position | Yellow – very similar | Orange – some similarities | Red – very different

Relation with the other Players

The more two players have in common, the higher will be the chemistry and better they will play.

Chemistry links are connections between players in a team. When two players are placed next to each other, they form a connection. This connection is represented by a coloured link, according to the intensity of the relation (nation, league and club). Since Icons don’t have a league or club associated, there are slight differences on how to calculate their FIFA 18 chemistry. Basically, they link well with other Icons just like regular players link with their teammates.

Chemistry links can be classified in four categories, as you can see in the following table.

The dead links are the weakest connections and consequently the most penalising for the chemistry. The hyper ones are the strongest and the most rewarding connections for the chemistry.

Independently of the team formation, a player must be linked to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 teammates. The stronger these connections are, the higher will be the player’s individual chemistry. That’s why most FUT 18 teams are built based in a league or in a nationality. This way it’s possible to eliminate the dead links and guarantee a high chemistry.

The relations between players can also be improved, but in order to do that, it’s necessary to adjust the team. Before buying players for the team, gamers should verify the connections intensity they will get. If they are sufficiently weak at a point that they can affect the chemistry, they should find players that can be well combined according to their nationality, league or club.

The intensity of the connection between two players is merely a graphic representation. It doesn’t mean that these players, in particular, play well with each other if their connection is green. What really counts for the individual chemistry is the summation of the intensities of the connections that a specific player has. Each player’s attributes are affected and not necessarily his relation with the teammates.

Coloured links: green for hyper and strong, orange for weak and red for dead link.

Bonus Chemistry

How to get up to two extra chemistry points?
 

As we already explain, FIFA 18 chemistry is based in the player’s position and his links. However, bonus chemisty are also available. They are based on:

✔️ His relation with the MANAGER
If his manager is from the same league or nationality

✔️ His LOYALTY to the club
If he played more than 10 matches or if it is his first club

Relation with the Manager

To boost contracts is not the only manager’s role. To each player, he may give an extra chemistry point.

There are two manager’s characteristics that will vary the chemistry of a player:

✔️ His nationality
✔️ His league

A manager that can be well comprehended has more success probabilities than one with worse relationships with the players. That’s why the chemistry is improved if the manager’s nationality or/and the manager’s league is the same as most players’.

The nationalities and the leagues of the players and managers are shown on the front of their cards. To get the manager bonus, you should try to match the manager nationality or the manager league with the higher number of players from the starting eleven. Pay attention that it may not be always true. For example: if all the players except one are from one specific league and already have individual chemistry 10, it may be better to try to match the manager league with the league of the only player that doesn’t have the higher chemistry possible.

When a manager league’s doesn’t match with the player’s league, it’s possible to fix this applying a league modifier card. You can learn more about it here.

Manager bonuses are represented by icons on the player card. A green icon means the player is receiving a bonus because he has, at least, the same nationality or the same league of the manager.

Loyalty with the Club

Loyalty was designed to further reward UT players for opening packs or keeping a player for an extended amount of games. After 10 matches of playing with the same player, or using a player pulled from a pack, the player will receive a bonus to his Individual Chemistry. He only needs one of these two things to get the bonus.

It is very easy to get this bonus. Even if it is unusual to buy packs, the player just need to play 10 matches with that card to get the bonus.

Loyalty bonuses are represented by icons on the player card. A green icon means the player is receiving a bonus because he played ten or more matches in this club or because it is his first club (or both).

Best Chemistry Possible

How high the individual chemistry can be?
 

You already understood that to achieve a high chemistry, you have to place every player in their natural positions and get strong links between them. However, since chemistry math is a bit complex, you not always know if you are undersizing or oversizing these two factors. That’s why we bring to you, an easy method of reaching maximum chemistry in the right quantity.

Let’s start by the links. Assuming that each league, club or nationality in common represents one point, the ratio between these points and the number of links tells us whether or not you will reach maximum chemistry in four different scenarios:

✔️ Players in the right position and with the manager’s bonus or loyalty bonus
The sum of points should be equal or higher than the number of links

✔️ Players in the right position without bonus
The sum of points should be 1.6 times higher than the number of links

✔️ Players in a related position and with the manager’s bonus or loyalty bonus
The sum of points should be 1.6 times higher than the number of links

✔️ Players in a related position and with both manager’s bonus and loyalty bonus
The sum of points should be equal or higher than the number of links

Do you need help to understand how it works? Let’s look at an example. Imagine that a player in his original position connects with three teammates, all of the same nation but different league and club. That player would have 3 points and 3 links, which means that he would reach the maximum chemistry only if he also gets manager or loyalty bonus.

As you know, you need more than good links to reach a good chemistry. The following table shows you the maximum chemistry a player might get when playing out of his natural position. These values don’t include the manager’s bonus and loyalty bonus, so can still be added two more points.

The Substitutes’ Chemistry

How FIFA 18 chemistry works for the substitutes?
 

The substitutes are not considered in the FIFA 18 chemistry calculation. And much less the reserves. The team’s chemistry counts only the summation of the starting eleven’s individual chemistries. Besides that, being on the bench, the substitutes don’t participate in the relations between the players. This means that they don’t have individual chemistry and their contribution to the squad’s chemistry is merely null.

Until now we believe that this is very easy to understand. However, very pertinent questions arise: if we make a substitution, what will be the chemistry of the player who goes in and how is it going to affect the team’s chemistry? What hapens if we change the formation during a match?

Let’s start by the substitutes’ chemistry. Based on the official details provided by EA, every player who comes on as a substitute do it with a static individual chemistry of 5. Like any other player, his attributes are also affected by the team chemistry (25%) but he doesn’t affect this chemistry. It does not matter which player he will replace, because he will not take the chemistry of that player. He will always have individual chemistry of 5, regardless the quality links he would create with the teammates. That is, you don’t have to pick players to the bench who have the same nationality, league or club of those who are in the initial eleven, because the chemistry of who goes in will always be the same, regardless of which player it is. The same is true for his position: it is irrelevant the position of the player who enters. The chemistry will be the same whether he goes to the goal or takes any other position of the field.

For who didn’t know about what was explained here, this may be seen as an opportunity. It becomes possible to use that player we always wanted but could not use because he didn’t fit in our squad at all. We can also adapt players to other positions that usually don’t have quality choices. However, everything has a cost. In this case, contracts would be spent. Besides that we’ would have to interrupt the match, preferably in the beginning, to make these substitutions, which would be quite boring.

Because this is one of the most common mistakes, we need to remember you that you should only make a substitution if the player who goes in is better enough to suppress the difference in chemistry between him and who goes out. And that difference is still considerable. For example, Danny Rose at the start can play better than almost all left-backs if they replaced him, except for David Alaba, Alex Sandro and maybe Marcelo.

Here is another interesting fact: once in-game, Team Management has no effect on chemistry, this includes but is not limited to formation and position changes. This means that you can change the formation and the tactics how many times you want that it will not affect the players’ attributes. Besides that, you can also freely change the position of the players that this will not interfere with their performance. Yes, you can put LW Ronaldo as ST without loss of quality, as long as you do it with the game in progress.

FIFA 18 Chemistry Styles

What are chemistry styles and how they work?
 

The chemistry styles were created to redistribute the stats that will receive chemistry boosts. These consumables allow you to choose what stats are changed but not by how much it will change. It depends on your chemistry. If you get individual chemistry 10, you will get the highest improvement possible on the stats you have chosen.

There are two things that we can find on a player’s card about the FIFA 18 chemistry styles. The first one is the name of the style that is active in that player. The second one are small arrows showing which stats will be affected by the chemistry and the maximum available stat boost. These arrows can be white or green. A white arrow indicates a possible boost that isn’t being received, which will mean that player doesn’t currently have high enough Chemistry to get the maximum benefit. A green arrow indicates that the stat will be boosted. The more arrows per stat, the bigger will be the available boost. The more green arrows per stat, the bigger will be the boost. The maximum number of chevrons that can be filled is 6. These chevrons are only indicators. Not necessarily mean that the attribute in question is going to be increased by the same number of points as the number of chevrons filled in green.

There are 24 Chemistry Styles and they all have a maximum of six arrows that can be allocated to different attributes. When a player is released in a card his chemistry style is basic (BAS), the starter style. It means that all his six attributes may be improved in the same way by one arrow. A single green arrow gives a small boost to the associated attribute, two green arrows give a medium boost and three give the maximum boost possible. For the Chemistry Styles that affect three attributes, the maximum boost to each is two green arrows. For the Chemistry Styles that affect two attributes, the maximum boost to each is three green arrows.

Chemistry styles are an important part of the chemistry and for that reason it is a long subject. To keep this guide as short as possible, we will ask you to read more about styles here.

Starting Tips

Where to start for having a good FIFA 18 chemistry?
 

If you’ve read what we wrote in this article, then you already know what to do to build a team with good chemistry. For those who still feel a little disorientated, we will give a few tips about how to build a team with good chemistry in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team.

In the first place, it’s convenient for us to define what is this “good chemistry” thing. For us, a team with a very good chemistry is one that has all individual chemistries of 10. It’s obvious that it’s not always possible to build our dream team full of individual chemistries of 10 but we should try to make them never lower than 7.

Unless you’re already an expert on this, the first step is to define what the players will have in common. We need them to have at least weak connections, since the most normal is for us to be based in a nationality or in a league to build our team. A team that has all the players from the same league or from the same nationality, will have a very good chemistry, since the players are in their natural positions. According to our table, all of them will get, at least, individual chemistry of 9. It will be enough to have a manager of that league or nationality to get the highest chemistry possible.

We shouldn’t forget to save coins to invest on the chemistry. As it was already said, the players’ positioning may be corrected in most of the times if we have a budget for that. Having all players playing in their natural positions represents halfway gone.

One of the tricks for being able to build this team is knowing how to plan it before we start. Just having a general idea is not quite enough because we can start buying players and realize at the end that we don’t have enough connections. So, if we already chose what our players will have in common, it’s time to visualize what we intend to do for our team. To draw a scratch or to use a concept squad, seems to be a good move.

If you already built a team with good connections between players and with players in their natural positions, you already made the most difficult part. The easiest chemistry points are given by the active manager and by the loyalty. Ensure that the nationality and the league of the manager are well represented among the players with lower chemistry and, if you are not using players who you got in packs, try to reaches ten games as soon as possible to benefit from the two extra points.

If you did everything we said here, then we guarantee you that the chemistry of your team will be the maximum possible. If your plan is to build a hybrid squad with high chemistry, take a look to our special techniques here.

Common Chemistry Mistakes

What care should you take when building a team with good chemistry?
 

There are three basic kinds of errors when building a team with good chemistry in FIFA 18 Ultimate Team:

✔️ The players underrate the importance of the chemistry
In the first situation, some players seem not to know the effect of the chemistry on the game or simply judge that it’s nothing but a myth. They’d rather build a team with the players they like independently for the chemistry. What they don’t know is that their development can be superior if they slightly modify the team substituting a few players. There’s no need to give up on all their preferences. Unless they are just starting FUT 18, those players can be easily identified for showing up with a chemistry that is lower than 60 (it’s not possible to see the opponent’s individual chemistry).

✔️ The players overrate the chemistry
There are also those who put the chemistry ahead of everything. Extremisms are not necessary. If you follow all of our basic tips, you can be in this group. In fact, everyone who has all the starting eleven with an individual chemistry of 10 can be in this situation. FUT 18 allows players to reach maximum chemistry in a bunch of ways. If we apply all these methods to reach a chemistry above the maximum value, we are certainly overrating this concept. The problem about this is that we can prejudice the quality or diversity of our team without taking any advantage of it. That’s why it’s important to know how the chemistry works in FIFA 18. With this knowledge, we can build teams that have only what’s really necessary to reach maximum chemistry. The teams that are made up of exclusively players from the same league, club or nationality are almost always typical cases of ‘chemistry waste’.

✔️ The players don’t give the chemistry its correct balance
The third group is probably the most common one: the ones who commit errors when building a team because of the lack of knowledge about how to do it. This happens because many times most sources of information are not clear enough or even incorrect about what they say of this theme. It’s a common sense between FUT gamers that having a good chemistry is having a chemistry of 100. That’s wrong. We can have a team chemistry of 100 in which one player have an individual chemistry of zero. This is not really the desired chemistry. The individual chemistry is actually the one that weighs more on the attributes set up during the matches. These players usually have team chemistries of 100 but unbalanced individual chemistries. Some with 10 and others less than 8. There are also some players that consider chemistry styles more important than the chemistry. That is false. One player without chemistry doesn’t need a chemistry style. It has no effect.

Our Opinion about FIFA 18 Chemistry

What’s Wrong with Chemistry?
 

We are completely independent and this is great for us to be able to compliment or criticize what we think is good or bad. In a general way, we think that EA makes a decent job. It is true that there are server problems, items that get stuck in the trade pile, constant gameplay bugs, etc… But when it comes to rules, FUT was a well made and implemented game. The chemistry system is a good example of that. It works. Or will it not be so?

Not everything makes sense on the FIFA 18 chemistry. We do not understand why EA makes so much secrecy about it. Most part of the information we published in this article is not available for the common player that doesn’t want to spend days trying to learn how the chemistry works.

The best example of what we are saying is the way how the links and the player’s positions are assigned according to the colours that indicate intensity. The hyper and strong connections are both green-coloured which doesn’t allow the distinction between each one. Also the player’s position status is indicated by only one colour, orange, which doesn’t allow the distinction between those that a player will be able to get adapted to. It would be enough just to introduce one more colour. We can only think that this was done intentionally so they could keep the chemistry secrets away from the players.

Our chemistry analyse does not end with EA. The players also make part of the game. There is a considerable number of people who insist that there is no such thing as the chemistry in the game. We believe that’s not true, but we understand the doubts, especially after the Chemgate. This glitch was discovered by the FIFA community in 2016 when they found that chemistry stat bonuses didn’t apply as they should to all non-day 1 cards. They always assumed individual chemistry of 4, which means that their stats didn’t receive any boost (0 green chevrons) from the styles. In other words, players were paying more for cards that were supposed to perform better than the respective NIFs but they didn’t.

There are also the ones who consider that the chemistry should be abolished from FUT 18. We respect their opinion but consider that these people don’t comprehend how FUT works at all. Part of the fun of this game mode is the opportunity for us to create a team we can get identified with. If there was no chemistry, the challenge of building a team would be smaller and the diversity of teams would be reduced.

New Stuff

Chemistry history
 

For experienced Ultimate Team gamers, most of what we have published here isn’t new. In that way, we have created this short chapter to show what has changed with chemistry:
 

FUT 17 >> FUT 18
✔️ ICON’s chemistry
❌ Legend’s chemistry

FUT 16 >> FUT 17
✔️ Fixed the Chemgate
✔️ Substitutes assume IC of 5

FUT 15 >> FUT 16
Legends’ chemistry changes

FUT 14 >> FUT 15
✔️ Each in-game stat receives an upgrade
❌ CM to CBR and CBL link in 3-4-1-2, 3-4-2-1, 3-4-3, 5-2-1-2 and 5-2-2-1;
❌ CMC to CBR and CBL link in 5-3-2;
❌ CM to CB link in 4-1-2-1-2 (2), 4-3-3 (3) and 4-3-3 (5);
❌ CM to RM link and LM in 4-5-1;
❌ CMC to CB link in 4-3-2-1;
❌ RM and LM to CB link in 4-1-2-1-2;
❌ CAM to CB link in 4-2-3-1 (2);
❌ CAM to CMR and CML link in 4-3-1-2;
❌ CMR and CML to CB link in 4-3-3

FUT 13 >> FUT 14
✔️ The way how team’s chemistry is calculated has changed
✔️ It is not required a manager to reaches team’s chemistry of 100
✔️ The way how team’s chemistry is calculated has changed
✔️ The numerical value of a link has changed
✔️ Two players with the same nationality have now the same chemistry weight as two players with the same league
✔️ The maximum individual chemistry possible is now 10, and not 9 as in previous years
✔️ Managers increase the Individual Chemistry. Team’s Chemistry is not directly increased by them as in the past
✔️ The stats that are boosted by chemistry are now decided by the chemistry styles cards
✔️ The league of the manager is now important to individual chemistry
✔️ Players with more games now receive loyalty bonus
✔️ Cards in the hands of original owners are worth more in chemistry
✔️ Several changes in the relationship between natural positions and position where players play
✔️ A few formations have now more connections
❌ It doesn’t matter to the chemistry if the manager is gold, silver or bronze
❌ Formations no longer have weight in chemistry
❌ The Formation of the manager no longer has weight in chemistry (it doesn’t exist anymore)

FIFA 18 Chemistry FAQ

The most frequently asked questions about the FIFA 18 chemistry
 

Q: What is Chemistry?
A: Chemistry represents how well potentially a player will perform in-game.

Q: Is it worth building a team with a high Chemistry?
A: Yes. A high chemistry means a better performance for your players.

Q: What affects the Chemistry of a player?
A: His position, his rteammatesth the team mates and with the manager and his loyalty to the club.

Q: How to get the loyalty bonus?
A: Use a card that you got in a pack or play with the same player 10 matches.

Q: Which one is more important: individual chemistry or team’s chemistry?
A: Individual chemistry.

Q: What is the maximum chemistry possible?
A: 10 to individual chemistry and 100 to team chemistry.

Q: Do Managers directly add any bonus to the Team Chemistry?
A: No. Managers increase the Individual Chemistry, which will in turn increase the Team Chemistry.

Q: Do I need a manager to reach the maximum chemistry possible?
A: No, but it helps. Manager doesn’t improve the team’s chemistry directly. They might give one point to individual chemistry. In some cases it is possible to get individual chemistry 10 even without bonuses.

Q: Is there a difference between gold, silver and bronze managers?
A: In terms of chemistry no.

Q: I can not get maximum chemistry. What’s the minimum you recommend for me?
A: If for some reason you can’t get the maximum chemistry, you should try at least having 7 points of individual chemistry and 90 for the team’s chemistry.

Q: I already have a squad with a chemistry of 100. That’s all that matters, right?
A: No. The players’ attributes in-game are modified by a component in which these 100 weigh 25% and the individual chemistry weighs 75%. Because of that, more than guaranteeing the 100 points for the team’s chemistry, it’s important to get the best individual chemistry (10) for the maximum number of players possible.

Q: Can a player’s individual chemistry be superior to 10?
A: In theory, yes. Mathematically the individual chemistry varies between 0 and 12. It gives new ways to gamers reach the maximum chemistry. In practice, a chemistry value higher than 10 has the same effect as a chemistry value of 10.

Q: Which one is better: a player with an high individual chemistry on a low chemistry team or a player with low individual chemistry on a high chemistry team?
A: To that player, the best is the first option. However, if the team has low chemistry it may suggest that the other players have low chemistry too and that is not good. If you want to know which is the chemistry in-game for each player, use this equation: Chemistry = (Individual Chemistry x 0.75) + (Team Chemistry x 0.025)).

Q: Does a player that has bad connections with some teammates and good connections with others play differently with them?
A: No. The red connections are merely graphic indications. The way each player plays depends exclusively on his individual chemistry and the team’s chemistry. He’ll play the same way with everyone.

Q: What is a Chemistry Style?
A: The chemistry styles allow players to choose which stats will be affected by chemistry.

Q: What do the white and green arrows mean?
A: A white arrow indicates a possible boost that isn’t being received. A green arrow indicates that the stat will be boosted. The more green arrows per stat, the bigger will be the boost.

Q: What happens if I don’t get the maximum chemistry?
A: With higher chemistry the boosts will be higher. If you have low chemistries, your stats will get lower bonuses.