Final Fantasy Record Keeper IX: Having Sworn to Whale, Must I Live My Life in Debt?

[Greg_S]

First off, nobody benches Queen Bea. Nobody.

Second, there are some very slight, but important, differences between Queen Bea's BSB and Agrias' BSB. Let's review.

• Queen Bea's Burst deals 4 AoE hits at 1.37x each (or 1.53x with all allies alive) of Holy damage. Her commands are each 2-hit single-target attacks, the first dealing 1.25x per hit of Holy damage with Sentinel, the second dealing 1.35x of Non damage with a RES boost.
• Agrias' Burst deals 4 ranged AoE hits at 1.47x of Holy damage. Her commands are each 2-hit single-target attacks dealing 1.25x per hit of Holy damage, with Sentinel on one and a RES boost on the other.

What's the takeaway? First, Agrias' Burst is ranged, which may or may not provide an advantage, depending. Second, Queen Bea's burst deals slightly more damage if the party is alive. Third, Queen Bea's second command deals slightly more base damage than Agrias', but lacks a Holy element to take advantage of Imperil. This is less of an issue if a boss is already Holy-resistant (although why are you bringing either one, then? As a tank?) and would make Bea's BSB better in such a situation; but where the boss is Holy-susceptible, I think it causes Agrias' second command to eke out extra damage.

Still, nobody puts Queen Bea on a bench.

I love FFIX. I don't get the Beatrix fandom, TBH. I enjoyed her arc for what it was, but she's far from the first character I think of from it (the answer to that is Vivi, of course)
From the FFRK perspective, I've got Cleansing Strike for Agrias, and that 25% atk/mag debuff is even more valuable than the BSB.

I keep forgetting that Galuf can also use SAM abilities, probably because he remains such a crappy character. Seriously, dude can't take a hit. And to be fair, his BSB has built-in heals that really help with that. But the thing is, if I'm using Galuf, it's probably because I'm using a V party (or, now, I suppose, because I'm putting together a Fire party), and I already have Bartz (OSB), Gil (OSB), and Faris (OSB) all at 99, pretty much covering all of my physical damage (and in Faris' case, SUP) needs; I also have Krile with Sheepsong, and frankly, having her in a party with her dead grandpa is still super weird for me.

Admittedly, swapping Galuf in would actually help Krile's BLM (because Firaja/Chain Firaga) and Bartz's SPB and OSB (because firefireFIREFIREFIRE), so... Fair point.

Think of Galuf's role as a secondary support/heal type with his BSB. The commands don't do enough damage to slot him as a primary DPS, and his limited equip and skill options don't give you a ton to work with there. But where he works is as a handy 5th party member. Imperiling fire keeps Krile's SB full and boosts your Bartz damage. The healing helps reduce pressure on Lenna if you don't have a medica, or keeps someone out of the danger zone with a small heal, and he contributes some damage to top it off.

With the recent datamining that found A+ bosses having only 20% weakness instead of the 50% that was assumed, imperiling's relative importance has only grown, as dropping an imperil on otherwise-neutral boss gets your DPS up to where it'd be if you went all-out to exploit their weakness. It's a tepid case to make, because the commands are so underpowered without a corresponding en-element, but it's not useless. It's just not good enough to be the centerpiece of your party.

EDIT: on the FFT JP event: Put me on the skeptical side about Ramza's BSB2. It sounds like it has a lot of abilities that don't synergize like people are expecting. It's still good because shout is good, but some of the justifications people are throwing out are really weird. Agrias' USB looks great, though- cleansing strike, plus enholy, plus more damage. What's not to love? Plus Marche's USB grants your front row characters physical quickcast whenever he uses a knight attack. That's... pretty great. Who needs powerchain when you can use regular speed full charge? Even crazier, TG Cid BSB commands with regular charge time as long as Marche is spamming Saint Cross/Guardbringer.
Shoot, Banner 2 has a USB for Gaffgarion that makes him the king of Dark abilities. It adds a 2-hit drain chase when he uses a darkness skill. We don't know the potency yet, but start spamming sanguine cross or the newer crimson cross (4.20/4 hits, 30% max HP kickback), and then automatically drain the HP back. Combined with the self endark effect, that's absurd, maybe even up to SSB-damage every single turn.

In short: skip the Meliadoul event when we get it, aim at this one instead.