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

[spectralphoenix]

Celes only has WHM 4 if you record dive her. Mog has it naturally, and I think he has a weak medica somewhere. Though really, if you want a proper WHM, Relm is the way to go.

Speaking of Celes, I really want that indomitable blade - some of the recent MP fights have driven home just how important it can be. I also will probably pull on Banner 4, looking for Fujin's BSB and Terra's new shininess (I have her BSB, but it's lost a lot of 'wow' factor since it came out.) All in all, though, what I want and what I don't seem fairly widely spread between the banners. What does Celes BSB2 do? Does it do everything the Indie Blade does?

Also, beat down the A+ evil tree on my own. Missed out on the Adamanchelid, however, after I just couldn't handle its crazy damage output alone or with a PUG. I needed those VIT motes.

[SuperPanda]

Re: FFVI cast

Terra is a powerful mage with full access to black magic and summons. Her sword and heavy armor access is mostly for niche equipment since she'll often end up with a rod and a hat to maximize that magic. Her support ability access mainly enables some very powerful use of her relics if you get lucky enough to have them.

potentially one of the most powerful mages in the game

I will say no more for to gush too much or to criticize this one brings the righteous fury of one of our own.

Locke is a thief, he's quick and has access to some useful tools like steal power. He also gets the awesome celerity tempoflurry which will be solid damage until you can get Thief's revenge for even more awesome. When we lacked their abilities he was rather weak without relics, now he's pretty strong.

One of the top thieves in the game

Edgar is your knight in emerald armor. He isn't top of his class at much, though his machinist abilities will be handy in those rare times an enemy is weak to a status. Knights tend to be very strong overall but VI has other knights that outshine him. Still a sold guy though.

Sabin is a monk - like Locke he's inproved with new abilities. Chakra and kick are solid wave clears until you can upgrade to meteor crush and fires within for strong damage. I find his relics all over the place.

Celes - knight, mage, healer, spelblade. Has one of the few truely useful default SBs and some amazing relics. Celes is one of the best magic tanking knights in the game - and relics make that even more so. Very versatile though strongly stlanted towards physical combat.

Gau - they didn't know what to do with him. Poor stats, a terrible SB gimmick, only shiny part is his access to celerity and combat at full but by the time anyone realies how potent that combo is they'll have relics for enough people Gau will have to stay in the velt. Might as well not have bought that dried meat.

Cyan - samurai and that's it. Cyan's big gimmick early on was retaliate (because he was a 5* samurai with no samurai abilities to use for a long time). The other problem is him Being very choosy with weapons. He will use daggers and Katanas. Nothing else. Samurai as a class has improved since then with strong abilities like Hailstorm in the mix.

Setzer - I hope you like him because he is your support character meaning that as you go into late game you will be requiring either him or Mog in your team. Setzer also has mechanic access but you won't care by the time you can hone 4* abilities you'll be loving him only for those breakdowns.

Mog - white magic and dancing. Mog is an okay healer and a great dancer. Dances to AoE support debuffs but without any damage - so as you can guess they're preferred in fights with many enemies or fights where the enemy counters. The rest of the time you probably want damage going out.

Relm - the other choice for healer (and the stronger one). She also has summon options if you feel the need for damage which isn't a Dia spell. Relm is a top notch healer and could easily serve an A team well, especially with relics.

Strago - the magical Gau. He isn't great at anything. He isn't terrible early on and is getting an awesome burst soon, but he is really second tier within VI let alone in the greater game.

Shadow - a physical ninja character in a game where ninja heavily favors magic. He isn't bad at all (far from) but he'll want some niche weapons to really get the most out of his abilities.

Kefka - mage, bard, dancer, darkness. Everyone's favorite diety plays second fiddle to Terra in the mage game with options which are more flavor than substance until you get the orbs for darkness skills. These can pack a wallop and are rarely resisted - but also rarely advantaged.

Leo - slower, better, Cyan. Leo combines knight access with partial samurai to pull off a combo know as "tauntilate" . With Draw Fire and retaliate all physical attacks will go to Leo where he avoids them and counters (does not work on AoE or NAT type physical attacks).

The VI cast is big but off the top of my head I don't think I missed anyone.

[T.G. Oskar]

Re: FFVI cast

Terra is a powerful mage with full access to black magic and summons. Her sword and heavy armor access is mostly for niche equipment since she'll often end up with a rod and a hat to maximize that magic. Her support ability access mainly enables some very powerful use of her relics if you get lucky enough to have them.

potentially one of the most powerful mages in the game

I will say no more for to gush too much or to criticize this one brings the righteous fury of one of our own.

Fair enough, but all I hear is praise, so you don't deserve righteous fury, but a big thumbs up. However, I feel I must define the triggers.

1. Do not even attempt to pair her with anyone else. I am very jealous. This gives the heat level of a nuclear bomb. Elevates to supernova if you pair her with Mama's Boy: under NO CIRCUMSTANCES that pairing is to happen.
2. If you have one of her relics, don't say it. Or, if you feel you must, at least attenuate it by mentioning that you earnestly hope I can get it next time. You'll see that at Banner 4, or FFVI Banner 2, as I hunt those relics. That has a heat level of an oven at 300 degrees F, but it increases to blast furnace if you moan because you got a dupe.
3. Her hair is GREEN. Not blonde, no matter how much Amano does that; his hair coloring is all over the place. But Amano is forgiven. He's always forgiven. The heat level depends on how quickly you get out of there, so it's basically a backdraft.

Other than that, it's fine.

Terra has long since stopped being the best Black Mage, as other characters (Cid Raines, Edea, Maria, Papalymo) have exceeded her casting potential. Strago, from her own world, has a RES-piercing Burst Command 2 that has no soft cap, which means he can do strong damage even against magic tanks. Raines, Maria and Papy have Bursts that imbue you with the element AND have a MAG/DEF bargain, so they can deal tons of damage from the get-go; Raines' Burst replaces En-Element for a Magic boost. With three Magic boosts (Burst, MAG, MAG/DEF Bargain), they can reach top damage easily. Edea is there because she has naturally high MAG (only topped by Shantotto), and has Memento Mori to further boost her Magic damage. As you can see, Terra is quite outmatched...

...except, as Panda mentions, she has Support 4. That means she has access to Wrath, a skill that boosts her SB gauge immensely, and while it offers an ATK boost that doesn't stack with Shout, it doesn't matter because you expect to use her in magical combat anyways. The idea, though, is that Terra can use one of her En-Fire SBs (Fire Beam, or her upcoming Omen USB) to boost Fire damage, then blast away with Scorching Flames, one of the biggest hitting OSBs around. Because of Wrath, she can essentially go En-Fire SB -> OSB -> OSB with three bars, and relatively early on, so while she's not exactly consistent, her specialty is to deal large chunks of damage quite easily. She also lacks access to certain Fire boosting items (her OSB weapon has a Fire boost, IIRC, but as Record Synergy; i.e., when in a FFVI world or in special events), but she has a pretty high native Fire boost (from her Record Spheres, plus her Legend Spheres). She's insanely good for a Fire team, and moreso if she has her Overstrike and an En-Fire SB, because that combo is just brutal.

Other than Fire Beam, Omen and Scorching Flames, however, Terra has one of the worst set of SBs ever. Her Default SB is quite probably the worst, as it's basically a physical attack on someone who's primarily a magic user. Magitek Missile has some worth, but achieving 9999 in every attack is short of impossible. Her early Unique Soul Breaks are rather poor, what with a single hit AoE Fire attack and a single hit AoE Water attack with a mild MAG boost (slight tangent: her secondary specialty is, for some reason, Water), and she lacks a second Burst to replace her first, which is an early generation Burst and thus all over the way (Non-Elemental entry with few hits and no rider effects, and her Burst Commands are simply meant for damage; none of the cool gimmicks of recent Bursts, like Draw and Junction, or +Hit on Weakness, or so forth). Her EX Mode(s) are pretty spartan: no fancy chasers, for example, but her Legend Sphere EX Mode gives her a boost to ALL Stats plus Instant Cast, whereas her USB EX Mode gives her a Magic Boost and Quickcast (not Instant Cast), making her one of the few characters with two EX Modes that can stack.

The thing with shields and heavy armor is that they don't boost Magic, and heavy armor doesn't boost Resistance either, so you really want them when you're comfortable with your Magic stat AND you need more Defense, OR when the heavy armor offers a MAG boost (think Golbez, who also wears heavy armor). She can't equip staffs, which offer some of the easy item-based Fire boosts, but she has access to Swords, which often have a MAG boost (and Fire boosts as well). The thing is, Terra was originally meant to work as a Red Mage, which is the reason why she has White Magic and access to certain equipment (much like in FFVI), but it was obvious her specialty was Black Magic, and they slowly steered her that way. Her skillset is what makes her distinctive: while her White Magic access is rather poor and her Mind isn't as great, she has access to full Black Magic and Summon skills, plus middling access to Witch skills (which offer Quick Cast), making her an extremely solid caster. You can see her as a Black Mage/Summoner that happens to survive better than other mages (other than Golbez, THE Mage-tank of the game) but not by much, and that happens to have access to Support in such a way that she can boost herself into high heaven, or even...ahem, support your debuffers with Breakdowns. She's outclassed, but she's not weak by any means; you can leave that to other characters.

Good comparisons are to Ashe or a fully-dived Quistis. Ashe has pretty much her same skillset, except Support; however, her Burst is far better, she has two pseudo-Medicas so she can provide better healing, and her specialty is Lightning instead of Fire. Quistis needs to dive to get Black Magic 5, but she has better White Magic access (again, if dived), and she specializes in the rare element of Poison; however, she ALSO has Support, so she can work as an off-debuffer or burn herself off with Wrath -> Hail to the Queen -> Doomtrain OSB for tons of damage. Both also have access to a variety of equipment (Ashe has access to Swords and Light Armor; Quistis has access to Whips). None of the three truly excel (though Terra, being a protagonist, towers over the other two) compared to the caster heavy hitters (again: Raines, Maria, Papalymo and IMO Edea as well), but they are versatile enough to contribute to more battles than the latter (well, more than Maria and Papalymo; Raines has Monk in case you wanna go physical...)

In FFVI, however, she pretty much reigns supreme as THE Black Magic caster. Strago and Kefka are her competitors, and Kefka has been often relegated to special events (BRA*BRA, or Brass de Bravo, aka "the Bard Mote collabs" that we'll never get). Strago is pretty poor in what he can offer, as they tried to make him a sort of Sage but he doesn't fit that (they could have given him White 5), but his upcoming Burst goes a strong way to redeem him from the scrappy pile. Kefka is far more flexible (Bard and Dancer skills, and a rare element specialization in both Poison and Dark), but not as strong, while Strago is a more typical caster and thus not as flexible as her, so you can see why she reigns. Celes is her natural enemy because her WHM access can be driven higher (though you want it for Protectga and Shellga, as mentioned), she has access to full Spellblade and Knight skills, and her SBs often involve the best kind of Mage tanking through Runic (of the four to five SBs that offer this ability in Japan, Celes has THREE, while Exdeath has two), so she's never out of skills, but she's definitely NOT meant as a caster (compared to VI, where she was, but she specialized a bit more on healing and debuffing).

As a final word, VI is plagued with odd choices as with the earlier games. Since most of the skills that would define entire classes were relegated to Relics (like DragoonBoots/Dragoon Boots essentially collapsing all of the Dragoon class, or True Knight/Knight's Code collapsing all that a Knight represents), they went fast and loose with certain characters. For example: Edgar and Mog are the only native Spear wielders, but there's no Dragoon in game until Mog gets to Record Dive, where he gets 4* access. Edgar, on the other hand, has none, while you'd expect him to wield Dragoon Boots because he had a spear, and thus Jump was viable for him. Cyan was always a mess: only access to Combat and Samurai, didn't have access to Heavy Armor until an update, and while in the game he was a viable candidate for Knight's Code, he doesn't get access to Knight skills at all. Likewise, Mog's all over the place (White Magic...that's pretty odd, though some of his Dances are beneficial), Gau getting Combat and Celerity because there's no Berserker set of skills, Umaro getting Monk of all things because, again, no Berserker; Relm working as the game's main healer and also summoner until Terra got access to Summons, and so forth. Their original incarnations weren't as bad as other games, which had truly bizarre choices: what to do with Guy? Why Warrior of Light has access to Thief and Ninja skills via Record Spheres? Refia as MONK, when almost every other game has her as a White Mage? No nod to Ryukishi07 (creator of Higurashi When they Cry and Umineko When they Cry) by having Lenna be a Dragoon (see Refia, above), while making her a Dancer? Then there's also the latter game oddballs, such as Red XIII (Black Magic user, but nowhere near as strong magically) or Irvine (a complete mess before they decided to make him VIII's main Supporter, as well as making Sharpshooter just to make him shine, and he STILL is a mess!) Anyhoo...

That's basically it. As long as you don't press the triggers, you don't have to listen to me. Or, at least, you'll listen about me nicely, often scholarly.

[Greg_S]

One thing to mention as you're planning out fest pulls: We're getting close to magicite dungeons. Magicite dungeons reward elemental teams, punish supports & breaks (20% effective), and grant you wall as your RW. Things to look for include en-element/OSB combos, stacking boosts from odd sources (like Mog/Porom/Yuna BSBs for magic), radiant shield on someone who can contribute (Cloud of Darkness BSB if you use her as an off-healer, Vincent BSB, Alph SSB if you use him as a second healer) and piercing attacks (Seph BSB, Ninja magic, Strago BSB).

On Orbfest: Why are there flying pigs? Go away pigs and give me something that doesn't tank my EXP gain!

[SuperPanda]

Thanks for the very in depth rundown TG.

I do still hope to see you get all the Terra relics you can but I've stopped saying it as it didn't seem o be helping. The osb banner hasn't been datamined yet but I seriously hope it is still coming and that your faithful devotion to your chosen maiden is rewarded.

On banner 4 the only thing I want to see as much as me getting Cecil's new USB is you getting Terra's (though I'll be all kinds of giddy if I can nab it too I'll feel like a heel if I get it and you don't).

I was nostly jesting above on the "praising too highly can bring righteous ire" bit. The failed joke was that trying to win Terra's favor through praise could provoke your wrath.


Re: orbfest - I hate the pigs, I love the orbs.

[oxybe]

First boss of the event down. CM was pretty easy as we're now used to Ultimate++ CMs and this was barely an Ultimate.

Thanks to some luck towards the last FFVIII event & DU I managed to get both Hyper Sniper and Dreamstage, giving a very nice support crew for my FFVIII team. Rather then having Rinoa, Edea & Quistis go all "Grrl Power", I thought i'd give the guys a chance to shine first.

Squall, lvl99 - LifeSiphon R4,Full Chage R3 - Ace Striker - Sub Zero Blast
Seifer, lvl98 - Draw Fire R3,Draw Magic R3 - Lionheart - Sorceress' Knight
Laguna, lvl69 - Dismissial R4,Lifesiphon R4 - Dr.Mog - Visions of the Past
Irvine, lvl80 - Wrath R5,Full Break R4 - Battleforged - Hyper Sniper
Selphie, lvl71 - Curaja R4,Shellga R2 - Mako Might - Dreamstage
RW: OK - Vessel of Fate

Laguna buffed, Squall LSx3 > OSB, Seifer Tanked, Irvine broke the boss & Selphie didn't even need to get a medica off before the boss died.

Time to level up some dudeguys. Seifer is in the home stretch, and Arc is currently faffing in the high 80's but as Laguna & Selphie, I've still got some work to do.

Thankfully it's Orbfest so whatever. I'mma level as I hoard orbs.

For data collection purposes, here is my orb count as of earlier today

Spoiler: orb count as of the morning of 6/20/2017, or so my FFRK Central acct tells me

Show

Major Black Orb 52
Major Dark Orb 99
Major Earth Orb 147
Major Fire Orb 155
Major Holy Orb 44
Major Ice Orb 91
Major Lightning Orb 104
Major Non-Elemental Orb 99
Major Power Orb 110
Major Summon Orb 58
Major White Orb 52
Major Wind Orb 33

Greater Black Orb 123
Greater Dark Orb 79
Greater Earth Orb 269
Greater Fire Orb 26
Greater Holy Orb 16
Greater Ice Orb 136
Greater Lightning Orb 175
Greater Non-Elemental Orb 221
Greater Power Orb 167
Greater Summon Orb 9
Greater White Orb 80
Greater Wind Orb 35

[Slayn82]

I've been quiet as of late, due to splitting my attention between FFRK and Duel Links, and RL Stuff.

From the Festival, Banner 3 feels worth a pull, Lightning could use a BSB /En lighting to complement her OSB, and other relics seem very good, plus no dupes (as Garnet's relics are on another banner). Other banners have nice things, but at 3 or 4 dupes each, I'm skipping.

Orbfest is nice for the mythril and money. I've not cared for honing to R3 new abilities for some time, as BSBs and Lifesiphon provided enough firepower to beat events and Multiplayer Dungeons (when I bothered doing them).

Outside Water and Poison, I'm doing well with most elemental matchups. Delita BSB & Bartz OSB made many elemental teams go from weak to good and from solid to WOW! I have no last stand, but spamming partywide Magic & Physical Blinks has yet to completely fail me. Curilla's swift blade SSB (40% HP Medica+Esuna on SSB ST holy/non damage) also makes wonders (Gaia Cross/Lifesiphon/Knights Charge).

Synergy wise: need gear for I, III, XIII and XV.

[Deadline]

RE: VI Cast

My recommendations for a VI party are as follows:

Terra - She fills the black mage spot remarkably well. She's also pretty durable, and has great equipment options.
Celes - Magitek Knight is best Knight. I prefer her over Leo or Edgar, simply because she's also got solid spellblade options.
Relm - I use Relm as my healer, predominantly as I have her SSB Relic (Portrait of Lakshmi). Prior to getting that, I used Mog, because I like Mog.
Setzer - *sigh* I really wish we had a better support character, but Full Break is super handy.

Beyond those four, use anyone you like (or has ability access that you need). I use Cyan because I like him, and have one of his katanas.

And as always, if you've got a relic for a character in this realm, scrap my advice above and use that character. The boosted stats and benefits of useful SB's usually outweighs anything else. But in tough fights, you usually need 3 things: Mitigation (Protectga and Shellga and the like), Breakdowns (for further mitigation), and Healing (Medicas, a.k.a. AoE heals are ideal). You'll pretty much always have damage sorted, but those three are super important.

Now that Orbfest has begun, I find myself with good news and bad news. The bad news is that I have every character at level 79+. The good news is that I have maybe a dozen characters that need to go to 99, so I have plenty of folks left to level. When do we get the banners? I thought they'd drop with Orbfest?

[Red Fel]

Well, we're expecting Lucky Draws, in all probability, to start tonight. And although I've been waffling on whether to pull (I have just over 200, which means I could pull on almost all of the Fest banners) I don't think I'm on the fence anymore. Two reasons.

First reason: Consider the worst Fest pull. For 50 mythril, you get 1 relic. Now, consider the worst Lucky Draw - for 50 mythril, 2 relics, because you're buying at half price.

Second reason: The anticipated LD banners are up. Here they are: Imperils, Medicas, BSBs.

Looking at these LD banners... I'm actually optimistic. On the first one, I have only 4 dupes (three from IX), so almost anything is an improvement there. On the medica banner, I have 9 dupes, which unfortunately clinches that; a shame, since there are 5 USBs there (but one of them is a dupe for me) (EDIT: Bugger it, I'll pull on that one too, half price is half price). That leaves the BSB banner, which also includes USBs/OSBs/CSBs, so - as one Redditor points out - we're all going to pull on that one.

Basically, if I pull on Imperil and BSB, that's the equivalent of one Fest pull, which means I still have three left (four, if mythril is abundant in the next few days) for the Fest.

Speaking of Fest banners, although it seems everyone has given their two bits, there's still one person whose opinion I value - Redditor Sandslice, who has provided great banner analyses. He has a master thread up for the Fest, which you can find here, and has already posted analyses of each relic from the first two banners. (The rest are forthcoming.) Worth a read if you're still trying to decide.

EDIT: And apparently the LDs aren't tonight. Crumbs.

[huttj509]

As a note to new folks (and some of us who periodically need reminding), try to expect that on an 11-pull you'll get one 5* and nothing else good. Then you can be pleasantly surprised. That was pretty much every pull for me until I got really lucky on the anniversary banners. It can be really easy, when folks are sharing their "wow" pulls, to feel disappointed.

[oxybe]

From what I understand they're going to be day-long lucky draws, so they're 00:00-23:59 PST, which means in ~4 hours from now, we can start working the salt mines.

[SuperPanda]

I am hyped for the LDs, even more so than for the Fest Banners because they are half price and contain many goodies I could really use but would never pull for on my own.

I won't be pulling on Imperil LD until ~ daily log in refresh because that's when I expect my wife will have time to push the button for me.

I have 8 imperils so far: 2 fire (Locke BSB, Steiner SSB), 2 Lightning (Desch SSB, Garnet BSB2), 2 wind (Faris SSB, Zack BSB), 1 Ice (Laguna SSB), and 1 holy (Agrias BSB).

so there is a low dupe chance.

The one item I'm most hyped for a shot at is probably Rikku's burst since my water team is still forming and she'd be a strong member. I'd be happy taking away new bursts, new elemental imperils, and synergy for realms which are weak.

For me this is the perfect LD - lots of solidly good items, a good spread of synergies, and nothing I really "need" so I'll be almost certain to be satisfied with my pull.

[Forbiddenwar]

Does anyone use a third party tool to help track your different soul breaks? I lose track pretty easily on who has what and what it does. I spent hours trying to find if I had any debuff blink (turns out I have two) and rediscovered a wind imperil I didn't know I had.

I think I just need to grit my teeth and make a spreadsheet, or a full on database.

[oxybe]

If you don't mind linking your FFRK acct to a 3rd party site, I use FFRKCentral.

https://www.ffrkcentral.com/profile/Hw6d

It's pretty convenient for a lot of stuff.

And awkward segway from the word stuff, I got some stuff from the LD!

2/11 - Leo's Imperil Holy & Laguna's Imperil Ice. The former is... another imperil holy but on a character I probably won't use anytime soon, but Laguna's is my first Imperil Ice and it plays off Squall's OSB, so yay for realm synergy!

[Starwulf]

Lucky draw results are in, and I scored 2 rainbows: Exdeath's Demon's Rod(BSB), which seems really, really nice, lowers enemies resistance to Dark, Command 2 gives him doom AND raises his magic, Command 1 dishes out 4 attacks, dealing more damage if user is inflicted with Doom, which potentially means 40k damage per use, which is pretty phenomenal.

Second rainbow was just Yangs Hell Claws, which deals 6 ranged earth/non-elemental physical damage, and lowers enemies earth resistance, which isn't too terribly useful(can only think of Meltdown and the Stone line that could really take advantage of that).

So, 1 good, 1 meh, but the 1 good one seems really, really powerful over-all, so I'm pretty pleased.

[Slayn82]

My pull was only 1/11, but at least I avoided getting just a dupe - got Laguna's BSB, a Lighting elemental imperil that works with machinist abilities.

Not too shabby. Already had his Ice Imperil and his 50% Atk boost, been using him on my physical team with OK BSB RW, and now he consolidates my lighting team, so I probably won't pull on the third Festival Banner and just do the other LDs and FF VI instead. Neat.

[Red Fel]

Holy crap. Seven. Seven rainbows. Of those, four BSBs, three SSBs, and only one dupe (an SSB). This may be my best pull ever.

On the other hand, think of the characters. I got BSBs for Edward, Galuf, Exdeath and Seymour. Exdeath is a solid BLM/DRK, improved by his BSB; Seymour is a solid DRK, and again, that's boosted by his BSB. Edward is a bit of a mixed bag; although his Boostga on Burst is nice, and his commands are stacking combo Breaks, they also Sap him, which is a nuisance. More importantly, though, he himself is weak sauce. And then there's Galuf, who... exists.

The other three are Yang's SSB, and Yang is basicaly Galuf but as bad or worse; Desch's SSB, which is pretty good for Desch and actually pairs well with his En-Lightning SB that I already have (oh, and it's also a MAG boost); and Steiner's SSB, which I already have.

I think my Imperil arsenal almost covers the spectrum now. Fire, Earth, Holy, Dark, Lightning, Wind... Think I just need Ice and Water.

Even with some sub-par characters (looking at you, Galuf), this was an amazing haul. I am so stoked.

[Hunter Noventa]

Holy crap. Seven. Seven rainbows. Of those, four BSBs, three SSBs, and only one dupe (an SSB). This may be my best pull ever.

Wow, you stole all my luck, only one Rainbow for me. Yet another bow for Fran, but at least it's one I didn't have. Lightning Imperil isn't bad, as i didn't have it before, and I have two OSBs that can take advantage of it if nothing else.

[Greg_S]

2/11 here. Beatrix's BSB, which is almost a clone of Agrias' (but I like Agrias more and have cleansing strike, so you stay on the bench), and Nabaat's burst, which has potential in a dark team due to a command imperil.

Also, wow, 7/11, Red. That's amazing. Edward's burst commands can hit really hard with the imperil and shout-level burst, so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by it.

[Merlin the Tuna]

A paltry 1/11 for me, featuring Beatrix BSB. Given that I already have Agrias BSB (and a ton of FF9 synergy) it's not exactly breaking new ground, but knight stuff is always good. And I guess it has MND, which could maybe be nice?

Red... 1, that's ridiculous. 2, congrats. 3, don't sleep on Galuf. The BSB itself is excellent, and he can pair it with Fire Blossom for aoe, Fire Veil if you're using him as a ninja, or Fires Within for even more crazy healing. Is it enough to make him take the Top Monk spot from someone like Refia? No. But as they say... Why not both?

[Red Fel]

Wow, you stole all my luck, only one Rainbow for me. Yet another bow for Fran, but at least it's one I didn't have. Lightning Imperil isn't bad, as i didn't have it before, and I have two OSBs that can take advantage of it if nothing else.

Yeah, it's pretty solid. And it synergizes well in realm - if you have basically any of Ashe's SBs, for example, you're set.

2/11 here. Beatrix's BSB, which is almost a clone of Agrias' (but I like Agrias more and have cleansing strike, so you stay on the bench), and Nabaat's burst, which has potential in a dark team due to a command imperil.

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.

Also, wow, 7/11, Red. That's amazing. Edward's burst commands can hit really hard with the imperil and shout-level burst, so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by it.

I know, right? I actually am pretty excited about that one, just frustrated that Edward as a character is such a wussbucket. Even on the back row he gets owned, it's painful.

Actually, the dilemma I face now is MC3s. Up until now, my supply of BSBs has been thin enough that I could level break pretty much anyone with a BSB up to 99. But I currently have 8 MC3 lodes, and I don't want to blow them on these characters necessarily. I mean, I wasn't going to waste one on Galuf anyway (although those party heals on his BSB are legitimately useful), and I already have three of my V cast at 99, so Exdeath probably doesn't need it either. But Edward is incredibly weak, even at level 80, his great BSB notwithstanding.

In all likelihood, I'm going to try to hold out until after Fest, and see what I have then.

A paltry 1/11 for me, featuring Beatrix BSB. Given that I already have Agrias BSB (and a ton of FF9 synergy) it's not exactly breaking new ground, but knight stuff is always good. And I guess it has MND, which could maybe be nice?

And as you say, ¿Porque no los dos?

Red... 1, that's ridiculous. 2, congrats. 3, don't sleep on Galuf. The BSB itself is excellent, and he can pair it with Fire Blossom for aoe, Fire Veil if you're using him as a ninja, or Fires Within for even more crazy healing. Is it enough to make him take the Top Monk spot from someone like Refia? No. But as they say... Why not both?

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.

[SuperPanda]

My LD is up.

2/11 no dupes. Both BSBs. No new elemental coverage. Removed one character from the empty hands pool and I think the other is now "complete" for relics and my new official protagonist of VIII.

Galuf BSB and Laguba BSB.
I have nothing for Galuf and he might not steal Locke's spot on a fire themed team unless I am in need of the healing to sustain a longer fight (unlikely with both an en-fire SSB and OSB on a wrath capable mage on that team - and Reifa to boot).

I'm actually considering having Galuf bump Bartz on my Earth team since his commands are fire/earth as is his entry. It would feel very silly hitting an earth weak target with imperil fire - but The 4 hit + heal Looks stronger than bartz' 4 hit without rider (though big B would be packing a chance to double tap materia most times).

In V realms I might pump Gilgamesh for Galuf. Gil has his OSB, which Bartz can wield as a stat stick. Bartz command 2 and Krile burst can both synergies with Galuf burst though so I think loosing the gilgaflow might be abbey gain in damage.

Also - First Hammer relic!

On to Laguna - I have 3 SSBs for him and now his BSB. I'll be leveling tempest snipe and rapid fire to R3 now for the damage stacking potential on Cmd 2's machinist non-charge.

In VIII I'll have to choose between his Ice Imperil (which serves Squall's snowspell access, Rinoa'a witch access, and Edea's BSB, or his burst which serves himself - also with his boostga ssb. Boys gonna be doing a lot of Life Siphon spam is what I'm saying.

Pretty happy with my two new MC3 candidates.

Edit: like Red, I'm facing an MC3 crunch - I've got 6 left and while I'm confident giving Laguna one, Galuf is going to have be happy leveling to 80 while mastering his burst - I'm not sure I'll be giving him an MC3 yet. He will likely replace Gilgamesh in time though.


Edit edit: my queen Bea got double benched over the last year. I got her + def SB in a LD which put her on the IX team with Garnet, Eiko, Queena, and Steiner (who has an AoE + chance to paralyze SB). Then Steiner got his imperil SSB and Zidane got his Enwind SSB and Queen B got bumped for the protagonist. Then this last event Vivi pulled his bsb2 out of a gem pull and put Zidane on the bench. Now VIII and IX both have two imperils (but in IX they are in different characters.

[Deadline]

And survey says my LD results are ...


1/11 *sigh*

It's Kuja's burst that imperils dark, so ... hooray team dark? Yeah, hooray team dark.

[Hunter Noventa]

Yeah, it's pretty solid. And it synergizes well in realm - if you have basically any of Ashe's SBs, for example, you're set.

Sadly, I only have Northswain's Glow and Ruin Impediment, XII is not a strong realm for me. I think the only lightning SBs I have are Thunderfall and Thunder God. And I have a lot more Holy SBs and an Imperil Holy to pair Thunder God with.

[T.G. Oskar]

3/11, 1 dupe (because no Ultra or Overstrike is 6*, ergo no disco balls)

• Leo's Shock! For one, I already have a pretty decent Imperil Holy on Edward, and this is SSB level, so meh. On the other hand....it's Leo's OG move, brah! Mad respect for the man.
• Edward's Lamia Har...yep, that's the dupe. I mean, I can look at it the positive way: it's another instrument, and Edward's Burst has proven surprisingly good (it's the reason the Spoony Bard is on the Soulcage MC pair, alongside Quina; that, and stacking debuffs). But, one harp is enough - I could always go for others.
• Laguna's Fomalhaut! That makes Team Lightning viable - Ashe and Desch with En-Lightning, Laguna with the Imperil, and Rapha as (admittedly good) filler. It also pairs well with Tempest Snipe.

Overall, the winner here is Laguna's gun, because it enables Team Lightning. Leo is mostly a fun weapon to have, and Edward's dupe harp seems kinda...eh, but having Imperils for at least six teams now makes it pretty nice. There's overlaps in a few (Edward and Leo offer Imperil Holy, Kuja and Seymour offer Imperil Dark), but overall there's pretty much one for each. Only missing Imperil Ice (which is absurdly rare) and Imperil Earth (ditto)

RE: Edward's Burst - it's enough to make me change my mind about the Spoony Bard. It starts with Shout-level Boostga, and given that you'll have a Hastega around, it means Ramza can stay at home (at least until his absurd BSB2...), then pair it with Imperil Holy, then adds two commands that provide stacking debuffs. Sure, one of them is the very common ATK/MAG, but the other is a Wallbreaker, which is less common. The Sap thing isn't that bad on big battles, because you're expected to heal a bit more: Sap is more dangerous when there's an overlap between ticks, but Ultimates and Apocalypse battles tend to be more generous with that. It does make a number on Regen, though, which is a shame. Edward's stats are troublesome, yeah, but he can dip in White Magic (3* only, but that's enough for Curaga and Dispel), so he's flexible in terms of skills and it evens out (plus, he's one of the few official Bards in game, and the poster-boy for such). What really kills him is his armor selection, as he can only wear Robes, which don't offer a lot in Defense in the first place, and his weapon selection doesn't help his Attack, which he has very little of. That said, his Burst is pretty self-contained, and superb on a Physical party. Also, it pairs well with certain Bursts (Orlandeau, because Steely Swordplay is ATK/DEF so it offers a stacking debuff; Raines, because his Burst Command 1 is Holy elemental and enables Instant Cast; Firion, because Burst Command 2 enables Instant Cast and is Holy damage, plus is a natural complement and enabler to Agrias' and Beatrix's bursts) on a character who can offer the essentials in the first place (Protectga, Shellga, major Regen, Dispel, debuffs) so it'll have something to do. Do something about that survival issue, and he does surprisingly well.

[Merlin the Tuna]

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.

Whaaaa? At 80, he's at 6k HP, 137 DEF, 128 RES. That's strictly better than Bartz (5.6k/125/110), protagonists like Zidane and Firion, and most fighters in general. His DEF sits behind that of the real beefcakes (most Knight 5s are in the 150-160 range), but he's tied for highest RES among fighter-y types, and his HP isn't far off either.

If there's a bummer to him, I think that it's his Samurai access only being 4*. 5* would mean Hailstorm, which means another element and a stackable buff for easier Lifebane/Omega Drive use. Maybe if his skill buffs had hit before his RD was designed, that'd be an option, but c'est la vie. (Support 3->4 would also be valuable.) Regardless, his various buffs have built him into a pretty decent package, with a variety of skills, pretty great equipment selection (which is still decent even if you don't dive him), and generally solid stats.

Among Monks, he's probably only behind Snow in terms of out-of-the-box, SB-less value. With SBs in the picture, Refia and Zell jump out in front, but Galuf hangs tight around 3 or 4.

[Red Fel]

Whaaaa? At 80, he's at 6k HP, 137 DEF, 128 RES. That's strictly better than Bartz (5.6k/125/110), protagonists like Zidane and Firion, and most fighters in general. His DEF sits behind that of the real beefcakes (most Knight 5s are in the 150-160 range), but he's tied for highest RES among fighter-y types, and his HP isn't far off either.

All I know is what I see when I front-line him in this Orbfest, since that's basically the first time I've used him in ages, and he sits there getting eaten by Cactuars. By freaking Cactuars. Not even the jumbotron - the mini ones.

I have mages who can soak those hits better. Yes, from the back row, but that's wearing robes. Seriously, Maria feels like she's taking hits better than Galuf.

Maybe it's just an optical illusion. Maybe it's the difference of levels between them (she's in her mid-80s, he's at 80 even). Maybe it's just my bias again this character. I dunno.

... Although, to be fair, if they give us playable Xezat and Kelger, I am totally making a Dawn Warriors team and apologizing for nothing.

[spectralphoenix]

3/11 - Nabaat's BSB, which is the Kuja BSB I already have except without the bonus damage when doomed, Seymour's BSB, which is the Kuja BSB I already have except trading the bonus damage for an effect every boss in the game is immune to, and Kimahri's BSB. Which actually has some cool healing and ether effects, and fits in nicely with the Tidus and Rikku stuff I already have to form Team Water. It just happens to be on a famously bad character.

[lord_khaine]

Im Grinding for the last 10 Mythril i need now, to get 3 draws on the third Banner. And after that om going to make my FF6 dream team, depending on who i get gear for. I was a little impatient and tried a keepers choice. But got some sort of startdust rod for Terra. So that was rewarded :)

[SuperPanda]

That should be Terra's burst. As BSBs go it's very dated, but that doesn't mean it isn't good - just that there is now better out there.

It should have "black magic" attacks (for when you have Record materia which boost that). I think they are ST 4 hit each. One fire and non-elemental and the other water and non-elemental. I don't have it so I'm not sure.

The advantage here is two fold. One is that since there are two elements to choose from and both have NE flavors you can safely use it anytime and when Fire or water can do extra you get that bonus. Second is that this is going to save you lots of orbs - while burst mode is up (about 4 turns) you aren't using abilities but are doing damage on par with powerful abilities. Congrats and enjoy.