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[FFRK] FFX Ultimates available, including the dreaded Geocities at U+ diff.

RiusRius Globex CEONobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
edited November 2016 in Games and Technology
Final Fantasy Record Keeper


[Final Fantasy Record Keeper] Is actually a pretty fun mobile free-to-play game for iOS and Android. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a HUGE improvement over such duds as All The Bravest. It's a walk down memory lane with a simple ATB style combat system with a surprising amount of depth and strategy. There is a new event every week, featuring your favorite characters and stages from Final Fantasy history, so it never gets old, and it IS free to try, so give it a shot if you have some time to spare. Just don't give them any of your money.
How naive I was about this little game.

This is the thread for talking about Square Enix's F2P Mobile game Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) for iOS and Android. Initially met with skepticism after some of SE's lackluster F2P entries in the past, it has grown in scope and popularity to the point where it gets as much discussion as any other mainline Final Fantasy game.

The game features a pretty basic Active Time Battle system. You can take up to 5 characters, made up of all your favorites from past games (and one original starter character) as you journey through the cliff notes version of all the Final Fantasy games. Each Final Fantasy game is a world, made up of dungeons with several stages. Each stage requires you to spend stamina to attempt them. Stamina recharges at a rate of 1 every 3 minutes. There are also limited time events that occur every week featuring additional stages, characters, and rewards.

There is a surprising depth of strategy to this game, as each character can equip different combinations of equipment and abilities, allowing for many different approaches to tackling some of the at times quite intense challenges. Characters and equipment also get bonuses if you match them to the world you're in (for example, Cloud gets a bonus in FF7 stages, as does anyone equipping his Buster Sword).

The F2P comes in the form of the in-game currency, Mythril, which allows you to pull powerful relics from reward banners. Mythril also allows you to recharge stamina, and to try again if you happen to be defeated in a stage. You can spend real money on Gems which have the same function as Mythril, though refreshingly for a F2P game it's possible to clear all content without spending a dime. This is thanks to several quality of life features implemented by DeNa, chief among them the Friend Summon system. Additionally, rather generous amounts of free Mythril are available between a combination of login bonuses, stage completions, event participation and quest completion.

Tips and information for new players starting out;
1) Quests.
From the home screen, the Missions button in the upper-right features Wayfarer, Normal and Special missions. The Wayfarer missions are meant for new players and will guide you to some of the game's basic features, as well as giving you some nice ability and item rewards. Move on to the Normal missions from there. Special missions are not in the game yet, but will involve high difficulty content when they arrive.

2) Stamina.
You can see the current / maximum stamina numerically in the upper right corner of your Home screen. Below that is an orange bar that shows the same thing, but below that bar is a set of 5 hexagons representing your current Stamina Shards. When you get 5 Stamina Shards, you refill your stamina to full and your maximum goes up by 1. The filled in hexagons show you how many stamina shards you have towards the next stamina refill and maximum +1. It is to your benefit to collect that fifth shard when you're running out or empty of Stamina. Efficiency is good!

3)Record Info.
When reading about the record in question, several tabs will be available with story, reward and boss info. Here you can read about the story background, rewards, and boss strategies as well as any medal requirements.

Upon completing any given stage in a record, your performance will be ranked. For any stage without a boss, you can earn up to 9 medals. You will lose medals if more than one party member dies, or if the party takes too much damage or uses too many actions to clear the stage. Earn enough medals and you will gain the Expert or Champion rating for the stage, which provides 150% and 200% experience, respectively.

Upon finishing the entire record, there are 3 reward levels; Completion, First Time Completion and Mastery. You can get the Completion bonus every time you complete that record. However, the other two can only be achieved once and typically include excellent rewards. To attain Mastery rewards, you must have earned 83.33% (5/6th) of all medals within the record. Remember those boss medal requirements? Each gives 3 medals if completed or 0 medals if not, so for records with few or only one stage, boss medal requirements can be crucial for obtaining Mastery rewards.

4) Realm Synergy.
Every character and every item comes from a specific realm. When you go into a record for a realm, characters from that realm are treated as if they are 10 levels higher. Items from that realm are significantly boosted in stats, provided the item itself is leveled up. If you're going into an FFVII record, it's a good idea to bring Cloud. It's a great idea to bring someone carrying the Buster Sword. It's a fantastic idea to bring Cloud carrying his own Buster Sword!

The boost from synergized items is stronger than the boost from synergized characters, so it's good to collect and maintain a spread of items from all realms. You will accumulate this over time, so don't worry too much.

5) Events.
Typically, there's 1 or 2 events running at any given time. These events start at a very low difficulty that even first day players can participate in, and end at very high difficulties that even longtime veterans can have trouble with. Rewards for completing event stages can include new or returning characters and their Memory Crystals (used to break level caps), weapons, armor or accessories from the event's realm, orbs, upgrade materials and of course Mythril. Events typically run for about two weeks and overlap, and you should definitely try to complete as much of each event as possible.

6) Hall of Rites.
The Hall of Rites is a new feature where characters, their MC1s and their MC2s can be obtained. At times you will receive, typically as event stage rewards, Souls of a Hero (redeem for any characters, Memory Crystal Lode 1s (redeem for any MC1) and Memory Crystal Lode 2s (redeem for any MC2.)

7) Record Dive.
The Record Dive system allows you to power up certain characters who have reached level 65, adding small amounts of stat points, percentage boosts to certain types of abilities, adding or increasing ability ranks or adding additional equipment options. The available powerups are different for each eligible character. You unlock these power ups by expending Motes, which are a special type of currency obtained from a variety of sources including Event rewards.

8) Daily Dungeons.
Each day has a specific set of 1 or 2 dungeons. You can only get the First Time Completion and Mastery rewards once, same as the records, and those rewards don't refresh from week to week. So if you complete a stage of the Sunday dungeon, next Sunday it will still show them as all completed (though you could still farm the dungeon for normal drops or experience.)

Monday through Saturday, the daily dungeons have rewards for and can be used to farm orbs, upgrade materials or Gil. The Sunday dungeons feature battles with a tremendous amount of experience. To put it into some context, A + difficulty stage of a Monday-Saturday dungeon gives around 10,000 exp to be split to the party, while the experience dungeon gives up to 100,000!

The daily dungeons now reward Gysahl Greens upon completion, and enemies have a small chance to drop additional Greens. These Greens can be exchanged for orbs, eggs, gil or upgrade materials at any time, and once per week the Special Shop will restock a variety of Major Orbs (at half price, relative to buying 10x Greaters), MC lodes and Mythril. Additional purchases may become available from time to time (accessories, items, etc.)

9) Nightmare Dungeons
A new feature to the game, the Nightmare area will be open for two weeks every month, and each month adds a new dungeon. All previously added dungeons are accessible at any time that Nightmare is, so don't worry, you can catch up eventually. The Nightmare dungeons feature a series of challenging boss fights, culminating in a special fight where all characters of a certain 5* ability will get full synergy for themselves and all equipped items, regardless of what realm they or the items are from! These final fights are like puzzles that must be solved and typically require planning and tactics instead of super powerful gear.

Completing the final boss of a Nightmare dungeon gives you a Record for a powerful 6* ability, which require 6* crystals to make. These crystals are currently very slow to acquire, but eventually they will be farmable from high difficulty bosses.

10) Relics.
The Relics page, accessible via shortcut on the bottom right of most screens, is where one can "pull" from a variety of "banners" for items. Banner pulls are always at least 3* rarity, with a lesser chance at 4* rarity and a ~13% chance at 5* rarity. Doing so costs Mythril (in game currency) or Gems (purchased with real $$$).

All banners from this point forward will have "Guaranteed 5*", which means every 11-pull comes with at least one 5* item. The likeliest result is two 5* items per 11 pull.

Banners are typically linked to current Events, and every banner has featured 5* relics. When you pull a 5* item, most of the time it will be one of the featured relics, but there's still a small chance it won't be.

One can do a single pull for 5 Mythril, a triple pull for 15 Mythril or an 11 pull for 50 Mythril. In this modern era of Guaranteed 5*, it is most efficient to do 11 pulls and only 11 pulls. Aside from that, on a per-draw basis your odds of drawing a 5* item are the same no matter how many items you pull at once and no matter which currency you use to pay for them.
Bluecyan wrote: »
FFRK Acronyms 101
MC - Memory Crystal [Item to break a characters level 50 limit. MC2 is used to break their level 65 limit.]
RM - Record Materia [New equipment type once MC is used. RM slot unlocked by breaking characters levels. RMs are acquired from level broken characters in a variety of ways]
SG/SSII - Sentinel Grimoire/Stone Skin 2 [Also refereed to as Wall, either is a massive defensive SB]
SB - Soul Break [Think Limit Break from FF7, new ones can be learned by character specific 5* relics]
SSB - Super Soul Break [Like an SB, but stronger, with a variety of bonus effects.]
BSB -Burst Soul Break [Like an SSB, except they also change your Attack and Defense commands to something else for a limited time]
OSB - Overlimit Soul Break [Like a very powerful SB that hits once. Can break the 9999 damage limit.]
M_O/G_O - Major Orbs/Greater Orbs [the middle _ represents which type of orb between Fire, Ice, Lightning, Earth, Non-Elemental, Dark, Holy, White, Black, Power, Summon]
_*++ - Blank is a number 1-5 which represents an items base rank (not combined). Every plus after the * represents how much its been combined. [A 3*++ will show up as a 5* in game but will be only about as powerful as a 4*. Rule of thumb is every item combination adds about half a rarity level of power.]
RS - Realm Synergy [Character or Item matches dungeons realm ie Cloud in FF7 dungeon or Blitzballs in FFX dungeon. This adds about 10 levels of stats to a character or about a rarity level in power to an item]

How can I learn more?

Mister P's PDF is a compilation of super useful information about FFRK. Ability damage multipliers, character skillsets, super break details, upcoming event information, etc etc.
Kongbakpao has a ton of useful information about a ton of things. Tons!

A while ago, FFRK added a friend summon system. We have a spreadsheet here you can plug your friend code into, and find the friend code of other PAers. If you're looking to fill out your Friends list now that RW lists can be refreshed during selection, I recommend this site.

Rius on
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    RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    edited October 2016
    Current Special Banners:

    Keeper's Choice Volume 1 - This banner can be pulled on up to 5 times, each for an 11-pull. It has the standard odds for getting a 5* relic, and the featured relics are all SSB strength. Additionally, after pulling on the banner you can choose one 5* relic from a predetermined list. These are generally a much better selection than Dr. Mog's Beginner's Choice, with Ramza's Armor likely at the top in terms of usefulness.

    --- --- --- --- ---

    New Player Hone Recommendations:

    Mitigation is king in the game and never stops being useful, so Shellga, Protectga, Power Breakdown, and Magic Breakdown should be at the top of the priority list. The regular breaks are useful too, just because a different set of characters can use them. AoE Mitigation (without damage) is offered by the Dancer line; 3* dances match up with 3* breaks, 4* with 4* breakdowns, etc. Good Dancers include Faris, Lenna, Penelo, Cait Sith, Mog, Rikku and Yuffie. Bards have their own 4* abilities which are identical to Protectga and Shellga.

    Abusing Retaliate's mechanics can cheese you through a LOT of content and it's a 2* ability, so is incredibly cheap to hone up. You can pair it with Draw Fire (also cheap) for extra cheese with cheese on top. Give the rest of your team copies of Double Cut or Tempo Flurry and use them against your Retaliator.

    Self Boosts are useful to increase a character's damage before you pull relics with Party Boosts. Many jobs have access to them; Monks have Punishing Palm which deals damage and increases ATK, Samurai have Mirror of Equity which does the same. Thieves have Steal Power which doesn't do damage but does debuff the target's ATK at the same strength as Power Breakdown. Casters with at least 4* Darkness can use Memento Mori which increases MAG but also Dooms the caster.

    If you want to get into Black Magic, start with the Water line in each tier as opposed to fire/lightning/ice; Water is infrequently resisted and easier to hone than the primary elements are. Plus it casts faster, so it does more damage over time not counting resistance/weakness.

    If you want to get into Summoning, the 3* primary element ones are good. As for 4*, Carbuncle is occasionally useful at R1, Maduin is always useful where AoE is needed and Orthros is good if you're heavily stacking MAG and have synergy. With regard to elemental 4* summons, the good ones are Alexander, Leviathan and Fat Chocobo.

    With regard to White Magic, Curaga will suffice until it doesn't (party level ~55-60+). Renewing Cure is an alternative that heals for less than Curaga but applies Low Regen. Memento of Prayer applies Low Regen to the entire party. The Dia line is really only viable if the target is weak to Holy or if you pick up some MND gear/RMs and +Holy% gear.

    With regard to Status Effects, the Machinist line is a series of 4* abilities that have a high chance to apply a status effect, and deal additional damage if the target already has that effect. White Magic has access to high proc chance Slow and Silence, while Black Magic has access to high proc chance Blind.

    With regard to Spellblades, the 3* abilities are fine. It's not really necessary to push into the 4* ones.

    After that, it all depends on your relic pulls. We're at a point in the game where pretty much every smaller population job is fleshed out with 3*, 4* and 5* abilities, so there's plenty to choose from.

    Rius on
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    38thDoe38thDoe lets never be stupid again wait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
    I'd suggest putting Keeper's Choice at the top of the special banner section, or at least over Dr. Mog's choice since as you say they are a much better selection of relics.

    Does anyone still use self boosts? I pretty much shout every battle worth using a RW on so consequently I almost never use Mirror of Equity/Steal power/Boost anymore.

    Other than that keep up the great work @Rius !

    38thDoE on steam
    🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀
    
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    silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Mmm, new thread smell.

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    NarbusNarbus Registered User regular
    38thDoe wrote: »
    I'd suggest putting Keeper's Choice at the top of the special banner section, or at least over Dr. Mog's choice since as you say they are a much better selection of relics.

    Does anyone still use self boosts? I pretty much shout every battle worth using a RW on so consequently I almost never use Mirror of Equity/Steal power/Boost anymore.

    Other than that keep up the great work @Rius !

    Depending on team composition, they can still be handy. Memeto Mori + Dark Zone means you can actually justify a caster on a Shout team. Steal Power + an atk/mag boost would likewise justify a physical attacker on a mage team.

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    ArdorArdor Registered User regular
    Thanks for keeping these threads updated Rius!

    So I find myself having all of Celes' relics, so I went ahead and did record dives on her to get white 4. I had just enough 4* vitality motes for it. My first record dive as well. Those 4* vitality motes might be the limiting reagent for a lot of non-mage record dives it seems!

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    BluecyanBluecyan Buzz.. Buzz Buzz? BUZZ! Buzz buzz BuzzRegistered User regular
    edited September 2016
    I'm always short on spirit and vitality motes both in the 3* and 4* variety. Overfull on dex motes though. Not sure if that's normal or because half of the people I'm giving motes are knights.

    Bluecyan on
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    chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    I'm pretty sure vitality motes are the most in-demand of all the types, unless you only dive black mages and summoners. I should consider using some of my 4* motes eventually, but for now I'm holding on to them. I want to be ready in case I get Onion Knight's BSB! Which is months away, but still!

    steam_sig.png
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    EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    @arcTangent

    Thanks for the translation info. Of all the lines for them to leave nearly untouched when they retranslated the game for GBA...

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    shoeboxjeddyshoeboxjeddy Registered User regular
    Using 3* Spellblades is like using aga magic: it sucks unless you vastly overpower the enemy anyway. Not sure why the tips keep saying 3 star is cool.

    Unless we're not talking bonus battle level stuff, in which case yeah lower level is fine.

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    38thDoe38thDoe lets never be stupid again wait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
    Hmm, with shout I come pretty close to capping 3* spellblades vs weakness which is where I'd assume you'd use them. I think spellblades have a much higher multiplier than magic for some reason.

    38thDoE on steam
    🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀
    
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    BluecyanBluecyan Buzz.. Buzz Buzz? BUZZ! Buzz buzz BuzzRegistered User regular
    Using 3* Spellblades is like using aga magic: it sucks unless you vastly overpower the enemy anyway. Not sure why the tips keep saying 3 star is cool.

    Unless we're not talking bonus battle level stuff, in which case yeah lower level is fine.

    The multiplier difference between 3 and 4* spell blades is a lot lower than the difference between 3 and 4* Black magic. Obviously, you'll want 4* abilities for the harder bonus battles, but you can go pretty far with just the 3* spellblades.

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    RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    The only boss I was ever unsatisfied with 3* spellblades in a properly boosted party is Mote Ifrit, who has a mind-boggling 3800 Defense.

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    FryFry Registered User regular
    edited September 2016
    Generally, you don't use elemental spellblades unless you're hitting weakness. If you're hitting weakness, a 3* spellblade is good for 3.6x multiplier (that is, slightly more than Saint Cross, but in one hit). It's plenty good. A 4* spellblade on weakness is only 4.2x multiplier, which is only 16% more damage (less, if you're hitting damage cap). There are much better ways for a new player to spend their limited supply of Power orbs than trying to hone 4* spellblades.

    eta: for black magic, the difference is a 9x multiplier vs. 4.9x, or a 83% increase. It's very noticeable (also, what else are you even going to spend black orbs on)

    Fry on
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    ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    3* spellblades are a 1.8 multiplier
    4* spellblades are a 2.1 multiplier

    For that MASSIVE 17% boost in power, you only need to spend ten times as many orbs.

    Also, if you're bringing a spellblade, aside from Drain Strike or Tornado Strike, it's to hit a weakness, so it's really easy to cap on single blows anyway.

    ztrEPtD.gif
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    ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    (also, what else are you even going to spend black orbs on)

    Spellblades, obviously.

    ztrEPtD.gif
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    EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    My kingdom for an Osmose Blade ability.

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    The WolfmanThe Wolfman Registered User regular
    After various orbfests, I've had more than enough orbs to throw at 4* spellblades.

    "The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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    chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    You know what bugs me about spellblades? Where the hell is Aeroga Strike? Also why the hell does Aerora Strike default to hitting the highest %HP enemy? It's the only spellblade besides Break Strike (which I can see the justification for with the chance to petrify) that does that.

    steam_sig.png
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    ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Enlong wrote: »
    My kingdom for an Osmose Blade ability.

    Something I never knew I always wanted.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
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    LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Hey folks, could use some quick help here.

    I just upgraded my phone and I'm trying to restore my account to my new phone. Their account link verbiage is a bit convoluted and I don't want to make a mistake here and overwrite my real account with a new account.

    So I'm on the "Manage Account" page and I've got two options: 1) Make Account Link, and 2) Overwrite Account.

    Now, if it were me, I would think that option 1 is what I would want, because that would be linking this new app with my Game Center account on iOS. But that seems to be wrong, as I get an error message that says "This Game Center account is already associated with a current game in progress." So I guess that leaves option 2? And I choose overwrite?

    Anytime the word overwrite comes into play it scares me. I do NOT want to overwrite my real account.

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    LucascraftLucascraft Registered User regular
    Follow-up: So after doing a bit of research, "Overwrite Account" is the correct option. Which is completely obtuse and un-intuitive.

    The idea they are trying to convey is that you are overwriting the blank data on the phone with the data on the social media account. But that is an absolutely terrible way of describing what is happening. Instead of the two options that exist, what they should have is "Import" and "Export" where the import function would allow you to bring in existing data, and export would allow you to backup or save the data to the social media account.

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    chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    I'm not 100% certain, so don't do anything based upon my recollection, but I believe that as long as you are logged in to Gamecenter before you install and open the app, it should automatically link. If you have your old device still, you could make a one-time code that lasts for five minutes and use that to ensure a proper transfer (though that is mostly used to switch between operating systems so it doesn't sound like what you need). Perhaps send an e-mail to DeNA support, they are actually reasonably helpful with these sorts of issues!

    I would be hesitant to "overwrite" as well, to be honest.

    steam_sig.png
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    ShamusShamus Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    3* spellblades are a 1.8 multiplier
    4* spellblades are a 2.1 multiplier

    For that MASSIVE 17% boost in power, you only need to spend ten times as many orbs.

    Also, if you're bringing a spellblade, aside from Drain Strike or Tornado Strike, it's to hit a weakness, so it's really easy to cap on single blows anyway.

    I hone 4* Spellblades. Cause I'm a baller.

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    DarklyreDarklyre Registered User regular
    Shamus wrote: »
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    3* spellblades are a 1.8 multiplier
    4* spellblades are a 2.1 multiplier

    For that MASSIVE 17% boost in power, you only need to spend ten times as many orbs.

    Also, if you're bringing a spellblade, aside from Drain Strike or Tornado Strike, it's to hit a weakness, so it's really easy to cap on single blows anyway.

    I hone 4* Spellblades. Cause I'm a baller.

    I've only got my 4* Spellblades at R1, because I generally just use them to get the medal condition and then smack the boss down with Pecil's or Cloud's BSB. Now that I have Celes' BSB, I'm debating whether I should stick with honing the 4* Spellblades, knowing that the 5* ones will come soon, or to just shatter them and make some 3* R3/R4 versions. As it is, with some combination of Shout/Maria's Song/Apocalypse Shield I'm going to cap with the 3* versions on everything but Mote Ifrit, but the 4* versions definitely have more staying power as the 200 and 250 dungeons and U++ battles come out.

    Any ideas?

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    38thDoe38thDoe lets never be stupid again wait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
    Just chain cast all your I win buttons until you win?

    38thDoE on steam
    🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀
    
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    silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Does anyone know with the five dooms if you get enough class motes to get all characters to rank 3 in their respective skill (Spellblades et al.)?

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    DarklyreDarklyre Registered User regular
    38thDoe wrote: »
    Just chain cast all your I win buttons until you win?

    The only reason I don't faceroll is because my phone's too small. :P

    Seriously, though, I don't have the hones (or the orbs) to make every skill I'd like, so I try to prioritize, and knowing that U++ is coming up, I'd like to have a shot at prepping for them instead of trying to play catch-up.

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    ShamusShamus Registered User regular
    Darklyre wrote: »
    Shamus wrote: »
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    3* spellblades are a 1.8 multiplier
    4* spellblades are a 2.1 multiplier

    For that MASSIVE 17% boost in power, you only need to spend ten times as many orbs.

    Also, if you're bringing a spellblade, aside from Drain Strike or Tornado Strike, it's to hit a weakness, so it's really easy to cap on single blows anyway.

    I hone 4* Spellblades. Cause I'm a baller.

    I've only got my 4* Spellblades at R1, because I generally just use them to get the medal condition and then smack the boss down with Pecil's or Cloud's BSB. Now that I have Celes' BSB, I'm debating whether I should stick with honing the 4* Spellblades, knowing that the 5* ones will come soon, or to just shatter them and make some 3* R3/R4 versions. As it is, with some combination of Shout/Maria's Song/Apocalypse Shield I'm going to cap with the 3* versions on everything but Mote Ifrit, but the 4* versions definitely have more staying power as the 200 and 250 dungeons and U++ battles come out.

    Any ideas?

    The 5* Spellblades I consider strictly for characters with an en(Element) or Imperil (Element) SB.

    You should be fine with the 3* Spellblades. Maybe down the road, once you find them not as effective as they were, consider honing Thundaga Blade. Assuming Celes never leaves your team, her BSSB commands covers any Fire or Ice weakness. Tornado Strike is also worth a look if you're feeling fancy.

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    DarklyreDarklyre Registered User regular
    Shamus wrote: »
    Darklyre wrote: »
    Shamus wrote: »
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    3* spellblades are a 1.8 multiplier
    4* spellblades are a 2.1 multiplier

    For that MASSIVE 17% boost in power, you only need to spend ten times as many orbs.

    Also, if you're bringing a spellblade, aside from Drain Strike or Tornado Strike, it's to hit a weakness, so it's really easy to cap on single blows anyway.

    I hone 4* Spellblades. Cause I'm a baller.

    I've only got my 4* Spellblades at R1, because I generally just use them to get the medal condition and then smack the boss down with Pecil's or Cloud's BSB. Now that I have Celes' BSB, I'm debating whether I should stick with honing the 4* Spellblades, knowing that the 5* ones will come soon, or to just shatter them and make some 3* R3/R4 versions. As it is, with some combination of Shout/Maria's Song/Apocalypse Shield I'm going to cap with the 3* versions on everything but Mote Ifrit, but the 4* versions definitely have more staying power as the 200 and 250 dungeons and U++ battles come out.

    Any ideas?

    The 5* Spellblades I consider strictly for characters with an en(Element) or Imperil (Element) SB.

    You should be fine with the 3* Spellblades. Maybe down the road, once you find them not as effective as they were, consider honing Thundaga Blade. Assuming Celes never leaves your team, her BSSB commands covers any Fire or Ice weakness. Tornado Strike is also worth a look if you're feeling fancy.

    Sounds like a plan. I might skip out on Aerora/Tornado Strike as Snowstorm Strike covers that, so I really only need to hone Lightning and possibly Poison spellblade attacks.

    Looks like my standard loadout for Celes will be two +holy equips, Drain Strike/Banishing Strike, her BSB, and +30% Spellblade damage. Between all that I think I can get the burst commands to somewhere around 15-20k/4 against a 1200 DEF boss like U+ Bartz, which is close enough to Saint Cross-levels of damage that I can keep SC on Pecil.

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    silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Alright, much better. Retried U+ Bartz, and managed to Master it while doing the Cid's Mission, and I finished the fight with no one dead. I ran the exact same set up, I just moved Bartz to the back row, gave him the 4++ bow Faris was using, and gave Faris an off realm 5* instrument. This tanked Bartz's attack a little, and Faris's attack a LOT, but by allowing me to put Bartz in the back row, it made all the difference, since dealing damage wasn't my problem, taking it was.

    Final set up (Only Greg is in the front row):
    RW: Shout
    Gilgamesh R3 Saint Cross/R3 Banishing Blade +30% Knight damage (No SB)
    Bartz R3 Full Charge/R4 Drain Strike +20% Bow damage (No SB)
    Faris R2 Full Break/R4 Power Breakdown +20% ATK and Sap (No SB) 
    Exdeath R5 Curaja/R2 Protectga Raw Power (Shared Medica)
    Lenna R3 Curaga/R2 Armor Breakdown Dance Mako Might (Shared Regenerate)
    
    Gear:
    Gilgamesh 4++ Axe/Platinum Shield/Gigas Armlet
    Bartz 4++ Bow/4++ Thornlet/+30 ATK Acc.
    Faris 5* instrument (off realm)/4++ Heavy armor/+45 ATK Acc.
    Exdeath Shared Medica Rod/Genji Armor/Gigas Armlet
    Lenna Shared Regenerate Staff/3++ Light armor/Grass Whistle
    

    That wouldn't vexed me if I didn't go back and "fix it" as it were, in my mind. Hopefully folks can take inspiration from it.

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    chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    I believe all the upcoming 5* spellblade abilities are two hit attacks at around 3.2x/2, which is not too different from hitting with a 3* spellblade twice. They are all reasonably good (but not exceptional) DPS moves, though of course if you have enElement for a spellblade character that makes them even better. Unfortunately, the only elements covered so far (so 5-6 months into the future) with the double hit spellblade abilities are Lightning, Fire and Water. Squall has ice, Bartz gets wind, Celes gets holy, Delita gets nothing and Paine gets water (eventually). So unless you get Paine's water SSB, it's going to be tricky to combine two hit spellblade with an elemental aura.

    The 6* spellblade, however, is both ice and wind, so that's useful for Squall and Bartz both. It does have a really high multiplier, so it could cap out on damage even against non-weak enemies in theory.

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    EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Cleaning up some Elites for orbs and mythril.

    Gotta say, making Flashing Blade for Greg is proving a nice boon. Even when a boss isn't multitarget, being able to delete a few waves of trash on the way there is nice.

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    Dr. ChaosDr. Chaos Post nuclear nuisance Registered User regular
    edited September 2016
    I regret wasting so much mythril on that FFV banner when I could have been using it on Keeper's Choice.

    Also wasting enhancements on Excalipoor before checking it's stats and remembering it's gimmick from FFV.

    I'm....not very good at this.

    Dr. Chaos on
    Pokemon GO: 7113 6338 6875/ FF14: Buckle Landrunner /Steam Profile
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    SavantSavant Simply Barbaric Registered User regular
    Dr. Chaos wrote: »
    I regret wasting so much mythril on that FFV banner when I could have been using it on Keeper's Choice.

    Also wasting enhancements on Excalipoor before checking it's stats and remembering it's gimmick from FFV.

    I'm....not very good at this.

    An augmented excalipoor can be used to augment another 5* and it will pass the augments onto it. Unless you meant just regular upgrade materials, then yeah you don't get those back, but that's usually not a huge deal.

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    IlpalaIlpala Just this guy, y'know TexasRegistered User regular
    Did the CM for Bartz, but it was rougher than I expected without wall (Light of the Four is a straight beating, and you just gotta hope he doesn't hit any non-full-health character two or more times)

    I also did another CM..
    2ncnx2fwg4mx.png
    YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSS

    FF XIV - Qih'to Furishu (on Siren), Battle.Net - Ilpala#1975
    Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
    Fuck Joe Manchin
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    BeastehBeasteh THAT WOULD NOT KILL DRACULARegistered User regular
    edited September 2016
    Prima Donna Ultimates are going to be fun

    way easier than Butz with his atomic kick spam

    My SBs are Shadow Fang, Indomitable Blade, Drill, Blood of Espers/Fire Beam and Prismatic Flash

    Shadow Fang can basically delete a single phase of Ultros

    Beasteh on
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    EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Your Terra has Blood of Espers AND Fire Beam? That's awesome. Give her Wrath and Ifrit and you're set. If only she could use Memento Mori.

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    A duck!A duck! Moderator, ClubPA mod
    Beasteh wrote: »
    Prima Donna Ultimates are going to be fun

    way easier than Butz with his atomic kick spam

    My SBs are Shadow Fang, Indomitable Blade, Drill, Blood of Espers/Fire Beam and Prismatic Flash

    Shadow Fang can basically delete a single phase of Ultros

    I am completely stacked for this one with IB, Valiant Knife and Ichigeki..and Gau's SSB.

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    EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    The VI SBs I have are Runic Blade, Trance Flood, Magitek Missile, and Dive Bomb. At least I know that last one will do good damage against Ultros.

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    ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited September 2016
    Japan's 2nd anniversary orbfest got a 90 stamina dungeon.

    The bad news is that the overall orb drop rate per stamina is looking pretty much about the same as our last orbfest's 60 stamina dungeon was (with the boosted cactuar spawn rate), and maybe even slightly worse.

    ArcTangent on
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