You can't just post that and not post what you got! =P
Whoops, uhh Power Circle for Snow, Whale Whisker for Strago, Golden Hairpin for Quina, and Seifer's Coat. It doesn't sound like any of them are particularly great? But it's better than whatever crap gear I was still wearing so still a win I guess.
You can't just post that and not post what you got! =P
Whoops, uhh Power Circle for Snow, Whale Whisker for Strago, Golden Hairpin for Quina, and Seifer's Coat. It doesn't sound like any of them are particularly great? But it's better than whatever crap gear I was still wearing so still a win I guess.
Power Circle - Doesn't suck per se; 4 hits AoE with an elemental flavor will come in handy from time to time. Party +50% Def never hurts. Snow is a rare combination; Monk/Knight.
Whale Wisker - Party Protect + Shell + 100% Res takes care of your non-Wall mitigation for most difficult fights, and frees up an ability slot on your healer. Strago himself is pretty weak, character-wise.
Golden Hairpin - Party +50% ATK is definitely, definitely great. Even better on a Support character; you can fire this off at the start of the fight and RW a defensive Hastega. Quina is a serviceable Support.
Seifer's Coat - Like Snow's relic, but 66% as much damage (Unique vs SSB), non-elementally flavored, boosting +50% Res instead. This is also not bad. Seifer is a Darkness/Knight, and that's always a usable combo.
Depending on what you've already got, that's a reasonably decent set of relics. Seifer's Coat is the worst of them and it ain't bad.
Zell's maverick, dupe Spharai (Also Yda is baller and this SSB is good), the Odin whip and Selphie's BSSB, which is actually my first proper medica burst. So that's pretty damn great. Even if her skillset is apparently kind of awful.
You can't just post that and not post what you got! =P
Whoops, uhh Power Circle for Snow, Whale Whisker for Strago, Golden Hairpin for Quina, and Seifer's Coat. It doesn't sound like any of them are particularly great? But it's better than whatever crap gear I was still wearing so still a win I guess.
Golden Hairpin is interesting because it's an armor that boosts water damage. Not too useful for you now, but you may pull Tidus' Burst or Overstrike at some point, and it'll be great with those. The soul break on the Hairpin is party +50% ATK, also known as "your team deals double damage" which as you might guess is great. There are better sources for that effect (Shout) but you may get some use out of it.
The buffs from Strago and Seifer don't stack, so you will only want to use one or the other. Strago's is a pretty nice defensive package, seeing as it also includes Protectga and Shellga, so you might try using that. Eventually you'll outgrow him, but you could do worse than to have him as your healer with Curaga or Renewing Cure.
The Whale Whisker and especially the Golden Hakrpin are your winners out of that draw.
Being able to apply Protect and Shell to your entire party is a very nice ability to have, as it can free up ability slots on your other characters that would otherwise go to Protectga or Shellga.
And Quina'a Frog Drop boosts the party'a attack power similarly to Shout, meaning you can call in a Roaming Warrior with a Haste effect that isn't Shout.
Also, the golden hairpin itself boosts Water damage of anyone equipped with it. That is an extremely rare effect.
Is Rikku's Hyper NullAll any good? I encouraged my buddy to draw on the buff banner because he doesn't have any buff relics. That's what he got.
It's not bad on the surface but ends up significantly worse than you'd think because instead of having a buff ID that contains both effects in one buff, it instead grants both effects as separate buffs, so it stacks with far fewer things than you'd expect.
I used it all the time before Shout, and now I still use it occasionally in more niche scenarios.
Like, it's actually nice to use on my mage teams, since Edea's SB is typically providing the hastega+faithga. So Rikku can be Dancer Support and use HNA give everyone some added magic defense (and a damage buff to the token physical DPS that might be on the team). It's not nearly as good as it once was, but it has its uses.
Zell's maverick, dupe Spharai (Also Yda is baller and this SSB is good), the Odin whip and Selphie's BSSB, which is actually my first proper medica burst. So that's pretty damn great. Even if her skillset is apparently kind of awful.
The unfortunate part about Selphie's BSB is that it doesn't have a heal on entry. The buff itself is great for a mage team, and the commands are fine, but the lack of a big heal on entry has always bothered me about it.
So, now that i have a native shout, shall I see what crazy shenanigans I can get up to with Sephiroth? I'm thinking Shout + OK BSB + other stuff to totally go over the buff soft cap but whatever, I want to see what he can do with over 1k ATK.
To the person who asked about Iga Blade, I get decent usage out of it. It's a BSB on a character with good stats and ability uses whose attack 1 is a two hit dispel, and whose attack 2 boosts others' SB Bar. The former saves an ability slot, the latter is very rarely used, but can help in a pinch when, for example, you get one of those fucking bosses that always seems to time a devastating attack RIGHT after wall has faded but before you can cast again.
Mm yes. I will continue to use Sephiroth with his Transience attack. Tried Bahamut FURY again for fun, and to test-drive a Kuja/Sephiroth mixed team, and his second Transience did between 5.5 and 6 K per hit. I want to see what it can do in a fight where I can bring Vaan and stack defensive debuffs on the boss. The dream, of course, is to see Sephiroth land a second Transience for 99,990 damage.
Meltdown is generally considered the best of the Nightmare skills I'm pretty sure. Curada is also fairly good (especially if you have a WHM BSB with a single target heal command) as it starts with 4 uses at r1. Northern Cross is also fairly useful, though I believe it shares crystals with the 6* Spellblade ability? I'm not sure exactly.
Affliction Break can be very good in the right fights. Equip your team with status-resist gear and hit the boss with Affliction Break, and you will greatly reduce their ability to inflict that particular status effect. And it's a strong DPS option for Support characters in any case. And remember; any attack that deals damage equal to a percentage of your maximum HP counts as an Instant Death effect, and can be made to Miss in that way.
Affliction Break seems fairly mandatory in a lot of harder content in multiplayer and looks useful for enough SP fights to be worth making. Especially if you can get Minfilia's Burst. Give her Saint Cross and Affliction Break and go to town.
I think the general consensus is that the best 6* skills are Meltdown, Curada, Omega Drive, and Valigarmanda.
Affliction Break and Mug Bloodlust are also extremely good. Lifebane is good if you have a monk with a stacking self-boost, and Sky High if you have a dragoon who can en-wind.
Northern Cross and Snowspell Strike use the same crystals and so can't be honed together. Of the two, NC has more users, as SSS is limited to maybe 3 users.
Aegis Strike hits like a truck if you have a physical en-holy, but it overlaps with the more generally useful Curada.
Temple Gloves XIV, and Almasy Revolver VIII, not dupes so that is nice. I probably shouldn't have pulled since I have OK and Celes BSB, Shout, and both walls already. Oh well synergy is always nice.
There's a really interesting post from Enlir on Reddit regarding crit. The tl;dr is that crit bonuses from skills or BSB commands not only stack with crit bonuses from status effects, they do so additively. So, for example, if you have Zell's BSB up and use Exploding Fist it has a 70% crit rate. Or if you have Cloud or Lightning's BSB it will give their commands a 100% crit rate. So as someone with all three....
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
There's a really interesting post from Enlir on Reddit regarding crit. The tl;dr is that crit bonuses from skills or BSB commands not only stack with crit bonuses from status effects, they do so additively. So, for example, if you have Zell's BSB up and use Exploding Fist it has a 70% crit rate. Or if you have Cloud or Lightning's BSB it will give their commands a 100% crit rate. So as someone with all three....
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
Huh, this is news to me. Even if it doesn't change much, it's still nice to know that this is the case; it's helpful to know that abilities with a high crit rate are not redundant when combined with one of the many abilities that set your crit rate to 50%.
There's a really interesting post from Enlir on Reddit regarding crit. The tl;dr is that crit bonuses from skills or BSB commands not only stack with crit bonuses from status effects, they do so additively. So, for example, if you have Zell's BSB up and use Exploding Fist it has a 70% crit rate. Or if you have Cloud or Lightning's BSB it will give their commands a 100% crit rate. So as someone with all three....
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
Huh, this is news to me. Even if it doesn't change much, it's still nice to know that this is the case; it's helpful to know that abilities with a high crit rate are not redundant when combined with one of the many abilities that set your crit rate to 50%.
The only caveat is that they don't stack if you get the crit status while the skill/command is charging. Apparently the crit rate is locked in when you start your action, not when it executes.
There's a really interesting post from Enlir on Reddit regarding crit. The tl;dr is that crit bonuses from skills or BSB commands not only stack with crit bonuses from status effects, they do so additively. So, for example, if you have Zell's BSB up and use Exploding Fist it has a 70% crit rate. Or if you have Cloud or Lightning's BSB it will give their commands a 100% crit rate. So as someone with all three....
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
Huh, this is news to me. Even if it doesn't change much, it's still nice to know that this is the case; it's helpful to know that abilities with a high crit rate are not redundant when combined with one of the many abilities that set your crit rate to 50%.
The only caveat is that they don't stack if you get the crit status while the skill/command is charging. Apparently the crit rate is locked in when you start your action, not when it executes.
Is there a chance that applies to other buffs as well?
Whee, those FF7 Elites were fun, bring along Zack to apply imperil wind, then have Cloud keep charging his SB until just short of 2-3 bars, cast Climhazard then Finishing Touch for just short of capped damage.
There's a really interesting post from Enlir on Reddit regarding crit. The tl;dr is that crit bonuses from skills or BSB commands not only stack with crit bonuses from status effects, they do so additively. So, for example, if you have Zell's BSB up and use Exploding Fist it has a 70% crit rate. Or if you have Cloud or Lightning's BSB it will give their commands a 100% crit rate. So as someone with all three....
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
Huh, this is news to me. Even if it doesn't change much, it's still nice to know that this is the case; it's helpful to know that abilities with a high crit rate are not redundant when combined with one of the many abilities that set your crit rate to 50%.
The only caveat is that they don't stack if you get the crit status while the skill/command is charging. Apparently the crit rate is locked in when you start your action, not when it executes.
Is there a chance that applies to other buffs as well?
I think it'll only be Crits because every other thing you can get on attack comes in as a status effect. Crit is in inherent number (like accuracy) in every attack. The skills with crit bonuses just have that fixed at 20 or some other number rather than 0.
Should have really read the title of the the thread... Did a pull on the lucky banner. Got Sazh's gun that attack everyone 3 times and buff attack moderately. Also got another Ribbon (which is actually really good, and is pretty consistently my highest MND item in any realm). Oh well, 25 mithril is nothing.
How viable is it to turn Ramza into a SB battery? Have some other support do the breakage and have Ramza do nothing but Shout, charge up SB via Lifesiphon and Entrust to whoever needs a charge?
Just fucking around with crit numbers for my own reference:
Cloud and Lightning BSB 4x commands: 3.0 mod (7.1% increase)
Exploding Fist: 3.915 mod (22.3% increase)
Sky Grinder: 3.45 mod (20.2% increase)
Exploding Fist gets near okay, but Full Charge or a jump under the same bonus is above a 5.5 mod. Sky Grinder remains the best 5* phys AoE, however.
Edit - when Ramza's crit damage fixing comes in Sky Grinder and Exploding Fist do get a bigger relative increase vs other skills (EF is 54% vs 50% for other skills), but that's a lot of setup to get a .986×5 hit skill.
The spider was the worst, not surprisingly, thanks to that AoE stop and how stupid high the damage from EMP field was. I forgot to bring lightning resist, so I I ended up using my first round to set up as much defense as I could, then dropped shout/maria's song only after the first stop had worn off. The thing doesn't have that big an HP pool, so reupping the defenses right after the second stop was over gave me plenty of time to murder him. Blood of the Wyvern + Lightning Dive remains good times.
G Eraser, like every boss that relies exclusively on physical or magical damage, was a joke.
You people REALLY weren't joking about how easy Bahamut was with resist KO accessories. This batch was some of the easiest bonus battles we've had lately.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
The spider was the worst, not surprisingly, thanks to that AoE stop and how stupid high the damage from EMP field was. I forgot to bring lightning resist, so I I ended up using my first round to set up as much defense as I could, then dropped shout/maria's song only after the first stop had worn off. The thing doesn't have that big an HP pool, so reupping the defenses right after the second stop was over gave me plenty of time to murder him. Blood of the Wyvern + Lightning Dive remains good times.
G Eraser, like every boss that relies exclusively on physical or magical damage, was a joke.
You people REALLY weren't joking about how easy Bahamut was with resist KO accessories. This batch was some of the easiest bonus battles we've had lately.
I also think the power creep is real.
When Torment dungeons come out, then people will be sad and frustrated again.
The spider was the worst, not surprisingly, thanks to that AoE stop and how stupid high the damage from EMP field was. I forgot to bring lightning resist, so I I ended up using my first round to set up as much defense as I could, then dropped shout/maria's song only after the first stop had worn off. The thing doesn't have that big an HP pool, so reupping the defenses right after the second stop was over gave me plenty of time to murder him. Blood of the Wyvern + Lightning Dive remains good times.
G Eraser, like every boss that relies exclusively on physical or magical damage, was a joke.
You people REALLY weren't joking about how easy Bahamut was with resist KO accessories. This batch was some of the easiest bonus battles we've had lately.
I also think the power creep is real.
When Torment dungeons come out, then people will be sad and frustrated again.
That's true. Even before I dropped (my TWO) atk buffs, Fang was hitting for over 20K with Lightning Dive. If I hadn't been able to upfront that kind of damage, I don't know if my strategy would have worked.
That is pretty interesting that crit actually works slightly differently from how everybody thought. Of special note is that the most recent crit chance buff is the one applied, so using Jecht's 25% crit buff after using Eiko's 50% (for example) results in Jecht's being applied and not Eiko's. This makes Sky Grinder and Exploding Fist more useful than was previously believed. Very nice to finally have what seems like a definitive answer.
"most recent buff applies" is how everything else works, and is why Wrath can be sad times on a Shout team. But yeah, definitely interesting that abilities and commands with innate high-crit-rate still benefit from a crit buff effect.
"most recent buff applies" is how everything else works, and is why Wrath can be sad times on a Shout team. But yeah, definitely interesting that abilities and commands with innate high-crit-rate still benefit from a crit buff effect.
There's a strange thing about that which is likely to not ever be relevant, but they don't actually overwrite. The last one applied takes precedence, but as I understand it the first one is still there. I think if the second buff had a shorter duration and wore off while the first was still in effect you'd revert to that buff until it expired.
How viable is it to turn Ramza into a SB battery? Have some other support do the breakage and have Ramza do nothing but Shout, charge up SB via Lifesiphon and Entrust to whoever needs a charge?
Entrust doesn't really charge THAT much, is the problem.
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Whoops, uhh Power Circle for Snow, Whale Whisker for Strago, Golden Hairpin for Quina, and Seifer's Coat. It doesn't sound like any of them are particularly great? But it's better than whatever crap gear I was still wearing so still a win I guess.
Power Circle - Doesn't suck per se; 4 hits AoE with an elemental flavor will come in handy from time to time. Party +50% Def never hurts. Snow is a rare combination; Monk/Knight.
Whale Wisker - Party Protect + Shell + 100% Res takes care of your non-Wall mitigation for most difficult fights, and frees up an ability slot on your healer. Strago himself is pretty weak, character-wise.
Golden Hairpin - Party +50% ATK is definitely, definitely great. Even better on a Support character; you can fire this off at the start of the fight and RW a defensive Hastega. Quina is a serviceable Support.
Seifer's Coat - Like Snow's relic, but 66% as much damage (Unique vs SSB), non-elementally flavored, boosting +50% Res instead. This is also not bad. Seifer is a Darkness/Knight, and that's always a usable combo.
Depending on what you've already got, that's a reasonably decent set of relics. Seifer's Coat is the worst of them and it ain't bad.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
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Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Zell's maverick, dupe Spharai (Also Yda is baller and this SSB is good), the Odin whip and Selphie's BSSB, which is actually my first proper medica burst. So that's pretty damn great. Even if her skillset is apparently kind of awful.
Golden Hairpin is interesting because it's an armor that boosts water damage. Not too useful for you now, but you may pull Tidus' Burst or Overstrike at some point, and it'll be great with those. The soul break on the Hairpin is party +50% ATK, also known as "your team deals double damage" which as you might guess is great. There are better sources for that effect (Shout) but you may get some use out of it.
The buffs from Strago and Seifer don't stack, so you will only want to use one or the other. Strago's is a pretty nice defensive package, seeing as it also includes Protectga and Shellga, so you might try using that. Eventually you'll outgrow him, but you could do worse than to have him as your healer with Curaga or Renewing Cure.
Being able to apply Protect and Shell to your entire party is a very nice ability to have, as it can free up ability slots on your other characters that would otherwise go to Protectga or Shellga.
And Quina'a Frog Drop boosts the party'a attack power similarly to Shout, meaning you can call in a Roaming Warrior with a Haste effect that isn't Shout.
Also, the golden hairpin itself boosts Water damage of anyone equipped with it. That is an extremely rare effect.
I used it all the time before Shout, and now I still use it occasionally in more niche scenarios.
Like, it's actually nice to use on my mage teams, since Edea's SB is typically providing the hastega+faithga. So Rikku can be Dancer Support and use HNA give everyone some added magic defense (and a damage buff to the token physical DPS that might be on the team). It's not nearly as good as it once was, but it has its uses.
Now all I need to do is get those characters eventually and I'll be all set!
The unfortunate part about Selphie's BSB is that it doesn't have a heal on entry. The buff itself is great for a mage team, and the commands are fine, but the lack of a big heal on entry has always bothered me about it.
Though I'm hoping to make it instantly obsolete with my FFXIV pulls but lulz I more I'll just end up with a 8* healers robe.
Now which of these are actually worth making? Meltdown is good, right?
Affliction Break can be very good in the right fights. Equip your team with status-resist gear and hit the boss with Affliction Break, and you will greatly reduce their ability to inflict that particular status effect. And it's a strong DPS option for Support characters in any case. And remember; any attack that deals damage equal to a percentage of your maximum HP counts as an Instant Death effect, and can be made to Miss in that way.
Affliction Break and Mug Bloodlust are also extremely good. Lifebane is good if you have a monk with a stacking self-boost, and Sky High if you have a dragoon who can en-wind.
Northern Cross and Snowspell Strike use the same crystals and so can't be honed together. Of the two, NC has more users, as SSS is limited to maybe 3 users.
Aegis Strike hits like a truck if you have a physical en-holy, but it overlaps with the more generally useful Curada.
Edit - realistically, though, you're pretty much always better off using a skill not balanced around crits (Full Charge, jumps) with a crit boosting status effect. It's not guaranteed but it's better in the long run.
Huh, this is news to me. Even if it doesn't change much, it's still nice to know that this is the case; it's helpful to know that abilities with a high crit rate are not redundant when combined with one of the many abilities that set your crit rate to 50%.
The only caveat is that they don't stack if you get the crit status while the skill/command is charging. Apparently the crit rate is locked in when you start your action, not when it executes.
Is there a chance that applies to other buffs as well?
MWO: Adamski
I think it'll only be Crits because every other thing you can get on attack comes in as a status effect. Crit is in inherent number (like accuracy) in every attack. The skills with crit bonuses just have that fixed at 20 or some other number rather than 0.
It's got its hooks in all of us. Especially with Orbfest/OSBfest/holidays/FF14 all coming up soon. This is the best time of the year for this game.
I expect many sad people, and a few very happy ones, after next week.
How viable is it to turn Ramza into a SB battery? Have some other support do the breakage and have Ramza do nothing but Shout, charge up SB via Lifesiphon and Entrust to whoever needs a charge?
Cloud and Lightning BSB 4x commands: 3.0 mod (7.1% increase)
Exploding Fist: 3.915 mod (22.3% increase)
Sky Grinder: 3.45 mod (20.2% increase)
Exploding Fist gets near okay, but Full Charge or a jump under the same bonus is above a 5.5 mod. Sky Grinder remains the best 5* phys AoE, however.
Edit - when Ramza's crit damage fixing comes in Sky Grinder and Exploding Fist do get a bigger relative increase vs other skills (EF is 54% vs 50% for other skills), but that's a lot of setup to get a .986×5 hit skill.
The spider was the worst, not surprisingly, thanks to that AoE stop and how stupid high the damage from EMP field was. I forgot to bring lightning resist, so I I ended up using my first round to set up as much defense as I could, then dropped shout/maria's song only after the first stop had worn off. The thing doesn't have that big an HP pool, so reupping the defenses right after the second stop was over gave me plenty of time to murder him. Blood of the Wyvern + Lightning Dive remains good times.
G Eraser, like every boss that relies exclusively on physical or magical damage, was a joke.
You people REALLY weren't joking about how easy Bahamut was with resist KO accessories. This batch was some of the easiest bonus battles we've had lately.
I also think the power creep is real.
When Torment dungeons come out, then people will be sad and frustrated again.
That's true. Even before I dropped (my TWO) atk buffs, Fang was hitting for over 20K with Lightning Dive. If I hadn't been able to upfront that kind of damage, I don't know if my strategy would have worked.
There's a strange thing about that which is likely to not ever be relevant, but they don't actually overwrite. The last one applied takes precedence, but as I understand it the first one is still there. I think if the second buff had a shorter duration and wore off while the first was still in effect you'd revert to that buff until it expired.
Entrust doesn't really charge THAT much, is the problem.