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Posts

  • DaffyddDaffydd Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Fry wrote: »
    Re: using Edgar OSB for the Mandragoras, I arrived at the same numbers as given in the reddit thread when I use the same assumptions: 30% damage RM + Multi Break + armor breakdown dance with 650 ATK vs 1452 DEF = 41162 damage per cast. If your RW caller doesn't have a correct RM equipped, you don't have armor breakdown stacked, and your RW only has 550 ATK, then yeah you're only going to see like 20968 per cast, so you're gonna have a bad time. eta: hmm, seems likely you would see Mystery Waltz by the time you're ready to go off, which will reduce your damage by ~10% from the calculated numbers

    I found a friend code that has 650 ATK (QTzy), so I'm going to give it a try. The one immediate issue I can see is that it might be tough to get two RW casts out of the same character without getting blown up by five shrubs that are all in weak phase at the same time. It'd be a lot easier if I had Quistis or my own Edgar up to level 99 so I could have two correct +30% damage RMs - then I could have one character launch the first RW while Vaan/Fran is sitting on a Powerchain charge to immediately follow with the second. Maybe I'll see if I can get by with one 30% and one 20% RM. I also worry that going with armor breakdownce instead of power breakdownce might be suicidal, but we'll find out.

    Maybe Larsa faith/protectga, Penelo dance/dance, Basch gaia cross/whatever, Fran power chain/blindga, and Ashe AoE. Two shots of Bahamut from Ashe, Basch uses the first Edgar OSB, and Fran power chains and uses the second OSB. If Ashe is doing enough damage, Basch gets gaia cross off timely, and you don't get unlucky, you're done in two rounds. No time for heal... Larsa needs to faith an Ashe with 500 base MAG and Devotion to do ~20k per Bahamut. Maybe you can get away with haste RM on Larsa and casting Protectga second round if Basch gets Gaia Cross off fast enough. Between Mystery Waltz, AoE, enemy proshellga and other misfortunes, you'll need some S/L. But it should work, and it's a fast run either way.

    Daffydd on
  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    I quit this damn Cid Mission. Gonna come back with my full Mage team, plus Wall and Raines RW. See how they like that.

  • TakelTakel Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    For the record: I did the fight CM with ZERO native SBs.
    Repeat: Zero native SBs. No shared, no uniques, no SSBs no BSBs nothing. The only SB I used was an RW Metamorphose and I only got one use out of it. Was there a lot of SL'ing involved? Hell yes. I master Torment 250s faster than what it took for me to kill this god damn fight.

    The team:
    Fran - Dismissal, Sleep Buster - Haste RM
    Larsa - Ultra Cure, Protectga - Haste RM
    Ashe - Alexander R4, Bahamut R3 - +20% SMN damage
    Balthier - Blind Shell, Confuse Shell - Haste RM
    Penelo - Halting Rumba, Multi Break - Haste RM

    RW: Metamorphose


    Strategy:
    This was a full lock down, them AoE them to death ASAP killing them all at the same time.
    Fran Sleep Bustered the Pumpkin
    Larsa Protectga'd
    Ashe called in the RW
    Balthier Confuse Shelled the Onion
    Penelo Halting Rumba'd to stop the King

    Fran kept attempting to sleep her target, otherwise spam Dismissal against the second one
    Larsa spot healed
    Ashe charged up her MAG using the AoE command
    Balthier continued to attempt to Confuse the Onion otherwise Blind against the Tomato
    Penelo cycled Multi Break and Halting Rumba

    Once everything was disabled, Ashe spammed Alexander to get them down to about 50%. Fran continued to attempt to lock down the second one with Dismissals while Balthier carefully shot down the highest HP target except the sleep and confused target for obvious reasons. When the HP is low enough, Spam Bahamut. Kill them all at the same time.


    If I were to do this better (never again though):
    Get a shared Protectga on Ashe and swap her RM to MM/DMW. Have her protectga, Larsa will carry Dispel and hit the 2nd and the tomato with dispel to remove their haste. Those two are the only ones that can still attack and they still hurt.

    Takel on
    Steam | PSN: MystLansfeld | 3DS: 4656-6210-1377 | FFXIV: Lavinia Lansfeld
    Spectrum
  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Multibreak instead of the power breakdown dance? Wouldn't the latter remove the War Dance buff?

  • TakelTakel Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Doesn't matter when they're all disabled. And it clears the mastery condition. Yes, I'm masochistic, CM with no SBs and Mastery at the same time.

    If you just want to clear, yeah you could power breakdown them to reduce the damage but three of them are out of the fight and of the remaining two, one is blind, the damage isn't that bad.

    And who's bright idea was it to have the demon wall dish out 3x 7k hits in its opening move?!

    Takel on
    Steam | PSN: MystLansfeld | 3DS: 4656-6210-1377 | FFXIV: Lavinia Lansfeld
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    I ran out of steam trying the lockdown method with Raines BSB, but can come really close to killing them with the Edgar OSB method. I can usually get 2-3 of them down, but the last ones do their bitchy spammy thing and kill/disable someone bad at the wrong time to mess stuff up. The key is definitely to get all to as close to 50 as possible before unleashing Edgar and then a little bit of luck to finish it off. Not having issues with damage or too many with status effects until that point, so I'm pretty sure I can get it this way.

    I'm also not taking just doing it the 'normal' way with some flavor of Hastega (two native stacking boostgas) off the table. Not using Vaan with his BSB feels weird.

    ArcTangent on
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  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Aaaah, the gallery of failures.
    m4jhYH4.png5DXUckP.pngYuvN01N.png

    Plus a couple more before I started capping. That last one is especially awful because it immediately Screamed and killed everyone but Penelo and Larsa. Yay. No damage output left besides her BSB. And that's a nope.

    But eventual success.
    yfLFXEe.pngSN6KPCt.pngdjGnYk5.png

    Get the absolute strongest Edgar OSB you can. I think mine was ~620, good enough for about 25-30k each. I chose to lock down #1 (confuse) and #4 (blind), but sleeping #5 would've probably been better than the confuse since it was bitchy with the AoEs, and since it's weak to dark, Ultima did extra damage, enough with an extra couple Bahamuts to get it in range of being 2-shot by the OSB. Also key was defending with Basch after Gaia Cross to keep the ST damage way down. Probably could've put him in the back row too since he didn't contribute much damage, but he was more or less fine. Opened with Penelo's BSB to heal the starting damage, then she danced to set them up before going to C2 to help put everyone at full. Slow rolled things in the middle a little to get #2 and #3 down closer to 50% since they were lagging. Fired off a Bahamut and the OSB (Balthier) at the same time to put them into the danger zone. Reserved Larsa's turn (since I doubted his ST heal would've helped) for him to fire off the second and secure the kill.

    Stats/Setup
    VD729Mi.pngC4MASkS.png
    SBs: Evanescence
    RW: Edgar OSB

    ArcTangent on
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    SpectrumRius
  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    God fucking dammit! Randomly-applied mass-Slow is infuriating!

    I can't even do anything different! It's a shitty luck mechanic, no matter what party I might bring!

    Daffyddshoeboxjeddy
  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Fuck it. If this is the game they're playing, this game can take a break for a while.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Thanks to everyone who came out for MP tonight. This one was a real nail biter.

  • SpectrumSpectrum Archer of Inferno Chaldea Rec RoomRegistered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Fuck off Mandragoras.
    SbhNViDl.pngAGLFiDFl.pngBfENYl6l.pngn6Y4o3Dl.png

    Three tries. (Technically four after I forgot to bring a Dark Attack the first time.) RNG needed to be favorable for Celes to not get first turn killed before mitigation went up, afterwards I got them all to about 60% with Celes's BSB commands, Lightning's Life Siphon, and a late BSB from Faris except for Pumpkin Star because he got an early Protect so the damage was lagging. Then with Multi Break + Box Step Sarabande + Maria's Song + Shout, Lightning's Lightning Strike did 35k, immediately followed by Crushing Blow with quad 9s for 50k and cleared the board except for Pumpkin Star, who went down shortly thereafter.

    In order to do this I had to finally craft Multi Break, finally craft Wrath and hone to R2, and hone one of my dances to R2 to give Faris enough ability uses, but totally worth.

    Not bothering with the CM as usual.

    Spectrum on
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    GnizmoRius
  • GnizmoGnizmo Registered User regular
    Wrath is a really neat skill and lets you do some fun tricks. What SBs was Y'shtola rocking if you don't mind me asking. Just kinda curious how you were using her.

  • SpectrumSpectrum Archer of Inferno Chaldea Rec RoomRegistered User regular
    Gnizmo wrote: »
    Wrath is a really neat skill and lets you do some fun tricks. What SBs was Y'shtola rocking if you don't mind me asking. Just kinda curious how you were using her.

    Stoneskin II and just there as a Wall bot (I have Aetherial Pulse but it practically never sees use). I've posted before about my issues with having people splattered on the turn to turn 1/2 between Wall casts so I was determined for that not to happen this time. I needed a second Dancer anyway to make this work, so that worked out fine shifting the Curaja to Penelo (who conveniently is Dancer 5 for Multi Break since Faris isn't).

    XNnw6Gk.jpg
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Hm. Next week's U++ is apparently a pure damage rush designed for people who have suddenly found themselves with powerful OSBs. Like from some kind of fest that should've been going on dumping a ludicrous amount of mythril and lucky draws on you. Because you have 13 turns before it uses a super nuke and you fail a medal condition. Hmmmm.

    ArcTangent on
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  • SpectrumSpectrum Archer of Inferno Chaldea Rec RoomRegistered User regular
    edited February 2017
    tXv9Sral.png

    Huh. This is the first week I've ever managed the full clear.

    Is...is this what progress feels like?

    (well probably only sort of, FFXII is one of my really good realms)

    Spectrum on
    XNnw6Gk.jpg
    Joe Camacho MKIIchrisnlRiusDarklyreGnizmoJragghenDaffyddEl FantasticoGnome-InterruptusJavenFrysilence1186Ardorshoeboxjeddy
  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Hm. Next week's U++ is apparently a pure damage rush designed for people who have suddenly found themselves with powerful OSBs. Like from some kind of fest that should've been going on dumping a ludicrous amount of mythril and lucky draws on you. Because you have 13 turns before it uses a super nuke and you fail a medal condition. Hmmmm.

    Well on the plus side, even if you can't swing mastery on the U++, the mastery rewards are utterly trivial.

    steam_sig.png
    El Fantastico
  • DarklyreDarklyre Registered User regular
    Considering all the aggravation about the Mandragoras, I'm thinking the CM isn't worth it, especially for MPOs.

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Darklyre wrote: »
    Considering all the aggravation about the Mandragoras, I'm thinking the CM isn't worth it, especially for MPOs.

    That's what they want. That's how they beat you. They know you're afraid of them.

    ztrEPtD.gif
    Fry
  • Joe Camacho MKIIJoe Camacho MKII Registered User regular
    Well guys, your posts really made me afraid of even trying the mandragora's fight.

    Managed to mastered it on my first try, no CM and I might used my second RW SG too early; but managed to beat them all even if Pecil did not managed to shake off his blind status. Lost a medal for KOs and two for damage taken but still mastered it.

    Deployment tactics saves the day again.

    steam_sig.png I edit my posts a lot.
  • DarklyreDarklyre Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Darklyre wrote: »
    Considering all the aggravation about the Mandragoras, I'm thinking the CM isn't worth it, especially for MPOs.

    That's what they want. That's how they beat you. They know you're afraid of them.

    Shiiiiit...and I'm incredibly stacked for XII, too (though I'm missing Larsa's hastega medica, which prevents me from simply RWing Wall to go along with Apoc Shield). I'll probably beat it regular-style first, then give the CM a few tries in the next few days in between dailies.

    I think my preliminary team will be:

    Ashe - Chain Thundaga/Faith, Dusk's Decree, Devotion
    Basch - Gaia Cross/Banishing Strike, Apocalypse Shield/Ruin Impendent, Knight's Charge
    Vaan - Lifesiphon/Mug Bloodlust, Ark Blast, Mako Might
    Penelo - Exhausting Polka/Multi Break, Intercession, Battleforged
    Larsa - Curaja/Protectga, Shared Medica, Dr. Mog's Teachings

    RW will be Metamorphose.

    Everyone will be in the back row. The idea is to nuke them down one at a time using Raines's BSB on Ashe, combined with Vaan Ark Blasting. I should be able to kill 2-3 of them by the time the RWs run out, at which time Ashe will have enough meter to get her own BSB up and running. The question is whether Larsa and Penelo are able to mitigate/heal enough, especially with no Esuna.

    If it doesn't work, I'll probably switch out Vaan for Gabranth (Lifesiphon/Dark Bargain, Enrage/Fulminating Oblivion, Truthseeker) and RW Edgar's OSB, then get them to near 50% so that Gabranth can do his en-dark/SSB combo while someone else pops the RW.

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Get fucking wrecked, Mandragoras.
    eg4G8JW.jpg

    Let's call that divine anger for your awful boss fight.

    BfoGXG7.jpg

    Yeah, go to vegetable heaven. Just never bother me again.

    Z5dncw6.jpg

    The biggest surprise of the run.

    I ultimately went for that lockdown method mentioned. Used Multibreak to lower their stats a little, and then Penelo (Halting Rhumba), Balthier (Blind Shell and Confusion Shell), and Vaan (Dismissal and Sleep Buster) did their thing, while Ashe summoned a Cid Raines BSB and went to town with Alexander spells.

    The battle ended with Vaan and Ashe alone against the Onion Queen, after she'd been healed to almost half health and buffed four times by Ultimate Mystery Waltz. Thank god that her AI bugged out a bit and she spent 3 turns casting Curaga on herself, allowing Ashe time to use her BSB and heal herself up, thereby surviving her Ultimate Ram and killing the queen in retaliation.

    SBs used: Ark Blast, Dusk's Decree, War Dance, Intercession (KO'd mid cast, of course). RW Metamorphose.

    Good lord. Fuck that fight. I appreciate the encouragement of using statuses, but they just shit out so much damage!

    Joe Camacho MKIISpectrumRiusFryBrodyDarklyre
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Darklyre wrote: »
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Darklyre wrote: »
    Considering all the aggravation about the Mandragoras, I'm thinking the CM isn't worth it, especially for MPOs.

    That's what they want. That's how they beat you. They know you're afraid of them.

    If it doesn't work, I'll probably switch out Vaan for Gabranth (Lifesiphon/Dark Bargain, Enrage/Fulminating Oblivion, Truthseeker) and RW Edgar's OSB, then get them to near 50% so that Gabranth can do his en-dark/SSB combo while someone else pops the RW.

    I'm not big on Vaan for the fight even with BSB since his Mag breakdowns get you nothing, and if you're focusing on a Magic-based strat, his def break won't be getting you much either. If you can Blind and Sleep the bottom ones, their Mnd is low enough for that to be a pretty hard lockdown. There's no great way to apply Sleep, but at least Balthier can reliably apply Blind thanks to Machinist. They also happen to be the most dangerous above 50% HP.

    Also, I'd take Chain Stonega or Firega over Thundaga. Even with enLit, hitting the weakness of whichever one(s) you're leaving for last will do 50% more damage. Or bring a summon and use it at the start if everything else you're using is single target. I'd move Dr Mog from Larsa to Ashe for the haste in that case. Or I guess you could use Raines's C2 for that too to get them all close to half before switching to ST damage. Outside of the bottom two's screams, almost every offensive thing they do is pulled by Draw Fire and a back row Basch will have no trouble soaking it all up, so you've got some time to apply damage, especially if you lock one or both of those two down with their status effects.

    ztrEPtD.gif
  • FrosteeyFrosteey Elaise 1521-2945-8940Registered User regular
    Went back to the U+ for mastery since I didn't bother with dark damage for the cid mission.

    ZYsvpOy.jpg

    This is the result of a single attack.

    BeastehEnlongDaffyddDarklyreRius
  • TakelTakel Registered User regular
    For what it's worth, Ashe with Metamorphose RW buffing her MAG up to heck was dealing 19998 damage with Bahamut summons on the stupid runts, and almost the same with Alexanders. If you really want spammable AoE you may want to consider summons instead.

    Steam | PSN: MystLansfeld | 3DS: 4656-6210-1377 | FFXIV: Lavinia Lansfeld
    Enlong
  • DaffyddDaffydd Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Nice writeup on the reddit of the Edgar OSB strategy. Might be the easy way through, whether or not you go the CM route, if you can muster sufficient magic AoE. This particular version is very fast.

    Daffydd on
  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Hydro U++ was a cakewalk, comparatively speaking. 1 SL due to a badly-timed Darkra before any mitigation was up, but after that, it was a standard run for my Mage team. RW Raines, build an SB bar as Terra, then huck a 10K Scorching Flames at him to finish.

    And yay, a Black Crystal. Just nine more to go until Meltdown can be honed.

    Speaking of honing 6* abilities, how long until we get 4 more Summon crystals?

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Enlong wrote: »

    Speaking of honing 6* abilities, how long until we get 4 more Summon crystals?

    Within three weeks.

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  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Gonna have to decide then if I want to go ahead and hone Valigarmanda. It's a nice card for Ashe to play if she doesn't need to carry any extra utility actions.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Oh FFS:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTaq_bS7qIY

    I went through the video and added up all the damage: the last shrub had all of 373 HP left. If even one of Penelo's random shots had hit it, that would have been a clear. I'll probably feed Ashe a few eggs tonight and swap in Titan for Alexander, and that should be good enough if I get another run where the RNG cooperates (video was the result of about an hour of S/L)

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Oh interesting, Affliction Break actually works on statuses that have more than 200% chance of hitting:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/5wlphl/psa_affliction_break_works_well_against_high/

    Apparently status chance caps at 100%, and then Affliction Break kicks in and halves it to 50%.

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Noice. So the 100+% effects only really work against resistances?

  • TakelTakel Registered User regular
    And as a FYI: You can blind the Tomato but if it's the last one standing, the Blind means nothing. It's still going to perfect hit you through the status effect.

    Steam | PSN: MystLansfeld | 3DS: 4656-6210-1377 | FFXIV: Lavinia Lansfeld
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    .
    Takel wrote: »
    And as a FYI: You can blind the Tomato but if it's the last one standing, the Blind means nothing. It's still going to perfect hit you through the status effect.

    Aren't all physical attacks subject to Blind, even if they're typed NAT?

    The Screams it does are NAT too, and it was missing almost all of those against me while blinded.

    ArcTangent on
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  • TakelTakel Registered User regular
    I guess its accuracy gets buffed so high it just doesn't matter. Unless getting hit by 4 consecutive screams in a row is a fluke...

    Steam | PSN: MystLansfeld | 3DS: 4656-6210-1377 | FFXIV: Lavinia Lansfeld
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Only Atk, Def, and Res are buffed (besides the haste/protect/shell), so sounds like just bad luck.

    ArcTangent on
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  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Still though. Don't leave the tomato or pumpkin for last. They're the ones who use Scream, and any chance of your whole party taking a quad-buffed Scream hit is bad.

  • FryFry Registered User regular
    Weirdly enough, Blind status has been known to work the same as we just found out Affliction Break works: apply modifications to ACC and EVA, apply the standard formula with ACC and EVA to determine hit chance, cap hit chance at 100%, THEN if you're blinded divide hit chance by 4. So at best your hit rate is 25% while blinded.

  • WyvernWyvern Registered User regular
    Fry wrote: »
    Weirdly enough, Blind status has been known to work the same as we just found out Affliction Break works: apply modifications to ACC and EVA, apply the standard formula with ACC and EVA to determine hit chance, cap hit chance at 100%, THEN if you're blinded divide hit chance by 4. So at best your hit rate is 25% while blinded.
    Blind can't possibly just divide hit chance by four. I've literally NEVER seen an attack land through Blind that wasn't auto-hit.

    Switch: SW-2431-2728-9604 || 3DS: 0817-4948-1650
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited February 2017
    Wyvern wrote: »
    Fry wrote: »
    Weirdly enough, Blind status has been known to work the same as we just found out Affliction Break works: apply modifications to ACC and EVA, apply the standard formula with ACC and EVA to determine hit chance, cap hit chance at 100%, THEN if you're blinded divide hit chance by 4. So at best your hit rate is 25% while blinded.
    Blind can't possibly just divide hit chance by four. I've literally NEVER seen an attack land through Blind that wasn't auto-hit.

    It doesn't. It reduces ACC by 50% AND divides the final chance to hit by 4. The formula is:

    90 + ACC * 8/35 - EVA * 6/35

    https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/34meur/battle_mechanics_formulas_damage_accuracy_speed/

    Your dudes have normal Acc and Eva, so they suffer on both ends of the formula, but most bosses have hugely inflated versions of each, so only the To Hit divide at the end hurts them. That said, there's also a floor of 20%, so the difference between 1 in 5 on the low end and 1 in 4 on the high end isn't huge.

    ArcTangent on
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    FryGnome-Interruptus
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