Gaffgarion's SSB, which has the dubious distinction of not being my best ATK Heavy Armor, and having an SSB I can't imagine ever using. Minor dark resistance, though.
And Master's SSB, which could actually come in handy for FF1 CMs. That's only my second FF1 relic, the first being Sarah's BSB.
Not spectacular, but at least no dupes (I actually only had perhaps 15% of this banner's contents already, so this is a wimpy pull.)
There are no known FF1 CMs where that'd be useful. Or FF1 CMs period within the next 6 months. There's been only one even in the entirety of the past where it would've been.
Oh how wrong you were!
I will admit that having Sarah's BSB was critical here, but I wouldn't have had the DPS without Master's SSB.
Warrior of Light - Banishing Blade, Haste - Shared Shellga - Dr. Mog's
Garland - Full Charge, Dark Bargain - RW Vessel of Fate - Feral Might
Master - Lifesiphon, Explosive Fist - Moment of Clarity - Dragoon's Determination
Echo - Multi Break, Heathen Frolic Sarabande - Shared Medica - Royal Benediction (heal ally on attack, for 932 HP with 339 MND)
Sarah - Curaja, Protectga - Age-Old Hymn - Mako Might
In retrospect, I should have given Warrior of Light my shared Protectga and Sarah should have cast Shellga. It wore off super early and I never got to recast it because Warrior was always on Dispel/Haste standby. As a consequence, Chaos' late Thundajas were hitting for 9999 and killed Echo and Garland. Sarah's M.Blink on entry carried the day.
Instant Curaga + High Regen is such a good C1. Technically my Vanille is stronger than Sarah now, but that BSB has carried me through 3 months of difficult fights. And Royal Benediction turned out to be a pretty great RM for a Dancer; she'd dance, dance, then 2x Attack and top off slightly wounded people.
Speaking of super expensive luxury homes, I think I want to hone Leviathan.
I'm actually considering shattering it now that we've got chain waterga/water spellblade
I'm in something of an odd position. My water Mage is Strago, but he has actually no use for Chain Waterga if his BSB is running, as he has a 2-hit Water element burst command that will always do more damage. What he could use, though, is water-based AOE damage. Hence, Leviathan or Ogopogo.
Speaking of super expensive luxury homes, I think I want to hone Leviathan.
That reminds me of another question I had.
We just had the Summon portion of the orbfest, so I've got a good number of Summon Orbs. But I have not yet crafted any Summons.
I've got Yuna to do the Summoning, but she's also my Healer / Shellga / Protectga character (splitting the shell/protect with Beatrix).
I haven't really looked at the Summons to see what they do. Anything I should look into making?
Oh, and Fran can equip the Breakdowns? I don't recall seeing her on the "who can use this list", but I don't always recognize the sprites.
Her Gaze of the Void is pretty good too (debuff vs. Ramza's buff).
I've got two Lifesiphons created, and honed to R2 I believe. Not sure I actually need two of them, but I was feeling silly I guess.
I have not made Wrath though, I can look into that one.
I have at least two characters carrying Lifesiphon in like 99% of my physical team loadouts, nothing silly about that. Rarely I'll use as many as four Lifesiphons, but usually I need those ability slots for other things.
Seymour can also use Summons. If you want to craft one, I'd recommend starting with Maduin or Alexander, those are the ones I use most commonly. Maduin is non-elemental so it always works, Alexander is interesting because it's a way for a mage character to deal holy damage.
I've gotten lots of use out of 2 copies of R4 Lifesiphon, 1 copy of R3 lifesiphon, and 2 copies of R3 Wrath. I've honed some of them beyond those points, but I think once they're honed to that level anything extra is mostly unnecessary.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Most summons follow a pattern of hitting every enemy on the screen twice for some form of elemental damage. The higher-rarity summons do more damage with each hit, and the very strongest hit 3 times. One of those that can hit more than twice is Tiamat, whose number of hits is directly proportional to the mage's Magic stat.
Odd ones out include Kirin (gives everyone Regen (but the white magic ability Memento of Prayer does the same thing)), Carbuncle (gives everyone Reflect), and Phoenix (hits all enemies with Fire once, revives a dead party member).
The general wisdom is to aim for 4-star or higher summons that use an elemental damage type that your team needs or can enhance. There are 3 4-star Lightning-element summons, but general consensus is that Ixion is the most powerful of them.
The 3-star summons are weaker, but can still be useful if you can boost the damage and need to hit a big crowd.
Maduin is an often-reccomended summon, as he's relatively cheap to hone, and his non-elemental damage means you can use him safely against all manner of enemies. He's quite useful for clearing out rooms of random enemies in a daily dungeon or orbfest dungeon, too.
I regularly outfit my teams with three R5 Lifesiphons and two R5 Wraths, so it's totally not crazy to make multiple copies.
In fact, I'm thinking of going for five R5 Wraths to outfit a mage team. Onion Knight, Quistis, Fujin, Raines, Nabaat, and Terra could use it to spam SBs all day long.
I regularly outfit my teams with three R5 Lifesiphons and two R5 Wraths, so it's totally not crazy to make multiple copies.
In fact, I'm thinking of going for five R5 Wraths to outfit a mage team. Onion Knight, Quistis, Fujin, Raines, Nabaat, and Terra could use it to spam SBs all day long.
The other thing about summons is that they are not coded as black magic; sometimes a boss does counterattacks or something if hit by black magic, but you can use summon magic on them without that penalty.
Eventually you will need some to tackle the nightmare dungeons, but that's probably a ways off.
The other thing about summons is that they are not coded as black magic; sometimes a boss does counterattacks or something if hit by black magic, but you can use summon magic on them without that penalty.
Eventually you will need some to tackle the nightmare dungeons, but that's probably a ways off.
Summons, in general, don't trigger any counterattacks. They're like Soul Breaks in that regard.
0
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
The other thing about summons is that they are not coded as black magic; sometimes a boss does counterattacks or something if hit by black magic, but you can use summon magic on them without that penalty.
Addendum: While true for abilities, Burst Commands from a Summoning Burst can randomly just be coded as Black Magic on Global even while telling you they're Summoning abilities, for reasons
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
You probably want to work on one summon at a time - an R1 summon is kind of a waste of a slot. IMO a summon needs to be R3 to be usable, and R4 before I'm really comfortable with it. R5 is really expensive, so I don't typically go that far.
I'm starting to think that FFRK follows JP's release schedules and relic SBs too closely, and the Global audience gets too angry when there are deviations. I'm not talking about things like record dives or MC3s, obviously we want and should get those. But Cloud's USB is something they should just change for Global, clearly they overshot the mark when they made it. But if they did change it, the most vocal parts of the playerbase would explode over it.
Playing FFBE in parallel really makes me appreciate the willingness to add new things and change things. Global FFBE has gotten several exclusive units at varying rarities that are really strong, and they've given global exclusive abilities to "weaker" units to make them more tantalizing. I'm not certain they've straight out nerfed something (except Global Noctis' power relative to JP's), but I wouldn't be angry if they did. They've created an environment where change is acceptable. We don't even know the upcoming event schedule, apart from some broad strokes. It's very nice.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
You probably want to work on one summon at a time - an R1 summon is kind of a waste of a slot. IMO a summon needs to be R3 to be usable, and R4 before I'm really comfortable with it. R5 is really expensive, so I don't typically go that far.
I have managed with a R3 and R2 combo in the past, but it is always tight. Honestly, summons have lost a lot of appeal for me. I used to use them exclusively too. The addition of chain -ga spells has just cut their niche out almost entirely. They don't do as much damage, for fewer hones, and are generally harder to hone. The addition of a summon daily has cut the last one down a lot, but that is fairly new.
Alexander still has a lot of solid uses, but that's the only 4* one that has a general purpose at this stage. Boss fights are largely single target, and increasingly resistant to lots of elements again lately. 5* has more uses like Tiamat (wind), Ultima Weapon (dark), and Bahamut (non-elemental but hits like a truck). Maybe Orthros since he hits so many times, but you would need stupid high magic for that to work out. I dunno the value of the 6*s but the low hones hurt em bad when compared to Meltdown.
TLDR: I think either we need more 3+ hit summons, or more aoe boss fights to really justify investing in summons. They have just lost their niche.
I'm starting to think that FFRK follows JP's release schedules and relic SBs too closely, and the Global audience gets too angry when there are deviations. I'm not talking about things like record dives or MC3s, obviously we want and should get those. But Cloud's USB is something they should just change for Global, clearly they overshot the mark when they made it. But if they did change it, the most vocal parts of the playerbase would explode over it.
Playing FFBE in parallel really makes me appreciate the willingness to add new things and change things. Global FFBE has gotten several exclusive units at varying rarities that are really strong, and they've given global exclusive abilities to "weaker" units to make them more tantalizing. I'm not certain they've straight out nerfed something (except Global Noctis' power relative to JP's), but I wouldn't be angry if they did. They've created an environment where change is acceptable. We don't even know the upcoming event schedule, apart from some broad strokes. It's very nice.
The only deviations Global really gets compared to JP is LESS things though. It's not like they make new, comparable things for our version of the game. It's just ~85% of what Japan got, in a somewhat randomized order, in languages non-Japanese readers can read.
I wonder if I could get through the Chaos CM with JUST Garlands BSB..., and, like, runic RW or something
His BSB won't really help you much. The non-SB runs seem to focus on getting Garland going and not worrying about the rest of the team. Using Celes BSB2 basically the only thing that can hurt you are his physical attacks and Flare, so if you can survive those 3 or 4 hits you can make it.
I'm starting to think that FFRK follows JP's release schedules and relic SBs too closely, and the Global audience gets too angry when there are deviations. I'm not talking about things like record dives or MC3s, obviously we want and should get those. But Cloud's USB is something they should just change for Global, clearly they overshot the mark when they made it. But if they did change it, the most vocal parts of the playerbase would explode over it.
Playing FFBE in parallel really makes me appreciate the willingness to add new things and change things. Global FFBE has gotten several exclusive units at varying rarities that are really strong, and they've given global exclusive abilities to "weaker" units to make them more tantalizing. I'm not certain they've straight out nerfed something (except Global Noctis' power relative to JP's), but I wouldn't be angry if they did. They've created an environment where change is acceptable. We don't even know the upcoming event schedule, apart from some broad strokes. It's very nice.
The only deviations Global really gets compared to JP is LESS things though. It's not like they make new, comparable things for our version of the game. It's just ~85% of what Japan got, in a somewhat randomized order, in languages non-Japanese readers can read.
Are you talking about FFRK? Because Global FFBE gets tons of Global Exclusive stuff. Events, units, unit abilities, equipment, etc.
As for FFRK, yeah, they usually just remove or withhold things. If they put in a little effort to give us some global exclusives or collabs, they might have begun to foster an environment where change isn't always bad.
I'm starting to think that FFRK follows JP's release schedules and relic SBs too closely, and the Global audience gets too angry when there are deviations. I'm not talking about things like record dives or MC3s, obviously we want and should get those. But Cloud's USB is something they should just change for Global, clearly they overshot the mark when they made it. But if they did change it, the most vocal parts of the playerbase would explode over it.
Playing FFBE in parallel really makes me appreciate the willingness to add new things and change things. Global FFBE has gotten several exclusive units at varying rarities that are really strong, and they've given global exclusive abilities to "weaker" units to make them more tantalizing. I'm not certain they've straight out nerfed something (except Global Noctis' power relative to JP's), but I wouldn't be angry if they did. They've created an environment where change is acceptable. We don't even know the upcoming event schedule, apart from some broad strokes. It's very nice.
The only deviations Global really gets compared to JP is LESS things though. It's not like they make new, comparable things for our version of the game. It's just ~85% of what Japan got, in a somewhat randomized order, in languages non-Japanese readers can read.
Are you talking about FFRK? Because Global FFBE gets tons of Global Exclusive stuff. Events, units, unit abilities, equipment, etc.
As for FFRK, yeah, they usually just remove or withhold things. If they put in a little effort to give us some global exclusives or collabs, they might have begun to foster an environment where change isn't always bad.
Hey, we have Yuna's obi. And Stormlance. And that other crystal ring (I think) accessory too. What more do you want?
ArcTangent on
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
This is the kind of shit you end up being able to pull off when the cap is lifted. Against a 300 Difficulty boss.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
It's not even a BSB, it's like a super powered SSB, and one of the buffs it gives you turns all your attacks into potential OSBs.
Mind, you need to have the power to punch through the barrier in the first place. But the extra attack boost and Crit-rate maximized definitely help with that.
...say, does the limiter removal effect work on magic damage?
Mind, you need to have the power to punch through the barrier in the first place. But the extra attack boost and Crit-rate maximized definitely help with that.
...say, does the limiter removal effect work on magic damage?
Mind, you need to have the power to punch through the barrier in the first place. But the extra attack boost and Crit-rate maximized definitely help with that.
...say, does the limiter removal effect work on magic damage?
No.
Dang.
0
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
This is the kind of shit you end up being able to pull off when the cap is lifted. Against a 300 Difficulty boss.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
It's not even a BSB, it's like a super powered SSB, and one of the buffs it gives you turns all your attacks into potential OSBs.
Wait, I thought it was just for Cloud's damage. It's for the whole party's damage?
That's even more crazy. Even if it's just physical damage, that's still crazy.
Is this a "one time" type of thing, or are there going to be things like that for the other elements as well? Cloud is ice it looks like, so they could potentially release similar skills for the other elements. If they wanted the game to jump completely on the crazy power creep train.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
It's not even a BSB, it's like a super powered SSB, and one of the buffs it gives you turns all your attacks into potential OSBs.
Wait, I thought it was just for Cloud's damage. It's for the whole party's damage?
That's even more crazy. Even if it's just physical damage, that's still crazy.
Is this a "one time" type of thing, or are there going to be things like that for the other elements as well? Cloud is ice it looks like, so they could potentially release similar skills for the other elements. If they wanted the game to jump completely on the crazy power creep train.
Anyone (physical) can call it as a Roaming Warrior to get the same effect.
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Oh how wrong you were!
I will admit that having Sarah's BSB was critical here, but I wouldn't have had the DPS without Master's SSB.
Warrior of Light - Banishing Blade, Haste - Shared Shellga - Dr. Mog's
Garland - Full Charge, Dark Bargain - RW Vessel of Fate - Feral Might
Master - Lifesiphon, Explosive Fist - Moment of Clarity - Dragoon's Determination
Echo - Multi Break, Heathen Frolic Sarabande - Shared Medica - Royal Benediction (heal ally on attack, for 932 HP with 339 MND)
Sarah - Curaja, Protectga - Age-Old Hymn - Mako Might
In retrospect, I should have given Warrior of Light my shared Protectga and Sarah should have cast Shellga. It wore off super early and I never got to recast it because Warrior was always on Dispel/Haste standby. As a consequence, Chaos' late Thundajas were hitting for 9999 and killed Echo and Garland. Sarah's M.Blink on entry carried the day.
Instant Curaga + High Regen is such a good C1. Technically my Vanille is stronger than Sarah now, but that BSB has carried me through 3 months of difficult fights. And Royal Benediction turned out to be a pretty great RM for a Dancer; she'd dance, dance, then 2x Attack and top off slightly wounded people.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
I'm in something of an odd position. My water Mage is Strago, but he has actually no use for Chain Waterga if his BSB is running, as he has a 2-hit Water element burst command that will always do more damage. What he could use, though, is water-based AOE damage. Hence, Leviathan or Ogopogo.
That reminds me of another question I had.
We just had the Summon portion of the orbfest, so I've got a good number of Summon Orbs. But I have not yet crafted any Summons.
I've got Yuna to do the Summoning, but she's also my Healer / Shellga / Protectga character (splitting the shell/protect with Beatrix).
I haven't really looked at the Summons to see what they do. Anything I should look into making?
Oh, and Fran can equip the Breakdowns? I don't recall seeing her on the "who can use this list", but I don't always recognize the sprites.
Her Gaze of the Void is pretty good too (debuff vs. Ramza's buff).
I've got two Lifesiphons created, and honed to R2 I believe. Not sure I actually need two of them, but I was feeling silly I guess.
I have not made Wrath though, I can look into that one.
Seymour can also use Summons. If you want to craft one, I'd recommend starting with Maduin or Alexander, those are the ones I use most commonly. Maduin is non-elemental so it always works, Alexander is interesting because it's a way for a mage character to deal holy damage.
Alexander (holy)
Leviathan (water)
Maudin (non-elemental)
Ixion/Syldra (lightning)
Alexander and Leviathan are the most powerful summons for their element, while better lightning damage only comes in the form of a 6* ability (which is extremely hard to hone right now). There's non-elemental summons at 5 and 6*, but your Major Summon Orbs are probably better spent on things other than Bahamut.
For 5* summons, I'd hold off and see if you get an attach-element soul break for a summoner and then hone whatever works for them.
EDIT - Also, with respect to Lifesiphon, I have 4 copies at R5, so there's nothing silly at all about working on two copies.
Odd ones out include Kirin (gives everyone Regen (but the white magic ability Memento of Prayer does the same thing)), Carbuncle (gives everyone Reflect), and Phoenix (hits all enemies with Fire once, revives a dead party member).
The general wisdom is to aim for 4-star or higher summons that use an elemental damage type that your team needs or can enhance. There are 3 4-star Lightning-element summons, but general consensus is that Ixion is the most powerful of them.
The 3-star summons are weaker, but can still be useful if you can boost the damage and need to hit a big crowd.
Maduin is an often-reccomended summon, as he's relatively cheap to hone, and his non-elemental damage means you can use him safely against all manner of enemies. He's quite useful for clearing out rooms of random enemies in a daily dungeon or orbfest dungeon, too.
In fact, I'm thinking of going for five R5 Wraths to outfit a mage team. Onion Knight, Quistis, Fujin, Raines, Nabaat, and Terra could use it to spam SBs all day long.
"Oh yeah I don't HAVE to finish a stage, I can just farm a floor over and over again."
And this is why they made Jumpstart battles.
Eventually you will need some to tackle the nightmare dungeons, but that's probably a ways off.
Summons, in general, don't trigger any counterattacks. They're like Soul Breaks in that regard.
Addendum: While true for abilities, Burst Commands from a Summoning Burst can randomly just be coded as Black Magic on Global even while telling you they're Summoning abilities, for reasons
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Ooo, lightning damage. Would that work with Shantotto's Lightning Chain? I wonder how many lighting attacks I could stack into that.
And I looked at my craftable summons. I can make most of the 4* ones. I'm missing the mats for a couple of them, as I think I used those mats on the other 4* abilities I made over the weekend.
For relic banners, I find myself at over 100 mithril. We've seen all the half-price lucky ones, right? So I need to figure out which full price one I'm going to hit next...
Next Tuesday introduces the Awakening Cloud (FFVII) event, which contains a highly-anticipated relic banner, because it contains Cloud's Ultra Soul Break, which is so powerful as to have warped the metagame around itself.
It performs a bunch of Wind-element physical attacks, and then provides the user with a buff called EX Mode: SOLDIER, which greatly increases their ATK, makes critical hits guaranteed, and allows their attacks to break the normal damage limit of 9999. It is exceedingly powerful, either native or as a roaming warrior option.
The banner also has high powered relics for characters like Sephiroth, Zack, Cait Sith, and Rufus Shinra.
I would actually be ok getting a few Raijin SSBs, because some of my lightning nerds (*cough* Reno) can't equip my Kaiser Shields.
You probably want to work on one summon at a time - an R1 summon is kind of a waste of a slot. IMO a summon needs to be R3 to be usable, and R4 before I'm really comfortable with it. R5 is really expensive, so I don't typically go that far.
Playing FFBE in parallel really makes me appreciate the willingness to add new things and change things. Global FFBE has gotten several exclusive units at varying rarities that are really strong, and they've given global exclusive abilities to "weaker" units to make them more tantalizing. I'm not certain they've straight out nerfed something (except Global Noctis' power relative to JP's), but I wouldn't be angry if they did. They've created an environment where change is acceptable. We don't even know the upcoming event schedule, apart from some broad strokes. It's very nice.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
I have managed with a R3 and R2 combo in the past, but it is always tight. Honestly, summons have lost a lot of appeal for me. I used to use them exclusively too. The addition of chain -ga spells has just cut their niche out almost entirely. They don't do as much damage, for fewer hones, and are generally harder to hone. The addition of a summon daily has cut the last one down a lot, but that is fairly new.
Alexander still has a lot of solid uses, but that's the only 4* one that has a general purpose at this stage. Boss fights are largely single target, and increasingly resistant to lots of elements again lately. 5* has more uses like Tiamat (wind), Ultima Weapon (dark), and Bahamut (non-elemental but hits like a truck). Maybe Orthros since he hits so many times, but you would need stupid high magic for that to work out. I dunno the value of the 6*s but the low hones hurt em bad when compared to Meltdown.
TLDR: I think either we need more 3+ hit summons, or more aoe boss fights to really justify investing in summons. They have just lost their niche.
The only deviations Global really gets compared to JP is LESS things though. It's not like they make new, comparable things for our version of the game. It's just ~85% of what Japan got, in a somewhat randomized order, in languages non-Japanese readers can read.
His BSB won't really help you much. The non-SB runs seem to focus on getting Garland going and not worrying about the rest of the team. Using Celes BSB2 basically the only thing that can hurt you are his physical attacks and Flare, so if you can survive those 3 or 4 hits you can make it.
Are you talking about FFRK? Because Global FFBE gets tons of Global Exclusive stuff. Events, units, unit abilities, equipment, etc.
As for FFRK, yeah, they usually just remove or withhold things. If they put in a little effort to give us some global exclusives or collabs, they might have begun to foster an environment where change isn't always bad.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
What are you levels for your FF1 crew? There were a few clears on Reddit with zero SBs.
Not great, but I have enough to egg them all to 80 if I really want to give it a shot
Hey, we have Yuna's obi. And Stormlance. And that other crystal ring (I think) accessory too. What more do you want?
You could try Celes BSB2 with Omega Drive or Full Charge spam: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/6jiztx/ultimate_gaze_is_wht_try_grand_cross/
Onion Knight BSB with Full Charge spam: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/6jjug2/maw_of_despair_cm_without_sb/
Good ol' Reta Meta: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/6jle87/psa_try_reta_for_ff1_cm_for_those_with_no_synergy/
Ah, I had seen people talking about Cloud's thing as being game-breaking. But it sounds kind of like a multi-hit OSB wrapped in a BSB shell. That's goofy.
I have a bunch of stuff to work on, so I'll just gather mithril for a bit. Then take a stab at that banner for some more goodies.
This is the kind of shit you end up being able to pull off when the cap is lifted. Against a 300 Difficulty boss.
It's not even a BSB, it's like a super powered SSB, and one of the buffs it gives you turns all your attacks into potential OSBs.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
...say, does the limiter removal effect work on magic damage?
No.
Dang.
I love that first video with Ayame.
Wait, I thought it was just for Cloud's damage. It's for the whole party's damage?
That's even more crazy. Even if it's just physical damage, that's still crazy.
Is this a "one time" type of thing, or are there going to be things like that for the other elements as well? Cloud is ice it looks like, so they could potentially release similar skills for the other elements. If they wanted the game to jump completely on the crazy power creep train.
Anyone (physical) can call it as a Roaming Warrior to get the same effect.