The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
[FFRK] Goodbye fest banners. Also Magicite Keystones in two weeks.
silence1186
Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered User regular
Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered User regular
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbAOQrH7MHMPast Thread Silence1186 wrote:How naive I was about this little game.Naive, past Silence1186 wrote:[Final Fantasy Record Keeper] Is actually a pretty fun mobile free-to-play game for iOS and Android. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a HUGE improvement over such duds as All The Bravest. It's a walk down memory lane with a simple ATB style combat system with a surprising amount of depth and strategy. There is a new event every week, featuring your favorite characters and stages from Final Fantasy history, so it never gets old, and it IS free to try, so give it a shot if you have some time to spare. Just don't give them any of your money.
This is the thread for talking about Square Enix's F2P Mobile game Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) for iOS and Android. Initially met with skepticism after some of SE's lackluster F2P entries in the past, it has grown in scope and popularity to the point where it gets as much discussion as any other mainline Final Fantasy game.
The game features the Active Time Battle system you've come to know from many previous entries. You can take up to 5 characters, made up of all your favorites from past games (and one original starter character) as you journey through the cliff notes version of all the Final Fantasy games. Each Final Fantasy game is a world, made up of "Records" with several stages. There are also limited time events that occur every week featuring additional stages, characters, and rewards.
All F2P "Gacha" games have an ingame currency, and FFRK's is Mythril. Using it allows you to pull relics (weapons and armor that can be worn by anyone, but give new Soul Breaks to specific characters) from the various banners that are currently active. Mythril also allows you to recharge stamina, and to try again if you happen to be defeated in a stage.
You can spend real money on Gems which have the same function as Mythril, but for a new player it's possible to clear many month's worth of content without spending a dime. And for a smart player who plans ahead, it's possible to clear even the hardest content over time, also without spending real money. This is thanks to several quality of life features implemented by DeNa, chief among them the Friend Summon system and Guaranteed 5*, which gives you at least one high-rarity item per 11-pull you do. Additionally, generous amounts of free Mythril are available between a combination of login bonuses, stage completions, event participation and quest completion.
New Player Tips!
1) Build your relic pool. Save up your Mythril so you can spend it, 50 at a time, to do an 11-pull on an active banner. This will get you at least one 5* relic, and a variety of those will enable more strategies for you.
At least once a month we receive "Lucky Draw" banners which are usually half-price, and these are pretty great for new players. Note: there are three "Newcomer Relic Draws" that offer a half-price first pull, but they're not actually that great (the relic pools are extremely dated, so you have a higher chance of drawing something poor.)
2) Take advantage of Synergy. Characters get a ten level effective boost when brought to a mission in the realm they're from. Equipment from that realm gets an even more dramatic boost.
3) Offensive Buffs on your party, Offensive Debuffs on the enemy, and Defensive Buffs on your party are extremely important. A difficult fight often becomes a routine one after application of these categories, and the game's hardest content (Magicites being the one notable exception) demands all three.
Consequently, these constraints will guide some of your first decisions as a new player. Your first 4* Abilities should include Power Breakdown and Magic Breakdown, Protectga and Shellga. Your 5* Ability will almost certainly be Full Break. Some of your first prize possession relics will be those that grant Soul Breaks that combine Hastega + ATK or MAG Buffs, or that provide Wall (a very strong stacking DEF/RES buff.)
Remember, you can summon a Roaming Warrior to provide what you don't personally have! The RW system for Story Missions will soon be changed, but you'll still be able to use your RW to activate Sentinel's Grimoire (Wall), or a Hastega + Offensive Buff like Shout (+50% ATK) or Vessel of Fate (+30% ATK/+30% MAG).
4) Learn when to reapply buffs and debuffs. How long does Power Breakdown last? What about Protect? Wall?
Unfortunately, except for status effects like Blind, Haste, Silence, etc, you rarely get any visual indications on when Buffs expire. Taking an unmitigated hit that kills or nearly kills a character is usually how you find out, and that's not fun. The following rules of thumb assume your characters are Hasted.
Offensive Debuff Abilities, like Power Breakdown and Magic Breakdown, last a fixed 15 seconds. You'll want to reapply them on the third turn.
Defensive Buff Abilities, like Protectga and Shellga, are a little trickier. Their duration scales based on the caster's Mind stat. At zero Mind, they last 35 seconds, but with every 100 Mind they last another 3 seconds. For most White Mages you'll want to recast them after ten+ turns, but often you'll be finishing a fight by then at the worst.
Buffs and Debuffs from Soul Breaks typically last 25 seconds. The extra time is to maintain coverage while you build and spend another SB gauge. The exception is SBs that provide Haste, Protectga or Shellga; since those durations are based on MND to begin with, their durations when caused by SBs are also based on MND. Basically, if you pull Ramza's Shout, try to get him close to 200 Mind.
5) Tyro and Cloud, your first two characters, should be the first two characters you level to 65 (and apply Memory Crystal IIs to.) The reason for this is that they both have Record Materia which, when equipped to any character, give that character a full SB gauge at the start of battle. This allows you to start boss fights with two utility/buff Soul Breaks.
At least once a month we receive "Lucky Draw" banners which are usually half-price, and these are pretty great for new players. Note: there are three "Newcomer Relic Draws" that offer a half-price first pull, but they're not actually that great (the relic pools are extremely dated, so you have a higher chance of drawing something poor.)
2) Take advantage of Synergy. Characters get a ten level effective boost when brought to a mission in the realm they're from. Equipment from that realm gets an even more dramatic boost.
3) Offensive Buffs on your party, Offensive Debuffs on the enemy, and Defensive Buffs on your party are extremely important. A difficult fight often becomes a routine one after application of these categories, and the game's hardest content (Magicites being the one notable exception) demands all three.
Consequently, these constraints will guide some of your first decisions as a new player. Your first 4* Abilities should include Power Breakdown and Magic Breakdown, Protectga and Shellga. Your 5* Ability will almost certainly be Full Break. Some of your first prize possession relics will be those that grant Soul Breaks that combine Hastega + ATK or MAG Buffs, or that provide Wall (a very strong stacking DEF/RES buff.)
Remember, you can summon a Roaming Warrior to provide what you don't personally have! The RW system for Story Missions will soon be changed, but you'll still be able to use your RW to activate Sentinel's Grimoire (Wall), or a Hastega + Offensive Buff like Shout (+50% ATK) or Vessel of Fate (+30% ATK/+30% MAG).
4) Learn when to reapply buffs and debuffs. How long does Power Breakdown last? What about Protect? Wall?
Unfortunately, except for status effects like Blind, Haste, Silence, etc, you rarely get any visual indications on when Buffs expire. Taking an unmitigated hit that kills or nearly kills a character is usually how you find out, and that's not fun. The following rules of thumb assume your characters are Hasted.
Offensive Debuff Abilities, like Power Breakdown and Magic Breakdown, last a fixed 15 seconds. You'll want to reapply them on the third turn.
Defensive Buff Abilities, like Protectga and Shellga, are a little trickier. Their duration scales based on the caster's Mind stat. At zero Mind, they last 35 seconds, but with every 100 Mind they last another 3 seconds. For most White Mages you'll want to recast them after ten+ turns, but often you'll be finishing a fight by then at the worst.
Buffs and Debuffs from Soul Breaks typically last 25 seconds. The extra time is to maintain coverage while you build and spend another SB gauge. The exception is SBs that provide Haste, Protectga or Shellga; since those durations are based on MND to begin with, their durations when caused by SBs are also based on MND. Basically, if you pull Ramza's Shout, try to get him close to 200 Mind.
5) Tyro and Cloud, your first two characters, should be the first two characters you level to 65 (and apply Memory Crystal IIs to.) The reason for this is that they both have Record Materia which, when equipped to any character, give that character a full SB gauge at the start of battle. This allows you to start boss fights with two utility/buff Soul Breaks.
Additional various game and system information:
1) Quests.
From the home screen, the Missions button in the upper-right features Wayfarer, Normal and Special missions. The Wayfarer missions are meant for new players and will guide you to some of the game's basic features, as well as giving you some nice ability and item rewards. Move on to the Normal missions from there. Special missions typically involve defeating some of the game's highest difficulty level fights with certain team limitations, which are usually "only use characters from this realm."
2) Stamina.
You can see the current / maximum Stamina numerically in the upper right corner of your Home screen. Below that is an orange bar that shows the same thing, but below that bar is a set of 5 hexagons representing your current Stamina Shards. When you get 5 Stamina Shards, you refill your stamina to full and your maximum goes up by 1. The filled in hexagons show you how many stamina shards you have towards the next stamina refill and maximum +1.
Stamina Shards can only be collected by running the Story Dungeons, available from the lower-left archway on the main menu. It is to your benefit to collect that fifth shard when you're running out or empty of Stamina. Efficiency is good! If you do a Stamina refill with Mythril/Gems, however, you'll get your maximum Stamina added on to your current, which means you'll have a surplus available. You won't start recharging Stamina again until your current drops back below your maximum.
3)Record Info.
When reading about the record in question, several tabs will be available with story, reward and boss info. Here you can read about the story background, rewards, and boss strategies as well as any medal requirements.
Upon completing any given stage in a record, your performance will be ranked. For any stage without a boss, you can earn up to 9 medals. You will lose medals if more than one party member dies, or if the party takes too much damage or uses too many actions to clear the stage. Earn enough medals and you will gain the Expert or Champion rating for the stage, which provides 150% and 200% experience, respectively.
Upon finishing the entire record, there are 3 reward levels; Completion, First Time Completion and Mastery. You can get the Completion bonus every time you complete that record. However, the other two can only be achieved once and typically include excellent rewards. To attain Mastery rewards, you must have earned 83.33% (5/6th) of all medals within the record. Remember those boss medal requirements? Each gives 3 medals if completed or 0 medals if not, so for records with few or only one stage, boss medal requirements can be crucial for obtaining Mastery rewards.
4) Newcomer Dungeons.
In the Events section are three Newcomer Dungeons, one each for FF7, FF10 and FF13. They feature 10 Records apiece that grant characters, Memory Crystals, growth eggs and Mythril, and have easier difficulties.
5) Events.
Typically, there's 1 or 2 events running at any given time. These events start at a very low difficulty that even first day players can participate in, and end at very high difficulties that even longtime veterans can have trouble with. Rewards for completing event stages can include new or returning characters and their Memory Crystals (used to break level caps), weapons, armor or accessories from the event's realm, orbs, upgrade materials and of course Mythril. Events typically run for about two weeks and overlap, and you should definitely try to complete as much of each event as possible.
6) Unlocking Characters (and breaking their level caps.)
Each weekly event features a specific realm. Completing the first half of these events will get you several characters from that realm, as well as a Hero Soul (more on this below.) Completing the second half of these events will get you Memory Crystals for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal Lode (again, more below.) Completing the bonus battles for these events will get you Memory Crystal IIs for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal II Lode (ditto.) Completing the Ultimate battle will get you a Memory Crystal III Lode.
To unlock characters who aren't currently featured in events, you'll visit the Hall of Rites. Hero Souls can be turned in for any character, and MC Lodes can be turned in for their various MCs. MC1s are used to break past level 50 and enable the Record Materia slot. MC2s are used to break past level 65, and MC3s are used to break past level 80.
7) Record Dive.
The Record Dive system allows you to power up characters who have reached level 65, adding small amounts of stat points, percentage boosts to certain types of abilities, adding or increasing ability ranks, adding additional equipment options, or even unlocking exclusive character-specific Legend Materia. The available powerups are different for each eligible character. You unlock these power ups by expending Spirit/Wisdom/Bravery/Dexterity/Vitality Motes, which are a special type of currency obtained from a variety of sources including Event rewards. 4* motes are attainable by completing the harder difficulties of weekly multiplayer content. 5* motes are attainable by completing harder difficulties of weekly single player content. Some exceptions may apply.
Record Dive is also where one can spend 5* Job Motes (like Thief, Spellblade, Ninja, etc), which enable the use and provide copies of certain 6* abilities. Sources of these motes are few and far between.
This is a complicated system with a lot of moving parts and limited resources and there are not nearly enough motes to unlock every character's everything. Feel free to ask questions in the thread!
8) Daily Dungeons.
Each day has a specific set of 2 dungeons. You can only get the First Time Completion and Mastery rewards once, same as the records, and those rewards don't refresh from week to week.
Each day offers two rotating Daily Dungeons with two difficulties apiece. The first is great for farming 5* orbs, the second is great for farming 6* orbs. You can also access Upgrade Materials, Gil, and EXP dungeons any day of the week. Sunday offers enhanced versions of the latter trio.
Enemies in the daily dungeons can drop Gysahl Greens, and you also get some upon completion. These Greens can be exchanged for orbs, eggs, gil or upgrade materials at any time, and once per week the Special Shop will restock a variety of Major Orbs (at half price, relative to buying 10x Greaters), MC lodes and Mythril. Additional purchases may become available from time to time (accessories, items, etc.)
9) Nightmare, Mote, Torment and Magicite Dungeons
The Nightmare area is now permanently open, and features a set of 12 dungeons with 5 challenging boss fights apiece. Each dungeon culminates in a special fight where all characters with 5* rank in a specified ability will get full synergy for themselves and all equipped items, regardless of what realm they or their equipped gear are from! These final fights are like puzzles that must be solved and typically require planning and tactics instead of super powerful gear.
Completing the final boss of a Nightmare dungeon gives you a Record for a powerful 6* ability, which require 6* crystals to make. These crystals are somewhat slow to acquire, so spend them carefully.
There are five Mote dungeons which are individually open for two days on a rotation, like the Daily Dungeons. They each feature a single boss fight where all characters start with one SB gauge and cannot earn more. Clearing them for the first time awards a large amount of 4* Motes for Legend Dives, and they can be repeatedly cleared for lesser amounts, with bonuses for faster clears.
There are Torment dungeons, with more on the way. Each features a single boss fight in three difficulties. The first two difficulties are precluded by 4 or 6 (based on difficulty) waves of high-HP trash which themselves require significant effort to clear, and there is no stage break between the trash and the boss. The bosses have elemental weaknesses, but at reduced potency. Rewards include 5* Orbs, 6* Crystals and 5* Job Motes for specific ability schools. The third, highest, difficulty has no trash waves and uses the Jump Start rules, where each character starts with 3 SB bars and cannot gain any more.
New to the game as of this thread are the Magicite dungeons, which take the throne as the game's hardest content (and can't even be accessed until you clear all the Nightmare dungeons!) Each features a single dungeon with a single stage, and you are challenged by an incredibly powerful Esper. If you can defeat them, you can gain a copy of them and other Espers as Magicites, which can be equipped on the Party screen and benefit the entire party. You can even call on your Main Esper to fight alongside you with a variety of positive effects. These battles feature ZERO Synergy bonuses, you can't bring any of your Roaming Warrior friends, and the Espers have an 80% resistance to Break effects, so they're quite a challenge! Fortunately there's a mysterious ally who can help you out...
Magicites are leveled up and have their level caps broken just like characters do, and you can only finish one Esper fight per day. This is a very deep system which we're just beginning to scratch the surface of. Here's a post written by silence1186 which has some great info on which Magicites are good for what.
10) Relics.
The Relics page, accessible via shortcut on the bottom right of most screens, is where one can "pull" from a variety of "banners" for items. Banner pulls are always at least 3* rarity, with a lesser chance at 4* rarity and a ~13% chance at 5* rarity. Doing so costs Mythril (in game currency) or Gems (purchased with real $$$).
All banners from this point forward will have "Guaranteed 5*", which means every 11-pull comes with at least one 5* item. The likeliest result is two 5* items per 11 pull.
Banners are typically linked to current Events, and every banner has featured 5* relics. When you pull a 5* item, most of the time it will be one of the featured relics, but there's still a very small chance (0.1%) it won't be.
One can do a single pull for 5 Mythril, a triple pull for 15 Mythril or an 11 pull for 50 Mythril. In this modern era of Guaranteed 5*, it is most efficient to do 11 pulls and only 11 pulls. Aside from that, on a per-draw basis your odds of drawing a 5* item are the same no matter how many items you pull at once and no matter which currency you use to pay for them.
11) Stacking Debuffs.
A relatively common feature of relics these days are an SB that includes stat debuffs to the enemy targets. A good party setup might include one or more of these SBs, and a key piece of information is that they stack if the affected debuff/debuffs are different combinations. One ATK/MAG debuff won't stack with another, but an ATK/MAG debuff will stack with an ATK/DEF debuff and an ATK/RES debuff. This rule of thumb goes for Support abilities as well; see the second post for more information.
From the home screen, the Missions button in the upper-right features Wayfarer, Normal and Special missions. The Wayfarer missions are meant for new players and will guide you to some of the game's basic features, as well as giving you some nice ability and item rewards. Move on to the Normal missions from there. Special missions typically involve defeating some of the game's highest difficulty level fights with certain team limitations, which are usually "only use characters from this realm."
2) Stamina.
You can see the current / maximum Stamina numerically in the upper right corner of your Home screen. Below that is an orange bar that shows the same thing, but below that bar is a set of 5 hexagons representing your current Stamina Shards. When you get 5 Stamina Shards, you refill your stamina to full and your maximum goes up by 1. The filled in hexagons show you how many stamina shards you have towards the next stamina refill and maximum +1.
Stamina Shards can only be collected by running the Story Dungeons, available from the lower-left archway on the main menu. It is to your benefit to collect that fifth shard when you're running out or empty of Stamina. Efficiency is good! If you do a Stamina refill with Mythril/Gems, however, you'll get your maximum Stamina added on to your current, which means you'll have a surplus available. You won't start recharging Stamina again until your current drops back below your maximum.
3)Record Info.
When reading about the record in question, several tabs will be available with story, reward and boss info. Here you can read about the story background, rewards, and boss strategies as well as any medal requirements.
Upon completing any given stage in a record, your performance will be ranked. For any stage without a boss, you can earn up to 9 medals. You will lose medals if more than one party member dies, or if the party takes too much damage or uses too many actions to clear the stage. Earn enough medals and you will gain the Expert or Champion rating for the stage, which provides 150% and 200% experience, respectively.
Upon finishing the entire record, there are 3 reward levels; Completion, First Time Completion and Mastery. You can get the Completion bonus every time you complete that record. However, the other two can only be achieved once and typically include excellent rewards. To attain Mastery rewards, you must have earned 83.33% (5/6th) of all medals within the record. Remember those boss medal requirements? Each gives 3 medals if completed or 0 medals if not, so for records with few or only one stage, boss medal requirements can be crucial for obtaining Mastery rewards.
4) Newcomer Dungeons.
In the Events section are three Newcomer Dungeons, one each for FF7, FF10 and FF13. They feature 10 Records apiece that grant characters, Memory Crystals, growth eggs and Mythril, and have easier difficulties.
5) Events.
Typically, there's 1 or 2 events running at any given time. These events start at a very low difficulty that even first day players can participate in, and end at very high difficulties that even longtime veterans can have trouble with. Rewards for completing event stages can include new or returning characters and their Memory Crystals (used to break level caps), weapons, armor or accessories from the event's realm, orbs, upgrade materials and of course Mythril. Events typically run for about two weeks and overlap, and you should definitely try to complete as much of each event as possible.
6) Unlocking Characters (and breaking their level caps.)
Each weekly event features a specific realm. Completing the first half of these events will get you several characters from that realm, as well as a Hero Soul (more on this below.) Completing the second half of these events will get you Memory Crystals for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal Lode (again, more below.) Completing the bonus battles for these events will get you Memory Crystal IIs for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal II Lode (ditto.) Completing the Ultimate battle will get you a Memory Crystal III Lode.
To unlock characters who aren't currently featured in events, you'll visit the Hall of Rites. Hero Souls can be turned in for any character, and MC Lodes can be turned in for their various MCs. MC1s are used to break past level 50 and enable the Record Materia slot. MC2s are used to break past level 65, and MC3s are used to break past level 80.
7) Record Dive.
The Record Dive system allows you to power up characters who have reached level 65, adding small amounts of stat points, percentage boosts to certain types of abilities, adding or increasing ability ranks, adding additional equipment options, or even unlocking exclusive character-specific Legend Materia. The available powerups are different for each eligible character. You unlock these power ups by expending Spirit/Wisdom/Bravery/Dexterity/Vitality Motes, which are a special type of currency obtained from a variety of sources including Event rewards. 4* motes are attainable by completing the harder difficulties of weekly multiplayer content. 5* motes are attainable by completing harder difficulties of weekly single player content. Some exceptions may apply.
Record Dive is also where one can spend 5* Job Motes (like Thief, Spellblade, Ninja, etc), which enable the use and provide copies of certain 6* abilities. Sources of these motes are few and far between.
This is a complicated system with a lot of moving parts and limited resources and there are not nearly enough motes to unlock every character's everything. Feel free to ask questions in the thread!
8) Daily Dungeons.
Each day has a specific set of 2 dungeons. You can only get the First Time Completion and Mastery rewards once, same as the records, and those rewards don't refresh from week to week.
Each day offers two rotating Daily Dungeons with two difficulties apiece. The first is great for farming 5* orbs, the second is great for farming 6* orbs. You can also access Upgrade Materials, Gil, and EXP dungeons any day of the week. Sunday offers enhanced versions of the latter trio.
Enemies in the daily dungeons can drop Gysahl Greens, and you also get some upon completion. These Greens can be exchanged for orbs, eggs, gil or upgrade materials at any time, and once per week the Special Shop will restock a variety of Major Orbs (at half price, relative to buying 10x Greaters), MC lodes and Mythril. Additional purchases may become available from time to time (accessories, items, etc.)
9) Nightmare, Mote, Torment and Magicite Dungeons
The Nightmare area is now permanently open, and features a set of 12 dungeons with 5 challenging boss fights apiece. Each dungeon culminates in a special fight where all characters with 5* rank in a specified ability will get full synergy for themselves and all equipped items, regardless of what realm they or their equipped gear are from! These final fights are like puzzles that must be solved and typically require planning and tactics instead of super powerful gear.
Completing the final boss of a Nightmare dungeon gives you a Record for a powerful 6* ability, which require 6* crystals to make. These crystals are somewhat slow to acquire, so spend them carefully.
There are five Mote dungeons which are individually open for two days on a rotation, like the Daily Dungeons. They each feature a single boss fight where all characters start with one SB gauge and cannot earn more. Clearing them for the first time awards a large amount of 4* Motes for Legend Dives, and they can be repeatedly cleared for lesser amounts, with bonuses for faster clears.
There are Torment dungeons, with more on the way. Each features a single boss fight in three difficulties. The first two difficulties are precluded by 4 or 6 (based on difficulty) waves of high-HP trash which themselves require significant effort to clear, and there is no stage break between the trash and the boss. The bosses have elemental weaknesses, but at reduced potency. Rewards include 5* Orbs, 6* Crystals and 5* Job Motes for specific ability schools. The third, highest, difficulty has no trash waves and uses the Jump Start rules, where each character starts with 3 SB bars and cannot gain any more.
New to the game as of this thread are the Magicite dungeons, which take the throne as the game's hardest content (and can't even be accessed until you clear all the Nightmare dungeons!) Each features a single dungeon with a single stage, and you are challenged by an incredibly powerful Esper. If you can defeat them, you can gain a copy of them and other Espers as Magicites, which can be equipped on the Party screen and benefit the entire party. You can even call on your Main Esper to fight alongside you with a variety of positive effects. These battles feature ZERO Synergy bonuses, you can't bring any of your Roaming Warrior friends, and the Espers have an 80% resistance to Break effects, so they're quite a challenge! Fortunately there's a mysterious ally who can help you out...
Magicites are leveled up and have their level caps broken just like characters do, and you can only finish one Esper fight per day. This is a very deep system which we're just beginning to scratch the surface of. Here's a post written by silence1186 which has some great info on which Magicites are good for what.
10) Relics.
The Relics page, accessible via shortcut on the bottom right of most screens, is where one can "pull" from a variety of "banners" for items. Banner pulls are always at least 3* rarity, with a lesser chance at 4* rarity and a ~13% chance at 5* rarity. Doing so costs Mythril (in game currency) or Gems (purchased with real $$$).
All banners from this point forward will have "Guaranteed 5*", which means every 11-pull comes with at least one 5* item. The likeliest result is two 5* items per 11 pull.
Banners are typically linked to current Events, and every banner has featured 5* relics. When you pull a 5* item, most of the time it will be one of the featured relics, but there's still a very small chance (0.1%) it won't be.
One can do a single pull for 5 Mythril, a triple pull for 15 Mythril or an 11 pull for 50 Mythril. In this modern era of Guaranteed 5*, it is most efficient to do 11 pulls and only 11 pulls. Aside from that, on a per-draw basis your odds of drawing a 5* item are the same no matter how many items you pull at once and no matter which currency you use to pay for them.
11) Stacking Debuffs.
A relatively common feature of relics these days are an SB that includes stat debuffs to the enemy targets. A good party setup might include one or more of these SBs, and a key piece of information is that they stack if the affected debuff/debuffs are different combinations. One ATK/MAG debuff won't stack with another, but an ATK/MAG debuff will stack with an ATK/DEF debuff and an ATK/RES debuff. This rule of thumb goes for Support abilities as well; see the second post for more information.
Multiplayer!
We have a Discord channel set up to coordinate PA runs of Multiplayer bosses. You can join it with this link; https://discord.gg/mNKVTKf
FFRK Acronyms 101 (thanks to Bluecyan for the initial list of these)
MC - Memory Crystal [MC1s break a character's level 50 limit. MC2 is used to break their level 65 limit, and MC3s break the level 80 limit.]
RM - Record Materia [New equippable slot on a character once their MC1 is used. The RM slot for a character, as well as that character's RM1, are unlocked by using that character's MC1. Successive RM are acquired from level broken characters in a variety of ways.]
LM1/LM2 - Legend Materia 1/2. Special character-specific RMs that use separate slots and are acquired by spending 5* motes on a character's Legend Dive.
LMR - Legend Materia Relic. A category of LM that's acquired by pulling and mastering Record Materia equipment.
SG/SSII - Sentinel Grimoire/Stoneskin 2 [Also refered to as Wall. These SBs apply a massive defensive buff to the whole party.]
SB - Soul Break [Powerful abilities learned by acquiring character-specific relics, then equipping them until mastered.]
SSB - Super Soul Break [Like an SB, but stronger, with a variety of bonus effects.]
BSB - Burst Soul Break [Like an SSB, except they also grant Burst Mode, which changes your Attack and Defense commands to something else for a limited time.]
- C1 - Command 1 [Replaces the Attack command during Burst Mode]
- C2 - Command 2 [Replaces the Defend command during Burst Mode]
OSB - Overlimit Soul Break [6* items! They're very powerful SBs that hit only once, but can break the 9999 damage limit.]
USB - Ultra Soul Break [6* items! These are what utility/healer characters get instead of an OSB. Bundles several beneficial effects into one. There are also DPS character USBs now, because fuck precedent.]
CSB - Chain Soul Break [6* items! These are like Elementally themed SSBs, with a 15 second party elemental damage buff that increases with each hit of that element.]
En-Element - An SB that gives the user a buff that vastly increases their damage of a specific element.
Imperil - An SB that afflicts enemies with a debuff that increases damage taken of a specific element by 20%. These stack up to 3 applications, to 60%.
GxO, MxO [the middle x represents which type of orb is being talked about, i.e. MPO for Major Power Orb.]
_*++ - Blank is a number 1-5 which represents an items base rank (not combined). Every plus after the * represents how much its been combined. [A 3*++ will show up as a 5* in game but will be only about as powerful as a 4*. Rule of thumb is every item combination adds about half a rarity level of power.]
RS - Realm Synergy [Applies when a character or his equipped items matches the current realm. An example would be Cloud in any FF7 dungeon or an equipped Blitzball in any FFX dungeon. This adds about 10 levels of stats to a character or about a rarity level in power to an item.]
Mister P's PDF is a compilation of super useful information about FFRK. Ability damage multipliers, character skillsets, soul break details, information on stacking buffs, mechanics calculations, etc.
Enlir's spreadsheet includes information about damn near everything. What various soul breaks do, what Burst mode commands do for which characters, who gets what Record and Legend Materia, etc. And it's current through JP content, so you can use it to look ahead and see what your favorite characters are destined to receive.
Kaonohiokala's spreadsheet is specifically great for looking at the contents of upcoming Relic banners. You can see the order in which these banners appeared in JP, as well as the contents of them. IF we get an Event (and we skip most of JP's collabs with non-FF content, sadly), we typically get the exact same banners. Our Festivals have different contents, however.
A while ago, FFRK added a friend summon system. We have a spreadsheet here you can plug your friend code into, and find the friend code of other PAers.
If you're looking to fill out your Friends list now that RW lists can be refreshed during selection, I recommend this site, which features a searchable list of Friend Codes that constantly updates and can be sorted by realm stats.
Total credit to @Rius whose work I carried over from the previous thread. I hope to tinker with this going forward.
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Legend Dive Information:
(includes current JP content. This section courtesy of Jragghen who is less lazy than I am.)
Who uses what motes
Dualcast LM2
Imperil LM2
Progressive stat boost LM2
Quickcast LM2
Trance LM2
Start with haste/instant LM2
Chase effect and Other LM2
Dualcast by school, both LM2 and LMR
Characters still without Legend Dive/USB in JP
Future uses for 5* orbs:
Future uses for 5* Wind orbs
Future uses for 5* Holy orbs
Future uses for 5* Dark orbs
Future uses for 5* NonE orbs
Future uses for 5* Fire orbs
Future uses for 5* Ice orbs
Future uses for 5* Lightning orbs
Future uses for 5* Power orbs
Future uses for 5* White orbs
Future uses for 5* Black orbs
Future uses for 5* Summon orbs
Who has what Magicite Passive
New Player 3* and 4* Ability Hone Recommendations:
Mitigation is king in the game and never stops being useful, so Shellga, Protectga, Power Breakdown, and Magic Breakdown should be at the top of the priority list. The regular breaks are useful too, just because a different set of characters can use them. AoE Mitigation (without damage) is offered by the Dancer line; 3* dances match up with 3* breaks, 4* with 4* breakdowns, etc. Good Dancers include Faris, Lenna, Penelo, Cait Sith, Mog, Rikku and Yuffie. Bards have their own 4* abilities which are identical in effect to Protectga and Shellga.
Abusing Retaliate's mechanics can cheese you through a LOT of content and it's a 2* ability, so is incredibly cheap to hone up. You can pair it with Draw Fire (also cheap) for extra cheese with cheese on top. Give the rest of your team copies of Double Cut or Tempo Flurry and use them against your Retaliator.
Self Boosts are useful to increase a character's damage before you pull relics with Party Boosts. Many jobs have access to them; Monks have Punishing Palm which deals damage and increases ATK, Samurai have Mirror of Equity which does the same. Thieves have Steal Power which doesn't do damage but does debuff the target's ATK at the same strength as Power Breakdown. 4* Darkness users have several options depending on which stat they'd like to boost; Casters can use Memento Mori which increases MAG but also Dooms the caster. Physical characters can use Death Throes which increases ATK but also Dooms the caster. And Physical users can opt for Dark Bargain which raises ATK but lowers DEF.
If you want to get into Black Magic, start with the Water line in each tier as opposed to fire/lightning/ice; Water is infrequently resisted and easier to hone than the primary elements are. Plus it casts faster, so it does more damage over time not counting resistance/weakness.
If you want to get into Summoning, note that Summons only have one use per rank, plus one extra use at R1. Having said that, the 3* primary element ones are an ok place to start for lesser difficulty fights. As for 4*, Carbuncle is occasionally useful at R1 but the others take a lot of resources to hone. Once you have a large pile of 4* Summon orbs, Maduin is useful where AoE is needed. With regard to elemental 4* summons, the good ones are Alexander, Leviathan and Fat Chocobo. Syldra is an upgrade from Ramuh, and if we ever get Noel then that's an upgrade from Shiva. The only 4* fire summon is Phoenix and it does not hit twice, so it is not recommended.
With regard to White Magic, Curaga will suffice until it doesn't (party level ~55-60+), and then you'll make Curaja. Renewing Cure is an alternative that heals for less than Curaga but applies Low Regen. Memento of Prayer applies Low Regen to the entire party. The Dia line is really only viable if the target is weak to Holy or if you pick up some MND gear/RMs and +Holy% gear.
With regard to Status Effects, the Machinist line is a series of 4* abilities that have a high chance to apply a status effect, and deal additional damage if the target already has that effect. White Magic has access to high proc chance Slow and Silence, while Black Magic has access to high proc chance Blind.
If you need to Dispel beneficial effects from opponents, Knight has a 4* ability called Banishing Blade that deals Holy damage and Dispels. Also, White Magic has a 3* Dispel ability that will do so without dealing damage.
With regard to Spellblades, the 3* abilities are fine. It's not really necessary to push into the 4* ones.
After that, it all depends on your relic pulls. We're at a point in the game where pretty much every smaller population job is fleshed out with 3*, 4* and 5* abilities, so there's plenty to choose from.
Acolyte Archives: A system to acclimate new players to the different modes and functions of the game, and rewards them with Tyro's "Wall" relic, 8 other random items, and 9 lists to choose an additional relic from. Details: here.
Thanks again to Rius who ran these threads for several years over many iterations.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
It’s 20 massive ranged physical water attacks and one massive ranged water that can break the damage cap. I’m fairly certain you guys can put it to good use, yeah?
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
12/26 XI
14/47 XII
11/38 III
Almost 50% chance of dupe on XI - nah. And the caveat for III is that I've got CoD's USB, OK's BSB and pUSB, a complete Luneth minus USB (but with ASB), AND the Earth Chain, so most of the high-end stuff is already covered.
Looks like I'll get a 1/3 dupe XII
Forgot to mention - got a 1/3 dupe Aerith BSB for the VII one, which was enough to reforge it, which left it still with lower MND than the Umbrella I got in the healer lucky draw. Hah.
Really, if I don't see it in storage maybe I can forget that I pulled Gau's Shiny Thing relic. Twice.
First time was 32s... then 45s..... then 26s... then couldnt close out the fight.
So depending on double casts and avoiding absorb strength on the wrong target or too many savage jetfires in a row.
Very RNG dependent team, and lots of room for improving, as its currently Squall that is mostly completed as the DPS (bsb2, asb, osb, usb) and Celes with BSB1 as backup buffer / dps.
Then Raijin SSB for guts / insta-cast. Onion Knight for pUSB and entrusting, and Shelke for entrusts.
MWO: Adamski
...I should probably stop doing the XP dungeon.
I've already been doing that. Unique SBs have straight garbage stats due to power creep. Also you don't need like 5 swords in a realm, especially newer 6*s vs older 5*s.
the fights so insanely scripted its just boring
Apparently the best way to use GSBs is to just hit it ASAP, then spam abilities until you hit your ASB finisher. Stacking them is a massive loss of DPS, unless you have to use it to extend an init en-element.
Yeah I was going Cyclone Dive->Wind Jump x2-> Glint->continue jumping->AOSB->continue jumping->OSB. It's SLOW to get rolling though.
E: Might be better to run Lifesiphon and Ripping Blast, actually now that I think about it.
XP dungeon is for magicite now, not people.
Also, this is the last refresh before the fest stuff goes away, so make sure to burn your stamina potions if you want to.
So I guess this is the final roundup:
Great: Rinoa CSB, Cloud USB, Luneth ASB, Ayame BSB
Good: Edge LMR, Rinoa BSB2, Ramza BSB2, Terra BSB2, Yuffie GSB, Aerith USB, Ayame OSB
Boost on person I use anyway but generally not great unto themselves: Kain LMR, Ingus LMR, Vivi SSB
Potentially useful for CM: Agrias SSB, Gabranth LMR, Strago LMR, Guy BSB, Echo BSB, Aphmau LMR, Garland SSB, Wakka USB, Prishe SSB
Not really useful for anything other than stats: Snow SSB, Marcus SSB, Delita LMR
Dupe, but useful equipment: Paine BSB, Edge SSB
Dupe: Alphinaud BSB, Aerith BSB, Krile BSB, Eiko SSB, Vivi SSB, Marche BSB, Penelo USB
315 mythril in all. Not going to set the world on fire, but not bad.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
If you're thinking Tiamat, I don't know that the cold combo is even worthwhile. Tiamat's physical attacks pierce retaliate and the multiplier on Warring Frost is less than that on Hailstorm. And the 50% crit is useless if, like me, you have OK pUSB or even something like Eiko BSB. Just something to think about for the future.
OTOH, for Tiamat, I think Ayame probably just wants Lifesiphon and Hailstorm, the better to get to Enice faster.
Honestly, I probably could just Dive her right now, if I wanted.
That's what I did at first - instant dive, lifesiphon and hailstorm.
One of you guys made the suggestion to use Snowspell Strike instead of Lifesiphon and that works pretty well.
Talk me out of it?
Maybe half-dive for LM1 (15% knight damage) and the 3%/6% knight damage nodes.
This is really interesting, SSS against weakness generates 24% gauge and lifesiphon generates 30% gauge. The question is whether that difference over 2 activations is the difference between a bar on turn 4 or not. With 3 lifesiphons you are guaranteed to have a bar since there's an automatic AoE by Tiamat at turn 2, but 3xSSS generates 72% and you would need 3 enemy attacks to generate enough gauge for a bar.
In my experience, 2 lifesiphons (60%) plus one Hailstorm (21%) plus the first 2 AoE gets you just enough for a bar on turn 4. Which is where you want to be, IME.
Oh damn, I missed that. Yeah, that's a hard pass. Guess that leaves *checks* Marche for dualcast with BSB and LMR, or Agrias for imperil chance with enHoly SSB and dualcast LMR.
Three Snowspell plus 2 AoE gets me exactly with enough bar on turn 4. The only randomness is whether the second AoE is magic or not, because Penelo has used her USB that point and blinks a physical one. Your early Hailstorm makes the burst entry do a bit more damage, but I doubt it's enough to offset the extra damage from the snowspell. Not sure why it ends up that way with the numbers, though.
There's also the option to just keep punting that decision down the road. Who knows, maybe you will pull something ridiculous for Beatrix in the next festival. Or maybe you'll decide that your Ixion team is right on the borderline and decide to go ahead and do Ingus after all. 5* mote income is still low enough for the foreseeable future that I think it's right to sit on them if you don't have a particular use in mind.
Yeah, you're right. Just trying to analyze where I'm at post-fest and seeing if there's good ROI.
Ixion is actually my only sub-30 4* right now, so there's literally no reason to burn them on him :P
Current status:
Cycle 1: Vivi, Y'sh, Raines, Beatrix, Fujin, Shadow, Ramza, Luneth, TGCid, Auron
Cycle 2: Ashe, Potato, Alphinaud, <blank>, OK, Edge, Shelke, Ayame, Cloud, <blank>
Cycle 3: Penelo <half>
Basically looking for the most ideal people to slot into the two cycle two ones, and maybe considering doing a half-Rinoa dive (since my Tiamat is still less than stable and she's my ice chain) to even out the Penelo half. Alternatively just going ahead and full diving Penelo because the extra 20 MND can't hurt, even if the LM2 isn't super useful. I think I'm going to do the 4x mage, 0 knight/hybrid, 2x the other ones this time around. Ayame/Cloud are my new dives post-fest (zero regrets with either one of those given my Ayame gains and Cloud USB).
I've got a plethora of options in the mage category, a decent number in the Thief/Ninja category, and a dearth everywhere else right now.
You're not using some kind of gauge-boosting RM, right? If not, I don't know why that would give you enough bar.
Hailstorm was just used as a superior alternative to Lifesiphon (boosts damage + deals more damage) since one more ability was necessary to get a bar, but I agree that if triple SSS gets the job done that would likely be superior. You can always fire off Hailstorms after BSB anyway.
1/11: Leo BSB
Dang, I missed all of the top stuff. But, not a dupe, it's an Atk/res boost so it's fairly stackable, and more importantly it's a +holy light armor. So I guess I can't complain (I also have Leo's holy imperil SSB so hey maybe I can use him once in a while).
I had also caved yesterday and did the OSB draw. Draw was a dupe garnet BSB1 (boo, i've gotten that like 4 times now) and some Laguna SSB. I picked Kain's OSB and haha his USB+OSB+ team of entrusters straight up shreds Kraken. His USB doing enlightning, Atk/def boost, and making jump attacks 0CT (like, say, his jump coded OSB) is pretty potent stuff, provided you can keep his meter fed for OSB spam.
So yeah. I dunno. Maybe I need three AoE to hit and the timing seems to align for some reason? I'll boot it up real quick just to see.
Tiamat is fucking fast, and gets a third attack (ignoring the absorbs) before Ayame's 4th turn, and a 4th attack basically as the bar fills.
If either of those is an AoE magic, or both are a physical that targets her (ie, both AoE, or one targeted that hits her) it fills the bar.
I have zero "team instant cast" abilities, so that generally means that turn 4 still ends up being BSB cast.
Out of curiosity, what is your Ayame hitting for with SSS, and what is her ATK/what boosts are you using, if you don't mind?
+15, +13, +10, +2 ice boost, +15 atk, +4 crit hit chance (still leveling some of these) from magicite.
1st turn (pre-any buff) is ~2k per non-crit hit
2nd turn, post 30/30 boost, with ice chain active she's starting at ~3700k per non-crit hit, and it builds from there.
Lifesiphon did ~1400 first hit ~1900 second, so it's no question damage-wise.
Also toying with the idea of diving Squall (with only LMR) to just spam SSS as well, but that would require more SSS than I'm willing to make. I think 2 is my limit.
Yeah, it was the entry which I wasn't sure about and this conversation woke me up to that. I'm capping on the samurai hits towards the end of the chain, so I think boosting the earlier hits will end up mattering more than those later hits. Her dive has +6% samurai and +19% ice already, so weakness or weapon looks like it'd be the way to go (it's actually Sword in this case - Onion Sword is my strongest weapon, ignoring element boosts). I guess weapon for her and weakness for Rinoa would be optimal.