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] Why do you play? You play because you played of course!
38thDoe
lets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
lets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered User regular
Final Fantasy Record Keeper
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. This game has lasted a long time and has only gotten more complex.
If you are a new player feel free to ask any questions in the thread because this game has a ton of systems. Here are the past discussions for this game:
Most Recent Thread
2nd Most Recent Thread
3rd Most Recent Thread
4th Most Recent Thread
5th Most Recent Thread
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 several original characters) 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. Save your mythril for special Realm and Element Draws which give the same 11 pull but for the first time cost of 15 mythril. SAVINGS!
Acolyte Archives: Missions that unlock new systems of the game and give you free draws and bonus relics that you can pick. Start here!
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 to help you clear events. Other missions have fixed RW choices.
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.
Acolyte Archives: Missions that unlock new systems of the game and give you free draws and bonus relics that you can pick. Start here!
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 to help you clear events. Other missions have fixed RW choices.
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. Each features a single boss fight in three difficulties. There is one for each realm and the bosses scale in difficulty depending on how many characters from the realm you bring. Rewards include 5* Orbs, 6* Crystals and 5* Job Motes for specific ability schools.
Then you have 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 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.
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.
12)Festivals
Every 3 months there is a festival. These will have banners of high quality, typically debuting new relics, and higher relic tiers. They also bring back a lot of the most powerful relics from between fests. There will be five festival banners. There will also be three lucky banners which have a specific pool of items and an 11 pull only costs 25 mythril. There will also be superbosses and event bosses. Fests are preceded by a Luck of the Realms where you can get 3 relics from each realm for 5 mythril and 1/3 are guaranteed to be a 5 star relic or better. This is crazy value even if a lot of them will be duds.
13) Artifacts You can redeem artifact stones to make artifacts. They come in elemental and realm models and every type of weapon. Artifact stones come from events, and then you need to grind up your old relics to make rainbow crystals to power them up.
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.]
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.
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.
Farming-lite 5* Magicite deck guide:
https://imgur.com/a/uyUWhwz
More in depth guide to Magicite Inheritance.
Legend Dive Information:
(includes current JP content. This section courtesy of Jragghen who is less lazy than I am.)
Who uses what motes https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8uttUVMAMMrMO.jpg
Dualcast LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8u6ZLU8AA_FSH.jpg
Imperil LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8u8b8V4AAzF5a.jpg
Progressive stat boost LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8u_FbV4AAfZ7i.jpg
Quickcast LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8vBM5VAAEq3Yw.jpg
Trance LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8vHjHU8AUOw55.jpg
Start with haste/instant LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8vKAgVAAExkZC.jpg
Chase effect and Other LM2 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8vMRVU8AA9S2W.jpg
Dualcast by school, both LM2 and LMR https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dg8vSCzUYAACaSw.jpg
Series of images in this tweet for hastega per realm
Big Thanks to @silence1186 and @Rius for running previous versions of this thread.
38thDoE on steam
🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀🦑🦀
38thDoe on
+3
Posts
Magia System: Level 99 characters earn 1 Magia point for every mission they complete no matter the amount of stages or difficulty. This can be used to gain stats but it takes grinding to get it in great numbers since you slow down earning it as you get it. The best things to put it into are Main Stat, Elemental Damage, HP. At this point it will be a ton of battles to get a point and you are better off swapping characters.
Anima Lenses: A system to allow players to convert event rewards and duplicate pull relics into new SBs not available on banners anymore. There are three grades of Lenses, and when you accumulate enough, you can teach an old SB to a character without the appropriate relic. List of what's available here. These lenses will be used to upgrade a future soul break.
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.
Thanks again to @Rius who ran these threads for several years over many iterations.
Also this.
Sunk all my resources into this. The good news is I don't have to think about another Odin for two weeks due to respecing Bartz.
Turns went something like
Galuf: pass turn wait until 4:40 hit Grand Charge, Grand Charge 3 more times then wait for Turmoil and Stone press. Grand charge x2, chain around 20 something seconds, stone press, Imperil Earth, Grand Charge, get stunned, Chain when its going to expire, Imperil again if possible.
Bartz: Attack, 4hit Blade until near full, Enearth, USB1, AASB, 5 Hit Blade, OSB
Rydia: Pass wait until 3:30 meltdown until chain, then AASB Titan, finish with OSBs
Elarra: Haste, Haste, Curada, USB1 after elemental drive, Haste, Curada until after Savage Zantetsuken then BSB, USB2 after Lightning Zanokuken, USB1 after the next big bump, then Curada and USB1 as needed.
Tyro Wrathx2, Entrust to Bartz, Wrath x2 entrust to Elarra, Wrathx2 USB4, wrath and entrust to Galuf, Entrust to Elarra, Fabula Mage x2, AASB
I'm in hibernation for the foreseeable future. Only temporary content, nothing demanding on time or sanity, no relic draws, and finishing 100 gems then stopping hopefully forever.
I would say it’s a better support BSB than Minfilia’s The Echo, as it actually breaks stats on the Burst. On the other hand, Minfilia’s got her SSB to boost the team’s ATK. It’s still pretty neat.
Glad I have Cloud keeper so it's not too miserable.
Oh even using both Bartz and Squall's AASB the timing is still tight on Dispel and two huge medicas to cover the insane amount of damage he does (no Last Stand on my healers).
1/11 Ultemicia Awakening!
1/11 Dupe USB Ultemicia...
3/11 2xDupe Laguna CSB... and a new Dark CSB!
The latter is probably more sensible.
Only thing for her, but sure.
EDIT: I've been thinking...since she has a Squall Type BSB...can she pull off that AASB into BSB for shenanigans too?!
She could, but you're losing a lot of damage boost from the AASB because BSB commands are counted as Rank 1 abilities, plus they have lower multipliers to begin with. There's also the issue that mages can't crit, so the mage versions of Squall-type BSBs are markedly inferior, IIRC.
That relic... I think I pulled it six times in total.
edit: Is there a holy pick up incoming?
Data for posterity:
45/434 lifetime
7/84 current batch
5/95 3rd batch (5/95 is -9 under EV, which is catastrophically bad, but it's just a game!)
14/95 2nd batch (about on EV for this batch.)
9/65 1st batch (0.1 items below EV, which is pretty much exactly expected return, though quite a few duds even on my hits)
Note to self: No whining, Rikku USB, never forget. Also Cloud BSB2, Mustadio USB, Water Chain (dupe), Seymour Chain, Basch USB, Nine USB, Sephiroth USB, Pecil USB1, Sice USB (twice!), Curilla USB (dupe), Celes USB2, Strago USB, Firion bUSB, Rude USB.
Stormspell Strike (Bartz: only SBs of note: AASB and Glint, although I've got ATK out the wazoo due to other ones, also LMR)
Ripping Plasma (Lightning: AASB, bUSB, USB3, OSB, BSB...2?)
Other considerations: Bartz is my only potential water AASB, but I lack a chain so no real use for it now. However, I CAN drop 100 lit and 100 atk magia on him.
Obviously eventually I want both, but for now?
6* Spellblade ability - Frigid Assault (至高魔法剣・凍爪, Shikou Mahouken: Koutsume, "Ultimate Spellblade Frozen Claw")
Deals five physical Ice elemental attacks to one enemy.
Requires Power, Dark & Ice Crystals.
6* Summoning ability - Dark Shiva (H・シヴァ, Heretikku Shiva, "Heretic Shiva")
Deals four summon magic Ice elemental attacks to all enemies.
Requires Summoning, Dark & Ice Crystals.
6* Celerity ability - Icebound (アイスバウンド, Aisu Baundo)
Deals four five physical Ice elemental attacks to one target and removes their Haste.
Requires Power, Non-elemental & Ice Crystals.
Magicite Dungeons:
6★ Valefor (X) arriving as the boss representing the Wind element.
Presumably Kiros is going ice, and that 6* ice celerity to go with his kit.
1: lol that new Celerity ability is basically the new form of saying “stop doing that, Syldra”. It’s a nice answer to her early and late-game Haste. Even without Kiros, it’s going to be a decent pick for Shelke, Onion, Tyro, Rikku, or Edge. Potentially Vaan or Noctis as well, if you’re going with specific soul break options on them.
2: “Heretic Shiva”, eh? That’s interesting. That’s not the original name for a Dark Aeon in FFX, I should note. Those use the English word “Dark” even in the Japanese. I think this new summon could instead be the Shiva form used by Ysayle in FFXIV. As her character profile notes, she is a leader of a group called the Heretics in that game. It would be a bit odd to have her as a character and a Magicite, but that didn’t stop us from getting Enkidu or Syldra Magicite.
Zack AASB.
I see what you're doing game! You're trying to string me along and keep me from quitting! Well joke's on you, I already beat the FF7 Torment AND Wind-weak Odin!
Which becomes a problem when the next thing to do in this game is very stat demanding.
I think I overdid it bringing in Selphie...I'm not sure I even needed her Astra but her Last Stand came in handy when I screwed up using Seifer's USB instead of his CSB.
Odds of every using it is pretty low but at least it isn't a No or Shared SB relic.
Fran’s a Machinist now! She’s not a particularly great one, since her Legend Dive is all Bow and Debuff-oriented, but the access to Plasma Shock and Icy Offering works fairly well with her old Pinpoint SSB (Imperil Lightning), and her USB (Imperil Ice).
Actually, that USB particularly may be reason enough to try using Fran in an Ice team, if you already have it. It has the additional effect of reducing all ability cast time for the party for 2 actions. The party speed and her access to Full Break and Affliction Break may help.
And speaking of Afflictions, Astra now lasts forever until you actually block something with it.
—————
Rolled on the Seifer banner in hopes of his good Chain. Got instead Ultimecia’s Bubsy and Dualcast Dark RLM. Not terrible.
Bubsy does 10 instant-cast Dark/Wind attacks and breaks DEF/RES/MND, also makes her actions faster. Brave 3 dispels as well as being an Overstrike.
Very interested to see how she fares vs Adamantoise, as this thing seems tailor-made to mess with Adamant Guard if she has the meter at the time. She may not beat Exdeath for Dark team position, though.
Sad to miss the awakens and Seify’s chain, but this will work.
I was already using Fran as my imperil machine for Syldra, so this'll be a nice upgrade. I might even go so far as to kick Serah off the Odin team I've been bashing my head against. We'll see.
Did you get lightning-weak Odin? Zack awakening can double Flash Disasters!
Everybody: Luck of the Realms on Parade is probably going to be starting any day now, so if your mythril is empty you might want to start saving.
@Enlong she was a mainstay on my Adamantoise Team and MVP. That Bubsy + her access to Summon 6* and great LD helped A LOT. edit: It helped that I had her EnWind LMR because the only downside to that Bubsy is that it lacks Enwind.
No more Odin or Torments for me until they're power creeped at least on more stage. For now, 4 campaigns in Fire Emblem are taking up all my free time.
Hey, add Chocobo/Poulet as a character.