I REALLY want to pull on the VI but I am extremely worried about having enough for the lucky draws. I am skipping the medica draw cause I am seriously over loaded with those. Half the top tier BSBs, and an army of second tiers. Some of the USBs would be nice, but it would be hard to convince me not to use healer BSBs given how much use I make of the commands. I am currently sitting on like 9 mythril so I am not even sure I will get the other two let alone have enough to pull on another banner.
0
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
This Torment sure was something, for a 2 CM including an Aerith freshly egged to 80. It's pretty fun when everything is silenced and you just have to deal with the boss' pitiful attacks.
Took both Cloud USBs and all of Lightning's Soul Breaks, but still ended up with plenty of damage to spare.
Edge USB: Water/lightning damage with "Chaotic Moon": gain High Quickcast 1 after using water attacks, chases Ninja abilities with water/lightning hits based on number of Blinks. This makes Edge the new king of DPS mountain, provided you can hone the two new 5* water ninja abilities high enough and you aren't unlucky with a boss constantly peeling your blinks. You probably want the LMR to go with this, you don't really need the burst though. Rosa USB: Instant party Curaga + magic blink + 2000 HP stock. Utterly absurd healing, especially since Rosa has access to Wrath. Instantly full heal your party, then dodge an attack with magic blink, then immediately recover from an attack with the stock HP, then oops you're already ready to cast the next one GG boss. Pecil BSB2: Holy/non damage with Sentinel. C1 grows to 5 hits after you've received 7 attacks, C2 has a self RES boost. It's a source of Sentinel, but otherwise not interesting. Rubicante BSB:Fire MAG light armor. En-fire. Commands are what make or break mage bursts, and the commands on this one are pretty awful. C1 toggles the cloak on/off: while it's on, Rubicante has a 50% chance to counter PHY attacks with AOE Firaga. Turning it off does a single target attack that's weaker than Chain Firaga. C2 is a weak fire AOE, or a slightly less weak fire AOE if the cloak is on. It's really difficult to conceive even a niche situation where this would be useful. At least it's a fire boost armor? Edge BSB: En-water. Boring commands. Not that exciting, but it'd work fine with Sapphire Shot or the new water ninja abilities. Rosa LMR: +1% MND per hit dealt with White Magic, up to 25%. Probably not what you want to be doing with Rosa. Edge LMR: 25% chance to gain a blink after using a Ninja ability. This is nice in conjunction with the USB to make sure you stay at full blink stacks for maximum DPS. Otherwise not especially interesting. Rubicante SSB:Fire MAG fist. Imperil fire. Edge SSB2:Fire ATK light armor. Party Haste + Last Stand + Blink. Pretty cool hastega, if you have your ATK or MAG buffs covered elsewhere. Golbez SSB2: En-dark. Very weak for an en-element. Edward SSB: Party +30% MAG/MND and Quick Magic Attacks 3. Excellent offense buff for a mage team.
Banner 2: September 10
Pecil USB:6* holy sword. En-holy. Damage with 6000 HP stock and stacking DEF buff for Cecil. That huge HP stock makes this pretty cool for tanking in conjunction with Cover from his LM2, Sentinel from his BSB2, and/or Draw Fire/Magic Lure/Gaia Cross. Kain OSB: It's an OSB. Cid IV BSB: Lightning/non damage with Full Breakdown, commands for Magic Breakdown and Armor Breakdown. Meh. Kain BSB:Lightning spear. En-lightning. C1 grants No Air Time 2, C2 has Ether 1. Honestly I don't use either command and just spam 5* Lightning Dive, and it's great. Only four hits on the initial cast can suck if you aren't using RW Cloud USB though. Ceodore BSB: Holy/non damage and party 40% medica. C1 is damage and a 25% heal for one ally, C2 is AOE damage and Esuna to one ally. Lifesiphonable medica is cool in certain builds. Pecil LMR:Holy ATK heavy armor. +3% DEF per hit received, up to 35%. Kinda meh, but his LM1 is awful (-10% holy damage taken), and it's a decent combo with his LM2 (40% Cover, reduce damage by 50%). Kain LMR: +25% dragoon damage with spear. A decent upgrade over his LM1 (10% lightning damage). Kain SSB: Damage and No Air Time 3. Blech, pass. Rosa SSB: Party Curaga + Magic Blink. Still pretty serviceable for an SSB, especially since Rosa can Wrath. Obviously you'd prefer her USB, though. Porom SSB2: Party +30% ATK, +15% MND, and 50% crit rate. Stacks with pretty much everything, but can be awkward to fit in your party (you probably still want a medica somewhere). Ceodore SSB: En-holy.
Overall thoughts, future banners, etc.
Banner 1: Edge USB+LMR is pretty sick DPS if you hone the abilities. Rosa USB is arguably the top medica right now. The BSBs are somewhere between boring and bad though, and two of the SSBs are awful. Very high risk banner. At least there are three element boost relics among the whiffs. If you do hit Edge USB, consider whether you want to go after the LMR; I don't think you need to chase the BSB as well, though.
Banner 2: Pecil USB is pretty cool if you like him, Kain BSB still does serviceable DPS in conjunction with Lightning Dive, and Ceodore BSB may be interesting depending on the rest of your collection. Multiple boring/weak items with no strong upside though, so it's hard to recommend drawing here. Pecil USB is likely to come back on festival banners; if you want Ceodore and Kain stuff, the next IV event is a better place to pull for them.
Next IV event is in about nine weeks. Banner 1 has Ceodore USB/BSB/LMR, Kain USB/OSB/BSB/LMR, Tellah BSB/LMR, and Edward BSB. Banner 2 has Rydia USB/OSB/BSB2/LMR, Golbez USB/BSB/LMR, Ursula BSB/LMR, and Yang BSB. Kain USB is pretty cool (it's an even better version of his burst), the other new USBs are not especially exciting among USBs.
If you just want sick DPS, Shadow USB in two weaks is very similar to Edge USB, but that banner is similarly topheavy, especially depending on how you feel about all the Setzer items which are focused on stat breaks. Also in two weeks, there's that festival looming, I'm sure there will be some hot DPS tech there as well.
Upcoming event schedule:
IV - T (Delita USB, Meliadoul) - VI (Shadow/Setzer USBs) - 30th Anniversary Fest! - Dissidia villains (Gabranth USB/Garland Chain) - II (Minwu/Leon USBs) - III (Refia USB/Ingus Chain) - XV (Prompto USB) - VIII (Laguna/Edea/Zell USBs, Kiros and Ward) - VII (Sephiroth/Reno/Cid USBs, Rude and Elena) - IV (Ceodore/Kain/Rydia/Golbez USBs)
I know I can get Ramza to maintain Shout + Chant while starting with Dr. Mog's in Magicite dungeons, with a little bit of downtime if I have to use a non-wrath action before putting up Chant and refreshing Shout. With the instant cast of History's Truth I don't think it should be a problem to maintain those three. Might take a few tries to get used to the timing on maintaining Full Break while weaving in the soul breaks, though.
100 gem only on IV. Not only do I have 2 dupes (Edge SSB and BSB) but there is quite a lot of other garbage on the banner. I can't remember a banner with such a large delta between top and bottom of the banner. While I would love to have Rosa or Edge USB I can't justify the pull here.
I know I can get Ramza to maintain Shout + Chant while starting with Dr. Mog's in Magicite dungeons, with a little bit of downtime if I have to use a non-wrath action before putting up Chant and refreshing Shout. With the instant cast of History's Truth I don't think it should be a problem to maintain those three. Might take a few tries to get used to the timing on maintaining Full Break while weaving in the soul breaks, though.
Do you have Ramza's LM2? Because otherwise I'm fairly sure you can't keep all three up full-time (and even with it Haste and Chant are problems). Even with Ace Striker, six Wraths alone is like 20 seconds optimally, plus a few ATB+2.5 (or 3?) second SB casts. Saving 1.65 seconds from a single Wrath probably isn't going to be enough.
I REALLY want to pull on the VI but I am extremely worried about having enough for the lucky draws. I am skipping the medica draw cause I am seriously over loaded with those. Half the top tier BSBs, and an army of second tiers. Some of the USBs would be nice, but it would be hard to convince me not to use healer BSBs given how much use I make of the commands. I am currently sitting on like 9 mythril so I am not even sure I will get the other two let alone have enough to pull on another banner.
I REALLY want to pull on the VI but I am extremely worried about having enough for the lucky draws. I am skipping the medica draw cause I am seriously over loaded with those. Half the top tier BSBs, and an army of second tiers. Some of the USBs would be nice, but it would be hard to convince me not to use healer BSBs given how much use I make of the commands. I am currently sitting on like 9 mythril so I am not even sure I will get the other two let alone have enough to pull on another banner.
There's no USBs in a BSB-only draw.
Oh I thought it was just Curaga or better. Much easier to pass on it.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
The three Luckies are:
1. BSBs with an entry Medica (includes Ceodore)
2. All BSBs, USBs, CSBs
3. All 6* items
Note: items on the fest banners will not be on the Lucky Draws
I REALLY want to pull on the VI but I am extremely worried about having enough for the lucky draws. I am skipping the medica draw cause I am seriously over loaded with those. Half the top tier BSBs, and an army of second tiers. Some of the USBs would be nice, but it would be hard to convince me not to use healer BSBs given how much use I make of the commands. I am currently sitting on like 9 mythril so I am not even sure I will get the other two let alone have enough to pull on another banner.
There's no USBs in a BSB-only draw.
Oh I thought it was just Curaga or better. Much easier to pass on it.
It's not even technically cura or better, or hell, white mage 5. It's any BSB with a medica on entry. So Echo (40% HP) gets a relic on it despite being only WhM4.
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
I run two Entrusters in my magicite teams, OK and Minfilia. They usually do okay using two Wraths, SB, then two Wraths and Entrust, but that's because my DPS characters and healer have BSBs to help prevent haste from falling. Even then, the timing can get wonky due to me having to use one of the Entrust users to call in the second Wall.
Ok. Then my options include having Larsa or Yuna start with a bar and use a soul break to Haste the team, whilst Vaan and Bartz buff their own dang ATK stats with Steal Power or Smash Dive, Legend Dive Ramza, or spend money chasing the Chicken Knife, so I can RW Shout
Edge USB: Water/lightning damage with "Chaotic Moon": gain High Quickcast 1 after using water attacks, chases Ninja abilities with water/lightning hits based on number of Blinks. This makes Edge the new king of DPS mountain, provided you can hone the two new 5* water ninja abilities high enough and you aren't unlucky with a boss constantly peeling your blinks. You probably want the LMR to go with this, you don't really need the burst though. Rosa USB: Instant party Curaga + magic blink + 2000 HP stock. Utterly absurd healing, especially since Rosa has access to Wrath. Instantly full heal your party, then dodge an attack with magic blink, then immediately recover from an attack with the stock HP, then oops you're already ready to cast the next one GG boss. Pecil BSB2: Holy/non damage with Sentinel. C1 grows to 5 hits after you've received 7 attacks, C2 has a self RES boost. It's a source of Sentinel, but otherwise not interesting. Rubicante BSB:Fire MAG light armor. En-fire. Commands are what make or break mage bursts, and the commands on this one are pretty awful. C1 toggles the cloak on/off: while it's on, Rubicante has a 50% chance to counter PHY attacks with AOE Firaga. Turning it off does a single target attack that's weaker than Chain Firaga. C2 is a weak fire AOE, or a slightly less weak fire AOE if the cloak is on. It's really difficult to conceive even a niche situation where this would be useful. At least it's a fire boost armor? Edge BSB: En-water. Boring commands. Not that exciting, but it'd work fine with Sapphire Shot or the new water ninja abilities. Rosa LMR: +1% MND per hit dealt with White Magic, up to 25%. Probably not what you want to be doing with Rosa. Edge LMR: 25% chance to gain a blink after using a Ninja ability. This is nice in conjunction with the USB to make sure you stay at full blink stacks for maximum DPS. Otherwise not especially interesting. Rubicante SSB:Fire MAG fist. Imperil fire. Edge SSB2:Fire ATK light armor. Party Haste + Last Stand + Blink. Pretty cool hastega, if you have your ATK or MAG buffs covered elsewhere. Golbez SSB2: En-dark. Very weak for an en-element. Edward SSB: Party +30% MAG/MND and Quick Magic Attacks 3. Excellent offense buff for a mage team.
Banner 2: September 10
Pecil USB:6* holy sword. En-holy. Damage with 6000 HP stock and stacking DEF buff for Cecil. That huge HP stock makes this pretty cool for tanking in conjunction with Cover from his LM2, Sentinel from his BSB2, and/or Draw Fire/Magic Lure/Gaia Cross. Kain OSB: It's an OSB. Cid IV BSB: Lightning/non damage with Full Breakdown, commands for Magic Breakdown and Armor Breakdown. Meh. Kain BSB:Lightning spear. En-lightning. C1 grants No Air Time 2, C2 has Ether 1. Honestly I don't use either command and just spam 5* Lightning Dive, and it's great. Only four hits on the initial cast can suck if you aren't using RW Cloud USB though. Ceodore BSB: Holy/non damage and party 40% medica. C1 is damage and a 25% heal for one ally, C2 is AOE damage and Esuna to one ally. Lifesiphonable medica is cool in certain builds. Pecil LMR:Holy ATK heavy armor. +3% DEF per hit received, up to 35%. Kinda meh, but his LM1 is awful (-10% holy damage taken), and it's a decent combo with his LM2 (40% Cover, reduce damage by 50%). Kain LMR: +25% dragoon damage with spear. A decent upgrade over his LM1 (10% lightning damage). Kain SSB: Damage and No Air Time 3. Blech, pass. Rosa SSB: Party Curaga + Magic Blink. Still pretty serviceable for an SSB, especially since Rosa can Wrath. Obviously you'd prefer her USB, though. Porom SSB2: Party +30% ATK, +15% MND, and 50% crit rate. Stacks with pretty much everything, but can be awkward to fit in your party (you probably still want a medica somewhere). Ceodore SSB: En-holy.
Overall thoughts, future banners, etc.
Banner 1: Edge USB+LMR is pretty sick DPS if you hone the abilities. Rosa USB is arguably the top medica right now. The BSBs are somewhere between boring and bad though, and two of the SSBs are awful. Very high risk banner. At least there are three element boost relics among the whiffs. If you do hit Edge USB, consider whether you want to go after the LMR; I don't think you need to chase the BSB as well, though.
Banner 2: Pecil USB is pretty cool if you like him, Kain BSB still does serviceable DPS in conjunction with Lightning Dive, and Ceodore BSB may be interesting depending on the rest of your collection. Multiple boring/weak items with no strong upside though, so it's hard to recommend drawing here.
Next IV event is in about nine weeks. Banner 1 has Ceodore USB/BSB/LMR, Kain USB/OSB/BSB/LMR, Tellah BSB/LMR, and Edward BSB. Banner 2 has Rydia USB/OSB/BSB2/LMR, Golbez USB/BSB/LMR, Ursula BSB/LMR, and Yang BSB. Kain USB is pretty cool (it's an even better version of his burst), the other new USBs are not especially exciting among USBs.
If you just want sick DPS, Shadow USB in two weaks is very similar to Edge USB, but that banner is similarly topheavy, especially depending on how you feel about all the Setzer items which are focused on stat breaks. Also in two weeks, there's that festival looming, I'm sure there will be some hot DPS tech there as well.
Upcoming event schedule:
IV - T (Delita USB, Meliadoul) - VI (Shadow/Setzer USBs) - 30th Anniversary Fest! - Dissidia villains (Gabranth USB/Garland Chain) - II (Minwu/Leon USBs) - III (Refia USB/Ingus Chain) - XV (Prompto USB) - VIII (Laguna/Edea/Zell USBs, Kiros and Ward) - VII (Sephiroth/Reno/Cid USBs, Rude and Elena) - IV (Ceodore/Kain/Rydia/Golbez USBs)
I feel like you're underselling Rubicante's BSB a bit. The need to take a turn to enable Rubicante's stronger hits does suck, and I won't argue that his C1 is butts, and looks even worse when Chain Firaga goes 4-hits. But his C2 under Cloak is a 3-hit AoE at the same modifier as his cloaked C1. For a burst command, and just in general among black magic skills, it's quite good. Now mind you, the times you need to AoE something down are few and far between, but if you need AoE damage, Rubicante's free C1+C2 is hard to beat. As a bonus, just getting his relics means he's 20/44% fire boosted by himself and only needs +MAG buffs from outside.
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
If Lifesiphon gets eaten by a blink, does it still generate meter?
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
If Lifesiphon gets eaten by a blink, does it still generate meter?
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
If Lifesiphon gets eaten by a blink, does it still generate meter?
I'm trying to maintain Shout, Full Break, and HT. Not Shout, Chant, an HT.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
If Lifesiphon gets eaten by a blink, does it still generate meter?
No, due to the Miss prompt.
Right, so Gnome-Interruptus using Lifesiphon to pop a blink on Fenrir is likely contributing to his issues keeping Shout and History's Truth active.
Something weird is that if Onion Knight uses Onion Slice to pop a blink, he still gets the instant physical on his next action. I'm not sure why that is, and it is probably a bug, but since I'm not using him for damage output on that fight I always have him use wrath afterwards.
0
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
Riders attached to an ability should still trigger even if the attack misses. Laguna still gains Instantcast Machinist 2 even if his CMD2 misses.
IlpalaJust this guy, y'knowTexasRegistered Userregular
100-gem: bupkiss
First pull, 1/11, no disco: Rubicante SSB. Not the best start.
Second pull, 5!/11, no disco: Edward SSB, Rosa LMR, Edge BSB x2, Rubicante BSB. Well. Quite the pull, all new, but no top prize yet. And I'm nothing if not a poor decision maker.
Third pull, 4/11, 1 disco: Golbez SSB, Edge SSB (dupe), Cecil BSB2, and...! Rosa USB (dupe)
Doh. Valiant effort and good RNG got me 9/11 of the banner, but alas.
FF XIV - Qih'to Furishu (on Siren), Battle.Net - Ilpala#1975
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
lol, and as soon as I post that pic I try another run and he wipes me on two back to back runs. Okay. Paralyze the Ultra Cure holder first run which fucks up healing and mitigation down the line. Second run he just does Savage Blaze back to back before I can get any healing in and that's autodeath.
Are you running Instant KO resist? Blaze was usually a free turn for me.
I have 3 Mediums on. 2 people will autodie to Savage Blaze back to back. With bad rolls I might lose another since it's base 303%, Medium takes that down to 30%+3%.
Do you have Wrath on Ramza? Try Lifesiphon instead. That way one rotation of your party deals three hits and switches Liquid Flame to the next form. If you get him rotating that quickly, you will see fewer Savage Firagas and Savage Blazes, at least before he gets down to sub-40% HP.
Phantasm. He just has fast turns. If someone is channeling a SB or something then he might get stuck on a phase for a turn.
2 more Liquid Flame Kills, 1 more Salamander...wait, what? Oh, a 2nd Liquid Flame. Mom Bombs just don't exist.
Also, yea, Faris just does more damage than Yda hitting 9999 Piercing Strikes (which she does immediately after Shout). Faris hits 15k minimum Sapphire Shots and her BSB & USB are 20k each which just pushes her over, since Yda's BSB barely breaks 10k. She might be decent on Sealion, since she'd be hitting weakness then.
Are you actually accounting this properly on a fight basis and not an individual action basis? Aren't you Wrathing at some point?
Rubicante BSB:Fire MAG light armor. En-fire. Commands are what make or break mage bursts, and the commands on this one are pretty awful. C1 toggles the cloak on/off: while it's on, Rubicante has a 50% chance to counter PHY attacks with AOE Firaga. Turning it off does a single target attack that's weaker than Chain Firaga. C2 is a weak fire AOE, or a slightly less weak fire AOE if the cloak is on. It's really difficult to conceive even a niche situation where this would be useful. At least it's a fire boost armor?
I feel like you're underselling Rubicante's BSB a bit. The need to take a turn to enable Rubicante's stronger hits does suck, and I won't argue that his C1 is butts, and looks even worse when Chain Firaga goes 4-hits. But his C2 under Cloak is a 3-hit AoE at the same modifier as his cloaked C1. For a burst command, and just in general among black magic skills, it's quite good. Now mind you, the times you need to AoE something down are few and far between, but if you need AoE damage, Rubicante's free C1+C2 is hard to beat. As a bonus, just getting his relics means he's 20/44% fire boosted by himself and only needs +MAG buffs from outside.
Rubicante's very specific niche is Fire AOE. In any other situation he's way worse than most mages. Even in that specific niche, there are several contenders that are likely to be as good or better:
Papalymo BSB (en-fire) C2
2x3.09 = 6.18 plus MAG buff
Vivi BSB2 (party MAG buff, but no en-fire) C2
2x3.9 = 7.8 plus MAG buff
Terra BSB2 (en-fire) C2
2x3.09 = 6.18 plus MAG buff
Over the course of five burst actions, Rubicante gets 12 AOE hits plus whatever counters he gets, while the other contenders get 10 hits, so he's a bit ahead there...except that the other three all get bonus MAG buffs which probably puts them way ahead on per-hit damage, and thus ahead overall unless you're running into the damage cap. Any fight where the counters become significant is probably a cakewalk, either because you have gobs of spare meter to throw around, or because it's something that can be cheesed by the old school All Retaliate party. It's just really hard to get excited about that burst.
4 pulls. More than I wanted to do, but I got what I wanted.
100 Gem was Rubicante's SSB, so that was a nice surprise.
1/11: Edward SSB. Not a great start.
2/11: Golbez SSB, dupe Rubicante SSB. Not feeling hopeful.
4/11: Dupe Edge SSB x2, Rosa LMR, Edge LMR. Looking better!
4/11 - double disco!: Pecil BSB2 x2, Rosa USB, Edge USB!
Done. Done with this banner. I pulled almost everything out of it except for Edge's BSB which would've been a dupe, and Rubicante's BSB, which admittedly, I want but not so badly that I'd risk the possible dupes. Started the banner with 560 mythril, down now to 360 mythril. Good enough for FFVI in 2 weeks to make attempts on Setzer's USB.
PSN: TheArcadeBear
Steam: TheArcadeBear
+13
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited September 2017
FF4-1 100 gem: 4*! That's not the right amount of stars! Arglbargle! Vendor trash.
Data for posterity:
9 misses in a row
15/132 lifetime
5/37 this batch
Note to self: No whining, Rikku USB, never forget. Also Cloud BSB2.
Posts
Took both Cloud USBs and all of Lightning's Soul Breaks, but still ended up with plenty of damage to spare.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Banner 1: September 7
Rosa USB: Instant party Curaga + magic blink + 2000 HP stock. Utterly absurd healing, especially since Rosa has access to Wrath. Instantly full heal your party, then dodge an attack with magic blink, then immediately recover from an attack with the stock HP, then oops you're already ready to cast the next one GG boss.
Pecil BSB2: Holy/non damage with Sentinel. C1 grows to 5 hits after you've received 7 attacks, C2 has a self RES boost. It's a source of Sentinel, but otherwise not interesting.
Rubicante BSB: Fire MAG light armor. En-fire. Commands are what make or break mage bursts, and the commands on this one are pretty awful. C1 toggles the cloak on/off: while it's on, Rubicante has a 50% chance to counter PHY attacks with AOE Firaga. Turning it off does a single target attack that's weaker than Chain Firaga. C2 is a weak fire AOE, or a slightly less weak fire AOE if the cloak is on. It's really difficult to conceive even a niche situation where this would be useful. At least it's a fire boost armor?
Edge BSB: En-water. Boring commands. Not that exciting, but it'd work fine with Sapphire Shot or the new water ninja abilities.
Rosa LMR: +1% MND per hit dealt with White Magic, up to 25%. Probably not what you want to be doing with Rosa.
Edge LMR: 25% chance to gain a blink after using a Ninja ability. This is nice in conjunction with the USB to make sure you stay at full blink stacks for maximum DPS. Otherwise not especially interesting.
Rubicante SSB: Fire MAG fist. Imperil fire.
Edge SSB2: Fire ATK light armor. Party Haste + Last Stand + Blink. Pretty cool hastega, if you have your ATK or MAG buffs covered elsewhere.
Golbez SSB2: En-dark. Very weak for an en-element.
Edward SSB: Party +30% MAG/MND and Quick Magic Attacks 3. Excellent offense buff for a mage team.
Banner 2: September 10
Kain OSB: It's an OSB.
Cid IV BSB: Lightning/non damage with Full Breakdown, commands for Magic Breakdown and Armor Breakdown. Meh.
Kain BSB: Lightning spear. En-lightning. C1 grants No Air Time 2, C2 has Ether 1. Honestly I don't use either command and just spam 5* Lightning Dive, and it's great. Only four hits on the initial cast can suck if you aren't using RW Cloud USB though.
Ceodore BSB: Holy/non damage and party 40% medica. C1 is damage and a 25% heal for one ally, C2 is AOE damage and Esuna to one ally. Lifesiphonable medica is cool in certain builds.
Pecil LMR: Holy ATK heavy armor. +3% DEF per hit received, up to 35%. Kinda meh, but his LM1 is awful (-10% holy damage taken), and it's a decent combo with his LM2 (40% Cover, reduce damage by 50%).
Kain LMR: +25% dragoon damage with spear. A decent upgrade over his LM1 (10% lightning damage).
Kain SSB: Damage and No Air Time 3. Blech, pass.
Rosa SSB: Party Curaga + Magic Blink. Still pretty serviceable for an SSB, especially since Rosa can Wrath. Obviously you'd prefer her USB, though.
Porom SSB2: Party +30% ATK, +15% MND, and 50% crit rate. Stacks with pretty much everything, but can be awkward to fit in your party (you probably still want a medica somewhere).
Ceodore SSB: En-holy.
Overall thoughts, future banners, etc.
Banner 2: Pecil USB is pretty cool if you like him, Kain BSB still does serviceable DPS in conjunction with Lightning Dive, and Ceodore BSB may be interesting depending on the rest of your collection. Multiple boring/weak items with no strong upside though, so it's hard to recommend drawing here. Pecil USB is likely to come back on festival banners; if you want Ceodore and Kain stuff, the next IV event is a better place to pull for them.
Next IV event is in about nine weeks. Banner 1 has Ceodore USB/BSB/LMR, Kain USB/OSB/BSB/LMR, Tellah BSB/LMR, and Edward BSB. Banner 2 has Rydia USB/OSB/BSB2/LMR, Golbez USB/BSB/LMR, Ursula BSB/LMR, and Yang BSB. Kain USB is pretty cool (it's an even better version of his burst), the other new USBs are not especially exciting among USBs.
If you just want sick DPS, Shadow USB in two weaks is very similar to Edge USB, but that banner is similarly topheavy, especially depending on how you feel about all the Setzer items which are focused on stat breaks. Also in two weeks, there's that festival looming, I'm sure there will be some hot DPS tech there as well.
Upcoming event schedule:
IV - T (Delita USB, Meliadoul) - VI (Shadow/Setzer USBs) - 30th Anniversary Fest! - Dissidia villains (Gabranth USB/Garland Chain) - II (Minwu/Leon USBs) - III (Refia USB/Ingus Chain) - XV (Prompto USB) - VIII (Laguna/Edea/Zell USBs, Kiros and Ward) - VII (Sephiroth/Reno/Cid USBs, Rude and Elena) - IV (Ceodore/Kain/Rydia/Golbez USBs)
Alternate opinions:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/6x2m2h/relic_discussion_fate_calls_power_awakens_fight/
Some of my other recent banner reviews:
XI: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/38156974/#Comment_38156974
XV: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/38118392#Comment_38118392
Thanks as always, Fry, for your write ups.
I think you can with Ace Striker. Wrath>Wrath>HT>FB>Wrath>Wrath>Shout should work, with maybe a few seconds gap.
There's no USBs in a BSB-only draw.
Oh I thought it was just Curaga or better. Much easier to pass on it.
1. BSBs with an entry Medica (includes Ceodore)
2. All BSBs, USBs, CSBs
3. All 6* items
Note: items on the fest banners will not be on the Lucky Draws
Well, that creates the problem of not having Haste for the duration.
If I can't maintain them all with Mako Might, it might do for me to Dive him for his LM2.
Then again, this is an idea for a hyper-specific team (Bartz Enwater with RW Chosen Traveller), so it's probably not that important.
The team idea was:
Vaan: Power Breakdown/Steal Power, Lifesiphon/Wrath | BSB, Piercing Blow | Ace Striker
Y'shtola: Shellga, Curaja | Stoneskin II | Mako Might
Larsa: Enveloping Etude, Curada | Lifecrystal | Battleforged
Ramza: Full Break, Wrath | Shout, HT | Dr Mog's Teachings
It's not even technically cura or better, or hell, white mage 5. It's any BSB with a medica on entry. So Echo (40% HP) gets a relic on it despite being only WhM4.
I've been running Ramza in my Fafnir farming team, and with Mako Might RM, he has trouble keeping Shout & HT both active, when the only other thing he does is Lifesiphon / Wrath depending on if I want him to pop a blink.
MWO: Adamski
I run two Entrusters in my magicite teams, OK and Minfilia. They usually do okay using two Wraths, SB, then two Wraths and Entrust, but that's because my DPS characters and healer have BSBs to help prevent haste from falling. Even then, the timing can get wonky due to me having to use one of the Entrust users to call in the second Wall.
I feel like you're underselling Rubicante's BSB a bit. The need to take a turn to enable Rubicante's stronger hits does suck, and I won't argue that his C1 is butts, and looks even worse when Chain Firaga goes 4-hits. But his C2 under Cloak is a 3-hit AoE at the same modifier as his cloaked C1. For a burst command, and just in general among black magic skills, it's quite good. Now mind you, the times you need to AoE something down are few and far between, but if you need AoE damage, Rubicante's free C1+C2 is hard to beat. As a bonus, just getting his relics means he's 20/44% fire boosted by himself and only needs +MAG buffs from outside.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
If Lifesiphon gets eaten by a blink, does it still generate meter?
Mastery yaaaaaaaay.
So I've mastered every one I've beaten now. Progress!
No, due to the Miss prompt.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Fry I find your review of Rubicante's relics cold.
Don't you have to have that?
I am pretty sure you get nothing.
Right, so Gnome-Interruptus using Lifesiphon to pop a blink on Fenrir is likely contributing to his issues keeping Shout and History's Truth active.
Something weird is that if Onion Knight uses Onion Slice to pop a blink, he still gets the instant physical on his next action. I'm not sure why that is, and it is probably a bug, but since I'm not using him for damage output on that fight I always have him use wrath afterwards.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Edge LMR
Rubicante SSB
Golbez SSB
bleh
Streaming 8PST on weeknights
I seem to be on quite the losing streak lately. I can't remember what the last thing I actually got on a 100-gem pull was.
100 gem: 4*
4/11:
Edward SSB
Edge SSB (dupe, third one)
Edge SSB (dupe, fourth one)
Pecil BSB2
Apparently mediocrity, not fortune, favors the bold!
At least Pecil has a new toy and I've got a nice reforged light armor with fire boost. Also, a harp.
...It's another completely worthless dark mage SSB.
Thanks, DeNA.
...Jackasses
First pull, 1/11, no disco: Rubicante SSB. Not the best start.
Second pull, 5!/11, no disco: Edward SSB, Rosa LMR, Edge BSB x2, Rubicante BSB. Well. Quite the pull, all new, but no top prize yet. And I'm nothing if not a poor decision maker.
Third pull, 4/11, 1 disco: Golbez SSB, Edge SSB (dupe), Cecil BSB2, and...! Rosa USB (dupe)
Doh. Valiant effort and good RNG got me 9/11 of the banner, but alas.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
50 myth: PCecil's BSB2
I feel like I'm owed a really good pull soon.
50 mythril for the USB: Edge USB x2, Edge SSB
50 mythril for his LMR: Edge LMR, Edward SSB2
This... does not normally happen!!!!
Are you actually accounting this properly on a fight basis and not an individual action basis? Aren't you Wrathing at some point?
---
100 Gem: 3*
Rubicante's very specific niche is Fire AOE. In any other situation he's way worse than most mages. Even in that specific niche, there are several contenders that are likely to be as good or better:
Rubicante BSB (en-fire) C2
2x2.95 = 5.9
3x2.95 = 8.85 (with C1 active)
Papalymo BSB (en-fire) C2
2x3.09 = 6.18 plus MAG buff
Vivi BSB2 (party MAG buff, but no en-fire) C2
2x3.9 = 7.8 plus MAG buff
Terra BSB2 (en-fire) C2
2x3.09 = 6.18 plus MAG buff
Over the course of five burst actions, Rubicante gets 12 AOE hits plus whatever counters he gets, while the other contenders get 10 hits, so he's a bit ahead there...except that the other three all get bonus MAG buffs which probably puts them way ahead on per-hit damage, and thus ahead overall unless you're running into the damage cap. Any fight where the counters become significant is probably a cakewalk, either because you have gobs of spare meter to throw around, or because it's something that can be cheesed by the old school All Retaliate party. It's just really hard to get excited about that burst.
100 Gem was Rubicante's SSB, so that was a nice surprise.
1/11: Edward SSB. Not a great start.
2/11: Golbez SSB, dupe Rubicante SSB. Not feeling hopeful.
4/11: Dupe Edge SSB x2, Rosa LMR, Edge LMR. Looking better!
4/11 - double disco!: Pecil BSB2 x2, Rosa USB, Edge USB!
Done. Done with this banner. I pulled almost everything out of it except for Edge's BSB which would've been a dupe, and Rubicante's BSB, which admittedly, I want but not so badly that I'd risk the possible dupes. Started the banner with 560 mythril, down now to 360 mythril. Good enough for FFVI in 2 weeks to make attempts on Setzer's USB.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Data for posterity:
15/132 lifetime
5/37 this batch
Note to self: No whining, Rikku USB, never forget. Also Cloud BSB2.