Just downloaded and started this game. Any tips? I read through the reddit FAQ and the wiki but information seems all over the place. One spot mentioned you'll eventually recruit all the characters? if that is true, what's the purpose of the character summon? Seems the equipment summon is where it's at, something about mats and item dupes leveling up weapons eventually maxing them out.
Characters come via main story additions (kinda like main story in ffbe), and by character events, kinda like story events in ffbe?
Gacha is for weapons. Each weapon has a CP point value which are the points you spend for passives, plus stats. Each weapon, when used by their "intended" owner, will grant a bonus to one of their skills. Ie, Yuna's esuna with any staff is AE Brave plus ST status clear, but with her staff becomes AE status clear. So, you can use people pretty well without their weapons (if using some other 5*), but will be better with them.
The current crop of weapons are all 15cp, and if you max limit burst them (merge 4 copies, or power stones), they can go up to 30cp. If you max limit them, the owner gets to keep the passive bonus. The cp boost becomes important because as you level up and enhance characters crystal strengths, you won't have enough CP for all of their passives, so the more the merrier.
Starting with the Ramza banner (a little while yet?), they will start releasing the second tier of weapons, 35CP (that can be limit broken for more). The current 15 cp weapons will still drop but will become the "troll" golds on the banners, generally. So it's worth trying to get a couple different weapons, either from units you like or just strong ones, but don't have to go to crazy because the higher ones are coming.
Every day there are 5 daily mission akin to FFBE, but they all are basically 'complete a quest'. So do 5 anything and you're good.
Every day one of the cycle quests in 'events' unlocks, for a different type of crystal or golden cactuars (gil). You can do it 10 times. If you're trying to max a specific character, doing these with the double xp/loot books helps a ton. These are kind of like the enhancement vortex missions in ffbe but better. The crystal ones are the best source of crystals and also really XP.
Main story and character events have no equivalent of nrg/stamina, so go nuts if you want, or prioritize leveling up at least to be able to finish the character events before they go away (but they'll come back).
World of Illusions is kind of like a normal FFBE event that has stamina. Current one is to level up Ifrit (esper). It might be tough for you to max him at this point but you should see if you can't get him up to level 11/12 where his summon time becomes faster. There's a "boss" stage but it has a minimal stamina cost so it's not painful to retry.
Once you get mostly caught up, characters leveled, etc it's a pretty slow pace (thought content seems to be coming pretty quickly). So grind like crazy for a while if you feel like it or just take time, it doesn't have to really suck up a lot of time.
Did one 5k pull and got 2x Setzer and 1x Laguna. Pretty good pull I think. I've got a 5* of every weapon type now I think so I can save for characters I like.
Only character I have level maxed is Vanille, don't have anyone above 30 for crystal strength. Crystal strength seems like a huge grind compared to character level.
Only character I have level maxed is Vanille, don't have anyone above 30 for crystal strength. Crystal strength seems like a huge grind compared to character level.
Yeah, crystal level takes a while to get up. Fortunately, you don't really need to max it out right away. At some point I might make a list, but it seems like most characters get their "most important" crystal ability around level 30 or 35. Some characters I wouldn't want to equip their level 50 crystal ability even if I had it. There are some exceptions, of course: Terra's crystal 50 is great, and Laguna really wants crystal 45 to not be awful against single targets, etc.
Here's my thoughts about where advancement starts to have diminishing returns:
- Character Level: 20 or 30 is fine. The main thing character level does is increase Init BRV, which is not an especially important stat for most characters, other than maybe helping you to auto faster
- Crystal Level: varies, but typically around 30 is plenty
- Weapon Level: never stops giving great value in the form of ATK, grind them up as high as you can
Just downloaded and started this game. Any tips? I read through the reddit FAQ and the wiki but information seems all over the place. One spot mentioned you'll eventually recruit all the characters? if that is true, what's the purpose of the character summon? Seems the equipment summon is where it's at, something about mats and item dupes leveling up weapons eventually maxing them out.
Characters come via main story additions (kinda like main story in ffbe), and by character events, kinda like story events in ffbe?
Gacha is for weapons. Each weapon has a CP point value which are the points you spend for passives, plus stats. Each weapon, when used by their "intended" owner, will grant a bonus to one of their skills. Ie, Yuna's esuna with any staff is AE Brave plus ST status clear, but with her staff becomes AE status clear. So, you can use people pretty well without their weapons (if using some other 5*), but will be better with them.
The current crop of weapons are all 15cp, and if you max limit burst them (merge 4 copies, or power stones), they can go up to 30cp. If you max limit them, the owner gets to keep the passive bonus. The cp boost becomes important because as you level up and enhance characters crystal strengths, you won't have enough CP for all of their passives, so the more the merrier.
Starting with the Ramza banner (a little while yet?), they will start releasing the second tier of weapons, 35CP (that can be limit broken for more). The current 15 cp weapons will still drop but will become the "troll" golds on the banners, generally. So it's worth trying to get a couple different weapons, either from units you like or just strong ones, but don't have to go to crazy because the higher ones are coming.
Every day there are 5 daily mission akin to FFBE, but they all are basically 'complete a quest'. So do 5 anything and you're good.
Every day one of the cycle quests in 'events' unlocks, for a different type of crystal or golden cactuars (gil). You can do it 10 times. If you're trying to max a specific character, doing these with the double xp/loot books helps a ton. These are kind of like the enhancement vortex missions in ffbe but better. The crystal ones are the best source of crystals and also really XP.
Main story and character events have no equivalent of nrg/stamina, so go nuts if you want, or prioritize leveling up at least to be able to finish the character events before they go away (but they'll come back).
World of Illusions is kind of like a normal FFBE event that has stamina. Current one is to level up Ifrit (esper). It might be tough for you to max him at this point but you should see if you can't get him up to level 11/12 where his summon time becomes faster. There's a "boss" stage but it has a minimal stamina cost so it's not painful to retry.
Once you get mostly caught up, characters leveled, etc it's a pretty slow pace (thought content seems to be coming pretty quickly). So grind like crazy for a while if you feel like it or just take time, it doesn't have to really suck up a lot of time.
Thanks, so I have 20K gems now, should I try pulling for some better weapons? Should I pull from the specific ones like Cloud's (saw he's rated highly) or from the general one (cheaper)? If I don't use gems and save them for the 35CP weapons, how do I get tickets to get better items?
I'm working through the ID list and following folks. What are the 10 friend slots for?
I'd recommend pulling once on the 25 Heroes Banner, since it's half price the first time. And if you don't get Vanille, Yuna or Hope on that one, I'd recommend pulling once on their banner. Each of them are pretty good supports, and Vanille/Yuna's weapons improve their first abilities in definitely meaningful ways. Hope's weapon gives him a good improvement, but the other two are improvements that benefit the whole party.
There's two schools of thought on gems. First is that you pull as little as possible, just enough to complete content, and save up for stuff in the future. Power creep means gems are inflationary. Also, in this game, when you attempt to get 35cp weapons you'll probably be picking up 15cp weapons, so why spend gems on 15cp weapons now?
Second, and my preference, is to mostly spend gems as you get them. Pulling items is fun, and the point of the game is to have fun. I try to keep some gems in reserve, say 10k, in case I want to do multiple pulls to get multiple copies. But the weapon leveling process is so excruciating from 25-35 that I don't much care about stacking up dupes. I'd rather have a nice spread of relics for multiple characters so I don't get bored running the same folks over and over again.
Friend slots are just the cap of friends you can have; that'll increase as you rank up.
At first I didn't think this was going to hold my attention. I was wrong. I agree it's nice not having to worry about stamina or energy. I was feeling the desire to play starting to wane a tad... then they had to go and add my boy Setzer. Damn. And on the same banner is my other favorite, Laguna! Add Celes and it'd be my top 3.
One pull and I got Setzer's 5* and 4*, and Laguna's 5* and 4*. Yessss. This pleases me.
So what's the difference between Friends and Following?
Did the half price pull and got Steiners sword as my 5* and Rem/Firion 4*'s. What do people mean by re-rolling? Is it starting over to re-do the half price pull?
So what's the difference between Friends and Following?
Did the half price pull and got Steiners sword as my 5* and Rem/Firion 4*'s. What do people mean by re-rolling? Is it starting over to re-do the half price pull?
Yeah, re-rolling is deleting your local data (and not linking your data to facebook yet) so that you can try for your initial rolls again to get better stuff.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
What helped me get better than auto was paying attention to the turn order, and enemy targets more. Making sure to hit the enemy last in turn order so the break isn't wasted is something I was not mindful about in the beginning. It also took me a comically long time to figure out that enemies show you who they are targeting so you can plan accordingly. That is as advanced as I have gotten, but I do tend to fair better than auto.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
At first I didn't think this was going to hold my attention. I was wrong. I agree it's nice not having to worry about stamina or energy. I was feeling the desire to play starting to wane a tad... then they had to go and add my boy Setzer. Damn. And on the same banner is my other favorite, Laguna! Add Celes and it'd be my top 3.
One pull and I got Setzer's 5* and 4*, and Laguna's 5* and 4*. Yessss. This pleases me.
Celes is in in Japan, but she might not be great? I don't care, she's my fave. I'm saving the rest of my crystals for her and Ramza.
Celes' kit is not that compelling IMO, but I imagine there are some fights where Runic is really good. She hasn't gotten her level 60 upgrade in JP yet, and might receive a huge upgrade there.
ugh this mix of the FF6 main battle theme is terrrrrrrrible
I did a pull on the Hope/Yuna/Vanille banner, hoping for some dupes of the latter two so I could start working on a leveled staff. I got three 5* again (this account is lucky as shit), only it turned out to be two Hope... And one Cloud?!?
So now I have maxed Terra for a sword, and double broken Hope, Cloud, and WoL. And I have three power stones. I'm thinking I'll sell my Yuffie relic since I'm not a big fan of her or her abilities, then I'll use my four stones to max break Cloud, then max boost it. Then he can equip his Dispel proc weapon and be a real powerhouse, making it less necessary to bring Vanille to things.
At first I didn't think this was going to hold my attention. I was wrong. I agree it's nice not having to worry about stamina or energy. I was feeling the desire to play starting to wane a tad... then they had to go and add my boy Setzer. Damn. And on the same banner is my other favorite, Laguna! Add Celes and it'd be my top 3.
One pull and I got Setzer's 5* and 4*, and Laguna's 5* and 4*. Yessss. This pleases me.
Celes is in in Japan, but she might not be great? I don't care, she's my fave. I'm saving the rest of my crystals for her and Ramza.
I'm a sucker for most anything FF6 or FFT, so I'm gonna save up for mostly those characters.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
I badly need to pull one more Terra sword to fully break her because she is just a beast. I figure right now I'm going to run Zidane/Terra/Yuna on anything hard and just never run out of BRV.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
Celes is in in Japan, but she might not be great? I don't care, she's my fave. I'm saving the rest of my crystals for her and Ramza.
Does this game ever get so hard that we really need to worry about picking the right characters to invest in? So far it doesn't seem like that type of game.
Man the grind to Crystal lvl 50 is no joke. I have been using double drops and a key to cycle green for Terra and have almost gotten it. Took like 3-4 rounds from where she was which was like Crystal lvl 30ish. At least she will be finished soon. It does kind of suck to have to decide which boosts to use.
+2
IlpalaJust this guy, y'knowTexasRegistered Userregular
Ifrit level 17...these mat requirements are getting a bit silly.
FF XIV - Qih'to Furishu (on Siren), Battle.Net - Ilpala#1975
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Man the grind to Crystal lvl 50 is no joke. I have been using double drops and a key to cycle green for Terra and have almost gotten it. Took like 3-4 rounds from where she was which was like Crystal lvl 30ish. At least she will be finished soon. It does kind of suck to have to decide which boosts to use.
Yeah, WoL is sitting at 48 here, and Cloud at 45. It's rough going above 30.
Celes is in in Japan, but she might not be great? I don't care, she's my fave. I'm saving the rest of my crystals for her and Ramza.
Does this game ever get so hard that we really need to worry about picking the right characters to invest in? So far it doesn't seem like that type of game.
I don't think there are any fights where a specific character is necessary, but certain ones are really useful for some bosses, like Yuna against status spammers or Bartz to BRV shave nukers.
hmmm now I'm wondering if I should reroll. I got Rem's weapon, not Vivi's or WoL's, both it seems are way better since Rem is a low end character? my 2500 gem pull got me Steiner sword, which is for another low ranked character. Downside is I'm already level 20 with some characters and have a bunch of gems from running the cycle event.
Origin ID\ Steam ID: Warder45
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Reroll if you want, but man... We're rolling in gems right now. I have 20k and I'm pretty sure I've done a dozen draws. I have a fully broken sword for Steiner, and I'm keeping my account. :P
I basically always reroll just to maximize what I get and try to guard against my eventual bad luck. But I also think rerolling is kind of fun unless it takes a really long time. This game is kind of on the border of that for how long the tutorial takes.
eh, I don't really want to lol. Just for kicks I did 1 pull on the Cloud banner and 1 on the Yuna banner. The cloud banner got me Crimson Edge, which I'm a bit confused as I though Ogrenix was Clouds weapon? Also a couple 4*'s for Sazh. The Yuna pull was pretty nice, getting me both Yuna's and Vanille's weapons. I guess I'll keep going here.
Leads me to my next question, how do you upgrade weapons? According to a guide, 1-20 you can just feed 2-3* items to the weapon. Post 20 you want to build up feeder items to level 5/10/15 before using. Is that the best way? Should I work on Cloud's first then Yuna's?
Lastly, it was recommended to work on a mix of Melee and Magic dealers to help with enemies that are immune to one side. Looking at the tier list, are Terra and Vivi the only magic dealers in the game right now?
eh, I don't really want to lol. Just for kicks I did 1 pull on the Cloud banner and 1 on the Yuna banner. The cloud banner got me Crimson Edge, which I'm a bit confused as I though Ogrenix was Clouds weapon? Also a couple 4*'s for Sazh. The Yuna pull was pretty nice, getting me both Yuna's and Vanille's weapons. I guess I'll keep going here.
Leads me to my next question, how do you upgrade weapons? According to a guide, 1-20 you can just feed 2-3* items to the weapon. Post 20 you want to build up feeder items to level 5/10/15 before using. Is that the best way? Should I work on Cloud's first then Yuna's?
Lastly, it was recommended to work on a mix of Melee and Magic dealers to help with enemies that are immune to one side. Looking at the tier list, are Terra and Vivi the only magic dealers in the game right now?
I think that Cloud has 2 weapons (not sure if anyone else has 2 as of now?), but more weapons will come out to expand that.
Other staff users deal magic I believe (Y'shtola, Yuna, etc) though I don't think they have the offense of Terra or Vivi. Vaan (for whatever reason) actually does magic damage with this specials, so I've found him pretty flexible because he can switch between physical (the default brave and hp attacks) and his specials (which are magic, and deal both brave damage in front, followed by an hp attack).
chrono_traveller on
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
Cloud's main 15cp weapon is organyx and increased the chance to stun on cross slash. The current weapon on banner was released with Ifirit and is a second 15cp weapon that adds a dispel on crit (basically when target is broken). It's useful in the current events and not bad to have I guess. Some other characters will get a second 15cp weapon one each esper world of illusion event I think.
The merging 2* weapons together thing is neat, saves on gil, but is really painful and makes you feel like you have to constantly grind or earth shrine it. It's gil efficient, but not time efficient or XP efficient (you lost a lot in the merges). I gave up on that relatively quickly. With a gil book and the golden cactuars unlocked you can get pretty close to 100k or probably more if you were just going for fastest clears in a 30min cycle key (once leveled some).
Good to know, I started on it but you're right it's a grind. How do folks plan out parties? Right now I'm running Rem and Cloud as DPS and either WoL or Vanille. Do I need 2 DPS?
Good to know, I started on it but you're right it's a grind. How do folks plan out parties? Right now I'm running Rem and Cloud as DPS and either WoL or Vanille. Do I need 2 DPS?
I'd say it depends on what you're running, but rather than saying dps/tank/healer, I think more in terms of taking off brave vs. doing hp attacks. My usual team consists of Bartz (specials take off brave), Vaan (mix of physical and magic damage, some brave and a lot of hp damage), and Terra, (can charge up for really heavy hp attacks). I use WoL if I need to prevent breaks for quest completion if I'm having trouble.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
"Best" is going to depend a lot on what you're trying to do. To spend the least amount of gil, you run hope's stage in chapter 1 normal, farm up 8 billion 2 star weapons, merge them all into level 5 sacrificing a bunch of experience in the process, then merge those into your target weapon. Personally it got old real fast and made everything seem like a chore so I stopped.
Gil honestly isn't too bad though. Once you have some decent units and can do the lvl 50 golden cactuars stage, it's easy to get 100-150k+ in a half hour with a gil book/cycle key. I have Cloud/Vann's weapons at 35, a bunch of others at 30, 25, 20, bunch of armors between 15-25, Ifirit at 20 and sitting on like 350k gil. I've used some books and also spent some crystals on the 250 xp/gil/loot items when I was trying to level up units, but really only a couple and felt pretty worth it since there's not a lot to pull on for a while.
If not maximizing based on Gil then just keep pumping it with whatever you have to level them, but try to use the 2* materials when the weapon level is low, then move up as it gets higher (cost goes up every 5 levels or so).
ffbe ign: Kas
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BeastehTHAT WOULD NOTKILL DRACULARegistered Userregular
edited February 2018
hope dojo might be gil/resource cheap but it is insanely time inefficient and i don't know about you but i personally dislike farming a low level stage for hours for very minimal gains
the best way to farm weapon upgrade mats is ifrit orb stages at 20 stam/pop bottom right of the map or the event stage 4 (even better if you can auto)
Don't limit break until you are close to the current cap. Limit break increases the gil cost of any further upgrade materials you use, so you want to wait as long as possible. I think it's fine to even wait until you've hit your current cap (I don't think any XP is wasted).
In a related vein, gil costs for upgrading go up after every 5 levels. So you want to level your weapon up to like 5.9 using your mats of choice, then dump in ten materials at once rather than using them one at a time. Repeat a similar process at 10.9, 15.9, 20.9, etc.
I am very unhappy about the path-dependence of gil costs for upgrading equipment, it's extremely time-consuming to upgrade "correctly" and there's a pretty substantial gil penalty for doing it wrong.
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Now to wait for my boi Ramza
Characters come via main story additions (kinda like main story in ffbe), and by character events, kinda like story events in ffbe?
Gacha is for weapons. Each weapon has a CP point value which are the points you spend for passives, plus stats. Each weapon, when used by their "intended" owner, will grant a bonus to one of their skills. Ie, Yuna's esuna with any staff is AE Brave plus ST status clear, but with her staff becomes AE status clear. So, you can use people pretty well without their weapons (if using some other 5*), but will be better with them.
The current crop of weapons are all 15cp, and if you max limit burst them (merge 4 copies, or power stones), they can go up to 30cp. If you max limit them, the owner gets to keep the passive bonus. The cp boost becomes important because as you level up and enhance characters crystal strengths, you won't have enough CP for all of their passives, so the more the merrier.
Starting with the Ramza banner (a little while yet?), they will start releasing the second tier of weapons, 35CP (that can be limit broken for more). The current 15 cp weapons will still drop but will become the "troll" golds on the banners, generally. So it's worth trying to get a couple different weapons, either from units you like or just strong ones, but don't have to go to crazy because the higher ones are coming.
Every day there are 5 daily mission akin to FFBE, but they all are basically 'complete a quest'. So do 5 anything and you're good.
Every day one of the cycle quests in 'events' unlocks, for a different type of crystal or golden cactuars (gil). You can do it 10 times. If you're trying to max a specific character, doing these with the double xp/loot books helps a ton. These are kind of like the enhancement vortex missions in ffbe but better. The crystal ones are the best source of crystals and also really XP.
Main story and character events have no equivalent of nrg/stamina, so go nuts if you want, or prioritize leveling up at least to be able to finish the character events before they go away (but they'll come back).
World of Illusions is kind of like a normal FFBE event that has stamina. Current one is to level up Ifrit (esper). It might be tough for you to max him at this point but you should see if you can't get him up to level 11/12 where his summon time becomes faster. There's a "boss" stage but it has a minimal stamina cost so it's not painful to retry.
Once you get mostly caught up, characters leveled, etc it's a pretty slow pace (thought content seems to be coming pretty quickly). So grind like crazy for a while if you feel like it or just take time, it doesn't have to really suck up a lot of time.
Only character I have level maxed is Vanille, don't have anyone above 30 for crystal strength. Crystal strength seems like a huge grind compared to character level.
Yeah, crystal level takes a while to get up. Fortunately, you don't really need to max it out right away. At some point I might make a list, but it seems like most characters get their "most important" crystal ability around level 30 or 35. Some characters I wouldn't want to equip their level 50 crystal ability even if I had it. There are some exceptions, of course: Terra's crystal 50 is great, and Laguna really wants crystal 45 to not be awful against single targets, etc.
Here's my thoughts about where advancement starts to have diminishing returns:
- Character Level: 20 or 30 is fine. The main thing character level does is increase Init BRV, which is not an especially important stat for most characters, other than maybe helping you to auto faster
- Crystal Level: varies, but typically around 30 is plenty
- Weapon Level: never stops giving great value in the form of ATK, grind them up as high as you can
Thanks, so I have 20K gems now, should I try pulling for some better weapons? Should I pull from the specific ones like Cloud's (saw he's rated highly) or from the general one (cheaper)? If I don't use gems and save them for the 35CP weapons, how do I get tickets to get better items?
I'm working through the ID list and following folks. What are the 10 friend slots for?
There's two schools of thought on gems. First is that you pull as little as possible, just enough to complete content, and save up for stuff in the future. Power creep means gems are inflationary. Also, in this game, when you attempt to get 35cp weapons you'll probably be picking up 15cp weapons, so why spend gems on 15cp weapons now?
Second, and my preference, is to mostly spend gems as you get them. Pulling items is fun, and the point of the game is to have fun. I try to keep some gems in reserve, say 10k, in case I want to do multiple pulls to get multiple copies. But the weapon leveling process is so excruciating from 25-35 that I don't much care about stacking up dupes. I'd rather have a nice spread of relics for multiple characters so I don't get bored running the same folks over and over again.
Friend slots are just the cap of friends you can have; that'll increase as you rank up.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
One pull and I got Setzer's 5* and 4*, and Laguna's 5* and 4*.
Yessss. This pleases me.
Did the half price pull and got Steiners sword as my 5* and Rem/Firion 4*'s. What do people mean by re-rolling? Is it starting over to re-do the half price pull?
Yeah, re-rolling is deleting your local data (and not linking your data to facebook yet) so that you can try for your initial rolls again to get better stuff.
Also any tips for combat? feels like auto combat does a better job than I do lol.
Celes is in in Japan, but she might not be great? I don't care, she's my fave. I'm saving the rest of my crystals for her and Ramza.
ugh this mix of the FF6 main battle theme is terrrrrrrrible
So now I have maxed Terra for a sword, and double broken Hope, Cloud, and WoL. And I have three power stones. I'm thinking I'll sell my Yuffie relic since I'm not a big fan of her or her abilities, then I'll use my four stones to max break Cloud, then max boost it. Then he can equip his Dispel proc weapon and be a real powerhouse, making it less necessary to bring Vanille to things.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
I'm a sucker for most anything FF6 or FFT, so I'm gonna save up for mostly those characters.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
Yeah, WoL is sitting at 48 here, and Cloud at 45. It's rough going above 30.
I don't think there are any fights where a specific character is necessary, but certain ones are really useful for some bosses, like Yuna against status spammers or Bartz to BRV shave nukers.
FFBE: 898,311,440
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/dElementalor
Leads me to my next question, how do you upgrade weapons? According to a guide, 1-20 you can just feed 2-3* items to the weapon. Post 20 you want to build up feeder items to level 5/10/15 before using. Is that the best way? Should I work on Cloud's first then Yuna's?
Lastly, it was recommended to work on a mix of Melee and Magic dealers to help with enemies that are immune to one side. Looking at the tier list, are Terra and Vivi the only magic dealers in the game right now?
I think that Cloud has 2 weapons (not sure if anyone else has 2 as of now?), but more weapons will come out to expand that.
Other staff users deal magic I believe (Y'shtola, Yuna, etc) though I don't think they have the offense of Terra or Vivi. Vaan (for whatever reason) actually does magic damage with this specials, so I've found him pretty flexible because he can switch between physical (the default brave and hp attacks) and his specials (which are magic, and deal both brave damage in front, followed by an hp attack).
The merging 2* weapons together thing is neat, saves on gil, but is really painful and makes you feel like you have to constantly grind or earth shrine it. It's gil efficient, but not time efficient or XP efficient (you lost a lot in the merges). I gave up on that relatively quickly. With a gil book and the golden cactuars unlocked you can get pretty close to 100k or probably more if you were just going for fastest clears in a 30min cycle key (once leveled some).
I'd say it depends on what you're running, but rather than saying dps/tank/healer, I think more in terms of taking off brave vs. doing hp attacks. My usual team consists of Bartz (specials take off brave), Vaan (mix of physical and magic damage, some brave and a lot of hp damage), and Terra, (can charge up for really heavy hp attacks). I use WoL if I need to prevent breaks for quest completion if I'm having trouble.
Vivi's my fave from FF9, but yeah, I don't know if I can really justify to myself spending gems on this banner just for him.
Gil honestly isn't too bad though. Once you have some decent units and can do the lvl 50 golden cactuars stage, it's easy to get 100-150k+ in a half hour with a gil book/cycle key. I have Cloud/Vann's weapons at 35, a bunch of others at 30, 25, 20, bunch of armors between 15-25, Ifirit at 20 and sitting on like 350k gil. I've used some books and also spent some crystals on the 250 xp/gil/loot items when I was trying to level up units, but really only a couple and felt pretty worth it since there's not a lot to pull on for a while.
If not maximizing based on Gil then just keep pumping it with whatever you have to level them, but try to use the 2* materials when the weapon level is low, then move up as it gets higher (cost goes up every 5 levels or so).
the best way to farm weapon upgrade mats is ifrit orb stages at 20 stam/pop bottom right of the map or the event stage 4 (even better if you can auto)
and I got both Cloud and Vivi's 5* weapons. That'll do, game. That'll do. :biggrin:
In a related vein, gil costs for upgrading go up after every 5 levels. So you want to level your weapon up to like 5.9 using your mats of choice, then dump in ten materials at once rather than using them one at a time. Repeat a similar process at 10.9, 15.9, 20.9, etc.
I am very unhappy about the path-dependence of gil costs for upgrading equipment, it's extremely time-consuming to upgrade "correctly" and there's a pretty substantial gil penalty for doing it wrong.