PSA: the refined Wakka sphere (Buff Attack Boost All 5 RF, party +2% ATK and Max BRV) is almost as powerful as a standard full-strength D sphere (party +5% one stat), if you can consistently meet the activation condition of having 5 buffs on the sphere holder. I'm going to farm up a bunch of these, I think.
Also, the refined Gabranth sphere (Critical Resist All Short, party -4% received BRV damage) is about as good as you can do for a defensive B sphere, outside of the full-strength Gabranth sphere. I'll probably be picking up a few of these, as well. There are a variety of options for offensive B spheres, but surprisingly few options for defensive B spheres (which is odd since B is ostensibly the "tanking/defensive" sphere type).
edit: Hmm, Wakka sphere does have that pesky "does not stack with same sphere" text, so maybe don't go too nuts with them.
Ok got a full kit for Balthier, Gabranth and Vaan (sans BT). I still need a bunch of Power Stones to fully MLB all of these pieces tho. I wonder if I should keep at it or go for the Wakka/Lenna Banner.
Yeah, but I dont have enough to fully cap any character right now so might as well fish for more dupes to at least get Vaan up to speed. I still don't have enough characters/resources to clear Dimension's End and I do like the characters here lol. Still, I think I'll just pull enough to get a book from the Token shop.
The most important thing in this update was they finally fixed Thancred's EX visual glitch, wow.
(He wields a matched pair of daggers, but his cool looking EX weapon in his right hand differed from the little spork thing he held in his left. Finally fixed it to a matching pair.)
PSA: the refined Wakka sphere (Buff Attack Boost All 5 RF, party +2% ATK and Max BRV) is almost as powerful as a standard full-strength D sphere (party +5% one stat), if you can consistently meet the activation condition of having 5 buffs on the sphere holder. I'm going to farm up a bunch of these, I think.
Also, the refined Gabranth sphere (Critical Resist All Short, party -4% received BRV damage) is about as good as you can do for a defensive B sphere, outside of the full-strength Gabranth sphere. I'll probably be picking up a few of these, as well. There are a variety of options for offensive B spheres, but surprisingly few options for defensive B spheres (which is odd since B is ostensibly the "tanking/defensive" sphere type).
edit: Hmm, Wakka sphere does have that pesky "does not stack with same sphere" text, so maybe don't go too nuts with them.
did some more rooting around in the database, to see what refined spheres jump out as being especially interesting. Here are a few that are the most interesting to me, by which color of shards they will require:
Green
A Sephiroth +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV (HP at least 50% at final wave), doesn't stack
Black
A Kain +6% ranged attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
A Machina +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV for 3 turns (break/attack broken)
E Kefka +6% magic ATK for 6 turns (debuff), doesn't stack
Yellow A Ardyn +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV (deal two breaks), doesn't stack
A Lightning +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV (deal two breaks), doesn't stack
A Raijin +6% physical attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
E Irvine +6% ranged ATK for 6 turns (debuff), doesn't stack
Red
E Yuffie +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV for 3 turns (debuff)
A Alisaie +6% magic attack for 6 turns (crit), doesn't stack
A Papalymo +6% magic attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
A Jecht +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV for 3 turns (crit)
Blue
ehhh
White
E Seymour +6% ATK (deal two debuffs), doesn't stack
The refined Ardyn sphere is notable for being a sizeable buff to multiple relevant stats that is easy to turn on. It's sphere type A which means gobs of people can use it. I think that sphere will be released next chapter (at the end of September), so I'm going to pile up a bunch of yellow crystals so I can get a bunch of them and start filling in sphere slots for folks I use.
Tried some of the new Abyss stuff, is it just me or is there no way the boss fights are actually 180? Did they adjust the difficulty due to the restrictions or something?
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
The Abyss Perfectum stages are definitely not as hard as recent CHAOS stages. I went through Strata 1 this weekend and did not have much difficulty setting up teams to Perfect them all. For those who have not started yet, keep in mind you will need to field three teams for two different conditions on the first Strata (Red, Black, Sword / White, Blue, Dagger). I haven't started the second Strata yet.
Has anyone else been having connection issues? I know we had the SqEx bridge issue last week, and maybe some of the Cloudflare outage might have caused problems over the weekend...but I'm still getting agonizingly slow connecting times.
I did a bunch more tickets than originally planned but snagged Machina's LD. Only outstanding thing is Vaan's BT, oh well. No point of burning too many resources with Noctis right around the corner.
I still have NO BTs but I'm not sweating it as long as I get the LD's. Bad thing is I got Machina's LD, but don't have his EX. Time to grind!
Also the only Abyss 1st strata I have a problem with is the 185 battle, but that was a score thing that I can probably fix. Locke is pretty sweet and solves two of the requirements, though.
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
Having now played through the first stratum of Abyss Perfectum, I'd say the difficulty of the boss fights is maybe a little lower than the typical event's Chaos fight. You don't get a friend unit, there are team building restrictions in place, and character lockouts for the sub bosses, but each individual fight is a bit less hair pulling than the other top difficulty content. I found myself dumping skill uses recklessly near the ends, still having a few skills left over, and well over the score requirements.
Finally managed to squeeze out the Across the Skies Challenge. Yo, Avengers suck and I never want to fight them again. Having a whole challenge that basically neuters the boosted characters is also pretty dumb.
Abyss Perfectum stratum 2 was a bit more challenging than the first. There were a few stages that required a bit more strategy, but still not super bad I guess. On to stage 3.
I think tomorrow is Ultimate Odin, yeah? Noctis LD/BT time. I think I'll want to pity, though I'm wondering if I should just go all out on one of these banners, or just try for LD and wait until the Basch LC or Nine event to really go for the BT.....
OK, now I see why people are complaining about the Odin Chaos/Challenge fight. It is dumb.
If you have Noctis LD, reddit reports that you can potentially cheese the fight: use up all of Noctis' LD (and BT, if you have it) before the first Zantetsuken, and go hard with your other characters. Hopefully this gets Odin below half. If it does, let the first Zantetsuken kill everyone, then spend 100 gems to revive. The insta-kill doesn't count as HP loss, so you won't fail that condition, and there isn't a "no KOs" condition, so you can actually perfect the challenge this way. (The reason you're doing this before the first Zantetsuken is that all of the subsequent ones come with Mounted Unity, and you don't want to have to deal with that shit if you can avoid it)
I have a dupe Noct BT... I should probably sell it since I already maxed him out... But it's a BT!
The cap on BT tokens is 50, and it takes 50 BT tokens to exchange for a new BT weapon of your choice. If you start getting close to 50 tokens, you may want to hang on to any duplicate weapons until you're ready to make your selection, just so you don't have to fret about tokens in your mailbox expiring. That's probably a long way off for most folks, though.
I really need to max out Sazh because he seems necessary for Chaos bosses. On the bright side, Noctic BT get!
He's not strictly necessary for any content - there are a lot of characters that can pull their weight and get things done at the Chaos level. He is a pretty good buffer+attacker hybrid that can make a lot of other folks shine, though, so if you are consistently having trouble with Chaos fights with a limited roster, you could do worse than maxing him out.
Almost caught up again, did the Odin Challenge the cheese way (full blast with Noct, Pecil and Fran, died at the first Zantetsuken, then gem revived and finished him off), got the Basch Challenge without having to ingot him (though for reals, nothing like having a damage sponge like Basch around, I might have to ingot him anyway), cleared most of 3rd strata of Perfectum and smacked right into the bullshit that is the last stage. Gonna have to think on team comp for that one.
Did about 50ish tickets and a pull for Basch LD for no joy, though I did snag, uhh, 2 extra Noctis BTs. Wow. When good luck turns out to be bad luck i suppose. (At least they are good for BT tokens)
I screwed up doing Odin Chaos so I have to do that again, but I managed to finish Basch LC and Challenge with the team of Vaan, Noctis, and Serah. Progress!
1) Silence 2) Books must be returned by the last date shown 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality
New chapter and the start of free pulls. Good luck all!
My free pull snagged Maria EX. Did a few more pulls and got Ardyn Ex, 2 LDs, and a handful of powerstones.
I'm probably going to try for Ardyn's BT, but not sure if I should wait to do it on a other banner. Plenty of content to chew through for now, I'll decide later.
Posts
I got everything including Vaans LD in only 3 pulls, but I did 10 to replenish my power stone stock.
So happy he’s here. Can’t wait to give him a go.
Also, the refined Gabranth sphere (Critical Resist All Short, party -4% received BRV damage) is about as good as you can do for a defensive B sphere, outside of the full-strength Gabranth sphere. I'll probably be picking up a few of these, as well. There are a variety of options for offensive B spheres, but surprisingly few options for defensive B spheres (which is odd since B is ostensibly the "tanking/defensive" sphere type).
edit: Hmm, Wakka sphere does have that pesky "does not stack with same sphere" text, so maybe don't go too nuts with them.
If I can clear it with my Ultimecia, an Arciela, and a Galuf that disconnected halfway through, you can do it too!
(He wields a matched pair of daggers, but his cool looking EX weapon in his right hand differed from the little spork thing he held in his left. Finally fixed it to a matching pair.)
did some more rooting around in the database, to see what refined spheres jump out as being especially interesting. Here are a few that are the most interesting to me, by which color of shards they will require:
Green
A Sephiroth +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV (HP at least 50% at final wave), doesn't stack
Black
A Kain +6% ranged attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
A Machina +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV for 3 turns (break/attack broken)
E Kefka +6% magic ATK for 6 turns (debuff), doesn't stack
Yellow
A Ardyn +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV (deal two breaks), doesn't stack
A Lightning +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV (deal two breaks), doesn't stack
A Raijin +6% physical attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
E Irvine +6% ranged ATK for 6 turns (debuff), doesn't stack
Red
E Yuffie +4% ATK and +4% Max BRV for 3 turns (debuff)
A Alisaie +6% magic attack for 6 turns (crit), doesn't stack
A Papalymo +6% magic attack for 6 turns (break/attack broken), doesn't stack
A Jecht +4% ATK and +4% Int BRV for 3 turns (crit)
Blue
ehhh
White
E Seymour +6% ATK (deal two debuffs), doesn't stack
The refined Ardyn sphere is notable for being a sizeable buff to multiple relevant stats that is easy to turn on. It's sphere type A which means gobs of people can use it. I think that sphere will be released next chapter (at the end of September), so I'm going to pile up a bunch of yellow crystals so I can get a bunch of them and start filling in sphere slots for folks I use.
Story bit I enjoyed
Vaan: Eat Pyroclasm, torsion!
3DS FC: 2234-7230-2712
Battle.net: Kriese#1709
3DS FC: 2234-7230-2712
Battle.net: Kriese#1709
I did a bunch more tickets than originally planned but snagged Machina's LD. Only outstanding thing is Vaan's BT, oh well. No point of burning too many resources with Noctis right around the corner.
Also the only Abyss 1st strata I have a problem with is the 185 battle, but that was a score thing that I can probably fix. Locke is pretty sweet and solves two of the requirements, though.
Even the ball the draw came out of looked awesome
Abyss Perfectum stratum 2 was a bit more challenging than the first. There were a few stages that required a bit more strategy, but still not super bad I guess. On to stage 3.
I think tomorrow is Ultimate Odin, yeah? Noctis LD/BT time. I think I'll want to pity, though I'm wondering if I should just go all out on one of these banners, or just try for LD and wait until the Basch LC or Nine event to really go for the BT.....
Gem Pull 1: Noctis LD, Noctis BT
Good night folks, tip your waiter!
I lied before, I'm going to complain.
Ok game. I get the message.
If you have Noctis LD, reddit reports that you can potentially cheese the fight: use up all of Noctis' LD (and BT, if you have it) before the first Zantetsuken, and go hard with your other characters. Hopefully this gets Odin below half. If it does, let the first Zantetsuken kill everyone, then spend 100 gems to revive. The insta-kill doesn't count as HP loss, so you won't fail that condition, and there isn't a "no KOs" condition, so you can actually perfect the challenge this way. (The reason you're doing this before the first Zantetsuken is that all of the subsequent ones come with Mounted Unity, and you don't want to have to deal with that shit if you can avoid it)
The cap on BT tokens is 50, and it takes 50 BT tokens to exchange for a new BT weapon of your choice. If you start getting close to 50 tokens, you may want to hang on to any duplicate weapons until you're ready to make your selection, just so you don't have to fret about tokens in your mailbox expiring. That's probably a long way off for most folks, though.
He's not strictly necessary for any content - there are a lot of characters that can pull their weight and get things done at the Chaos level. He is a pretty good buffer+attacker hybrid that can make a lot of other folks shine, though, so if you are consistently having trouble with Chaos fights with a limited roster, you could do worse than maxing him out.
Did about 50ish tickets and a pull for Basch LD for no joy, though I did snag, uhh, 2 extra Noctis BTs. Wow. When good luck turns out to be bad luck i suppose. (At least they are good for BT tokens)
My free pull snagged Maria EX. Did a few more pulls and got Ardyn Ex, 2 LDs, and a handful of powerstones.
I'm probably going to try for Ardyn's BT, but not sure if I should wait to do it on a other banner. Plenty of content to chew through for now, I'll decide later.
Got everything including BT in exactly 250 tickets. I am super hype but also man that's a ton of grinding I did that I ended up not needing to do.
So uh, up side still massive stockpile for the next bt I want.
Also on previous banners I ended up getting the full kit of Machina, Basch and Nine all with tickets.
LD era is being real nice to me y'all. Now to figure out who I want to save for next I guess.