Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Cleared all classic dungeons on DU12, also went and cleared Seymour Flux and Ogopogo dungeons because I wanted to get rid of the most annoying parts of it early. Suppose that makes elite Lunasaurs my next targets.

REGARDLESS: Ogopogo is a pain in the ass, being a more aggressive version of Dark Bahamut with gravity magic counters. And my good FF4 synergy is all magic. Welp, Reflect to the rescue, then. Paladin Cecil was as useful for keeping my party healthy up to Ogopogo as he was for Dark Bahamut, at least, which is always a plus. Boon was a lifesaver here as well.

Seymour Flux is also kinda annoying, though I probably made it unnecessarily hard on myself by bringing a L50 Red XIII (fresh out of cap-breaking) and Hope. On the winning run, Silence didn't land until -after- Seymour casted Reflect, which led me to using my mages to smack Mortiorchis instead. Not a bad move, really, each Mortibsorption scores a free 9k on Flux. And Spiral Cut also helped adding up the damage there. I knew I'd be thankful for Brotherhood sooner than later, FFX synergy's among the most important ones to have in spades.

EDIT: Oh, also completed Barthandelus' event quest. Laser wasn't difficult.

[hinode]

I checked my orb count and saw I had 101 Greater Black Orbs and 79 Greater Fire Orbs after orbfest, which I took as a sign to hone Firaja to R3. Just in time for the boss rush in Hope's event!

Also honed Ruinga to R3 ASAP. Down to 41 GBOs now, but I don't think I'll be spending anymore in the short term future.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm already counting my GBOs in order to have Thundaja honed to R4 by the time I end Battle at the Big Bridge's event. Afterwards, I have Blizzaja to hone to R3 at an absolute minimum for Calamity Exdeath in January (I'd like it at R4, but the GBO demand is so stringent I can't realistically achieve that sans absolutely gross luck on Dr. Lugae farming). For the absolute short-term, there's also R2 Meteor to look forward to, I'm only three Major Earth Orbs short of it and Celes' reissue event hands me that much.

After that, at least, I'll be able to parse my GBOs more leisurely, working on life-quality measures like R4 Ruinga and Bioga/Darkra/Drainga honing instead of wide-shut necessities.

[Captain K]

Finished the Hope event, although I still have to do that event quest.

Boss rush was easy enough, although Garuda's barrier is so annoying.  Lost 1 action and 1 damage on him, 1 damage on Litebrite guy.

I actually lost the ++ battle to the Doom timer, because I went in with too many defensive abilities.  Took Curaga off Selphie and replaced it with Diaga.  Yes I did a boss battle without Curaga.  Mako Might+Selphie=win.

+++ fight is a joke.  All physical boss, mostly single target?  Wow that's just sad.  Also fuck you game for making me level three characters I don't care about.

I think I'm actually happier about the 20 Giant Scarletite than the 3 Major NEOs.

Also wtf at Ruinga being another ability that uses Greater Dark Orbs.  Too much competition for that one orb type.

[hinode]

I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm already counting my GBOs in order to have Thundaja honed to R4 by the time I end Battle at the Big Bridge's event. Afterwards, I have Blizzaja to hone to R3 at an absolute minimum for Calamity Exdeath in January (I'd like it at R4, but the GBO demand is so stringent I can't realistically achieve that sans absolutely gross luck on Dr. Lugae farming). For the absolute short-term, there's also R2 Meteor to look forward to, I'm only three Major Earth Orbs short of it and Celes' reissue event hands me that much.

After that, at least, I'll be able to parse my GBOs more leisurely, working on life-quality measures like R4 Ruinga and Bioga/Darkra/Drainga honing instead of wide-shut necessities.

Yeah, I'm not even thinking about R4-ing any 4* ability until after the second orbfest. Of course I spend way less time playing this game than you do, so naturally I'll be way behind on every hone.

Also this is probably coming really soon, which should keep the hardcore farmers like Snow busy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Just when I thought I'd never farm for a 3* orb again. Well, for better odds at 4* orbs and those seven free mythril, I'll bite.

[Magic Fanatic]

Done with Hope's event.

Had to redo the ++ fight because I forgot to bring Hope with me (for some reason, I brainfarted and brought Vanille/Snow).  Didn't need to S/L even once against Alexander.  Just blitzed the fights and collected my prizes.

Now I have a full day to actually do story dungeons!

[Cotigo]

Planning my Velius party.

So, a couple options. The Arch Demons have 38000 HP or so. I have resources to craft Meteo AND get Valefor to R3, and with 5 charges of strong MT I would only have to deal ~7600 damage with each charge to take care of them with MT alone. That sounds very worth it. I can also hit their Elemental weakness with either WoL or Agrias' Record Materia, so I don't necessarily need to slot Diaga (Though that may well be a wise idea anyway).

So, let's assume Valefor and Meteo hit that (with buffing, not unreasonable). That leaves Velius himself with 197k. That seems like kind of a lot of damage to deal before I lose a turn medal, but OK. He's vulnerable to poison at 3.2k per tick, according to the Wiki, so that can help me out quite a bit with turn efficiency. He's not actually weak to poison, though, so it's not worth crafting Bioga.  But, Zack has a damage SB, and can use Tempo Flurry AND Venom Buster, so he can be my status workhorse. Hmm.  So, in light of that, I think I'll go

Ramza (F4 Magic Breakdown, R3 Indoor Spell?), Katana Damage 1.2x
Zack (R4 Venom Buster, R5Tempo Flurry), Holy Attack RM
Terra (R4 Waterja, R1 Meteo) Dualcast Black
Yuna (R3 Valefor, R4Curaga) who cares
Aeris (R3 Shellga, R4Curaja) who cares
SG/Stoneraskin RW

It'd be nice if I had Garnet's RM3 (Dualcast Summon), or Cloud's RM3 but oh well.

I don't know exactly what I'll put in Ramza's second skill slot. Mana's Praen is an option, and it will almost guarantee my 5 Meteo/Valefor charges eat through the Arch demons. Lifesiphon is probably the better option, though, since Throw Stone is 10k+ damage with turn cancel. Depending on my survivability, it may be worth putting Shellga on Yuna and giving Aeris Water of Strength to squeeze more damage out of Throw Stone/Air Strike, too. This SEEMS like my best setup at the moment, anyway. I could also swap Zack for Kefka, but the added damage from Kefka using Mana's Praen and Waterja (I'd likely slot Ramza with Mental BD, too) would have to outpace 3.2k damage a tick + Zack's occasional Air Strike damage to be more efficient, and... well, hey, it may! I've never had to pay attention to POZN before so I don't know how much damage that actually is a turn, and Mana's Praen on 3 characters casting off of MAG before I get the SB gauge to use the Witch's Hat SB is potentially really freakin good. Especially if I slot Ramza with MenBD and Aeris with Diaga. The issue here I think is that I only have 3 natural 5* rods or staves and no FFT rod synergy so by default one character is going to be dealing suboptimal damage.

I think my rod situation, and not knowing how much healing I'm going to need, makes POIZNZack better for a first attempt. I'll keep plan B in mind for a second try though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

* Jo'ou Ranbu attempts Atomos Elite.

* Jo'ou Ranbu watches Atomos deal 6k with an unmitigated Comet late in the fight.

* Jo'ou Ranbu ends the fight with two dead PCs, missing mastery on the dungeon.

That's it, the kiddie gloves are OFF. Atomos, you're eating Sazh + third Black Mage in the face after I'm done with the other dungeons in this update.

EDIT: to Zenny, Poison ticks clock in every six seconds on speed 3 for 1.5% of the enemy's max health every tick, so if you proc it early, it seriously, seriously adds up. If you could slot an Engineer for the fight in order to exploit Poison Shot's higher accuracy, it'd be even better, but Venom Buster works in a pinch.

EDIT2: EEEEEEEEEE NEW DAILY DIFFICULTY IS OUT NOW MUST FARM

(On the Mythril-grabbing first run: two Magic Urns in a single stage, one of them handing me a Major Black. Rest of the stages gave me a Greater Black and a Greater Power. Thanks, RNGesus!)

[Cotigo]

Eh, my only Engineer at Divine-boss capable levels is Edgar and ehhhh. The thing is that I can S/L until POZN procs and Zack is going to have better damage after that. Also, Venom buster is 3* while POZN SHOOTAN is 4*. From a resource standpoint I should just stick with Venom Buster.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, hence the "if". As of now, Zack's your best poizn source anyway. Status proc attacks start seriously paying off, at a minimum, at R3 unless their rate's 70% or above.

[Scar]

So...

Just pulled a 5* ff7 bracer from the daily relic pull.

Oh, and a new daily dungeon has been added. Yay.

Im on Alexander right now in hopes event. Looking for LH roaming warrior before tackling it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Okay, so I decided to move on to the rest of DU12 instead of farming because I still need some rest from the hardcore farming back at Orbfest. Lunasaurs will be pretty unfun. At least, the next DU will have precisely zero FF4 content.

[Scar]

Hope event done.

Well, I need to go back and do that 3 man party event...

Hmmmm

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It's not really that hard, especially given you don't have to get mastery to fulfill the quest. Shellga is mandatory, non-elemental MT is a nice QoL measure, thunder and ice/water damage help Pauldron and Ailette go down faster. Worst comes to worst, you could Advantaliate him to death. Dropping 27k damage Blaze Rushes on Barthandelus was unreasonably satisfying on my end, though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

So, Lunar Subterrane 3 and its egregious Lunasaurs -down-. Indeed, it was unfun, though the winning run had them using Bad Breath only once and it missed two PCs, i.e. Medica II RW to the rescue. Highlight of the battle was Rydia dealing 9999 damage to them with Ifrit, which helped a lot. Fortunately, even on Elite, they're rather fragile (they're likely sub-100k HP, which, at this point of the metagame, goes down very quickly, especially with easily exploitable weaknesses). Bringing both Quake and Ruinga paid off nicely both at handling the trash (which, outside the Warlocks, will -not- eat OHKOs, so the extra expendable resources come in handy) and for the Lunasaurs, since Golbez was hitting the Lunasaurs for 9k a pop even before Faith. At this point, I thank the stars for FF4 being the realm with my second-best overall synergy load. Only Plague Horror left to deal with, and he's comparatively a total chump.

[Captain K]

Beating Bart Simpson with a 3-man party was hard as fuck.  I don't have good FF13 synergy for starters.  And the real problem is that number of ability uses is more important than higher damage abilities because there's three rounds of trash mobs and they're too strong to be autobattled.

So here's the setup I used:

Selphie lvl 65 (Curaga r5, Diaga R4, Mako Might)
Cloud lvl 77 (Blizzara Strike r5, Thundara Strike r5, Sky Pirate's Pride)
Vivi lvl 65 (Blizzaga r5, Thundaga r5, Devotion)
Boon RW

Note that both of those Strikes and Thundaga were rank 3 or less before this.  So much for that stock of 3-star orbs.  Never thought I'd be using those abilities again.  Well played again, DeNa.

So blow ability uses on the trash mobs, making sure to keep at least four of each ability for the boss battle.  Use Boon at beginning of Pauldron/Ailette because their magic damage adds up fast.  Focus damage on one of them to drop it fast. Recast Boon right before the second one dies because you won't have time to use it when Bart appears.  Blow all Vivi's soul breaks (did about 11k each).  Keep everyone's hp topped off because Thanatosian Smile hurts without mitigation.  Selphie had to use all three stocks of her SB and every one was critical.  You also have to use it preemptively because of the casting time, and because there's always another Thanatosian Smile around the corner.

He still killed Vivi right before dying, but Selphie Diaga'd him in the face for his insolence.

Probably the hardest thing I've pulled off in this game so far, and not worth 1 Major Orb.  Just glad I didn't have to spend a mythril on it.

150/151 quests done, come on Flare Strike!

[Veryslightlymad]

I have discovered my weakness and it is enemies that deal massive magic damage. I got sources of shell and of course sentinel's/stoneskin buddies, but what I really think I need is some good old fashioned bustin'.

So... reorganizing things in my party to coincide with that need.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Stacking busts and buffs is -paramount- to survival on high-end content. Also be aware that Shell and Protect stack with Sentinel's Grimoire/Stoneskin II, and Protectga and Shellga are two of the most important abilities to craft for the long haul. If you have White Mage's RM2, you can even use them at the start of every battle even at R1.

[Cotigo]

Stacking busts and buffs is -paramount- to survival on high-end content. Also be aware that Shell and Protect stack with Sentinel's Grimoire/Stoneskin II, and Protectga and Shellga are two of the most important abilities to craft for the long haul. If you have White Mage's RM2, you can even use them at the start of every battle even at R1.

How dare you.

Don't you know he has easily had worse luck than all of us on the fucking draws, hasn't donated a goddamn CENT to this game, and is still clearing base events and doing at least + fights, and managed last event's ++ fight. So... maybe he has an idea of what he is fucking doing.

[Grefter]

Some stuff that is not the sound of sloppy blowjobs.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

HEY. Sloppy blowjobs are -my- schtick.

ANYHOW. DU12 entirely completed. Took a Vivi/Golbez/Rydia/Sazh/Eiko party to Atomos take 2, which involved a lot of burning and drowning during its slumber. Full-medaled the run just for added insult to injury. Sanctuary Keeper in its story dungeon version is a complete loser in comparison to the horrifying monstrosity we had to deal with in Auron's event. Highlight of the battle involved Boost'd Tidus dropping 13k damage Tempo Flurries after stacking Full Break and Status Reels. You seriously don't even have Break resistance on Elite, SK? Seriously?

In other news, Plague Horror was as much of a chump as predicted and Biran/Yenke can be charitably labeled as roadkill.

[Captain K]

Man that free Gold Sword is really bad.  85 attack, compared to 104 for the Zantetsuken and 108 for the Blitz Sword.

Dusk Lance on the other hand is really good!*  111 attack and a chance to cause blind.


*on Balthier

[Veryslightlymad]

How dare you.

Don't you know he has easily had worse luck than all of us on the fucking draws, hasn't donated a goddamn CENT to this game, and is still clearing base events and doing at least + fights, and managed last event's ++ fight. So... maybe he has an idea of what he is fucking doing.

You wanna hug it out?

[Cotigo]

How dare you.

Don't you know he has easily had worse luck than all of us on the fucking draws, hasn't donated a goddamn CENT to this game, and is still clearing base events and doing at least + fights, and managed last event's ++ fight. So... maybe he has an idea of what he is fucking doing.

You wanna hug it out?

If I hug you can I still use my new favorite copypasta?

Because it's pretty brilliant.

EDIT: Went Come At Me Bro strats on Weigraf and STILL missed the fucking Mastery. Ugh. I'll come back to that one later. Or not. The Rosetta stone and the Major Holy Orbs would be nice but I wanna move on to...

Velius.

Smells like goat demon.

Still S/Ling, it's kinda tedious since not only does POZN have to proc first or second try for the run to be worth playing through (while I'm sure I'd win, I'm almost positive I would miss the mastery), but the adds need to not pile on the same character before all my mitigation gets up.

So, unbuffed, Meteo and Valefor just barely don't wipe out the Arch Demons, and deal 5900 damage to Velius. Buffed with Mana's Praen, I imagine the 5 shots would in fact off them. As it is, the adds can be taken out in a couple hits afterwards, but what's walled me so far and prevented me from moving onto the next phase of the fight is that at that low health, their Life Drain attack (thank god it doesn't actually drain. It is however OTD as far as I can tell) OHKOs my mages, so there's a lot of RNG stumbling blocks that need to fall juuuuuust right for me to make it out of this phase. Once I'm out of this phase, though, it should be home clear. Velius himself isn't actually that threatening so long as I keep him debuffed.

Actually, the way the first phase of the fight has been going, I wonder if I shouldn't just aim for only missing one damage medal instead of turn optimization. I'll have to look into the reqs more closely to tell.

EDIT: Beaten. As anticipated, once that adds were dead he was pretty easy, though he gets a new attack at <50% health that would have made things touch-and-go if not for Aerith's SSB. Also as anticipated, I missed the mastery. Unlike Weigraf's fight, those 6 Major Earth Orbs are too good to pass up if I can swing it, especially now that I've committed to Meteo as my 5* black magic of choice.  I think swapping Zack out for Kefka with Waterja/Mana's Praen and giving Terra Firaja, and swapping out Indoor Spell for Mental Breakdown will do the trick, though. Zack's status was nice and certainly contributed, but unbuffed his Dual Delay only dealt 2k or so, and Air Strike only dealt 5000 or so. That said, that also could leave me running out of gas right at the end because I'm out of charges. I'll have to do some math.

Either way, I'm gonna hold off for now, though, because I can potentially get Ramza's RM2 (Actions give more SB) to offset the loss of Indoor Spell (though missing that 20% damage may mean it isn't worth it) and Garnet's RM3 (Dualcast Summon. DEFINITELY worth it if it procs even once) before the event ends on Monday. I'm also gonna try to dungeon dive enough this week to get another 11 FFT pull, and I may pull a weapon that affects my load out. I should also start chipping through Yuna's event, since that ends on Monday too.