Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Next week's event in JP will feature Freya and Garnet's MC2. Let's ser if they manage to give Dragoon something truly significant.

[Cotigo]

Snow: Yeah, but then I'd have to use Quistis. While she is my favorite FF8 PC (not that there's any competition), she's kinda too terrible. Middling stats, only 4* BM and 4* Support (and 2* WM!!!!).

More importantly, though, I'm looking for mitigation that stacks with Shellga/Protectga. I'll save my Mythril.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Next week's event in JP will feature Freya and Garnet's MC2. Let's ser if they manage to give Dragoon something truly significant.

I'm assuming it'll be an ability that will turn the character into Kain's Dark Side, preferably with an emo haircut. It won't have any actual gameplay function, but it'll be important for aesthetic.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'd just be happy if they gave Freya Support 4. Sounds like Dragoon/Support/Celerity would be the basis of her build, at least. Support 3 would be completely useless for JP metagame. I do expect her SSB to have something like a buff with high regen, though, Reis' Wind makes a good excuse for that.

[Cotigo]

Just saw the second post. Really, Garnet's MC2 as well? That's...

Terra, Galuf, Gilgamesh/Locke/Aerith/Vivi/Lulu/Vanille/Hope, Yuna, Tifa, Selphie.

The fourth WM MC2 since I started playing again, and the second Summoner/WM. Admittedly before that there was only Lenna and a bunch of physical characters, but still, they really could have balanced out their release schedule more.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The unbalance is pretty consistent with their general schedule. They released Garnet, Yuna and Selphie, along with their MCs, in the interim of a month, while Quistis and Vivi were the only Black Mages with a Memory Crystal until late August. It honestly seems pretty deliberate. Rinoa was also the only BM with a MC2 for a good three months, IIRC.

[DjinnAndTonic]

It certainly does a good job of switching up who is MVP from month to month! Which is honestly pretty rewarding when you've been playing for as long as we have (us veteran players of five whole months). It keeps things constantly shifting and rewards levelling up lots of characters, which in addition to the gacha mechanic, keeps everyone's play experience extremely varied. It really is one of the best examples of utilizing the F2P model correctly.

Overpriced, certainly, but you can't say they aren't doing their job at providing a cool experience with the tools they're working with.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The funny part is that some of it was actually -worse- in JP. If I recall correctly, in JP, Vivi and Fran did NOT get Memory Crystals on Garnet's and Balthier's events respectively (neither did Wakka on Tidus' event! However, his MC was on the first batch of story dungeon MCs, which was removed on Global due to loldenaprogramming), so Wakka and Quistis were respectively the only relevant cap-broken support and mage for AGES (well, and Irvine. Can you think of a meta where gunless Irvine was a relevant choice? It happened).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Saving up and planning for Orbfest, gotta keep this 'to-do' list updated and handy.

FFI: Tiamat (86 stam)
FFIV: Four Fiends Rush* (76 stam), Dark Bahamut* (101)
FFV: Sandworm* (58), Cray Claw* (77), Adamantoise* (61), Archeoaevis* (81), Purobolos* (61)
FFVII: Mako Reactor I* (13 stam, I'm saving it for an emergency stamina refresh!)
FFVIII: Edea/Seifer (81)
FFX: Seymour1 (73), Seymour Natus (61)
FFXII: Demon Wall3* (61)

New update almost completed. Just got a pesky Demon Wall and the FF4 stuff left. White Dragon looks tailor-made to be Advantaliated. Like, it counters everything and absorbs almost all magic, so strong counter-ignoring physicals seem to be the intended strategy. How quaint.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Four elite dungeons left. My attempt on Holy dragon went sour when I realized I should've brought R2 Ixion instead of Alexander and R4 Waterja instead of R3 Firaja. Having someone to Slowga or Sleep would've been aces too. I just should've gone mage meta there, come to think of it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Out of curiosity, what rank are your summons at, Snow? (And entire RK board)

[Veryslightlymad]

Shiva 3, Kirin 2, Bomb 1, Bomb 1 (Where did this----)

[Cotigo]

The bombs came from Eiko's event apparently.

Shiva 1, Valefor 2 (have the orbs for 3, but R5 Diaga and R3 Curaja are way more important... probably. I'll see how Adel goes), Carbunkle 2, have the orbs for 3 but holding off (Reading up on Adel's fight it seems like it will be necessary).

Also, after Lightning/Wind day, I am pretty certain that by next week I'll have R1 Full Break, assuming Saturday doesn't (continue to) troll me by not coughing up Greater Ice orbs to convert.

---

Thursday and Friday dailies aren't critical so I guess I'll do the Laguna event then. Planning out my +++ and Divine party, looking like:

For Odin:

Kefka (R4Waterja, R2 Mana's Praen), Dualcast materia
Terra (R3 Firaja, R3 Thundaja), MATK Up/PDEF Down materia
Faris (R2 Mental Breakdown, R1 Power Breakdown) (who cares materia, Partisan w/ common SB)
Aeris (R2 Strongwater, R4 Diaga) (Rod->MindUP Materia)
Sephiroth (R2 Indoor Spell, still thinking for last option. Reta?) Katana -> DamageUP Materia

Hold out for a Lunatic High RW.

For Adel:

Kefka (R4Waterja, R2 Mana's Praen), Dualcast materia
Terra (R3 Firaja, R3 Thundaja), MATK Up/PDEF Down materia
Faris (R2 Mental Breakdown, R2Magic Breakdown) (who cares materia)
Yuna (R2/3Carbuncle, R1Dispel to cancel her Start:Shell), my common SB rod, Materia who cares
Aeris (R2 Shellga, R4 Diaga), Rod Equipped -> Mind UP materia

Hold out for an MT Restoration RW.

It looks like both Odin and Adel are pure DPS checks, with Odin's mastery reqs (win by turn 10 when he uses Zantetsuken) being a little bit more overt about it, so yeah. Both Faris and Yuna will have common SB equips to help boost their usefulness a bit after the initial buff/debuff turns.  I'm not terribly concerned about either, and if the quality of Adel's rewards are any indication she will be a lot easier than Bahamut Sin. (They're still good, just not as stellar as the AC event's.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Out of curiosity, what rank are your summons at, Snow? (And entire RK board)

For stuff I actually use: R2 Valefor, Alexander, Ixion, Kirin, Ramuh, Ifrit, Carbuncle. R3 Shiva, Mist Dragon. R1 Phoenix, Leviathan and Quetzalcoatl. I kinda want to craft and hone Maduin, but my Greater Non-Elems have other priorities.

EDIT: Zenny, I wouldn't bother with Carby at R3. It only gets ST magic and so much of Adel's offense is MT. If you want to bypass the counters, ST Reflect is better.

[Captain K]

R1 Shiva, R3 Ramuh, R1 Ifrit, R1 Kirin, R1 Phoenix, R1 Quetzalcoatl.  Had to sell my BOMBS for more inventory space.  Yeah I don't use summons at all, they're terribly pointless without Summoner's Spring and I don't use any X Spring RMs.  Think I needed the Ramuh for some very specific thing with Garnet a while back, rest are just event rewards or stuff I made to fulfill quests.

[Cotigo]

Yeah, but, uh, exactly what benefit is having to spend 3 turns getting my mage attackers reflected netting me over getting everything taken care of in 1 spell? It's not like I can afford to use the slot for healing, and I'm covering all my party toward the end of the fight when she starts throwing Flare/Holy at me is gonna net some extra damage. Is it just a matter of resource conservation?

EDIT: this may be the most useless tutorial but also the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=283&v=CGgL8qs4d-k

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

More dungeoneering. Cleared Lunar Subterrane 1 and Drakenvale. Wow, Drakenvale is very sad - they even tried by giving Dragon Pod's spawns high Res, but 5k HP on Elite doesn't save them from getting OHKOed by 4* summons with a decent rod. I had flashbacks from my FF5 fiesta playthrough. White Dragon... meh. I don't see why people on Reddit are crying over it. If you managed to clear the fight on Golbez event, you won't do any worse here. Given how I'm +1 natural 5* rod, +2 natural 5* hats (one of them having FF4 synergy!) and +1 3++* FF4 synergy rod compared to the event, uh yeah. Dark Bahamut... sigh. Getting everybody at max HP for that opening Megaflare when you have trash waves to deal with is going to suck. Maybe I can do something about it by using P. Cecil with Draw Fire, he's at least cap-broken and can carry some of the spoiling loadout necessary for the boss fight as well. Meanwhile, Mana's Paean continues to be amazing. Too bad there are so few people with relevant Bard levels.

EDIT:

Yeah, but, uh, exactly what benefit is having to spend 3 turns getting my mage attackers reflected netting me over getting everything taken care of in 1 spell? It's not like I can afford to use the slot for healing, and I'm covering all my party toward the end of the fight when she starts throwing Flare/Holy at me is gonna net some extra damage. Is it just a matter of resource conservation?

If you're using mages for the fight at all, you only need to reflect one for counter bypassing (you avoid counters by reflecting a spell on the person with Reflect, essentially). There's no real action economy there. And your SB gauge does -not- fill fast enough to rely solely on a healing SB on one character. Odds are you can't really fly the fight if you can't afford a single slot for healing anyway, unless Aerith's autolife is better than I think. The only setup without healing I saw in a lot of Adel videos involved a full party spamming R5 Dismissals with absolutely insane FF8 synergy. I'm not even sure what you're trying to accomplish with Carbuncle, since MT reflect is almost purely detrimental in that fight (Flare and Drain are both -very- low-priority on Adel's AI and everything else ignores Reflect).

[Cotigo]

Ah, didn't realize it was that low priority. I also forgot that to bypass counters you can reflect one party member then cast on them. The plan was to use an RW for healing but mmmmm yeah I should probably just forgo reflect altogether if Flare and Holy aren't going to come out all that much, and hold off for a SG RW and hone up Curaja as much as I can with my wind orbs.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'd recommend the Reflect -spell- (only 3* and you likely don't need it honed past R2), since the Drain counters are likely to wear your resources even more and Aerith's SSB can cover well for when you need healing on the single reflected PC. Are you going to pack Dispel against Shell? I didn't see it get used in videos at all, which makes me wonder if Adel auto-refreshes it as an interrupt.

[Cotigo]

Adel auto refreshes it in the switch between Strong AI, Weak AI, and Very Weak AI, at least that's what it looks like watching the tutorial videos. Apparently she can just refresh it whenever, too... It's unclear, I'd have to watch more tutorials.

I'm unsure, though, because if I keep reflect I still don't really have a slot for dispel unless I ditch Shellga or one of my R3 -ajas, and I think if I ditch an -aja I'm almost certainly going to need to spend some mythril getting extra skill charges. I guess I could try it with and without Dispel and see which one nets me more damage overall.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

This talk is making me a fine case to attempt pulling on a FF8 banner, since my synergy for the realm is junk. I don't even have a 5* sword for it, which just about everyone and their mom seems to boast. I'll see how it goes after pulling on the Hope banner.

On unrelated news, beat Lunar Subterrane 2 and Underground Waterway. Lunar Subterrane 2 was actually surprisingly sane: slap Lominsan Bow, Dark Helm, Draw Fire and Dispel on Cecil, mage meta otherwise. I didn't even have to use the second charge of that Hymn of the Faith RW. Waterway was grossly easy, too: backrow Cecil under Draw Fire borders on unkillable and Reflect bypasses the counters no sweat. Now, to make a viable gameplan for FFVI's Holy Dragon.

[Scar]

Belial beat and mastered!

That took a couple tries...ha!

My set up.was entirely wrong the first two attemps. Vaan was basically useless. After a 2nd failure I switched him out for vivid and eventually got the job done. Rank 4 waterja comes in real handy in this one!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Holy Dragon conquered, now I'm entirely clear for DU11. This time, things went smoothly, with Lightning's Tempo Flurry proccing Slow on my second attempt. Mana Paean also made a big difference: the Dragon died before Golbez ran out of Firajas. The hilarious part was Rydia claiming the kill with a 77 damage cherry tap after -just- running out of summon charges. Fun stuff, and now I'm ready to devote all the stamina left for today and tomorrow to Terra's reissue.

[Veryslightlymad]

Should be able to stomp FFVI. Probably one of my strongest worlds despite having no good characters leveled up.

Who is being (re?)released with Terra? Or is it just solo?

EDIT
Having an encyclopedic knowledge of the bosses (encyclopedias, for those paying attention, in the category of "somewhat worse than Meeple") probably helps.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Terra and CYAN, along with Memory Crystals for both. At least Terra is one of the game's top mages. 5 BM and Support 4 off the stat spread and equipment options is good stuff. Even WM 3 has its place.