What Games are you playing 2015?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Assault Rifles turned out quite well in this playthrough but max Chain Shot with good pistol ammo ends most boss encounters almost immediately. As I mentioned Cid, stealth is a big gameplay skip and it gets ridiculous later on (you can turn on invisibility for a really long time wherein you can just stealth takeout everyone, and you get temp invisibility if you are seen), which is useful for your first playthrough. Intel is worth picking up too since it leads to various things appearing in different missions or ways to deal with bosses that would not be available to you otherwise. Trying to fill out dossiers is also pretty cool since it does add a lot to the world although I just wikied things I couldn't get to. Give it a chance past the Middle East, it does improve quite a bit. It's also noteworthy that once you get to your three safehouses, you can and should move freely between them. Characters and other things will appear in the other locations and it's neat to see how things interact with each other.

I guess the nicest thing you can be in the game is professional, and even then you just kind of talk like a heartless, singleminded asshole. There are no true nice options and that's great, and you still get perks when people hate your guts, so there isn't this KOTOR or Mass Effect-y reason to be nice to everyone. You get perks for fucking up missions and for almost anything (like using a conversation option like suave a number of times), so you're generally rewarded for playing any way you want to. If the gameplay were better, there might be a incentive for people to minmax some of their choices so that you have minimal cooldowns and good bonuses for your build but it's just not necessary in this game.

Some of the perks you get when your handlers hate you are pretty funny.

Sean Darcy, Endurance +10
Your will to live is strengthened by the knowledge that dying would make Darcy happy. That can't happen - not at any cost.

Albatross, Endurance +15
The only thing worse than Albatross' voice in your earpiece is the thought of his smug grin if you died. That thought alone leaves you unwilling to give up in the face of grievous harm.

Sie, Endurance + 5
There's something about SIE's androgynous voice over your earpiece that makes you less inclined to die - it's probably the fear that if you were wounded on your mission, she'd rescue you and lick your wounds.

If you hate everyone, you get bonuses to HP because you want to survive purely out of spite and I can get behind that.

Sadly, the game likely won't get a sequel but the game had enough worthwhile ideas that someone else should steal and build on them.

Being able to flip every character in the game to your side or get everybody killed is enough to warrant a bunch of replays.  Player agency is a wonderful thing.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattles Made Flesh - Aerith event lands tonight, so naturally I'm dating pidgeons clearing the remaining Elite dungeons in this update. Bringing a Summoner to clear the trash mobs has definitely been worth it even though Garnet really doesn't contribute much to boss fights, since basic physicals otherwise fail to -2HKO- the randoms and I don't feel like setting up Reta-meta. There's also the fact that randoms very solidly 3HKO my ass now, so cleaning them fast is imperative. Full-mastering trash stages is really big for having breathing room against bosses, so yeah.

EDIT: Right, I play non-FTP bullshit too.

Lost Dimension - So uh this game is pretty weird. You have a SRPG with a lot of emphasis on support-attacking and a huge cast with potentially ridiculously powerful abilities and, by the side, a game of psychic Mafia. I have no idea how that's supposed to pan out, but let's see how it goes.

[Scar]

Took the weekend off swimming down rivers and evading water moccasins, gators and lightning bolts.

I get back to civilization,  and my rk'ering is delayed and I missed out on xp day!

I don't even have lightings event over and we have this new one coming today!

I gotta catch up.

In bravely default, (a game I can play without wifi!) I saved some boys from a coal mine and ring a bell is elvis.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattles Become Wings - Only two Elite dungeons left, which I should be able to slam down in a single sitting due to being right next to another max stamina upgrade. Zorn and Thorn remain completely worthless, they're not supposed to ever get an offensive turn. Current Mythril count is 66, seems likely that I'll have enough for somewhat ruthless SB celebration splurging with 20 days worth of daily Mythrils + the three events we'll get before that kicks in. I kinda wanted to draw from the Aerith reissue banner due to the mass of 5* bracers it offers, but feels like a better bet to use it on banners 37 and 40, which will bring both amazing weaponry and cool armor equips.

[Fenrir]

RK: I missed all of Satursday but no way I'm missing a sunday. This one got me Irvine to level 52 and Gordon to 49. And Knight and Hunter have their SB learned. Jealous guys? About two thirds of my characters (31/48) are level 50 or above. Pretty cool.

Spoilers, apparently we are going in one month to fight some boss that can basically only be beat by Poizn / non elemental spells and it'd be best to have 2 Comets / Biora spells.
I would have hated to be a japanese player by then, not knowing that. "SURPRISE here is this boss can only be beaten by spamming ... I don't know... wind attacks? He'll go away in two weeks. Good luck lol"

I also have 186 mithril but I'm going to be the only loser who wastes like 100 on Rinoa's banner right before pulls are going to get better.


Etrian Odyssey: 21F is another steep incline in difficulty, and the difficulty curve was already going straight vertically before.
So now the difficulty curve's somehow going backwards, defying basic mathematical laws.

At least now that I have a ton of grimoires, I get a bunch of different skills and can start getting conditional drops, which lead to new options.
In particular The 3rd stratum boss drops a material that can create the best bow in the game if killed with POIZN so I'm working on that.

I can't get past the two guild girls because they take hours to kill, and one of them has ID, and if I revive a bard he comes back at low HPs and no buffs, and he get picked apart super easily.
I also tried beating Optional Boss Alraune and ahahahahahahah this is never happening

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Comet is a good idea to hone in general anyway, best mult of the 3*s and non-elemental is often useful, especially on places like the Sunday daily (FUCK YOU JACKANAPES). THAT SAID, I started honing my Biora anyway, and I'll likely have the Dark Orbs to hone Bioga to R2 at least. I'm also saving my Greater Holy and Wind Orbs for Diaga, which will be coming verrrrrrrrrry shortly.

EDIT:

I also have 186 mithril but I'm going to be the only loser who wastes like 100 on Rinoa's banner right before pulls are going to get better.

I'd save some for Banner 41 of the second SB celebration as well, since it also has two guns (including a 42s Vega reissue for Sazh!). It also will have EDWARD's SB weapon and Squall's second SB gunblade.

[Fenrir]

Oh yeah you're right.

I'm not only pulling for two guns though, I'm pulling for IRVINE's gun especially (we're probably never going to see it again, it's not very good), and the blitz sword (This is my only 5+ weapon, I'd like having it at 5++)

I didn't have Comet before, but I could create and hone it to R4 straight away, so.
Biora is also at R4. Tuesdays will be spent making copies of these / maybe honing them to R5

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Tuesdays are pretty much eternal black power farming, so yeah. Power and Black Orbs are the most important 3* orbs to amass by -far-, since you need them for damn near everything. I'm at a perennial shortage of black orbs no matter what as a rule of thumb. I -do- want to hone Comet to R5, but I think I'll take Biora to R4 first, since it's a lot more efficient (and Comet's already at R4 anyway).

[Fenrir]

Yeah, I thought I was nearly done with Tuesday but nope.

Honing multiple copies of Comet / Biora sounds dumb, so I'll try winning without them.
With skills like Retaliate, summons, and maybe physical attacks backed by insane mitigation.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'll be honest, I'm already considering packing multiple -gas and -ra Strikes anyway, since that allows for more weakness exploitation, but that'll wait until I have at least all my relevant 3*s at R4 or higher (not terribly far from that, only Dark and Biora left to go to get to R4... and Biora's at R2 while Dark's at R3. At least both Drain and Dark share the same element, so they can already play double weakness-hitting duty). I figure we'll get by with just Comet/Biora/Bioga on that boss, though, I already checked it out.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattle Makes A Tangle - Holy -shit-, Elite Beatrix's on Castle Alexandria 2 is nasty. She wiped me after pulling off a Climhazzard from which I'd never be able to recover. Guess it's time to bench Garnet and Lightning and bring in the Reta-meta show with Cloud along with Red XIII for Lunatic High. I -have- to kill her before she unleashes Climhazzard lest I want to die horribly again.

[Fenrir]

I'll be honest, I'm already considering packing multiple -gas and -ra Strikes anyway, since that allows for more weakness exploitation, but that'll wait until I have at least all my relevant 3*s at R4 or higher (not terribly far from that, only Dark and Biora left to go to get to R4... and Biora's at R2 while Dark's at R3. At least both Drain and Dark share the same element, so they can already play double weakness-hitting duty). I figure we'll get by with just Comet/Biora/Bioga on that boss, though, I already checked it out.

Man I dunno this sounds like way overkill. 4* spells are going to become more relevent, they're going to make copies of 3* spells obsolete. I guess that's still decent if you run a multimage team.
Has anything even be weak to dark so far?

Cecil is going to get a buff, 4* white magic. Oh shit, you give him Protectga + something like Mental Break and he suddendly becomes Cloud-tier. Or Protectga + Shellga plus a RM that buffs regular attacks. Cecil hype.

[Captain K]

Aerith event lands tonight

The final battle should totally give 3 stars for "Win with Aerith KO'd".

[Fenrir]

BTW Zorn and Thorn have amazing sprites / animations.

[hinode]

Multiple -ga spells or whatever depend on which future superbosses you care to fight in the future. For instance Omega will be in one event in a no synergy level, so best way to take it on is lots of well honed Thundagas/Thundara Strikes/Stops. Merugene in a different event has a barrier switching gimmick and nulls/absorbs every other element, but she always starts weak to fire and can be put to sleep, so if you have enough Fire magic you can s/l until sleep hits asap and easy mode the fight.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Aerith event lands tonight

The final battle should totally give 3 stars for "Win with Aerith KO'd".

I love you.

Fenny: it's pretty much what hinode's pointing out what I want to accomplish. I'm already at a point where I want to run multiple mages, and -gas are still relevant when hitting weakness (whereas -ja spells hitting weakness is brutal overkill, those are primarily boss slugfesting/high-end trash troubleshooting abilities). They obviously don't need to be ultrahoned, but being decently honed would be pretty aces.

[Captain K]

In other FFRK news, Antlion absorbs Water element, making it the most powerful boss in the game.  Sandworm however is Balthier's bitch, since his SB hits the water weakness *and* doesn't trigger counterattacks from the holes.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, MT doesn't trigger wormhole counters, it's a pretty nice sanity net. But then, neither did it in FF5. And man, FF9 Antlion absorving Water is totes news to me. Anyhow.

Final Fantasy Lust In The Autobattles - Reta-meta + full-on R2 -ja Vivi artillery made a chump out of Beatrix. Went with a Red XIII RW so I could still keep Garnet for clearing trash, forfeited Protectga due to LH and slotted Slowga. Turns out this was all I needed. Good times were had and now there's only one dungeon left, which should be relatively cake. Good times.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattle The Collapse - Sweeped through wussy version of Aerith's reissue, which is more or less a glorified JENOVA Project recycle event. Having unlocked her, I fed the girl some Growth Eggs and took her to black power grindans, which inevitably takes up all of my Tuesday FTP bullshitting time. The goal for today: R4 Biora or R5 Comet.

[Fenrir]

I...
I have R5 Biora and R4 Comet.
I outsnowed Snow

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I've had R4 Comet for the longest time, though. I also have all the main -gas at R5 and Biora should reach R4 still today, I already have it at R3. I don't think I have a single relevant 3* Black Magic spell under R3 at this point, and most of them are at R4. Portfolio diversity, it is a thing.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out that getting a spell from R4 to R5 costs more in materials and money than raising it from R1 to R3. Diminishing returns apply really fiercely.

EDIT2: ALSO hoping that Eiko's event, debutting this Sunday, will give me the necessary Greater Fire and Ice Orbs for R3 Waterja. I've seen they're among the event's rewards already, if they boost the orb count like they did on the previous few events, I'll be set.

[Fenrir]

I hope it will give me enough orbs for R4 Waterja so I can resume gloating

I've had R4 Comet for the longest time, though. I also have all the main -gas at R5 and Biora should reach R4 still today, I already have it at R3. I don't think I have a single relevant 3* Black Magic spell under R3 at this point, and most of them are at R4. Portfolio diversity, it is a thing.

Yes. That's right. Okay. Hmmm-hmmm.
*looks at own portfolio*
But do you have R5 Poison?


Edit: The gil costs are getting out of hand, can't believe all this gold raised during the festival of gold has run out

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

We're getting a second SB celebration festival for those exact reasons, shortly after the Rinoa event starts, I'd suspect. The rewards in Growth Eggs, materials and monies are simply -insane-.

Yes. That's right. Okay. Hmmm-hmmm.
*looks at own portfolio*
But do you have R5 Poison?

I have R5 Sleep and R4 Venom Buster, does that count? EDIT: actually, I have all Busters at R4. (Though it's kinda unfair, all the statuses are useful. Granted, Sleep being this high is partly because it works better with specialized niche mega-meta)

[Veryslightlymad]

In other FFRK news, Antlion absorbs Water element, making it the most powerful boss in the game.  Sandworm however is Balthier's bitch, since his SB hits the water weakness *and* doesn't trigger counterattacks from the holes.

If you're all forgetting what the early game is like, pretty much everything absorbs water. I've taken to calling Wakka my "enemy support class" because of how many enemies I've inadvertently healed with his overdrive.

[DjinnAndTonic]

He used to be the only source of Water damage in the game IIRC. Oh how times have changed.

Also... Eiko event on Sunday? Sheesh. I only just got Aerith's Level Crystal. And I'm nowhere -near- finishing all the regular dungeons they gave us. I was hoping to have time to grind at some point...

Egged Aerith up to 50 because you can never have too many different flavors of healers. I wish they'd hurry up and give us Terra and Celes again... Then I can -finally- get my FFdex up to date.