Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

This kinda slipped by under the radar and even I didn't notice it until now, but some summons just got a pretty big buff in JP. Basically, any 4*+ summon worth its salt hits twice now. Overall multipliers haven't been changed, so this effect is minimal against high level, high-RES content, but summons just became amazing for grinding dungeons. Dealing 9999x2 against the Dream Stooges on classic mode was very, very cathartic to the Zenny who had to restart an entire FF6 file due to them as a kid.

With Kuja coming next as a PC, they also seem to be signaling a slow swing back to magic improvements. The next two Darkness skills are both mage tools (Doom+Mag Up on self and 2-hit magical ability+increased damage underDoom), which is neat for the mages with Darkness on their skillsets (hi, Kefka. Hi, Vincent. Hi, Edea, Hi, Exdeath). Hopefully we'll start seeing new Black Magic tools as well, we haven't seen a new BM ability since Darkra, on -Lulu's- event which's already a thing of the past even on Global.

Welp, you're not wrong. Kuja's relic, the Punisher Rod, is Dark-elemental damage + Mag UP. Don't know data mining, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 30%. I'll be honest, I'm tempted to throw 50 Myth at the banner even though I really should be saving all of it for a potential Scream re-release (that... may not even happen! Or would totally happen right as DeNA shifts back to Mage superiority... DAMMIT.).  The fact that it isn't Hastega + Damage Boosting is the only thing preventing me from drawing on it right now.

They're releasing an orbfest in JP next week. Hold your Mythril, since orbfests are historically good places to slap a SB celebration on and the three-month cycle is about complete.

OF COURSE, since we're talking Hastega relics, Kuja event's second banner has two Hastega SBs! Garnet's SSB (RES up+high regen+Hastega) and Eiko's Golem Flute (AoE Cura+Hastega). Regardless, I'd wait a bit and see.

[Cotigo]

Yeah, I figured something was happening soon. I'm trying to gather up as much mythril as possible before then.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Still farming phase 1 like there's no tomorrow. Results for Greater Darks could be better, but I'm getting tons of Greater Blacks and more Greater Lightnings that I can use. Got at least 10 Majors so far as well, so everything's pretty awesome. Right now, once I have enough Greater Holies and Ices, I'll be able to R4 both Ruinga and Blizzaja with spare change. I'll likely skimp a bit on phase 2 (I really need a lot of Greater Holy Orbs, but I have little to no use for Greater Whites and Greater Earths), but farm like mad on phase 3 (I need as many Greater Ices as I can possibly muster and more Greater Summon/Fires aren't bad either for spare honing on Steal Power and maybe R5 Waterja or acceptable Firaga Strike levels) and phase 4 (POWER ORBS. WIND ORBS. NON-ELEMENTAL ORBS. I WANT THEM ALL).

[Cotigo]

99.9% of my stamina has gone to clearing out all the new daily dungeons over the last few days, bringing my mythril total up to a healthy 92. Another 4 days of new Dailies, clearing Kuja's event, plus the mythril I should get during the orb fest should leave me at at least 150 before the New Year banners drop. 200 seems unlikely, but 165 or even 180 should be possible so I can throw a couple 3 pulls in as well. Dear DeNA Claus, Scream 4 Me pls.

Also, if the orb fest is as plentiful as it was back in September, I may well have decently honed 5* skills by the end of it.  With the buff recently, I may even craft Bahamut if I can get it to R2. Unlikely, though, considering Non-orbs are in high demand.

Speaking of Bahamut, in my quest to kill Bahamut the Third, I crafted Aera Strike. Again. Twice. I have 3 Aera Strikes. And that's terrible.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Finally decided to move on from Black/Lightning/Dark grinding. Used 4 mythril refreshes, got roughly 7 Major Orbs and averaged 2-3 Greater Orbs per + dungeon run. Overall a great haul, though I'm sure Snow's luck was like triple that.

In JP, they just released Zidane's MC2, so I rushed through the event and grabbed that. Then I crafted Thief's Raid because I had the orbs and I wanted to get the most out of my new Level 67 Thief. Steal Power + Thief's Raid is as awesome as advertised. Double-awesome in an FF9 Boss Rush with Zidane's Butterfly Sword. Goodbye Lani~

As it turns out, Ramza's MC2 is NOT available in the MC2 shop. This is supremely disappointing to me as I have Ramza's Yell SB, which was carrying me through a bunch of earlier boss content. Sigh. So Ramza's been replaced with Zidane/Fran/Aerith (yes, it takes three characters with S/SBs to replace a single Ramza) and Tyro and Gilgamesh round out the team because I need the flexibility they bring (and also they all have MC2s available). I still need to get Aerith's MC2 but at least that's available from the shop, and with the new Gysahl Greens system, I can buy a blank MC2 quite easily! Just need to keep grinding dailies! I might even be able to take on the Kyou dungeon for FF9! (Sooooo tempted to pull for Zidane's new SSB... That New Years banner needs to hurry...)

[Cotigo]

Yeah, I have no fuckin idea how they're dealing with the MC2 shop. Like, only half of the characters with MC2s are available there and there isn't a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it.

Honestly though, since you have yell, the difference between L80 and L65 is not as crushingly bad as the difference from L65 to L80.

Also worth pointing out, when the Deep Dungeon opens up again, the 3rd battle in each area has a blank MC2 for you to pick up as well. Thanks to this and the Gysahl Greens shop I have like 5 blank MC2s floating around that I'm holding onto.

---

Bahamut is stupid. If I don't have power breakdown, I die to his MT attacks that he likes to spam. If I don't have magic Breakdown, Flare OHKOs even when Shelled. If I don't have Armor Breakdown, I don't get mastery. Mmmmmph.No matter what improvements I make, I have a feeling a large chunk of my day is going to be S/Ling hoping for perfect RNG.

Ramza (Power Breakdown, Magic Breakdown), Shellga SB Armor, ~4000 damage a hit buffed
Zack (Indoor Spell ~5000dmg, R5 Aera Strike ~9500 dmg),
Bartz (R4 Aera Strike, R4 Aera Strike), Weakness damage 1.2x, ~8100 dmg buffed
Mog (Break Fever, Curaga)
Aeris (Protectga, Curaja)
SG RW

The only real tweaks I can make mid fight are saving SG for when he transitions to Weak and Very Weak phases (he always casts Megaflare here), and having Break Fever active when SG isn't up. Shellga is on Ramza mostly because his SB deals the least damage, and Throw Stone at the wrong time actually has massively screwed me up by delaying Megaflare until after SG wore off. >_< I'm kinda tempted to swap out Curaga for Haste, in part because by the end of the fight no amount of healing is going to save me, and having Zack/Bartz hasted may give me the edge I need to get through Phase 3 without getting completely wrecked. It's only one timebux, may as well try it out.

Another thing to play with would be putting dualcast spellblade on Bartz. That lowers his damage to ~6900 a hit, 8100-6900=1200 lost damage, and lowers his SB from 12000 to 10000... at that point I should probably switch the shellga armor to Bartz... eyeballing it, it looks like if it goes off once every 5 turns then it's worth it. Still, I don't like the randomness, and with the Weakness damage buff I can backload all of Bartz' and Zack's SBs to crank out the damage. By that point, adding in Ramza's throw stones should help delay him enough that I don't take too many hits once SG wears off at the end. Hmm. Yeah I guess I'll try that with Haste this time.

EDIT: Nope, not happening. Really need Haste and Damage mitigation, but giving up any skills I have for Haste leads to a quick death. I had basically perfect RNG and couldn't do it. Lame, DeNA. Lame.

[MC50]

Been clearing most events - though I didn't bother with Valigarmanda. Haven't tried Heretic Hojo yet either, though I may give him a shot later. We'll see how that goes.

Did a pull on the beginner banner. Got Kain's Lance and a generic 5* armor - not bad. I already had some of the relics on offer, somehow (Tyrfing, Dusk Lance, Healing Staff), so I picked Snow's coat, since I have no 13 Synergy - and I like him well enough. I did already have a 5* Gun (The Running Fire) so I didn't feel I needed Balthier's either.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Since Phase 2 isn't very exciting (though I've gotten pretty decent returns on Greater Holy Orbs and am currently touting around R4 Curaja), I decided to do some dungeoneering today, clearing Elites and whatnot. FF6 Elites aren't a big deal, biggest problem are those magician trash midgets sometimes casting Osmose. Mt. Gulug in FF9 is a doozy, though: Grenades were dealing 5k damage to Strago with Firaga (!!!), that trash's very dangerous on offense. Meltigemini are quite scary too, I lost once and decided to bring an A-team (capped Balthier with Fira Sword + Steal Power, Golem Flute Eiko, Yuna with Reno's Baton for trash/Zorn and Thorn clearing, Reno with Vivi's Oak Staff and Red for Lunatic High), which made things a lot simpler. I still have FF7 Elites to do and Mt. Gulug Part 1, which will likely require another A-team run.

[Meeplelard]

Sephiroth's event finished besides the quests which I'm tackling now.  Hojo mostly went down with S/Ling and Drawtaliating Gilgamesh.  I suspect the Event Quest will be handled similarly.

Got pretty good amount of Greater Orbs in the first phase, on that note.

[Meeplelard]

DeNA Logic 101:

So after buffing Rinoa, one of the best Black Mages already, and giving Summons a buff, what does DeNA do?  They decide to buff more characters! Ok seems fair, so who gets buffed?

Kimarhi, who is awful at everything?
Cyan, who besides retaliating is legitimately worth nothing at all?
Quistis who is still just "Terra-lite" in every sense outside of a higher attack stat that is worthless because you need a good whip which are in short supply?
Shadow, the one Ninja who lacks Thief, and doesn't have any real perks to make up for it?
Maybe Barret whose stats suck, and could use like tank HP and defense, and prays you have a gun?

...nah, let's buff Hope and give him Summon 5!  Ok, this one is completely fine; Hope felt kind of lack luster as a Sage as is, and this buff does push him to a more interesting option as he had Summon 3 already, so it's a fair upgrade.

"oh yeah, we gave Terra and Ashe Summon 5!"

...yes, they buffed TERRA AND ASHE of all characters.   Like yes, people were asking for Terra to get Summon 4 at least so she could summon daddy, and Ashe makes the most sense as an FF12 Summoner, but I digress, THESE TWO CHARACTERS DID NOT NEED ANY MAJOR BUFFS!  You literally just made Rydia and Krile look all the worse.  They literally buffed the two best Black Mages (well, once Ashe gets her 2nd Memory Crystal) in a way that kills a gimmick of two other Black Mages, and seriously hurts a 3rd (Rinoa.)

I think Reddit may be onto something in that Terra is the female version of Cloud in terms of DeNA love.  Granted, they don't toss Terra every single new mechanic basically immediately (...though sounds like there's already data for Terra's BSSB datamined, so only a matter of time.)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, SOMEBODY'S gotta be top-tier, might as well be Terra. <3

Seriously though, compared to her cast, Terra really IS one of the best units in the series (as evidenced by our entire lives spent on this very website), so it kind of makes sense.

Honestly, Terra should have only gotten Summon 4. Strago should have been the dedicated summoner from 6 if they aren't giving us Blue Magic.

Ashe with Summon 5 makes enough sense, considering her ties to Belias. They didn't have any other 5* summoners in 12 and they generally want to have one of those for each realm for the Kyou dungeons.

[Meeplelard]

Much as I love Terra, I have to admit giving her Summon 5 was kind of going too far.  Summon 4?  Yeah, ok, makes sense if only because it was strange that she couldn't summon daddy (and didn't have a Soul Break related to it to compensate), but Summon 5 seems going too far, especially since Strago needs the buff way more and already had Summon 4; he'd have fit as FF6's token summoner (there's actually 1 summoner per realm from FF3 through 13, now, excluding FF11 obviously.  Wouldn't be shocked if Alphinaud gets added from FF14 down the line with Summon 5).

As far as Ashe goes? Yeah, I totally agree from a plot/flavoring stand point, she makes the most sense of any FF12 character to be the token Summoner for specifically the reasons you mentioned.  I'm more just saying she didn't really need it.  She was already Terra, effectively, trading in Armor for more weapon options and Breakdowns for a non-shit Default Soul Break.  It's arguably a fair trade, since as we were discussing before, if Terra is the "#1 Black Mage" then Ashe is the "#1a Black Mage" or at least will be once she gets her MC2 and a Super Soul Break (weird she didn't get this in Basch's Event.(

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Vale of Memories banner 1 is up and I dropped all my Mythril and remaining gems on it because fuck you, Thyrus is here. End result: Magistral Rod (um), Wyrmfang x2 (what? I mean, I love Vanille, but really?), Ochu Tentacle (WHAT?), SOLDIER Sword, Gold Bangle, Shear Trigger x2 (huh) and motherfucking Thyrus. I finally have the full defensive trifecta for handling endgame content! With that in mind, since I no longer need a balanced Sage staff (Wyrmfang+ will do, really), I did the Beginner's Selection pull and picked Valkyrie. Also got a Mystery Veil, which is likely the best possible featured relic I could get from that. Now, I'll have to spend a few years on the Mondaily to max all the stuff I got.

[Captain K]

I'm just dropping 5 mythril on each banner, rest goes to Faris/Krile.  Got a 4-star FF2 dagger so far.  Woot.

Working on the VoM stuff.  110 fights are pretty decent challenge.

I expected that Firion/Edward/Ingus were getting screwed when they took their memory crystal data out a few weeks ago.  Now the question is, was it an error or intentional?  Going to hold on to my Hero souls until end of event just in case they fix it.

[Magic Fanatic]

So, like Jo'ou, I dropped all my Mithril and 9000 Gems besides on the Phase 1 banner...  Granted, for Rinoa's Cardinal.  The end result?

Vanille's Wyrmfang
2x Hope's Skycutter
2x Y'shtola's Thyrus (making it my first 7* weapon)
Al Bhed Jumper
Edincoat

...And no Cardinal.

[Cmdr_King]

Banner 1 is of course the sexiest, so it got at least a full 50 mythril.  Yielded a Wyrmfang and a Thyrus... solving several problems!  Better AoE healing than Mystic Veil, an actual decent Rod, a second staff because that comes up... and SSII, but I mean I did have SG so it's more a perk than a huge deal.

Phase 2 orbfest of course gets neglected, but decided to throw me a stage that was 2 gigantaurs and a catuar, with 2 majors and a greater, on the last go around (probably last anyway).  So uh apparently the Random Number Goddess has smiled upon me for years of faithful sacrifice in Fire Emblem games or something.  It's eerie.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Dammit game, I just wanted a 5* Thrown mage weapon... there's even two of them on here, but 3 11x pulls later, all I have to show for it is Thyrus and a Shear Trigger (yay more FF8 swords...). I also got a Priest Miter and a Coral Sword (IX) out of it, which is basically useless to me as I have 3x 5* FF9 swords at this point...

I guess it can replace my Diamond Sword at least...

Tempted to do one more pull. I'd really like the SSB Chakram, but that would require spending money on this game more than dollar pulls.

Can we talk about how awful it is that they didn't give us Edward, Ingus', and Firion's MCs in this event?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I expected that Firion/Edward/Ingus were getting screwed when they took their memory crystal data out a few weeks ago.  Now the question is, was it an error or intentional?  Going to hold on to my Hero souls until end of event just in case they fix it.

Same here. As it always is the case, it's funny to watch the meltdown on Reddit over it. Sir Will especially is a shining beacon of pathetic bile.

Dammit game, I just wanted a 5* Thrown mage weapon...

You could have picked Valkyrie on the Beginner's Selection, but nooooooooo, let's go for the neglected realm synergy low-calibur sword whose main niche is about to get bulldozed by Ultimate fights.

[Meeplelard]

I expected that Firion/Edward/Ingus were getting screwed when they took their memory crystal data out a few weeks ago.  Now the question is, was it an error or intentional?  Going to hold on to my Hero souls until end of event just in case they fix it.

Same here. As it always is the case, it's funny to watch the meltdown on Reddit over it. Sir Will especially is a shining beacon of pathetic bile.

Dammit game, I just wanted a 5* Thrown mage weapon...

You could have picked Valkyrie on the Beginner's Selection, but nooooooooo, let's go with the neglected realm synergy sword whose main niche is about to get bulldozed by Ultimate fights.

Sir Will is also apparently really angry about the Summon 5 buff from what I can tell.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Sir Will gets angry over a lot of things, like how DeNa doesn't care about Warrior of Light. In most cases, he even has a point, but it gets promptly drowned in the incessant self-congratulatory whining.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Eh, There's another shot at a decent thrown Mage weapon on banner five and I should have enough mythril for a pull by then. Apart from the mythril I'm saving for banner 4.

[Grefter]

Dammit game, I just wanted a 5* Thrown mage weapon...

GET GUUUUUUD SCRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUB

You guys need to get new lines.

[Cotigo]

Out and about and the game itself isnt telling me what the SBs are for the Lucky Summoner banner that just came out in JP. Noticed there was no Golem Flute but maybe there's something else I would want. Anything good there, or should I save my mythril for the holiday banners I'm anticipating?

Edit: Saw Tyro's grimiores were up on the banner and YOLO drawed.

Nothin. At all. Thnx DeNA. It's k that just means I'll get the Platina Sword first draw, right? Right.

[Captain K]

So, you remember in FFV when you're walking through that cave and there's this narrow passage with this robot sprite walking around?  And you don't know what it is so you try to talk to it and OMG IT'S OMEGA and you get a gameover?  Yeah, this is that Omega.  It is a rapefest.

Came close to beating it, need to tweak a few things.

[Shale]

Hm. So the main thing standing between me and a physical beatdown build is a Record Materia that would let Mog start fights with an SB gauge filled. To get that I need to get either Cloud or Tyro to their second level break. Vale of Memories has blank MC2s. Thus, it would be very nice if I could get my A team from "struggles with Orbfest + fights" to "can beat one of VOM's boss fights with no time to build SBs" in the next week and a half. I have Mythril for two X11 draws (and could maybe build up enough for a third if I go whole hog on story dungeons, but that would mean neglecting Orbfest), a crap-ton of Growth Eggs and enough orbs to craft decent 4 star abilities by the time Orbfest is done with, but not to refine them very far (if at all). Hopeless?

(Edit: currently my best realm synergy for the event is FF8, with Blitz Sword and Valiant -- I'd have to burn a Soul of a Hero to recruit Irvine to put it to full use, though; my gunners currently are Barret, Lightning and Sazh). I have better-than-nothing FF7 synergy, with Gold Sword and two 4 star gloves I can combine. FF4, I've got Rydia's Ice Whip and then nothing, and for FFX I've got straight-up nothing.)