Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Was that perchance sparked by the incoming FF4 event, which will come with new Dragoon stuff?

[Cmdr_King]

Wahoo, squeaked a mastery over Beatrix, without cheese even!

Basic set:
Vanille (65, Oerba's Boon, non-RS equips)- Protectga/Renewing Cure, Mog's Teachings
Steiner (66, Stock Break, RS sword)- Firaga Blade/Drain Blade, Ace Attacker
Bartz (63, RS helm)- Dismissal/Steal Power, Sword damage up
Tyro (66, SG, RS fist)- Shadowsteel/Magic Breakdown, Mako Might
Leon (55, HotE, 5+ RS dagger)- Indoor Spell/Armor Strike, Attack==Holy Elemental
Lenna HotF Knockoff RW

Probably one of my favorite Ultimate fights just because there's really no dirty tricks here; her scariest moves are used in a set way and learning how they work and getting the timing and flow of the fight right are the keys to victory, not praying to the random number goddess that you get a favorable skill selection.  Mind you, I had three two previous sets that failed, and after finding more-or-less this setup I managed to utterly blow a run and thus this was my fourth buy-in for the battle.  And some other runs taught me I didn't have the raw durability (or capacity to bring my SSB, because I invested in Steal Power instead of Power Breakdown and while the fight goes into full Yolo mode at 40% HP you do need to maintain the break during her middle phases because timing is so damn important) to win the damage race in her last phase, unless some of the work was being done for me.  At least, not efficiently enough for mastery; Steiner is a good tank and could MAYBE have lasted long enough but it'd be dicey as shit.  Or I could have Dismissal proc some improbable number of times.  I know a few runs got tantalizingly close due to lucky stuns, and it triggered once or twice in the winning run too.

Vanille DID bite it in the winning run to a combination of stray Holy and Stock Break before she could heal herself but eh, not relevant.
Admittedly I'd have been bummed as hell if I hadn't Mastered this, I spend a LOT of Mythril getting good FFIX gear so I could.  In which light I am now concerned about Vossler buuut I'm not terrible in FFXII, just my equips are weird.  Might drop an extra draw or three on banner 2 here, for all that honestly both banners are bad.

[Grefter]

Haha squeaker

Ran into DJ on a reddit thread then some dumb shit talking about New Kain without mentioning his name.

You are talking about FF4 TAY and I hope you know your dog that died when you were 9 didn't love you.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Vanille DID bite it in the winning run to a combination of stray Holy and Stock Break before she could heal herself but eh, not relevant.
Admittedly I'd have been bummed as hell if I hadn't Mastered this, I spend a LOT of Mythril getting good FFIX gear so I could.  In which light I am now concerned about Vossler buuut I'm not terrible in FFXII, just my equips are weird.  Might drop an extra draw or three on banner 2 here, for all that honestly both banners are bad.

It's really hard to care about FF12 equips when their selection is so haphazard on banners and when the game drops ten billion 3-4*s for the realm without us even trying. Meanwhile, FF9 will have two more big events in the short term (man, there'll be one in about a month!), one of which having an utterly brutal Ultimate+ fight, and the featured equips tend to be pretty high-end.

[Cotigo]

Was that perchance sparked by the incoming FF4 event, which will come with new Dragoon stuff?

Haha nope. Interested to see what the skills are, though. Can they fix dragoon??????

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Regardless, you're right in that Dragoon needs a serious kick in the nuts. Being just an awkward mesh of Spellblade and slugfest!Combat just doesn't cut it. Even one money skill would do it, since the mult advantage Dragoon has is just too minute.

[Cmdr_King]

I ended up purging most of my 4 stars before the inventory update, and the game's been weirdly anti-XII since.  But yeah it should be enough?  But if Vossler is trouble an extra 5 or 10 mythril could be in order.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, Vossler -is- trouble, but you have 2/3s of the trifecta. I figure you'll manage.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Re: Drg5/Wht4 character
I can totally agree that Dragoon skillset isn't as good as Knight or Spellblade, but it's functional, unlike most of say... Ninja. Also, FF12, the realm in question regarding Revenant Wings' Lyude, doesn't have any Wht4 combat hybrids, so it would actually be a solid niche for FF12 content, even if Beatrix/Cecil/Agrias are better in general.

Ultimate Beatrix:
Holy crap this was a tough one. I went with Advantaliate out of principal, but it was a struggle. Brought Yuna AND Eiko for MT healing, but it took multiple resets to get the timing down for undoing the Climhazzard and Seiken panic-modes. Seriously, an MT Sap skill followed shortly by an MT HP-1 skill is just mean. Once I managed to get the timing for that down, then I had to carefully plan my one use of Sentinel's Grimoire so that her regular MT damage didn't just one-shot everyone even with Protectga up. A better plan would have been to give Tyro Ace Striker + Lifesiphon instead of Dr. Mog's Teachings. But I wanted to rely on Cecil's SSB for the Holy damage requirement, so I decided to have him spamming that combo instead.

Used Cloud with Barrage R1 as my retaliator, and honestly this whole fight would have been much much easier if I'd had Barrage R2 because he was dealing stupid-good damage just with Advance + Barrage + Sword20%dmg RM + full FF9 synergy equips. I might have been able to just slot the "Attack deals Holy element dmg" RM and dropped Cecil's SSB spam altogether if I had. But ugh... getting the Major Power Orbs for that when I'm still sitting at Full Break R1 (which I ended up not even using in this fight...)

Took 10 S/Ls because I didn't want to try to change up my party, but once I got the rhythm of the fight down, it was just a matter of her not getting a lucky one-shot on my healers after her third Climhazzard. Good fight!

[Grefter]

Re: Drg5/Wht4 character
I can totally agree that Dragoon skillset isn't as good as Knight or Spellblade, but it's functional, unlike most of say... Ninja. Also, FF12, the realm in question regarding Revenant Wings' Lyude, doesn't have any Wht4 combat hybrids, so it would actually be a solid niche for FF12 content, even if Beatrix/Cecil/Agrias are better in general.

What you are describing there is a resource sink to get you to spend things investing in Dragoon shit for one edge case scenario that they can pull out on demand.

Literally using Dragoon skills to get you to pay more.

I think that pretty much literally makes you Kain.

[Cotigo]

You don't actually spend money getting orbs for skills though. That's a pure time investment. Unless you're talking about spending money to get spears, but as mentioned previously FF12 is one of the easiest realms to get 4++ synergy with, which is perfectly serviceable.

Not to mention where we are in JP, synergy is a lot less important than it seems to be in Global. 3++ synergy is not even better than a 5* character relic (EDIT without synergy) thanks to power creep, and 4++ is nice but in all the fights I couldn't complete, I cant imagine that the 10 point ATK difference would have pushed me over the edge. Would have helped, but wouldn't have closed the gap.

5* relic synergy is still baller, though.

And as far as character synergy goes, come on DJ you know well enough that what SBs you have is vastly more important than character realm synergy. (And THAT'S the sinkhole they use to get people to spend money, Gref.)

In other news, thanks to playing around with equipment while dungeon diving, in hindsight I can't help but wonder if I have been overvaluing offensive stats when I should have been beefing up defensive stats for some of those battles. The difference between the defensive scores of my attack boosting armors and some of my light armors is often 30 to 50 points, and that does seem to make a much larger difference in durability than I previously assumed.

Also realized the FF14 event was wrapping up today so I cleared out the U+ fight during one of my free periods. That fight would have been easily doable with an A- team, too bad I didn't do them til just now.

[Grefter]

Higher touch time on game:Higher transaction rate.  It isn't always about direct monetisation so much as getting you to play more.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not to mention where we are in JP, synergy is a lot less important than it seems to be in Global. 3++ synergy is not even better than a 5* character relic (EDIT without synergy) thanks to power creep, and 4++ is nice but in all the fights I couldn't complete, I cant imagine that the 10 point ATK difference would have pushed me over the edge. Would have helped, but wouldn't have closed the gap.

5* relic synergy is still baller, though.

4++* synergy is honestly still quite good. A 4++* synergy weapon will still average over 150, often 160+, on the relevant offensive stat. In fact, what really puts 4++* down is the base: 75-80 on ATK/MAG/MND just doesn't cut it anymore, and 5* synergy weapons are starting even now to achieve over 200 ATK. The ones that really lost their luster are the 3++*s, which reached the point of equaling non-synergy 5*s. At that point, why even bother with RS then?

In other news, thanks to playing around with equipment while dungeon diving, in hindsight I can't help but wonder if I have been overvaluing offensive stats when I should have been beefing up defensive stats for some of those battles. The difference between the defensive scores of my attack boosting armors and some of my light armors is often 30 to 50 points, and that does seem to make a much larger difference in durability than I previously assumed.

As always, it depends on your needs and wants, especially accounting for synergy. A synergy 5* bracer or hat provides nearly 50 of a given offensive stat (which is better than, say, a Self-Sacrifice or a Vow of Vengeance RM -and- stacks with them) while offering defensive stats well into three digits. A synergy light armor usually offers nearly 200 on both defensive stats, but in the case of a synergy Light Armor vs. non-synergy bracer/hat, the defense wins out, especially since those numbers -do- stack with buffs. 100 Def is more significant than 20-25 attack, but 45 Def vs. 45 Attack is a much harder choice. It's also important to note when you're close to the ATK softcap for fighters - you likely have little reason to stack ATK equips if you're approaching 400 ATK with a weapon alone, or with just weapon/accessory (since it also flattens the offensive boost from buffs, which are pretty much paramount to actual offense in the current JP meta). With mages, you're likely -never- reaching the softcap, which is a whopping 742 or something comparably inane, so you can stack those boosts more leisurely and their durability usually either isn't salvageable anyway or you're not having huge problems with mdur (their more relevant stat and the more generally useful defense stat anyway), since hat Res is barely any lower than robe Res.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Eh, the Dragoon skills already have their niche uses -now-, so I end up honing them a bit anyway. It's nice especially if you want to slot an element on Gilgamesh or a synergy PC who happens to have Dragoon for hitting weakness and you're not using a Spellblade. In Global, at least, I have all the characters and I use teams based on RS because I'm levelling them all up -anyway-, so having lots of choices is nice.

If the new Dragoon skills that just came out are any good, it'll be nice to round out that skillset.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The 4* skill, besides dealing damage, has the same effect as Kain's SSB, which is removing air time for Dragoon skills. It lasts only two turns, but it's a neat enough Faultsiphon/Full Charge-lite combo synergy that doesn't rely on Major Orbs.

[Cotigo]

That's a fair rule of thumb. Synergy Bracer > Synergy Light > Non-Synergy stuff. What exactly is the ATK softcap? Is it exactly 400 or is it 400 and some change?

I should also really hone Armor Strike and see how that works with my 7* Diamond Armor. Can't hurt against mainly-physical bosses, anyway.

---

Autobattling my way through the first half of the FF4 event. Glanced at the Force versions of the dungeons, jfc they are giving literally everyone an MC2. (I can only hope that Mog gets an MC2 soon <33333333. Literally would make him a better choice than Aeris for me, also Mog Party 4eva). How long you wanna bet until we get MC3s that raise characters up to 100? I'm giving it until Golden Week (Early May). Callin that shit now.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It's actually 589, but I'm assuming people are going to use buffs like Scream/PP. If you're using Scream and you have over 392 ATK, the increase starts flatlining (and stacking buffs with stuff like Hand of the Emperor isn't so useful, since it actually increases damage below the percentage increase). In your case, if you're using Mog's Sunbath instead of Scream, the cutoff point would be 453 ATK (which I can nearly achieve with some of my best offensive synergy, like FF10, -without- RMs).

Also, I suspect Record Dive will be the next step on powering up characters for a while, since it's pretty heavily gated as of now by the resource used to get them and I figure they realized how needlessly restrictive they were with MC2s for a long time. Also, Armor Strike has a nice mult, but it doesn't gain much from buffing (it works mainly off the base) and it's only one hit -and- has no other special effects. Likely, it'll play second-fiddle to your Banishing Strike. It's great when your offensive synergy sucks, though!

[Cotigo]

Oh, yeah, Record Dives. The thing they just introduced and I forgot about immediately. Yeah OK MC3s will be off for a while.

[Nephrite]

No Golbez MC2 makes this President

[Meeplelard]

FF6 gets events fairly frequently (just not MONTHLY the way FF7 does), so Mog probably gets his MC2 in the next one.  My prediction is the next FF6 event will be some sort of Empire related event, releasing Kefka's MC2, re-releasing Terra's BSSB on the banner (Tidus and Cecil just had similar treatment), Celes gets an En-Ice Soul Break which is a running trend now, and Leo will be a new character because he's apparently in high enough demand and if they made Braska a character in a recent FF10 event...well, no, Braska is more important in FF10 than Leo in FF6 is, but Leo was actually playable! 

Mog will probably be tossed on there because "Why not?" situation; he was put in with Locke/Shadow's event for an MC1 for similar filler purposes after all. 

For simplicity, given my team, "Beatrix" refers to the PC, and "UBeatrix" refers to the boss.

That said, mastered Ultimate Beatrix.  Planet Protector failed, I tried a Seiken Stock Break RW strategy for flexibility, then learned it has a LOWER RATE than Shadowsteel, then went back to Banishing Strike on Steiner, and Shadowsteel on Tyro.  It was brought to my attention that Full Break + Steal Power/Power Breakdown wasn't really much better than one of those solo, so I decided to tweak things a bit and give Tyro Lifesiphon.    I don't need Sentinel Grimoire until after Climhazzard to prepare for Stock Break and Holy, but being able to KNOW I'll have Sentinel Grimoire ready later in the fight at any given moment to pop when Tyro has a spare turn?  Yeah, that made a meaningful difference since my best Mitigation was never down.  His damage was superfluous as is, since with Hand of the Emperor + Armor Break, he was doing like 2400 with Lifesiphon, so whatever. 
Used Hand of the Emperor as my RW because that worked on my victory run; it boosted Vaan's damage to near 10k per shot with Tempo Flurry after Steal Power, and had a similar effect on Zidane, gave me a slight defense push, and made Steiner's Armor Strikes hit really hard, so only Beatrix was really suffering on the damage end compared to Planet Protector (again, Tyro's damage sucked regardless.)  The damage boost my Thief gets from HotE offset the damage loss from PP Beatrix.

My set up (not putting equipment; just know it's all 5* stuff with only synergy being Yuna using Garnet's Storm Staff and a few 4* FF9 Power Belts.)

Beatrix: Memento of Prayer, Armor Break, Freedom's Wish.
Mostly exists to be a semi-tanky character who can cast Memento of Prayer to offset Stock Break's Sap at will.  Armor Break was R5, and it boosted Steiner and Zidane's damage slightly, so felt about as good as any; her damage did register unlike Tyro's, but it was also the least important part of the fight.  Worth noting she also had Mystery Veil for Mystic Prayer, since it was an extra 750~ MT Healing to use after the 2nd Climhazzard, when the HP push could be necessary.

Zidane: Tempo Flurry, Steal Power, Katana Master (he was using Auron's Shimmering Blade).
On hindsight, he should have gotten Freedom's Wish since his damage was more important, but whatever, pretty straightforward what his role was.  Steal Power -> Tempo Flurry x2.  Steal Power's slight increased time over Power Breakdown, and Tempo Flurry's fast charge times, he could always act twice in between.

Tyro: Using a ranged weapon (Aevis Killer), Shadowsteel, Lifesiphon, Dr. Mog's Teachings
Exists for Sentinel Grimoire, inflicting Sap, and...that's about it. 

Yuna: Protectga, Curaja, Mako's Might
Healer, who has HotF to counter Climhazzard.

Steiner: Armor Strike, Banish Strike, Dragoon's Determination
My 2nd highest damage dealer after Zidane, gets BOTH the medal conditions, and is a tank so adds that extra layer of reliability.


The big thing about this fight was getting Yuna enough turns to have Hymn for the 2nd Climhazzard.  Getting her Sapped early screws me up here, so I Lifesiphon the first few turns since unlike Full Break, timing is pointless on that skill; +150 Soul Break is +150 Soul Break, so firing off a few shots early is better than later.  Shadowsteel spam after first Climhazzard to get her sapped and that should be good for most of the fight, hopefully reapplying it on subsequent ones so it doesn't run out.  If I get Sap too early, I'm hoping she hits Yuna a bunch to get her gauge high enough for HotF after the 2nd Climhazzard.  If I inflict Sap AFTER the first Climhazzard?  Yuna should get just enough turns, especially if UBeatrix hits her once or twice to get HotF ready.  If Sap doesn't connect, I'm basically SoL since the DPS it adds is massive.  Naturally on the winning run, Tyro gets Shadowsteel to hit on the 2nd attempt or so, which is adequate.  After first Stock Break, Beatrix casts Memento of Prayer to insure I'm not sapped after the 2nd Climhazzard, otherwise spams Armor Break, while Steiner and Zidane just do their things.  Yuna's turns are the real key one, since I need to make sure Protectga is always up, need to make sure I use Curaja fast, and make sure I keep looking at Beatrix's health such that Yuna can start charging HotF the instant Climhazzard gets used. 

Worth noting that Steiner was the one to use the RW both times since his damage relies on it more anyway.  Also because UBeatrix decided to murder Beatrix with Holy late in the fight anyway.  Thanks to there being no special death condition, I went with it; Beatrix's damage as I said, while not pointless, wasn't integral.  If Stenier or Zidane died, I'd be screwed thanks to lack of DPS.  If Yuna died, I'd probably be screwed too since Curaja insures I can always survive Shock, and not having that is scary.  If Tyro dies...meh, whatever, Sentinel Grimoire was already cast, so he was expendable too.  Basically, Holy cna kill off one of Beatrix or Tyro late in the fight and I'd be fine; the other 3 not so much.  So UBeatrix offing Beatrix wasn't a big deal.

So yeah, glad that's over with, let's actually finish the Elite part of the FF12 event now!

[Cotigo]

FF6 gets events fairly frequently (just not MONTHLY the way FF7 does), so Mog probably gets his MC2 in the next one.

...

Mog will probably be tossed on there because "Why not?" situation

yeah no shit

EDIT: Yeah, Neph, I'm kinda surprised Golbez didn't get an MC2 either. They really seem to be cleaning up the MC2-less characters at this point (There's been, what, ~5 MC2s per event since the New Year's Orbfest? Yeah, they cleanin' house.), and I would imagine people probably care more about Golbez's MC2 than, uh, Edge's or Gilbert's.

EDIT2: The more I read about the Beatrix boss fight makes me sad I missed it. It sounds like a really solid, no-bullshit strategy fest.

[Captain K]

Quest system going away, begin panicking now those who haven't kept up.

Also weekend orbfests.  Begin panicking now people who barely play this game anymore (me).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wow, that Quest system upgrade is happening -really- early. I wonder if they're going to be adding extra Quests for all the content between now and when it was introduced in JP?

Doesn't bother me either way, got all those Quests finished up ages ago.

Weekend Orbfest though... damn, the ONE weekend a year I have work (Art Festivals at the schools)....

I will have to live vicariously through Snow's exploits.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

MC2s for FF6 are going to be released in massive bulk (like what happened on the Figabros sequel) because the cast is so huge. And they still have Umaro and Gogo to release as PCs at an absolute minimum. I'd be interested in seeing a Mog SSB, though. For all that my squee for healer/musical support stuffed animals is mostly reserved for Cait Sith some six months down the line. He actually gets Summon-capable MAG stats alongside fine Mind after his second level cap break due to good growths and he's currently the bulkiest magic-inclined healer in the game (Mog would likely at least match him after his MC2). His relic SBs are also pretty hot.

EDIT: NEW QUESTS FINALLY I GET TO NO LONGER BE BOTHERED BY THE USELESS CRAFT 5* SKILLS I WON'T EVER USE QUESTS

EDIT2: Yeah, Zenny, for all the frustration I went through with Ultimate Beatrix, it stemmed solely from figuring out her various set patterns properly, which is the fun kind of frustrating. She's all about method and control and it's a pretty satisfying fight in the boiling of eggs.

[Cmdr_King]

Mmm.  So they say you need to finish any old quests you want by 2/17, so presumably that or the 18th is when the new system goes up.  So system update that day...
Am I being too optimistic in thinking we might be getting the Chamber of Recollection or whatever when they switch over?