Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Shale]

Looking ahead to the next event....on the one hand, my FF13 synergy is pretty terrible -- I have Peacemaker, a 4++ glove, and the freebie gun and jack o' lantern. Not only is that not much, but my A team is [Gilgamesh/Lightning], Ramza, Agrias, Mog and Eiko, so I can't even use two of them at once without sacrificing mitigation, boostga or hastega. (Maybe I could use Irvine for breakdowns instead of Ramza? Kinda doubt the synergy boost from Goddess' Tribute is worth that....) On the other hand, neither banner offers much hope of a fix; what I really need is a sword, dagger or katana I can give to Agrias or Ramza, and the only thing that fits the bill is Lightning's BSB sword. Which, y'know, would be awesome, but I'm not hanging my hopes on it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Vanilla FF13 synergy is a BITCH to get, due to its banners being often awkward and scattered all over the place in order to account for diversity. If you're looking for Gilgamesh synergy, at least banner 2 offers Fang's Partisan and Snow's Power Circle, but then you also have to contend with Serah's bow and the rest of the filler (and, in practice, you're better off aiming for Overture and Fang's Glaive instead. Dear god). Pull if you must, but don't get your hopes up.

[Shale]

Gilgamesh can use the 4++ Power Glove (and why wouldn't he????) so I really would just be praying for the Lightning BSB. Not pulling, just lamenting that it makes no sense to pull despite my lack of synergy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's a recurring theme with FF13 banners since Peacemaker's debut. To make matters worse, Caius is, from all accounts, a pain in the ass of a U+ and Bahamut Chaos ain't much better. At least, Peacemaker will make short work of the rest of the event for you.

[Meeplelard]

I guess I should count myself blessed that my FF13 synergy is decent.

I have, offhand:

Blazefire Sabre (Lucky Draw)
Keepsake Knife (Beginner's Banner)
Kaiser Knuckles (Off Banner pull on an FF6 banner)
Feral Garb (ditto)
Wyrmfang (White Mage Lucky Draw)
Pumpkin (Free)
The New Years Gun (Free)
Witch's Hat (Free)


Basically, yeah, nothing from an actual FF13 Banner, all Lucky Draws, Off Banner Pulls, and give aways.

[Shale]

On a happier note, it's accessory time in the chocobo shop, which means I can buy a third ATK +30 item and jettison a whole lot of realm-specific 20 point gear.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'd beeline exclusively for the 30+ stat boosting (include the +20 and +10 to two different stats stuff) and elem resist gear. So much to aim for, so little weed.

[Shale]

That Gigas Armlet is especially sexy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yes, it is. Also, elemental resistances and weaknesses override each other, so, if you have a water-resistant armor (like FF12's Viking Coat or FF10's Al-Bhed Jumper), it cancels out the weakness and replaces with the minor resistance. I'm likely buying a second copy of that, since I have both armors.

[Meeplelard]

So Noel dropped and they seem to have problems with FF13-2 characters for some reason.

At first, he seems cool, having Thief 4 and White Magic 4, but then you realize his only 5* is Combat, he also gets Celerity 4.  He gets Thief 5 via record Dive, but there lies the second problem: His speed is only 158, so he can't get 5 hit Thief's Raid, and unlike someone like Vaan, he doesn't have other perks to make up for it. 

Also, his BSB is clearly a Support based one, but he doesn't get any levels in Support, making me wonder if he was suppose to have Support 5 instead of Combat 5.  If it wasn't a mistake, they really should have given him Celerity 5 so he could at least Chain Starter + Full Charge combo. 

Honestly, they had interesting potential with him, but botched it in a number of subtle yet obvious ways.  Between the way they handled him and Serah, it feels like they didn't care about FF13-2 and just kind of did it out of a sense of necessity, more so than actual caring (in Noel's case, I can at least kind of see how they screwed that up, but there's no excuse with Serah; even before Raines, you look at Hope and just go "Why not use him?  Slightly lower magic for Summons and higher White levels 4, is there anything I'm missing?")

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Honestly, they're pretty much shilling Noel's BSB. First Combat 5 unit to have a relic that gives him a full breakdown skillset, which in no way overlaps with any of his remaining options and Lifesiphon means he can fuel it essentially forever. They've been balancing characters primarily with their relics in mind for a long time and this just emphasizes it further. FF13-2's case is just particularly egregious in that they don't even pretend otherwise, and it's compounded by their clear disinterest in the entry itself. Noel would've been a cool PC if he was introduced like a year ago, but at the point they are in JP, the general combo's just "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh".

[Shale]

With BSBfest coming soonish and what used to be my overriding need (hastega) finally settled, I figure it's a good idea to take stock of where I am relic-wise and figure out what I should be pulling for in the future. Thinking mainly in terms of SBs rather than synergy right now, since I can summarize my synergy needs pretty simply as "swords and daggers for FF5, 6 and 13, and any melee weapon for FF4."

SSBs:
Cloud – Blade Beam (MT damage)
Gilgamesh – Faithful Companion (MT damage, party high regen)
Lightning – Crushing Blow (MT lightning damage)
Rinoa – Wishing Star (Random 5 hit magic damage)

Medica:
Lenna – Princess' Favor (Cura+party high regen)
Yuna – Hymn of the Fayth (Cura+party high regen)
Yuffie – Clear Tranquil (40% heal, instant)
Ashe – Northswain's Glow (Cure+AOE white magic damage)

Medica/Hastega:
Eiko – Emerald Light (Cura+hastega)

Boostga:
Mog – Sunbath (30% boostga+high regen)
Sabin – Razor Gale (30% boostga+MT wind damage)
Galuf – Fist of the Dawn (35% boostga+ST single hit damage)
Desch – Selfless Spirit (35% ATK/DEF up+50% mHP self damage)

Mitigation:
Agrias – Cleansing Strike (40%ATK/MAG down+ST damage)
Kimahri – Mighty Guard X (party magic blink)
Auron – Dragon Fang (MT ATK breakdown+damage)

Damage:
Ramza – Hail of Stones (ST damage+100% stun)
Irvine – Fast Ammo (Random target damage)
Squall – Fated Circle (ST damage+lesser MT damage)
Thancred – Dancing Edge (ST damage+DEF breakdown)
Vivi – Doublecast Venom (ST poison magic damage)
Rydia – Diamond Dust (MT single hit ice magic damage)
DK Cecil – Darkness (MT single hit dark damage+self damage)

My biggest need currently is mitigation. I rely heavily on the double offensive breakdown of Cleansing Strike, which is a great move but also restricts my party composition pretty significantly -- see the coming FF13 event, where I have little choice but to field a character with zero weapon synergy rather than using my spare gun or throwing weapon. Wall obviously would be fantastic, but any move that stacks with breakdowns and comes with a character not locked to swords/daggers represents a big improvement in my flexibility.

Similarly, boostgas. I have a bunch! But they're on characters with very limited skillsets, and Desch in particular is a big offensive liability if he doesn't have an elemental weakness to hit. (On the other hand, thanks to Emerald Light his self-damage is no longer an issue because whenever I put up buffs there's a Medica along for the ride) Mog's my go-to but he is getting less and less helpful on offense as U+ bosses' RES ramps up and Diaga drops from solid damage to sub-3K.

I'm pretty well set for Medicas. Emerald Light is a very strong two-for-one deal and if I don't need to bring a native Hastega I can replace it with Yuna or Lenna's versions of HOTF or, when I eventually find a good ability combo for her, forego a second white mage and bring Yuffie.

Damage is waaaaaaaaaaay down the list, which is a nice luxury to have. BSBs would be very appreciated and take the pressure off my hones in a major way, but in terms of big damage SB/SSBs, I can't complain much.

[Nephrite]

So we might be getting that Mobius Event.

[Meeplelard]

While that looks promising, it's also possible they just shove that onto a celebration banner to get the relic into Global, and we still miss the event.

Still would be nice if we got granted and hoping that's what it implies.

EDIT: ok, I take that back.  It seems Kitase just spoke out about Moebius' Localization being well underway and that we should here about it "Soon" which of course is speak for "I have no idea when we're going to do that, just know it's in the forsee-able future!"  but this is a huge step up compared to the radio silence about the game's localization.

With that in mind, seems very plausible we may get the event after-all.  I'm getting the sense that the event may appear later than it did in Japan though, to coincide with Moebius' release, which while would be less than ideal, I'd be fine with.  Changing the order of events?  Sure, I'm fine with that, it's just when we lose an event entirely that's annoying, so the "when" doesn't really matter to me, more the "if".


SPEAKING of collabs, seems Noel (the summon, not the FF13-2 PC) is 4x2 damage, making it on par with Quetzcotl.  This...kind of sucks, honestly, for a 4*.  Leviabeetus, Fat Ass Bird, and WHY AREN'T YOU WIND Sea Serpent are all 4.4x2 and I can't see myself using any of them save MAYBE Leviabeetus if I really need increased water damage.

Feels like the only 4* Damage summons worth anything are:
Laser Chicken: Strongest one, basically Meteor that hits twice, but slightly stronger.
Daddy Branford: Is literally Laser Chicken with a different orb cost
Big ****ing Robot: Best source of Holy elemental Mag based damage for a number of characters, one of the only ways to get MT Holy damage, and it's mult is only marginally below the above two.
Electric Unicorn: Less useful than Robot because easier to get Lightning damage, but it's still AoE, equal in damage to the robot, and ignores reflect, so has it's uses (I saw it used on U+ Omega for example); also breaks damage cap unlike Thundaja, which is notable since we aren't getting Chain Thundaga for a while, and even when we do, there's the damage cap thing.
Octopus Royalty: Strongest potential 4* Summon (I think it is straight up strongest without weaknesses actually?  It seems the "minimal damage" is just added to the raw damage, so that's 2600 extra damage per casting that this has over the other 9.6x damage summons; could be wrong), albeit you probably won't get it that high, but still there.


EDIT 2: Just tested the minimal damage theory, I'm just wrong.  I went in against the U+ because 1 Stamina fight that won't take 9999 from Meteor.  I did Meteor vs. Ixion, Ixion is barely stronger (9.2 vs. 9), so if minimal damage were added on at the end, Ixiion should do more than 2% more than Meteor.

Meteor: 4725
Ixion: 2425x2, or 4850.

That's a 2% difference, so yeah, I'm wrong, oh well.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Minimum damage is just literally what it sounds like. The skill can't deal less than that minimum limit per hit. Which is why it's kind of notable with Ultros.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/4mnjkb/new_community_challenge_the_tier_challenge/

Also, Reddit is trying to reverse engineer Nyarlie's Dungeon and it's so unbalanced it's adorable.
Not really the mods' faults since they are just using the popularity Tier list instead of a more objective utility Tier list or anything that would actually take into account SBs.

Still. I love Nyarlie's-style team drafting. So this will be fun to see if it catches on and evolves into something better.

[Meeplelard]

It wasn't entirely popularity based, as many did vote on who they legitimately thought was best, but there was definitely some popularity aspects clouding people's judgments.

I know the big one is people arguing that Yuna shouldn't be so much higher than Arc when they have very similar skillsets and Arc even has an actually useful Default Soul Break (Shellga clone) while Yuna has a garbage one.  It was of course noted that Yuna has had a lot of opportunities to get an actually decent one compared to Arc, and that should be taken into account, since someone who got a Yuna relic would obviously see her in higher light, and a much higher chance someone has a Yuna relic than an Arc relic.

That said, the real issue with the tier-list idea is that RK Tiers shift a lot over time.  Case in point, look at what happened to Firion.

In Global?  He kind of sucks.  A nice weapon draw is about the only thing good he has going for him.  Otherwise, he's only got Combat 5 for a legitimate skillset, and has to rely on compliments from Celerity 3 and Support 3 which aren't going to cut it.   His stats are unremarkable too; they're not bad per se, but he doesn't stand out in anything so you can't even pretend he's like Sephiroth whose got stupid good stats (in the ones that matter) to compensate for his lack of other qualities.  Add in some unremarkable unique soul breaks, and we have a pretty blech character.

In Japan?  He's one of the best characters in the game on paper.  He goes from "Good weapon draw" to "Can use every meaningful physical weapon except guns" so he'll never run into synergy problems ever (unless you're relying on a bunch of Guns.)  Samurai 5 was tossed on giving him more flexibility in the moveset, notably a bunch of AoE moves and Mirror of Equity for those who don't have a Boostga (or alternatively, rely on lesser Boostgas like the plethora of +30-35% Monk ones), and he can even use the new Shooter moveset to get a Saint Cross level attack if he needs shear DPS.  Record Dive also adds in Support 4 and Spellblade 3, so now he can eventually use Breakdowns AND hit elemental weaknesses to allow more flexibility (also access to Drain Strike, allowing him to relieve some work on the healers).  Oh yeah, also got some mild stat buffs too, because why not?


So yeah, even if it was worked out, between balance updates, and new characters, skills, etc., the tiers shift a lot.  Heck, the original Reddit Tier list had Vivi on the top and look how far he fell.

[Magic Fanatic]

So, for what I can gather from what people say of stuff in the Ghysahl Shop...

Must get:
Gigas Armlet

Good idea (stats):
Cursed Ring (+35 total)
Cerberus Relief
Squall's Necklace
Doctor Cid's Glasses

Good idea (resists):
Skybreaker Earrings
Flame Cloak
Coral Ring

Non-offensive:
Burtal Earring
Tremor Earrings (Not a lot of bosses using Earth-elemental stuff)

Not-so-good idea:
Soulfont Talisman
Mythril Armlet
Momento Ring
Crystal Ring


That sound about right?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well of course the Tier list changes over time, but the Tier list also updates pretty regularly. The changing Tier list isn't the problem so much as the lack of oversight on how the Tier list translates into character pricing for the team drafting, which is kinda the main gimmick of the challenge. If they had some human eyes on the list instead of leaving it to the whims of the collective and all its popularity biases and just outright trolls, I trust they could make a better balanced list.  Maybe not perfect, but certainly better than the current Tier list which is, admittedly, not THAT bad, but still clearly full of problems for a challenge like this.

[hinode]

Get the Memento Ring for sure. Major KO resistance is significantly more valuable than Moderate for gravity resistance but is super rare - only two of them tp date in Japan.

IMO the stat boosting items are not that important. You'll never need more than one +30 mind item, and +atk will be massively devalued in a few months as stuff like record dive and mc3s exist. You'd really only be using it for the next 1-2 FF8 events, plus maybe the next few weeks before we get another +30 atk accessory from the next FF6 event.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I bought a Memento Ring and Gigas Armlet as well as a Brutal and Tremor Earring. The latter two were mostly for completionism reasons, while the former were because they're just pretty danged good.

[Meeplelard]

I might grab some accessories simply so I can weed out some of those 4* with superior 5* options.  Not sure about it yet, granted, but probably just go with Gigas Armlet and Memento Ring.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Currently plowing through DU21 because Mondays. All classics done, only FF3 Elites left. In the meantime, picked RMs from Hope and Refia, which saves a bit of time on my end.

[Magic Fanatic]

Also because Mondays, I decided to go grind Quina's RM2 instead of doing anything productive.

Now all I have left to get is Yuffie's Thunderstroke clone and Beatrix's Pride of the Red Wings clone.

[Meeplelard]

I've been doing Mondailies because hey, why not get more Gysahl Greens?

The other reason is I'm at 163 4/5's stamina and want to save a Stamina recharge for tonight, to get through the Auto Battle phase of the event ASAP, and I hate getting Stamina refreshes while at work to boot.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Bursts are super fun to use, so whatever I'm pulling for Lightning's. Doesn't hurt that my 13 synergy is kinda weak outside of the freebies. Mostly I just have Hoperangs and a Keepsake Knife. Annoyingly, I have zero relics for the only character I like from 13, Snow, but his SSB is on banner 2 and that doesn't feature a chance to get Burst, so fuck him.

3x 11 pulls. First one is reckt. Ouch. Second one is four Shinies. Generic 13 white stick and... 3x Serah's gloves. Fuckin A. Last try. Four more Shinies! Holy crap! Serah's gloves. Again. Golden Armlet. And another one! Dammit!

Oh snap, there's Lightning's Burst. Excellent.

I guess I could stop but I realize I haven't done my hundred gem pull. Another five star Armlet. Jesus Christ I now have 7 of these. And 4 of Serah's bangle. Plus two 4++ silver arm lets. I have so many 13 bangles I am going to take basically no damage on any of these 13-realm fights. Awesome but overkill.