Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Cotigo]

Are the Elemental Gigas the Divine fights? Their dungeon counterparts are uniformly vulnerable to paralysis, but I'd expect that to wane in between difficulties.

*Shrug.* Probably? I'm going purely off of Kongbakpao listing them as the boss that gets me a 5* accessory. I... very strongly suspect that they're not going to be subject to paralysis, or that if they are I'm going to have to fight all 3 at once. I'll know more once the EX battles drop... uh, I forget if it's Monday or Tuesday. Soon.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Orb farming. Rough tally for the day:

7 Greater Fire Orbs
7 Greater Ice Orbs
3 Greater Summon Orbs
2 Major Ice Orbs

So yeah, things are going -really- well. I can actually hone Waterja to R5 as of now, but that'd be a complete waste of Greater Orbs when I can R4 Firaja and R3 Ruinga shortly down the line. I also think I'll have more than enough Greater Ice Orbs to R3 Blizzaja by the end of this phase, which would be totes aces. Got all my 3* summons to R3, working on R4 for them. Ramuh in particular will be useful for Omega on the Rift of Recollection event. I might even craft a second Stop for it.

Meanwhile, Ninja and Dragoon soon approach L50. Spellblade's past L40 as well.

[Shale]

11x rare draw #3 produces the Cyclone Grimoire and Valiant pistol. Cyclone Grimoire is the first SB gear I actually have the proper person to use, even if it is his worst unique gear, so I hand it to Tyro, set him up with Firaga, and that frees up his Blitz Sword for one of the dedicated warriors. Yay, 4/5 characters with five-star weapons, even if only one of them has their own five-star weapon.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Valiant at least opens up a fair amount of options in your support roster as well. Besides Irvine (who you can recruit -and- MC on story dungeons), Sazh also wants them. Balthier and Lightning also get decent offensive usage out of them. And guns in general are very rare, so count your blessings that you have one.

[Shale]

It also gives Barret some options if I want to use him.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

(Protip: you probably don't.)

Still one round of daily orbfest farming to go. Almost done with Spellblade, currently grinding Dark Knight to dispatch it away and Cloud for his third RM. Current day orb tally:

10 Greater Fire Orbs
11 Greater Ice Orbs
5 Greater Summon Orbs
3 Major Ice Orbs
1 Major Summon Orb
1 Major Fire Orb

I'm only 4 GFOs away from R4ing Firaja and already R4'd both Shiva and Ramuh. If I get at least one of the 3* summons to R5, I'll be entirely happy. Good day for farming, anyhow.

[Magic Fanatic]

Beat the +++ Fight this morning.  Death got Advantaliated.  Party was Aeris/Barret/Cloud/Thancred/Y'shtola.

So, in my random grinding after that:

Got Cloud to L66.
Got Cloud's RM3.
Got Barret to L48.

Failing to get any Majors from this point on, but a good deal of Greaters.

[Veryslightlymad]

Successfully defeated the ++ Jenova fight to get that Cloud memory crystal, fuck even bothering with the other fight. All my remaining mythril will be hoarded for one more attempt at lucky draws.

Party of:

Golbez (Quake/Biora)
Aeris (Curaga/Shellga) (Should have left this as Cecil, in retrospect. Even with her equipment twinked, her HP is just hot garbage. I also didn't waste any eggs on her, and just kept her the level she was from the event.
Zach (Magic Break/Tempo Flurry)
Cloud (Thundara Strike/Drain Strike)
Auron (Iai Strike/Double Strike) (Auron is here for extra damage and his unique soul break.)

Used an Y'shtola RW.

Golbez could consistently do damage. Zach's sole purpose was to repeatedly Magic Break the damn thing. Aeris is useless, but I needed Shellga. Cloud is made for this fight, and could full heal off of his Drain Strike, once I got going. Needed to mythril my way into starting the fight with an Auron Soul Break.

Ended the fight with Cloud at full HP and Auron at critical HP and three lovely corpses.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, final tally for the day:

14 Greater Fire Orbs
15 Greater Ice Orbs
7 Greater Summon Orbs
3 Major Ice Orbs
1 Major Summon Orb
1 Major Fire Orb

Characters level-capped (both L50 and L65) or cap-broken so far since the beginning of the festival: Loserface, Gladiator, Bard, Red Mage, Ninja, Spellblade, Maria, Rydia, Paladin Cecil, Tellah, Strago, Mog, Barret, Squall, Tidus and Y'shtola. Terra's almost there, currently working on Leon, Samurai and Dark Knight. S'pose Knight's coming next.

This said, I also honed Firaja to R4 and I couldn't be happier today. Having two R4 -jas is great and a third feels within reach before the year ends. Shiva and Ramuh are at R4, Ifrit is on its way. Also finally honed Pressure Point to get rid of that stupid quest, since I finally can spare the orbs.

There's also a new dungeon update, but no way I'm even touching that before orbfest ends.

[Captain K]

Successfully defeated the ++ Jenova fight to get that Cloud memory crystal

*sniff* My little VSM's all grown up and saving records!

Didn't lose a single medal in the boss rush, lost the standard 3 in the ++ fight.  Haven't done the +++ yet because I'm doing orbfest with Cloud to try to get his 3rd RM.

[Grefter]

VSM is not a drug.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's what she said.

[Grefter]

Pretty sure she actually did say he was drugs, the denial was about something else.

[Cotigo]

hahahahahahahaha

OK so Fran's MC1 is on the FF12 Elite dungeon with the Demon's Wall. I didn't bring a Hastega RW because I wasn't thinking clearly. But it didn't matter.

So you know how the demon's wall kills your whole party when it gets too close?
So you know how I have a MT Reraise SB?
Did you know that after Reraise goes off the wall instantly dies?

Hahaha that was the best victory.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Crush instakills the Wall, yes. Some people abused Jump to avoid the move on Global, IIRC.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Indeed. There are videos of the Jump shenanigans. And not just on the Demon Wall, the Dark Bahamut fight with the countdown to insta-die-Flare was also similarly cheesed with precise Jump timing. It is glorious and the best use of Dragoons as far as I can tell.

Zero to Hero in two months.

This part is extremely true of JP. I have literally only been playing it 24 hours and I already have 4 Memory Crystals and 6 five-star relics, including two character-uniques. It's kinda nuts how nice the beginner packages are and how beginner-friendly the events are. Y'know, excluding the Force/Elite stuff.

[Cotigo]

Yeah, that's all fairly recent, too. Like, the guaranteed 5* weapon was introduced sometime between when I started back in... shit, April?, and when I restarted in August. The 50 Mythril freebie I believe was dropped at the 1 year anniversary date, which is when the second orb fest started, which was sometime around Burning Japan, so about mid September. And now with the EX+ Tier, once you get good enough to farm the highest level dungeons, I'm getting more orb daily now than I was getting weekly in August/Sept.

I like the decision overall. It's a win for new players, which is a win for DeNA's revenue, and doesn't really impact old players that much (look at how many Divine fight videos on Kongbakpao have people with R3 Full Break, R5 Flare/Meteo, etc. That's still way out of reach and just mindboggling to me). If I was progressing at a snail's pace while still having even EX+ Mastery dangling out of reach I'd be... well, I'd be more likely to quit and waaaaaay more likely to try to get FFRK Global working for me so I have the head start.

---

Executive Decision: I have enough 5* equipment now and not enough inventory space (not wasting mythril on 5 extra spaces), so I'm done dealing with 3* non-accessories. I'll keep my 3* + and ++ weapons since they're already on their way to getting upgrayyedded, but meh I can't imagine 3++ synergies are going to help me thaaaaat much compared to my natural 5*s and 4+/+'s.  This is also fueled by the fact that my 3++s have gotten zero use at all whatsoever

Also, because I never participated in the Epeen Fest, here you are:

7*:
Crystal Mail ++ (FF6)

6*:
Diamond Sword++ (FF12)
Sledge Hammer++ (FF12)
Red Jacket ++ (FF6)
Ninja Clothes+ (FF5)

5*:
Holy Lance (FF6, Mog)
Masamune (FF7, Seph)
Wizard's Rod (FF7, Aeris)
Zack's Glove (FF7, Zack)

Partisan (FF5, General MT Sleep Buster SB)
Wizard's Rod (FF6, gen Blizzaga SB)
High Class Wristwatch (FF7, general MT Heal SB)
Strength Ribbon (FF9, gen Protectga SB)

Assasin's Knife (FF6, no SB)
Flame Rod (FF1, no SB)
Occhus' Tentacle (FF8, no SB)
Gaia Gear (FF6, no SB)

Dream Harp (Core, Bard SB)

Heaven Rod+ (FF12)
Trident+ (FF12)
Flame Rod++ (FF5)
Gold Staff++ (FF12)
Thunder Staff++ (FF12)
Sword Breaker+ (FF6)
Black Clothes+ (FF4)
White Robe+ (FF4)
Hypno Crown+ (FF5)
Ten Gallon Hat+ (FF8)
Mirage Vest++ (FF5)
Diamond Breastplate++ (FF6)
Crystal Mail++ (FF5)
Excalipoor (FF5, best sword in game)

The naturals and 4+'s see a lot of use but my ++s almost never do. Part of this is type, but as you can see, I'm drownin' in options. I'm considering just getting rid of my 3++s to make room for potential 4+s. Is good life, bro

[DjinnAndTonic]

The fact that they're doing a overhaul "renewal" of the Quest system is kind of annoying though. I hope I can still get all those characters from the character quests in this new Quest system... There's no way I can clear them all before Oct 31st...

[Cotigo]

Yeah my impression is that the renewal is just restarting the quests so you can do them again? I dunno, I hope so. I haven't gotten like 13 characters from the special quests because I didn't realize there were quests until after I had cleared the story dungeon, but if not uhhh guess I won't be getting Lightning or the Cecils for a while.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

By the way: yes, you are using Mythril for inventory space eventually. Hell, I have 210 slots and sometimes I think that's not enough. Too much of a QoL improvement in your life. And you even have the QoL tweak that made upmats no longer take inventory space.

EDIT: Anyhow, farming shenanigans.

Today's current tally:

6 Greater Summon Orbs
3 Greater Ice Orbs
2 Greater Fire Orbs

Terra up to L65, Dark Knight and Samurai past L40. Leon and Zell past L30. Put Ashe in Terra's place for the nice healer/Quake spammer niche.

[Captain K]

By the way: no, you don't ever need to  use Mythril for inventory space. Hell, I have 100 slots and when I need room I just sell those 2++ equips that I'm never going to use anyway

This is the only ftp game I've played where you don't need to buy extra inventory space.  Stop being a hoarder.

RNGesus has been kind to me on my birthday.  Three major Ice orbs today, bringing my grand total for all of orbfest to a whopping 5 majors.

[Veryslightlymad]

VSM is not a drug.

I strongly beg to differ.

~~~
I need mythril to make more room in my inventory RIGHT NOW. I didn't cash in my 10 Scarletites yet, because I just don't have the space. The only reason I'm not spending my mythril is Lucky Draws are out and that seems like a better buy for my current needs.

As far as the Demon Wall is concerned: Hey, Zenny, imagine that, instead of getting Fran's memory crystal, 30% of the time you got NOTHING, and then of the times you DIDN'T get nothing, most of the time you just got 70 gil.

[Shale]

Despite only having four five-star items I'm constantly running up against inventory limits because only one of the items I do have is worth upgrading very far, and thus there's tons of Scarletite and Adamantite sitting around waiting to find a home.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Every item you -actually use- should be upgraded to max ASAP. Also, you can use Scarletites to upgrade armor and Adamantites to upgrade weapons, it's just horribly inefficient weapon XP-wise. It ends up not mattering much, though, the priority is just burning through those upmats. It just happens to be pretty rough doing so in the early game, since money starts out scarce (when you reach the whereabouts of L50, though, you just start running Heroic dailies and boom, 1.2 million gil a day in Wednesday/Saturday farming).

[Cmdr_King]

Scarletite and Adamantite taking up full inventory spaces feels like one of the small handful of concessions the game makes to outright fleecing the player.  Which isn't THAT bad I guess but I've certainly brushed up against it.  Granted drew two of the same 5 star weapons on my first 50 pull so I've always had SOME sink for them, gil allowing.