Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Cotigo]

Ohhh, shit, I was drunk last night reading and I missed that Lulu's focus SB has MDef Up. Yeaaaaah actually that's definitely something to try. Yuna also has an SSB that deals MT damage AND raises MDef IIRC, so I'll be looking into that.

Also, drunken playing has revealed that I need to stop running scrubs for story dungeons as they will often just wreck me if I'm not playing srs bsns. The age of Autobattle Supremacy is sadly over.

[Captain K]

Cyan's had tons of buffs.  He's one of the best characters in the game statwise.  Problem is that Sephiroth is still better, and you don't need two of them.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also, drunken playing has revealed that I need to stop running scrubs for story dungeons as they will often just wreck me if I'm not playing srs bsns. The age of Autobattle Supremacy is sadly over.

Welcome to about three Global updates ago.

[Cotigo]

Well, up until now my post-orbfest2 hones have been good enough that I could still run <L50 scrubs and pull it off. As of... well, I think it's the end of the update y'all just got, that is not the case.

Positive note, Velius mastery happened. I made a mistake and put on Mental Break instead of Mental Breakdown, which induced #MadAtVideogames. However, I managed it in spite of that because Dualcast went off a ridiculous *8* times during the fight, notably during both Meteos and one Alexander. Dualcast is a really silly Record Materia. I have no idea how often it's supposed to go off, but it definitely seems like it either *never* goes off or it goes off every other damn turn.

Final party, for posterier:

Ramza (Magic Breakdown, Mental Break), Katana damage 1.2x, Masamune, So Kai Armlet, Aries Stone
Kefka (Firaja, Mana's Praen), MATK Up PDef Down, FF7 Wizard Rod, Hypno Crown ++, Chibiko Hammer
Terra (Meteo, Waterja) Dualcast BM, Flame Rod, Halloween Hat, Silver Dragon Wing
Yuna (Valefor, Alexander) Dualcast SMN, FF6Wizard Rod, 10 Gallon Hat ++, FF9 Lipstick
Aeris (Shellga, Curaja) Start:Haste, FF4 Sage's Staff, Fancy Wristwatch, Shield Ring
SG RW

Couple things that would have made my life easier, aside from putting on Mental Breakdown instead of garbage: Putting the fancy wristwatch on Yuna, while it would have lowered her MAG, would have given her a weak fullheal SB, which would have been more useful than the White Frost attack from her rod. If I'm only running one WM, I need to get Curaja to R5 so I don't run out of charges. Really, though, neither mattered as much as fucking up Mental Breakdown. That was a good 2500 damage a turn that I really needed. It's only by the grace of RNGsus that I got mastery with this. Two or three otherwise successful runs ended at the finish line because of that. Time to sell those breaks just so I don't make that fucking mistake again.

Welp, now I just have to try the Leblanc crew and then I can spend the rest of my stamina levelling Ramza, Celes, and Relm.

[MC50]

Cleared the Setzer boss rush. Wasn't too bad - did Save/load for Iai Strike to proc on Black Dragon.

Going to wait until after EXP day to do the Sr. Behemoth fight.

Been working my way through the dungeons - at Lunar Subterrane 2 (Dark Bahamut) classic. Catching up.

I still have some leftover orbs, but not sure what to spend it on. Options that seem to make sense are:

R3 Power Breakdown
R3 Diaga
R3 Ruinga
...Maybe even making Armor or Mental Breakdown.
Any R4 summon (Seems like a big investment, considering I have none of them.)

Luneth Advance/Tempo Flurry is usually a good 12-14K a round, and his Auto Haste RM helps with that too. He's going to be hard to replace.

[Cotigo]

Oh wow, no OK that setup isn't happening against Leblanc. Puchi Mighty Guard cuts my magic damage way too much to be viable, so I basically need dispel. And from what I can tell, a lot of it. Also, Fat one's taunt also draws in ST magic attacks, so yeaaah. Plus, I need to Slow them as well as blind them, so I threw Zack in instead of Mog. I do think maybe mog is still the way to go, though, in large part because once I run out of SG charges I get wrecked by physicals. I do think it's possible to win as long as I keep Mighty Guard dispelled and all, though. I'm also considering just not running Shellga in Lieu of Diaga so I have more damage, 10 charges from Terra and 6 from Yuna just won't be enough damage even if I only cast while buffed and they're dispelled. I'm... not sure how viable mastery is with this setup though. I have a feeling this fight may see me losing two action medals since I'll likely be limping to the finish on Ramza physicals.

I may want to scrap it and go Screamed Come At Me Bro, come to think of it. Maybe

Ramza (Full Break, Armor BD)
Zack (Dual Delay, Blind Strike)
Gilgy (Come at, Me Bro)
Mog (Shellga, Curaja), Double hit RM
Aeris (Dispel, Curaga)

Or something. I'm kinda out of fucks to give after obsessing over Weigraf and having a hangover today. Too bad I blew all my Holy orbs crafting and honing Alexander, Vanish Blade would be a pretty good secondary for Ramza there. This would also be an infinitely better plan if Cloud's RM3 would just fuckin' drop already. Mmpf.

[Captain K]

Boss rush died to Intimidate and Pressure Point.



Next, to amuse myself, I cap-broke Strago and used his default SB to kill both Behemoths.

Hey Zenny, do you have Cloud's RM3?  Cause it is so good.

Still have to do Earth Dragon, but I don't see that being a problem since he's vulnerable to damn near every status in the game.

[Veryslightlymad]

About ready to try the boss rushes. Think I'll actually bring Setzer since it gives me extra points, and I'm probably not losing anything by replacing Josef. Alternately, I could bring another Fire Mage or Spellblade. (Another fire mage would give me a second healer.)

Ice Dragon was the worst kind of fight. Not hard, but super crazy long. Reminds me of my first experience with the flans. That thing took like 20 minutes before it finally died, and I was never in any real danger.

[Cotigo]

Well whaddya know. COME AT ME BRO!!! is working like a charm. Skinny Guy's 3x hit attack was Reta-able. Thanks for the free damage bro. Right after deciding that Reta was no longer a viable option Scream RWs made it actually the best option. Party is slightly changed, but basically the same

Ramza (ABD, LifeSiph)
Zack (Same as above)
Gilgy (Same as above)
Agrias (Dispel, Double Hit)
Aeris (Shellga, Curaja)

Heavily RNG dependent, though. The first round or so had to go perfectly. The Leblanc crew had to not dogpile on a single member of my party until Gilgamesh's Taunt went up, and Fat Guy had to either not Taunt when I Armor BD'd Leblanc, or Blind had to proc on him for the run to be viable. After that, I had to hope Leblanc's AI did stupid things like cast White Wind and she never used her scary moves. I eventually just stopped Armor Breakdowning Leblanc, because while having her go down faster is a good thing the next phase is also heavily RNG dependent.

Once Leblanc goes down, there was another round of praying for RNG luck while I damaged Skinny Guy enough for Gilgamesh to retaliate against him instead of Fat Guy. Here, I not only had to hope Taunt didn't go off when I had Ramza attack Skinny Guy, but I also had to hope that Skinny Guy didn't roulette Gilgamesh before I redirected his attacks. ESPECIALLY if I accidentally attacked Fat guy in the beginning of the fight, this was obnoxious as hell. Armor BDing Leblanc just straight up wasn't worth it.

Once I got past this though I wasn't ever in any real threat of dying unless I got RNG screwed and both of them used their ignore-Taunt strong attacks.

EXCEPT... When fat guy gets to low HP, his Captain America Shield Throw attack turns into an MT attack. Killed Aeris. By this point I was so sick of S/Ling that I just went for killing him and didn't care about Mastery, but without anymore Screams to boost my damage I couldn't kill him before his next MT attack. The tweaks to fix this last hurdle seem obvious. Namely, since Fat Guy nulls Armor BD swap that to Power BD, swap Agrias for Mog with Strong Water, Dispel, and the double hit materia, and... make sure my Protectga SB is on someone who will actually build up SB gauge, win.

EDIT: Mastery Get. Took me two hours but it happened. That makes 3 6* orbs. Ohh baby.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

About ready to try the boss rushes. Think I'll actually bring Setzer since it gives me extra points, and I'm probably not losing anything by replacing Josef. Alternately, I could bring another Fire Mage or Spellblade. (Another fire mage would give me a second healer.)

Ice Dragon was the worst kind of fight. Not hard, but super crazy long. Reminds me of my first experience with the flans. That thing took like 20 minutes before it finally died, and I was never in any real danger.

Don't forget Intimidate.

[Veryslightlymad]

For which? Also I have Binding Cold.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Intimidate works on the -entire- boss rush. Also, Binding Cold sucks, 30% vs 50% hit rate.

[Veryslightlymad]

I was MOSTLY joking.

It's legitimately pretty damn good against multi-part bosses that are vulnerable to it. For all that I shit on it as "the worst" ability, I actually use it sometimes over Black Fang. Whereas, I can't imagine using Cloud's base SB ever if I had a new one, and "Threaten" is NEVER the goddamn answer over Dragon Fang

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, yes, same way that Aerith's Seal Evil is situationally useful as well (and possibly more useful than Dragon Force on average). Still, in a boss rush, you mostly want to spam the status. Golbez also makes a poor status whore due to his awful Mind.

[Veryslightlymad]

Usually I find people with awful minds make the best whores.

Beat the first rush. Managed to get it all in my first try with me forgetting to equip Waterja over Blizzaga (and thus having a useless spell on Golbez) and Iai Strike over Yukikaze on Auron (and thus having to deal with the dragon bones the hard way) Used Setzer instead of Josef. Intimidate + Tempo Flurry makes Setzer feel more like Tidus than Setzer. Whatever. I threw pumpkins. And 6s. Throwing 6s is satisfying when the underleveled character deals maybe 700 damage with a base physical. I like Setzer.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Sundailying. Vanille's L63, Hope is L61, Celes is 54, Zack and Red XIII are 56. Red's stats are really coming into their own at this point: he's the Support with the best stat spread by -far-, and well-distributed too. Too bad about the bad equip pool, but I don't give much of a shit when I have his Lunatic High relic at 6* and an Edincoat/Genji Helm to cover his woes.

[Magic Fanatic]

So.  12 hours ago, I beat the +++ fight.  My party?

Celes L31 with Armor Break R3/Sleep R3.
Y'shtola L65 with Curaga R3/Intimidate R4.
Cloud L79 with Aerora Strike R3/Retaliate R4
Yuna L55 with Curaga R3/Venom Buster R3
Terra L57 with Firaga R4/Waterja R3.

Poison Vulnerable boss + Paralyze Vulnerable boss + Sleep Vulnerable boss = Steamrolled.  Only lost one medal for Actions taken, too.  Probably would've gotten it had I had Waterga R4 instead of Firaga R4 there.  Otherwise, yeah.

Celes: "One of your turns...  You're just gonna kill me.  So, uh, I've decided...  It's not gonna BE your turn.  Ever.  I'm just gonna keep having MY turn until you give up."  Smalltexted because spoilers to another game.

[Scar]

Wooo. New jump ability!

Setzer event is finished. What a joke.

New daily for Sunday is super easy. good stuff!

[Veryslightlymad]

Multi-target ice damage, you say? Well.

It's only about 1300 to non-weakness targets, but still. It's super easy to hone and is probably a good idea for those people who have a lot of earlier levels where multi-target damage would be nice.

New healing ability is pretty decent, too.

[Cotigo]

Ramza and Cloud's last Record Materias dropped. Yay, now I have some SB options. The last half of the Relm event dropped too, looks like she gets a MC2 as well. Because I needed another Summoner/White Mage hybrid that can reach L80, I guess.

Did a 11 Pull on the Celes/Terra banner, got an Oath Veil. Nice, now I have two natural 5* hats (I don't care if one was a giveaway, it's still better than my 3++s) and two natural 5* Bracers. Should be able to squeeze in either another 11 pull or at least two more 3 pulls on the banner before it ends, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Ooooh, nice, Oath Veil has some sweet stats on it. It also boosts Wind damage, but using a hat for physicals is not such a great idea.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Back to dungeoning. Better to move as much of the new DU as I can today, tomorrow I'll farm for black power and after that there's Lightning farming and Autobattle on the Big Bridge event. After THAT, I may have to farm white power because I don't have many White Orbs and I honestly could use more Greater Powers too. New FF6 dungeons do mean that fake-5* Gravity Rod's paying off, at least. Wonder if I'll reach 150 Mythril before the 17th for a pull on Squall's MC2 banner.

There -is- R4 Thundaja to look forward to this week, though. Sweet, sweet R4 Thundaja.

[Captain K]

Cleaned out my inventory for upcoming Bartz banner.  Will be doing 3 11-pulls.  Hoping for Galuf's fist but I'll take anything I get.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Past that, don't forget to save it up for the Faris/Krile banner on the border of the new year and has considerably better relics. The upcoming FF5 banner isn't bad at all, at least, with a solid variety of items and no abhorrent duds (Diamond Armor comes close, but it's one of the highest def armors in the game. The shield at least has Shellga, IIRC, and Light Armor is Light Armor. Flametongue has decent ATK for a generic and boosts fire damage, Lenna's Healing Staff may have a terrible SB, but it boosts Holy damage and makes for an amazing tool for a nuker cleric and the other character SBs are all-around pretty good).

Dungeoneering continues. Jenova LIFE, once again, blew up to Stop, and Jenova DEATH's vulnerable to it this time around! I'm sure this won't end up badly for her at all.

[Captain K]

Yeah Diamond Armor is actually the best heavy armor in the game, even still in Japan.

I should also mention that I got two Majors in the past week from the new daily, both of them Giant Adamantite.  Not that I'm complaining!  Still got a few things left to level up from Orbfest.