Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Cotigo]

Bartz's Dualcast Spellblade RM dropped this morning during farming (along with 1 MFO and 1 MEO in the first 90 stamina. Suck it) so I decided to pump him full of Eggs (L79), hone some Spellblades and try the Disciplinary Crew again. Came reaaaally close but eventually just had to accept that I did not have enough damage to off him. Setup was

Zack (R5Aera Strike, R5Bio Strike), Start Sap Damage 1.2x
Bartz (R4Biora Strike, R3Thundaga Strike), Dualcast SpB, Protectga SB
Terra (Thundaja, Blizzaja), Dualcast BM
Mog (Faith, Curaga), Mako Wish Foundation
Aeris (Shellga, Curaja), Increased SB Gauge
SG

Sooooooo damn close. With this setup, Fujin goes down EZ before SG wears off the first time, and SG wears off the second time shortly before I kill Raijin. The ideal solution here is I craft Bioga and hone it to R3, which... I do have the orbs for, but for the first time since september I actually don't have the Gil for! Yaaaaaay! Fortunately the event ends Friday, after WednesdayGilday, so I can probably do that then.

One other thing I've come to realize is that I should probably get my mages some Magic Damage up materias. In this case, it doesn't matter for her, but wow Dualcast is inefficient if you're not nearing the damage cap or stat softcap. When I first tried I threw the RM on Zack, and his damage decreased from 8000 buffed on a weakness to 6200 buffed on a weakness.

Dualcast would have to go off once every four times to break even with this, and while it does do so frequently (ish), it's still RNG dependent and in this case often lobsided. Yeah, Dualcast went off 3 times against Fujin, but then never against Raijin, when I frankly needed it to go off on him since Terra cannot hit a weakness on him with this setup.

Terra, fortunately, deals 9k or so hitting a weakness, so it only has to go off once every 9 turns to be the better option (it is significantly less rare than that), but this does bring into perspective why Meteo was such hot garbage against them the first time I tried the fight on Sunday. I'm sure it would be hitting a fair deal harder than 4400 per target per cast (after Faith) if I had a MAG increase RM.

Another, more resource friendly tact I could take, is dust off Gilgamesh, and put Ice jump and Wind jump on him. This would net me all mastery reqs, make Raijin easier to kill (while making Fujin harder), and open me up a slot for Break Fever or something else on Mog. Mm. Decisions. I kinda already blew a lot of stamina on this fight since I thought the event was ending today, so my patience for experimenting is getting lower. Still, that's not a bad alternative (assuming his damage is worth it... curse my lack of offensive character relics).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Close to completing all of DU15's dungeons on Elite. FF3 Leviathan is an ugly, ugly slugfest that took me all charges of Dispel at -R4- because double-acting + Haste-spamming is horrifying on a 140 Difficulty mage boss with high 2HKO damage before mitigation applies. He's not resistant to Breaks, which means Full Break + Magic Breakdown badly neuters his offense even before SG/SSII and Shellga (to give you an idea, under -all- mitigation, his Tsunami was dealing double-digit damage), but you simply can't take the fight lightly - your Dispel PC should ALWAYS be at the ready for dispelling his ass. The petrify odds on his physical are -very- bad, though, so Dr. Mog once again is high on drugs when recommending Esuna: bring Dispel instead, Leviathan doesn't even physical very often. Regardless, R2 Full Break's already paying off big time as it goes.

By comparison, Shinobi is hilariously chumpy: Draw Fire + defending completely trivializes both his offense and status whoring due to forced focus. Not much to say about Dragon other than hey, Tidus' Slice & Dice pretty legit post-Bravery and Full Break. There's not a whole lot to say about FF9's dungeons either: elemental and status weakness does bring them down considerably. Valia Pira in particular gets owned hardcore by Reflect + Magic Lure as long as you bring even one FF9 PC, and it's even vulnerable to Sleep.

One other thing I've come to realize is that I should probably get my mages some Magic Damage up materias. In this case, it doesn't matter for her, but wow Dualcast is inefficient if you're not nearing the damage cap or stat softcap. When I first tried I threw the RM on Zack, and his damage decreased from 8000 buffed on a weakness to 6200 buffed on a weakness.

Dualcast would have to go off once every four times to break even with this, and while it does do so frequently (ish), it's still RNG dependent and in this case often lobsided. Yeah, Dualcast went off 3 times against Fujin, but then never against Raijin, when I frankly needed it to go off on him since Terra cannot hit a weakness on him with this setup.

Which magic-boosting RMs do you have, anyway? If you're far from ramming the damage cap, Vivi's second RM (Devotion) is hands down the best, +20% Mag translates to roughly 35% more magical damage that stacks with the likes of Faith and Mana's Paean. Impetuous Youth (Eiko) and Vow of Vengeance (Ashe) are more subtle (17%~ damage increase), but still worthwhile, Vow of Vengeance being particularly nice due to lowering Attack - i.e. the historically acknowledged dump stat for any mage worth his/her salt. I wish I knew whether Rinoa's second RM raises the magic -stat- or magic -damage-, since that's a pretty important distinction and the game has RMs covering both spectrums, but that's not a bad target to shoot for either if you have the spare character/MC crystals.

[Nephrite]

I think a better strategy for LEVIATHAN, LEVIATHAN! would be to cast Reflect on Him, then he bounces all his hastes and Protects back. I didn't even think about it until after I beat him, but that would have made things a lot less of a headache.

You just have to do some S/Ling at the start if he decides to haste himself, I suppose.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Reflect is good against the buffing if you're running a physical party and you can choose between that and Dispel as well. I find Dispel to be more practical if you're running mixed, though, since it doesn't involve counter-reflecting shenanigans.

[Cotigo]

I looked it up, I do have Devotion, in addition to Kefka's Lunatic Wizard RM. Devotion being a 37% Increase may in fact make it worth trying to take them down with Meteo instead of Thundaja. But in fact, I currently have a better use for it...!

Prepping to take down the  凶＋ sand worm fuckers before the event ends in midnight. Did the beginner's draw for Bartz' Air Knife (incidentally, got an FF13 synergy Dagger with a Protectga SB, and a Fira SB FFIX synergy robe. Nice), slapped together this team:

Zack (Dual Delay, Indoor Spell), Dragoon Commitment
Bartz (R1Tornado Strike, R5Aera Strike) Attunement 2
Terra (R4Ruinga, Meteo), Devotion
Mog (Faith, Curaga), Power of Mako
Aeris (Shellga, Curaga), Actions -> Increase SB gauge
Lunatic High RW

can you tell i have the rm excel doc open

So with this setup, on the bright side my issue is no longer Sandstorm. Bartz with Wind attacks + Air Knife + Attunement wrecks shit, and Devotion brings Meteo from "I waited for THIS?" to "HOO-AH, I'M PEGGY HILL." Theorhetically, Dual Cast would be nice here, due to how the adds have a chance to damage the boss with each hit they take, but then I'm not guaranteed to kill everything before the first sandstorm and fuck that.  However, my survivability is pretty bad, especially when he gets spammy with his MT towards the end. Sighhhh, I guess I'm just going to have to bring SG into this fight. One more S/L though, I got time.

... Aaaand y'done. Mastered. Haha, suck it, game I didn't know about until last week! Also, second 凶＋ Mastery.

Devotion made all the difference there, though to be honest I still couldn't have done it without Bartz's Air Knife SB. Since Bartz looks like he's going to be my main Spellblade caster for a while, I am OK with doing that Gacha. I will be a little disappointed if a SG relic comes up for Gacha before I can build up another 50 mythril though.

Back to the Disciplinary Crew, not convinced that swapping Thundaja for Meteo and putting on Devotion is worth it, primarily because I'm so close to the damage cap when hitting weakness. Honestly, since I know I have until Friday before the event ends, I'm probably just going to go with my original plan: Hone Bioga to R3 (especially since I netted the Major Blacks from the collab event), retry. I honestly think taking Raijin down that much more quickly is going to be what does it. I do also now have an SB that hits his weakness, though honestly those bars should still probably be used for Protectga at that stage of the fight regardless. Mmph.

Also, from the looks of the excel doc, it says that Rinoa's RM2 is 1.15x Damage with Black Magic as opposed to 1.15xMAG, whereas Devotion and Obnoxious Brat are specifically MATK.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Done with DU15, currently sitting at 97 Mythril. Behemoth wasn't too bad even though I derped and brought elemental damage to him (it actually kinda didn't matter much with Full Break and Mental Breakdown, Lulu was hitting for 7-8k a pop of Firaja -after- resistance post-breaks, Yuna hit for 5k with Diaga and I packed Tidus for Venom Buster and Slice & Dice, so no real risk of running out of resources). Not much left but farming orbs until Shadow event goes live tomorrow. Hopefully, this week we'll have Global's Rift of Recollection banners datamined as well. Seriously can't wait until Faris/Krile event shows up and 凶 fights kick in, I'm curious to see how I fare against Exdeath.

[Shale]

I beat a hard-tier daily dungeon! Had three people dead when it happened and missed the Champion tier, but I still got a bunch of drops so I'll take it. Got 112 mithril built up, too, so I'm biding my time for a banner that matches my needs/roster more closely. Or just another 50% off sale.

[Cmdr_King]

My dire lack of FFX gear prompted me to blow a full 11 pull on this banner (dropping me to 0 mythril with Rift looming, because I had the same damn problem in the last event.  THAT ended with drawing a generic fist... which is actually my only 5 star fist.  And distressingly made Amarant the star of that event's dungeons.  Fucking AMARANT man.)
Got Lulu's Hairpin!
And nothing else.
The game continues its long, proud tradition of giving me shit that's useful but not what I actually need when I pull.

Thank god the next event is FFVI where I could not draw at all and have a party mostly full of blue glows.  Double good if speculations that Sephiroth's banner is bumping ahead of Rift hold true.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Man, I'd totally trade my Thief Blade, Lightning Steel and Gold Bangle from the last pulls for the hairpin.

[Captain K]

If you try to take my Charizard I'll throw your Exodia in the water.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Shadow event announced yesterday, bonus quests released and completed for Greater Growth Eggs. What's the freaking point of making a character quest for Cyan that appears only two dungeons before you can recruit him on the story updates? Seriously, DeNa.

In more useless news, I crafted Flare.

[Cotigo]

Exodia in the water.

Starring M Night Shamalan as a down on his luck Magic Player whose underappreciated MAD SKILLZ will change the world

Farm farm farm. No majors today, but plenty of Greaters, and my greater Strengths no longer feel like wastes but instead integral pieces of a puzzle I need. Considering farming Thursday as well as I transition to beefing up my physical characters instead of relying on Mages who are awesome but don't synergize well with Mog. Getting -aga Strikes to R3+ seems like the first order of business since they have the highest mults with Weakness, then Pound (maybe 2) for non-weaknesses and then another Indoor Spell in that order. Dismissal would be neat if I didn't have two Dismissal SBs that are waaaaaay more accurate than Dismissal itself.

But then I have no idea when I'd actually do events now that I need to farm gil on Wednesdays. DeNAAAAAAAAAA. 

I should make a probability table telling me exactly how much stamina to spend each day for what orbs I need and how much I can spare on events and dungeons and then follow it religiously.

Nah. Haha that'd be crazy tho. (pst someone get MC addicted to this game pls)

On another note, even selling all of my 3*/+/+ equips I am running into the equipment limit. DOES THIS SPELL THE END FOR ME NOT SPENDING MYTHRIL ON INVENTORY SPACE?

Nah brah turns out synergy accessories literally do not give any benefit over non-synergized relics one star up (EX: 3* Power Wrist is 15 ATK, 20 with Synergy. 4* Muscle Belt is 20, 25 with synergy), so I got rid of my 3* accessories and a bunch of redundant 4*s. I once again have a pretty decent buffer zone for now, and honestly as long as I keep beating 凶 battles I'll eventually have enough stat accessories that I won't really need any 4*s and below for synergy. Do plan on keeping around the status buffer ones for now, for all that they have mattered 0%.

That said I will probably be reaching the limit for abilities soon and yeaaaah then I'm gonna have to blow some mythril just to float all my badass skills.

EDIT:

Shadow event announced yesterday, bonus quests released and completed for Greater Growth Eggs. What's the freaking point of making a character quest for Cyan that appears only two dungeons before you can recruit him on the story updates? Seriously, DeNa.

In more useless news, I crafted Flare.

Craft Flare Strike and get back at me for uselessness breh

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Exodia in the water.

Starring M Night Shamalan as a down on his luck Magic Player whose underappreciated MAD SKILLZ will change the world

Farm farm farm. No majors today, but plenty of Greaters, and my greater Strengths no longer feel like wastes but instead integral pieces of a puzzle I need. Considering farming Thursday as well as I transition to beefing up my physical characters instead of relying on Mages who are awesome but don't synergize well with Mog. Getting -aga Strikes to R3+ seems like the first order of business since they have the highest mults with Weakness, then Pound (maybe 2) for non-weaknesses and then another Indoor Spell in that order. Dismissal would be neat if I didn't have two Dismissal SBs that are waaaaaay more accurate than Dismissal itself.

But then I have no idea when I'd actually do events now that I need to farm gil on Wednesdays. DeNAAAAAAAAAA. 

I should make a probability table telling me exactly how much stamina to spend each day for what orbs I need and how much I can spare on events and dungeons and then follow it religiously.

Nah. Haha that'd be crazy tho. (pst someone get MC addicted to this game pls)

On another note, even selling all of my 3*/+/+ equips I am running into the equipment limit. DOES THIS SPELL THE END FOR ME NOT SPENDING MYTHRIL ON INVENTORY SPACE?

(...)

That said I will probably be reaching the limit for abilities soon and yeaaaah then I'm gonna have to blow some mythril just to float all my badass skills.

310 inventory slots and 170 ability slots here and counting. I was running out of space every so often with 250 slots.

[Scar]

Man, I guess im.just unlucky. Ff3 leviathan hit me with petrify every time I fought him. I s/l literally 10 times before saying fuck it and fighting him with one less character. Did not bring dispel...Elite is gonna be a pain.

[Cotigo]

Yeah Snow no offense but I'm pretty sure you're a hoarder.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah Snow no offense but I'm pretty sure you're a hoarder.

More like "I get antsy when there are less than 50 spare slots in my inventory", though hoarding is a part of it. Another part of it is having over 60 5* and above relics (43 of them natural 5*) without even factoring in accessories.

[Shale]

Meanwhile, one of the main reasons I'm sitting on 120+ Mithril is because I would have to free up 11 spots in my inventory to do a 50-pull.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Man, I find spending Mythril on inventory slots totally worth it. 50 extra slots for a week's worth of daily logins is fine for the QoL involved.

[Captain K]

Still at 100 inventory spaces, 100 ability spaces.  And there's still some useless accessories I haven't thrown away.

[Shale]

Once we get that update that makes materials not take up inventory space I'll be golden, because I have no qualms about chucking useless equipment. It's just that because I have no qualms about chucking useless equipment there's a ton of Adamantite and Scarletite waiting for more 5 star stuff.

[Cotigo]

Man I really don't understand how you guys play this game sometimes. I forget just how good I have it with JPs QoL uodates.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

A healthy mixture of addictive personality traits and relentless self-loathing.

[Grefter]

An exciting blend of Asperger's, Obssessive Compulsive Disorder, Mathematics, and jaded Liberal Arts majors.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I love you.

[Cotigo]

An exciting blend of Asperger's, Obssessive Compulsive Disorder, Mathematics, and jaded Liberal Arts majors.

I love you.

だって。そうなんだ。すごい、人生はね。