Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[DjinnAndTonic]

Huh, the new Sphere Grid system looks interesting. It really does seem like a mini-version of FFX's Sphere Grid. Overall I approve but honestly the benefits are pretty minute. The game handed me five of each type of sphere fragment, but it takes like 3 fragments per type per ability, so I can't get more than like 3 upgrades total until they give us some method for farming these fragments (if they even make them farmable... they could end up like summon orbs).

Considering the abilities are mostly things like "ATK+1" with the occasional "get Spellblade 3*" or "can use Guns" for a couple characters, it's not a huge game-changer. And Cores themselves are still worthless.

Honestly, most of the cool stuff this system could have done was already just outright patched with updates (things like Terra getting Summon 5).

[Cotigo]

Yeah I am kinda glad it's so insignificant though. I don't really want all my characters ending up as clones, which is exactly what could happen if they went too heavy on emphasizing it.

Nevermind that most characters are pretty samey as it is. How many White 4 Knight 5 characters are there? Or White 5 Summon 4/5? A fuckin lot. They don't need to be even samier.

[Grefter]

I have been living in glorious Nippon so long I can't tell White people apart.

[Cotigo]

Actually true. All white people kinda look alike now. This isn't actually a joke.

For futref, RMs that have been added since I made that list that I probably want, depending on their exact bonuses:
Echo RM2.
MobiusSera RM2.
Sabin RM2.
Gau RM2.
Jecht RM2.
Yda RM2.
Y'Shantola RM2 but that's super low priority and realy only relevant when I finally craft Holy.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Actually true. All white people kinda look alike now. This isn't actually a joke.

Especially Australians. Buncha bearded hippies. ;)

Also, Zenny, Möbius Sera is actually FF1 Princess Sarah. Yeah, that one you rescue at the beginning of the game whose only purpose is to get your bridge built.

Also, I find it kind of interesting that the Sphere Grid system differentiates between Knight and Paladin while the actually skill system just kinda considers them the same.

[Grefter]

You can tell Rat and I apart.  I am the one that sounds like an American/Canadian/G-Man and dresses like a pile of dirty bed sheets.

Rat is the one that sounds Irish/English/baffled at your strange life choices and wears plunging hipster V necks.

[Cmdr_King]

I thought Rat was most recognizable for the cute noises he made while sleeping.

[Grefter]

Well yeah.  I mostly talk and swear at things in my sleep if I don't sound like a someone dragging a bag of marbles along a wooden floor.

[Cotigo]

Grefter wanted me to do some crying here so

Also, Zenny, Möbius Sera is actually FF1 Princess Sarah. Yeah, that one you rescue at the beginning of the game whose only purpose is to get your bridge built.

Huh OK. Does that look at all resemblant of her sprite in the later FF1 remakes? I haven't touched one since Origins so maybe that's supposed to be more obvious than it was to me. I presume Garland is also FF1 Garland. What about Echo and Wall?

Things done today: Was pleasantly surprised that not everyone had access to the Sphere Grid, was disappointed Waifu!Ramza was not one of them but honestly he does not need to be better so yeah. Bartz is, though, because he needs to be even more of my main source of damage, so he's on his way to get all the ATK up upgrades. Levelled Y'shtola and Thancred to 64 but not past it yet, and cleared out the ++ fights. Finally got Red's RM2, his RM3 should be along sometime shortly. Threw Jecht in for one FFX dungeon since I needed ranged damage and got his RM2 first battle, game is clearly taunting me ZennyTears4Grefter here.  Realized that with the last couple of events I actually had the MWindOs to Hone both Thief's Raid and Saint's Cross to R2, solving that dilemma. Should probably forcefeed Zidane eggs so I can start farming Doublecast Thief. Broke 150 stamina.

The Mobius event's Ultimate+ battle is only rated at 140 instead of 160, so I'm gonna try to do it BSSBless. Probably will do that this weekend.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Echo and Wol are the Mobius characters in the collab. Wol is the playable character and Echo is some fairy.

EDIT: Caved in and did a bunch of pulls on Beatrix's banner because my FF9 synergy was completely miserable (a fake 6* Gladius, an Oak Staff and Golem's Flute. The mage weaponry is good, but rather limited). Five 11-pulls and two 3-pulls later, I got -every single generic equip on the banner-, including three Barbuts (i.e. it is now 7*), a FF5 Ice Brand, -another- Ochu Tentacle (i.e. 6* with ye), a Striking Staff so now I have two FF7 mage sticks and... Amarant's Scissor Fangs, which also now happen to be my very first monk weapon. So, now my FF9 synergy is actually good, but utterly bizarre, with two daggers, a -thrown weapon-, a fist and a whole goddamn lot of armors. The Power Sash's admittedly pretty hot and Scissor Fangs are actually weirdly powerful, at least (hey, best option I have for running non-synergy Rikku or Red), and the Barbut running off 120 Def, 105 Res and the typical helm ATK boost's also a solid pick for my frontliners. Striking Staff should be useful for Bahamut SIN a month from now, at least. Red Cap also boosts fire damage and has the best defensive stats of all my hats, so there's that besides synergy.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wol is the main character of FF Mobius. He is supposed to be an alternate reality version of Warrior of Light (thus, his name is Wol). Ecco (apparently the official spelling?) is apparently the stand-in for Wol having party members? There's also a Garland expy, but I'm pretty sure that the Garland in FFRK is supposed to be the FF1/Dissidia one.

You can really tell it's supposed to be FF1 Princess Sarah because she looks like her Theatrhythm design. Also her Pictologica design. Which are supposedly based off an Amano sketch? Here, have a wikia link. http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Sarah_(Final_Fantasy)

[Cotigo]

DADDY I'M A WHALE

"Get good, or get busy buyin." - Morgan Free2Playman

--

DJ: Have I mentioned how much I hate TheaterRhythm's designs art style? They It really are are the worst.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Oh thank god I thought I was the only one who hated it.

[Scar]

Tried a single pull for Beatrixs sword.

Got a ff6 helmet.

Yay

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Done with Beatrix event's main course. Through the event, Amarant actually proved pretty legit with his relic (Shellga + High Regen's still quite nice): build gauge with Lifesiphon against trash, unleash against bosses, profit. Beforehand, I was fully intent on going mage meta all day against Beatrix, but the sudden influx of FF9 physical synergy is making me consider a physical setup: slap Pinwheel/Scissor Fangs on Rikku, Zorlin Shape on Squall/Lightning, Gladius on Red XIII, bring Steiner for fulfilling target score reqs and Yuna for my MT healing needs. The alternate setup would involve borderline white mage meta (Yuna/Eiko or Y'shtola/Steiner/Red/mage), but I'll muck with setups as needed. Feels like my physical setup would work better at this point.

[Shale]

Steiner is the required character this time? And here I was looking forward to actually using the mandatory party member for once.

(Speaking of which, I should motivate myself to do the FF7 boss rush, I guess. On the off chance I get Lunatic High I don't want to end up kicking myself for missing Red's MC2.)

[Cmdr_King]

The game tacitly encourages Steiner even in the other bonus batttles where he's not explicitly required because what is required is the pack of Knight skills we got in this event.  Albeit there's several viable 5 star knights you could use if you hated him.  Of course, he and P. Cecil are the only ones with MC2s so there's definitely some encouragement towards him.

But really, it's a Beatrix event, of course Steiner was gonna get some love.

[Shale]

I figured Beatrix would be mandatory, which is nice since I was planning on bringing her up to a usable level anyway. Steiner not so much, and I'm not going to burn a bunch of growth eggs on a character with no role in my party otherwise so I can have a middling chance of getting a few of them back in the form of a mastery reward, assuming the RNG decides it likes me that day.

(why yes I do think giving medals for using a particular character in high-level fights is shitty design, why do you ask?)

[Cmdr_King]

I'm okay with it up 'til the 110 difficulty range, because really they can be like level 40 an at least stay alive assuming you're strong enough to reasonably claim the mastery rewards to start with (ie have sufficient hones and synergy to pull it off).  After that... someone that plays a lot it's not a huge deal because hey, you have a lot of well-levelled characters so you can focus your attention on this one character for a while.  Adding more barriers to starting to clear the highest content and really get the ball rolling is poor form.

Something like Barthandelus requiring two characters, one from that event, can fuck right off.*

*Ignoring that Barthandelus has so many other problems as a fight and can fuck off to start with.

[Shale]

"Assuming you're strong enough to reasonably claim the mastery rewards to start" is a dicey statement, though, because there's huge variability in the risk of losing a character to different bonus fights regardless of difficulty rating. You pretty much have to make the decision in hindsight.

[Grefter]

It is fine, just spend more mithril on healing and getting buffs after you wipe.

[Cmdr_King]

I found that the time period between "can just barely do the second bonus battle to nab that MC2 with a couple Mythril and a lot of praying" and "this fight is something I can reliably do without much trouble" was pretty short, like... I did that against Jenova Life, then by the next event wasn't really having much trouble with it at all.  Some of that was the event timing mind, and some of that is I probably should have been doing the bonus battles the previous event because Jenova is in fact abnormally strong, but... mm.  If you can't swing the one on this event (Valia Pira has the "gets weaker based on having FFIX party members" thing going so it might be exceptional) I'm willing to bet you will by the next one.

Put another way the power jump between the regular stages in the event and the ++ fight is smaller than the jump between ++ and +++ or between +++ and Ultimate I found.

[Shale]

Yeah, but that's no reason to make me fight with one hand tied behind my back, or use up a shit-ton of growth eggs, just so the mastery becomes possible.

[Meeplelard]

Did a total of 15 pulls on the Beatrix Banner, my results?

A few 4* (nothing useful unfortunately), an Edincoat and FF6 Burning Knuckle.  Yes 2 5* items not on the banner and BOTH WERE ITEMS I ALREADY HAD.  To be fair, Edincoat is something I might actually want two of, and the FF6 Burning Knuckle+ is good for...uhh...Zack in FF6 realms using Fira sword? I got nothing.

[Cmdr_King]

Cleared up to the end of the regular event.

So after 100 mythril, my FFIX synergy has risen from
- Cat's Claw (no-SB fist)

to include
-Zorlin Shape (no-SB Dagger)
-Barbut (no-SB helm)

Which still puts it behind any other relevant realm except maybe FFV for total synergy.  Sitting at 42 mythril at the moment, I should definitely try for one last 11x roll and hope for the statistically-likely one more piece of 5 star gear.  Question being which banner.

In favor of Banner 2
- While I have a full Trinity now, additional instances of Medica and Hastega are still Very Good Things and Golem Flute offers both.
- My existing meager synergy is all physical, so a banner that has possible mage weapons is woth considering
- The overall quality of the character SBs in banner 2 is higher, as is the overall quality of the characters the SBs are for.
- While Aura is a good SB, realistically two fists is a waste so if I did draw Scissor Claws my overall situation wouldn't improve much- I'd just be dumping the Cat's Claws into that.
- Quina is still Quina and Mighty Guard is a pretty meh SB to my needs.

In favor of Banner 1
- Character love for Beatrix and Steiner
- My existing ability set favors physical teams over magical ones, although the gap is small and I can do either on a whim
- Assuming no SBs at all, I'm more likely to slot Steiner or Beatrix over Zidane/Garnet/Vivi/Eiko mechanically- I don't have many other well-trained Knights and they get a lot of good skills in this event.
- Sap is becoming increasingly relevant and something more reliable than Shadowsteel to add it would be great.

So writing it all out, Banner 2 has more points in its favor in a vacuum, but in actual practice I feel like it really comes down to drawing for two weapons I really want (StQ and Ultima Blade) vs one (Golem Flute).  That sound about right?