You know the fun thing about Mage Meta is?
...Fragment Ifrit really is nothing different than what you're use to. Oh what's that? Massive defenses? Mages have been dealing with that for a while, only Ifrit has a blatantly exploitable weakness so it's like Mages fighting him WITHOUT the weakness...except for Darkness users.
Set Up (was going to do screenshot, but image too big thanks to new phone and gotta tweak things):
L75 Terra: Desch's Sword++, Black Hood+, *Terra's Pendant, R4 Blizzaja, R4 Magic Breakdown, Devotion, Magitek Missile SSB
*Yes, that should have been the FF8 equip but didn't matter
L72 Edea: Rising Sun, Sorceress' Crown+, Flame Cloak, R3 Dark Zone, R3 Memento Mori, Ace Striker, Inaugural Parade SB
L75 Lulu: Ice Staff (IX), Cat-Ear Hood++, Gulug Stone, R5 Blizzaga, R4 Blizzaja, Dr. Mog's Teachings, Focus SB
L77 Yuna: Wizard's Rod, Cat-Ear Hood+, Blaze Armlet, R2 Shellga, R5 Curaja, Knight's Charge, Hymn of the Fayth SB
L80 Tyro: Hyperion, Nu Khai Armlet, Gigas Armlet, R3 Full Break, R3 Mental Breakdown, Mako's Might
RW: Divine Guardian.
First off, yes, I made a 2nd Blizzaja for this fight, and honed it up a bunch; wasn't using those Ice Orbs for much anyway, and probably going to need it if I ever do the Cid mission. Anyway, I had one reset because of bad RNG on the ATB and he basically just physicaled a bunch and killed Edea off before I could do anything about it. Thanks to Mage Meta, you're entirely in the back row, and yes, Tyro's damage is awful and really shouldn't have bothered with the synergy weapon, but whatever. It ultimately was a routine fight. Open with Focus, Sentinel Grimoire, Divine Guardian, Magic Breakdown and Shellga on Turn 1. Terra's Blizzaja's did 9999 with her Magitek Missiles doing 12k with one buff, and 16k with 2 buffs, Lulu's did 9k, and her Blizzagas late in the fight did 6500. Edea's Dark Zones were doing 14-15k a shot, Memento Mori when recasting thanks to Inargural Parade was doing over 7k a shot itself. Tyro...was doing a glorious 3 digit damage, but hey, Mental Breakdown boosted the other character's damage, and Full Break kind of necessary. Yuna did healer things.
Ultimately, Terra ran out of Blizzajas near the end, but Lulu had plenty of Blizzagas, Edea died due to Doom, and Tyro ran out of charges...and the fight ended with a Magitek Missile. It wasn't necessary because he was on the magic pixel so Lulu would ahve finished him off anyway, and Yuna had just fired off Hymn of the Fayth so even if he pulled Hellfire out of his ass, I'd survive.
Again, the thing about this fight is those who were rocking Mage Meta were basically use to everything he throws at you, for all of the following reasons:
-Back Row. This makes his basic physical far less threatening by nature.
-Mages had to deal with absurd Res as is; his is higher, true, but the jump in Res isn't anywhere near as high as the jump in defense, so Mages essentially feel a minor loss to their offense...
-...and easily exploitable weakness. Only a handful of fighters can use Blizzaga Strike, but Mage Meta basically means you WILL be using Black Mages and thus Blizzaja by definition. This makes a huge difference.
-Unless you are Vincent, Mages have generally much better res than fighters, which compensates for the lack of HP against a handful of his attacks.
yes, I had the trinity; there's no disputing that helped a lot, as did Lulu's focus adding an extra stackable +50% Res layer, but seeing as many who have the Trinity and rely on Shout Meta are screaming pain and torment, I can't help but feel it's the fact that I took the Mage approach that made the difference. Not saying Mage Meta made it LOLJOKE worthy, but it honestly felt very...routine? Like yeah, the fight made me go all out, but nothing I wasn't already use to if that makes sense.
That said, definitely not ready for the Cid mission, though I am planning ahead. Quistis will probably use a set up similar to Terra because, well, she can run that, so it's just losing out on Magitek Missiles which will hurt. Edea can stay where she is, since she's still FF8, and using a set up that can't be replicated. I'll probably field Irvine using Tyro's set up, and Rinoa using Lulu's. I don't think Offense will be an issue but lack of native wall is going to hurt, and lack of Lulu's Focus is an extra layer of Res I don't have. Not confident about it yet though, feel like I'll need some more FF8 relics.
