Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Ramza BSB is totally legit even against D250 Belias. With triple-stacked Holy Imperils and Eiko's crit boost, he was doling out over 40k damage per Unsung Hero, totalling 160k~ damage a pop. The 100% DEF boost also let me completely forsake Protectga. For the CM, I don't have overkill offense or AoE mitigation -yet- to tackle sensibly, but Rafa alone would help with that. And since I have up to two pulls slotted for that set of banners, I may have a few more surprises for it when the time comes. We'll see.

[Meeplelard]

Just beat the harder version of the Gigas Torment, finally having a chance to really try Raines' BSB on my team.  Ultimately, gun down the Thunder Gigas ASAP since he's the toughest of the bunch, then Terra focuses her damage on the Ice one (Soul Breaks are uncounterable, which is the main reason to take him down last), everyone else deal with the fire.  Fire went down last because, well, Scorching Flame hype and such. 

Took me two attempts mostly because the first time I reached them, I didn't reapply buffs so the openning Thunderstorm would kill Raines/Papalymo, on the re-attempt, I used Round 6 to get myself back together.  What also helped is remembering that Torments are well beyond the MAGIC Softcap, that even Magic Breakdown effects don't do much, meaning I could leave a slot open for Tyro to use Lifesiphon (He also had Multibreak, mostly because the slight damage push and it does mitigate damage a bit.  Damage push in question is Terra in one En-Fire'd Scorching Flame did 95k~, without Multibreak, it did only 88k.  Not a big deal, but it's there.)

[Meeplelard]

Geosgano 250 Torment beaten!  Learning that Regurgitate is % based thus Instant Death protectable made the difference in the fight since that was often a huge chunk of damage I couldn't really handle.

Also finished the FF3 event save for the Cid Mission (haven't attempted yet.)  These fights are dumb...well, no, Xande is just general trash, but the others?

The Waves are stupid because they split even when killed.  I get they're trying to emulate FF3's Splitting Enemies, and do so in a way that doesn't just say "mage Meta lol" thus "only darkness works" but for the love of god, if it's a lethal attack, don't have them split.  The whole mechanic worked in FF3 because split enemies had the same HP as the originator.  It's a fight that desperately begs for a Dark Elemental BSB (which I luckily had.  Also brought Raines with Dire Heal + Darkzone, Terra had Drainga and Papalymo had Darkra, so wasn't too bad, but still not a good design philosophy.)
Garuda is back to the old bullshit "lol I can kill you before you move" nonsense that made the original U+ Bartz insufferable, complete with an annoying condition (Use Jump!)  I could luckily adjust my team such that Tyro gets Jump in, Alphinaud instead of Raines for Wind damage, and Terra can still wield Magic Breakdown for the mitigation.  I could have used Raines over Terra for the same effect, but figured the Burst damage would be better than the consistent DPS and she's significantly bulkier (she still got a 99999 Scorching Flame off him, which was a huge chunk of his health gone, such that Papalymo (w/ OK Burst) and Alphinaud could gun him down.)  It's still dumb since you're at the mercy of the RNG in the early parts of the fight when you're doing all set up.  Oh, did he just use 2 MT physicals in a row on turn 2 before you had Wall up? Tough, S/L NOW!


As far as Hein goes, solo'd the Ultimate.  The Apocalypse...my first run had a good team EXCEPT for one team which was Vaan and Tyro, spamming Lifesiphon, and Vaan was spamming his BSB commands.  This led to a lot of confusion.  At one point, my Terra was getting Scorching Flames late in the fight when he's weak to Fire...then he had his Tyro THROW A PUMPKIN for 450 damage, causing Confusion on her, completely destroying the Opportunity. 
Eventually just recruited DLers since this is a fight that, despite all the PUGs saying "DO NOT USE PHYSICALS!" "MAGE TEAM ONLY!" etc., people will still be stupid (this is a fight where Using Physicals = Auto Ban!)  First attempt failed due to Sage's Hope's BSB2 not being as strong as we'd like, and he got a lucky confuse that caused things to go downhill.
Refight, Sage uses Shantotto instead because Burst is good for the fight, and we agreed the Black Magic counters shouldn't be TOO bad.  Turns out not only are they more begnin, they're also far less common, as we never saw one despite the constant barrage, contrast to the physicals which ARE 100%.    So yeah, good call on his end. 

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I hate everything about this event's set of Ultimates and I'll leave it at that.

Apocalypse Hein was far more benign. His stats actually kinda suck (my pug team had no stackable MAG buffs and we were still dropping over 15k a pop under weakness with Chain-gas. Oh, and his speed's also kinda terrible) and he has very little bite outside of the physical spoiling - he wasn't really threatening anyone even though we had only Full Break for debuffs. I ran Papalymo and Shantotto... but I forgot to equip Enochian Firaja on him. Oh well, Ley Lines still made for good utility and Shantotto's Burst is indeed very solid for the fight, since she'll always hit weakness with one of her commands.

[Shale]

Cleared out the ultimates easily. The Gaaps' gimmick is ridiculous and bad design, but it's bad design I'm well equipped for, so Vayne and Raines slaughtered. Xande took a couple of tries because I tried to gear OK for damage instead of healing and couldn't keep up with his damage in the final phase. Luneth and Desch handled something like 90% of my damage -- Luneth spamming Dark Bargain until his burst came up, and Desch RW'ing Setzer's burst and then alternating between the MAG/RES debuff command and MBD. The burst kept Ultimate Meteor to a survivable level, and Desch was hitting for 9000 a turn thanks to damage-boosting RMs. In theory Ingus was there to dispel Protect/Haste with Banishing Strike, but in practice most of the time he'd just counter-buff himself and make the whole thing pointless. Oh well.

Garuda's his typical asshole self, easily handled with all-out wind offense if you can set up mitigation before he tears you apart by double acting. My first attempt, where I ditched Protectga for more damage, was....not successful.

Edit:
U+ Hein: Piece of cake. Ashe BSB for the lightning phases, Lulu BSB for the fire/ice phases. Each of them gets black magic to cover the weakness her burst doesn't. Simple!

Apocalypse Hein: Less simple. First, Despite breezing through the actual U+ fight, I only barely made mastery because I went with OK/Ashe/Lulu/Faris/Y'shtola, and nobody there can (by default) use Multi Break. So this time I swapped Onion Knight for Tyro, to see if that would work rather than pouring a ton of 4* motes into Faris for one gimmick fight. (Side note: I could have run her with the -RES dance, but given that Hein has a piercing AOE the extra debuff seemed like a good idea regardless of medal conditions.)

The result was a team where, aside from Faris using an occasional Sea Lord's Broadside for 8000 damage at most, literally all my damage came from the two black mages. And Hein had a fun habit of changing weaknesses during a cast, so things went extra slow. Slow enough that the second shot of RW'd onionburst (the buffs, not the actual burst mode) ran out when he was still at about 20% HP. Whittling down a D200 enemy 4000 HP at a time is fun! Luckily, he finally switched to lightning weakness, which was the cue for Ashe to unload an en-lightning'd Dusk Decree entry on him. That didn't quite end things, but it only took three more hits. And thankfully I did get a skin-of-my-teeth mastery -- that was the longest, sloggiest fight I've had since breaking into the Ultimate tier, and by the end I was legit worried that I'd end up losing multiple action medals.

[Meeplelard]

You know, I need FF11 Synergy badly, so why not toy with a pull on the banner? 100 Gem got rekt but hey, at least this 11 pull will get me SOMETHING because I have absolutely nothing, and 0% chance of dupes.  Not expecting much of course but hey, can't hurt right?



...something tells me the game doesn't want me to use Shantotto...

[Shale]

Just Ayame's hastega SSB for me. Not super useful because I already have Edge's instant hastega/last stand/blink, but at least this one can be Lifesiphoned?

[Reiska]

And people were scared of this fight

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/137729122

[Meeplelard]

I gotta say, that was a cathartic as hell experience.  Most good I've felt about destroying something in RK since Revenge Bahamut Sin.  Granted, the run I was in is not in the video, but still stand by what I said.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

This week's raids were great fun. A++ Ultros, we went with double-Shantotto+double-Ashe (I ran with OK and Shantotto, in order to cover a stackable buffing layer) and just fried his ass with Play Rough spamming (the other Shantotto also had Primordial Elements for great stacking goodness). Not much to say, but tons of fun. I'm pretty sure I also ran a team with Meeple on Ultimate Ultros, which involved a lot of explosions, since I ran Papalymo on that fight.

A++ Mandragoras... well. I ran the fight during commute flying OK+Maria (OK with Wrath and Ultra Cure, running exclusively VoF, Maria running Meteor and Faith, though she only used Faith and Meteor -once-), with Tyro/Penelo coordinating dances and heals, Hope and Vanille running instant heals and bizarre offense/status alongside dispels, and Y'shtola/Selphie coordinating healing, Stoneskin and buffs. Hope fumbled his first SB (OSB instead of BSB2...), but otherwise coordination was super-tight: very timely heals all around, Selphie methodically dispelled the Mandragoras one by one when under BSB status, Penelo and Tyro kept debuffing going steadily and, once Hope had his gauge up again, he could cover dispelling and AoE pretty capably. Maria was responsible for the bulk of the offense, though: 24k a pop off a Break was pretty sweet, and powered Meteor XVIs were amazing damage. The fight went the slow and methodical way, which kept fuss at a minimum. We had awesome control over the fight at all times and the whole dynamics felt like they gelled really well. Far less obnoxious than the madness that involved U+ Mandragoras on the last FF12 event.

[Cotigo]

You know, I don't quite recall, but A++ Mandragoras rings a bell as one of the endgame bosses that made me get bored of the game.  Maybe it was a different iteration of them, though actually the timeframe matches up I think.  God that was so tedious.

[Scar]

Had to pull on the ff11 banner. I spent a good portion of my early 20s in that game.

Got Lion and Shanys bursts.

Cool.

Now to save for the Kain banner.

[Meeplelard]

This week's raids were great fun. A++ Ultros, we went with double-Shantotto+double-Ashe (I ran with OK and Shantotto, in order to cover a stackable buffing layer) and just fried his ass with Play Rough spamming (the other Shantotto also had Primordial Elements for great stacking goodness). Not much to say, but tons of fun. I'm pretty sure I also ran a team with Meeple on Ultimate Ultros, which involved a lot of explosions, since I ran Papalymo on that fight.

If it was a "Meeple" with a Tyro and Terra combo (my usual combo, though I do vary based on fight requirements, and circumstance), then it was most definitely me.


DL Team beat 200 Ultros but not without annoying cheating ass disconnects getting in the way causing problems (we got him down to like 5% before that happened), then most gave up on exhaustion for the night, understandably enough since we took down Mandragoras.  I then proceeded to take down 240 by myself, since between Terra's OSB, Shantotto Burst, and lots of Magic Buffs, I was very well suited for the fight.



Oh yeah, naturally took down the FF11 Event, Cid Mission included ("Use Shantotto" is not much of a downside, especially given my current situation <_<.)  Shadow Lord actually required I go in with a mixed team, so went with a team that looked something like this:

Terra: Wrath, Meltdown, Ace Striker (I have all her SSB+s)
Cloud: Lifesiphon, Hailstorm, Truthseeker (I have Finishing Touch)
Papalymo: Shellga, some magic I can't be bothered to remember because he never used it, Dr. Mog's Teachings (He has Leylines)
Tyro: Full Break, Magic Breakdown, Mako's Might (SG and his BSB)
Yuna: Curaja, Protectga, Knights' Charge (I have her BSB2...other stuff too, but really, "BSB2" says everything)
RW: VoF

Should be pretty clear what my strategy is.  Most damage comes from magic, but Cloud is there so I can DPS when the magic barrier goes up, and he can still contribute fine in Phase 2 when the gimmick is gone.  Hailstorm was DPS but also provided a damage buff to Cloud that can go with VoF since I didn't have a proper Boostga.  Hailstorm really goes a long way in making Cloud so much better, since it gives him something he can do beside "Spam Lifesiphon and Full Charge."  Well, I guess you could dive him to 5* Spellblade, but feels like a waste of motes.
...and besides, I have a Sephiroth with an SSB2 + OSB combo, I'm pretty sure he's going to want that 2 hit Ice move that buffs damage in between turns.

[Shale]

Who's got two thumbs and just soloed the Apocalypse++ Mandragoras with full medals?

[Clear Tranquil]

I'm probably going to forget something because a lot happened but I'll try to recap things that happened for both my JP and global accounts. Basically it's been wild, JP has had Golden Week and Anniversary shenanigans with some nuts good stuff, not only for banners, but also Mythril rewards (like the Magic Pots which gave 30 Mythril each for total of 60b free Mythril and log in bonuses, etc) -

Final Fantasy Record Keeper JP Healer Lucky Draw - Results, Aerith Burst, Iris Burst

Final Fantasy Record Keeper JP Burst Lucky - Agrias Burst, Rafa Burst

Final Fantasy Record Keeper JP 6* Lucky - Firion OSB, Rydia OSB, Duece USSB

Final Fantasy Record Keeper JP Free 30 Pull - Agrias OSB, Garnet Burst 2.0. Beatrix magic blink super, Asche super with healing

Final Fantasy Record Keeper JP Anniversary Banners - Bartz Chicken Knife, Porom Burst, Zidane Burst 2.0, Rinoa Crystal Cross Burst

**

Global -

FFIII - Onion Staff, Gauntlets x2 (only wanted the staff so I could complete my Onion Knight, so couldn't be salty about the Gauntlets really!~)
FFXI - Single pull Giga Doublet, pull 11 Prische Super Moonlight thingy, dupe Giga Doublet, random singles, pulled Shanttotos Iridial Staff from the second ! (wanted this because I happened to get her Burst on a random pull 3 from an anniversary banner and because Shantotto ohohohoho! So yeah nothing quite so lucrative as Meeple's FFXI's results but quite solid I think, didn't manage to pull Shantotto's cloak but then ...
FFTactics first banner - Single pull Ovelia's Burst, another couple of random singles, pulled Rafa's Burst on the second
FFTactics second banner - Random three pull, Saintly Excalibur (dupe), Orlandeu's Super (dupe)

The Thunder God's Burst still eludes me but again I can't complain!~

Never done it before but decided to augment Cid's Saintly Excalibur with Rosetta Stones (the reason I hadn't done it before was because I didn't know how to, didn't realize you could scroll down to find the Rosetta Stones!)~

[Shale]

I decided to dip my toe into JP because the Golden Week nonsense is such a convenient way to grab shiny stuff to play with ahead of GL. It's gone....pretty well?

30-pull: Jecht OSB, Edgar OSB, Wol BSB, Paine SSB hastega, Ricard SSB, Onion Knight magic/medica SSB

FFT banner 1: Marach USB, Meliadoul SSB imperil earth, Ovelia SSB medica

Festival banner 3: Rinoa CSB on one 11-pull, Cloud USB, Vincent BSB and double Quistis BSB on the next.

Festival banner 4: Tidus USB, Curilla BSB

The 30-pull stuff is mostly bad, outdated (even in global!) or both, but the rest of it gives me the pieces for a competent physical A-team -- Curilla for boostga and tanking, Tyro for support and hastega, Ovelia as the healer, and two wildcard DPS slots that will be Cloud and Tidus 90% of the time. When extra mitigation is necessary, swap one of them for Wol. Not sure how long I'll stick with this or how hard I'll try to actually clear stuff, but playing with EX Mode nonsense seems like a fun diversion in the short term.

[Clear Tranquil]

Oh yeah, this reminds me also obtained Tidus USB from a single pull on that banner, and obtained Relm's Burst from another banner as well.

For global forgot I'd also pulled Delita's Super and a dupe of Mustadio's gun as well.

Congrats on your haul!~

[Meeplelard]

Beat the FFT event outside of the Cid Mission which I'll get to tomorrow I suppose.

Solo'd Belias because I could.  It wasn't so hard once I got the fight down, provided RNG didn't screw me in status, in particular Cyclops not petrifying 3 characters EVERY TIME.  The winning run, petrify missed everyone so law of averages finally kicks in, huzzah!

A big thing about this fight is mostly killing off an Archaic Demon before their 4th turn or so, else you get hit by 3 Giga Flares and a very good chance ONE person dies from that, and things go downhille.  Luckily, between Terra's OSB, and various other forms of offense, I could burst down one demon, while still crippling the other two in the process with AoE (yay R2 Vaigarmanda!), so that part wasn't so bad.


Also did the FF12 event up to what's finished, not that anything of note happened.  Also I literally just noticed we had back to back Ivalice events.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Done with FF12 event and now my life is mostly farming U+ Hashmal because goddamn are Vit motes scarce and ubiquitously required. I'm likely skipping Wednesdaily for it, though Tuesdaily feels like too much of a stretch given I still want to hone more Chain-gas.

[Shale]

The last anniversary banner went up on JP yesterday, and I got enough mythril for a pull this morning. 3/11 with Bartz's BSB3, Meia's BSB, and.....well, damn. Out of every SSB+ relic in the game (except the fest debuts), I come up with Shout. And the pull comes with a free BSB from a list that includes Vanille's. This account got up to speed in a hurry.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Sounds like JP alright.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

DU Lucky Draw: Wakka's Glorious Armguards. Not exactly what I was HOPING for, but a support BSB is a support BSB. I'm also actually glad Wakka can finally be relevant in-realm again, I was using Rikku as my FFX support since Go Go Gullwings, when I got HER Burst.

[Shale]

Galuf's Titan's Gloves and Rikku's Force Knuckles. Galuf's invincibility move will be fun to play around with even though it won't make the cut in CM teams (since Galuf has my only FF5 boostga), while Rikku now has my only ATK/RES break and my only stacking ATK break in FFX, so that'll come in very handy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'm just farming 4* Vitality motes on U+ Hashmal now that I finished the monthly DU. Managed to master Assault Reels, running a Wakka/Rosa/Alphinaud/Basch/Papalymo team for farming (might as well get levels for Wakka, since I broke his level cap). Wrathspamming into Rosa's BSB (yeah, got it from an 11-pull on that Raid Campaign banner) is pretty fun, even though the entry isn't much to write home about.

[Clear Tranquil]

MP Hashmal didn't go too well until I decided to try hosting for a change, sent out a recruit call with the message Shout, Wind, Dispel/Breakdowns, backup healers something like that, ran a L99 Vanille and Yshtola, ended up with a Ramza, Cloud, Cid (FFVII), Cait Sith, another Yshtola and I forget the last character adding to the party. No lag on my end was nice and most important is this was a party that knew what it was doing for the most part, everyone waiting on debuffs/buffs before damage, backing off to let the healers do their jobs when needed, etc, it was very nice when the Cloud unleashed his OSB when Shout, boost wind damage, etc was up. The Cid dropped at one point though and kept dropping despite my futile attempts to keep him going with Raise and that of the other healer and I's attempts to get him healed up, buffed, etc on time. However the party was able to finish off Hashmal from there.

Currently still working on FFXII event, made it up to the MCII stages, party has changed somewhat, Terra is still there because although she mastered her OSB and Super, she is now learning her Burst, Vanille currently doesn't have anything left to work on so put Ysh back in, Papalymo and Alph finished mastering their stuffs, so were replaced with Raines and Rapha, only for me to find I forgot to get any Memory Crystals for Rapha in the Tactics event and I can't find them in the hall, and Onion is also still there learning new stuffs. I will need to try to fit Shantotto in at some point. Rapha has managed to pull her weight so far with her Burst and hasn't been too squishy yet, that might change for the highest difficulties though, if so I might bring someone else in. Yshtola mastered Aetherial Pulse in the process of working through the event, and is nearly finished Medica II so will need to think about which healer I'll bring in next too~