FINAL FANTASY: RECORD KEEPER

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I'm still 20k greens short of being able to buy this week's major orbs, so I'll likely be putting off the Abyss Gate until the double greens weekend is over.

author=Jeroen_Sol
Huh. Garuda has way more defenses than I thought he would have. After I completely burned through my skills, he wrecked me.

Time for some honing and aerora strike making, I guess.


Garuda hits surprisingly hard for a ++ tier boss. He reminds me of Jenova in the worst way.
Finally, after five consecutive Lucky Draw failures, I get something.... Two somethings, even. Got a second Lullaby Rod (Yuna) and then an identical staff for Lenna. So my white mage uniques are tied up with my knight ones. These are all of my 5* uniques:


Core
Celebration Grimoire (Tyro)
Rune Staff (White Mage)

FF1
Nothing!

FF2
Nothing!

FF3
Heroic Shield (Ingus)
Royal Sword (Luneth)
Tyrfing (Luneth)

FF4
Elven Bow (Rosa)
Dark Sword (Drunk Cecil)
Shadowblade (Drunk Cecil)

FF5
Sage's Staff (Lenna)
Air Knife (Bartz)

FF6
Partisan (Edgar)
Rising Sun (Locke)

FF7
Buster Sword (Cloud)
Gatling Gun (Barret)
Crystal Glove (Tifa)
Aurora Rod (Aeris)
Yoshiyuki (Sephiroth)

FF8
Valiant (Irvine)

FF9
Nothing!

FF10
Lullaby Rod (Yuna)
Official Ball (Wakka)

FF12
Platinum Shield (Basch)

FF13
Wild Bear (Snow)
Vega42s (Sazh)

FF14
Thyrus (Y'shtola)

FFT
Nothing!
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
I just got Desch's bracelet that gives the whole party an attack/defense buff. I was hoping for Arc's magic blink skill, but this is very neat. I already had Rikku's party-wide attack/resistance buff, so now I seem to be pretty well set.

No info on Enlir's spreadsheet yet about how good it is, but it seems to stack with +attack buffs at least, unlike Rikku's. My guess is that it's better than Hand of the Emperor, since it costs HP.
It's +35% ATK and DEF, making it marginally better than Hand of the Emperor and Apocalypse Shield for the exorbitant cost of 50% HP. It stacks everything but other ATK/DEF buffs, which there aren't many of yet. In the future, more characters get self-buff versions of it, though.

And you pulled on the wrong banner if you were goīng for Arc's Magic Blink.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Well, I did an 11-pull on the correct banner that yielded nothing (second 11-pull in a row with nothing), then did a 100-gem pull on it that also yielded nothing. Then I got mad because I really wanted at least something from FF3, so did a 100-gem pull on the other FF3 banner and got Desch's bracelet.

I haven't had a chance to actually try it out yet so I didn't know it cost 50% HP. Man. That's a lot. It's also weird because it's a +att buff but Desch is a magic user.
... 3 pulls in a row with zero 5*? Seriously? Granted this was a 1/2 price pull, but seriously?



Also, I'll share my character 5*'s too. I like Judes idea.

Core
Celebration Grimoire (Tyro)
Rune Staff (White Mage)

FF1
Sun Blade (Warrior of Light)

FF2
White Robe (Minwu)

FF3
Nothing!

FF4
Gungnir (Kain)

FF5
Nothing!

FF6
Valiant Knife (Locke)
Wing Edge+ (Locke)

FF7
Grand Glove (Tifa)

FF8
Twin Lance (Squall)
Gauntlet+ (Zell)
Machine Gun (Laguna)
Seifer's Coat (Seifer)

FF9
Ultima Sword (Steiner)

FF10
Nothing!

FF12
Demonsbane (Ashe)

FF13
Glaive (Fang)
Binding Rod (Vanille)

FF14
Nothing!

FFT
Kaiser Shield (Agrias)
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Got enough FF8 items?

For character-specific items, I find that realm doesn't really matter nearly as much as effect. Here's a different way of organizing them.

Single Target Damage
Lupine Barrage (Phys Damage, Self Boost) (Bartz)
Hail of Stones (Phys Damage, Interrupt) (Ramza)
Jecht Shot (Phys Water Damage) (Tidus)
Lancet (Phys Drain Damage) (Kain)
Froststrike (Phys Ice Damage) (Snow)

Area Damage
Leviathan (Mag Water Damage, Party Faith) (Garnet)
Shift Break (Phys Damage, Steal Power) (Zidane)
Dragon Fang (Phys Damage, Power Break) (Auron)
Deprotectga (Mag Damage, Armor Break) (Vanille)
Grenade Bomb (Phys Damage, Armor Break) (Barret)
Withering Winds (Mag Wind Damage, Magic Break) (Eiko)
Seiken Stock Break (Phys Holy Damage, Sap) (Beatrix)
Nightglow (Mag Dark Damage, Sap) (Golbez)
Doublecast Meteorite (Mag Damage) (Vivi)
Tides of Fate (Phys Water Damage) (Balthier)
The Sending (Mag Holy Damage) (Yuna)

Healing
War Dance (Party Heal, Party Boost) (Penelo)
Light Divine (Party Heal) (White Mage)
Phoenix Plunder (AOE Phys Fire Damage, Weak Party Heal) (Locke)
Celebration Grimoire (AOE Phys Damage, Weak Party Heal) (Tyro)

Party Buffs
Mighty Guard VIII (Shell, Haste, Major Regen) (Quistis)
Sentinel Grimoire (Def/Res +200%) (Tyro)
Hyper NulAll (Att +30%, Res +50%)
Selfless Spirit (Att/Def +35%)

Other
Advance (+250% attack, self-only) (Luneth)
Sentinel (Draw Fire, Lure Magic, Def +200%) (Pecil)

I have way too many AOE attacks.

The best ones I have in that list are War Dance, Hail of Stones, Sentinel Grimore, Hyper NulAll, and Mighty Guard VIII. Leviathan isn't bad either, but I almost never get to use it, because I have no single target magic soul breaks for it to buff.
author=LockeZ
Got enough FF8 items?


Funny thing is I'm not even a fan of FF8. Not sure why I pulled on it.
Abyss Evrae Altana mastery party:



I did not craft or hone any new abilities for this, but I did have an extra Curaga laying around. I had many leftover abilities at the end, so my hones were solid for this one, though I used Cure magic instead of holy spells during the first phase, to ensure I had my heavier nukes for the rest of the fight. I was hoping to get Holy up to R4 before doing this fight, but I was exactly one Major Holy Orb short.

I put my Esuna on Y'shtola and gave her both a hat and accessory with Petrify-resist, just to minimize the odds of getting fucked over during the second phase. Be aware that anybody who gets Petrified needs to be re-buffed when they're restored, or else they risk getting blasted by Photon Spray for 1500 per hit, so coordinate re-buffing and Esuna together.

I opted to give Tyro and Yuna a Poison-resist accessory, simply because those accessories also had +MAG and +RES, respectively. This probably didn't matter, especially since Yuna was beyond capping with Holy, so a Silence-resist accessory would've been better for her.

Tyro went with Ninja spells because those penetrate Evrae's massive RES, don't count against you for medals, and can help you knock down the mirrors during the second phase. Tyro was doing about 5k damage with Swift Bolt, thanks to Thunder Rod and the ninja-boosting RM.

Yuna capped for 10k. Aeris capped for 10k. Rosa hit for 9k with Diara because I gave her my best MND weapon and the +Holy RM. I probably could've capped Diara had I swapped Yuna and Rosa's loadouts, thanks to Yuna being Lv80.

During the third phase, your Esuna user must be on standby at all times. I did the final stretch without Stoneskin up because it was more important to cleanse Evrae's self-Poison to prevent her nightmare breath attack, otherwise you'll lose mastery (unless your damage is sick enough to max out your medals everywhere else, but this requires WHT-school, damage-oriented (S)SBs).

Note: Evrae's explosion at the end of phase 2 is tagged as physical, such that Physical Blink nullifies it.

LockeZ and I have a similar amount of uniques. I'm betting most players who started near the beginning have about 25 uniques. Also, Yuna's Sending will be useful for you on this Evrae Altana battle, and should cap easily so there's no downside to using Ace Striker.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
oh right htis topic

I got Lenna's Fires of War from lucky draw (30% Shout) which I'm very glad about and have already used multiple times. After all the fearmongering reddit has done over Garuda, I waited until Tornado Strike dropped today and then stacked HotE (RW) and FoW and BLEW THAT SHIT UP without any synergy weapons*. Time to do the rest of the nightmare dungeons (blasted Scarligmione this morning) and +++/ult/u+. And evrae. Ugh.

*technically the mages had the ff3 4* staff/rod for the cores, but those weren't the characters getting 9999 with wind jump and 8.5k with saint cross

I'm pretty sure my Teleport XIV on Minwu is WHT, so that'll be nice for Evrae. THanks for the write-up, seems managable with my abilities too.


Edit: Counting each 5* relic I have received WITH a unique SB (pretending all uncombined), I have 52. Double that for ALL 5* relics (including shared/no SB), probably, but I don't wanna count up again. I might spend too much.

EDIT2: AND NONE OF THEM ARE FF3 >=| I forget if I mentioned, but all I got from my ff3 draw was a fucking FF7 Butterfly Sword...
I don't think it's a lack of air damage that makes Garuda a problem. It's that he has the potential to hit you four times for like 2.5k damage before anybody acts, and Tornado Strike isn't going to do anything about that. Once you get through your initial rotation it's an easy fight. Tornado Strike seems neat, though. I had Bartz use it during one of the Abyss bosses this morning.

Teleport XIV is WHT. As a rule of thumb, unless it summons Bahamut or some other esper in the animation, it's probably a WHT limit break if it's a white mage character.

Also, you've got a lot of uniques and I was jealous until I considered how many gems that might cost.

Regarding FF7 off-banner items... In spite of FF7 being one of my strongest records, I've only pulled on an FF7 banner once, back when I got Crystal Glove. Aurora Rod was a daily draw, Barret's gun was off-banner, Yoshiyuki was from the festival, and Buster Sword my second lucky draw.

I was getting all excited to pull tonight, but then remembered that the dope banner is the second one... so I await Thursday.

I sorted my inventory by augment rank and counted the pages (40 per page). I have 77 natural 5* or better items, so about twice as many generics/shareds as uniques.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Jude
I sorted my inventory by augment rank and counted the pages (40 per page). I have 77 natural 5* or better items, so about twice as many generics/shareds as uniques.


I counted a 6* as two and a 7* as three, dunno if you did. I probably have like 40 or fewer unique uniques.

I got all my FF4 equipment from lucky draws. Like, literally all of it except for Rydia's whip from the very first soul breakfast. Pecil just really, really likes lucky draw, since I now have all of his equipment...

Odin killed me last night but I was tired so I'm not sure if I was just flailing about or if my party was bad. Gonna try again with Lunatic High instead of Oerba's Boon as my protectga source (I had Zell and Gilgamesh with SB-gen tools and they haste themselves with their SBs, everybody else was just backup -- I'll have to switch that up now since Nanaki hastes). Actually I should probably just do "Balthier uses Imperil Fire and the rest of us hit it for fire damage."

I only counted them as a single unique. If I split them then I have 80 5* items.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
"Balthier uses Imperil Fire and the rest of us hit it for fire damage" worked just fine for Odin. Edgar stacked his DEF boost and taunted while Shout RW did its magic.

I'll do Leviathan and Bahamut tonight, I guess. The lack of synergy scares me but I think I have the tools and exploitative elemental attacks to make them work.

If I do a few more elite dungeons, I can do an 11-pull on Kuja 2 instead of additional saving for BSSB fest. I might do it. Not sure.
Leviathan is really easy. Bahamut is straightforward but hits very hard, so just bring multiple forms of healing--I went with two drain abilities and Curaja, and still cut it close a few times (mostly because Steal HP was so weak with an off-record dagger).
Orb rush this weekend. Do the other stuff soon, I guess.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
LOL, only missed three medals (1 speed, 2 damage) even though I forgot Banishing Strike on Leviathan. Should be an easy win this time around. You weren't kidding, guy does barely anything...
Upgraded my Holy to Rank 4. I thought about saving for Saint's Cross instead, but decided I didn't want to wait for another 20 Major Holy Orbs to roll in. Besides, I have enough MND weapons that I'll be able to effectively use Holy in many records. Only four Major Wind Orbs away from Thief's Revenge R3. I'm optimistic that this weekend will be Holy and Wind.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
It's White, Lightning and Wind. I need ~15 more Holy orbs for Saint Cross R3...

I haven't made Holy at all yet. Diaga already tends to 9999 or close for me, and has full honeage.

Redid Leviathan properly and he got fucked. Have to finish Bahamut today, less worried now though.



Used Mighty Guard (VIII) RW.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Leviathan is easymode.

Bahamut is extremely simple and straightforward, he just has way too much HP. Resist the temptation to use up your abilities early - the last phase of the fight is the one with a timer on it.