FINAL FANTASY: RECORD KEEPER

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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
FF12 challenge mission: "Hey I heard if we make a battle physical-damage only, we can include 528 different status effects." That battle took me four solid hours to beat.

Pro tips:
- Bring two white mages
- Have rank 4 ultra cure on both of them
- Oops that's impossible, so give one of them curaja instead, and just do the battle over and over until you don't get hit with silence I guess
- You can try silence resist accessories but they're almost all moderate resist so good luck. I only put one on the character with ultra cure.
- Have a medica, otherwise be fucked
- Multi break on Penelo, protectga on Larsa
- If possible, bring at least 4 back row characters. I couldn't because I needed Vaan's soul break.
- Give banishing strike and haste to Gabranth, but reset the fight if anyone gets slowed before he's done dispelling, because you can't afford to stop dispelling to cast haste on people other than him
- Don't bother hasting everyone, just haste people who get slowed
- If you have native hastega, do that instead, and you'll do way better than me, but bringing hastega as a roaming warrior is a bad plan because you'll probably need to cast it more than twice
- Have a really good AOE soul break, otherwise be fucked
- Blind the one that's blindable, it'll last the whole fight. Other statuses will last one round and are not worth it. If blind doesn't connect really quickly, reset the fight.
- Despite the lack of magical damage I still strongly recommend sentinel grimoire as your roaming warrior. Late in the battle, the enemies start using a powerful AOE attack that does 1400-2000 damage without wall, and all five of them use it right in a row. Phys blink isn't good enough because it only blocks one fifth of the damage. Regen isn't good enough because they keep removing it by poisoning you. Asylum might be ok if your timing is really good.

Most of my time was actually spent NOT resetting the fight and instead letting it play out and trying to win. In the process, I became intimately familiar with which scenarios were lost causes.
Mirak
Stand back. Artist at work. I paint with enthusiasm if not with talent.
9300
That sounds so exhausting and unfun.
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
Yeah. Doing the fight normally is way easier. The challenge mission is to do it using only FF12 characters. Some of the challenge missions are simpler, but but the ones that throw 10 different things at you are pretty over the top, because you can't bring the characters who are really capable of countering them.

The reward for beating a challenge mission is incredibly small though. It really is just for the challenge, as the name suggests. I actually like them a lot - it's like fighting Ruby and Emerald Weapon in FF7, or like fighting a raid boss in World of Warcraft, except there's a new one every week and you only have two weeks to figure it out.

I suppose it should surprise no one that the absurdly complex superbosses are my favorite part of FFRK, though. The frustration only makes victory more satisfying.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
I tried that Mandragora battle once, got raped, and went: Fuck it. I went through that shit for one of the nightmare dungeons before, that took me far too long and was only 140 or 150 difficulty. I'm not dealing with 5 enemies that all cast hastega on death. Not until the game gives us a dispelga anyway.

Also, the Apocalypse demon wall has entirely too much HP and defense, and far too many debuffs. What a bullshit fight. We did really well last time, and had it slowed for like 95% of the battle, and it still squished us right when we were about to kill it.
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
If you're looking for an easy nightmare dungeon to beat, I went in blind against Nightmare Atomos, and won on my first try.

Not as easy as Nightmare Valigarmanda, which was so easy that I had to do it five times just because I kept accidentally killing it before it switched to lightning weakness, and so I didn't get mastery. Though Valigarmanda is all about honing your summons. Atomos you kill using skills you already had honed anyway.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
I haven't tried Valigarmanda yet. I only have three nightmares left to go, Kaiser Dragon, Valigarmanda and Omega Weapon.

Tried Kaiser dragon a few times. You really have to bring down the dps on him very hard in the final phade or you just die. It doesn't help that you have to conserve crystal charges in phase two for his death ultima barrage as well, all while hoping you get lucky on the rng and he switches to the medal weaknesses early.
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
Edit: double post
Mirak
Stand back. Artist at work. I paint with enthusiasm if not with talent.
9300
Okay, i finally got protectga and shellga and my team is decked with awesome shit for the most part



Am i ready to take on things past heroic difficulty yet? Like, dungeons with 120 difficulty and such?
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
Yeah, looks like you're pretty much set for + and ++ (which are about equally difficult). You can probably handle +++ also.

If I were you, my next objective would be to get Tyro's materia that makes you start with 1 soul gauge bar already filled up. Cloud also has a materia that does the same thing. I believe you get them both by first breaking Tyro/Cloud's level cap a second time from 65 to 80, and then after you do, there's a 1% chance to get the materia after any battle when you have them in your party.

Those two materia are insanely good for characters with buffs, especially Sentinel Grimoire or any kind of party-wide haste, because they let you start the battle by casting the buff immediately. In particular, if you start the battle with haste, then everyone gets their soul breaks faster, because your soul gauge goes up every time you take an action. This means that Tyro will almost always be able to cast Sentinel Grimoire again just before the first one wears off, so you'll have it constantly for the entire battle.

You don't really need to get that materia for ++ and +++ battles, but you probably will for ultimate battles. Or at least it makes things a lot easier. It's fortunately pretty easy to get. If you don't typically use Cloud, you can put him in your party during the really easy fights at the beginning of each event. His materia will have the same chance to drop there as anywhere else.

If you haven't crafted Power Breakdown and Magic Breakdown yet, you'll want those too pretty soon - though there are a lot of roaming warriors you can summon that do the same things. Armor Breakdown is a lot less important, and Mental/Mind Breakdown aren't worth crafting.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
I'd add Banishing Strike to the list of Prot/Shell/Power BD/Magic BD. Those five abilities are the only 4*s you need. (Not that Lifesiphon or Curaja or Valefor or Dark Bargain or etc.etc.etc. are bad, but with the possible exception of Fir/Thunder/Blizzaja, they're luxury.)

More useful RMs to farm:
  • Tyro/Cloud, as LockeZ said
  • Ramza/Tidus - Battleforged/Ace Striker turn every ability into Lifesiphon, thankfully also amplifying Lifesiphon/weakness hits' power as well
  • Squall - Lionheart doubles(?) SB gauge gain form being hit -- great with Draw Fire/Lure Magic/Gaia Cross

For stuff that's just generally nice to have: Beatrix/Decil have significant Sword dmg+; Quina has significant Support dmg+; Relm/Cid Highwind/Palom/OK have +20% exp up chance (Luneth has +40% exp up chance, but you have to get him to L99); Vanille casts Cure instead of Attack (hers is stronger than Garnet's); Selphie casts Dia instead of Attack; Vivi casts Dinky Little Spell instead of Attack. Ninja Edit: Ashe and Serah trade ATK for MGC. Technically Vivi's Devotion is better, but I don't like the damage risk so I use Ashe/Serah's instead ;V

There are lots of niche RMs, but those are pretty generally useful, especially with lower hones like you probably have.

Note that Squall/Quina/a few others require an IN-REALM drop first -- so, to get Squall's "middle" RM you need to fight IN AN FF8 REALM. Annoying. You can check this in-game, thankfully.
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
Banishing Strike is really good, but since your A team has four white magic users, you can probably get away with bringing regular old Dispel instead until you get the orbs to craft it. Banishing Strike is a dispel ability that also does holy-elemental physical damage, and doing damage is obviously better than not doing damage, but Dispel is a 3-star ability so it's a lot cheaper.
Mirak
Stand back. Artist at work. I paint with enthusiasm if not with talent.
9300
man with all these necessary spells there doesm't seem to be space for fun experimenting

also how do you get second tier memory crystals? are these only available in events?
Thanks to the anniversary party thing i got a few crystals for upgrading heroes from 80 to 99 but i guess i missed the giveout for 65 to 80 crystals.
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
There are a few second tier memory crystals from heroic dungeons but most of them are from events. Every event gives out a few. For example the current FF9 event gives out both the first and second tier memory crystals for Amarant, Kuja, Vivi, Beatrix, and Garnet, plus one blank crystal you can use on anyone. You get these from the difficulty 99 and 110 battles.

Keep in mind that Protectga and Shellga are the only "necessary" skills that you need in EVERY fight. Some fights will require power breakdown and others will require magic breakdown, and a few fights will expect you to have both. Some fights will require a form of dispel, but most won't. Other bosses will sometimes require more unusual things, like inflicting a certain status effect, or bringing haste or reflect, or using only lightning elemental attacks.

In some cases you don't really need to do that stuff to win, just to get the mastery medals. But the mastery medals for Ultimate and Ultimate+ fights are almost always clues for strategies that are good to use anyway.

At the highest level, it's definitely more about figuring out how to win than "fun experimenting." Maybe you're expecting it to keep playing like FF5, where there are 20 different strategies to pick from and you can beat every fight in the game with any of them. And, I mean, there are plenty of easier bosses that do work like that, but there also will always be bosses that you're just barely strong enough to beat. To beat those bosses you need to really understand all the tools you've been given and use them correctly, and also figure out how each boss works.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Yeah, it really depends on the fight and your SBs. You have Wall, so if a fight only has a smidge of attack damage coming in, you could probably survive with Wall and Magic Breakdown (unless it's U+/U++ in which case STACK EVERYTHING EVER). I don't even bother with Wall usually any more -- if you get a magic blink for example, that's all the magic mitigation you need against a jerk like Seifer.

Like LockeZ said, it's all about taking what you have and piecing it together.

Beatrix with Gaia Cross + Lionheart RM + <Protectga> is enough physical mitigation and damage to just spam SBs the whole fight, for example, if it's something like the Shiva Sisters where most damage is single-target. That'd free you up for more exciting abilities. And as you slowly unlock 5* abilities and sloooooowwwwwlyyyy (it's slow for all of us, even Week One-ers) unlock 6* abilities, you'll have more and more access to weirdo experimental strategies.

There are tools for a party of a white mage and four dragoons, if you really wanted, or for magic-slinging ninjas, or a horde of Monks and Thieves who don't even need a white mage for healing. Just keep fiddling, especially in lower-level dungeons =)
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
Oh my god, Infinite Nemesis.

What an unbelievable fucking troll fight. Thanks for the tips, Dr. Mog.

(I love that in Japan, they gave out "apology mythril" to apologize for that fact that Nemesis can be defeated. I don't know why we didn't get that, it was really funny. Or the april fools day event!!!!!)
Jeroen_Sol
Nothing reveals Humanity so well as the games it plays. A game of betrayal, where the most suspicious person is brutally murdered? How savage.
3885
Wow, this thread is a blast from the past.

I haven't had Record keeper installed for what, two years now? I can barely even understand my own posts in this thread anymore.

Time flies.