FINAL FANTASY: RECORD KEEPER

author=Craze
I'm going with the bracers too. I've been craving a shared ATK buff SB.

Jeroen: I think FF4 and FF5 ones (NOT LENNA/GALUF they're in next event and/or free) are the rarest. FF1/2/3 also gets little love but most of those characters are free so there's little point.

If you're still unsure, why not type up the characters you don't have? That'd make it easier =P

I have yet to do the 110 difficulty VoM monsters and thus no Omega yet. I just wrapped up all of the FF7 bonus quests except the boss rush because JENOVA Death with only 3 party members is VERY SCARY.

I did the 3 elites and Hojo++ with Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth though. Hojo++ was laughably easy since I didn't have to master it this round. Sleep OP =P I actually brought a Black Materia RW instead of mitigation or attack buff.

But... seriously, any tips on the boss rush quest? I feel like I should bring in a Support 5* for Full Break on Jenny Nova but... who do I replace ??? Gah. Barret and Red are both L50 only. (I've already mastered the boss rush so I just need to -complete- it.) Maybe egg Vaan up a bit since he has actual stats? But he can't Full Break. asgiogoine

edit, for some helpful knowledge: i have FF7 Gold Sword, One Winged Angel, Turk Suit, and 4++ Crystal Bracer. This has done me well so far for Cloud/Aer/Seph but ...

Aeris is the most replaceable since you can put any white mage there. I think in your case, you definitely want a white mage as your third slot, since you don't have any weapons to support another damage dealer. Sephiroth is also highly replaceable. With such a small party, you need the most bang for your buck and Sephiroth is missing some key abilities.

Who you want to bring exactly depends on a few factors. Right now you have two good FF7 armors, so this depends on what options you have for your third. Do you have any armors with Shellga or Protectga? Use one of those. If not, do you have any armors with Cura? Use that. If you can't field a Shellga item, then how are your Eiko or Arc? If they are 50+ then consider using them as your white mage because they have an innate Shellga limit break. You can also run a support white mage, which includes characters like Terra, Yuna, and Y'shtola--do you have any limit breaks for them? Aeris, Terra, and Arc can bring Stop--and Aeris's innate limit break is a long duration stop. Yuna, Terra, and Y'shtola can bring Venom Buster. Terra and Y'shtola can bring Breakdowns. Terra can't bring Buffga, so you either need to cover that with somebody like Cecil or with an item limit break. Terra and Eiko can equip light armor or better. Choose something. I also remembered you have Vanille's staff. As a sage she can also use Stop effectively, in addition to giving you her staff's group heal. Consider using her with Shellga, Stop, and Garnet's Healer RM--then double up on Drain Strike/Steal HP on your damage dealers.

Katanas have a lot of good options now. You can either run a tank or something sustainable. How is your Vaan? How is your Balthier? If you're looking to make something sustainable, field some combination of Cloud and Balthier or Cloud and Vaan. Give them some combination of abilities like Drain Strike, Steal HP, Steal Power, Magic Breakdown, Tempo Flurry, and Venom Buster. Drain Strike and Steal HP make them independently sustainable. All bosses are vulnerable to poison, and the second boss in particular makes this important. With three members and your weapon options you can't do a mixed damage party--it's going to be all physical. Second boss's second form is going to be the long haul, since you want to save your abilities for Jenova. He's going to be highly resistant to physical damage so a combination of Slow and Poison will help you wear him down while minimizing damage received--like 2K per poison tick. For Jenova, Steal Power will mitigate some of the Red Light damage, which is pretty significant, and will also allow your Vaan or Balthier to do a lot of damage. If you want to drop Cloud, you could consider Bartz with Steal Power and Drain Strike, but I am assuming your Cloud is a very high level and is preferred (mine is like Lv67+10, so quite strong). If you don't run a tank, you -need- Protectga for Jenova's Red Light.

Tanking instead of sustaining is higher risk because Jenova will still do a lot of damage. I used Draw Fire alone on Cecil and Red Light would still hit for 1.2k twice, and Cecil could only heal himself for about 1.5k, so was highly reliant on Aura's super-Regen to help keep him alive. Since you will be running a proper white mage you'll be able to keep up with the damage, and will also be able to run Protectga as well. I am actually unsure if Red Light is a guaranteed hit or not since I've never tried, but you may be able to try Gilgamesh with Draw Fire and Retaliate, and then give your white mage Josef's Double Hit RM to fill the gaps.

If the game didn't fuck us out of Ingus's memory crystal, then you could use him since he can Draw Fire -and- Magic Breakdown.

If you aren't running a tank, put your highest defense item on your white mage. Eiko can use Turk Suit, for example. This is because Red Light does full damage to the backrow so there's a good chance your white mage will get smoked.

All bosses are also vulnerable to Stop, so it can be used on free turns.

I think the second boss will take the longest due to saving abilities for Jenova, and your RMs should support strong normal attacks. Good candidates: Squall's Gunblade, which nearly makes your normal attack as effective as Pound. Celes's Hand of the Victor that turns normal attacks into Blizzard Strike. Bard's Barrage one--I forget the name, but I always stick it on Paladin Cecil when he isn't running any damage abilities. Keep in mind that Barrage has some targeting unpredictability on the first boss, though.

I don't know everything about your roster or your items, but this is the party I would use with what I know:

Cloud - Gold Sword - Drain Strike - Venom Buster - Gunblade
Vaan - One Winged Angel - Magic Breakdown - Steal Power - Hand of the Victor
Arc - Some Staff - Curaga - Stop - Mako Might

Lunatic High or Sentinel's Guard/Stoneskin as your RW

At the second boss, if you have two meters then use Arc's Shellga--otherwise save it for Jenova. Whether or not you want to use both charges of Lunatic High on Jenova is up to you--if not I would use the first charge on the first boss just to put him down more quickly. Remember that Cloud can basically heal himself with Drain Strike, so prioritize Curaga on Vaan and Arc unless Cloud already has an action queued.

I think not using Shellga is pretty high risk. Double Tropic Fire is pretty nasty. I didn't realize the second boss changed forms based on a single attack--I assumed it was based on which type of damage had the greater sum. That certainly makes it easy to manipulate if you choose. Actually, you might as well just use Sepiroth since his OWA limit break blinds. Don't worry about hitting him with magic damage and just allow him to transition into his purple form, then blind him and coast.

I used Barret as well for the same reason you did, though mine is only Lv50 since I only recently got his gun. Actually, I have very few Lv60+ characters in general since I sort of shop around and don't focus on leveling up specific dudes.

My setup was this:

Lv67 Cloud - Buster Sword - Crystal Bracer - Pound - Tempo Flurry - Gunblade
Lv50 Barret - Gunarm Thing - Esthar Bracer - Magic Breakdown - Venom Buster - Hand of the Victor
Lv60 Cecil - Crystal Sword (Double Thunder Strike) - Adamant Bracer - Curaga - Draw Fire - Barrage RM

RW was Amarant's Aura (Shellga + Heavy Regen)

author=Craze
The non-elite half of events is just so fucking pointless once your guys are over, like, L30.

Well, Greater Growth Eggs are always nice to have.

I'm now at the point where I can get all the memory crystals in the elite dungeons, but when the difficulty starts ramping up to above 80 I usually get wiped, so I haven't seen any bonus battles yet. Looking forward to that whenever I get strong enough.

Heh. I've been using my eggs to get characters to level 60+, but now I'm saving them for the new ridiculous-difficulty content coming up.

Yeah, FFRK needs to get rid of the random ATB starts for boss fights. Start the boss at empty and the entire party at full every time. Or maybe tweak the boss AI so that the strongest event bosses spend the first round buffing themselves. Most of them don't really have buffs to use, but they could give them an "Oversoul" buff that doesn't really do anything except look neat, symbolize their immense power, and waste their first turn. It's really a problem when they balance the boss's damage to be almost-deadly when the player is fully buffed, and then randomly make the boss act before the player can buff vs. 50% of players.

What is Omega killing you with? You can get the accessory without mastering, if that's all you want. Get up mitigation and Omega Weapon tickles. You'll lose damage medals because you can't mitigate Wave Cannon, but you can survive it with lots of healing via Drain Strike and healing magic and what not.

Glade I picked the moogle bracers, because the candy cane is a mind rod which is dumb.

Did a 50-Mythril pull on phase 3, which I suspect I'll regret later since I may not get enough mythril to pull on FF5 before it goes away. No FF9 or FF10 gear, unfortunately, but I did get a Dragon Gloves bracer for FF4. I am pretty good on FF4 armors so this isn't a huge upgrade, but as a whole it's a weak area for me so any extra synergy helps. It also has fire resist so maybe that will be important later. No notable 4-star items but I did complete a FF5 Golden Shield, FF6 Main Gauche, and FF6 Stone Sword--none of which I'll ever use but I like finishing items. Also a few new additions including FF5 Javelin, FF4 Poison Axe, and FF6 Heavy Shield. So this pull was still good from a collection point of view.

Esuna doesn't really seem worth it since you'd have to cast it multiple times to heal everyone. I'm going to try with Advance + Retaliate and give Gilgamesh a pair of Silver Glasses to prevent blindness. Everyone else being blind will be harmless then. He'll still retaliate if they miss him.

That said I've been putting off Omega - and two of the fights needed to unlock it - because orbs orbs orbs. I might regret this when it comes down to the wire.