JUDE'S PROFILE

Why not just hit your retaliator yourself before he uses Retaliate?

Why not give Cecil Renewing Cure instead of Cura? Higher potency and Regen. Are you already running a heavy regen?

During the last phase, don't even bother healing anybody other than Cecil, even if he's at full HP and you're precasting.

Flare Strike is a fine ability. It just competes with better abilities for the orbs. And as you said, when you're using Spellblades it's usually to hit for 10k with an elemental weakness or for sustain reasons with Drain Strike. Also, spellblade abilities scale with Attack, so using a melee-ranged rod that has low Attack from the back row is a bad idea. It doesn't rely on Magic at all, only Attack. Give Celes a sword and put her up front with spellblades, or give her a rod and equip black magic... She can fill either role, has great stats, and one of the very best default limit breaks in the game.

I prefer symmetric, but asymmetric has some significant advantages that you should factor. It allows you a lot more flexibility with your formulas, stats, and abilities that player characters have. All you need to do is take a snapshot of the overall power level you expect a player's party to be at, and then derive enemy stats from that. The player's power level can be pretty arbitrary, freeing up a lot of the energy you would otherwise spend finely tuning a system where both sides follow the same rules while providing a compelling, fair challenge. Hero Alex does 2000 damage right now, and I want this enemy to take about five hits before expiring, so I'll give him 10,000 HP. Hero Alex has 500 HP and I want this enemy to kill him in 5 hits, so I'll have this enemy deal 100 damage. You can constantly be moving the bar to make the battles "feel" right, even if they don't make sense numerically. It's also effective for drama. In games like Valkyrie Profile, they can really communicate that your heroes are seriously powerful dudes because they can do tens of thousands of damage with a single attack, even though they only have a few thousand HP themselves.

I looked it up. Sentinel is +200% Defense and lasts 30 seconds. Unique status type ID, so it will stack with everything. To compare, Draw Fire is +100% Defense and has a 25 second duration... Obviously you can run both, but if the content was do-able with the 100% from Draw Fire, you should be set just using Sentinel and that allows you to use something like Armor Strike or maybe giving Cecil a white spell. Should be useful and sustainable with Lionheart... especially during the last phase when Vossler starts attacking almost once per second, many of those attacks being three or four hits each.

This sprung up on reddit today, which is where I got the details: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFRecordKeeper/comments/44xu8c/pdf_compilation_of_game_info_v134_the_stuff_you/. Will be very useful for me, moving forward.

This morning, to make up for my luck during the weekend orb fest, I procured two Major Black and one Major Power orbs from the daily. So that makes me pretty happy. Only one Major Black Orb away from Rank 3 Flare... still haven't crafted Meteor, which I mildly regret not focusing on, but it's not like Flare is bad.

I'm filled with a tremendous amount of indecision when it comes to the next month or two of banners. For once, I need things from most of them and want things from some, and there isn't nearly enough mythril to go around. I should start planning now. I think this is my prioritization:

1. FFT. Basically every item on this banner is pretty dope. The two standouts are Ramza's Scream, which is Hastega, +50% Boostga, and heavy Regen in one package. Equally good is an instant group cure that does 40% of max HP. Yuffie has similar but she's a weird magic ninja that's harder to slot in many group setups, whereas a support character with Lifesiphon follows you almost everywhere. I like to use Yuna as a summoner with a clutch heal pretty often, so having a support who can do the same is pretty great.

2. FF2. My synergy here is really weak. My best armor here is a 4++ Golden Shield, and we all know how great shields are. I have a 4-star dagger and a 4++ wind sword or whatever it's called. That's it, outside of a shitload of 2-star items that are there just to fill out my collection. Banner has a lot of neat items, but I'm most interested in Minwu's staff, which has an instant group cure, and Leon's Hand of the Emperor which is my favorite RW when my group already has all of my defensive buffs covered. Gordon's shield might be amazing depending on the duration. It has the same status effect as Mog's scarf (group Attack/Magic breakdown) but also with a damage component. Gordon was also recently buffed so he isn't made of paper anymore.

3. FF5. A shot at a powerful Runic weapon for Exdeath. A Hastega, 30% Boostga staff for Lenna, which gives me some Boostga flexibility between her and Drunk Cecil if I need another white mage or whatever. Like all of Faris's weapons are good. I haven't pulled on an FF5 banner since the very first Lenna event which got me Judgement staff (generic 5-star Mind stick).

4. FF10. I haven't pulled on an FF10 banner since the very first one that netted me Wakka's Official Ball. I still have decent items here due to a Lullaby Rod from a Lucky Banner, and just random ass pulls like Emerald Bracer (uncertain which banner) and Variable Steel (FF12 banner). So, it's just fallen behind a smidge and a little bump wouldn't hurt. The items are pretty good too.

5. FF6. Not the current one, but the next one. I don't need FF6 items at all, but my heart would burst if I could get Celes's next Runic weapon. I'd rather use her over Exdeath for that purpose, but prioritize FF5 because I need those items more overall. I might be able to afford FF5, but since it's around the corner then it will only be just barely and will happen only if there's a weekend orb fest on Friday. I will for sure pull on this banner if I am unable to pull on FF5. It's also got really terrible consolation prizes like Terra's SSB and Kefka's Hastega/Faithga cape. Also, FF6 is the best, even if it's wonky.

6. FF7. I just think having one of those snazzy new limit breaks would be nice.