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The CM was a bit easier than I expected, though mostly because I had the weapon synergy to go strong double-mage. Minwu's and Jofef's medica effects also meant that I was effectively immortal the entire fight. Every time I bring one of my instant cast medicas to a fight, I always get surprised just how good it is to throw out 3k healing on everyone without waiting time. Josef was mostly useless, though. Not that I had anyone better for the slot. 
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Oct 24, 2016 20:35
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I brought Firion to the U+ as my sole physical fighter just because I have Masamune. It was funny to see all the MISS messages still do damage. Dude is a beast. Otherwise I cleared both the U+ and U++ with largely mage teams, the latter with all mages. Sheepsong RW for both. No SG but brought Relm's Portrait of Lakshmi and Eiko's Prayer of the Lost. Worked well enough for mastery. I need more Sheepsong friends though, refreshing to find more was a pain 
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Oct 24, 2016 20:36
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ApplesandOranges posted:It's basically Esthar terminators on 'roids but with a common weakness. If you have SG/SSII or Pecil BSB of course it'll be easy. For most other people they might actually be struggling with the incoming damage, especially on wave 3. I thought I could trick the mobs and Draw Fire with Pecil and self-healing. NOPE!
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Oct 24, 2016 20:38
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Ugh not having a mage team makes so many of these Ultimate fights so frustrating and basically impossible :/ Lamia Queen with a physical team doesn't even seem doable, especially since she keeps charming my healer and putting people to sleep / confusing them right before SBs go off and stuff. I don't mind that the game requires different strategies, but these "have a bunch of good mages leveled up with skills honed or lol" checks are kinda annoying, because it doesn't really seem like the reverse happens very much. I haven't been playing for long at all, but I can't recall any fights where if you had a mage team you just couldn't really win. With my XP coming from pretty much only Sundailies and not having enough orbs to create / hone good mage spells, it feels like I'm going to keep getting stuffed on certain events for quite a while still. I've got like 8 physical BSBs now and not a single mage one, and all of my mage characters are sitting around level 45-50 because there's no reason to ever use them for anything other than XP farming right now.
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Oct 24, 2016 21:21
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Ugh not having a mage team makes so many of these Ultimate fights so frustrating and basically impossible :/ We've just had a handful of fights where mages are actually pretty good and usable recently. We spent like good 6 months worth of ultimates where mages were basically unusable, because they simply didn't have the tools to do as much damage as Shout meta. Introduction of imperils, enelements, double-agas, faithaga+hastega effects, etc changed things. But it's definitely very hone heavy to really get going. That said, 8 physical BSB's sounds like you should be able to do it. In terms of firepower, that is a lot. Have you tried the reflect tactic, where you reflect her so that she can't Blink herself?
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Oct 24, 2016 21:33
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If you have a lot of physical BSB's the U+ is doable. Soul Break intro attacks never miss and if you bring a shout RW you should be able to do pretty good damage after applying debuffs. Also bring lifesiphon since it never misses. Even without reflecting the blink it's possible without using magic attacks.
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Oct 24, 2016 21:41
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Ugh not having a mage team makes so many of these Ultimate fights so frustrating and basically impossible :/  It's not impossible, but I don't recommend it if you have the option otherwise. Granted it would have been easier if I'd brought a Shout RW instead of Selphie's Burst but I wasn't to make sure I could dispel her reliably early on. All the same I mostly won because I have Unsung Hero for Ramza, which pretty reliably took out her Blink buff. After that it was mostly a matter of smacking anyone that got confused. Now to see how hard I spank the Black Knights with Knight Protector, Unsung Hero and Dagger of Resolve. 
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Oct 24, 2016 21:44
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SageAcrin posted:Huh, at those figures that's close to entirely a downside, albiet a small one. Eating 12 turns of magic to the dome is a very long fight, let alone 20. You're reading it wrong, and are also wrong. 1. You only need to be targeted by a damage-dealing magical attack 5 times to be exactly the same as a baseline OSB. Chances are that will happen before you even get your SB bar charged up since Celes can't use either Lifesiphon or Wrath. 2. 12 magic hits is really easy to get to. Most bosses spam magic, and Celes can use Lure Magic for single target stuff. It's only a downside for the very rare pure/almost pure physical fight. The vast majority of bosses are almost entirely magical.
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Oct 24, 2016 21:48
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Attestant posted:We've just had a handful of fights where mages are actually pretty good and usable recently. We spent like good 6 months worth of ultimates where mages were basically unusable, because they simply didn't have the tools to do as much damage as Shout meta. Introduction of imperils, enelements, double-agas, faithaga+hastega effects, etc changed things. But it's definitely very hone heavy to really get going. Hah, didn't think of that reflect trick, gonna try that out. One of the issues is that it seems like Blink is the first move she uses every time, and it goes off before anyone would have a chance to set up reflect, so I'd have to wait out the first cast at least. I feel like I have enough firepower, but she keeps doing that AoE attack that puts people to sleep, and then casting charm twice in a row. And without fail it seems to put my attackers to sleep as their SBs are charging and / or confuse my healer right before an important heal. I just don't have enough orbs to hone stuff - my Lifesiphon is at 2, and my Banishing Strike is at 1, so I can't reliably get rid of her Blink since I only get 2 attempts and they are almost assuredly going to miss. I keep getting her down to like 30% and then I'm out of gas because all of my non-SB skills and burst commands are missing, and then it just takes a couple unlucky turns where my healer gets confused / put to sleep and suddenly someone is dead and the fight is basically over. I wasn't around for the last Orbfest so my hones are just total poo poo and I'm not sure what to do about that. I still have a lot of dungeons left, but maybe I should be farming dailies instead for a while? The only other option would seem to be breaking down major orbs and I'm pretty sure that's a terrible idea.
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Oct 24, 2016 21:52
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Zurai posted:You're reading it wrong, and are also wrong. 12 enemy turns is still around eight or nine player turns tops, assuming Hastega. That's a non-trivial amount of time to build up all of a 1x boost on most OSBs, and it makes it worse at being an option for early blitzing down of a single target in a multi-target fight-a very good use for OSBs. (Now, granted; Celes gets neither Lifesiphon nor Wrath. There's a valid argument her OSB is not the best candidate for that.) Also, despite what you're saying, even the most magic spammy boss (pick one, I'll go look up the AI on it if you like) usually cap out around 70%-80% magic rate every turn. (A few Nightmares are exceptional in this, I think... where Celes is bad for a lot of reasons. Otherwise, I'm thinking of Meltigemini U++ here. Which, granted, that would have kicked rear end for as that's a slog where multiple targets do literally nothing but pelt you with spells. But this entire FF2 event has Emperor requring you to Magic Lure/Runic to get a decent rate-when he's not buffing himself, it's 70% of his turns that he casts offense magic if his buffs aren't up, and he has scripted buffs and his scripted Elixir-and everyone else is physical. FF7, U+ Zombie Dragon, you get hit by four Pandora's Boxes and an occasional few Shadow Flares-if you get hit by 12 spells during that you've screwed up. Snake, same thing, he's countering with Betas, not using standard spells, if you got hit 12 times you screwed up. Ultima Weapon U++, spends 40-50% of the time stepping on you-takes over 20 turns on average to reach a bonus in damage. You get the idea.) On the other hand, and I want to be very clear on this point; None of this really matters and I just enjoy theoretical babble-at most it's a damage boost slightly above 15% normal for an OSB, after 20 spells, and at worst it's 7% below-so if you want to see it as an advantage, more power to you, maybe you tank harder and play more methodically than I do. It's pretty minor regardless. The important thing is that it's Holy/Wind, and those elements kick rear end. This is the huge screaming take-away for me. I'm actually curious if that's better, on an average of Ultimates over the course of recent JP, than Holy/NE; Wind's rarely resisted and feels like it's weak more often than usual for the non-big-three elements. Hell, I think Locke's OSB recently is 10x Fire/Holy, quickcast, and I pretty much cheered that. Holy combo elements are very strong, in my opinion. SageAcrin fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Oct 24, 2016 |
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Oct 24, 2016 22:15
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Hah, didn't think of that reflect trick, gonna try that out. One of the issues is that it seems like Blink is the first move she uses every time, and it goes off before anyone would have a chance to set up reflect, so I'd have to wait out the first cast at least. I feel like I have enough firepower, but she keeps doing that AoE attack that puts people to sleep, and then casting charm twice in a row. And without fail it seems to put my attackers to sleep as their SBs are charging and / or confuse my healer right before an important heal. I just don't have enough orbs to hone stuff - my Lifesiphon is at 2, and my Banishing Strike is at 1, so I can't reliably get rid of her Blink since I only get 2 attempts and they are almost assuredly going to miss. Yeah, sounds like your issue isn't that mages would be better, but that you just have bad hones. Depending on where you are with stamina (100+?), I'd start looking in to doing some dailies exclusively. Old wisdom is to never skip Tuesdaily (power + black) and Sundaily, while doing events and dungeons especially on weaker days like Thursday, or days with orbs you're currently not needing. Set honing goals and focus on the dailies that would advance those. As for breaking Major orbs, that's not a bad idea at all actually. Having a solid base of 3* and 4* abilities is an important step in actually being able to finish content that rewards 5*, so you're effectively spending orbs to get more orbs. Most 5* skills are still a luxury, and hardly required for progression. They tend to be more valuable for Cid's Mission use, which is basically extreme endgame anyways. The only exception to this is probably Full Break, but even then you probably have some BSB's in that big pile of yours, that let's you stack debuffs with breakdowns. Basically, don't be afraid to convert orbs lower, so you can get a solid set of bread and butter 3* and 4* skills set up. After that work on Full Break, then other 5* skills. As for orbfests, hopefully we'll be due one soon near holiday seasons. Those really help kickstarting an accounts hones.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:17
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Man I'm highly considering just ending the ultimate++ ffix battle. So what if I miss one ice orb. I mean, yeah I need them but this is annoying.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:25
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I wasn't around for the last Orbfest so my hones are just total poo poo and I'm not sure what to do about that. I still have a lot of dungeons left, but maybe I should be farming dailies instead for a while? The only other option would seem to be breaking down major orbs and I'm pretty sure that's a terrible idea. Yeah, unless you're really short on gil there's no downside to converting orbs. 1 major = 10 greater = 100 regular = 10 greater = 1 major - there's no orbs lost from converting, so it's better to turn the orbs into what you need now rather than missing out on rewards while you save for abilities you can't afford.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:28
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Hah, didn't think of that reflect trick, gonna try that out. One of the issues is that it seems like Blink is the first move she uses every time, and it goes off before anyone would have a chance to set up reflect, so I'd have to wait out the first cast at least. What I ended up doing was sticking Zell's (?) 50% chance to start with full ATB on Gordon with Reflect so you can beat the first Blink cast without excessive S/L-ing. Gordon only had an R2 Full Break in the other slot so I would leave him at Full ATB for knocking people out of Sleep or Confusion. Didn't even need the Shared Medicas I had on Josef (ATK and DEF Breakdowns) and Minwu, but I got Leon's BSB and Leila's SSB for damage and mitigation purposes so this might not go as smoothly for you.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:48
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Schwartzcough posted:Yeah, unless you're really short on gil there's no downside to converting orbs. 1 major = 10 greater = 100 regular = 10 greater = 1 major - there's no orbs lost from converting, so it's better to turn the orbs into what you need now rather than missing out on rewards while you save for abilities you can't afford. Oh yeah, much as I was pleased to finally makes a Saint's Cross, I can't help but notice that I get way more overall damage out of a Lifesiphon R5 or a 4* Spellblade R4. They're still useful and aspirational but getting one that you won't be able to hone for several months afterwards won't actually make much difference.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:48
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The common thread between my victories seems to be "Selphie's BSB is secretly amazing." She completely embarrassed Nightmare Evrae, I took out Lamia Queen with the power of neverending dispels, and then my party for Black Knights was, uh...WHT meta.  Y'shtola/Relm/Tyro/Selphie with guest star Maria because she can Faith herself. Y'shtola did her usual Wall shenanigans and then just used Protectga and spammed Curaja, Tyro used Multi Break and the ATK down dance, Selphie used her BSB entry to weaken the waves and the attack command to hit the one stronger knight (plus the +MND buff!) and Relm used...Minwu BSB RW as my hastega and primary offense, and Alexander when it was down. Maria just spammed Ruinga/Chain Stonega until her BSB was up and then killed poo poo.It worked really well. White mages are secretly terrifying on holy weak fights.
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Oct 24, 2016 22:51
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Ugh not having a mage team makes so many of these Ultimate fights so frustrating and basically impossible :/ I did beat Lamia Queen CM with a Shout team, but had to hone up Pound for it. You really do have to get lucky with the statuses though. If you've been playing for a while, you should have a Sleep-resist and Confuse-resist accessory, both from FFI.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:11
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Zurai posted:You're reading it wrong, and are also wrong. Don't forget that Celes has Runic. Like a lot of OSBs it's made with the intent of comboing with different SB, in this case her two Runic Relics.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:15
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Not sure if I posted here, but I made an 11-pull on FF2 Banner 1. 3/11 Sun Blade (II) (Woop!) Gungnir (II) Dancing Dagger (II) Needless to say I was happy with my pull and intend to do an 11-pull on the second banner when I get some more mythril.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:33
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pichupal posted:What I ended up doing was sticking Zell's (?) 50% chance to start with full ATB on Gordon with Reflect so you can beat the first Blink cast without excessive S/L-ing. Gordon only had an R2 Full Break in the other slot so I would leave him at Full ATB for knocking people out of Sleep or Confusion. I'll probably take this Reflect idea for my second attempt. First just couldn't deal enough damage, Maria and Leon and Minwu can't do enough damage without synergy magic weapons. Leila with Steal Power is a nice alternative to a missable Power Breakdown though, for those who do run mage teams.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:46
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Dr Pepper posted:Don't forget that Celes has Runic. On a character with no native gauge-building options. Ideally you'd want the full three gauges - one for Runic/Indomitable, one for Maria's Song and its enholy, and one for the OSB. That's not gonna happen on someone like Celes in most fights unless you have an Entrust bot.
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Oct 24, 2016 23:47
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The dollar Masamune was clutch in my CM mastery. I'm very glad I went with Reflect, because I don't know how the hell you'd hit Lamia Queen if she's got Blink on, her base evasion is crazy. I had Maria as the backup plan with R3 Chain Blizzaga/Firaga bouncing off of whoever received the reflected Blink. Unfortunately it ended badly on a few attempts, with her nuking Firion and Leon for 6000 x2 hits if I didn't remember to select the reflected party member. With that and getting lucky on statuses not sticking, it was fairly straightforward. I also decided to take on the Ult++ with a synergy team - holy synergy. Beatrix w/ Lightbringer, Cecil w/ Excalibur, Selphie w/ Strange Vision, Aerith w/ Wizer Rod, and I threw in Ramza for the native Shout. RW was Sentinel's Grimoire. It was glorious! First time I've ever melted an Ultimate (or stronger) fight and it was so beautiful. And now, I can afford to blow my remaining load on Larsa Banner 1. Yay!
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Oct 25, 2016 01:41
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Debuff Lucky Banner is tomorrow with the Mote Dungeon.
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Oct 25, 2016 02:04
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Thank you guys for the tips! I was able to take down the U+ and got Champion by 1 medal. Tense as hell and basically came down to getting super lucky on who she hit with statuses. Still put my attackers to sleep right before their SBs like 5 times, and one of my two Full Breaks missed even after reflecting Blink, which pissed me off a bit, but she used Charm like a dozen times and confuse only stuck twice somehow. There was a scary point where everyone was below half health and Selphie's medica was charged, but she was asleep, and my strongest attacker was confused. Then she did that AoE hit and knocked everyone out of it just in time. Ended up breaking down a couple major orbs and used them on two R2 copies of Lifesiphon, which was a major help. Gonna try to take down my first ever U++ next, I guess!
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Oct 25, 2016 03:06
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Welp, lesson learned. Don't use Selphie's BSB on phase two of Nightmare Evrae Altana. 
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Oct 25, 2016 03:14
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Man I must've got really lucky with Lamia. She didn't manage to hit me with a single status effect the entire fight, with every round out of two was her refreshing her blink, which made no difference whatsoever.
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Oct 25, 2016 03:16
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Well huh, that U++ was really, really easy compared to the U+.  Guessing this is not typically how U++ fights go? Having Beatrix's BSB + Pecil on the RW just mulched them.
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Oct 25, 2016 03:35
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I wished I would've thought to bring Pecil BSB as a RW for the U++. Instead I had Zidane with Battleforged just spamming his BSB to do damage, with Gilgamesh Ineffectively using his bsb retalliate and Saints cross to munch things down.
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Oct 25, 2016 03:36
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Twelve by Pies posted:Welp, lesson learned. Don't use Selphie's BSB on phase two of Nightmare Evrae Altana. "Huh, I was planning on doing that, why not?" *Looks over Soul Break again.* "I don't see an..y... 100% Inst... oh. oh." I'm so sorry.
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Oct 25, 2016 03:42
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Twelve by Pies posted:Welp, lesson learned. Don't use Selphie's BSB on phase two of Nightmare Evrae Altana. yeah i made the same mistake. i'm kinda suspecting that whole reason it has the KO effect was to ensure that it wouldn't cheese evrae too badly
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Oct 25, 2016 04:13
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Twelve by Pies posted:Welp, lesson learned. Don't use Selphie's BSB on phase two of Nightmare Evrae Altana. I had to look up the BSB and Evrae Altana to get what happened to you. I'm glad I did. 
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Oct 25, 2016 04:17
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Reraise Nightmare beaten, but not mastered, because it's a loving dumb fight. Sorry that I don't have infinite loving casts of Esuna since it can apparently poison itself at will in the last fight. Oh you just cured poison from it and now your Esuna caster is at 0 ATB? TIME TO REPOISON MYSELF. Yeah, I guess you're supposed to bring two Esuna casters but gently caress that, I barely had enough hones to beat the thing as it was.SageAcrin posted:"Huh, I was planning on doing that, why not?" Yeah I didn't think of that either. Nothing else seems to be that great as far as holy bursts on top of that. Cecil's is hampered by the fact that everyone's going to be in the back row, plus the lenses seem to have pretty high defense, and Hope's BSB does pathetic damage. The first burst command is really good but using it on Evrae Altana results in a counter Tail Screw so that's unpleasant. Probably the best RW to bring would be MG VIII or Sheepsong (even though it won't increase Diaga's damage). Basically just something to put haste on the party.
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Oct 25, 2016 04:18
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CM+ mastered without any 5* RS items, huzzah. Another few days of to-pull-or-not-to-pull on a good banner awaits... Might be time to catch up on the Nightmare backlog, I'm a full 6 behind now.
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Oct 25, 2016 04:25
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for CM+ I just used a full ATB RM on someone with reflect so she'd never have blink up in the first place
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Oct 25, 2016 04:30
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Twelve by Pies posted:Reraise Nightmare beaten, but not mastered, because it's a loving dumb fight. Sorry that I don't have infinite loving casts of Esuna since it can apparently poison itself at will in the last fight. Oh you just cured poison from it and now your Esuna caster is at 0 ATB? TIME TO REPOISON MYSELF. Yeah, I guess you're supposed to bring two Esuna casters but gently caress that, I barely had enough hones to beat the thing as it was. The answer is Minwu burst!
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Oct 25, 2016 04:32
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Well that U+ CM was a pain in the rear end with virtually no synergy or SBs.   Managed to get reflect up before she used Blink thanks to the Raw Power RM, but I still missed a bunch of times. What's worse, the blinks reflected onto my party didn't seem to help me dodge a single one of her attacks, but it made it almost impossible to clear statuses because I'd keep missing my own guys. Both Shouts ran out at about 33% health left, and then my hones ran out, and then it was just a horrible slog and I almost died. But I won without pulling on the banner, so HA! (oh god please be gentle Mote dungeon). Twelve by Pies posted:Yeah I didn't think of that either. Nothing else seems to be that great as far as holy bursts on top of that. Cecil's is hampered by the fact that everyone's going to be in the back row, plus the lenses seem to have pretty high defense, and Hope's BSB does pathetic damage. The first burst command is really good but using it on Evrae Altana results in a counter Tail Screw so that's unpleasant. Probably the best RW to bring would be MG VIII or Sheepsong (even though it won't increase Diaga's damage). Basically just something to put haste on the party. What about Aerith's BSB? It's an AoE holy damage + curaga SB, and the bursts are a single-target curaja (also harms undead) that boosts MND by 30%, and a cure-medica. Edit: or yeah, Minwu's BSB is even better. Schwartzcough fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Oct 25, 2016 |
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Oct 25, 2016 04:32
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Twelve by Pies posted:Reraise Nightmare beaten, but not mastered, because it's a loving dumb fight. Sorry that I don't have infinite loving casts of Esuna since it can apparently poison itself at will in the last fight. Oh you just cured poison from it and now your Esuna caster is at 0 ATB? TIME TO REPOISON MYSELF. Yeah, I guess you're supposed to bring two Esuna casters but gently caress that, I barely had enough hones to beat the thing as it was.
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Oct 25, 2016 04:35
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I love multi target ultimates and the ones that are holy weak. The ++ was a bloodbath. I kind of wish they could have put all twelve out at once. Even took Aegis Strike for a spin. Also gave me the last Black Crystal I needed for Meltdown. Kaiser Dragon Mastery can get hosed for now.
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Oct 25, 2016 04:35
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Schwartzcough posted:Well that U+ CM was a pain in the rear end with virtually no synergy or SBs. Nice, you def skipping the banner? What's your current stash and next few planned 11x pulls?
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Oct 25, 2016 04:39
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kalensc posted:Nice, you def skipping the banner? What's your current stash and next few planned 11x pulls? I'm going to try skipping it, anyway. However, the II mote dungeon looks perfectly designed to not work well with the FFII cast. Multi-target in a realm with no summoners or dancers (or Samurai, because Firion didn't get his buff for some reason). Two of the targets are vulnerable to sleep but there are no Ninjas or Bards. So I dunno, that mission might be rough. And I'm down to 458 mythril after some pretty bad pulls. In both Global and Japan I'm just getting 1/11s left and right, so I just kinda want to not pull again ever. But I'm aiming at Larsa 1 for 50-100 mythril, then probably Tidus OSB 1 for a long-shot at his OSB, then maybe Kain 2? My IV synergy is still pretty bad.
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Oct 25, 2016 05:29
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