FFRK - Answer With Strength (IX) Event & Strategies
Amarant is best summed up as a child born from Lenny Kravitz and the Predator.
"Damn hypocrite. Always talking about friendship, when you're nothing but a selfish loner." - Amarant
"I just wanna protect the people I'm with. Doesn't matter whether I can or not. It's what I believe in." - Zidane
When the party is sent to Ipsen's Castle to retrieve the four elemental mirrors Amarant challenges Zidane to a race, saying that he "works alone". The party ventures through the maze-like interior, made all the more confusing due to the castle's mirrored structure. Amarant wins and vacates the premises after declaring his disbandment from the party. Zidane and his friends collect the mirrors, but are interrupted by the monster, Taharka, the mirrors' guardian.
Upon exiting the castle, the party discovers Amarant hasn't come out yet. Zidane scours the castle and finds and rescues him. When the two return, Zidane formulates a plan to raid the four elemental shrines, whose locations are marked by the mirrors' placement on the mural they were found in.
Event Start Date: July 19
Event Bonus Battle: July 22
Event End Date: July 29
All information is taken from a mixture of Reddit/Spreadsheets and my own obviously expert analysis.
Though the information provided is used as a guideline and not always taken directly from the thread. When necessary, additional thoughts on Cid Missions and battle strategies are added.
Trance: Atk/Res boost, high chance to chase Monk abilities with 'Conviction' - 1,500 HP medica.
Acolyte Archives
Beat 'Power of Solid Earth 凶++' with a party consisting of FFIX synergy characters.
Beat 'Clown's Fate 滅++' with a party consisting of FFIX synergy characters.
Balance Changes
To be forgotten is worse than death.
Relics
Slightly better than the Tactics event offerings, but not by much.
Zidane gets a new & improved USB, Amarant brings the Fire Radiant Shield, and there is Vivi tech to be had.
No recurrence of Dagger's CSB, and Eiko's medicas are split between the banners so you'll have to pick between them if you're chasing her medicas (Hint: USB is better, but on a worse banner).
Bottom line is, with FFV coming soon for realm Torment and general averageness of the banners for the next month or so, you're pulling here for the shot at a specific character over general offerings.
A slight upgrade over the upcoming event, but not by much. Zidane and Kuja are split between B1 and B2, so you can chase who you are looking for. B2 looks to be the stronger option, because of Kuja/Vivi and Marcus is gumming up Zidane's banner pretty good.
Fair warning though, the next IX event has potential to occur right before, during, or after the Winter fest. So if you want to pull there, plan for it.
Stat buffs from the EX mode have a unique ID and will stack with everything.
Many USB’s come with a built in class damage boost. These are separate from the iteration class boosts and do stack.
EX modes last 15 seconds, while buffs provided by the USB entry last 25 seconds. (Terra is an exception, with her EX Mode lasting 25 seconds).
Special Effects:
General Boost: These can be anything specifically tied to the EX Mode - HP Stock, Crit Fix, Cast Speed, Element Boost, Stat buffs, and even Break Damage Limit. This will stack with every other buff on the user, including other EX Modes.
Rank Boost: This provides a damage boost scaling with the rank of the ability used. The boost starts out at ~5% for R1 increasing to ~30% for R5+.
Class Boost: This provides a flat damage boost for a specific class of abilities (Knight, Black Magic, etc). Generally weaker than the Rank Boost at ~15-20%, but applies to all abilities under that class - including Burst commands.
Chase: Follow up attack(s) triggered by using abilities of a specific element or school while under the EX Mode. The number of these chase attacks can be random, reliant on the rank of the ability used (Rank Chase) or status of the user (Status Chase).
Cycle: Unit receives a quickcast or instacast charge when using abilities tied to a specific element or school – generally meant to be used in repetition for maximum effect.
Build Up: A gradient damage boost toward a specific ability school based on the number of ability uses from the start of the battle to when the EX mode is applied. This buff is not tied to EX mode duration, and will persist whenever the EX mode is active.
Wind Up/Finisher: Generally applying to Summoners, this will provide additional damage based on the sum total of all type (class or element) damage done during EX mode when the mode expires. The unique aspect of this is that a recast of the USB will count toward the exit damage of the previous EX mode.
Phantom Cast: This effect will auto cast an attack every few second at a set rate independent of the character. The number of attacks or potency is not reliant on any outside factors (Haste, Slow, QC) and will generally produce 4 actions per EX Mode.
Cheer: This will grant a party wide effect after using a triggering ability. For example, Marche will triple the cast speed of every front row party member (himself included) for 1 turn after he uses a Knight ability.
Ability Double: This will guarantee that an ability will cast 2 times per use at the cost of 2 hones. The first cast can trigger appropriate W-Cast materia for a total of 3 hits, but the additional hits will not generate SB gauge.
Banner 1:
Zidane leaves the DeNa experimentation arena and gets a real USB: 10x ST wind/non hits on entry, en-wind, Thief ability boost, and a Thievery finisher - dealing 8/12/16x ST wind/non Thief hits based on the number of Thief abilities used during USB duration (0/5/8). Double casting does count, but Zidane's w-cast is limited to wind element abilities as he does not have a class w-cast. With Thief's cast speed and maybe 1 fastcast proc, he should be able to hit 5 ability uses more often than not.
Amarant kind of joins the Kimahri ranks of units - great when you need their role, but their role is very often not needed. An okay USB with a niche use: 10x ST fire/non entry hits with en-fire and fire Radiant Shield.
Kuja gets a new BSB though, and it's a slight upgrade from his old one: 8x ST dark/non hits with en-dark on entry and a 45 Doom timer. The good news here is that along with the en-element, his BSB commands now allow him to function as a self-contained unit. Memento Mori timer won't be overwritten with the BSB entry, sor starters. Along with that, both his commands are Darkness class; C1 is a slightly weaker Morbid Countdown at 4x hits and -3 on the Doom counter while C2 is a weaker but safer Necrofear dealing 2-5 hits based on Doom counter (40/25/15).
Notes: Ice isn't the most common element for IX, and the worm also carries mixed offenses, so you'll want to some prepared. Weight should be given to magic mitigation though, because the piercing attacks are magic based.
You should be approaching this with a mage party, as physical hits will cause Ralvuimago to coil up, boost Defense, and then counter with a AoE earth attack that heals it. Though the one caveat to a mage group is that you will want a Dispel as there is a scripted Reflect at 51%.
The last thing you need to watch for is a ST Berserk at 90% accuracy. It will only be used once, but if it hits your Ultra Cure holder then its likely a reset. The worm can also stun you on a rather low % chance and carries an AoE Hyper Break.
Acolyte Archive:
Dancers and mages are the order here. You're kind of stuck with Freya for your dancer, but even if thats all she does, it's still helping out. Remember her default SB is party regen.
Mages are aplenty in IX, but ice mages are not. Garnet can pitch in with Allegro and Vali. Kuja can self buff of course, and if you have any Vivi tech he can be a powerhouse Chain Blizzaga caster too.
Cunning Clowns (Apoc +) 滅Zorn and Thorn HP: 500,000 each Target Score:
Defeat the bosses with 2 or more heroes not KO'ed.
Notes: An entirely magical fight. Shelve the protect/PBD for now.
Technically no different from the other Zorn + Thorn fights, but they can turn out a bit more damage.
You'll want to watch up for one powering the other up, because there is only a short delay before that powered up unit can use their relevant attack - Zorn a potent AoE piercing magical hit and Thorn a ST piercing magical offering. Summons/AoE can help keep them in check.
Gigas Armlets are helpful, as Zorn will mostly use ice and Thorn fire. Also, slotting an Affliction Break or carrying an Astra can help out a lot; Zorn can Stop while Thorn can Petrify and AoE Sleep. Zorn can also hastega, but as with many fights at this level carrying the Dispel isn't worth the turn and ability loss.
The fight sounds worse than it is. Have an AoE option to cover the fight as best you can will limit their combo attacks. Otherwise, mitigation and plug away.
Notes: Mostly magic based, but the availability of a potent AoE and multi hit physical attacks means you'll also want something a little more potent than just protect.
Good news is that most of the magic is poison element, so newly gained accessories will help with this. He can also imperil poison and afflict you with a forgettable Poison ailment.
You may potentially want to craft/pack Grace for your healer(s), as Meltigemini can lower Mind by 60% with Venom Powder.
Acolyte Archive: A little more open than the previous CM for this event, and likely the easiest of the 3 Apoc ++ CM's so far. But thats not to say it's easy.
Beatrix can exploit the holy weakness pretty easily as can Garnet with some of her SB's. The fire weakness also means even if you don't have a lot of Vivi options, Meltdown can do good to great damage or Steiner can contribute with Spellblades.
With no hard counters to ability types, you can also use your preferred support characters without being shoehorned into Freya.
260 was a joke. Went in with my Shadow Dragon Magicite team, just went full attack and annihilated him. No breakdowns, no poison resist no one died, 1 shot him. Just used Godwall as a roaming warrior.
260 was a joke. Went in with my Shadow Dragon Magicite team, just went full attack and annihilated him. No breakdowns, no poison resist no one died, 1 shot him. Just used Godwall as a roaming warrior.
I initially had issues with MND-down causing Eiko to only medica for ~800 HP (BSB CMD2), but once I brought in Garnet BSB2, which heals based on HP, it was very easy.
I initially had issues with MND-down causing Eiko to only medica for ~800 HP, but once I brought in Garnet BSB2, which heals based on HP, it was very easy.
Yeah, Aerith was only hitting for about 3k + 2k barrier and her Ultra which also has the 2k+ barrier, made mitigation a lot easier.
Wait... I didn't get that 5* accessory from this event though. I'm guessing that's from an upcoming one or the next IX event (most likely as it comes with Torment Meltigemini).
Wait... I didn't get that 5* accessory from this event though. I'm guessing that's from an upcoming one or the next IX event (most likely as it comes with Torment Meltigemini).
Yeah, it was Zidanes Necklace instead. Hard to read Enlir's spreadsheet sometimes; there are only 2 JP IX events on the docket including this one and 3 accessories (Zidane Necklace, Glass Buckle, Rank S Award) listed so I assumed that it had to be the 2nd to last accessory since Tactics Torment didn't give us an accessory either.