Final Fantasy: Record Keeper 2016 Advancilate Twins

[Meian]

This BSB event made me think this is my chance for Cecil's Excalibur that failed me the last two times it was up. Then I noticed Faris's and what it does. Is Faris's worth over Cecil's even though I pretty much always run Tyro and Ramza on my team?

[Ratatapa]

Gotta think about CM missions

you need them for CM missions? then pull

[Classikmage]

Well, I went ahead and used some 3* motes finally. I maxed out Pecil, Agrias, and Lenna's 3* record spheres since all 3 are currently in my A-team. Not touching 4* motes yet, though. I was gonna max out Fran's 3* RS too, but apparently it hasn't gotten released yet, lol.

[Auspice]

I'm using my 4*s on PCecil and Quistis; I'd like to power up Cecil's BSB and make Quistis usable with her MG8.

[Moridam]

This BSB event made me think this is my chance for Cecil's Excalibur that failed me the last two times it was up. Then I noticed Faris's and what it does. Is Faris's worth over Cecil's even though I pretty much always run Tyro and Ramza on my team?

you can make arguments for either one really. if you prefer to keep your existing team comp, paladin cecil with burst is nice and simple since you're just going to use him to replace whoever your weakest DPS is.

faris' burst is really nice though, and it's especially great for pure physical teams since you get to run a support that always gets to slot in armor breakdown without having to sacrifice mitigation breaks.

i actually run a-team comps with faris/ramza/tyro, but that's strictly because i also have ramza's BSSB so he can function as a pure DPS character. without that, you'd be straight up replacing ramza in most situations, so if you don't care for that idea i'd say go for paladin force instead.

[Anakron]

faris' burst is really nice though, and it's especially great for pure physical teams since you get to run a support that always gets to slot in armor breakdown without having to sacrifice mitigation breaks.

I find her BSB pretty hard to use, assuming you can't give her an SB bar to start. That means you'd need to use Full Break and the relevant Breakdown as abilities. So her BSB effect, and the BSB commands aren't really buying you much. She's a good damage dealer that can use Breakdowns, and that's about it.

And if you do give her the SB bar, it means you're not running the full trinity (two + RW). I suppose you could not Mako Might your medica, but IMO trading a medica and 20% damage RM to make full use of Faris' BSB isn't worth it.

[Corwen]

I find her BSB pretty hard to use, assuming you can't give her an SB bar to start. That means you'd need to use Full Break and the relevant Breakdown as abilities. So her BSB effect, and the BSB commands aren't really buying you much. She's a good damage dealer that can use Breakdowns, and that's about it.

And if you do give her the SB bar, it means you're not running the full trinity (two + RW). I suppose you could not Mako Might your medica, but IMO trading a medica and 20% damage RM to make full use of Faris' BSB isn't worth it.

Personally, I am one to prefer double cast over MM on my healer which would make giving Faris an SB gauge RM not an issue at all, however, I really don't feel her BSB brings much to the table, given the lengths you have to go through to use it "effectively". If she had lifesiphon access, then sure, but as it stands, you're probably having to do one of the following to make any use of it:

-Use mako might or dr mog's RM to use it immediately which has a very good chance of being more useful elsewhere such as, her ATK/MAG dual breakdown SB which provides a potent additional layer of mitigation that can't be covered by abilities. (20% additional ATK/MAG down is roughly 35% magical mitigation and 13% physical mitigation, wall is ~60% of each for reference).
-Use wrath to get it up in a timely manner which absolutely destroys her damage output due to the fact the 30-50% boostga you're probably running will be replaced with wrath's amazing 3% attack buff, not to mention the 2-3 turns of using wrath to use the BSB contributes zero damage. End result is likely a 60-70% loss in damage output from her for little benefit.
-Use full break and a mitigation breakdown until you've built up enough SB gauge to get a marginally better full breakdown effect and marginally better multiplier from using her BSB which probably isn't happening until turn 5-8 depending on how many times she is attacked. Probably the most efficient use, but doesn't allow for carrying that armor breakdown or TR that is often pitched as the selling point for it.

Full breakdown is roughly 3% more damage dealt, 3% physical mitigation, and 8% magic mitigation over full break on ultimate and higher level fights. The burst commands are 2.3 multiplier breakdowns vs 2.1 multiplier for the normal breakdown abilities with the same additional effect. While it's good if you're able to get it off in a timely manner without making a significant sacrifice somewhere, it's probably not going to happen.

[kuronosan]

If I had her BSB I'd just run her with Ace Striker and use breakdowns. If it's one I can use power break on then I'd use steal power and TR.

[Uzor]

I usually run Ramza with Shout and Mog's Teaching and Faris with Mako Might. Her BSB is decent damage (especially s tacked with shout). Then I give Ramza Life Siphon and Armor Breakdown (allows him to stack Shout/Tailwind, as well as armor breakdown) and Faris whatever else the party need, like Tempo Flurry, Mental Breakdown or Thief's Raid. If there's a lot of AoE's I give my healer Lionheart, otherwise Ace Striker and the like works well for SB spam.

With her BSB you honestly rarely even need Wall. Even if do need wall, the remaining two damage dealers are more than fine with Armor Breakdown or Mental Breakdown and Shout with all of the SB's and 5* skills out nowadays.

[Ratatapa]

Wall is loosing alot of his power anyway, more and more mobs will have Def and Res ignoring moves

[Corwen]

That won't last long. Wall has basically become mandatory for the new D200/D250 content JP has been having (short of a handful where runic is effective), unless you can somehow manage surviving through repeated 3-4k AoEs after all other layers of mitigation are in place.

[Anakron]

Just to be clear, this is all coming from a day-one player with a very good selection SBs (including Faris' BSB), and native trinity, so admittedly I may not be representative of most people.

I think one of the problems is that a lot of teams aren't really hurting for more abilities slots. More would be nice, absolutely. But it's quite rare to actually need more.

Between my ten slots, this is what I usually do:

1. Curaja
2. Shellga
3. Protectga
4. Full Break
5. Magic or Power Breakdown
6. Lifesiphon
7. Lifesiphon
8. Lifesiphon
9. Flex
10. Flex

That's already conservative since you sometimes don't need both Protectga and Shellga, and Lifesiphons aren't strictly required. In my experience, outside of CMs, one or two SBs have never been the difference between winning and losing. In the last two slots, I'd use AoEs, 5* abilities, Combat Breaks, or target score abilities. Aside from target score scenarios, I could probably run them empty and I'd be fine. They're largely luxury slots already.

Ultimately, Faris' BSB doesn't buy me much by opening up two more slots. Sure, I'd get a little more damage or mitigation from using additional Breakdowns, but they're hardly needed, and not worth the trouble of trying to squeeze her in. Which kinda sucks for me, because I dropped 44x pulls on that FFV banner.

[Robertfb]

Thanks Robert. How'd the surgery go?

Her surgery is on the 30th, so this Fri will be the beginning of me not being on, thought last Sun was the last day I was able to go to the library and be online, but was able to get on today and work on catching up (desperately so I can do abyss dungeon and pull before it goes away) on events.

[Corwen]

While on the topic of overhyped bursts, as I just lucked into Tyro's on my 100 gem this evening, am I wrong in thinking that a native Keeper's Tome falls into a similar spot as Faris's burst, especially as someone who also owns his SG? I'm having a difficult time figuring out a way to make use of it that doesn't involve making a substantial sacrifice somewhere.

As someone who owns all native trinity including SG, shout/sheepsong/hastemarch, and several medicas, the best I can come up with is making him my healer with curaja and the upcoming high regen song to help make up for a lack of medica (aside from that awful 2 bar one) with a turn 1 KT opener via mako might. Using him as a support or damage dealer doesnt seem to make much sense given his low stats when I have others with great SBs like shout and sheepsong that he would need to replace, which would most likely result in me using his wall and RWing the appropriate boostga when i could have native boostga on a char with better stats and RW the wall instead.

[Kirbyprime]

The Triple burst event is kind of throwing me off. Seems to have less content than usual since the 5 dooms pretty much get steamrolled the hour of release.

I have SG and BSB as well. I usually just use whichever one I don't find in my RW list and keep his loadout the same as before. I actually dislike using him as healer since the few times where I actually need to get healed asap tends to also be the times that I need to refresh wall. =/

[kuronosan]

Do I want Northern Cross or do I want to save for R2 Snowspell?

[Ratatapa]

Depends which character you wanna use the skill

If your goal is to use main time people like Squall Bartz or Celes then use Snowspell

[kuronosan]

Problem is I do have good Celerity users (Lightning comes to mind) and I really only use Celes and Squall for 5* Spellblades.

[Ratatapa]

it always depends on your gear, i plan to use Snowspell cuz I have Bartz SSB and BSB (more dmg) and i also have his Cloak for Enwind

[kuronosan]

I gave it to my heavy hitters, Celes, Squall, and Delita. I plan on saving the last for Orlandu.

I have Bartz SSB but most of the time I'm running THF and combat on him.