Lurker > Ultimaphazon

Looking forward to Terra, Papalymo, and Balthier, and to a lesser extent Auron.



As expected, this wasn't too bad after getting Iris USB2. It still took a few attempts, but, to be fair, my last Bahamut kill was a few weeks ago, so I'm out of practice.

Mog - G+, hAASB2, USB
Iris - G+, USB2
Ignis - Sync, rCSB, BSB
Noctis - Sync1, AASB, AOSB, LBO
Gladio - Sync, AASB (AOSB unused)

Best: Joey
Worst: Monica

Haven't bought anything new yet. I'll grab Iris USB2 and attempt FFXV Bahamut during the weekend, should be doable.

Most of the stuff that can maybe help me with Lab fights will require lvl 4 lenses, so I'll still have to be patient.

Whew, magic weak Ice Giant finally defeated. I expected this to be easy with stacked Terra (Sync, AASB, LBO, AOSB) and Papa (Sync, AASB, AOSB), but I struggled a lot.

Used my ticket on IV and got a Rydia USB dupe and Yang AASB. That one's new, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

I've been getting lots of Magic Pots from Exploration paintings; certainly more than from Combat paintings. So while the odds of a treasure vault on a sealed door probably lose out on the odds of a HE drop from a combat painting, I feel that Magic Pots swing it in favor of Exploration Paintings.

I'm definitely getting Labyrinth points way more frequently than before in Exploration paintings. And the doors with enemy or treasure vault feel rarer.

Definitely very different from season 1, even ignoring the hidden portals.

I'll have to read up on those orb mechanisms, but that looked reasonably doable. My physical fire team should be stronger than that. And my magic team is a lot stronger than the physical one.

Apparently the Lab update is coming next week.

Got 4/11 with my ticket on the IV banner
Edge LMR, Rubicante LMR, Golbez USB (dupe), Rydia LBGlint

I also had a devotion ticket that I have been saving for a few months now, which got me Rosa's Sync.

Best - Reno based on VII, if Remake counts change this to Jessie
Worst - Ester

Q1 - Number 2, only behind X
Q2 - It's been way too long. Unless Remake counts, that was last year
Q3 - Yes
Q4 - I do it, but I hate it with a burning passion
Q5 - I head through the marsh, kill Zolomy along the way and grab my early Beta access
Q6 - No. I don't believe ever not gotten Aerith and she's my favorite regardless
Q7 - Aeris

Best: Gilius Thunderhead
Worst: Tyris Flare

1. Not so much arcade, but our local shopping centre always had a few machines standing around. So my mom would go buy groceries, while my brother and I blew our money on Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Golden Axe, Final Fight, etc.
2. Final Fight. Mike Haggar ftw.

2 Dampens on Ifrit in addition to Perdition's Blessing seems like overkill to me. Since you can only get 1 dampen 18, the other one would be a dampen 10. And since you also have Odin's Fire Seal, you're looking at:

18 + 15/2 + 15/4 + 10/8 = 30.5, which rounds to 31.
I feel that compares poorly to the 30 you can get with only the one Dampen I plan on using. There has to be a passive that's more useful than 1% less fire damage

Congrats!

I will likely just replace an Empower 15 with the new Empower 18 on my offensive magicite. 4 Empowers really doesn't seem worth it.

I'm not so sure about the Dampen 18. I have a "defensive" magicite for each element, but that one's currently HP Boon and Healing Boon.
The Dampen 18 would provide a lot of extra damage resistance, since I'd go from 23% to 30%, but I find both the HP Boon and the Healing Boon very useful. I'd probably have to shift one of these over to my offensive magicite, and replace the rather useless Fast Act.

Yeah, I think that actually sounds pretty good.
Offensive: Blessing 15, Stat Boon 10, Empower 18, Healing 15
Defensive: Blessing 15, Stat Boon 10, Dampen 18, HP Boon 8

Wind magic Sandworm dead. Feels good to get another one of those done, especially since there's no Overdrive on this one.

I doubt I can do the others at this point, but this gives me some hope for the season 2 bosses with their improved rewards.

Figured since the Maria/Emperor duo carried me through Kalavinka, I might as well try to get the sub-30 on their Bahamut.

I had to roll with my not so great Guy (AASB only) because I wouldn't get Maria's IATB3 with only Emperor to trigger 6 chases.

Still got a reasonably comfortable sub-30 win at 27.05, despite Guy sucking pretty badly... turns out I didn't even activate any of his 6* nodes, no wonder he was awful.

Got off my lazy ass a bit and killed both versions of Kalavinka Striker

Physical team was:
Tifa AASB, Sync2, LBO
Galuf AASB1, Chain
Gladio AASB, Sync
Tyro Dyad, AASB
Elarra Sync, AASB, USB1, USB2

Mage team was:
Maria AASB, Sync2, 7* Chain
Emperor Sync, AASB1
Tellah CSB, AASB
Cait Sith AASB, USB2, Glint+
Mog hAASB2, AASB1, Glint+1

The physical team struggled quite a bit with doing enough damage fast enough. The mage team on the other hand was way faster, but the incoming damage is huge, so I'm pretty sure the dancing moogles couldn't have kept up if I didn't get a lot of lucky heal chases.

Best: Vivi
Worst: Eiko

Q1. Where does this game rank on your list of best Final Fantasy games?
Around 6 or 7 I guess

Q2. When was the last time you played this game?
A very long time ago. At least 10 years ago

Q3. What's your favourite overworld music in Final Fantasy?
First thought is FFVII

Q4. What's your favourite mini-game in this game? Jump rope?
Chocobo Hot and Cold and it's not even close

Q5. How many times did you beat this game?
3 times, I think

Q6. What did you most like about this game?
The game just has a special charme imo. I don't know if it's the music, the characters (the half that is actually good), the world, ... There's just something special

Q7. What did you enjoy the least?
The battles are so awful, just painfully slow.

Congrats!
A win's a win. You shouldn't worry too much about time rewards for now. The sub-30 will come eventually.

This is obviously a case if YMMV, but against Odins that try to kill slots 2 and 4 through anti-heal, I've found that it's actually quite surviveable with the right healer.

If you have someone who gets Stoneskin or HP stock on their AASB you can possibly avoid anyone dying.

Best: Lightning (this is difficult between her, Fang and Sazh)
Worst: Hope (this one was easy)

1. I haven't played XV, but XIII is much better than XII
2. I think I only beat it once, but I got the Plat
3. Pepple didn't want to read the log
4. Battle System is great after it really opens up
5. Yes, played and beat them all: XIII-2 > LR > XIII
6. I don't have or want any tattoos

Physical AASB: Leon dupe
Magical AASB: Arc dupe
Ticket 1 (on IV): Cid Glint+
Ticket 2 (on IV): Rosa USB dupe, Ursula AASB dupe

Wow. 4/5 dupes, and the only new relic is a Glint+ for a character I will never use.

Fest Ticket 9: Amarant BSB, Fina AASB
Fest Ticket 10: Reno BSB (dupe)

Realm ticket from login used on IV: Cid BSB (dupe), Ursula AASB

2 new Awakenings is nice, but they are on characters that previously had little to no relics. Not sure those will see much use.

1/11 on Bio banner 2: Kefka's Sync
Kefka Sync and Quina Sync were my most wanted relics here, so that was great.

2/10: Tellah USB, Papalymo Sync (dupe, 3/5)

I was actually thinking about lensing that Tellah USB, so that's not awful. Guaranteed triple-cast when combo'd with his AASB sounds sweet, though the self-ko after 15 seconds is a problem if the boss lives through it.

Best: Yuna
Worst: Lulu

1. Someday the Dream will end
2. Not really
3. Lightning dodging.
4. Laughing scene is fun

2/10 Zell BSB, Squall AOSB dupe (5/10)

These tickets have not been good to me. But since the rest of my fest has been amazing, it kind of evens out.

Biodin down
I just used RW chain. Quistis needed her SB gauge to do damage, so using her for chaining was out of the question. I was thinking about using Leila's Chain, bit with her not having any other decent SB, plus being limited to a single cast, I didn't want to risk it. Looking back, she might have been sufficient though.

I never liked Kefka as character but he did some serious work here with that Dyad + AASB combo
So much actually that I could pretty easily push Odin past phase I without seeing Argent Zantetsuken.

However, comboing the Switch-Draw Dyad with AASB is pretty annoying. First you activate the Dyad, then you have to use an ability to empower bio, and only then did I cast the AASB, so I wasted quite a bit of time before I could get those sweet 29,999 hits.

3/11: Leila CSB, 2 Quistis Doomtrain
3/11: Quistis AASB, Kefka AASB, Kefka Dyad

That should be enough to take on Biodin. I'll do the third pull for the Quistis wardrobe on banner 2. Hopefully I can snatch Quina Sync or Kefka Sync from it.

I want to do 3 pulls accross both bio banners regardless, since I need Instructor Quistis. I'll do 1 pull on banner 1, then 1 pull on banner 2, and I'll decide where to do the last pull based on the results of the first 2 pulls.

Best: Spirit Temple
Worst: Jabu Jabu's Belly

I threw 50 mythril at the banner and got a very nice Maria package: LMR+, Chain and Sync
That's very nice

1/10 Decil AASB
Doesn't seem all that great, but easily my best relic from the ticket draws.

As much as I love Paine's HA for the guaranteed rage-break, I sometimes wish she had a standard 6-hit HA. It's such a waste having to link weak-ass Torrential Assault to her C1.

It actually works as described. It's just the doublecasts being amazing on those SBs. With perect w-cast luck, you can get the following:

C1 at 20k (cap+1) -> w-cast C1 at 30k(cap+1) -> ability at 40k
C1 at 40k (cap+1) -> w-cast C1 at 50k(cap+1) -> ability at 60k

Only after that last ability do the cap breaks from the first turn drop, and you go back down to 40k

I could have done this a few months ago, but I got the Bahamut V kill.

That leaves I, IV, X, XI and XV.
I'm pretty sure I can do X and XV with my current tech, if I put some time into serious attempts.

Got a Prishe Glint+. Well, I have her FB counter AASB, so it's something, I guess.

XII is awful
XIII is great and XIII-2 and LR were even better
Still haven't played XV or the MMOs

Wow, that's amazing.

I got 1/10 Thancred w-cast LMR, which is pretty crappy right now. However, with Bio banner 2 on the horizon, this could become a nice pickup if I get his Sync and/or AASB there.

16/16 Argent Odin
Not exactly super-fast, but there was never really any danger of losing.

Rinoa's new Sync, Ysayle USB and Edea CSB got him to 75% before Argent Zantetsuken.
After the Deuce AASB revive, I used Rinoa CSB2 followed by her AASB, Ysayle AASB and Edea AASB for an easy kill.

1/10 Noctis AOSB
Not bad, but after already getting his LBO 2 weeks ago, this isn't that great anymore. I guess, maybe there could be time for 2 finishers in some cases.

I did a pull on banner 1 and hit a very nice 4/11:
Ashe LBG, Alisaie LBO, Elarra Sync, Rinoa Sync

The first 2 relics are whatever, but Elarra's Sync is nice and Rinoa's Sync was one of my most wanted relics this fest.

If you have Mog AASB1, Pecil should be able to break 20k on the +70% turn. If you get lucky with your w-cast, that's 3 layers of King's Rage.

I really should give FFIV Bahamut another try one of these days. I got to 86% before I had Mog AASB, trying to brute-force him with Cait AASB.

I'm at 340 mythril. I plan 150 mythril on the bio banners for sure, though I don't know which one quite yet; I need Quistis SeeD uniform.

I might skip the main fest banners, but I haven't really looked closely enough at the banners to be sure.

There's going to be a mission soon for Dr Mog's Homework to level a HC with Rat Tails. I don't know what the rewards are, but if you still can, it's probably better to keep one HC not maxed right now.

LotR is absolutely worth doing, at least unless you're a vet, and can give 7*s. I've been super lucky on it this time, and pulled 6 different 7*s accross the first 14 banners.

You can look at banner details, and most realms seem to be around 1.5% - 2% chance for a 7*.
Considering there's a garanteed 5*+ relic, which is 14% of the pool, your odds to get a 7* relic on LotR is around 1.5/14 - 2/14 = 10% - 14% (actually slightly higher because you can get more than 1 5*+ relic)

Accross the 18 banners, that should get you, on average, 2 7* relics for 90 mythril

Somehow DeNa always manage to make those loaded banners massive dupe-fests for me. 8 AASBs, and I already have 7 of them; only missing Alisaie AASB, the USB, and the 3 Syncs.

I need that Edge Sync, but I'm not doing a full price pull on a banner with >50% dupes.

Luck of the Realms

But yeah, I can't NOT read it as Lord of the Rings myself.

I'd rather keep it on full auto myself.

I equip 2 lesser characters with Haste RMs to avoid delaying the Mog AASB1+Rem onslaught as little as possible.

I think for new-ish players, all those extra goodies make it worth it. But for vets, it might be a different story.

Auron Glint - better than a dupe

What do you guys think of that Autumn Relic Draw?
Seems to me like it's just too much of a gamble, considering the massive relic pool.
As for the free stuff, I have 1500+ of each Crystal, 6000+ of each 6* mote, 3300 Rainbow Crystals, and enough Sapphires for 28 hero abilities. So while it's some good stuff, I really don't feel it would be useful to me.

Sounds like it's basically 50 mythril for 2 random 6*s and a realm ticket, which doesn't feel like it's worth it.

Unfortunately, the KH characters are not available anymore. The previous collab was 2.5 years ago (I think), and at this point it's unlikely that another KH event will happen, and you probably won't be able to ever get those characters (or their relics)