Board 8 > Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius Topic 50 - A Hyoh New World

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anyone else not as thrilled with the IW this time around? I mean, sure daggers are nice because who doesn't love High Tide? But I've only got one, maybe two staves worth enhancing, and I don't think I ever equip an axe or hammer on...well, anybody.

On the upside, I finally get my 7* Rem! And VoL much sooner than expected, although I need to read up on what they both get. I just like them both as units, so I'm happy either way. And I'm really tempted to UoC for Zarg's 7*, even though I've had my heart set on Malphasie for the last two weeks. I know damage dealers are a dime a dozen, but she's just going to fit in so well with so many of the units that I want to use, and her design and kit are just so amazing.
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Certain hammers are nice for tanks. But they were limited.
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Yeah I don't even know what to run through the castle this time. Gigantaxe I guess, and the hammer that boosts AP.

Bowie Knife. I dunno. Don't really have any killer staves. Maybe I should actually try to beat Sheratan and Holy Wand, not that Ayaka really needs any more SPR.
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Yeah, I'm just going to run tons of daggers I think, at least once my Holy Wand gets finished up.

You might as well go through the trouble of Sheratan. It'd be pathetically easy at this point, and the Wand can be used on a unit like Basch or M. Ramza for the added SPR instead of a healer. Plus the materia, which is kinda nice.
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I only care about Holy Wand and Nirvana this time around. My daggers are set already and I dont use hammers or axes anymore.

Still glad we get more refreshes for when swords come back. I have 4 Needles and a Death Trap that need extreme boosting.
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Yeah okay, Sheratan was pretty easy a year after the fact lol.
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Running my staffs and probably going to run Defender's Daggers through for Mag for Rem.

others... meh. I'll find something to run just for points to stockpile the NRG pots for GS and Katana IW
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Oh sweet, I have both Rem and Zarg ready for 7.

Hoping both are going to dramatically improve my team. Still haven't upgraded my Orlandeau
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I have two Zarg, need to check out his 7* kit and maybe get his helmet.
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7* zarg is real strong.
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ooooh I didn't notice Beatrix was also available.

Yeah I'm upgrading her as well. Hope she's good, cos I'll certainly be using her a bunch.
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Got my 7* Rem and VoL leveled. Way too short on pots, hoping that the 6k Arena medals I have gives me a boost. I only started saving recently, so I'm still gonna be pretty far behind, but I'm still happy that we're finally getting the upgrades. I was worried they'd just skip over them entirely.

Now to build a team to finally take on Tetra Sylphid.
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Tempted to 7* Beatrix of Dark Veritas, but I'm saving my cactuars so I can level Malphasie tomorrow once she's in the UoC pool.
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Meh,

The only ones worth really doing anything with are Barb and Zarg.
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I got to upgrade my main man VoD
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also I've gotten twice as many moogles for Circe as I have for Mal from the raid summon and I hate it.
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Took an hour but I've upgraded all 3 to 7.

Zarb and beatrix are level 114 and 115 and Rem is 102, this is getting tiring to get to 120.
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The small blessing of not having all that many units to 7*: I've been able to 120 all of mine so far, and I'll only be one or two short of maxing out Malphasie tomorrow.
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Probably Barb and VoD for Malphasie chains.
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Does Zarg need his TMR, or is it low priority?
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[Requirement: TMR equipped]
Increase DEF/SPR/HP/MP (20%)
Increase resistance to stop (100%)
Upgrades LB

Seems like its pretty decent to me.
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It seems a pretty solid get to me. That TMR does a ton to make him even better. Honestly, when the worst upgrade his TMR provides is 20% to his defensive stats, I'd say that makes it worth going for. Anything that provides stop resistance to a unit is a win, and it makes his LB even more amazing. He doesn't strictly need it, but I'd definitely kick it higher up in priority.
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Huh, gonna have to find a good build for Rem, the mag isn't that high.

Beatrix does seem to hit a lot harder than Lightning though.
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Barb at 7* is fun

Also, got me a quintessence. No need for dual wield for my top mage anymore :P

Due to item world, had a fling with Vindematrix. She played a bit hard to get, but she got to love my charm in the end. Sadly over 30 turns( because MP drain from Confession sucks), but got the skill and the moogle for Quintessence, so all good.

Soleil helped make T1 suck much less with her buff and break.

Marie was supposed to help me tank the 60% thresholds, but I mistimed the first, so she just gave me barrier instead.

Zarglebargle(6*) gave reraise( mostly to Basch) and mp heals.

VoD(6*) gave me the physical dark chains for Malphasie for the physical phases( and a backup breaker when Basch was occupied).

CG Nichol was MP battery and buffer.

Dark Fina gave me tornado chains for Malphasie for Magic phases.

Ayaka(6*) gave me reraise and needed heals.

Wilhelm tanked alllll day( and thankfully I had his TM since he tanked a fatal hit during the fight) as well as get Golem off and break occasionally. Also had second highest SPR on the team as well as Safety Bit, so ST death proc was ez( of course, after having Ayaka swapped out).

Basch also tanked(and died/re-rose) all day and acted as my main breaker. 200% wind resist also made the second form pretty cake.

And the third star was Malphasie. Holy hell, having 2 chaining families to work off of is sexy as hell and, unlike the rest of the DR chainers barring VoD, her wind and dark focus kept the elemental resist phase from being a problem. God damn do I love the female hybrid units in this game.

Now to get that dagger with some skills....
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Oh geez, that sounds amazing. Is Vindemiatrix terribly hard, outside of the MP drain? I might be willing to give that a shot, even if I doubt the dagger will see too much use. It'd certainly give me a happy break from farming KM this weekend.
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One of these days I'll remember that item world likes to unequip characters without wasting 5 orbs. One of these days.

At least there isn't that much I want to enhance this time around.
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I guess I should be asking...

Is Zargaabath better than Maritime Strategist Nichol or even Roy (I can 7* Roy when that comes around too)?
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I cant comment on Nichol, but bards just arent great. Theyre role locked, Roy especially takes a while to get started, and if they die they have to start over.

With Zarg, you have a crapton of versatility. Provoke evade tank that can buff/heal on off-turns? With 40% innate evade, hes crazy easy to build that for. Stat break protection is always valuable. His CD and LB work together pretty well, pop the CD you want first turn, even just the 50% innate high tide helps a ton, and pop his LB when the cooldown expires. With his counters, especially if you provoke, hea generating a good amount of LB crysts. Zarg may not beat Nichol for raw buffs, but hes not at all a bad substitute. He was one of the king support units when he was released because of his sheer versatility, and thats only gotten better. While he doesnt do any single role quite as well as the cream of the crop, the difference honestly seems near negligible.

Honestly, you could do a lot, lot worse than 7* Zargabaath. After Malphasie, hes my next UoC target without a doubt, and if you have the ability to 7* him without a UoC, you should absolutely do so.
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I can 7* him, it just always comes down to resources and priorities for me unfortunately. I just barely got Trance Terra to 120, and I'm sitting at a little over 7 million gil after selling off all the current raid Snappers.

Also have...
Orlandeau - 118
Hyoh - 115
Ayaka - 112
Dark Fina - 110
Ace - 101
Tidus - 101
Ramza - 101
Lightning - 101

Queen - Not yet awakened, but ready.
Knight Delita - Not yet awakened, but ready.
Olive - Not yet awakened, but ready.
Zargaabath - Not yet awakened, but ready.

Might be forgetting something...

I have enough Cactuars to put another unit at 110 for sure, maybe two, or put one unit at 115, or possibly finish leveling one of Orlandeau or Hyoh.
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I think I'm going to 7* at list Barbaricca and VoD. I'm OK with leaving people at 110 for now, and that's not too hard to hit.
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Horith posted...

Oh geez, that sounds amazing. Is Vindemiatrix terribly hard, outside of the MP drain? I might be willing to give that a shot, even if I doubt the dagger will see too much use. It'd certainly give me a happy break from farming KM this weekend.

It's... not the the hardest trial in the clock, but it does ask a lot of you.

First and foremost, for the first half, she sets the tempo of the battle since hard thresholds every 10% until after 49%.

You're gonna need a good amount of MP heals( not regen, heals, though regen can help) since Confession deals a lot of MP damage every three turns and after the regen kicks in.

You are also required to have both Physical and Magical damage since she alternates between resisting one or the other for most of her first half.

At the 79%-69% thresh: total resist to fire/water/lightning/water. Along with the innate light resist, that's 5 elements out of the running for damage for part of the fight.

Sleep resist/heals for for her preemptive Cradle attack and Para resist/heals for her Shackles to start her second half.

ST death to highest SPR unit to both start her second half and every few turns after, so either provoke with death resist or re-raise that.

Other than that, mag tank to take her aoe( preferably with 200% wind if not bursting her down in one turn after second form starts), physical provoke to tank her standard attacks and Loitering Dead in the second half, and a nice breaker(she is weak to all of them) to both make her hurt less and offset her buff in the middle of her first half.
And for missions: <30 turns, evoke Golem, no LBs

Guide is here: https://exvius.gamepedia.com/Chamber_of_Arms_-_Vindemiatrix
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CG Nichol is much more reliable as pure support over Zarg.
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Sure, if were going PURE support, but Nichol cant do anything about breaks, is limited on elemental buffs, and cant come close to the tankiness that Zarg can reachnot to mention Zarg can dual-wield counter physical AND magical attacks.

I think its up to personal taste on that one.

Edit: Also, while less useful now when everyone should have a Ribbon, Zarg can give AOE status immunity.
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Nichols limit can dispel breaks.
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So
Going off the adrenaline of beating the lady I thought I would go after the crown.

Brachium was an odd one. The first half is easy: get a sacrificial lamb to tank his assassinations, heal up on the thresholds, remember to attack after said thresholds, and an evade tank makes the rest of his attacks laughable.

...then the second half happens and you either kill him quick with fire or be ready to tank magic attacks all day. I chose the former(since I have ace and Dragonlord), but I was always 6% off death...until I remember that killers are a thing.

Wilhelm was my sacrificial lamb

Ayaka made sure he didn't truly die

Fry and Raegen were chainers( putting a fire sword on Fry made me sad)

Nichol and Lid buffed and broke

Ace did the imperil

WoL evaded and broke (love how he's still so useful today <3)

Rydia got espers( need to learn how to time Baha, though; no esper kill moogle for me :< )

And Dragonlord cooked the assassin clean with killers and Kafrizzle chained.
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Your support shouldnt be tanking lol.

To elaborate.

He shouldnt really be getting hit. Making him a 100% evasion provoke tank is more trouble than its worth but could be useful depending on the situation but that just adds more you have to do on top of making him support your team.
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Whoops, misread that...but there is still a point to be made here.

Zarg actually is pretty unique in the fact that he can actually be a decent support provoke tank; why bring a tank when you can just let Zarg do it for you and support you?

He has innate evade, the judge cape gives him provoke...I think the rotation I gave him when I used it for a trial was Provoke->Archadian Light->Rejuvinate

Sure, lack of specialization means he's not as efficient at either as, say WoL or Nichol, but it opens up a slot or at least frees up a role which is invaluable with battle needing more and more roles filled recently to up the challenge.

Just gotta get evade and provoke gear, stick an extra provoke in your rotation, and ta-da!
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It's really not that much trouble. Zarg has 40% innate evasion, so he's already got a good lead on tons of units. The most you're sacrificing is one materia slot for Equip S Shield, and the slight bonus to his defensive stats by not equipping a second weapon, which as an evade tank he doesn't need anyway. In exchange you get a 100% evader that provides a metric crapton of utility. True, you're not getting your buffs off turn 1, but the ability to combine evade tanking with the sheer versatility of what Zarg provides puts him leagues ahead of pretty much any provoker we have except maybe, maybe Wilhelm. It doesn't even hurt his rotation all that much.

Turn 1: Provoke
Turn 2: Archadia's Might/Prismatic Barrier (depending on needs)
Turn 3: Second CD skill, DC any of his abilities as needed, or Word of Law
Turn 4: Provoke
Turn 5: DC Any of his abilities, Word of Law, or LB if available
Turn 6: Prismatic Barrier, LB if available and not used last turn, DC if Arcadia's Might was used Turn 3, or Word of Law
Turn 7: Provoke
Turn 8: CD skills, LB if available, DC skills if available, or Word of Law
Turn 9: Same as above
Turn 10: Provoke

Repeat ad infinitum. Seriously, you gain an amazing amount of utility by making Zarg a provoke tank. One of the biggest concerns when he first came out was that his kit was too spread out and too diverse to really figure out what was needed. But he very solidly proved that having such a loaded kit made him able to fit into almost any situation and provide a huge benefit. As I said earlier, he wasn't the absolute best at everything; other units had better buffs, better damage mitigation, etc. But they didn't have all of it wrapped in a single package like Zarg did, and still does, and being able to bring all of that in with a single unit means you're freeing up another slot for someone to do their job too, and that's just as, if not more valuable, than being the best at only one or two things.

In IW news, I'm really amused by something. Remember last time, where we discussed a little about how rare Auto Refresh was, especially Lv. 2? Well I just had a run with Ulrik's Kukri where a floor gave me Auto Refresh Lv. 2 for all three of my choices. I think that's a pretty solid sign that you need some MP recovery.
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Hmm, so Zarg will help me clear espers and tuff content.

I really need to takedown post-aigaion content.
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You're also forgetting that trial bosses start getting accuracy soon (I believe there's been one that has already), and evasion becomes pretty much useless at that point. It's going to be situational as far as which one you want to use.
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Do keep in mind current JP stuff a 100% evasion is recommended. (Plus elemental resistances beyond normal.)

So, always check which ones got what.

Edit: Right. Prep for stop and charm if you hit extra today.
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So
Step 4
First three were duds
Step 4 gave me Citra and(maybe) 7*Ayaka
And 5* extra reward tix gave me...my 5th Luneth :P

Will definitely kick to step 5 when I can.

...or if I feel like it.
Bought up to step 5....got two more Citra and a Prishe.
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Dude, great pulls!

So here's my take on trial bosses having accuracy in the future: I've noticed a tendency for people to, I guess overblow is the right word, the impact a certain mechanic has on a unit's viability. Take breaks for example. For the longest time, I remember being told that breaks were situationally useful, but you'd never bring a pure breaker like CG Lid into any meaningful content. Except that most trial bosses are vulnerable to at least either offensive or defensive breaks, and either one brings an incredible amount of survivability or damage. Yes, characters like Basch or M. Ramza bring their own breaks, but there are situations where they just can't get them out, either needing to defend, needing to reapply cover/provoke after a re-raise, etc. And the advantages you gain with a good break are more potent than stat buffs a lot of the time.

Not to mention most people only seem to say such things when it comes to trial content, or 10-mans. But those are really only the tip-top of the content in this game, you build a team, finish them once or twice depending on missions, and you're done. But we get so many more trials as part of holiday events or raids, or just generally hard content that while not on trial level, is still tough to get through sometimes. I have a hard time believing every raid trial boss in the future is going to have accuracy, much like they rarely have immunities to every break. So I expect evasion tanks to be very useful in the future, just because I doubt they're going to completely neuter a mechanic like this for day-to-day content.

And if nothing else, there are plenty of us that haven't finished all the content where evade tanks are necessary, so having one that's absolutely amazing like Zarg is still a win. :P
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I never said Zarg wasnt amazing, all Ive been saying is that using him over Nichol would be situational, depending on the content, and correcting misconceptions about what they can and cant do.

Im not trying to overhype one of the two because I have a 7* Zarg already and will have a 7* Nichol as soon as hes available. People tend to overhype the unit they have and under hype the one they dont, so in cases like this I can be a lot more objective than most.
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Fair enough. I just see a lot of people (especially on the main board, thankfully not the Oasis) downplay the strengths of a unit because they're not perfect for the hardest of hardest content, so I just felt the need to emphasize that for any content without accuracy, which I imagine will be most content, Zarg's evasion tankiness gives him a very solid use considering how relatively easy it is to build for.

Also, speaking of hype trains, I bit the bullet and UoC pulled my Malphasie for 7* shenanigans. I still entirely blame you for being one of the first to share her 7* and making me pull for her, and I thank you for that good sir. Unless something stops me, I'll be putting her up after the FFXV event. Not quite as strong as yours, but damn close. Still need 25 more Atk pots, and I should really run Omega at some point.
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Phasie is so damn fun, hope you like her!

Its really difficult for me to not make 40topics about how much I like her. Logically I know shell take a backseat whenever Kurasame (I think thats his name?) drops, but shell still be better to me!
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I also dropped UoC tickets on her this morning. Im still short some TMRs to really max her out, though.
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Well, this is just the start of the TDH-era. So, you can ignore his LB and other stuff.

Though in the future unless something really happens to her I do wonder if she ends up just chaining with herself. Or DV.

(Wind is still one of those not on a katana / great sword to my knowledge.)
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4 steps so far, got Gladiolus STMR itm, and the story units, save Citra. (I think I still prefer my head canon her being nutty, over her winging it.)
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I've only got three TMRs on mine, and she's still pretty good. My build is

Wrapping Bandages
Glory of Evil (IW enhanced)
Royal Crown
Dark Fina's Swimsuit
Ring of the Lucii x2
Adventurer V
General Offense
Rod Mastery
Martial Mastery
Shiva (Lv. 30)

She's still short 25 Atk Pots, Lv. 118 and she's hitting 1104 Atk/1512 Mag. I'm not sure what you'd use in place of Rings unfortunately, but she can make do with a lot of free stuff.

Fiyun posted...

Though in the future unless something really happens to her I do wonder if she ends up just chaining with herself. Or DV.

(Wind is still one of those not on a katana / great sword to my knowledge.)

If you're going for DR chaining, you're much more likely to go with Dark to chain with DV/Sephiroth with imperils. In the future, wind is going to be covered by chaining with Loren/Kunashira with the Aureole Ray family. That's part of why I got her, she has Sephiroth-level chaining abilities with a ton of units I use/will be using.
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I have her at 120, MAG pots maxed, still need 35 points of ATK pots though.

Wrapping Bandages
Death Trap
Creepy Mask
Dark Robe
Ring of the Lucii
Champion's Belt
Adventurer IV
General Offensive
High Spirits
Martial Arts Mastery

I know the helmet is extremely sub-par, but I haven't beat Brachium. I'm a few medal sky of turning the Adventurer IV in to Adventurer V, and I should be able to get a copy of Kunshira's TMR soon to replace High Spirits. As of right now, she's only got 1115 ATK and 1213 MAG for me. Have Fenrir on her currently, but only 2*.
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