Interesting post from reddit about Ace and how he can be made effective:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/5pwhl4/gl_for_all_the_people_who_were_dissapointed/
Hallo at all,
I think I have to make a post here, because I saw a lot of wrong guides everywhere.
I recently pulled my first 5* base, I saw the rainbow and was very happy, clicked on it and I saw Ace.. First I was very dissapointed, should have been a Luneth or Greg or somebody else above 12.0 ratings, so I googled a bit what to do with this guy called Ace and I tried to get the most out of him. I think this will surprise you and I also hope this will convince you to give a try with him, at least for being less sad like I was, here is my experience:
SKILLS EXPLAINED
Let me start with a quick explaination about most of his skills, except Wildcard, because this one is special, I'll talk about that later..
Tri-Laster - It's like a non-Spell version of Ultima, not dualcastable, but does the AoE very well, it costs 65MP and with this costs it's just not spamable but useful for smaller AoE situations
Spirit Hand - This gives you between 30MP and 120MP, always very helpful when you have time for that
Other skills like Attack Hand, Life Hand, Support Hand are in my opinion almost useless, so I'm not using them
His thunder/fire skills are also useless, because you need Dualcast to compare with other mage damage (for example to compare with Exdeath), but they may sometimes be useful when you want to chain fire or lightning
So when you see this list of skills, you might think that your rainbow pull was very bad, and this is the point where we'll get to his best skill: Wildcard
Wildcard is global exclusive, perhaps gumi wanted to fix his weekness you can see in JP. It is a 250% attack based on his MAG, and has a dodge effect 2 times for 2 turns.
This skill is very special, because it hits TWICE WITH DUAL WIELD and uses also KILLER PASSIVES and THE ELEMENT OF HIS WEAPON !!!
It is unique (i guess) together with Sunbeam which uses the same mechanics.
WILDCARD EXAMPLE
Now that we know about his skills and Wildcard, let's do a very simple math.
Let's equip Ifrit (just for easier math)
Equip Dual wield with Wizard Rod from Trial and Ice Rod
Equip Two Earrings
Equip Crafted Plant killer and MAG+10%
Fill the other slots with MAG gear, he should have ~450MAG now, which is not bad but not much (I have him at 540+ MAG now).
Now let's go to the enchanted mace event to find a cactuar which has a -50% frost resistance and try to hit him with wildcard, you will see that it hits twice with huge damage. Let's explain why and how much:
Wildcard 250% + -50% Frost resistance (he is using ice rod) = 375% + 100% from Plant Killer = 750%
It hits also twice from dual wield so you just made a 1500% attack based on his MAG! The only TM you just used was Dual wield!
HOW TO BUILD HIM
I was very impressed when I saw that the first time, so I tried to get the best out of him and the answer was simple: Diabolos.
Diabolos has Man-Eater and Demon Killer, but he's more an Esper for Mages with high MAG, so Diabolos is just the perfect match for Ace. I saw very often during this event Ace equiped with Dual Cast and Ramuh, people thought chaning Thunterga is the way to go, but Ace with Diabolos, Dual Wield, Machine Killer and Lightning Rod was much better for single target damage. I also thought about the Man-Eater Materia which we can buy for Star Quartz very soon, I think I'll give it to Ace. Sure compared to CoD he does less damage agains humans, but this advantage is that he is almost MP independent (with 440MP he's recovering 22MP per round and has still a Spirit Hand in the pocket). Maybe I'll switch a bit, depending on the encounter.
He has 4 ability slots, and from my point of view, I'll always equip him with Dual Wield, a killer passive, a MAG+30% materia (maybe soon his own TM to make his MP recovery stronger) and it can also be a good idea to equip him "Equip Staff" from Roselia and the Healing Staff to be able to make holy damage, else another MAG+30%..
HIS LB
His LB comes with a 580% modifier up to 820% based on his MAG. This is also working with the killer passives but it's not hitting twice with Dual Wield. You should use it as often as possible, it does also more damage than Wildcard and is filled very quick (200% LB fill rate passive).
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT IN THE FUTURE
He'll get enhancements too. He'll get:
MAG+40% and 200% faster LB which makes him even stronger
Tri Laser with reduced costs (45MP) and an "Imperil" effect of 75% for Fire/Lightning/Light. This will increase the damage of your Excalibur chains by 75% and it increases the damage for Wildcard by 75% when you equip Fire/Lightning Rod. Also the damage is increased to a random value between 280% and 2250% + 25% MND ignore. We're already satisfied with 280% and happy about 2250% when it procs sometimes.
Spirit Deck will be an AoE MP recover between 45MP and 140MP. Remember that 45MP are the costs for "Cut Through", "Divider" or "Crushing Blow" and other nice attacks you're always using with your strong characters, it will increase you team damage in a long fight very much.
I think a rotation like Tri Laster -> 3x Wildcard can do a lot of damage after enhancements, till that keep spamming Wildcard.
CONCLUSION
Remember:
Equip Diabolos on him
Equip Dual Wield instead of Dual Cast
Equip a killer passive depending on the current event
Equip Fire/Ice/Lightning rod (or even Air Knife) for elemental weakness depending on the current event
Don't fuse him into shadow
In the end he made it to my melee team, because I was always missing a strong melee and a strong chain finisher. I hope this helped you a bit and I also hope to see more Dual Wielding Ace's during the event.
PS: Actually it would have been better when the rainbow was a Luneth/Noctis/Lightning or Gilgamesh
