The game right now isn't insurmountably difficult if you have one 5* weapon that can be used by either Cloud (optimal), Sephiroth (second best) or Cyan (suboptimal but eh) because current bulldoze strat is two double cuts, a retaliate, a boost, and a shit ton of savescumming, along with Breaks as necessary. And even then, that 5* is more of a floor for when you don't have a usable 4* for that particular realm, which by far will outdamage a non-synergy 5*.
This will get you really, REALLY far if your dudes are 50 for a HP pool to tank hits, which reduces savescumming. Further 5*s don't do much except also further reduce the amount of savescumming you do, especially defensive 5*s and/or synergy 4*s. Good caster weapons are nice for AOE where weaknesses come into play, but even then the majority of my damage has been coming solely from Cloud with retaliate/bladeblitz. (Bladeblitz is obviously a luxury item compared to 2* abilities like boost/double cut/retaliate)
There are other cheeses for the various fights, not the least significant of which being Intimidate completely trivializing almost half of this batch of elites. (Again, savescumming taken into account so Paralysis sticks)
Yes, it's still really based on luck, but the longer you play, the lower the chances are that you've never, ever scored one of the above. Wazzy's perspective is definitely skewed, but it's not 100% wrong either.
Believe me, I should know. My only two 5* draws are a Buster Sword and a Danjuro, so while Buster Sword is one of the better draws for the above bulldoze strat, I'm not geared out the ass, and certainly not rolling in e.g. VIII loot. I have been playing since near day 1 though, so my floor of random useful 3*s and 1*++s is pretty extensive, and I do have a reasonable stash of 4*s. I cleared V elites with a 1++ Helm and Bronze Armor on Cloud and Sephiroth.
edit: More thoughts, for what it's worth. I'm not sold that the Retaliate strat was something that the designers could have anticipated trivializing content to this extent. I get the feeling that the elites are padding that SHOULD last a significant fraction of the months between each additional painting update, not cleared in 3 days like a few of us have been doing. That's supposed to be the content content, with events breaking up the monotony.
Also like one poster said much earlier in the thread, we have the massive advantage of having everything already pre-scoped out for us, so we're pretty much as prepared as Batman for each update.
