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Final Fantasy: Record Keeper |OT| The only ATB here is Active Time Battle.

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Shahadan

Member
Equip it on a core character that you never use.

.

I know but there is always a time when I forget and unequip everyone and it comes back to haunt me again ;_;

On another topic, I guess it's time to use mithrils to get some capacity slots. I thought I would never need that. I was naive
 
Well does Tyro RM2 have a really high drop rate or did I get lucky getting it in the first dungeon I used him in after level cap breaking.

Also how come Gordon and Irvine get to farm their RM2 anywhere while Josef is stuck doing FFII dungeons...at least WoL won't have to do FFI dungeons...

Equip it on a core character that you never use.
The problem with that is it limits your ability to use unequip all (I tend to swap out party members then unequip the ones out of my party).

Of course I tend not to use optomise because it makes bad decisions of must have SB over anything else. At least a Betrayal Sword isn't quite a Behemoth Knife.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Its one of them. If you revive after your whole party gets ko'd you get either 10% extra hp, attack, defense or 2 extra uses of EVERY ability, which is crazy over powered. They stack too, so if you've no problem spending mythril you'll eventually win. Always, ALWAYS die and revive instead of resting between stages. You get everything you get with resting plus one of those bonus's
I got lucky and got the 2 extra uses card. Two mythril to get Shellga seems like a fair trade. lol

Assuming I use mythril to refill stamina and power through the Knight side of the boss rush, what do I need?
 

Pejo

Member
Oh my god I'm so close to selling the Betrayal Sword I got, the game is ALWAYS giving it to one of my character when I use Optimize. And there is always a better sword, even without synergy. It's annoying me so much

I don't want your crappy soul break, shut up and simply equip the best sword

This is me with the damn Behemoth Knife. Always gets equipped to my #1 slot, since almost everyone can use daggers. Super annoying.

I wish they'd give us a machine that we can dump 2 native 5*s into to rebirth it into a new guaranteed 5*. or maybe take away the native 5* bit and make it only 25% chance to get a 5*. I'd level up all these 3*'s I got to have a shot at a character specific relic.
 

Razmos

Member
Aha, Gi Nattak absolutely dominated me, just as I expected.

I find this boss rush absolutely bullshit. Mages are useless, so you are forced to use physical fighters, then the bosses have really high defense anyway, completely defeating the point. So you do barely any damage anyway.

In regards to surviving the enemies all hit like a fucking truck, have annoying as hell status effects and AoE attacks, but at the very least the first 3 bosses are all physical attackers.

But then what's this? the final boss switches everything up and spams highly damaging spells, so your earlier strategy is now entirely useless, and by this point you are nearly out of healing spells and other abilities as well. Bursting it down isn't an option because it has too much HP and too high defenses.

Fuck this boss rush completely. Is it even worth it for pressure point?
Do I even care about future boss rushes if they are just going to get harder than this?
 
Aha, Gi Nattak absolutely dominated me, just as I expected.

I find this boss rush absolutely bullshit. Mages are useless, so you are forced to use physical fighters, then the bosses have really high defense anyway, completely defeating the point. So you do barely any damage anyway.

In regards to surviving the enemies all hit like a fucking truck, have annoying as hell status effects and AoE attacks, but at the very least the first 3 bosses are all physical attackers.

But then what's this? the final boss switches everything up and spams highly damaging spells, so your earlier strategy is now entirely useless, and by this point you are nearly out of healing spells and other abilities as well. Bursting it down isn't an option because it has too much HP and too high defenses.

Fuck this boss rush completely. Is it even worth it for pressure point?
Do I even care about future boss rushes if they are just going to get harder than this?

Gi Nattak is definitely the biggest pain in the ass for that boss rush. I used Dark Buster to mitigate most of the damage from the dragon and Rapps. At least two of the bosses (Nattak and Dragon or Rapps, forget) can be poisoned, so I did that as well. I made the mistake of bringing OWA instead of Celes for my RW, which almost cost me in the last battle. I was banking on nuking the Soul Fires before they could possess, but they had so much HP that I ended up having to juggle them. Runic Warrior should let you recharge your most useful set of skills, whether it's Retaliate or Armor Breakdown or whatever. But it should let you maintain your DPS as much as possible on Nattak while the Soul Fires actually help you out with their Fire casts.
 

Vorpal

Member
7lFyGml.jpg

These EX battles are no joke. Not looking forward to Brynhildr. Weirdly, Odin was the one fight I championed.
 
Yo fuck Brynhildr

Came in here to say exactly this. Fuck this guy. Spent so long to just complete the fight and I don't event master it. Fuck that, screw those extra orbs

What in the fuck.

Don't think I whaled hard enough to beat Brynhildr.

I'm with the above camp. I barely completed the boss rush (no mastery) and spent all morning trying to beat fucking Brynhildr. I changed up my characters, abilities, equipment, RW's and still never even beat it, let alone mastered. I bet I did s/l 40+ times this morning before I said FUCK THIS and went on to do some of the new dungeons.

Not having any XIII gear at all, beyond what the event gave us, doesn't help.

Tauntilate works wonderssss

Not really. I tried over and over (and over and over) to get anywhere using taunt + retaliate. My Cloud was only hitting for 2000-2100 per hit with boost and armor break. Without those up, he was hitting for around 1400. I couldn't do enough damage fast enough, especially when I had to spend a few rounds healing and re-applying shellga/protectga. There was one time where I was really lucky with RNG and Brynfuck kept using the machine gun attack that retaliates for 6 hits. I had him down to within maybe 2 more rounds and he proceeded to do 2 pyroblasts (or whatever the AOE magic attack is called) in a row which killed 4 people.

I also tried using advance + retaliate and that was even worse. I couldn't keep up with healing. Tried using lunatic high and boon. No go.

What the fuck.
 

Vorpal

Member
Not having any XIII gear at all, beyond what the event gave us, doesn't help.

I tried over and over (and over and over) to get anywhere using taunt + retaliate. My Cloud was only hitting for 2000-2100 per hit with boost and armor break. Without those up, he was hitting for around 1400. I couldn't do enough damage fast enough, especially when I had to spend a few rounds healing and re-applying shellga/protectga.

This was my experience to a T. I dropped a bar of stamina trying out the Retaliate variations with no luck. Throwing in Garnet's Attack Up SB had me averaging 3000 per hit, but that was pretty tenuous between healing and Armor Breakdown wearing off.

Spent another bar of stamina ditching Retaliate and just going all out on offense, but somehow that seemed even less effective. No FXIII gear except for a 4*+ glove and the PSICOM Rifle is making this pretty rough.

For people successfully using Retaliate in EX++ or EX+, who's your Ret user and what gear do they have?
 
Sooooooooooooo I just realized that ranged attacks don't trigger counterattacks from anima.

That could be useful information for anyone who can't set up a retaliate strat.
 

LucaMac

Member
This was my experience to a T. I dropped a bar of stamina trying out the Retaliate variations with no luck. Throwing in Garnet's Attack Up SB had me averaging 3000 per hit, but that was pretty tenuous between healing and Armor Breakdown wearing off.

Spent another bar of stamina ditching Retaliate and just going all out on offense, but somehow that seemed even less effective. No FXIII gear except for a 4*+ glove and the PSICOM Rifle is making this pretty rough.

For people successfully using Retaliate in EX++ or EX+, who's your Ret user and what gear do they have?

I had blaze fire sabre and it still required a lot of s/l.
 

LucaMac

Member
I got lucky and got the 2 extra uses card. Two mythril to get Shellga seems like a fair trade. lol

Assuming I use mythril to refill stamina and power through the Knight side of the boss rush, what do I need?

A celes roaming warrior for the last boss, poison and blind for sure. Alternatively you could advantaliate and bring Carbuncle for gi natik.

Don't worry too much about pressure point. Its an ok ability but nowhere near as game changing as shellga.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
It also probably doesn't quite help that XIII is one of the few realms they didn't give a decent Ret weapon as a reward. Most other realms have a ~110-140ATK option just from doing the rest of the event.

If you're doing either Luneth OR especially Tauntilate, double check your loadout. Since most of your DPS is going to come from your Ret guy, beefing up on defense and res (e.g. Robes/Light Armor over Helm/Bracer, even consider FFVII fire res rings if you have them) is a marginal loss to overall damage output for more survivability. Seems like it's also the first boss where Breakdown is more or less mandatory over breaks just to combat the resist factor. (Sazh is mandatory anyway so why not)

I'd also recommend only trying after everyone in the roster is 65 (XP daily coming up)

I mean, all the above might be marginal differences, but they all add up. Boss is actually the toughest in a while due to many overlapping factors.

edit: Really belated PSA that today's Ice/NE day but if you were after Ice orbs you probably already knew that.
 

Nohar

Member
Done with classic paintings. I'll just complete a few elite ones today I think (hey, every stamina shard is important!) and stick to my plan (ie. exp Sazh and Lightning tomorrow, Boss Rush and EX++ fight Monday).

Switching to Droid4x really was a life changing experience... I'm actually having fun again now. And if I can't play on my PC, now at least I can quickly make pre-made teams in advance, so I don't have to endure the slog of having to circle through slow menus.

Anyhow, I'll do my best to resist the voices and hoard my Mythril as always (sitting on 205 Mythril or so ATM I believe). Main goal is to wait for celebration banner 37, do one 11 pull, wait for banner 41, do one 11 pull, then banner 48, in order to try to get Cloud's SSB relic, then banner 51 for FFXIII synergy and Vega, then banner 56 for Squall's SSB relic and a chance at getting useful weapons overall.
 

Road

Member
I'd do this too except Cloud can't use my Regal Gown. Pyro hitting for 2.5k is a little too much and I CBA to RNG where it's not used more than once in a row every once in a while.

CLOUD CROSSDRESSES IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL WTF DENA

You could give Tyro a chance if you have Sentinel Grimoire. But with that Cloud I still s/l'd a good 10 times because there was always a 3 round sequence where Bry... would use Pyro magic and kill me, until that didn't happen and I won.

I also tried using advance + retaliate and that was even worse. I couldn't keep up with healing. Tried using lunatic high and boon. No go.

What the fuck.
For people successfully using Retaliate in EX++ or EX+, who's your Ret user and what gear do they have?

Tauntiliate wasn't enough for me to kill Bry... either. I had to make use of the ice weakness to do enough damage. If you're not going to do that, then I think you'll need Advance Retaliate and people double cutting. I already posted the video of my fight, but this was my setup:

QfsBFAoJ3--LrlhronRONE3Xhpb27ueSCTJvWtPL5yuW=w400-h871-no
 
It also probably doesn't quite help that XIII is one of the few realms they didn't give a decent Ret weapon as a reward. Most other realms have a ~110-140ATK option just from doing the rest of the event.

If you're doing either Luneth OR especially Tauntilate, double check your loadout. Since most of your DPS is going to come from your Ret guy, beefing up on defense and res (e.g. Robes/Light Armor over Helm/Bracer, even consider FFVII fire res rings if you have them) is a marginal loss to overall damage output for more survivability. Seems like it's also the first boss where Breakdown is more or less mandatory over breaks just to combat the resist factor. (Sazh is mandatory anyway so why not)

I'd also recommend only trying after everyone in the roster is 65 (XP daily coming up)

I mean, all the above might be marginal differences, but they all add up. Boss is actually the toughest in a while due to many overlapping factors.

edit: Really belated PSA that today's Ice/NE day but if you were after Ice orbs you probably already knew that.

Wait the break effect still applies when they resist? I thought it didn't.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
As far as I'm aware, it resists a fraction (I've heard 1/2 thrown around) and some bosses resist the four (ATK/DEF/MAG/RES) individually, e.g. Seifer resisting ATK/DEF and Edea resisting MAG/RES from way back when.

Pretty easy to test effectiveness (it'll cost you 20 stam at worst assuming it's not actually a serious attempt) but I'm not confident enough to give exact % or numbers unless it's datamined.

edit: Also Dr. Mog suggest Power/Magic Break for Brynhildr but he's a quack anyway olololo
 
As far as I'm aware, it resists a fraction (I've heard 1/2 thrown around) and some bosses resist the four (ATK/DEF/MAG/RES) individually, e.g. Seifer resisting ATK/DEF and Edea resisting MAG/RES from way back when.

Pretty easy to test effectiveness (it'll cost you 20 stam at worst assuming it's not actually a serious attempt) but I'm not confident enough to give exact % or numbers unless it's datamined.

edit: Also Dr. Mog suggest Power/Magic Break for Brynhildr but he's a quack anyway olololo

Seemed to work on odin well enough, I had brought them for the other bosses so no harm in using them. Just champed the boss rush, needed one mythril for refills though.
 
Alexandria 3 is a pain. Thankfully I mastered with one medal to spare on the first attempt.

Party: cloud with blade blitz and blizzara strike
Sazh with breakdowns, carried mainly due to boon
Rydia with blizzara and valefor, summoner rm
Vivi quake and blizzaga
Garnet curaga and protecga

Rw was boon

The pain was getting through the trash. Would probably swap valefor for carbuncle. Trash was harder than the boss.
Blade blitz couldn't ohk for me, best weapon is a four star gladius

Pro tip-the boss's defensive posture affects spell damage as well as physical, so don't waste charges there.
 

Vorpal

Member
I'd also recommend only trying after everyone in the roster is 65 (XP daily coming up)

edit: Really belated PSA that today's Ice/NE day but if you were after Ice orbs you probably already knew that.

I think I'm going to spend today farming the daily and tomorrow getting Lightning and Sazh the rest of the way to 65, or at least 60. Good ol' fashioned hones 'n levels oughta show Brynhildr what's what

Tauntiliate wasn't enough for me to kill Bry... either. I had to make use of the ice weakness to do enough damage. If you're not going to do that, then I think you'll need Advance Retaliate and people double cutting. I already posted the video of my fight, but this was my setup:

Very cool, thanks for uploading that. I like how you used Tauntaliate mostly as a way to mitigate damage while everyone else unloaded ice attacks independently. Seems like a clever compromise between either overloading on defense or staking everything on Retaliate
 
I guess the FF XIII event ++ boss is the new barometer for BS in the game? I would be shocked if it was viable without using the Taunt method. Maybe with a full 60+ party and mutiple FF XIII gears (which are pretty rare to begin with). I squeaked by a win, but it was extremely frustrating and highly dependent on it not using its magic attacks often.

I said it was a pain, but the boss is quite simple, it's the trash and having to reload to get attacks in before the mages hit you.
I took Carbuncle with me to the FF IX classics, so I think I'm halfway there if I repeat that.
 

Vorpal

Member
Kinda reminds me of Red Dragon and Sinspawn Gui (or whichever one had the head unreachable without ranged attacks)--both of which, when it came to mastering, relied a fair amount on how often the boss "wasted" turns.

It's fun to see different strategies pop up for tough bosses at least.

Edit: AWWW YEEAAHH BRYNHILDR BETTER WATCH OUT FOR MY ICE SPELLLLSSS

 

Colby

Member
Should I combine my two Vega 42s or keep them both and level them? It's my first 5* weapon (out of 50+ pulls) and I managed to pull two in one 11-pull run. Even at lvl 1, the Vega 42 is the best weapon I have for Lightning, and being able to put her in the back row only helps. But Sazh's stats aren't great, so another five levels can only help, and does being level 25 increase the Realm synergy bonus?
 
Should I combine my two Vega 42s or keep them both and level them? It's my first 5* weapon (out of 50+ pulls) and I managed to pull two in one 11-pull run. Even at lvl 1, the Vega 42 is the best weapon I have for Lightning, and being able to put her in the back row only helps. But Sazh's stats aren't great, so another five levels can only help, and does being level 25 increase the Realm synergy bonus?

Dude, I would keep those separate and max them out. that gun can also be used by Irvine and balthier and make them useable characters in their own realms and elsewhere. Maxed out it is only six points under the zantetsuken in non rs levels and it takes back row damage. Very nice. In the xiii challenge I use lightning with the vega and sazh with the free xiii gun, works great.

You could really have a lot of fun with unconventional parties. Tyro using the vega as the retaliator, lightning using the vega as a spellblades etc.

You would get a nice rs bump by combining, but if you have no five stars, you are better off not combining, particularly since lightning can be your lead damage dealer on par with the other warriors.
 

Vorpal

Member
Should I combine my two Vega 42s or keep them both and level them? It's my first 5* weapon (out of 50+ pulls) and I managed to pull two in one 11-pull run. Even at lvl 1, the Vega 42 is the best weapon I have for Lightning, and being able to put her in the back row only helps. But Sazh's stats aren't great, so another five levels can only help, and does being level 25 increase the Realm synergy bonus?

The rule of thumb for combining 5* is:

1. If you have several other comparable weapons in that category (i.e. 5*/4*++ ranged weapons), it would make some sense to combine the two 5*s.

2. If the two Vegas are your two best ranged weapons period, keep them separate. Off the top of my head, Lightning, Irvine, Balthier and Tyro can all equip guns, so you could definitely put them to use.

A 5*+ is definitely handy but not AMAZINGLY more powerful than a natural 5*.
 
The rule of thumb for combining 5* is:

1. If you have several other comparable weapons in that category (i.e. 5*/4*++ ranged weapons), it would make some sense to combine the two 5*s.

2. If the two Vegas are your two best ranged weapons period, keep them separate. Off the top of my head, Lightning, Irvine, Balthier and Tyro can all equip guns, so you could definitely put them to use.

A 5*+ is definitely handy but not AMAZINGLY more powerful than a natural 5*.

non-synergy 5*+ should put it soundly over any synergy 3*++ How often will you be using multiple gun users?
 

Vorpal

Member
non-synergy 5*+ should put it soundly over any synergy 3*++ How often will you be using multiple gun users?

I think this is kind of an exception--Lightning is a solid Spellblade and Sazh is one of the best support-type characters in the game, so I could see two Vegas in one group being a viable option in a lot of cases, especially in FFXIII content where swords are hard to come by.

Plus, Balthier and Irvine are so dependent on good weapons/guns that it wouldn't hurt to keep an extra 5* around in the case that you are clearing FFXII or FFVIII stuff with one of those characters + Lightning or Sazh.
 

Xetherion

Member
Found a great strategy for mastering Bryn with Advantaliate from pintbox on reddit:
What you can do is to bring Cloud, Sazh and a black mage. Black mage will cast petrify on Sazh and blizzard on boss, then petrify himself.

I confirmed that this works, petrify does not count as KO. Only lost 1 medal for damage.

Note that Sky Pirate's Pride is pretty much required on your black mage. I tried without it and it took me a million S/L to get blizz and both breaks cast before my black mage was killed, then i accidentally went too long without refreshing Retaliate and got wiped. With Pirate's Pride though it was easy. Also used Solitude RM on Cloud since i had 2 empty party slots. Sazh's set up doesn't really matter, but i had Boost on him just in case he got a turn before being petrified.

Edit: I should add that it's absolutely necessary for Cloud to use Retaliate every other turn due to Bryn being able to attack with no cast time. Tried going 2 turns without refreshing retaliate and got wiped.
 

Balphon

Member
Found a great strategy for mastering Bryn with Advantaliate from pintbox on reddit:

I confirmed that this works, petrify does not count as KO. Only lost 1 medal for damage.

Note that Sky Pirate's Pride is pretty much required on your black mage. I tried without it and it took me a million S/L to get blizz and both breaks cast before my black mage was killed, then i accidentally went too long without refreshing Retaliate and got wiped. With Pirate's Pride though it was easy. Also used Solitude RM on Cloud since i had 2 empty party slots. Sazh's set up doesn't really matter, but i had Boost on him just in case he got a turn before being petrified.

Isn't the BLM unnecessary? You could just have Sazh cast blizzard and put Break Strike on Cloud. Though I suppose you probably need Drain Strike to keep him alive.
 

Xetherion

Member
Isn't the BLM unnecessary? You could just have Sazh cast blizzard and put Break Strike on Cloud. Though I suppose you probably need Drain Strike to keep him alive.

Yeah Drain Strike is needed to heal from any magic attacks. Also i'm not sure what the petrify chance is on Break Strike, but i would guess it's less than Break since it also does damage.
 
Well then, with the vega and gold bangle and solitude, my lightning can ohk the exp daily mobs with bladeblitz at level 52. Think I'll take her to 60 this way and then stop running her out there.
 
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