They do the highest damage, but you're also losing auto-attack time there. It's not like a Monado move, which takes very little time to perform, either. Dunban's in particular feels like it lasts a long time, and every second you're pushing that B button, you're losing auto-attack damage. I'm sure the Talent Art does more damage than the auto-attack, but does it do enough against hasted, double attack, auto-attack with an aura up? I tend to save his Talent Art for Chain Attacks, because if you can get him to go 4th (very common in my team), it does like 250K damage with my setup. I've yet to have something survive it.
That's a good point. But the bolded is why I saved pretty much any offensive talent art for chain attacks regardless
If you use his ether-based kick, it turns Dunban around for just a brief second, and you can use Thunder on a single enemy. So you can potentially start every fight with aura, kick, Thunder (daze), and then topple, which, if you have Topple Plus, is going to put your enemy down for a total of 8 seconds. Pretty beefy and worth considering IMO.
Tempest Kick? I never even used that since the effect was terrible (drops an enemy buff?). But that would make it a lot more useful and make me reconsider that single character challenge I was thinking about doing.
It's not damage-based. My point was that when I'm playing, I get chain attacks every 10 seconds or so, so I spend most of Dunban's time doing arts in Chain Attack mode, which Haste and Double Attack don't help with. I just feel as though, when Dunban is sitting there going at it with Haste, it still feels like a very slow autoattack when compared to someone like 7th. 7th with Haste and Double Attack feels like a no-brainer, because 7th is a whirlwind of attacks. Dunban doesn't feel like that to me.
I'm still undecided about Shulk and how to gem him. Haste and Double Attack seems like the way to go for more Monado usage, but there's still that third slot...probably Topple Plus.
Good to know. I thought I missed something awesome.
Edit:
Does weapon crit rate affect ether attack crit rate?
Edit2:
Compare these two builds:
815 base weapon damage
Haste +50%
Double Attack +50%
Critical +50%
Attack Stability +50%
Attack Plus +50%
Back Attack Plus +100%
The first build has two gems that affect autoattacks only, giving you +50% more of them, and then a 50% chance for an extra attack each time. Criticals give you 1.2x more. That does not seem like it would do more, to me than close to 50% more damage on everything you do, and then 100% more damage while you're attacking from behind (and why wouldn't you?). The first build will do much less in Chain Attacks, and arts won't be as strong either. Especially when you consider that Dunban has Demon Slayer, which can be really vicious if you treat it well.
Critical Up is outclassed by double attack since you can link up to make all of them critical, and it has a higher percentage.
The thing about haste is that it ultimately ends up in an armor slot anyway (Glory Gauntlets for most characters, and you already have the thing for 7th I believe). And assuming you're not using Night Vision, that does give you two slots to play around if you're using Double Attack for one.
I'd go with attack stability over attack plus. It's guaranteed to increase your damage output, while plus just makes it more likely. And double attack is better than attack plus since that only adds 50% damage while double attack actually hits twice 50% of the time, which also effectively adds 50% damage (or more if you have the skill link to make them crits) and fills your talent gauge(/party gauge) faster. I really do think double attack is the single best offensive gem in the game. I guess your point is that you're constantly in chain attacks so you feel that something that directly increases damage there is better, but double attack makes your chain attacks more frequent if you're using it right.
Back Attack is awesome, but really only for the character you're controlling, OR Dunban if someone else is tanking (Dunban always goes behind the enemy when he doesn't have aggro, nifty).
Lightning attack is also a good option for 7th, as you've brought up before. Electric Up for Melia, and Blaze/Poison/Etc. for Riki. I used Bleed Plus for Dunban and it worked nicely, Gale Slash late in the chain attack would do a ton of bleed damage. Good for longer battles, not so much for shorter ones.
Edit3:
Has anyone tried using Agility Down gems instead of Night Vision? You might say "how will you land the debuff in the first place?", to which I suggest Riki's Bullseye (+50% accuracy when attacking from behind, basically the same effect as Night Vision). If -25% agility is roughly as good as +50% accuracy, it might save some gem slots on your party members. I imagine you really only need the Night Vision for one fight anyway, though.
Well, the problem with this idea is that Agility Down is a debuff while Night Vision inherently works for your characters as long as it's night. Bullseye does negate the need for Night Vision if you can remain behind the enemy (so what I said for Back Attack previously applies here) AND if you have the coins to use on it - it's relatively expensive at around 50, and this is why I didn't end up using it on Shulk. But Agility down only activates a percentage of the time, and it can be resisted, so it's less reliable.
And the difference between 25% and 50% could be pretty big as well. Going from ~36% NV gems to 50% made a big difference in my accuracy against Abaasy at level 79 for Shulk and 7th. Not so much for Dunban due to Serene Heart, which is why I never bothered getting him a VI gem.
(I assume your idea is that you rely on one character for the Bullseye + Agility Down, since having multiple characters behind the enemy doesn't happen often making Bullseye a waste on 1 or 2 of them).
thanks
If I play as Reyn leading does Shulk AI shield me? what can I press for him to shield me?
One more question, are bikini bottoms worth the price? :3
You'll have to "warn" Shulk, which lets you choose something for him to do during a vision. So if it's a talent art, you can have him use shield. Warning an AI party member costs one bar of your party gauge (the blue gauge at the top of the screen), so keep that in mind.
As for the second question, not really. One character could wear it and they've already left your party. By the time another party member comes along that could wear it, it will be outclassed by other armor.
If you can get a good enough grasp of the battle system to kill the unique/named monsters around your level, you shouldn't need to buy much/any armor since what they drop is just as good or better than what's available in shops. And they provide great EXP/AP/SP, and affinity coins which you'll want to accumulate for skill links (that will be more meaningful later in the game though).
(And this includes swimwear, which is available at several points throughout the game as drops or from shops)
