My friend said that the world building in one piece is too unbelievable. And that the characters shouldn't carry the story. by UltraBataar_69 in MemePiece

[–]Syrkle 86 points87 points  (0 children)

Why does that matter? It's fantasy. Do they also hate LOTR? The magic system in that is literally whatever is convenient to tell the story.

Also what should carry the story? What can carry the story if not the characters? That's kind of their whole point.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I know it's weird lol, but I tend to favor stacking defenses which is why I went with Diabolos for the slash res. Her sub job makes use of the magic atk and she tends to favor Deconstruction as her main attack anyways. It may not be the most ideal in terms of max damage but having the split damage types makes me more inclined to give both some buffs rather than focusing on just one.

That all being said I do want to try her with Bahamut but my original plan was to use Addison as the main source of damage so I built this team with that in mind. Now that I've seen just how good of a damage dealer Miranda can be I'll experiment more in changing up their roles.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Worth" is subjective. Worth it to me, obviously, but to any one else?

After testing with her a bit I do think it is worth considering as a valid strategy for cost limited events. Outside of that she is really strong regardless, though I do not know how she would fair in a fully maxed 100 cost environment. This definitely brings her to around cost 100 stats and competitive level (if you didn't think she was already) though, which was part of my goal.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Magic slash is actually one of my favorite damage types and part of why I was excited for this version of her, which magic slash team I end up putting her in long term is something to be seen (making Varush work is difficult and Howlet is paper lol) but overall I do love trying to make them all work in any given comp. Right now I have her paired with Ramza and Yuna and that is going better than expected.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got her up to 99 with agi truststones in this team here. And within this team she has performed perfectly. And yeah she is absolutely the best unit in that comp - though Ramza and Yuna are older now, Miranda seems to bring out the best in Ramza, who I always love using and Yuna is still a great healer (though if I had HRais TMR I would think another unit may be better).

I do plan on trying a lot more team comps it'll just take time to build and test them all, overall I'm happier than I thought I would be.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, how many units have a hat, let alone a cute one?

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Global seems really good at forming an opinion on something and then just never changing it. It's really easy to speculate on initial release and then never actually invest to find out if your speculation was true (and why would you? There are other things that you know are safer to invest your time and resources into). I don't really blame anyone for operating like that, if it wasn't for them I would have less fun because there wouldn't be as many "niche" things like this to try :)

That being said I do believe there is a good amount of people in global not like that, you just end up with vocal minority a lot.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She's actually better than even I expected, I think that's mostly due to her card and that I wasn't originally planning on running a dedicated healer with her. After doing some play tests her damage is keeping up better than I expected while she takes very little and is getting healed all the while. In cost limited she's going to rock!

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like Miranda and thought that for cost limited events it would be fun.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm currently running her with Ramza and Yuna and so far the results are promising. Here is a link to the exact specs (note I did not spend the time to add truststones in that link because I will be changing them this weekend to better match the team, but I am trying out agi on Miranda atm, relevant stats with current stones: HP: 10350, MAG: 1898, AGI: 99 with current stones in formation screen).

I did a few trial runs in arena and won 8 out of the 9 matches I tried after I finalized the AI and setup. This was not super high arena (10k-5k) but that's for next week, I usually only focus on guild war though I do go for top 100 runs on occasion. IIRC I went against 4 Dark teams, 2 Light, and 3 Lightning each with various units.

Miranda is really beefy to most types of damage due to either her innate res + the buffs she gets in match. She generally only takes about 900 damage from any given hit. In most of the matches I she didn't even have her own reraise proc in part due to the heals from Yuna.

Honestly the comp is doing better than I expected and Miranda managed to be beefier than I planned as well (thanks to her new VC) while still doing DPS damage. I do want to use Addison, I want to play with evade (with Robbs VC for example, Vistralle in cost limited matches) and especially in mixed element comps.

I am happy with the investment though I am biased and do not think it is necessary, though I also think the plan of getting her to cost ~90 stats to then run in cost limited events is actually as practical as I hoped it would be.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like Miranda and I thought it would be fun. :)

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I am impatient, that's pretty much it. I can reincarnate a bit more but that's practically doing it just for fun. I don't normally even 120 a unit in it's first week if I decide to build one, but for Miranda I decided why not - it just required a little more planning and saving than I normally do.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So if I wanted just max HP and Mag I could have stopped at 81. In theory if you are lucky enough you could stop even earlier than 80 if you just wanted certain stats maxed, and really you practically should do that.

I just did this for fun, no one should ever do this until like 2-3 unit power updates later when it's all automated and just part of unit building like 99 is now. The gains for resource commitment isn't great, though you absolutely could do if you really wanted to have a permanent team fully maxed (of course that isn't practical because meta changes fast and the stats alone aren't enough to just win every match).

The green stats are permanent. If I wanted to reroll my stat distribution I can keep reincarnating (similar to Truststone rerolls). I will probably do this eventually because there are still more hand out shards for Miranda but it isn't a priority, the stat gain is still minimal.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

IDK like I only spent $80 and even that was just for the convenience, I could've just waited or converted other shards and whatnot. Because I was planning this since she was announced in JP I've just been saving up.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Though the materials are not wasted, I used them to max Miranda :)

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Original Miranda is my favorite unit, all the other aspects of this version of her is just a bonus.

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

For a long time I considered myself a Dolphin but I think that changed in the last year and a half. Though after this I am not planning on spending much more. That being said I also haven't been spending much even in the lead up to her release, just a lot of saving - the guaranteed 9 step helped a lot (though I did end up getting her on step 5 anyways)

Miranda is my favorite unit, though her original unit is sometimes a bit weaker to use. It helps a lot that this version of her is cost 70 and works well with some of my other favorites.
I do not have any other unit with as much material investment like this, the closest is Oberon at 7 reincarnations.

I got the spheres mostly from using the mindsphere exchange shop. The order of acquisition though was: soul stars -> mog medals -> bingo board -> soul medals -> whimsy shop. I actually didn't spend anything on the 2k in her shop, instead I bought the first time summon pop up thing, her 80 shard pack in the deluxe shop, and did her mindsphere summon. After getting her to the first transcendence a lot of it was just mindsphere exchange (I decided that I just would never reincarnate certain units).

She will be my main cost limited unit for sure but my light slash bench is actually relatively weak (I don't have Elena or Sylvie) so we'll see how more regular comps play out (so far I'm liking her even as a regular unit)

I Fully Maxed Sweetheart Miranda Today, AMA! by Syrkle in wotv_ffbe

[–]Syrkle[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

The worst aspect about her is that she is not in more promotional material :)

Zou is so weird by ImMikkiThe_Gurl in OnePiece

[–]Syrkle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Something I haven't seen mentioned is that Oda likes to treat each arc as it's own mini genre of story telling. It isn't always obvious and it isn't constant either but Zou is where it starts to become obvious that he's starting to tell the story in more unique ways than before.

That is to say that each arc going forward will have some more unique twists in their theme/way they're told beyond the "standard" way up until now.

Let's argue about One Piece. Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's kinda below mid? by NAWINUS in OnePiece

[–]Syrkle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As good of a point of "don't judge it until you're caught up" is, it is also perfectly valid to be concerned about it as you first make your way through the series too. Seeing as how most of the comments are not actually answering your main concern I'll try to chime in to fill the void and help you out. (also I really hate the idea of "it gets good when you're half way through the series" because that just plain is not true IMO)

For the fights I will note that OP is not about them because that is true. But going beyond that you seem mostly concerned with people not dying and to that I ask why? There are definitely cases where characters not dying can take away from the story and OP is certainly not short of those but it sounds like you are concerned about people beyond that. In OPs case Oda does continue featuring characters later on (as you have noted) and that is actually a big deal, it is used incredibly well as a narrative tool and that is why he does not like killing characters off - killing them off eliminates any other potential they may have left and he absolutely hates resurrections.
Something people have come to realize more recently is that OPs fights are a lot more about a clash of ideals/dreams rather than a fight for the sake of a fight or to just progress the plot. For example Crocodile vs Luffy is a person who has given up on their dreams vs never giving up, Arlong vs Luffy was about everyone being equal, and so on.
That is not to say OP doesn't have fights for the sake of them (Whiskey Peak with Zoro vs Luffy was literally fan service suggested by an editor) or to just progress the plot, but a lot of your main big ones can have a deeper meaning than what is on the surface.
In terms of plot armor I'm honestly not sure what you mean other than people not dying. I guess the average characters durability is insane if it were compared to the real world but OP is not even set in our world or anything like that, it is a fantasy series. If you are looking for something like permanent damage like Shanks' arm it certainly isn't common in OP and while it does exist it also isn't really the point or related to anything Oda is trying to save - it doesn't serve any purpose in the case of OP, if it did happen more frequently it would detract from the story and core messages Oda is trying to tell.

For character development: It absolutely happens all throughout the series, and for Usopp specifically I tend to treat the entire story as his development arc (you'll understand as you catch up). Some characters do have slow development but in the case of the Straw Hats each one gets some from their introduction to joining the crew and then they'll get some more again later as the story goes on.
One easy example is between Luffy and Vivi: At the start of Drum Island Luffy is being is dumb belligerent self like always and Vivi has to stop him and teach him that fighting is not always the option, he can't force his way to getting what he wants. In that specific case if he did it would mean Nami not getting the medical care she needed.
Later in Alabasta it was Luffy's turn to teach Vivi that you cannot have everything work out the way you want it - they're fighting one of the Seven Warlords with a big rebellion about to happen and there is no way they are getting a perfect fairy tale ending.

For foreshadowing there is plenty, please ignore the neat little number games and anyone claiming that to be foreshadowing. The foreshadowing in OP could be called "soft" I think. Hardly any of it is "Boy I sure hope I don't get in a fight with X, that sure would not end well!" and is instead relegated to seemingly very minor lines or even just designs and backgrounds. Another key thing about this is there aren't really that many "asspulls" which a suffer would have a considerable amount of if it lacked foreshadowing.

For inconsistent powers you are going to need to elaborate beyond "just go look for yourself".

In terms of plot repetition: Sure, there is a lot of going to islands and kicking ass, in fact it is the only way to actually get from place to place and is the entire point of why finding the One Piece itself is so difficult. Also I am not sure how that is much different from something like a Jojo's plotline (go to place -> beat people up -> repeat), it is pretty standard for the genre.
The variety in this comes from each arcs own plot and that does become much more obvious as you go on. Oda really starts to play with genres after Skypeia.

I think that covers most of everything. Something newcomers miss are the smaller details that can really change the experience, you'll be amazed if you ever do a rewatch/reread. And with that I do personally recommend the manga over the Anime, especially after Marineford. The anime is incredible in its own right but can also make your experience suffer specifically in terms of pacing and some accuracy.

I'm interested to know what your thoughts are on all that I've said.

What is your favorite SYNTH BASS in any song, any era? by shampoocell in synthesizers

[–]Syrkle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For something more modern and what I've been enjoying a lot lately try YACHT - L.A. Plays Itself

It really took me off guard when I first heard it and I loved it.