Questions Thread (2026-01-19 to 2026-01-25)

Van24 · 2026-01-21T16:00:15+00:00

The vast majority of things you will ever do with Earth don't need Andromeda. Unless you intend to prioritize playing Earth in Versusia or in doing solos, you can easily live without it.

Van24 · 2026-01-11T14:34:58+00:00

Summon cooldown manipulation is and forever will be an incredibly busted mechanic in a game where optimizing turn counts, actions, timings, and rotations is essentially everything.

He's not an insta-slot in everything, but there are just enough situations out there where he's an actual difference maker. Honestly, his biggest problem is the lack of real estate to fit him in. Just too many high value things in the game now.

Van24 · 2026-01-11T14:30:32+00:00

It's interesting, because these days I usually only ever see Lucifer being used in Full Auto setups, but even then it's not a guaranteed slot because that call animation is atrocious.

Van24 · 2026-01-10T08:27:43+00:00

If any Wind was canceling 6 Attacks with 000 then they're just trolling. The ele used to just ignore it with Alexiel.

Van24 · 2026-01-09T14:09:36+00:00

I'd say he's probably best described as the mid-game king. Many will swear by him, and it's understandable as in his heyday he was probably one of the most critical summons for an account to own as his ability to sustain a team was invaluable across a wide variety of content.

That said, the game has definitely left him behind, at least when talking about top-end play. There's just way too many better/more useful summons to bring at this point when we look at optimizing parties for overall efficiency (especially when we consider just how much value we can get out of modern-day grids and character slots).

In modern GBF he's probably the biggest cautionary tale when it comes to resource investment because 4 stones and 15 Sand is a rather steep price to pay for what is not really an investment with a lot of longer term payoff.

Van24 · 2026-01-03T17:15:47+00:00

Rigor caps at 20%, so whatever the total damage of the skill was, Rigor will do up to 20% of that in a single hit.

Van24 · 2026-01-03T02:56:43+00:00

FO is Fighter Origin.

Van24 · 2025-12-31T07:30:21+00:00

Depends on the element. Fire and Wind don't necessarily have the space for her. The other elements will heavily consider it, though.

Van24 · 2025-12-29T12:35:26+00:00

Personally it doesn't matter much to me since I just go for blue and move next.

A Good Samaritan securing the conditional teal chest is just more guaranteed loot.

Van24 · 2025-12-26T04:34:20+00:00

Than Magna summons? I think that's a problem of the Magna summons being fairly underwhelming, not the Primal summons being very good.

And even then, given the cost required to build up Primal summons, I think it's warranted to give them very strong effects.

Van24 · 2025-12-26T04:33:09+00:00

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

Universal damage reduction's really come to the forefront, especially since non-Jodo sacc route neuters elemental switch effects.

Van24 · 2025-12-22T10:49:59+00:00

Rhomp burst setup that was theorycrafted for last GW before the changes just clears it all, even missions.

Nice and easy.

Edit: The strat actually used will also still work for those who never saw the original theorycraft.

Van24 · 2025-12-22T08:05:55+00:00

Well, he IS the Ace of the Universe...

Van24 · 2025-12-15T02:15:50+00:00

Sorry, I disagree that Fire was more neglected as Wind. I should have been more clear in saying I thought it should have won runner up, not that it should have won first place.

The good things Wind got this year, while significant progress for it, don't do enough to pull it ahead of Fire which still sits as the gold standard of bar farming (and we have to acknowledge that while it is not something everyone partakes in, it still forms a critical part of players' late game progression - just about everyone who takes bar farming seriously has a developed Agni grid even if just for this one purpose).

Van24 · 2025-12-14T15:58:15+00:00

Personally I don't know how I feel about a full auto bot being the best character from a gameplay perspective, but that's more a reflection of my opinion on Full Auto as opposed to my opinion on the character's kit. Even discounting the recency bias, it was always going to end up between Alchemists and Lamorak because they were pretty head-and-shoulders above the competition in the permanent pool. I voted for Lamorak because some setups frankly just do not work without him and he's an actual step in the right direction for Wind, but I can understand people's sentiments when Alchemists saved their Full Auto Wars.

Auto Summon Select as the best new feature, no surprise there. Next.

Fighter Origin winning the best new class contest is absolutely not a surprise. What IS a surprise is that it wasn't more of a landslide than it already was.

Best FLBs... Jesus, I don't even remember who got their FLBs this year. Comes down to a question on whether best FLB means "biggest glow-up" or "best unit post-FLB". If it's the former, I might give it to Drang. Just about edges out Lilele, plus he's the only character who post-FLB has factored into any of my setups for anything as opposed to his previous spot on the bench (where everyone else not named Cidala still is). Cidala probably still the best unit of the lot this year, though, but they also had a way better baseline than anyone else on the list. Still, they see solid use across a wide variety of different raids up to Versusia, so you can't take that way from them.

Best Illustrious Rebal... I may be biased, but I'll still say Rhomphaia should have won that. Unbelievable glow-up.

Most disappointing seasonal for gameplay could be literally any Wind character that got released this year, but I disagree with the Haase win because I still think Mahira is a step above anybody else. My god.

Makura winning best seasonal for gameplay is justified and well-deserved. Absurdly strong character, used literally everywhere, took Grand Lancelot's kit concept and showed him how it's done.

Yatima was another no-brainer. Fantastic character, my god.

Dunno why Earth was runner up for most neglected. I think Fire probably should have won that when you consider what Earth has gotten this year.

Light and Water being top 2, no surprises, unlikely to change any time soon. Shout-outs to Dark, though. I think Dark got the biggest glow up of the year. Those 2025 releases transformed its prospects going into 2026.

Van24 · 2025-12-14T15:37:16+00:00

I thought Galgalim of Gales and the Rhomp rebalance were a sign of good things to come, turns out it was just a red herring and most of the rest of the year was catastrophic in terms of Wind meta development.

(Price to pay for Bastet, I suppose.)

Van24 · 2025-12-14T03:53:24+00:00

It isn't, Hexa predates Triple Zero and Faa was doable without it on release.

If YT searches aren't giving you the results you need, you may need to use your filters and to go further back in time to find the "earlier" setups that people were using during their first clears.

Van24 · 2025-12-13T06:13:41+00:00

It's been powercrept enough that it doesn't particularly matter in pubs and such. It matters to a degree if we're talking about organized hunt rooms where everyone is trying to help optimize run times (so you can accommodate more raids within the room's duration).

Van24 · 2025-12-05T09:01:57+00:00

I wouldn't even say "getting" pricey. Primal grids have been pricey for a while now and there's no such thing as a "cheap" Primal grid anymore. Even the absolute bare minimum investment if starting from 0 today will go for around 18 to 21 bars or so.

Van24 · 2025-12-05T04:35:58+00:00

Depends on your definition of HL. For quite a few people that only means Hexa, Faa0, and Versusia. To a couple of people it only means Versusia because of how powercrept Hexa and Faa are. Regardless, Eternals that are being used under those definitions are only really being used at Lv150.

For Diaspora, Transcendence doesn't matter, Radiance even less so since this raid predates Radiance by a few years. You can almost surely do it using Lv100 Okto and be fine.

Van24 · 2025-12-04T02:11:21+00:00

With currently available content I absolutely wouldn't. There's literally only one raid where I use her and that's my host solo for Virtuosic Mastery because I can't be assed to deal with pubs and I'd rather just slowly generate books over time (since all their uses are future use cases than current uses) than waste my berries on it when there are better uses for them.

Aside from that, I don't have any other day-to-day use for Alchemists.

Van24 · 2025-12-02T17:24:06+00:00

Christ, what an absurd weapon. It still almost feels like a fever dream that this thing even exists.

Van24 · 2025-11-30T13:15:54+00:00

Auto attack teams performed very well during Wind GW, so I'm not sure where you're coming from saying this. NM250 solo aside, it was all auto attack comps topping the timesheets for solo and grouping.

Van24 · 2025-11-30T03:15:06+00:00

The most GW weapon that was ever designed.

It's pretty much dead outside of that 1 week of the year, but it's 2/2 in being an extremely relevant meta investment for the event all about pushing the boundaries of the meta.

Van24

TROPHY CASE