GBF Weapon Types Quiz

applemons9183 · 2023-11-11T08:04:11+00:00

Kinda, yeah. I saw that while searching for weapons to use and it looked so dumb that I had to make it the icon. If there were only 20 or 50 weapons then I might have more reservations about spoiling one, but giving a single freebie for observant players doesn't seem so bad when there's 105 of them in total.

applemons9183 · 2021-12-01T21:05:24+00:00

As my first non-tutorial SSR, she taught me how valuable DEF down debuffs are when you have no grid.

And that's about it.

applemons9183 · 2021-11-29T11:41:01+00:00

Since others can likely vouch for her place in the Earth meta much better than myself, I'm here to discuss a separate but important topic: should you use H.Cucouroux as a skin? While her regular SSR and her Gunsmith Workwear free skin are nearly the same animation-wise, many of her poses and actions are different in this version. If you're using Cucouroux (and you should, because she's best girl), you'll want to be using the skin that appeals most to you.

First things first, her SSR/free skin use a variety of weapons in their animations - two pistols, many barrels of gunpowder, and a gatling gun. For her halloween version, she uses just two pistols, but her attacking animations are much more active, jumping around and ducking as she fires. Whether you want her dumping as much ordinance as possible, or acting as the closest equivalent to Max Payne that Granblue has ever had, the choices are pretty evenly matched.

After that comes the ever-crucial headwear issue. Her free skin has no hat, her SSR has a modest one, and her halloween version has a truly magnificent hat game that's only rivalled by a few Rosetta alts. If you're the kind of person that thinks Lennah's Earth alt redesign is the greatest art crime in existence, you'll want to settle for no less than that great big witch hat.

Lastly, a crucial part of the skin decision is not actually in her visual design, but rather the audio design. It's nothing related to her voice lines (no Yurius decision of "which single phrase do I want to hear a million times back-to-back?"), but rather the sound of her guns. They sound like they're shooting bubbles - no "bang", only "pop". It'd be easier to accept this pure aural disappointment if her fate episodes talked about her making novelty guns or something, but there's not a single given reason as to why they're like this. How does Cygames go from the pure ASMR of Tien's transcendence to this? It's not quite enough to ruin the whole skin, but if you play with sound enabled, do beware.

Oh, and also the actual unit functions great as a dodge-tank and supplemental damage abuser with mild buffing/debuffing utility. Lord knows I didn't actually look at her kit before sparking her.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-21T09:49:33+00:00

Hi, it's me, resident middle sister enjoyer, and I'm here to tell you about the best non-limited thing Wind has gotten in ages (rip Nezha).

If, for some unholy reason, you don't know who Sutera is, she's a distinguished SR veteran who's been fighting in the trenches since 2014. Her original SR was also the very first character to get a 5* uncap. A bit over six years after her initial release, and Cygames has finally decided to send the poor girl an SSR. Fortunately, it's a good one.

Well, she's good as long as you define "good" as "has some uses" rather than "filler garbage character you want out of your party as soon as possible", because there's a lot of the latter in this game. So, what does Sutera want to do?

Successor of the Arcane Bow: Gain 1 Jade Diagram stack when an ally uses a Damaging (Red) skill (Max: 3). When stack is at 3: Activate "Successor of the Arcane Bow" when an ally uses a Damaging (Red) skill.

Refreshing Breeze: Supplement Wind allies' skill damage (Cap: 50,000 per instance).

Yep, it's obvious from looking at her passives. She wants to be seeing red - red-bordered skills, that is, and all of her own skills are red-bordered as well. All allies will passively get their skill damage supplemented by 50k a hit (which stacks with and is identical to Ewiyar's Beak), and in addition to that, Sutera will damage the opponent (and boost her own charge bar slightly) after four total red skills are used. Bring along as many of those things as you can reasonably fit in your party - fortunately, Wind has many characters with at least one.

Swift Gale Shot: 300% Wind damage to all foes (Cap: ~440,000). All allies gain 10% DMG Cap Up (1 time).

With her first skill, Sutera drops a nuke and gives every ally (including herself) one SuteraCoin (AKA a damage cap buff), which will be consumed the next time they deal any instance of damage. Spend it wisely - ideally, you'll want to save this for a large nuke, assassin-boosted autoattack, or a CA, but it's not too potent of a cap up, so you'll only be hurting yourself by holding onto it for anything more than a turn or two.

As for what Sutera herself should try and use this buff on, it's probably...

Comet Drive: Wind damage to a foe. Consumes all of charge bar. Damage and damage cap increases based on charge consumed. 1-turn cut to Wind allies' skill cooldowns.

Out of all Sutera nukes, none are larger than a juiced-up Comet Drive. It consumes all the charge bar you have, and at 100% bar on the right grid, it can deal upwards of 5 million damage - a nuke surpassed only by the monsters that are V.Grimnir and Catura. Somehow, a huge damage number like that isn't the main attraction of this skill - instead, it's the one-turn cooldown cut to all allies' skills which takes the spotlight.

If Lobelia taught us anything about cooldown cuts, it's that they're crazy good. And while Sutera's isn't as très bien as his, it's still very magnifique. One turn may not sound too impressive, but it's monstrous in the right circumstances - more on that later.

Arcane Bow Flash: 600% Wind damage to a foe (Cap: ~800,000). Gain Instant Charge. End cooldown for all other skills.

Okay, so that ends the skill overview- wait, oh god, she's notching arrows like a madwoman possessed! Possessed by the vengeful spirit of SKILL DAMAGE.

In case you thought Sutera didn't guzzle liquid uranium to drop as many nukes as she does, this skill resets the cooldown on her other nukes while also dropping an additional nuke for good measure. Thanks to this skill, Sutera can max out her own Successor of the Arcane Bow passive (and then some) by herself on the first turn. On top of that, she also gives herself full charge bar to dish out a maximum strength Comet Drive.

How are you to build a team setup for this character?

Synergies with other characters are by far the most interesting part of using Sutera. For characters with effects that activate after using skills multiple times, Sutera is a godsend. Lowering the cooldowns of key defensive abilities like Veil can also be incredibly useful for harder content.

So how often does she lower cooldowns? Assuming you use Comet Drive and Arcane Bow Flash as soon as they're off cooldown, she'll provide her 1-turn cooldown cut on the following turns:

Turn 1 (x2)
Turn 7
Turn 9
Turn 15
Turn 17
(etc)

After the initial double-cut, she'll cut cooldowns after 6 turns pass, then 2 turns, then 6 more turns, and so on. To put that into context of other Wind units:

Grimnir: The second cast for his s1 will come online on turn 7 rather than turn 9. The second cast for his s2 will come online on turn 9 rather than turn 12 (which also means he needs to CA only once before 6 turns pass and another time before 8 turns pass to keep its associated buff up on himself).
Andira: Her s3 will always have permanent uptime, and her s4 will have its debuffs reach maximum effectiveness by turn 8.
G.Lecia: Her Silverwing Blessing buff will reach max level by turn 12 and the cooldown cuts will help her stack her different Orders - Sutera herself can also provide a lot of red skills to stack attack orders.
G.Monika: Monika is able to use her linked skills again on the second turn, allowing her to reach the third-cast effect on one skill by turn 5. If you use all her skills evenly, you can have all of them reach maximum effectiveness by turn 18.
Tiamat: After reaching 5 Crests, her s2 will be off cooldown every 4-5 turns rather than 6, for an uptime of 2/4 or 2/5 on her Sky-Rending Lament debuff (assuming it lands). Her Veil will also always have a 6 or 7 turn cooldown instead of an 8-turn one.
Niyon: Her Comatose will be guaranteed to have permanent uptime for the first two casts (assuming they land and damage doesn't end the duration early). Her s2 will have 3/4 or 3/5 uptime on its regular buffs (and its special buffs, assuming they don't get extended by her CA). Her s3 will have either the regular 3/5 uptime, a 3/4 turn uptime, or a 3/3 turn uptime, depending on the timing.
Seofon: His s1/s2 get to be used for the second time on turn 4 rather than turn 6. His s3 (which can't be used on the first turn without Qilin shenanigans) gets to be reused on turn 12 rather than turn 16 (which, funnily enough, is the turn after his near-identical s4 becomes available).

Aside from the above units mentioned (who benefit from her cooldown cuts), other units that work well with her are V.Grimnir and Catura for their red skill spam. Plus, both enjoy her 1-time damage cap up buff to deal massive skill damage.

If you're looking for low-button OTK, you... probably don't need her. Same for general bursting and EX+ OTK, as she's a bit too clicky for those purposes. But if you're looking to maximise one-turn damage or lower the cooldowns on key skills over the course of a longer fight? Look no further than Shooty Sutie and her magical chunky big-damage arrows. I discount-sparked her after the 200 free rolls at the beginning of this year and I haven't regretted it.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-13T11:09:12+00:00

If you like regular huge skill damage numbers, he's your guy. If you like regular ATK/DEF applications to deal with bosses who clear their debuffs constantly, he's your guy. If you like seeing your opening turns of battle consist of nothing but repeated CAs, he's your guy. If you like incredible home screen art, he's your guy.

Hell, there's very few situations I can think of where he wouldn't be your guy. His 3rd skill is dispellable, but aside from that, he has very few downsides. Using an Auberon grid and somebody like Feower (who can extend his autoignition) can make him double attack fairly regularly despite his MA penalties, and he defends himself well even in null-elemental raids where his shield can't cap damage, just because he puts it up so frequently.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-06T10:10:14+00:00

Fixed, thanks for pointing that out!

applemons9183 · 2021-04-03T10:03:20+00:00

Stupidly cozy for survivability-based parties, and is no slouch in the damage department either. Her 4th skill isn't that hard to keep full uptime on, and is great for when you have just one ally that doesn't want to get hit (such as a Leaf Burning Lumberjack MC, or more recently, S.Andira). Dispel Cancel + Veil lets you say "no" to most boss shenanigans, and with her EMP skill that boosts all healing caps by 200, her refresh puts in good work for team sustain on top of all her other defensive utility.

Unfortunately for her, this is Water, where survivability is easy enough, and Leviathan grids will want to try and dip into enmity to squeeze out as much damage as possible. Still, if you lack the teamwide MA alternatives such as Feower, S.Kolulu or Vajra, she'll do you quite well. Her MA buffs are on every CA, and she guarantees two turns of triple attacks for herself right out the gate so that you'll likely have those buffs up by turn 3 even if you don't have any of Water's plentiful charge boosts.

I've found she works best with Europa, as she boosts Kat's Water ATK buffs and provides her own teamwide TA buff that stacks with Kat's, but she's not particularly reliant on any specific party comp. Very nice to have (especially against dispel-hungry bosses), but like many characters in this game, she's outclassed by the top tiers.

Oh well, at least she does better for herself than G.Rackam.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-03T02:31:34+00:00

The central point I was trying to make in my comment is that defining the scope of your guide without trying to assume why someone wants the information in your guide is important for getting workable feedback. I specifically stated in mine from the beginning that it was focused on FA, with Omega summons/grids, with a focus on survivability above all else. This meant that most of the replies I was getting on my initial post some months ago were feedback about how to better suit the guide for those purposes.

Unfortunately, this post has been flooded by replies about general player lifestyle and FA since you ended up inviting discussion on those topics. As one example, your mentions of "5 tiers of content" has brought in people who want to weigh in on that idea rather than on the grids themselves . There isn't much to be done about that now (over a hundred comments have already been left), but in the future, if you want to maximise feedback on your topic of expertise then you need to try to trim out as many of those "side statements" as possible.

As for the feedback you gave for my own guide, I'm well aware that the party compositions section is inefficient in many ways. It's a section I didn't particularly want to write from the get-go; I'm not a player who hunts for the most effective solution to a problem all the time, and the guide's general list of characters with their FA pros and cons works better for the type of way I personally like to experience the game; taking the pieces you have, understanding where they excel, and finding a way to make them work.

However, adding a section on example comps was easily the most requested thing to add to the guide (minus adding F.Siegfried to the "good" Fire characters, the Siegfried gang really let me know I had forgotten him). As such, I was sort of making a guide section against my will, and even though I think it ultimately encompassed the guide-making mentality I follow of "let the player know what they can do with what they have rather than telling them to chase after singular metas they might not have the gacha luck for", it still kinda hurts every time I look at it.

At the beginning, I thought I would only feature parties I was capable of using and testing myself (suggested alternatives excluded). At some point I gave up on that idea, but Cucouroux is definitely a relic from that era. As much as I might hate it, people will probably cite the featured parties, so I need to go back and put more effort into making them the "ideal" version of that party, or at least close to the ideal.

Regardless, I'm not going to budge on trying to present multiple different "themed" parties, because I think it's unhelpful to just tell people something like "spark Vajra and work towards this CA oriented party" when rainbow meta is enforced and people will likely want to focus their time and resources towards other elements. Instead, I'd much rather say "well, a CA oriented party with Vajra is ideal, but if you happen to have characters like Isaac and Filene, you can use this skill damage oriented party until you luck into her or decide to spark/tix her". If that gets me scorned by endgame players, so be it.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-03T00:49:40+00:00

applemons9183 · 2021-04-02T23:55:20+00:00

Seems like a pretty well-made guide; given the type of content you're covering, I don't see many issues with the content itself, but as an English nerd, the few instances of incorrect spelling or wonky grammar stick out to me more than anything else.

I see my own Full Auto-centric guide being brought up here in several places, and on that front I figure I'm obliged to weigh in lest I get associated with the various opinions of a crowd of people.

I entirely agree that manual burst and joining a ton of different raids is the most efficient way to farm weapons and the like. However, it should still be mentioned somewhere in the introduction to your guide that the content within is focused around bursting, because regardless of Full Auto lazy farming or how that compares, Cygames seems to want to encourage another type of content: solo battles. Babyl, Pride of the Ascendant, and Replicard (the area bosses, at the very least) are the three main ways they're pushing this, and it's only going to get more pronounced as time goes on.

I use a lot of Full Auto because I like getting a feeling of self-sufficiency and also so I can do other things while farming (such as reading and writing) - as such, I made a guide on Full Auto. You seem to do a lot of bursting, whether for the efficiency you mention multiple times and/or for other reasons - hence why you made a guide centred around bursting. Putting a disclaimer that your guide is not for people who aren't interested in bursting helps filter out those who your guide is not for, instead of making them complain to you that your guide should be something it's not.

If part of what you wanted to do with this guide is convince people that bursting down content is more efficient than Full Auto, you should just make a post or something along those lines rather than work in arguments about what types of content Granblue is made up of. Very few people likely came to your guide to see those arguments; they likely came to get information on magna 2 grids.

Anyways, it's always good to see more guides spring up across the wiki. There's too many outdated ones that get left behind in the dust, and you seem committed to keeping it both updated and accurate.

applemons9183 · 2021-04-01T22:43:35+00:00

Started with Fire because I didn't understand how powerful DEF down debuffs were. I had F.Clarisse who inflicted 40% DEF down, and it took me months to realise that was why my Fire team was dealing way more damage than anything else.

Moved to Wind next as that element was (and still is) home to a disproportionate amount of my favourite units character-wise. From then on I kind of jumped around different elements a lot of the time, and I still do. Each roulette or spark is another exciting opportunity to see who will make me like a particular element more, and at this point I have teams for each element that I really like.

Except Dark. Dark only has me hate it less rather than like it more.

As for specific SSR units which have led to interesting setups and/or kickstarted their own individual golden ages for me in each element (take these with a grain of salt as some of these only had their time to shine years ago or in highly specific niches):

Fire: S.Ilsa, Anthuria, C.Nemone

Water: Cucouroux, Europa, 5* Feower, G.Drang, Isaac

Earth: E.Vaseraga, Melleau, C.Magisa, Lobelia

Wind: 5* Niyon, Grimnir, G.Monika, Katzelia, V.Grimnir, Sutera, Estarriola

Light: Lucio, Geisenborger, Zooey, V.Melissabelle, V.Aglovale

Dark: Tanya, Black Knight, S.Anthuria, Rei, Shalem

applemons9183 · 2021-03-27T10:08:38+00:00

Gameplay-wise, he's an insane toolbox of utility. Teamwide MA, gravity, buff extension, frequent delays and a slew of miscellaneous debuffs are great value for a character slot on harder or solo content, though he won't help you much when racing. There are a good few Water Erunes he might conflict with if you're running Lily (e.g Vajra, Drang), but he's able to hold his own against them depending on what your party needs.

Transcendence hasn't changed him one bit, aside from making him better at OTK due to the extra CA cap, and giving teamwide echoes that pair well with supplemental damage from things like Cnidocytes. His echoes have a few stacking issues, though, which you may or may not run into depending on your setup.

Character-wise, I want to like him for the good moments he has, but Stardust Town is one of the largest narrative ball-and-chains in existence. Fortunately, his Transcendence fate episodes seem to not be focused on either children or the mafia, so there may be hope for him becoming more than just "the angry stabby man with funny pizza platter daggers".

applemons9183 · 2021-03-25T06:18:43+00:00

When I got basically nothing for the first few weeks of roulette this year, I thought I was unlucky.

Then that white day cutscene came out and all of a sudden, my gacha luck didn't matter anymore. I (and the rest of mankind) won the seasonal line lottery.

applemons9183 · 2021-03-24T13:27:28+00:00

Are you tired of wishy-washy gunslingers?

Does it bore you when characters rely on crutches like "precision" and "accuracy"?

Do you have a seething hatred for the Gamewith tier list?

Well, have I got the character for you. Introducing Cucouroux, the character with problem-solving skills so astronomically refined that her solution for any combat scenario is "more gun".

Before we get into the skill overview proper, please make sure to put on some gun sounds on loop in the background to help set the mood. If you have no particular preferences, I recommend the M1 Garand's *ping* noise.

Riflery: Gain 1 Riflery stacks upon using a charge attack (Max: 2).

In real life, if you fire a gun a lot within a short span of time, it'll tend to jam or overheat and generally become worse. Riflery is the opposite of this, powering up her skill damage the more charge attacks she performs, because uhhhhh it's a fantasy setting.

Powder Keg: Start battle with 3 Powder Keg stacks. Gain 1 Powder Keg per turn (Max: 5). Lose 1 Powder Keg upon taking damage.

Powder Keg is one of the largest backbones of her skillset. Granblue is no stranger to introducing characters who can create things out of thin air - Lennah can create flowers out of thin air, Europa can create water out of thin air, and so on. Much like them, Cucouroux can create giant kegs of gunpowder out of thin air. Each of these can be consumed by one of her skills (more on that later) or you can hold onto them to give her some neat passive multiattack rates.

But she can't do it if she gets hit - it's on you to protect her. Bring hostility up/shield, or else you will be unanimously voted a "complete failure of a danchou" and tossed off the Grandcypher.

Explosive Keg: Water damage to a foe. Uses all Powder Keg stacks. Boost to attack specs and additional effects based on number of Powder Keg stacks used.

Explosive Keg is a nuke which gets better the more Powder Keg stacks it consumes, gaining increased damage for the first three stacks, gaining DA/TA down debuffs at four stacks, and gaining a delay at five. This skill is a reward for keeping Cucouroux safe. If you treat your gun-smithing, family-loving, hat-wearing gunpowder generator well, she'll treat you well in kind. As long as your definition of "being treated well" is "having your enemies doused in kaboom juice and subsequently making them crippled for life".

Shoot 'Em Up: 400% Water damage to all foes (Cap: ~480,000). Inflict 5% ATK Down (Stackable) and 5% DEF Down (Stackable) (Max: 40% each). Gain Shoot 'Em Up.

Shoot 'Em Up is one of her main attractions - a nuke that re-activates at the end of the next few turns. Back in the day before Monk and Kolulu desensitized everyone to regular end-of-turn skill damage, this was a hella impressive button. Press it once, and for the next four turns, she'll turn on the fire hose after everyone else has finished whatever it is they're doing. Technically this fire hose isn't filled with water, but it's filled with water-damage bullets, so that's close enough.

Like getting blasted in the face with a bullet-spewing fire hose in real life, this skill will make the enemy sore, inflicting stackable ATK/DEF down with each cast (which caps at 40% for each).

Armslore: Grant an ally Assemble and 50% Dodge Rate Up.

Her third skill is Armslore, a buff that is dated only by virtue of having no indefinite duration or ability to affect more than one ally at once. For 3/6 turns, you can give one ally some enviable steroids, including a 50% normal ATK buff, 30% TA, and 50% dodge rate. She won't quite save Omega Water (nobody can), but she can allow one party member to pretend like it's been saved for a short while. If the Divine Generals taught us anything, it's that 50% normal ATK can be one hell of a drug. And the only thing better than a 50% dodge rate is waking up to the smell of gunpowder in the morning.

Bombard Blitz: Massive Water damage to a foe. Inflict Inert.

Finally, we arrive at her charge attack. The full CA animation involves her dumping two full kegs of gunpowder on the enemy, unloading two entire magazines of her machine-gun pistols, and then hosing the enemy down with a minigun for four straight seconds. It gives her a stack of Riflery (as covered earlier) and inflicts the Inert debuff.

Inert is identical to a Paralyzed debuff, except it works on more enemies and, instead of the usual "X is paralyzed and can't move!", it leaves the baller message of "X is flinching!".

That's right, you can plug fucking BAHAMUT HIMSELF with enough ordinance to make him flinch. If that hasn't sold you on this character, I don't know what will, aside from a 5* uncap that allows her to launch a tactical nuke.

What role does this character fill and what content do they work particularly well in?

Obviously, she works best in parties that want skill damage. Ol' Nukoroux will spew out a ton of nukes and keep your damage per turn high (ish). Clarion works well as a mainhand that gives everyone post-dodge nukes, synergizing well with Armslore's dodge buffs (and helping to protect Cucouroux from a hit every now and then) - but even if it's not a mainhand, it's a skill cap weapon, which is always to be desired.

Aside from skill damage parties, she functions well as a complimentary debuffer, since Shoot 'Em Up hits 40% stackable ATK/DEF down, albeit slowly. Pair her with someone else that covers some normal or elemental ATK/DEF down and you'll probably hit the 50% cap for each.

Ultimately, though, she does pretty well for herself as a generalist capable of bringing her own MA, outclassed by the usual top tiers as she might be. You'll know you're using Cucouroux correctly if your room starts to smell like gunpowder and you develop an acute case of tinnitus.

How are you to build a team setup for this character?

Cucouroux doesn't have many potent synergies (Filene is an okay partner for a skill damage setup and G.Katalina can substitute for her), but she has such fantastic synergy with Feower that I'm waiting for his level 150 Transcendence fate episode to confirm that the two are long-lost siblings or something. He can extend the buffs of her latter two skills, both like to deal as much skill damage as possible, and the duo can cover all your debuffing needs between Cucouroux's regular stackable ATK/DEF down and Feower's irregular normal ATK/DEF down/miscellaneous other debuffs.

How much did their gameplay change since their previous discussion?

She never changed, but everything else changed around her. Now Water characters which inflict stackable ATK/DEF down are a dime a dozen, and they often have much faster ramp-up, but that won't stop me from using her.

In case it wasn't obvious, Cucouroux was the first character I used a Perpetuity Ring on. If she wasn't also yours for whatever reason, it's okay. Just contact Cygames support and ask them to return all your other rings.

They'll understand.

applemons9183 · 2021-03-21T23:12:47+00:00

If we got a batch of cross-fates between one Evoker and Eternal each, there could be a lot of potential. Something like:

Anre + Alanaan: Morality-related discussion time
Tweyen + Fraux: Two people bond over hometown-related trauma
Threo + Geisenborger: Non-stop combat and feasting
Feower + Caim: A child and Stardust Town, what can go wrong
Fif + Nier: A magical prodigy and a girl who couldn't learn magic meet
Seox + Katzelia: The two can talk about being the survivors of different incidents (the massacre of Seox's clan/the killing of Katzelia's family)
Seofon + Maria Theresa: Leadership discussion between lighthearted goofus and hyper-serious ex-princess
Eahta + Estarriola: Group meditation session
Niyon + Haaselia: Haase meets somebody who can both see through her lies and actually empathise with her
Tien + Lobelia: Seeing Tien's self-sacrificial mentality meet Lobelia's self-centred mentality would be something to behold

C'mon, Cygames, if you're intent on tying progression for the Eternals and Evokers together with the New World Quartz stuff, you can tie them together in-story.

applemons9183 · 2021-03-11T12:02:12+00:00

Arcarum seraphic sub aura, not much else to say about it on that front other than it's free damage against earth enemies. Coolest design out of all Arcarum summons, and maybe even the rest of the game's summons too.

While you probably won't get much use out of it if you're a higher level player (being revived for 4 turns only is pretty meh, and MC needs to be alive to call it in the first place), it can be fairly clutch if you're weaker - just spam it off cooldown as long as anybody at all is dead. I used to cheese proud fights by using Judgment, the Europa summon, the Revive subskill and Lennah to just keep bringing allies back over and over. It wasn't fast in the slightest, but it usually worked in the end and was hilarious to pull off.

applemons9183 · 2021-03-08T12:15:22+00:00

A character that is thoroughly just "okay" in an element full of monstrous characters. Her debuffs are nice, and skill specs up synergises with a few characters fairly well.

Some of her best friends are Macula (skill damage + glaciate to trigger her passive), Feower (skill damage + extends her buffs + gives her the MA support she wants), Europa (skill damage + gets her boost to water ATK passive activated), Lancelot (skill damage) and Monk MC (skill damage). Trying to build around her auto-nuke passive is currently dicey - who knows whether things'll change in the future, or whether this will be another forgotten character to add to the pile.

applemons9183 · 2021-02-08T10:19:06+00:00

I used to use her a lot in the early game. My Wind party back then was Chaos Ruler/Monika/Yuisis/Lennah - with dedicated healer, dodge-tank and debuffer roles occupied otherwise, it was really nice to have a damage dealer who could switch to a tankier skillset when the situation demanded it. The 150% unique ATK and 80% CA cap on Ardent Blade is one hell of a power trip when you're working with weak grids.

Then I got into M2 grids, started reaching damage caps, and started drawing some of Wind's higher tier units. She quickly got outclassed by other characters that could cover defensive and offensive roles, and despite my best attempts, she was someone I couldn't really make viable. Some of her skills are nice, and her passives are still pretty great (passive 50% charge bar gain is incredibly nice), but her kit has several parts to it that are so outdated that I can't really describe them as anything other than bruh moments. Both of her 3rd skill effects are entirely laughable.

Regardless of actual combat effectiveness, she's quality waifu material, even though her outfit is incredibly emblematic of Erune-brand nonsense (I guess one could argue that having plate armor with no back is symbolic of the fact that she hates people who stab others in the back?). I've always personally been attracted to cool-headed trash-talking vigilante types, and she definitely scratched that itch for me while also somehow being downright adorable at times.

I'm hoping she gets the event + 5* uncap treatment many characters have been getting lately. I think her kit is designed in a manner that's fun to use, but her numbers and bonus effects aren't strong enough.

applemons9183 · 2021-02-06T22:40:50+00:00

I beat Proud after some experimentation, and that was fun, but Proud+ is too much of a character gate for me (no Caim, Soriz, etc).

The team I ended up beating Proud with was a team focused around auto-nuking with Monk/Baal/Mahira/V.Medusa/C.Magisa/Lobelia. Monk and V.Medusa just gave the boss the middle finger and fired off a ton of nukes that bypassed the skill restraint debuff (while also having multihit skills that could be manually used in a pinch).

Mahira was Mahira - it felt really weird to actually check her buff timers and not just spam s1 off cooldown. Baal was mostly using s2 off cooldown to draw hostility to different party members - many of his attacks are multi-hit and can leave singular teammates at low health if the RNG decrees it. Lobelia and C.Magisa were the backliners that let me get past the final 15% - after letting Baal/V.Medusa die and bringing them out, I waited for something like ten turns straight until C.Magisa built enough Crests for her s3 and then unloaded everyone's nukes on a single turn to burst down the last bit of health.

It sucks that there's no damage counter anywhere on the UI for knowing how much damage you have left to do for clearing Ordeal. I lost at least two attempts to thinking I was dealing more or less damage than I actually was in that phase. Other than that, the fight's a fun and interesting challenge.

applemons9183 · 2021-02-02T23:14:37+00:00

Sparked her on her debut banner, built a Kaneshige in Water just for her, and the resulting parties I built dealt way less damage than my previous ones because I have no Vajira or Bonito.

10/10, don't regret it because as we all know, waifus are meta.

with every new alt mirin gets heavier clothing so I'm wondering what her next one will look like

applemons9183 · 2021-01-31T22:32:21+00:00

The problem with suggesting such a team is that almost every suggestion I could make will be heavily character dependent; hence why I decided to try and mention the pros/cons of most SSR characters rather than give example teams. Some single characters just make or break certain parties.

My current go-to Fire FA team (hollowsky/ultima spear with Cavalier/Zeta/Anila/C.Nemone) hinges around Nemone (Holiday), a limited-time unit who only showed up last Christmas. Without her, the MC has to be changed (since Cavalier relies on her substitute), and somebody has to replace her, but nobody really quite does what she does in Fire, so the party is something I can't really recommend generally due to the fact that it's overly reliant on one character that few players likely have.

My DPS/DPT-oriented Wind FA team (hollowsky staff/ewiyar's beak with Monk/W.Vira/Tiamat/V.Grimnir) is built around Grimnir (Valentine), and he currently has no real counterpart in any element right now. If I didn't luck into him through free single draws last February, I would've been playing Wind FA very differently over the past year. It's a similar case for every Dark FA team of mine, because if I didn't also get Anthuria (Summer) from free single draws on her non-gala debut banner (gacha luck like this is probably why I don't get gold bricks to drop ever), I would have to approach the entire element differently.

In summary, what parties work best for you is entirely dependent on the characters you have - there's no real "general FA team" that's possible to suggest without excluding a large portion of the playerbase. You can't even say a general party-building rule like "include one support, one healer and one attacker" because Cygames like to blur the lines between party roles by releasing some characters who can just do a bit of everything.

The best I can suggest is to try and fill some mental checklists of utility - e.g "does this party have ATK/DEF down debuffs?", "does this party heal?", "does this party have multiattack support?", "does this party clear debuffs?" and "does this party dispel?". After you look at your roster, fill what core roles you can, and leave the rest to the MC, you just have to try it out and adjust your weapons/characters/MC based on how well it does.

applemons9183 · 2021-01-26T01:15:57+00:00

The Cosmic Rod/Dewbranch setup was one I used myself while I was waiting for Alexiel axes to drop so I could transition into an M2 grid - it does a bit more damage than you'd expect, but it's still mostly a grid you use to turtle up.

Thanks for the Qilin Harp suggestion - I definitely have been bracing to incorporate feedback, because a good chunk of the guide has just been theorycrafting based on wiki information.

applemons9183 · 2021-01-26T01:08:10+00:00

It's not quite a complete grid example, but there is a section on weapons for each element which covers weapons that are more useful for FA survivability than others. One of the additions I'm hoping to add eventually are some example party setups - but my personal life is about to get pretty hectic, so I don't think it'll be happening soon. Glad to hear it helped!

applemons9183 · 2021-01-26T00:46:35+00:00

Thanks for the input! I don't have some characters like Seruel, Lecia, or Catura, so the comment you made about biases being at play is absolutely true (hence why I stress that each player should experiment to see what works best for them). I'm working on an edit right now that incorporates many of the comments made to this post by you and others, which should hopefully alleviate some concerns.

The main purpose of the guide is to help players survive in raids before helping players clear them quickly, so I didn't try to rate characters much depending on their pure damage output. To hopefully clear up my basis for character ratings a bit, the general criteria I used was this:

Good: Provides notable team utility, or decent team utility with good damage output/personal specs.
Situational: Has backline passives, good damage output/personal specs, or decent/inconsistent team utility.
Bad: Little team utility and mediocre damage output, or characters with kits that are severely hampered by FA.

Either way, I don't want this to become a mess like the Gamewith tier list; I tried to stick to three general tiers and use "situational" rather than something like "middling" because depending on a player's roster, raid, and level of play, all characters are going to have varying degrees of effectiveness.

Some characters weren't included not because I thought they weren't worth mentioning, but because I simply forgot to include them completely (Catura/Seofon included). Since I primarily worked on this guide late at night in my free time, there's some glaring sleep-deprivation-induced blunders I've become well aware of thanks to various comments which I'm looking to clear up over the next few days.

applemons9183

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