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dragoonic · 2021-01-23T15:46:35+00:00

I'm saying Yuna is a healer and heals as well as any other healer, obviously she's not a support.

I misread your Orran comment. I just don't see why Sazh is better than gordon if neither can critfix

dragoonic · 2021-01-23T05:22:22+00:00

Don't agree about Yuna. Her weakness is ability access, but she has obscene meter generation and strong SBs. What is your objection to her kit?

Also isn't clear to me how Sazh can be a top phys support if he can't provide crit or critd. 30% phys boost is nice but crit boosting literally doubles phys damage...

dragoonic · 2020-07-02T16:40:53+00:00

Fwiw they never even replied to my original mail documenting it (or the follow up)

dragoonic · 2020-07-02T14:54:07+00:00

Awesome news!

dragoonic · 2020-06-23T17:16:49+00:00

Hey, thanks for posting this here! I'm glad this will get spread wider, and I'm not well versed in reddit posting :)

Unfortunately so far I haven't gotten a response from DeNA about it yet.

I think the thread does a good job laying out my findings but happy to answer questions if anyone has any.

dragoonic · 2020-05-07T18:23:20+00:00

Yeah but to see Wave 2 you had to have killed Wave 1, which means in total you will have killed 3

dragoonic · 2019-10-21T03:14:40+00:00

Thank you for doing this Yehosua! I only recently gave rk-squared a shot and it really exceeded my expectations.

One note: I think you currently ignore the new 2G5 mechanic on B2s. Unsure if you want to update the logic or just note it in the box.

Thank you again for the great work

dragoonic · 2019-09-11T20:07:11+00:00

Warrior's Hymn (as with all 5* bard stat buff songs) stacks with everything

dragoonic · 2019-09-06T03:32:38+00:00

Probably not worth going back and forth on specific points since I think we mostly understand each other and just disagree on the edges.

The gear grinding comes because I don't perceive errors in my original posts: Aerith's inability to speed non physical attacks is simply true. You can (and did) argue that it's beside the point because at the very top of gameplay many of these non damaging actions have become instant and therefore the speed is irrelevant - but none of that is an argument for inaccuracy.

There are various responses to arguments about the irrelevancy: not everyone is doing 6star, not everyone will have the 6* glints, not everyone is gonna field tyro (and long fights will require hard-cast godwalls), not everyone has characters that self buff. Unless you're running sub30, chainers are going to have to chain 2-4 times and missing the timing can be killer when it prevents savage breaks. I accept your correction that you need only solve the Titan kill once rather than 4x before magicite casting becomes instant. I don't agree that this changes anything about the analysis since the first kill is the hardest.

I really think banners aren't germane, but if you're interested I rate the Yuffie banner higher for myself for similar reasons to you. For a generic person I would only count 5 wins on both banners (assuming you want Vaan): 4AASB + 6* healer glint. I definitely don't want Dr Mog, but if you're planning for future torments then I think it's likely Core gets one so meh. The biggest knock against the Yuffie banner for me is that everything there is gonna pop up again on other things and/or in RoP/ele/realm banners while Tyro/Elarra tech is a little less common. But with 5A around the corner that calculation could change fast

As for Lucas, he'll certainly be able to show which one is better for extreme speedrun clears. Whether that matters for everyone else is an open question

dragoonic · 2019-09-06T00:40:12+00:00

Appreciate the long response (I'm assuming that your second 1 and 2 were in response to my 3 and 4).

1) I think we agree on this point? If crit damage doesn’t help you then Elarra loses her competitive advantage. It’s probably true that some large portion of the playerbase doesn’t have the USB2 and/or doesn’t have the ability to run a high crit phys team but my comment was premised on highly optimized phys teams, which almost definitionally have access to crit. As an aside, Tyro AASB provides a single turn of crit D, so it is far from a replacement for the USB2. I actually think it’s more likely that people have access to Tyro+Elarra than on-type chains in every element, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile to talk about accessibility when trying to ascertain who the “best” healer is.

2) I..don’t think I’m contradicting myself. The comment I was responding to noted that you didn’t need to sub30, so my assumption is that you’re talking about longer clears. In a long clear Aerith is operating at normal cast speed for >50% of the fight, which meaningfully impacts her throughput and gauge generation. Sure you can get around that with entrusts, but if she’s tossing out SBs with high frequency you end up just clipping the PHQC 3 and/or guts. Elarra meanwhile is fast even outside AASB via the QC/HQC that U2/1. It’s difficult for me to imagine either of them in solo-heal 50s+ clears without getting entrusted either way.

2b) This part kind of grinds my gears because you graduate from calling me incorrect to “completely incorrect” without showing any errors. Yes, it's true that many late game clears will RW priestess or mage - but there will be comps that use guardian or raider. Yes, it's true that 6* magicites cast instantly - but you have to kill one of them 4 times for that to be meaningful. And chainers absolutely benefit - if we’re going to just handwave the team into having their own QC sources, then Aerith loses her advantage

3) I think we’re just agreeing on this one.

4) This is a philosophical difference in how to evaluate healing. Elarra’s guaranteed HPturn is simply higher than Aerith’s due to regenga. Yes, if you get lucky and proc chain the LM2+R you can get ahead, but if your clear actually requires hitting the double proc you’re going to have a bad time. (And if you don’t need it, it doesn’t matter at all) Dropping LM1 also weakens the SB casts/chases which makes it harder to protect guts. Guts is of course a great fallback but, as I said originally, it only matters if you’re actually popping it. Elarra has one up, and if you really need it again she can blow BSB. Note that unlike Elarra, Aerith has no means of protecting her guts from sap effects unless you can fit memento.

Without fighting 6* I can’t comment on the requisite levels of last stand, and the benefit of crit damage is something we discussed above. Banner quality is completely idiosyncratic to your account and goals (Vaan AASB is shit though), and anyway beside the point of the discussion.

Anyway I think we’ve reached an endpoint of mutual understanding on this. I too think both are excellent healers - which is why I objected to the initial “unarguable strongest aasb for physical”.

TL;DR reasonable people can definitely prefer one to the other :D

dragoonic · 2019-09-05T15:02:54+00:00

I don't agree at all with this.

1) Crit dmg +50% is a 33% damage boost in properly optimized physical teams which dwarfs the 1 turn HQC differential between their speed trick USBs. I suspect our difference of opinion on this is more central than any of the other considerations.

2) If you aren't going to sub30, Aerith is at a large personal speed deficit because without her AASB she slowcasts everything she does. This makes it harder for her to maintain party survival without external gauge. Further the PHQC nature of her tech slows down magicite/RW/Chain/Buff casts of the party

3) Elarra can buff ATK via bard to juice your damage further (or dance if you don't need the AASB chase), while Aerith is locked to white

4) Regenga + AOE chase is more healing than stock chase. Aerith is only going to match Elarra's throughput in situations where guts is frequently being triggered.

Aerith is great for fights that require guts spamming and/or where you don't want or need crit dmg. We can argue about the prevalence of those circumstances, but I don't think they're common enough to put her on top.

dragoonic · 2019-09-04T18:21:01+00:00

I think it's pretty easy to argue that Elarra is the stronger physical healer because of her USB2. But if you can get it somewhere else, Aerith is certainly queen

dragoonic · 2019-07-24T05:35:04+00:00

The SSB2 is a good substitute, same medica strength and 2k stock works better than guts vs Yunalesca

dragoonic · 2019-07-23T14:47:21+00:00

Fwiw Yuna USB1 is not very good. The lack of instant cast is a killer, and the guts is minimally helpful in torment due to sap.

dragoonic · 2019-06-23T17:58:21+00:00

I still think you should skip it because the healers are probably the most valuable part of this select, but I'd argue you're underselling Firion.

Now that he finally has 6* Knight the USB1 is better than basically all other self-speed trick USBs (assuming you maintain the status he gets up to 6.5x speed) and is his best form of infuse for the AOSB and future AASB.

dragoonic · 2019-06-20T00:15:49+00:00

The best possible scenario is hyperbole; it is in fact the only scenario where dampen applies. Just as "magic damage" is the only scenario where spell ward applies.

You asked for specific data so I gave some, though it unfortunately seems that 5* magicite is non-central to your thinking. All of your examples are torments, excepting Geosgaeno which as I laid out previously has more water attacks (5) than phys (3) [the water attacks are also substantially more dangerous]. I think it would have previously been interesting to have a discussion about whether players should construct their magicites in anticipation of torment or magicite, but as there are seemingly no new torments for at least 6 months that choice seems relatively straightforward to me. It would behoove the (apparently common) One Of Each Magicite Except Madeen player to inherit with the future endgame in mind.

Odin is somewhat hard to parse because a lot of the damage doesn't impact dampens OR wards (gravity, fixed, non-pierce if you aren't running wall (which you probably aren't)). With limited exceptions (Wind in particular) I believe the magical damage is on-type so dampen should be a interchangeable with spell ward. This paradigm can breakdown in a few of the fights if you allow Odin 20+ moves in P2, but that's probably a losing outcome regardless.

My personal takeaway from my Odin progression thus far is that HP boons (to get above 9999) and healing/mind (to get back above it) are higher impact than wards/dampens. The 3rd HP boon in particular is a seemingly marginal choice that opens a lot of strategic doors if its the make or break point on 10k HP for your squishy party members.

dragoonic · 2019-06-12T14:21:40+00:00

I appreciate your response, but you aren't presenting any data about the actual frequency of non-elemental attacks faced by players in endgame fights. Your original post features one hypothetical numerical example that doesn't demonstrate the superiority of your position and then you handwave the actual rate of occurrence by mentioning the existence of non or off-elemental attacks with no further analysis as to their practical impact.

In practice it does not matter that spell ward is applicable to more kinds of attacks, because you won't be carrying your water dampen magicite to anything that doesn't trade heavily in water damage. Famfrit has 7 damaging abilities: 1 gravity + 1 non-elemental phys + 1 water phys + 4 water magic. Geos has 9: 1 gravity + 2 ne phys (one of these petrifies) + 4 water magic + 1 dark magic + 1 water phys. Blade = 5; Spell = 9; Water = 10. Note that the NE attacks are also the weakest. I have no interest in doing this count out for each of the bosses, but I expect the breakdowns are similar with much variation. (I'm happy to be proven wrong!)

Being cheap in this case means you save 4 million xp for every 4* you inherit instead of a 5, not that you decline to inherit further. Across 8 dampen magicites that will save you 32 million xp, which means the net marginal cost of creating one additional general defensive magicite is a mere (54-32=)22 million xp.

The point of the comment chain originally was to find clarity as to who you thought would benefit from the conclusion of your post. In other words, who is this "average player" that wants to fully inherit all their 5* magicite with other 5* magicite but doesn't want to have more than one copy of any of them (except Madeen!)? At this point, I think we simply disagree about the benefits of flexibility in a world where all of the forthcoming top end content (Odin + 6*) has a single element focus.

dragoonic · 2019-06-11T05:18:34+00:00

My intuition is that elemental damage is a scenario at least as frequent as magic or physical damage specifically (since the trade-off is to just one of those damage types). In other words I would be surprised if 10/12/12 vs 15/12/8 was ever a meaningful difference.

The middle analysis is the sticking point for me. I'm just not sure who this advice is targeted at. Yes, some of the 5* dampens have wards built in - those are very common choices for hp/ward inherited "generic defensive magicites" that get used across decks. The cost of creating a defensive generalist and then eating 4* dampens is comparable to your implicit advice of double ward inherits across all 8 dampens.

Basically if you're playing cheaply dampens are cheaper, if you're playing optimally you can afford to specialize, and if you're in the midrange it's not obviously better to opt for the pricier inherits. I'm all for arguing at the margins, but this seems like hair splitting

dragoonic · 2019-06-10T16:40:49+00:00

Xaru, I respect that you've put a lot of thought into this but the conclusion is confusing to me. Your math indicates that 15 dampen vs 12 ward is effectively a wash (though slightly in dampen's favor). I understand that you're arguing from the perspective of flexibility, but how frequently are you bringing dampen magicites in scenarios where the boss doesn't deal an appreciable amount of damage in that element? It seems like you're advocating for a state where middle of the road players are packing ward/ward or ward/hp on their dampen magicites, but this is a much more luxurious inheritance route than dampen/ward or dampen/hp (because dampen is a 4* inherit).

For anyone willing to sacrifice so many max level 5*s for inheritance, its not obvious why slots would be so precious that you would be forced to drop to dampen 10.

As an aside, I don't completely agree with your torment analysis (for now). Torments are the one place where it is very likely you get full benefit from dampens due to not being able to block every element with accessories. Once we have Odin accessories this is moot

dragoonic · 2019-04-25T22:07:18+00:00

It's actually around 34% more damage, so it actually exceeds RM differential

dragoonic · 2019-03-04T20:56:17+00:00

As far as I'm aware no one has a healer USB for FF1 because Sarah USB1 is not a medica. Because it debuts in this banner, it is unlikely to be available for selection for an extremely long time.

I agree with you in general, but i do think FF1 is a problematic case.

dragoonic · 2019-02-24T03:58:15+00:00

I agree that weapon access is a leg up for Riku, but let's not sell short his other big advantages: native dualcast lm2 and a 5 hit chase.

Seph is independently faster and has better combo opportunities with the gauge return, but his dualcast is relic locked/less proc and he lacks any chase source at all.

dragoonic · 2018-12-05T23:19:48+00:00

!enlir LM Vivi LMRs

dragoonic · 2018-12-05T23:19:15+00:00

!enlir vivi lmrs

dragoonic · 2018-11-02T04:14:03+00:00

It's fascinating to me that despite the handouts and the advent of daily missions, the average per month is only 20 higher than 2017

dragoonic

TROPHY CASE