[Final Fantasy] Known side effects of Dissidia include:

I'm ready go tonight. There's a party, alright. We don't need the raisin for joy, oh yeah. Tick down to midnight.
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Falcon Critical
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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun Feb 25, 2018 3:48 pm

That's probably the part of FF12 I understand and use the least, how do those limit break things work? I can activate one, then there are button prompts for the other characters, but what dictates which one goes next and why is there a timer? And then as an extension of that, what is 6/4/6 and how do I know what I'm doing?

I pretty much don't bother with that system at all :pac

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Sun Feb 25, 2018 4:12 pm

It's random which of the five options come up (tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, nothing, and refill meter). You can shuffle, but the shuffle is risky, in that if you hit a button, and that button doesn't correspond to anything, it just keeps rolling, eating up your time limit. You're supposed to get certain combinations of the three tiers, to knock out higher level attacks called Concurrences. That's the meat and potatoes of the system. If you knock out the best combo (Black Hole), you can do somewhere around 60K damage to your target, and a large amount to surrounding enemies. Black hole requires 4 or more of each tier of attack. I count them in order, so I meant I got 6 each of tiers 1 and 3, and 4 tier 2, so it resulted in the highest possible attack. I don't know if each of the regular attacks add damage or not, so I just keep the chain going as long as possible.

In this way, you can take out bosses that would be impossible given your current strength. I myself use it a lot, but almost never use the Summons.

So, I think I've had enough of the Zertinan Caverns. I'm coming across guys that use Disease (damage permanent until you hit a crystal), Disable, and Doom, plus enemies that are stupidly overleveled. I'll come back later for those Archeowhatevers and the other two enemy types I need to farm.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Sun Feb 25, 2018 7:42 pm

I'll have to test it out then.

An interesting thing I've noticed is that if I set a series of gambits for:
( fire-weak = firaga )
( thunder-weak = thundaga )
etc

Then even against bosses or libra blocked enemies my party will throw those elements at them. I wonder if this is a way also to beat that albino chocobo which has shifting elemental weaknesses throughout the battle and becomes immune to phsyical damage in his last phase. I have been using Bio as a non-elemental magic which is decent.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:01 pm

The Feywood is still as hard as ever. How are these enemies only 5 levels higher? I guess the fact that they swarm you and use tons of status attacks doesn't help.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Delthazar » Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:23 pm

Finally got around to getting the Barheim key, went back in to hunt a mark and explore the new sections. It has a couple good grinding spots to get my backup squad back up to par with my main squad, but the West Annex is a fucking nightmare if you're like me and you go in without the right loadouts and gambits (and probably somewhat underleveled even with the main squad.)

I haven't seen enemy spawns this dense anywhere else in the game, it's like every five feet in there, and they're almost always pre-buffed with Protect/Shell, sometimes even Reflect.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Tue Feb 27, 2018 9:28 pm

Ah I remember that place from back when I first played, mostly because I read about stealing Deathbringer from the rare mob there, which I save-scummed to get back in the day. Now I can just buy it from the town I was just in so no need to fish for 3% steals.

I've actually found the area outside Balfonheim Port has been decent for catching up my slacker party members (~30 instead of 52), but I think a lot of that is because they just got new weapons so are doing good damage. They are a little hard to level though, because they are Knight/Bushi, Foebreaker/Shikari, and Uhlan/Time - so none of them have much in the way of healing. I found a moderate heal in Bushi for Vaan but his magic power and MP are pretty low so they don't have good sustain.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Delthazar » Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:39 pm

Theoretically places like the Barheim West Annex and a couple spots in the Nabreus Deadlands are fantastic power-leveling locations 'cause you should be able to get huge chains on wall-to-wall undead with relatively simplistic holy or reflected restorative gambits; unfortunately I just don't have the punch to pull that off right now without getting swarmed and overwhelmed by the crazy spawns.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:23 pm

I set up a gambit for Phoenix Down -> Enemy: Undead gambit on Balthier, right below the Steal gambit. Kind of funny seeing him flick his wrist, and an enemy drops. "I stole your shit, be gone!"

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Wed Feb 28, 2018 12:09 pm

Ooh that's a hot tip, I keep forgetting undead get wrecked by phoenix down. I imagine if there are undead heavy areas you could burn through your supply pretty quick though.

I guess ( Enemy: Undead > Raise ) would work just as well?

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:20 pm

Yeah, I think so. I don't use Phenix Down much, unless things get really hairy, so I tend to be well stocked on them. Plus, I've been topping up recovery items at shops whenever I see one. I've been making sure to explore everything possible, and kill all the necessary monsters to fill up my list, so money isn't really a problem.

I cleared out the first map of the Feywood. Chickened out as far as the next two screens, though. I could totally see them sending huge waives, and those bunnies absolutely fuck you with status effects! The enemies go down in just over a turn, but at 4+, I still get pounded. I'll come back after visiting the Stillshrine, I think. Got a stronger staff for Penelo for my troubles, though. And, some good armor after selling off loot at Bur-Omisace.

Edit: I don't remember guns being this hard to come by. Maybe, I should just shove a katana on Balthier.

Oh, first skeleton that fell prey to that Gambit dropped a dead-head. I thought that was an amusing bit of random chance.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Delthazar » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:54 pm

There might be a miss chance with anti-undead Phoenix Down and Raise gambits, at least if previous games in the series are any indication. Like, the boss in the Gi cave in Final Fantasy VII is infamously weak to a Phoenix Down instakill, but I've learned the hard way in replays that it's not 100%. Downs/Raise are also single target which brings up efficiency issues.

I've seen people elsewhere suggest sleeping the undead first then hitting them with your strongest AOE heal, so maybe Sleep disables their dodge chance.

If that's the case, I guess you'd need Reflect up on your caster, or a Ruby Ring, then

Target: Undead > Sleepga
Ally Status: Reflect > Curaja

would probably be the biggest nuke version of this strat. And against undead with Reflect status as in the Barheim West Annex you might also need whatever accessory allows your casters to bypass Reflect on targets.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Wed Feb 28, 2018 5:02 pm

I haven't come across a lot of undead since setting it up, but I haven't seen it miss so far.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Thunderhead » Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:02 pm

Just a heads up, but there's a huge Squeenix sale on Steam right now.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Delthazar » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:06 pm

Balance recalculates its damage output if the caster also has Bubble active. :shh

LOW HEEPS
BIG DEEPS

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Sun Mar 11, 2018 11:52 pm

Did you beat beat the Trickster, FC?

If not, Shades of Black seems to bypass the barrier by casting poison magic. Mostly Bio, which is good, since for my party (level 42) it was doing 2500ish damage. The Concurrences DO NOT bypass this defense, I learned to my chagrin. I don't remember how I beat it last time...

Choco-Meteor was brutal!

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:04 pm

Yeah I noticed since I last fought it that Bio is non-elemental, so my Ashe casts that with abandon when elements aren't working. I should fight it again, I have a ton more HP now to soak damage from that phase.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:17 pm

Really crappy that the chocobo shop keep, rescued by a miraculous chocobo... ordered it's murder.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Mon Mar 12, 2018 6:37 pm

Man, that Crystalbug in the Nabreus Deadlands was way strong!

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Mon Mar 12, 2018 8:42 pm

I just beat Carrot. It wasn't all that bad until it's health got low, and it wouldn't lay off the Regen and Protect. I just kept Balthier at a distance to keep him from getting hit by Bad Breath, and had him use Remedy whenever someone got hit, since his Remedy removes all of the status effects of Bad Breath. Once it got too low to bash down, I just hit it with a Concurrence, and no more Carrot.

Edit: I tried setting up a Dispel Gambit on Panelo (White Mage/Black Mage), but it couldn't keep up. Probably would have worked, eventually, but I chose the "You die now!" button.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:30 pm

If you have heaps of MP anyway, the way I see it is that with a lot of effects they have to cast it on themselves, and all the time they're spending putting up Protect is time they're not bad breathing me. Even more now that my Balthier (White/Mach) has an auto-haste accessory, the only real risk is burning through his MP which hasn't happened for me yet.

In the carrot fight's last stage I had Ashe tanking all the status etc with a gambit to cleanse herself of disease (with the item), and I might have turned off his purge gambit to let him focus on healing.

Are you bubbling before these fights now? It takes a lot of pressure off.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:37 pm

Nah. I've never used Bubble before. Even on previous playthroughs. How's it work?

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Falcon Critical » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:34 am

Bubble doubles your max HP, healing you for that much when it's cast. So if your MAX HP is 4500, it goes up to 9000 and heals for 4500. When a boss can hit for 2500 it's a lot safer when that's not more than half your max.

It doesn't have a super long duration, but will last most of a big fight and since I have Fran (Red/Archer) casting it it doesn't interrupt my healing. It's too expensive to run all the time, but it's great for bosses.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by Delthazar » Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:04 pm

Once your mages are leveled high enough (50+ probably) there's basically no raisin I can think of not to have Bubble up at all times. The only particular downside I can think of is if you run into enemies who like to spam Gravity, since it'll recalculate its damage upwards to account for Bubble, but this is an exceedingly rare case with plenty of hard counters. 'sides, like I mentioned before, the same is true of Balance, so it's a two-way street.

You can also offset Bubble's MP expense pretty easily since most or all mage classes (and maybe a few non-mages besides?) have access to Green magic on their license boards, so you don't necessarily need to make one person your Bubble butt. Also, there are Bubble Ring accessories which do the same thing at no cost other than taking up your accessory slot.

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:40 pm

Well, if anyone is going to be my "Bubble butt", it's got to be Fran (Time Mage/Archer).

I'm still balancing out levels, but at the moment, Vaan/Basch/Ashe seems to be noticeably better (with the exception of swapping Vaan for Balthier in that Carrot fight). I think I'll still balance, though. I sidetrack so much into harder areas that I'm overleveled, so no big problem.

When does Float come along?! I swear I had it way earlier in previous playthroughs. I don't want to venture into the Necrohol without it...

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Re: [Final Fantasy] We are all Basch.

Post by True Perception » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:13 pm

So, I found an interesting problem. If you set up a Bubble Gambit on someone, and that someone has a Mirror Mail on (or is otherwise Reflected), they will stand in one spot and cast Bubble on themselves ad nauseum. Diamond Armor it is!