Happy 1st anniversary Final Fantasy Record Keeper. This would mark the longest span a time that a single one of “these” apps has ever held my attention. With the anniversary gifts and what have you, I once again have mithril to spend. I had considered forgoing the lucky draws earlier this month in favor of saving all of my mithril for either SSB Fest Banner 5 or FFT. Ultimately, I ended up caving in and getting supremely lucky by pulling both Crescent Wish (Selphie: Medica + Avoid one magical attack) and Sage’s Staff (Lenna: Hastega + 30% Boostga). So at this point I have a natural medica and hastega/boostga .
So the question is, do I go for Sentinel’s Grimoire from SSB Fest or Scream from FFT? I was thinking that overall, SG will add the most utility to my team, particularly since I have several Boostga SBs. If by the good graces of RNGesus I do happen to pull SG, all leftover Mithril without blowing the entire stash, if any, will go towards pulling on FFT. I currently have enough mithril for 3 11x pulls. Given that dungeon update #20 is due out on the same day as banner 5, I may have enough for 4 pulls, but we’ll see.
Ultimate Gigas
Several S/L’s because of bad RNG before mitigation was set up. Aside from that, it’s a relatively straightforward fight if you can manage the massive damage output. Personal goals for this encounter were to use both Blind Shell and Thief’s Revenge since both are fairly new abilities that I had bothered honing (Thief’s Revenge in particular).
| Character | Weapon | Ability 1 | Ability 2 | Record Materia |
| Cloud | Gaia Blade (II) | Lifesiphon | Blizzaga Strike | Ace Striker |
| Zack | Bladefire Saber (XIII)+ | Lifesiphon | Temp Flurry | Knight’s Charge |
| Zidane | Ultima Sword (IX) | Thief’s Revenge | Blind Shell | Pride of the Red Wings |
| Selphie | Power Staff (V) | Curaja | Shellga | Dr. Mog’s Teachings |
| Lenna | Sage’s Staff (V) | Renewing Cure | Heathen Frolic | Mako Might |
Roaming Warrior: Tyro (Sentinel’s Grimoire)
Notable Soul Breaks: Blade Beam, Air Strike, Dreamstage, Flames of War
…in retrospect, I should have leveled Lock a bit more and used him instead of Zidane. Mitigation was setup ASAP then slow/blind for the medal requirements. After debuffs were applied, the Gigas’s were focus fired downed in the following order: Fire -> Ice -> Thunder (least to most HP).
The medal requirements were nerfed hard. I did not reapply the second charge of SG in time, ended up losing both Zidane and Zach at some point, and only lost 1 medal for party members KO’d. Zack’s stun all SB is great, but I really wish that I was able to use it more than once. As always, Boost + Blade Beam spam saves the day.
Nightmare Ultima Buster
I forgot to cast waterja on the sphere. Whoops. Otherwise, no medals lost. Easy gimmick, mage meta for the win. Well, given that physical attacks are countered with death + massive synergy for mage characters, there aren’t too many other viable party configurations I guess. Wall and Shellga were way sufficient for mitigation to the point where healing was probably not even needed. Hastega > Wall for your RW in my opinion because of the soft time limit in all phases.
| Character | Weapon | Ability 1 | Ability 2 | Record Materia |
| Rydia | Magistral Rod | Valefor | Thundaga | Impetuous Youth |
| Terra | Oak Staff | Waterja | Thundaja | Vow of Vengeance |
| Rinoa | Valkyrie (VIII)+ | Firaja | Drainga | Witch of Succession |
| Tyro | Cardinal (VIII) | Flare | Firaga | Devotion |
| Lenna | Crescent Wish (VIII) | Curaja | Shellga | Dr. Mog’s Teachings |
Roaming Warrior: Tyro (Sentinel’s Grimoire)
Notable Soul Breaks: Flames of War
Phase 1: Apply mitigation and get him down to 80% to start phase 2 ASAP. If I recall correctly, you have about 3 to 4 turns to do this before he meteors his party. His resistance seems pretty low so this phase shouldn’t be much of a problem with a half way decent mage party.
Phase 2: Ultima Buster gains a non-dispelable reflect and will counter all AOEs with death unless they are specifically marked as not being counterable (summons are okay and also count towards the non-elemental requirement). So in other words: Focus all attacks on the mana sphere.
- When a spell is cast on the Mana Sphere it will react with a different counter depending on the type of spell cast. For both fire and thunder based spells, Ultima Buster will take damage equal to 10x damage that the sphere has taken.
- The general idea is to not kill the sphere and do as close to 900ish damage as possible (900 damage on the sphere means 9000 damage to Ultima, 10*900=9000).
- The sphere will periodically charge Ultima. When he receives 4 charges, the sphere will die and phase 3 will begin. The idea is to never enter phase 3.
- Multi-hit single-target fire/thunder SB’s work well.
Phase 3: If you have the misfortune of getting to phase 3, DPS him down as fast as possible. Everything that he does is effectively a OHKO. Magical Blink will negate one of his -ajas.
In a nutshell: Get him to 80% to start phase 2. Once the sphere appears, hit it was a water/fire/thunder spell to make the medal requirement, continue to spam fire/thunder. He does piddly damage with wall + shellga during phase 2 to the point where healing wasn’t really necessary. So if you are pressed on damage/don’t have Hastega, it may be worth not bringing a healer. With synergy, Rinoa’s had 523 MAG and was doing 2k damage to the sphere per -aja cast. In retrospect, I could have swapped out firaja with a lesser fire spell.