Did everyone have a happy holidays? I hope so. *Sigh* I am 4 Major Ice Orbs short of honing Full Break to R2. Looking at the event forecast, it looks like I will be waiting a while :-|. Anyway, now that orb farming and holiday madness are for the most part over, I finally had some time to complete the bonus battles for the FFV event and Omega (will do a separate post later).

Melusine+++
This one wasn’t too hard for a +++ encounter. I used the, “put her to sleep and burn her house down” strategy. Melusine will rotate elemental weaknesses throughout the fight. Her first elemental weakness however is always fire. The idea is to perma-sleep her so that she never rotates weaknesses and spam her to death with fire spells. All attacks need to be magic only since any physical offensive ability will break sleep. This strategy obviously requires a decently outfitted mage crew. 2x Firaga R5 and 1x Firaja R3 was sufficient for me, but I do have decent mage gear. Mileage may vary.

RW: Boon for hasteaga. Tyro alternated between casting Sleep and Mana’s Paen (boost magic all). Lenns was either on standby or spamming sleep depending on whether or not Tyro’s sleep landed. Everyone else just spammed offensive magic. Because Sleep is super cheap to create/hone and also because Sleep seems to have a shitty hit rate (30% if I recall correctly), I equipped Vivi wit ha third sleep spell which was needed during my run.

The idea of course is to sleep-lock Melusine. If she gets a cast off, you may need to S/L. I gimped resistance in favor if upping magic so her -aga spells one-shot my casters. If all goes well, you shouldn’t take any damage. Overall, it is a pretty easy encounter to master as long as you have enough fire power to burn her d own (literally).

Exdeath (Ultimate)
Exdeath was a fun fight, challenging, well designed, and not too RNG dependent though the AoE tornadoes are bullshit. If there was one bad thing that I had to say about this encounter it would be that it is kind of a gear wall that serves to highlight how important certain relics are. That said, I don’t have a hasteaga or wall relic and still beat it. One could also say the same about literally every other boss fight.

RNGesus was not in my favor and I did have to S/L several times after a string of attempts where I would receive back to back to back tornadoes. Of all abilities that Exdeath uses, Doom is probably the most benign. If the fight takes longer than 60 seconds, you are probably either dead or out of abilities anyways. I had originally tried two separate mage meta party configurations; Both of which failed due to the casters being utterly eaten alive. Another attempt using a physical only party (+ 2 healers) worked:

RW: Lunatic High for Protectga and Hastega.  I don’t have great FFV armor record synergy, so things hurt. To combat the amount of damage that I was taking and the amount of healing required, I ended up using Drain Strike on two spellblades on top of full mitigation (shellga/protectga/offensive breaks). I really wish that I had enough orbs leftover to hone both Firaga and Thundaga strike past R2 but since both spellblades spent the majority of the fight spamming Drain Strike to self-heal, it didn’t really matter I guess. Drain Strike + Planet Protector does decent damage, about 8K if I recall correctly.

When Exdeath hits 50% health, he will take two attacks per turn and for the most part will spam single target magic attacks on your party. I cast Carbuncle at about 40% to 45% health to get reflect up. I have Carbuncle honed to R2. Only 1 cast should be needed but having 2 available would be safer just in case he gets an unlucky dispel off before hitting 50% (Dispel all drops off of his ability table when he is under 50%). I didn’t master this encounter, but got close. I ate several unlucky AoEs towards the very end of the fight that killed off Aerith and Lenna. I may go back and try to master it, just wish it wasn’t 60 stamina a pop.

At this point in the game, there are a crapton of 4* abilities available and not all of them are really all that great. Here is a short list of 4* abilities that I feel are worth creating and honing. Just as a general disclaimer: Though I did try to make this list as generic as possible (no cheese strategies, etc), like all things FFRK, overall usefulness of a particular ability will depend on your party makeup, abilities available, SB’s, and so forth. I have a tendency to lean towards physical damage parties. My typical party makeup is: 1 Healer, 1 Hybrid Black Mage, 1 Cloudblade Spellblade, 1 Support, 1 other physical. I don’t use summons all that often, thus the reason why none are listed.

Support & Healing Abilities
If I had to choose an ability to create first out of everything listed on this page it would be Magic Breakdown.

Magic Breakdown
Unlike physical damage, magical damage cannot be mitigated by backrow parties. Magical damage is also heavily used in the and needed to avoid being instagibbed in many of the higher level boss fights.

Shellga & Protectga
Yay mitigation. Don’t bother honing either of these past R2. One cast lasts for quite some time. There are other mitigation options in the form of certain relics, bard abilities, etc. Regardless, I would say that it is worth creating these abilities. Depends on your party makeup though.

Steal Power
If you can fit a character with a high thief skill into your party, Steal Power superior to Power Breakdown. In addition to a longer duration, it offers a 50% attack buff. Keep in mind however, that this ability does not in itself do any damage and that the buff does not stack with any other attack buff (such as Planet Protector, etc). Because I have Aerith pimped out with Planet Protector, I usually end using Power Breakdown (mostly because I already had it honed to R3 by the time Steal Power was released :/).

Armor/Mental Breakdown/Steal Armor
Steal Armor > Armor Breakdown. Obviously, use Armor Breakdown for physical parties and Mental Breakdown for mage parties. If you are a completionist or have spare orbs available, these abilities may be worth getting. Otherwise to be honest, all of these abilities kind of fall under the “filler” category.

Curaja
If you use a character with a low mind stat for tanky healing (like Pecil for example), then Curaja is to get a decent heal of any sorts. Otherwise, I have never felt the need to use anything higher than Renewing Cure or Curaga on any of my white mages.

Elemental Damage
The elemental strikes are included in this category because of the role they fulfill and the fact that their orb usage heavily overlaps with the -ja/-ga spells. Keep in mind however that these are physical abilities and that damage output is attack based.

Waterja
Of the elemental spells, Waterja is the least resisted, has the fastest cast time, and is fairly easy to make.

Bioga/Thundaja/Firaja/Blizzaja
The power creep is real. There will be a point/already are certain bosses where -ga spells simply do not put out enough damage. The order at which you craft and hone these abilities is up to your preference I guess? Bioga seems to be pretty easy to farm, not very often resisted, and a weakness on many bosses. On the other hand, it does have a lower damage multiplier than the other ja spells so many only be a higher priority if your ages already hit or are at least close to the damage cap. I personally use Thundaja a lot so I chose to hone that one first (magitek + all mechanical things are weak to thunder damage).

Diaga
I would argue that this ability may be worth crafting first along side Waterja. Being a white mage spell, it doesn’t use any of the same orbs as the other -ja/-ga abilities if I recall correctly, so it should be fairly easy to craft and hone; As long as you have Shellga and Protectga crafted that is as both of those spells should take precedence.

Ruinga
Non-elemental AoE damage. Ignore Quake, use Ruinga. Great for AoE bosses and nuking Daily Dungeons.

Thundaga/Firaga Strike
Both of these abilities are in the same boat as Thundaja and Firaja.

Physical Damage
I personally have a preference for Dismissal and have used it quite a bit. Pound though is decent for combat characters with a limited selection.

Dismissal
It’s like Pound damage wise but has a chance to interrupt. Celerity isn’t that uncommon of a skill so Dismissal it usually pretty easy to squeeze in. It doesn’t however have a great proc rate, so unless you create and hone multiple copies it may suffer from filleritis like Pound. If I had to choose between either Pound or Dismissal: Dismissal.

Pound
Straight up single target physical damage. Pound is a combat ability so it is widely usable. I don’t think this is stated anywhere on the actual ability but it has a 100% hit rate so no missing even when blinded! On the downside, Pound is kind of a filler spell at best: It only does 15% more damage than Launch and doesn’t really do anything special (no buffs or debuffs). It also needs to be honed to be useful.

Bladeblitz/Yukikaze
AoE physical damage. Great for trash clearing and AoE bosses. If you have a Samurai that you drag along often (such as Sephiroth), I would choose Yukikaze over Bladeblitz for the chance to blind all. Keep in mind that both of these abilities require Greater Power Orbs, which complete with the Breakdowns.

First and foremost, with the plethora of upcoming events, I created a small calendar for personal use to help keep track of them. I am sure that there are a thousand of these on the internet, but I was bored. Unfortunately/fortunately? Most of the events seem to overlap, meaning that stamina is going to have to be prioritized. Orb wise, I would really like to hone Full Break to R2 so that means: Festive Fantasy phases (aka Orb Fest) 2, 3, and 4 are going to be important. Phase 4 probably being the most important because who doesn’t need Power Orbs?

I am pretty stocked on White, Holy, and Earth orbs so Phase 2 will be used to complete the Blood Madness Bonus Battles. Once Veil of Memories starts, enough stamina will of course be allocated to snatch the RM2 Crystals. This is all assuming that I am even going to able to or interested in playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper on or around Christmas (busy busy fun party time). If anyone else finds this of use, here you go.

Narshe+++
Valigarmanda isn’t that super RNG dependent so therefore, not that irritating of a fight to complete. He also does pure magical damage so drop Defense in favor of Resistance. The general strategy that I chose is to: Get magical mitigation up ASAP, cast reflect on a spell blade, have the spell blade use Fira/ga strike on the boss, have the black mage cast Firaga on the reflected party member to avoid the counter, have Shadow not die.

The trick is, at least for my setup, to get Magic Breakdown and Shellga off before the first AoE Blizzard. With full mitigation it only hits for around 500 to 700 a pop versus well over 1k. Since I had a group regen up on all party members earlyish into the fight, that took the edge off of the AoE. Celes was more or less self sustainable with Drain Strike and Aerith just sat and spammed Curaga for anyone who got too low on health. His single target spells do hurt but are more manageable than the constant AoE spam

I don’t have Firaga Strike or Firaja honed enough to last for the duration of this fight so I used Fira Strike and Firaga instead. Fira Strike hit him for max damage and Firaga hit him for about 6k to 7k. Reflect did need to be applied roughly half way through the fight. Shellga was recast at about the same time as a precaution.

• Celes: Fira Strike. Drain Strike when approaching/below half health
• Setzer: Alternate between Magic and Defense Breakdown
• Shadow: Dismissal/RW bot. Magic Break backup just in case
• Setzer runs out of Magic Breakdown (which he did at the end of the fight)
• Terra: Cast Firaga on Celes do that it reflects on the boss
• Aerith: Shellga + spam heals + planet protector when possible

That was an annoying fight. I have very little FFIX item record synergy, but still beat it. I can probably master the encounter by swapping around a few things but we’ll have to see about that. So close :/. My setup:

RW: Hymn of the Faith for regen and to take the edge off of the 2k AoE that is is almost guaranteed to get off before you can do anything at all. May have been better off with Boon for the group Haste, but reluctant to drop the group heal because Fira spam :/

First round starts off with: Dark Buster, Protectga, Shellga, Hymn of the Faith, and a melee attack. If Dark Buster doesn’t blind him on the first hit, you will probably have to S/L unless you are lucky enough get get it on the second try without being AoE’d down. The trick with the water and fire abilities is to chain cast them so that he is not stuck in the burning state for too long. Waterja has a shorter cast time, so it needs to be cast at just the right time to avoid it going off before Fira Strike. Because of the touchy timing, much of the battle was fought at an irritatingly low speed to make sure that all abilities were executed in a properly timed manner. He still will get a guaranteed Fire Blades cast off as soon as he gets set on fire. Luckily, since it is physical damage, it will most most of the time if he is blinded. MOST of the time…

Having both Shellga and Mass Shell wasn’t that useful. If I redo the fight, I will probably swap Eiko for Aerith (for Planet Protector). Also, Steal Power was resisted each time. I may be better off swapping that out for Dismissal or something else. I may swap Drain Strike out for Dismissal or some other higher physical damage ability.

Really wish I had Light’s Wrath for one of my physical characters.