Last time, I made a post on how I felt SPR became the most important stat due to recent trials (Bahamut, Bloody Moon) wrecking teams without proper SPR itemization. Today, I would like to discuss my observations about role meta in general.

Physical Damage Dealers

The physical damage dealer meta, in my opinion, is pretty diverse at the moment. As Altema (http://altema.jp/ffbe/unit) showed, there are a lot of dps that are above 90 score but a quick look at my active friend list reflect popular picks to be Eileen, Cloud, OK and Tidius. DV, Orlandu, Noctis seem to have fallen off and the people who still have them as their friend character are ones that haven't logged on for awhile. Even though they all chain around the same, I personally switch around my melee dps a lot to leverage certain innate killers, I guess, that is why Eileen/Tidus inch out a head of orlandu/DV?

Magic Damage Dealers

Recent banners and enhancement has put Runera, Trance Terra and CG Sakura to be top dogs in this field. Properly geared, these three can give physical damage dealers a good run for their money. However, there is big shortage of hp magic type materia. Given current healer meta (which i will talk about below), having your mage randomly die is too much hassle to bring them a long. However, the recent trials (12 weapon/bloody moon) somewhat forces you to have some kind decent mage group setup.

Healers

Other than Ayaka, pure healers (Tileth, Refia, Yshotla..etc) have completely fallen off the meta with summoners taking their place. There are couple reasons for this:

• Reraise has replaced raising. Trial bosses party/unit wiping mechanics are generally predictable and losing a turn to raise multiple units usually spells a failed run. As a result, the strategy for dealing these mechanics is usually casting re-raise from Ayaka or support (Rikku, Hunter Fina).

• Warrior of Light happened. WOL's enhanced cover is too effective at tanking physical boss damage. With hp regen-counter materia, even after tanking multiple blows, WOL still comes back near full health negating the need for a healer.

• Song Regen is sufficient. Damage mitigation buff has become more common so the incoming damage per turn on your party has significant reduced to a point where in a lot of places Ramza/Roy song can keep the party up without a dedicated healer.

• Summoners are great healers too. Eiko, Garnet, Yuna are all decent healers. Even without Tileth's full party hp ability, summoners can top off the party's health and when needed, they can fill the role of a finisher with bahamut.

Support

Roy and Ramza continues to lead as the main stat buffer of the party. Their song's buffs are mvp in many trial fight. For utility the two main supports that come into mind in current meta is 9S and Rikku. With recent trials bringing back debuffs into the game, 9S is probably became the better support of the two but Rikku is still valuable for mass re-raise. Depending how long this debuff 'meta' sticks around Tim's usefulness is somewhat high. Honourable mention for support goes to Crowe for access to on-demand 30% damage reduction - which is higher than the norm (20%) and niche support abilities (heal, bar-element).

Tank

WoL has been reigning supreme since his enhancement. Arms eraser continues to prove useful with bosses susceptible to debuffs again (in fact, they have to be debuffed or your team would be wrecked). With his cover mitigates and tanks nearly all physical damage, it would probably be accurate to say fights are 10x harder without him. Even with Wilhelm's enhancement making him beastly, I don't see WOL being benched out any time soon.

Conclusion

Generally the biggest meta shift in the last month or two is the healer role being shifted towards summoners/Ayaka. Even the mighty Tileth is forced to the bench, cause things either hit so hard every turn that full-party life is pointless or things don't hit hard enough to require Tileth.