Dark Veritas

A member of the Sworn Six of Paladia who suddenly appeared before Rain and his friends to destroy the crystals. Claiming that humanity has committed grievous sins, Veritas of the Dark is determined to shatter all of the crystals found across the land. This ultimately leads Rain and his friends to set off on a journey to halt his plans.

Role: Physical Damage (Chainer), Support

TMR: Pride of the Sworn Six - Dark

Materia (Passive Ability), Increases ATK (30%) when equipped with a large sword and Increases ATK (30%) when equipped with heavy armor

Fantastic TMR especially in GL where masteries aren't stackable. This TMR is going to be a huge damage boost to Large Sword users such as DV himself or Orlandu.

Stats

Equipments

Limit Burst

Magic Spells

Active Abilities

Passive Abilities

Still don't know what a lot his skills are going to be called in GL, will update when I have more data.

Chaining Frames

Dark Punishment

70-7-5-7-7-7-7

Exactly same as Orlandu and Enhanced Agrias, which is fantastic because that means he can chain with two other units other than himself. Not to mention, this is pretty much the easiest skill to chain manually without using zoom/lag/macro.

Strengths

• Versatility

Dark Veritas (DV) can fill many different roles, and does it very well. His main attraction is his DPS/chaining ability via Dark Punishment, but he also has access to AoE 45% Full Break, as well as AoE 20% Damage mitigation. In this day and age where unit slots are extremely limited, Dark Veritas' ability to fill multiple roles at a high level makes him a very valuable unit.

• Easy chaining with units other than himself

Although you'd probably still prefer DV friends if you're looking for some Dark Chaining, but keep in mind that you can slap on an Excalibur on DV and perform some sick Holy chains with Orlandu/Enhanced Agrias as well.

This makes DV extremely valuable for future 10-man trials since you're not allowed to bring any duplicate units to the fight.

• Great all around stats & passive abilities

Great all around stats along with great all around passives. His passives grant him 20% DEF/SPR/MAG/HP/MP along with 70% ATK.

Darklord is a great ability that allows him to absorb Dark damage, while giving him a 100% ATK/DEF buff when his HP reaches below 30%. Not stackable w/ Ramza/Lunera's song iirc, and does not expire in battle (someone confirm?).

Dark Retribution gives him a 20% chance to counter with a -100% Dark imperil. This potentially boosts his DPS by quite a bit if you're utilizing dark elemental chaining.

DV is also immune to Blind/Paralysis/Petrify, which is great because you pretty much only have to worry about Confusion. He also comes with the standard Auto Refresh for MP Recovery.

Overall, amazing passive abilities.

• Great in Arena

Jesus, is there anything this man isn't great at? Along with being a top tier DPS/Support unit, he's also one of the only few units able to deal 4x999 damage in Arena via Dual Slash

Weaknesses

I'm going to be nitpicking here

• Lack of accessible dark weapons

Our most powerful dark weapons are locked behind 5★ units, this makes it slightly harder to utilize dark elemental chaining & DV's -100% dark imperil.

Everyone will have access to Organyx (Dark version of Durandal) in the upcoming story event, but it will lower DV's ATK by 46 compared to Deathbringer.

Keep in mind that Glauca is a 4 star base unit that has a 125 ATK Dark Element Large Sword. Make sure to grab him in the future if you end up getting DV (if you have no Deathbringer/Moonblades lying around).

Alternatively, if you didn't grab Organyx for whatever reason, you can always start your turn with Dark Edge to infuse dark element into your physical attacks for the next 5 turns.

Is this even a weakness? Meh.

• MP intensive skills

Dark Punishment is fine at 45MP per use, but Impact has a cost of 80MP! This won't matter too much when Bards starts to become relevant (Enhanced Ramza!!!11), but as of right now 80MP per use just isn't sustainable in a long fight.

Not to mention most future bosses are usually resistant to some combination of debuffs (usually DEF/SPR), which nullifies half of Impact's effects while still being extremely MP heavy.

This means that you shouldn't be depending on DV being your main breaker. Which is fine, since you'll most likely pair him with WoL/Orlandu anyways.

Does this count as a weakness? =_= ugh why are you so perfect.

Companions

WoL

No surprises here, WoL compliments just about every unit out there. DV can take over breaking duties on the first turn, and lets WoL set up The Light is With Us!.

Orlandu/Agrias

Units that chain perfectly with DV. Your friend Orlandu/Agrias most likely has Excalibur equipped, simply throw your Excalibur on DV and profit.

If you want to have some chaining fun, throw a dark weapon light weapon on both DV and Orlandu/Enhanced Agrias and watch the dual element chains fly!

Dark Knight Cecil

Allows DV to take advantage of 100% dark imperil right from the beginning to maximize damage output.

Comparisons

Orlandu

Simple stats comparison shows that Orlandu has more HP & ATK than Dark Veritas, while Dark Veritas is superior in every other stat. Although ATK & HP are arguably the most important stat for a damage dealer, it should not be overlooked that DV's defensive stats absolutely destroys Orlandu's.

Basically in terms of ATK, Orlandu > DV. In terms of survivability, DV > Orlandu

Divine Reunition vs Dark Punishment is a wash. Both has the same modifier & same frames in terms of chaining.

Impact is far superior to Crush weapon (45% Full break vs 40% ATK/MAG break) although costs far more MP.

Dark Verita's LB is better due to the huge DEF debuff that comes with it.

Dark Veritas also has access to 20% AoE Damage Mitigation, stronger imperil through counter (20% chance), as well as being immune to dark damage.

Verdict: DV is the better unit overall

Aileen/Tidus/Fryevia

I'm going to keep this shorter, since the concept is the same as the Orlandu comparison. Aileen/Tidus/Fryevia may be more powerful than DV in terms of pure damage (especially Fryevia), but DV's utilities makes him more viable in certain situations.

The fact that DV chains perfectly with Orlandu and Enhanced Agrias is huge for the upcoming 10-man trials compared to Aileen/Tidus/Fryevia who can only chain with themselves.

Builds

*Just go full ATK, no need to play around with gimmicky builds. *

Dark Veritas 6 Star

FFBEDB Unit Calculator

Right Hand: Deathbringer 120ATK Dark Element

Left Hand: MoonBlade 118ATK Dark Element

Head: Rider's Helm 28ATK 60DEF 100%Disease/Petrify

Body: Demon Mail 10ATK 55DEF 20�rk

Accessory 1: Genji Glove 10%ATK/MAG & Dual Wield

Accessory 2: Bracer 30ATK 15%HP

Ability 1: Large Sword Mastery 50% ATK w/ Great Sword

Ability 2: Dark Knight's Soul 30% ATK w/Sword 20% ATK w/Heavy Armor

Ability 3: Sworn Six's Pride - Dark 30% ATK w/ Large Sword 30% ATK w/ Heavy Armor

Ability 4: Wisdom 30%ATK 20%HP

Pot Stats: HP: 450 MP: 75 ATK: 30 DEF: 30 MAG: 30 SPR: 30

Esper: Odin HP:5000 MP:3900 ATK:6000 DEF:4200 MAG:2000 SPR:2200

Total Stats: HP: 6355 MP: 280 ATK: 1006 DEF: 309 MAG: 202 SPR: 181

too lazy to do manual math, will update total stats when ffbedb is updated with DV.

Overview

Definitely one of the best unit we have to date. He's one of the few units that can do a lot of things, and do them well at the same time. He's very strong in the current meta, and also extremely future proof. The fact that he's still widely used without any enhancements in JP speaks to that.