'Sup

-- Fancy Font Preface --

The purpose of this post is to give a thorough overview of Lucius, the star of FFBE's hit series about Lifeguards who work on a haunted beach at midnight under an always full moon that conveniently gives enough light to see the half naked protagonists. Afterwards, we will discuss what could be done for him with enhancements in the future for Halloween.

Additionally, with the reveal of unit upgrades and what they may entail, this edition of Summerween Celebreation will be for all possible future changes, enhancements and upgrades.

The goal for his enhancements and upgrades section would simply be to increase his viability as a Physical DD, and to make him either less self-destructive or more rewarding when you take the risk.

These are fun for me, and I hope to have others comment their opinions and suggestions on possible enhancements or just thoughts on Luci. Of course, posting Lilith here almost felt like I posted in the wrong neighborhood. My fault for even including an arena specific enhancements joke in it (or even mentioning her name in a post about her).

I Love Lucius Lucius

Stats & TMRs:

TMR - Chaotic Ferocity -

 30% Atk with Fist/Clothes  

STMR - Glorious Headpiece -

Hat -  52 Atk ,  30% Atk with Fist , 3 LB per turn

Equipable:

1 2 8 16
40 50 51 60

Luci has pretty decent stats for a damage dealer, a good spread for all the stats that matter. He has 7 less Atk than Light Warrior Bartz and 14 less Hp than Esther. His Def and Spr is closer to Esther's Mag stat, but let's just ignore that.

His TMR is a standard 60% Atk Materia with two requirements. With the arrival of a 4 star unit with a similar yet 70% Atk TMR, Gravey, and another coming with Physalis, Juraga, 5 star units' TMRs like this are a bit more than lackluster. On top of that, the dual requirement makes this a straight downgrade to Monk Sabin's TMR.

Glorious Headpiece lives up to the name. It is tied with Aileen's Scanner Goggles for second highest flat Atk on a head gear right behind Karlette's Red Hellebore at 60. Scanner Goggles has four killers which makes it monstrous when they apply, and like a sidegrade to Prishe's Hairpin when they don't due to the loss of Hp and Mp. Red Hellebore is Best in Slot for anyone who hits the stat caps for Mag and Atk since it's a hybrid headgear. What makes the headpiece so glorious isn't the 30% Atk with Fist -- which makes it best for any Fister -- but is the 3 LB fill per turn. Many D(amage)D(ealer)s units will want to use the LB's in the future, and many already do. The LB fill makes this best for anyone who doesn't want their own head gear or has guaranteed fill and isn't interested.

Lucius's equipment selection isn't the most diverse, but it's quite serviceable for what he needs. There are several good Fist weapons, including the powercrept Aigaion trial whose reward is still fantastic for fist users. He can equip axe which can obtain 30-40% Atk from Item world. Most notably, Lucius can use swords. This is important for the future event sword,エクスカリパー(FFV). エクスカリパー(FFV) is a 1-handed sword with 1 Atk, but it has x1.6~2 damage variance. With the new damage formula, this weapon is only outclassed by STMRs, which means it's absolutely fantastic for everyone who can utilize it. With the "(FFV)" in the name, I assume this will come around Bartz time.

Passives:

Here are Luci's skills. When we get to theorizing about enhancements and upgrades, you may refer to the skills here.

For stats, he gets 40% Hp, 20% Def/Spr, 30% Mp and 40% eqAtk when dualwielding with his trust, and 50% Atk to 190% Atk with his TMR, fist and clothes. Honestly, Lucius has pretty good stats. He may not be hitting Esther levels of bulk, but atleast our boy has some meat on his bones. He also has 20% pEvasion for some extra RNG on survivability, which is fun, right? If it doesn't work, he gets another chance with his resist fatal damage. More RNG, but way better for survival.

Luci has some good passives. Innate charm, blind, sleep, and confuse resist are all useful for a PhysDD, but he is lacking petrify and paralyze, which isn't the worst, since it gives him more protection than some other DDs. His counters can be fun since they can chain with ahem his sister, as well as Esther. If he wasn't DW, he'd be a solid choice to use with her. The human and demon killers are good since they're not too uncommon, but since external sources for those aren't hard to come by, and are done better by others, it is negligible. His undead killer is only his only notable one, but it only matters against Lich; while good, doesn't matter in the long run until there are more.

Active Abilities:

Now I will go over Luci's skills in an organized format.

LB - Sinister Fury -

Boost Atk by 250% for 3 turns , ST 11.1x-14x Damage  

Y'all ever flex so hard you lose 95% of your own Hp. Luci does.

Lucius is a basic damage dealing chaining with dark and fire imbues. He doesn't even get his own imperils. His little unique niche is huge Atk buff he gives himself. Good joke I know. With every damage dealer getting 250% boost to themselves as standard, this hasn't aged well.

I've read from somewhere -- either Muspel, Memel0rd or someone else -- Lucius described as someone who wanted to make Queen v2.0, but didn't know what made her good. I agree, his suicidal tendencies are not only nonsensical and absolutely useless, but they are a danger to his health.

Other Damage Dealers

For this section, I will compare Lucius to other DW units who will be obtainable around the Halloween season (yes, I know it's called Autumn). I chose to compare him to the coming Lightning, Bartz, and our Zeno. Oh boy.

An other note: These are very light and don't have any math. Just know they don't favor Luci.

CG Lightning Flash of Lightning

^{Get it, 'cause her name is Lightning and lightning flashes. Hahaha #originaljoke}

• Abilities ramping up other abilities
• up to 40x Absolute Mirror of Equity chain
• Can chain with Divine Ruination and Aureole Ray as well
• Imbues Lightning
  
• Imperils lightning; 120%
  
• 60-70% dual-castable breaks

If you think a unit that uses other abilities to ramp up their other abilities is familiar, it's because this is the standard for most of the future PDDs on JP. This in an excuse for units to get super high mods. Esther was in fact a nice breath of fresh air, not due to the LB burst but for her LB spam. She also lightnings better since lightning is sudden and devastating.

Lightning is still good I(f)IR(ecall)C(orrectly). Her ramping up is harder since the modifier boosts are for less turns than the other units I'm comparing, but she should be around Esther's level of damage, so we'll be closing that gap soon enough. Maybe (If closing the gap with a GLOriginal unit counts). Litgirl also comes with breaks that only get to the standard 70% after a skill that is a 1 turn AOE 60% break on a 2 turn CD. This gives her an option to be a decent breaker and is okay utility.

Still more team utility than Lucius. To be T(o)B(e)H(onest), having an imperil made her a better unit than Lucius.

(CG) Light Warrior Bartz a Light Buttz

^{Bartz gets translated to Butts by Google sometimes so this is unoriginal}

• Abilities ramp up
• Up to 42.5x AMoE chain
• Up to 98.75x AMoE chain unlocked from a 4 Turn CD
• Can chain with Graviton Cannon (AOE)
• Imbues Wind
• Imperils Wind; 120%
• ST Dispel
• AOE Wind resist; 100% , Wind/Earth; 100% for 5 turns [12 Turn CD]

... having an imperil made her a better unit than Lucius.

His CD unlock's mod can literally go over 10 times any of Luci's mod(ifier)s.

Bartz's ramp up is also way better than Litgirl's since all of them are over 9000 turn buffs that won't be dispelled aside from his LB which is for 4 turns.

He can also imbue wind if you don't grab his STMR and can dispel, which can be very useful when you need to get rid of a buff and reapply breaks.

Oh! As a side note, everyone I mention here will be able to use エクスカリパー(FFV) since it's just a sword. It's only noteworthy to Lucius since he needs the help. Everyone here also has an STMR weapon, two of which are swords and the last is already at 400% Atk without it.

Zeno of the Beta Star Beta Male Zeno

^{That joke is probably unoriginal too}

^Zeno

• Ramps up
• up to 30x AMoE chain
• Up to 31x chain on CD
• Imbues fire
  
• Imperils fire; 100%
• Can chain with Divine Ruination , Aureole Rays , and Bolting Strike as well
  
• ST Dispel
• Doesn't need D(ual)W(ield)M(astery) gear (i.e. Litgirl's and Litem World Bartz's TMRs)
  

... having an imperil ...

GL(obal)s current most powerful unit (written during maintenance, don't let us down ladies!), Zeno is incredibly easy to gear while still doing tons of damage.

He's dealing over ten times Luci's damage. He also gets Fingersnap, a reoccurring dispel for swordsmen.

Technically not dethroned for his position as top of our damage charts, but he's still way less bulky than the two girls behind him. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Future Damage Dealers

• Up
  

It's tru

Conclusion:

If you are a PDD who can imperil and/or have other forms of utility, you're better than Lucius. Luci isn't even as strong as Hyoh. This man needs some milk.

Enhancements and Upgrades

Let's give him some milk.

The goals are simply to give Lucius more power and to keep his risk and reward aspect while making it less risky and more rewarding.

To let you in on my thinking, I imagine Lucius as some sort of berserker with his Bestial Rage passive and Frenzied Rush ability names (I seriously didn't notice Berserker's Strength... How?). This has me thinking he should have much more survivability even at low health while dealing much more damage.

Trusts:

Chaotic Ferocity

Proposed additions

Increase equipment Atk when wielding two weapons  

What's more ferocious than more damage? The addition of eqAtk would only make it similar to Adam Jensen's TF29 Agent. A usable amount would be 30% so it's less than Sora's STMR in JP which should be updated when we get to Halloween. Since Luci is a seasonally limited unit, having a higher tier TMR compared to unlimited units seems sensible.

Glorious Headpiece

^{It's already glorious}

Proposed changes

Increase flat Atk  

It's already glorious

Passives:

Demonic Brawl

Proposed additions

Add increase max chain modifier ; POSSIBLY increase % Atk , increase Dual Wield eqAtk  

The ability that gives him Dual Wield makes sense to be the one to get the Chain Cap increase that dual wielders get. the "POSSIBLE" is boosts to Atk and Equipment Atk that can be placed onto any of his passives.

Incubus's Strength

Proposed additions

add 100% Paralyze and Petrify resist  

Because I don't think Luci really wants to wear ribbons. This one isn't necessary, but is very convenient for when trials imperil resistances, and keeps you from need to sacrifice some DPS for protection. (I mean c'mon, he's an incubus, why would he care about going in with protection.)

Demonic Instincts

Proposed additions

Increase damage against Demon , Human , and Undead  

Simple one to increase his potency against the races he has killers for.

Final Moments

Proposed additions

Add Def/Spr increase , increase Atk Buff , Increase Hp to trigger SELF Buff , Increase turns in effect

More reward, a little less risk. I think it's fine if it stays as his standard Atk buff when his CD and LB are not available. Feels bad that's it's a little less final moments, but with all the raising and reraising, when is his final moment truly? The Def and Spr was added so that he seems more like an undying berserker.

Demon Chemistry

Proposed changes

Increase Max counter/Turn -> Physical Max 2/Turn , Magical Max 2/Turn

This is for him to work better with his sister in trials while not bothering anyone anywhere else. It also makes him a perfect partner for counter chaining with Esther.

Wicked Soul

Proposed changes

Add boost to Mp , Increase boost to Hp/Atk/Def/Spr , reduce Hp needed to survive KO  

Changes to further bulk up Luci's stats. This is the milk. Everything else is protein.

HP 20%

I hope that they decide to Upgrade these units for Halloween instead of giving them enhancements, so that they can be saved for next time. For then, I'll propose this addition

Four Demonic Wings

Use abilities four times  

For FFBE 2020

I don't have any good idea for this if they decide to enahance him this Halloween.

Actives:

Now this first one is a bit quixotic, but I think it's a cool concept

LB -- Sinister Fury --

Proposed changes

Remove SELF Atk , Add Berserk Atk  

Berserk Atk

Additional increase to Atk  

To specify, it's an additional buff that stacks with normal Atk buffs. The idea is that he has massive amounts of Atk from his buffs, making his real shtick about having incredibly high Atk from buffs. Since this doesn't seem feasible for them to implement I have an other suggestion for his LB.

LB Take Two --

Proposed Additions

Increase Atk Buff, Increase Mod of ALL damage abilities  

A simple change that gives SGumex a reason to make Lucius a stronger unit. With his few abilities, I think it makes sense for this to be the only ability that increase mods, aside from his last CD skill and maybe Unjust Cause, but I like them both more as something to activate Final Moments.

Proposed new ability

Chaotic Tail

Allows abilities to be used twice  

AKA, dualcast. The name is based off of his sister's dual-cast. This allows him get set up much faster or get better at dealing damage. Since he's a dualwield unit, I don't think it's necessary for him to get triple-cast, but it's still nice for damage units to get dual-cast at minimum.

Frenzied Rush

Proposed changes

Increase damage Dealt , Increase hit count , Change frames 
-> EITHER Triple Spray Frames OR True Blade Charge

With the promise of a future Rico, I think Luci could work incredibly well as a chain partner for him. Having him chain with 2B's LB-oriented build would also be quite nice as well; however, he would need to gain Graviton Cannon frames to be a good partner for her throughout the fight. Since he already has access to Octaslash chaining, he seems to be a much better partner for Rico who will be getting a 7 star^TM.

Feral Charisma

Proposed addition

AOE Dispel

This makes it a usable skill while being somewhat realistic. So charming he can make his foes forget all their troubles (breaks and imperils), but also make defenseless against such an enchanting man.

However, I also have a different idea for this so that he can work better with his sister.

Feral Charisma V2

Proposed addition

Increase chance to be targeted by 100%  

This would allow Lucius to be a viable evade provoke tank. This is more niche and has less usability overall, but it gives Lucius a good niche and would, again, make him work better with his sister since their counters would c-h-a-i-n (reminder that Luci's are S(ingle)T(arget)).

Dusk/Dawn Barrage

Proposed changes

Increase hit count , change frames ; POSSIBLY imperil Fire/Dark  

These would make him a much easier partner to use and greatly increase his D(amage)P(er)T(urn). Now for why I said "POSSIBLE", it's because I feel that Lucius is meant to be partnered with his sister who can provide imperils. Furthermore, based on their lore, it makes sense for her to be the one who weakens the enemy while Luci goes bapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbapbabpabpabpabp. If we want to ignore lore, then these skills make the most sense to have the imperils.

Remembering what I just wrote for the comparison segment, I am definitely more in favor of him getting imperils.

Unjust Cause

Proposed changes

Reduce SELF Hp damage , increase Hp restored when Auto-Revived  

Please don't be suicidal Lucius. We're here for you. We love you.

Changes to self damage and to the Reraise heal to better keep him alive and coincide with his Final Moments buff.

Cleaving Barrage

Proposed chanages (this error made me laugh for some reason, I leave it for you all)

Increase damage , Increase Hit count , change frames  
-> EITHER Graviton Cannon , Absolute Mirror of Equity , Bolting Strike , 
OR Unspecified future Chain Family of Rico Rodriguez IF exists

Making this a usable ability in trials would be quite nice. My preferences would be Graviton Cannon to properly be a chaining partner with 2B, the family Rico becomes a part of if he gets a new one, AMoE due to its high relevance of Fire-based units, or Bolting Strike since he is a Global Original unit.

Piercing/Crushing Barrage

Proposed changes

Increase damage  

Additionally, but only possibly if SGumex has no intention of expanding on their families;

Change frames  

To further reiterate, only if they have no intention on expanding on the family. I would greatly prefer for them to keep the families and provide more meta partners, however I would also like Lucius to have a lasting (lasting as long as DDs can) kit. My preferred families would be Bolting Strike, AAbsolute Mirror of Equity, or any new family they could be granting the future Rico.

Edit: I've only now seen that the wiki says Kingsglaive is a difficult family to chain, needing one frame delay or spark with multi-casts. This definitely makes it a higher priority to change.

Immortal Demon

Proposed Changes

  Self damage to Hp , Increase Hp restored when Auto-Revived , Increase Hp Healed   

Keeping the stat break of course. If something good wasn't mentioned in a proposition, assume it's still there. The Self-damage will allow you to trigger his Final Moments while the healing will make it seem as though nothing changed. Of course, adding buffs to this skill would produce the same result, but if the passive is there, it should be utilized.

Blood Moon Barrage

Proposed changes

Increase damage  

Yeah. To be TBH, I wouldn't mind if someone other than Esther got an AR chain that dealt good damage. This is also completely superior to Cleaving aside from the length of the attack and in some cases the elements. The number of hits on AR chains are also quite useful for getting LB crystals and Esper stones.

Aggressive Presence

Proposed Changes

Increase LB Fill , Reduce Hp damage , /IF Possible/ Increase Atk Buff , 
POSSIBLY Increase damage of ALL Abilities  

I still really like the Idea of him having massive amounts of Atk from buffs, it sounds like a fun gimmick to me. I also didn't get rid of the self break for 3 reason; A. It goes along his risk and reward style. B. It gives him some more reason to be partnered with his sister who has AOE stat break resist. 3. He already has stat break resist in his kit and my proposed changes makes it a standard part of his rotation to keep his stat buffs up.

Closing Thoughts

Lucius is not a strong unit at this point in time, but it's not that hard to see where they were going with his kit despite it being just as easy to see where it goes wrong. My hope is for Luci to gain a lot of power with future upgrades and enhancements while accentuating his style as a berserker.

Epilogue:

Whenever I accidentally hit the back button on my mouse, I want to [REDACTED]... I had to rewrite everything between "Luci has pretty decent" and the Passives section twice.
(I just hit the back button and now I am rewriting the next few lines. What a fantastic straight line of fate.)
I should probably do these in a google doc or something else. Unfortunately with my work ethic, I'd probably forget about it and not finish (though a desktop shortcut might be encouraging). I'm also using RES so that I can get the formatting right with minimal effort.

I still enjoyed doing this. Talking about a character I like in a video game I like is always fun, and I hope they do good for Lucius.

As for the ladies, though one isn't top-tier like we would hope, neither got me upset about them. I'm still waiting to see how strong people say she is with whatever her optimal rotation is since I haven't seen any math for her. Even though Elena stayed under our damage roof, I still think she's way better than Zeno since she's super bulky and Hybrid. She also come with her own BiS weapon. I'm not just saying this because I didn't get either of the other broken DD units but lucked out on Elen.

EDIT: I forgot to inform you of some very important and heart wrenching news. Fundamental Forces Bold Erections has cancelled Grayvwatch do to low ratings on season 1. Apparently, you could not actually see that much at night, even with the full moon.

If there are any mistakes or errors, let me know. If you have disagree about one of my ideas or have an even better one, share it.

Time to say goodbye I guess. ^{Man, I can't believe I decide to watch that show instead of Devilman Crybaby.}

So, as the Canadians say, "goodbye in Canadian, eh."