Mini Should I Farm That - K Fina and upgrade unit gear edition

I was going to add these to the next SIFT post, but got excited by A Lasswell's TMR upgrade that added 25% evade.

Kimono Fina

Kimono Fina's STMR
Fina's Kimono
[robe]: 45 DEF, 64 MAG, 45 SPR, 70% ice/light resist

Worse stats than the robe you get as a parameter mission reward (Lordly Robes 45 DEF, 65 MAG/SPR, 5% refresh) but it has very high ice/light resists when that matters. As a result you might only use this when you need the resists.

Kimono Fina's TMR
Lotus Bow
[bow]: 74 ATK, 145 MAG, 2H (1.25-1.75 dmg var, 70% acc)

I'm sure all of you constantly use Lunera's TMR bow (135 MAG, 50% magic demon killer) and lament that we haven't gotten a better MAG bow yet. You can be happy now that you have a marginally better MAG bow (except against demons).

Upgraded Units' (S)TMRs

Only listing the gear that changed so no GLS STMR or Kryla TMR. Both of those are still very good.

Reberta's STMR
Dragoon's Wisdom
[materia]: 70% ATK, 20% HP/MP/DEF, 100% jump damage

The original had a spear requirement for the ATK boost so the upgraded version went of a niche materia to one that is universally good on any ATK-scaling damage dealer.

The only unconditional ATK% with a higher boost is Delita's Subservient but that has the infamous -2000 HP at the start of every turn.

The only other unconditional 70% ATK materia is Sora's STMR with an additional 20% eqATK TDW (will be 50% after boosting to JP levels).

The 20% HP/MP/DEF is a huge boon as it provides some always appreciated bulk (HP/DEF) and gives you a bit of slack with MP healing needs.

Reberta's TMR
Crimson Blood
[spear]: 145 ATK, Winged Fury => 50% damage from physical, hybrid, and magic attacks against dragons, 50% jump damage

A lot of older builds for Reberta used Aranea's TMR (2H spear) for the damage variance and the jump modifier. Now that good TDW gear exists and the addition of the jump boost, Reberta can happily use her own spear again (obviously depends on your own gear).

This is essentially Dragon's Whisker (10-man trial) with 7 more ATK. It has lower ATK than Longinus (FFBE) but you'll still use this instead on a jumping unit. edit: I screwed up my test builds (I did the calcs before the final details were in) and didn't equip enough jump gear which made two of her TMR seem better than one plus Longinus. All my test builds with the correct data show that she will almost always want to use Longinus.

Aloha Lasswell's STMR
Beach Umbrella
[katana]: 170 ATK, 40 DEF, Evade => 10% physical evade

The vast majority of the time, you don't care about ATK on your evasion gear. But between the sudden accessibility of good evade gear and Rivera (and iNic before her) existing, this may prove useful for those niche strategies.

As a pure attack weapon, it falls behind other 1H katanas:

• Auron's STMR (184 ATK)
  
• Zeno's STMR (180 ATK, 40% ATK, 75% human killer)
  
• Citan's STMR (176 ATK, 20% ATK, 75% human killer)
  
• PG Lasswell's STMR (174 ATK, 50% LB fill rate, 10% esper stats)
  
• Muramasa (FFBE) (trial, 172 ATK, 75% bird, 50% human killers).
  

But unless you have those, this will likely see a good amount of use.

Aloha Lasswell's TMR
Colorful Lei
[accessory]: 45 ATK, Aloha Spirit => 25% eqATK TDW, 25% phys evade, Big Kahuna => Lasswell units only, 25% eqATK TDW

The 25% eqATK TDW is a bit awkward unless you have a pair of these or are using it on a unit named Lasswell. But GL is getting a lot more TDW gear than JP did so there might be a good synergy with a future item.

The 25% evade was a huge surprise to me (I immediately moogled my second copy). That addition makes this useful on tanks and support too despite the other stats being useless.

If you were planning on pulling for Therion just for his TMR and you already have a A Lasswell or two, you can save your tickets and lapis.

EDIT: rumors floating about that evade doesn't stack on it. I verified in the data dumps that it does stack. Confusion must be from Therion's TMR which does NOT stack.

Christine's STMR
Winter Child
[materia]: 50% MAG, 50% ice resist, 50% eqMAG TDW

We still do not have many eqMAG TDW options but all the blame for the shortage goes to Alim. All four of the items are GLEX (Nagi's was buffed to include eqMAG TDW). JP has a total of two and they only give 20%/25%. Yup, our "worst" source is the same as their "best" source of eqMAG TDW.

• Morgana's STMR (rod, 10 ATK, 160 MAG, 40 SPR, 25% eqMAG TDW) is hard to directly compare as it has no MAG% but has high flat MAG.

• Malphasie's STMR (40 ATK/MAG, 20% ATK/MAG, 10 DEF/SPR, 10% MP, 25% phys/magic bird/demon killer, 50% eqATK/eqMAG TDW, grant dualcast) is just jam packed with goodies. It is great on all attackers that scale damage with ATK and/or MAG so you'll almost always use it (even on some TDH units).

• Nagi's STMR (materia 40% ATK/MAG, 50%eqATK/eqMAG TDW) is essentially a hamstrung copy of Malphasie's. The loss of 10% MAG isn't anything to worry about on a TDW unit. You'll be hitting that cap easily with out it. The only real loss of this compared to Christine's is the ice resist but I happily would trade that for the flexibility of being able to use it on physical and hbrid units too.

Christine's STMR might not be that great compared to the competition but it is still a very good materia (BiS worthy). I just wouldn't consider using a STMR moogle on it knowing those other options exist.

Christine's TMR
Snowbear
[accessory]: 50 MAG, 30 SPR, counter (40%) magic attacks with 15% HP recovery and 2 LB (max 1 per turn), counter (40%) physical attacks with 15% HP recovery and 2 LB (no max)

EDIT: Looks like the max counter only applies to the magic attacks. Assuming this wasn't a mistake by Gumi, that makes this an excellent accessory on a tank. With a higher proc than mechanical heart (30% vs 40%) and heals that scale to total HP, this can greatly reduce the need to heal your physical tank. Note: Units with a lot of unlimited counters won't benefit as much because innate counters have a chance to proc before anything from gear.

This is a pretty terrible upgrade to an accessory that wasn't anything special to begin with. If the counter had a 100% proc, I'd say it's a nice little bonus since there's usually at least one AE move you can't cover in a trial. But at only 40% you can't rely on it thus it might as well not exist. It can only proc 1 or 2 times per turn (one for magic attacks and one for physical attacks) so it's not like you can toss this on your tank to abuse the free healing.

My disappointment isn't due to this being a bad item. The problems is that are plenty of non-STMR accessories with similar MAG that have more useful extras. They really could have buffed this a lot more and still be in line with other gear:

• Freya (VP)'s TMR (limited, 55 MAG, 20% MP)
  
• Cursed Doll (trial, 50 MAG, 30% ice resist, -50% confuse resist)
  
• WK Noel's TMR (limited, 50 MAG/DEF, 25% ice resist)
  
• Circe's TMR (45 MAG, 20% MP, 30% MAG, 50% LB fill rate)
  
• Qin's TMR (limited, 40 MAG, 20% HP, 5 DEF, 35% eqMAG TDH)
  

This is easily the biggest disappointment of all the (S)TMRs and I'm including the two that weren't upgraded at all.

A bit bland of a TMR from a MAG perspective, but this is potentially very powerful for physical tanks.

Grim Lord Sakura's TMR
Reaver
[spear]: 666 HP, 66 MP, 33 ATK, 130 MAG, 36 SPR, 30% MAG, 2H (1-1.6x avg var, 50% acc), fire and dark element, Death Awaits => (GLS only) 3 LB per turn.

This addresses the two out of the three biggest problems with her TMR: low flat MAG didn't make good use of TDH and the weapon type makes most of the top MAG materia useless on her so it's harder to hit that 400% cap.

The biggest problem is that it's a spear. The only magic users that can even equip spears innately are GLS and BS Sakura. This is easily the most niche item in the batch.

Kryla's STMR
Kryla's Veil
[hat]: 35 DEF, 84 SPR, 20% all elements resist

This was awesome before that other elemental resists were added. Even with the elemental resist requirements for trials dropping now, this will likely see a lot of use.

The only negative thing I can a say about this is that Charlotte's TMR is also a hat so it's not good for her unless you have her STMR (her trust passive includes her guts passive so you'd never want to do without it).

TL;DR:

BiS worthy

• Reberta's STMR (materia, 70% ATK, 20% HP/MP/DEF, 100% jump damage)
  
• Christine's STMR (materia, 50% MAG, 50% eqMAG TDW, 50% ice resist)

Very good

• Kimono Fina's STMR (robe, high MAG but lower than parameter mission robe, very high light/ice resists)
• A Lasswell's STMR (katana, 170 ATK, 10% physical evade)
  
• A Lasswell's TMR (accessory, 25% eqATK TDW, 25% phys evade, extra 25% TDW for lasswell units)

Good but Niche

• Kimono Fina's TMR (Bow, 2H, high MAG, very few units that will want to use it)
  
• Reberta's TMR (spear, 145 ATK, dragon killer, jump boost, niche because spears are somewhat niche right now)
  
• Christine's TMR (accessory, 50 MAG, useless counter, extras on similar accessories are generally better)
  
• Grim Lord Sakura's TMR (spear, high MAG for TMR, One two mages in game that can equip spears: GLS and BSS)
  
• Kryla's STMR (hat, high SPR, 20% all elements resist)
  

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