Should I Farm That - Castle Exdeath (FFV MK) and Cave of Rhiyo (Octopath Traveler week 2 trial) Edition

Oh my god, Fina. Look at that Buttz.
He's so CG, he looks like one of those Dissidia models.
But, ya know, who understands those e-peen guys?
They only want him because his burst damage is so big, 'kay?
I mean, that Buttz is just so meta
I can't believe the damage, it's like out there.
I mean, look. He's just so burst.

Still super busy so all you get is the parody lyrcis and a mini rant for a shit post.

So I can't ever bring myself to use the wrong color magicite to level my espers. Thanks to that OCD tendency my Titan is still only at level 56 despite having been able to max him out for months now if I used different colors. Just another 5-6 weeks to get enough orange supercites to be finally done.

Now we're getting Kokuryu which doesn't use black magicite like the name would imply (Kokuryu literal translation: black dragon). Instead it uses blue and orange because water and earth is the first thing we all think about when we hear "black dragon." (I'm gonna knock the person who came up with this upside the head with a Staff of Blizzards.)

This will be the 4th esper to use blue and also the 4th to use orange. To make matters worse, orange is the only color that is used as the sole color for two espers making it by far the worst color choice. Meanwhile red, violet, yellow, white, and green are only used twice.

Screw you Alim. Did you learn nothing from your really shitty enhancement cryst distributions? Gumi, I expected you to clean up Alim's mess. We might give you shit for always putting profit first and your lack of quality control but we do trust you to make a far more balanced game than Alim is capable of. Yet you've failed us. May you suffer the pain of 1000 papercuts.

MK Loot

Staff of Light
[staff]: 9 ATK, 78 SPR, light element, Holy => light magic attack (2.3, MAG scaling) to one enemy

This is a lousy copy of Holy Wand (10-man trial, 120 SPR, light element, Holy, Dual Cast). Holy Wand is also very easy to obtain because that trial is extremely power crept. The SPR is too low to really matter (there are a dozen staves with higher SPR).

Holy does have a niche use for "kill with magic" missions as it has a very long wind up before the attack lands (all but guaranteed to land during overkill). Not a bad weapon to toss on a support unit for those missions if your Holy Wand is on a unit that is busy doing something else on that kill turn. But that's extremely niche.

Ancient Sword
[sword]: 103 ATK, Old => Reduce ATK, DEF, MAG, SPR by 40% for one enemy

This is a decent weapon option for MK bonus units thanks to the full break. 103 ATK is too low to matter. If you're a newer player and desperate for 1H non-elemental sword, the Ragnorak - Replica (104 ATK, 30% ice resist) comes from the practice fight against Alpherg (10-man trial). The ice resist will generally be more useful than the weak break.

Castle Exdeath - Storm In
[materia]: 10% HP/DEF

Castle Exdeath - Illusion Perception
[materia]: 10% HP/SPR

Usual MK trash materia. Safe skip for everyone.

(S)TMRs

Warrior of Light Bartz's STMR
Bartz's Blade [sword]: 167 ATK, wind element

ATK is a tad low for a brand new STMR. For example R Lightning's is 169 ATK, 50% eqATK TDW, and 30% LB damage which is way better.

Almost all of the value for this is that it is a wind weapon for a common weapon type. There aren't many strong wind weapons out there Whirlwind (throwing weapon, 130 ATK) is the strongest non-STMR or unit limited option with Ventus (spear, 125 ATK) being the next best. So for the times when you absolutely need a wind elemental weapon, this is a great weapon. But the odds of that coming up more than once or twice is pretty low.

With Atlie's TMR also being a wind sword, there's no reason to chase this STMR unless you're after pure whale e-peen.

Warrior of Light Bartz's TMR
Hermes Sandals (FFV)
[accessory]: 40 ATK, Traveler's Progression => 50% eqATK TDW, 2 Lb per turn

Reminder: You can buy the moogle from the MK store and use a prism if you don't want to pull on this banner, want the TMR, and have the prism(s) to spare. With summon fests not too far in the future, UoC is a solid choice too. I'll most likely be getting one via prism (and using either STMR moogle or UoC for Malphasie's STMR once I have a TDW I want to use).

This is an extremely good accessory for TDW units. Unless you have one of the eqATK TDW STMRs this will be a major item for your TDW builds.

Other options: Ahola Lasswell's TMR gives 25% TDW (50% for Lasswell units) and 25% evade which is possibly a better option if you want to use your attacker an evade tank or need to deal with big physical preemptive attacks. CG Onion Knight's TMR will be similar but give 5% MP refresh instead of the 2 LB per turn. And there's a good chance we'll see more GLEX options pop up before then. STMR options are CG Lightning's, Malphasie's, and Nagi's (Yun's is only 30% but worth mentioning.)

Warrior of Light Lenna's STMR
Judgement Staff (FFV)
[staff]: 60 ATK, 163 SPR, 30% SPR, light element, dispelga => remove status effects from all enemies

A smidge behind Ayaka's STMR (staff, 12 ATK, 166 SPR, 15% HP/MP) and Folka's STMR (12 ATK, 166 SPR, 30% MP, 150 MP, 50% water resist) for flat SPR, but comes out quite a bit ahead thanks to the 30% SPR. As usual, high SPR is generally only needed on units that use SPR for attacking and when you need really high magic eHP (although HP is almost always better in those cases).

The light element only really matters for "do light damage" missions or when you want a physical attack whose damage scales with SPR to do light damage.

The dispelga is probably the most useful aspect of this weapon but really requires dual cast to maximize its value (to dispel your party).

Despite the great stats, this is squarely a niche weapon.

Warrior of Light Lenna's TMR
Tranquil Healing
[materia]: 50% SPR, increase modifier of some healing by 1x.

Another really niche item. If you really need to maximize your healing potential, this is probably the best materia out there. But odds are you'll be better off putting something else on your healer. There are just too many sources of back up heals for this to have major impact.

Atlie
Air Tempest
[sword]: 125 ATK, wind element

This is just a weaker version of Bartz's STMR. With the better TDW units having multi-cast, the penalty for using this versus Bartz's STMR isn't that big. Just stick it on your offhand so your higher ATK weapon is used for all multi-casted attacks.

Like most other 1H elemental weapons with moderate ATK, it's just a niche weapon. No need to get it until you have an immediate need for it.

Tessen
Awe-Inspiring Origin
[materia]: 10% HP, 30% ATK with clothes

There is nothing awe-inspiring about this TMR.

Ohga's TMR (4 star) gives 10% HP/DEF and 30% ATK. That's outright better and lacks the conditional requirement. When was the last time you equipped that?

We also just got a couple Chocobo Rain TMRs for free. 20% HP/MP, 30% ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR.

And that's ignoring all those 5 star TMRs you didn't bother farming/moogling: Queens ( 30% ATK, 20% HP), PS Lasswell ( 30% ATK/HP, 25% LB fill rate), Beowulf ( 20% HP/MP, 40% ATK), etc.

If this were a raid, I'd give it a newbie rating. Instead it gets the trash rating.

Octopath Traveler week 2 trial

Yusufa's Handkerchief
[accessory]: 18 DEF, 22 SPR, 20% HP, 50% poison and disease resist

Poison and disease resist aren't all that important in general and only 50% resist makes this essentially nonexistent unless you love relying on RNG.

Here are some other accessories that are better. No point keeping this if you have plenty of better options.

• Emperor's Ring (STMR, 40% HP, 30 DEF/SPR, 50% fire resit, 30% SPR with light shield, 30% DEF with heavy shield)
  
• Ring of Dominion (soul shattering levels of farming, 30% HP/MP, 50% ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR, 7 DEF/SPR)
  
• Genbu Ring (trophy ring, 20% HP/DEF/SPR, 7 DEF/SPR)
  
• Jake's Pirate Ring (limited 4 star, 25% HP, 20 DEF/SPR, 1 LB/turn, 20% LB fill rate)
  
• Arsha's Talisman (3 star TMR, 20% HP, 10% DEF/SPR). As long as the unit doesn't have Regina levels of bad defensive stats, this will be better.
  
• Domino's Boots (3 star TMR, 20% HP, 15% DEF, 3 DEF/SPR, paralyze immunity). Better for physical but worse for magic eHP.
  
• Shield Gauntlet (star quartz, 20% HP, 28 DEF, 25 SPR, equip heavy shields).
  
• Gallant Belt (limited, 20% HP/DEF). Only better for phys eHP
  
• Soluna Band (limited 4 star, 20% HP/DEF, 25% light/dark resist). Only better for phys eHP
  
• Empowering Earrings (IF Katy STMR, 20% HP/SPR)
  

TL;DR:

BiS Worthy

• Bartz's TMR (accessory, 50% TDW, 2 LB/turn, BiS worthiness assumes no TDW STMRs)
  

Good but niche

• Bartz's STMR (167 ATK wind sword)
  
• Lenna's STMR (staff, high SPR, light element, dispelga)
  
• Atlie's TMR (125 ATk wind sword)
  

Very niche:

• Staff of Light (staff, light element, Holy for kill with magic missions)
  
• Ancient sword (sword, 40% break)
  
• Lenna's TMR (materia, 50% SPR, boost some healing by 1x)

Newbies:

• Yusufa's Handkerchief (accessory, HP/DEF/SPR, plenty of better options for veterans).
  

Trash

• MK materias
  
• Tessen's TMR (materia, HP and ATK)
  

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