Should I Farm That - Afterglow (Sol story event) and Scorn of the Wicked Moon Edition

Okay, I'm seriously pissed off. I wrote this up then my work laptop forced a reboot overnight while I was sleeping and I lost everything. Normally I don't need to worry about that thanks to auto-save but some previous stupid work update apparently turned off auto-save for notepad . I also lost all my notes for all my Chamber of Arms clears (all cleared with the same team and gear with only Kydia as damage dealer) so I won't be doing a GiB post for that. Technically I lost that a while ago but didn't notice until today when I discovered auto-save was disabled. Looks like I also lost some work on the SIST tool...

So this SIFT went from heavy shitposting to about 20% of what I had before...

On the bright side my younger brother is finally married so I now have ever-so-slightly more free time again as I’m not working on that speech. Many hours of preparation for a 3 minute speech. Got some good laughs (apparently some people do laugh at my jokes) and a few tears so I’m calling it a win.

Afterglow Loot

Usual reminder: Don't farm any materials until after you do the week two levels. Not that it really matters, the crafted item (Float Sandals) isn't very good. Actually all the gear is crap. So much for the Afterglow event. It's ever clear that Alim doesn't like giving decent gear from events.

Float Sandals Max craft: 1
[accessory]: 30 MAG, 10% MP

30 MAG is far too low for a vet. Decent for a new player though.

Accrual Rod
[rod]: 76 MAG, 14 ATK, Blizzaga

This has lower MAG than Staff of Blizzards (still my most hated item name in the game) which was released about 21 months ago. And blizzaga hasn't been meta since ExDeath was a legit friend unit.

Glory of Evil (trial, 120 MAG) is reasonably accessible to even brand new players if they can get a carry unit so this fails to even meet the newbie tier and ends up in the trash bin.

Blind Resistance
[materia]: 100% who flippin' cares

If this seems even remotely useful to you, go farm something better or use a unit with innate resist . This is trash tier.

(S)TMRs

Sol's STMR
Heliolite
[accessory]: 70 MAG, Evershining Stone => reduce MP consumption by 30%

Useless trivia: The common name for heliolite is sunstone. Which shouldn't be a surprise because it literally means sun stone.

More useless trivia: Not the same mineral as heliolite, but sunstones were believed to be used by vikings for navigation. The polarizing effect of the mineral on light allows you to pinpoint the position of the sun behind clouds or just below the horizon.

At 70 MAG, this is the highest flat MAG on any accessory. However, Nutkin hairpin, Rem's STMR, and Facade of Balance are potentially better if you don't hit the stat cap and can potentially free up a materia slot. Fry's STMR and Malphasie's STMR give eqMAG TDH and TDW so those are also potentially better. This remains potentially BiS but as always, check with FFBEEquip.

The 30% MP reduction might be worth the slight loss of MAG compared to other options depending on what unit you're using it on and what MP healers you have.

Sol's TMR
Astral Robe
[robe]: 15 DEF, 65 MAG, 42 SPR, 10% MP

Lordly Robes (FFBE) (65 MAG/SPR, 45 DEF, 5% MP refresh) is one of the parameter mission rewards and reasonable accessible to veterans. It has outright equal or better stats (the refresh is better than the MP boost as long as you have enough MP for turn 1) so despite being a very good TMR, i can't give it the potential BiS rating.

Heliarc
Magic Circlet
[helm]: 52 MAG, 40 DEF

So much tedious work lost that I need to redo... If it wasn't obvious to you, helms are not a common equipment option of mages or hybrids. Here's the list of rainbow mages/hybrids that can use helms:

Aurora Fryevia, Black Mage Golbez, Elena, Fryevia, Morgana, Sol, Tiana, Veritas of the Light, White Knight Noel, and ExDeath (when he comes out)

Of those, only Bowel Movement Golbez, ExDeath, and VotL can't wear hats.

With Royal Crown (trial, hat, 50 MAG) being pretty accessible to all but the newest of players and the lack of mage/hybrid units that can wear helms this is pretty niche despite giving the highest MAG of any head slot gear that isn't a STMR or TMR of a limited unit.

Eclipsa
Phantom Force
[materia]: 40% esper bonus stats

Hmmm... a name very similar to an event where the sun is blocked in an event for a character whose name means sun... Villain identified!

I'm not going to redo all the math to show this isn't very good... There are really only two cases where a vet would use this:

1. You have a free materia slot (hit stat cap) and have no decent killer or survival materia to equip in that slot
   
2. E-peen
   

It boosts all stats so you'd think it'd be good for giving tankiness but we have far better defensive materias that give much better overall stats.

Pertira
Life of the Laboratory
[materia]: 40% ATK, 100% confusion resist

This is the first unconditional 40% ATK materia from a 3 star unit. If you are a newer player who is lacking decent ATK materia, consider dropping a few tickets on this banner.

Long time vets probably have plenty of better materias but the confusion resist could be handy for plugging a small hole in ailment resists for specific fights without sacrificing ATK. Personally, I can't be bothered to wait the extra 2-3 hours for FFBEEquip to give me a perfect build that gets all the needed ailment resists from optimal sources so I just toss a ribbon equivalent on whatever unit needs it.

Scorn of the Wicked Moon

Good news, everyone! One of the trial rewards was bumped up from a mere 50 trust coins to 250 trust coins. That's an improvement of like 2 weeks worth of arena rewards. This reward when from super shitty to not as shitty! This is almost as awesome when they bumped up the daily EP mission from 250 to 350 EP (which is effectively still zero because nobody can remember to do them except u/siana-chan).

Artemis Bow
[bow]: 142 ATK, 170 MAG, 2H (1.25-1.75x dmg var, 70% acc), Bow of the Huntress => 75% damage from physical, hybrid, or magic attacks when fighting beasts

Let's take a moment to appreciate that Gumi named it "Artemis' Bow" instead of "Artemis's Bow" like they usual would do. Technically both are correct, but people that use the latter clearly make poor life decisions and cannot be trusted. They probably don't even use Oxford commas like a civilized person.

This is the strongest MAG bow (and 4-way tie for second highest flat MAG on a weapon) but the only unit that does respectable MAG damage right now that prefers bows is Kimono Fina and her TMR is a bow so you'd only use this if you have her STMR. Also, good luck finding any friend K Finas to chain with.

On the ATK side, Ang's TMR and Lenneth's STMR are stronger but this would win out when fighting a beast. Too bad there aren't many units that actually want to use a 2H bow even with Equip Bow materia available. I think the only times I've ever equipped a bow was for Sora Cupid Artemios (for one fight that wasn't even hard), and Artemios (during the barrage meta).

For hybrid units, only Elena and Malphasie do enough damage to consider. Elena would need her STMR (and Equip Bows and still come up short) and Malphasie wants to dual wield instead.

Despite this being an extremely good weapon based on stats, it's very niche.

TL;DR:

Potential BiS:

• Sol's STMR (accessory, 70 MAG, 30% MP usage reduction)

Very Good:

• Sol's TMR (robe, 65 MAG)
  

Very Good but Niche:

• Heliarc's TMR (helm, 52 MAG, very good MAG but on a helm)
  
• Artemis' Bow (bow, 142 ATK, 170 MAG)
  

Good:

• Pertira's TMR (materia, 40% ATK, 100% confuse resist)

Extremely Niche:

• Eclipsa's TMR (materia, 40% bonus esper stats)
  

Newbies:

• Float Sandals (accessory, 30 MAG, 10% MP)

Trash:

• Accrual Rod (rod, 76 MAG, you can get a 120 MAG rod from a trial)
  
• Blind Resistance (materia, wastes a materia slot)
  

Bonus shitpost

No time to create a new one after losing the previous draft... The shitposting is about 75% of the effort...

The original shitpost went from apologizing for not being able to create the Peppa Pig collab units that I promised long ago (I mean, obviously none of you want that because we're all still burnt out from unit creation posts) and somehow I ended up making a geology pun.

Two geologists role playing: You make the bedrock and I'll be cummingtonite.

SIFT index

It's been such a long time since I tossed in a lot of sarcasm in my posts and I loath using /s so this is a reminder to folks that are newer to my posts that I'm never sarcastic and you should take everything I write literally and as the gospel.