Hi Guys! JP did another banner. Im separating this banner due to longwinded talks on Tanks and what not, So Charlotte will not be in this review, instead on another post by herself along with comparison amongst all the Tanks since that's an inevitable question that will come up. This section will focus on the DPS units, Shiva, Sylpheed, Odin and Fenrir as a bonus. I will not be reviewing FamilyMart Physalis due to her weird nature.

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Overview - All units

Surprisingly enough, All of these guys have different gearing/kits as far as DPS goes. Sylpheed is the black sheep of the group requiring some very weird and dead specific gearing, being a TDW magic user primarily using Guns and Lances with no Robe usage. Odin sets a new damage record, and is one of the first physical units to my knowledge to use an Esper gauge skill as a physical unit. Shiva is a pTDH user and specializes in AT frames with Ice element, so they have a fair amount of partners to use. Their event equip is also a 2h Ice Katana, making it the first elemental 2h Katana in JP which is phenomenal. Fenrir is the free unit, and is surprisingly strong with some very decent partners for content like Dark Visions or Tower. She also has a high amount of bulk which is surprising for a free unit.

Sylpheed - TM, STM, TMP and LB

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So, All this gear is pretty much tailored to Sylpheed herself, and we FINALLY have a good source of DW materia for mages that isn't locked behind paywall. This pretty much acts like a better quintessence. The STM on the other hand, is pretty much a Sylpheed only deal. Not very many mages tend to gravitate towards guns as an offhand weapon, Most go double rod or Rod Whip. She needs her TMP and there's no reason to avoid it so.... Yeah! Bird killer is fun for Necron, but hardly ever seen in Not-Necron fights.

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So, Fun fact about this: It imperils before it deals damage which is awesome. The imperil does scale with level which is not awesome. Most of her damage does come from her other skills not this one, but she does like to have this as an extra imperil Since she does have 1 Technically down turn on her big imperil (Its a 4 Turn imperil on a 5T CD). Up to you ultimately because she has other routes for damage and this can tend to be a damage drop.

Sylpheed - Passives

So this is where I talk about Sylpheed's bad side: Her equipment. As mentioned previously, Sylpheed cannot wield Rods or Whips. In fact, she's probably one of the first people to be able to use Ace's STM without significant down side. She doesn't absolutely need to use Spears and guns, and only loses 15% HP/Spr per weapon class she's not using. Outside of her STM, her event Spear (High Mag), and Quina's STM, there's hardly anything worth using for her. So I hope you've been stockpiling them Ace's because that helps her. Luckily the other slot has two free items associated with it so you're in luck. Her chest slot, on the other hand, is hard to gear for. No robes means she's probably gonna burn a slot for EQ Robe tho. Onto the good news: She Has, (with gun and spear equipped): 50% HP, 100% MP, 180% (230% including TM) MAG, and 30% Def. She has a huge plethora of side passives, with 100% High tide, 20% Wind/Water Resist, 50% Sylpheed Stats, 30% p/m Evade, and 100% mBird Killer, as well as a 100% Avian Killer buff 3T at beginning of battle 150% Mag/Spr buff. She's also immune to Sleep, Silence, Paralyze and Confuse which are awesome ailments to be immune to. Confuse doesn't affect mages as much as physical damage dealers as your mage units tend not to outright kill other units with normals, but it's effective nonetheless. Edit: Thanks Winny for telling me that SMFina TM is clothes and 60 Mag. Shes redeemed. Slightly. Further thanks to recommendation from Mey and Sinzar for Sweet Nichols TM/Ultimas Dagger.

Sylpheed - Actives/Rotation

Sylpheeds actives are Mystic Cross frames, and none of them revolve around Stacking. She instead goes the other route with Def/Spr ignore on her skills, multipart and a lot of Modifier boosting. She's capable of outputting some INCREDIBLE modifiers for a mage, but with her gearing issues there's not a lot of give for damage boosting. Her maximum theorized burst is 375x in a single turn, but that can only happen every 5 turns due to CD restrictions on T5. This also assumes an enemy is not immune/absorbs water or wind. Highest burst on a non-CD turn is 267x. Here's what a sample rotation would potentially look like:

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Or something along those lines. Lots of damage. Lots. And. Lots. Of. DAMAGE. Of course this assumes the enemy is vulnerable to both Water and wind, without both the rotation changes up slightly. You can forgo the LB, but you're losing a massive 30x on the casts of the CD, and 20x on every cast of a non CD. Trust me, just eat the LB turn.

Shiva - TM, STM, TMP, LB

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Yay, a TM hat that's better than Prische's, Only took them 3 1/2 years to do it! Joking aside, this is actually a really good hat for Katana users and BIS in most cases where a hat is applicable. 30% Atk with max pots is around 93-96 Atk, which is more than enough to break past EQ differences from STM hats like Karlettes etc. His STM is just powercrept clothes. Nothing overly special, kinda like Ifrits. It's TMP is it's TMP. They have a free Ice 2h Katana from the SE, so go get it, use their hat. You literally don't have a reason not to.

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Shiva has 100% LB in their kit, so the base damage of this at maximum level is 108x before LB gear, which is absolutely huge. Leveling it only changes the Mod, so its more of a luxury level than anything. Good to use as an opener but not really necessary. Bonus points for making Asswell wear a tiara in it though!

Shiva - Passives

Shiva has one katana based passive, but still prefers Katanas due to the fact of the event equip giving 80% Shiva attack and they already have 50% all Shiva stats anyways. You could also just throw Odin on him as well and skip the whole fiasco, but still use the event Katana. Seriously, its that good. 170% Atk, 50% Def, 50% HP, 80% Spr and MP for total base passives, plus 150% pTDH. They also have 150% High Tide, 50% Ice Resist, 30% Wind resist, 75% Dragon Killer, and Immune to sleep and paralysis. Would've liked confuse resist but you can always work around that. Nothing overly special to write home about.

Shiva - Actives/Rotation

Shiva focuses on the same stuff Akstar and Klassy do, AT frames w/ Buffing their big attack with a bunch of other smaller attacks, Except the difference here is that all of Shiva's attacks are big. Ice/Wind flavor focus, but mainly Ice based for where we are concerned.

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Shiva's burst is around 149x, and granted this is a very rudimentary Rotation, and you can cut out the Bad imperil for the stronger CD Skill w/ Imperil on subsequent ones for a damage boost. Thankfully he's still really good and doesn't need a lot of help other than his event Katana, which simplifies things up nicely as far as rotations go with him. As far as damage goes, Shiva is around what is par for damage dealers, not necessarily top tier due to banner mate Odin,as you'll see in a second, but still really good and if you build them as a LB damage dealer they can be effective alongside Chantilena to deal some massive damage. (16200% with Just Chantilena buff and no LB gearing). Shiva also has some utility but its very limited and only available for 1 turn durations, but it's good to pick up some slack if your healer has something else they need to do that turn, as well as 60% Def/Spr breaks for those fights when you bring Bart or Machina and don't really need to use high tiered def/spr breaks. He has an AOE reraise for 1 turn but that also consumes his entire LB gauge as well so its a bit of a mixed bag.

Odin - TM, STM, TMP, LB

Before we talk about Odin's autocasts, His TM is basically an upgraded version of Reagens TM, just an added 25% pTDW. Odin has 175% pTDW with just one of these, so youll either be overcapping or will need to summon a second one to perfectly cap him on TDW, Not a big deal anyways. The materia is great period being a watered down version of Riku/Sora's STM's with some added Riders. His STM is basically so you can use it instead of the materia and perfectly cap TDW on him, since all he needs is just this to cap. In function, it's a better RLightning STM for nonLB users, but those who rely on LB will still want hers instead. Funnily enough, Odin prefers RLightning's STM over his own.

His TMP has 3 separate autocasts associated with it, One is a 150% Def/Spr 25% phys mitigation buff for 3 turns, another is Atk 200%, LB 50%, and Fill rate 150%, and the last one is a T-Cast for 1 turn. This makes dying for him really a non-issue because it boosts everything he needs to get back to full strength. "But Trag, it only lasts for 3 turns so you can't rely on it right?" Wrong. He has these skills as normal actives as well. It just gives him a revenge buff basically. Likewise, he absolutely NEEDS his TMP. So use it.

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So, with his autocast taken into account, Odin has a mod on his LB of 115x, which is pretty underwhelming for the rest of the damage in his kit. You're mostly using this to boost his other skills, and for the imperil not the damage. So you're better off not leveling this, as neither the imperil nor the mod boost improve with level, just the damage. It's a luxury level, not a necessity.

Odin - Passives

So Odin has the fun part of having EQ passives. 50% Atk for: Sword ( 20%HP), Katana ( 20%Spr), Dagger ( 20%MP) and Greatsword ( 20% DEF), just like his materia. It sucks a bit that he doesn't have spear based passives like his esper counterpart, but we'll have to live with it. Assuming two of the weapon classes are equipped, he has: 180% Atk, 150% pTDW, 50% Odin stats, 100% LB damage, and 100% High Tide. For his other passives, Im gonna assume Katana and Sword, mainly because these are the highest atk items he has access to that associate with his Materia/kit: 60%HP, 50%MP, 60% Def, 50% Spr, and immunity to Sleep and paralyze. Not great ailment immunities but there's a good amount of physical gearing with confuse resist nowadays so it's all good. No petrify immunity means he can abuse petrify cheesing Malboro which is also nice. He also shares Odin's killers, so 50% Dragon and Undead killers, and he has 10% Refresh Champion Regen, which can also be nice in a pinch. Refresh isnt as major a thing nowadays with how much MP we can output on healers/supports now.

Odin - Actives / Rotation

Hooooo boy. This guy has a lot of fun. His starting move in a rotation is a perfect Dispel, attached with an attack buff and a T-Cast enabler, which is great. Assuming you're able to follow the rotation, you're perfect dispelling every 5 turns at no cost to damage or rotation. On DPS this is a first. He also has a 60% Full break if you fancy that, albeit 1 turn for emergencies, and like I said earlier he has a skill that uses Esper gauge to deal a bunch of damage and buff his other capping skill as well. (It gives that skill a 62x modifier after LB, for 186x total mod if T-Casted). His big burst relies on double Element vulnerability to fire and Ice, dealing a massive 177.6x burst when chaining, which occurs on T4.

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Whew. Average modifier of this crazy thing goes from 0 -> 100 like a nutty person. Subsequent rotations will not have T-Cast on T1, so you'll cut out 緋蒼ノ剣Od as the LB imperil will still be active T2 and CD imperils will still be active for LB turn. His capping rotation is basically Use CD, Use LB, Use Esper Skill Cap skill, Use Cap skill. A little longer than most Capper rotations but at least he can chain with Open actions on the CD and LB turn. His average turn modifier is 10,132% or about 101.32x which is slightly under par but thats due to a literal dead turn on T1, and offset by 120% imperil and 6x Chain boost.

Fenrir - ALL

Im just tackling Fenrir in a small section, due to the fact that she's free, all her gear is worth nabbing. She's incredibly strong for a free unit, Her TM and STM are fairly unique in that the STM gives a really good buff when dropping under 80% HP, and her TM gives partial resist to Atk break which is a first for japan. It's still pretty niche and not 100% but 45 flat atk hats are always worth, and you get STM mog for her in the shop and 100% in TM moogles from SE so there's no reason not to have this. She has a huge counter that gives her resistance to phys or mag attacks depending on what she's hit by. Passive wise, she still gets her Manor gun's passive of 50% HP and Atk, as well as she has a fist passive too. 100% pTDW isn't big enough to note, but it's something we haven't really had on other free units so yay? 160% Passive attack and 100% Beast killer is also nice enough to let newer players from anniversary stuff blitz through to current content

Her actives have some really weird things: her 9999 turn regen and refresh can be dispelled, but the mod buff cannot be. Her 5T CD can be capped if cast in the correct way, which is actually a boon for her because it inflicts the debuffs first, so she will cast the CD -> Chain Chain for a huge mod of 112x on that turn. A sample rotation might look like:

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Note: Once you use the CD, It never has to be used again unless she dies or is dispelled, and even then the TCast and modifier buff will persist. T1 and T2 change on subsequent rotations because of this.

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Conclusion

Basically just another meta DPS banner, great place to load up and catch up, but otherwise it's just meh. Same deal as previous banner, you get a prism for each unit, and Fenrir is the freebie unit from the anniversary quest shop. Odin is the real prize here, and Ill have Alexander in a separate post done tonight. Summon on them or don't, ultimately your choice. I like this banner more than the previous one but nobody had any idea this one was coming so it's a moot point. We are getting 16k to do a couple pulls on this banner on the 22nd so there's that. That 16k lapis may be better spent on the 11 rainbow fest included banner, but the esper units are NOT in that banner.