Should I Farm That - Floating Continent: Skies (FFVI raid), Mean Ghouls (Halloween '19 week 2 trial)

Well, the release schedule has officially broken my brain. Physalis story event is very late (any story event for that matter), 6-legged Rain (that is the only correct way to refer to him) is coming early, CG Dark Fina is probably delayed unless she comes before Terra (which would make her early and on time?), FFVI MK event is late (and you all know how I feel about that), and I have no fucking clue if I should be considering this FFVI raid to be early or late. I'm going with early because I'm fucking sick of orb events right now.

My FFVI lapis hoard disappeared a few days ago on the Halloween banner because Karten is a friggin' werewolf that isn't a pretty boy in love or a mere side character in some emo vampire's story. I know a lot of people find his rotation very complicated but I never gave a rat’s ass about optimal rotations (I never even bothered to use A2’s LB). My Karten rotation: Big CD attack available? Use it. Need to unlock triple cast? Do that. Otherwise hit the enemy with three attacks (preferably of a matching chain family). The game is a hell of a lot easier when you don’t worry about min-maxing every goddamn action. Relevant clip. Of course if that doesn't work, you can always do some 80's style montage training.

I guess this lack of lapis isn't too far off my original plans though. I figured this event would come shortly after I pulled for a unit that transform into a furry being and I’d be resource drained. I had already resigned myself to blowing 4 UoC pulls for Shadow and Kefka. But this banner came out of sequence and there's a tiny chance Summon Fest units with be UoCable so I'll have to wait a while before I pick these two up. Update: I have no lapis nor tickets remaining and no new FFVI units.

As I type this (Tuesday morning) I'm torn between being a gushing FFVI fanboy and angry about the shit rewards for this raid event. I guess I'll just go with whatever pops in my head as I type. IOW, no different from my usual plan.

Raid loot

Another fucking machine raid boss. Wait a minute... Holy fucking shit! We haven't had a machina raid boss in the last 5 months. Let's take a moment to appreciate how Alim and Gumi ignored their raging hard ons for robots for as long as they did.

Ninja Gear (FFVI)
[clothes]: 20 ATK, 13 DEF, 3 SPR

Coming off the heels of the Halloween banner where Karten's TMR is comparable to STMRs we get this disappointment. It's not terrible, but it's also completely ignorable unless you’re new.

Let's compare this to some non-limited gear:

• Training Clothes (4 star TMR, 20 ATK, 32 DEF, 20% MP, males only) has been available for over 2 years now. That's so fucking long ago you could have farmed this manually and still have finished it long ago.
  
• Suzume's Kimono (4 star TMR, 21 ATK, 36 DEF, 20% ATK with katana) is outright better even without the katana mastery passive.
  
• Battle Garb (quest reward, 18 ATK, 32 DEF, 100% sleep/confuse resist) might be lower ATK but that sleep/confuse resist is worth way more than that 2 ATK.
  

You can craft multiples of these which is worth doing to ensure you have enough decent gear for the future 15-man tower events but if you farmed Kaito's Super Elemental Wave Battle II: Hyper Farming event, you could have crafted a few Fire Fox Cloaks (20 ATK, 20 DEF, 20 MAG, 10% HP, 20% fire resit, 50% confuse resist, 20% ATK/MAG with Fire Fox Plushie) which is much better.

Flamboyant max: 1 [rod]: 93 MAG, 3 ATK

WTF is wrong with this reward? Its name clearly means you use it to set male ants on fire. This isn't even have a fire element or bug killer attached to it. The game is now unplayable.

Blah blah blah gear from trials blah blah blah Stardust Rod (FFBE) (167 MAG, 50% demon magic killer, 75% undead magic killer), Wizard Rod (125 MAG), Glory of Evil (120 MAG)...

Recent event blah blah blah Sacrosanct Staff (128 MAG, 98 SPR) that is a fucking rod despite the name.

Four-Point Shuriken
[throwing a fit]: 82 ATK, 50% accuracy

Congratulations gumi. I fully expected you to translate this as a 7.5-point Confident Kenneth. You've managed to somehow exceed my bloated expectations.

List of weapons better than this? Every single goddamn sword, greatsword, katana, gun, and fist because you can actually equip a weapon mastery passive for those. Nobody fucking uses a throwing weapon unless they are a hipster trying to be ironic. OG Locke was on the second banner ever for this game and his TMR has 107 ATK. Nobody use that. Do you know how many fucking copies I've gotten in 3 years? 3 and that's only because I sold off a few already.

Dear new players,

This might look like a decent weapon for you thanks to the ATK being better than anything you have right now. But if you get this, I will send a swarm of flies to lay eggs in your face and watch as the maggots give you a Skeletor makeover.

EDIT: only 1H weapon with accuracy without double handing it. Two of these would actually be useful to TDW units in arena (pretty much only time accuracy matters). I refuse to upgrade the rating to very niche purely out of spite for arena. Looks like it doesn't work based on reports in discord.

Knowledge of Katanas and Rods
[materia]: 20% ATK with a katana, 20% MAG with a rod

A few days ago, my son dropped deuce in his little potty so big that the pile reached his ass and he freaked out. Now imagine this happened to you but instead of poop it was a bunch of scorpions crawling out your ass. I'd rather that happen to me than craft this.

Sure it might be a small upgrade for new players but pretty much any 7 star unit can clear everything except trials and this isn't good enough to help with those trials. No realistic use for this.

(S)TMRs

Kefka's STMR
Corrupted Mage
[materia]: 60% MAG, 100% eqMAG TDH

This is the best eqMAG TDH materia in the game. This has 50% more eqMAG TDH than Elena's STMR but that one is more versatile as it also gives 50% eqATK TDH and 60% ATK. Karlette's TMR has the same 100% eqMAG TDH but lacks the 60% MAG. Channel Anger (limited rainbow TMR) is similarly slot efficient but only gives 50% eqMAG TDH and 40% MAG. But neither are stackable so you’d probably want both anyway.

Sure this is straight up BiS for any TDH mage (which is every single mage unless you got lucky with TDW STMRs) but this is far too weak to be Kefka's STMR. It should give at minimum 400% HP/MP/DEF/MAG/SPR, , 300% HP/MP/DEF/MAG/SPR active buff that can't be dispelled and has a 99999 turn duration, 300% eqMAG TDH, 200% eqMAG TDW, 300% all element resists, -99% MP usage, and grants dodeca-cast for any skill in the game. Anything less is just unacceptable for the best villain in any FF game.

Kefka's TMR
Archmage's Mantle
[accessory]: 12 DEF, 50 MAG, 10 SPR, 100% silence, confusion, and stone resist

That silence resist is super important for mages because they cast spells instead of using abilities. Oh wait, I was confusing this game for every single other FF game in existence. Silence barely matters in this game... At least the confusion and stone resists are always welcome.

50 MAG on an accessory is bland but not bad. The only 50 or higher MAG accessory not trapped behind a rainbow is the Cursed Doll (trial, 50 MAG, 30% ice reist, -50% confuse resist).

Sadly, Nutkin Hairpin (4 star TMR, 40 MAG, 40% MAG) will usually be better on a TDH mage when building for just MAG. In the builds I tested, TDW mages prefers Kefka's TMR over Nutkin Hairpin but TDW builds for mages are extremely niche as all the mage TDW gear are STMRs.

As the most common use cases for this are TDW builds and confuse/stone resist this gets the niche rating.

Assassin Shadow's STMR
Kagenui
[katana]: 186 ATK, Shadow Capture Blade => AE damage and stop chance

Unless they upgrade the skill to be a part of a major chaining family, the skill is pretty useless outside of arena (for the stop).

At 186 ATK, this is one of the highest ATK weapons in the game. But Zeno's STMR is also a 1H katana. Despite the 6 less ATK it is much better thanks to the 40% ATK and 75% human killer. Citan's STMR is slightly weaker version of Zeno's (limited, 176 ATK, 20% ATK, 75% human killer). Muramasa (FFBE) is a trial reward with 172 ATK, 75% bird killer, and 50% human killer, so it is better when those killers kick in.

All of those other katana's have a human killer on them and somehow the STMR of an assassin doesn't? Did the designer of this weapon use his forehead as a hammer a few too many times? Of all those weapons, this one makes the most fucking sense to have it. What the hell do you think an assassin kills?

As I do not assume you have any competing STMRs, this gets a Potential BiS rating despite it lagging behind other similar STMRs.

Assassin Shadow's TMR
Heartless Assassin
[materia]: 50% ATK with katana, 50% human killer

Oh, so the numbnuts at Alim had enough sense to put human killer on Shadow's TMR. Congratufuckinglations on not being a complete asshat. Now go celebrate by using your dick as a doorstop.

Disparate Swordsman (4 star TMR, 50% ATK with katana, 20% ATK with clothes) and Samurai's Might (trial, 60% ATK with katana) have similar requirements but are better when not fighting humans.

This is potential BiS against humans while using a katana. As that requires two conditions for it to be optimal gear, it only gets a very good but niche rating.

Halloween Week 2

They named this trial Mean Ghouls? Are there also kind ghouls? Or is this supposed to be a Mean Girls pun? Pretty sure Lindsay Lohan's career is deader than the trial ghost so that's actually very appropriate.

Protective Pendant
[accessory]: 25 ATK/MAG, 10 DEF/SPR, Dodging the Dead => 15% physical evade, 15% magic evade.

Reminder: Magic evade doesn't stack. Only the source with the highest amount takes effect.

If somehow 15% evasion is good enough for you to hit 100% evade and you're still managing on capping ATK% or MAG% then this slightly better than RotL for attack stats on 100% dodge unit. That's very niche. Probably reasonably useful for some newer players.

Wolf Claws
[fist]: 120 ATK, dark element, 2H (1.4-1.6x dmg var, 50% acc), Corpse Blight => 50% damage from physical and hybrid attacks against undead.

This is only 10 ATK lower than the current strongest 2H fist weapon, Fatal Knuckles (4 star TMR, 130 ATK). We'll eventually get access to a 162 ATK 2H fist weapon from the Aigaion 2.0 trial.

Regardless of which of those fist weapons you’re comparing this too, this is better when you need the dark element or undead killer. Very good but niche rating.

TL;DR:

Potential BiS:

• Kefka's STMR (materia, 100% eq MAG TDH, 60% MAG)
  
• Ass Shadow's STMR (katana, 186 ATK)
  

Very Good but Niche:

• Butt Shadow's TMR (materia, 50% ATK with katana, 50% human killer, extremely good for katana users against humans)
  
• Wolf Claws (fist, **120 ATK, 2H, dark element).

Niche:

• Kefka's TMR (accessory, 50 MAG, 100% confuse/stone resist)
  

Very Niche:

• Protective Pendant (accessory, 25 ATK/MAG, 15% magic/physical dodge)
  

Newbie Gear:

• Ninja Gear (FFVI) (clothes, 20 ATK, also decent to craft extras for future 15-man trials if you don't have a bunch of better gear already)

Trash:

• Flamboyant (rod, 93 MAG, better rods from easy trials)
  
• Four-Point Shuriken (throwing weapon, 82 ATK)
  
• Knowledge of Katanas and Rods (materia, 20% nobody fucking cares)
  

Random Thought

The second person to use the term "copy cat" was a copy cat.

SIFT Index

I rarely promote other people's content but /u/Rain7712 has this hilarious comic that had me laugh hard enough to blow snot all over my face.