Should I Farm That - Narshe (FFVI MK) and Scorn of the Machina of Destruction

I almost didn't bother posting this. As usual, I wrote up the initial draft on Tuesday when I was excited.

Then Wednesday night came and I saw the lack of meaningful changes to Terra... But at least Locke is even better! I figure I'll be happy just getting him.

Then Thursday morning rolled in. Did a full lap and got nothing but guaranteed rainbows. Terra #1 and A Rain #whofuckingcares to show for it. 10 1? 1G. 5 1? 1 G. Bunch of tickets? Jack shit. Did the 1/2 price daily and got a rainbow!!!!! Rinoa #6. Used all the MK tickets and got a rainbow on the final one! It's a mage! A blonde female! From a mainline FF game! First WoL Krile...

Friday morning I'm still saltier than a crocodile with high blood pressure so I let my 20 month old do the ½ daily pull. I can't be angry if my kid pulls trash. No way!!! Another rainbow! I've never gotten back to back ½ daily rainbows before! This is it folks! It's... Dressy Aileen #2... All that did was remind me that I have 2 Explorer Aileens that will never see a 7 star form... Pretty sure I sprained my face trying to maintain a smile as not to frighten my son.

So when I sat down to work, I deleted the original intro to this post (don't worry, it wasn't very good unless you're a fan of nerdy picking at details and complaining the units don't really reflect the source material. Terra should be able to wear heavy armor and helms damnit!). Zero desire to add more shitpost material than I did during my first pass so other than confirming stats, I'm not going to change anything from my first draft. Expect more typos than usual.

MK Loot

Thief's Knife (FFVI)
[dagger]: 88 ATK, Agile Thief => 5% physical and magic evade

Blah blah blah magic evade doesn't stack so it doesn't matter blah blah blah.

We just got Assassin's Dagger (FFVI) in the raid trial that just ended last night. At 102 ATK, that's a decent newbie weapon. Assassin Dagger (trial, 116 ATK) is also pretty easy to obtain.

So how does the evade stack up? Well obviously it is straight up worse than Locke's STMR dagger that gives 30% evade...There's 3 other daggers with 5% physical evade and they all have lower ATK. Two of them have wind element though so they aren't outright worse.

Evade builds are niche to begin with (not always effective) and with the top physical tank (Galuf) and only known future physical tank (CG WoL) having weapons as their TMRs, using this on an evade tank is even less likely (especially on WoL who needs his TMR to unlock w-cast). But with how much good evade gear we've gotten in recent months (a lot of <1 year players can probably build 100% evade more easily than high physical eHP), I'll leave this as niche rating rather than very niche.

Reflect Ring (FFVI)
[accessory]: 30 MAG, auto-reflect => auto-cast reflect on self at the start of battle or after revival.

30 MAG is newbie gear level. Way too many similar or better gear to call out individually.

Auto-reflect is an odd option. You almost need to use an ability based healer to make it work in whatever insane strategy you've come up with where having just one unit with reflect is crucial. I'm feeling generous so this gets the very niche rating rather than newbie gear.

Protect the Espers! - Physical
Protect the Espers! - Magic
[materia]: It's a MK materia. I'm not even going to read the stats and automatically declare it as trash tier. Okay, I better check to be safe. Well fuck, that was a waste of 0.43 seconds.

This stinks worse than raw chicken parts in a dumpster on a hot summer day.

(S)TMRs

Terra's STMR
Love's Whereabouts
[materia]: 80% MAG with sword, -10% MP consumption

MP consumption reduction is nice but nothing too special.

80% MAG is tied with Shantotto's STMR (requires rod equipped). Technically Engulfing Light also gives 80% MAG but the light weapon condition makes it essentially useless.

While it is potential BiS, that's only for mages that can equip swords (far from universal) and the lack of accessible high MAG swords compared to rods makes this even less common. Pretty much only Terra is always going to want this.

Some quick math. Obviously for TDW mages, just use both sword and rod if you have the necessary TDW gear.... For TDH mages, the best non-STMR sword for MAG is Terra's TMR with 135 MAG. Best non-STMR rod is 167 MAG (Stardust Rod from trial). 32 MAG difference turns into 128 MAG with 300% eqMAG boost. That's around 43% for a 300 MAG unit. So a 40% MAG materia would be equally good.

So the use case for this would be Terra, TDW mages (trapped behind STMRs), players with limited MAG TDH gear, and players with Kurasame's STMR. That's too restrictive for potential BiS so it gets the very good but niche rating.

EDIT: I forgot that this would also be very good on hybrid units, especially Elena.

Terra's TMR
Terra's Sword
[sword]: 87 ATK, 135 MAG, 20% MAG

Good stats but swords on a mage are niche. As far as hybrids, Elena strongly prefers her own TMR leaving only Malphasie and AI Katy as hybrids that could use this (and you are going for a MAG prefered build)

Niche rating due to the lack of relevant units that what to use it that aren't named Terra.

Locke's STMR
Locke's Dagger
[dagger]: 165 ATK, 50% sleep, High-Speed Evasion => 30% physical evade and 20% magic evade

Highest ATK on a dagger in the game which makes this really good on... Adventurer Locke and Assassin Shadow? Maybe WoL Bartz if you haven't gotten anything better?

30% evade is awesome but it's on a weapon blah blah blah Galuf and CG WoL TMR blah blah blah. Go read the section on the MK dagger.

No question on how good this is for either ATK on a dagger or evade. It's just a matter of when those actually matter. Very good but niche rating.

Locke's TMR
First-Rate Treasure Hunter
[materia]: 60% ATK with dagger, charm immunity

Very good ATK boost but dagger isn't exactly the most common weapon type. Charm immunity is awesome and this is the first source of 100% charm resist (the only 50% options from an STMR and rainbow TMR). But the need for charm resist is limited to just a handful of fights.

Just for the charm resist alone, this gets very good but niche

Neisha Fortune Teller's Vision
[materia]: 100% paralyze and confuse resist, 10% phys evade

Nothing too special about 10% evade. But confuse and paralyze resist makes this pretty slot efficient for the fights were that matters. For reference, CG WoL already has sleep and stone immunity so this is optimal for an evade build for him. Galuf has confuse and stone resist so you'd still need to cover sleep if the fight calls for it.

Niche rating.

Latyl
Guardian Visor
[accessory]: 30 SPR, equip L Shield

Oh look a magic tank that caps at 5 stars! Let's add this to the list of super useful things like my appendix and internet petitions.

Minor upgrade to Gauntlets (SQ purchase, accessory, 5 DEF/SPR, 20% ATK, equip L Shield). I'd rather blow SQ on that than moogles or TMR farming slot on this TMR. Odds are very low that you'd have multiple units that need to equip L shields at the same time.

Very niche.

Fisty McFisterton's Fist 2.0

Cross Aigaion Arm
[fist]: 162 ATK, 2H (1.4-1.6x dmg var, 50% acc), High Tide => 100% LB rate, Arbiter of Mankind => 75% physical human killer

This is both awesome and disappointing at the same time. This is a tad weak compared to other 2H gear with 1.5x variance. We have a total of four 2H guns with 160 ATK. The only one below 175 has 30% LB damage boost on it (Jake's STMR).

However, fists are a more common weapon type than guns:

28 TDH 7 star units can equip fists versus 15 that can use guns (with an overlap of 8 units).

Guess which list includes 6-legged Rain and his emo counterpart, Hyoh?

The only other 1.5x avg dmg weapon with higher ATK is Ignacio's STMR (axe, 170 ATK, fire element).

This is potential BiS for TDH units that can equip it, but that's a short list of units. If 6L Rain was the only meta that could use it, it's get the very good but niche rating. But (enhanced) Hyoh can too and despite having fallen off the top of the list, Esther can also. So that's enough to tip the scales to potential BiS.

Livestream raid

There are only two correct ways to farm this raid:

1. Run it once and just accept whatever RNG reward you get.

2. Start by placing you hands on your face. Move your hands down until you reach the point where your body splits into two (those are called legs). Now, reach behind you. You'll find two big lumps of flesh with a cleft between them. Reach into the cleft with both hands and search until you find a small cavern. Once you think you've found it, stick a finger in then pull it out and smell it. If it smells like a typical MK materia, you're at the right place. Keeping searching and smelling until you've found the right place. Slowly and carefully, bend over while exposing that cavern by pulling those lumps of flesh in opposite directions. While bent over, walk backwards, go outside, and look for a pile of broken glass. Be sure to keep pulling at those lumps of flesh the entire time. Also,it's perfectly normal to spend over a day before you find a decent pile of broken glass so don't give up too quickly. Close your eyes and fall backwards onto the pile. Congrats! You've successfully put in a huge amount of effort just to let chance dictate the final outcome.

Potential BiS:

• Cross Aigaion Arm (fist, 162 ATK, 2H, 75% human killer)
  

Very good but niche:

• Terra's STMR (materia, 80% MAG with sword equipped, very good on Terra, extremely gear dependent for all other mages)
  
• Locke's STMR (dagger, 165 ATK, 30% phys evade, 20% magic evade)
  
• Locke's TMR (materia, 60% ATK with dagger, 100% charm resist)

Niche:

• Thief's Knife (FFVI) (dagger, 88 ATK 5% phys/magic evade)
  
• Terra's TMR (sword, 87 ATK, 135 MAG)
  
• Neisha's TMR (materia, 100% paralyze and confuse resist, 10% phys evade)
  

Very Niche:

• Reflect Ring (FFVI) (accessory, 30 MAG, auto-reflect)
  

Trash:

• MK materias