Greetings! Hope you're having a lovely weekend so far.
This week we have another FFXIII banner but this time dipping into the arguably better sequel! Serah and Noel are going to join us and despite not pulling on the powercreep curve that much on average, there is some good merrit to get out of this banner.
Especially considering the free unit you can obtain. Despite being yet another Lightning, she's a very solid magic tank that's better than the regular CG Charlotte, so for anyone who did miss out on Paladin Cecil or doesn't have a strong magic tank yet, there's a good chance she might be useful to you. One of the better free units we had so far.

Other than that, we have two damage dealers on the banner, so we're rocking a chill vibe on this review. #damagedealersaturday

Banner Review: Noel Noel & Serah CG Serah by Memel0rd

Noel Noel:

Trust Master Reward : Mac an Luin (Spear) - 150 ATK, Water

STMR : Last Guardian (Materia) - Increase ATK (80%) Increase physical damage against machinas and dragons (75%)

Overview:

Anybody got a good one liner on Noel?

Noel's base stats are great. High HP? Yup. Good DEF/SPR? Sure. High ATK? Absolutely.
While he doesn't have a noticeable high bulk, his innate one isn't lacking of any sorts and due to the nature of TDW units getting bulk on him is easy enough. The 80% HP, 60% DEF and 50% SPR do help, but more importantly: his innate guts passive. Always useful to avoid dying from a strong threshold.
When you equip his own TMR, which is convenient as it allows him to skip his imbue, you gain 70% ATK and 50% TDW for a total of 200% ATK and 150% TDW while also having the 6x chain cap.
He's resistant against nothing, thus requires either external help or some sort of ribbon. Or... does he?
At least he does have an innate 30% fire / dark resistance and 50% killers against dragon and machine.

Noel can W-/T-Cast all of his abilities but there are many that, despite not being bad, are outclassed in some shape of form. For example, Noel has two Javelin abilities that reduce either ice or water by 120% for 3 turns, but he has an ability with double the modifier and imperils BOTH ice and water at the same time. It does cost 5 esper orbs, but he generates them guaranteed at the start of the battle and most teams don't utilise their esper gauge all that much, so yeah. He can also imbue both ice and water in case you want to equip for high ATK non-elemental weapons.
His Overwhelm self one party member buff is the same story as with Four Winds Physalis, it's just ot worth. Two, often inferior, self-buffs.

Unfortunately, Launch is one of these random finisher abilities in Noel's kit that have decent modifiers, in this case a max of 4100%, but can't hold up with the chaining abilities at all. If you keep including these finishers, please make them good. Madam Edel was a perfect example, a restricted LB finisher in her kit that makes her gain damage if you allow her to.
Feral Blitz does also meet a similar fate as it's low damage, no chain and only increases your evocation gauge by 1. Just so you know, you can stack TMRs from e.g. Isaaru to gain 1 gauge per turn, per unit. Gaining esper gauge is super easy nowadays, don't have to use up an action for a single orb.

Lastly, Sonic Fangs and Drill Thrust are niche abilities by adding a 150% dragon or machine killer buff for 5 turns, but Noel naturally gains 100% ~ 150% killer buffs during his rotation, so there's a good chance you don't really have to use up an action for these two either. But since you won't maintain the 150% buff, it has a niche use.

Now, let's talk about the unmentioned abilities. We're going to use all of them in our rotation.

Noel swaps between damage abilities consistently. All of them do share the same family: AMoE. And his only on-demand ability is Octathrust, a backloaded chain that starts out as a 1250% modifier, gains 1000% from the get-go and can receive another 1000% modifier after either the CD ability or the Limit Burst, hitting for a total possible 4250%. Which is not bad, but Noel can do much better.

Due to his CD ability, The Last Hunter, which is available at Turn 3, he can dish out a 3600% ~ 6600% chain that unlocks one hefty ability: Ultima Javelin.
As the name implies, we are dealing with one of the big boys and in terms of damage has its burst potential shooting through the roof.
Ultima Javelin is a backloaded chain with def ignore, thus quadrupling every mod boost. It starts out as a 4560% chain and after all possible boosts, which we will hit, goes up to a 10560% modifier. And yes, you can T-Cast it. So during that turn, we're looking at a total 31680% modifier. With 6x chain cap. Sign me up for that. Best part is: it's ST. Enjoy the DV destruction.

His two other CD abilities help Noel set himself up. Both are available at Turn 1 with a 6 turn cooldown and will be used in conjunction with each other whenever possible. If you do so, you'll gain 500% modifier boosts on all his abilities, a 100% dragon / machine killer, 250% ATK, 100% water / ice resistance and a self-ribbon. All of these last 5 turns and thus will have one turn of downtime. Be careful about the ribbon effect though, it can be dispelled and has one turn where Noel wouldn't be covered.
You'll also gain T-Cast for the following 5 turns, so every 6 turns you'll have a turn with no damage dealt basically.

His Limit Burst has a strong base 5000% modifier but can't chain properly and he lacks LB damage buffs, thus we're solely using it to bump up our modifiers by 500% and potentially gain machine / dragon killers. Both will last for the following 3 turns.

How does he fare in the meta?

Noel, while having worse damage on average compared to WH Raegen, should be considered a stronger unit for a good amount of reasons.

Starting turns are always so and so, some units are pretty slow, some start quickly, such as Karten.
Noel has an initial bad turn with no damage but afterwards immediately jumps up to meta levels and at Turn 4, 8 and 12 has incredible burst turns. His bursts exceed WH Raegen's by a solid margin. On Turn 4 the advantage is there but not as significant as on Turn 8. Of course you can also change up the rotation to gain the full amount of burst on Turn 4 for DV.

Huge ST burst for Dark Visions on a TDW unit that easily gets to the 400% cap and has many free slots available is generally always a good thing. You can't move his burst turn earlier than Turn 4 though since he has to unlock Ultima Javelin first. But if you're willing to sit that out, you will be rewarded immensely.

Due to having similar bulk, better burst and only has a slight disadvantage in average damage compared to WH Raegen due to his 0 damage turns, he can be considered an upgrade that does amplify the powercreep curve once more.

His TMR is a strong one-handed weapon with an innate element, always able to see some use when in need of water damage for your TDW units, but not THE most exciting TMR. Nice to have in your arsenal or for Noel himself, but nothing too major. His STMR though does give us access to an unrestricted 80% ATK just like that, which I'm fairly certain is the first of its kind outside of The Subservient, which deals 2000 damage to yourself each turn. But you know, it also grants you a 75% machine and dragon killer. While not the most common killers, it for sure doesn't hurt you on such a high ATK materia to have free killers.
EDIT: As Ashlag pointed out, you really want his STMR if you plan on using him on DV as he'll otherwise lose out on a ton of stats since you can't always rock water. Rarely even.
Yeah, good STMR. Wouldn't chase it though, but if you get it, you should feel good about yourself.

Build Maths:

Noel Damage Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#fd9b45f0-a7f1-11ea-ba80-53b5edebf1dc

Realistic Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#111c6820-a7f2-11ea-ba80-53b5edebf1dc

Noel Damage

ATK post 250% buff: 3532
ATK post 150% buff: 3258
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
Turn 1: Guardian's Awakening   Paradigm Shift: Commando
Turn 2: Biohazard Injection   Octathrust x2
Turn 3: Octathrust x2   The Last Hunter
Turn 4: Ultima Javelin x3
Turn 5: Octathrust x3
Turn 6: Limit Burst
Turn 7: Guardian's Awakening   Paradigm Shift: Commando
Turn 8: Biohazard Injection   Octathrust   The Last Hunter
Turn 9: Ultima Javelin x3
Turn 10: Octathrust x3
Turn 11: Biohazard Injection   Octathrust   The Last Hunter
Turn 12: Ultima Javelin x3


Turn 1: 0
Turn 2: 3532^2 x 23.5 x 4.23 x 1.6   [ 3532^2 x 32.5 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 12687698209
Turn 3: [ 3532^2 x ( 13.5 x 3.935   19 x 6 )   3532^2 x ( 32.5   56 ) x 6 ] x 2.2 = 19160008873
Turn 4: [ 3532^2 x ( 29.6 x 3.935   56 x 6 )   3532^2 x 85.6 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 40609785946
Turn 5: [ 3532^2 x ( 13.5 x 3.935   19 x 6 )   3532^2 x 32.5 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 15290256428
Turn 6: 3258^2 x 75 x 2.05 = 1631989215
Turn 7: 0
Turn 8: 3532^2 x 28.5 x 4.23 x 1.6   [ 3532^2 x ( 42.5   66 ) x 6 ] x 2.2 = 20273011802
Turn 9: [ 3532^2 x ( 39.6 x 3.935   66 x 6 )   3532^2 x 105.6 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 49923264614
Turn 10: [ 3532^2 x ( 13.5 x 3.935   19 x 6 )   3532^2 x 32.5 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 15290256428
Turn 11: [ 3532^2 x 23.5 x 4.23   3532^2 x ( 32.5   56 ) x 6 ] x 2.2 = 17301498510
Turn 12: [ 3258^2 x ( 19.6 x 3.935   46 x 6 )   3258^2 x 65.6 x 2 x 6 ] x 2.2 = 26628939277


Average Turn 1-12: 18,233,059,108
-> 135% of Edward Elric's damage ( 13,507,069,587 )
-> 125% of Gilgamesh WotV's damage ( 14,552,638,172 )
-> 113% of Tifa (FFVII: AC)'s damage ( 16,151,778,045 )
-> 106% of Mystical Ice Lasswell's damage ( 17,244,208,639 )
-> 97% of War Hero Raegen's damage ( 18,734,988,296 )

Character Design: 5/10
Sprite: 8.5/10
Chainer: 9/10
Trust Master Reward: 7.5/10
STMR: 9.5/10
Arena: 6/10
Limit Burst: 6.5/10
Future Proof: 9/10
Free 2 Play: 9/10
Pay 2 Play: 9.5/10
Personal Rating: 9/10
Optimal Rating: 9/10

CG Serah Serah:

Trust Master Reward : Sagittarius (Bow) - 76 ATK, 145 MAG, 2-Handed, 50% mBird killer

STMR : Enchanting Archer (Materia) - Increase MAG (60%)
Increase MAG (20%) when equipped with a bow
Increase equipment MAG (100%) and accuracy (25%) when single wielding any weapon

Overview:

Serah got introduced as a crystal and now we're summoning her out of a crystal. Ironic.

Her base stats are the usual mage stats: Decent HP, low-ish DEF, high MAG/MP/SPR. Since Serah focuses on equipping bows, she only has MAG TDH, limiting her bulk options. Sadly, her passives don't cover it up well with 50% HP, 60% DEF and 50% SPR with no guts passive nor any evasion. So you'll have to manage on your own and if you don't have a few copies of Sweet Luka's TMR laying around, you will have to sacrifice a solid amount of MAG. At least she does have an innate 225% MTDH an 180% MAG.
... and no status ailment protection, just like Noel. And she doesn't have a self ribbon buff either, so you'll have to patch that weakness up one way or another.
Buuuut, with her own TMR she has an innate 125% bird killer and a 75% aquatic killer. Sadly, these two are one of the rarest monster types in the game.

Similar to Noel, Serah can W-/T-Cast all of her abilities. It does help considering she has a full self-heal that also increases 5 LB crysts for all party members. Later on a CD ability will reduce her health to 1%, thus following it up via Cheer will save your healer from healing her. And the damage gain is so minimal by using a damage ability on that turn, you should do that other the suggested rotation.

That's where her utility really ends though as her Overwhelm ability, just like the ones we have seen on Noel and Four Winds Physalis, is not good due to too low parameters and only buffing up 2 units. She also has a ST 60% DEF/SPR break that recovers an effective 124 MP per cast, but sadly gets outshined by one of her CD abilities that grants her a 200 MP / turn refresh for 10 turns.

Her second last bad ability is an ability called Giant Drop and deals earth damage. I might be a bit childish to think that a big giant, brown drop could imply something.
The reason it's bad is due to its modifier being outclassed and it being a finisher, not a chain.
Serah does have a similar ability to Giant Drop, called Head Twister, is wind and does chain, but costs 3 esper orbs per cast. So you can't even W-Cast it with two copies of Serah when she has easy access to T-Cast even. And it's weaker version of a later ability that doesn't cost esper orbs, so...

Now, all of Serah's chains are Chaos Wave Awakened chains and focuses on wind, earth and holy. For the damage rotation she has one extra ability that deals slightly higher damage and boosts modifiers, which is earth, so that's what we're going for. This means you could chain her wind with Physalis or Mystina and the earth elemen in theory with Vanille, but Vanille focuses on W-Cast for the most part unfortunately.

Serah has a set of imperils of 80% ones that we're going to use to transition between turns as her only other source of higher imperils is via her LB. Which we don't want to spam as it deals pitiful damage. DoD Vanille could help her out to maintain the 120% imperil on earth.
The imperils also have an okay-ish modifier and increase the evocation gauge by 1, but each Serah already fills up one esper gauge per turn, so with a set of two you'll gain it quickly alongside her chains.

Her set of chains are strong. They all start off as effective 1900% chains and due to their SPR ignores and lots of modifier boosts ramp up to high numbers quickly. For example through her Limit Burst it'd gain an effective 2000% up to 3000% modifier, then another effective 1700% through passives and after using them once, they gain 600% for the rest of the turn.

This is where Snort (Typhon) comes into play. A base 4000% earth chain that increases the modifier of all other abilities by 1000%. We would use it a lot, but it costs 10 esper orbs. Which also means... only one Serah can use it. So for the damage calcs, we have to consider that, too, thus adjusting all on average modifiers.

Now, for her CD abilities we have two different ones, both available at Turn 1.
Moonlight's Protection has a 6 turn cooldown and grants her a 250% MAG buff, 100% bird aquatics killer, self-reraise for 5 turns as well as T-Cast for the following 5 turns. When both Serah's use it, you'll also have a full evocation gauge.

Farseer, the CD ability I mentioned earlier, has an 11 turn cooldown and should be used alongside Cheer if possible. Why? Farseer reduces Serah's HP to 1%. In return you'll be granted a 650% modifier boost to all of her abilities, a 200 MP refresh and a 200% LB fillrate buff. All last 10 turns.

The Limit Burst is mostly used for buffing up, similar to Noel. It imperils all of her available elements by 120% for an effective 3 or 4 turns, depending if upgraded or not. The same goes for the modifier boosts.
Either you'll get a 1000% modifier boost on everything for 3 turns... or 1500% for 4 turns. The only way to upgrade her LB is through dropping below 21% HP. This can easily be achieved through Farseer or through the Graviga strat.

How does she fare in the meta?

Serah's damage is high but inconsistent.

She starts slow, then has three consecutive turns where she deals a lot of damage. Not on burst level, but close. Afterwards she starts dropping off again and has to repeat the cycle.
Not having specific burst turns, compared to e.g. Four Winds Physalis, can put you in a disadvantage for pushing thresholds or more importantly these days for the Dark Visions ranking.

If not used for her earth chaining, Serah will also drop in damage. Despite not being a steep drop off, it is one to consider when pulling for her.

Unfortunately for her, her bulk can be improved on. A lot.
She starts off quite weak due to okay-ish base stats with decent passives, but focusing on MTDH with no MTDW options. Neither does she have an innate guts passive.
If you die after setting up, she will be significantly more penalised than others. It's one thing to die after freshly setting up. Any unit wouldn't like that to happen.
It's another matter if you're squishy, have no innate protection against that happening and relying heavily on your set up while having two slow set up turns.

Compared to the other meta mages, Serah doesn't stand out. Dark Spirit Sol is a bulky mage, thus reliable, while hitting humans and demons really hard, which are one of the most common enemy types.
Draconian Princess Fina, while sharing similar cons on bulk, relies less on set up turns while having access to a guts passive and healing spells such as Reraise or Curaja to back you up.
And despite Four Winds Physalis being even squishier than any other mage that has to be taken into consideration right now, her burst potential is off the mage charts and thus nets herself a great spot for Dark Visions, which is THE hottest product on the market currently.

She's strong, she can do what you want her to do but isn't as consistent as the other options.

Her TMR is mostly for herself. If you're equipping a bow onto Draconian Princess Fina, there's a high chance you're going to use her own one. Unless you missed her event bow, then it might be good for her as well as DP Fina.
The STMR is basically an upgraded version of Archmage Kefka. Both grant 60% MAG and 100% MTDH, but Serah's grants an extra 20% MAG when equipped with a bow. Most importantly: they stack. Together you can have 200% MTDH and 120% MAG. Though, most units who prefer MTDH already have more than 150% in their kit.

Build Maths:

Serah Damage Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#10fdd0b0-a7ff-11ea-ba80-53b5edebf1dc

Realistic Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#b02aa9b0-a7fa-11ea-ba80-53b5edebf1dc

Serah Damage

MAG post 250% buff: 3563
MAG post 150% buff: 3280
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
Turn 1: Moonlight's Protection   Farseer   Stonga Rain
Turn 2: Limit Burst
Turn 3: Snort / Stonga Rain   Stonga Rain x2
Turn 4: Stonga Rain x3
Turn 5: Stonga Rain x3
Turn 6: Snort / Drilling Arrow   Stonga Rain x2
Turn 7: Moonlight's Protection   Stonga Rain
Turn 8: Limit Burst
Turn 9: Snort / Stonga Rain   Stonga Rain x2
Turn 10: Stonga Rain x3
Turn 11: Stonga Rain x3


Turn 1: 3563^2 x 49 x 3.556 = 2212022178
Turn 2: 3563^2 x 47.7 x 2.432 = 1472697651
Turn 3: [ 3563^2 x 89.5 x 3.556   3563^2 x ( 92   95 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 = 29779558678
Turn 4: [ 3563^2 x 79 x 3.556   3563^2 x 85 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 = 26837580860
Turn 5: [ 3563^2 x 79 x 3.556   3563^2 x 85 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 = 26837580860
Turn 6: 3280^2 x 46.5 x 3.556 x 1.4   [ 3280^2 x ( 59   65 ) x 4 ] x 1.8 = 12095621783
Turn 7: 3563^2 x 49 x 3.556 x 1.8 = 3981639921
Turn 8: 3563^2 x 31.8 x 2.432 = 981798434
Turn 9: [ 3563^2 x 79.5 x 3.556   3563^2 x ( 82   85 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 = 26552091320
Turn 10: [ 3563^2 x 69 x 3.556   3563^2 x 75 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 = 23610113502
Turn 11: [ 3563^2 x 32 x 3.556   3563^2 x 42 x 2 x 4 ] x 1.8 = 10278171893


Average Turn 1-11: 14,967,170,643
-> 133% of Mystina's damage ( 11,373,330,945 )
-> 121% of Dark Spirit Sol's damage ( 12,522,410,497 )
-> 110% of Lezard Valeth's Damage ( 13,790,027,420 )
-> 108% of Draconian Princess Fina's damage ( 14,006,112,259 )
-> 92% of Four Winds Physalis' damage ( 16,424,984,030 )

Character Design: 5/10
Sprite: 8/10
Chainer: 9/10
Trust Master Reward: 6/10
STMR: 8.5/10
Arena: 5/10
Limit Burst: 7/10
Future Proof: 7.5/10
Free 2 Play: 7.5/10
Pay 2 Play: 9/10
Personal Rating: 8/10
Optimal Rating: 8.5/10

Conclusion

This banner is good but after all the other damage dealer banners we had only another step up in the powercreep curve.
Serah is strong but lacks the unique qualities other meta mages have and thus gets overlooked rather easily by others. If you pull for her, be assured that you will have high damage, but due to its inconsistency and lack of massive burst isn't what many players are looking for currently.
Noel is basically an upgrade to WH Raegen. In a sense. While his Turn 1 is worse and he has a zero damage turn, his consecutive damage afterwards and his burst do exceed Raegen's. The difference in burst most likely only makes a difference in your Dark Vision rankings, for most trials both bursts should strike down a ton of trials.
Pull if you want to, both Serah and Noel are strong, net theirselves a spot in the meta in high rankings but most of us are already provided with good ones due to damage dealers being featured every week currently.

Hope you enjoyed, have a dope weekend and please, if you do participate in protests for Black Lives Matter, be peaceful. Once violence is involved, nobody wins.
And make sure to stay healthy safe!
See you next week!

Memel0rd out​