Happy saturday and we are back here with another FF8 banner and... oh well.
I've never been a huge FF8 fan myself, the game's pretty weird but it tried to do something differently. Sadly a few too many plotholes and questionable choices. But good soundtrack!
Either way, another double damage dealer banner, so let's get right to it.

PS: DON'T FORGET TO GET QUISTIS' STMR! Please!

Banner Review: CG Squall Lone Lion Squall & Seifer Seifer by Memel0rd

CG Squall Lone Lion Squall:

Trust Master Reward : The Mightiest (Materia) - Increase LB damage (50%)
Increase equipment ATK (50%) and accuracy (25%) when single wielding any weapon

STMR : Lion Heart (Large Sword) - 180 ATK, 25% LB Damage, 50% TDH, 2-Handed

Overview:

Squall is a weird one. I mean in FFBE, not in FF8. Well, in both. Ah whatever. Those who played FF8 know.

LL Squall, or just Squall since his original version is way too outdated, has great base stats in all areas but for a unit who wants to focus on TDH and LB Damage could have some more defensive passives, as 60% HP and 70% DEF/SPR don't quite patch it up. However, Squall has a unique guts passive that locks him at 5% HP. So, in case you equip any other guts materia or accessory onto him, you can actually have two guts passives in one turn, which could have some niche uses. Obviously requires STMRs.
He comes with an innate 75% LB damage, 180% ATK and 250% TDH. The TDH part is good but the LB damage is a tad lacking in regard to what's to come.
With blind, paralyze, confuse and petrify resistances, Squall doesn't have a hard time preparing against status ailments but might want some sleep resistance or a buff against it. He does have an innate 100% beast and machine killer, which in conjunction are decently common.

Squall can W-/T-Cast all of his abilities and doesn't need to unlock the T-Cast, sadly does have 4 abilities in his kit that do nothing but fill it up. Unless you want to use a 3 turn self 150% ATK buff? Or a 50% fullbreak?
You can argue for Brave Circle that it's a good option for Arena capping or mob killing, so it does have some value as it is his only AoE ability.

In order to acquire a CG animation, Squall had to put one of his elements into the bin. So good bye light element, but he still has lightning, fire and wind! His upgraded versions have an okay-ish modifier that chain with Stardust Ray, like all of his other chain abilities, imperil their respective element by 100% and imbue.... wait, hang on.
Breaking news: GUMI decided to not copy paste an ability and changed him up, his wind chain does not imbue wind. So he technically only has fire and lightning.
Why?
I have no clue, but it is what it is.

So going in with two elements, Squall also has two on-demand chains that both do serve a purpose. He has Agile Edge and Agile Edge and against common logic, Agile Edge is not better.
Agile Edge has a 1800% base modifier and after innate passives reaches 2700%, while Agile Edge has a 2000% modifier. What differs both versions is their secondary effects. While the normal versions grants you 6 fixed LB crysts, the upgraded one provides 12, so if you want your LB quickly, a turn of T-Casting the upgraded version gets you the LB guaranteed.

Then he has 3 CD abilities, one of them we are not going to use in our rotation. All of them revolve around Lions. Rawr?

Lion's Rise is his first one that you'll likely use once every 9 turns as it's available at Turn 1 and offers an undispellable 10 turn 250% ATK buff. Also break resistances and a 200% LB fillrate buff that helps a lot filling his LB if you want to fit in more damage instead of the guaranteed fills.

Lion's Spirit is the one we skip even though it's available every other turn. It boosts the mods of his chains by a good amount, but since we use his LB every other turn we do not gain much out of it and it could cost us a filled up LB gauge!

Lastly, Lion's Vigor, which is available at Turn 3, is definitely a must use. It's his only access to a fire / Lightning 120% imperil and also has a good 4500% modifier.

Now comes both the disappointing and somewhat exciting part (?).

Squall's Limit Burst...
It costs 34 crysts, chains and has a base 5800% modifier, so it's good. Technically.
Practically Squall only has an innate 75% LB damage, has to focus on killers, TDH and LB damage on top of some bulk and has NO LB damage buffs.
How do we have an LB focused unit who gets a guaranteed LB at the start due to CG with NO LB damage buff. How is this possible? We have so many LB damage dealers at this point, it's not that hard.

How does he fare in the meta?

Squall is good and bad.

His damage suffers a lot because of that but with an external 50% LB damage buff his damage actually gets up to meta levels and would be higher on average than e.g. WH Raegen, but his burst is decently below Raegen and quite a lot below Noel.

That's not the only issue however as both Noel and Raegen provide way more bulk more easily as well as killer stacking. In both cases, Squall will lose out on a good amount of damage and on top of that requires units that buff his LB damage, too, which aren't super common either. If a support such as Lunafreya doesn't fit into your team, you'd use up an entire slot for her mostly for the LB damage, in that case a finisher would just be better if your focus is on dealing higher amounts of damage.

The fact that he requires ATK, TDH and LB damage on top of the usual killers and bulk without a self-LB damage buff puts Squall in a very awkward spot in the meta and while he can definitely work and get to meta levels, I wouldn't recommend him as other set ups are guaranteed to do better. If you have the LB damage gear I see little reason to use him over Cloud (FFVII: AC) for example.

On the upside, his TMR is perfect for any LB damage TDH unit right now and in the future. And for those who don't have better LB damage materias, it still provides 50% LB damage, so even then it's neat.
His STMR is good with 180 ATK, 25% LB damage and 50% TDH, but I'm fairly certain that it's not in HIS BiS build. Compared to Black Sparky from Agent Olive, he'd haveway less average damage variance due to 2-Handed Large Swords vs 2-Handed Guns, while it still provides 30% LB damage and 50% ATK. AND has a 40% ATK IW rare.

Build Maths:

Lone Lion Squall Damage Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#a944dc30-b2f7-11ea-8219-c768f320c4e6

Realistic Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#fd47d170-b2f7-11ea-8219-c768f320c4e6

Lone Lion Squall Damage

ATK post 250% buff: 3170
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
Turn 1: Lion's Rise   Flame Barret    Agile Edge
Turn 2: Limit Burst
Turn 3: Agile Edge x2   Lion's Vigor
Turn 4: Limit Burst
Turn 5: Flame Barret    Agile Edge  x2
Turn 6: Limit Burst
Turn 7: Agile Edge x2   Lion's Vigor
Turn 8: Limit Burst
Turn 9: Flame Barret    Agile Edge  x2
Turn 10: Limit Burst


Turn 1: [ 3170^2 x 14 x 3.8335 x 1.5   3170^2 x 27 x 4 x 2 ] x 1.5 = 4469301031
Turn 2: 3170^2 x 162.4 x 3.889 x 2 x 1.5 = 19039859847
Turn 3: [ ( 3170^2 x 27 x 3.8335   3170^2 x 27 x 4 ) x 2   3170^2 x 45 x 4 x 2.1 ] x 1.5 = 12073889010
Turn 4: 3170^2 x 162.4 x 3.889 x 2.2 x 1.5 = 20943845831
Turn 5: [ 3170^2 x 14 x 3.8335   3170^2 x 20 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 7085556766
Turn 6: 3170^2 x 162.4 x 3.889 x 2.2 x 1.5 = 20943845831
Turn 7: [ 3170^2 x 27 x 3.8335   3170^2 x ( 27   45 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 12982825581
Turn 8: 3170^2 x 162.4 x 3.889 x 2.2 x 1.5 = 20943845831
Turn 9: [ 3170^2 x 14 x 3.8335   3170^2 x 20 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 7085556766
Turn 10: 3170^2 x 162.4 x 3.889 x 2.2 x 1.5 = 20943845831


Average Turn 1-10: 14,651,237,231
-> 100% of Gilgamesh WotV's damage ( 14,552,638,172 )
-> 91% of Tifa (FFVII: AC)'s damage ( 16,151,778,045 )
-> 85% of Mystical Ice Lasswell's damage ( 17,244,208,639 )
-> 80% of Noel's damage ( 18,233,059,108 )
-> 78% of War Hero Raegen's damage ( 18,734,988,296 )

Character Design: 5/10
Sprite: 9.5/10
Chainer: 8/10
Trust Master Reward: 9/10
STMR: 9/10
Arena: 7/10
Limit Burst: 8.5/10
Future Proof: 6.5/10
Free 2 Play: 7.5/10
Pay 2 Play: 9/10
Personal Rating: 7.5/10
Optimal Rating: 8.5/10  

Seifer Seifer:

Trust Master Reward : Gunblade Wielder (Materia) - Increase physical evasion (10%)
Increase equipment ATK (50%) and accuracy (25%) when single wielding any weapon

STMR : Hyperion (Large Sword) - 180 ATK, 20% phys dodge, 50% TDH, 2-Handed

Overview:

Seifer is the edge boy of FFBE who is kind of unique in a weird niche that not many people really needed, but can be fun to play with. Sort of.

His base stats are almost identical to Squall's, which fits since they are more or less rivals. His passives are quite different from Squall though as he has 300% TDH, 180% ATK and 60% innate physical evasion. Which means Seifer is the unit with the highest innate physical evasion. He also has a bit more bulk through 80% HP, 120% DEF and 70% SPR, but lacks the guts passive.
He shares the same resistances with Squall and swaps out his machine killer for a bird killer. (And loses 25% killers, but don't tell anyone)

Seifer can W-/T-Cast all of his abilities permanently and has the same two bad starting abilities as Squall as well as the same niche AoE ability. With different names of course.

In terms of damage, Seifer is more of a consistent damage dealer than trying to burst every other turn as he focuses on his abilities. In this case, he chains with AMoE primarily with the access to earth and dark compared to fire and lightning.

For his main chaining ability, he lives the Edgelord life and strikes down the opponent with his Darkest Cut. Through his passives it already reaches its highest modifier, which is 3800%. Not too high but not bad either.

His three damage dealing CD abilities are meant to help out, though they all share very different cooldowns. On one side, you have a 5400% chain that's available at Turn 6, then an 4800% chain at Turn 4 that also gives us the wanted 120% earth / dark imperil and the last one contributes to one of the cooler niches Seifer has. I will talk about it in the meta discussion.

For self-buffing purposes, Seifer is once again very similar to Squall but adds a 4 turn 70% DEF break on top of it.

His Limit Burst isn't that amazing with no LB damage buff, no real chain and a lower modifier of 4800% with no LB damage buffs at all. If you do want to though, the upgraded version does break the enemy's DEF by 70% for 4 turns. While we do have way higher DEF breaks at this point, it might be useful for those who rock e.g. Machina and can't afford to go for a DEF break.

How does he fare in the meta?

Unfortunately Seifer's damage is not amazing. It is similar to Edward Elric's without any of the good aspects Edward has. Edward has more elements with the nice TDW luxury of easy bulk and easy killers without sacrificing many stats, which Seifer doesn't have.

This means Seifer is far behind the competition and also lacks a serious burst turn, which is unfortunate for Dark Vision rankings. As of right now there is no reason to use him, but I did skip a few abilities that we can talk about here as it does grant him a niche.

Through 60% phys evasion and a 1 turn self-provoke that also chains, Seifer can easily become an evasion tank. This isn't anything unusual, we've seen a ton of provoke tanks like that in the past, what's the big deal?

The only meta niche that I could fit Seifer in is with a dedicated setup alongside DoD Vanille. Why Vanille?
Seifer, for the weirdest of reasons, has a physical chain that acts like a magic attack, has earth element and most importantly chains with DoD Vanille. So far, Vanille lacked serious units who take up spots in your comp that aren't damage dealers, which does limit her usefulness more than other supports.
Through Seifer she can have an actual provoker take up the spots that can also chain with her. And while Seifer isn't even nearly an amazing provoke tank, he does have guaranteed Blind if needed, has a provoke buff each turn (though doesn't have any auto-provoke againt dispels) and... yeah, that's it.

Other than that there isn't any reason to use Seifer unless you're a fan of FF8 or he's your best option, which by no means says he's bad, just mediocre.

Both his TMR and STMR perfectly fit into the description, too, as his TMR offers 50% TDH 10% physical evasion. No current TDH unit prefers 10% evasion over additional ATK or LB damage.
And his STMR with 180 ATK, 50% TDH and 20% phys evasion is still an awesome 2-Handed Large Sword, but the 20% phys evasion doesn't add a ton of worth on units that don't try to stack up to 100%. Still, strong 2h Large Sword.

Build Maths:

Seifer Damage Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#8e57e560-b2f8-11ea-8219-c768f320c4e6

Realistic Build:
https://ffbeEquip.com/builder.html?server=GL#b904bb30-b2f8-11ea-8219-c768f320c4e6

Seifer Damage

ATK post 250% buff: 3258
Assuming spark chains


Rotation:
Turn 1: Knight's Rouse   Ground Barret   Knight's Vitality
Turn 2: Darkest Cut x3
Turn 3: Darkest Cut x3
Turn 4: Darkest Cut x2   Knight's Assault
Turn 5: Darkest Cut x3
Turn 6: Ground Barret   Darkest Cut   Immortal Blade
Turn 7: Darkest Cut x3
Turn 8: Darkest Cut x2   Knight's Assault


Turn 1: [ 3258^2 x 15 x 3.445 x 1.5   3258^2 x 30 x 4 x 2 ] x 1.5 = 5055385128
Turn 2: [ 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x 38 x 2 x 4 ] x 2 x 1.5 = 13849140087
Turn 3: [ 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x 38 x 2 x 4 ] x 2 x 1.5 = 13849140087
Turn 4: [ ( 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x 38 x 4 ) x 2   3258^2 x 48 x 4 x 2.1 ] x 1.5 = 15428587210
Turn 5: [ 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x 38 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 15234054096
Turn 6: [ 3258^2 x 15 x 3.445   3258^2 x ( 38   54 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 14700401584
Turn 7: [ 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x 38 x 2 x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 15234054096
Turn 8: [ 3258^2 x 38 x 3.445   3258^2 x ( 38   48 ) x 4 ] x 2.2 x 1.5 = 16635176544


Average Turn 1-8: 13,748,242,354
-> 93% of Lone Lion Squall's damage ( 14,651,237,231 )
-> 85% of Tifa (FFVII: AC)'s damage ( 16,151,778,045 )
-> 80% of Mystical Ice Lasswell's damage ( 17,244,208,639 )
-> 75% of Noel's damage ( 18,233,059,108 )
-> 73% of War Hero Raegen's damage ( 18,734,988,296 )

Character Design: 7.5/10
Sprite: 7.5/10
Chainer: 6.5/10
Trust Master Reward: 6/10
STMR: 8.5/10
Arena: 7/10
Limit Burst: 7/10
Future Proof: 5/10
Free 2 Play: 7.5/10
Pay 2 Play: 6.5/10
Personal Rating: 7/10
Optimal Rating: 7.5/10

Conclusion

This banner for having two iconic FF8 characters on them is disappointing and quite frankly I would've expected more buffs on the GL side for BOTH units. Not just one.
Squall does have some merrit as he can get to meta levels of damage if you happen to have an LB damage buff for him, which there aren't a ton of but there are some to say the least. It will bump him up by quite a lot, but I wouldn't call him a fantastic unit nonetheless.
Seifer sadly fits into a single, weird niche for those who want meta setups and outside of that doesn't really add much over other options. He's still a super strong damage dealer to start out with and catch up to a lot of the more modern trials, but his powerlevel is significantly lower than our previous additions if burst damage is also taken into consideration.
Overall a rather disappointing banner for those who love FF8 and I know there are some out there. You can get your worth out of it, but both units need some help to get that.

Enjoy your weekend everybody!
It's once again time to submerge into the depths of rainy weekends.

Memel0rd out​