Edit 1: /u/Sinzar_ pointed out that Luna's Amp is not Physical. I mistook her LB description for both. Kaktiria deals a little bit less damage. And I can use Ardyn's TMR in base for Ibara, which also increases her damage quite a bit as she gains more amp in total. This changes the results quite a bit by changing Ibara's and Kaktiria's place.

Hey everyone.

Sorry for the suuuper late review today. As some of you might have noticed: Kaktiria isn’t on the builder yet, so I had to wait until I found someone to build me one at EX 3. Thanks robotDA for your great help!

Our latest GLEX unit finally arrived, and boy are people upset about her kit. Is it really all that bad? We shall find out in this review!

Kaktiria Overview

Kaktiria’s kit is bloated, let me get this straight. She’s got what feels like a billion abilities out of which half don’t really serve any purpose other than to annoy the user. Anyway, she’s got 87% breaks in Base and Brave Shift, but she can only use them once per battle. Who thought this was a good idea? It’s all single target, too. The best things in her Base Kit are her Barbed Boost and Sacred Oasis (or Hallowed Desert respectively). The former increases ATK/MAG by 300% and 150% LB to ONE ally (ugh, really?) and the latter two either imbue with Water or Earth respectively. They also imperil the corresponding element by a whopping 135%, which is crazy. Conveniently, these abilities also imperil all enemies by 120% to Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wind, Earth, Light, and Dark. Mind the comma, Gumi! With this she’s technically speaking Lunafreya’s best friend. If only we had Tidus enhancements…. Her kit also brings our first Dagger Imperil, but only 10%. She also got 10% Sword Imperil and 15% Fist Imperil. It’s something, I guess.

The Brave Shift is just as bloated but a little bit more interesting. She’s a flexible CWA mage at effectively 80x mod (40x with 50% SPR ignore). Kicker is: She’s a phys. typed magic damage dealer so make good use of her imbue! She’s got an Earth/Water AK frames attack, which nobody will ever use. What makes her damage in Brave Shift stand out is the 50% Water/Earth Amp for herself. Deadly Drought is a stacked ability which also boosts physical damage against beasts and demons by 150%. Pretty gooood. Her BS LB is good at 60x with 50% SPR ignore (effectively 120x mod), which also decreases Stats by 87% to all enemies. Better than her grandis abilities but the LB is costly at 50 Crystals (90 Crystals if not leveled).

TMR/STMR/Chronicle Weapon Evaluation

Her TMR is an Accessory that straight up powercreeps Nutkin Hairpin. It’s good and there’s not much else to say about it. Are you going to use it? Probably not unless you’re running into trouble maxing MAG%, which … just doesn’t happen.

The STMR is only good on herself. Ideally you want 2 of hers but Ymir’s Gauntlet (Ymir Trial) is another good – the only other really – option for her. The best thing about the STMR are the killers on it. 50% Demon/Beast (P/M) killer are pretty sweet, though only really usable on herself. In an ideal world you will not use her STMR, though. With Upgrade Package or Honorable Rod Arts, Kaktiria proves to be a stronger mage than when using Fists (more on that later).

Vision Card Evaluation

The Vision card is great on paper. 110 MAG? Count me in! But then you take a look at the passives and you’ll quickly realize: This is pretty much Kaktiria only. Level 4 and 7 require you to wear fists for the 70% MAG. The Level 10 passive is another 50% MAG on top if the wearer is from the FFBE Universe. It’s good but is it enough? I feel like her VC will only be use on herself if at all.

Potential Builds & Damage Calculations

First: I will have everyone build against a Dragon boss to make this more suitable and equally unfair for everyone. This is how I had robotDA build me Kaktiria (huge shoutout to him, he greatly helped with providing the numbers):

Weapons: 2x Lazy Rod

Head: Arc’s Hat

Chest: Lion Armor

Accessories: Upgrade Package & Cursed Doll

Materia: Black Mage Slacker, Dragon Killer , Guardian of Light (Sora), Last Guardian

VC: Sol’s VC

Esper: Odin

This yields 275% LB and 275% Dragon Killer.

And here’s the competition, namely Shui Yu, Dark Fina & Sol, Roy Mustang, and Ibara. Technically I could include Melo but Melo does Melo things and let’s just agree he’s better than her (because he is) in terms of burst. So here’s the gearing of everyone else

A few assumptions:

• 90% SPR Break
• 300% MAG/SPR buff
• 300% LB buff for everyone
• 22.5k SPR DV boss with 60% passive SPR, 60% Ele Resistance
• Best possible amount of Killers (varying amounts) & we’re buffing 150% Killer to adjust towards the Evokers
• 135% Water/Earth Imperil, 130% Fire Imperil, 120% Dark Imperil
• Rod Imperil at 35%
• Total of 80% Water Amp for Kaktiria (50% own, 20% stage on top – 100 damage before amp, 150 with amp and 180 after stage amp = 80%), Shui has 80% (25% self amp, 25% Lunafreya amp, 20% stage), 56% Fire Amp for Roy Mustang (30% own, 20 stage on top), 38% Earth Amp for FinaSol (15% own, 20% stage on top), 32% for Ibara (10% from Ardyn TMR in base, 20% from stage).

Here are the results at EX 3 shown in millions:

If you’d like to see a screenshot with a few more details and evokers added on top, here it is: Picture of it

Or in relative numbers: 81.246% of Ibara’s damage is really good and we shouldn’t just pass up on her. However, this is a suuuuper expensive build and I don’t think many people will be able to replicate it. Basically: Upgrade Package or bust. Without that and using Equip Rods you’ll lose a significant amount of damage because you’ll either give up on Killers or LB damage. If you are facing a Demon or Beast on the other hand, using that Honorable Rod Arts materia will not harm you that much. For anything else, her damage will fall off significantly. She’s also 60.888% of Lunafreya’s damage, which is to be expected. Again: This comparison is adjusted for killers!

How does she fare in the meta?

Kaktiria isn’t as bad as people make her out to be. For a breaker she can actually deal significant amounts of damage. She’s also Lunafreya’s best friend if you can make room for her in your Dark Visions team. As for Trials: I don’t think she’ll be a great choice. Her breaks don’t last long, they’re locked behind Grandis (the good ones) or Cooldowns (the bad one) which is longer than the duration of the breaks. She just doesn’t have any innate LB damage, which makes her gearing choices somewhat limited. Gearing for Killers and LB is going to be an Ibara amount of work and we all know how that usually ends up going. So unless you’re fighting a Demon or Beast, you’ll be better of using another Breaker, say Lightning. Lightning also has the upside of being a decent off-tank with LB fill, resistances, 90% SPR break, 2 stacks of Mirage for the party.

I’d say Kaktiria is a great unit for new players or those who missed Locke, Lightning, Vinera, or other breakers. Nonetheless, I can see her getting used in some DV clears where you want to absolutely maximize Water damage. Weird that our Monday Mage Stage is weak to Fire and Water, right? Must be a mere coincidence! Nah, who am I kidding. You’ll see Lightning, Relm, Luna, Melo, Roy, and Terra to cap anyway. But she’d make for a fine addition instead of Lightning. However, you won’t be able to use her LB because you somehow need to chain on your last turn.

What I haven’t mentioned at all is her magic. I like that she can support some of our tanks a little bit. Protectga and Shellga are nice additions to her kit! She also innately has Barstonga and Barwaterga, so put away those espers!

Should you pull?

If you’re just starting with FFBE and want a unit that does it all but doesn’t excel at anything Kaktiria is your go-to unit. While this sounds sarcastic, I am being serious here. Like I just mentioned, she’s a good - or even great - unit for those starting the game. Her role compression is strong and the breaks she provides for a limited time are some of the highest in the game on a single unit. It’s just that she can’t spam them, sadly. Keeping them up via her LB should be doable but may sacrifice damage output (suppose you need to refresh her breaks and the only option is to LB, that’s well.. unfortunate. Unless you really wanna burst that very turn anyway). Using her as a Water finisher (keep in mind: weird frames) is a good option, too.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Cheers

Livedili