[Dark]

I tried FFRK prior to stumbling onto FFBE. The whole experience was kind of meh, load times aside.

I'm hoping to be able to avoid the Xeno hype.

[Bar'ol]

Well I was hyped before I knew what the units were. I dont even follow jp version. Like it to be a surprise

[Dark]

Apparently Elly is meta for a very long time, especially since they fixed the frames for her key chaining move.

The problem is they've delayed this banner for so long that she's really close to Akstar, and he's a meta shifting unit.

I'll probably end up doing the step-up anyway. We're getting 2 of the "need 5" tickets out of the raid, and the step-up gives 3. Plus with the half-NRG event I'm finally doing the story and I'm raking in a ton of lapis.

[Dark]

I caught up with the story since it's half NRG and had enough Lapis. I caved and pulled. >_>

[Bar'ol]

I caught up with the story since it's half NRG and had enough Lapis. I caved and pulled. >_>

haha. I'm sure I'd have a lot of lapis if I start doing it with this reduce nrg. I'm only on chapter 2 or 3. lol. Elly pretty cool though. I wanted Bart since I dont have a proper breaker yet. But oh well. Step-up didnt go so hot for me. But it is what it is. Part 2 of Xeno has a unit people like I guess better Citan Uzuki.

Thinking of saving the rest for Akstar, but I doubt I'll get him. I seem to never able to pull for FFBE units for season 2. :/

[Dark]

Step-up gave me 2 Elly and 1 Bart. When I get that 5th F/E/B ticket from the raid I'll have a 2nd Bart.

[Bar'ol]

Step-up gave me 2 Elly and 1 Bart. When I get that 5th F/E/B ticket from the raid I'll have a 2nd Bart.

Yeah I saw that this morning with friendlist pull notification. Lucky lucky!

[Dark]

...and of course immediately after we get the Ultima banner.

I don't know what specifically it is, but I've been hearing about it as "why you shouldn't pull for Elly now". Grr... should be a permanent addition though, so whatever.

[Bar'ol]

of course they do that :/

They say the magic user can do 2/3 dmg of what Elly can do.

[Dark]

Oh, he's non-elemental. So he's only useful for specific trials, but chains less than Elly and the later replacements.

That's alright then, just toss a few tickets there to grab Bonus units for their MK event.

[Bar'ol]

*noob warning*

I'm not good at trials and/or attack three-star espers. I don't have the proper TMR I guess to gear units or sadly pulled and tanks. I can't even beat the Xenogears trial which is supposed to be stupid easy. What tips can you give me so it possible to start doing these?

[Dark]

I've been kind of lazy in trials, can't recall the last one I did. Keep going "Eh, I'll wait for the next stronger unit... " That latest 3-star esper I followed a cheapo luck-based one-shot tactic that basically used a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ chain that was capped by a friend Fixed Die 2B. Did it during the half-NRG event, took like... 5 tries? The new 6-realms thing kept kicking my ass, I put it aside for now. Couldn't even get past the first "miniboss" on the first exploration map. Getting nuked by the mini-boss is no fun when it takes an age to wade through all those high-encounter-rate mooks to get there.

Anyway, most of the modern trials are very specific in tactics, can't just use a cookie-cutter approach with tank/support/DPS for them anymore. (Unlike the earlier trials where you can take a generic modern team and probably get through most of them without changing anything.) Key nowadays for me is to look at the reddit and see what people are putting together.

For the Xeno Challenge trial, they want two tanks - a provoker with both DEF and SPR, and a physical cover tank. I personally have all the various toys to put a passive 100% Provoke on a tank with innate provoke, so I was able to double that up. I think I recently got a 7-star Sieghart so I used him for that. Wilhelm also has a passive provoke, I'm sure there are other cover tanks that have innate provoke. If you don't have that you'll need to have both tanks, apparently? If you have illusionist Nichol you could slap AoE cover onto a provoke tank.

The cover is to eat the AoE physical damage, the provoke is to eat the single target fixed attack and single target non-elemental magic attack.

Then there's a big AoE fire attack, so you want an AoE fire resist buff if you can't gear everybody with fire resist (which I didn't). Boss also has AoE Paralysis, so you need to either give everybody Paralysis resist or a buff for it. I think I used Zarg for both those things? Boss also has a Stop attack, and Zarg's buff covered that as well. Otherwise you'd want maybe Ayaka or similar who can recover from Stop.

I know people mentioned Seaside Nichol has a 70% Fire Resist buff that can cover that aspect, not sure what else he can do though. The boss ramps up his attacks at lower health, so you want to get your LB and esper stuff in while he's still above 80%.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvi...air_weltallid/

[Bar'ol]

Are you able to do this without 7 stars, because I don't really have a geared up tank haha.

[Dark]

Naw, I have multiple 7-star tanks.

If you don't have any 5-star bases, there's Barusa (the limited time dino guy) with 20% mitigation on his 100% Provoke ability.

For cover tanks, Warrior of Light still works, and if you don't have Barusa he'd have to be the Provoke tank (though his provoke has no mitigation). The same applies to Leopold. Veritas of the Earth is another cover tank.

Minfilia is still a free provider of +70% Fire Resist, and enhanced Leader's Disposition prevents both Paralyze and Stop.

Even at 6-stars though, 5-star base units like Wilhelm and Basch work just fine for Provoke (30% mitigation, 40% when enhanced) and Cover, respectively. Basch will be able to fit in an ATK/MAG break, which helps a lot.

I think we all got Vagrant Knight Rain for free? He's got a 2-turn provoke with 30% mitigation, as well as a full break.

For the high end trials, 7-star might be required, but for a raid trial you're usually fine with 6-star units.

[Dark]

Keeping in mind that Esther and Sylvie are permanent additions to the summon pool, and not time limited, they're apparently exceedingly good.

The first major damage meta shift was Orlandeau and the Divine Ruination chaining family, which was basically the first real introduction of the chaining meta.
The next major shift was supposed to have been Hyoh, bringing in the TDH meta.
GL had Fryevia though, and if I recall correctly while she didn't "skip" the Hyoh meta, she was powerful enough the shift wasn't as large as it was in JP.

The upcoming shift is supposed to be Akstar, being a massive jump in damage than Orlandeau to Hyoh.
Instead GL introduced Esther, and it's easier to quote snippets from the more knowledgeable:

Most succinct, https://redd.it/bgqtpv:

Stronger DPS than Akstar and Hyoh

Edited for profanity, https://redd.it/bgxi5y:

The power curve is beyond smegged. Esther deals nearly twice as much damage as Akstar, and Akstar was already a stupidly huge power jump compared to other units in GL, which is why most people agreed it made sense to swap things around so that Crimson came first, giving us a more gradual increase. Too bad Esther blew that to bits.

On top of that, she has thirteen thousand smegging HP and over 500 DEF in her BiS damage gear, chaining counters that can push her damage even higher, low MP consumption, innate immunity to stop/charm/paralysis/petrify, tons of killers for machines (a very common enemy type) and stone (otherwise difficult to gear for), a provoke, a 1-turn AoE physical cover, guts, 30% dodge, and 50% resistance to earth.

A spreadsheet analysis, https://redd.it/bh49v5:

Esther, despite the nerf, completely accelerates the powercreep we have in GL. The chart above has shown it. She is at least on-par with CG Lightning and CG Bartz up to turn 9. In fact, she's better than both on first 5 turns.

Last but certainly not least is meml0rd's review, https://redd.it/bfbayu:

Esther is a metabreaking unit with very self-efficient tools and even some team support if needed.

Esther is a monster and will last for a super long time.
Even after the introduction of CG Bartz, who is a stronger damage dealer than her, Esther can still compete with his damage output while also having a ton of innate bulk. If you really want to Esther does have AT chains, W-Cast / T-Cast available but she is significantly weaker as an AT chainer, especially compared to Akstar. If you want to focus on AT chains in the future she might not be the best investment, however everything else aside from that is enormous.

She deals 69~78% more damage than Akstar (a tad higher in even longer fights), which is just incredible. Despite her nerfs she's still more than double as strong as Crimson, our prior #1 chainer.

Oh, and Sylvie is amazing too. She's overshadowed in hype, but she's also the best at what she does. (Hard to exactly rate Support units since each team needs different things for different content.) Essentially, if you were saving for Akstar this is the banner to blow your hoard on instead - though again keeping in mind they are not time limited.