Final Fantasy Record Keeper X-2: Gems, Mithril, Salt - In Position!

[Merlin the Tuna]

Bartz USB-2. How does this compare to his USB-1? Obv worse for increasing chains, but other than that?

Consensus seems to be that it's slightly worse than his USB1 but has extra utility for 5* magicite. Those all have a "crazy mode" that can only be broken out of via overflow damage, which his USB2 helpfully provides. The USB2 may also be favorable if you've got significant sources of fast/insta cast from somebody else in the party, but that's a guess on my part.

Red, I would definitely say Ramza + O'Light with Mako Might/DMT is the right call for Shadow Dragon. That should give you a metric ton of damage up front to potentially skip Black Fang. If not, just have someone plink Ramza or O'Light for some light damage. Black Fang will always hit the lowest HP% person, and the dragon's first 3 turns are basic attack -> Gravity attack -> basic attack. That makes it pretty trivial to prep a sacrifice with a single Lifesiphon or whatever.

Other suggestions: dark resist accessories are worth way more than Instant KO resist accessories for that fight. Protectga is skippable to, though Shellga is not. And instacast LMRs for Ramza, OK, or Tyro (with his USB3) will go a long way, since a faster hastega means more turns before Black Fang. Even with a totally physical party, OK BSB + LMR beats Ramza BSB2 (with no LMR) by a longshot just for that reason. A healer with Gathering Storm + Hastega may be able to split the difference a bit. Oh, and definitely plan on Ramza entrusting little scraps of meter early on if it gets an SB out faster. I think my original team called for OK to use BSB and immediately entrust Raines, since just having received 1 or 2 hits from the dragon was enough to cut a turn from Raines's buildup.

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Over in Torment Town, I managed to deal 52% damage to Giga Gilgamesh, good for a nice scrap of those D$$$ rewards! That leaves me with enough rubies to buy 2 of the new abilities, and pretty close to a third. Haven't pulled the trigger yet though, since I think I'll want some of the Black Magic ones to help with the FF12 Torment coming in a couple weeks. I foresee Ashe enjoying Chain Thundaja and/or Bizarro Meltdown (whose name I'm forgetting). And my FF12 coverage is deeply weird, so a bit of extra oomph will help a lot.