Final Fantasy Record Keeper XI: More Expansions, More Salt!

[Chen]

Speed can make a huge difference. Speed 1 will lower your in game clock but raise your real life time. The inverse is true for higher speeds. Also, sometimes higher speeds result in wipes, don’t quite get that heal off in time, chain runs out, etc.

Huh I didn't realize that would make a difference when on auto. I thought everything was deterministic and the speed only affected human input. Where does that variation come from?

[Red Fel]

So, I have never auto'd a Magicite. I didn't trust it, I always figured I'd need to change strategies on the fly, and perhaps most importantly, I had no idea how to structure it well.

The new event gave me the incentive. And I just sub30'd Kraken.

Sub30ing Kraken isn't new for me. I've done it a lot. (Now, if only I could get Famfrit...) But I did it on auto, which feels pretty great and will definitely make this event easier to handle.

So I'm feeling mighty good about that. Expect a post in a little while of my ticket results. First... it's time for some long-overdue auto-farming.

EDIT: Yeah, first ticket got me nothin', this is a racket.

[tyckspoon]

Huh I didn't realize that would make a difference when on auto. I thought everything was deterministic and the speed only affected human input. Where does that variation come from?

The Speed setting actually causes each tick of the game's internal timer to use a differing amount of what's shown to the player as the clock. You can see the difference if you have something like an instant cast ability set on Auto or in between the casts of an Awakening double-casting, where there's actually a timer advance in between the casts (I think the game is using this to check if the target is dead and needs to retarget for the next cast.) On low Speed, while it will take longer in your real time experience for the ability to get used, the actual time used on the in-battle timer will be lower; the game is using only the time it actually needs to get to that ATB level and only as much time as it needs to advance the clock between ability uses, where highest Speed can have it overshoot and end up using more game-time to execute those abilities than it really needs. It's a fairly minimal difference, but measured over multiple actions and especially multiple characters using ability doubles/doublecast mechanics it adds up.. particularly if you have an Auto strategy that is just on the cusp of reliably sub30-ing something, simply turning down the Speed could tip it over.

- for a practical example, with ErfSnek that I'm currently farming: On Speed 5, the delay between things happening - double cast abilities, Sync-chain castings, even just multiple characters with abilities queued to trigger at the 'same' time - is .20. Consistently, it takes .20 seconds on the battle clock for literally anything to happen. On Speed 1 it's .04 to .07 (I assume there is some rounding here based on where the action happens in relation to the tick advancing.) So something like doing a doublecast with a chase will take .60 seconds on speed 5. On speed 1, that entire character's turn can take place within the time it would take to do a *single part* of it on speed 5. This also means on speed 5 you're giving the boss .60 seconds of charge time toward their next ability, giving it an extra .20 before your healer can cast their already-charged cure, .20 before your 'instant' soulbreak can go off and refresh your Blink/Last Stand, etc..

Edit: Can auto Midgardsormr. Ways off from sub30, can't get all the buffs to line up without manually juggling Tyro's many soul breaks..
Re-edited: Works with Historia Crystal. Still got a lot magicite leveling and inheriting to do before they catch up with this thing, especially the extra damage from its active summon.

[Antonok]

Welp. Decided to throw 15 mithril at the Earth banner (we're going to be getting a decent chunk in the next week with Tactics event tonight and the dress record event saturday) hoping to snag Red's CSB.

Got Rydia's Sync. Sync #9.

Speed can make a huge difference. Speed 1 will lower your in game clock but raise your real life time. The inverse is true for higher speeds. Also, sometimes higher speeds result in wipes, don’t quite get that heal off in time, chain runs out, etc.

Hmm. Something to keep in mind then. Knew there was a difference in tick rates but didn't think it was quite that drastic. Oh well. I can safely farm at speed 5 so I'll stick with that for now. Still have 40 fights left to go

Edit: Rydia Sync lowered my auto clear time to 26-28 seconds. Not bad. And Man 6* magicites take a lot to fully inherit -_-

[tyckspoon]

Forwarding this stupid trick from Reddit, for if you don't really need to farm Magicite rewards and just wanna get your clear count for the event as quickly as possible:

- Solo character, no gear.
- Ideally, they have something that lets them act faster (Preferably a start with full ATB legend materia, in a pinch just an auto-Haste Record Materia will do.)
- Level 80+ Historia Crystal.
- don't bother choosing a Roaming Warrior.
- Set Speed 5, Soul Breaks/ RW use on.

- Go into battle. Activate the Historia Crystal. Wait for the magicite boss to kill your sacrifice.
- Historia entry damage plus one tick of Historia Burst should edge you over into doing 10% damage, and then you die, which is enough to get marked as a Clear. Doable with correctly chosen 5*, will absolutely work on 4*s. (Since you're not aiming to earn any actual rewards, it shouldn't really matter which level of magicite you do this with, but if your sacrifice character is pretty built up you may need the 5* to make sure they get killed in a nice rapid fashion.)

[danzibr]

Huh I didn't realize that would make a difference when on auto. I thought everything was deterministic and the speed only affected human input. Where does that variation come from?

Other people (tyckspoon) already covered it pretty well.

Basically... frame rate (not *really* like frame rate, like what's displayed, battle time). As speed 1, 1 battle frame is .03s iirc (tyckspoon said .04 to .07... I'm unsure). At speed 5 it's .20.

Instant cast actions, multiple casts, chases, etc. take 1 battle frame. So as speed 1, that's .03s. At speed 5, that's .20s.

But chain duration isn't extended. So you can waste a lot of time (like, battle time) setting it to higher speeds.

So, I have never auto'd a Magicite. I didn't trust it, I always figured I'd need to change strategies on the fly, and perhaps most importantly, I had no idea how to structure it well.

The new event gave me the incentive. And I just sub30'd Kraken.

Sub30ing Kraken isn't new for me. I've done it a lot. (Now, if only I could get Famfrit...) But I did it on auto, which feels pretty great and will definitely make this event easier to handle.

So I'm feeling mighty good about that. Expect a post in a little while of my ticket results. First... it's time for some long-overdue auto-farming.

EDIT: Yeah, first ticket got me nothin', this is a racket.

Grats! Well, sorry about the ticket, but the auto battle. Makes life so much easier.

The Speed setting actually causes each tick of the game's internal timer to use a differing amount of what's shown to the player as the clock. You can see the difference if you have something like an instant cast ability set on Auto or in between the casts of an Awakening double-casting, where there's actually a timer advance in between the casts (I think the game is using this to check if the target is dead and needs to retarget for the next cast.) On low Speed, while it will take longer in your real time experience for the ability to get used, the actual time used on the in-battle timer will be lower; the game is using only the time it actually needs to get to that ATB level and only as much time as it needs to advance the clock between ability uses, where highest Speed can have it overshoot and end up using more game-time to execute those abilities than it really needs. It's a fairly minimal difference, but measured over multiple actions and especially multiple characters using ability doubles/doublecast mechanics it adds up.. particularly if you have an Auto strategy that is just on the cusp of reliably sub30-ing something, simply turning down the Speed could tip it over.

- for a practical example, with ErfSnek that I'm currently farming: On Speed 5, the delay between things happening - double cast abilities, Sync-chain castings, even just multiple characters with abilities queued to trigger at the 'same' time - is .20. Consistently, it takes .20 seconds on the battle clock for literally anything to happen. On Speed 1 it's .04 to .07 (I assume there is some rounding here based on where the action happens in relation to the tick advancing.) So something like doing a doublecast with a chase will take .60 seconds on speed 5. On speed 1, that entire character's turn can take place within the time it would take to do a *single part* of it on speed 5. This also means on speed 5 you're giving the boss .60 seconds of charge time toward their next ability, giving it an extra .20 before your healer can cast their already-charged cure, .20 before your 'instant' soulbreak can go off and refresh your Blink/Last Stand, etc..

Edit: Can auto Midgardsormr. Ways off from sub30, can't get all the buffs to line up without manually juggling Tyro's many soul breaks..
Re-edited: Works with Historia Crystal. Still got a lot magicite leveling and inheriting to do before they catch up with this thing, especially the extra damage from its active summon.

Well said, well said. And grats on the auto!

Welp. Decided to throw 15 mithril at the Earth banner (we're going to be getting a decent chunk in the next week with Tactics event tonight and the dress record event saturday) hoping to snag Red's CSB.

Got Rydia's Sync. Sync #9.



Hmm. Something to keep in mind then. Knew there was a difference in tick rates but didn't think it was quite that drastic. Oh well. I can safely farm at speed 5 so I'll stick with that for now. Still have 40 fights left to go

Edit: Rydia Sync lowered my auto clear time to 26-28 seconds. Not bad. And Man 6* magicites take a lot to fully inherit -_-

Rydia Sync!!! Very good. Probably the single best Sync I have.

[tyckspoon]

Aaand Ixion down. DPS race, for sure, only pulled that off with the help of a couple Last Stands, but Kelger cut him up pretty good once the Awakening got rolling.

Tiamat and Maliris to go. Pretty sure I can find a way to handle Tiamat.. no primary Ice Awakens or Syncs done leveling yet, but there's enough also-includes-Ice soulbreaks that I think I can handle this. Firion doing Samurai abilities, Steiner on Spellblade and Ice is one of the elements on his Overstrike, maybe run double healers.. Maliris is going to be rough, I think, not much in the way of water tech.. on the other hand the Water Bursts I do have include several Imperil-by-2 effects, so that might help cover for the lower base DPS.. and Edge's attack/haste/blink/last stand USB might actually be a relevant DPS contributor here. Hmm. Might be doable, will need to burn some eggs on finishing up a couple of these characters.

Edit: Yup Tiamat clear too. That's enough Record Keeper for today, I think, I'll look at what I need to do for Mailiris later.

[Antonok]

Ugh.. 50 Magicites killed. That was a slog. Thank you emulators on PC.

Anyhow, 12 tickets, 12 draws. Throwing them all at the Lightning banner

Spoiler

Show

1 - 4*
2 - 3*
3 - Kain Sync! Sync #10
4 - 3*
5 - Garnet Glint+
6 - 3*
7 - 4*
8 - 3*
9 - 4*
10 - Kain Glint
11 - 3*
12 - Ashe USB

That is definitely not a bad haul. All new. Garnet Glint+ and Kain Sync are the winners. After checking I seem to have acquired Kain's AASB at some point so he may be my second Lightning team dps. Ashe USB is good, but between Sync and AASB she's too bar hungry already.

Edit: Future tickets are likely to be spent elsewhere now. Probably the earth banner.

[danzibr]

Aaand Ixion down. DPS race, for sure, only pulled that off with the help of a couple Last Stands, but Kelger cut him up pretty good once the Awakening got rolling.

Tiamat and Maliris to go. Pretty sure I can find a way to handle Tiamat.. no primary Ice Awakens or Syncs done leveling yet, but there's enough also-includes-Ice soulbreaks that I think I can handle this. Firion doing Samurai abilities, Steiner on Spellblade and Ice is one of the elements on his Overstrike, maybe run double healers.. Maliris is going to be rough, I think, not much in the way of water tech.. on the other hand the Water Bursts I do have include several Imperil-by-2 effects, so that might help cover for the lower base DPS.. and Edge's attack/haste/blink/last stand USB might actually be a relevant DPS contributor here. Hmm. Might be doable, will need to burn some eggs on finishing up a couple of these characters.

Edit: Yup Tiamat clear too. That's enough Record Keeper for today, I think, I'll look at what I need to do for Mailiris later.

Grats!

Ugh.. 50 Magicites killed. That was a slog. Thank you emulators on PC.

Anyhow, 12 tickets, 12 draws. Throwing them all at the Lightning banner

Spoiler

Show

1 - 4*
2 - 3*
3 - Kain Sync! Sync #10
4 - 3*
5 - Garnet Glint+
6 - 3*
7 - 4*
8 - 3*
9 - 4*
10 - Kain Glint
11 - 3*
12 - Ashe USB

That is definitely not a bad haul. All new. Garnet Glint+ and Kain Sync are the winners. After checking I seem to have acquired Kain's AASB at some point so he may be my second Lightning team dps. Ashe USB is good, but between Sync and AASB she's too bar hungry already.

Edit: Future tickets are likely to be spent elsewhere now. Probably the earth banner.

Grats!

Dude your luck is unreal. Wish I had 10 syncs.

[Antonok]

Dude your luck is unreal. Wish I had 10 syncs.

Only for Syncs. It took me forever and an account reroll to get more than 2 AASBs 6 months after they released

Edit: And it's a blessing and a curse. Remember honing is a thing and that a LOT of lenses I don't have lol

[danzibr]

Only for Syncs. It took me forever and an account reroll to get more than 2 AASBs 6 months after they released

Edit: And it's a blessing and a curse. Remember honing is a thing and that a LOT of lenses I don't have lol

Ooohhhh yeah I forget honing is a thing. Haven’t touched it.

Did a pull on the new awesome banner. Hoping for Agrias or TG Cid tech. Got 1/11, Gaff G+ :’(

Edit: gathered all the mythril, did one last pull. Turns out Gaff has 2 G+s on this banner :,(

[tyckspoon]

Edit: gathered all the mythril, did one last pull. Turns out Gaff has 2 G+s on this banner :,(

Well, they're not like actually bad, at least, and the +damage against weakness/critfix one is pretty unusual. I can see where you'd really want to have a nice chunky Burst to use them with, tho, and probably some way to break damage cap. Shame Gaffy doesn't have anything super notable available from lenses that could help make up that difference.

1/11: Gaffgarion Awakening. Nice. Do I need a second pull? Not really. I landed Orlandeau's Awakening not too long ago, which means I have something nice for both of the lead characters here and I don't need to fish for the Sync that bad..

.. doin' it anyways!

2/11: Marche Glint+ and the FFT Realm Chain on Ramza. Ok, I'm happy there, that Chain was one of the things I really wanted on this.

[Antonok]

Ooohhhh yeah I forget honing is a thing. Haven’t touched it.

Did a pull on the new awesome banner. Hoping for Agrias or TG Cid tech. Got 1/11, Gaff G+ :’(

Edit: gathered all the mythril, did one last pull. Turns out Gaff has 2 G+s on this banner :,(

We should be getting the wardrobe record event tomorrow, which will be 24 mithril over 10 days, so you could scrap up enough for 1 more pull before the banner leaves if you so choose.

[Chen]

Edit: And it's a blessing and a curse. Remember honing is a thing and that a LOT of lenses I don't have lol

How important is honing your Syncs? I have 4 (Rydia, Lunafreya, Shadow, Rem) but they seem to demolish the content without any honing (granted I’m at having just mastered all the 4* magicite).

Also how’s this tactics banner? Worth pulling on?

[tyckspoon]

How important is honing your Syncs? I have 4 (Rydia, Lunafreya, Shadow, Rem) but they seem to demolish the content without any honing (granted I’m at having just mastered all the 4* magicite).

Also how’s this tactics banner? Worth pulling on?

I don't think it's super important, to be honest, although the cast-time reduction for entry is nice if you don't have broad access to quickcast buffs; the buff to damage on entry that most of them get from honing isn't likely to make or break anything, I think, since most of their damage potential comes from the buffs and commands you get *after* casting it. It's just more likely to be relevant in high-end content than spending your level 1 Lenses on basic Soul Breaks/Super Soul Breaks that you are most likely never going to actually use, at least once you've sniped out the stuff like Eblan Doppleganger and the other rare ones that include a potentially useful trait like Hastega/Blink/Imperil. (Although if there's one that is a damage-centered soulbreak and comes with 'Increase stat buffs' as its hone instead of increase damage/decrease cast time it's probably worth honing that up, as it becomes another stackable buff for that character and doesn't require another character's actions or burst bars. I've only seen that on Elarra so far tho, and that's a healing/support Sync that will only be doing damage if you sync its commands to Holy or something.)

Tactics banner is pretty nice if you need Phys Holy, because like 80% of FFT's notable characters are Holy-focused Knights. Also has the Realm Chain and the standard set of healer relics for Ovelia on it, which are going to be nice options to have even if you don't want/need/manage to land any of the Agrias/Orlandeau/Gaffgarion things.

[Antonok]

How important is honing your Syncs? I have 4 (Rydia, Lunafreya, Shadow, Rem) but they seem to demolish the content without any honing (granted I’m at having just mastered all the 4* magicite).

Also how’s this tactics banner? Worth pulling on?

For Syncs, it's not that important. Honing reduces the cast time (up to 66% reduction at rank 5) and the entry damage(+50%) of the SB. In lower content it isn't noticeable. When you get to 6* or dreambreaker that extra bit you get can the difference between a kill or loss.

With that said, we will eventually get the ability to hone AASBs. Those will have 15 levels compared to 5 from Syncs. The biggest boon to honing AASBs is they get a second use at level 15. The bad thing about that is it's stupidly expensive to max hone an AASB. You either need 8 dupes, or spend 49k/28k/17.5k (tier 1/2/3 respectively) lenses. To put it into simpler terms, if you've collected every lens released in Global and not spend any, you'd currently be able to max hone 2, maybe 3 AASBs right now with no dupes having been pulled.

This is ignoring you can also hone AOSBs and LBOs. The latter's damage is pretty much based on hone level.

[Chen]

Did one pull on the tactics banner since my phys holy needs some work. Got 2/11

Gaffgarion’s sync
Ovelia’s awkening

Thats two stncs on my dark phys team so that should be set now. Pretty pleased with that result.

Only fodder so far on the daily elemental stuff.

[danzibr]

We should be getting the wardrobe record event tomorrow, which will be 24 mithril over 10 days, so you could scrap up enough for 1 more pull before the banner leaves if you so choose.

Hmmmm thanks. Prob will go for that.

[tyckspoon]

Huh. You know how I was complaining about not having much good Water stuff? Took a shot at the Magicite elemental draws to try and remedy that. Only 3 tickets gathered so far, wasn't really expecting much.

Got Edge's Awakening. Not strictly Water - doesn't have an EnWater or boost Water, specifically - but its entry effect includes Water and its chase can strike as Water and buffs Water damage (also it's a +Water armor.) So, that'll work. And it reminds me I already have Kelger around, and although his Awakening is more Earth-focused it still triggers/boosts on just general Ninja abilities and the chase on it has a non-element component.. combine with Rikku providing Imperil (USB Imperil Water on entry plus a chase with a chance to Imperil - I probably am not going to splurge out on Aquatic Weakness yet) and I think this'll work, even if I end up killing Maliris by double-casting cap-broken Water Veils at her.

[Antonok]

Ramuh SUCKSSSSSSSSSS. 20 some odd attempts and I've gotten him below 90% HP once. Once.

You HAVE to have at least one person under EnEarth before turn 5, preferably 2, or else the auto counter will wreck you. Need a physical blink for the overstrike, Need more EnEarth for the even worse overstrike....

Yeah, think I'm going to just skip him. I don't have near enough for it.

[danzibr]

Ramuh SUCKSSSSSSSSSS. 20 some odd attempts and I've gotten him below 90% HP once. Once.

You HAVE to have at least one person under EnEarth before turn 5, preferably 2, or else the auto counter will wreck you. Need a physical blink for the overstrike, Need more EnEarth for the even worse overstrike....

Yeah, think I'm going to just skip him. I don't have near enough for it.

Looking forward to it :(

Did 2 of the 1 pulls. On Ice, got Lulu AASB. Yay! Already had G, AOSB, USB. Welcome to team Ice.

Then Fire. A dud.

[tyckspoon]

Ninjas worked on Maliris quite nicely (including Blinking her final strike for style points), and managed to squeak out a sub30 on Hades by just straight up ignoring trying to manage the status afflictions and having Beatrix and Orlandeau murder him in the face repeatedly. That leaves Siren, which.. doesn't look like it should be a significant issue, I've got three Darkness Awakenings to throw at this.. I don't have three characters worth of useful Darkness abilities, tho, Gaffgarion may have to just use his BSB or I can put in Cid and he can use the magic-side abilities.

[Antonok]

Looking forward to it :(

Did 2 of the 1 pulls. On Ice, got Lulu AASB. Yay! Already had G, AOSB, USB. Welcome to team Ice.

Then Fire. A dud.

At least I'm close to a Levi kill. Can get him to 20% or so with Kain Sync/AASB and Lightning Sync with Titan as the main. Really wish I had Lightning's AASB or AOSB for that last bit. May try to use Kain AASB for the first half and save Sync for the second half. Dunno if it'll work since phase 1 is that rough. (Also need to remember to cast Reraise on someone BEFORE they die )

Do think I figured out the best way to utilize Kain. Ignore AASB until Sync ends, link Impulse Drive to Cmd1 and Cyclone/Hurricane Bolt to Cmd2, then Cmd2 >Cmd1x2>repeat. Since Cmd2 actually gives High Quick Cast to jump abilities (nice wording on the ability btw DeNA), paired with CB/HB he can fire off 99999+19999x6 attacks pretty quickly, with an extra 99999 attack every 3rd attack. Then, if it's still alive, cast AASB and CB/HB>ID> repeat until someones dead.

[tyckspoon]

..well, one minor problem with Siren, my healer got herself Silenced >.>

Second try no RNG screw, cleared the 4-stars. 5* ahoy!

Edit.. well, time to go cheese the Historia Crystal for first-time rewards/clear bonuses from weekly magicite missions. I think it's gonna be a bit before I can seriously win one of these.

[Antonok]

..well, one minor problem with Siren, my healer got herself Silenced >.>

Second try no RNG screw, cleared the 4-stars. 5* ahoy!

Edit.. well, time to go cheese the Historia Crystal for first-time rewards/clear bonuses from weekly magicite missions. I think it's gonna be a bit before I can seriously win one of these.

Grats. Now you get to know the joy of having to have a physical AND magical team for each element

[Red Fel]

Well, I have confirmed that this magicite ticket nonsense is indeed a racket. After getting the batch of 11 tickets - and again, that's eleven x1 tickets, not one x11 ticket - my sum total thus far, between those and daily rewards, is... Golbez' Glint+ axe. And a duplicate of Golbez' Glint+ axe.

This is some nonsense and if it weren't free, I wouldn't show up for it, thank you.

EDIT: And ain't it a kick in the teeth? I actually get around to using today's ticket, and it's Edge's Awakening. Which is honestly pretty great, considering it spans multiple elements. I... partially withdraw my criticism. Partially.

[danzibr]

Well, I have confirmed that this magicite ticket nonsense is indeed a racket. After getting the batch of 11 tickets - and again, that's eleven x1 tickets, not one x11 ticket - my sum total thus far, between those and daily rewards, is... Golbez' Glint+ axe. And a duplicate of Golbez' Glint+ axe.

This is some nonsense and if it weren't free, I wouldn't show up for it, thank you.

EDIT: And ain't it a kick in the teeth? I actually get around to using today's ticket, and it's Edge's Awakening. Which is honestly pretty great, considering it spans multiple elements. I... partially withdraw my criticism. Partially.

Grats!

I spent all mine. Only thing I’d note, Lulu AASB. Still, very nice.

[Antonok]

Well, I have confirmed that this magicite ticket nonsense is indeed a racket. After getting the batch of 11 tickets - and again, that's eleven x1 tickets, not one x11 ticket - my sum total thus far, between those and daily rewards, is... Golbez' Glint+ axe. And a duplicate of Golbez' Glint+ axe.

This is some nonsense and if it weren't free, I wouldn't show up for it, thank you.

EDIT: And ain't it a kick in the teeth? I actually get around to using today's ticket, and it's Edge's Awakening. Which is honestly pretty great, considering it spans multiple elements. I... partially withdraw my criticism. Partially.

I'm not particularly fond of this format either. And it's not going to change for the next one either, which is even worse since it's 5 days shorter than this one.

After that, we should get the Cardia support campaign which is even WORSE because we only get 20 tickets, and half those require beating Phantasms (2 tickets for doing 30% damage, 3 for doing 60%, 5 for mastering a phantasm dungeon). Rewards are not retroactive, so to get the full rewards you have to master 2 phantasm dungeons.

Hope your realm teams are in shape.

[danzibr]

Well... got Ramuh down to 1.2% on literally my first try. Feeling pretty good.

Edit: 2nd attempt, 2.1%. Dang.

[tyckspoon]

Took a serious shot at a 5* mostly to gauge how much I need for these.. Managed to take down Quetzal. Had some issues breaking rage because I didn't have anything with single high multipliers - had to get all my buffs up and nearly full chain count, but once it got there Kelger and the 6* Ninja Earth skill tore him down pretty quick. ~35 second kill, and I'm pretty sure it can be made sub30 if I figure out how to better optimize action orders and the Entrust sequence.