Table of Contents

Party Composition

Abilities & DPS

Orb Chart

Character & SSB evaluation: Mages & Supports

Character & SSB evaluation: Celerity & Spellblade

Character & SSB evaluation: Job Classes

SSB Rankings

Banner Evaluation: Intro & Cloudy Wolf

Abilities & DPS

It's easy for us to see damage, the numbers are right there on the screen, but it's not as easy to see DPS, since that's a measure of damage over time. (How many times have you been unable to track time accurately and realized too late that your buffs had worn off?)

As a yardstick to compare other abilities with, let's start by calculating the DPS for a lifesiphon + SSB cycle.

Caveat: I'm going to make a number of assumptions here, so please take these as theoretical numbers, and not actual in-game numbers.

• Assumption #1: Your party is under haste and the average ATB wait time is 1.75 seconds.

• Assumption #2: Your lifesiphoner will be hit within the span of 3 lifesiphons and an ATB charge so that she will have a full SB bar ready on her 4th turn.

• Assumption #3: Your SSB has a total multiplier of 7.8x and none of the hits are capped.

• Assumption #4: No time is wasted between an ATB becoming full and selecting an action.

Here is the cycle:

ATB wait time x3 + Lifesiphon cast time x3 + ATB wait time + SSB cast time

So that equals 3(1.75s) + 3(1.65s) + 1.75s + 2.5s* or 14.45s

*(There are some physical SSB's that have a longer casting time)

And the damage, or rather total damage multiplier, will be 3(1.8x) + 7.8x or 13.2x

Now we take the total damage multiplier 13.2x and divide it by the total time 14.45s and get 13.2/14.45=0.9135 or around a 0.91x multiplier per second. (Of course, you're usually going to save your SB's to unleash later, but let's just ignore that for calculation purposes.)

Easy enough to follow right? Ok, now let's calculate a bunch of the upcoming 5-star abilities to compare. Most of them will have a total time of 3.4 seconds: 1.75s ATB charge + 1.65s cast time.

Ability	Time	Damage	Damage/Time	DPS
Break Fever	3.4s	0.0x	AoE Full Break	Priceless
Dragonfire Dive	6.75s	4.7x	4.7/6.75=	0.70x
Shadowsteel Frenzy (AoE)	3.4s	2.38x	2.38/3.4=	0.70x
Bio Grenade (AoE)	3.4s	2.4x	2.4/3.4=	0.71x
Tornado Strike (AoE)	3.4s	2.4x	2.4/3.4=	0.71x
Flashing Blade (AoE)	3.4s	2.66x	2.66/3.4=	0.78x
Barrage	3.4s	2.8x	2.8/3.4=	0.82x
Skygrinder (AoE)	3.4s	2.88x	2.88/3.4=	0.85x
Lifesiphon x3 + SSB	14.45s	13.2x	13.2/14.45=	0.91x
Full Charge	5.05s	4.68x	4.68/5.05=	0.93x
Explosive Fist	3.4s	3.19x	3.19/3.4=	0.94x
Saint Cross	3.55s	3.4x	3.4/3.55=	0.96x
Lifesiphon x3 + Chainstarter + SSB	15.2s	15.2x	15.2/15.2=	1.00x
Thief's Raid	3.4s	3.5x	3.5/3.4=	1.03x
Bloody Cross	3.4s	3.8x	3.8/3.4=	1.12x
Saint Cross (1 Holy boost @20%)	3.55s	4.08x	4.08/3.55=	1.15x
Dragon's Blood + Dragonfire Dive x2	9.9s	11.6x	11.6/9.9=	1.17x
Chainstarter + Full Charge	5s	6.68x	6.68/5=	1.34x
Saint Cross (2 Holy boosts @44%)	3.55s	4.9x	4.9/3.55=	1.38x*
*If your holy-boosting sword is non-RS, it may be better to equip a RS sword and lose the 2nd holy boost instead.

(I left out Memento Mori + Dark Zone since it's magical, so its multiplier isn't easily comparable.)

(Also note that the non-LS+SSB abilities are still building up SB charge at a slower pace, which hasn't been factored into the multipliers.)

As you can see from the chart:

• Dragonfire Dive is bad without instant jump from Dragon's Blood or Kain's SSB due to the jump time.

• Barrage is not great either.

• Flashing Blade, Shadowsteel Frenzy, Bio Grenade, Tornado Strike and Skygrinder are all AoE attacks, so their DPS is lowish for single-target fights and the pool of users for each skill is quite limited.

• Full Charge by itself is slightly worse than Explosive Fist, but can be used by anyone with Combat 5 and can be used in combo with Chainstarter, so it gets the edge over Explosive Fist.

• Saint Cross is good, and really good w/ 1 or especially, 2 holy-boosting items equipped.

• Thief's Raid is good and gives you 30% of dmg as HP.

• Bloody Cross has a good multiplier, but at the cost of 25% Max HP, it's not worth it.

• The Dragoon Combo (Dragon's Blood + Dragonfire Dive) is quite good and allows your dragoon to be back row.

• Adding Chainstarter to your Lifesiphon + SSB cycle doesn't seem to be worth the slot.

• Chainstarter + Full Charge, however, is awesome, but you need good hones for both.

• Memento Mori + Dark Zone is also very good, and since Memento Mori gives the Dark Mage +30% MAG on top of Dark Zone's 13.5x Dark MAG dmg split over 2 hits, you can slot him right into your otherwise physical team.

Overall, I would say the abilities worth honing are Saint Cross, Thief's Raid, Full Charge and Chainstarter, Dark Zone, Break Fever, and possibly the Dragoon Combo if you want to use a dragoon. Of course, it's best if you have a soul break for them as well, so you want to be aiming your pulls at relics for good Knights, Thieves, or characters with Cmb5 & Cel5 (in JP, that's Lightning, Tidus, Zack, Gau). Oh, and lest we forget, mages with Darkness as well.

I'll include an orb chart in Part 3, and then go over characters in more detail in Part 4.