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

Character & SSB evaluation: Celerity & Spellblade

Alright, so Mages & Supports was really just an appetizer. This is really the main course we've been waiting for.

Again, I'm not going to go over everyone. Furthermore, besides a few exceptions, I'll only be looking at fighters with single-target (B)SSBs, and primarily ones who can equip swords and use Lifesiphon.

Why single-target? Well, in general, I don’t value multi-target physical SSBs as highly. They’re nice to have for AoE fights, but most Ultimates are single-target, and in such fights, their multiplier (~6.0x) isn’t that much higher than single-target regular SBs (5.1-5.34x), whereas single-target SSBs (~8.0x) are a 33% jump up from multi-target SSBs. Also, for AoE fights, oftentimes you don’t want to AoE the whole fight because you don’t want to bring the enemies into weak phase all at once.

Alright, let's get this course started.

#Combat + Celerity Cmb 5 & Cel 5 for Chainstarter + Full Charge.

Cmb 4 for Lifesiphon, Bladeblitz. Cmb 3 for Armor & Power Break.

Cel 4 for Dismissal. Cel 3 for Tempo Flurry.

Here we're specifically looking at the Cmb 5 + Cel 5 characters, of which there are four: Lightning, Tidus, Zack, Gau. Of these four, Gau can only equip fists and daggers, and only has a regular SB, and Zack has a SSB but it's AoE 6.0x and its added effect is Hastega, which is redundant since we're using Scream, so we'll look at Lightning and Tidus.

• Tidus: With Chainstarter + Full Charge, and his buff to Cmb 5, Tidus actually has one thing he can do now that most other characters can't. His SSB, 3-hit 7.89x water-elemental, is one of the worst SSBs, but it's still single-target physical, so it's still good damage as long as you're not capping. His BSSB is a low 5.1x AoE water-elemental, but gives him En-water so his water burst commands get +50% dmg and subsequent water SBs get +80% dmg, which is pretty nice. His BSSB's cast time is 2.75s, where most are 2.5s.

• Lightning: If you pull Agrias' shield and have Lightning's SSB it will boost the damage by 20%, from a 6.5x AoE multiplier, to 7.8x. So it becomes equivalent to single-target SSB damage. Her BSSB is very nice, with initial 7-hit 8.05x single-target dmg, and a stun proc for her single-target commands, and slow proc for her AoE ones.

If you pull either of their BSSBs, it might allow you to run the Chaincharger combo with less hones (say R2), since afterwards you could cast the Burst and use the commands to sustain their damage.

• Tyro: Ah, the secret 5th Chaincharger. In this case, you'd be using the keeper as DPS and not support. Also, don't forget that in Global we can have a guaranteed SSB-level SB for Tyro, which is 4-hit 8.0x lightning-elemental dmg, which can also be boosted by Agrias' shield to 9.6x (so long as it's not capping). In that case, you could also consider equipping him with Lifesiphon of course.

#Spellblades Spl 4 for -ga Strikes are nice, but not necessary.

Spl 3 for -ra Strikes, Drain Strike.

I'm classifying the Spellblade characters into three groups.

The Knightblades: Agrias, whom I'll discuss in the Knight section, and poor Steiner, who is without a SSB, but may get one next week in JP. I guess technically, Celes is a Rune Knight, so I'll group her here, even though she has no Knight ability in FFRK, but she's a special case anyway, and I'll be discussing her in the banner evaluation.

The Dismissalblades: Bartz, Balthier, Lightning, and Zack. All have Cel 4 or above, in addition to Cmb 5 and Spl 3/4/5, so when there's no weakness to exploit, their available options are Full Charge, Lifesiphon, Dismissal, Drain Strike, and Breaks, with Balthier also getting Machinist Shots. Lightning and Zack we already discussed above.

• Bartz: With Scream, both Bartz and Balthier become a bit weaker because they lose Steal Power and thus Thf 4 as an advantage. Since we're already getting ATK +50% from Scream, it's better to use Power Break with them, which is 5% less debuff after break resist, but actually does damage. Other than that, Bartz's main draw is his wide weapon selection, with both melee and ranged options. His SSB, 5-hit 7.9x, provides +50% DEF to the party, which may not be that useful if you're already heavily mitigated, saving you just a couple hundred in damage, or may be very helpful if you need the extra DEF. His BSSB, 6-hit 7.98x, has a longer cast time (2.75s) and provides 4 elements (the classic crystal ones) in his burst commands, which is situationally useful.

• Balthier: The leading man from XII is basically the leading man from V, with Machinist 5, but worse equip options. In other words, pretty good. Machinist is very useful, when it's useful. His main weakness is his poor armor selection, but he can equip bracers, which you should take note of. His SSB, 6-hit 7.92x, is fire-elemental, which can be bad if you meet with fire resistance. If the boss is fire neutral however, it's pretty good, since it also grants a 20% fire weakness to the enemies it hits. So subsequent SSBs from him get 20% extra dmg, becoming 9.5x. Also, remember bracers? If you have a FFX Red Armlet, you can boost his fire damage by another 20%, making his initial SSB 9.5x, and subsequent ones 11.4x! And don't forget, you also get the 20% damage for other fire attacks, so you can combine it with things like Bartz's burst command.

The McFlurryblades: Cloud, Luneth, and Squall. These guys only have Cel 3 on top of Cmb 5 and Spl 4/5, and some other, mostly useless, skills. They have most of the same options as the Dismissalblades, besides Dismissal of course.

• Cloud: (Remember, I'm ignoring record dive.) His BSSB is standard SSB-level dmg, 8-hit 8.0x. His single-target burst command is 2.8x. Divide by 3.4s and his burst command's DPS (assuming you were at ATK soft cap already) is about 0.82x (it's basically Barrage), which is actually lowish DPS compared to the upcoming 5* abilities.

• Luneth: His SSB, 8-hit 7.76x, is wind-elemental, which is not easily boosted by equips. The only option is FFVI's Oath Veil, which is a mage hat and has no ATK, so not a great choice. Like Bartz's, it provides the situationally useful 50% DEF to the party.

• Squall: Being the vanguard, Squall gets saddled with the most vanilla SSB of them all, 4-hit 8.0x, no additional effect. It's still good damage, but has only 4 hits so it may cap (more a concern now than in the future). Despite that, it's still better than a couple other single-target physical SSBs. His Burst is not that great. It's AoE, 4-hit 6.16x, but its commands are single-target elemental/non hits.

This is getting a bit long already, so I think I'll cut it short here and try to wrap it up in one more section covering the job classes.