[You Don't Need It] Building a Gem-Free Team: Welcome to the World of Ruin

#Table of Contents

[I Scream, You Scream]

[You Don't Need It]

Welcome to the World of Ruin

#A Delicate Balance, Dashed

Welcome to the inaugural edition of [You Don't Need It] Building a Gem-Free Team! As a heads up, this guide won't be nearly as linear in structure as [I Scream, You Scream] was. There's a lot of different topics to juggle so this will free me to jump around and also let me toss into the mix whatever else happens to strike my fancy at the moment. With this in mind, you can think of this guide as the World of Ruin to [I Scream]'s World of Balance.

I suppose that makes DeNA our dear Kefka, having tampered with the delicate balance between the three warring goddess statues mortals have named Grand Armor, Kaiser Plate, and Nu Khai Armband, and bringing about this new post-apocalyptic landscape. Many of you are crestfallen, I know, but there's nothing we can do to change the past. So let's pick ourselves up, get off this solitary island, and set forth in search of our lost comrades so that we can try and put back together pieces of this broken world.

#Fast Lane to the New Apocalypse

When we look into our mythril future, there's really two eras that we must consider: Before Cid's Missions and After Cid's Missions, which from here on out I will refer to as B.C.M. and A.C.M. The chart below provides a Power Breakdown of these two eras and their events in chronological order.

Realm	B.C.M. Event	Month		Realm	A.C.M. Event	Month
VI	Relm	April		IV	Adult Rydia	July?
VII	Vincent	April		VIII	Seifer	July?
XII	Basch	April		V	Faris & Lenna	?
VIII	Edea	May		D	Dissidia: Order?	?
IV	Palom & Porom	May		IX	Dagger	?
III	Desch	May		XII	Gabranth	?
IX	Kuja	May		D	Dissidia: Chaos?	?
VII	Cait Sith	June		T	Delita/Ovelia/Mustadio	?
XIII	Serah	June		XIII	Cid Raines	?
VI	Figabros	June		V	Gilgamesh^4	?
X	Braska^1	June		VI	"Maria"	?
*	BSBFest^2	June		X-2	Paine	?
I	Mobius	--		VIII	???	?
XIV	Yda & Papalymo	July		*	W-Burst Fest^5	?
VII	Shirtless Seph^3	July		II	Guy?	?

1: Braska's Event brings us our first true Cid's Mission test in U+ BFA. Consider it a sneak peek. (I don't count the relatively easy Cid's Missions in Cait Sith's and Figabros' Events.)

2: BSBFest will likely land sometime between the Braska and Shirtless Seph events.

3: Shirtless Seph's Event ushers in a new banner format that adds a 3rd SSB and cuts down the generic on-realm relics from two to one.

4: Gilgamesh's Event should introduce for us the dramatically improved banner format that standardizes SSBs as the most common relics to be pulled.

5: The Double or W-Burst Fest arrived before the Gilgamesh event in JP but may come after for us.

#Making Sense of the Aftermath

I think the key takeaway from this chart is that our BSBFest comes later, near the end of B.C.M., with possibly only the XIV event (a shorter event like Tactics with easier U bosses) and the Shirtless VII event (a realm for which many of us already have excellent synergy) taking place after it. This means that the logic behind the general consensus of saving until the Burst Fest, especially if you're looking to gain a Wall or Scream then, gets somewhat mucked up.

Since Cid's Missions are right around the corner, if you're planning on doing them, then having a native Wall or Scream is rendered useless. (That said, it may still be helpful to obtain one of them if you have neither for your A-team just in case you need to master a fight that you can't with your Cid's Missions party. Or for Fragment Ifrit.)

The XIV event also is the first time a Wall (Thyrus) was featured in JP at Rate UP x2. Perhaps DeNA was OK with doing this since they knew they were transitioning to Cid's Missions soon after. And maybe this is also why Shirtless Seph (which introduces the next banner upgrade) didn't also usher in the true start of Cid's Missions, so as not to telegraph the transition since the event coincided with XIV. (Gotta hand it to those sneaky bastards.)

So what does this all mean? Obviously we don't know what our BSBFest Banners will look like, so there may be some banners worth pulling on depending on your RS as well, but here's my suggestion. Try to save your mythril until the huge banner format jump that comes with the Gilgamesh Event, since (in JP at least) these feature at least four SSBs all at Rate UP x2, in addition to at least one BSB. (That's a spike from 3% to 9%!) If your A-Team for B.C.M. is set after the SSBS that just ended and FFT, then this makes even more sense.

But how do you satisfy your pulling urges? Well, we'll have the Nightmare Lucky Banners once a month starting with the White Mage one in two months. And there might be some banners that are compelling enough to pull on, particularly if you're lacking RS for that realm, but you should keep Cid's Missions in mind when evaluating them. A realm-specific Medica is the most beneficial SB for Cid's Missions so I'd only seriously consider banners that offer those. (Hastegas aren't as important since for 90% of Cid's Missions a Scream RW will likely be your best option.) And don't forget, we'll also have a number of new 5* skills to play with in the coming months.

DISCLAIMER: These are just suggestions to consider, not hard and fast rules. You're gonna have to make your own choices of course.

#You did wait for him right?

Well I'm sorry to say you're gonna have to wait a bit longer, if you're looking for my take on the Relm banners. But to offer something to chew on, if you have good VI synergy already, I don't really recommend pulling on either banner. That said, if you find yourself considering them with A.C.M. in mind, Relm's SSB Medica, the only VI Medica to date, should take precedence over anything on Banner 2.

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And remember, if you find yourself tempted to buy gems, the first rule of [You Don't Need It] is you don't need it!