DFFOO [JP] Chaos meeting Machina means a bad day for Ultimecia
21Probably should start branding this series as "an ordinary bad day for Ultimecia Vol.X" at this point. This stage is just an off-turn dmg testing heaven and I kept coming back to it. Although Ultimecia is probably at her limits now as we can see how easily their HP bar moves.
Other tests that came before this:
I was testing Machina with Lyse/Thancred/Gilgamesh/Ignis etc and that was how that 20m Lyse EX shot came from. Thancred with BRV++/Trick attack was quite helpful for the FR% building process too. Gilgamesh is a bit RNG based though, because he can sometimes manipulate turn order/giving HP overflow to Machina but sometimes he pushes enemy off the turn queue. Ignis is actually quite flexible because you can choose when/not to pull the others with EX and just keep stabbing the enemy while enjoying full bonus.
Jack G/Ramza/Machina:
The staple though is still Ramza. His just hits pretty much all the checkmarks. BRV/HP+, HP dmg cap up and dmg support for Machina. Also some kind of delay and heals when need be too. His S2 also helps build FR.
Since Machina gets along with Ramza quite well, and Ramza is also very good for Chaos because of mBRV reasons, it stands to try putting those 3 together to form a party.
For this particular stage though, since Ultimecia has 2 moves (shockwave pulsar and apocalypse) that can help her recover from break, Jack G's main role is either to stick his -BRV on the coeurl or push Ultimecia's threshold by hitting really hard. You can also use -BRV to stop other moves from helping Ultimecia recover as well, particularly Hell's judgement.
Sticking the -BRV on the coeurl is actually quite a good way to get extra AOE splash dmg with Machina's LD off-turn. In this asymmetric boss stage where only Ultimecia warps and spawns turns, the Coeurl stays relatively still and often only recover from breaks when the break counter is up. So it is quite a nice way to retain the -BRV, especially when applying it right after the coeurl is broken.
In terms of building FR%, Jack's HP+ may be a one dump attack, but he will also do his 3 follow-up attacks and that is where the main dmg is. So compared to using his LD/S1/S2, losing those ordinary two dumps for 40% more FR% increase actually is actually not a bad deal. Saving the EX for the last few turns is where the overwhelming amount of dmg come in. He is actually quite suitable for Machina's FR in this sense.
Finally all three of them have 30% or more HP dmg cap up. With Ifrit blessing and 6 buffs on each of them at the end, Jack's HP dump shot up to 3.5m each is quite a sight to behold. Sadly the coeurl did not have enough HP for the additional HP to function, so that 35m was not even Jack's highest dmg possible in this setting.
Machina FR just enhances melee characters to another level. Even ordinary BT less character would have a good time with him.