DFFOO [JP] How are older BT+ characters doing in current era? - Ace
43Since Y'shtola and Zidane have been announced to get their C90 and not Ace and I have not used him for quite a while, it just occur to me that I should play with past BT+ units. To be frank I think I have used Y'shtola, Vayne and Caius a bit too much lol.
Ace is at BT+3 and HA+3. As a Lv80 he does not have the right to use UW.
The obvious deficiency of Lv80 characters is the lack of BRV dmg from EX extension or BRV gain in some cases. Ace is no exception to this rule. Rem's IW has 80/80 reduction and you can still see that Ace's trap potency is not the greatest with enchant and some BRV dmg up. Though through additional HP dmg up and BRV gain he can still hit very near to cap, if not at cap.
IMO current Lv90 Lufenia+ era has extra factors that makes Ace still great to use. Good complimentary characters and something new like Ifrit enable him and patch his deficiencies
A large portion of Ace's dmg is from off-turn dmg and using his LD and HP+ while one trap is already on would auto-trigger the trap afterwards regardless whose turn it is. The current buffs he has right now and his partners would have great effect on his dmg without him even moving.
Abusing the off-turn trap with certain buffs:
Ifrit summon puts on the Hellfire buff on him that you can abuse by setting his trap off over and over until either his turn is up or his trap runs out. With this mechanic, you can also put Rem's LD buff on him and then switch to another person such that Ace's trap enjoys her buff (extra BRV dmg up and HP dmg up) while not consuming its duration.
Auras like Steiner's constant BRV regen on every turn also makes up for Ace's potency deficit, since it adds to his refund after each trigger. With BRV gain up (60% when both Steiner and Rem's C88s are up) Ace would get to orange BRV even on someone else's turn. Constant battery for constant dmg converted back into BRV refund forming a very sustainable cycle.
Ace's trap is absolutely great in 3 target fights as it sets up on all of them individually with splash dmg. Even though he still has 2-3 HP dumps on his normal attacks and LD, and a poor 1 dump on EX, his traps adds up to a lot of extra dmg without needing him to have a turn. So he should still fulfil the DPS requirement and meet the HP dump standard in this era.
This can be further improved with the numerous HP dmg cap up unit like Ramza and Ifrit to make his dumps more efficient and valuable. BRV cap increasers can also help, but you would need much more BRV dmg support to take advantage of that. I would say BRV gain up makes much more sense with him, as he also give BRV back to other teammates. (With this duality in mind, units that support both like Y'shtola and Paine (left) are great with him as well.)
One thing that is not shown here is his 2nd finisher when his BT effect runs out. It is extra dmg after all, but if you rather opt for an uninterrupted 3 stack BT effect throughout, you would have to cut the BT effect short and BT+ finisher before it goes down to 0 and skip the finisher, the same applies if you would want to BT+ finisher into the actual BT phase. The turns need to be precise or the finisher would not happen.
Very interested to see how Y'shtola and Zidane pan out this month. Ace probably comes soon as well, but for now he still seems good to use, especially with newer units and tools to compensate for his Lv80 stats.
Also, somehow this happens to be a record run lol without Leila or Noctis giving out free turns.