DFFOO [JP] Seifer tries to AoE spam on Machina, Auron and Laguna but is bullied by domino counters
23Actually a relatively recent Lufenia+, but when squishy bosses have multiple and frequent HP thresholds and have party warping mechanics, counter attacks and off-turn dmg just tear them to shreds.
Just wanted to explore more on using Machina as a a counter/off-turn dmg dealer lol. It ended up triggering a series of of counters because they kept hitting past HP threshold of one or the other boss.
At least Seifer died happily to his idol's attack, even if it was just collateral dmg lol.
Not for studying the fight, but if you want to see the domino effect, here are the HP thresholds for your reference:
Seifer off-turn counters at a 20% HP interval above 30%.
Cerberus pull an AAB pattern turn warp when it is at 30%/60%/90%.
At around 02:43, Cerberus triggered the counter domino.
The counter potential of this team:
Auron also counters when he is hit, and he actively put sentinel to protect others. So basically his counters are always active, unless you put him with Edge with Ex buff on or the bosses are blinded.
Machina counters on these occasions:
When he is hit with a BRV attack: His EX triggers
When the boss moves: His LD off-turn triggers
When the boss hits him on active turns: Both EX/LD triggers
When Laguna's Desperado is on, any hits from the other two's counter would trigger the extra explosion.
So when Seifer himself hit the thresholds and tries to AoE, Machina would hit him back with his EX counter.
If you push both of their thresholds at the same time, because of the AAB pattern and Seifer would initiate his own off-turn counter, unbreaking himself first, the counters would break and delay him and push their turns away. This is why one Raijin LDCA was enough to shut him down and his nasty debuffs.
If everything happens when both Machina/Laguna BT+ are on, your off-turn dmg would be above 1 mil with their stacking HP dmg cap up.
Even without Laguna, AoE spamming bosses would still trigger a total of 6 HP dumps from both Machina and Auron.
Machina + Auron:
Even though Auron shielding Machina from ST attacks may be a bit suboptimal since his EX counter would not trigger, having 3 extra dumps is better than having just one, not to mention that Machina does not taunt, so even without Auron you would need a specific boss targeting mechanic or a taunt CA for a guaranteed proc.
You can take this to tanky bosses like Divine Bahamut or even Shinryu difficulty. If you pace yourself with FT HP bonus boosts and let the enemies move in between, the counters deal ridiculous amount of dmg, even in a 3 target setting. It is just that the domino effect would not be as apparent since they are much tankier for you to hit the thresholds consecutively.