DFFOO [JP][Act 3 Chapter 8 part 2] Braska FR+3/FL30, Auron, Kain BT+3/FR/FL20 vs Braska's Final Aeon
21I watched both of the official showcase and I still didn't know what Braska's buffs were for lol. They didn't really show anything so I had to wait till the weapons come out to see for myself. Wasn't exactly impressed at first but when you actually use him, oddly it is a lot of fun.
Also got to say this fight is actually quite a nice call back to the original FFX "final" boss fight.
This is actually my first try, so I had to check on his description and procrastinated a little bit. I wasn't expecting to clear but it went very smoothly lol.
Braska's Final Aeon + Pegodas x2:
Reductions:
Oddly enough, the reduction is not as high and varied as the two shinryu before it.
90/90/50 (BRV/BRV gain/HP) and no other restrictions.
The pegodas have an innate 90% BRV dmg reduction.
It does start with a 400% HP dmg reduction until the Pegodas are dead though.
Force Mechanics:
Force weakness: Fire force ability
- Dmg reduction for attacks that are not fire aspected (30/30/50)
- All allies deal 10% iBRV as HP dmg after dealing BRV dmg on their turns (start at 60% FG)
Force Ability: Jecht Bomber
Break recovery, a guaranteed AoE fire BRV+HP attack that delays all targets by 1 turn
Force Time:
Recover 80% HP of the inflicted dmg at the end of a turn
Braska's final aeon on Shinryu differs from the Lufenia counterpart by a few mechanics.
Firstly it has the 400% HP dmg reduction effect until all Pegodas are dead.
Secondly Jecht Beam would petrify you and remove one silver framed buff.
Thirdly boss would regenerate health to full, and start to resummon pegodas only after regeneration happens as opposed to being a perma effect from the start in Lufenia.
Threshold Mechanics
When boss is below 2% HP or 50% after regenerate has happened, it will do a Jecht Bomber+. It is a similar attack to the force attack, only it has BRV gain, hits stupidly hard and it deletes your turns. Then boss gets 3 turns of speed up and action delay down, effectively spamming turns with the pegodas afterwards.
You can see me getting to red HP even at above 20K HP and with Auron's dmg reductions. So, prepare some kind of mitigation to eat this attack.
Since the boss has a lot of turns and gets quite a bit of BRV in between, you may want some passive/off-turn BRV shaving, be it poison/sap or Kain/Freya or Auron counters. Also either get some shield or healing because there is quite a bit of incoming damage.
Boss itself is not awfully tanky, especially before regeneration. After regeneration, its max HP goes up, but still not as tanky as the other two Shinryu. It may be comparable when all HP bars are combined though. Then again, you still have to kill the pegodas first and deal with a 3 target situation if you are using split dmg attacks.
The Pegodas are not very dangerous and complex. They do some basic BRV/HP attacks and another set that delays you by one turn or two turns with the + version. It is mostly a contest that requires some incoming dmg / turn control.
Braska:
He turns out to be better than I expected, and quite fun to play with.
Base abilities wise, he is really quite "basic". He heals, has Ultima as his filler attack. What's interesting is how his overdrive interact with his EX. As it turns out, he by himself is quite a EX spammer.
His overdrive bar goes up by 1 whenever he gets a turn. Before reaching 5, his EX only has 3 dumps, upon getting to 5 it becomes a +version that has 5 dumps. It is also a 100% AoE attack. Somewhat similar to Lyse, but what's different is once he gets to 5, the EX automatically recharges to full. So you can get a Ex into a EX+ for example. His Ex is not the fastest in the world, so this mechanic is very relevant.
His Ex also gives free skill. Since his S1 is also a free instant turn move, you can use that free skill on either S1/C88. A bit like how chain skills with Thancred but you get more Ex instead of HP+. IMO he has quite a bit of depth in how you play him.
He does have some party BRV/HP dmg support in his LD buff. The fire enchant is sadly only for himself.
His FR is arguably the selling point. Its HP bonus mechanics:
+15: the active character's turn pass when he has 100% HP
+20: Fire dmg on active turn
The good: unlike Krile, both of these conditions can be met with all party members. The bad: since Braska only enchants himself, so there is ally/CA/summon dependency on the 2nd condition. Also, it is not inclusive of off-turn dmg.
THAT SAID, the bonus itself is really big considering it is 35+FL investment per turn. If you look at Kain or Krile's, even with off-turn you probably won't get that much on allies' turns with all the off-turn dmg setup.
Also, Braska himself is a Krile type character. What that means is, his FL gives +50% bonus on instant turn non-attack moves that also happens to charge your Force guage. What's better is he has free skill for you to spam this regularly, so he is quite good for his own or others' FT for bonus building. So with Braska, FG charges faster as well.