DFFOO [JP][Alphinaud Lufenia+][Series] FFXIV: Toxic Alphianud and Yda with Stalling Y'shtola
27Alphinaud has officially become toxic alongside Yda with his new LD weapon, granting him Tri-disaster (or "Last" Disaster as the JP text suggests), thus spreading those HP poison with Bio II and Miasma II on top of his BRV sap from a long time ago in the Ex+ Era.
In all honesty the boss dies way too soon. I can see the turn mechanic being a bit tricky but there are ways to skip past them.
Boss:
Reduction: 70/70
Orb Condition (Non-lethal):
+3: when the boss takes over a certain amount of HP dmg via special effect or debuff (including spheres, though I don't recall one with HP poison)
The orb is not lethal but it can be annoying as they cleanse their debuffs and your buffs and then put a ton of nasty debuffs onto you that are guaranteed hits, so I would try to avoid it as much as possible.
Major mechanics:
1. Speedy Roar - teleporting turns behind you for 3 turns
I believe this happens at 49%, but this can be dealt with in multiple ways. One thing to note that this is "teleporting behind you", not instant turn rate, so in this run with Yda breaking the enemy and getting 2 instant turns immediately prevents them from having their turns immediately after. Obviously other methods like Caius doom breaks or maybe them melee attacking with Reno's debuff should delay them as well, unless they have adamant body on at the moment.
2. "Adamant Body" - 999% BRV dmg reduction and Locked turns including break delays and forced breaks
The dmg reduction can be entirely bypassed with BRV refund and BRV gain characters lol. Breaking them gets them out of this mode, the idea (most convenient one) is to sap them every field turn with Alphinaud, but if they get a turn while you have other forms of sap, that should work as well.
They do it at 79%, 19% as threshold mechanics even if you are inside summon.
3. Quick Shift - Changing elemental resistances, buffs and attacks.
The resistance shift feels like a quick jab at Alisaie but tbh her Cait Sith effect means she doesn't care lol. They keep putting their no duration buffs on and additional buffs and debuffs depending on the mode. Dragon is the one that does an AoE BRV+HP attack, so in case you let them have a turn then you would have to watch out for that one.
Alphinaud:
Field turn Sap and HP poison:
Just like other FFXIV characters, he happens to be really compatible with his fellow scions, this time with Yda in particular.
His new/reworked gimmick is that his sap from Shadowflare in the old days is improved to be a field turn (i.e. active regardless player or boss turn) effect with his C85 EX extension. Same as his new LD HP poison debuff. So it means Y'shtola stalling or similar characters have good compatibility with these effects.
Yda's "break and get instant turn" mechanic plays into this as well. Alphinaud sapping the enemy's BRV every turn means it would almost mean guaranteed low to 0 BRV and guaranteed breaks with Yda using HP+++, even though she has less BRV dmg as a Lv80 character. You can chain break one into another as well, so she benefits alot from having Alphinaud just by this constant sap alone. She in turn gives him more time to sap the enemy with more turns and delaying the enemy with breaks.
What is being broken?
Alphinaud pulled a 180 from fear of being broken to "I make the entire team not able to be broken". This directly counters his old weakness of losing his Carbuncles when he is broken, so he requires less delicate attention to play now. Whether he can withstand Odin's break remains to be tested though.
His new BRV++ (Sic)/HP++ (Shining Obsidian), EX:
BRV++ now give 20% extra charge to his EX with 100% AoE while HP++ is a splash attack but still gives free skill afterwards and inflicts AoE DEF down. I tend to use the free skill on the C88 first for extra iBRV for his BRV regen, sap, and party wide BRV gain. Technically with no worry of being broken, Alphinaud should have infinite longevity and a lot of stalling potential himself with instant turn S1, c88, EX and all the free skills. His EX effect is now 8 turns.
In terms of skill reworks, Alphinaud's moonshine Carbuncle can function as an emergency heal now instead of relying on energy drain alone. Its buff is also extended from 1 to 6 turns. Energy Drain gets more HP dumps and splash. Most of his attacks have BRV refund between HP dumps, so it goes really well with BRV gain up, including his own encouragement armor.
Generally his iBRV scaling on skills, regen and saps have been increased. His new support aura comes from his LD buff, which features 20% BRV dmg up and HP dmg up with overflow. There is 20% BRV dmg taken up on his HP poison debuff that lasts for 6 turns.
I can see a potential weakness of Alphinaud having trouble with multiple waves and quick bosses that deplete the debuff fast so he may have to look out for his buff and debuff duration and decide when to use his LD. I would still build him towards more ATK for stronger HP poison and attack over iBRV.