DFFOO [JP][Desch IW] No Synergy, No innate FR, FL: Counter w Edge, Garnet, Laguna (Kain fd)
7Was going to dodge with Shadow, but Edge counter triggering Laguna BT explosion while buffing the party seems pretty fun, so I went with this in the end. Also, used Kam too much lately, so I turned to Kain FT instead.
Edge here only has basic investment: normal HA, UW+0
None of the characters except for Kain friend have FLs, so they don't have extra HP dmg cap increases until Laguna BT/Kain friend FT.
Most of the attacks are "soaked" by Edge, and subsequently countered by him. The idea was just to let the enemy move as much as possible such that he can counter more and Garnet can charge her LD off-turn even more. The AoE can be party-wide dodged with Edge's EX buff, but it is not entirely necessary because for the most part it won't hit above 7k BRV hits with the CAs and debuffs in place.
Once Laguna BT+ is active, any counter from Edge would simply trigger his explosion. It is a good way to optimize extra dmg.
Debuff management and Dmg optimization:
Because of the amount of debuffs that Laguna occupies, the most idea situation would be putting on Raijin LDCA earlier, such that before the enemy FT is finished, it can fall off and make space for Desperado and Seymour's LDCA to delay them. That way you can get more dmg out of this phase before they go off building up the FG again.
There are two ways I considered for subbing Kain in.
1. Sub out Garnet and let Edge dodge and let the FT last longer by letting the enemy move
(Note: Edge's counter may look like some shurikin being thrown at the enemy, but it is magic. It does not contribute to Kain's FT)
2. Sub out Edge and let Laguna BT, let Garnet off-turn take advantage of FT, then summon
The thing in common is both Edge and Garnet has strong party-wide support. So
I think theoretically option 1 may yield better result with a lot more extra explosion and Lancets to build Kain's FT. Though since the enemy FT was not going the most ideal route and let Edge stayed for a long time afterwards that their FG was almost full again. So option 2 was chosen in the end.
At the end of the day though, the interaction between Edge, Garnet and Laguna outweighs the Kain FT. After all he stayed for more than 60% of the boss health. It can probably be done with other FRs.
The Desperado debuff on A fell off was unfortunate at the end. That was the result of why their HP was kind of unbalanced right at the end when Laguna BT, since I had to target B to trigger the explosion.
This set up can definitely do better, it is just that the two not so ideal situation happened, so not the most dmg came out.
Did one with Vincent + Laguna + Edge actually (Kain fd again). With Vincent + Raijin LDCA you can suppress their BRV dmg to literally 1. Though I was not particularly satisfied with the FT dmg and there was not really enough party buffs to only make Vincent + Laguna do decent amount of dmg when Edge was subbed out. It got the job done, it is just not the smoothest out there.
Gonna be interesting to observe what Tidus FR will look like because he should be the first of the consecutive turn dmg dealer to get it. Not going to pull but it would be a standard to give you an idea of that type of character moving forward.
Barret was expected to get the FR, funny it was Tidus all along because Devs made mistake on the rework notice lol.