[DFFOO JP][Divine Shiva Lufenia+]Ignis, Vayne, Ace (maintain orb strat) (for archiving)
10Just did D.Alexander legit on GL not long ago reminded me that I haven't uploaded D.Shiva because I did not record it the first time I have done it. So I did it again with the same unit for future reference. Characters involved should be those who came before Jecht BT which fits the timeline.
Orb: (limit: 10)
+1: when fire BRV damage is dealt (so Ignis' HP attack on stance 1 doesn't count)
Too be honest D.Shiva is annoying in just the same way she was back when it was Chaos. I must say though, it does not even come close to how Alexander have layers of mechanics on top of another.
Fight:
The main gimmick of D.Shiva is that after the solo boss phase, when she breaks one of your target, she puts on a beefy shield (around 100k), and their recast guage does not get overwritten when you push their HP threshold (29%/49%/79%), so they can recast into another recast, and when they get enough turns they recast again. The recast freezes your character until the next turn of the particular shiva that used the recast, so you waste your turns if you are broken into an awkward turn order. Turn management techniques, timing for pushing threshold become quite important, similarly to D.alexander where you have to push through 80% or wait depending on the relative timing difference between the sap + elemental weakness aura + damage reduction is up and it putting up the shields before divine judgement, in order to avoid unshavable situations.
The Lufenia orb this time around is quite special. On one hand it seems tight with only +1 from fire BRV damage. On the other hand, it is not lethal if it goes off. In fact, after 19% it will always go off and deal AoE damage, -2 duration to all debuffs on Shiva and they become tankier. Also, when they put on that blizzard aura around them after recast, only fire damage is not absorbed, so don't get too over-reliant on Bartz. I believe devs have somewhat put extra thoughts into this fight, since you would notice that the boss with the orb is considerably weaker in defence in terms of Lufenia+ standards and the orb is not fatal to balance the annoying mechanics out a little bit.
Ideas and solutions for the fight:
1. Orb Maintenance with Ace
I opt for an orb maintenance way of dealing with this fight, so I don't have to worry about damage at all until 20%. Off-turn damage dealers like Ace is really good here to keep the orb up, especially when Ignis and Vayne are not the best for that role. Ace's trap cards also sets off while he is frozen, so he can still keep the orb alive after recast. One problem though, activation breaks the bosses and refunds brave, unbreaking himself to be broken again when both bosses are recasting. So dealing with this turn order can get messy and the damage may push HP threshold unexpectedly faster.
2. Break Delay with Vayne
Shiva is immune to turn deletion and delays that are not caused by breaks (Quistis does not care). I think at that point in time, Strago and Vayne are some of the strongest rebreak delayers available to maintain a semblance of turn order, but Vayne is mostly ST, so he can manipulate the turns with more specific spacing. For example, it is okay to create space from the other boss's recast for Ignis HP regen to take effect (not too much or you would destroy the turn count). This is exceptionally important after the 79% threshold recasts because typically they can get back to back recasts off if you do not deny them from moving in the first phase with already accumulated guage + your frozen turns wasted to waiting on their turn to come up.
3. Phase pushing with Vayne + CoD, to skip recasts
Not particularly good in this run, my intention was to push both bosses from 50+ to below 29, but CoD's follow-up messed up the left boss and pushed early, so she gained a shield and only the right boss skipped one recast (it went down from 50% to 27%). Skipping phases means less recast, frozen downtime and damage taken. Most of the dead runs are caused by not making the turn count or dying to back to back recast.
Obviously, Jecht and the twins are also very capable of doing this as well, but Vayne + CoD follow-ups are perfectly capable of shaving off 20%+ on their own. Again, one has to be really mindful of when to use a friend summon, because that said friend can get frozen, lose alot of HP or even die and ruin your score. You can opt for doing this in 2 separate runs, but D.shiva is probably one of the longest Lufenia+ there is even if you have a stellar team.
Other strats tested or theories:
- Lulu call works if you have high burst damage.
- WoL was fantastic back then and again amazing here. (Would have been so much easier if I have him on JP)
- Promtpo dodging and follow-up can save you from ST attack breaks and maintain the orb. Double HP regen together with Ignis is a life saver. (Prompto is great, can't stress that enough)