[DFFOO JP][Guy Lufenia+] Ace and Machina (non-synergy)
7Oddly enough, these two mesh together pretty well despite the status given by the devs of DFFOO.
Machina himself does not bring much raw damage boosts to the party other than HP damage Up by 30%. (others are mBRV, stolen and Brv Gain overflow) So you would have to rely on party members to boost it.
Ace BT is actually very similar to Machina BT in a lot of ways (mBRV, stolen overflow, HP Dmg up). He also provides 80% ATK up and 15% mBRV cap up with 80% DEF down when both traps are active. When the trap cards activate, it provides BRV refund to the entire party, which is compounded by Machina's Brv refund in between his own hits (if the enemy hits the team, Machina also counters and get more BRV). So when you compare them, they actually have quite a bit of similarities that function well together.
Y'shtola is quite a great partner for these two with her BRV gain up, especially for Machina, who has so many refunds in between hits (better than only raw BRV damage boosts because he relies on 2 hits + refund in between to fuel his HP dumps). You can put another Brv gain character and it would still work (Paine is pretty good :))
This party has quite a high amount of HP damage Up:
Y'shtola (40%) + Ace (20%) + Machina (30%) + Fran (30%) + Auron CA (5%) = 125%
The effect of this is very apparent when Machina's Spiral Lynchpin is a split attack but it hits more than his what his BRV shows on both targets. It also amplifies how fast his HP (burst) gains momentum to reach max damage. In this run, Cait Sith call accidentally ran out before his burst, but he was still doing 1.2 mil+ per HP attack inside his burst. Not sure what was the runtime for the entire fight, but I am quite certain he speed ran through it maybe under 8 minutes.
With really good characters like Paine and Machina out and the incoming lv90 with Ultima-weapon, a new era is not far so better get prepared.