DFFOO [JP][Jessie Event][alt run] The darkness is so thick that there is twice the Chaos
37It's Jack Garland, Garland action time.
Fun fact, they both have Soul of Chaos as one of their abilities and they both have attacks that use the 4 elements.
This fight is not very interesting, but since it is a rare 3 target piece and a great place for a delayer, given how long I haven't played with Garland (not Jack lol) for a long time since his C90 from waaay back, I wanted to use him in this one.
The team approach involving him went through 3 different iterations and finally settled on this one. The other two were shelved for different reasons:
1. Ramza/Jack Garland/Garland
This was the earliest rendition with the intent of using heroes from realms that has the least amount of representatives. Then I found Garland's involvement kinda low and the process was a bit boring.
At first I thought it may be interesting to make it into a series, but then I hesitated when I thought of the possibility of it leading to a long string of unending comments about who/why/how someone from series X is not here. Also it would end up just being those 5/6 characters being used lol.
2. Dorgann friend/Aranea (FR)/ Garland
This was actually the most budget, fun and technical out of the three, and they synergise well too. It did not come to pass because I wanted to change some CAs and I have never found another Dorgann friend ever since.
The intent was to break the 3 targets with a difference in time, so that when Dorgann comes along, Aranea's rebreak on one target would trigger his follow-up and break another one that has just recovered from break and trigger another follow-up. That way Dorgann would contribute to off-turn Aranea bonus. These two together is really something else especially against 3 targets.
Since Garland would always delay something, he would automatically satisfy Aranea's FR bonus requirements. On the other hand, Garland does not rebreak, so he cannot consistently trigger Dorgann's attack. However, Dorgann can reset breaks afterwards. His EX can also bring a designated party member to the front, so he can artificially create a break window for Garland as well. That way all three can delay and break things for proccing Aranea's FR and Dorgann's follow-up.
The test got to 900%+ bonus, and the bosses were almost dead before retrying. It was a missed opportunity.
This run:
Selphie - DKC friend/Jack Garland/Garland
The idea really was about Jack G really love yelling something about Chaos and darkness in Stranger of Paradise, so DKC and Garland are here to fulfil his wish.
The main role for Garland here is a (de)buffer/delayer. Selphie + Garland means bosses are always getting delayed when he hits them in the air. Garland's LD having SPD down also helps staving off the bosses indefinitely. This is also helpful when DKC comes in and drains every one's HP.
Garland may not have a lot of HP dumps, but his C90 kind of transformed him from a mainly ST debuff attacker into a oddly consistent AOE attacker, especially against 3 targets. Even without FE and UW, his EX/LD or even just S1 would almost always cap attacking 3 targets, as he is outputting either full AOE/splash dmg.
He may not have HP dmg cap up, but he is still a monster at providing BRV dmg and BRV dmg cap up. This relevance in current era is usually lower but in this fight and with Jack besides him it can be very useful. He is basically the main BRV dmg buffer and DEF down debuffer in this team. The extra high BRV dmg up can let you eat the BRV dmg penalty and use a magic user should you desire. The BRV dmg cap up helps hasten Jack's -BRV accumulation on 3 targets, not unlike using Prishe BT/LDCA, so within one or 2 HP dumps the targets would have reached maximum -BRV.
Compared to having Ramza, Jack's mBRV is obviously a bit lower. Through Cait's buff and Wakka CA however, he can still give every one in the team around 160K on the auxiliary HP dmg dump.
All in all, this is actually quite a good stage to bring Garland in for a ride and have a functional presence. FR boards are coming next, so better seize every opportunity to get some action for your favourites.
Lowkey expecting them to do something about the consecutive turn characters or even those with HP poison with FR boards. If there is a time to make a major change for a set of characters, this is probably it. Call it a hunch/copium but the long lack of consecutive turn attacker FR after Vayne feels really convenient.