DFFOO [JP][Llyud LC] Llyud FR + Cor & Gladio first try, Spiritus Brother Debut
10LC bosses are bound to be easier and squishier. Since the bosses get more and more turns, it makes sense to use Gladio here, especially when they have a debuff attached to their spamming attacks.
Took the scenic route with no BT users and counter centric team and ultimately left Kain unused because Cor + Gladio already work well enough. Got Llyud FR from free pull, so I built his FL.
For your reference:
Llyud has UW+1, FL 20
Gladio has no FL whatsoever, might eventually give him some because he is so easy to slot into parties
I also specifically gave Gladio a party BRV gain sphere, because of his counters and BRV gain armor. His C88 also conveniently give 10% Party BRV gain, so it works really well as a off/on-turn battery.
Cor is at FL 30
Boss info:
Standard Shinryu reductions
Force Mechanics:
FG:
20%: They upgrade their normal "Demon eyes" attack to "Demon Eyes+", which now delays all targets by 1 turn
40/80%: Increases player action delay
As you can see, both the 20% and the 40/80% effects lead up to the situation where they get a lot more turns while you get less, so it heavily favours counter teamplays.
FA: Demon Eyes +4
A BRV+HP attack that inflicts "Cursed Eyes" debuff on all targets
FT: 3 turns
All allies take 300% less HP dmg from anything other than FR attacks
Weakness: (only stops the bosses' FR effects, does not cancel their FT)
Taking a FA that deals range BRV dmg that heals at the same time
(healing from passive/sphere/buffs does not count)
Since the weakness works like this, I found it best to just stall until Llyud has his turn and trigger the boss FT, use Llyud FT then waste the bosses' turns such that their FT effects never penalize your dmg.
Boss Mechanics:
Other than a ST HP attack, all of their attacks inflict a stackable (max 5) debuff "Cursed Eyes" onto whoever they successfully land their hits. They also periodically gain the ATK buff, so it is not really meaningful to dispel it.
The cursed eye debuff gains stacks and more negative effects as you get hit more while it is still on:
1: on turn BRV dmg taken
2: BRV dmg taken up
3: BRV dmg dealt down
4: SPD down
5: on turn HP dmg taken
Though if your party aura is so stacked, you can pretty much just ignore it. All 3 (Cor/Gladio/Llyud) contributes to HP regen and auras. The HP regen is so strong that it is actually hard to die to their AoE dmg spam and 5 stack HP dmg poison.
If you don't have strong periodic healing, you will have to watch out for the spams and threshold attacks for some burst healing, maybe even so cleanses.
Threshold events:
20/50/90%: Demon Eyes +3 (wherever +2 has gone to lmao)
It is still an AoE BRV+HP attack, but it automatically inflicts 5 stacks of "Cursed Eyes".
So beware when you are dealing a burst of dmg with FR and jumping thresholds, you will be taken the heavy HP drain from 5 stacks of Cursed Eyes as well as the Demon Eyes +? AoE HP attack spam consecutively. If you are not HP regening or have a tank or what not, time your heals so you don't die.
I would also make a remark that their attacks seem to have quite a noticeable chance to miss.
Debuff immunity also works, so that can be a strategy to mitigate some of these.
I would think that taking the tank & counter route is quite fitting and an easy way to counteract their mechanics, but since they are quite squishy, opting for the burst DPS route to kill them before they do anything is also a very viable option.
Llyud FR and rework:
Llyud's FR conditions have two parts:
1. turn passes when character has a stackable special effect - 40%
2. turn passes when character gets a HP heal at turn start (i.e. HP regen) - 20%
Condition 1's definition for "special effect" is actually quite broad. From silver frame buffs like Gladio's LD buff, to overhead icon stacks (not duration), to BT effect stacks like Garland/Bartz/Ardyn and Machina, they all count. It is quite similar to the Lufenia+ orb from Act 3 Chapter 7 part 1.
Unless I am missing something, as a synergy character Tifa actually does not fit this description lol.
Condition 2 is a guaranteed since Llyud's buff automatically give party HP regen. Other than you sabotaging this by bringing the party to something like the Zombie Whale fight in 6 Warrior Quest Area 2 where HP recovery = dmg, you can't really miss this.
So all in all as long as you pick a character that has a stackable buff somewhere, you are guaranteed to get a full 60% base bonus. His FR is the type that has a high floor but not so high of a ceiling, because you can't really get any additional off turn bonus% out of this.
For Llyud himself, his dmg pattern has become more AoE balanced. AoE BRV hits, and 100% AoE etc. He also gets one additional stack up to 3 stacks of EX buff (with EX ready, which is not new) at QS, so reaching his maximum potential gets faster and less LD use is required. Overall still a robust aura buffer with decent dmg.