DFFOO [JP][WoL IW] Big shiny sturdy shield with T-posing WoL/Garnet/Lyse
19Originally I cleared with Yang Garnet WoL, but I have to tone down my aggressiveness and use of friend unit with FR board because they destroyed the stage before anything happens to WoL's shield and his FR. In the 2nd iteration I had Lyse with Hope CA to see how long WoL's shield would last, and as we can see in this one it was overkill without lol. So I am showing this one with CAs that help with the split dmg output.
I did get WoL's BT along with his FR from his banner, but because of the event restructuring with everyone getting BT/FR at the same time starting later this month, I want to see if some of the favourites are among the first ones to get them. So I am holding back from BT+ him for now.
Apparently I refreshed Kurasame debuff and withheld Garnet's FR at the end just so Lyse get the EX+ finish. Never know I like being extra like that occasionally.
Boss: Garland + Vayne Manikin
Field Effect/Thresholds:
Power of Darkness at its limit
Just an ATK/DEF up aura for both of the bosses. It happens at QS and when they are below 50%.
The extra thresholds on Garland may simply be the generic "boss gets stronger reduction/stat boost" event.
Force Mechanics:
Player suffer from:
0%: SPD down
50%: Action delay Up
FA: Round Edge++ (break recovery, AOE BRV+HP) / Tree of Sephira
It delays every character hit by 1 turn and gives both bosses HP dmg up.
Vayne's version does the same thing but he never uses it unless Garland is dead I suppose (theory).
FT: 3T
Player character self-delay by 1 turn after action
Weakness: (dispel field effect)
FA that deals range BRV dmg and debuff target with "Lock" (BT phase exclusive)
Normal Behaviour:
Both of them have a 2 attack pattern if we are excluding normal HP attacks when they have too much BRV in their hands.
Everything Garland does outside of HP attack delays whoever gets hit.
"Soul of Chaos" (ST BRV) - "Round Edge" (AOE BRV+HP)
Everything Vayne does help him recover from breaks.
"Force of Will" (ST BRV) - "Mach Wave" (ST BRV+HP)
Force of Will has no action delay, meaning he will immediately spawn another turn. It is also a force break attack that debuffs the target with "HP dmg taken up".
General approach:
As per usual IW fights are generally really easy. This one does not have a lot of HP and mechanics to it. It mostly exists for story purposes I feel.
The one thing to take note of is the wombo combo of Vayne's consecutive turn breaks + Garland's delays (both ST+AOE). A character that taunted both of the bosses can easily get pushed back repeatedly. Without minding the turn order and some means of turn manipulation / turn rate moves, a character can very well not act for a long time. This can be quite detrimental to setting up FTs.
You can also use this combo against them. Off-turn dmg/FRs would love them actively attacking you especially if you let them go into FT and delay your characters further. Breaking them out of order can also buy you more time for them to proc your counter FR.
For WoL, the HP dmg up on them and dmg taken up on you has very negligible effect. BRV dmg up would be another story, since it can break the shield and thus your HP dmg nullification. You can let WoL's ribbon (debuff evasion) buff fall off without any problems in this fight.
In my Yang run, the bosses got to 70% after WoL BT phase when FT has not even started yet. He constantly breaks them, so the FT got to around only 750% before they died. It was still a lot of off-turn dmg just by him alone though so it is not bad to pair off-turn dmg dealers with WoL. Mine even only has the 50% cap up with his FR and missing the 20% from his BT+.
Garnet + Lyse + WoL:
Honestly this is not a bad combo. WoL himself with C88 already has a very sturdy shield. Garnet's BT giving him more iBRV makes it even better. Lyse giving extra reduction means his shield would be standing for much longer than his lock debuff on the enemies. If you put a Gabranth BT in there, his shield is not going anywhere.
Lyse's purification mechanic gives Garnet extra LD stacks and procs. You can also calibrate it so that it fires at a specific window for a burst of DPS during FT. Meanwhile Garnet and WoL having some turn rate moves would give Lyse more stacks, so she can get to EX+ very easily.
Observation:
There has been some fights throughout Shinryu era history that have some kind of field effect that can only be shut down via the use of a FA. Some of them even happen in the middle of the fight. Case in point: This fight, Machina IW, the recent DKC Transcendence that has wave specific field effects.
With the introduction of FR board however, we can now use an enhanced FA inside FT. As insignificant as the one in this fight, using WoL's FA a second time after 50% did resolve the second Power of Darkness effect. So in the future we may save a particular FA just to combat those nasty mid-fight field effects as opposed to starting another FT just to get rid of them and waste all of the prior %.