DFFOO[JP] Shadow, Interceptor and Lenna C90 awakening
16I liked Shadow and I like him even more now.
Shadow:
Shadow after LD was already mad powerful with ignore defence on most of his skills other than S1 and Ex (Interceptor follow-ups and counters were already ignoring def). Now from his C85 his EX has more dumps and become ignore defence.
What the extensions and C88 or even Ultima Weapon have fixed:
Because of multiple sources of ignore defence, Shadow in theory was very good at relying less support than most characters even in the most dire 90/90 or high defence fight situations. The things that were hindering and needing support on the fact that he had very poor mBRV (very apparent even if you have used him in Divine Ifrit, every one craves mBRV in that stage), overflow and needing BRV dmg/HP dmg up support to deal full HP dmg, because he was unable to reach it just by his mere BRV hit counts.
His C85 has given him the BRV dmg/overflow he needed the most to be even more independent than before. He also got built-in self BRV gain up now so his in-between HP dump BRV refund actually works even in 90/90 stages without much external help. What's curious is the extension also makes the buff from Shadow Stealth (S1) gives him self HP dmg up by 20% and a Sazh LD effect of stolen BRV dmg up by 20%. That means he is getting more BRV than he is hitting, helping him in reaching the max HP dmg cap even more.
His recast rate is also slightly increased, so you would have a smoother and more consistent time hitting his EX, as he used to be a bit short from full recast sometimes due to his speed and consecutive turns.
His C65 was already a very integral part to his attack and dodge management cycle, his C88 makes it even so. He gets an additional 50% ATK up, overflow up and most importantly, 40% BRV dmg cap up, which happens to be one of the most useful things to help him catch the HP dmg cap. Since he needs to use his C65 for 100% dodge and he frequently has free skills whenever he dodges already, you can constantly pop this and maintain the cap consistently. Regardless, they gave him +1 use up to 4 for good measure. I would personally like it to be increased duration because of sudden turn rates pushing him forward, but it is also good to have spare uses just in case.
While his mBRV is still poor, since ultima weapon is introduced and drastically increases stats and he has a lot more overflow sources now, in a way this problem is mostly resolved.
I didn't pick Ramza to boost his insane consecutive turn damage here because I realized how great Shadow plays with Fang. Fang's 3 turn Daze also plays into Shadow's 3 consecutive turns attacks (2 if C88 is used on free skill, that leaves room for your 3rd member). Since most of his attacks are ST and he has a solo lock on BRV+, his play with Fang is highly customizable to your liking. You can let only one enemy go, stop the other, proc his dodge and continue whacking. In cases like this or the sharks from transcendence 8 where eliminating one first makes it easier, Shadow is very good at making it happen. Possibly have doubled in dmg/consistency when not using specific comps.
Lenna:
Lenna's upgrades are mostly in 3 areas: BRV dmg, gain and overflow.
Lenna S1 was improved to be 100% AoE HP dmg before, but unless you had really stellar BRV dmg support you would seldom use it outside of the opening sequence for dmg. Her BRV dmg was simply not there and you would opt for her LD-transformed HP attack.
Her C85 gave her a HUGE BRV dmg boost so that her S1/S2/EX are much more usable now even deep into the fight. You can still see her not hitting cap near the end in 90/90 reduction fights here, but she is definitely not hitting 1s anymore and you can still do a decent amount around 200K.
Much like other iBRV users, the scaling has been rather poor. The solutions devs have been handing out is to drastically increase the %. Her EX now gives around 200-300% iBRV party-wide battery in between HP dumps. You can see the dramatic battery to the party into launch with her EX around 07:40. It no longer feels like a drag to press the EX button just to refresh a buff. Obviously the fact that her C88 finally gives her party-wide BRV gain up helps with this battery, though it is only 10% so depending on who has built-in BRV gain up (you can see the difference between Shadow (has) and Fang (doesn't)) the results varies. Lenna also has self BRV gain up to make the battery the "refund" for her EX dmg.
The C85 also gives Lenna's EX buff a self 30% HP dmg up when there is no debuffs on her, which should be easy given the purpose of bringing her is for debuff prevention.
While I would say Lenna's most desirable attack is still the HP attack, her other attacks are much more usable for decent amount of dmg and she is much less reliant on spamming that HP attack button now. Though you may still want Ignis instead of her for speedy and consecutive turn characters like Shadows for debuff evasion, since hers is on a framed buff on the party.