Final Fantasy Hacktics

I think the quickest help for jaaster's archer might be ultimus bow sacrifice 1 wp but gain 1 pa + 1 range on the weapon. But that mediator evadiator made for a good counter for that berserked archer strategy which didn't allow jaaster get into an offensive position.

Yeah I would like to of had nurse (so the mimes can heal themselves too) in place of iron will. But the AI loves to use nurse right off the bat even on medium/small maps where I'd rather have the paladin get to the liching and get as many liches going ASAP. Iron will at least allows him to reapply protect/shell after a revive, but then the mimes have wall... I could try transfusion on the team see how that works. Concentrate is so m-evade isn't an issue from liches coming from the mimes, I'll give the pray faith scene a try or maybe talk skill/preach.

I think Argy's geomancer probably should just have masamune over kiyo, I probably would have lost if that geomancer kept the damage flowing. GG Argy

i am almost at the point of giving up at this rate... no matter what ideas i come up with i always draw the short straw in this patch. GG silentkaster. i gotta figure out what the hell is wrong with me.

Speed advantage is pretty big here. I was able to win thanks to some nice procs and lucky hits at the right time.

I think a lot of people felt similar the first time they entered Arena. My first team had a lot of errors and mistakes that I thought were good at the time and turned out not to be. Looking over your units, they all look decent, but I would say there are some mistakes holding you back. For example, your Bard is 40 faith and has Summon Magic. It's kinda cool to go with an Equip Magegear bard for the book, but why not go full out summoner if you want to go that route? Then you can have the book for free, Magic Attack Up or Short Charge, and definitely 70 faith? You could make a 70/70 unit even with MP switch so when she runs out of MP, she can switch to the book attacks. The mime can't do enough damage with 40 brave, unfortunately even with PA save and when he Mimics the Summon Magic, he does very little.

Also, bahamut is a really tough spell to use because it has nothing besides non elemental damage going for it. I know you love it and it can be used well, but it's evadable, slow and easily mid-charged. I would try looking at different spells in that skill set that might aid you better like Salamander, Silf or others. These are quicker and provide status which gives you more bang for your buck.

Don't give up. We like seeing your ideas and input...very valuable.

While i understand its kinda strange for me to be using a bard with a book i was coming with the idea that he is not meant to be the damage dealer of the team. I wanted the Squire to secure that role. as such i never made the bard have that high fury faith because i wanted him to be safe and secure. in hindsight i should increase his faith to 70 to bolster his abilities. the reason he is a bard is because of the songs. I personally wanted him to boost the team up with the songs he has i put onto him. the summon magic was more as an afterthought. The mime is on the team to try and increase the effects of the songs a bit more or to cover what the bard doesn't hit with them. The mime definitely however should be 70 Fury. he is simply not doing enough for me to like and i will side with everyone when they say that. hindsight is 20/20.

The biggest issue... is i kinda feel helpless against any team that has a stupidly high speed stat. it kinda makes me feel why should i bother creating any other team if speed is the only thing that seems to matter 90% of the time. and its kinda frustrating as it feels limiting and i kinda feel obligated to build teams that literally are nothing but speed just so i can win... and i kinda would feel it as a bit of a shallow win personally. I always loved trying to find a way to think outside of a box and come at a problem in a way that is different. its just kinda... feeling like my ideas are going nowhere is all.

Another key thing that is getting to me... is the fact that i have not once won a match in this patch. it almost feels like the luck is so bad for me i just end up getting paired with teams that just happen to counter perfectly. last season at least i won 30ish % of my games. i am currently on a 7 match loss streak. its kinda discouraging and technically its not anyones fault. its more the fact the dice are not rolling in my favor.

Edit: i just looked through my team i had up just now... and realized... WHY THE HELL WAS MY BARD AT 70 FURY?! no wonder he took so much damage. *palm to face* at least now the team is a bit more proper... i may have to figure out a zodiac synergy with them as well. Serpentarius has always given me problems.

Actually, your Bard at 70 Fury synergized well with his Monster Dict... he got off a couple 200s throughout the match.  I feel that if he focused on book shots, he could have put enough pressure on silentkaster's team to force them into defensive action, opening a window of opportunity for your squire to run on in and start smashing faces.

I feel that your main problem is that every single one of your teams uses Bahamut.  While it can work sometimes (your triple mime team), other times it just doesn't work (this team you just had a match with, even if the Bard had 70 Faith).

Currently, Bahamut is rather underwhelming, and will probably receive a buff in the next version of Arena (140b).  Until then, why don't you try making a few teams that don't have Bahamut?  Maybe this will improve your W:L ratio!

Don't give up,

- Andrew

P.S. If you *really* want to stick with Bahamut, you would benefit from making your Bahamut user dedicated to spamming Bahamut.  High MP (or average if you have good MP restoration), decent MA, Short Charge, high Faith, maybe even Piety to push out some extra damage.  An alternate route would be using Equip Lightgear for Hidden Knife, which would make Bahamut unavoidable.  Just some thoughts.

The issue here is that Bahamut has a lot of issues that prevent you from just sticking it on any team and being successful. Bahamut is counter productive on most of the teams it's on which means that you're in a 3.5 vs 4 the entire match.

In contrast, if you said to me, "You can have the ability 'Steal Heart' on any one unit on any team for free, regardless of skillsets," you'd probably see me put it on 90%+ of my teams. This is because the ability can turn around an entire match if you're on the defensive, and despite its low accuracy, when it does hit, it at minimum wastes a turn on the other side and could be much worse to the opposing team.

If you said to me, "You can have the ability 'Masamune' on any one unit on any team for free, regardless of skillsets," you'd see me run it very often still, maybe 80% of the time, but not on every team. Most of the time, Masamune is a good skill that allows me to get my units out of critical if they run off and regen/haste is a powerful combo. However, it doesn't mean that I want it on all my teams. This keeps the AI back on the first couple of turns on big and medium maps and might screw up my turn order a bit. So I might want them to advance on the first turns together where Haste 2 would be more appropriate.

If you said to me, "You can have the ability 'Bahamut' on any one unit on any team for free, regardless of skillsets," you'd see me put it on probably 5% or less of my teams. This is because the ability requires all of the following.

1. You must build a unit with 70 faith for it to be effective. (I know you might argue that point since you built a 40 faith bard with it but hear me out as you read the next points.)

2. You must build a unit to stack MA for it to have much affect, and this sacrifices other, perhaps more useful, stats or status protections.

3. Bahamut is really slow and since you (probably) built your unit for MA, you can easily get midcharged by many abilities.

4. Bahamut is evadable and so even if you successfully get a Magic Attack UP Bahamut off, it might be for nothing against certain units.

5. The payoff is damage only, which means no disruption will happen other than damage. If you're not doing enough damage, then your opponent will shrug it off and continue their assault.

Don't get me wrong...it doesn't mean that a very strong, competitive team with Bahamut can't be built. It can. Take Rouroni Elmdor's Season 4 team. All the units were 8 speed if I recall correctly, too (or no higher than 9 anyway.) It was very strong and spanked my team and quite a few other good tournament teams in the early rounds. But it involved two mimes and two heavily built Samurai that focused on doing as much damage in the early stages as possible.

That's the overall problem with this skill. Unlike Steal Heart or Masamune, Bahamut isn't versatile enough to just have on every team. It's a skill where it takes careful building and planning around that skill. And if you want all your competitive teams to have Bahamut, then it means that most of your teams will look very similar since there are only very few limited ways to use that skill well.

Going back to Rouroni Elmdor, another team he had, I believe "The Raven King" (and if I got the wrong name, I apologize) was either undefeated or had a very very high win rate. But this team focused on two thieves that disrupted and acted as distractions while another two units picked off units and supported them. This was a test team that I used because it was so good, but it didn't have Bahamut.

So my thought is to focus on other skills and maybe only have one or two of your teams use Bahamut. I'm really just writing this to help you because you sound frustrated and tired of losing and I completely empathize and understand. But you have to also realize that Bahamut is not just not helping your teams, but it's really holding you back.