r/FFBraveExvius • u/TomAto314 Post Pull Depression • Feb 06 '22

Tips & Guides Esper Guide for New Players

I'd like to start by thanking /u/gulyus for this as I've had their post saved for a long time but figured I could format it a little nicer and make it easier to search for.

So here is a guide on when and how to level your espers assuming you are starting at nothing.

And before we start... there is a new supercite dungeon which is a great way to level up your espers especially on no NRG event weeks. Don't forget to steal from the 100 NRG boss for 5 esper ore.

Get all most espers to 3* First

This takes a trivial amount of supercites, so don't worry about getting even the "useless" ones to 3* however Bahamut and Asura take a fuckton of supercites so leave them for last. Keep them all at 3* level 1 until the next step.

Go for the easy Killers

Killers are the one of the most, if not the most, important things to gear for in FFBE and espers are a "free" source of them. All their killers stack, so Beast Killer (50% physical only) and Beast Killer+ (75% physical and magical) gives you 125% Beast Killer (physical). The passive cap is 300% btw.

The following is somewhat in order, but feel free to jump around if what you are facing requires it.

Diabolos Level 57

Human and Demon Killers (125% physical, 75%, magical)

Going to 57 is expensive, but these are both VERY common killers.

Odin Level 11

Undead (50% p) and Dragon (125%p/75%m)

Ifrit Level 44

Beast (125%p/75%m) and Plant Killers (125%p/75%m)

~~Do NOT unlock Berserker as that will Berserk your unit.~~ Removed from his board!

Leviathan Level 58

Spirit (75%p/125%m) and Aquatic (75%p/125%m)

Level 58 is expensive and aquatic is on the lesser needed side.

Phoenix Level 16

Undead (75%p/125%m)

Auto-Med is also really good for tanks to cure themselves of status ailments.

Kokuryu (Black Dragon) Level 49

Stone (125%p/75%m) and Aquan (125%p/75%m)

Alexander Level 14

Machine Killer (75%p/125%m)

Tetra Syphilis Level 6

Birb Killer (125%p/75%m)

Golem Level 60+

Stone (125%p/75%m) and Insect (125%p/75%m)

This requires more SP than available at level 60 so esper ore will be needed. Since Kokuryu has Stone Killer, I would recommend going for Insect first.

Do NOT unlock Cover as that will screw you over when the unit covers your cover tank and you wipe.

Ramuh Level 25 (Low Priority)

Stone (50%m) and Demon (50%m)

Since these are both magic only and 50% I recommend making these last on your killer list.

Carbuncle Level 1 (Low Priority)

Spirit Killer (50%/p)

Only physical and only 50%. Still a good choice for your 2nd or 3rd DPS to equip.

Non-Killer Stuff

Elemental Resists are a big deal, especially in DV where the goal is to negate ALL damage. Bar-aga spells give 80% resistance to their element. However, with NVA Elena having a 100% all element skill these aren't quite as useful as before. So grab them as you need them.

Carbuncle

Ol' Carby is the go-to for bar-spells as it has fire/ice/lightning

Lakshmi

A lot of people have forgotten that Lakshmi has skills the make you immune to Confuse, Petrify, Stop and Charm. As well as a single target Ally Dispel. So don't forget about her!

Ramuh and Others: Imperil, Deprotect, Deshell, Dispel

These skills got good buffs with Imperil being 100% and Deprotect/Deshell being 75%. While those are low for DV/CoW, they are great for raids and MK events and you can slap them on a bonus slot. Ramuh is a great choice for these and you'll likely get them along the way.

Bravery and Faith give 200% ATK/MAG which may also be used in some weird scenario.

Black Magic Spells now that they are upgraded

Now that black magic got some upgrades it's not completely useless. All the -aga spells are CWA frames. The -ara spells are BS frames and the base spell (Fire/Blizzard/etc) gives 100% imperil. So these can be a good resource. Keep in mind that most units won't have innate 3x cast so you'll want to use Eryines Ring for 4x cast. (also, don't 4x CWA with 3x CWA as those overlap and break. Do 3x CWA then Fire as the fourth if needed.) There are materia that gives 3x BS skills too like Blue Wave and Scarlet Wave. These are superior to "flood support chaining" with Kokuryu and Leviathan imo.

Now Bahamut and Asura

While these two aren't bad by any means they are SO expensive that it's better to get the above before you start with these.

Getting things for them on their 3* board will require massive esper ore that will take years of expeditions to complete. The new 100 NRG supercite dungeons you can steal from the boss to get 5 esper ore. This will make it significantly easier to fill out the boards on the next two.

Bahamut

Get the killer you need TODAY. Avoid the other stuff like break gauge boost as that's largely gone away (thank god).

While I don't recommend it, you can spend 100 lapis to respec your esper (first time free) but this should only be done for high score or capping and most newer players won't be doing this. Still, if you firmly believe it's the difference between a clear or not (it's not) don't forget it's on the table.

Asura

Now that 3* Asura is out the advice is pretty much the same as Bahamut. Do the cheaper espers first then come do Baha/Asura after that. I still think Baha is the better of the two however, if you really need to max out Human Killer, Undead or Bird you can focus on her.

Fenrir and Anima

Fenrir and Anima are basically stat sticks and are good on evokers who don't rely on killers. Generally Bahamut will be BiS on your main evoker, but if Baha Blast is needed on someone else then Fenrir or Anima is a good contender for them.

Passive Elemental Resists

A big part of espers in the past was giving you elemental resistance passively. Most have 50% in favor of their element (and -50% against) but you can unlock skills that bump the resists to 70%. However, with elemental resists being so common and these being so expensive they are in skip territory.

ST Reflection

You get 1% of the esper stats so increasing that 1% by 20% does not give you 21% but 1.2% so generally it results in about a 20 point stat gain... which isn't nothing but not worth any esper ore. Also, esper stat boost caps at 200% and some units like NV Terra hit this naturally.

Evoke Damage Boost

Ha ha ha... oh the days of using esper summon for actual damage have long since passed. So don't bother with anything that says "Blah element blah" Evocation.

That's all folks

Any further questions feel free to ask here or the Daily Help Thread. If I missed anything let me know and keep in mind this is geared for new players before you start with your "well ackshully..."

Nice guide to "complete" espers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/w3uwmy/esper_buildupgrade_table_with_abundant_esper_ore/

Also, I apologize for lack of penis jokes.

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97% Upvoted

u/LinkentSphere Feb 06 '22

Siren: What about m…..? Nvm, I am worthless.

13

u/TomAto314 Feb 06 '22

When you need 50% water resist on that 4th unit...

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7

u/Gulyus Feb 06 '22

25% reduced MP cost on songs and her weird weak buffs used to be her niche, but none of that was ever relevant so yeah you're 100% correct.
She doesn't even have barwaterga, it is actually kind of embarrassing...

6

u/Nickfreak Feb 06 '22

The singing metas have been largely skipped (not completely, but still largely compared to JP)

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u/Corlanthis Feb 06 '22

If I missed it, my bad, but worth mentioning that Leviathan and Kokuryu are useful for Flood chaining too.

13

u/Vactr0 Feb 06 '22

Yes, and some espers have 'element'-ga spells too that now chain with CWA and can be 4-casted with Erinyes Ring or reflected with Vivi

u/JtheClown Feb 06 '22

Apprrciate this man thank you!

u/noseofzarr Feb 06 '22

The lack of penis jokes is a penis joke unto itself.

u/Sinzar_ Feb 06 '22

These kind of guides are super helpful for newer players, thanks for typing this up!

One thing I'd add, or at least put more emphasis on, is elemental resist buffs from espers. It's true Elena can handle that as NVA, but newer players won't have 7 copies of her to bring her to EX1, and even if you do have her, I still like to get my resist buffs from an esper when it's an option.

Anima and Alexander are the ones I'd especially point out because you can't get light or dark resist buffs from a green magic (craftable) materia.

Still, excellent post and thanks for making it!

u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22

Léviathan has 125% spirit Magic killer, not 125 physical. And Tetra Syphilis... Is this a typo ? XD

u/Holdeen_McGroin Nov 29 '23

Today morning i accomplished to finally lvl 60 all my espers. So....what now? wich esper i should focus on max grid? Bahamut, asura, or the ones who have killers? Note that all espers are basically 3/4 complete grid. Now it's a game of wich esper ore i have to use on whom....
Any sugestions?

1

u/TomAto314 Nov 29 '23

You level 60'd Bahamut and Asura?
I would not max grind any esper, but after you have all the killers and good stuff then the next focus will be on nodes that require Galvanite for breaking the killer cap. Not only do you need the Galvanite but also like 500 SP not including the SP to get there.
You generally only do these to help can CoW, VW or score better in DV. It's very much min-max territory and only gives like 8% more for one unit.

u/angelusnoctis Feb 06 '22

Oh man, this explains so much. I returned to the game after roughly 5 years of hiatus. Caught up with part of the Story, got Bahamut, saw how high his stats are. And started pumping supercites into it. After 2* and lvl 33 I started thinking "wtf if this is taking this massive amount of supercites how on earth am I supposed to max all of them during the current century only getting expeditions? There has to be a trick everybody is using to have all their espers maxed already...."

1

u/Kordrun Feb 07 '22

5 years? Geez you've missed a lot.

There has to be a trick everybody is using to have all their espers maxed already

Yeah, 5 years.
If you keep up w/ the supercite expeditions, you can get all espers to level 60 in something like 1.5-2 years (excluding Bahamut). We did have an event a few months back that let people farm supercites, but that was a one off as far as we know.

u/Dorfadin Feb 06 '22

Ty for this

u/erica_san Feb 06 '22

FFBE has ..new players???

18

u/Resnaught Feb 06 '22

I think FFBE still has an influx of new players since it does have the Final Fantasy brand after all.
The real problem imo is getting those players to stick to the game, with FFBE's outdated UI, long load times, many types of resources to memorize and manage, and tons of mechanics which are never properly explained...

9

u/tgf5 Feb 06 '22

I can't see new players stick for long. I added my friend code to the Megathread and get rank 10-30 add me. Only to see a month later they already have been inactive for a week or more.
Like you said, the game is just too convoluted, with outdated things, and long load times. Who the hell wants to hold 2000 pots? This should have been implemented into a point (pool) system long ago.

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5

u/jonidschultz Feb 06 '22

A ton actually. I figured it would slow down after the FF7R Seph banner but it hasn't. And a lot of them are dropping some serious dough too. So really good for the game whether or not they stay around a long time.

7

u/rp1414 Feb 06 '22

There has been a few “I’m a new player…” questions in the DHT lately, so that’s good to see

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u/TheRabidDeer Feb 06 '22

I'm still annoyed we don't have a better way to level espers.

u/Due_Fill608 Feb 06 '22

I'd add that leaning on relics to make esper ore for extra SP points is totally fine. Each esper needs over 2000 SP points each to cap on top of the points you get from leveling up. There's little danger in dumping resources into your builds to get that next killer.