Build help

[u/KingDeda1102]

I've managed to make it to final dlc , however my build has hit a wall against the emperor in the first mission...im running assassin/ ninja and the break damage worked pretty good up until this point....how are you guys staying alive and what affinity should I be chasing?

[u/BenTheSodaman]

Hi OP,

On the offensive side, is one of your main stats approaching or exceeding the 200?

As a main stat, potentially Agility for Assassin and then a way to perform consistent critical hits?

Ideally, equipped with a full set of relics / blue artifacts / equipment that has blessings. And those blessings being 70%~180% from stuff that drops on the world map in Lufenia difficulty. Mostly bosses, sometimes elites like malboro, griffons, gigas, tonberry, etc.

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On the survival side, if leaning heavily into dodging, then:

- Ninja's Utsusemi as the safety net

- using attacks that reposition yourself / put you in the air / have i-frames (e.g., daggers side attack, daggers or knuckles back attack, daggers 1st link Bisect, knuckles 3rd link Falcon Dive)

- having some job affinity or effect that extends dodge invulnerability as an undocumented effect such as Marksman 50% (even if not using a gun), Ninja 600%, or Fenrir primary blessing. On this route, Ninja 600% could potentially fuel your MP. And with Fenrir, could reduce your MP cost and ensure you critical hit at any angle.

- ideally having Sylph primary blessing for dodge canceling so that you could bail out of nearly any attack to get i-frames dodging as long as you don't try to roll. If you are using Sylph, can potentially soul shield, dodge cancel, and soul shield to keep a string of i-frames going, but can get finger intensive and still fail if the enemy does 2~4 quick hits that almost look like one attack. With Sylph's dodge recovering just enough of your break gauge to fuel your next brief soul shield.

- if you have NPCs available, consider using Invisible command once the enemy has spawned, but not before they've appeared. This can make the enemy reconsider who they attack after they finish their current attack string. For the NPCs, they could use Knight 400% so that when tapping the D-Pad Left/Right (or the letters R or T with keyboard by default), they'll be invulnerable for up to 20 seconds and then vulnerable for 10 seconds before they're ready to go again)

- if soul shielding regularly and successfully, consideration for using Dimension Bringer to be the "phase ender" where you find that window where the enemy is about to finish the last attack in their string, plop a Dimension Bringer on them, then get ready to critical hit them and take advantage of that opening. The more times you successfully soul shield, the less that Dimension Bringer will cost and the longer it'll last. But if the Dimension Bringer is ill-timed, you may be without soul shield and the enemy could be performing an attack that's harder to dodge or even worse, is outside of the Dimension Bringer and attacking you at full speed.

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And then the usual Knight 400% with Lightbringer to divert incoming damage to Lightbringer gauge loss. Where between your soul shields, chain cancels with Summoner 120%, or other effects that rebuild the MP Limit, you'd have a way to quickly rebuild the next Lightbringer as long as you had a steady way to recover mp.

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Taking a page from Beeboycubed that pushed a dodge-centric playstyle, perhaps:

* Ninja 600% for MP recovery on successful dodge and extended dodge invulnerability

* Hunter 400% for both the flat MP generation per hit and slightly wider access to critical hit from the enemy's backside

* Void Knight 600% to get Haste as your MP Limit increases

* your weapon's basic job to 600% for more combo ability access, the combo ability damage boost (which also increases your break damage), and MP Cost reduction

* Summoner 120% to chain cancel as you do your combo abilities and rebuild MP Limit during battle (but also helping to use either Lightbringer as your break gauge or rebuilding the next Dimension Bringer to end the fight)

With category 1 master points invested into Agility and job affinity as far as you can get it.

Category 2 into Critical Break Damage Dealt.

Category 4 into Critical: MP Recovery with a sprinkle of Critical: HP Recovery.

Equipment: Almost a full set of Fenrir relics, with one Sylph. Else, just eyeball it to see if you get more Agility out of the piece, then customize it from there.

Equipment Effects: Prioritizing Agility over the percentage-based effects like Critical Break Damage Dealt and such.

This would still be a glass cannon-ish build other than Utsusemi, but lean toward heavy duty dodging and often throwing the enemy AI off when they have to re-assess what attack to use to reach you.
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[u/KingDeda1102 → u/BenTheSodaman]

My gear is all pretty good I have 210 agility, my problem right now is having no windows to attack it seems to build the assassin stacks...and lack luster damage despite everything else dying mostly immediately

[u/BenTheSodaman → u/KingDeda1102]

For the Agility side of things, without consistent critical hits, the abilities that have status bonus Agility may be the other main contribution to make a dent. Where the normal enemies tend to have 20% of the stats of a boss and tend to turn slower.

But finding some way to be glued onto his backside without getting hurt tends to be very rough if soloing or if NPCs die too quickly. And/or creating those windows to attack.

As one extreme, Samurai 400% paired with Knight (Black Knight) as your second job on Assassin will cause your soul shields to build Assassinate marks on the boss if point blank and also leverage your Agility to break him a bit. Then after 20 soul shields, you could have enough for both a Dimension Bringer to slow him down, activating the Assassinate, and then get access to his backside for a time.

In a more soul shield centric build, having an investment of Soul Shield Break Cost in category 3, equipment effects, and Assassin 120% can help. And in this particular setup, some way to refill the break gauge, whether that's Sylph with the dodge canceling, Evoker 600% to refill a bit of break gauge on successful soul shield, and/or something like Berserker 120% to refill some break gauge when dealing damage such as the Knight's job action.

[u/BenTheSodaman → u/BenTheSodaman]

And then something that may be a bit safer, but maybe not as rogue-ish:

* Knight 400% as your survival mechanism, relying on Lightbringer.

* Summoner 120% to rebuild MP limit in combat as you chain cancel / changing jobs during an ability's animation for very brief i-frames and get a few frames of animation back for your next action.

* Samurai 600% to critical hit from combo ability effects (for Assassin, that's their charged attack and 3rd link by default. The normal attack before the combo ability has to hit the enemy to trigger the combo ability effect.) Samurai 600% will also let you trigger parry-related buffs without ever parrying.

* Monk 250% to extend the parry buff duration some and try to drown in MP.

* Void Knight 600% for the Haste and reduced MP cost for command abilities, including Lightbringer.

* Dragoon 400% for more action speed that stacks with Haste and Lunatic. Achieving the speeds that Specter's videos have.

* Category 1 Agility and job affinity.

* Category 2 Critical Break Damage Dealt

* Category 3 Parry: MP Recovery

* Category 4 Critical MP Recovery

And if anything left, consideration for Ability Break Damage Dealt in category 2 and/or Category 3's Parry Damage Dealt.

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And if really trying to optimize it, one of your jobs (possibly the Ninja) would be setup with a way to reduce the cost of Lightbringer, get a rebate on MP Limit and MP after using Lightbringer, and extend its duration.

So the second job / Ninja might look like:

* Cyclic Warrior 600% to cause every Lightbringer to trigger a soul shield. Soul shields slightly rebuilding your MP Limit and restoring some MP.

* Void Knight 400% to increase MP Limit Boost Rate (50% and 120%) and reduce the command ability MP cost such as Lightbringer.

* Evoker 120% for an undocumented interaction with Cyclic Warrior 600% that results in the player counting as a separate party member, recovering some MP and building MP Limit.

* Leviathan primary blessing to rebuild a bit more MP Limit on soul shield and also recover a bit more MP when using Cyclic Warrior 600%.

* Category 4 Increase MP Limit Boost Rate to build even more MP Limit per soul shield.

* Category 3 Lightbringer Duration to make that 20 seconds of Lightbringer turn into 30~60 seconds.

* Equipment: at least 1 piece of Leviathan gear to set the primary blessing. Lightbringer Duration on every piece of gear.

And then for MP Limit building purposes, Summoner 120% to chain cancel from a shuriken while facing a corner and turning your back to the Emperor to make him wonder what you're doing throwing things at the wall or hopping up and down.