Key thing to squad building is to cover as many buffs as possible. It is OK if buffs clash (and frankly unavoidable in this era), just keep in mind you should adjust your swiping order so you overwrite the weaker buff. I've bolded + italicized the absolute must have buffs/roles/skills needed in the squad, mainly applicable to general questing, trials, raid, and strategy zone in general, especially in the latter where your aim is to make 2-3 functional squads. But, like I said earlier, the best thing you can do is find a guide to see which units you should bring, as some trials have some gimmicks you need to plan a countermeasure for (ex. Taunt is super useful in Xie'Jing SZ but hardly useful in general). I'll mention if a particular buff is useful for Frontier Hunter (FH) or Arena/Colosseum.
Mandatory Buffs
Mitigation - Absolutely the most crucial buff. Ideally go for units that have 2 turn mitigation. Some units also offer DoT (damage over turn) mitigation, and specific elemental damage mitigation; however I wouldn't go out of my way to slot those in as DoT mitigation is super niche, and elemental damage mitigation is impotent (like +2.5% or less mitigation generally). In more difficult content, units who have at least 75% mitigation on UBB are necessary (ex. Krantz, Agress, Shion, Cardes, Ark). Mitigation from UBB (as well as elemental damage mitigation) will stack multiplicatively with other mitigation. Non-UBB mitigation, such as BB/SBB, LS, spheres, ES, SP, generally stack additively with the exception of conditional mitigation (more on that later) which doesn't stack with other conditional mitigation. Mitigation, however, is pointless for Frontier Hunter and somewhat useful in Colosseum.
Burst Heal - You will always need healing support, and burst heal (X amount + Y% of REC) is often the most reliable means to keep your units healthy. There is also HoT (Heal over Turn), which over its duration is more potent than burst heal, but burst heal is more reliable because it can fill you up in one turn. There are alternatives such as heal on spark, heal while doing damage, HP absorption (via doing damage or taking damage), and HC (heart crystal) drop rate up or efficacy increase. Again, these work just fine for the most part, but are less potent or less reliable in certain situations so don't go out of your way to slot them. Burst heal can be useful in Frontier Hunter if doing "guard frontier".
BB on hit - On the other side of support is brave burst support. Whenever your unit gets hit, some of your BB gauge will be filled up - sometimes this is the only reliable way to maintain BB in BC starved content. Extremely important for defensive squads in Colosseum to get that BB counterattack, but largely pointless for Frontier Hunter.
BB on spark - You basically fill your BB gauge by some small amount every time your unit sparks. Between this and BB on hit you can maintain all units' BBs relatively easily. This is a particularly potent buff coupled with units that are "spark blankets"; these are units with many hits on BB/SBB with 3 (ideal) or 2 frame hit distributions (ex. Felice, Feeva (SP), Elza (SP), Lucius). Important in Frontier Hunter if you're not doing "guard frontier."
Status cleanse - More often than not you have to deal with pesky status ailments. Make sure to bring a unit who is immune to status ailments either through EX, sphere, or SP (ideal) to deal with these. Ailment negation is useful too, but its useless if your unit already has a status ailment; if you have to pick between the two for a slot, always, always go with cleanse. The only case where negation is crucial is Colosseum or Arena - always negate ailments via SP/EX/Sphere. Can be useful in Frontier Hunter if doing guard frontier.
DEF boost - Make your units as bulky as possible. High DEF can reduce incoming damage quite a bit, except when there is DEF ignore or fixed damage. But increased DEF doesn't only increase survivability, it can also increase your attack power via DEF to ATK conversion. The most slot efficient thing to do is get a unit that offers a tristat boost (ATK, DEF, & REC) in one BB/SBB (ex. Shion, Blaze, Silvie, Sirius, Feeva). Kinda pointless for Frontier Hunter, somewhat useful in Colosseum.
Honestly you can get away with just these buffs/roles in your squad most of the time (except for Frontier Hunter), but here are some other buffs that are important but not totally necessary (descending order of importance - IMO).
Important (but not mandatory) Buffs
ATK to DEF conversion - You can bulk up your units even more by converting stats (either HP, ATK, or REC) to DEF, though generally ATK to DEF is the most potent. Of course this necessitates that you have an ATK boost buffer to maximize its potency. Try to get a unit that offers this on their BB, as you are likely to fill this up easier than SBB (ex. Melord, Beiorg, Cardes (SP)).
A note on conversions in general: They apply AFTER stat boosts, so feel free to use boosts and converts in any order. Ex. 80% ATK to DEF w/ 170% boost to ATK means that 80% x (1 + 170%) of your ATK will be converted to DEF! They are only added once though, so its not like you can keep converting your stat each turn to the cap. In addition, you cannot stack conversions from different stats unless one source is from BB and the other UBB. Ex. ATK -> DEF from BB/SBB does NOT stack with say HP -> DEF from BB/SBB, but they would if either is from UBB.
ATK boost - Important in increasing damage and for conversion reasons. Again, most efficient to have a tristat buffer. Also keep in mind ATK boosts are generally pointless for HP-scaled BB/SBBs since those reach the attack cap (99999, 130K, or 150K) very easily. Important in Frontier Hunter.
BB ATK boost - Important to keep your damage as high as possible. Once again though, its not totally necessary for HP-scaled BB/SBB units for the same reason as above. Important in Frontier Hunter.
HoT - I've mentioned this already, but it is particularly important against enemies who inflict DoT as a means to replenish lost HP. Pointless for Frontier Hunter, annoying in Colosseum all those Healer's Lament Ilms can go die in a fireif fire did anything to them.
Spark damage boost - Another buff to keep your damage high, especially potent when combined with spark blanket units, or when duplicate units are used to spark with one another. Absolutely necessary in Frontier Hunter.
EWD (elemental weakness damage) negation - This is a very potent buff when your enemy is strong against a specific element in your squad, and sometimes downright crucial to have in certain trials/SZ (looks at my Shion during Maxwell SZ). It can reduce damage the would otherwise be taken by a third if your unit's element is weaker than the enemy's. Note that this does nothing if the enemy buffs its attack with the stronger element IIRC (would like some confirmation on this).
Critical/Crit damage negation - Similar to above but for crits. There are some instances where an enemy becomes particularly nasty because of criticals; this buff takes the danger out of that situation. Generally most units that have EWD negation also have Crit negation as a default or through SP, so thats good for your slot efficiency.
Add elements to attack - Another very useful damage boosting buff, that increases your damage by usually at least 50% (or can double your damage if the target's element was originally stronger). Absolutely necessary in Frontier Hunter to maximize your damage. Just be careful as some trials have gimmicks that negate certain elemental damage, or require certain elemental damage (ex. Lucius SZ), or can just generally screw you if you have a particular elemental damage (ex. Cardes SZ).
Crit rate boost - In harder content the bosses are crit damage resistant, but its still a potent damage boosting buff especially in content like guild raid and FH, and if the enemy isn't critical resistant you can increase your damage output by at least 50%-60%. For raids however, I would avoid slotting a unit for this buff because you usually want to focus on a particular part of the raid boss and a critical can screw you over. You will cap at 70% critical rate (10% base + 60% from buffs), but it doesn't hurt to have a more than 60% worth or rate boosts if you can afford it, as some enemies are resistant to the rate itself. Absolutely necessary in Frontier Hunter.
Critical damage boost - Useless without the crit rate, so make sure you have a crit rate buffer if you slot a unit for crit damage. Most critical buffers come with both so thats good. Absolutely necessary in Frontier Hunter.
Angel Idol/AI - Can save your ass, in particular the UBB ones (ex. Holia, Gabriela, Silvie) as these can't buff wiped. Obviously useless in Frontier Hunter, but crucial in Colosseum and Arena on SP or EX. Try to have at least one AI UBB unit for difficult trials and SZ. AI on EX or SP can also be used as a means of safe escape during raids without the use of smoke bombs, provided you flee before the AI is triggered as to avoid losing it to a buff-wipe (great against Raid X5: Kielazar and Raid X6: Zael!)
Ailment/Debuff infliction - Generally not that important as most difficult content is totally resistant, but is sometimes crucial for certain content where you need to inflict some ailment to the enemy to make the battle less painful. Also has its uses in Arena and Colosseum, though in the latter, most are immune to ailments. In this era, some units also offer a damage boost to ailment inflicted units, which works exactly like an ATK buff and contributes towards the ATK cap. More useful would be ATK down infliction, which can potentially drastically decrease damage taken - if not ailments, try to have a unit that reduces ATK if possible. DEF down is completely useless.
And that about covers it for buffs you should focus on for general content, and you should be able to easily craft a team that covers all of the above. Some other buffs that might be useful but I personally don't go out of my way to slot when making a team are (again in descending order of importance):
Useful (but not that important) Buffs
EWD boost - Another damage boosting buff that works well with mono squads. Extremely potent in FH and GR, and I would argue that its necessary in the latter, and important in FH with the right squads. Note that it only works if the unit's element is naturally stronger than the target's.
Overdrive/OD gauge fill - Flat % fills are way more potent than fill rate buffs. Honestly this is either a very important buff or near-useless buff depending on the situation - some trials require multiple UBBs to be used before a certain point (ex. Lucius SZ). Works great if you want to spam UBB, so if you are planning to build a UBB spam squad this is absolutely necessary. But other than that, its nice to have but I wouldn't go out of my way to slot it in general.
Burst BB fill - Does what it says, can come clutch to fill a unit's BB when you need it. If you're doing guard frontier this is absolutely necessary (ex. Rozalia, Charla, Dizzy).
BBoT (BB over turn) - Same as above. Goes nicely on healers/mitigators with "end of turn effects happen at start of turn" spheres/SP. It can also be used to counter BB reduction at the end of your turn. If you're doing guard frontier this is absolutely necessary to have on spheres/EX/SP for your burst BB filler.
BC drop rate / BC efficacy - Pretty useless when the enemy has BC drop rate resistance, which is becoming more and more common in harder content. Can be useful in countering fill rate/Ares down debuffs.
Normal hits - Increasing normal hits are useful in normal attack nuking strategies and BC starved content. For Arena/Colosseum and farming, AOE normal hits are far more useful, but a combination of both can be lethal.
Revives - Can potentially save your whole run by reducing how many revival items you need. That said, it requires skillful timing and is usually only reliable on UBB (BB and SBB only have a low chance like 10%) with some offering 100% revive (ex. Feng, Sae), or less (Galtier 70%, Juno 70%, Linasera 50%). It is also very rare with Linasera being the only non-LE unit to have it, and really only practical in Frontier Gates as harder content tends to punish you for UBB usage. If you do take a reviving unit, make sure to swipe them first so revived units can get buffed!
Of course there are many more buffs, but these I feel are the most common or important ones you should aim to fit into your squads. Aside from buffs, it may benefit you to have units known as "nukers." Nukers are units that have high damage modifiers on their BB/SBB/UBB, HP-scaled BB/SBBs, and/or units that have double or triple BB/SBBs (AOE + ST, ST + ST, AOE + AOE). These units can drastically increase your damage output and are crucial in content where damage matters such as Frontier Hunter and Guild Raid. However, before adding a nuker make sure you have all your essential/important buffs covered in your squad. Anyway, before my fingers fall off, let me discuss leader skills.
Leader Skills
While buffs are important in squad building, leader skills are just as, if not more important. Ill try to break it down by content.
General/Trial/SZ - BULK. Lots of HP and DEF. However, only use leader skills that also offer mitigation. You generally have flat mitigation, which reduces damage against a certain elemental type foe (ex. Regil, Feng, Lukroar), or conditional mitigation where you receive damage reduction after some criteria is met (ex. Ark, Lucius, Cleria, 20% after 5K damage taken). Two leader skills with flat mitigation WILL stack additively, and so will flat and conditional. Unfortunately, two conditional mitigations don't stack, not from LS, sphere, nor EX - the last one activated should be the one to take effect. Also note that there is a hard cap to mitigation from non-BB or UBB sources; you will receive a maximum mitigation of 50% from LS, spheres, EX, and SP. In BC starved content, BB on hit or BBoT can be quite useful (ex. Cleria, and Lucius have this w/ mitigation). HoT as well can come in handy when the enemy uses DoT (ex. Cleria again, Holia).
Frontier Hunter - Damaging leader skills. You generally want a LS that has at least two of the following: Crit damage boost, EWD boost, BB ATK boost, and Spark damage boost. EWD and Crit are particularly potent here, so leaders like Maxwell and Dizzy shine for multi element squads. Zeis, Durumn, and Kira are great for their respective mono squads. Some honorable mentions are old man Avant, Zeleste, and Arthur.
Raid - You want a combination of bulk (mainly HP), spark damage, and maybe BB ATK damage, as well as some form of BB management via BB on spark or BB on hit. Silvie and Regil are two great Raid leaders than come to mind.
Arena/Colosseum - You should really check out the guide I linked earlier in this post. But generally for offense, you want ATK boost (ex. Zekuu), and for defense you want bulk and BB on hit (ex. Lanza). Just keep in mind turn-based stat boosts DO NOT stack with each other (ex. 2 turn ATK boost from LS + 2 turn ATK boost from spheres/EX); I'm unsure which takes effect. AOE normals are really nasty if you have high attack units, and will likely trigger all AIs, which can be a good or bad thing, and can result in BB reprisal from your opponent's defense squad. Blaze, Leona, and Zekuu are the most common offensive squad leads. Lanza and Zalvard are pretty common defensive squad leads.
Guild Raid - Mono squads with EWD boost + elemental damage reduction leaders. For Fire, Zeis > Lyonesse > Blaze. Water, Galea > Azalea > Holia. Earth, Wannahon > Gyras. Thunder, Durumn > Ewan. For Light, Ceulfan > Regil > Lukroar > Lucius > Zekt > Kira (damage only). Dark, Keres > Shida. The reason is because in guild raid EWD is king, either by increasing your damage, or resisting damage from a guardian through natural or LS based elemental resistance.
TL,DR BEST UNITS FOR A SQUAD
1. SHION SSS TIER - overall good unit for ubb spam
2. BLAZE SSS TIER - great nuker
3. SAE SS+ TIER - good nuker with good debuffs
4. REGIL SS+ TIER - good 15% flat mitigation LS
5. LUKROAR SS+ TIER good 15% flat mitigation LS
6. LANCELOT SS+ TIER one of the best mitigator too bad he's limited edition, cant get him anymore.
7. NEFERET SS+ TIER one of the best support too bad she's limited edition, cant get her anymore.
8. Cleria SS TIER also a good support unit if you don't have neferet
9. Gabriella SS TIER good support and offensive nuker unit
10. Alza Masta SSS TIER next trial boss, should be coming out soon. He's pretty broken
IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ After the next summoner arc map, YOUR SUMMONER WILL BE AVAILABLE AS A USABLE UNIT IN QUESTS AND TRIALS, meaning if you guys haven't already been grinding out summoner arc story line and leveling up your summoner, then hop on it NOW cus he will be one of the best unit in the game. You can change his element anytime you want and also his weapon which makes him any kind of unit you need.
Mon Aug 28, 2017 8:49 pm
