Should You Pull (Jun 23, 2017)

Original Post / Discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/6idx72/defianthermits_should_you_pull_summer_banner_june/ DefiantHermit's Should You Pull? Summer Banner - June 23]

Hello, it's /u/DefiantHermit here for your weekly banner analysis!

There's not much to talk about in here, only that anyone that thought they had 2 weeks of daily pulls for Tilith just had their hopes completely crushed.

Hope you enjoy the read!

Seabreeze Dark Fina
Dark Fina comes back with even less clothes and basically a water-themed version of her previous skillset. Base 150 MAG (+34 with pots) is excellent and there's a great +30% MAG passive to further boost it, for a total of 239 MAG, exactly like D.Fina.

Equipment selection is also the same, being able to wield Rods, Staves, Whips and Maces and wear Bikinis Robes, Clothes and Hats. There are no noteworthy magic whips or maces, so you'll just be using Rods here.

Spell selection is also a carbon-copy, including Thundaga, Waterga, Aeroga and Stonga (180% AoE 1 Hit Thunder|Water|Wind|Earth Magic Attack, respectively) as her elemental -agas; Osmose (ST 30% Attack w/ 30% MP Drain) for sustain and Ultima (280% AoE 1 Hit Magic Attack + Ignore -25% SPR, normalized to 373%) as her nuker.

Abilities are all of D.Fina's: Retaliate (30% Chance Counter w/ 80% AoE 1 Hit Magic Attack) as the Dystopia ruiner and Arena wrecker, Triangle Revoke (+100% Silence/Paralyze/Petrify Resist) providing fantastic ailment immunities, Auto-Refresh (Recover 5% MP per Turn) as extra MP sustain, Physical Fall (AoE 3 Turn -40% ATK/DEF Debuff) as a weirdly placed physical breaker and good ol' Dual Black Magic (Use Two Black Magic).

The single difference appears on Dystopia Utopia (280% AoE 1 Hit Water Magic Attack + 160% Each Use (Max: 3)), that gets Water element slapped in instead of Dark, so she'll benefit from water chains/imperils instead.

And she has a few new toys: Aqua Veil (AoE 3 Turn +70% Water Resist) as a great AoE Water Resist buff and Sexy Charm (20% Chance Charm) as a very low chance Stop inducer.

Japanese Altema Rating: 93/100 (Hasn't been updated for enhancements yet)

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Dark Fina's Swimsuit - +21 DEF, +60 MAG, +50% Water Resist, +5% MP/Turn, Female Only - Clothes - 9/10

Oh boy, that is one hell of a Swimsuit, offering a fantastic amount of MAG and the amazing Auto-Refresh, alongside some bonus Water Resist. It's unfortunately gender locked and Clothes instead of robes, but still an exquisite piece of equipment for those who can wear it.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): S Rank

Why would you want Seabreeze Dark Fina?: For the same reasons you'd want Dark Fina: big boobs. She's a very, very strong mage. Seabreeze D.Fina not only copies everything from D.Fina, but adds some extra, with the only change being Dystopia's element.

What about the future? Seabreeze D.Fina just got her enhancements and they're almost a goddamn carbon copy of standard D. Fina, which you can check on my Should You Enhance. The key difference here is that she got an enhanced Physical Fall instead of Dystopia and it's now an AoE -45% Full Break, which is phenomenal.

Beach Time Fina
Heey, is that finally a decent normal Fina, just after her standard  has been released? Summer Fina comes to trump over VLC Fina, but we'll have to see how good she really is. S.Fina comes with a great 149 SPR (+26 with pots), but only an underwhelming +10% SPR from passives, for a rather disappointing total of 192 SPR. On the MP side of things, though, she has an excellent base 193 MP (+85 with pots) and a decent +20% MP passive to back it up, for a total of 333 MP.

Equipment selection is okay for healers, being able to wield Staves, Bows and Maces and wear Robes, Clothes and Hats. There are a few good bows with SPR and Maces are underwhelming for healers, so you'll likely be slapping a staff on her hand and calling it a day.

Her skillset is diverse for a healer, so we'll start with spells: Curaga (AoE ~1000 HP Heal w/ 3.4x Mod) is finally on her kit and is her standard healing spell, a myriad of status cleansers Blindna, Vox, Poisona & Cleanse (ST Cure Blind|Silence|Poison|Virus, respectively), but no Esuna is a significant letdown compared to standard Fina. There's also the weaker Raise (ST Revive with 30% HP) as her only revive.

Abilities is where S.Fina shakes things up a bit: Aqua Veil (AoE 3 Turn +70% Water Resist) is a fantastic water resistance buff and Aqua Fall (AoE 3 Turn -50% Water Resist) is a very strong Water Imperil if you need it. She still has her original version's Entrust (Give LB Gauge To Target) and Cheer (AoE 3 Turn +40% ATK/DEF) as a way to help units that benefit from their LBs and to provide a decent party buff.

Finally, there's Instant Cure (30% Chance Counter w/ AoE ~800 HP Heal w/ 3.4x Mod) as a great AoE heal counter, albeit at a low proc chance and Refresh Cheer (AoE ~10 MP Heal w/ 0.3x Mod split over 3 Turns), offering a solid ~20 MP per turn (at 300 SPR) and allowing Fina to act as a proper mana battery.

Japanese Altema Rating: 90/100 (Not updated for Enhancements yet)

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Fina's Swimsuit - +18 DEF, +50 SPR, +30% Water Resist, Auto-Regen, Female Only - Clothes - 6/10

While the water resist is decent, the real prize here is the excellent amount of SPR on a Clothes piece. Unfortunately, it's gender locked, so this is going to be more commonly used on your healers.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): A Rank

Why would you want Summer Fina?: Because you didn't get a single copy of Y'shtola, Refia or Tilith, somehow. She's comparable to Luka, with AoE Water resists, with added Curaga on her kit but no AoE ailment cleanser and no Auto-Refresh. Being able to act as an MP battery sets her apart from the other healers and Curaga allows you to slap a DC on her for proper healing.

What about the future? Enhancements have just recently rolled out for S.Fina and they're okay. Her counter gets a slight boost to proc chance (to 35%), becomes better than a Curaga and gives her some self SPR buff; Cheer gets a discount and goes up to +55% ATK/DEF, which is great and Curaga gets an okay bump in base healing alongside an MP discount.

Summer Lid
Lid is, unfortunately, the of a banner once again, but unlike Black Cat Lid, there's not much hope she'll be used much. Base 92 ATK (+20 with pots) isn't great and there's only a +10% ATK passive to back it up, for a bad total of 123 ATK.

Equipment selection includes a great number of hardly used weapons: Rods, Staves, Bows, Axes, Hammers, Guns and Maces and a standard selection of armour: Clothes, Light Armour and Hats.

Skillset includes the thematic Aqua Veil (AoE 3 Turn +70% Water Resist), Focus (AoE 3 Turn +40% MAG/SPR) as a good AoE buff and Aqua Gear (5 Turn Add Water to Attacks), which allows her to participate on water chains if you ever want her to.

Her main skills are Invention and Aqua Gamble, which are both RNG based and can use some rather underwhelming hits or just straight up fail in Invention's case. You can check what each one of them do on her wiki page, but you won't find it very interesting.

Japanese Altema Rating: 65/100

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Lid's Swimsuit - +15 DEF +30 MAG/SPR +20% Water Resist - Clothes - 4/10

Yes, they're very creative with the names. In any case, this isn't very exciting, as it hardly provides more SPR than other Clothes/Robes. The 30 MAG is decent for magic users that can't wear robes for some reason, though.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): B Rank

Why would you want Summer Lid?: You generally wouldn't. Unexciting skillset and a boring mastery.

What about the future? Those are already huuuge, you want more “enhancements? No and no enhancements for S.Lid pretty much seals her fate for quite a while.

Bonus: Fina
Oh Fina, your awakening comes alongside the less clothed version of yourself and in place of he-who-shall-not-be-named. Let's see if it makes you any usable! Base 131 SPR (+26 with pots) is rather underwhelming, but there's a great +50% SPR from passives to back it up, for a great total of 235 SPR. Her MP side of things is also pretty good, with base 162 MP (+85 with pots) and +30% MP from passive to back it up, for a great total of 321 MP.

Equipment selection is okay for healers, being able to wield Staves, Bows and Maces and wear Robes, Clothes and Hats. Due to her Innocent Shooter (+20% SPR when equipped with Bow), you'll likely be wielding bows, more specifically, her trial bow.

Skillset is finally decent for a healer, with Curaga (AoE ~1000 HP Heal w/ 3.4x Mod) as your main healing spell, Esuna (ST Cure Poison, Blind, Sleep, Silence, Paralyze, Confuse) as your status cleanser and Raise (ST Revive with 30% HP) as her only ress.

Notable abilities include good ol' Cheer (AoE 3 Turn +40% ATK/DEF) for a physical party buff, Entrust (Give LB Gauge To Target) so she can make decent use of her LB crystals instead of her horrendous LB, and Instant Cure (20% Chance Counter w/ AoE ~800 HP Heal w/ 3x Mod) for a weaker version of Summer Fina's Counter. Finally, there's Superior Heal (AoE ~800 HP Heal w/ 3.4x Mod & AoE Cure Poison, Blind, Sleep, Silence, Paralyze, Confuse) for some AoE status cleanser with an okay heal attached.

Japanese Altema Rating: 90/100 (After Enhancements)

Why would you want to awaken Fina?: Because she's the only healer you can bring to the Main Character dungeons. Aside from that, she loses the fight to pretty much all other competent healers. She's still extremely serviceable for a completely free unit, though.

What about the future? Enhancements have already rolled out for Fina and they're meh, I guess? You can check what happened on GL on my SYE Batch 1 thread. Sorry it's cluttered with a Banner and the formatting sucks, it was my first attempt at it!

In any case, with her she got an extra enhancement on the passive Innocent Shooter, giving her some extra SPR and +100% LB fill rate (for more entrusts, I guess).

Bonus: Kelsus
We should have almost enough shards to summon Vivi Kelsus, so I guess his analysis is due. He has excellent base 148 ATK (+34 with pots), but only a +30% ATK passive, for an underwhelming total of 236 ATK.

Equipment selection is pretty weird: he's able to wield Rods, Axes, Hammers, Guns, Maces and Knuckles and wear All Types of Armour. Knuckles should be your go-to weapon because of his Twin Arms (Wield Two Knuckles) and you have extreme freedom on armours.

Kelsus' skillset is completely reliant on his LB. For this he has Metal Territory (Self 3 Turn +80% DEF/SPR & Self ~3000 HP Heal w/ 9x Mod split over 3 Turns & 3 Turn Self 200% LB Fill Rate), which provides an excellent High-Tide effect, alongside a significant defense buff and great self heal; Limit Cut (Gain 6 LS per Turn), which provides great passive LB crystal generation and Missile Shelter (200% AoE 5 Hit Physical Attack with 1 Turn Delay & Self 1 Turn 30% Damage Reduction), which provides some mitigation while the LB sets up.

His LB itself costs 30 crystals and is (Self 3 Turn +130% -> 154% ATK/DEF/SPR & Grant Vice Crash [45 MP] For 3 Turns). Vice Crash (500% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack) is an excellent finisher with Olive levels of modifiers and the added stat buff is currently unmatched by any other buff.

His very clear downsides is that he needs to get his LB rolling to deal any sort of relevant damage. Without any other source of crystals, it takes 5 turns for his passive to ready his LB. The amazing innate +200% rate should vastly speed this up, but it's still a hefty price to pay.

Additionally, the LB cast itself does nothing, so it takes a further turn to set it up and you need to refresh it every 3 turns, but the excellent stat buff should more than make up for it and 3 turns should be enough to refill his crystals.

Japanese Altema Rating: 90/100

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Prodigy's Goggles - +15 DEF/SPR, +2LB/Turn, Grant:: Scan - Accessory - 8.5/10

Niche, but great accessory for heavy LB users, as it provides passive LB gain and only takes an accessory slot. Scan is Libra, so you can safely ignore that part.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): S Rank

Why would you want Kelsus?: Because he's a good, free finisher that has innate “Dual Wield” and a massive stat buff. His 500% finisher is nothing to scoff at and can be very serviceable if you give him enough support. His major downside is that it's locked behind his costly LB, but his entire skillset revolves around it for support. You can also give him some ability materia and whatnot to keep him busy during the first few turns.

After the first LB is cast, as long as you're attacking each turn, you can likely keep the LB game going for the rest of the fight.

What about the future? No enhancements for Kelsus yet, but if you have other good finishers, it's likely that he won't get used much, aside from just trying him out. His complete reliance on his LB makes him a bit kunkly to get rolling, but he's an interesting unit if you give him enough support.

Should You Pull?
Aaand back to the good ol' NO. This banner is completely skippable, with Summer Fina being the only prize for non-whales and she's just not a very interesting healer aside from her MP recovery skill. The TMRs this time around are mediocre aside from the and even with the "free" moogles thrown into the mix, we have Rikku coming literally next week and Anniversary too. You should be saving at least 5k lapis for the guaranteed 10+1 and spare for Rikku.

For whales, Seabreeze Dark Fina has a great TMR and got excellent enhancements in JPN, making her one of the best Full Breakers in the game. She's also almost naked.

In any case, don't let the boobage draw you in, resist your urges. Anniversary and Rikku are around the corner and there's no reason to pull on this.

If you're not a whale and somehow decided to pull and somehow got S.D.Fina, have fun! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)