Should You Pull (Aug 25, 2017)

Original Post / Discussion: [https://nj.reddit.com/r/FFBraveExvius/comments/6vq2dt/defianthermits_should_you_pull_veritas_banner_2/ DefiantHermit's Should You Pull? Veritas Banner 2 - Aug 25]

Hello everyone, /u/DefiantHermit here for this week's SYP, featuring the second half of the Veritas cast!

As always, the ratings are my own extremely biased opinion and shouldn't be used as an end-all meter; read the review, check the unit's wiki pages (click their names on this thread to go there) and inform yourself! If you have any suggestions or feedback, please don't hesitate to give me a poke.

So without further ado, here's my analysis for the Veritas Banner 2!

Veritas of the Light
After a gun-wielding maid, we're getting a gun-wielding transformer! Light Veritas is a hybrid damage dealer, but heavily skewed towards a MAG build for chaining, similar to dear Fryevia: underwhelming base 139 MAG (+30 with pots), but a fantastic +80% MAG from passives when wielding a Throwing Weapon, for a fantastic total of 304 MAG. An ATK finisher build is also viable, but only truly shines when TDH support (and her enhancements) reaches Global: same underwhelming base 139 ATK (+30 with pots), but only a conditional +50% ATK when wielding guns.

Equipment selection is weird, but does the job for her role: Swords, Rods, Throwing Weapons and Guns for weapons and Helms, Light and Heavy Armours for armour. She unfortunately has an innate “DW” on Dual Shooter (Wield two Guns/Throwing Weapons), but limited to weird weapon types. Access to swords and a poor selection of MAG-based guns makes an Letters and Arms build much more desirable, so you're better off giving her a different DW source. Throwing Weapons also open up a crazy Fixed Dice finisher build.

Her relevant passives and support abilities include Splendor (Absorb Light Damage & +100% ATK/MAG after HP drops below 30%), providing Light immunity and an excellent, permanent crisis buff, Eternity (+100% Sleep/Silence/Petrify Resist), granting key ailment immunities, Auto-Refresh (Recover 5% MP per Turn) and Charge (Self 120 MP Recovery & Self 2 Turn -30% SPR Debuff) for MP sustain.

Negation (AoE Stat Buff Removal) allows her to dispel enemies and License to Kill (50% Physical/Magic Damage vs Demon, Mechanical, Spirit, Undead) provides excellent killers against a decent amount of races. Finally, there's a fantastic Imperil counter on Light Retribution (20% Chance Counter w/ ST 3 Turn -100% Light Resist Debuff).

Light Veritas' offensive skillset is comprised of 3 major hybrid skills and, as such, are all triggered twice with Dual Wield. Blowback (800% AoE 5 Hit Light Hybrid Attack & AoE 3 Turn +45% ATK/MAG) provides a great offensive buff for your party on a very decent stick, but with weird 20-frames between hits, thus only perfectly chainable with a copy.

Her main chaining skill is Divine Shot (700% AoE 7 Hit Light Hybrid Attack & AoE 3 Turn -50% Light Resist), with great modifiers and an attached Light Imperil. The frame data here is still unfortunate, at 9-frames between hits, with possible chaining partners being Knight Delita and future Glauca, but both with mismatched hitcount, so you'd better stick with a copy.

Finally, there's Damnation (150% AoE 2 Hit Hybrid Attack & Grant Saint Buster for 3 Turns), which sucks in of itself, but unlocks Saint Buster (1600% AoE 1 Hit Light Hybrid Attack), a massive finisher for 3 turns.

Even though there's no innate LB support, Dawn of Judgment (1100% -> 1220% AoE 19 Hit Light Hybrid Attack & AoE 3 Turn -50% -> -74% DEF/SPR Debuff) allows for a stupidly long chain to be created and grants a massive offensive break when fully leveled. It costs 20 crystals, though.

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Sworn Six's Pride - Light - +20% HP, +40% MAG & Decrease Target Chance by 50% - Materia - S Rank

Fantastic materia for mages, not only providing the much needed HP+MAG boost in a single slot, but a 50% camouflage as bonus for their survivability.

Why would you want Veritas of the Light?: Because she's a very strong hybrid damage dealer, being able to work both as a chainer and as a finisher.

Hybrid skills triggering twice with DW over magic skills is that gamechanging, allowing LV to generate Orlandeau-like chains with innate -50% Imperil and great modifiers. Even though her overall equipment selection is weird, a MAG focused Letters and Arms build will definitely shine on Global, ramping her MAG stat to Fryevia levels. All that topped off with innate hybrid killers for 4 races.

Not only that, but her supporting options are also pretty good, with a possible -100% Light Imperil on a Counter, offensive party buffs and AoE Dispel.

Her only major downside is the severe lack of chaining partners if being used as one, with only a copy able to generate perfect chains.

What about the future? Enhancements have recently rolled out for Light Veritas and they're pretty good. She gets more MAG passives, a slight upgrade on Divine Shot's modifier (to 800%), a small boost on License to Kill (to 75%) and Saint Buster being always available, which boosts her finisher role.

Veritas of the Heavens
The first real story boss that was a wake up call to many players is now available as a summon! Wind Veritas has a solid base 143 ATK (+34 with pots), but only a ridiculously bad +20% ATK from passives, leading to a laughable 212 ATK.

Equipment selection is short, but acceptable, as he's able to wield Daggers, Swords and Spears and wear Helms, Small Shields, Light and Heavy Armours. Since he introduces Spear Mastery with his TMR, Sword + Spear with DKS is a viable build.

His supporting skillset is short, with Heavenlord (Absorb Wind Damage & +110% ATK after HP drops below 30%) granting Wind immunity and a great crisis buff, Clear Mind (+100% Blind/Confuse Resist) providing some ailment immunities and Grit (AoE 2 Turn +40% ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR) as a short, okay all-stat buffer.

Wind Veritas' offensive skillset is built like a Dragoon and no Jumps have ever been viable so far, specially with them not taking on Killers and Elements, so don't expect much. There's only one innate Jump buffer on High Jump (+100% Jump Damage), but you can stack it from other sources at the cost of ATK. I'll be giving WV his best shot, using the Dragoon Gauntlet (from the Vault), Dragoon Lance (Nier Craftable) and his TMR, for a total increase in Jump damage of +275%.

His Jump gimmick is that it follows a combo, progressively ramping up in damage and severely reducing the jump's durations.. It starts with Spineshatter Dive 1 (1 Turn Jump + 200% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack), unlocking the full damage of Spineshatter Dive 2 (If Spineshatter Dive 1 Used Last Turn, Use 1 Turn Jump + 350% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack, Else 2 Turn Jump + 300% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack), then Spineshatter Dive 3 (If Spineshatter Dive 2 Used Last Turn, Use 1 Turn Jump + 500% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack, Else 3 Turn Jump + 400% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack).

Because of reasons of fuck logic, the next one in line is Spineshatter Dive 0 (If Spineshatter Dive 3 Used Last Turn, Use 1 Turn Jump + 900% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack, Else 10 Turn Jump + 750% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack.

After the combo ends, you end up with a whopping 914% modifier per turn (without taking DW into account). While that's really not bad on its own (heck, it's like landing a 230% modifier on a capped chain, without the chain), not taking in elemental changes and killer effects severely hampers the potential damage here. It also comes with the unit being completely locked out after landing the jump and the necessity of ramping up the damage to achieve the full modifiers.

Aside from the Jumps WV has access to Heavenly Wind (250% AoE 10 Hit Wind Physical Attack + Ignore 25% DEF - normalized to 333%), with decent modifiers and sharing Water Veritas' 15-frames between hits, but with a unique hitcount that only allows for perfect chains with a copy, even if the frames are also shared by Aileen. Not only that, but his Wind Imperil is unfortunately attached to a 20-crystal LB, Cruel Punishment (600% -> 720% ST 10 Hit Wind Physical Attack & ST 3 Turn -80% -> -104% Wind Resist). The numbers are quite fantastic, though, so with decent party LB support, you can certainly get it going.

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Sworn Six's Pride - Wind - +50% ATK when equipped w/ Spear & +25% Jump Damage - Materia - S Rank

We're finally getting a source of Spear mastery for the various spear wielders, including Aileen, Reberta, Fohlen and Elza! This is a strict upgrade to the various +30% ATK materias, but the added jump damage is a minor bonus.

Why would you want Veritas of the Heavens?: For his TMR, mainly. Even though his potential Jump damage is quite high, Jumps in general being broken and unchainable kind ruins the fun here.

His standalone chaining skill is pretty decent and has a great amount of hits, but fails on the frame data, leaving only a copy as chainable partner, severely hurting his usability. His Imperil is fantastic number-wise, but it's locked behind a 20-crystal LB without innate support.

What about the future? Wind Veritas' enhancements have also rolled out recently and focused a lot on his jumps. Aside from a much needed extra +30% ATK and +50% Killers against 5 Races, if you're wealthy (and crazy) enough to spend all the resources needed to enhance the jumps, you'll get a boosted final per turn modifier of 1100%, which is equivalent of ending a chain with a 275% modifier finisher. Jump fixes are recently being heavily discussed in JPN, so hope they come fast for GL.

Veritas of the Waters
Don't get fooled by the heavy armour once again, as Water Veritas is another girl on their team, following the weird fetish of almost female exclusive healers. Relevant stats here are a great base 148 MAG (+34 with pots) with a solid +45% MAG from passives, for an also great total of 263 MAG. Since she can be used as a healer with Curaga (and it'll likely be her main role for now), base 130 SPR (+26 with pots) is not that bad, with the same +45% SPR from passives leading to a very usable total of 240 SPR.

Equipment selection is weird for her role, as she's only able to wield Rods and Staves and wear Helms, Light and Heavy Armours. No Letters and Arms shenanigans and no MAG armours as a mage sucks, but the heavy armoury grants more survivability as a healer/support.

As a healer/support unit, her kit consists of Curaga (AoE ~1000 HP Heal w/ 3.4x Mod) as her main healing spell, Esunaga (AoE Cure Poison, Blind, Sleep, Silence, Paralyze, Confuse) for some nice ailment cleansing and the subpar Raise (ST Revive with 30% HP) as a dual castable revive.

Her support set consists of Waterlord (Absorb Water Damage & +100% MAG/SPR after HP drops below 30%), giving water immunity and a great permanent crisis buff; Auto-Refresh (Recover 5% MP per Turn) for MP upkeep and Dual Nature (+25% MAG when equipped with Rod & +25% SPR when equipped with Staff) providing the stat passive boosts. Her only ailment immunities are given through Constant (+100% Silence/Paralyze Resist) and she has access to a few 100% ailment inducers: Mist (AoE 100% Poison/Paralyze) and Mind Blast (AoE 100% Silence/Confuse) for whenever you might want to use them.

Finally, there's a Mix-like ability in Forbidden Arts (Grants: Dualcast, Swift Current, Aqua Prison and Elemental Power for 3 Turns). Dualcast (Use Two White/Black/Green Magic) allows her to perform the healer role significantly better and Elemental Power (AoE 3 Turn +40% All Elements Resist & AoE 3 Turn +40% DEF/SPR) works as not-on-demand elemental resist buff with Protectga+Shellga attached. The 3 turn duration and the required setup turn is a major letdown, though.

Forbidden Arts allows us to bridge to her offensive skillset, as it also enables her relevant damaging skills: Swift Current (300% AoE 5 Hit Water Magic Attack + Ignore -25% SPR - normalized to 400%) and Aqua Prison (180% AoE 5 Hit Water Magic Attack + Ignore -25% SPR & AoE 3 Turn -45% ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR Debuff - normalized to 240%).

While Aqua Prison will be mostly used for the excellent -45% Full Break, both skills share the same frame data of 15-frames between hits, thus only being able to chain with a copy or unenhanced Aileen (although her walking animation is gonna get in the way of this). The frame data is also shared by Veritas of the Heavens, but the hit count doesn't match.

Swift Current is unfortunately a magic ability and thus won't trigger twice with DW and can't be Dualcast. To make matters worse, if you're able to perfectly chain it, the final chain modifier will be x2.35, while most DW-based physical chainers achieve >x3.40 modifiers. Even if you're sparking, the chaining modifier is x2.95, which just isn't enough when you factor all the downsides.

Her finishing option is based on Waterja (200% AoE 1 Hit Water Magic Attack + 100% Each Use (Max: 5)), being able to reach respectable, dual castable 700% modifiers and sharing all the reflect tricks with the other -ajas.

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Sworn Six's Pride - Water - +40% SPR when equipped with Staff & +40% MAG when equipped with Rod - Materia - B+ Rank

Great materia both offensively and defensively. 40% SPR boost for staff wielders is no joke, even though we should be getting a 30% HP/SPR materia soon. The MAG part trumps all current 30% materias for your mages, even though they very likely won't be getting the SPR boost.

Why would you want Veritas of the Waters?: Because she's a goodish healer and her TMR is pretty good. Dual Cast, Curaga, Esunaga and Raise on her healing kit makes the backbone of a proficient healer, further boosted by a great +40% Elemental Resist buff and okay AoE Defensive buff and an excellent -45% Full Break.

As a damage dealer, Veritas of the Waters has access to two elemental chaining skills, but between their ability base, low hit count and not-good-enough modifiers, it becomes just a secondary role.

Having to do a setup turn every 3 turns to heal proficiently (if you don't give her a DC materia) and to unlock her damaging skills really sucks, as it's a turn where you're doing literally nothing and where you might need that crucial DC heal.

What about the future? Her enhancements recently rolled out in JPN and they actually fix most of her issues. Forbidden Arts gets a major boost, granting the skills for a whopping 20 turns, upgrading Swift Current's modifier to respectable 533% and granting Elemental Power an excellent 30% Magic Damage Mitigation buff.

She further gets more SPR/MAG passives, an amazing -100% Water Imperil as a 20% counter and Mind Blast gets a -50% SPR debuff attached and, when used consecutively, works as a SPR-based nuke (500% ST 1 Hit Magic Attack w/ 100% of SPR used as MAG), allowing her to deal respectable damage without sacrificing SPR for her healing role.

Charlotte
Succubus Charlotte is here and she has decided to challenge WoL and Earth Veritas for a spot in the tank realm. Base 120 DEF (+34 with pots) is… not that great, with +30% DEF from passives to back it up for a good total of 200 DEF. Her SPR is pretty good compared to other tanks, though, coming with base 124 SPR (+24 with pots), but with a measly +10% SPR to back it up, for a total of 162 SPR.

Equipment selection is pretty good, being able to wield Daggers, Swords, Staves, Rods and Maces and wear Clothes, Light and Heavy Armour, Small and Large Shields, Hats and Helms. There's no Axe for Gigantaxe's incredible +15% HP, but there's plenty of options for her, including staves.

Her support skillset is made up of Embolden (AoE 5 Turn +45% ATK/DEF) as a great physical buff, Shellga (AoE 3 Turn +40% SPR) to complement it and provide magic protection, Shield Impact (160% ST 1 Hit Physical Attack & 50% Chance 1 Turn Stop) with an excellent Stop chance and Morale Exaltation (AoE ~40 MP Heal w/ 0.2x Mod split over 3 Turns) as a party wide MP Recovery (~25 MP/turn at 300 SPR).

Her tanking set consists of a passive ST Cover in Royal Armlet (50% Chance to Defend an Ally (Reduce +50% Phys./Mag. Damage)), trumping Warrior of Light's numbers and The Light is With Us Granshelt's Shield (3 Turn 50% Chance to Defend Allies (Reduce +50% Phys./Mag. Damage)), which provides an amazing AoE cover, exactly like WoL's.

To help her further, there's Immortal Spirit (50% Chance Ignore up to 1 Fatal Attacks when HP above 70%) to prevent Insta-Death effects and nukes and Cleansing Light (AoE Cure Poison, Blind, Sleep Silence, Paralyze and Confuse) as an Esunaga on her unit-locked Shield.

For some weird and unknown reason, Charlotte has access to Demon Killer (50% Physical Damage vs Demon) and Undead Killer (50% Physical Damage vs Undead), despite having literally no good damaging abilities.

Even though there's no innate support, her LB is Fortify (AoE ~500 HP Heal w/ 1.8x -> 3.0x Mod & AoE 3 Turn +50% -> +100% DEF), costing 16 crystals and healing from 700 to 1000 HP (at 300 SPR) while also providing a massive DEF buff to your party.

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Equip H Shield - Can Equip Heavy Shields - Materia - B Rank

A surprisingly good Equip X materia, simply because there are (and will be more) some crazy heavy shields, providing massive stat bonuses and, more importantly, awesome elemental resists, crucial for healers and support units that are unable to innately equip them.

Why would you want Charlotte?: Because you don't have Warrior of Light or Veritas of the Earth (no, seriously, because you don't have WoL or Earth Veritas, and) she provides fantastic AoE cover while being a tank. The tradeoffs compared to WoL is that you lose his amazing breaks, self-recover counter and 100% provoke, but get… 20% passive ST cover chance and a Safety Bit? Yeah, if you have WoL, you're not using Charlotte sorry

What about the future? So we've established Charlotte as a good tank, but she's also received her enhancements. The most juicy upgrade is Royal Armlet getting 100% reduced magic damage, which means she'll take no damage from ST magic attacks that hit her after she's covered an ally against a physical attack. And that's quite an issue, as the enhancement not only just affected the ST cover and didn't touch the AoE one, but you still require her to trigger her ST cover against a physical hit for this to work at all.

Aside from that, she got enhanced MP recovery duration on Morale Exaltation (the average MP/turn basically stays the same) and Immortal Spirit's HP threshold was reduced.

Hayate
Hayate is one of the first Ninjas to reach and unfortunately nothing has really changed for them, as they're mostly hybrid attackers. He has a mediocre base 136 ATK (+34 with pots) and only a +20% ATK passive, for a total of 204 ATK. His magical side is about the same, with a weaker base 130 MAG (+26 with pots), but a rather solid +30% MAG passive, for a total of 202 MAG

Equipment selection is poor and doesn't contemplate his MAG side, as he's only able to wield Daggers, Katanas and Throwing Weapons and wear Clothes, Light Armour and Hats. So no rods and no swords for Letters and Arms, meaning you'll likely build him physically, with the option to go for a Fixed Dice build.

Skillset is lacklustre, with the notable ones being Engine Type 2 (400% AoE 1 Hit Fire Hybrid Attack) as a crappy hybrid finisher, and Flame 2 (450% ST 3 Hit Fire Hybrid Attack) as a crappy hybrid “chainer” with poor amount of hits, but sharing a common 10-Frames (Reberta, Fohlen, Pod 153, etc).

His strongest attack is his LB, as a (550% -> 790% ST 8 Hit Fire Physical Attack), but there's no innate LB support, even though it costs only 16 crystals.

And that's… about it? He has access to Man-Eater (+50% Physical Damage vs Humans), but that's not saving him. Aside from that, it's worth noting that he has access to Mirage (Evade Attacks (Max: 2) for 3 Turns), but not because it's a good skill, but because it has a role on an enhancement “combo” later.

A very niche application for Hayate appears on his Spy (Encounter Rate -50%) ability, which allows you to stack encounter reduction on your team for megacryst/node farming on exploration maps. Good luck on the awakening resources, though.

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Black Cowl - +28 ATK, +25 DEF/SPR, Sleep Immunity - Hat - S Rank

One of the best hats available in the game with great offensive and defensive stats and a neat sleep immunity if you ever need it. Still stands as a fantastic equipment in JPN to this date.

Why would you want Hayate?: For his TMR. As a unit, Hayate is a very clear demonstration as to why hybrid damage has to be done extremely carefully and why Ninjas really suck in this game at the moment. Extremely poor modifiers, terrible equipment selection and just an overall lacklustre skillset.

What about the future? Hayate has received some enhancements in JPN, but they don't really save him either. Mirage gets a boost to 3 hits over 5 turns and becomes part of a combo with Engine Type 2 and Flame 2. Those skills get a boost in modifier (to 450% and 500%, respectively and, if Mirage was used last turn, they become AoE and jump to 900% and 1000% modifiers, respectively.

Which… is basically meaningless because you're losing a turn doing nothing to double their modifiers, so nothing was really achieved aside from making them AoE.

Should You Pull?
Do you… do you even have resources left? In any case, this banner is a bit less interesting than the previous Veritas banner unit-wise, but the TMRs are still pretty great, so the answer here depends on your current needs..

The units aren't the best to slot on a team and you very likely already have multiple copies of them if you've been playing a while. Charlotte is a WoL/EV that “trades” the breaks and damage mitigation for MP recovery and Hayate is just the same TMR fodder as before.

The units are still good, but not stellar this time around, with Water Veritas being a proficient healer (as long as you provide her a DC materia) allows her to compete with Y'shtola and Refia and Wind Veritas being a usable solo damage dealer and quite the chainer, if you can provide a copy. Both TMRs are also usable, with Wind Veritas being a chaseable unit for players with a top tier Spear wielder.

For whales, the prize is another example of a hybrid unit done right. Despite a weird equipment selection, Light Veritas shines both as a chainer and as a finisher, capable of rivaling the damage output of most chainers and doing crazy damage as a Fixed Dice (or even standard DW) finisher. If you're not a whale and pulled LV, yay!