User:AManInBlack/FinisherDammerung/Summaries

Balthier

 * High-damage single-target finisher. As a finisher, he always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * He uses one of his Elemental Shot abilities to imbue his attacks with fire, lighting, water, or light and apply a matching imperil to the target. Then he spends the next four turns alternating between Killer Shot and Finishing Blow.
 * If an enemy hits him, he has a chance to use Finishing Blow instead of Killer Shot in his next turn, increasing his overall damage.
 * His fire/lighting/water imperils are excellent, at -60%. His light imperil is still very good at -50%.
 * His best gear set is Machine Gun+ with the usual True Doublehand items: Marshal Glove, Buster Style, and items with high fixed ATK (as opposed to X% ATK, if you have the choice). However, his performance is still fine dual-wielding a non-elemental gun, such as his own TMR Arcturus, with a non-elemental katana or spear and standard ATK gear.
 * He can apply 40% ATK or DEF breaks if necessary.
 * Has has 15% inherent evade against both physical and magic attacks, as well as useful immunities to paralyze, confuse, and petrify.


 * His only AoE ability is his admittedly hard-hitting limit burst.

Cloud

 * High-damage True Doublehand single-target finisher, using Climhazzard until his limit burst is available. As a finisher, he always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * His LB is his strongest move, with an amazing 21x modifier when maxed.
 * Capping a chain with his limit burst is difficult: the last hits carry the bulk of the damage, so try to time it so those hits land just as the chain finishes.
 * Also doubles as a passable AoE finisher, with Finishing Touch, or AoE chainer, with Meteor Rain.
 * Gains a significant amount of damage if another party member can imbue his attacks with an element so that he can use Revolving Saw instead of an elemental weapon. Characters that can do this include Charming Kitty Ariana, Christine, Desch, Summer Lid, and Ray Jack.
 * Really hard to kill for a damage dealer. He has over 6K HP before gear, an ignore-death passive, and is immune to blind, confuse, sleep, and disease.


 * Top performance is very reliant on Doublehand gear and accessories with high fixed ATK, such as Marshal Glove, Doublehand, and Desch's Earrings--all of which are TMRs. As long as you have his own TMR Buster Style, he's better off wielding a single weapon rather than dual-wielding; his limit burst makes up for the reduced damage on his other attacks.
 * Besides DH items, give him your best gear with flat ATK on it (as opposed to X% ATK, if you have the choice) as well as a strong elemental sword/greatsword.
 * Relies on the rest of the party to apply imperils. With a matching elemental weapon, he can effectively exploit any imperil, although he struggles to take advantage of earth, wind, or ice imperils. Match his weapon to your party's available imperils; it's worth giving up a few dozen ATK in order to gain an additional 50% overall damage.
 * Has no utility to speak of beyond dealing damage and not dying.

Dark Knight Cecil

 * The hardest-hitting physical single-target finisher in the game, depending on how you measure. As a finisher, he always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * His main attack, Soul Eater, applies a huge -100% dark imperil on top of doing a ton of dark damage to a single target.
 * He also has a reasonably good, zero-mana AoE dark attack, Dark Cannon, which also applies a -50% dark imperil.
 * Shikkoku heals him back up to full at the end of each turn.
 * His backlash attacks will often trigger his weak ATK, DEF, and SPR crisis buffs.


 * His best gear set is a two-handed weapon like Zodiac Spear, Revolving Saw, or Tailor's Scissors with the usual True Doublehand items: Marshal Glove, Buster Style, and items with high fixed ATK (as opposed to X% ATK, if you have the choice). He can still do effective damage while dual-wielding your best dark or non-elemental weapons with standard ATK gear, but it exacerbates his next weakness.
 * Each of his attacks does a significant amount of backlash damage to him, making him difficult to use. If he's taken damage, he needs to be healed up before he can use his main attacks, because otherwise the backlash damage can kill him.
 * If he's dual-wielding, he does the backlash damage to himself twice. Dual-wielding Dark Cannon does a total of 120% of his HP to himself, so he'll just die unless you land a heal on him between the two hits.
 * DKC is locked into dealing dark damage, and most trial bosses and many other enemies resist dark damage.
 * Without his ability awakenings, Soul Eater and Dark Cannon do poor damage and don't apply his best-in-the-game imperils, and Shikkoku won't heal up all his backlash damage at the end of the turn. Don't bother using him until you've enhanced at least Soul Eater and Shikkoku to +2.
 * His limit burst isn't worth leveling up or using; it's only slightly better than Dark Cannon+2 at max level.

Knight Delita

 * A solid, unremarkable physical chainer or finisher. As a chainer, he's locked into lightning; as a finisher, he's focused on it but can use other elements if necessary.
 * His chaining ability, Commanding Blade, imbues his attacks with lightning. His finishing ability, Strategic Blade, applies a -50% lightning imperil. Whether he's building chains or capping them with a finishing attack, he'll want to use the other ability occasionally to reapply the buff/debuff.
 * He can only perfect chain with a clone, and doing so is relatively difficult: an offset of more than three frames will break the chain.
 * His maxed out limit burst is the largest ATK/MAG break in the game at -64%, which is a huge damage reduction against enemies that don't resist breaks. He can also apply -40% breaks to ATK, DEF, and MAG at will.
 * He dual wields non-elemental or lightning weapons and uses typical ATK gear. If he's finishing, a lightning weapon like Tonitrus or Raikiri will mean he doesn't have to waste turns using Commanding Blade for the imbue.


 * He has no AoE attacks whatsoever.

Luneth

 * One of the highest-damage single-target physical finishers while dual wielding, although doublehand finishers will outperform him considerably. As a finisher, he always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * Alternates Advance and Cut Through.
 * If the party has a character that can apply a high (75% or higher) ATK buff to him, such as Roy, Cor, or enhanced Soliel or Ramza, then he's better off spamming Cut Through.
 * Easy to gear. Give him your a strong elemental weapon, a strong non-elemental weapon, and your best ATK gear. He even has innate dual wield. He can also benefit from elemental attack imbues from characters like Charming Kitty Ariana or Desch, although his broad weapon selection usually makes that unnecessary
 * Doublehand builds on Luneth can technically outperform dual wielding, but the margin is <1% overall damage in BIS gear.
 * Useful immunities to blind, paralyze, confuse and petrify.


 * He just deals damage; he doesn't have any other useful utility to speak of.
 * Relies on the rest of the party to apply imperils. With a matching elemental weapon, he can effectively exploit any imperil. Match his weapon to your party's available imperils; it's worth giving up a few dozen ATK in order to gain an additional 50% overall damage.
 * His AoE damage is mediocre.
 * His limit burst can break DEF up to 54%, but probably isn't worth leveling up.
 * Without his ability awakenings, he's usable but not great. Enhance Cut Through, then Sword Master, then Advance. Don't bother using Advance until both it and Cut Through are enhanced to +2.

Rem

 * Rem can either be a high damage single-target magical finisher while also serving as a a top-tier healer, but can't do both in the same turn.
 * As a damage-dealing finisher, she uses Dagger Boomerang, an odd magical attack. It deals magical damage, but it attacks twice if she dual-wields, is imbued with the element(s) of the weapons she wields, and benefits from physical (but not magical) killers like Machine Killer. It takes three turns to ramp up to full power, but on the fourth turn, Dagger Boomerang deals high damage, on par with the better physical finishers. As with all finishers, she always wants to land her attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * Once her healing spells and abilities are awakened, she is one of the stronger healers. Inherent Dualcast with Curaga+2 is respectable healing throughput, and Raise+2 is practically as good as Full-Life. Undying Wish's reraise is handy, although she can't use it on the same turn she heals.
 * She has Dualcast, so she can both heal and cast a spell from an Esper, such as Barfira from Carbuncle.
 * Gearing Rem with traditional MAG gear also usually makes her an effective healer as a side effect. Items with MAG on them often come with SPR as well. That said, if you're healing with her more than dealing damage, you can always swap in some SPR-heavy items. If you're not attacking with her at all, don't worry about MAG gear, and just focus on HP/SPR/MP.
 * Rem's weapon selection is very different from most mages and healers, because of how Dagger Boomerang and Sharp Resolution work. Rem should always wield a dagger in one hand, to activate her huge +80% MAG/SPR passive ability. Ideally, that dagger would have MAG or SPR or an element or a useful passive ability--Defender's Daggers, Breath of Rose, and Bowie Knife/Second Knife are all excellent--but even plain ATK dagger will suffice. If Rem is going to spend any time attacking, her other hand should be a rod or a sword with high MAG, and one of her two weapons should have an element matching an imperil applied by another party member. If she isn't focused on attacking, two daggers will suffice.
 * Her exclusive materia, Siphon Delta, makes her a terror in Arena, whether she's geared to heal or deal damage.


 * Dagger Boomerang is her only significant attacking ability. Her AoE damage is limited to dualcasting relatively weak -aga element spells.
 * Since she's reliant on a ramp-up attack, her damage is relatively low for the first couple of turns of a fight, and she loses the ramp-up if she dies.
 * As a healer, she has some weaknesses. Her only AoE status removal is Healing Prayer, which can't be dualcast but does come with a smaller heal. She can't dispel at all (although an Esper like Ramuh or Carbuncle can supply single-target Dispel, which can be dualcast). Unlike most healers, she doesn't even have token support buffs besides the negligible Protectga, nor any inherent immunity to status ailments.
 * Her ability awakenings lift her out of the middle of the pack. Sharp Resolution boosts her damage and healing while fixing her relatively low unenhanced HP. Dagger Boomerang+2 is a must-have if she's focusing on damage, although not that important if healing. Raise+2 and Curaga+2 are must-haves for healing and nice to have if she's focused on damage. Awakening Undying Wish is expensive and isn't terribly important regardless of her role.

Pyro Glacial Lasswell

 * Top-tier single-target finisher damage, once he activates his limit burst to unlock his best attacks. As a finisher, he always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * Once he's filled his LB bar, his rotation is Limit Burst, Blade Flash - Final x2, Crimson Era/Fatal Bloom, BF-F x2, repeat.
 * If your team needs his -45% DEF break, replace the first Blade Flash - Final in each pair with Crimson Flash.
 * This rotation gives him a 100% ATK buff and applies strong -50% imperils for fire and/or ice. He will usually want to take advantage of those imperils, but he can use other elemental weapons if the boss resists fire and ice.
 * He's very easy to gear: he does just fine without 5* TMRs, or even no TMRs at all. He even has inherent dual wield. Equip him with standard ATK gear, with Purple Lightning and a fire or ice weapon like Dandelga, Hoemaru, or Crimson Saber as his weapons.


 * Filling up his limit burst bar takes 2-4 turns without outside support like Eccentrick or Entrust. It goes even slower if he spends that time focusing on damage or debuffs rather than spamming Mirror of Life.
 * He's very reliant on his limit break being both available and maxed at level 25. That's not the case at the beginning of a fight, or if he dies, or if he can't charge it up, or if you haven't maxed out its level yet. In those situations, he can start off with Crimson Flash, but that reduces his damage and complicates debuff management.
 * His rotation is somewhat complicated.
 * His AoE damage is mediocre.

Veritas of the Flame

 * Fire Veritas (FV) is a very random single-target finisher. Under ideal circumstances, with a very particular gearset, he can keep up with the best finishers in the game. Without a steady source of counter activations or with the wrong gear, he falls behind.
 * As a finisher, FV always wants to land his attacks at the end of a large chain whenever possible.
 * He uses one of his Axe abilities to imbue his attacks with fire, earth, wind, or dark and apply a matching imperil to the target. Then he spends the next four turns using Full Charge Stomp if it's active, or Heavy Stomp otherwise. Ideally, he'll be focusing on fire damage, because he can randomly apply an even stronger fire imperil under certain circumstances.
 * His at-will imperils, for fire, earth, wind, or dark are very good, at -50%.
 * Defensive Barrier is a -20% damage mitigation buff for the whole party, and Inspire is a +80% AoE ATK/MAG buff.
 * To reach his full potential, FV needs to be get hit by enemy attacks as often as possible. Getting hit has a chance to activate Full Charge Stomp, which is twice as strong as Heavy Stomp, and can activate Fiery Retribution, which causes an outstanding -100% fire imperil. He works well on bosses that do many weak attacks, or survivable AoE attacks, or when the party uses defensive buffs to survive hits. When he can get regular counter procs, he is one of the best finishers in the game.


 * On the other hand, if a tank is soaking all of the attacks, the boss doesn't target FV, or you simply get unlucky, then FV's damage drops significantly. Without Full Charge Stomp and a good uptime for Fiery Retribution, he loses a third or more of his overall damage.
 * FV also has very specific gear needs. He's often better off with Fixed Dice rather than conventional weapons, largely because of a lack of good axes. Fixed Dice synergize very well with True Doublehand gear (such as Marshal Glove, Buster Style, and items with high fixed ATK), but FV is one of the few characters that is often better off with Fixed Dice even without TDH items. While Fixed Dice are strong, they introduce even more randomness to his damage output.
 * If not using Fixed Dice, his best option is standard ATK gear, with a non-elemental axe like Gigas Axe or Platinum Axe. His secondary weapon should either be a non-elemental weapon as well--Aigaion Arm is a good choice--or a strong weapon with an element that matches the imperil he's using, ideally fire. Dandelga, Hoemaru, or Crimson Saber are good choices for fire weapons.
 * His only AoE ability is his admittedly hard-hitting limit burst.

Veritas of the Light

 * Light Veritas (LV) is a hybrid attacker who is locked into AoE light damage. She can focus on chaining, or she can use a strong AoE finisher once every two-three turns.
 * If she's AoE chaining, she just spams Divine Shot, which applies a -50% light imperil. If she's capping chains with a finishing attack, she alternates the relatively weak Damnation with her strong AoE nuke Divine Shot, although she can also use Divine Shot on a third turn if nobody else is applying light imperil.
 * The main reason to use her is the huge DEF/SPR breaks on her limit burst, up to -74% at max level. This is the best SPR break in the game, and tied for the best DEF break.

INCOMPLETE
 * She's a hybrid attacker that dualwields guns and throwing weapons but can't wear hats or clothes, so her gearing is extremely goofy, and relies heavily on old event items and TMRs that aren't useful on any other character.