The Rumble of Malboro

Overview

 * Difficulty: 11★
 * Reference: Announcement
 * Release Date: 8/17/17,.

Battle Info
ADV=

The Rumble of Malboro - ADV
PRO=

The Rumble of Malboro - PRO
ELT=

The Rumble of Malboro - ELT
Note: After 24/Aug/2017 maintenance, additional summoned monsters no longer give Exp or Gil.

Abilities

 * Proliferation: Summon Malboro A.
 * Proliferation: Summon Malboro B.
 * Gone Mad: Increase ATK/MAG (50%) for 99 turns to caster.
 * Skin Softened: Decrease DEF/SPR (99%) for 2 turns to caster.
 * Great Malboro feels weak: Decrease DEF/SPR (99%) for 4 turns to caster.
 * Bad Breath: Inflict poison, blind, disease (50%), sleep, silence (30%), paralyze, confusion and petrify (20%) to all enemies and magic damage (2.5x) to all enemies.
 * Tentacles Blow: Physical damage* (5x) to one enemy and decrease DEF (40%) for 3 turns to one enemy.
 * Tentacles Rampage: Physical damage* (5x) to all enemies.
 * Berserk Touch: Physical damage (1.5x) to one enemy and inflict berserk (ATK +50%, auto-attack only) for 2 turns to one enemy. Targets highest ATK unit.
 * Paralyzing Touch: Physical damage (1.5x) to one enemy and inflict paralyze (70%) to one enemy. Targets highest SPR unit.
 * Devour: Remove unit for 2 turns and magic damage* (2.5x) to one enemy.

Conditional attacks

 * If Malboro A dies: Proliferation (A).
 * If Malboro B dies: Proliferation (B).
 * After Proliferation (A) and (B) are used on the same turn: Skin Softened.
 * 50% HP threshold (Max 1/battle): Gone Mad.
 * 10% HP threshold (Max 1/battle): Great Malboro feels weak.
 * Every 4 turns and HP above 50%: Bad Breath, Devour.
 * Every 3 turns and HP below 50%: Bad Breath, Berserk Touch, Devour.
 * Every 4 turns and HP below 50%: Tentacles Rampage.

Regular attacks

 * Up to 5 attacks per turn.
 * (Max 1/turn) Tentacles Blow.
 * (Max 1/turn) Paralyzing Touch.
 * Normal attack.

Abilities

 * Proliferation: Summon Great Malboro.
 * Acidic Explosion: Self-sacrifice damage (??x) to all enemies and decrease dark resistance (50%) for 3 turns to all enemies.
 * Acidic Spew: Dark magic damage (2.5x) to all enemies.
 * Sclerosis: Increase resistance to all elements (50%) for 3 turns to caster.

Conditional attacks

 * If Great Malboro dies: Proliferation, end turn.
 * 10% HP threshold (Max 1/battle): Acidic Explosion.
 * Every 4 turns: Sclerosis.

Regular attacks

 * Up to 4 attacks per turn.
 * (Max 1/turn) Acidic Spew.
 * Normal attack.

Strategy
Great malboro has insane DEF/SPR and the only way to reliably damage it is to trigger Skin Softened by killing both malboro adds and have it resummon them on the same turn. Once it triggers Skin Softened, you can damage it for 2 turns before having to repeat the cycle. Use AoE damage to kill adds at the same time.

Malboro will summon Great Malboro back with full health when it dies. To win the battle you will need to kill Great Malboro and Malboro adds on the same turn.

What you'll need:
 * Good tank to absorb Tentacles Blow and normal attacks. Since Tentacles Blow decreases your DEF, you will need to go an extra mile in gearing their DEF and HP, or use an anti-break ability from Tilith or any other similar units.
 * Healer with anti-paralysis to resist Paralyzing Touch, as it targets the highest SPR unit. While provoke will work against enemy's highest stats targetting, camouflage will not.
 * Cure or resistance to all ailments to block Bad Breath. Mystea, Ilias and Marie (awakened ability) can provide resistance while cure is available to more units, including Rikku's TMR, Rikku's Pouch. Your ailments healer will need to resist all bad ailments for them to be effective.
 * Dark resistance to resist Acidic Spew from all Malboro adds.
 * Dispel for Gone Mad. Dispel should also be used for Berserk Touch. Prepare your highest ATK unit to be berserked every 3 turns below 50% HP threshold. You may use tank to provoke this.
 * If Great Malboro is killed first, upon resummon he will attempt to Proliferation and this will trigger "No allies around". This enables you two turns to get Great Malboro back down to reasonable HP along with Malboro adds to try and clear before Great Malboro begins triggering his rotation again.
 * Your dealers should be able to deal at least 10% (11% is stable) HP damage to 'both' malboros. If not, malboro will kill your party with Acidic Explosion and great malboro will make new 100% malboro again.
 * Malboro A and B should be killed in 20 turns, otherwise they will not generate lb crystals. The counter resets when they are re-summoned.

Tips

 * Try not to trigger the adds' Acidic Explosion by not reducing its HP to below 10% HP.
 * Tentacles Blow and Tentacles Rampage will not trigger or work on physical cover, physical mitigation, and physical evasion.
 * Dual races means killer effect gets halved to 25%, but it'll still be worth it to use depending on your setup. Keep in mind that there aren't many AoE physical damage available.
 * Demon Killer: materia, Sun Barrette, and Diabolos.
 * Plant Killer: materia, and Ifrit.
 * Soleil with Ability Awakening can help you a lot if your party can't tank Malboro's attack.
 * Proper magic spells without ignore SPR property can be reflected by the party. Casting Reflectga with Carbuncle evocation or Marie's LB allows you to deal up to 6 times more damage in a single cast.
 * Thundaja or Firaja are recommended spells for this method.
 * Increase your spell stacking damage to cap. You can combine this with the stacking damage transfer method above.
 * Cast Reflectga, target your own party member, and then cast the spell.
 * Note: Reflect doesn't stack. If you want to reflect two spells off your own units, you need to cast the first round of reflect, and activate the second cast of reflect before the second spell goes off.
 * Word of caution: Marie has the counterattack Punishment, which can hit individual Malboros with a random elemental debuff. This can cause one to die before the other, which will throw off your sequence. Be mindful of this; or make sure they're already debuffed for your element of choice using her Anti-Element.
 * Both Great Malboro and Malboro are not immune to charm, which can be inflicted by Soleil's limit burst.
 * Great Marlboro will use neither Devour nor Berserk Touch if Malboros are killed on turns when it should be cast - multiples of 4 when it is above 50% HP, multiples of 3 when it is below 50% HP.
 * The smaller Malboros use Sclerosis (+50% element resist to caster) every turn multiple of 4. This will make it hard to kill both at the same time (to prevent Proliferation, Acidic Explosion) with elemental damage. You will need to use Dispel dualcasted, Sealed Light, Bushido - Freedom, etc.
 * After Proliferation re-summons Great Malboro, Devour and Berserk Touch will still occur on turn multiples of 3 even if it has greater than 50% HP.

Notable Units

 * Written as of the trial's release date. Will be outdated due to power creep.

Notable Items

 * Written as of the trial's release date. Will be outdated due to power creep.