Humm, curious. Most of "A" frame damage cuts are 100% and stuff that I believed to be "immune" buffs... I will need to test and fix quite a lot of these in the Encyclopedia. Because there is a big difference between "immune" and "100% damage cut."I... don't understand one bit where this came from? If you've been holding beef with me from some past post, you probably should've brought it up back then?
Now then... "Dark is not a shitty element. It can do fine and has plenty of valuable tools in its skillset" objectively speaking... Dark is shitty. Dark really, really suffers in Hime quality overall. Most elements have some true heroes among them, such that you can just MT and you're instantly fine. For Dark... ... there... really isn't any. They have lots of strong individual Hime (with +150% Assault being a recurring theme), but all of them kind of just... do their own thing. Which is not ideal. But hey, it works. If Dark existed in a bubble, it would be perfectly fine, but when you compare Dark to other elements, you go "... well, I guess it doesn't work well enough."
As for skillset, uh, outside of the brand spanking new Nefertem, uh, not really no? I mean, she is literally Dark's only Hime that doesn't go "hey, I will do my thing and you guys can do your thing." Two others come close. Like Pluto, who is awful by today's standards and badly needs an Awakening to drop her lego cooldown from 3-per-6t to 2-per-2t. And Osiris, who speeds up your team but is rather... unimpressive otherwise. I suppose if you also start bringing up SRs the list becomes longer, but I doubt that many elements would lose in that regard either.
Except Wind, since my god Wind SRs are fucking awful.
"While you might not like the fact that they have trouble getting exceed, that is not a reason to say they are fucked" now that Demon Union Events are gone (for a long time), this is literally true for every single element, not just Dark, man. And on a side note, I'm not even a fan of Exceed. Since I only AAB, you really only need 1 Exceed weapon in your entire Grid. It is a painfully limiting factor for stuff like Skill Checker-kun events though, as running manual with Shingen you often run into the problem of "I'd do just fine if I could just squeeze one more Exceed somehow... but that is just not possible."
"-- and you can always MTix Berith multiple times for her and gun. People who have spent to roll an Anubis will not have issues finding an extra $100 for two Berith Guns." No, no, no and absolutely no. No no no no no. Don't ever even consider this. MTing Hime for a weapon is a horrible horrible idea and you should never do it. Come on man, seriously. You're always missing one true hero of some element, and getting stronger overall is a way better idea than a slight improvement in one Grid. Even more so now that you can buy Limited Hime, so you should always get something which you can NEVER get from gacha.
Gacha please give me a second Marduk Hammer so that I can brick that and won't need to save them for Dark Labyrinth Hammers.
"Especially with the fact that Berith is a top Hime for Dark. If you can agree to do that, I can agree to keep posting" if "that" refers to all of the above, then dude, I'm not in the business of bending the truth to make somebody do something. If you want to keep posting, please do. I have always believed that arguments will improve everyone involved for the better unless it is a person incapable of learning and would thus be welcome from my end at least. But if by "that" you mean Berith, yes? I mean, she is one of the +150% Assault individually strong Hime in Dark, along with Susanoo and Chernobog. I mean she is nowhere near true beasts like Thunder Aphro or Michael Awakened, but as good as it gets in Dark.
Now then, with all of Dark downplaying said, you do know that Dark is my second-strongest element, right? I may have 160% Leviathan, but it simply doesn't do everything by itself since Water F2P Grid is merely okay quality. I mean, if you look at my Tower plans, Dark is always there for off-element clears. The Hime quality might not be great, but since I don't have a Light team (again, in KH, you use what you have!) there isn't much choice. I'd like to think that the devs specifically intended to give a fantastic F2P Grid for Dark with intentionally poor Hime quality. Jesus christ, we have so fucking many Envy Axes (15% Assault, L Pride bonus from losing HP, 18% HP each) that that shit is no joke. Too bad that new players can't just run a Hercules with a Phantom Envy Axe Grid, since that shit can clear pretty much any content just by hitting AAB. So new players have missed out on this amazing free Grid, but the low Hime quality in Dark is there forever. THANKS DEVS!Have I said that they're crap? I don't think that I've said that they're crap. I have said that I don't like them and I'm not a fan of them. I mean, just look at this:
The only thing I changed in those quotes is added bolds. Did I say that they're crap? No. I give my reasons as to why I don't find them the best stats ever, and if you disagree with that, you need to give your reason as to why. And on that note, there's my bigger post about weapon skills here. Effectively, the skills that I call shit are Rush, Barrage, Stinger and especially Elaborate. For Ascension I also do say that "isn't so much of a stat that you WANT, it's more of a stat that you NEED and only for SPECIFIC content." In addition, I warn about the risks involved with Vigor.
The main point is, Assault and Defender will work always and for everything. Vigor and Ascension... do not. Is it possible to make them work? Yes. Should you recommend them to a new player? Absolutely not, let them get their basics straight first. This is further problematic since unlike Assault/Defender which are plentiful, Assault/(Vigor or Ascension) weapons are not. You didn't give me a specific answer to #3 either, just handwaved it away again. How exactly would a new player get their hands on such weapons again?
(Guardians make it possible for a few elements - specifically Thunder (Gun) and Water (Lance). Dark also has access to Ascension (Arcane), but even you said to go with the Guns, because goddamn the amount of Assault and HP on those Guns is amazing! Personally not getting them though since Envy Axes are about same grade, just far more defensive.)
And then finally to your answers...... wouldn't you call the first one a "turtle" team? Because terms are important. If we say that a "damage cut team is anything between 20%-80%+" then basically everything goes, no? So, I believe we can agree on "typically 20-40% constant damage cut" then?
Although, even that is pretty confusing to me. I mean, you keep touting Cern and Pluto. Cern has 30% per 5t (20% uptime) and Pluto has 30% per 2/8t (25% uptime). That gets you on average to 13,5% damage cut... and then when we add brand spanking new Nefertem with her 25% 2/5t (40% uptime) we reach 23,5% damage cut on average. Which I guess just barely reaches this 20% treshold. Though, when manualing, you don't exactly need to use these averages as damage cuts can be used only for OD turns. Still, that's not what "constant damage cut" means...
Another confusing part is, you claim to go to toe to toe with the strongest players with a build that has three units with zero offensive abilities. I mean, don't get me wrong, Nefertem is amazing and deserves her spot in any team that is looking to debuff and/or survive. Pluto can boost your full bursts a fair deal, but that's pretty much it. Cern... ... does absolutely nothing but reduce damage taken. That... still doesn't seem realistic in the slightest.
But, the real problem is here is that you're absolutely relying on Nefertem. This is a Hime who hasn't even been in a Miracle Ticket yet!! And you're still recommending this build to new players? How exactly are they going to go about it when they don't have the very cornerstone of such a build?!? I mean, I suppose you can kiiiinda make do without Nefertem, but then you need multiple Hime to offset that loss, and then you're damage output is even more in the pits.
"With utilizing Idun (free Hime also), there is nothing stopping a Dark player from making a viable team that can clear all content (might need help, but won't be completely useless)." I mean... you're not wrong... but... you can also make viable teams for any content without making a turtling/damage cut team? As soon as a player gets their hands on a full slvl20 SR Grid, they should be strong enough to clear almost all GOs (Jack excluded, but oh boy, a Dark turtling/damage cut team isn't going to do anything to her either). So, shouldn't these players rather go for the typical "kill it before it kills you" builds, which are significantly faster? Or do you have an example of a newer player clearing something like AQ7 especially early due to a build like this?
Thank you for answering #2. I don't fully agree with your idea on how to solo Disaster Rags/Guardians (until critical mass) since I think you can just put heals + HP buffer to begin with and AAB reliably from start to finish, but fair enough.
And I already mentioned what I thought about #3 answer...
PS. I'm not going to reply to you on guide side, mostly because that's slightly adjusted copypaste from this side. If you are going to reply though, feel free to do it on either side.