Thread: Consolidated Light Team Topic

Originally Posted by Tanukimo

-- Just want to add a bit more info on phantom grids. For f2p, I think the easiest null grid to do is an axe grid, since you have 3 UE exceed axes and Yule Goat's axe so you only need one other axe. --

Don't bother with non-Lance/Glaive/Bow/Hammer Grids. By replacing an Assault weapon with something non-Assault like Phantom Axe, you lose about as much damage output as you gain from the base Atk. So, the upgrade is very minimal. Is it better than a non-Phantom Grid? Yes. Barely, but yes.

Is it worth your time, effort and resources? No.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

You want to do your Hime damage capability over a longer duration calculation (like 10 or 12 rounds). That will give you a better read on Trish and Michael's full damage capabilities. I do believe that you are right, Tish is actually a higher damage output contributor for low DATA teams than Michael, but doing the math will help others understand.

Ok, I started having another go at this, but it turned into a massive wall of text. Let me try this approach instead (which is still a wall of text, but I'm trying my best...):

Let the average dmg per SSR hime per turn = [A*(n-1) + 7.5+B]/n where A is the average dmg from attack and abilities, the 7.5 is from FB (5x + 50% burst streak), n is the average number of turns it takes to burst. A varies a lot depending on DATA rate and red abilities, but I will be generous and set it at 3 (most himes are closer to 2-2.5 in my experience.) B is burst multiplier adders like PF, exceed and Mike AW's ability 2. I will set B as zero for the base case just to make things less favorable to a burst build.

When you replace a generic SSR with Mike AW, you might lower A but also lower n and raise B. I would argue that Mike lowers A by at most 1-ish (her red ability doesn't hit as hard as some other himes but have a bunch of team-wide buffs) and she lowers n by at least 2 (2 if your team has close to guaranteed DA on average, closer to 4 if your DATA rate sucks.) Now, remember, we only replace 1 hime to accomodate Mike, so reduction in A is only 1/5. Mike also raise B by 1x (less on average if you burst much more frequently than the 7T CD.)

• If n before Mike is 9 (9 or 10T roughly on average if you try to get to FB without any DATA buffs or burst fill) then average dmg would be (3*8+7.5+0)/9 = 3.5x.
• With Mike AW, if I reduce A by 0.2, increase B by 0.5 and decrease n by 2-4, we get between 3.54x-3.84x, which is between 4-9% more dmg.
• If you repeat this with what I think are more realistic assumptions of A = 2.5, Mike A reduction of 0 (it can increase A if you time her buff with burst), it's 5-18% more dmg. If you further reduce base n by 1, it becomes 6-24% (i.e. the faster your team, the more valuable Mike becomes.)
• For reference, if you own a soul weapon and have a fluffy friend and full light sub eidolons, going from using Barong to fluffy as your main eidolon gives you a 22% boost (elemental going from 170% to 230%, less if you don't have all light sub eido), so these numbers from Mike are nothing to sneeze at.

For Tish, it's a similar story. Her ability 1's dmg and CD is about average, but the debuffs on it make it on par or better than a lot of other hime's like SSR Arty or LT. Ability 2 boosts atk, crit and most importantly 50% TA, and she can keep it up on 2 himes 5/6 of the time. I will only focus on the TA part. The TA alone boosts A by 1.5 on two himes (so 1.5*2/5*5/6 = 0.5 on average.) If you cast it on the bottleneck himes, it can also easily reduce n by between 1-2.

• With a Mike AW starting point of A=3, B=0.5, n=7, Tish adding 0.5 to A and reduce n by 1-2 will boost dmg by 14-18%.
• Repeat with A=2.5 instead, Tish will boost dmg by 17-21%.
• Remember, we still have not accounted for Tish's atk and critical boost and the fact that fast teams make Mike AW even more valuable.

Lugh is a slightly different animal, but using this framework, she basically boosts A by a lot and reduces n by about 1 or so.

Also, you can extend this framework to evaluate someone like Sol, except you need an extra variable showing how long the team can survive with or without Sol. So, it becomes like [A*(n-1) + 7.5+B]/n*E where E is endurance in turns.

• Sol tends to reduce A and increase n (if you already have Tish and Mike though, it can be neutral on n, since you can just stick her in the last slot as the previous poster mentioned.) Her value is from increasing E.
• If normally you die after the 1st OD at like T3 or T4, and Sol makes you survive till T6 or T8, increase in E is like 100%, and Sol will blow everyone else out of the water (and it's not just heal btw, her atk down is very nice, too.)
• My personal experience with Sol usually falls in two categories once my hp got high enough though:
  
  • For easier content, up to and including advent rag, Sol increases E by so much that the battle has long ended before I use that many turns, so her value is sort of wasted.
  • For public raids, I get a guaranteed potion which together with Tish's heal, usually gets me to T8-10 or so, depending on which raid we're talking about. Sol usually just adds about 2-4T more, so E increases by about 20-40% or so, which is a lot, but A takes a hit, and if I have to kick someone like Mike or Tish, A and n takes such a big hit that it's at best a wash. If the raid lags (which it usually does) and you want to try to MVP it, your best bet is to go for high A low E strategy, doubly so during BT.

Btw, lest I be accused of being a Sol-hater (I am not), I am only saying Sol falls behind Mike and Tish in value as your hp gets high enough. If you don't have other heavy hitters like Take or Metatron or Lugh or something, Sol is still very very good and you should keep her on your team. She only got relegated to sub 'cos I do have Take and Metatron (but no Lugh, yet...) Oh, and perhaps paradoxically, I would argue you should mtix Sol before you mtix Metatron or Take, well, at least after you have Lugh. Sol will help keep Lugh alive, so if you're in for a long fight, Sol is most likely better than another heavy hitter 'cos Lugh hits so hard that it offsets whatever reduction in A Sol brings. Utility himes like Sol and Eros are also more useful if you intend to use light for almost all content once you have your basic DPS machine.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

Hammer grids are the easiest base grids for light to do. The assault SR is a hammer, Nandi Hammer and the phantom weapon is 30% assault. It's a noticeable improvement over a non-phantom grid and is cheap to upgrade or switch out of at a later date.

Very true, forgot about that one. You can easily fill the whole grid with hammers, too, not just 5 hammers. Metatron is also a hammer user, so bonus if you have her.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

I've been told that Bricking Lugh's lance is a bad choice. The best choices are Michael's and Trish's instead. Multiples are preferred. Eye Lance is passable if you can't get multiple copies of Michael's or Trish's, but brick this last (in the hopes of dupes).

Lugh's lance FLB is large assault and medium elaborate, not terrible, large assault is always nice... But yeah Tish's (assault, exceed, ascension), and Mike's (assault, defender) are much better. So I'm even further from the ideal light grid than I thought...

Originally Posted by Dejnov

P.S. Tiara combo is the best combo hands down (priority for almost all Himes), but there are uses for the Standard combo also (350 regen , 10T) for certain (non-Sol) team set ups.

That's an excellent idea. I think I will stick that on Lugh when I mtix her, since it should become 700 regen on her if I understand her assist correctly.

Originally Posted by Slashley

Thunderbird lasts one (1) turn, and has basically zero impact on the Double rate of your Hime.
Fluffy lasts three (3) turns, and seems to have an EXTREME impact on the Combo rate of your Himes. Well, based on the entire... three times I've used Fluffy?

You are right... I can't believe I didn't notice this before given that I have quite a few Thunderbird friends and use them regularly... I always thought I'm getting through trash mobs slower with Thunderbird 'cos of the lower elemental, but it's probably that and lower DATA... My bad.

Originally Posted by Tanukimo

Also regarding Lugh it's only one nuke each turn, since the reset only affects her second ability and not the first.

Sooo, I see Lugh using ability 2 TWICE in a single turn here around the 3:00 mark and get 60 burst from just that (she needs to have bursted already for it to reach that ridiculous level, otherwise it's just 20/use at lvl 75+.) Unless taco one is nerfed... But if my eyes are not deceiving me, tell me how that is not OP and blows every other light himes out of the water for raw DPS. Combine it with Dejnov's regen accessories bonus idea, she's not as frail as people think either.

Originally Posted by Slashley

Don't bother with non-Lance/Glaive/Bow/Hammer Grids. By replacing an Assault weapon with something non-Assault like Phantom Axe, you lose about as much damage output as you gain from the base Atk. So, the upgrade is very minimal. Is it better than a non-Phantom Grid? Yes. Barely, but yes.

Is it worth your time, effort and resources? No.

It depends on a lot of factors, like how many red abilities you have and what your DATA rate is like, but the last time I ran some back-of-the-envelope numbers, I think at around 150%-ish assault and consistently bursting every 4 turns or so, exceed is almost as good as assault. Elaborate still suck though, so if you have a choice, listen to Slashley and don't choose axe (or my gun and sword grid ideas - I consider those sort of free since you'll have excess ori when you're consistently getting all 5 ori every cycle.) If you missed the old light UEs like me, axe grid isn't really an option anyway.

Lugh can only do double skill 2 nuke once and had to wait 6T to do that again if you like to do it, normal ppl just spam skill 3 and nuke once. That vid is tower tho so it’s reasonable for Bear to save that double nuke on boss. Yes a agree you can run Tish and Mike no problem without Sol, but when Lugh come, it’s a whole different story. The enemy is not a punching bag, they fight back, I doubt Tish and Lugh can last more than 10T in a rag, Lugh burst 15% of her heath every turn to dish out dps and stay fast, Tish burn 10% of her health every 3T to use buff, and if she want to keep Lugh stay alive a little bit longer, she had to burn 20% of her health for the heal. Sol is need to keep those 2 stay safe in an extreme environment like rags.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sol is need to keep those 2 stay safe in an extreme environment like rags.

Um, which is why I say mtix Sol after Lugh? I feel like we disagree less than we think... If you're saying Lugh isn't great without Sol in situations where it matters, so you should get Sol before Lugh for the versatility, I can buy that.

I just trigger when someone say Sol is irrelevent in future Light *meta* team, the power of Sol scale with ascension which thankfully light have a lot, UE staff, Sol gun, Tish spear, some random advent and raid weap that i don’t care about, etc

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I just trigger when someone say Sol is irrelevent in future Light *meta* team, the power of Sol scale with ascension which thankfully light have a lot, UE staff, Sol gun, Tish spear, some random advent and raid weap that i don’t care about, etc

you still need heal outside of Drag?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you still need heal outside of Drag?

I'm not usually a Sol advocate, but if you are seriously saying that you don't need heal outside of DCat....
That's just pure arrogance + ignorance

I would like to see you last longer than 15T against Och while MVPing without any form of healing of your own.

Originally Posted by dreamlitz

Ok, I started having another go at this, but it turned into a massive wall of text. Let me try this approach instead (which is still a wall of text, but I'm trying my best...):

Let the average dmg per SSR hime per turn = [A*(n-1) + 7.5+B]/n where A is the average dmg from attack and abilities, the 7.5 is from FB (5x + 50% burst streak), n is the average number of turns it takes to burst. A varies a lot depending on DATA rate and red abilities, but I will be generous and set it at 3 (most himes are closer to 2-2.5 in my experience.) B is burst multiplier adders like PF, exceed and Mike AW's ability 2. I will set B as zero for the base case just to make things less favorable to a burst build.


It depends on a lot of factors, like how many red abilities you have and what your DATA rate is like, but the last time I ran some back-of-the-envelope numbers, I think at around 150%-ish assault and consistently bursting every 4 turns or so, exceed is almost as good as assault. Elaborate still suck though, so if you have a choice, listen to Slashley and don't choose axe (or my gun and sword grid ideas - I consider those sort of free since you'll have excess ori when you're consistently getting all 5 ori every cycle.) If you missed the old light UEs like me, axe grid isn't really an option anyway.

So dreamlitz, I apologize for not responding earlier and only with my brief note as I was traveling today. Let me expound how I think you should be calculating Hime damage per turn (DPT) so that you get a more accurate read on Michael's and Trish's capabilities. It's easier to think of having the Himes do damage for a certain number of rounds and then divide the team's damage by the number of rounds used. 10 rounds is easy for decile calculations, while I typically prefer 12 rounds for max whole number divisibility so that I can intuitively understand the bonus I'm getting 'per Hime', but either is fair and provides the same utility once calculated. I'll use the 12 round system for the example below.

A typical Hime will deliver their raw assault (plus grid and eidolon modifiers which are invariant for our examples) per round with a typical SSR giving 5x damage on the round it bursts. Base Balance,Tricky Himes are around 8k attack, offense Himes are around 9k-10k and Healing and Defense Himes are around 7k. If we take the 8k assault Hime as the base our Hime set is either 1.0x, 1.2x, or 0.875x depending on if their Balanced, Offensive, or a Healing type Hime. Our base Hime team will be able to burst every 10th round (soul single attacks every round and takes 10 rounds to generate 100 burst) and so over 10 rounds will do 1.0x nine times and 5.0x once for a total attack power of 14.0x. This assumption is fairly useless though as no 'real' team needs that many rounds to actually burst and that's due to powers and abilities.

If you're using Hercules as your main soul, with minor BG help she should be able to burst every 7th round and if you're using Shingen she should burst every 5th round. A team with Hercules as main soul over 12 rounds does 16.0x damage (5.0x once and 1.0x eleven times), while the Shingen team should be able to deliver two bursts for a total of 20.0x damage (5.0x twice and 1.0x ten times). This is basically around a 25% increase in damage output for the Shingen team provided that the leader can generate 90 burst in 4 rounds. You can do this in a couple of ways (DATA, Encourage Inspiration, Burst Up power, etc.). Team rearrangement follows that path. IF you do this through DATA please note that the base first slot hime has to still do 9 attacks in 4 turns instead of in 6 turns which equates to a 1.25 upper to overall damage. That makes characters that can up or guarantee DATA much more powerful (like Tishtrya, Takeminakata) than characters that just generate free burst (Shingen and Michael). If you do generate the damage this way you can add another 1.25 (6 rounds to 4 rounds) to the base damage on non-burst rounds. The overall damage output will be 5.0x twice and 1.25 ten times for a total of 22.5x damage or an additional 12.5% damage.

Current damage outputs are currently:

16.0x for a Hercules team with burst on 7th round
20.0x for a Shingen team with burst on 5th round
22.5x for a Shingen team with burst on 5th round and mostly DATA up.


The next damage break is if you can burst on 4th round (3 rounds to generate). This gives you 3 bursts in 12 rounds and 9 base rounds for a total damage output of 24.0x over 12 rounds or another 33% increase if through DATA for a total of 27.0x damage. Note that PF can only help every other burst and if you state you're always getting full burst than the 5.0x per burst goes to 7.5x (like you stated earlier).

Two main ideas come out of this very quickly. Getting the burst down a round (all else being equal) can really up your damage (from 16.0x to 20.0x to 24.0x), if you can reliably burst that fast. Also, DATA is very very powerful since it keeps damage output to each burst constant versus just getting more 5.0x (or 7.5x) burst multipliers in a 12 round set.

So how does this fit into Light Himes in general?

There are 4 fast Light Himes currently: Tishtrya, Michael, Takeminakata, and Lugh. (Please note: I don't have Lugh and so can't comment fully on her).

Tish ups the team primarily through Triple Attack (two Himes) and adds +20 per cycle (Abi1 and Abi2) to herself for a total of +80 base burst per 3 turn cycle (2 chars at 50% TA for bonus 30 BG each and 20 BG to herself), with most of her BG also giving more attacks (i.e. 60 BG x 1.33 multiplier for TA and then 20 BG base for a total of around 100 BG/damage effective team gain). Also note she takes 3 turns to ramp up (get the second Hime to TA) so she's a bit slow at the start.

Awakened Michael adds 100BG to the team per 3 turn cycle (20BG x5 per skill and then 20BG x5 after full burst for approximately 200 BG every 6 turns), but does not add any additional DATA. So her total effective team gain is the base 100BG from her skill.

Takeminakata gets guaranteed TA for 3 rounds (and then has to wait 7 rounds with nothing). This would make her effective BG 90 x 1.33 or 120 BG/damage effective team gain, but she can only do the trick once every third burst so her effective BG is 120/3 or 40BG/damage effective gain. Not bad, but not in the realm of Tish or Michael.

Lugh can up her BG 20 per round (for 15% health) or 30 per round after a full burst, but can't sustain the trick for long combats nor does she up her DATA capability. She's around Takeminakata's level of sustained BG generation; about 40BG/damage effective gain and can still sustain a burst every 4th round. Still not bad, but not in the realm of Tish or Michael.

For overall team speed, Michael wins hands down. Trish helps more with a balanced damage/speed output, and both Lugh and Take are initially fast, individual burst generators that tend to lack long sustains. Michael and Tish help a team burst faster, but more importantly can help bring a slow Hime (or possibly two) onto a fast burst team. Take and Lugh are first slot Himes and are fairly interchangeable as long as you have both Michael and Tish. The third slot can take any slow Hime (like Sol, Shamash, Athena, etc.) and still maintain the 4th turn burst.

My old team (prior to Take) was Artemis, Tish, Sol, and Michael with Tish always speeding up Artemis first and Sol second. It could make a 4th turn burst 80-90% of the time (sadly no Tiara Light accessories for Art yet) and with Encourage Inspiration could guarantee every 4th turn burst (and could nearly get 3rd turn burst 90% of the time). It did lack full defense down though. With my new team of Take, Tish, Tsuki/Sol, and Michael I can definitely generate an initial 3rd turn burst and/or sustain 4th turn continuous bursts and can hit full defense down OR bring healing.

Take, Lugh, Tsuki and Sol can all be rotated depending on what you have or don't have (I still don't have Lugh aargh!!) and depending on the content you're looking to take on and how fast you truly want to go. But you truly need Michael, Tishtrya, or both create any base fast burst Light team.


Dejnov.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

It's easier to think of having the Himes do damage for a certain number of rounds and then divide the team's damage by the number of rounds used.

Dejnov, thank you for the post! Yes, I agree that your calculation is the more intuitive way of doing it. My short-hand calculation is just that, a short-hand way of getting at the same qualitative conclusion. Apparently not too convincing though.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

Base Balance,Tricky Himes are around 8k attack, offense Himes are around 9k-10k and Healing and Defense Himes are around 7k. If we take the 8k assault Hime as the base our Hime set is either 1.0x, 1.2x, or 0.875x depending on if their Balanced, Offensive, or a Healing type Hime.

Yes, my calculations implicitly assumes that everyone has the same base atk, which just isn't the case. However, when you start FLB-ing things, hime stats become a smaller and smaller portion of total atk, so those multipliers are gonna get closer together.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

This assumption is fairly useless though as no 'real' team needs that many rounds to actually burst and that's due to powers and abilities.

Yes, I could have picked a better base case... I was starting from the perspective of a new player with all SR and deciding on first mtix and actually purposely trying to stack the deck against Mike and Tish just to make a point.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

That makes characters that can up or guarantee DATA much more powerful (like Tishtrya, Takeminakata) than characters that just generate free burst (Shingen and Michael).

Nitpick, but both Shingen and Michael AW ups DATA for the whole team. It's not on the same level as Tish and I won't rely on it for BG unless you stack it like crazy with eido effects, accessories and tiara bonuses (just gotta figure out how to survive those death beams from light rag...)

Originally Posted by Dejnov

There are 4 fast Light Himes currently: Tishtrya, Michael, Takeminakata, and Lugh. (Please note: I don't have Lugh and so can't comment fully on her).

I know people don't like Vishnu 'cos she's really hard to use, but she's fast, too, like Lugh fast, well until Lugh bursts that is... But Vishnu can actually keep herself alive. If you have no one better or don't have a healer to pair with Lugh, Vishnu still gets the job done. Also, if you're trying to MVP something and just need to burst as quickly as possible like the current raid, Metatron is your girl.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

Also note she[Tish] takes 3 turns to ramp up (get the second Hime to TA) so she's a bit slow at the start.

Takeminakata gets guaranteed TA for 3 rounds (and then has to wait 7 rounds with nothing).

Do what I do - first TA buff from Tish goes on the soul, after the first burst, put it on Take. Keeps the burst speed pretty even so no one is falling significantly behind. That is why I love Tish, when you use her well, it keeps your burst machine in sync so it's rare for anyone to be waiting around for burst (unless you use Metatron, she's a different animal.)

Originally Posted by Dejnov

Lugh can up her BG 20 per round (for 15% health) or 30 per round after a full burst, but can't sustain the trick for long combats nor does she up her DATA capability. She's around Takeminakata's level of sustained BG generation; about 40BG/damage effective gain and can still sustain a burst every 4th round. Still not bad, but not in the realm of Tish or Michael.

Yes, but remember every time she gets her BG 20, she is also nuking for 3-3.5x, that's on top of her regular attack, so that's like much better than even Take's TA. Also, depending on whether you can spare Tish's heal on Lugh or have Sol on your team, Lugh can in theory keep it up much longer than Take. You can also 'store' Lugh's BG for 1T and do double nuke/BG the next turn, whereas Take's TA is wasted if you burst on a turn where her TA is still up (I want Lugh so badly )

Certainly not in the realm of Tish or Mike, yes, but they have different roles, and ideally you want all of them - Mike just speeds everyone up, Tish is fast and speeds up bottleneck himes, Lugh/Take/Vishnu are faster and makes it easy to accommodate a slow hime (Arty / LT / Sol / Eros / Raphy / whatever you have/need for the content you're facing.)

Originally Posted by Dejnov

But you truly need Michael, Tishtrya, or both create any base fast burst Light team.

I completely agree, which is why I consider Mike and Tish to be core - they give you a very respectable baseline DPS with nice set of utility skills. Then tack on two more himes depending on what you need, and most light SSRs are very very nice.

How can you compare Take with Lugh ?, Lugh is just better in any case, if you can keep her nuke constantly, you are looking at 4-4,5x dmg and 30BG per turn without any DATA, 8x dmg 40BG in the turn after burst, 15x dmg 70BG if you do the double nuke after burst trick. Take GTA is 3x dmg 30 BG per turn that have mother fucking 10T cool down.
Metatron is a different monster?, even with AW she is still subtatron, she is weak, 150% burst dmg per 2 turn ?, that’s a joke compare to Uriel 400% burst dmg per 2 turn that come along with a mini 1x dmg and GDATA buff. The only time Metatron do fancy dmg is when her count is 0, even with that, you deal 3-3,5m dmg at most if you hit dark enemy with her crit with your maxed F2P grid. To reach that 4m cap, you need whale grid. And how long Metatron need to do 3-4m dmg ?, 9 fucking turn, she do basically nothing in between, just a pure dead weight with no DATA and nuke. Take and Meta only good in dummy, out side that, Lugh kick their ass hard