Tag GBF

Weapon Look: Ushumgal (Fire Proving Grounds Weapon)

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Above are the unmarked max stats, Charge Attack and Skills associated with the weapon in focus.

Ushumgal isn’t a new weapon per se but during its first appearance, which was the beta test of Proving Grounds, you’ll only be able to complete it if you luck out on drops and during that time, I wasn’t really interested in the weapon so I didn’t complete it and much to my regret, I really needed it later on. Luckily this round of Proving Grounds had it come back so I now have 2 copies!

Let’s get to its breakdown first… it’s an EX weapon so, by default, it competes with slots for Xeno Weapons, Hollowsky Weapons and even Scales of Dominion if you’re running a highlander grid; compared to those stated, this is indeed the weakest when it comes to boosting your EX attack mod as it’s only a big modifier, meaning it’s only 18% at sk 15 as opposed the 20% from Hollowsky/Scales and the 23% from Xeno BUT the main beef of the grounds weapons are the fact that their second skills are pretty useful and with that said, Ushumgal’s 2nd skill is a skill damage cap up for all fire units and by skill 15, it boosts your skill cap by 15% with multiple copies stacking up to a max of 40% skill cap up (3 ushumgals) which can further stack with Opus/Ultima Skill Cap up to reach a max of 90% skill cap up. On the CA department, Ushumgal is a pretty good main hand weapon too as it inflicts 15% fire defense down at FLB and does a bonus skill damage that has a base cap of 635k which can bloat to more than double if you equip FLB/ULB Sun, SSR Seraphic, a skill cap key from Ultima/Opus and Ushumgal’s 2nd skill itself.

Is it a must?

Personally speaking, it’s a big YES even if you don’t main fire, I suggest farming up to 2 copies at the very least. While the EX layer mod is weaker than HS/Xeno/Scales, it’ll feel like a cheap price for generally a higher DPS if you run a party with a lot of nukes and fire seriously has a lot of hard nukers and unlike Flamma Orbis, Ushumgal’s skill cap works even in sub grid which makes it even better.

The things it works with:

Ushumgal works with a ton of stuff to be honest, so let’s start with the Main Character first! As mentioned above, it works with its own charge attack via the bonus damage; adding to this, if you use Chrysaor and main hand Wasserspeier (the Chrysaor Class Champion Weapon) and give it a devilry emblem, it also gives a bonus damage that is skill based so if you Aux Ushumgal and use dual arts, theoretically, Ushumgal’s CA will end up with 2 bonus nukes which can easily contribute to at least 2m if you have enough skill cap ups. (If anyone can confirm, it’s much appreciated!)

Next up is the fact that Ushumgal also works with summons! Yes, you read that right, summons! Particularly summons with calls that specify a specific % damage and these are:

  • The Devil
  • The Sun
  • FLB Agni
  • FLB Satyr
  • Surtr

Having multiple ushumgals and a skill cap up Opus/Ultima key can easily let calls like ULB Devil and ULB Sun deal around 3m damage which is pretty solid if you ask me.

ULB The Devil call with Skill Cap up from Ultima, 2 Ushumgals, FLB Seraphic, RotB Katana with Cap up and MLB SR Sun.

Finally, we go to the characters, generally fire has a really good number of heavy nukers but probably the most notable for abusing Ushumgal is none other than the Primal Beast of Aegis, Athena!

While it doesn’t take full effect immediately, when Athena reaches 5 stacks of goddess wrath, she’ll start countering opponents with Tetradrachm which will then deal 10 hits as long she’s targeted, it doesn’t matter if she’s undamaged as the only condition for dealing the counter is that she’s targeted, if it misses, she will still throw tetradrachm; with around 2 Ushumgals, a skill cap up, SSR Seraphic and at least FLB Sun, Athena’s counters can easily dish out 3m damage and if your opponent’s normal attacks are AoE, then it means Athena will deal 3m damage EVERY TURN.

Athena’s Tetradrachm with Skill Cap up from Ultima, 2 Ushumgals, FLB Seraphic, RotB Katana with Cap up and MLB SR Sun; at 5 wrath stacks, it will deal 10 hits.

Athena aside, generally characters with ridiculous nuke damage, double skill casters and units with bonus damage on Charge Attack are great to pair with Ushumgal, some of these include (but are not limited to):

  • Shiva
  • Percival (both OG SSR and the Summer version)
  • Heles
  • Fraux
  • Alanaan
  • Lancelot and Vane

And that’s about this weapon look!

Theorycrafting: Can the New Summon Series be a Game Changer?

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So Part 2 Legfes just landed earlier today and while the new units were to my interest, I suddenly forgot about them after seeing the new summon’s details. The new summon is Surtr, another fire summon and while his main aura was something to laugh at, this summon has one distinct feature and that is…

This makes Surtr the very first summon to feature a new gimmick which comes into the form of sub auras that give elemental attack up based on the crests system, something that has been one of the year’s highlights ever since the release of Faa and the Opus weapon series and surely, the other elements will shortly follow the trend.

According to gamewith, upon MLB, Surtr’s sub aura goes to a max of 25% fire attack up, so while it’s not that big of a deal I can definitely where it has its uses:

  • Working in conjunction with the Opus Progression Key + Double Primal – if you already have several stamina weapons (4-5) in your grid and run double FLB Primal, then the Opus stamina probably will already be giving you diminishing returns despite its big stamina modifier and with that, some would go for Progression which is a pretty nifty key for double primal/magna as it gives a 1.5% elemental attack boost per turn and peaks at 15% by turn 10 but the catch is that the elemental attack is affected by Magna/Primal auras so if you double FLB Primal, then at turn 10, it gives you around 57% permanent elemental attack mod, should your crests reach max by then you’ll now have a total of 82% elemental attack up which further stacks with any other elemental attack ups you can use; with all these combined, you can pretty much reach a state where it feels you’re still using MLB Regalia series as support summon while also having the very ridiculous 280% aura from the double FLB Primal.
  • The possible missing link for Primal x Magna grids – if you’ve seen my first theorycraft post, then you can definitely see that even with the stated combinations for getting an elemental attack up in that post, it’s still pretty low but with this now in the table, it’s now possible to further that elemental boost with this and can finally break the unstableness of Primal x Magna Grids atm.
  • Just your typical Double Primal – since I haven’t tried Double Primal yet (because Sunstones, where?), even if you already cap like there’s no tomorrow, having a backup permanent ele mod isn’t a bad thing and will still give its own additive push to help you maintain cap even further.

Now the main question is, after this banner, will the summon ever return as a rates up/sparkable target or not? If not, the next question should be if it’s gonna be suptixable or not, I personally feel that it won’t be suptixable but I guess we’ll find out in around 2-4 months. Anyway, what do you think about the new summon?

Skyfaring Stories: That Bollywood Event Named “Dancing Avengers”

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SPOILER WARNING!

So the new event landed yesterday afternoon and from what we were initially teased with, it would be the 4th story that integrates into Stan’s and Aliza’s storyline but to my surprise, while they did play an important part, most of the event were focused on new characters named Attiyah and Tabina.

At start, it looked like your typical casual event but when the event finally got to the part where the two are reunited, IT WAS CLEAR, IT WAS BOLLYWOOD (but seriously, my normie first impressions was that of a Disney movie), the couple sing and dance and mind you, THE SING AND DANCE SCENES ARE ABSOLUTELY UNSKIPPABLE unless you completely skip the entire chapter; the singing and dancing are not just in 1 chapter either, it had scenes in other chapters too and in order for the crew to actually beat the primal beast, Stan and Aliza had to join in the couple in the singing and dancing as, apparently, “Love” can quell the uncontrolled hatred that has affected the event’s featured beast.

Anyway, enough of the summary and let’s get down to my thoughts in the event. Generally, it’s a pretty fun event albeit a bit too cliche IMO, one of the strong points of the event for me was the fact that Tabina was voiced by Kaede Hondo, who also voiced Sakura Minamoto who is the main protagonist in another cygames property, the zombie idol anime “Zombieland Saga”, during the first bits of the event, she was absolutely killing with over the top hilarious and unconventional dialogue but when the event finally came to the singing and dancing, BOI, YOU ALREADY KNOW YOU’RE IN FOR A TREAT!

Another strong point of the event is actually branching out to another possible entire series of events which will now focus on Attiya and Tabina as things definitely have not settled down with the family grudge as seen in the ending; Tabina is also teased to be one of the new playable characters based from the ending (AND SHE’S A BOW PROF! THIS GAME NEEDS MORE BOW PROF!), it’s definitely a plus for me whenever GBF introduces new characters that have the potential to become your crewmates mainly because this allows them to expand the roster further and lessen the release of character variants especially for characters who already has a ton of variants already.

Now, as for Stan and Aliza, this event finally allows Stan to go back to your crew so we can definitely expect a new Stan unit in the upcoming part 2 of legfes; I like the Stan we see in this event as he seems to be a mix of how he was during Boots & Blades and the Hero & Princess event, a bit matured but still having some of the traits of the old Stan but he really needs to get a haircut though. Aliza, on the other hand, now has developed her martial arts as well as it was something she was struggling from during “A Thousand Reasons” so, in a sense, she has grown as a character thanks to this event. Hopefully, this also means that Aliza will be getting an FLB soon now that she has reached new heights. (But please give us Zeta FLB first)

I guess the disappointing part is that we never really see if they’re finally going to fight now that Stan is back in the crew and that both of them have grown as characters; not to mention, Stan chickens out on handing the flower from Boots & Blades at the very last minute but who knows, maybe more will be supplemented on their gacha units? But yeah, as an event that initially teased that it was bound to be a StanLiza event, I definitely had more expectations on how they will be developed but, in the end, nothing much has changed between the two and the event was mainly focused on molding Aliza than their actual relationship more than anything.

Theorycrafting: Are Primal x Magna grids now possible?

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With the release of the Optimus Series summons’ FLB yesterday, Primals are now ridiculously back up there way at the top, while it’s obvious that a full whale primal grid will stand above all. I can’t help but think if it’s now possible to do hybrid grids. I was doing some tests last night but I can’t achieve optimal hybrid builds due to the lack of weapons but one test grid came close though and I think it really has decent potential too. (see below for grid and lineup)

As you can see above, my primal weapons suck but for what the grid’s worth, I was hitting Athena for around 600k+ with Diantha when I tested this. Probably after I ULB my Opus and have some Blue Spheres, then this might just work to my advantage. Of course, as the title suggests, it’s theorycrafting so until I actually achieve that said grid, I won’t be able to say for certain.

How it could possibly work

Point 1: Notice that I used Fimbuls and it’s a fact that Fimbuls do not have any attack mod leading to me lacking some normal attack modifiers on the primal side BUT that’s where Diantha kicks in, while not a whole lot, her tlepilli buff provides 30% normal attack and some nifty DA which allows you to regain just a bit of the lost attack mods from your grid; if you’ve been using Diantha for a long time, you’d also know that she can maintain that buff with 100% uptime upon Ougi-ing once.

Point 2: Notice that my lineup consists of Lily and OG Europa which means every time Lily uses her CA, the party gets a nifty 55% water attack up and on top of that, you can always initially gain 50% water attack up early by summoning Leviathan Magna, juggle this with Ca Ong or Water Buncles and you pretty much maintain a good source of at least 50% water attack up, making up for the loss of an elemental support summon in a similar fashion to when you use Double Primal/Double Magna.

Point 3: The grid is far from being complete with the lack of a ULB Magna Stamina Opus and at least 2 Drang Balls, generally my objective is still to Ougi real hard more than anything but this should also hit autos to a decent degree as right now I’m already hitting up to 680k (if she crits) with Diantha on autos.

Possibly doing it for other elements

You might be wondering, all the points I brought up above are just for water but what about other elements. Theoretically, the main wheel (fire, water, earth, wind) elements have the biggest chances of pulling them off mainly because they have access to Regalia units (Shiva, Europa, Grimnir and Alexiel), having these units are a huge plus mainly due to their ability to boost elemental attack up effects, pairing them with proper units (Athena and Shiva, Scathacha and Grimnir, Okto and Alex) can give your lineup a more definite power.

Next thing that you need to consider is the magna-side weapons themselves, generally you’d want to make use of double skilled magna weapons like Tyros Zither, Summer’s Mirage, Nibelung Horn, Last Storm Harp and the likes but you’d also want to chug in 1 or 2 attacks should you use attack-less weapons like Nibelung Horn and Last Storm Harp.

Lastly, much like the highlander grids that are quite popular nowadays, the ULB Opus plays an important factor, generally I believe the advantage goes to ULB-ing Magna Opus because Magna definitely lacks some secondary modifiers since sentence only affects your CA and not your normal attacks; primals can take care of itself as they have easy access to Stamina modifiers along with having massive attack modifiers for the grand weapons.

Is it possible for light and dark? It should but the end-case would probably be weaker than the main wheel hybrids due to the missing elemental attack boosting units that the main wheel has, you’d probably want to mix Eden, chev swords and possibly mittron bow should you want to try it for light while dark will probably see a mix of Abyss Spines, Fallen Swords, a Qilin Bow and Hermanubis.

Edit: Should you want to try light, you can use Huanglong Katana but make sure you have enough green skill providers to rack up a permanent 50% light attack up.

Definitely, if you have a full whale grid, this would be meaningless as full whale grids are definitely way more powerful but for Magna users, it might be interesting to look at especially with how ridiculously broken the Primal FLBs are; additionally, it’s fun to mess around every once in a while especially when there’s literally nothing to do at the game at the moment. (no magnafes, waiting for the new event, etc) It’s definitely something unorthodox but seeing as it now has better potential than before, it might just have its own magic and I’m always up to discovering unorthodox builds when it comes to the games I play.

Rant: The Ever Growing Trend of Event Skins

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So the event page for Dancing Avengers Flames of the Heart has just went live a few minutes ago and with that, we get a glimpse of the event’s contents regarding the free whatever, the event boss’s element, the event weapons and if there’s gonna be another mini-game. For this event, we, yet again, get another event skin and this time, it’s for Aliza.

Ever since post-anniversary 2018 events (Robomi Z), we’ve been getting less and less free characters but instead getting more and more skins, while the skins are appreciated, 2019 has gone full blown into the trend as the year (excluding Collabs) so far had only given 2 free characters (3 if you can “Second Advent” as a 2019 event), the 2 being the R Cat from “The Many Lives of Cats” and SSR Sandalphon (if and only if you hadn’t already gotten him from “WMtSB II: Paradise Lost”) and the rest have been skins.

Why am I upset? I’m deeply invested in Granblue’s stories whether they be casual stuff or heavily lore related, this easily means that with more skins, the less stories there are to be told = the less we also get to know some characters cause even if the free character might have really bland and non-important stories in their fate episodes, it’s these stories that let you, the player, get to know a character; for one, I certainly have developed my love for Aster mainly because of her event SR’s fate episodes even if they were just your everyday routine generally back when I was still in my noob days.

I think one of the reasoning behind the rise of event skins is that they believe no really uses the SRs and, most often than not, people just really use them as skins anyway; while the reasoning does prove a good point I still find it disappointing as even event SRs can provide their worth so long they’re built properly, i.e. Sevilbarra from “Reflections for a White Clover” whom I use for my light GW EX+ OTK setup or even the Swimsuit Olivia from “Bzzt! Amped-up Summer!” as she’s literally a Grand Olivia lite which can be completely useful in certain situations should you not have the grand version, I remember using her for time but I’ve got the Grand version now.

To be honest, I’m quite fine if not all events come with event SRs like what 2018 did but at least it still felt balanced as we still got quite a number of free characters last year compared to this year; I guess they’re only putting out free characters now if they really feel the need to tell a story on them be it supplementary to the current event or not as long as the character in question isn’t due for an SSR gacha release yet but yeah, I really wish we go back to a more balanced release of free skins and free characters during the new events.