Kadaj
The Masochistic Hardcore Player XP
Towns Folk
this isnt one of my DPS setups, but what im about to explain does do wonders if youre finding some bosses doing some annoying debuff spamming (great malboros, pretty much all attacks; therion, stellar drive up to 3-5 times in row--this WILL kill you at 10* and is impossible to dodge). i have several sets with all elements skill, but i recently made a new set to help with improved survival and the skills i used also greatly increase HP recovery from spells (a vanilla cure heals as much as 1.4K for me with this new set). for anyone who's read some of my earlier posts, you might know i purely run machinist on this game so i did duo firearms as always, but had a different gun equipped in one hand for the defensive spread i worked on in this case. here are the skills i chose for the new set and why:
spirit +15, formahaut this skill is a must if you want very high health recovery and fast ap recovery. my backstep ability with machinist recovered as much as 1040 AP with one usage when i had this skill equipped on one of my weapons which is pretty insane. thats easily half of your maximum possible AP with no charm modifiers factored in. combine that crazy AP recovery with AP absord skill on a charm and you wont be even moderately low on AP very easily. a curaga could even be a full heal with this and maxed magic recovery on both firearms but i havent gotten low on health enough to confirm this lol
strength +8, trigoddess this is a defensive build yes, but since my second firearm gives me additional filler space, i put strength skill to boost damage a bit. its at +5 currently since gil snappers havent felt like dropping more atmaliths for me, but the highest possible number is a +8 for this skill on one equipment piece so i write that regardless. the formahaut was a random gun i picked as i didnt feel like farming therion for more geocruxes to make an extra cerberus, but this would be the stronger choice even with the AP penalty (You must use AP absorb though for obvious reasons). just get a chunk of chocobo atmaliths and put spirit +15 on that if you have the resources ready, the skill will easily cover the AP penalty so dont worry about that. trigoddess is a primary pick for me since it has bypass defense +20 as its unique skill. this is important for bosses like omega who do mighty guard which would otherwise brutally nerf your overall damage output. also, for machinists theres an ability that will also dispell this barrier upon impact, even against omega lol. formahaut is decent if therion isnt dropping what you need as it has critical power+30, but reduced vanilla stats. im guessing the lower vanilla stats on trigoddess are more trivial since it has bypass defense, but definitely upgrade for even more damage.
restore function +10 (helmet, assassins armor set used) this is a very overlooked and easily lifesaving skill for any class. it will greatly reduce the debuff duration of detrimental ailments like silence (i HATE this one... it makes healing impossible and takes forever to wear off normally. mages probably hate this more than me since this locks everything for them), blind, stat decrease, confuse and fog. this is a majority of the malboro ailment combination except for poison. damage over time debuffs dont really bother or worry me since these are easily fixed with esuna, its the other parts of the debuff spectrum that are much worse in some situations tbh. just encase alexander to get this skill, hes extremely easy to catch since hes rather slow acting with attacks even on higher quest levels and is also the only eidolon who is always stationary, making him one of the easiest to successfully encase for almost anyone.
restore action +10 (torso armor piece, assassins set) yet another overlooked lifesaver. this will greatly shorten the debuff duration for sleep/ stone/ freeze/ paralysis/ disable (another one i hate thanks to fenrirs jumping spam which is very luck based trying to avoid)/ stop. this is very good since all of these debuffs prevent you from even moving and (once again) using your abilities to recover. a maximum value of 10 greatly shortens the duration of which these will last making things both a lot easier and less annoying. these debuffs are more than just annoying though, these can easily cost you the game later on since enemies and bosses become worsening damage sponges (therion being at the top, pretty much all his attacks will OHKO at 10* quest level... this is also why i have no plans to complete the quest on 10* for him but if i do hopefully i remember to post). you cant really get full immunity to every possible debuffs unfortunately, even with endgame armors, but having the durations shortened so much is a lot better than being stuck with that bad 20-30 second wait before you either die or are able to do something to heal.
nullify death, leg armor piece (assassin set) this skill is an absolute must have in any average players armor sets. diablos dark messenger is very frustrating trying to avoid unless youre very, very far away from him when he does it. and if you get sucked in your almost certain to die even on the lower ranks. if you have nullify death, you wont die to this even if youre sucked in. youll be kept at 1HP regardless of how long youre trapped in the black hole, and you can heal right after it wears off. odin's notorious zantetsuken also cant kill you, and unlike dark messenger it wont even hurt you lol. just an empty stun where nothing bad happens! funny right?
i cant really think of a better defensive spread than this tbh. it covers almost every possible threat even if it isnt perfect. i had significantly less trouble (which was mostly just annoying) dealing with therions stellar drive with this setup, and the spam wasnt as bad when i equipped all of this, silence barely last 5 seconds allowing me to quickly get rid of everything else, paralyze also disappears quickly, disable, etc; they have a much lower duration allowing swift heals and recovery. if great malboros keep killing you with their debuff spam i highly recommend trying this build out, youll get hit by it but it wont last long enough to cause a swift death that may otherwise be annoyingly common against the high level ones. i personally think stellar drive from therion since it casts the full debuff spectrum on you in one go unless you get a lucky evade and it also does much worse damage. sometimes therion only does it once here and there, but he seems to have a high panic spam tendency with this move at low health which is very bad especially for people with low defense due to a lack of resources to upgrade.
forgot to write this, but for restore action, just encase amaterasu enough times. she is one of the tougher eidolons but not as bad as fenrir fortunately (fenrir is broken past 7* quests since his jumping pretty much kills you and aberrant fenrir is horrible with those triple clones here). if you need a good encasing opportunity, try to wait for her to wind up worldmaker or let her do oblique slash. shes very vulnerable during these intervals and if youre quick enough, you wont have to worry about her warping out of encase which is why i suggest this if possible. for nullify death, just get one alraune atmalith. theres plenty of them in hibat caverns, so this should be easy enough.
hope this helps, i just made this build and its pretty funny, even with lower damage than my sets with all elements and some other stuff =)
spirit +15, formahaut this skill is a must if you want very high health recovery and fast ap recovery. my backstep ability with machinist recovered as much as 1040 AP with one usage when i had this skill equipped on one of my weapons which is pretty insane. thats easily half of your maximum possible AP with no charm modifiers factored in. combine that crazy AP recovery with AP absord skill on a charm and you wont be even moderately low on AP very easily. a curaga could even be a full heal with this and maxed magic recovery on both firearms but i havent gotten low on health enough to confirm this lol
strength +8, trigoddess this is a defensive build yes, but since my second firearm gives me additional filler space, i put strength skill to boost damage a bit. its at +5 currently since gil snappers havent felt like dropping more atmaliths for me, but the highest possible number is a +8 for this skill on one equipment piece so i write that regardless. the formahaut was a random gun i picked as i didnt feel like farming therion for more geocruxes to make an extra cerberus, but this would be the stronger choice even with the AP penalty (You must use AP absorb though for obvious reasons). just get a chunk of chocobo atmaliths and put spirit +15 on that if you have the resources ready, the skill will easily cover the AP penalty so dont worry about that. trigoddess is a primary pick for me since it has bypass defense +20 as its unique skill. this is important for bosses like omega who do mighty guard which would otherwise brutally nerf your overall damage output. also, for machinists theres an ability that will also dispell this barrier upon impact, even against omega lol. formahaut is decent if therion isnt dropping what you need as it has critical power+30, but reduced vanilla stats. im guessing the lower vanilla stats on trigoddess are more trivial since it has bypass defense, but definitely upgrade for even more damage.
restore function +10 (helmet, assassins armor set used) this is a very overlooked and easily lifesaving skill for any class. it will greatly reduce the debuff duration of detrimental ailments like silence (i HATE this one... it makes healing impossible and takes forever to wear off normally. mages probably hate this more than me since this locks everything for them), blind, stat decrease, confuse and fog. this is a majority of the malboro ailment combination except for poison. damage over time debuffs dont really bother or worry me since these are easily fixed with esuna, its the other parts of the debuff spectrum that are much worse in some situations tbh. just encase alexander to get this skill, hes extremely easy to catch since hes rather slow acting with attacks even on higher quest levels and is also the only eidolon who is always stationary, making him one of the easiest to successfully encase for almost anyone.
restore action +10 (torso armor piece, assassins set) yet another overlooked lifesaver. this will greatly shorten the debuff duration for sleep/ stone/ freeze/ paralysis/ disable (another one i hate thanks to fenrirs jumping spam which is very luck based trying to avoid)/ stop. this is very good since all of these debuffs prevent you from even moving and (once again) using your abilities to recover. a maximum value of 10 greatly shortens the duration of which these will last making things both a lot easier and less annoying. these debuffs are more than just annoying though, these can easily cost you the game later on since enemies and bosses become worsening damage sponges (therion being at the top, pretty much all his attacks will OHKO at 10* quest level... this is also why i have no plans to complete the quest on 10* for him but if i do hopefully i remember to post). you cant really get full immunity to every possible debuffs unfortunately, even with endgame armors, but having the durations shortened so much is a lot better than being stuck with that bad 20-30 second wait before you either die or are able to do something to heal.
nullify death, leg armor piece (assassin set) this skill is an absolute must have in any average players armor sets. diablos dark messenger is very frustrating trying to avoid unless youre very, very far away from him when he does it. and if you get sucked in your almost certain to die even on the lower ranks. if you have nullify death, you wont die to this even if youre sucked in. youll be kept at 1HP regardless of how long youre trapped in the black hole, and you can heal right after it wears off. odin's notorious zantetsuken also cant kill you, and unlike dark messenger it wont even hurt you lol. just an empty stun where nothing bad happens! funny right?
i cant really think of a better defensive spread than this tbh. it covers almost every possible threat even if it isnt perfect. i had significantly less trouble (which was mostly just annoying) dealing with therions stellar drive with this setup, and the spam wasnt as bad when i equipped all of this, silence barely last 5 seconds allowing me to quickly get rid of everything else, paralyze also disappears quickly, disable, etc; they have a much lower duration allowing swift heals and recovery. if great malboros keep killing you with their debuff spam i highly recommend trying this build out, youll get hit by it but it wont last long enough to cause a swift death that may otherwise be annoyingly common against the high level ones. i personally think stellar drive from therion since it casts the full debuff spectrum on you in one go unless you get a lucky evade and it also does much worse damage. sometimes therion only does it once here and there, but he seems to have a high panic spam tendency with this move at low health which is very bad especially for people with low defense due to a lack of resources to upgrade.
forgot to write this, but for restore action, just encase amaterasu enough times. she is one of the tougher eidolons but not as bad as fenrir fortunately (fenrir is broken past 7* quests since his jumping pretty much kills you and aberrant fenrir is horrible with those triple clones here). if you need a good encasing opportunity, try to wait for her to wind up worldmaker or let her do oblique slash. shes very vulnerable during these intervals and if youre quick enough, you wont have to worry about her warping out of encase which is why i suggest this if possible. for nullify death, just get one alraune atmalith. theres plenty of them in hibat caverns, so this should be easy enough.
hope this helps, i just made this build and its pretty funny, even with lower damage than my sets with all elements and some other stuff =)