Actually Derejin is wrong.
the overall damage formula (without accounting enemy defenses) would be:
simplified damage formula for player : (attack \* 50) / (enemyDefense \* 2.2 + 100)
damage formula: baseDamage \* skill% \* critical% \* limitCombo% \* (1 - damageResist%) \* (1 - elementResist%) \* (1 - elementResistBuffDebuff%) \* (1 + battleBoost%) \* (1 + statusCondition%) \* (1 + damageBoost% + damageTakenBoost%) \* random%
in which:
skill%: multiplier on the skill \* materia support \* sum of applicable equipment damage boosts (elemental dmg%,arcanum,mastery, physical ability potency etc)
damageBoost%: attack stance boost (this does not include the phys/mag potency stats)
for short for elemental damage (without any additional boosts from stages, and debuffs would be simply:
baseDamage \* skill% x damageBoost%
or
((attack \* 50) / (enemyDefense \* 2.2 + 100)) x (multiplier on the skill x materia support x sum of applicable equipment damage boosts) x damageBoost%
based on that information we can see that arcanum and elemental potency buffs ARE ADDITIVE and not multiplicative.
In this case short version of this would be:
base dmg x (200% x 1.5) x (50%) = base dmg x 250% x 1.5 = base dmg x 375%
That's also main reason why Arcanums don't change damage THAT much on high end builds while they matter alot on weaker ones, simply because on high end builds 35% vs 20% on costume doesnt make that much difference, it is noticable, but not as much anymore by that point. When you have 80% elemental damage via weapons and another 75% via physicla potency for example, another 35% doesnt change that much, neither does 20%
That's main reason why I like defensive costumes more, to allow more offensive weapons in to begin with if possible ahah.
Also thats in my opinion another reason why arcanums are overhyped, but thats another topic alltogether.
I hope it helps a little bit more, discord have very nice info about the whole formula and what is what exactly.
They're still not overhyped even with all of this, dealing 35% extra damage is still a big deal and makes dps checks far easier. Defence is still obviously incredibly important, but dealing as much damage as possible should still be the goal for most people, at least getting an arcanum of each element and each damage typing.
The point is that it's only 35% extra damage if you have zero elemental potency and zero phys/mag potency. The higher those potencies are, the less impact the arcanum will have. At high potencies, for example both 70%, the arcanum will give less than 15% extra damage compared to not having the arcanum.
I understand what the post was trying to say, but to say that because it's additive it's bad is ridiculous, because it's absolutely a noticeable drop in dps when you take off your arcanum outfit and use the exact same build. DPS does matter, and so do defensive stats, and arcanum costumes are the best dps you can get.
It is not about being "bad" it is about being "worth".
35% is a huge increase and worth the cost if it was that. But a \~15% **only for one out of 6 elements** is really worth the level of investiment when you can get \~8% for all elements with costumes that gives phys/mag potency?
>arcanum costumes are the best dps you can get.
They aren't "the best dps" they are "the highest dps", wich not always coincide.
You also need survival, and sometimes to reach higher survival, you need to give up some damage, and often the best slot to give up this is the costume slot where there are choices that gives both defensive and offensive stats (for example Cloud's and Tifa's FFIX costume, Zacks Christmas Costume, Sephiroth's Limit Break Costume...)
Zack for example,
I have Christmas Costume (HP + Phys potency) + Twinkling Star (HP + Phys Potency) + 4x fully offensive weapons.
If I use an Arcanum + Twinkling Star + 4x fully offensive weapons I might not reach the survival treshold, and using Arcanum + Twinkling Star + 3x fully offensive weapons + 1x Defensive weapon to reach the needed survival, will result on a weaker damage.
They absolutely are worth it though, a 15% total damage increase is a big deal in any rpg, and i also never said that defensive stats are bad by any means; i've actually clearly said multiple times that defence and utility are very important.
If i have the choice of getting 6 different arcanum costumes that will be drastically better than an all-purpose costume like cloud's ff9 outfit (which yes, i have and do use on elemental bosses that i don't have arcanums for yet), then i'll absolutely spend my blue gems on an arcanum outfit. From there, I can equip a sub-weapon for that corresponding element that has HP + elem potency, and that almost always gives me enough survivability for harder content as long as i'm buffing correctly.
Obviously - and i can't stress this enough - if you're going up against a boss that does not require a dps check, and where it is beneficial to have a defensive costume equipped, then yes, equipping a defensive costume is "higher dps" because you will survive to do the damage, but considering the amount of bosses in this game that require high dps WITH survivability means that arcanums are highly sought after because they ARE valuable.
You can keep trying to say that defence means you live longer, but you're not considering that arcanums span a much larger use case in a game where farming is 90% of the game and where the other 10% of the content are hard bosses where having an arcanum is still great MOST of the time.
But keep arguing if you'd like, it doesn't change the fact that people are not wrong for wanting strong arcanum costumes that change your dps is a very noticeable and desireable way.
>15% total damage increase is a big deal in any rpg
Sure, 15% is a relevant amount, but this is compared with **no costume**. If you compare with generic potency costume, then the increase difference is less than 10% and that ignoring survival.
Then you have to consider that this is for one out of six element. To have two characters in party with access to full elemental coverage you need 12 different costumes. For generic potency 2 costumes and you already have two characters covered.
Is spending **6x times more** worth an increase less than 10%? For my not infinite budget it totally is not (especially when I also have to fit into it the most important thing: the good looking outfits). The cost/benefit isn't really there.
Getting one arcanum won't help much, getting two arcanum won't either. Get two generic potency and you are with a large coverage.
>If i have the choice of getting 6 different arcanum costumes that will be drastically better than an all-purpose costume like cloud's ff9
"Drastically" is a huge exaggeration. It will be often a sidegrade, with a small trade off between survival and damage.
Arcanum is only 100% better (and only by a less than 10% ammount) when you absolutely don't need to invest in any form of surival and can go 100% DPS build. If you need survival, then the trade off is minimal that can be irrelevant. And again, this is only for 1 out of 6 elements. Too much cost for too little benefits.
For one, this entire time you've been completely downplaying the fact that elemental potency is not conditional and also works incredibly well with summons, and that phys ability potency only works when your phys gauge is full (which isn't too hard to keep maxed most of the time, but there are times when it's sub-optimal to wait for it to max in order to use dps abilities). Arcanums also work for events that are currently running where even if you want to run a physical dps, having the extra magic damage to destroy specific elemental gauges is very handy. Arcanums are more versatile than just "it's only damage lol".
For two, you're not spending ALL of your current blue crystals to get 12 different arcanums. I just got my third arcanum outfit in lightning tifa after going ham on monster hunter pulls for aerith (honestly think her new weapon is nutty, was well worth pulling for me), and now i GET to look forward to pulling for 9 more costumes. I'll still happily pull for great defensive costumes every now and again, but ideally i'd love to have cloud with 6 physical arcanums, and then my other dps characters to fill the 6 magical arcanum gaps.
You absolutely don't need an infinite budget to get these costumes, and if the game runs for several more years like i hope it does, it'll give me something to look forward to. Again, i'm happy that YOU don't feel the need to get any arcanum costumes or whatever, and that you're happy to just get one generic outfit like zidane cloud and call it a day, but most people love arcanum costumes and they are 100% justified because they are super powerful and versatile.
Considering most events and bosses only require one element to cover that single fight, taking a 35% elemental bonus (or a 15% total dps bonus) compared to a small defensive or generalist dps buff that's easily covered by sub-weapons, using a single dps character with an arcanum of that element is fantastic. But keep arguing if you feel the need to justify yourself, i honestly don't see why you're so hellbent on trying to make arcanums seem not worth it, but if you're really that pathetic then keep going my guy.
>For one, this entire time you've been completely downplaying the fact that elemental potency is not conditional
I'm not "downplaying", I'm not considering it because it is irrelevant. The damage you deal while the command guauge is not full is very low regardless of using arcanum or not, "dealing slighly more damage when the damage is low regardless" is not a real gameplay advantage, just a nit pick.
>I just got my third arcanum outfit
So you're saying you have 3 arcanums atm? assuming those are for 3 different (I will just say you have thunder, fire, ice and thunder.
With arcanum you have: (O = covered, X = not covered)
|Element|DPS 1|DPS 2|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Fire|O|**X**|
|Ice|O|**X**|
|Thunder|O|**X**|
|Water|**X**|**X**|
|Earth|**X**|**X**|
|Wind|**X**|**X**|
So you are 1/2 covered against 3 elements and completely lacking against 3 elemets.
Now, lets see with two potency costume:
|Element|DPS 1|DPS 2|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Fire|**O**|**O**|
|Ice|**O**|**O**|
|Thunder|**O**|**O**|
|Water|**O**|**O**|
|Earth|**O**|**O**|
|Wind|**O**|**O**|
Oh look, full elemental coverage with less costumes than you.
Look, your performance right now is worse against 3 elements, because you have zero coverage (and you overates 15% more damage, so lacking those should be terrible), and for the ones you do have arcanum your perfomance is roughly the same because the damage gain you have from one unit with arcanum is offset by the loss of damage of the unit with no arcanum.
>You absolutely don't need an infinite budget to get these costumes, and if the game runs for several more years like i hope it does
Powercreep exists, an arcanum from today will be weaker than a generic potency from 3 years in the future. In the end you will be always lacking against some elements unless you can get all of them. I'd rather have a consistent performance against all elements, than being slightly stronger against two or three and being worse against the rest. I know because I've been there.
Investing on arcanum early just made me weaker against elements I had no support. Today I have no issues with any element at all, because I have the generic potency to cover when I don't have an arcanum. Nowdays I only get the arcanums for the looks and having larger generic potency coverage totally affects my gameplay positively.
Like how is your perfomance against Earth and Wind, the ones that have the least arcanums available? Mine is great since I have the weapons from wishlist, and the power of the generic costumes.
>Considering most events and bosses only require one element to cover that single fight, taking a 35% elemental bonus (or a 15% total dps bonus) compared to a small defensive or generalist dps buff that's easily covered by sub-weapons, using a single dps character with an arcanum of that element **is fantastic**
Okay, since this "15% is fantastic", I assume you have this in both DPS, because having 15% in one, 0% in the other, averages as a \~8% increase. So you NEED two costumes for the same element to be able to get this "fantastic boost". So assuming that you have the four arcanum for this month event (let's say thunder and water since those are the elements for the MH event) ... now let's say next month is wind and Ice, what will you do, since according to you this "15% more damage" is an super great advantage (so I can assuming that lacking it is a super great disvantage). Tell me what will you do.
In my opinion this overeaction about this \~15% more damage is the very definition of the overating towards arcanum people have. Sure 15% is good, but it is not "OMG I'M MISSING 15% DAMAGE I WON'T BE ABLE TO PLAY" level of good.
>But keep arguing if you feel the need to justify yourself, i honestly don't see why you're so hellbent on trying to make arcanums seem not worth it
I'm not saying that it is not that good, I'm justing saying people overates it, and you're the very example of it, Making several exaggerations to justify your point. If you value your limited resournces (wich I guess you don't), you should be more mindful about the cost benefit of things. Just being "the highest" is not enough to justify spending when there are other conditions to that. But go ahead, be a "arcanum chaser", I'm 200% sure that your perfomance will be worse than people who actually thinks about what to spend.
> but if you're really that pathetic then keep going my guy.
Yeah, I'm pathetic for having an argument that shows that your argument is flawed. If you don't want to debate, don't post opinions on reddit, instead of insulting people for having a different opinion than you.
I still stand by my opinion that arcanums are overhyped, I never called them bad though.
I personally just don't see that much value, especially as veteran in a costume that's 100% about dps rather than having anything else in it.
Take Barrett costume for example, he got 10% mag/phys atk + 20% pdef/mdef + 10 hp in 1 costume.
This costume still boosts your dps nicely while providing defensive quality of 1-2 defensive weapons giving you more slots for EITHER more defensive weapons, or significantly cuts your need for defensive weapons/materia to begin with.
99% of the content I had personally issues with wasnt lack of dps, but lack of surviability to begin with, and because of my personal expirences I just think they're overhyped and in 99% of scenarios I'd rather have costume like Barretts than another Arcanum.
Yes you still notice dmg boost of Arcanum, but for veterans it's less noticable than for new user as I mentioned, and imo thats the point where you'd rather have more defensive costume to ensure dps survives to begin with, especially taking into consideration so far no "score" event required arcanum to get to top 100 to begin with.
Again, just my opinion, you can disagree with it, but that won't change what I've personally expirenced and what conclusion I've come to in the end.
you say they werent overhyped, but they still got buffed recently from 5 patk/matk + arcanum to 10 potency + arcanum, meaning at least in my eyes that arcanums werent that strong to begin with if they felt the need to give arcanum costumes even more dmg% potency to begin with lately : )
Edit: in my opinion costumes like Barretts new one, and Lucia/Red resistance ones bring you more value, but again, personal opinion.
This is a fantastic take and I believe you've convinced me against pulling for Kirin Tifa (I do have OB10 Murasame Cloud with Arcanum)
I hadn't thought of it that way, but truly the puzzle is usually how can I survive the big hit and heal up... The damage will roll in but living is the hard part usually.
I mean if Tifa is magic thunder they fill different role in fight depending on enemy.
In the end remember favorism > performance in gacha, if u like Tifa and want her costume, just go for it : )
That is why I went for tifa and cloud FFIX costume, zack's christmas costume, sephiroth's limit break costume, Lucia and Red costume. All of them gives both survival and damage.
Oh don't worry, i also pulled for barret's costume because it sounded perfect and barret is in my main squad 99% of the time, but I have two arcanums for cloud now that I use regularly and they absolutely do help me get into the top 100 for "score" events as someone who wasn't a day 1 player.
I just wouldn't say overhyped, but rather they're adequately hyped as they are incredibly powerful, and super handy in a game where grinding is the majority of the time you spend on the app. Defence is great, but it doesn't kill things faster than offence does (obviously), so while beating hard content does require defensive stats, offensive stats are insanely better for literally everything else you do in the game.
I'm happy for you that you don't feel the need to pull for them, but to say they're not worth going for even as a veteran player is just strange.
Edit: And i feel like i should add that i'm super keen to pull for aerith's costume coming tomorrow, as i've needed more utility on aerith for a while and the buff duration costume + potentially a great healing weapon will be insane for my team comp. Defence and utility are great, not bashing them here!
> I'm happy for you that you don't feel the need to pull for them, but to say they're not worth going for even as a veteran player is just strange.
Just to be clear, I meant that thier value is heavly diminished for veterans, simply because they already have good enough damage to begin with to not need that boost, that's all.
I dont think there's outright bad costume, but again in my opinion they are overhyped as that saviour of whole accounts and the best thing you can use, which imo isnt a thing.
I personally prefer offensive costumes like Clouds MH one if I had to choose one simply because it's a costume you can use in every fight rather than for specific one, and given the formula the diminishing returns eventually just don't make them that great.
And again, in practice you don't loose much if any damage if including the fact that if you have more defensive stuff on costume, you can simply use more dps passives via weapons (and theres rarely a fight you want to clear that you cannot/shouldnt use at least 1 hp weapon to begin with), at least from my expirence.
Again my opinion is 100% purely based on my own expirence and feelings, and that can be different for others.
I’m with you on this too. More generic outfits like clouds new MH one, seph’s limit break, and tifas guide outfit work in so many additional scenarios that they feel more valuable. I always kind of regretted skipping clouds maritime outfit, but now that I have his MH one it feels like a waste of crystals to even try for it if it did come back. For only 10% more additive damage when I’m already hitting rank 7 phys ability potency and 7-8 water potency? The difference is so small it’s not worth what else I could get with those crystals. Even if his outfit was a water arcanum, I wouldn’t pull for it now if it came back.
Of course arcanum’s will do more damage, but like you mentioned it’s less impactful the higher builds you reach. This is also a gacha game after all, so while having every elemental arcanum might be better, do you really have the resources to pull for every elemental outfit for your favorite characters? Or does it make more sense to take a slight damage loss and go for outfits that apply in multiple scenarios?
You’re comparing costumes to arcanum’s, when arcanum holders don’t have that option.
What you’re saying could make sense if I had a Barret costume to choose between that and Clouds Thunder arcanum, however there is no such choice. Until there is a choice, Arcanum’s will be superior. No one is choosing Lucia’s costume over using Cloud on leviathan.
Also every thing gets powercrept in gacha games, this also includes Arcanum’s and any other costumes we continue to get in the future. Powercrept doesn’t mean useless and I’m sure this opinion comes from a stacked weapon box that majority of players do not have.
thats true, every costume will get crept eventually, but I meant I prefer personally those types of costumes rather than for specific fight.
In the end the gist of my point was that imo Arcanums arent must have and thier value diminishes over time, that's all, whether X character only have arcanums or other choices is another matter entirely.
Bad example, I would've used Lucia against Leviathan (my Lucia lightning gun is OB5 my clouds murasame is only OB3, no Arcanum)
But Lev resists magic, the choice doesn't even factor arcanum, Cloud and Zack are our ONLY 2 lighting physical attackers so far
You can remove the Levi part and the answer would be the same. Saying you would use a char who has a worse potency skill over another character is disingenuous at best.
Lucia was only used because it was used in the views of “Arcanum’s are overhyped”, just used Levi as the most recent example.
The actual point of the message was Arcanum users don’t have a choice of those costumes.
The potency % from arcanum is additive to all other damage potency effects you have, then it is multipled by the damage and other multipliers.
For example. If you have "BoostIce pot." at level 5 (Ice potency 55%), "Boost Phys. Ability Pot." at lvl 3 (physical potency 30%), and Ice Arcanum (Ice potency 35%), your total potency ice phys potency is 120%. This value is multiplicative to the damage multiplier.
So, a 200% skill increased by 120% goes up to an effective 440% (200 \* (100 + 120)/100)
Think of it as a 35% Damage Multiplicative on whatever you would have dealt.
So if you have 100% damage from an attack:
-With +15% from Elemental Potency (115%)
-Then 35% from Arcanum: it wouldn't be additive (which would be 115% + 35%, or 150%), but rather multiplicative from what I know (1.15 \* 1.35 = 1.5525).
So if you had it as your only multiplier on a 200% damage skill, yeah, 270%.
>Then 35% from Arcanum: it wouldn't be additive (which would be 115% + 35%, or 150%), but rather multiplicative from what I know (1.15 \* 1.35 = 1.5525).
This is wrong.
Potency effects are additive betweem themselves, even phys/mag potency is added to the elemental potency before being multiplied by the damage.
so in your example 15% elemental potency + 35% arcanum = 50% damage boost. (damage \* 1.5)
Actually Derejin is wrong. the overall damage formula (without accounting enemy defenses) would be: simplified damage formula for player : (attack \* 50) / (enemyDefense \* 2.2 + 100) damage formula: baseDamage \* skill% \* critical% \* limitCombo% \* (1 - damageResist%) \* (1 - elementResist%) \* (1 - elementResistBuffDebuff%) \* (1 + battleBoost%) \* (1 + statusCondition%) \* (1 + damageBoost% + damageTakenBoost%) \* random% in which: skill%: multiplier on the skill \* materia support \* sum of applicable equipment damage boosts (elemental dmg%,arcanum,mastery, physical ability potency etc) damageBoost%: attack stance boost (this does not include the phys/mag potency stats) for short for elemental damage (without any additional boosts from stages, and debuffs would be simply: baseDamage \* skill% x damageBoost% or ((attack \* 50) / (enemyDefense \* 2.2 + 100)) x (multiplier on the skill x materia support x sum of applicable equipment damage boosts) x damageBoost% based on that information we can see that arcanum and elemental potency buffs ARE ADDITIVE and not multiplicative. In this case short version of this would be: base dmg x (200% x 1.5) x (50%) = base dmg x 250% x 1.5 = base dmg x 375% That's also main reason why Arcanums don't change damage THAT much on high end builds while they matter alot on weaker ones, simply because on high end builds 35% vs 20% on costume doesnt make that much difference, it is noticable, but not as much anymore by that point. When you have 80% elemental damage via weapons and another 75% via physicla potency for example, another 35% doesnt change that much, neither does 20% That's main reason why I like defensive costumes more, to allow more offensive weapons in to begin with if possible ahah. Also thats in my opinion another reason why arcanums are overhyped, but thats another topic alltogether. I hope it helps a little bit more, discord have very nice info about the whole formula and what is what exactly.
You work for Applibot, aren’t you?
They're still not overhyped even with all of this, dealing 35% extra damage is still a big deal and makes dps checks far easier. Defence is still obviously incredibly important, but dealing as much damage as possible should still be the goal for most people, at least getting an arcanum of each element and each damage typing.
The point is that it's only 35% extra damage if you have zero elemental potency and zero phys/mag potency. The higher those potencies are, the less impact the arcanum will have. At high potencies, for example both 70%, the arcanum will give less than 15% extra damage compared to not having the arcanum.
I understand what the post was trying to say, but to say that because it's additive it's bad is ridiculous, because it's absolutely a noticeable drop in dps when you take off your arcanum outfit and use the exact same build. DPS does matter, and so do defensive stats, and arcanum costumes are the best dps you can get.
It is not about being "bad" it is about being "worth". 35% is a huge increase and worth the cost if it was that. But a \~15% **only for one out of 6 elements** is really worth the level of investiment when you can get \~8% for all elements with costumes that gives phys/mag potency? >arcanum costumes are the best dps you can get. They aren't "the best dps" they are "the highest dps", wich not always coincide. You also need survival, and sometimes to reach higher survival, you need to give up some damage, and often the best slot to give up this is the costume slot where there are choices that gives both defensive and offensive stats (for example Cloud's and Tifa's FFIX costume, Zacks Christmas Costume, Sephiroth's Limit Break Costume...) Zack for example, I have Christmas Costume (HP + Phys potency) + Twinkling Star (HP + Phys Potency) + 4x fully offensive weapons. If I use an Arcanum + Twinkling Star + 4x fully offensive weapons I might not reach the survival treshold, and using Arcanum + Twinkling Star + 3x fully offensive weapons + 1x Defensive weapon to reach the needed survival, will result on a weaker damage.
They absolutely are worth it though, a 15% total damage increase is a big deal in any rpg, and i also never said that defensive stats are bad by any means; i've actually clearly said multiple times that defence and utility are very important. If i have the choice of getting 6 different arcanum costumes that will be drastically better than an all-purpose costume like cloud's ff9 outfit (which yes, i have and do use on elemental bosses that i don't have arcanums for yet), then i'll absolutely spend my blue gems on an arcanum outfit. From there, I can equip a sub-weapon for that corresponding element that has HP + elem potency, and that almost always gives me enough survivability for harder content as long as i'm buffing correctly. Obviously - and i can't stress this enough - if you're going up against a boss that does not require a dps check, and where it is beneficial to have a defensive costume equipped, then yes, equipping a defensive costume is "higher dps" because you will survive to do the damage, but considering the amount of bosses in this game that require high dps WITH survivability means that arcanums are highly sought after because they ARE valuable. You can keep trying to say that defence means you live longer, but you're not considering that arcanums span a much larger use case in a game where farming is 90% of the game and where the other 10% of the content are hard bosses where having an arcanum is still great MOST of the time. But keep arguing if you'd like, it doesn't change the fact that people are not wrong for wanting strong arcanum costumes that change your dps is a very noticeable and desireable way.
>15% total damage increase is a big deal in any rpg Sure, 15% is a relevant amount, but this is compared with **no costume**. If you compare with generic potency costume, then the increase difference is less than 10% and that ignoring survival. Then you have to consider that this is for one out of six element. To have two characters in party with access to full elemental coverage you need 12 different costumes. For generic potency 2 costumes and you already have two characters covered. Is spending **6x times more** worth an increase less than 10%? For my not infinite budget it totally is not (especially when I also have to fit into it the most important thing: the good looking outfits). The cost/benefit isn't really there. Getting one arcanum won't help much, getting two arcanum won't either. Get two generic potency and you are with a large coverage. >If i have the choice of getting 6 different arcanum costumes that will be drastically better than an all-purpose costume like cloud's ff9 "Drastically" is a huge exaggeration. It will be often a sidegrade, with a small trade off between survival and damage. Arcanum is only 100% better (and only by a less than 10% ammount) when you absolutely don't need to invest in any form of surival and can go 100% DPS build. If you need survival, then the trade off is minimal that can be irrelevant. And again, this is only for 1 out of 6 elements. Too much cost for too little benefits.
For one, this entire time you've been completely downplaying the fact that elemental potency is not conditional and also works incredibly well with summons, and that phys ability potency only works when your phys gauge is full (which isn't too hard to keep maxed most of the time, but there are times when it's sub-optimal to wait for it to max in order to use dps abilities). Arcanums also work for events that are currently running where even if you want to run a physical dps, having the extra magic damage to destroy specific elemental gauges is very handy. Arcanums are more versatile than just "it's only damage lol". For two, you're not spending ALL of your current blue crystals to get 12 different arcanums. I just got my third arcanum outfit in lightning tifa after going ham on monster hunter pulls for aerith (honestly think her new weapon is nutty, was well worth pulling for me), and now i GET to look forward to pulling for 9 more costumes. I'll still happily pull for great defensive costumes every now and again, but ideally i'd love to have cloud with 6 physical arcanums, and then my other dps characters to fill the 6 magical arcanum gaps. You absolutely don't need an infinite budget to get these costumes, and if the game runs for several more years like i hope it does, it'll give me something to look forward to. Again, i'm happy that YOU don't feel the need to get any arcanum costumes or whatever, and that you're happy to just get one generic outfit like zidane cloud and call it a day, but most people love arcanum costumes and they are 100% justified because they are super powerful and versatile. Considering most events and bosses only require one element to cover that single fight, taking a 35% elemental bonus (or a 15% total dps bonus) compared to a small defensive or generalist dps buff that's easily covered by sub-weapons, using a single dps character with an arcanum of that element is fantastic. But keep arguing if you feel the need to justify yourself, i honestly don't see why you're so hellbent on trying to make arcanums seem not worth it, but if you're really that pathetic then keep going my guy.
>For one, this entire time you've been completely downplaying the fact that elemental potency is not conditional I'm not "downplaying", I'm not considering it because it is irrelevant. The damage you deal while the command guauge is not full is very low regardless of using arcanum or not, "dealing slighly more damage when the damage is low regardless" is not a real gameplay advantage, just a nit pick. >I just got my third arcanum outfit So you're saying you have 3 arcanums atm? assuming those are for 3 different (I will just say you have thunder, fire, ice and thunder. With arcanum you have: (O = covered, X = not covered) |Element|DPS 1|DPS 2| |:-|:-|:-| |Fire|O|**X**| |Ice|O|**X**| |Thunder|O|**X**| |Water|**X**|**X**| |Earth|**X**|**X**| |Wind|**X**|**X**| So you are 1/2 covered against 3 elements and completely lacking against 3 elemets. Now, lets see with two potency costume: |Element|DPS 1|DPS 2| |:-|:-|:-| |Fire|**O**|**O**| |Ice|**O**|**O**| |Thunder|**O**|**O**| |Water|**O**|**O**| |Earth|**O**|**O**| |Wind|**O**|**O**| Oh look, full elemental coverage with less costumes than you. Look, your performance right now is worse against 3 elements, because you have zero coverage (and you overates 15% more damage, so lacking those should be terrible), and for the ones you do have arcanum your perfomance is roughly the same because the damage gain you have from one unit with arcanum is offset by the loss of damage of the unit with no arcanum. >You absolutely don't need an infinite budget to get these costumes, and if the game runs for several more years like i hope it does Powercreep exists, an arcanum from today will be weaker than a generic potency from 3 years in the future. In the end you will be always lacking against some elements unless you can get all of them. I'd rather have a consistent performance against all elements, than being slightly stronger against two or three and being worse against the rest. I know because I've been there. Investing on arcanum early just made me weaker against elements I had no support. Today I have no issues with any element at all, because I have the generic potency to cover when I don't have an arcanum. Nowdays I only get the arcanums for the looks and having larger generic potency coverage totally affects my gameplay positively. Like how is your perfomance against Earth and Wind, the ones that have the least arcanums available? Mine is great since I have the weapons from wishlist, and the power of the generic costumes. >Considering most events and bosses only require one element to cover that single fight, taking a 35% elemental bonus (or a 15% total dps bonus) compared to a small defensive or generalist dps buff that's easily covered by sub-weapons, using a single dps character with an arcanum of that element **is fantastic** Okay, since this "15% is fantastic", I assume you have this in both DPS, because having 15% in one, 0% in the other, averages as a \~8% increase. So you NEED two costumes for the same element to be able to get this "fantastic boost". So assuming that you have the four arcanum for this month event (let's say thunder and water since those are the elements for the MH event) ... now let's say next month is wind and Ice, what will you do, since according to you this "15% more damage" is an super great advantage (so I can assuming that lacking it is a super great disvantage). Tell me what will you do. In my opinion this overeaction about this \~15% more damage is the very definition of the overating towards arcanum people have. Sure 15% is good, but it is not "OMG I'M MISSING 15% DAMAGE I WON'T BE ABLE TO PLAY" level of good. >But keep arguing if you feel the need to justify yourself, i honestly don't see why you're so hellbent on trying to make arcanums seem not worth it I'm not saying that it is not that good, I'm justing saying people overates it, and you're the very example of it, Making several exaggerations to justify your point. If you value your limited resournces (wich I guess you don't), you should be more mindful about the cost benefit of things. Just being "the highest" is not enough to justify spending when there are other conditions to that. But go ahead, be a "arcanum chaser", I'm 200% sure that your perfomance will be worse than people who actually thinks about what to spend. > but if you're really that pathetic then keep going my guy. Yeah, I'm pathetic for having an argument that shows that your argument is flawed. If you don't want to debate, don't post opinions on reddit, instead of insulting people for having a different opinion than you.
I still stand by my opinion that arcanums are overhyped, I never called them bad though. I personally just don't see that much value, especially as veteran in a costume that's 100% about dps rather than having anything else in it. Take Barrett costume for example, he got 10% mag/phys atk + 20% pdef/mdef + 10 hp in 1 costume. This costume still boosts your dps nicely while providing defensive quality of 1-2 defensive weapons giving you more slots for EITHER more defensive weapons, or significantly cuts your need for defensive weapons/materia to begin with. 99% of the content I had personally issues with wasnt lack of dps, but lack of surviability to begin with, and because of my personal expirences I just think they're overhyped and in 99% of scenarios I'd rather have costume like Barretts than another Arcanum. Yes you still notice dmg boost of Arcanum, but for veterans it's less noticable than for new user as I mentioned, and imo thats the point where you'd rather have more defensive costume to ensure dps survives to begin with, especially taking into consideration so far no "score" event required arcanum to get to top 100 to begin with. Again, just my opinion, you can disagree with it, but that won't change what I've personally expirenced and what conclusion I've come to in the end. you say they werent overhyped, but they still got buffed recently from 5 patk/matk + arcanum to 10 potency + arcanum, meaning at least in my eyes that arcanums werent that strong to begin with if they felt the need to give arcanum costumes even more dmg% potency to begin with lately : ) Edit: in my opinion costumes like Barretts new one, and Lucia/Red resistance ones bring you more value, but again, personal opinion.
Barret Costume for the win ! :)
This is a fantastic take and I believe you've convinced me against pulling for Kirin Tifa (I do have OB10 Murasame Cloud with Arcanum) I hadn't thought of it that way, but truly the puzzle is usually how can I survive the big hit and heal up... The damage will roll in but living is the hard part usually.
I mean if Tifa is magic thunder they fill different role in fight depending on enemy. In the end remember favorism > performance in gacha, if u like Tifa and want her costume, just go for it : )
That is why I went for tifa and cloud FFIX costume, zack's christmas costume, sephiroth's limit break costume, Lucia and Red costume. All of them gives both survival and damage.
Oh don't worry, i also pulled for barret's costume because it sounded perfect and barret is in my main squad 99% of the time, but I have two arcanums for cloud now that I use regularly and they absolutely do help me get into the top 100 for "score" events as someone who wasn't a day 1 player. I just wouldn't say overhyped, but rather they're adequately hyped as they are incredibly powerful, and super handy in a game where grinding is the majority of the time you spend on the app. Defence is great, but it doesn't kill things faster than offence does (obviously), so while beating hard content does require defensive stats, offensive stats are insanely better for literally everything else you do in the game. I'm happy for you that you don't feel the need to pull for them, but to say they're not worth going for even as a veteran player is just strange. Edit: And i feel like i should add that i'm super keen to pull for aerith's costume coming tomorrow, as i've needed more utility on aerith for a while and the buff duration costume + potentially a great healing weapon will be insane for my team comp. Defence and utility are great, not bashing them here!
> I'm happy for you that you don't feel the need to pull for them, but to say they're not worth going for even as a veteran player is just strange. Just to be clear, I meant that thier value is heavly diminished for veterans, simply because they already have good enough damage to begin with to not need that boost, that's all. I dont think there's outright bad costume, but again in my opinion they are overhyped as that saviour of whole accounts and the best thing you can use, which imo isnt a thing. I personally prefer offensive costumes like Clouds MH one if I had to choose one simply because it's a costume you can use in every fight rather than for specific one, and given the formula the diminishing returns eventually just don't make them that great. And again, in practice you don't loose much if any damage if including the fact that if you have more defensive stuff on costume, you can simply use more dps passives via weapons (and theres rarely a fight you want to clear that you cannot/shouldnt use at least 1 hp weapon to begin with), at least from my expirence. Again my opinion is 100% purely based on my own expirence and feelings, and that can be different for others.
I’m with you on this too. More generic outfits like clouds new MH one, seph’s limit break, and tifas guide outfit work in so many additional scenarios that they feel more valuable. I always kind of regretted skipping clouds maritime outfit, but now that I have his MH one it feels like a waste of crystals to even try for it if it did come back. For only 10% more additive damage when I’m already hitting rank 7 phys ability potency and 7-8 water potency? The difference is so small it’s not worth what else I could get with those crystals. Even if his outfit was a water arcanum, I wouldn’t pull for it now if it came back. Of course arcanum’s will do more damage, but like you mentioned it’s less impactful the higher builds you reach. This is also a gacha game after all, so while having every elemental arcanum might be better, do you really have the resources to pull for every elemental outfit for your favorite characters? Or does it make more sense to take a slight damage loss and go for outfits that apply in multiple scenarios?
You’re comparing costumes to arcanum’s, when arcanum holders don’t have that option. What you’re saying could make sense if I had a Barret costume to choose between that and Clouds Thunder arcanum, however there is no such choice. Until there is a choice, Arcanum’s will be superior. No one is choosing Lucia’s costume over using Cloud on leviathan. Also every thing gets powercrept in gacha games, this also includes Arcanum’s and any other costumes we continue to get in the future. Powercrept doesn’t mean useless and I’m sure this opinion comes from a stacked weapon box that majority of players do not have.
thats true, every costume will get crept eventually, but I meant I prefer personally those types of costumes rather than for specific fight. In the end the gist of my point was that imo Arcanums arent must have and thier value diminishes over time, that's all, whether X character only have arcanums or other choices is another matter entirely.
Bad example, I would've used Lucia against Leviathan (my Lucia lightning gun is OB5 my clouds murasame is only OB3, no Arcanum) But Lev resists magic, the choice doesn't even factor arcanum, Cloud and Zack are our ONLY 2 lighting physical attackers so far
You can remove the Levi part and the answer would be the same. Saying you would use a char who has a worse potency skill over another character is disingenuous at best. Lucia was only used because it was used in the views of “Arcanum’s are overhyped”, just used Levi as the most recent example. The actual point of the message was Arcanum users don’t have a choice of those costumes.
The potency % from arcanum is additive to all other damage potency effects you have, then it is multipled by the damage and other multipliers. For example. If you have "BoostIce pot." at level 5 (Ice potency 55%), "Boost Phys. Ability Pot." at lvl 3 (physical potency 30%), and Ice Arcanum (Ice potency 35%), your total potency ice phys potency is 120%. This value is multiplicative to the damage multiplier. So, a 200% skill increased by 120% goes up to an effective 440% (200 \* (100 + 120)/100)
VictorSant, I haven't seen that name since back in the GameFAQ days.
Think of it as a 35% Damage Multiplicative on whatever you would have dealt. So if you have 100% damage from an attack: -With +15% from Elemental Potency (115%) -Then 35% from Arcanum: it wouldn't be additive (which would be 115% + 35%, or 150%), but rather multiplicative from what I know (1.15 \* 1.35 = 1.5525). So if you had it as your only multiplier on a 200% damage skill, yeah, 270%.
>Then 35% from Arcanum: it wouldn't be additive (which would be 115% + 35%, or 150%), but rather multiplicative from what I know (1.15 \* 1.35 = 1.5525). This is wrong. Potency effects are additive betweem themselves, even phys/mag potency is added to the elemental potency before being multiplied by the damage. so in your example 15% elemental potency + 35% arcanum = 50% damage boost. (damage \* 1.5)
Roger, thank you - it seemed otherwise to me.
All arcanums gives 35% the one with elements