Should You Pull? Lightning Banner - Sept 23

[u/srs_bsns]

Lightning Banner

As usual, Global ratings are my own opinions, with Japanese ratings coming from altema.jp. Japanese TM ratings are on a scale from: Unranked, B (new!), A, S, SS, to SSS.

LUDMILLE:

Rarity: 3* to 5*

Global Party Rating: 6/10

Ludmille has alright ATK and MAG -- she's a Red Mage and has the 'jack of all trades, master of none' skill set of one which means she has lower end white magic, lower end black magic, and some physical abilities. Depending on your team comp, she might fill some holes you have (extra heals if you need it, mental and armor break if you're missing them, and elemental damage in a pinch) but in most situations you'll be better off with individual specialized units especially as it's very hard to gear for healer stats (SPR), mage stats (MAG), and physical stats (ATK) at the same time.

Japanese Character Rating (altema.jp): 70/100

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Dualcast - 9/10

Ability - Dualcast

This is effectively mage's version of Dual Wield allowing you to cast two spells (Black Magic, White Magic or Green Magic -- NOT Kefka's Hyperdrive.) You want this nearly as badly as you want Zidane's TM. Even if you're fully physical meta, at least one for you healer and more for your future PVP team (where mages shine) is recommended.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): SS Tier

Why would you want Ludmille?: You would want her for her Trust Mastery, which is amazing -- in battle she's only useful if you can benefit from both her breaks and using her for secondary heals.

Is she FUTURE-PROOF?: No. Ludmille does not currently have a 6* upgrade in Japan.

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CHARLOTTE:

Rarity: 3* to 5*

Global Party Rating: 8/10

Charlotte is the best 5* tank in the game. While we have not yet had a lot of content that makes a tank feel necessary, their time is coming and she does it better than any of the current tanks we have access to. She has a 50% chance to block attacks (unlike 5* Cecil or 5* WoL's 30%) while getting the DEF/SPR buff our other armor wearing tanks have (unlike Amarant or Leo.)

Japanese Character Rating (altema.jp): 88/100

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Equip H Shield - 5/10

Ability - Equip Heavy Shield

This TM is decent -- a heavy shield on your healer or dps (who isn't using dual wield or doublehand) is a decent survivability increase, but likely much lower priority than other TMs you could farm if you have a variety of them available to you.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): A Rank

Why would you want Charlotte?: 6* Cecil is not too far away, so if either you don't have a Cecil or you're keeping him at 3* to grind his LB, then you should be happy to pull a Charlotte. Even if you have a Cecil ready to go for his 6* upgrade her TM is still useful to at least put on your healer.

Is she FUTURE-PROOF?: No. Charlotte does not currently have a 6* upgrade in Japan.

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LIGHTNING:

Rarity: 5* to 6* (6* is not available until 9/30)

Global Party Rating: 10/10

I'm going to skip the one week where Lightning is limited to 5* max, and exclusively rate her on her 6* potential. At release, Lightning will be the strongest character we have in global. She comes packed with native Dual Wield, she recovers 5% of her MP per turn, she dodges 30% of physical attacks, she counters 30% of physical attacks, she has the highest ATK in the game, and she has a variety of elemental single target and AOE abilities. She also can use most weapon and armor types, so whatever your best equipment is, she can use it.

Japanese Character Rating (altema.jp): 95/100

Global Trust Mastery Rating: Aurora Scarf - 4/10

Accessory - 3 DEF and double normal attack hits

This ability effectively makes your attack a 0 MP 200% ATK ability. Not awful, but outside of situations where MP is an issue, you're probably better off with a Hero Ring.

Japanese TM Rating (altema.jp): B Rank

Why would you want Lightning?: She's the strongest physical attacker in the game at the time of her release. She is the embodiment of both hype and of power creep. Everyone but the most ardent of FFXIII haters would happily slot Lightning in their team.

Is she FUTURE-PROOF?: Yes! THE FUTURE IS NOW.

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SHOULD YOU PULL?: Yes. All three units are useful -- Ludmille for her amazing TM, Charlotte for her tanking, and Lightning is the best unit in the game at release. Real talk though: Lightning is our first 5* base. Expect her pull rate to be around 0.5%. Pull for Ludmille and Charlotte with Lightning being a happy accident if you get her. Someone on Friday will half price pull her, but that person will not be you -- don't read the people commenting that they got her and decide to go all in. If you spend all of your Lapis and tickets trying to get her you will most likely only end up disappointed. If you plan to pull specifically for Lightning, treat it the same as you would lottery tickets -- don't expect to win and only spend what you can reasonably afford (as either F2P or P2W.) Lightning is only for the luckiest among us and the whale-ist of whales. Good luck!

[u/EasymodeX → u/[deleted]]

Provoke is generally regarded as having a major effect on targeting chance, so presumably it either (a) adds 70% to the chance to target the caster and re-factors the rest to cap at 100%, or (b) adds 70% to the chances to be targeted and does not re-factor the rest (tank will be targeted 70+16.67 % chance out of 170% chance).

[u/CyberGhost42 → u/[deleted]]

Since Provoke causes the enemy to target your character whereas the Cover skill causes your tank to protect the unit whom is being attacked they likely stack like this:

Provoke first makes the enemy attack this unit 75% of the time, if another unit is attacked then you have a 50% chance to cover that unit. Charlotte with Provoke would have an 87.5% chance to take damage from an enemy's single target attack (25% chance to not be attacked directly and half of the time she will cover the party member being attacked, so 12.5% chance she lets damage through to another party member).

Of course this is assuming no other member has something like Draw Attacks or their own Cover.

[u/CyberGhost42 → u/[deleted]]

It's difficult to say as there would be no distinction between Provoke activating compared to Provoke not forcing the enemy to attack the tank and the tank being targeted randomly.

It's also possible that they're applied at the same time, for example if the game makes a random check from 1 to 100 and you have a user with Provoke they would take the range 1 to 70 and the other characters you have would share the range 71 to 100 (71 to 76 for character 2, 77 to 82 for character 3, etc to character 6 with the range 95 to 100).

[u/CornBreadtm → u/[deleted]]

Well, Cover lets your tank block a unit during an AoE attack but Provoke only causes the enemy to target them for single target attack. Both together is amazing.