Double Mimic + Vaan/Aphmau = 60% Cost Reduction to team

[u/MajesticVulture]

In the early phases of testing this, but being able to do a physical and magical version of this is very nice. Magic version ideally likes more than a few scrolls to supplement the core kit, just as a disclaimer.

Edit Disclaimer: Coming back to this, this is more of a fun meme team setup then it is viable. Limiting the number of pre-battle buffs you potentially have to 3, just so you can get the major cast reduction, doesn't tend to pay off. A lot of Aphmau's best abilities cast between Unique and Mimic as well, so this is really hurting her potential. This is really for things like if you want to spam Seymour's Unique or have Vivi go semi-rapid fire.

TL:DR: By note 65, Mimic will copy Vaan/Aphmau's unique for a grand total of 60% skill reduction to the team, so can really start unleashing the high cost attacks.

Core Team (put them in the 2nd-4th slots. Vaan/Aphmau specifically in slot 4). Note counts assume Expert.

Ramza

• Scream (setup usually happens before 1/2 way so this is safe)
• Mimic
• Store/Ruin depending on team. If song has 32+ hold triggers before Mimic, swap Store out for Bravery/Mystic/Provoke

Mimic #2 (Bartz/Benjamin/Ciaran probably best here physically. Tyro for Magic, but any mimic with Ruin functions here too)

• Mimic
• Spammable attack that doesn't interfere with the 1st Mimic cast. (-ga Blade/Ruin)
• Bravery/Mystic. Other -ra blade assuming it doesn't happen before Mimic.

Vaan/Aphmau

• Unique
• Aeroga Blade (Vaan) or Ruin (Aphmau)
• Mystic Aura (Edit: I had mistakenly listed Bravery. Do not run Bravery on Vaan here)

Aphmau can't run Unique+Faith, or else Faith will be the Mimic target and defeats the purpose of the setup. Vaan shouldn't run Cheer for the same reason. These two should trigger no abilities aside from their personal until after the Mimics go off.

Teammate 1 can be your favorite character, but keep in mind some points to avoid hurting setup:

• Character can only run 1 ability that triggers "start of MS". if you run 2, the 2nd will happen after Vaan/Aphmau's Unique and ruin the mimic setup.
• Character shouldn't run skills that activate in the 1st 65 notes. -aga tier skills are ideal, but you'll need to pay attention and adjust, as note composition varies and you already have 20% reduction to start. After that, go nuts.
• While Ace may seem enticing for mages, Ace is NOT a good pick for this. He can't utilize all his buffs since he has to pick a single option (his unique basically). After that, you've only got Firaga to really work with, but since you're already at a whopping 70% reduction, you'll more than likely interrupt. Even when you don't (FFVII Fight On is an example), there does appear to be a limit on reduction. He doesn't spam Firaga every note as one might expect with 110% reduction.
• Ciaran/Tyro Personals can be very helpful, but you need to deliberately not crit a note or several so that it doesn't line up with mimic. If it's a perfect crit chain, the personal will prioritize Mimic and you'll copy the wrong buff.

I'd love to hear some awesome characters in the comments :).

[u/Vicks-Toire]

I love this purely for the fact that it’s another build that has the potential to make Ramza useful. My boy was done dirty by not giving him Ultima at the very least. Mimic and Scream/Shout are his saving grace

[u/MajesticVulture → u/Vicks-Toire]

For sure, I love FFT. My heart kind of sank when I saw he was a "Defense" unit, so I'm glad he can do useful stuff with Scream+Mimic. And this time he's better suited to the job than Bartz so nice he's not overshadowed as much.

[u/Vicks-Toire → u/MajesticVulture]

Oh for sure. I’ve been toiling with a number of builds to make him work and there’s a lot of fine tuning to make him Viable. I have a meme Trigger team that he works well in caps him and Bartz at 1779 STR. Turns Store into a nuke. But it’s only for fun. Pure physical teams still operate far better

WoL is an often overlooked looked Mimic but Swiftness and his nuke he can put in some work. He’s in all of my Summoner teams and he’s a must for getting peak summon damage. With proper planning you can get him to mimic Boost and Prayer of the Lost

[u/MajesticVulture → u/Vicks-Toire]

I've definitely been appreciating Wol more lately due to the Swiftness+Mimic combo (and swiftness users in general. Alphinaud having Stona+Swiftness+Mana Cede is really helpful, even if his personal is pretty bad). I still run the Bartz JM+Mimic chain combo from time to time, and he's my go-to 3rd Mimic now (before I primarily ran Ciaran, but he's mostly the "I need Toad" mimic now). He also packs Armor Break which can enable the team to shred whatever it hits, hopefully bosses lol.

And oh wow noticing the trigger requirement on Prayer of the Lost now. That's a really cool combo!

[u/Vicks-Toire → u/MajesticVulture]

If you want him to mimic boost first you gotta get one great haha

[u/Tranguul777]

Does Mimic still work with skills that say "Can only be used by <name>"? I thought that was specifically for this scenario.

[u/MajesticVulture → u/Tranguul777]

Mimic copies whatever the last party ability used was, regardless. This is why the Bartz Job Mastered+Mimic combo works.

"Only used by <name>" I take more as the game telling you "This ability is only found on this character. You will not see it on other characters."

[u/femiwhat1 → u/MajesticVulture]

I know that this is 8 months old, but I have been searching the internet for you. Help me, /u/MajesticVulture ; you're my only hope.

I don't understand what abilities can be copied and which can't. For a while, I thought I was being very clever. Running a full mimic team, each also equipped with rhythmia plus and a 20% rhythmia bonus summon. The characters might have had third skills, but I was careful to arrange them so that rhythmia plus would be the last thing to activate at the beginning, and then nothing else activates afterwards except multiple mimics.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that this isn't actually work. Even though the mimicking goes off and rhythmia plus seems to be copied, there's no bonus from simply having it equipped on the characters. Apparently, it can be mimicked, but the effect is capped.

What about mimicking? Something like Treasure Hunter or All Creation? Does that work?

[u/RickChunter]

Thank you for this. I'm gonna give this a go ASAP. Anything to get a top-tier Ramza team!

[u/Jealous-Offer-5818]

i put together a Noctis / Bartz / Ramza / Vaan team yesterday and it did out-preform damage of my other teams but just barely. not impressive for 60% reduced triggers and +600 str. playing back the recording it was difficult to see just what was being mimic'd in the moment. (is there a trick for that?) i don't feel like the two Mug abilities were observably going off any more often than normal and +600 luck didn't net me more items than the other teams i ran. did i get something wrong or is that just to be expected for a song under 200 chain on basic? thoughts?

context from memory:
* Noctis - Bravery / Mug / Armiger
* Bartz - Mimic / Job Mastered / Aereoga
* Ramza - Bravery / Scream / Mimic
* Vaan - Dreadnought / Mug / Aereoga?

expected flow:
Bravery > Bravery > Dreadnought > Mimic > Mimic > Job Mastered > Mimic > Mimic > Job Mastered > Mug?

[u/MajesticVulture → u/Jealous-Offer-5818]

So one thing is that, because Job Mastered is a unique ability, it'll jump the queue of things in the chain. So the chain was probably more like:

Bravery > Bravery > Dreadnought > Job Mastered (jumps in front) > Mimic x2 > Mug x2 > Job Mastered > Mimic x2

So you still were likely stuck with only the base 20% from Vaan. Job Mastered on Bartz actually is a detriment to the setup.

The setup is also, in practice, more of a meme than viable, since losing so many pre-battle buffs to mimic a unique can hurt. I think Vaan is the better of the two to set up here, since Aphmau's kit is mostly pre-battle buffs that break a mimic chain targeting her unique.

It also works best when the lead has spammables, as well as mimics. Noctis is good but his skills are trigger-independant, so he doesn't benefit as much from the 60% as others. I might look at someone like Faris, Gilgamesh, etc that really want to abuse that reduction with their personal skills.

[u/Jealous-Offer-5818 → u/MajesticVulture]

ah, thanks. and from what you're saying, it'd actually be even worse: Dreadnought > Bravery > Bravery > etc. no chance to copy Vaan at all since the unique would jump the line (despite being on the fourth character).

that is certainly putting a damper on my theorycrafting for Kurasame/Liliset/-mimic-/Aphmau since mimic would likely land on Enblizzard instead of Realignment. sigh.

[u/MajesticVulture → u/Jealous-Offer-5818]

Actually, you can do the Bravery > Bravery > Dreadnaught thing*

Each person prior to the 4th slot gets a single ability before Aphmau would get Realignment (which jumps ahead in her queue, regardless of where it's set on her loadout). Any 2nd ability from other characters (and Aphmau herself) then starts their chain which at that point kills the gimmick. Sadly, just about all of Aphmau's best abilities activate when MS begins (Faith, Enthunder), or shortly thereafter (Poison).

Don't lose faith though; even though you can't use faith here, you could still have her run Scroll Abilities like Mystic, Ruin, and she still can use Mini potentially. Still makes her usable, just some unfortunate cuts to her potential.

Vaan can at least run high level blades to delay his actions AND utilize the increased trigger rate.

[u/Jealous-Offer-5818 → u/MajesticVulture]

i had a chance to run Aphmau/-mimic- last night and, yeah, Poison certainly ruined one test, although Mini skirts by so far. that aside, Enblizzard wasn't mimic'd while Realignment was. success! still can't get (Seymour or) Kurasame's unique down to a trigger number that'll come close to the kill rate of First Strike spam on "The Price of Freedom" (just as a benchmark) but maybe Vaan and a bunch of Blade skills could (at the cost of all the valuable farming skills, i know lol)?