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End game viable with AI companions?


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I'm at the tail end of maniac difficulty so no proud yet and the AI has been great so far.  They are extremely good at blocking and dodging when need be, also very very good at sections like shooting cannons.   Don't expect them to contribute to damage or help target break parts, but for building stun, applying buffs/debuffs I have no complaints.  Eugens paralyze is particularly OP

The only downside is it feels like I'm essentially full leveling 4 characters at the same time, they lag behind my main but only like one wrung down the ladder for weapons, sigils, overmastery, etc.  I've been keeping them around parallel with the suggested power level for the quests.

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I've played until The Final Report with AI companions, so it's doable. My main is Lancelot (PWR 16708), and my team is Zeta (7849), Gran (10913) and Cagliostro (7634). The weapons are fully upgraded.

 

But do keep in mind that playing online, even with randoms, is MUCH easier and quicker. You can complete missions in around 2 minutes, while it would take around 7 minutes playing solo.

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Yeah, I am working my way through proud difficulty (the highest from my understanding) right now solo and it hasn't been that bad. I assume the like ultimate final omega evil mission will be annoying but otherwise it doesn't seem that hard. 

 

Kills are slower since the AI is probably not as good as a real player but I think the bigger issue is the fact you have to actually gear/skill everyone up instead of just focusing on 1 character who you want to do multiplayer as. My 3 AI companions are leagues behind my player character in terms of power and there isn't much I can do about it other than just grind a ton, which I probably will do now that I am on proud difficulty.

 

The most annoying aspect so far has been the damage cap mechanic since it's a literal hard limit on how much damage an attack can do and it's very easy to reach. You need damage cap up sigils (basically gems/armor/whatever you want to think of them as, they have skills on them) to increase the limit and I don't have enough for my entire party yet.

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I did all the missions with AI only first before going online.  Both Bahamut missions are terrible with AI (make sure you hold Skybound Arts) due to the DPS checks, but they tend to do better than randoms on some of the harder Proud missions in terms of not dying and succeed more in the missions if you are good at keeping yourself alive.   It is about 3-5X on average (and sometimes even more) slower because the AI is terrible at offense and generally takes longer clearing the missions which coupled with the difficulty on DPS checks on the last fight is going to make the grind for Terminus weapons unbearable without going online BUT it is possible.

Edited by AIMonster2
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I just cleared all the difficulties with my AI characters. However, the very last boss seems to be way more difficult with AI due to certain mechanics in the fight. AI characters are great because you can build them in a way that compliments each other and you should never be out of sync for link time or full burst. 

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You'll likely be able to get to the final tale of bahamut mission with AI. It'll def be harder than doing it online and will take longer but it's definitely doable. 

 

As for end game content, specifically grinding out terminus weapons or attempting to get extremely rare sigils from the final boss, you'll likely run out of luck at that point. The final boss requires some specific coordination between your party and most randoms online grinding out that mission will understand how and when to support in certain situations. The AI can't keep up and they'll cost you the mission almost every time.

 

So if you're interested in that real end game content loop, you'll have to play online to enjoy the experience. Not to mention you'll have to grind that boss likely 100's of times and i couldn't imagine doing that with the AI. With a good team of online players you can clear him in 3-5 min once your power level is around 20000 and you set matchmaking to only match near your power. 

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Why is the matchmaking so bad?

Can't seem to find any players in the Proud difficulty. And the times that I do it gets a connection error.

 

And doing the bosses solo with ai is to difficult for me.

 

Or is there a good character? I'm playing as Lancelot.

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3 hours ago, Mr_Marty84 said:

Why is the matchmaking so bad?

Can't seem to find any players in the Proud difficulty. And the times that I do it gets a connection error.

 

And doing the bosses solo with ai is to difficult for me.

 

Or is there a good character? I'm playing as Lancelot.

 

Remove all the matchmaking restrictions.

 

Basically, switch to any region and remove the power restriction. You'll find a match in seconds.

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15 hours ago, brunocosta1_ said:

 

Remove all the matchmaking restrictions.

 

Basically, switch to any region and remove the power restriction. You'll find a match in seconds.

I thought I had them all off. But I'll check again. Maybe the power restriction was still on. 

 

Thanks for your answer.

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On 2/18/2024 at 2:12 AM, RuggedProGaming said:

The AI can't keep up and they'll cost you the mission almost every time.

Since my last post I've just been grinding out other party members and figuring out who the AI plays best (the answer is basically characters with the simplest kits, like Eugen, the AI is pretty godly with him) and I can def say now this isn't really true. I am not having any trouble really with proto Bahamut with the AI, the kills are just slow as you'd expect. My best time is like around 13ish minutes. But it's completely and reliably doable.

 

The AI is fully capable of doing every mechanic in that fight, in fact they're really dang good at it. Things only go bad if I screw up and die when crystals are out because the AI drops what they're doing to try and res me instead of just killing the things.

 

That said though, I am gonna pause for now because I need to do more grinding. Because while I can clear the fight with little trouble my party has a ton of improvement that can still be made, my team DPS can go way higher. I am running Id (me), Gran (with 4 support abilities), Eugen, and Rackam:

 

Both Gran and Rackam are actually under the suggested power level for the fight and neither of them have enough damage cap sigils still. Actually still need to unlock 1 more sigil slot on my Rackam lololol.

 

Gran doesn't have a max level sword, hasn't been a priority for me since I've mostly used him for support. That said it's not like his damage is bad, so I need to do that (and get more damage cap sigils...)

 

Somehow after close to 100 hours of playing I have not managed to get Id's double character sigil despite having seen numerous of most other character's (and yeah I am save scumming transmarvels, rng has just been that bad for me.) Annoying since he's my main.

 

Most my sigils aren't even leveled up yet. Also lacking more of the good DPS sigils for my AI. I only have 2 supplementary damage and 1 war elemental.

 

Also haven't taken the time to level up every weapon for any of my characters, so free stat gains (from mastery) I am missing out on.

 

Lastly I wanna gear up my Zeta as I've seen people say her AI dps is pretty busted when targets are stationary, which sounds great for Bahamut since his dps windows all involve him barely moving. May as well test it for myself.

 

Anyway, tldr is that for people who don't have PS+ (like me) or just want to play alone everything in the game currently is soloable without much trouble. Aside from Proto Bahamut, proud difficulty isn't actually that hard in the least either. It's just there is a really huge gear requirement jump when you go from Maniac to Proud. For reference the lowest level maniac mission is 7200 power and the highest is 9500 power. Where as with Proud the lowest is 10,000 and goes up to 17,500. When you get to proud you just have to stop and actually take the time to gear up your AI.

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1 hour ago, Mr_Marty84 said:

What sigils are you using for the ai?

 

Or even for your character you play?

Everyone should have a couple of damage cap sigils. Eventually all 4 of them

Crit rate, stamina, aegis, potion hoarder, linked together. Cascade and Quick cooldown are nice to have as a secondary effect on your + sigils.

 

Have AI equipped with Uplift for them to be always ready to use Sky Art.

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You might not have one since you can only get it from Curio's, but the 'Flight over Fight' sigil is busted defense wise.

 

It drops your Atk by 50% but turns all of your dodges into Perfect Dodges. Combine it with an 'Improved Dodge' sigil and get around lvl 13-15 in a 'Nimble Onslaught/Defense' or a 'Dodge Payback' sigil and you'll be practically untouchable since every dodge that evades an attack will give you around 4 seconds of invincibility. Get Guts, Autorevive and Potion Hoarder in addition to those and you're practically immortal.

 

It's made farming up all the Terminus weapons from Proto Bahamut a breeze and I've been doing everything with AI teammates.

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Just did a quick test by trying my hand with Lancelot alone against the Proud difficulty Earth Dragon quest both with and without the 'Flight over Fight' sigil and I'm honestly not sure whether it works with his triangle attack or not. I've never used him before and even without the sigil his triangle attack seemed to get the perfect dodge invincibility more often than not.

 

As you said, the best thing to do is to give it go and see whether it works for you. The sigil certainly works wonders with panicked R2 spam, that much I can attest to.

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Thanks for testing.

I just went through my sigils and I have Flight over Fight+

It also has nimble onslaught on it.

 

And now I just need to get Lucky with the white dragon's oath and Glory as a combineren sigil. (If there is one)

 

I'm gonna try if I can stay alive with the setup. 

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I can stay alive most of the time, but that is mostly due to not have equipped my teammates with max skilltree/weapons. 

 

I just did a training session with Sir Barrold and did just above 6 million damage in a minute.

 

This is my setup for now. Maybe some changes needed. 

Sigils:

- Flight over Fight+ (nimble onslaught)

- White Dragon's Glory

- Improved Dodge+ (quick cooldown)

- Stronghold IV+ (Guts)

-Tyranny V+ (Steady Focus (grants stout heart))

- Damage Cap V+ (ATK)

- Dodge Payback IV+ (Nimble Onslaught)

- Drain V

- Potion Hoarder V

- Regen V

- Crabvestment Returns

- War Elemental

 

If I get better I can get rid of some healing and go for more attack.

Now if I perfect dodge I can keep attacking and with drain I get quickly health back.

 

And I wonder if drain, regen or potion hoarder al have a + variant.

 

Now I just have to see what best teammates are before I spend al my MSP.

Edited by Mr_Marty84
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