#gbf woes

[unma]

taking a break from finishing up this month's frans monthly to complain that I have done 200 rolls and have yet to get Tikoh's new unit. Not just that, but over my last 80 rolls I have gotten 2 SSRs, and both were DUPES. DUPES.

Gbf I love you but why??? Why would you do this to me.

[gilkiduss]

Arcarum farming is so inefficient

[transflynnscifo]

i see u. i see you. i see you. you are fucking seen you motherfucker

[icharchivist]

I don't know Azuma but he looks both dangerous and highly kissable

oh you have no idea.

he's one of the most guys of all time.

He's voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara, who also voices Elmott in gbf.

He's part of one of my favorite song of the game, where he has a gay duet about vampire yearning with Tasuku (voiced by Takuya Sato, of Lu Woh's fame on here). And who wouldn't want a gay vampire duet with those two.

For the "fun" fact about him, Azuma is a cuddle therapist. It means that he sleeps with people to listen to their woes. He says the job is fully innocent, while he's also treated like a pariah for being into a shady branch of jobs. This job also gives him a lot of connection and we're basically sure he has at least some clients who dip into illegal stuff because he can pull some strings to have a false ID made for example. Despite his job being "wholesome" he also talks a lot about having sex with people and trying all sort of things so there's that too.

But the reality of Azuma is that he's actually extremely closed off. His family died when he was really young and none of his relative wanted to take him in, so he basically wrote himself down as fully alone and unable to connect with people. Still, he craves for human connections, and it's why he picked his job. He can't personally be vulnerable about himself, but he's here to listen to anyone and help them going through their problems. He also have night terrors when he sleeps alone, which is another reason he picked up this job.

he dropped everything to become an actor in our company after seeing two members of the Autumn Troupe fight for each other, and realize he was kinda jealous of them, of being able to connect with others, to trust others while vulnerable.

He joined the Winter troupe afterward, troupe famous for struggling to connect with one another because they all have raised their walls super high. Azuma himself struggles to fit in, as everytime he feels like he's getting too close he worries of what he might lose and he ends up shutting himself down, ghosting people, thinking about leaving.

But he's fine. This is fine. The Winter Troupe has his back.

Anyway the whole "therapist so he can read you like an open book, giving the illusion of intimacy to others because he's damn touch starved, will be the type to throw sex and flirty jokes at you to distract you from seeing him as vulnerable, while also in mourning" means that in my perfect gbf x a3 collab event that will happen one day i want him and Belial to meet. They'll drive psych warfare on each other and/or have sex and i need to see it for reasons.

As for dangerous part this is my favorite bit about it. Sakyo in this scene is a Yakuza btw and they're playing a Yakuza themed boardgame:

He's one of the most guy of all time. Thank you for your time.

[floopers]

Changing Forms

series: gbf pairing: Athena/Medusa word count: 1552 rating: G summary: Late nights when they're about to doze off are the only important time to ask questions such as these.

[AO3]

a "hey babe would you still love me if I turned into a worm" fic

"—thena? Athena? Hey!"

Athena blinks awake, blinking several more times as she comes out of her light doze. Her senses go into alert—being woken up suddenly never means anything good—but there doesn't appear to be any immediate threat. At least, Medusiana, still slumbering behind them, hasn't moved at all. She looks around for a moment before remembering exactly where she is and looks down to her lap. Medusa, having taken Glafkos' usual spot by laying her head down in Athena's lap, is tilting her head back now to look up at her. The tip of her tail taps against the grass in a slow rhythm, a sign of her contentment.

"Oh, you really were sleeping," Medusa finally says and moves her head back down. "Never mind then."

"No, no," Athena shakes her head and though a yawn comes out of her, she keeps her eyes open, rubbing at them. "I hadn't meant to. I was looking up at the stars and you know how the skydwellers say that they count the stars when they have trouble sleeping? I wondered if it was truly possible so I tried and—"

"You fell asleep."

"—I fell asleep—yes." Athena smiles sheepishly. Medusa tilts her head back again and smirks at her.

"Heh! Just like you to do something like that." She's amused though Athena's not sure why.

"Is something the matter, though, Medusa?" Athena asks instead. "If it was important to wake me up for it."

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Medusa says with a huff, looking away from her now.

"Forgive me, I did not mean to fault you." Athena reaches over, patting Medusa's cheek with her hand. Medusa huffs again and still doesn't look at her but the tip of her tail is furiously moving back and forth now. The sight of it makes Athena smile, resting her hand at the crown of Medusa's head now.

Medusa finally shifts back to her original position after some time, muttering something that Athena can't quite make out. Perhaps it is because of moments like these that makes their tongue loose. It is the only reason as to why Medusa would suddenly look up at her and stare at her and not even look away when Athena returns her gaze. There's moments where Athena knows she is being watched but when she catches her gaze, Medusa hurriedly looks away and huffs, as if Athena was not meant to see her. At these times, she trains herself to keep from meeting Medusa's eyes but Medusa had been staring a bit too intently for Athena to ignore.

"Medusa? Is... something really the matter?" Athena asks again. It must obviously be something important on her mind. Athena steels herself, ready for lend Medusa her aid whether in listening to her woes or to offer advice.

"Hey, what would you do if I became a snake?"

Athena blinks. And blinks again. She furrows her brow. "If I had heard you right... you are asking me what I would do if you became a snake? Do you mean to ask if you were always a snake? Or if you were always one? In the latter situation though, if your snake form is all that I have known, then I wouldn't know of any other form then—"

"What—why are you making this even more complicated than it has to be?" Medusa frowns at her. "I just meant what if I turned into one right now!"

"Right... now?" Athena thinks to herself. There are many, many factors and possibilities to consider in this event...

"—ey! Hey! Do you really need that much time to think about it?" Medusa's pulled herself up now, sitting on the ground next to her with a frown.

"When you say you've just turned into a snake... I am merely considering all the outcomes. Would you be as big as Medusiana? Or would you remain the same size as you are now? Or would you be smaller instead? Ah, and your hair as well, would you also have snakes on top of your head—ah, do you mean to ask if you were a regular snake and not a primal beast? Or a snake primal beast—"

"Gah! You're overthinking it now!" Medusa glares at her. Athena closes her mouth.

"... none of those?" Athena finally says, her brow furrowing deeper.

"Nothing complicated like that!" Medusa crosses her arms with a huff. "I was just having a conversation with Yuni the other day and she was wondering if she should go back to being a dragon since she has trouble keeping her feet on the floor. I think if she transformed into a dragon in front of people, she'd just end up scaring everyone!"

"But we have Vyrn, do we not? And..." Athena blinks, suddenly coming to a realization as she counts on her hands, "we also have... a surprising amount of dragons on the crew."

"... huh, now that you say that." Medusa seems to come to the same realization as her, her eyes widening as well. But she shakes her head afterward. "Wait, no, that isn't the point here! I just meant if she were doing something like she was in the middle of conversation with someone and she just suddenly turned into a dragon! That kind of thing!"

"... oh." But now that confuses Athena. "So you mean to say if you had that same ability? To shift between your form now and a real snake?"

"Huh? Wait." Medusa pauses then, now thinking to herself. "I guess yeah, if I could just turn back and forth between a snake and this form!"

"With that clarification then... I would still enjoy your company regardless of what form you take. After all, what you become does not change the memories we've made."

Medusa whips her head toward Athena, mouth falling open. Athena blinks back at her, unaware of what she might say to have caused that sort of reaction.

"That's!" Medusa covers her face suddenly. Her snakes form and hiss though not angrily from what it seems like to Athena. Agitated, is what she would describe them. Athena has learned that there are certain things that embarrass Medusa though she still has yet to figure out their reason. Speaking so candidly though seems to be one of them. Athena has no bone nor wish for deceit though when it comes to her feelings. She thought Medusa would appreciate her honesty but sometimes, she can't tell.

Despite Medusa muttering to herself though, there's a few snakes slithering in the air toward Athena, drawn instinctively toward her warmth. Athena holds out her hand, watches as they reach her fingers and begin to coil themselves around her hand. She runs a thumb over one as it moves past her, tongue flicking against her skin—oh, that's brought a thought to her now.

"There is one detriment though, now that I think about it."

Medusa makes some kind of muffled sound behind her hands before hesitantly looking up, eyes narrowed. "What is it?"

"If you were to transform into a snake so suddenly," Athena reaches over, tugging free one of Medusa's hands, "as snakes do not have limbs, I would no longer be able to hold your hand like this."

Medusa seems to freeze. She looks from Athena to their hands and then back up at Athena again. She stares, and Athena offers her a light smile—oh, that seems to have done it, Medusa sputtering as the color spreads across her face and up to the tips of her ears. Her tail is lashing furiously in the grass, a sign of her agitation.

But Medusa has not pulled away her hand.

Athena allows her smile to grow, threading their fingers together now. Medusa makes another sound, something that sounds like a squeak, and the color on her face deepens, almost as red as Athena's armor, and she can even see the color extending down toward her neck. If Athena must confess, it's slightly tempting to see just how deep Medusa's flush can go.

"I-I guess it's good that I can't do that then, huh!" Medusa finally says. She's very pointedly looking away from Athena though. It's just a little funny to Athena, because Medusa is the one who's clamping down on her hand, like the jaws of a snake.

"I suppose so, but I would still like your company either way," Athena says, and Medusa makes something that sounds like another squeak. "Hm, what if the same were to happen to me? If I were able to somehow transform into another form."

"... you?" Medusa looks back over at her. "What would you even want to be?"

"An owl," Athena answers immediately.

"... of course. I don't know what else I expected," Medusa mutters with a shake of her head. She huffs afterward. "Hold on though, owls don't have hands either! A wing isn't the same as a hand!"

"Oh! You're right. Then, I am glad that we currently take this form then," Athena finishes, running the back of her thumb over Medusa's hand. Medusa makes another sound like she's disgusted or displeased but her tail's settled down into a slower rhythm rather than the agitated lashing of before.

"... yeah, I guess so," she finally says with a sigh, still holding tight to Athena's hand.

[toestalucia]

whatsup gaymers

[lacylovesdragons]

I’ll take all the SSRs I can get... is what I say but I was really hoping for Lucio/Lucifer or any of the dragon knights (TwT)

[balloonpokemon]

Percival just wanted to get one good night's sleep on the Grandcypher, but the captain just had to put him in the room next to Lancelot and Vane.

y’all like gbf in this house??

[chiwarinouniverse]

You know, the event back then in Rage of Bahamut that focus on Lucifer’s past?

Yes, I try to redraw the  memorable scenes from “As it is” route because I love Luci so much. His story is kinda sad, and we see now that even as a demon he is never ill-hearted. AND THAT HE IS THE BEST HUSBANDO (PLATONIC) MATERIAL

His GBF counterpart is a joke, tho. Sigh..

Either they want different approach to Lucifer and make him happier since he is originally gloomy and woe is me type or they just fail as they write him in happier universe

I’ll love him forever

[ftpbtw-gbf]

6.5 week update

account start date: 1/31/2019

Table of contents:

General progress

Grids/Weapons

Characters/teams

Summons

Other notes

General Progress

I’ve been working on clearing out those arca badges while collecting screenshots for this update so those numbers will be a tad off.

For what it’s worth, evidence that I’ve never pulled from the gacha still:

compare with the free draws for the current anniversary event:

I haven’t used the weapon ticket yet, but I think it’s fair game to do so. Haven’t decided what to use it on, however I’m not in a rush since it’ll be around probably longer than I plan to play this account famous last words. 

Probably a grimnir harp though, since we have two xenos coming up in just a week or two (and I don’t need to grind either of them for my other accounts).

Story wise, ch 63 is a major moment, both in terms of the story and what becomes available.

 After ch 63 there are only a small handful of important, but not crucial raids to be unlocked, namely primarchs and huanglong/qilin. There are two pretty good story characters as well that I have not unlocked yet, however I wanted to take time to develop grids to be able to better tackle some of the upcoming story fights without relying on pots and the retry bonuses (which I did use for a few earlier story battles).

Working through arca as I mentioned. I should be on track to recruit monica as early as next week, assuming I’m not screwed over by some encounters. I did just clear my first hard mode puppet boss and it was a slog, but I did make it through. I’ll talk more about it later, but water and dark still feel exceptionally weak even though their grids are roughly on par with my other elements. Some of it is character related, but I haven’t been particularly scientific about it yet.

Grids/Weapons

imgur album of grids

The above grids are specifically for mechanic teams for each element. Since I’m collecting arca points for monika, I have not bought a water arca gun and am just hoping one will drop when I get to Bellator path (there’s a decent enough chance at it anyway).

Between freebies and good luck with drops, I have mostly workable if not 100% meta base grids, now only requiring skill levels to finish off.

I’ve intentionally slotted hp weapons into many of my grids. The prevailing philosophy of many high ranked players is to go all in on offense and ignore hp,but that’s never really sat well with me. “Punch it harder,” has never really been a feasible short term solution to a battle that new players might struggle with. Additionally, many of the grids above already have 5-6 magna atk mod weapons so I found space to include hp weapons so that I’m not investing in atk weapons that would eventually be victim to “diminishing returns,” not that I’ve ever really heard a satisfying explanation for that in gbf context.

As of the time of publishing this, there are still no freely available earth ex weapons pre-hHL

Some more notes on other specific weapons:

Can probably get most of these up a few more uncaps by now, but I’ve been neglecting them a bit.

Picked up two axes last gw before realizing I should instead be getting these, so I switched over and managed to grind out enough boxes to mlb this one and have one 0* extra. 

Still a tad on the fence whether or not I want to actually make any eternals on this account or not, but I’m starting to lean towards yes. That being the case, I originally started grabbing axes because Sarasa is always a great starter choice, but Quatre and Six might be better options to bolster elements that have weak ftp char options. Earth isn’t doing amazingly better than dark and water, but enough so that I’m not struggling with water enemies in arca like I am with fire and light foes.

Through perseverance, good timing on the addition of the Love Live collab to side stories and otherwise good free fire chars, I was able to grind out an mlb windhose. The FLB step requires elemental centrums and urns, that I don’t have access to pre-HL, so for now, it stays mlb.

Pre-HL, Water sabers are roughly as bad off as earth sabers, and having the windhose for wind prospects, I ended up picking water for my atma from the “wmtsb 3: 000″ event. Earth might have been a slightly better choice, but it’s not a huge deal wither way. Both elements have an LL char that can provide elemental atk up, and both elements have alternates that are mediocre. As you can see, I haven’t touched it yet though, because outside of 000, new players would not have access to an atma at my rank (72). However, once rank 80 rolls around, you can bet I’ll be trying to sneak into a UBaha normal train to get meteorites for a key. For now, gonna work on collecting the host mat.

I only just today noticed that I had the mats needed to flb the silver bow however, while I did that, I have not had a chance to upgrade it any further. I’m also probably going to be directing skill fodder elsewhere before coming back to this.

Characters/Teams

Since this post is already going to be super long, here’s an imgur post with my currently set up teams and notes on specific characters. There are some other fringe set ups, I’m interested in trying at some point or another, but these cover 95% of my needs. Commentary included in imgur post.

Here’s an album with my overall character levels.

Since only a few of my chars are max uncap + max level, I haven’t amassed a lot of emp points on most chars and therefore haven’t looked at emp quality for most.

Summons

It fortunately did not take too long to mlb all six magna ssr summons, especially with the first one given out for free.

Some notes:

- Fafnir and Phoenix are both usable - the former has a fire def down which would be more useful if I didn’t already have characters that could also inflict it, while the latter has a heal albeit a very weak one.

- Robomi is a dispel, with the unfortunate side effect of dispelling one of your own buffs. The not having to bring dispel in my own subskill slot though is enough reason to keep her around.

- You get one wind buncle from pinboards and there’s another in treasure trade for some satin feathers and tia silver anima. There are four more in the casino, but for now, I’m keeping the two I have separate since I don’t have a ton of other great summons.

- Ebisu’s water def down, is more valuable than fafnir’s because there are fewer characters (among free chars at least), able to inflict the elemental def down. At mlb, the aura loses it’s data penalty, too.

- With WMTSB2 in sidestories, I’m able to use Sandalphon summon for it’s atk up and heal. I’m already at a point where chev is the better main summon, but Sandalphon’s call is still fantastic, compared to the other healing summons that have half as much potency. He also gives his character version a small dark damage cut as a secret effect.

- For anyone who didn’t know SR Luminiera and SR Celeste both provide 20% damage cut against their strong element when mlb. So mlb SR Celeste’s call, for example, gains a light damage cut.

- There are no good elemental summons for Earth or Dark in side stories - Midgardsormr and Albacore both are ~25% atk boosts justified by having hp boosts alongside them, but for practical purposes, the damage loss isn’t worth the hp gain. I’m fortunately at a point where I’m using magna summons for all elements normally, but arcarum may still get better results from an elemental summon (maybe? I haven’t been scientific enough about the numbers). Unfortuantely, getting all four copies of Dark flame Scion out of the side story shop is going to take something like fifty runs of Sandalphon showdown because the WMTSB doesn’t give out a free mlb summon at the end unlike most other side stories. It gives out the mlb light ex harp, but not the summon. And my dark team is not great, as seen in the previous section. I can beat the showdown, but it takes effort.

- I was able to farm an mlb and 0* copies of WMTSB3′s Dragon’s Rage Summon, however, since it won’t be around all the time (till next year presumably), I can’t use it however great the 50% all element/10% hp boost would be to alleviate my elemental summon woes.

- Once I unlocked arca, I bee-lined for Hanged Man, and was fortunate enough that he was the boss I encountered at the end of that path. Hanged man provides me with a clarity in my summon grid, which is useful in the same way Robomi is as a dispel, but better, because Hanged Man gives a random buff in addition to clearing a debuff, instead of taking away a buff like Robomi.

Other notes

As implied by my grid showcase and story progression, I unlocked Mechanic as soon as I was able. Earlier on, I lucksacked a silver centrum from a primarch raid leech but even without that, by rank 50 it’s within the player’s power to leech grand order raids for feathers and redeem 25 for the first shop centrum, thereby acquiring the hardest part of the energy maneuvers robot part. I casino’ed enough to get the red bricks and brightstones so I was able to get those turn 1 full bursts right out the gate as soon as possible. Doing so greatly improved the speed at which I could handle my own hard primal raids and thus helped collect omega anima for magna raid hosts - which in turn led to more ssr magna drops. 

At rank 60, I took my main and tackled as much of ex co-op as I could so I had the achievements to unlock swordmaster and mystic, though I have not leveled them yet. I have both arca wind sword/katana so I can slime, though I haven’t sat down and done any yet.

After Dark Fencer, I went for Holy Saber among the T3 classes, then Bishop, then Hermit:

I haven’t been focusing on leveling classes since, and focusing on some of the specialty ex classes was a noticeable drain on my cp supply, but Hawkeye, Weaponmaster, Valkyrie, and Superstar, roughly in that order are next on the to-do list when I get back to it. All of those classes provide useful if non-essential subskills for those rare cases I might not need miserable mist (such as actually playing dark fencer).

At one point, I was hoping to sell this account around the time it reached a spark’s worth of crystals, but after looking into some examples of account selling, I’m already at a point where this account wouldn’t be appropriate to sell to a new player, which limits my potential clients. That being the case, I’m a bit less concerned over preserving all of the options, such as gold bar usage, though I may change my mind in the future still. I picked the sunstone from WMTSB2: summon cradle, and it’s tempting to use it on a magna summon like Tiamat.

Anyway, if there are any questions, feel free to ask here (use the link at the top that starts: “Ask me about...”) or if you know how to reach me on discord, that’s fine, too.

[unma]

haven't started doing Cosmos raids yet but nothing gives me more joy than to see Chaos Ruler get so much use in an endgame raid. I was devastated to find that for my purposes when I first got Chaos Ruler it was just not that useful for anything, so it brings me a certain euphoria to see the class with my favorite design be usable outside of me forcing it to be because of my undynng love for anything even remotely edgy.

[chayashix]

Also, the Touken Ranbu boys are SO pretty but I just don't have patience for the actual gameplay...

[icharchivist]

I finally understand your beef (so to call it) around gbvs-onlys who see gbf and think its about them :crushed:

Saw a youtuber do musical analysis on armageddon (beautiful song what can ya say) and some clown in the comments said the song came from the arcsystem versus and it was The Granblue Game(TM)

OH NO

i do think versus has slight remix of the songs so it depends what is the version the video was analysing, but also don't the remix have different names???

BUT STILL

insisting that it's from GBVS first and that GBVS was the base GBF game... so wrong. so so wrong wtf.

This is unnerving me to so much, gbvs only ppl were clowning the other day by making cygames trend to say that "cygames is over because they still don't have rollback" like my good buddy my pal. I saw takes about how GBF was done for because of that, and "i don't understand how the devs are so lazy that we got no news for Granblue (read: gbvs) lately" like SERIOUSLY. IN FRONT OF MY SUMMER LIVE STREAM????

I've also seen when Summer Belial came out people asking if they needed to play the VS game to understand the mobage and i swear i felt like decomposing on the spot. What is going on.

Relink is going to make things worse and i just want to cry.

I'm so sorry you had to run into those. i fear it's only going to get worse. i'm sorry.

[icharchivist]

I guess this is my cue to say that if you see me rave about VA who are in a3, to remind you all that a3 has a lot of songs as it’s a singing saga.

Want to hear Kakihara Tetsuya (Elmott/Icas) sing as a sexy vampire in love with a mortal man? Please listen to Shoutai. Or want a sweet song about cuddling at night until morning comes? Yoake no Junsui is for you.  Or how about a cool song that, look, idk how to describe, it’s just super cool, with Kikyou no Hana?

You see me cry about Wataru Hatano (Randall/Owen) all day? that’s because of a3 too! Want to see him fool himself setting himself up as a hurtful person? Please listen to Petenshi no Yuutsu. Or want to hear him as Moriarty having a very sexy duet about murder? Please listen to Scarlet Game it’s probably my favorite song like, ever. Or want to hear his take on the Wizard of Oz? Usotsuki Wa Mahou No Hajimari is a banger through and through! Or just his more intimate and vulnerable song with Seeds about accepting healing after so much hardship? 

Ever saw me lose my mind when Atsushi Tamary (Tor) joined the gbf cast and wondered why? The fact you’ve never listened The Contract and didn’t experience his voice drop while playing Lucifer means you Don’t Know Anything. And i’ll invite you to Unmask because who needs any adaptation of Phantom of the Opera after this banger of a song? 

Or how about an hilarious one of, wanna hear a duet of Eguchi Takuya (Vane) and Shirai Yutsuke (Mordred) where they just act like bitchy arrogant models together and having the biggest whiplash imagining Vane and Mordred singing it? Professional is for you.

Or maybe you’ll take a crossover of hearing EguTaku singing with Koutaro Nishiyama (Justin from the Vicious D) because crossover craziness ever? Please listen to ITTEKI ~Yoshitsune Ibunroku~. Or maybe you’d just like to listen to the woes of a perfectionist being burdened by his shortcomings with Natsu no Dilema.

Or speaking of Koutaro Nishiyama, maybe you’d like a song about an alchemist and his homunculus friend with Omoide No Nejimaki. Or about figuring out what to do of his life with Dandelion no Akubi? 

Or since i’m talking about the Chikadee what host would i be if i didn’t bring up the banger songs by Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Arthur), from his existential crisis with Kiteretsu Poemer, and the embracing of his feelings with Emotions, while taking you on a detour of hearing him as a butler in a crime story with Es No Yuutsu? 

Or for the few people not aware of Asanuma Shintaro (Ryan/Damon)’s range and want to discover it by hearing The ThemeSong Of You When Guild Wars Is Happening with Gamer High, or when you’re trying to pull for your fav with Real Luck? or maybe just a really cool song with Growing Pain? or what about a duet with Shirai Yusuke (Mordred again) where they invite you to Wonderland with Wonderland Go Go Go!

Or maybe you’d be curious to know how Shunsuke Takeuchi (Barawa) sounds like when he’s paying an insecure Teenager with Loner, or having a mafia homoerotic duet with Chiharu Sawashiro (which is only relevent to us for being the little brother of Katalina’s seiyuu) with Ichiya Kagiri no Aibou. Or a song full of clever wordplay and a catch beat with Q to Ju? or a Persona type song that unfortunately i don’t have a translation to, just vibes, with Double Solitaire?

Or maybe you’d be curious about Shunichi Toki (Joel) singing a really touching song about wanting to be himself with Minority? Or about being a fashion designer on a runaway with Mikansei na Sora? 

so basically this is my a3 music propaganda post. Listen to a3 music you won’t regret it. (Spotify playlist here for convenience)