This post was recovered from screenshots via OCR - please let me know if there are were mistakes in the transposition I missed.
Anonymous asked:
In a recent post, you said "Fediel is very much on her way out on anything but the highest difficulty content, especially if you have Vikala. I definitely don't recommend her in 2024." I'm fairly new and trying to understand the mechanics of GBF more. Since picking her up, I've been using Fediel fairly regularly, but I've also picked up some other heavy hitters in Dark. I was wondering if you could speak more on why Fed is on her way out/how & where Vik fits into that place better?
I think it's important to understand the context in which I gave that recommendation. I generally prefer to give recommendations looking into the future, especially for players going through midgame grinding. The reason for this being that, assuming you keep playing, you will spend a lot more time in the post rank 200+ mines than grinding anything before it, so in my eyes it makes sense to recommend picks that shine in the content you'll spend more time in.
Fediel's play efficiency right now, in function of where your account stands in progression looks somewhat like a reverse bell curve, capping out in the early-midgame, with a small raise on endgame, but a massive falloff towards the "lategame" stage.
Something roughly among these lines. Power level (higher = better) vs progression point in your account. I roughly divide the game into these three stages for explanation here:
These aren't strict definitions or anything, I'm just using them as an aid to help articulate Fediel's power levels.
At this point your main concern is often to survive encounters, and to farm "basic" tools (M2, Ennead, M3, Six Dragons). These bosses are often fairly uncompetitive in terms of speed, and the amount of damage you have to deal to get a drop chance are low.
At this point in progression, Fediel is amazing. She keeps you alive with a large shield and defensive field, and can deal burst through her CA reactivation without a need for a strong grid to back her up.
There's no argument to the notion that Fediel is an insane earlygame carry, it's just true.
At this point, your need to do "slow but steady" burst and to survive content will be a lot more diminished. By now you should have all your basic tools done, and most pre rank-170 bosses shouldn’t prove a threat.
By now your play mentality is likely to shift from "how do I do this at all" to "how do I do this better” - and here is where Fediel's issues start to come into play.
As your grids get better, the need to lean into Fediel's shield and field defense diminish, so a significant portion of her kit already starts falling off. Beyond that, better tools means better ways to accomodate other builds, which means your overall reliance on Fediel to deal damage is also diminished.
Fediel is absolutely a "slow and steady" character. Her defensive kit is often wasted when you take it to enemies that wouldnt ever hit enough to kill you, and her damage potential leans very heavily into playing CA, which is often very slow.