I say “at last” like there’s something special about it. And maybe a year ago there might have been, but right now Granblue Fantasy has been so powercreeped that 175 is like, barely able to hold your own. You can’t argue with me because look, even the likes of me is level 175. That means anyone can do it.
Still, just because anyone can doesn’t mean everyone has. I’m sure there are people who started after me who are in their 200s now, just like there are people who began before me who are lower or who dropped the game ages ago. Heaven knows I had my own struggles with whether to drop it or not, but in the end I decided Granblue Fantasy was too much fun to drop. I just had to pace myself better and now at last, woo hoo, level 175!
Nothing really happens at 175 though. There’s a rank uncap quest where you fight a couple of nostalgic mooks like Mithra Malice and Freesia and stuff. Cygames really doesn’t want anyone to get stuck at such an inconvenient location, so they don’t make things too hard for you. Unless you slimed your way to 175 or took some similarly unrealistic shortcuts, you’ll be just fine.
…or so I say, but I actually died once to Leviathan Malice. ^^;; Bring Dispel or wait out his buffs, is all I have to say about that. Also not having a totally crappy Earth team would help.
Achievements at level 175
Well well, so here we are at level 175. It’s been a little over six months since I wrote my last update post at level 170. My play style for the past two years has been to go easy at regular times and go crazy during Half AP events. For some reason, 2019 has had fewer such times, which is probably why it’s taken me 6 months to grow by 5 levels. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything done at all in that time.
-ULB’d both Bahamat and Lucifer. I had most of the materials already. I just had to leech a few Tiamat Malices in the wild and everything else fell in place.
-Got my first Arcarum Evoker. Alanaan, who is supposed to be good in fire, but I haven’t really tested him yet. I just got him as a natural extension of powering up The Sun, who is so useful I’m surprised Cygames hasn’t nerfed him yet. I especially love cross-summoning him into a Shiva <3
Shifty-looking old rotter
-Got my first Dark Opus weapon, the Sword of Renunciation. I’ve mentioned before that keeping up with the Granblue Fantasy meta can be stressful and confusing, but support for an Opus weapon in magna Light was near-unanimous so I went for it. It’s just a matter of leeching a few Dark Rapture and Metatron raids anyway, no biggie.
-Unlocked the Conqueror of Eternals skin. To unlock it, you have to get all 10 Eternals and then battle a big tortoise that Siete sics on you. It killed me once because it’s water element and my Earth team is made of kaka and doodoo. I returned later and fought water with water: Varuna team with Katalina + a Chaos Ruler wielding a Murgleis for a damage cut + a water carbuncle for additional cuts while boosting my attacks. It never stood a chance. The skin itself looks kind of cool on Djeeta, but Gran just looks like he’s trying too hard. Still I earned it, so I’ve been using it a lot lately.
-Forged the Murakumo class champion weapon and unlocked the Kengo class in a single afternoon. By itself this would be unremarkable news, especially since I don’t have Vajra or Summer Grea to take advantage of Bonito memes.
I only mention it because I remember when I first reached HL and was thinking about class champion weapons. Remember? Kina Farm remembers. I thought getting a Murakumo would be sooo much work. Now years later I just happened to have all the materials lying around or ready to exchange for in a few minutes. Powercreep is real, folks. That, and the kind tendency of Cygames to simplify anything that’s too stressful and/or unpopular.
-One-turn KO’d Tiamat, Colossus, Yggdrasil and Luminiera Omega. As with the above, I only mention this because I remember how much struggling and strategizing I had to do to beat them in the early stages of the game. It’s really nostalgic. Note that Leviathan and Celeste aren’t included. The former because my Earth team is junk and poopoo and the latter because Celeste has way too much HP.
Achievements left to do
-I still haven’t faced Bahamut HL. Nowadays even BahaHLs on the raid list tend to clear with ease, so maybe I’ll pub it and see what happens. Not until this magnafest is over though. I also have yet to host or fight Ultimate Bahamut HL (what for?) and Lucilius HL (for Dark Opus uncaps).
-Slowly working my way to 40-boxing Nio at a rate of 3-4 boxes per GW. We’ll discuss this again maybe a year from now. Why Nio, though? I really don’t know. I might switch to Eahta instead because my Earth party really needs help.
-Gotta finish uncapping my Seraphic weapons. I’ve done fire, water and earth so far, hoping to get wind done this Rise of the Beasts. Light and Dark will have to wait for the next round. I really need light quartz for the Light harp. Luckily I have a couple of untouched SSRs in the Side Stories for just such an occasion. Sure would be nice to pull a Vortex Dragon right about now…
-Have to unlock the rest of the Extra II classes like Doctor and Soldier. Mainly for the really cool skins, especially Soldier. Reminds me of my childhood watching Rambo.
-Have to SSR the rest of the Arcarum summons. Not a priority really, because I’m pretty happy with my summon lineup. But the ones offering extra HP in particular should come in handy down the line. It’s not like I have anything better to do with my Arca tickets now I have Alanaan anyway.
It took a while to get the Grimnir anima, but what is that between me and trumpet kitty?
-Continue leisurely replacing my M1 weapons with M2. I’m buying them with Prestige Pendants at the rate of one a month so… yeah. Occasionally I get a lucky drop from a raid, but it’s not something to rely on.
-Level all my characters up to the cap. It’s something I was enthusiastic about when I first started Granblue Fantasy, but eventually I had too many characters and too few resources so I couldn’t keep up. Now I have the resources to spare and some actual trophy rewards for doing so, I’m back in business.
State of my grids at level 175
You knew it was coming. They haven’t changed too much from March, but I have swapped a few things in/out, so take a look!
Earth!
I got that Alexiel axe from the free Anniversary weapon ticket. I also FLB’d that Uriel fist a few hours ago. Now I’m saving up to buy more Alexiel axes with Prestige Pendants. Though at this rate my next one will probably come from the next Anniversary ticket…
Here are my Earth summons as well. I use largely the same summons for most grids so take this as a representative sample.
The art in this game keeps getting better and better. The characters even have noses these days.
Can’t even OTKO a simple Leviathan Omega. Why even live?
Fire!
Look Ma, no Colo staves! All the Ancient Ecke Sachs came from the Pendant shop except one, which came from Arcarum. People who say Twin Elements can drop them are just messing with you. (j/k but srsly) I still need a few more to complete the set, and I will probably replace that Bahamut Dagger with something at some point, I just don’t know what.
I have an Agni I’m idly considering build a grid for, but only super-idly because this Fire grid isn’t bad at all. Would Agni be strong enough to justify the effort? I’m not convinced yet, which is why Ixaba remains unsparked.
Wind!
Took out one Tiamat gun and slotted in a Grimnir harp. I should be working on a second one, but Alexiel axes take priority. Do I feel any stronger? I used to, until I got wiped out by Siegfried Proud in the last event. Welp, back to the drawing board! …Not. It’s good enough for most content, which means it’s good enough for me.
Water!
I was planning to spark that third Murgleis, but I got lucky on a 10-pull so, ta-daa! Still running mainly Berserker, with the occasional Chaos Ruler where necessary. I’ve been doing some cautious experiments with Chrysaor for more damage and Sage for extra sustain, but I’m most used to Berserker so it’s hard to adapt to a new playing style. Plus TBH nowadays I just leech or Auto everything I get away with.
Just posted this to express my extreme displeasure at FLB’ing Varuna and not getting any new uncap art. BOO, Cygames, BOOO! That Justice is there for the extra HP, not her relatively useless call. I might ULB her for a few more stats, but I haven’t heard anything good about her Evoker Maria Theresa so I won’t be getting her.
Heart! Uh, I mean, Light!
Why is this “light” sword more fiery than anything in my Fire grid?
Now with 30% more HP!
Much stronger than last time. It’s easy to tell with this one because I struggled a lot with Proud+ Huanglong and Qilin the first time they came out. This time it was much easier to wipe Qilin out and focus on Huanglong, who also went down much faster than previous times. I’m satisfied with Light for now, so it will go on the backburner for development while I focus on other parties.
Dark!
I took the Ancient Cortana out because it was cutting into my HP. I also need to get a better mainhand than that Qilin sword. Eventually I will incorporate some M2 elements, but not for a long time because this grid gets the job done, more or less.
Final comments
I’m just killing time in Granblue Fantasy waiting for the next big content to drop. For the rest of the year my focus will be on unlocking the remaining classes I don’t have while uncapping my Arcarum summons on the side. If the 2020 Zodiac character is excellent, I might do a spark in the New Year, otherwise this is as far as updates go for the next six months or so. See ya!
The only thing I can say is: I’m glad I can play that game vicariously through you. ^__^
There’s no way I’d have endured as long as you did. Heck, the mere though of gaining solely 5 levels in six months would be enough to make me give up on the game entirely! I really admire your gaming fortitude and endurance. Keep up with the good grinding!
5 levels in 6 months is only for a casual player like me, though. I suspect most of my contemporaries in the 200s by now. The developers have also put many systems in place to help newbies grow much faster now compared to a few years ago.
That said, you do well to enjoy it by proxy. It’s time-consuming and not one of those games you absolutely have to play for yourself.
Agni is a really expensive grid where you want like a minimum of 4 full Ixabas, which I don’t think you have the Dama bars lying around if it all went into Murgs.
There’s the alternative “technically doesn’t require any Dama or Gacha weapons” build where you use like 4 Chains of Prometheus and 2 Fires but that’s even more soul-killing than the M2 grid building given that you can’t buy the former with pendants.
I kinda feel that outside of the most unlucky people, the chokehold for upgrading to an M2 grid isn’t the weapon drops but rather than M2 Anima.
You should probably just leech a bunch more Dark Raptures and Avatar to get the Dark Dark Opus weapon for a MH assuming you’re using Swordmaster as the class.
For the Ixaba themselves, I got a lucky pull this Flashfest and I have enough crystals to spark one now and another soon. I also have enough moons for a Crimson Finger, if those are still meta.
The dama bars are the issue. I have 7 to spare and 3 more in crystal form, but I have them earmarked for FLB’ing M2 weapons instead of going crazy grinding for animaa, as you rightly said.
The only reason I’m entertaining the Ixaba idea is because my M2-building method is to buy 1 weapon a month with pendants. Drops are just not happening, so I must be one of those “most unlucky people.” 🙁 Still, this means I only need 3-4 dama bars a year, not impossible to replace. The main reasons I haven’t gone all-in on Agni are:
1) My Fire team isn’t that bad
2) I’m not convinced Agni grid will be strong enough to justify the effort
3) My Earth team is crud, so I’m seriously considering a Titan build. I also have an almost MLB Zeus so primal light is an option too.
Light is the only Dark Opus weapon I have, but if Dark Swordmaster is a thing, I could build one of those eventually.
Crimson Fingers are more of a “I invested into them before all the shiny new Fire weapons were implemented and they’re still vaguely usable now” rather than something people intentionally go for any more.
The advantage of the extremely invested Agni grid especially with Alanaan is that he basically makes it possible to use your expensive grid for everything except maybe Water raids because he enables off element crits, sorta like the old days where people would use high invested Light / Dark for everything instead of the rainbow meta today.
Incidentally outside of accidents like the time when a bunch of high end bosses like Bahamut HL could accidentally be insta-killed due to a bug, GBF designers tend to just let powercreep obsolete things rather than nerf them – remember when Korwa was the hot thing for Wind and now she’s basically benched forever?
Both Earth Primal and Zeus are really high investment and I recommend some really heavy consideration on going into them. Earth might be doable with less Dama bars if doing a Caim grid that involves his passive that grants a bonus when all your weapons are different.
Okay, I’ll shelve the Titan and Zeus ideas for now. And since CrimFin is no longer a thing, that means I can spend the gold moons on dama bars, meaning Agni is more viable than ever before. Gonna wait till the New Year in case the new Zodiac is a must-have, then start sparking the Ixabas.
Thanks for the advice, Davzz.