Greetings from the lofty heights of Granblue Fantasy level 160! I haven’t gotten any stronger at all since last time, so I won’t bother posting my grids. Only three things have really changed since January.

First, I unlocked a 5-star Uno (Anre). Yeah, I know I said I wouldn’t but well, you know how it goes.

It was an arduous and unpleasant process I am not in any hurry to repeat, but I won’t lie or insult your intelligence by saying “Never again.” For now, though, I’m focusing on building all the Eternals one by one. Seofon, Threo, Anre and Tweyen get, currently working on Niyon. BTW I remember someone telling me that if I farmed the materials for one Eternal then I’d have enough materials for several others. That is SUCH a lie. Anyone who thinks that has never farmed 300 Zephyr feathers several times in a row, ugh ughhh.

Back on topic, is 5* Uno as strong as they say? Umm, I guess? He’s pretty meh until level 95 but once he gets that nuke every 6 turns he deals some really good damage. That 100% damage cut is great too, although more and more bosses are majoring in plain damage these days.

Only thing is, my playstyle these days is 99% joining a raid, hitting the Auto button and tabbing out until the fight ends, so I don’t get much out of his skills. Whenever I try to test myself by fighting Shiva or Twin Elements, I get bored and pub the raid after 2 minutes. Still, for the sake of science I’ll give him a try with NM100 in the upcoming GW and let you know if there’s anything special about him.

Second major change, once I hit level 155 and then 160, I got access to new EMPs that boosted my total party HP, DEF and skill damage. I spent a lot of CP filling those out in the classes I use a lot. So I feel any stronger? Nuh-ope! The HP boost was particularly disappointing. I thought I’d be turning into an unstoppable juggernaut with, like 10,000 extra HP, but the gains were actually pretty small.

Before:

After:

Approximately 2000-3000 HP. An extra 10%? I probably should have used another party and not my HP-heavy Varuna team for this demonstration. Long story short, if you were weak before level 160 you will be weak afterwards. Don’t expect any dramatic makeovers just because you added a few points to a chart somewhere.

Third, I built a Varuna weapon pool. I said I wouldn’t when I pulled Varuna in last year’s spark, but well, you know how it goes.

It’s the most painless grid I’ve built so far. Apart from the two FLB Fimbuls, which I got with minimal farming, I had most of the other stuff already. But it’s not done yet. While my party members have good HP, it doesn’t hit as hard as I would like without stacking attack up buffs. Nothing wrong with buffs, but clicking skills all the time is boring. So I don’t do it. So I’m not very strong.

That’s where today’s spark comes in. It’s time to add at least one more Murgleis to the mix, replacing the Leviathan dagger. Hopefully that will kick things up a notch. TBH I wasn’t planning on sparking till September because I didn’t want any summer characters (no offence to fans, I just don’t need any new characters right now), but the double lure of 40 free rolls + Murgleis rate up was too much to resist.

It’s sparkin’ time!

On with the show. 12000 crystals worth of free rolls, 190 single tickets, two 10-draw tickets and 15,000 crystals.

First day of free rolls: Zilch. Silver centrum in the blue box was nice though. Just 6 more and I can FLB Bahamut.
Second day:
I remember really wanting a Fire harp when I first started the game. Now it’s going straight in the stash. New skin for Light Clarisse get!
Third day: Nothing. 10 Champion Merits.
Fourth day: Nothing. 1000 CP.
190 single tickets: Had to pull almost 50 times to get an SSR. Ah, I see. This is gonna be one of those sparks.

I’m just glad I’m not pulling for characters this time. Another 51 tickets to get Cerberus.

Where were all these melee characters during that weapon ticket event last time? <_<
Another 30 tickets to get De la Fille.

Don’t know if that’s Light or Earth. Let me check… Light. Do not want.
Oh look, another Melee character:

Seriously, where were you guys hiding? I wanted Ayer during my last spark, but nowadays I’m doing pretty well with my Eugen + Siegfried + Other (Threo, Arulu, Cag, Catherine) team so, dunno. I’ll play with Ayer a bit and see.

Nemone gold moon. And a few clicks later, Summer Ilsa.

Another allegedly powerful Earth character:

That’s it for the single tickets. 7 SSRs (6 new + gold moon) from 190 tickets. It’s closer to non-legfest rates but I’m not complaining because it could be worse. After all, each ticket only has a discrete 6% probability of giving you an SSR, which means the probability of getting 0 SSRs in 190 tickets is… possibly low, possibly not that low? (what is math? baby don’t hurt me~) Whatevs, I’m only after the Murgleis so let’s keep moving.

First 10-draw ticket: Oceanus. And Summer Helnar. I’m not counting SRs in this post. Also I dislike Helnar like I dislike all playboy characters.

Second 10-draw ticket: Nothing.

First crystal 10-roll: Nothing. Not even an SR character so I can say “I don’t want it.”
Second: Gawain gold moon.
Third: Summer Macula Marius.

I’m one of those people who thought Macula Marius was a guy for the longest time, but there’s no room for doubt with this new artwork. There’s also no room for her in my parties and I don’t need quartz right now so *stash*

Fourth: Tiamat Gold moon.
Fifth: My very first Zodiac:

The infamous monkey from the Monkeygate scandal that earned us the Spark system. Thank you for your service, Ma’am.

That’s 300 draws. Time to get my Murgleis!

Final tally

New SSR characters: Clarisse (fire), Aliza, Cerberus, De la Fille (Light), Ayer, Summer Ilsa, Hallessena, Selfira, Andira
New SSR summons: Oceanus, Summer Macula Marius
New SR characters: Summer Helnar, Leona, Ludmila, Summer Lilele
New R characters: Summer Lowain.
Moons: 3 gold moons, approx. 31 bronze moons and 16 silver moons.

Thoughts

Murgleis rate-up was a lie~! But it’s okay, because depending on the details of Drang’s weapon FLB I might not need three Murgs anyway. I kind of doubt Blue Sphere FLB will be that great seeing as it’s a staff and all, but it’s good to keep my options open. Thanks to the free rolls I saved a lot of crystals, and I still have at least 12 unclaimed single tickets from the Side Stories. Might spark Blue Sphere next time a roulette coincides with Flashfest.

Enough about that, so how’s the new Murgleis working out in my grid? Umm, about that… As you know, Murgleis only gets its second skill at level 150. Uncapping and FLBing isn’t an issue, but I don’t have enough EXP fodder to get it up to 150 yet. Oops, guess I didn’t think my clever plan all the way through. Tell you what, I’ll post  “Before” pictures. Just attack without any buffs like so…

I went 5 rounds and did between 760,000 and 1,370,000 damage a turn. That’s an average of… umm, let’s say 1 million. Alrighty, I’ll update this post later with the “After” results. And there had better be After results after all this trouble I’ve gone through.

Welp, enough Granblue for one day. See y’all later!

Update: Here’s the “After.” I went 7 rounds and did between 900,000 and 1,450,000 a turn so the starting damage has definitely increased.

But I practised on the trial dummy that doesn’t attack, so I don’t know how the damage scales as HP goes down. I didn’t use any buffs or debuffs either, so it’s not that accurate. But at least out of the gate replacing the Levi dagger with the 2nd Murgleis had an impact.

As a side effect of all this testing, I learned that Varuna x MLB Europa is also pretty good. Lower lows than Varuna x Varuna but more consistent damage over several rounds, averaging 1.1 and 1.2 million every turn. No telling how damage and buffs will affect that either, but it’s good to know.

Between the time I sparked this update, the Blue Sphere FLB has come out and it doesn’t seem all that impressive. Since I’m already back to the equivalent of 85,000 crystals, my next spark will be yet another Murgleis, then I’ll………….. have nothing to work on……… umm……… I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.