Blue crystals are the bane of every player’s Final Fantasy Brave Exvius experience. Players are swimming in them. Most of them are immediately sold upon their arrival. A few lucky ones are kept around as TMR fodder, but nowadays they are rarely seen in a party. That was not always the case though. Long ago, in a distant, dark time, there were a few 3* base characters who were actually useful in the game. In fact, it was even possible to create a balanced party and clear content solely with a party of characters obtained from those pesky blue crystals. Read on to find out what one such party would look like.

Last time, Ryan focused on units who receive enhancements. Check out troll units who became usable after them here, and great units who got even better after enhancements, here.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: Optimal 3* Base Unit Party

Tank: Cecil

One of the most widely used, and longest lasting 3* base units to be used on player’s teams is Cecil. To this day he is still the game’s only true Paladin, meaning that he could both heal and absorb damage. During his heyday, single target damage was all most players had to deal with, so all he needed was the esper Golem with Provoke and he could function great in that role.

From there, what really made him shine above other tanks was his ability to use certain White and Green Magic Spells. After his 4* awakening he gained Cura, and at 6*, Curaga. He also has Protect, Shell, and Dispel. Focus was also really useful at one time, boosting the party’s magic and spirit by 40% for three turns. Finally, his Limit Burst was one that was actually useful early in the game, giving the party a 74% boost to attack, defense, and spirit when fully maxed.

Sadly, Cecil’s use started to fade as the game moved along. His Curaga lost its use in parties, especially when many healers could easily fully restore the party’s HP. Then, when enemies began using more AoE moves, his single target cover abilities became all but useless. Today, Cecil is hanging on to life (barely) in his Dark Knight form as a True Doublehand finisher.

Honorable Mention: Charlotte

Physical Damage Dealer: Cloud of Darkness

In the prehistoric era of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, chainers were not necessary. Few players had dual wield. The Barrage ability was actually considered top-tier. The thought of being able to unleash four physical attacks in one turn, using only one character, was awesome. Hardcore players who did somehow have Dual Wield got to use eight! Because of this, Cloud of Darkness was an unlikely hero back then.

Cloud of Darkness was a product of experimentation. She could not use material slots prior to her 6* awakening. She finally got the standard four slots after her 6* awakening. By then, material was extremely important to the utility of a unit, so she would have been useless without it. From there, she also has an innate resistance to all elements (50%) and statuses (30%). Best of all, Cloud of Darkness was one of the first units to have a killer trait attached to her kit (Man Eater).

The advent of higher modifiers on abilities, chaining, and finishing pushed Cloud of Darkness, well, into the darkness. 5* base damagers with much higher stats and abilities have made her a forgotten unit. She will always hold a place in old player’s hearts for her overly large sprite, but oddly good damage dealing capabilities.

Finisher: Firion

In many ways, Firion can be considered the game’s first finisher. Though mostly useless until he got his 6* awakening, he suddenly found a spot on many teams due to his flexible equipment selection and access to a plethora of killer passives. For a while, he was a really good budget unit for casual and new players. By the time Firion is fully leveled to 6*, he has almost every killer in the book. This makes him sneaky strong.

Firion only has one innate attack passive for a measly 10%. This limits his raw attack power and makes him seem relatively weak on the surface. However, he does gain more attack boosts when equipped with certain weapons. This is increased by putting Dual Wield on him and giving him two types of weapons. Add in his killer abilities to certain types of enemies, and he packs a pretty good punch as a finisher with Fin Briar.

Ability awakenings gave Firion some increased shelf life on certain player’s teams. Fin Briar increased to a 2.3x modifier with 50% unmitigated physical damage when fully enhanced. Legend Killer added humans and undead as killers with the first step and then increased damage by 100% to beasts, demons, dragons, humans, undeads when fully enhanced.

Mage: Exdeath

Final Fantasy V’s main villain saw a ton of time in parties a long while back. This was mostly because he was one of the first 3* base units to get a 6* awakening. When fully leveled, he gained access to Dual Black Magic, which at the time was pretty rare. As mentioned above, many players didn’t even have access to Dual Wield yet, so Exdeath was borderline overpowered in his ability to use powerful AoE magic twice in one turn.

In addition to Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga, Exdeath also has the powerful Meteor spell, and even Osmose, making him decently sustainable while using two magics in one turn. This was helped by also having Auto-Regen, and a 20% MP increase passive. He also got a Mag +30% increase. But, his best passive ability is undoubtedly Transcender. This move increased magic damage against humans, birds, beasts, plants, and insects. Magic killers were unheard of at this time, and even though it was only a 30% increase, it was against a wide range of enemies.

Exdeath hung around teams for a while because there just were not a ton of mages that were able to outclass him. Eventually, power creep got him though, as mages with better base stats and more passives sent him to the bench. He was also done in by the fact that he cannot equip hats or robes. This means he has no options to increase his magic via those two equipment slots.

Recently, players were reminded of Exdeath’s former glory through the re-run of the Final Fantasy Tactics Orbonne Monastery event. He could just spam Thundaga and take advantage of his human killer trait, and carry many players.

Support: Cerius

Our first Final Fantasy Brave Exvius original, Cerius, still occasionally sees time in parties today. As a green mage, she has access to some of the “Bar” spell family. She only gets the top three elements, fire, ice, and lightning, which limits her use, but she can equip a few more through materia or esper. Green mages are a pretty niche unit, but Cerius saw some rostering against trial bosses like the Dark Espers, and most recently even Ramuh.

Once she is fully leveled to 6*, she gets Barfiraga, Barblizzaga, and Barthundaga, which give 70% resistance to their respective elements. Heart of Light is an ability that grants a 50% increase to dark resistance and 100% petrification resistance to the entire party. Cerius gets some (very) slight utility with Deprotect, Deshell, and Protectga, especially because she has Dualcast. If players want they can give her some other white or green magic materia to make her even more useful.

Cerius’s ability awakenings are really good too. All of her best “Bar” spells can be enhanced to give 100% resistance to that specific element. Heart of Light’s awakening increases it to a four-turn duration, gives 70% dark resistance, and adds a Regen-type HP restore to it.

Healer: Roselia

Admittedly, this one is a bit of a reach. Roselia is not that great as a healer. It was also pretty easy to get someone like Refia during the game’s infancy, or Luka just a bit further down the road. Worst case scenario, players may want to just use the free Fina given to them. Still, if a player was forced to use a party of 3* bases for whatever reason (or just to challenge themselves), Roselia would be the best option for a healer. When her kit is analyzed, it actually doesn’t look too bad.

Roselia’s base stats aren’t great, but she does get a few stats passives (SPR, DEF, MP, HP). She even gets Triple White Magic, something Ayaka and Lotus Mage Fina don’t even have. Her weakness is that her best healing spell is Curaga, which doesn’t cut it these days. Sure she can cast it three times, but one Curaja will still restore more HP for less than half the MP use. Because of this, MP can become an issue, especially because she doesn’t have any innate MP refresh.

These issues are somewhat mitigated with her enhancements. Curaga can be enhanced to restore a lot more HP, and White Light’s Protection gives her 5% MP recovery per turn. Oddly enough, Pray can be enhanced to restore 30 MP to all allies, but she already has White Energy, which gives 40. Overall, what kills Roselia is that there are many other healers better than her right out of the box. Rather than wasting resources on enhancements, new players would be better off just waiting to pull someone better.

Bonus Chainer: Camille

Camille is worth mentioning as a chaining partner, even though she would not do well on her own. Technically, she can use a duplicate of herself as a partner, but what most players use her for is teaming up with their 5* base Tidus. Her Swift Tidal Attack has the same frames as Tidus’s best move, Quick Hit. This is useful for player’s that only have one Tidus, and even more so in 10-man trials. Her Trust Master Reward, Aqua Blade, is a water element and also lets a character wield two swords. It is almost as if she were made specifically to be used in combination with Tidus.

Last Word on the Optimal 3* Base Party

Today, most players field parties composed entirely of 5* base units. With the advent of 7* awakenings, the few players left that don’t will soon be forced to conform to the new meta. A party like the one here would never make it in today’s meta. Or would it?

Tune in next time for a special, narration style account that chronicles how many trials this party can make it through. Many TMRs will be used. Energy will be wasted. No friend units allowed. Comment below to give your thoughts on how far this party goes.