With the latest Final Fantasy Brave Exvius update, a new 5-star base bard makes her way to the game – Elephim. Much like other bards, her main kit revolves around singing songs which provide immense buffs for your team. This being the case, she does suffer from some of the same weaknesses such as being turn-locked while singing. Ultimately, is she worth dropping some tickets/lapis for? Here’s an analysis of her kit and my personal take on whether you should chase her.
Elephim Review
Traits
As a support unit who you’d mainly want on your team for her party buffs, Elephim’s traits are perfectly suited to the role. At her max level 6-star form, she has access to numerous passive defensive buffs, really boosting her survivability. These include the following:
Elephim has 3 flat +30% passive buffs to DEF, SPR, and MP.
Magical String Musician grants her +20% HP/MP when equipped with a harp.
Astral Aura provides her an extra +20% HP/MP with paralyze resist and 20% resistance to water, wind, and light elements.
Fountain of Life further improves her staying power giving her an auto-regen buff, a 5% MP auto-refresh, and a +2 LB auto-limit.
If you’re lucky enough to pull two of her and awaken her to 7-star, Elephim gets even more defensive buffs!
With her TMR equipped, she gains access to Marvelous Queen, which provides her with an extra 20% SPR and 10% HP/MP, grants her immunity to both “stop” and petrify, and also upgrades her LB.
At max level, she learns Fairy Wisdom which decreases her chance of being targeted by 75%, and further boosts her SPR and innate elemental resistances to water, wind, and light by 30% when equipped with a harp.
Needless to say, Elephim is one very hard to kill support.
Active Abilities
Elephim’s active abilities are rather unique in that she has easy access to both on-demand breaks and party-wide buffs with her songs. Right off the bat, she can provide a 3-turn 50% break to any stat with Attack Kill, Magic Kill, Spirit Kill, and Defense Kill.
In addition to these breaks, Elephim can buff your team with a near-Eccentrick level LB buff called Lucent Flap. Eccentrick, the skill that comes with Rikku’s TMR provides a 5-turn 200% LB buff and is one of the best LB-boosting buffs in the game. Lucent Flap provides a weaker 3-turn 150% LB buff but also provides an instant 5 LB crysts to all allies.
At 6-star, Elephim has access to 3 songs: Fairy’s Gavotte, White Wings Cantata, and Black Wings Serenade. Fairy’s Gavotte provides a party-wide 120% buff to all stats, but locks her into singing for two turns.
White Wings Cantata buffs your party with a powerful 6000 HP regen buff (15x) split across two turns. This song also has a unique effect- it grants your entire team access to Dual White Magic. Black Wings Serenade is the MP refresh equivalent. It applies a 75 MP refresh (0.32x) to the party for 2 turns, and similar to White Wings Cantata, provides your team with access to Dual Black Magic.
At 7-star, Elephim learns two new powerful songs: Passionate Fugue and Spiritual Rondo. Passionate Fugue is a 2-turn song that provides a party-wide 140% buff to ATK/MAG, as well as AoE breaking the enemies DEF/SPR by 55%. It also applies a weaker MP refresh of 24 MP (0.24x).
Spiritual Rondo is the reverse version buffing DEF/SPR by 140% and breaking enemies ATK/MAG by 55%. It also applies a weaker HP regen of 850 (6x).
At 7-star, Elephim also gains access to 2 cooldown moves: Queen’s Punishment and Healing Fragrance. Queen’s Punishment has a 3-turn cooldown and is available turn 1. Unfortunately, it’s rather lackluster in that it is essentially Dispelga that also also inflicts 5 random status ailments to all enemies. Given that most major bosses are immune to all status effects, this ability is virtually useless.
Healing Fragrance isn’t much better. The ability has a 12-turn cooldown and only becomes available on the 12th turn. It completely restores your party’s HP and MP by 100%. The fact that it doesn’t become available until turn 12 and has such a long CD makes this skill equally as useless as Queen’s Punishment.
Limit Burst
Luckily, Elephim’s Limit Burst, The Queen’s Pastorale, is incredibly powerful. At 7-star max level, it dishes out a 3-turn 75% AoE full break to enemies while simultaneously buffing all of your party member stats by 145%.
With her TMR equipped, she also has a 20% HP/MP restore with her LB and also gains access to a new song for one turn – Rainbow Wings Glissando. This ability is a 2-turn song that gives a massive 6000 Hp (22.2x) regen, 75 MP (0.38x) refresh, and a 170% MAG/SPR buff to all party members. On top of this, it has the unique effect of granting everyone access to Dualcast for one turn.
TMR / STMR
Elephim’s TMR, Elephim’s Harp, is a 2-handed harp that has the following stats: +12 ATK , +23 MAG , +125 SPR , and +20% HP. The stats are pretty solid for a support item, however it’s important to note that because it’s 2-handed, you can’t dualwield it with another weapon. This being the case, the stats are actually less impressive, particularly considering that weapons can be enhanced in the Steel Castle Melfikya event making dualwielding two 1-handed weapons much more optimal for support units.
Her STMR, Elephim’s Dress, is a bard-optimized robe that provides +25 DEF, +30 MAG, +75 SPR, and +20% HP. It also comes with a +50% LB fill rate buff and has the unique effect of reducing the MP costs of songs by 20%
Summary
With the exception of Elephim’s CD moves, she looks extremely powerful at first glance. The numbers her buffs and breaks put out are indeed very big, however, she does suffer from some serious weaknesses.
As a bard, Elephim’s songs lock her into singing for 2 turns. The problem with this is that as we move further into the game, more and more bosses will have dispel mechanics completely removing her buffs. While this would be the case for non-bard supports as well, the way the game is coded makes dispels far more disadvantageous to bards – despite the fact that her buffs are dispelled, they are still action locked! This means if Elephim is dispelled while singing, you get no buffs and she can’t do anything for an extra turn.
The other problem with Elephim is that her most powerful asset is her LB, and it requires a massive 45 LB crysts before it can be used. While Elephim does have some innate traits and active abilities that make reaching that number easier, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to access it every 3 turns without serious support – either from auto-LB itemization or through units with Entrust.
Considering these facts, I wouldn’t recommend pulling for her, regardless if you’re a new player or a veteran. As a new player, you’re better off holding your resources for upcoming supports that are significantly less clunky to use, such as Yuraisha. As a veteran, you most likely have access to better supports. Even if you’re a whale, her TMR and STMR aren’t that impressive either, so there’s really no reason for anyone to chase her.
In short, Elephim is a new troll rainbow that is greatly outshined by most 5-star base supports. The only thing that may save her is if her enhancements are somehow astronomically good. In the JP version of the game, she has yet to receive enhancements so there’s no telling if they will improve her usability.
