Rapid Fire is so broken.

[Tomcat]

I honestly wanna know what they were thinking when they added this.

[Pure Mind Games]

Don't use it if you don't like it, god forbid a game should be fun and have multiple options and play styles.

[dragon_blade]

You're right it can be broken and thats the fun :) Just don't use it if you don't want it.

[OrinX]

Maybe they expected everyone to skip the archer class in the original, lol

[Scarlet Crusade]

On its face, if only used by the Ranger job, or if it was restricted to only bows, it wouldn’t be inherently broken. It just becomes absurd when combined with other abilities, dual wield for example, and much stronger weapons.

But it does tend to be broken whenever it comes up, like the Double Cut materia in FFVII, 2x-Cut is okay but 4x-Cut (basically Rapid Fire, including random targets) is absurd. And you can’t even dual wield in FFVII. You can break it further by going to the extreme and having 4x-Cut and Master Command=Added Cut, making 5x-Cut, though this has the unfortunate side effect of making friendly actions make you attack yourself, so it’s only really practical on Yuffie, using her ultimate weapon, since Conformer will never deal damage to allies.

And then there’s Balthier’s Barrage from FFT WotL, again essentially the same thing, 4 hits, half damage per hit, which is already absurd with guns, since they’re fixed damage that can’t be blocked in most cases, but it ramps up to over nine thousand if you use it with spears.

[SoundsInsane]

Rapid Fire - Makes attacks 25% weaker but gives you 4x the amount of attacks. Special Effects like Dancing Dagger, Hayate Bow, Twin Lance, Chicken Knife will Not activate.
And Ignores Target defense & Evasion

If Any of those 4 were to activate
Dancing Dagger - 50% to activate dance.
Hayate Bow - 25% to activate Rapid Fire (4x hits)
Twin Lance - Allows 2 hits.
Chicken Knife - 50%? to activate Scram aka Escaped (Like Smoke)

if Rapid Fire kept the effects, there would be no End to these effects.

However Rapid Fire can Become Very Broken. Given your situational combo.

My Favorite is Rapid Fire + Spell Blade - Flare, Freelancer Weapon: Chicken Knife (atk 127 at max, but Max power is at Lv 99) Ragnarok for end game.
The Dmg is 9999 every hit and Both are "Spellblade-able" with autofight keeps the Flare Effect going.

Without Rapid Fire, Dancing Dagger + Chicken Knife or Twin lance, Either with Spellblade. or with Beserker. it can get intensive

Or if your Really wanna see a Rapid Fire, Minus Rapid Fire.......
Dancer Class - 2 Twin Lances, and Any Dancer Special Sword Dance Armors. (so you got 50% to activate Sword Dance). and x4 hit power with dual wield assuming you got Dual wield

[Shyao]

Combining Rapid Fire with Spellblade basically trivializes the endgame. Every boss but Exdeath goes down after two turns. One to setup Flare Spellblade and the second is a Rapid Fire. It doesn't even take a full party turn, just one character.

[Tomcat]

Originally posted by Shyao:

Combining Rapid Fire with Spellblade basically trivializes the endgame. Every boss but Exdeath goes down after two turns. One to setup Flare Spellblade and the second is a Rapid Fire. It doesn't even take a full party turn, just one character.

Yeah basically this, I used dual-wield sword, Spellblade with Bolt 3 + Rapid Fire and Omega for example was defeated with just two turns.

[Flo]

I just finished the game using Rapid Fire + Spellblade. Spellblade literally does nothing. Each hit was doing 1200 with or without it. Even against Exdeath first form, supposed to be weak to Holy, it still did 1200.
Not to mention how useless it is against the final form, having 4 targets. I resorted to just autoattack, doing 5000x2, so just about the same as with Rapide Fire. I don't get the Rapid Fire or Spellblade meme. It's only good against Omega, whose lightning weakness actually gives hitting 8 times an advantage.

[Scarlet Crusade]

The best endgame Spellblade for general purpose (so, both forms of Exdeath) is Flare, not Holy (which, incidentally, Exdeath’s tree form is not weak to, not sure where you got that information). Flare is just a flat damage increase, full stop, and is quite useful.

But you’re right in that Rapid Fire or Dual Wield are nearly identical in terms of damage unless your normal attacks are being capped at 9999, that’s when you’ll see an advantage in scoring extra hits, because two hits at 100% power or four hits at 50% power are otherwise one in the same. But when you consider it’s eight hits at 50% damage when you combine the two, then you’re effectively doubling your damage. So it really comes alive on Freelancer with innate Dual Wield and then you use Spellblade and Rapid Fire in conjunction.

[Electric Cupcake]

The mobile version severely nerfed it compared to the GBA version.

I have no doubt it's even worse here.

[dragonsnooz]

Most Final Fantasy games have broken mechanics one way or another.

[Tomcat]

Originally posted by Nyaru:

I just finished the game using Rapid Fire + Spellblade. Spellblade literally does nothing. Each hit was doing 1200 with or without it. Even against Exdeath first form, supposed to be weak to Holy, it still did 1200.
Not to mention how useless it is against the final form, having 4 targets. I resorted to just autoattack, doing 5000x2, so just about the same as with Rapide Fire. I don't get the Rapid Fire or Spellblade meme. It's only good against Omega, whose lightning weakness actually gives hitting 8 times an advantage.

You should have used Spellblade with Flare, It reduces the defense of the enemies and increases your attack power.

[Flo]

Here, I just tested some numbers.
This is on Exdeath's first form, Freelancer lvl 50, with two Enhancers and no attack-boosting accessories.

Autoattack (Two-Handed) : 4440
Autoattack (Dual wield) : 3432
Autoattack (TH+Flare) : 7488
Autoattack (DW+Flare) : 9782

Rapid Fire (Two-Handed) : 10680
Rapid Fire (Dual Wield) : 10488
Rapid Fire (DW+Flare) : 19896

I couldn't try Two-Handed + Rapid Fire + Flare, as it would require 4 abilities since Mime cannot equip swords naturally. But if it's consistent with the rest, it should do around 15k damage, less than Dual-Wield+Flare.

- Two-Handed autoattacks deals more damage than Dual Wield, but with Spellblade and/or Rapid Fire, Dual Wield becomes superior.
- Rapid Fire doubles (or more) your damage per turn.

But Rapid Fire animation also takes 4x as much time to play. While the damage per turn is far superior, the damage per second is in fact two times lower. On top of that, Rapid Fire targets randomly, making it extremely weak against several targets.

So, if you're fighting a boss where survival is important, Rapid Fire is the way to go, as long as the enemy is a unique target. But when fighting random battles, Two-Handed Autoattacks will be far more effective and quick.

Not to mention that those numbers are with Enhancers, the best non-unique weapon you can enchant. Using Marukumos, autoattack damage would go even higher, and allows you to crit, bringing it even closer to Rapid Fire/Spellblade. The only enchantable weapons better than Marukumo are Ragnarok and Brave Blade/Chicken Knife.

TL;DR : Rapid Fire and Spellblade aren't really worth it, unless you're really struggling against a boss and every turns counts.

[Tomcat]

Originally posted by Nyaru:

Here, I just tested some numbers.
This is on Exdeath's first form, Freelancer lvl 50, with two Enhancers and no attack-boosting accessories.

Autoattack (Two-Handed) : 4440
Autoattack (Dual wield) : 3432
Autoattack (TH+Flare) : 7488
Autoattack (DW+Flare) : 9782

Rapid Fire (Two-Handed) : 10680
Rapid Fire (Dual Wield) : 10488
Rapid Fire (DW+Flare) : 19896

I couldn't try Two-Handed + Rapid Fire + Flare, as it would require 4 abilities since Mime cannot equip swords naturally. But if it's consistent with the rest, it should do around 15k damage, less than Dual-Wield+Flare.

- Two-Handed autoattacks deals more damage than Dual Wield, but with Spellblade and/or Rapid Fire, Dual Wield becomes superior.
- Rapid Fire doubles (or more) your damage per turn.

But Rapid Fire animation also takes 4x as much time to play. While the damage per turn is far superior, the damage per second is in fact two times lower. On top of that, Rapid Fire targets randomly, making it extremely weak against several targets.

So, if you're fighting a boss where survival is important, Rapid Fire is the way to go, as long as the enemy is a unique target. But when fighting random battles, Two-Handed Autoattacks will be far more effective and quick.

Not to mention that those numbers are with Enhancers, the best non-unique weapon you can enchant. Using Marukumos, autoattack damage would go even higher, and allows you to crit, bringing it even closer to Rapid Fire/Spellblade. The only enchantable weapons better than Marukumo are Ragnarok and Brave Blade/Chicken Knife.

TL;DR : Rapid Fire and Spellblade aren't really worth it, unless you're really struggling against a boss and every turns counts.

Thing is 99% of the bosses of this game are single targets and the bosses who are multiple ones they are not a problem to take care of at all... with the only exception being Neo Exdeath

[mOnocularJohn]

Hell, Romeo's Ballad is broken too.. Any boss it can affect is basically a free kill since you can stun lock it to death. Including Omega.