Aranea
Character Notes & Recommendations
Have updates or suggestions? Contact us via Reddit or Discord, find our info Behind the Scenes!Summon Board Passive selections:
Numbers listed below refer to the 7 passives to select for each Ultimate Summon Board for the character. Top is 1, bottom is 7.Odin choose 3 / 6 / 7
Bahamut choose 4 / 5 / 6
Usuals:
Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Brothers 4 / 5 / 7
Leviathan, Pandemonium, Diabolos, Alexander 4 / 5 / 6
For more details and help with summons, check Summon Hub!
Sphere Recommendations
NOTE: The sphere letters below are hyperlinked to our Sphere Hub which lists all available spheres sorted by effect!A spheres - King and Bartz have absolutely excellent spheres for her, since she is persistently inflicting breaks. Any ATK/BRV DMG is great, and mBRV secondaries are good as well. There are plenty to choose from, so click the link to head to our Sphere Hub.
E sphere - Focus on boosting her stats, preferably her ATK. Avoid Vanille sphere, it’s cute, but rarely relevant, you’ll get much more use out of a normal ATK sphere.
How-To-Play Notes
Aranea can open with any skill as it should cause a break in most fights and then use S2 on the free, instant turn she got from breaking to apply her debuff and pass the turn. Shortly after she should use LD to make sure her Magitek Lance effect stays up.
Understanding Aranea’s Overclock buff is key to using Aranea
Breaking an enemy with S1/S2/EX will give her Overclock for 4T.
Overclock unlocks her + version skills which are all stronger.
+ version skills do not grant Overclock
This means you will need to get Overclock back from any of these sources:
non+ S1/S2/EX
BRV/HP+
Set Overclock (AA)
Vermilion Assault (LD)
Dragoon Dive+ (S1) is a massive delay against a single target. The only time you’d ever use the non+ version is if you don’t need delay and are instead prioritizing huge AoE damage.
Highwind/+, (S2) both versions, are big AoE damage skills and they inflict her powerful Vitalcrusher debuff, which guarantees critical damage. The + version has more HP attacks. Aranea has massive BRV damage boosts when she’s dealing critical damage, so this debuff can fuel her high damage as well as the party's.
Air Superiority (EX) recharges in 3 skills or 2 skills & 1 HP+. This added time to recharge is because of all her free turns. These free turns come from her EX buff, which gives her a free turn whenever she breaks a target. Thanks to her LD overhead, she *always* unbreaks targets, meaning she always breaks enemies every turn (unless they have ridiculous defenses or are immune to BREAK). So she essentially will always get 2 turns back to back.
High Boost Lance+ (HP) is a good go-to damage skill, but Aranea usually doesn’t need to use it anymore unless she is carrying the damage herself, meaning a longer quest, meaning you need to be mindful of her longevity.
Set Overclock (AA) is helpful if you don’t want to use a non+ version skill when Overclock falls off or even to weave another couple more turns in.
Team Synergy Notes
She's mainly well paired with other aggressive units to take advantage of the space she creates delaying/breaking enemies away however when enemies start to warp she can work with counters/trap units that can break for her FR condition while keeping the party safe.
Extend her buffs for an extra turn with calls from Hope, Sazh, Yuna, or Eiko
Removable Passives
NOTE: Passives should generally only be removed if you lack CP space. There are very rare occasions where a character has a bad passive that disrupts their optimal gameplay.Aranea already takes double turns, so these passives below don’t really do much. As a rule of thumb, you generally do *not* want to remove speed passives from your damage dealer unless they rely on enemies taking turns (i.e. Trap/Counter units). Let Aranea do her thing and blow enemies up
Break Speed Up
Buff Speed Up
Ability Speed Bonus