Dorgann
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.Pandemonium 3 / 4 / 6
Odin choose 3 / 6 / 7
Bahamut choose 4 / 5 / 6
Usuals:
Ifrit, Shiva, Ramuh, Brothers 4 / 5 / 7
Leviathan, Alexander Diabolos 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: BRV DMG or ATK to make him hit even harder. He Deals Weakness DMG as an easy trigger.
E Sphere: He BREAKs a lot. He debuffs on EX, but on off turn heavy teams probably won't be applying it often. Vanille for utility, Seymour for boosts despite infrequent expected debuffing, debuffing sphere of your choice otherwise.
How-To-Play Notes
He likes BREAKs from any source. On turn, counters, traps, his own Image Slash+, any break is a friend of his.
That said, even if Vayne does his S2 on an unbroken target and breaks it twice, that will still count as 1 BREAK. However is Sephiroth BT is active and there is more than 1 enemy, Vayne using S2 (or S1) will break his target, leave the other unbroken, Dorgann will follow up, break the other target and trigger his follow up again.
On teams that deny enemy turns and enemies have turn order AB and you can only break 1 of them, aim for B as then you can break A later to get another party member turn before the next enemy turns most of the time.
On teams that rely on enemy turns and enemies have turn order AB aim for A as then they will be BA and get more turns which can be helpful once Force Time is active and you want to trigger as many traps and counters as possible.
Spellblade Break (S1) is Dorganns trust break button on a single target but deals AoE BRV damage so if both enemies are unbroken, he will break both. Use this to reapply his important debuff.
Starlit Abandon (S2) refreshes his buff he needs to trigger Image Slash+ so make sure to keep an eye on With Precious Memories.
Use this if pairing with Sephiroth and you want more than 1 Image Slash+ since it has single target BRV hits leaving any other enemies at 1 BRV.
Final Skill - Felling Timber (EX) takes enemies out of their break state, pulls an ally forward and then unleashes his BRVs and HP attacks while applying Felling Timber.
Felling Timber makes it so any BRV/HP attack enemies do become 0 which can be a great defensive tool when skipping thresholds at once before the enemies' next turns.
Linear Transmission - Third-Eye Strike (LD) takes enemies out of BREAK as well, does his attacks, restores 1 use of S1 & S2 and grants him his Third-Eye buff which he also needs for his upgraded Image Slash+
Steel Weaving the Future (FR) is an interesting FR that unBREAKs enemies after each of it's HP attacks and grants the party some effects:
Dorgann will unBREAK his target before his attacks in Force Time
Party gains 30% HP DMG & Limit when attacking a broken target
As for the conditions, they're pretty simple:
20% for BREAKing an enemy on turn
5% for attacking with Wind (Dorgann will raise FR bonus by 25%)
This allows Dorgann to be useful mainly in on-turn aggressive teams with a rebreaker but it can be used in off-turn teams with traps/counters IF the enemies HP attack a lot or BRV gain enough to have more BRV than their iBRV opening themselves up to breaks from said trap/counter units
Dawnlight Swordplay (BT) offers the expected party auras, but it also enables allies to leave enemies unbroken after they attack a target with his debuff. This means he's less reliant on Sephiroth, Iris or other rebreakers to Image Slash every turn.
Extra Notes
In 3 enemy fights with Ace, Dorgann, Iris/Sephiroth, make sure Ace is above Dorgann in the party list so Ace's traps will trigger 3 Image Slashes. If Dorgann is above Ace, Dorgann will slash early and you will lose out on at least 1 Image Slash.
He works well with rebreakers or Seph/Iris BT+ and a strong BT/FR unit during FR time (As mentioned before, Seph BT+ and Vayne were very common allies, however Tifa/Seph/Dorgann is another strong team as Tifa being single target will leave other enemies at 1 BRV thanks to Seph that Dorgann can Image Slash+)
Replacements for Tifa include Leo, Raines (If using Iris), and Aranea.
If Sephiroth is fully built, his Octoslash during BT phase can be very handy as it's a single target attack (meaning the other enemy gets broken by Image Slash and triggers another).
Iris can also enable shenanigans as enemies with 0 mBRV will rebreak every other turn. They also immediately come out of BREAK status after a launch so a unit like Aranea (with Dorgann and Iris) can trigger 2 Image Slashes on Aranea's turns easily.
Cor/Weiss will NOT work well with Dorgann in on-turn teams as they will eat up the AoE break during a character's main turn which will only give you 1 Image Slash.
Without the special synergy characters listed, his BT effect expands his friends a bit more so he can trigger Image Slash every turn. He also doesn't need Fujin call with BT which can help bring a call to deal with mechanics.