Reberta

Reberta, Dragoon Extraordinaire
Reberta is a 5-star base rarity unit in FFBE, and my current Leader, which means she is the character I am sharing with you in your Friends list. You can use characters in your Friends list as extra party members whenever you like. After using them, they become unavailable for about 2 hours, to prevent you using the same friend every time.

I recommend you use Reberta in your party any time you feel stuck. However, to make the most of her, you will need to know the basics of how she works.

Dual Wielding
My Reberta has the Dual Wield Trust Master Reward (TMR) materia (Zidane's TMR, the same one I helped you work on the last time you came up to visit). This means she wields a powerful spear in each hand; in turn, that means that all of her attacks and damage-dealing abilities hit twice.

Dealing With Enemy Groups
Reberta has three elemental damage skills that will make short work of any and all non-boss enemy groups you run across, anywhere in the story progression all the way up to the end (so far). These skills hit every monster on screen at once, and they have a moderate MP cost (28 MP per use), making them usable and re-usable throughout any red mission (story mission). These abilities, by name, are When you have to deal with a group of monsters, I recommend picking one of these and using it. They also debuff the affected enemies with an elemental weakness to whatever Breath you chose, which makes further applications of damage in that element more effective. For example, using Fire Breath will make your black mage's "Fire" spell deal more damage than usual to enemies, because Fire Breath makes them weak to the fire element for the remainder of the battle.
 * Ice Breath,
 * Fire Breath, and
 * Lightning Breath.

You will very rarely need to do anything else besides use a Breath ability to win a normal fight. However, if for some reason there are still monsters left after dealing 175,000+ damage to each of them, you should know that some of Reberta's attacks can be modified by performing other moves first. As it happens, Reberta's strongest non-Jump ability, Mystic Thrust, changes from a single-target skill to an all-enemy skill if you use it the turn after using one of the above 3 Breath skills. Therefore, for coping with multiple foes at once, here is your progression: ...if the enemies are still alive, you're either fighting an elite cadre of bosses, or you've somehow progressed a lot farther than I have.
 * 1) Turn 1: Breath skill (any)
 * 2) Turn 2: Mystic Thrust

Modifiable Moves
As referenced above, Reberta has a couple of abilities that can be modified (read: strengthened) by using other abilities the previous turn. Mystic Thrust is a powerful single-target strike that hits an enemy 7 times; by using Ice, Fire, or Lightning Breath the previous turn, you can make your next Mystic Thrust hit every enemy at once, instead of just one.

In addition, Reberta's most expensive skill, the 52-MP Death Crimson, is a jump ability (we will get to those in a moment) that normally does 300% damage (that is then increased by another 200% due to one of Reberta's innate abilities) to one enemy. However, if you use one of three other abilities the turn before using Death Crimson, Death Crimson will deal 300% damage, then another 450% damage (all before the 200% multiplier) to an enemy instead - a truly monstrous strike. The skills that unlock this turbocharged finishing blow are: Raging Thrust is a moderately powerful single-target attack that has the added effect of raising Reberta's ATK by 80% for the next few turns. The other two skills, like Death Crimson itself, are jump abilities.
 * Raging Thrust,
 * Jump, and
 * Recovery Jump.

About Jump abilities
Reberta isn't the only character that wields jump attacks, but she is one of the best. She has 3 jump abilities: Jump, Recovery Jump, and Death Crimson.

Jumping is an unusual mechanic left over from older Final Fantasy games. When you use a jump ability, here's what happens: In other words, jumping removes her from combat for a turn, but deals higher than usual damage to compensate for the missed turn. Jumping has two basic uses: one, to avoid especially dangerous attacks by leaping off the screen before they're unleashed; two, to deal massive damage to difficult enemy targets.
 * Reberta leaps into the air, ending her turn.
 * She stays off screen all through the monsters' next turn, and is not affected by anything the monsters do - no damage, death, or status ailments can be inflicted on her.
 * At the beginning of your next turn, before any other characters can act, Reberta drops from the sky onto an enemy, dealing heavy damage.
 * After returning to your party, Reberta can then take no other action until your next turn.

Reberta's jump kit includes a self-recovery skill, Recovery Jump, which deals unimpressive damage, but which recovers a substantial amount of Reberta's HP and MP on use. If you find yourself in a protracted fight, Recovery Jump may prove useful. The other two jump abilities, Jump and Death Crimson, are straightforward damage-dealing abilities, with Death Crimson being the more powerful and expensive of the two.

Dealing with single-target bosses
Now that we've reviewed Reberta's primary damage-dealing abilities, here's how I recommend dealing with especially tough bosses, with each step representing one turn: The main goal is to use Death Crimson whenever it's feasible, and to never use it unless it's supercharged. Because Death Crimson (as with any jump skill) is slow, it may be advisable to use the weaker but faster Mystic Thrust in certain situations instead.
 * 1) Use Raging Thrust. (Although this increases Reberta's ATK substantially for the next 3 turns, such increases aren't calculated for jump skills, as of this writing. The main reason we start with Raging Thrust is to quickly enable a supercharged Death Crimson without wasting an extra turn on another jump skill.)
 * 2) Use Death Crimson.
 * 3) Either repeat, or
 * 4) use Recovery Jump + Death Crimson, as needed when Reberta's MP is low;
 * 5) switch to Mystic Thrust, which, as a non-jump attack, will benefit from Raging Thrust's ATK bonus.

Other skills & notes

 * Lance: This skill drains HP and MP from the foe (doing modest damage in the process) and gives it to Reberta instead. It is a faster way to recover than Recovery Jump (because it doesn't cost a turn the way jump skills do), but as a draining skill, it can't steal more HP/MP than what the enemy has. Especially with regards to MP, this can sometimes be an issue in longer fights. In comparison, Recovery Jump does not need to drain HP or MP to transfer it to Reberta, and as such will always restore her HP and MP, even if the enemy's HP/MP reserves are depleted.
 * Dragon Killer: Owing to various innate abilities and equipment, Reberta is exceptionally good at slaying dragons, above and beyond other enemy creature types.
 * Auto-refresh: Reberta naturally recovers a bit of MP and HP every turn. If all else is lost, you can wait out any MP shortage she suffers, and she'll eventually get enough back to use Lance or Recovery Jump again.