First of all Ultimecia's banner is not coming back any time soon unless she is featured on one of the anniversary banners so if you don't own her EX then there is little point reading this.
Hey kids, it's me, yer boy, Grumpette and the cool gang, yo. Ultimecia doesn't require much introduction, if you own her you are likely already using her because she is good.
With Emperor on the horizon though it can be tempting to pull the newest, hottest, DPS and I am not here to dissuade you otherwise, rather to look at how the two stack up against each other if maybe you were on the fence or unsure if you should make the switch.
Ultimecia as a damage dealer
She hits hard both with her EX and Hell's Judgment and they both hit for AoE HP damage too. She gains a free skill use after using her EX and she gains 3 turns in a row, this turns her normally 'okay' damage into fantastic damage because you are unloading damage in a single turn which is amazing for score purposes. The fact her basic HP+ and BRV+ both hit for AoE brave damage is also great for her since she will steal brave from every enemy she hits and in this era of dual bosses and triple trash waves, she will often break all enemies simultaniously and hit really hard which is great for a HP+, probably one of the best in the game right now.
Her higher than normal iBrv stat also allows her to be brought to fights she has no place normally being such as Barret's LC, because combined with an iBrv booster or battery, she can ignore enemy resistance and still hit very hard. This becomes less important in the future when imperil is changed to allow it to bypass resistance but unless an enemy aborbs magic, she is good for most content.
Ultimecia as utility
Were you getting ready to type out how I didn't mention her gravity effects? I decided to make a seperate section for that because Ultimecia has a few tricks up her sleeve and all of them are useful. Firstly both her EX and her BRV+ have gravity to them, which means that even in cases where she would hit for 1 (not that you should use her in those situations anyway) she can still brave shave and best of all, both skills are AoE. Her unique debuff Sorceress's Hatred applies both a sap which is always helpful for control as taking a hp attack for 10hp can in some fights be better than trying to keep an enemy broken and also has a -20% defence down in a single debuff slot and while admittedly -20% is nice, it isn't going to be that noticable normally.
Still though not only is that 20% less defence your attack needs to overcome, it also helps all other team members who are attacking that target and being wrapped in a unique debuff, it will stack with a generic defence down and on that note...
Ultimecia's spheres
Having A A E is everything you could ever want. Ultimecia comes with a -30% defence down E sphere for that E slot and the total -50% is very noticable especially when bosses start bulking up late on in fights or you could use Emperor's E slot that offers +10% attack upon inflicting a debuff for 6 turns and is one of a handful of E spheres to act like an A sphere. Yuffie's E sphere is a fantastic option too as for the same criteria, it will increase both Attack and MBrave although only for 3 turns instead of 6.
Being a damage dealer a mix of Attack up and MBrave up are often the best in slot but I find Ultimecia has pretty low MBrave and that her attack needs a bit of a shot in the arm so I focused on improving MBrave in order for her to hit the 99k Brave cap. If someone has some maths on this, I would be very interested but from my own playing experience, she needs the MBrave much much more than she needs the Attack however she does actually need that Attack too, you can't get away with skimping on it.
Ultimecia's Artifacts
Like spheres, the focus is on Attack 108, MBrave 330 and her C.50 which increases iBrv and MBrv by 5%. I actually went Attack 108 & MBrave 330 x2 and then MBrave 300 & C.50 x1. I was very lucky with Ultimecia and scored 3 Attack 108, Mbrave 330 (which almost never happens) but I found that both her and Squall suffer the same issue where the maximum damage potential is limited more by their small (relative) Mbrave pool. The extra 5% MBrave has been more noticable than I expected but when I take a 108 Attack off to try and squeeze out more Mbrave, the lower attack is very noticable! I can't imagine how disappointing she must feel to play for players who have not grinded out her artifacts yet. I often view artifacts as a nice bonus rather than mandatory and I will take whatever artifacts happen to drop for most characters but there are some where it
really matters like Vayne, Serah and Ultimecia.
Ultimecia vs Emperor
Alright lets get to the real reason you are here, which character is better. Obviously I am going to cop out by not giving a real answer and instead claiming they are both different enough and why can't we all be friends.
It is true that Emperor lacks a decent HP+ and BRV+ instead using standard BRV+ hits twice and HP+ is a Brv+HP attack so right away he loses the utility that Ultimecia has and his total skill count is 15, 1 more than Ultimecia's 14 (I am including passives here) so you could say he isn't exactly
dominating her in the skill count department. But wait, she gets a free skill every time she uses her EX but wait, again, because Emperor leaves a trap after his skill uses which is basically two attacks per skill activation...Yeah I'm going to call this a draw because Emperor EX places 3 traps per activation but Ultimecia takes 3 turns
in a row per EX activation, 4 if you count the actual turn she triggered her EX but Emperor will trigger any active traps first upon casting his EX, you get the idea they are both extremely comparable in the burst damage department.
On the one hand, taking 4 turns in a row, or 5 if you use her AA is what allows Ultimecia to control the flow of a fight, chain breaking or chain EX spamming until she burns out of abilities and then you switch her for a friend unit has kind of become what she is known for. Need longevity? No problem, use your free skill, then HP+ or Brv+ then use a normal skill and her EX will charge again in about 3 normal attacks. Then on the other hand we look at Emperor and he doesn't need careful management because he just outputs so much damage and remember when I said Ultimecia has high iBrv and can therefore be used in more places, well Emperor EX Dreary Cell trap ignores defence and while certainly not as good it does mean that with a battery, which Ultimecia also benefits from by the way, he too can be used in some content he probably shouldn't be and oh god we are at it again.
Unlike Eight vs Machina where Eight is just a straight upgrade, Emperor is a "must pull" for anyone that missed out on Ultimecia but if you do have her it is legitimately difficult to say which is better unless you like fireworks in which case Emperor wins by a fireworks display! Bonus points if you have Basch or Kimahri as you can then use both Ultimecia and Emperor together although you will lack any attack auras (Basch has 40% Attack aura actually) they should deal enough damage combined that it doesn't matter.
See, we really all can be friends.
One thing is for sure though, both Emperor and Ultimecia blow Ace out of the water huh? Remember when he was the best magic dps on the block? Ha! How the gears of powercreep turn!
TL;DR
- Ultimecia is still viable and usable, one of the best magic DPS in the game still
- Emperor is amazing if you don't have Ultimecia
- Emperor is amazing if you do have Ultimecia
- Neither character can replicate the others playstyle
