Insane Difficulty: Uh Haha... Wait, is Cloud good? - Insane Difficulty

Seriously, I don't know, I know he sucked in Vanilla, what do you guys think of him? I'm wrapping up most of the recordings before I hit up Igros castle and finish the rest of the game, but I never bothered getting / using Cloud in 1.3.

Is he good?

P.S. Worker 7 is shit. Beowulf is okay, but there's too many fucking enemies that just have straight up immunity to a lot of stuff for him to really be super good.

Cloud isn't great, but he is pretty good against ??? enemies. Zombag, Hashmalum, and Altima are the only battles in the main story. He is pretty good in the DD from what little I've done of it.

Beowulf is the absolute most powerful character in the game IMO. Even despite their being a good amount of enemies immune to his abilities, the amount of enemies actually immune is VASTLY overstated. He is the best character in the game against Zombag, and is very good against Altima1. I'll admit, he isn't useful in every fight, but he is useful in probably 70% of the fights in ch4, and when he is useful he is the best.

I don't really plan on doing deep dungeon. I remember doing some of it, and I don't really have the patience for it. So I guess that means he'll be good for like 3 enemies then.

Beowulf's immune enemy problem is that the highlight ones you want to disable, you can't. Like, the mission to fix Reis is kinda stupid. There are 2 dark Chocobo, and they pretty much OHKO someone with Dark Holy if you don't reflect it. Then, if that wasn't enough, they have a move called "Awakening" that revives pretty much every monster back to full health. You'd want to hit them with Don't Act or Sleep or Confuse, SOMETHING to stop you from having to just DPS rush them to death, but no dice. And to be fair, his sidequest does him no favors where the only time he can help, it's literally the easiest fight you've had in a while.

I havent done the DD either. I am saying for the main storyline, Beowulf is the best character in the game. Seriously, there are like 2-4 enemies per battle that are immune to status. The Worker 7 battle is an example of a battle of where he is bad, to be sure. He isn't good in every battle. But if you actually try using him, you will be surprised at how many enemies he can affect. And shut down completely. 100% sleeps are a thing with him. Instant speed, 100% sleeps that only affect some of the enemies is absurdly powerful. ESPECIALLY against Zombag and Altima1. Yeah, you can't sleep them, but they have awakening and thus killing their friends isn't exactly helpful.

Augestein, on 06 July 2016 - 08:47 AM, said:

Paging DaTruthDT, paging DaTruthDT...

You can see the best set up for Cloud in the picture above. Brought to you by HellKniight

Kjata, on 07 July 2016 - 02:41 AM, said:

Okay, yeah, I did start using him, and he has been pretty good so far Not as good as my generic 76 Br 71 Generic female but he did make getting the faith rod a joke as with Excalibur you can pretty much guarantee to put one person out of commission with confuse (those immortal fucks can still be smacked with confuse, the most lethal of status effects on the AI for sure). Having a mage use Confuse 2 on the Monks before they could move and then Beowulf used Confuse on the time mage essentially took out 3 people before they even got to move. My Male Javelin 2 using Lancer took out a Geomancer before she could even make a noteworthy move. The whole thing was a slaughter fest outside of the boring Holy Priest that Archael added there-- that was really tedious and annoying because you can't steal his stupidly good equips, and he has defense Up, + protect (permanently so no dispel for you), + shell (ditto for this status effect), move hp up (seriously, WTF is with him doing this garbage? But that's another topic that I'd like to address).

Also Hell Knight, Cloud's attacks are made stronger through MA, not PA, so giving him PA boosting equips would only help Punch Art, which honestly, outside of Stigma Magic, Chakra, and Revive, I'm really not seeing much of a point to giving Cloud the PA boosts. The Attack Up helps I guess for punch art, but at that point why not just have Martial Arts Cloud be still equipped with the Materia Blade anyways? I'd rather him just remain a mage. It's unfortunate that MB is a Knight Sword though, as it basically only allows him to get that nice +3 MA on a weapon when he's a knight or a soldier. Limit no longer seems to care if you have the Materia Blade or not. This is a massive buff on Cloud's part I think. You no longer have to carry around that (no longer as terrible) Materia Blade. Also, even assuming we keep him as you have. There's no reason to have a male have Move + 2 and call it the ultimate setup. He must at least have Move + 3!

HellKnight showing his insight into the game as per usual, I see: providing the proverbial faceplant we have grown accustomed to.

Kaffe Myers, on 20 July 2016 - 03:18 PM, said:

At this point, I didn't even see the need to minus it.

Heroic Gloves are for pussies <.< Best Cloud is MB, Thief Hat, Secret Clothes, Sprint Shoes, because SPEED. I know this is obvious, but I wanted to post something

Hart-Hunt, on 21 July 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

I miss bracers tbh. I think HG are so much worse. It feels like an item that's sole purpose is to help the enemy. I mean it can be helpful for you I guess, but would you REALLY leave an ally on the ground that long?

Bracers were +2 PA right? Or +3 PA. Yeah, they were pretty good, I didn't see them as unbalanced. They did outshine the Genji Gauntlet, but who cares.

However, I'd have still chosen the sprint shoes. Especially on Cloud, because if I use Cloud, I use him for his "own HP" formulas, so PA there is irrelevant.

Augestein, on 06 July 2016 - 08:47 AM, said:

Beowulf is amazing. Cloud is great vs. ??? enemies. I assume you mean Worker 8, but Worker 8 is very useful outside of a few battles like Altima or Elidibs.

Hart-Hunt, on 21 July 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

Yes. +1

Yeah, I do mean Worker 8. I hit 7 instead of 8. My question is this: what makes him good? His speed isn't much better than a knight, and a knight can debuff, break equipment, and could sub as a decent oracle or white Mage with a mythril sword and being a female for some +1 magic and initial haste goodness (in addition to not letting that extra MA not go to waste). He's immune to magic which seems nice, but most of the attacks that I'm hit by aren't faith magic. Sure Worker 8 can use Power Source but you can't buy them so you're left farming an item that now only one character can use (what was the reasoning behind removing Elixir from the player's chemist? ). A knight can sub a variety of things and cure status effects, revive... While you get ... Uh... Long range damage? I'd be more impressed with that if my whole team didn't pretty much have Move + 3.

Worker 8 might not be the worst character --no, that would be any worst compat person with Ramza that's a generic male) but I can't see him as being better than anyone really. I mean even someone like Mustadio, that has nothing to offer on Zodiac boss fights but at least has fights that he's really good to be around. I can't say the same for Worker 8 who seems to just be another special nuke. At any rate, he's better than the vanilla Worker 8 IMO, but there's still more to be desired from him I think.

If his SPM was 130 or 135, I might consider using him. But as it stands, he's slightly above average speed and bulky, and can't be supported by anyone. Granted he might be great in DD, but I don't like DD so I'm not talking about there.

On a personal note, my Ramza is the healer in this case, so I can't heal him with magic. I also think that 1.309 should happen to fix some of the stuff that looks buggy... And give Mustadio those old knight breaks and the ability to equip crossbows again. Weapon Breaking Dycedarg in his zodiac form is just all kinds of stupid (looking and makes no sense). It's like "oh, you want to break my weapon, well how did you like it when I punched you in the fucking face with my + 10 PA martial arts unit that I have equipped now?" With him having Counter Magic on, IDK what was thought here, because the original Hamedo version made way more sense.

Worker 8 is a 4-tooled, extremely sharp, short-bladed swiss knife.

He's slow, he can move little, he's the most generic character you can imagine, tactics wise. He can do 4 things: Revive someone, Healing someone, 1-Hit KO at melee range, and a decently strong attack, unavoidable at 8 panels of distance. He's immune to status (except for Confuse). He has innate Defense UP. He has 0 Faith, so he's immune to all faith-dependent formulas.

He's not a character you want in all battles, but he's a great character to have around for the battles he's good in. He's easy to understand as a concept. You lure the enemy towards you with a tanky, HP focused team while he either hits from a distance, hits like a truck with his melee, or completely negates enemy damage with a Power Source (or with Energy, which is virtually the same).

He's really, really, really strong. And he would be OP without the countermeasures to his skillset and innate properties. With a "But he's slow and can move little", a character that can do all of what's required to win a battle is suddenly underappreciated because you need a team that plays with the least played style in 1.3, walking tanks (at least nowadays). DaTruth and Cecil, and Archael to some extent played with that particular playstyle, and you can see that 1.3's chapter 4 design philosophy is around those type of characters - A fine example would be North Wall of Bethla Garrison. Archers that can hit with a distance, have innate defenses, and are immune to status. Some of them even have Concentrate. Sound familiar? Just like Worker 8 with Dispose.

So, any view on Worker 8 will directly talk about the viewer's gamestyle. Those who play tanky will say he's a must-have. Those who play with fragile speedsters will say he's garbage. And those who adapt and change constantly between those 2 extremes will say he's great for having around, but not a must-use-in-every-battle.

If you're still not convinced, check Cecil's or DaTruth's playthroughs and check what Worker 8 does and what his role is in each battle, and how relevant he is to each victory.

Hope that helps.

On Beowulf: In my opinion, Beowulf is the strongest special character. He fits in virtually any battle with its 2 primary setups.

The first setup is his Sage + Magic Sword setup, Two Swords, Nagrarock / Slasher + Faith Rod. He'll also be fast as heeeeell with a thief hat, secret clothes, and sprint shoes. This setup goes great against any team composition with enough weight on status weaknesses. Step in with Beo, status the shit out of anyone with pretty much certainty. Any turn of his disrupts the enemy for enough turns that any team sinergy designed will be over in a few rounds, and you'll gain absolute control in the battle. If you haven't tried this setup yet, give it a shot. You'll have fun with one of the most powerful 1.3 setups around, for a single character.

His other setup is the most obvious one, the Magic Knight. Its versatibility comes with the huge array of different equipment setups in 1.3. Examples vary greatly.
Nagrarock / Slasher
Aegis Shield / Escutcheon II / Genji Shield / 2nd Slasher (combined with Two Swords) / 2nd Nagrarock (my favourite one)
Genji Helmet
Genji Armor / Carabini Mail / Light Robe
Vanish Mantle / Elf Mantle / Genji Gauntlet / Sprint Shoes

You can be a tanky as hell character, or a fragile speedster that can >90% most status, including permanent ones like Petrify. You can even zombie people and use Worker 8 with Power Sources.

And what do we do when the enemy is immune to status? Beowulf has one of the best abilities in 1.3, which is Shock! For battles with tanky characters immune to status, those that we all hate in chapter 4, give him a double nagrarock, genji helmet, carabini mail, sprint shoes setup. If you want to stay tanky, use Drain. If you want to massively hurt people, use Shock! It's instant, its % is pretty reliable, its damage output is insane. And Drain scales with both PA and MA, which makes it ideal to use with Genji equipment.

Beowulf is the most versatile character in 1.3. The easiest to use, and the hardest to master because he can combine with most characters and use multiple setups (there has to be a lot of other good ones that I can't think of right now). It's no wonder he comes as a reward after the spike difficulty sidequest that is the Colliery.

PS: after making those 2 posts

Spoiler

Still got it

PPS: after making those 2 posts

Spoiler

Uhhhhh Hart you are the man. I couldn't even come close to explaining either Beowulf or Worker 8 as well as you did.

DaTruthDT, on 11 August 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

You really need to get back to the 1.3 train. Record some vids for the good old days.

Hart-Hunt, on 12 August 2016 - 04:21 AM, said:

Yeeeeees!

You know what? I'll have to try to work Worker 8 in for a fight then. But I DO have to admit that I like Knights though. I used Knight Ramza quite a bit tbh.