Insane Difficulty: Brave New World 1.6.4 is now available! - Insane Difficulty

Didn't you change Interceptor to hit floating targets? For stamina Relm's sake? (And hitting Kefka)?

BTB explicitly noted that Relm can hit floating targets with Interceptor, at the very least. It was implied that this only happens with her though.

Yeah, it should only happen for Relm

Got my first 1.6 team into the WoR. Trying to shy away from Sage Stone spam with Locke, just to experiment with other folks. Mostly testing a few builds:

Pure Golem Sabin: Been a little bit since I did this. Golem buff's nice, although claws feel a little worse than I expected against a lot of things. No real survivability issues and Mantra is still exceptionally strong, and Tiger Mask and Royal Jacket access are both really nice. I think it's better to have the higher damage on Bum Rush and claws for certain things (Inferno especially with Stormfangs) than to have good Chakra, personally.

Vigor Cyan: 22 Bismark, 3 Alexander. He's just too slow. I got the Mutsunokami pretty early and also tried the Masamune after the dream segment. The damage is great (6-6.6k for the katana swipes under Berserk and 4-5k Aeros), but even with Haste and Berserk to minimize command delays he's just glacial in comparison to characters who can do nearly as much damage if not more (Edgar/Mog being big culprits here, but even Terra has an edge thanks to Aegis Shield access). Also the Masamune was annoyingly sparse on counters even as Edgar was Gungnir-countering like a little asshole.

Heavy Stamina Setzer: Before I'd done like 10/15 Seraph/Starlet, this time thanks to ELs being a thing I went 5/20. Setzer is a goddamn machine. With the Red Cap + Death Ward + Heiji's Coin combo he's a brick wall and he's topping 5k with GP Toss. Remedy/Regen are a guaranteed full heal and RegenX is practically one for the whole group. He's slightly sluggish so that does balance out everything else, as it's not the greatest thing to try to compromise Stamina for Speed. Still, he plays the "consistency Setzer" role in perfect contrast to the more gambling Magic Setzer build.

Weird Pseudo-Vigor Terra: 10/5/10 Unicorn/Carbunkl/Bismark. Wanted to make one that's useful for dragon stomping but still viable against Kefka. I guess we'll see. Pure Stamina probably would've been fine, or 5 Bismark instead. She has a comfortable amount of HP for once though, I do like that.

Balanced Gau: 12/13 Stray/Fenrir. He's doing very well, about as speedy as I want him to be under nATB without being wasteful, with plenty of Stamina on top of that. Griffin is a neat option and while it's not all that great for healing overall the changes would make it my go-to in fights with status spam. Might try it on Myria. Peeper is still my preferred healing Rage, although the Sun Bath on Defender is crazy strong now and I may have to look at a physical-oriented Gau to exploit Cut Down while still healing for 1000+ with Sun Bath. The changed Rages are great in general and the associated Rages are considerably more interesting than before. Spike is fantastic for Atma Weapon, so it has its moment in the sun before Nastidon in the WoR largely supplants it. Griffin and Defender and Flan all seem to have some niches now. I can't see Soldier being much better than Defender, unless you don't want auto-Reflect, but it's still an improvement in the WoB.

Vigor Mog: 22/3 Palidor/Terrato. Wanted to test out early Gungnir stuff. So far I've mostly just used it thrown against Purple-D, but it was cute for that. His Punisher damage is also quite excellent, although I'm pretty sure Gungnir Jumps are going to beat it now that Gungnir is possible to get more quickly.

Vigor Edgar: 25 Palidor. Probably a waste, but he's solid all the same. The Chainsaw nerf does hurt him a lot, and I think I should probably have given him some Golem or Unicorn for bulk, but he's doing just fine otherwise.

The early-access Mutsunokami has served Shadow well, and it's really nice for Cyan other than the issues above. A great way to Seizure the Dream Stooges and a good booster for Wave Scrolls against the Soul Fires. Setzer/Shadow/Sabin pretty much broke the Cyan's Soul segment over one knee. HasteX/Fenrir/Seraph/RegenX/Golem all in one group and damage aplenty (although Fenrir/Golem aren't really much help against the Stooges).

What gear were you running on that Cyan? Cyan needs speed gear more than he does vigor, so I usually swear by a Stat Hat and Zephyr Cape to mitigate his low speed (I do similar set-ups with Strago and Terra). Shadow tends to make every Cyan team I make though, so Image/Haste support to maximize Vigor Cyan's potential is usually a given for me.

god damn i can't FUCKING wait to play this m8

gotta study for midterms ....................


edit: FINALLY THE OFFICIAL RELEASE!! KREYGASM

Julford, on 16 February 2015 - 09:07 PM, said:

Or you could roll with a Dark Hood. Vigor Cyan probably likes the 20 extra evasion better than 5 extra vigor.

Dark Hoods are for chumps, Image support does all the evading for him regardless of fashion accessory choice anyway. And I mean, I don't farm 4+ Stat Hats in the IMTRF every game so I can NOT use them. Hell, my KT teams tend to be 50% Stat Hat.

Plus Cyan likes +Mag for his Aero, especially since I run him with Force Armor >.>

Damn, how far have you gotten in the 2 days or so that it's been since an early Mutsunokami was a thing? >.>

Good to see someone else liking Red Cap + Death Ward Stamina Setzer.

Last I ran vig Cyan in the final battles, I just did Genji Helm + Genji Armor + Muscle Belt + Sprint Shoes. Didn't have any Image user to support him in Kefka's, so I had to sacrifice speed just to actually survive attacks. Of course, before the Muscle Belt becomes available, Cyan's stuck with Power Glove + Hero Ring (which may be a better combo if a Haste user is on the team and you can keep Cyan alive). And, of course, I took closer to 10 Alexander levels.

I went Mutsunokami + Stat Hat + Force Armor (for magic defensiveness, and because he has no +Speed armor, and because he has 100+ Vigor anyway), with Nirvana Band + Hero Ring (Genji Armor and Power Glove with Masamune). A Black Belt in place of the Hero Ring might help, but the extra HP is really important and missing is a lot less of an issue now that evasion stuff has been fixed.

The main issue is that even if you dumped +Speed gear on him he's still not terribly competitive speedwise. Let's say you went Stat Hat/Dark Hood and two +7 Speed relics. Nevermind this means no booster (which is bad), the grand total you get from that is +19 Speed. He is, at best, at 49 Speed, and he gives up +25% damage to do it. Terra has a shield slot so she could use a Thunderguard or Aegis Shield and save room for a Power Glove, and she has weapons that grant Speed (albeit fewer now). Strago is slower than Cyan, but he has access to the Thunderguard and Moogle Hide and is often either without a booster (due to lack of a Crystal Orb) or simply doesn't really need a booster (when he's rolling supportive); he's much more flexible in acquiring +Speed gear because it's often his best choice anyway. He's also a bit more able to use Sprint Shoes when a Haste caster is unavailable, something that's harder on Vigor Cyan than Stamina Cyan (who can likewise make the trade).

The issue of slowness is less a problem for tanky reliable characters like Stamina Terra/Cyan/Setzer (though Stamina Cyan can use Zephyr Capes as a significant offensive booster for Dragon). Vigor Cyan is giving up bulk and back row safety and stronger Regen, yet he actually has much tighter stat requirements, worse options from armor, and his strongest katana has a gimmick that requires him to split stats when he already has enough difficulty with that. It's not that he's bad at doing damage though, it's just that - at least under nATB - he's not doing damage nearly as often. Gau can hit for 3-4k two times faster than Cyan can hit for 6-7k, so Cyan needs those counters and he has no real way of assuring himself of getting them. I had a fight where Cyan countered counter physicals once and Edgar countered them 8 times; had it been the other way it would've been fantastic, but I couldn't control that happening so it was frustrating. And the Mutsunokami doesn't counter automatically.

Tempest still has its uses, but he's kind of disappointing on damage over time and it's more noticeable under nATB. With Stamina Cyan the damage is comparable, consistent, and Cyan is an unkillable concrete bunker. The issue is that the numbers are fine, and if he went on a countering spree his damage would be insane, so it would be hard to balance that without screwing things up. But in general I'm rather sour on offensive characters who are slow; Sabin is like the absolute minimum I'd consider acceptable, and Sabin easily pushes 50+ Speed thanks to his claws and head options (and the fact that he benefits from a Black Belt more than almost anyone else).

I'm looking forward to getting back to the WoR so I can start my challenge run. Up to Zozo now so a few more days probably. I'm glad this is finally out.

Cyan


tl;dr, it sounds like me and Nakar agree, stam Cyan >> vig Cyan. Please buff the counterattack rate of katanas. (Or just raise Tempest's power even more, but I'd rather not do that unless absolutely nothing else will work).


Flails


No tl;dr because the spoiler is actually fairly short.


Edit:

Nakar, is there any particular reason you chose 10 Unicorn, 5 Carbunkl, and 10 Bismark, instead of just 10 Phoenix and 15 Bismark? (Or even something like 12-15 Phoenix and 13-10 Bismark?).

This post has been edited by thzfunnymzn: 17 February 2015 - 02:09 PM

Here's a random idea - suppose the gauntlet bonus also raised counter rates? Just a thought.

I like Flails setting Seizure actually. It does give an edge to Terra/Celes that they otherwise would not have, but if it's a proc at 25% then it's hardly reliable and Strago has far more reliable ways of setting it in the WoR so he doesn't care (Aero will do it guaranteed).

Katanas counterattacking 100% of the time would be kinda neat. The problem is, yet again, motherfuckin' Shadow. Granted, Shadow would probably not really want to use a katana other than the Mutsunokami most of the time (and the Mutsunokami doesn't counter), but it would let him run a Red Cap over the Ninja Mask and I would consider that a no-no as that's meant to be an actual choice. If only Cyan himself could have a better counter rate, or maybe restrict it to using katanas 2H, but I don't think there's any way to actually code for that (unless maybe 100% counters just become a property of a two-handed weapon via the "Gauntlet" check, which would also buff 2H spears and the Excalibur as a side effect).

Frankly? Flails just NOT causing instant death is a buff. Making it seizure instead of instant death is just gravy.

Also anything is possible in code; it could straight up check 'Is this Cyan? Counter that shit automatically'. Two handing raising counter rate sounds good to me, though.

Well, yes, by "gauntlet" bonus, I mean the weapon has to be two-handed for it to work.

I can see that being useful, if only because Cyan is the only character who must fight two-handed. It's a small buff to Mog and Edgar countering with spears, but only if they're not using a shield. Going shieldless is a bad enough penalty that a little better counter rate hardly seems imbalanced, and if they're Jumping from the back row those counters don't do a whole heck of a lot of damage anyhow.

The only real snag would be the Excalibur, but it's basically the ultimate Fight sword anyway and it further incentivizes attacking two-handed with it. Plus the Excalibur, unlike katanas/spears, doesn't auto-counter, so to get an improved counter rate one would presumably need to pair it with a Black Belt.

Letting the Excalibur get a better counterattack rate while being two-handed is probably a good thing anyways. Nakar, didn't you dislike the idea of having Terra and Celes two-hand the Excalibur in the final battle just because of the damage it does to their magic defense? Letting that weapon become an ultimate counterattack beatstick would help mitigate that somewhat. It also, hilariously enough, makes it so that Terra and Celes counterattack like Kefka during the final fight. "You dare use Fallen One on me? Excalibur counter!"

Shadow won't get much of any real buff out of this proposed buff, and Nakar all ready covered the spears. Is there any other two-handed weapon that we're missing? (Makes me miss back-row friendly spears, but those didn't also get auto-counters and Edgar/Mog have no purpose wearing the Black Belt; Dunno if back-row, auto-counter spears would classify as OP with this change for Cyan's katanas).

Oh, and I agree with Think. Insta-death proc on any weapon is a nerf, not a buff (sans the Zant's version of insta-death). Undead aren't rare, and healing them to full HP on every attack isn't fun.

I think the prevalence of undead enemies is causing people to undervalue the use of instant death on the many others that are vulnerable to it. I'm fine with it being a niche weapon, especially since its wielders are characters who have other viable avenues of attack.