Insane Difficulty: New to 1.3 Questions From a Considerably Experienced Vanilla Player - Insane Difficulty

Hi, so I have some quick questions for starting a new game in 1.3 (Content version). Like the title says, I have a good amount of experience with vanilla FFT (not a know-it-all, but definitely not new to it). I did some skimming through the patch notes to avoid creating another new player thread, but I couldn't find the answers to my questions within it. All right. So. Questions:

1. Are Male and Female equal in terms of PA/MA (and any other stats for that matter)? Question applies mainly to generics, but if there's more new changes, I'd appreciate the info. EDIT: Also, are the sex-specific accessories still exclusive to a single sex or has that been removed?

2. Brave and Faith. Are they mostly the same as vanilla FFT? Any big changes here? It's such a powerful mechanic in vanilla, I just can't overlook it.

3. Can Brave and Faith still be permanently modified?

4. How does your level affect the strength of enemies (story/randoms)? I ask because I like to obtain my jobs and abilities early simply for freedom of choice. I have no desire or intention of being lvl 99 by the time I hit Dorter or the end of Ch. 1.

Thanks in advance to anyone who decides to reply! I'm really looking forward to getting my feet wet with a 1.3 Content playthough.

1 - No, it's the same as vanilla: males have better PA, females better MA and Ramza it's basically the king of Generics with good PA and MA

2- Same as vanilla, just that now it does matter if you have high/low faith

3 - Just brave by story events

4 - Since you're going with content, the enemies will have the same levels on the story chapters, but random enemies will scale their levels along you

Something more to take note: Please make sure you understant how zodiac compatibility works: Ultil CH4 you will rely on it to inflict buffs/status effects on the enemies and party members

Finally: check out the FAQ and guides on the page if you want more info before dive in

As ronlyn said, only randoms will scale if you're on Content. The most visible difference between your strength and the enemies' as your level progresses can be seen in battles with enemy-only classes (they tend to have absurd stat growths and modifiers.)

As for Brave, yeah, story events and Brave reducing-skills like Terror

The Brave/Faith thing matters mostly because they can't be modified as you could in vanilla, so you might want pretty good Brave units (70ish) and, depending on what you're looking for, decent or poor Faith.

Feel free to ask us anything here or by going into our Discord chat server. FAQ works, but I think some details might be outdated, not sure...

The guide is, for content, totally up to date. Content itself is out of date, however.

As for Brave/Faith... the story triggers are the only ways to raise brave. In the most recent version of 1.3, some if not all brave affecting skills are no longer used by the AI, except for an ability that only Altima and Elidibs have (the skill mentioned by Laith, Terror.) If you get hit by a brave reducing skill, you can NEVER get it back, so heads up.

Kjata, on 16 February 2017 - 11:12 PM, said:

False. The skills guide is updated for 1.3.0.8; Content itself is outdated. It has been like this for months.

Hart-Hunt, on 17 February 2017 - 03:50 AM, said:

Oh, shit. Shows what I know.

Then again I haven't checked the guide in like three fucking years. And I haven't really used the forum in like a year. I'm bound to miss some shit.

Perfumes and Ribbons are still Female-only. A lot of them were nerfed and made harder to acquire though

Great. Thanks again for the replies. After forming my team, I still have a couple of questions.

1. Ramza's Squire class can't equip shields, yet hired generics can?

2. Is there a class guide with reqs/damage formulas for reference, and if so, should it be stickied?

That's about it for questions as of now. I'll leave you with my current team setup (yes the generics' names begin with their zodiac signs).

Ramza - (male?) Libra - 70/70
Lilianna (female) - Libra - 66/70
Geneva (female) -Gemini - 69/70
Aquila (female) - Aquarius - 69/70
Atma (male) - Aquarius - 70/70

The majority of the party gels together with good compatibility. There didn't seem to be a way around having 2 of the 5 characters with the same sign, so I chose to double Libra and Aquarius. At any given time in a 5-generic fight, I should be able to have good compatibily reliably, and never, ever, bad compatibility.

Faith/Brave stats are pretty top-notch, so that's great. I'm considering having 2 male generics with 70/40 bred for tackling magic/faith users but I'll wait on that. I'm not really sure about the classes in 1.3.

1. Ramza's Squire class changes throughout the chapters. At first, he can't equip shields. Eventually, he will be able to, don't remember when. Ramza's Squire class is unique, though I can't pinpoint the differences right now.

2. The Guide tab above in the site, look for the class section for 1.3, some info should be there. FFTPatcher, though, will always be the most direct option to check these things.

Ramza's version of squire can't equip axes natively, but can still learn the support ability to use them.

Strangely, even if he uses "equip axe" he still can't have perfumes. I don't get it.

Tabeguache, on 18 February 2017 - 04:52 PM, said:

Ramza it's more of a Old Spice user to me

I laughed way harder than what I should have.

Heretic Spice.

Quote

It is possible. You can sacrifice half of your good compatibilites to make half of them neutral and the other half best, while still avoiding bad and worst compatibility on your team. Best compatibility is only achieved when having multiple (opposing) elements. (Male Libra/Female Aries, for example.)

To give you an example, I used the following:

Ramza - Aries (Neutral compatibility with Wiegraf and good with Vormav, both of whom Ramza will face alone. Good compatibility with Samurai and Lancer, best with Summoner, neutral with Thief. Note that while Ramza has the PA and HP of males and the MA and MP of females, he still counts as male for purposes of compatibility.)

Male Thief - Aquarius (Good compatibility with Elmdor - the primary target for stealing in the game. Females could have best compatibility as Sagittarius and considering daggers use speed rather than PA for damage calculations, might make a better thief. It's down to HP vs. Steal success rate and individual power vs. team synergy and versatility. Good compatibility with Summoner, best with Samurai, neutral with Lancer and Ramza.)

Male Lancer - Sagittarius (Good compatibility with Ramza and Samurai, neutral with Summoner and Thief.)

Female Samurai - Leo (Best compatibility with Thief, good with Ramza and Lancer, neutral with Summoner.)

Female Summoner - Libra (Best compatibility with Ramza, good with Thief, neutral with Lancer and Samurai.)

Yours is 2 x neutral and 8 x good. Mine is 4 x neutral, 4 x good and 2 x best. I don't think one is strictly better than the other - that would depend on team composition, speaking of which, if you have a summoner, make sure it's the Gemini since you'll want good compatibility with your entire team on the one character with AoE raise.

Enemy teams usually have randomly-generated sets of zodiac signs, meaning you'll typically face an enemy team mostly consisting of the same (random) element ensuring they have decent compatibility, but can't be metagamed, which is why I think an all-air team (in your case) will either result in you reloading the game or steamrolling the opponent.

Don't forget to have fun.

Thanks for your posts! I just started 1.3, and I found it all very helpful. I have used Zodiac compatibility only a little bit, and never really considered setting it up for the whole game. How does setting Ramza as 'Aries' fit in with the other unique characters you get along the way? Should I avoid those characters in 1.3?

I always liked having Agrias and Rafa on my team.

If you pñan on using specials, then you should probably just pick a good zodiac that goes with your prefered special, and then roll with that. Specials jave too varied zodiacs, so you'll end up with neutral bad compats, which will balance their inherent strength to a point.

Hart-Hunt, on 02 March 2017 - 02:42 PM, said:

You really don't need zodiac compats for a special team tho. Just use phoenix downs and call it a day.