Brave New World 1.8.6 is now available!

[BTB 353]

Download Brave New World Here

(New to Brave New World? Want to know what it's all about? Check out the Readme here or our list of Frequently Asked Questions.)

I don't normally do big update announcements like this for minor releases, but the community-driven nature of this update cycle has let to version 1.8 being a lot more spread out than we're used to, and 1.8.5 had a number of very significant bugs that needed patching. I want to thank everyone for their patience in dealing with the deluge of hotfix patches for the last few months while we got everything sorted out for a proper release, and I'd like to give an extra-special thanks to Seibaby for providing several new hacks for this update and earning his "Gold" BNW donor status.

So, what's in the box for 1.8.6? Aside from the bugfixes, the major highlight is several new hacks concerning speed and/or theft. One of the biggest complaints we've had since the implementation of Think's nATB system was the significantly increased difficulty in escaping from fights. A rewriting of the ATB initialization code now allows your characters' speed to contribute much more significantly to getting first strike in battle, and a side effect of this makes running from unwanted fights much easier on average. Conversely, nATB also pushed speed to being a DPS god stat by removing the soft cap on its effectiveness, necessitating a rewrite of the speed code itself to lessen its effect at high levels and bring the slower characters a bit more up to par. Theft is addressed by allowing the speed of the "treasure hunter" to increase the odds of getting a rare steal rather than the old flat 1/8 chance as well as allowing successful theft attempts to qualify as a free action and thus give the "treasure hunter" a free turn immediately afterward.

The other major hack to make it in allows Gau to Leap anywhere he finds enemies that he can rage, thus making it far less annoying to hunt down that one last rage that just won't fucking show up on the Veldt. While this does allow Gau early access to a few key rages at certain points of the game, it's largely a QoL change that will hopefully win over a few more fans to his camp.

Finally, the addition of X-Fight to Shadow's Kagenui in the previous version proved... much more effective than I was counting on, in part by finally bringing to light the fact that the X-Fight damage penalty never stacked with the dual-wield damage penalty like it was supposed to. This turned Shadow into a one-man wrecking crew (even moreso than usual), at least for the players who were aware of the hotfix to fix the incorrect stats on the Kagenui, which otherwise had a whopping battle power of zero.

As always, I'll close with a reminder to everyone that Brave New World is now available as a reproduction cartridge courtesy of our good friends at Retro Circuits. Feel free to contact them with questions about their products or even just to chat; they're great folks and I'm glad to have the pleasure of dealing with them.

 

What's new in 1.8.6:

Spoiler

 • Added new hacks to lessen the effect of speed granting faster characters more turns over time and to increase its effect on the likelihood of getting first strike

 • Added new hacks to allow speed to influence the likelihood of getting rare steals and for successful steal attempts to be treated as "free" actions

 • Added a new hack allowing Gau to Leap on rageable formations outside of the Veldt and removed the scripting behavior where all "dog"-type enemies would forcibly target him

 • Fixed a bug with the "Y-Equip Relics" hack where stat previews for changing equipment would display incorrectly after switching between menus

 • Fixed a bug where the Quartrstaff and Doomstick would crash the game when using MP for critical hits

 • Fixed a bug with Setzer's Dice where the animation would display incorrectly and also crash the game

 • Fixed a bug with X-Fight where the X-Fight penalty and the dual-wield penalty were not stacking

 • The Kagenui now has the correct stats

 • Fixed the incorrect attack priorities on the Tumbleweed rage

 • Fixed the Raiden summon (only accessible via Slots) to be identical to Odin

 • Made a small change to Tiamat's script

 • Added a(nother) hint about fighting Phunbaba to Terra's dialogue

 • Adjusted the encounters near WoR Albrook to prevent solo Celes from getting into unfair fights

 

(Oh, and if liking things on Facebook is your bag, baby, then by all means go nuts.) 

Edited January 6, 2018 by BTB

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Yea, new version is out!

[seibaby 132]

*prays for zero gamebreaking bugs*

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Finished an early Ancient Castle with vig Terra, vig Edgar, spd Relm, and stam Cyan.

************

Been banking vig Terra's ELs so that I can grab Phoenix for HP instead of Unicorn. I got away with it quite cleanly in the WoB, even when I Morphed vs Atma. Now? I can't Morph - everytime I Morph, I get a Game Over. Otherwise, with early Wing Edge x2, she ain't terrible. Not particularly great either. Damage is mostly "passable," but not exemplary. Also lacks her top-tier healing. Shines for Floating bosses, though not as much so as if she had some actual HP.

Biggest problem is that Wing Edge x2 is what Mishrak would call a "veteran" strat - kinda requires that you know which dungeons to raid for the early Wing Edges. Except the benefits from doing so aren't that great, unless you just absolutely have to have Morph vig Terra blow up the Wind Dragon when you first go through Mt. Zozo.

iow, early-WoR vig Te/Ce still kinda struggling here.

************

Otherwise, not much to say. stam Cyan did his thing, vig Edgar did his thing, spd Relm still blew stuff up. If I hadn't had so many Tinctures from Fanatics' Tower EL Grindings, I would've worried about Relm's MP - I definitely felt that Osmose nerf against Water Dragon. Oh, and Partisan wasn't too bad for Water Dragon - not great, but I guess it did its job of "Outdamage Chainsaw for early-WoR boss fights." Got unlucky on double jumps though.

************

Time to grab the last two characters. And stam Strago is along for the ride for both places. Gonna see how well he tanks that Meteo from Tiamat.

And I would go grab Merton for Ice 3 + Merton strats on Tiamat, but nooOOOooo, Tiamat just has to null Wind, doesn't he? - _ - There goes one neat use for Merton. Guess I'll wait 'til later to really try out Merton. Useless on Tiamat & Fire Dragon, and I doubt I'll need "Heal & Attack on the same turn" for the random encounters I'll fight.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Whelp, finished Cave on the Veldt.

************

I think Eye Goo Rage is bugged. Manticore is susceptible to Sleep, but everytime Gau used Eye Goo's "Slumber", it missed.

************

Only other real thing to talk about is stam Strago.

At this point in the game, the difference in magical damage that he takes is negligible. mag Strago would've taken ~60 more damage from Meteo, the strongest attack in the cave. Meanwhile, mag Strago's X-Ice2 would've done ~800 more damage against Tiamat's first form. ~800 ain't the end of the world, but it's at least a somewhat meaningful difference, unlike the difference between 360 and 420 damage. (I calculated all the stuff out). Otherwise, stam Strago was mostly just taking 230 damage from Manticore's Magnitude instead of 260, or taking 20 from sap instead of 40.

So, at this point in the game, the only benefit to stam Strago is "dodging status." Too bad he decided to NOT dodge X-Zone from Bonelord. - _ - To be fair, there's very little status in this cave. I'll need to bring him to a place where status dodging is more useful. (Not sure how useful that is compared to just grabbing a Ribbon and having extra magic power). I doubt this build is really going to matter much until the endgame though.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Finished Phoenix Cave, Cyan's Soul, White Dragon, and Brown Dragon. Probably should go finish Magimaster before Narshe & Ebot's Rock.

Spoiler

 

************

At this late point in the WoR, the Phoenix Cave randoms just kinda dropped dead. It's not my levels - I'm only lvl.25. The Phoenix Cave randoms are intimidating earlier on, but once everyone's built up, the battles are mostly a formality. Only Weedula's Zombite was of any real threat.

This includes the Fire Dragon. With elemental gear, Golem/Image, and most my WoR goodies, he was just big balls of HP that I had to hack through. Was actually contender for easiest boss this playthrough. Again, it ain't my levels - at level 25, I'm actually underleveled. Rather, the Fire Dragon just rolls over and dies to a prepared late-WoR team. Which seems consistent with Wind Dragon being a "tough but plenty doable" fight for a prepared early-WoR team.

Should also mention that it was the same way with Earth Dragon, so long as you also bring along Float and a team with enough HP. Just kinda dropped dead. Was disappointing for one of the 8 legendary dragons.

************

So, I went into Cyan's Soul with an underleveled Kirin Locke, spd Shadow at lvl.24, and stam Strago at lvl.26. Yes, I do hate myself. Dream Stooges killed this team several times before I finally figured out what I'm supposed to do with this team. Shadow runs out of MP multiple times supporting party, Strago deals damage with Punisher / X-Dark, Locke is sack of HP that kinda contributes with Omega Valiance & Cures/Lifes (when he's not eating a Rasp).

The new Steal Patch on the Soul Train (human foes only) allowed Locke to chain together 3-4 Mugs in a row. Was some pretty hilarious AoE.

Soul Fires went down in one try, but it was annoying because of Shadow's & Strago's low HP vs. Meteo & Flare, and because this team's damage output is rather pitiful. (Strago's Tsunami isn't any stronger than Shadow's Ninja Wave).

stam Strago did do something mag Strago couldn't - for his level, he could just survive a Flare from Soul Fires, whereas mag Strago would've fallen. Yea! Though it's also a little level specific - a level or two lower, and Flare would've killed Strago anyways. A level or two higher, mag Strago would've lived. (Or, I could've just used a Black Heart like an intelligent person.) So...eh.

************

Fought Holy Dragon without Black Hearts. DERP! That's what I get for being away from this game so long & playing late at night. Ahh well. I at least brought along a team of tanks (Edgar, Setzer, Terra, Cyan). Most of the problem came when Holy Dragon just decided he had it in for Terra. I revive Terra, he uses Holy on her. I revive Terra, he uses Holy on her. Didn't care for the other hitting him, nope, he's gonna axe-murder Terra. Yeesh. At least Terra has Apocalypse (& HP ELs) now - it's soo much better than dual Wing Edges. Easily double the damage output, except on floating foes. Morph doesn't really work with Apocalypse, but oh well.

Decided to have Edgar two-hand the Gungnir for the Holy Dragon fight. No shield. Actually turned out fine. He survived everything the dragon through at him, supported the team with Defib/Cure2/Safe, and got some nice Jumps on the Dragon. I think I might stick with this Gungnir Dragoon for a bit.

Oh, Holy Wind only healed the Holy Dragon ~800 HP. So it on Nakar's run too. He might've been on the last leg of a "life" or something, but this is also the first time in my whole BNW experience that I've ever seen that. So....???

************

Tried the "Merton with Flameguard x4" against Earth Dragon. It certainly works as a "attack + heal," but I ran out of MP. Also, I kicked the Earth Dragon's butt, so "attack + heal on the same turn" wasn't really necessary, especially no with the MP cost. Also not liking taking Flameguards instead of Iceguards into Narshe, so there goes using Merton for Ice Dragon.

I'll test out Merton again, with Soul Box, at Ebot's Rock and Kefka's Tower. See how useful it is then.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2017 by thzfunnymzn

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Ice Dragon: O, hai gaiz! I heard you liek Step Mine! Imma hit ur support chara with it! K? :3

Spoiler

Did Narshe twice. Once with vig Terra, Kirin Locke, spd Shadow, and mag Mog. 2nd time with vig Edgar, mag Setzer, stam Cyan, stam Strago. Levels were 25-27.

First team was continuing to try out new builds, or builds I didn't use a lot. Second time was b/c I was getting tired of experimentation and just wanted to smash stuff with a favorite team.

Randoms

spd Shadow's Starting ATB is really noticeable. Every fight opened with a Fire Scroll. Fuzzy x6 died as soon as they came on screen. Otherwise, little to say about the randoms. Cerberus didn't even really get a chance to threaten me with physicals. I just bum rushed it all and everything died. All throughout Narshe & Yeti's Cave.

For second crew, Cerberus went crazy a few times, but otherwise, still pretty simple. Setzer's Blackjack OHKO'd everything in Yeti's Cave except Kiwok's. No 50 MP spent, no HP drained from Shock, no fiddling around with enemy stamina vs. X-Zone. Just flat "Win this encounter." Chumps. Blackjack op.

Oh, and Flametongue Dragooning was a thing for some randoms. (Actually, now that Ele Jumping is more of a thing, maybe you can just re-purpose the Fire Lance & Trident? Let the Ele Swords be for elemental control).

Also, more AoE Mug. This time, on Warlocks. Locke's a boss vs. human randoms.

Don't have SleepX for randoms yet (sorry BTB), and Terra has Muddle. So, Mog just stuck with Fire Rod & Love Sonata.

Also, if it weren't for the army of Tinctures I collected from FT Grinding or for how easy most everything is right now, I would've really considered bringing hyb Sabin on Team 1. Locke, Terra, & Shadow could've all used the MP support. I forgot to mention - I used hyb Sabin to support Celes & Relm in Phoenix Cave. If things weren't so easy & if I didn't have so many Tinctures, it would've been pretty important. Despite that, I'm liking hyb Sabin. (Big fat : p to stam Sabin).

Ice Dragon & Yeti

Team 2

Basic. Buff up, pound the boss into oblivion. Ice Dragon went swimmingly. I forgot to bring Dispel for Yeti, but meh. Just kept Strago on Refract Guard, Setzer on Go Fish, while Edgar & Cyan did there thing. Only noticeable anomaly was stam Cyan dropping to Avalanche from 1200 HP - oh well, guess that's what I get for being underleveled.

Gungnir Edgar proved yet again that "moar HP = win." He didn't need a shield at all for Ice Dragon. Sure, Fire Lance would've done more damage, but Gungnir Edgar's got the raw HP, lesser counterattacks, and still 4k Jumps with occasional doubles. (Chainsaw does 3k - Iceguard would've made Edgar tankier, but it's not like Gungnir Edgar is in danger of dying). Kept Flametongue for Yeti - wanted that defense. I'm really liking the Gungnir Dragoon. Just gotta make sure to NOT pair him up with Cyan for Kefka's Tower - I want Edgar with Nirvana Band, blast is. (Defib & Cure 2).

stam Strago died to Step Mine. RIP. In fact, with Iceguard, there's really nothing stam Strago does here that mag Strago doesn't do better. (Stamina doesn't defend against physicals). Except regen ticks for Holy Wind, but...meh. I've never been impressed with that. Regen ticks aren't gonna save Holy Wind after a "big" attack. And, if I want someone to just sit there and wait around to heal, I'll take Setzer - he has this magical thing called "HP" and "heavy armor." But enough - stam strago has Ebot's Rock & the Two Towers to prove himself yet.

First crew

More interesting. Ice Dragon fight was more big & forth, before I gave up on getting perfect defense and just rushed the dude. Yeti, otoh, went pretty swimmingly, thanks to Shadow's Image guard. In fact, spd Shadow's nuts. Incredible Image guard, Fire Scrolls, and Lazy Shell defenses. Runs out of MP quickly though, and unsure on his non-elemental damage (haven't brought Ninjatos yet >_>). Being able to use the Lazy Shell cost-free is pretty awesome though - definitely makes him vig Morph Terra's best friend.

Kirin Locke - not a bad tank. Bit of a miniature stam Cyan. Omega + Valiance is doing 3.3k - 3.6k (Genji set-up, Death Ward) to stam Cyan's 4k. Works fine for randoms. But for the boss fights of both these past two dungeons, I've found myself wanting more MP for Cure / Life. Maybe I'm putting him on bad teams? Also, if I want a shield, Omega only does ~2.2k, but I still have MP issues. Iunno. I'll push more Phoenix ELs for now, maybe put more thought into who he's teamed up with. Starting to get worried though. (Seems like Omega's only really exceptional with Morph stam Terra, where it's op for how tanky stam Terra is. Stam+2 Esper and Morph yo.)

vig Terra was usual. Berserk-Image-Morph-Wing Edge for 5.5k per edge against Ice Dragon, otherwise, just swing Apocalypse for solid damage. Oh, and Cure / Life / Shell (& Fire 3 for Tritoch).

mag Mog used X-Bio vs. Yeti. Yeti is weak to Poison. Punisher would've done better avg. damage, but hey, X-Magic is useful. That, & no randomness. For Ice Dragon, stuck with Fire Rods. Wind Song wasn't my friend and mostly proc'd Wind Slash instead of Sun Bath. Boo. (Think I pulled off a Suite Harvester in a random somewhere)? Stupid Dance. Aria betrays me, Song betrays me, Sonata isn't enough to salvage X-Magic. See, this is why I stick with auto-pilot Earth Blues or elemental damage.

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by thzfunnymzn

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Whelp, Orthanc of Isengard Fanatics' Tower & Ebot's Rock done. Now alls that's left is Barad-dûr in Mordor Kefka's Tower. Everyone's at level 25 - 27. Only reason I'm going to grind up at this point is to get the lvl.30 natural moves (RegenX, Bolt 3, Air Blade). Otherwise, I'd be a stubborn mule and just pound my way through Kefka's Tower underleveled.

Playthrough & KT Plans

Spoiler

Really, there's little to say about the last of the WoR. Saruman Magimaster is a chump, unworthy of being the gatekeeper boss of the last dungeon. As for Ebot's Rock, only the Warlocks and seahorses pose any real threat as randoms. Hidon crumpes to Golem/Image guard, and is otherwise just a sack of potatoes that needs to be beaten down.

***

Edgar is still Ele Jumping. He may still be Ele Jumping against the likes of Atma, Inferno, or the occasional KT random. Those IMF swords are just that good in his hands. He'll keep the Gungnir around for boss fights. I calculated out the avg. damage of Ele Jump, Gungnir Dragoon, and Chainsaw. If double jumps are excluded (a fair assumption for shorter randoms), then dragooning damage advantage over Chainsaw is to minute to matter. Ele Jumps, even without double jumps, are worthwhile for weakness sniping. Obviously, for boss fights, both beat Chainsaw quite soundly.

I like hyb Sabin. A lot. He actually plays to Sabin's power curve correctly, unlike stam Sabin. Golem Sabin early on, only building stamina once you have the one thing it's needful for. Iunno if the +15 Chakra healing is really worth the HP loss, but we'll find out. Soon as I get Sabin at least a couple of more terrato ELs. Only problem I had was Chakra's learn level - I didn't even learn Ice 3 or Chakra until later in the WoR. Oh well.

Merton vs. Hidon cleared out the Hidonites, but otherwise, I stuck with Holy. Rasp was annoying, and didn't want to re-spawn Hidonites. Ultimately, I'd say Merton ain't worth it throughout the WoR. Most importantly, it's just too expensive without the Soul Box, and the mid-WoR is far too easy to bother with any strat besides "power your way through like any other rpg". There's also barely any opportunities to snipe weaknesses. Tiamat nulls Wind, you want Iceguards for Ice Dragon & Yeti, you don't want to re-spawn Hidonites - it's really only Katanasoul & Phunbaba who you can weakness snipe. I'll have the Soul Box for KT, but I ain't using it unless there's no Ice, Bolt, or Holy weakness to snipe.

spd Gau is a vicious glass cannon. Also decent back-up healer with Tumbleweed. I think I may have subconsciously benched him b/c of how brutally strong he was. Him, stam Cyan, mag Setzer, vig Edgar, Shadow - they're just plain awesome for the mid-/late-WoR.

spd Shadow is awesome when he works, but I'm worried about his MP and I'm worried about his damage when Scrolls won't cut it. Probably just take him to fight Asura.

mag Setzer is probably op for the mid-WoR. Blackjack is an unstoppable force of destruction on par with Meteor. Never bothered with other two Slots attacks. With Hero Ring, he's got plenty of bulk for even dual wield X-Fight. Lacks ST power, but IIRC, with a Crystal Orb, his AoE will still be plenty strong even in Kefka's Tower.

mag Mog, I'm giving up on X-Mog. I ran the numbers of X-Quake + Love Sonata, I brainstormed EVERY random & boss fight in the late-WoR, and I let myself experience X-Mog again. The numbers don't check out, but just as importantly, as perhaps on of the biggest X-Mog fans in the community, it's just not fun. Why torture myself with highly specific strategies that maybe kinda-sorta work, when I could just use something actual & real, like, oh say, Punisher, Earth Blues, Snowman Jazz, or Mogoon? I'll pay attention to SleepX & Muddle in the outer & inner parts of Kefka's Tower. That's it. Sorry, BTB, but X-Mog simply needs more work before he's viable.

stam Strago...meh. I did Life Bell + Holy Wind strats for Hidon. Got hit by Quasar, got a regen tick, used Holy Wind. Calculated out the difference between the Holy Wind I got, and what I would've gotten with a stam Strago. All told, Holy Wind healed ~70-90 more HP with stam Strago than with mag Strago. I'm not buying this - not at all. Maybe if stam Strago is at a certain level relative to the boss fight he's in, it's a long boss fight with lots of regen ticks, and the bosses uses lots of AoE non-elemental magic. Maybe. Iow, only for the Triad & Kefka, and maybe not even then really. As for status defense - I've got Amulets, Capes, & Spirit Rings, and stamina random - it's reliable for "lots of little stuff" but not for a couple of big things. Again, I'll bring him to the Triad fights. But, I'm 99% confident that he's turning out as I thought - a cute little diversion from the real build that is mag Strago.

vig Terra, spd Relm, & stam Cyan are as normal. Kirin Locke, we'll see.

 

Low Difficulty of the mid-WoR

Spoiler

This is my, what, 20th time playing the game? (One of) the people whose played this hack the most? I'm an old veteran, so yes, things should be easier than me than for a newbie. It's expected that I've got good strats for everything.

My fabled veteran strats for the mid-WoR, learned through blood, sweat, tears, trial, error, practice, & theorycrafting? "Slap together some team of low levels dudes, wing it with whatever attacks they have. It'll work." And, 90% of the time, it works, without any Game Overs. Excepting specific stuff - Morph Terra without proper defensive support, lack of prepation for Holy Dragon, Dream Stooges with bad teams - the cast of characters are just too strong relative to the foes they face in the WoR.

Yes, I know the WoR is open-ended. That makes it difficult to pin down the exact difficulty of monsters. But, even accounting for that, places like the Phoenix Cave or Ebot's Rock shouldn't feel so mindlessly easy for a lvl.25 team with end-WoR gear. Mt. Zozo's only threatening enemy shouldn't just be Colossus, even for a team immediately after Daryl's Tomb. Ancient Castle should be relying on the quality of the fights, not the same old fight every two steps that's only going to wear me down if I brought along a bad team. Manticores in the Cave on the Veldt are surprisingly tame compared to their palette swaps elsewhere in the game.

This makes it difficult to care for good strategy. Stuff like:

"You want Cyan or Setzer to help you through the longer dungeon crawls, like Phoenix Cave or Ancient Castle."

"Use Chakra Sabin to allow damage spiking with heavy MP attacks. Just don't get completely crazy. You still need Soul Sabre, Osmose, Sketch, status moves, etc."

"Setzer's offense isn't bad, but you need to pay attention to Shoat, Doom, Avenger, & Man Eater weaknesses. Otherwise, he's a cleric with decent support AoE from Slots."

"Turtling works here, but for that boss, bum rush the guy with X-Fire3 or X-Quake. Kill him before he kills you. Chakra might give you the edge you need."

"SleepX + Muddle will really help control the randoms here, but be mindful of your MP. Otherwise, you're stuck with Dance for the boss fight."

"Apocalypse & mag Terra are powerful, but you may want to conserve her MP with status effects & Zantetsuken."

I'm not saying every strategy fails. Rather, the mid-WoR is easy enough that there's no need to think of good strats beyond "Spam powerful AoE for randoms", "Buff up & become invincible vs the boss, plink him to death," or specific "glass cannon" strats that are more cannon than glass (Morph Berserk Wing Edges supported with Image, HP, & resistances, or elemental sniping). Your characters are just soo strong relative to the enemies & have so many resources (MP, Item, available techniques, healing, bulk) that, sometimes, you don't even think, you just spam and win.

I'm not sure if the enemies are too weak, or if your characters are too strong & have too many resources. Actually, I'm positive it's a mix of both.

Again, I understand I'm a veteran, playing the open world part of the game. But, for places like the IMF, FC, KT, or a few specific places in the WoR, I can observe & feel myself making good strategies based off my knowledge of the game, and then being rewarded for it. Or, if I don't, I feel the pain, and kick myself for it. (Unless I'm using stuff like stam Cyan, who just doesn't care). Mid-WoR? There's a few places, but a lot of it is also "Blackjack & Dragon op, lul randoms."

************

Looking at some specific dungeons:

Daryl's Tomb

An undead dungeon, where everyone has undead killing offense, Bolt resistant gear, & Spirit Rings to block almost all statuses here. I flex my knowledge of the game to make it easier, certainly. But then everything here becomes non-threatening. Unlike the WoB dungeons, where even with a good strat, I know things will be threatening if I let things get out of hand. (And, even then, me & others complain the Edgar's two blasters are op for the early WoB, despite how much they help.).

Recruiting Mog, Killing Phunbaba

Swingy. Kills you if you turtle & Terra's useless if she hasn't learned Fire 3 (level 20). Otherwise, he'll probably drop quickly, unless you get really unlucky with weaker dudes for the second part of the fight.

If you recruit Mog in the "early" WoR, this place is decently threatening. Muddle from Fuzzies, Zombie from bulky Warlocks, bulky mech riders with good attacks, etc. Also, Cerberus & Nastidon hit like freight trains & should be run from, barring stam Cyan or something. I like this one, assuming it's done early. Though Shock + Blackjack might trivialize it, as might later levels.

Mt. Zozo

Even at reasonable levels (lower 20's), a single casting of AoE Bio + Blackjack does 3.5k - 4k damage to humanoids, wiping out Punishers & Scrappers. Scarabs also have low enough HP that they fall as well, leaving only Ursa Majors to be picked off by Chainsaw or Bum Rush.

OR

Need to damage spike the Scarab x6 formation with Ice 3? Well, not really, b/c they die to a simple AoE Ice 2, or even just AoE Ice + Blackjack + Flash + Fire Dance or something. It's not like they can really hurt you anyways, unless you let them.

Then there's also Water Rondo & Gau's many Rages. And that's all assuming "fair" stuff. We could just go nuts and grab Shock, Meteor, & Ninja Scrolls.

Colossus is threatening, with his OHKO Avalanches. That's really it for the randoms.

Wind Dragon is supposed to be an endgame boss. Instead, because "everyone" except Sabin has Wind resistance (Crystal equip on Ce, Ed, Se, Te, Mo) or Wind immunity (certain Rages), he's just a reasonably tough boss for this early-WoR dungeon. Mind you, this one can slide a bit, as new players probably won't fight him out of fear & not having Wind resistances. Fighting him early should be a veteran strat. Still, I'm worried it's a little too easy, even as a veteran strat. As long as I ignore Sabin and Morph (no Image or Wind resistance), I don't think I've ever had a Game Over with this guy.

Owzer's Mansion

Actually somewhat threatening, with those pincers, Nightshade x3, Dahling's flinging Fire 3, Wild Cats, Eagles, and the annoying Atlaspheres. Here's a place where I actually consider playing to the weakness of the randoms here - low p.def (and fire weakness for Nightshade). Even Chadarnook can be a pain if not prepared. Alas, everything except the "story" fights (Pictures, Pincers, Bosses) is susceptible to Muddle from Te, Ed, & Mo. Also, Chadarnook still ain't up to snuff with even the likes of Ultros, let alone Dadaluma or the Cranes. Still, this is a better WoR dungeon.

Cave on the Veldt

Uhh....Manticore's & Tiamat were scary the first time? Though now it feels like that's only the case if I'm lower leveled. Other randoms here are easily killed, & Bonelord's a pseudo-gimmick fight.

Phoenix Cave

I feel like this place should be on par with IMF and FC. It's big, it's story important (for the WoR), it's got a unique mechanic, and the enemies feel threatening if you come here early.

By the time you actually do it, though, the only really threatening thing are the Sea Flowers (Weedula's annoying if you don't hit it immediately with Cure). This place is probably the egregious for the "spam AoEs & win." I came here slightly later than "normal" (only Narshe, Ebot's, Fanatics', & Cyan's Soul remaining), but my levels were still ~25. Everything....just rolled over and died.

Celes & Relm spammed high level magic. Sure, I had Sabin at Chakra, but I had so many Tinctures that I'm not sure how much that actually mattered. If I hadn't grinding Fanatics', Tinctures are still inexpensive enough relative to your very large supply of WoR funds that I could've bought them en masse anyways. Only Kefka's Tower is really long enough to punish me for relying on Tinctures as an infinite MP supply, and even then, I could probably pull it off with a little bit of effort.

Shadow, Gau? Just blew everything up with an infinite supply of cheap Scrolls & speedy, powerful Rages.

I prepared for the Fire dragon. That was it. Everything else was slapped together, maybe have one bulky guy on the team, and it everything died. Even the Fire Dragon, prepations for him were "get Fire resistance & Image/Golem." After that, he was a little baby with too much HP, nothing more.

About here, you can start seeing that, despite being a long-time veteran, I haven't bothered learning the this part of the game in-depth. There's just no challenge, so why bother?

Narshe

Cerberus & Nastidon are very scary with their physicals, so Muddle is a must. Otherwise, again, I don't even bother. Dante will crumple eventually, and the Cave sections are pretty short on the route to Tritoch.

Tritoch, like Phunbaba, is pretty much a cutscene fight. Thordain & Tier-3's are threatening, but again, I don't / didn't bother actually preparing because I'm in little danger of getting a Game Over before his HP drops.

Ice Dragon's an actually good fight, though again, Image/Golem + Iceguards makes him hyper-doable at below the intended level.

Yeti's Cave

Ahahahahaha!!

Of, yeah, Yeti's threatening. He's fine - I understand he's supposed to crumple to Iceguard + Image. It's mostly that the randoms here are a said joke, despite trying to be threatening with statuses and stuff. Seriously, Blackjack swept everything in one hit except for Kiwoks, who would die in one other hit. Again, lvl.25 here.

Cyan's Soul

Dream Stooges are difficult. I find them very difficult, unless I bring a good team designed to beat them down. Playing the Wrexsoul fight properly might actually be an annoying challenge.

Everything else, again, non-threatening. Again, you see that I don't even bother remembering specifics. I remember there's a lot of human foes on the Soul Train. Not that it matters. Once you're past the Dream Stooges, everything else falls into place. Soul Fires, again, Image/Golem, spam Water/Holy, have good HP for Flare. All things easily accomplished by this point in the game. Some specific teams WILL have trouble, but by & large, I find that any team that makes it past Dream Stooges can wing it here.

Ancient Castle

The length of this dungeon is great. The Cave enemies here can be threatening.

Castle enemies? Not so much. They mainly wear you down with a ridiculous counter rate, which just forces the player to mass buy Warp Whistles. (Because you've got so much GP, why not?).

Water Dragon is also a huge joke of a fight for an endgame boss fight. A joke, compared to Ice or Holy Dragon (or even Earth, really). Maybe if you forget to bring Gold gear, but most players don't sell their gear anyways. Katanasoul's GP Rain is threatening.

Ebot's Rock

eglkj

Earth Dragon & Holy Dragon

Holy Dragon's a good fight. Beaten by HP & status resistances, but what isn't?

Earth Dragon, like Daryl's Tomb, is very threatening if unprepared (scared me a lot as a newbie), but crumples with preparations. Again, I'm not saying that being a veteran with good preparations should be unrewarding. I'm saying that it becomes more of a "Do this and you win, no further strategy needs," whereas for the WoB, I found myself preparing a little more in-depth, & even then, paying attention while I executed my strategy.

Fanatics' Tower

Yeah, this place is difficult all right. In the bad way. In the "Do this strategy, or you die." Meanwhile, Magimaster is a joke. Seriously, isn't he supposed to beef gate the final dungeon? On my first play through, I remember refraining from this fight because I was worried that he'd actually, you know, test me to see that I had really finished the WoR and was ready. He was....easy. I thought that was because I really had finished the WoR, and that he'd be ultra threatening if I fought him early. How wrong I was.

 

[SuperHario 13]

Seeing as you're an experienced player, finding the game easy is no surprise.  Sounds like you need to try lower levels or some other constraint to give you a bit more of a challenge.  

I'm most of the way thru (a very slow play of) the WoR at level 15/5 (no WoR esper EL's yet) and equipment limited (1 for purchases, 2 for steals); I've not yet entered Fanatics Tower to get excess tinctures nor have I recruited Gau.  Pretty tough, Atma Weapon was no joke with only 1 each of Amulet and Spirit Ring. Even gave Setzer a healing shiv and left him vulnerable to muddle to best utilize status protection relics. 

In the WoR, nothing has been quite that tough, but the Ice D, Tritoch, Pug-in-a-box, Yeti sequence was a slog.  Went in with 30 or 40 Phoenix Downs and used all of them.  Still have Ebots Rock, and Earth and Water D's (I'm in the Ancient Castle, but I don't have a good squad for the fight).  Gonna finish the WoR at these levels, then go up to 20/10 in Kefka's Tower.

I agree that Blackjack is OP, btw.

[BTB 353]

Is Blackjack legit stronger than the other spins, or is it just easier to hit?

[aturtledoesbite 1]

Looking at the printme, Blackjack is basically equal to Black Omen in strength (45 power Blackjack to 48 power Black Omen), with the bonus that it sets Sap and, well...costs nothing, which makes it real good already.

Where it comes out ahead of the other spins is where it pierces defense. 75 power and 100 power (for Chocobos and Solitaire, respectively) sound great, except most enemies have enough MDef to make that worse than Blackjack.

[BTB 353]

I could probably lower the power a bit if it's warranted.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

20 hours ago, SuperHario said:

Seeing as you're an experienced player, finding the game easy is no surprise.  Sounds like you need to try lower levels or some other constraint to give you a bit more of a challenge. 

* bites lip *

I probably did complain too much. Still have a nagging feeling that it's not wholly because I'm a vet.

3 hours ago, BTB said:

I could probably lower the power a bit if it's warranted.

BTB, have you considered making one of the Slots a ST attack?

You have very few degrees of freedom to make different the three Slots attacks. You can perhaps get a minor difference between a defense-respecting AoE vs. a defense-ignoring AoE, and that's it. Making one ST helps differentiate them better.

A harder (to code) idea would be to gate Blackjack behind Dullahan. The animation is actually the Falcon after all. This both gives you some more freedom to differentiate the Slots and is very aesthetic. Perhaps have Chocobop as the WoB AoE, Solitaire as an ST, and Blackjack as the WoR AoE? Blackjack would still need a nerf - perhaps 36 BPow is a good starting nerf?

[SuperHario 13]

Just based in the name alone, Solitaire as a single target attack is logical.  Having the Slots upgrade after acquiring the Falcon would be cool, too, but just comes down to the question of if anybody wants to try to code it.

If someone does want to make the attempt, you could use the vanilla bird/dragon slot icon pre-Falcon and replace with the airship after.  Maybe use the cockatrice animation as the attack, it could be similar in power to Chocobop and could have a chance of setting muddle, with the bonus of double damage to floating enemies.  Roulette would be a fitting name as the spinning wheel reflects the muddle status.

Edited July 31, 2017 by SuperHario

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Hey, uh, you seem to lose the Float status when transitioning from tier-1 to tier-2, but not Rerise. Dunno about Safe, Shell, or Haste. A bit of an oddity. Biggest thing is it means I couldn't open with X-Quake on that horrible tier. Oh well, got Merton strats.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Oh, by the way, Gau can Leap in the Final Battle. Hoping to get the Kefka Rage.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Finished 1.8.6.

Spoiler

Kefka's Tower, Team 1

vig Edgar, mag Setzer, spd Shadow, mag Mog, hereby titled "Team Awesome," b/c of how easy of a time they had. Probably all the bulk (including Lazy Shell on Shadow).

Tried X-Magic with SleepX & Muddle. Not really keen on it. Maybe with vig Mog: extra starting ATB to get the combo off quickly. IIRC, most fights where it's a good idea to open with statuses, you only need one or the other anyways. Oh well. mag Mog spent most of the randoms tripping Dances, hitting an immunity (Snowman Jazz), or wrecking mechs (Water Rondo), though Shadow did more damage to Guardian. Still, he took hits and did decent damage.

Guardian cried. Golem + Image + Water Scrolls yo. Water/Bolt Scrolls were doing as much damage as Water Rondo, even discounting Shadow's extra speed (~6 to 7 turns to Mog's 4 to 5).

I forgot Scan & elementals for Kaiser. My mind blanked when I realized that. Then I just decided to pound him into oblivion with Gungnir Jumps and Daryl's Soul Fixed Dice. Mog threw Items, Shadow played great support with magic, Items, and even getting defends in. Shadow tanked S.Cross. Shadow tanked S.Cross. Shadow tanked a blasted S.Cross from Kaiser of all people.

...

Isis dropped pretty easily too. Just couldn't break through my HP, Image, healing, Rerise, & Item supply. Again, got to Gungnir Jump (no shield) for great damage. Edgar was rocking 1.9k HP at this point with still decent defenses. Shadow did solid damage with Scrolls, even despite Shell. Mog's X-Break proved itself quite useful as well.

Kefka's Tower, Team 2

spd Gau, vig Terra, stam Cyan, stam Strago.

Not as amazing as the previous team, but they still crushed Myria & Bolt Dragon beneath their heel. So, props to 'em for that. (I normally build Team 2 around crushing Myria). Also Cleave'd / X-Zone'd some stupid Ahrimen & Madams before they got me, which was beautiful. Was worried about stam Cyan damage for a minute, but after stacking stamina gear, he pulled through.

I forgot to Slow Atma, or to even bring status immunities. Oops. Got a Game Over. Quasar/Meteor (forgot which it was) was rather nasty. Went in 2nd time, remembered to Slow him, still forgot status immunities. Sigh. Tumbleweed Gau was MVP here. Terra was least valuable, just b/c I'm mad at how often she missed Slow. (In reality, 8k Morph Ice 3, Icebrand, Slow, & healing were all pretty nice). stam Strago lived through a Flare - Full Power combo that would've dropped mag Strago. Neat, but this fight was really the last fight where stamina on Strago really pulled its weight. Cyan was Cyan.

Bolt Dragon got owned. Fenrir/Refract guard, mass thunder immunity (or Cyan's resistance), HasteX, and Shell for Cyan. Even pulled Morph Berserk Apocalypse (7k swing) b/c it's not like he could hurt me. Also, like his brother, the dragon used Step Mine on Strago to laugh at this cute stamina. Jerk.

Myria also got owned. ^ _ ^ Flameguards, Wind immunities/resistances, RegenX, Image. I nearly wiped at one point because I forgot to keep Strago on Refract standby, which resulted in Myria breaking through my defenses. Thankfully, Morph Terra doesn't lose Morph on Zombie, so I got back into the game quickly. 9999 Excalibur and 8k Hurtmore was beautiful offense. Cyan actually played healer / Remedy support.

Once she has HP, Morph Terra can actually take one physical with some HP to spare. Forgot if it was Bolt Claw of Tyrfing that she survived one of.

Kefka's Tower, Team 3

stam Locke, hyb Sabin, mag Celes, spd Relm. Team Chakra/Merton. Chakra mostly played a minor support role while dungeon crawling, though I had the Tincture supply to ignore it. (Oh, and Magic Cube Relm with 700+ MP). Merton was MVP was Asura, and pulled its weight in the final battle. Not the greatest for tier-3 or Kefka, but not bad by any means. Didn't bother with it elsewhere - too much trouble for too little gain, even as an AoE vs. randoms. (Immunities, Ice/Boly/Holy weaknesses to hit, and Locke wanted Omega Valiance).

All ready forgot, but I think this team was the "in-between" team for how well it handled randoms. Nowhere near as awesome as team 1, but better than team 2.

stam Locke's MP concerns disappeared once I put on the Sage Stone to manage his MP better. Whelp, I wasn't re-learning this game again as I played 1.8.6, no sirree. Not me. >_> Yeah, I could've taken a few extra Kirin ELs instead of Phoenix. Oh well, whatever, 3 to 5 points of stamina won't make a difference.

The Figaro Bros. have the beautiful Golem + Stop strats for Inferno. Sabin even has Stormfangs to 7k damage. Forgot the rest of the fight - probably fairly standard stuff.

Poison Dragon was a chump. Dual Avengers, Fire Claws, Holy, and Berserk. Easily took 8k from three different people. Never stood a chance. Relm was the lowest damage dealer for once.

Asura's N.Cross opened by freezing Sabin, Celes, and Relm. Lol Merton strats. Thankfully, I had X-Magic Locke.

Asura got to face the full Merton set-up (except for Royal Jacket Sabin - Sage Stone Locke had to keep him topped off). 7.8k damage per blow, 2k healing to Locke, Celes, and Relm. Was great. Definitely Merton's shining moment. Sabin also got away with far more Bum Rushes than he really should've. Probably b/c Asura was busy keeping Relm locked in a Rerise-loop with Loc-Nar. Stupid Asura. Merton must've fried her brain.

Final Battle

BTB, you said you changed the final battle recently. Not sure I'm noticing a difference, unless it's that everything in the final battle is doing a better job trying to kill you with big, scary attacks. Guess they're all basically the same they've always been, just with better attacks or slightly more aggressive? Certainly burned my whole supply of X-Ethers, X-Potions, and the Megalixir (could also be because I brought Gau & Mog to the final battle >_>).

Took spd Gau, mag Celes, spd Relm, mag Mog. Not sure if Gau & Mog were the correct choices - Gau's uncontrollable vs. scary counterattack Kefka, and Mog burns through Items pretty fast. Then again, this was the final battle, and I chose Mog b/c X-Break was the most damage I could do per blow without creating safety concerns (no shield, Morph, Gau's Dragon). Pretty sure X-Break beats even Daryl's Soul Fixed when you can just burn your whole supply of Ethers.

Forgot the specifics of each tier. Mostly, lots of crazy AoEs & strong physicals; Gau & Relm kept eating dirt b/c they only had 1.2k HP; constant Rerise & healing spam; Merton being MVP vs first two tiers; Quake failing b/c of Grav Bomb & Gau/Relm eating dirt; Tier-3 nearly killing me with Quasar spam, not dying, and getting me stuck in a heal loop; Kefka being scary; X-Break & Merton being my attacks for Kefka, with X-Break preferred; zombie Mog triggering double Goners; and "The end comes beyond chaos" being scary but never firing its Goner before Kefka dies (though I "felt" like Kefka got more aggressive afterwards - probably not objectively true).

Oh well, w/e. Game Win, and I got to have fun with new stuff.

Character Builds

vig Terra

I'll eat my humble pie: she was very enjoyable to play. I had fun with dual-wield, all Bismark on the Floating Continent, and she kicked butt with Apocalypse. Unlike vig Celes, she also seems better oriented to taking lots of Phoenix ELs to have a good supply of MP for those fights where "Fight" isn't so effective (Atma, Guardian). Most of my frustrations with her this game are my own fault: trying to get away with no HP ELs in the WoR (wanted all Phoenix, no Unicorn), but still trying to Morph. Oops. Once she got

Only real major complaint is that there's "no" good weapon for early-WoB. Dual Wing Edge is viable, but it's what Mishrak calls a "veteran" strat, yet doesn't have a "veteran's reward." Requires you to know where to find the Edges, but only makes Terra "passable" early on. So, newbies completely miss out, and veterans won't bother b/c "just rush the Phoenix Cave for Apocalypse." BTB, I urge you to re-consider WT's early-WoR auto-crit sword for Te/Ce. Perhaps just simply swap the Falchion & Rune Edge? Let Falchion be some throwaway WoB weapon, let Rune Edge be the useful early-WoR filler sword for Te/Ce/Lo. (140 BPow is about where it needs to be).

I've complained that Morph auto-crit suffers too much from diminishing returns, but I did Morph vs. Bolt Dragon / Myria. Then again, I had them pretty well under control anyways. Then again, once Terra's got HP, she can Morph a little more freely. Iunno. It's only a minor boost, but if the team can handle it, why not? (Though being less effective than Morph Omega really shouldn't be a thing. That's more a problem with stam Terra).

But, hey, she was enjoyable.

stam Locke

It's stam Cyan! With less mid-game dominance but better healing & even more HP (Phoenix equip). With Omega, Valiance, some Phoenix ELs, and the Sage Stone, he's basically stam Cyan++ for the endgame. Does miss out on Force Armor though, & shield equip means his damage drops down to Aurabolt's level. Dunno if there's really significant when's he got Phoenix equip, or if I just mishandled him in the late-WoR (didn't equip Sage Stone).

Definetly a more enjoyable WoB than straight Ramuh/Ifrit Locke. Probably "best" in the WoB to have taken some Ramuh, but meh. Wasn't playing vig Locke.

Dual-wielding is definitely more of a thing to do when you've got the HP to use it. Kirin Locke & Gungnir Edgar have both made that point this game. (Morph Terra surviving a hit thanks to HP ELs + Hero Ring also reminds me of that point.).

I'm either really rusty with this game, or have my head in the clouds too much, if it's taken me this long to remember that "get everyone HP to make them awesome."

vig Edgar

Dragoon loves his Gungnir & elemental blades. Never even bothered with the Longinus - HP+50% is just too good. Honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is Edgar's & Mog's best weapon equip, except maybe for Longinus Mogoon. Seriously, even without a shield, Edgar was in no danger of dying, did solid damage, had Golem summons as good as Sabin, and had Nirvana Defib/Cure2 in case of emergencies. Was doing 6k Jumps by endgame. Just too good.

If HP+50% eventually proves itself too abusive, you could always drop it down to HP+37.5% or something. Right now, though, I like the weapon. Dunno if it's 'cause it's op or not though. Maybe some of this was just Edgar being Edgar. Iunno.

Dragoon is definitely in a better place than he's ever been. Mostly a boss killing strategy, but it's Ele Blades & Gungnir make pretty solid boss killing strats. (Partisan's all right - nothing great, but it does technically do its jobs of out dps'ing Chainsaw vs. mid-WoR bosses. Fire Lance & Trident could perhaps be re-purposed? Ele Blades are basically better. As for early game Dragoon, you'd need to change the Stout Spear into a "2x Damage to Humans" spear for Dadaluma, Number 024, and Kefka).

Edgar's a boss.

hyb Sabin

I like this build. I think I'll stick with this build if I ever want to play with Chakra. Was it ronlyn who played this build first? Thanks for the awesome build.

Yes, stam Sabin can Bum Rush + Chakra as well. After all, I only ever got, like, 10 vigor from ELs. Could also argue that I should just go full vigor and use the 20-30 Chakra healing from that. But the key difference between these isn't the final stats, but rather, the timing of growth.

hyb Sabin plays to Sabin's power curve well - going full Golem early on when there's no reason not to, only investing in stamina once there's reason to. So, he's got a solid stack of HP on stam Sabin, plus a little extra oomph from Blitzes & Claws. A little frail in the mid-WoR, but IIRC, every Sabin build is. All Sabin builds need Terrato to patch him up. So, hyb Sabin plays to Sabin's basic power curve very well, despite theoretically suffering from "hybrid" issues.

stam Sabin...brings nothing. Going early stamina just isn't as rewarding as going early vigor. The back row has been nerfed, so you can't make up for lack of HP with the back row. There's no absurd regen ticks like in the old, old days. Slow/Muddle Suplex + Fire Claws > Aurabolt. Mantra...probably not without Chakra. It's Chakra or bust. stam Sabin needs Terrato too though, so...vig/hyb Sabin basically rule the playground until pretty late into the WoR.

Maybe you could swap Mantra & Suplex? (Lose the iconic "Suplex the Train" though ; _ ; ). Suplex is learned awfully close to Pummel after all. Mantra might actually be appreciated and loved when it's only competition is Dried Meats, Cure, and the MP intensive Cure 2. Dunno. Would require some number adjustments to Mantra's formula, as well as fiddling with exact learn levels of Mantra & Suplex. Still, it's an actual reason to play stam Sabin early on. (Oh, and stamina-based Air Blade / Fire Dance. The former mostly).

mag Celes

The full Merton set-up is really just a way to nuke Asura. It is nifty for Tier's 1 and 2 of the final fight if you're not using Ultima, for whatever reason. Otherwise, not worth it. Also, kinda difficult to build a team for it when half can't / don't want to equip a shield. (Cyan, Shadow, Sabin, Locke, Edgar).

Anything else I would say has been said before. Healbot Celes with elemental control, wants Tincture / Chakra support mid-WoR for Ice 3, Rerise spam wins fights.

stam Cyan

Same old, same old. I love this build. Completely dominates the whole game up until the very final dungeon. Only then does he fall down to more "average." Nirvana Dragon & mass HP win the game. Probably a wee too good midgame honestly, but he's only got one attack, so nerfing him midgame would make him "unviable" for the endgame. Which would further push the power curve abuse of "Play stam Cyan until you clean his soul, then Esper Reset to vig Cyan".

spd Gau

stam Gau, what?

I really should listen to Nakar more. Beautiful glass cannon and a solid healer. For healing, I think the higher turn count wins out over better numbers. Higher numbers are more prone to healing at the wrong time. Plus, Harvester's Remedy effect isn't effected by stamina.

The "Initial ATB Patch" was definitely noticeable. Him and Shadow almost always went first in combat, against some jerk randoms in Kefka's Tower of the Fanatics' Tower. The "speed nerf" patch is a lot harder to notice. Part of the problem is that I've rarely played spd Gau and never played spd Shadow, so I don't have a proper baseline to compare them too.

Dunno if spd Gau is still op by endgame. He's certainly a juggernaut for the mid-WoR, so long as you snag the Magic Bone. Hits as hard as Bum Rush, with extra speed, HasteX + Fenrir, and this magical thing called "elemental resistances." Then you throw on elemental / AoE control & Tumbleweed. Yeesh.

Compared to stam Gau, yeah, spd Gau wins. I have a soft spot for stam Gau, and I don't like benching Gau 'til the WoR. But spd Gau flat wins. He's the better fighter, wizard, and healer, and honestly, building stamina for regen ticks & status defense just isn't that optimal of a strategy. If you want defense, grab HP & a Ribbon / Amulet.

spd Shadow

I'm not sure if I'll ever play Phantom Shadow again. 'Dat speed. It's beautiful. And I can equip the Lazy Shell without cost free.

OK, his damage output can suffer if you're careless. Found that out vs. the Dream Stooges, and high mg.def / Shell vs. KT randoms showed it off. By and large, though, his raw speed + Rogue Cloak boost will more than make up for it. Not the DPS King that Phantom Shadow is, but Scrolls a heckuva lot cheaper & all 'dat speed for Image/Rerise/Item is a thing of beauty.

(Scrolls & Smoke Bombs might honestly be too cheap. I was swimming in money like Scrooge McDuck throughout the WoR. Relatedly, I easily had 99 Smoke Bombs & Remedies, and a mountain of Phoenix Downs, Tonics, Potions, Warp Whistles, and Dried Meats. And Tinctures, kudos Fanatics'. And plenty of money for 99 of each scroll, and then Ninjatos. And more Dried Meats. All those resources makes it hard to be too scared of Kefka's Tower or the rest of the WoR).

mag Setzer

Blackjack op.

Seriously, Blackjack dominates the midgame like stam Cyan. Clears randoms all by itself, and early on, it's pretty competitive even as ST. It's a good thing that mag Setzer has some serious offensive magic, but see the discussion above.

GP Toss can go cry in a corner. (Which actually makes me want to go cry with it ; _ ; ).

mag Mog

Eh, I think vig Mog's better. He's even got crowd control via Muddle/SleepX, with the Starting ATB to use it more effectively. For all the hoopla and aesthetics behind dance, the only things that really shine about mag Mog is elemental sniping & Earth Blues. Song, Aria, and Suite are just too random when I've got plenty of other, better methods for accomplishing the same thing. Punisher, X-Break, & Sonata are solid ST damage, but that puts them in direct competition with Mogoon, so they mostly serve as "mag Mog's ST option," as opposed to being build definers. X-Quake's too weak yet dangerous to bother. Then there's the stumbling.

Rondo's fine - again, elemental sniping. Jazz ain't bad, though it can't hit the Ice weakness as often as you'd think (Wind/Earth immunities).

My opinion remains the same. Earth Blues is the thing that defines mag Mog. Once you've finished sniping elements in the WoR, if you ain't using Earth Blues, you're better served switching over to Mogoon. (Song, Aria, and Suite are also better served with vig Mog. For such random & unreliable moves, speed matters more than stamina).

Mind you, I do like Earth Blues Mog. This bulky blob that occasionally heals off damage and does solid damage per turn. Bit of a one-trick pony, but it's a good trick.

stam Strago

No.

OK, I'll give him what he deserves. There were a couple of times where he lived where mag Strago would've dropped. (Soul Fire & Atma). Calculating it out, comparing the builds & equipment I'd used for each build, he took 4/5 (80%) the magic damage that mag Strago would've taken. About half a Shell (though stackable with the real thing). Also, I guess there are several statuses / sap ticks that he handled better than mag Strago.

It's honestly not that significant. Most the things that threaten Strago's life are either physical or too big for his HP count anyways. 4/5 magic damage helps a little, but it's surprisingly uncommon for that to make-or-break "how well" Strago survives an attack. Also, I wasn't impressed that Holy Wind gained anything special from 4/5 magical damage + Holy Wind. Elemental resistances & Black Heart are a lot more important, and mag Strago uses them just as well.

For status defense, it's hard to appreciate stamina's role in status / fractional defense. I know it's there. But when I critically need it, I still grab for Amulet, White Cape, Spirit Ring, and Ribbon anyways. I mean, if statuses were more of a constant nuisance but not always "directly" critical, and if I didn't have such easy-to-use and inexpensive-to-buy means of defense, maybe I'd appreciate it more? But as it is, I have those defenses, and statuses are either "easily worked around" or "so critical you grab the defense anyways." Only time I ever got was vs. Atma, and Gau's Tumbleweed was the MVP there, not Strago's stamina.

I mean, if you never have Strago attack, yeah, he's better than mag Strago. But...why would you do that to yourself?

So, nope, not buying it. Still prefer WT's HP Strago.

spd Relm

She learned from her dad.

Celes actually got the crystal orb this game, for Merton shenanigans. And because Relm was mostly spamming Rerise for the last battles anyways. Oh, and b/c it's blasted hard to get Crystal Orbs now. (mag Locke or bust. Unless you're doing a stam Te & vig Ce game).

Magic Cube, Bahamut, and some Zoneseek meant she still had "infinite" MP.

The Osmose nerf was noticeable. She still had infinite MP, but I at least had to spend more time re-filling, which hurt the Flare / Meteor spam. I should listen to Nakar more - with Zoneseek as it is, Relm's always gonna be an infinite MP tank.

OK, actually, if Fanatics' didn't drop Tinctures, I would've put more thought into MP management this game. There were plenty of times with several characters where I would've been in trouble if I didn't have 99 Tinctures. But...I did.

Gogo & Umaro

Didn't use them, except to discover that Rod Rage Gogo doesn't work unless Gogo also has the "Fight" command equipped. Meh, I'll stick with support Gogo. Rarely ever use these two.

 

[BTB 353]

Making Rune Edge early WoR is actually a pretty good idea. It's not like it sees much sue where it's at right now, anyhow. I'll put that in the "1.8.7" pile along with a Blackjack nerf.

An earlier Mantra is a tougher sell... I agree it would be nice to have a healer other than Celes for Zozo, but healing is really the only thing she's bringing to the table there, anyway. Frankly, I'd be more keen on swapping Mantra and Aurabolt and maybe giving Aurabolt a little boost. If needed.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

1 hour ago, BTB said:

Making Rune Edge early WoR is actually a pretty good idea. It's not like it sees much sue where it's at right now, anyhow. I'll put that in the "1.8.7" pile along with a Blackjack nerf.

W00T!!

1 hour ago, BTB said:

An earlier Mantra is a tougher sell... I agree it would be nice to have a healer other than Celes for Zozo, but healing is really the only thing she's bringing to the table there, anyway. Frankly, I'd be more keen on swapping Mantra and Aurabolt and maybe giving Aurabolt a little boost. If needed.

I'm really not impressed with Celes as a healer in Zozo. Mostly because of the Dadaluma fight & Dried Meats for OoB healing. Runic is useless in that fight, NoiseBlaster takes care of the Fighters quite nicely so there's not critical need for AoE healing, and Cure isn't the best answer to Jump, Elbow Drop, or Spoon. A Conjurer Rage + Healing Shiv combo is far better suited for Dadaluma than Celes. Also, again, I'd rather spend money on a Dried Meat stockpile for OoB healing, rather than Tinctures for Celes.

If you want Celes to have something besides healing for Zozo & IMF, the things you need are Poison (Zozo) and defense-ignoring (IMF). Poison is possible via her natural magic - axe Ice 2, maybe exchange Alexander's Demi for Remedy (Alex all ready teaches Quartr). As for defense-ignoring, I say the flails: undead killing flails are hugely redundant with Flametongue & Cure 2 anyways. It'd give vig Celes some immediate use. Also, Celes would have to choose between attack power (flails) or Runic guard (swords), so it's not a straight buff, it'd be more about opening up options. Which is something vig Celes might appreciate even in the FC - unlike Terra, she's all ready got Ice/Bolt access, so this allows vig Celes to play differently from mag Celes in the WoB. (Rune Edge WoR is still great. Thank you!! ^ _ ^ )

Again, the important thing to remember is that, the more healing resources become available to the player, the less valuable Mantra becomes. After the IMF, it's competing with Go Fish, Terra, and Gau's shiny new Rages. Even Locke's & Edgar's Cure 2 puts up hard competition at this point. Also, you'd only really gain the Sealed Cave & the IAF. Aurabolt is more valuable for the former, so...one boss sequence ain't gonna make-or-break Mantra here.

Guess another option is for stam Sabin to learn Chakra earlier.

[BTB 353]

Here's the official changelog for 1.8.7 1.9.0 (coming soon eventually):

 • Added new hacks which allow stamina to influence counter-attacks and the possibility of "true knight"
   characters taking hits for healthy allies (critically-wounded characters are still always protected)

 • Fixed a bug where stamina would not protect against status ailments set by enemy "special" attacks

 • Added a hack to condense the in-battle spell menu (removes all empty spaces)

 • Fucked around with the spells that each character learns again (highlights: Relm gets Life and Stop,
   Mog picks up Haste, Celes learns Demi much earlier now, and Warp is again pushed back to the WoR)

 • The Life spell now revives to 250~500 HP instead of 1/4 maxHP; Phoenix Downs now revive to 1 HP

 • Raised Cyan's base stamina; lowered the power of the Dragon and Eclipse bushidos to compensate

 • Raised the chances for the Dragon bushido to set Stone from 50% to 66%

 • Raised the power of the Aurabolt blitz and swapped the levels at which it and Mantra are learned

 • Edited the GP Toss formula to do 50% more damage (note: edited Katanasoul's stats to compensate)

 • Lowered the power of the Blackjack and Solitaire slot spins

 • Lowered the cost of several spells, including Demi, Rasp, Dispel, and SleepX

 • Lowered the hitrate of several magical attacks to help make magic evasion more useful

 • Reworked & rebalanced swords to offer more (and better) choices for vigor-built characters

 • Swords that consume MP for critical hits now respect the "1/2 MP costs" effect of the Gem/Soul Box

 • Spears now inherently possess the "may guard allies" property instead of random counter-attacks

 • Adjusted the properties of the Wind Slash and Aero procs from the Kazekiri and Mutsunokami

 • Removed the Kagenui's speed boost and slightly adjusted the boosts on Shadow's other weapons

 • Changed Setzer's dice to boost stamina instead of magic and vise-versa for his other weapons

 • The Morning Star and Kusarigama now ignore defense instead of being anti-undead

 • The Demonsbane is now anti-undead in addition to holy-elemental

 • Raised the proc rate of anti-undead weapons from 25% to 50%

 • Fixed a bug where using items on undead characters would randomly kill them

 • Renamed the Diva Brush to Dali Brush and the Magic Brush to Monet Brush

 • Changed the animation of several weapons; also swapped the animations of the two "Blizzard" attacks

 • Corrected the Stormfang menu description

 • The BatPwr of the Soul Sabre and Omega Weapon now display correctly in the item menu

 • The Soul Sabre/Blood Sword are no longer ignored by the "Optimize" routine; the Omega Weapon now is

 • Switched the Colosseum opponents/prizes for the Masamune and Kagenui (and a few others)

 • Celes now starts with an Iron Cutlass instead of a Mythril Bolo

 • Gogo can now use Throw even if Shadow is dead

 • Interceptor now sets Sap

 • Lowered Golem's defense from 192 to 128

 • Made several changes to the Battle of Narshe

 • Made an important update to Atma Weapon's script

 • Fixed a bug in the Soul Fire script (Wrexsoul fight)

 • Enabled/disabled random encounters on a few maps for better consistency

 • Aquilas no longer have any MP as they do not use any attacks that use it

 • Phunbaba and Doom Gaze now give 10 spell points when defeated as other bosses do

 • Fixed a bug where it was not possible to run from all of the enemies in the New Mines

 • Rewrote Gau's tutorial to match how Leap now functions; also added a new line of dialogue for Gau

 • Added more screenshots, boxart with cart label, and enemy graphics to the unlockme image gallery

---

http://btb2.free.fr/mods/ff6/Readme.txt
http://btb2.free.fr/mods/ff6/Printme.xls

Edited December 16, 2017 by BTB

[Satarack 27]

So after some testing on the 'Slumber missing Chimera' issue, these were the following conclusions:

 

1. It's not just Chimera, it also failed on Intangir.  Both Chimera and Intangir are categorized as large sprites.  I speculate slumber will miss on any large sprite enemy.

2.  It's not just Slumber, Raven's Nevermore also misses.  Nevermore is also a sleep monster special.

3.  It's not the attack animation, Molest uses the same animation as Slumber, but still hits.  Changing Slumber's attack animation didn't stop it from missing.

4.  MY ROM EDITOR FIXED THE PROBLEM.  This is an important one.  Switching Slumber from Sleep to something else, and then back to sleep, caused the problem to be fixed.  Meaning it's not a problem with the sleep effect per say, but some bizarre problem with the patches.

 

I tested several other status ailments by changing Slumber's effect with FF3usME; but considering point number 4 I can't say those tests mean anything about the unedited patched rom (because FF3usME fixed sleep's problem, it could have simply fixed any other unknown problems).  So we'd want to check other rages that inflict status ailments with monster specials.

 

Molest hits Intangir though, so Blind isn't bugged.

 

EDIT:  This is beyond my technical ability, but here's a thought.  

So the rom editor fixed the problem when I switched slumber from sleep and back again.

Something changed in that process; but by all rights the rom should be identical to the unedited patched rom.

Therefore, if the unedited patched rom was compared to a "fixed" rom that's been fixed by FF3usME, any memory addresses that differ between the two have a high likelihood of being related to whatever problem is causing this.

 

EDIT 2: Electric Boogaloo

So Think tried hex comparing the sleep and back again change, and nothing came of it.  But I realized FF3usME was remembering all the accumulated changes I had made because I never closed the rom editor during the testing process.  Which means it reapplied all the accumulated changes when I edited the freshly patched rom.  Nevertheless, something I changed allowed Slumber to put Intangir to sleep.  So here's what I remember changing last night.

1. I changed Intangir's AI to do Nothing, Nothing, Nothing on its regular turns

2. I removed all of Intangir's status resistances

3. I changed Slumber's extra effect to a lot of different status ailments to see if those missed too

4. I changed Slumber's animation to the hammer strike to see if the animation was the culprit

I think that's everything.  Something in that list allowed Slumber to hit after I returned the Extra Effect to Sleep.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Satarack

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Spitball for Auto-Cover Mechanics:

Current

• Only Defends Wounded Allies, which, IIRC, is allies at less than 1/8 or 1/16 their total HP. Allies you want Cured up very quickly, so auto-cover has very little time to work, or you're trying to play crazy FF5 shenanigans of having one guy tank the whole team's attacks and praying you don't get hit with a big AoE nuke.

Ideas

• Cover simply guards allies a certain fraction of the time. Yeah, it's random, but if two of your other allies are frail, odds are, your concentrating physical blows on the bulky tank who can take the hits. Perhaps if you Defend, you get better odds of guarding other allies.
• Raise the Wounded HP threshold. Same as current, maybe more usable. Not to keen on it, just throwing it out there.
• Cover allies whenever you Defend. Simple, straightforward, no randomness. Probably op - Golem & Image all ready exist alongside Safe after all. >_>

EDIT:

Discussing it with seibaby & dn with chat, adding on a little more to the idea:

• Cover randomly guards allies anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 the time, but the bodyguard always take damage as if they were in the front row.
• Cover does not work with Defend. Even if you Defend, when Covering an ally, you take damage as if you weren't Defending.
• To compensate, Image is nerfed to 1/2 chance to disperse upon being struck, not 1/3.
• Also to compensate, Golem's defense is nerfed down from an almighty 192 down to 96 or 128. (Alternatively, since the new Cover essentially is Golem, in a way, Golem could also become "Sets Safe on Party.")

Edited August 17, 2017 by thzfunnymzn

[Scrap Dragon 0]

Was Gau's WOR recruitment changed? If I remember right you only had to fight an encounter on the veldt with an empty spot in your party get him to show up again, but uh, he's not showing up for me.

[A Dummy 34]

On the surface, it just sounds like some bad luck to me.
Gau doesn't always show up when you're trying to get him on the Veldt, I wanna say once or twice I've had it happen where he didn't return to the party until about 5 to 8 battles later while Veldt grinding. (Though this was before the Leap change.)

[BTB 353]

So, just letting everyone know what's gone on in the last few days... there's been some discussion in Discord regarding covering and counter-attacking. More to the point, tying them to stamina to remedy the issue that stamina and vigor presently have very poor synergy, which is an issue for someone like Celes who has an option to raise them both with the same esper. Her "Dark Knight" build currently favors Crusader ELs straight up over Phantom, which is generally seen as the *only* useless esper that any character has.

To this end, we've proposed the following formula changes:

Counter-Attack% = 25 + (Stam/128)
Cover% (Healthy Ally) = (Stam/192)
Cover% (Near-Fatal Ally) = 100% (Unchanged)

This is meant to synergize with the defensive options that a stamina-built character will likely favor whilst also remaining attractive to offensive builds. The minimum counter-attack rate, for example, is roughly equivalent to its current value of 50%. Maxing it out is actually extremely difficult to do when you factor in the requirement for equipment that offers counter-attacks (none of which boosts stamina), so don't let that formula throw you off. And cover is a straight-up buff as it will retain all of its vanilla functionality.

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by BTB