Celes Chere: Dog Of The Empire

[BTB 353]

Celes Chere
Dog of the Empire

BASE STATS

Vigor: 36 / Magic: 36 / Speed: 36 / Stamina: 36

HP: 120 / MP: 30   BatPwr: 32 / Def: 42 / M.Def: 30 / Evade: 12 / M.Evade: 6

EQUIPMENT

Weapons: Swords, Maces, Thrown Weapons
---
Shield: Heavy Shields, Light Shields, Elemental Guards
Head: Helmets, Veils, Crowns, Hats
Body: Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Dresses, Robes, Vests
 

SKILLS

Runic - nullify the next black, gray, or white spell cast by any character (friend or foe) and absorb its MP cost
??? - Stamina/HP

ESPERS

Ramuh - Vigor+2  -----------------------------  32 MP: bolt damage (Magic) on all foes
Siren - Magic+1/Speed+1  ----------------  16 MP: sets Bserk on all foes
Shiva - Magic+2  -----------------------------  32 MP: ice damage (Magic) on all foes
Phantom - Vigor+1/Stamina+1  -------  16 MP: sets Vanish on party
Seraph - HP+30/MP+15  ----------------  80 MP: sets Rerise on party
Crusader - HP+60  ------------------------  80 MP: dark damage (Magic) on all foes
Alexandr - Stamina+1/Speed+1  ---  99 MP: massive holy damage (Magic) on all foes

SPELLS

Ice (lv. 6)
Ice 2 (lv. 12)
Ice 3 (lv. 24)
Bolt
Bolt 2
Bolt 3 (lv. 30)
Holy
Merton
Demi
Quartr

(All of Celes's black spells except Demi/Quartr scale with Magic)
---
Rasp
Bserk
Slow
Safe (lv. 21)
Haste
Float
Scan (lv. 9)
Dispel (lv. 15)
---
Cure (lv. 1) - Magic
Cure 2 - Magic
Life
Rerise
Remedy - Stamina
Regen - Stamina

Edited February 5, 2019 by BTB

[thzfunnymzn 87]

Celes

The General & Opera Singer, The Tough Girl & Love Interest, The Heavy Swordsman & Supporting Mage.

Strengths

• Very Versatile Magic, Equipment, & Esper Levels, with good all-around base stats
• Good Weapon Selection; Weapon Selection complementary to Magic (neutral damage vs. weakness sniping)
• Very Tanky; Incredible HP espers, Heavy Armor, Soul Box
• Secondary Healer, has Rerise
• Great Party Support Skillset (Rerise/Seraph esp.)
• Good mid-game Elemental Control
• Modest status control (Siren/Berserk, Slow)
• Good WoR AoEs with ??? and Quartr
• Unique ??? provides Cover, Counter, and 100% Accuracy

Weaknesses

• Weak AoE without ???; Quartr comes late
• Status control is limited
• Weak / Average Elemental Control in early-game and mid-WoR
• Superb dps set-ups are niche
• MP builds slowly (otoh, it is an HP+30 esper)
• Offensive Abilities require MP (otoh, see above)

Celes is easily one of the best support characters in Brave New World, and also one of (if not the) bulkiest characters. Also boasts some good attack power and potential speed, unlike certain other supporters & healers (Strago, Setzer).

Builds

Knight

Vigor Celes with lots of HP (Crusader), serving as a solid tank with good support magics & a solid weapon selection. More defensively-focused, while Terra is more offensively-focused. You have a couple of choices here. Ramuh will build pure vigor for raw damage, giving you the Paladin set-up. Phantom will give you some stamina (lots of utility) with your vigor, giving you a Dark Knight set-up. The Dark Knight set-up will greatly appreciate ???, but then again, Paladin likes it too.

Don't discount her support skills - even Knight Celes will spend a good deal of time playing support. She's not as good at it as Cleric Celes (lacks speed), but she's got overall better damage and more raw HP.

Cleric

Building HP, MP, and speed, with a side of magic and/or stamina (Siren or Alexander), to solidify Celes as possibly the game's best support unit. Her damage is still solid with Ice 2/3, Bolt 2/3, Holy, and even Merton, but you'll find that she spends most of her time playing Team Mama. Don't neglect Crusader - Circlet & Soul Box will give Celes plenty of MP, so Crusader levels will definitely be appreciated later on.

A Celes built with Shiva & HP/MP, despite the lack of speed levels & slightly more offensive focus, is probably still considered a "Cleric" more than a "Mage." It's generally recommended to grab some Siren levels even if you're running mostly Shiva, though it's not absolutely required.

Remember your Flameguards for Merton. Merton + x4 Flameguards is a good set-up, allowing good damage and healing in one turn.

Red Mage

Builds a mix of HP, MP, speed, magic, and vigor (Siren, Ramuh, Seraph, Crusader) to give Celes some speed for supporting while still trying to take advantage of her weapon selection for good neutral damage. Alternatively, could swap out Ramuh & Siren for Phantom & Crusader, giving the Red Mage a slight stamina focus. (Again, good for ???).

I have no idea if this at all works as well as hyb Edgar or hyb Sabin. Never played it and most people think this suffers too much from "jack-of-all-trades hybrid syndrome." It's there if you want to try it though, and it's probably not too terrible. After all, the espers in question are sorta doing different things for Celes (damage vs. support).

Misc.

• Keep an eye out for when Runic can be used. It's niche compared to other sills, but unlike vanilla, it's actually somewhat useful here.
• All of Celes' builds want Crusader levels. Her magic build only needs so many MP levels before she hits critical mass with Circlet and Soul Box anyways, plus whatever potential MP support.

Edited July 18, 2021 by thzfunnymzn

[S.Court 3]

Celes is versatile, so I decided to make a jack-of-all-trades build taking advantage of her physical and magical damage output, and using also ??? for WoR, and it has showed pretty great results

 

3 Rahum / 3 Shiva / 7 Siren / 7 Phantom

 

I'll just need to change Celes' equipment for the require needs of the battle. Life Bell, ??? and gear helps to improve Stamina makes of Celes a great enemy cleaner, it helps against boss battles with multiple targets such as Hidon, Wrexsoul or the Three Dream Stooges for example. Changing the gear with things like Force Armor, Magic Cube/Crystal Orb and similars makes of Celes a good mage. Genji Armor and more physical oriented gear makes Celes great against bosses with no weakness she can exploit at all.

 

I give her the Illumina, because the bonus and power improves a lot her versatility. As for the 5 EL you can get... Uhh I guess you can use Alexander, Seraph or Crusader, or swap some of the levels of Siren/Phantom to Seraph/Alexander to improve her tankiness in early-game.

 

Sadly I got this build via respecing, so I can't say at all how to focus Celes in WoB, but I'd say to focus in Siren / Shiva leveling

[GamingFiend 13]

Celes is possibly the most versatile character within the game (Except Gogo of course, but her stats and equipment options are much better). Most characters want some sort of specialization, focusing their build on 1 or 2 Espers. Celes however is so well-rounded that a hybrid build jumping around between multiple espers can actually be quite beneficial. 

[thzfunnymzn 87]

I agree that Celes is easily the hack's most versatile character. For almost any given team for almost any given situation, you can never go wrong picking Celes. Rather, the real question should be, why isn't Celes on the team? In many, many cases, a team without Celes is inferior to a team with Celes.

Mind you, that's all with mag Celes. Vig Celes is solid in the endgame, but otherwise is iffy. Though 1.9 my finally change that.

Edited December 24, 2017 by thzfunnymzn

[Hapanpappa 5]

A while back on the ID forums I was the one raising a ruckus about Celes and how I felt her role-fantasy as a knight wasn't fulfilled to the extent that I'd hoped.. Shortly after though, esper on-equip bonuses were added and if I'm correct one of them buffs her melee DPS. Has this addressed the aforementioned issue at all? Vig Celes any more.. fulfilling these days?

[BTB 353]

The Crusader equip bonus effectively gives vigor Celes a free relic slot, which is hugely important since her primary draw is being more versatile than the other characters.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

In 1.7 or 1.8, Crusader's on-equip bonus was the Power Glove bonus (Physical Damage +25%), but Crusader was also moved until later. Crusader couldn't be obtained until after beating Holy Dragon, as opposed to the first floor of the Fanatics' Tower. While it's a nice boon to vig Celes' endgame power, the endgame has always been vig Celes' strong point anyways. (Mass Alexander ELs + Illumina = Win). So I don't think 1.7 / 1.8 really solved vig Celes' problems.

1.9 is introducing some new and better early- & mid-game weapons for Te/Ce: a WoR Rune Edge, a couple of spd+ dual-wield swords, and defense-ignoring flails. It's also giving Phantom Celes a reason to finally exist with stamina% Cover/Counter. While her major stat advantage over vig Terra (HP) is still backloaded (requires beating Wrexsoul), I think vig Celes should be in a much better place come 1.9 release.

[Hapanpappa 5]

Neat stuff; at the very least, it seems my concerns have been amended somewhat, which is.. Well, suffice to say I didn't expect to be able to love this mod even more than I already did. Truly appreciate the changes. Trying really hard to hold it in my pants until 1.9 gets rolling in earnest. 

Thzfunnymzn: any thoughts on going 50/50 with Ramuh&Crusader instead of Phantom? Or in other words, trading 5 stam for 5 speed.. Any value in it?

[thzfunnymzn 87]

I actually listed that above as Celes' Red Mage build. To be more precise, I listed one of Ramuh/Phantom + one of Siren/Crusader (iow, Vig + Spd) as the cornerstone of a hyb Celes build.

[Hapanpappa 5]

As we draw closer to 1.9, one more thing I've pondered, not being too well-versed on the technical stuff.. Doesn't Celes' ??? relic make an abundance of stamina a bit redundant? If I've understood correctly, it seems their perks overlap somewhat.. Is there any lost value there?

[thzfunnymzn 87]

??? gives Cover, Counter, and ???. She'll need HP and heavy armor, but ???, I think, would be one of the most important relics for Phantom Celes.

[Hapanpappa 5]

Yea, this is just me overthinking it.. But since the relic gives both counter&cover, and stamina does the same thing, theoretically there's some redundancy there. 

[SirNewtonFig 21]

I think you're misunderstanding what the relationship is between Counter/Cover and Stamina. 1.9 changes the mechanics of Counter/Cover as follows:

1. In addition to its previous behaviour, Cover now also has a chance of blocking an incoming attack against an ally who is not near-fatal
2. The chance of covering an ally who is not near-fatal is determined by the Stamina score of the character who possesses the Cover ability
3. If a character is capable of Countering, the probability of executing a counterattack is determined by their Stamina score instead of being a flat %

Stamina doesn't inherently grant Counter or Cover. You still need a piece of equipment (Knight's Cape, Hero Ring, Black Belt, Ninja Mask, spear, katana, ???) to grant you that capability. Once you have that capability, you'll want lots of Stamina if you want to make the most use of it.

So no, there's no redundancy. Phantom Celes loves her ??? Relic. She loves it so much.

[thzfunnymzn 87]

The ??? relic is also the only piece of equipment in the game to grant both Cover and Counter. Which means Phantom Celes, compared to other Cover/Counter physical bruisers, has more freedom of choice with relic / equipment options. Of course, Hero Ring & Black Belt still provide some nice stat boosts that Phantom Celes likes, so she's not locked into using the ??? relic. It's just a unique boon.

[Hapanpappa 5]

Cheers for the technical briefing, clearly I construed "allow stamina to influence counter-attacks" in the patch notes erroneously. Are these kinds of specifics written down so I don't have to stumble in the dark like a total tit?

[SirNewtonFig 21]

I expect there'll probably be a blurb in the readme (along with all the other significant changes from vanilla) when 1.9 formally ships.

Edited January 7, 2018 by SirNewtonFig
phrasing

[BTB 353]

Quote

                Counter to the above, which sells stamina as an alternative attack stat
                with some defensive capabilities, we wanted a way of meshing it with the
                other stats in a meaningful way. It was thus decided that it should be
                tied to two equipment-enabled abilities: cover (synergizes with HP) and
                counter-attacks (synergizes with vigor).

                As was the case in vanilla, characters with "true knight" equipment will
                always take hits for allies who are at "near fatal" status, even if they
                themselves are also at critical HP. Now, in addition to that, guardians
                who are not in critical status may also take hits for *healthy* allies.

                        Cover% (healthy allies) = Stam / 192

                To balance this, characters can no longer cover AT ALL while in the back
                row, evasion is halved for any attack that he or she jumps in front of,
                and covering an ally will break a character out of the "defend" status.
                Interceptor will also not protect Shadow if he's covering someone else.

                  (See "Smart Cover" below for further changes to the cover mechanic.)

                For the "spank" half of things, the game's original counter-attack rate
                was 75%. We found this to be excessive once we got other things sorted
                out (see "Parry & Counter" below), so we opted for a new formula that
                bases the counter-attack rate on stamina (starting at a floor of ~50%).

                        Counter-Attack% = (Stam + 32) / 128

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by BTB

[BTB 353]

Updated for 2.0

Not a whole lot to say here: Celes loses Mute and Sleep to pick up Rasp and Bserk, which largely cements her role as party support rather than a debuffer. Reworked enemy MP values and AI aim to make Rasp actually useful in Celes's hands, both as a means of disabling spellcasters and killing the undead (which she otherwise lacks a good way to deal with). Dispel is now learned naturally at level 15, which should come in PARTICULARLY handy during the 024 fight (hint hint).

Also, (???) was a wee bit OP, and so the formula was rewritten to make it ignore defense, but be a bit weaker on average. This gives it a more clearly-defined role alongside Celes's spell collection instead of being a generally-preferable alternative to it.

One last thing: Crusader & Alexandr have been swapped in terms of location and stat bonuses, so... there will be some confusion in reading earlier posts in this thread.

Edited February 5, 2019 by BTB

[GamingFiend 13]

Christmas Break at last. I wanted to chime in with a build for Celes. I recently did a playthrough of Seraph 5 levels in WOB and continued it with all Alexander in WOR. It was actually my favorite build on Celes I ever tried. Her Stamina special was plenty strong enough without Stam investment to make her an asset for random encounters, and I never had any qualms about placing her in the front row with a Vigor oriented build or with double long-ranged weapons in the back, whereas I had to constantly worry about her dying before with Ramuh heavy builds. With a heavy Alexander investment Celes is the tankiest character in the game, in large part cause Cyan/Sabin can't equip shields. Want a magic Celes, keep her in the back with magic equipment, her Mag is powerful enough to perform reliable heals and do consistent damage to bosses especially hitting weaknesses. Going Berzerk with a Crusader +25% boost is no longer such a high risk proposition with her sky high HP.  I'd often switch to a Mag build during a boss battle to make her an unkillable Red-Mage, and use Stamina equipment during the dungeon to ease through random encounters. She essentially never died during the playthrough barring instant death spells. With 5 Seraph levels and using the Soul Box MP is hardly concern.

[BTB 353]

I've often wondered why characters other than Setzer and Sabin never really attracted the HP-stack builds, especially the ones with +60 HP espers.

[Reiker 26]

IMO it's because stacking HP isn't very useful and other characters have a lot more options.

But, I don't really like the HP ELs on Sabin or Setzer either. They have plenty of survivability to get through the game without it.

[ff7hero 8]

I'm partial to stacking Phoenix on Locke, which is as much about the HP as the MP. 

[Nesouk 49]

Phenix Locke is for me the best Locke if you want to make him a Healer, Locke doesn't have a consistant way of recovering MP but if you stack MP from Phenix then running out of MP is almost not possible (especially considering that Locke can use the Sage Stone to save MP by using like 2 Cure 2 instead or Cure 3 or Life + Cure 2 instead of Life 2 for instance) and thanks to Phenix HP EL Locke get a high amount of HP which makes him hard to kill along the fact that he can equip High Defense gear, so you get a very long source of healing (let's not mention the fact that he has Life and Life 2), that can still do respectable damage, is hard to kill and has a decent speed really Full Phenix Locke has nothing wrong with it.

As for other character that can stack HP I rejoin Reiker most of them has better option, Stacking HP with Sabin is good for Mantra from what I understand but personnaly I don't think Mantra is a good way to go for healing compare to the characters that have Cure 2 or 3 and can stack MP EL, Cyan going Full Alexander might be a good candidate since he got a very good vig regardless of EL but Full Kirin is better makes him already very hard to kill and strengthen his other ability (C/C and Dragon), going Full Terrato on Mog might be a possibility since he has a large selection of equipment to increase either his Vig or Mag. 

[aFish 0]

This might be a bit newb question but I can't seem to find an answer. What is ??? for Celes? Where do you get it? From the bits and pieces I gathered it's a relic that allows some new skill for her?

I'm pretty new to the mod, playing through it for the first time (not counting playing an old version years ago). Loving the 2.0 beta <3