Sign in to follow this  
fabio73

What to increase Speed and Stamina stats to?

9 posts in this topic

What numbers should I be looking at trying to increase Speed and Stamina to before focusing on other stats?  Will adding more Speed or more Stamina have diminishing returns at some point; especially once Haste or Regen is set?  For example, a character has 3000 HP, Regen ticks replenish 1500 HP, increasing Stamina will increase the Regen ticks but does that really make sense given how high the ticks already are?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

What numbers should I be looking at trying to increase Speed and Stamina to before focusing on other stats?

As the Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy informed us, the answer is 42. ;):P

 

More seriously though, BNW has changed how players can increase the stats of their characters (as stat increases are no longer dependant on characters having Espers equipped when the character levels up), and some characters get a lot of choices and options. Your general questions however show that you haven't actually played the game to see a lot of those changes yet. In addition, most characters will not have HP levels above 1000 for most of the game. Things have seriously been changed in BNW compared to the vanilla game.

Stamina plays a role in some defenses and attacks now. Speed is focused on giving players more turns turing the battle (and the way that has been changed in BNW is MAJOR). Magic is still useful for spells, but not all of them anymore, and a lot of spells and espers have been limited to certain characters. Strength is self-explanatory.

Edited by GLH

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, GLH said:

As the Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy informed us, the answer is 42. ;):P

This made me laugh and is fitting reference :D.

12 hours ago, GLH said:

BNW has changed how players can increase the stats of their characters (as stat increases are no longer dependant on characters having Espers equipped when the character levels up), and some characters get a lot of choices and options. Your general questions however show that you haven't actually played the game to see a lot of those changes yet. In addition, most characters will not have HP levels above 1000 for most of the game. Things have seriously been changed in BNW compared to the vanilla game.

Stamina plays a role in some defenses and attacks now. Speed is focused on giving players more turns turing the battle (and the way that has been changed in BNW is MAJOR). Magic is still useful for spells, but not all of them anymore, and a lot of spells and espers have been limited to certain characters. Strength is self-explanatory.

You're correct in that I haven't played through much of the game yet, only up through the Battle of Narshe, however, I have spent A LOT of time reading through all the documentation, and know of the overhaul that's been done to the Esper level system and Esper Bank, as well as what Vigor, Speed, Magic, and Stamina now affect in the game.  What I'm really interested in knowing is what are the "best bang for your buck" numbers to shoot for when choosing to increase those stats?

As another example to the one in my previous post, if a character has 50 Speed and then is Hasted, would that same character with 60 Speed and then Hasted be faster enough to justify the 10 Speed points added through Esper levels or equipment?  Because if not, then I could increase other stats or use that Speed increasing piece of equipment on a different character.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There's a large amount of "It Depends" with those stats. It's very dependent on what the character's doing, their equipment, their opponent, whether they'll hit the damage cap, etc. Pumping speed as someone's primary stat is typically best for healer/support characters, as they aren't as reliant on vigor/magic for being good at what they do. In addition, characters like Gau don't even have a vigor/magic option and it's 100% viable to just put every EL he has into speed.

This doesn't work quite like an MMO where you just "raise stat to <x> for softcap then raise a different stat"

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Speed sorta has a soft cap now in terms of its raw effectiveness, with the example used being:
Strago (31 speed) == 4 turns
Terra (48 speed) == 5 turns
Celes (71 speed) == 6 turns
Shadow (126 speed) == 8.4 turns
So I guess as far as speed is concerned you could try and aim for around 90~ as just a general min-max amount. (Though looking at the example it looks like you consistently get about 2 more turns for every +40 speed over 30, so it's not falling off too hard even if you commit to it.)

Also keep in mind equipment makes a big difference in stats as well, a good example here being Shadow, as just putting 20 levels into Fenrir puts him at 82 speed so then if you feel like you don't need more speed than that you can equip him with Genji Armor to boost his Vigor and Stamina more and just ignore speed boosting gear.
In short, you have to really go all in with both EL and equipment in order to hit numbers over 100 on a single stat, it's not like some games where the soft cap is something you can trip over easily just because you're investing in a preferred stat, and even if you do reach into the "soft cap" you're still getting about 90% effectiveness from it as opposed to something like only 50% effectiveness for investing past the soft cap. (Dark Souls comes to mind in this regard with how its stat soft caps hit hard once you get past them.)

The Readme already covers much of this, but Stamina is in a somewhat similar boat, though some of its defensive benefits have a soft cap of around 90-96 for some like lowering Magic Damage variance and lowing the damage taken penalty that Morph suffers from, other things like the chance to Cover or the damage of special attacks that use Stamina such as Aura Bolt or the Atma Weapon will continue to get stronger as you put in more Stamina.
But again though you have to really push your whole setup to break past 100 Stamina, as most Stamina setups will hit around 80-90 anyway because of certain pieces of gear you might want to use like a Black Belt that benefit from Stamina, but don't necessarily give Stamina themselves.

So I guess the quick and dirty TL:DR of it is the soft cap for Stamina and Speed is about 90-96, but most setups won't break far past that unless you purposefully put all your gear into maxing out a specific stat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Nowea's got good advice.

In general, I'd first increase a character's HP and, if applicable, MP. After that, consider what you primarily wantband focus on that, while maybe splashing a secondary stat and keeping your HP and MP up.

Vigor and Magic have no soft caps. Speed's soft cap is however fast your own hands and mind can comfortably handle, though only Shadow has any real potential to get out of control speed. Stamina has the reverse of a soft cap; each point of stamina is better than the last; problem is that stamina ain't that hot of a stat unless its paired with HP.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It really is a matter of personal preference, though here are some thoughts.

If I'm mathing correctly, Steal will reach a 100% success rate at 72 Speed.  Out of the potential stealers Locke and Shadow are the only ones with access to Speed ELs (and in Shadow's case, if you know you'll never equip a Switchblade on him, can be disregarded).  I don't recall any other quantifiable benchmarks for Speed.

Regarding Stamina: Characters resist Sap damage better for each 8 points of Stamina.  So raising from 39 to 40 has more significance than a boost from 40 to 41.  I like my characters to have an even multiple of 8 in Stamina when unequipped for maximum equipment flexibility. 

Mog likes Stamina unless you never plan on using Dance.  37 Stamina gives about a 2/3 chance of success on non-native terrain.

Terra likes Stamina when morphed.  64 is a nice round amount to aim for though in practice, I'm more inclined to allocate ELs to 44 or 48 so I have more ELs to devote to HP, MP, and the offensive stat of choice.

Like many others, I find that status preventing Relics are preferable for status resistance.  96 Stamina would be enough for me to skip the blocker but getting there sacrifices too much for me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this