thzfunnymzn

Magic damage formulas has level in it, physical damage formula has level squared in it. Sorry, no test dummy enemy. I've generally just calculated everything from using Excel for the past however many years I've been part of this mod's community. Has lead to the discovery of at least one major bug regarding the actual damage formula in the game. Yes, evasion is out of 128. Something unmentioned is that, because Defense, Evasion, and Stamina are all fractions, it also means that each point is worth more the more you have. For example, if you have 100 mg.def (so, taking 60% magical damage), in order to half the magical damage you are currently taking (30% damage), you need to get to 175 mg.def. However, if you are at 200 mg.def (20%), then you only need to get to 225 mg.def to half the damage you are taking (10%). So...75 points of mg.def in one case vs. 25 in the other case. In other words, Defense, Evasion, and Stamina are best when stacked. Stamina, I contend, still struggles to be more than a filler stat, despite all that's been done for it throughout BNW's life. Stuff like Cover, Counter, or the character specific stuff might be useful, but a some of the other stuff (magic damage variance, sap/poison damage, status evasion) are still kinda just "meh", even when stacked.

Am I the only one not bothered by the level of emo Celes showed in older versions of BNW?

Eh...hmm....generally Mt. Zozo, Owzer's, and Veldt Cave can be seen as first. After that, Phoenix Cave and Narshe. Afterwards, Cyan's Soul, Cave to the Ancient Castle, and Ebot's. End with Fanatics', then Kefka's. That third section is really iffy, based more on aesthetic "feel" rather than any real difficulty or story progression. Gogo's has very difficult foes, but is short with very good rewards.

At level 30, 20 extra vigor or magic roughly means about 1000 more damage with an endgame attack. This exact number changes based on enemy defenses, weaknesses, or certain moves like Cyan's Tempest. For speed, there should be a quantification in the Readme. Something like slow characters having about 4 moves to the 5 moves normal characters get, 6 moves that fast ones get, and 7 moves that Shadow the Hedgehog (100+ speed) gets. Defense is a fraction. You take [ (255 - Def) / 256 ] % of whatever damage you take. 255 defense means no damage, 0 defense means even little rabbits will mess you up. Now, what that means for each individual enemy attack or any of the inbetween numerical values for Defense, well.....>_> And, stamina, well........read the Readme and/or just ignore stamina. >_>

I generally start at 18. Others might start at 20.

Shadow learns Rerise through a "hidden" relic. More importantly, for Atma, you either want to equip as much status immunity relics as possible (buy them in Tzen), or bring along Mog for Forest Suite. These are your two methods of shutting down Mind Blast and Glare, which should be sufficient to get control of Atma's Phase 2. I understand potential frustrations with having to jump off the FC because one didn't know that one needed a specific set up to deal with Atma. : / High encounter rate is something that the peogramming team keeps trying to fix. Currently, the implemented fix is not working as intended. It is easier to save Cid than in vanilla. As for the ending FC sequence, that, IIRC, isn't totally dissimilar to what happened in vanilla. IIRC, she had that emo side in the vanilla game to.

About level 10 for Zozo. Perhaps around 15 by the time you finish the Factory. 20 for the Floating Continent. You shoukd be entering Kefka's Tower at about level 30. You're overleveled. Tbf, the Cave to the Sealed Gate is also kinda easy. But you are overleveled.

Gogo's Cavern: (Vig Celes, Vig Sabin, Mag Strago, Umaro) Zone Eater? Easy peasy. Just have Umaro and Ocean Sabin rip him a new one Randoms? Sigh. First time, died right before save point to a Shinobi / Ogor / O-Bake combo. Didn't have any Warp Whistles, got status controlled to death. Second time, died the very first random. Wart Puck's Quartr followed by Ogor 3x attack "Oh, I'm sorry, is your whole team dead without chance to do anything? Here, we'll put Sabin to sleep as well." - _ - Umaro has 90 stamina. Does that do jack-all guarding against Ogor's Zombie Strike? Nope. Umaro got Zombie'd more often than not, and a Zombie Umaro is an instant Warp Whistle. (I officially give up trying to rely on stamina for status evasion. Time to go buy a full set of status immune relics). This on top of my usual "Someone got Muddled first thing in a random, let's just Warp Whistle and ignore this random" Oh, and I still hate those buggers on the stupid bridges. I want to fight an enjoy the battles here. I really do. But, like Fanatics', this is the one area where, more often than not, I just Warp Whistle. ***** In brighter news: Bodyguard Umaro works nice. Overleveled Yeti does a great job protecting the party. Shame he got Zombie'd so often. Dunno which version it happened in, but I like being able to Stop undead. There were a number of Ogor fights I could win simply because of Strago's Stop. Also liked being able to Mute those stupid dancers. Celes' Kusarigama got to show its face again. It's actually not terribly much stronger than the Rune Edge against high defense foes and lacks stats, but doesn't drain MP. Hmm.... (+HP% on flails? Would give Strago an actual reason to equip them. It's a spitball) The only real unstoppable random here was O-Bake / Shinobi / Ogor. Ninjas are dangerous, even when berserked; Ogor can potentially ruin a fight before he can be Stopped; and O-Bake has Discord, plus he can't really be dealt with until the other two are handled. Most the other randoms can be dealt with via status control before they get out of hand. The Wart Puck / Ogor cheap shot was a stroke of bad luck. Don't take this the wrong way, as this still is one of the most dangerous WoR dungeons. ***** Now, off to recruit Cyan, and then to clear his Soul so that I can respec for Phantom Celes and Terrato Sabin.

Forgot about the Aegis Shield, another piece of auto-haste equipment. Oops. >_<

+ Auto-Haste equipment is a way to gain immunity to the Slow status, which is highly useful for some boss fights. Without the universal Sprint Shoes relic, your only sources of Auto-Haste are the Palidor esper (only one person for any given fight) or the Mirage Vest (hard to obtain, obtained late, users are squishy with arguably better endgame armors). + HasteX, casting Haste on the party, is only found on squishies, one of who will be locked into Rage for much of a fight. Auto-Haste equipment is a useful way to keep the team hasted for players who don't want to use Shadow. + For slow characters in long boss fights, it's not a bad option. Probably especially useful for Vig Terra and Vig Cyan, who probably no longer want Hero Ring because of the Cover status. - You need an actually high speed stat to start first in randoms. Auto-Haste does nothing. Unless you're expecting bulky randoms or a slow & steady method to randoms, you're probably better off equipping the Zephyr Cape or Stat Stick. - It competes with relics that are key to certain builds (esp. vigor characters, who always dedicate one relic slot to Power Glove). Also competes with defensive relics, such as the status immunity relics, the Auto-Safe/Shell relics, or an early game Life Bell. Eh, looks to be in an OK spot to me. Its definitely less useful than its store-bought counterparts in Guard Ring, Wall Ring, Amulet, White Cape, and Spirit Ring, but it has its tactical uses in some boss fights and some general-purpose use on a few characters. I'd worry more about stuff like the Mirage Vest or Stat Stick.

A dance-focused Mog has several options. Build-wise, you'll need to decide between Maduin or Shoat. Maduin is the "right way" because it provides stamina to reduce the stumble rate and strengthen the healing dance steps (Harvester, Sun Bath). Shoat works because Mog has enough stamina from base stats and equipment to make Dance work anyways, though you may stumble a little more lategame than you would otherwise. Moogle Charm is advised. There are some cases where you can avoid it, but by and large and especially for a first play, Moogle Charm. As for Dances themselves: Water rondo is a solid all-around damage dance for the mid-game. Still useful for hurting mechanical enemies later on. Earth Blues is your best single-target damage dance if there's no weakness to hit. Also comes with Sun Bath. This and Forest are perhaps the most general-purpose dances. Forest Suite provides the incredible Harvester (Cure 2 strength with Remedy effect on everyone) with goods odds, the best odds of healing of all dance (50%), and decent magical damage. Wind Song is weak damage, but provides your best odds for Sun Bath (Cure 3 strength on everyone, ignores reflect, clears freeze status) and is the home dance of the Floating Continent. Desert Aria provides some evasion / healing options with Mirage and Sun Bath, though the most common step is a weak AoE attack. Mostly useful as a back-up Image / healing source in case your primary one can't keep up. Love Sonata is mostly useful for (X-)Mage focused set-ups, since its main use is MP drain with some Fire/Holy damage. Definitely use with Moogle Charm. Snowman Jazz is the lategame AoE damage dance. Not so hot for Ice damage because most Ice-weak enemies null the secondary elements, but it's easier to use than Quake for AoE. Dusk Requiem is the "trash" early game dance, though Snare & Moonlight are quite powerful. Also the home dance of a lot of dungeons because the cave environment is used so much. The healing (Harvester & Sun Bath) is really the main selling point of Dance Mog, with Forest Suite being the crown. Come the WoR, Dance Mog is support Mog. X-Mog and Dragoon Mog are far better for pure dps, and they're also "better" at quickly setting Haste on fellow party members. Pitfalls are few and mostly minor. I'm not going to mention pitfalls that are really more about learning the game and its difficulty. I'll mention a few pitfalls related to purchases and builds. Don't buy a Dragoon Seal first thing. Wait until the Imperial Magitek Factory or the Floating Continent. Buy a Morning Star for Celes if you want her hitting things in Zozo and the IMF. It's her only real form of offense for that section of the game, though it is a good weapon. It's easy to forget about all the new purchases after the IMF, especially since you might not have enough money for it all. It's also easy to forget to buy Throwables for Shadow before the Floating Continent. Don't forget to purchase said Throwables in Jidoor. (Also, Albrook has Sakura knives for him). Avoid going all in with magic on Terra. I've seen a few advocates, but except maybe kinda-sorta for endgame Ultima or with heavy Figaro Support, you'll want more of a bulky mage. Stamina Sabin's main blitz isn't learned until lvl.25. Build accordingly. Vig Cyan, for the mid-game, is really more of a mix of Kirin (HP) and Bismark (vig). Respec him after clearing his soul if you want to invest more heavily in vigor. Avoid stamina Thamasa for your first run. Their use is questionable and the magic builds are easier to use. (Some veterans think they're useful. I & others think they're nuts).

I made an initial one a long time ago, but other people have been the ones keeping it up to date. My build guides in the sub-forum should give a basic rundown and a mid-level analysis of what to look for. There's an in-depth spreadsheet somewhere here on the forums. Pretty much. Probably will ignore his Fire magic until the WoR honestly. Honestly, Phoenix is a very key esper for him. IMO, any build that ain't taking at least a few Phoenix ELs is doing something wrong. I would say at least a minimum of 5 Phoenix for Locke. Others disagree. Setzer's easy to build. Give him 10 Seraph in the WoB, then decide whether to go for magic or stamina in the WoR. Slots are op early on, he's got some mid-game options, plus Fixed Dice near the end. Stam Setzer gets GP Toss. Dance is divisive in the BNW community. >_> vig Mog and Dancing on the Floating Continent are things everyone can agree on. Otherwise, you're going to have to experiment with Mog's many, many magical options (Dance, Rod, X-Magic) to see what you think works best. Strago is honestly more of a support character with good offensive capabilities. He only really shines offensively when striking a weakness. I had an enormous amount of fun with Rods + Black Belt on Strago in the WoR one run. I think it's actually a really solid strategy for him. Others are scared and/or find that Strago dies too much. I loved it. I probably undersold Relm. She's good. Osmose was nerfed recently because she was too good. Just build Zoneseek and don't completely ignore MP management and you should be golden for using Flare/Meteor to your heart's content. Sketch is...iffy. Sometimes works fantastically well, sometimes is all right, often is a dud, and there's no way to predict, nor is there any info in the Printme. : / It's good on Atma and Inferno. Quake is powerful, but it's finnicky in who it hits and requires set-up. Aside from a few bosses (tbf, this does include the first two tiers of the final battle) - honestly, possibly even including those boss fights - I find that Quake is mostly used when you've all ready got the boss on lockdown anyways and just want to speed up the process. The first X-Mog player of 1.9 who gave feedback disagreed and thought X-Mog was better. You'll probably have to fiddle with him to find out for yourself. It's less a matter of pitfalls and more a matter of there being a sudden spike in viable options comes the WoR. It's a spike that tends to get smoothed out with each new version, like the revamped mid-game swords of 1.9. There's a few things I could note, but it sounds like you wish to avoid spoilers and I don't think the issues are "extraordinary", so I'll refrain from saying anything. *** Enjoy BNW. It's a great mod.

Forgot to mention that you'll also have plenty of Ethers for the endgame, provided you trade in stuff at the Colosseum and don't burn them too crazily throughout the game. Don't ignore them throughout the game though, as they're useful against foes like Atma and such. Just know that there's a good fat supply of them in the mid- / late-WoR, so play accordingly.

- I'll also note that the squishies are harder to defend early on, when you have fewer methods by which to circumvent their squishiness. Shadow's still solid early on, but using him well in the Floating Continent might be tricky (don't forget to buy throwables & equipment beforehand). Thamasa Duo and Gau don't really come into their own until the WoR, but Relm and Gau still have neat tricks and uses to make them worthwhile, though again, it might be tricky to use them effectively. - I fear that balance and experience has been weighted a bit too much towards the endgame, though work has been made in many of the recent updates to work on the mid-game as well. (Better early- and mid-game weapon options for Terra, Celes, and Edgar; new Cover and Counter mechanics; slightly earlier Mantra for Sabin; new early magics for Relm in 1.9). While more work can be done, don't take this the wrong way, as BNW still does well avoiding many common pitfalls. - Major updates requiring restarts are very infrequent. Don't worry about it. - Conversations on MP management are interesting and character dependent. It's possible to break the MP management game in the WoR through grinding Tinctures in the FT, though even mess Tinctures might not be enough brute force MP healing for Kefka's Tower. One of the major selling points of the support builds on the Figaro Bros. is MP restoration via skills. Outside of these things, it's character dependent: Terra & Celes were designed to use Status skills in randoms, preserving most of their MP for the big fights. Runic in the WoB and Soul Sabre in the WoR provide random MP healing. Terra shouldn't seriously be challenged with her MP usage in the WoB, unless you like spamming Storm, Break, and Cure 2 on every minor fight for some reason. Locke, unfortunately, is MP challenged in the WoB. (See above comment on builds). In the WoR, Phoenix ELs plus careful management should stretch his healing pretty far, provided you're not spamming his biggest stuff (Fire 3, Life 2, careless Cure 3 usage). X-Mage Locke will need Figaro Support or Mass Tinctures if he wants to go full blast, though X-Fire3 is amazing for Fire weak foes and X-Life2 is an unparalleled "get back on your feet" option. Cyan effectively has infinite MP, making him great for out-of-battle healing in long dungeon hauls. Shadow has limited MP, which can make spamming his magical support skillset tricky. Otoh, he is a high risk, high reward character. Setzer might as well have infinite MP, unless you just hate building Seraph on him for some reason. Mog is MP challenged. It doesn't matter for the WoB (use dances), but if you want to play X-Mog in the WoR, you'll want Figaro Support or Mass Tinctures. X-Mog's traditionally been a weak character, but I hear he's finally starting to come into his own as of 1.9. Strago has effectively infinite MP with proper Osmose / Raid use. That is, unless you like spamming Black Omen, in which case, you'll probably want a few extra MP ELs and to be a little more careful with Osmose / Raid use. Relm's traditionally had effectively infinite MP throughout BNW's life, especially when building Zoneseek. Osmose isn't quite as ridiculous now, but Relm still has plenty of options to not be totally dependent on MP support. Building Zoneseek is probably the safest option for keeping her self-sufficient MP wise, with Ifrit probably being the "higher risk, higher reward" option.

It's not just him. I remember having a case or two of nastily high encounter rate when playing Nowea Hard Type.

A Dummy, I fully agree with you that stamina should be a defensive stat, not an offensive one. Rather, what my implication was, was that, in practice, stamina doesn't achieve that goal. In practice, we have in the past, and continue to this day, to rely upon stamina-based damage / healing in order to shore up the flaws in stamina builds. And I contend that we do this because, inherently, despite the high number of mechanics stamina affects, most of them are simply trivial in their affect. Stamina is nice to have, but when its competing with HP, speed, MP, and one of vig or mag, it gets the shaft. EDIT: Though I should still be thanking you for saying what you did say. Sorry. >_> For example: increasing stamina on Strago doesn't do nothing. It does have some minor affects. Mostly noticeable with some extra resistance to suffering a status, or with perhaps surviving a strong, endgame itd attack that he wouldn't otherwise. The problem is that: Stamina's effect on the status game is of significantly less importance than simply equipping a status relic or bringing Harvester "Magical damage variance", because of the damage numbers and stamina stat needed to even see an effect, basically doesn't exist. When it does, raw mg.def or elemental defense is more important. It's only for big, endgame itd attacks that it really matters, and the character still needs to be healed afterwards. It's really only useful if it prevents a OHKO, which is a mighty fine line to walk, and also one that is immediately solved by grabbing another level. Counter still has a high base chance of working, so it competes directly with mag Strago's extra damage Stamina has no other synergy with anything else Strago does. Even the Life Bell + Holy Wind combo is practically unaffects by extra regen ticks from stamina. Magic improves Strago's elemental dps and his off-turn Black Omen damage. Even for a mostly support Strago, it's highly questionable just how useful stamina is compared to more magic Similar arguments can be made for other characters. For example, look at the history of stam Terra and stam Locke. Terra had a special stamina-based mechanic. But when did those two builds really become "accepted" as solid builds? When Omega was fixed. Now, 1.9's new stamina-based Cover mechanic is a very good step in the right direction for stamina. I agree that it can and should open the possibilities for pure tanking builds. But let's not forget that stamina is still shaky in its overall utility and still struggles to fully break away from the "filler stat" it was in vanilla. Let's also not forget that Cover is commonly paired with Counter, and....welll.....Counter is basically a stamina-based attack, of a sorts. So....again, we're still relying on stamina-based damage to shore up the weakness of the stamina stat. Part of the reason why I played Atma without status relics / Harvester in my recent NHT run was so that I could get hard data on just how much I can rely on stamina. While a wee bit unfair (Mind Blast is awful, stamina's still low in the WoB), it's not data totally dissimilar to what I've experienced before. Using stamina for its defensive effects is questionable when you can get mostly the same thing from equips / skills (Harvester) and simply increase your other stats. A little less defensive of a character, but not significantly, a the result if a character far more versatile. For Unicorn Edgar, I agree he should be a pure tank. I agree that relying mostly on status support and some healing/damage is a fine design. In design, his only major problem is a severe lack of stamina by which to actually, well, tank! However, in practice, the sheer versatility of other Cover tank builds - versatility in both damage output, healing, and other utility - will make Unicorn's life difficult, especially if he doesn't have a significant advantage in bulk or Cover%. Also, his other major supprting build, Siren Edgar, has a huge advantage even in status control / party support, AND can summon Golem (for a brief period), AND throw out Safe. Also, there's this elephant in the room called "Image spam", which further makes it questionable how much resources should be devoted to a pure tanking build. (Golem, thankfully, seems to have been nerfed enough to not also be a problem, but let's not completely ignore him either, lest we overlook something). Let's also not forget that Gungnir is endgame only. There's still a big midgame (WoR) where Unicorn Edgar needs to function. *** I wish to respond to GamingFiend later, but I don't have time. Suffice to say, I'm more willing than Mishrak to tier the characters, and I definitely agree that stam Relm is inherently inferior to mag Relm, for much of the same reasons that GamingFiend listed. Some people are bringing up the worry of making Edgar too good. I agree with that. No further comment right now, not enough time. My statements on stamina still stand.

Something my OCD wishes to point out is that most stamina builds do have a stamina-based attack / heal that they rely upon or were critical to said builds being accepted as "good" builds. Terra, Locke, Sabin, Cyan, Gau, Mog, Setzer, they all fall in this category. Even Phantom Celes sorta hits on this with Cover/Counter (arguably Shadow too). Strago's lack of any specific use for stamina is perhaps a or even the major reason for why there's a noticeable portion of the players who hold little respect for said build, myself included. It's also part of why I think Mishrak is crazy for hyping up Crusader Celes so much when he could just play Siren Celes. (Relm's a weird case; she has a stamina-based heal, but the overlap with existing builds is strong, thereby devaluing her stam build severely). So it's not a surprise that people are asking for stamina-based damage to improve stam Edgar, since we still haven't wholly moved away from that solution to stamina builds, not even with some of our most recent stuff (Terra, Locke, Celes, Setzer).

Stamina-damage spear with a significant increase (more than +6) to stamina might work. Either alone won't work. More stamina is the more important one here, but it means little when there are other bulky c/c characters who simply provide more options. Stamina-damage spear means little when Unicorn Edgar's stamina is barely any better than his vigor. It's fine if the stamina-damage spear is WoR. Unicorn Edgar's fair for the WoB. Gungnir's kinda late without early Ancient Castle (more reason to go there early?), but what can you do? Does ruin any idea of vig Edgar using Gungnir though, which is something I did prefer on my previous run. Ultimately, I doubt a stamina-damage spear is going to get through, so perhaps it may be better to focus on Unicorn Edgar as more closely related to mag Edgar? Both support builds, just in different ways? Another point I'll mention is that, prior to Genji, Edgar's stam+ armor is limited. No stam+ shields, Power Armor is more offensive, leaving only Green Beret & Red Cap (& Stat Hat) on his armor slot. (In fact, a lot of the interesting armor equips tend to be endgame. I think I and others have bought up this idea a few times.) I think I prefer more stam+ equip options, as it means vig/mag Edgar set-ups are more likely to have significantly less stamina from having chosen different equipment, though a +6 base stamina could also be a part of this as well. Stam+ spears seems fine to me. Not in the mood for trying to brainstorm other avenues for buffing him, but it seems like there's no way around the fact that his core game plan, Cover, needs to work well before he has hope of getting anywhere.

+1

That isn't a bad analysis. That's a good comparison to Golem Edgar. Common consensus is that Golem + Palidor is best vig Edgar, so the fact that Unicorn Edgar compares to Golem Edgar, and that not necessarily even favorably, indicates a problem. Tank with no cannon is definitely how I would describe him. Bulkiest character in the game, but then again, vig Edgar with Gungnir all ready contends for that spot and is pretty hard to kill anyways, alongside providing the benefits of vig & spd, so unless he's leveraging that bulk to help the team, it's all pretty pointless. He looks like the supreme team tank with Golem & Cover, but Sabin's got better Golem summons, Edgar's stamina is low, and his Counter offense is abysmal to mediocre. Tbf, the difference between, say, Edgar's stamina stat and Cyan's stamina stat, IIRC, isn't creating a huge difference in Cover%. The reduced stamina, in some ways, is more the nail in the coffin on top of his other problems (no cannon, no speed/magic for support/heals, other builds having more flexible game plans / equipment load-outs / etc). At best, I could see perhaps a 10/10 mix of Unicorn with Siren that goes in the front row with Gungnir or another spear. Bit of an attempt to slap on Cover utility to the rest of mag Edgar's utility. Not sure it actually works out all that well in practice, but it's probably a better game plan than pure Unicorn or Unicorn + Palidor.

Tbf GamingFiend, the only characters seriously using MP at this point in the game are Terra and Celes. Fire and Ice are virtually identical in terms of MP and Spell Power. Bigger issue is that Ice has few uses in the early game (seems that Brawlers were meant to be susceptible to Ice, but Rock counterattacks + poison strats means that'll never happen). Celes has the MP for Bolt in the IMF, it's just never had much of a niche even in the IMF all throughout BNW's life, and, well, now, Celes has the Morning Star instead. Terra I suspect is best off picking one or the other of Cover or Counter. Certainly a more bulky healer build (HP, MP, some mag) would prefer Cover for also defending allies. Vig Terra lacks stamina and should not, under any circumstances, try to combine Morph with Cover. C/C Apocalypse Terra without Morph isn't a bad idea and does make use of all of the Hero's Ring bonuses; though with low stamina and missing the Power Glove, eh. A Morph Omega build could, but I'm not sure how nicely Morph or Omega plays with the increased damage Terra will take. Then again, I'm always surprised with how absurd Morph Omega is, so maybe Terra can c/c better than I thought. My Unicorn Edgar was played in NHT, so it's not the best representative of Unicorn Edgar balance. That said, he still performed admirably in the WoB, so it's clearly a fine build early on. I just have my doubts on how well he'll scale into the WoR. Worried that he'll become too much of a one-trick pony without speed. And while he ought to be given at least some Siren or Palidor, I'm not sure how well "Unicorn Cover Edgar" synergizes with either mag Support Edgar (moar speed, Force equips, back row) or Palidor (Unicorn + Palidor seems like a worse version of Golem + Palidor). At least Unicorn Edgar can technically claim something for its own now. I don't trust Sabin defenses to hold up while also Covering allies. Even Terrato Sabin loses HP for using Mantra if he Covers, though he's the only Sabin build who can even think about Covering without eating dirt.

...OK, so, Deschain is a better player than me, and also a significantly faster player than me. 1) I'll take Deschain's remark as proof positive that HP nerfs was a bad idea then (I know I'm at least part of the reason for why it happened). Guess that validates what I'm seeing that HP esper nerfs is also homogenizing character HP values too much. Probably also hurts Cover/Counter too. 2) ...Dang, I stopped paying attention to eva and mg.eva a long time ago. Probably because I keep pushing & trying novel (aka, downright stupid) strategies. Oops

Lesson in humility: Please do "easy" and/or short WoR dungeons first with strong immediate rewards (Mt. Zozo, Gogo's Cave, Owzer's), rather than bull-charging to something hard like Yeti. >_< *** Team: vig Mog (lvl.22 - 24); spd Gau (lvl.20 - 22); HP/MP Terra (lvl.22 - 25); mag Strago (lvl.20 - 22). Most definitely under-leveled, especially the two low HP dudes. Another level or two would've probably changed some OHKO's into 2HKO's. This time, the randoms were simple, but the bosses were a doozy. The randoms here are all susceptible to very debilitating status effects (Stop, Death, Muddle), which my team has plenty of (Doomstick, Muddle x2, Antlion, Mute, Stop, Bad Breath). Gau & Strago dropped several times, hurting my Phoenix Down supply and further hurting Terra's MP, but overall, randoms in the ruined town / snowfields were simple. Randoms in the Yeti Cave weren't real any stronger. Rasp / Rock were annoying, but again, status effects took control of the situation. Doomstick was replaced with Quartrstaff, since lots of stuff in here nulls Death. Biggest issue was that such a long dungeon really hurt Terra's MP supply, even though I've given her 8 Carbunkl ELs. (Also difficulties staying Morphed in boss fights hurts her damage output, making her less MP efficient). I dipped into a handful of my Ether supply and even an X-Ether. I'm not proud of this, and really wish I had done Gogo's Cavern first so that I'd have Edgar for Mana Battery support. Otoh, Battery support can be done later, whereas I don't think Edgar would've helped at all for the Yeti fight. Also, Gale Hairpin only gave me, like, 2-3 Pre-emptive strikes in this entire dungeon. Useless trinket. Oh well, I'm keeping Back Guard at least. Side note: For 1.9, I had initially planned on having vig Mog run c(over)/c(ounter) Quartrstaff / Doomstick set-ups prior to finding Longinus and Gungnir. If he fails to proc, he'd still deal strong damage, so total win-win. Decided against it here because Nastidons & Cerberus hit way too hard to play around with c/c. Probably should've tried it in Yeti's Cave though. Oops. *** Tritoch was, as usual annoying. Difference is that he's now fast enough to be dangerous. (Also, Thordain = death to Gau & Strago). I stuck to a Refract plan while Morph Terra whittled away at him with Fire 3 - used my first Ether for this fight. Mog had to Sun Bath a once or twice (failed it mostly), and I ultimately won with a few people eating dirt and zero MP left. Closest Tritoch fight I've ever had. Tbf, I think I could've improved my strat (and starting MP) to greatly smooth out the fight. Tonberry's a jerk. First, I forget to set Mute, eating multiple Step Mines. - _ - Second, I learn the hard way that he un-Mutes everytime he returns to the back. - _ - Third, I learn that he's so fast that he'll Shank 4 times before I can revive anyone, so it's Conjurer (Rerise) or bust. - _ - Doesn't help that Shank can't be dodged via Image. Stupid. Kept a save state here to avoid walking back everytime I died. Yeti................@$(TQGN# BN(JF@Q#$%H(Q#*G(UAV A(W*E)R(@#Q)(FVQG#$GNA(JU(SI*TW#$JNGV IW N(J$ I really should've gotten more levels (HP) before trying this. Reset that save state right before the boss fight so many times. Also learned that pissy boss mode does, in fact, set Haste alongside Safe and Shell. Otoh, I'm quite proud of my victory against this bugger. Turtling up by stacking as much Image support as I can (Refract, Witch Rage, Desert Aria) with as much speed on those three characters as possible; keeping everyone topped off with Holy Wind, Tonics/Potions, and the occasionally Sun Bath (Aria); setting Zoneseek initially while equipping Wind resistant gear & auto-Haste (Blizzard) (Iceguard would've helped, hence, why I should've done Mt. Zozo first); and letting Witch Gau and unMorph Terra slowly beat him down with Fire 3 (lacked Dispel, but oh well). Once I got this strategy down, I beat him in two tries (sans the times he just straight up killed me on the first turn >_<). Few levels would've still helped Gau & Strago survive at least one Yeti attack. Thankfully, Mog & Terra had enough HP/defense to survive a few attack or one Takedown. I now have Terrato. Once I snag Alexander (later), I'm esper resetting Sabin, Edgar, Celes, and Cyan. Celes so I can go pure Phantom + Alex (she's Ramuh + Seraph right now). Cyan for Tempest (I don't trust c/c in NHT). Sabin for Terrato Sabin > : ). And Edgar because I want Siren ELs. *** Mog didn't mogoon. Instead, he played support with status, rods, and dance. Forgot to do Quartrstaff + c/c in Yeti's: oh well. For once in my life, I actually liked Desert Aria. Strago's Refract and the Witch Rage are definitely better, but I needed a third source of Image from , and Aria did a decent job. Also got some clutch Sun Baths and Meerkats. So, not a great primary source of Image/heals (to random), but it's a nice back-up to take some of the pressure of your primary Image/heal person. I think vig Mog's speed also plays a role here: timing and # of turns seems more important for this dance, rather than raw power. BUT....otoh, Sand Storm was counterproductive - did zero damage and even triggered Takedown counterattacks. - _ - Not a fan of Sand Storm. Terra needs Battery support. : ( Granted, this is a long dungeon prior, with no Restore Points, but half of my MP ELs are Carbunkl. Probably should just let the remainder of her ELs be Unicorn. Fire 3 still saved the day here, against all 3 bosses. I couldn't Morph against Yeti. I can't reliably keep Image up all the time, so Terra needed to be able to take a hit or two. I doubt more Unicorn ELs would've changed that, and her level wasn't too bad (25), so, meh, no Morph against Yeti. Strago was here for Refract + Holy Wind (all in speed equips), though he got to also pitch in with statuses, Quartrstaff counters, and a few Razes. Gau used Antlion & Brawler for randoms (status control), Dragon for Tonberry, and Witch for Yeti and Tritoch.

- _ - Well, Owzer's clear. That was a lesson in humility. (vig Celes, vig Mog, vig Sabin, HP/MP Terra. Average finishing level of 22, except Celes at 24) Chadarnook was simple. Bolt resistant gear, Terra's Cure 2 keeps everyone topped off, Celes & Sabin pound away, Mog Hastes and either Jumps or dances Blues. Simple stuff, just took quite a few rounds because of his HP. No, the real threat here were the randoms. All encounters are 3, 4, or even 5 (!) buggers who open the fight with powerful physicals or AoEs. I count a handful of Game Overs. One to the forced pincer in the painting in the basement (I tripped it on purpose). Or was it an unlucky pincer I got that wiped me right away? Might've been both. Think on one of them, there was nothing I could do. Just got straight up owned before I could input any command. One to a Eagle x3, Atlasphere x2 opening. No back attack or nothing, just straight up "We attack first and roll Gale Cut x3, Starlight x2." I died, nothing I could do. Didn't even have poor gear or anything. One to the mini-boss painting. I went in unprepared for SleepX, what does she do? SleepX, own me, SleepX right as I get up, Game Over me. HP/MP Terra's & Sabin's stamina stats weren't high enough to do anything. One to the Maiden x3 guarding the basement. Tbf, this was more poor planning and "eh, it's not going my way, let's just reset and try again" : / The WoR is going to be smooth sailing funnyman. You keep telling yourself that. Without severe overleveling to create a massive HP & damage buffer, it looks like Gale Hairpin + Back Guard + Ribbon + Muddle spam are going to be mandatory from here on out. Randoms just have too many dudes taking too many turns and hitting too blasted hard, or crippling me with nasty statuses. Turtling doesn't work; while I still need the HP to survive the attacks as well as status immunity, by and large, my only defense is killing & crippling my foes before they can do anything. I can't really rely on the stamina stats of my +1 stamina builds either: Edgar got owned by Stop plenty in the Narshe Mines, and stamina certainly didn't help Terra or Sabin against SleepX or Mute. (Mind you, they're +1 builds prior to having lots of good stamina+ gear, but then again, that's kinda part of my whole issue with trying to use stamina as a makeshift status relic anyways). Three vigor dudes in Owzer's felt less like a "Easy mode, let's own this place" and more like a "Required team set-up just to survive". Without the dps from striking the low p.def of the foes here, I fear I may not've had the strength to punch through, even with Muddle spam. I skipped the floating treasure chests because I feared for my life. I'll return to snag them when I'm stronger. Mt. Zozo is next, after I level up Strago. I'm not looking forward to this, especially not to the Wind Dragon. *** In more positive news: Rune Edge Celes is great. Hits as hard as Sabin, but can actually take a hit. With her OHKO's and Cover/Counters, she was my dps MVP for this dungeon. : ' ) I'm so happy, vig Celes is finally a shining star. (Tbf, she was two levels ahead of everyone else). I stuck with Rune Edge + shield because I needed the defense here. Rune Edge + Falchion + Hyper Wrist was used on the mini-boss though. Mogoon is Mogoon, except that the real shining star here was his statuses. While Terra also has Muddle, Mog's high speed (high starting ATB with the new patch) was a godsend for controlling randoms here. Easily the true MVP of the dungeon. Some battles, alls he did was spam Muddle. Because I was using a Thunderguard for Chadarnook, he spent most of the boss fight either setting Haste or dancing Blues. (Did I mention I like Haste Mog? I like Haste Mog). As per usual, Fire Lance was great for the plants & Trident was useful for the mini-boss. Sabin did Sabin stuff, claws & Suplex. Didn't use Bum Rush, (though it'd probably have been just as effective as Spirit Claws vs Chadarnook anyways). Did summon Golem in the (mini-)boss fights, but that was about it. Actually less reliable for OHKOs than vig Celes (!), but still, it was Sabin. Terra = Healbot. Boring, but practical. Also back-up Muddle user, so I guess she's strictly superior to Setzer in that regard. (Oh, and Break outdamaged a single-handed Mogoon vs Chadarnook, but w/e).

I'm not too impressed with c/c Edgar, and Terra and Setzer strike me as more the type to pick either Cover or Counter, not both. Sabin strikes me mostly Counter. I'll chalk up Shadow as a c/c user still and maybe raise my estimation of c/c Mog.