Franklin_WI

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About Franklin_WI

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  1. Seeking any and all Atma tips

    Yes, this was good advice. Thank you. I switched parties (stuck with Setzer but swapped out Gau for Celes and Strago for Cyan), prioritized Dispel and Slow, bought more status accessories, and had no problems with my first attempt after that. I didn't religiously keep up Rerise (though I did cast Seraph after the second phase started) but with a tankier team and Atma's reduced offense it worked out. Onward!
  2. I beat Brave New World in version 1.8.5 or 1.8.6 and am finally revisiting, and I am surprisingly stuck on Atma. Maybe I got lucky three years ago, or maybe I'm unlucky now, or maybe Atma's design has changed that much. I don't know. But I'm looking for any and all advice, no spoiler unwelcome (I still remembered the unlockme password, even) and no basic tip too condescending. I've been running Setzer for heals, Strago for Blowfish, Gau for Brainpan (Blowfish/Rerise), and of course Shadow. I'm good with the battle until the Mind Blasts come out, at which point I have a really hard time keeping up with anything that's happening; I tread water until I get a bad RNG break and then I can't even tread water. I will admit I have a personal problem with regenerating bosses. I hate them and they get my blood up, and this reduces my willingness to engage, iterate, and develop strategies. It is what it is. Favorite teams? Most reliable strategies? Key things I may be missing?
  3. 1.8.6, I'm pretty sure. I just looked at the first post in this thread to compare the changelog to my experience, and since Gau could leap in non-Veldt areas and Locke got free turns after stealing, I think it had to have been 1.8.6. I can't say what 1.8.5 was like for comparison, but trying to run often took so long that it resulted in more damage to my party than standing my ground.
  4. First timer, just finished it. Loved it. I loved FF6 when I was a kid, but even compared to other FF games I've found it hard to revisit because it's just too easy/braindead. I've tried, but always lost interest. Brave New World redeemed it for me, and for the first time since probably 1997, I completed a playthrough, and found myself loving not just the idea of the game, but the game itself. So while I have some specific feedback/suggestions below, first and foremost I want to say thanks to BTB and to everyone else here who has contributed to the mod or even just helped keep it alive via their enthusiasm and feedback. And it's not just about bringing the difficulty up to a level that was pretty consistently engaging -- the QoL improvements (Leaping everywhere, the adjusted Bushido meter, etc.) were impressive and the characters all still very much feel like themselves despite so, so many changes. IIRC vanilla FF6 had a Dragon Quest-ish mechanic wherein a wipe wasn't a game over -- you got booted back to your save point location, but you kept your experience. In FF6 it was kind of trivial since FF6 is the easiest game in the series, and players would usually reset anyhow because esper stat increases didn't stick after a wipe. Since those stat increases are now elective and separate from experience, it seems like it would be nice to have this mechanic back. IMO it's a way in which Dragon Quest games do a better job of encouraging more risky and tactically interesting play, because if you try your hardest and lose, you don't walk away empty-handed; all the enemies you fought on the way to your death still make you stronger, so you might as well try. It's a balancing mechanic that lets the player "grind" by trying their hardest, rather than grind by walking in a circle. IMO it's one of the chief things DQ does better than FF. Traditionally FF avoids the need to grapple with this by making the games too easy. The lack of a viable run option was at times really unpleasant; Warp Whistles are too expensive until very late in the game. I think there's a place for long boss battles, and actually appreciated the super-climactic Atma Weapon fight on that basis, but it's weird that so many joke fights (Dadaluma & the Ultroses) take so long. I think all of those fights detract more than they add, due to their length. Re: Dadaluma, I know I did myself no favors by taking Celes to Zozo, but if group composition makes that much of a difference I think group composition should be adjustable without having to walk south to Jidoor, north to Figaro, north to Narshe, and back again, with all those inescapable battles along the way, just to switch Celes out. There's something to be said for a hard boss fight and for a long trek, but IMO these two mechanics don't interact well in this spot. It would be nice if you could switch without leaving Zozo. For example, there could be a carrier pigeon at the entrance of Zozo that serves as a pretense for swapping out characters. The way the game is tuned, HP/survivability is by far the most valuable EL upgrade. I know I brought this up in another topic, but IMO the way enemy damage is tuned makes Relm pretty bad as a healer unless she's overleveled, and her offensive options, while fine, don't really make up the difference. I think she compares pretty badly to Setzer and Terra in particular -- they have offensive and defensive options on par or better, and HP for days. In the end, I didn’t find a niche for Relm; she just kept dying in one shot, even in the back row, even with Bahamut equipped. Leaving Kefka's Tower/Phoenix Cave to freshen up is awkward because you have to successively form multiple 4 person parties to take them each to an inn. Ideally returning to the airship would just top everybody off, but failing that a refreshment stand (like on the Blackjack) would be a much appreciated amenity. I don't like the new script (although there are definitely things it does better, and I couldn't help but smile at "They call me Gato"), and that can make the mod harder to recommend to fans of FF6. But I don't want to say more because I'd be covering well-trodden ground and I don't like that script complaints take over so many of the conversations I've seen online about BNW, when it's not anywhere near the most interesting or significant thing about the mod. Finally, not related to the mod, but as a kid I can't believe I never got the joke of Edgar saving Mog with a crane game apparatus!
  5. Relm Arrowny: Age Is Just A Number

    This is a total beginner perspective (first timer, working my way through Kefka's Tower in 1.8.6), but I'm struggling to make use of Relm. There are so many attacks that just overwhelm her low HP, and IMO it means she can't actually function as a primary healer. Given the difficulty of recovering from death-revive-death-revive loops, this is kind of a problem for the other HP-less characters too (Gau, Strago, Shadow), but for a primary healer it's kind of a dealbreaker. When Shadow goes down, it means my offense suffers temporarily. When Relm goes down, and she does, it starts a cascade. I'm having a hard time either satisfactorily mitigating that or finding her other strengths good enough to overcome that. What party, in what circumstances, would be stronger for Relm's inclusion?
  6. Missable WoB rages

    I think I'm at the IMF peninsula north of Lete River, and have been running into Flan, Defender, and Onion Kid. Does this area also have encounters with Griffin and Rhinotaur? I never ran into them in the IMF, and am getting sick of Flan encounters. EDIT: Solved my own problem. The Griffin/Rhinotaur peninsula is a tiny little finger of land to the west of the more conspicuous and mountainous Onion Kid/Flan/Defender peninsula.
  7. Struggling with Dadaluma

    Speaking of the Healing Shiv... Given that I've now unlocked some espers, and given that I have to take Celes to the southern continent, is it worth trying to find a Healing Shiv? I was mugging the appropriate enemies but it's the rare steal so I never managed it. My usual approach to RPGs is to just do my best to grab what I can along the way, and not go out of my way to grind. But I'll grind if I have to. Is the shiv important enough to grind for?
  8. Struggling with Dadaluma

    Oh man, I just beat him after another long attempt. I wish I had realized that Drill set Sap; Bio Blaster was pretty strong but shutting down his regeneration would have made such a difference. My fault for not checking the documentation when I picked up Drill; his other tools seemed essentially the same as in vanilla so I didn't check.
  9. I brought Edgar, Locke, Gau, and Celes to Zozo, and they're level 14, except 12 for Locke. I think bringing Celes was probably a mistake but since running away from enemies doesn't really work in this patch, the long slog back to Narshe is out of the question. I got most of Gau's available rages, aside from two stragglers that outlasted my patience -- Crawler and Conjurer. I've searched the forum for Dadaluma advice and have seen people suggest Conjurer, which is why I mention that I tried to get it and the relevant formations just never spawned. So I've got Edgar in the back row spamming Bio Blaster, Locke in the front row with two Butterflies, Gau using Wild Rat, and Celes mostly slinging items. i have ~80 Dried Meats, 20 Red Bulls, and 30 Phoenix Downs. Dadaluma's Spoon and Elbow Drop abilities are just things I can't do anything about, right? Can't mitigate, block, or prevent them -- just hope Elbow Drop misses or wears off, and accept that Spoon will OHKO me. Dadaluma's adds I can take out with Edgar's Bio Blaster (or Gau's Wild Rat if I'm lucky with an all target Bio), but I can't predict when the adds will spawn. Dadaluma has a really powerful regen than I don't think I can prevent, and he seems to just have bottomless HP. When he jumps, I also often lose a character, but not always. So it just seems like a giant war of attrition, and I feel like I'm making progress but eventually Elbow Drop and Spoon hit the wrong targets at the wrong time and at that point I lose my grip on the fight. Each attempt feels like a really long slog. I'm hoping esper levels will increase my survivability, but obviously that doesn't help me with Dadaluma. Specific questions: Is it possible to predict when Dadaluma's adds will spawn? Can I prevent or remove Dadaluma's regen/haste buffs? How many Phoenix Downs do I need, realistically? Aside from Defending when Dadaluma uses Slim Jim, is there anything I can do to mitigate his offensive abilities?
  10. Perfect -- grabbed it right after Serpent Trench. Thank you, and thank you for making Brave New World!
  11. The topic title is probably self-explanatory, but I'm in Sabin's scenario and looking for the Stray Cat enemy formations that I can later learn their Rage from. I'm about to go down Baren Falls. I'm looking at the unlockme text file's section on the Veldt encounters, and the only Stray Cat formations that appear are "Stray Cat x3" and "Stray Cat x4," and I can't find either. Based on Djibriel's FAQ for vanilla, which lists encounter formations and probabilities, there isn't a "Stray Cat x4" formation and more generally it seems like the formations in vanilla and BNW don't match up reliably. And that's fine, but I don't want to walk in a circle if I'm on the wrong edge of the map, you know? Where can I find at least one of these formations, before I go down the falls?