Reiker

Previously mentioned: Water Rondo Imperial Encampment: Power Glove (Telstar in a box) Magitek Factory: Reflect Ring, Zephyr Cape Mobliz sidequest: Life Bell Imperial Banquet: Life Bell, Black Belt, Reflect Ring Sealed Gate: Blood Sword, Demonsbane, Kazekiri Floating Continent: Hero Ring (Gigantos in a box), Shadow Tzen (collapsing house): Zephyr Cape Cyan's Nightmare: Orochi, Thunderguard, Iceguard I think that's everything in the game that you can actually miss, correct me if I'm wrong.

Replacing a weapon with a Crystal Shield significantly reduces offensive output. Increasing random Holy procs by +25% is not nearly as significant as removing an entire weapon. You see, I'm actually trying to apply some logic here instead of just saying random bs. I know that you're smarter than this Nowea. I don't know why you've decided to come in here and talk to me like I'm a child. Anyways, I am actually interested in continuing this discussion intelligently, and I've been thinking a bit more about a physical damage setup for Celes. I considered that Black Belt is potentially just better than the other relic options we were talking about, the problem is the anti-synergy when you're grouped with a cover character. So then I considered some sort of hybrid offensive tank build: 25 Alexandr / 25 Phantom Illumina Wing Edge Oath Veil Minerva Black Belt Knight Cape Alexandr The question is whether the build is spread too thin. You're not exactly super tanky for a tank role, so you'd want to be in a group that has access to stuff like Golem, Safe, Shell, Rerise, Regen etc. You also only get to about a 34% Cover chance so the rest of the party would want to be somewhat self sufficient. But if you can pull it off you should be able to put out some really strong damage while also providing some tank support. Would require some experimentation and I'm not sure what the EL split would look like but I'm leaning towards full Alexandr since the speed benefits all sources of damage equally (as well as emergency healing/support turns), but Celes could probably also use the extra Vigor to help reduce incoming damage a bit. All that said, I still think this is theoretically more effective than just going full Vigor, but it's also going to be a bit more group dependent. This whole concept probably just works better on Terra too since she has a whole level of Morph/stamina synergy on top of what Celes can do.

I think the intention with Umaro is to retain a semblance of choice for the player despite a lack of ELs by allowing us to choose between either a Storm Belt / Blizzard Orb setup for damage, or a Knight Cape / Black Belt setup for tanking. The problem is that I don't think either build holds up to what the other characters in the game can do at that point in the game. If you go with the Storm Belt / Blizzard Orb setup, the damage is alright. Blizzard is actually pretty great aoe vs. random encounters, but it's not guaranteed. Mog Toss will deal 9999 damage, but that requires you to group with Mog who is another character that I'm pretty lukewarm on. Even though the damage is unpredictable and sometimes can be disappointing, Umaro is still super tanky unlike the other characters that specialize in damage. Unfortunately this means that you can often find yourself in a situation where Umaro is the lone survivor on the field, but is then doomed since he can't do anything to revive the rest of the party. If you go with the Knight Cape / Black Belt setup then Umaro can actually make use of those defensive stats with an unbelievable 50% chance to cover and a 100% chance to counter attack. Unfortunately those counter attacks are going to be doing 25% less damage now, and he loses the damage output of his Blizzard and Toss abilities. This setup is also a bit faster and probably just all around a bit more useful than the above setup, but it still seems lacking compared to all of the other tanking options in the game who are controllable and tend to do much better damage with things like GP Toss or Dragon. These characters also tend to have a lot of support options as well, or at the very least can use items. To solve this, I think that Storm Belt should give Counter and Blizzard Orb should give Cover. This takes away that one pseudo-choice that a player had to make regarding Umaro, however it would combine his strengths together into something that might feel really fun to use through the end of the game. I will recognize that the better at the game you are the worse that Umaro is, and for newer players he does tend to be quite good already. It's a difficult balance to get right I imagine. If we determine Umaro to be too strong after those changes (which I doubt), then I think it could be easily solved by reducing his base stats a bit. I already think that the Bodyguard Umaro build is super interesting, it just needs some more offensive firepower. TL;DR: Add Counter to Storm Belt and Cover to Blizzard Orb and let's see how Umaro performs.

I'm pretty sure I've explained this a few times already in this thread. Because there aren't many better options and every Celes build should utilize her support toolkit heavily. The whole point of reducing MP costs is to reduce the number of turns you have to spend restoring MP instead of dealing damage. So if you're able to get in an extra 1-2 Fight commands in a Boss fight w/ the Soul Box vs. the Crystal Orb, then the Soul Box was actually the more offensive option. I know what the other relics do. I'm just saying that they don't do as much as the Soul Box, for the reasons I've outlined a few times already. I would rarely Bserk Celes, so yeah the Cover is a pretty big deal. It's a terrible option for Celes. And like I mentioned before, you generally don't even have enough Hero Rings for the characters that actually want Hero Rings in the first place. Yes, there's all kinds of builds that specialize in restoring MP. But no one in their right mind is going to stick Mag-Edgar or Stam-Sabin in a group with Vigor Celes just to cover her MP costs. That's ridiculous. You put those characters with mages who are spamming Ultima and Meteor, not Vigor Celes. That build should be self sufficient, and it's exactly why Soul Box is decent with it. And I'm not even gonna touch the whole "anything is viable you don't need Illumina or Soul Box" because yeah obviously you could beat the game with nothing but starting gear if you wanted to, this is a pretty irrelevant point to make.

Crystal Orb could come down to preference I guess, if you want slightly boosted Holy procs over 50% cheaper magic. I would much rather have the 50% cheaper magic, and I think most people would too. You also immediately lose that extra damage as soon as you run out of MP and have to stop dealing damage to recover it. I think Crystal Orb is a bad choice. Hero Ring gives Cover to a character who doesn't want to be taking hits. Anti-synergy, bad relic choice, not sure why you would ever consider it. Also there's already way too many characters in the game that would like to equip a Hero Ring, there's like 0 chance you're ever giving it to a Vigor Celes. Another Stat Stick only gives you 7 Vigor, 7 Stamina, and 7 Speed instead of the 50% reduced MP costs from Soul Box. This is the best option out of the 3 that you listed, but I'd still rather take the reduced MP costs. Maybe 2x Stat Sticks for random battles and Soul Box for bosses if you really wanted to min/max. I thought maybe I was forgetting something but seems like Soul Box / Stat Stick is the way to go with this build. Now I'm pretty sure you're just disagreeing with me for the sake of disagreeing. None of these items are difficult to obtain. Yes, I think it's important to get the Gem Box because you can't complete the game without it. Don't be ridiculous. Plus, the topic creator was specifically asking about these items. So they're kind of the topic of discussion atm. What is a "more defensive" gearing option than what I just listed above? Why are you prioritizing defense on an offensive character to begin with? I guess you're just typing a bunch of nonsense now. Yes, I recommend that you use Rerise. It's maybe the best spell in the game and it's essentially the main reason you put Celes in your party. If you're having trouble casting it, then I recommend you try equipping a Soul Box.

How is this a hard disagree? I suggested Soul Box with Cleric Celes which seems to track with your suggestion, as well as the Spellsword builds. So the only thing you're disagreeing with me on is if the Spellsword builds should use the Gem/Soul Box. That would be a fair criticism if you would have offered up what those builds should be running instead. But you didn't so let's try to guess. An end game Celes would look something like this: Illumina Wing Edge Oath Veil Minerva Soul Box Stat Stick Alexandr So you replace Soul Box with what, a White Cape or a status item? I just don't see how anything makes a bigger impact than the Soul Box. Even if you don't consider Illumina sucking up your MP, you still OOM after only 7 Rerises. Soul Box lets you double that and actually be able to support your party without falling behind a turn to ether. Or do you just ignore Celes' support capabilities entirely if you're running Vigor on her? Anyways, I don't think there will be an extreme difference regardless of what you put into that slot. The rest of the gear fleshes out the build so nicely that I think that relic slot is mostly inconsequential. Well yeah, the swords give +5 to all stats. I believe that they're the best stat stick weapons in the game, so it would be logical that they are the best stat stick options for Terra or Celes. But like I mentioned above, -2 Magic +5 Speed +5 Stamina is really marginal all things considered. The Soul Sabre is still a great caster stat stick and not worth giving up Illumina on Celes for, unless you're dead set on something like Dark Knight Stamina Celes with Atma Weapon.

This is a pretty simple decision tree. Terra and Celes can both potentially utilize a "Spellsword" build that involves pumping Vigor with a bit of Magic and using physical attacks combined with weapon procs for big (and flashy) damage. Since you can only choose one set of Apocalypse / Illumina and Gem Box / Soul Box, you really have to commit to choosing either Terra or Celes to perform this role. Players generally do this with Celes because her stats and EL bonuses are better suited for it. Also I think Terra's Mage build is a bit more attractive than Celes' Cleric build. The game has many healers but only one Ultima. However some players just like the idea of a Spellsword Terra thematically. So, do you want to do a Spellsword build on Terra? Choose Apocalypse and Gem Box and put them both on her. Do you want to do a Spellsword build on Celes? Choose Illumina and Soul Box and put them both on her. This is more standard. Are you not interested in either build? Then these items become a lot less important. The weapons become stat sticks and if you're not doing a Vigor build on either character then you're probably doing a Stamina build on one of these characters, so they're going to rely on the Atma Weapon. In that case, use the sword as a stat stick on the other character. Generally this means you're running a Stam Celes and a Mage Terra. If you're running this setup then your Mage Terra gets a nice little stat boost from being able to hold the Apocalypse instead of Soul Sabre. In this situation Soul Box could still be useful on Celes to give her a bit of a Magic boost and a nice MP reduction. The Gem Box / Soul Box relics have synergy with the Spellsword builds since they boost either Vigor (Terra) or Magic (Celes) while reducing the cost of your supportive spells by half. This is important since your physical attacks will be using a bit of your MP each round to guarantee critical hits. This might surprise people but I tend to think that the Gem Box is bad for Mage Terra because the 7 Vigor is mostly useless and I would always support that build with something like Chakra (Sabin/Gau) or Mana Battery (Edgar) or even a speedy Shadow spamming ethers. So, possible build configurations: Mage Terra (Soul Sabre) Spellsword Celes (Illumina / Soul Box) Esper Tank Terra (Atma Weapon) Spellsword Celes (Illumina / Soul Box) Spellsword Terra (Apocalypse / Gem Box) Dark Knight Celes (Atma Weapon) Spellsword Terra (Apocalypse / Gem Box) Cleric Celes (Soul Sabre) Mage Terra (Apocalypse) Dark Knight Celes (Atma Weapon) Mage Terra (Apocalypse* / Soul Sabre) Cleric Celes (Illumina* / Soul Sabre / Soul Box) *Whoever you would rather have -2 Magic +5 Speed and +5 Stamina on. Probably Terra. Esper Tank Terra (Atma Weapon) Cleric Celes (Illumina / Soul Box) If you're still confused, overall the Illumina and the Soul Box are the best items so just pick those, put them both on Celes, and select Fight.

I've been pretty consistent in my request for some sort of end-game challenge dungeon. It's the #1 thing that would make my favorite mod even better. In RPGs, you're mostly finished with the character progression systems around the time you get to the end game / side quest area. In Final Fantasy VI, this would be around the time you get the Falcon. But in Brave New World character builds are really only starting to take off at this point. Many builds rely on espers and gear that you don't even receive until midway through the final dungeon. This means that the player never really gets to enjoy their fully built out characters for very long. This is a disappointment since it's a bit of an anticlimactic end to the character progression system when, for example, you've been building a Mage Terra for 60 hours and you finally get Ultima with only a handful of bosses left in the game to use it on. It doesn't even have to be anything super formal. Maybe it could use some sort of system like T-Edition where you port your save file over to another ROM file that just starts at the dungeon. Would love to see something like a better done Dragon's Den with some really interesting scripted battles. Make it much more challenging than the rest of the content in BNW. Once we have a place like this to flex our muscles it'll make it easier to go back and take a look at ways to flesh out and improve the existing builds. For example, Gau's design of "Stamina ELs in WoB and then reset and Speed ELs in WoR" needs a rework.

I always say that pure HP and MP ELs are bad because I've never taken them yet I've never felt like I've ever needed more HP or MP on any of my characters. But since I've never played HP builds maybe I'm just making things intentionally harder on myself, who knows. I tend to just pump whatever stat has the most synergy with that character, so I'll stack as much Magic as I can on characters like Relm and Terra or as much Stamina as I can for my Stamina-build characters, etc. Seems effective enough to me since I've never found BNW particularly challenging.

Yeah I'm gonna remain highly skeptical of that claim. I never had problems keeping this group alive before Cover, when much less defensively capable characters like Relm and Strago would be more susceptible to attacks. This composition has Golem, Safe, Shell, and Rerise support. Sabin taking some occasional hits away from Relm and then regenerating the health back can only be an improvement. These characters have some of the weakest defenses in the game. With defensive support abilities that doesn't matter. When you can set up Golem, Shell, Safe on the entire party and Rerise on half of the party within the first two rounds, it doesn't really matter how much damage you take from that point forward in the fight because you're already so ahead. That's a synergy that this composition exploits.

For end-game WoR: I have one primary team in BNW that I feel has the strongest synergy and they carry me through anything difficult in the game. This team is: Terra w/ full Maduin ELs - Spams Ultima for top DPS and still has great utility with Life 2, Cure 3, Slow, etc. Moderately defensive even. Sabin w/ full Stray ELs - Sets Golem and spams Chakra to support the rest of the team. I haven't played through BNW since 1.8 but I figure Sabin makes this team even stronger now with Cover support. A more modern build might add in some Terrato ELs, I have to experiment with 2.0. Also sets Slow, Safe, and Float as needed. Strago w/ full Shiva ELs and Sage Stone - Primary job is to keep the party protected with Shell (Zoneseek or X-Magic) and Safe (Shield). When those are set up he does respectable damage with Black Omen, 2x Dark, etc. Relm w/ full Zoneseek ELs - Rerise, RegenX, Cure 3, Meteor, Flare, Bahamut. Big damage and all the restorative utility you need. Very similar to Terra, but Rerise is absolutely necessary. The other teams are a lot more fluid and I generally just set up each character with whatever I feel is their best build and just create balanced teams with healing, damage, etc. Unfortunately there are only so many synergies you can take advantage of in this game, so the above team feels pretty optimized. The game lacks options to boost physical DPS characters. Like, there's no "physical Chakra" which would be something like a buff that increases each party member's physical damage for their next turn only. Like I mentioned, I haven't played since 1.8, but I suspect that the way Cover works makes physical builds drop off even harder in the end-game, primarily because of the whole evade thing. The exception turns out to be Sabin since he relies more on hitpoints and regen ticks than he does evade, which just further pushes you towards making a magic-focused team like the one above. The WoB is very different and to me just revolves around using the overpowered characters as a crutch. These are like: S Tier: Setzer A Tier: Cyan, Gau B Tier: Edgar, Sabin So some combination of those, depending on where you are in the story.

I'll guess I'll ask it like this. What are all of the differences between the current version and the release version? I think I asked this before and the answer was "virtually nothing." And if that's the case I guess I don't understand the difference between the current beta and the full release if there won't be any noticeable change on the player's end. You could call the fully integrated version 2.1 or something. Shrug. Also if the Woolsey patch is still happening, I'm assuming that won't be until full release or is that available now too?

The explanations are still a bit confusing. What content is Bropedia working on? What will change between the currently available 2.0 beta and the final release version? Is it just the purple stuff? --> The basement level of the Ancient Castle is no longer hidden (I don't really know what this means) • Restored Crusader's full vanilla sprite These things don't seem to be important enough to hold up a release, maybe put em in as 2.1 later?

I can't view the following thread while I'm logged in: I can view it however if I'm not logged in. I don't seem to have this issue with any other thread while logged in. Edit: Whenever I paste the topic URL it just inserts a grey box. Shrug.

Damn, that's a disappointment.