Nesouk

Snes9x it's the first time it ever happen to me.

I can't believe this my emulator just glitch on me and erase all my save files, thankfully I had a save state after I defeated the Wind God Beast so I didn't lost that much progress, but that mean I have to do that shitty fight against Dolan (and the grind I had put for it) AGAIN..... I think I'm curse with this boss, out of all the bosses of this game, this had to happen on the one I dislike the most so far. I genually think I'm gonna put the game on Easy or even Wuss in order to speed up the grinding and then go back on hard to defeat him.

Ok got it, now I'm on the next one Dolan and in all seriously I haven't a single clue as how to beat this boss :

OK beat the Wind God Beast legit this time.... goddamn took me 42 minutes to beat this fucker, he wasn't even that hard (except the last phase cause I forgot to put a Specter's Eye in my inventory to dispell his Thunder Saber), he just won't die cause for some reason 75% of the time my party member weren't attacking him for I don't know what reason (and his high evasion), and I had to took control of Carlie (or Hawk when Carlie was full on MP) most of the time as I was using her as my main healer (this fight is just to long to rely on items) with Heal Light (improve by her weapon) and using the Ring that allow her to steal MP (combine with Magic Shield) to be able to cast as soon as needed so I need to attack with her (and as I mention for some reason the IA wasn't attacking most of the time), so Yeah that was kind of a war of attrition. And I did him as the second God Beast, I don't even want to imagine how much time it would have take if I had fight him later.

Well I got to the Moon God Beast got totally reckt, I figure his mechanic but don't have the tool to counter it, I need money so following your advice I got fight the Wind one and.... :

So I have just defeated my first God Beast Mispolm but I got some question (gonna put on spoiler in case it reveals some intended mechanic for this boss) :

Generally I found every "squishy" character not dying that often, I always make sure said character have at least a +25% HP bonus (either equipment or Esper equip), with Safe and Shell they can survive good enough (and in Shadow's case a high Evasion also help ^^). I've never use Rerise to be honnest yet manage to go through, I see that in the case of having a team with 2 or 3 Glass Canon with nothing to increase survivability casting 2x Life would help a lot but that wasn't my case ^^".

It's a matter of opinion I played Phenix Locke and for me it didn't feel better than other characters, in fact I didn't use it for Final Kefka at all, you were comparing him with Bank Setzer well yeah Bank Setzer has some Magic issue end-game I give you that, but a Shoat Setzer (with some Seraph to keep him alive) is definitly better than Phenix Locke for me Go Fish being almost a free Cure 2 (almost as powerfull as 2 Cure 2 cast with Sage Stone Locke), Blackjack being basically a lesser but free Ultima that set Sap, Trifecta setting Stop and Solitaire setting Blind (2 usefull statut effects for mob fight and again free of charge), and unlike Phenix Locke all this tools for Setzer are available as soon as he joins, while Phenix Locke is endgame only making Setzer overall more usefull throughout the entire game than Locke (Yeah people seems to forgot that there is an entire game to go through not only the end game stuff XD).

Ok after more than a year I decided to finally continue my playthrough of this mod, so previously I was stuck on Sub-Zero Fields couldn't make any progress there, so I follow Serafie's tip and tried the Desert area, effectivly mobs are easier there (except this goddamn Cockabird and their petrification fuck them), so manage to make my way through Bill and Ben were ridiculous Earth Jutsu and Speed Up on everyone does make dodge their regular attack occur more often but they still does crap ton of damage, if they decide to spam Thunder Jutsu or their Special Physical attaque well no way to win, so yeah RNG fight basically and when they split the fight became impossible, but throwable item exist so manage to kill one of them with this and kill the last one normally. Valley of Flame's ennemies are much stronger but thankfully no boss fight in this dungeon, so I got the Fire Spirit, guess the abilities he grant will be usefull for later. Since I'm LV37 I might grind to LV38 and get the second class now. EDIT : Well got the second class change so I will go with Ninja Master, Bishop and Star Lancer. Don't know if that will do I will see. Machine Golem 2 Goddamn these freaking Golem good thing I could reduce their Magic and Accuracy with Hawk, buff speed, strength and Defense with Lise and apply Thunder Saber with Carlie (which after that just spam Holy Ball), these guys do love to spam their spell and almost always crit, thankfully my team tank better now so by keep an eye on the HP I can handle their damage, Hawk being the main Damage Dealer so yeah pretty intense fight. EDIT 2 : Well I guess this is finally becoming a little more manageable, now that Lise and Hawk can AoE I can properly use debuff and buffs a lot easier which help a lot, also Lise's summon Mandruke is quite good for Mob Fight, Carlie with the saber can contribute and Holy Ball and Saint Beam aren't bad for damage. Now I think I'm gonna focus on Critical with Hawk got the Elf Dagger that increase Crit Rate and Crit Damage, he learned Detect which allow to crit more (sadly One Target still good for bosses) and Lise just learn Energy Ball. Lugar So just beat Lugar, he hit like a truck fortunatly Water Jutsu (Attack Down), Shuriken (Hit Rate Down), Protect and Speed Up help survive he is insanely resistant to physical tough (even with Power Up and Thunder Jutsu) but magic work well so Carlie's spell and Lise's summon does good damage (especially after Mind Up). Gildervine Welp Gildervine down, honnestly that was kind of a relaxing fight after the three previous bosses, doesn't mean that's a walk in the park tough, the first phase is the hardest because of his minions they are way more troublesome than he is, Sleep and Poison makes things harder, the second phase is easier cause we have only one ennemy to look out for, his damage output is not very high (statut ailment are his main offensive here), so a good amount of Puipui Grass and Tinkle Rain really help in this fight. So basically since he is a plant, I theorize he would be weak to Fire, and I think I was right so Flame Saber (from Carlie), Power Up (from Lise), Energy Ball on Hawk, Thunder Jutsu to reduce Defense, Detect to make it more vulnerable to Crit and Hawk does wonderfull damage here (and Lise does good to). To tank him I put Protect Up, Speed Up and Reduce his Magic with Fire Jutsu (I didn't use Water Jutsu maybe I was wrong but since he is a plant I thought Water Jutsu wouldn't work), so for the First phase I buff myself and debuff him, with Hawk I focus on the boss (except when using Justus) while Carlie does the AoE with Holy Ball (I prefer Holy Ball to Saint Beam cause Holy Ball's cast time is way faster and it can be AoE) if she has the MP for it Lise's Madruke can be good here to, once we hit the second phase no more mobs and he put counter Magic so I focus on healing with Carlie and keep attacking physically with Lise and Hawk.

I didn't have trouble with the Cranes the first time, I say first time going blind I had more trouble with Number 128 as because of Celes leaving I didn't have any healer, and barely any items and of course I didn't know his weakness, and it was 1.6 so cover was less good.

What trigger Goner ?

The only time I experienced a wipe, that seemed RNG is when Final Kefka throw me 2 Goners back to back, didn't have the time to heal between the 2 (despite being in Haste), this has happened only once tough so I don't know if I did something wrong that triggers it, and even then the wipe could have been avoid with Reraise but I don't like using Reraise ^^".

Replaying through Brave New World for a second time, and also I test out various build with each characters, I just wanted to share some thoughts. Last time I gave my vote to Stam Cyan, and I still think he is an awesome party member to have due to being insanely hard to kill, able to dish out good damage and keeping his ally alive through Cover and Cure 2 (which despite his crappy magic isn't to bad thanks to the Nirvana Band boosting it's power). But I have to take it back, now I will give this vote to Celes, it just occur to me last time I focus to much on her Magic, while that doesn't make her bad with this playthrough I just realise how much I didn't exploit her potential and miss the point with her, so the point of Celes is just she has the most balance stat in the game, so I decide to just do that giving 10 EL to Siren (10 Mag/Spd), 10 EL to Phantom (Vig/Stam) and 5 EL to Seraph (150HP/75MP). With this you just get the most versatile and flexible character of the game, due to her vast equipment selection you can gear her how you see fit depending of what you want to do, and just like that there isn't a single thing Celes can't do : -Offensive : Having access to Bolt and Ice spell selection makes already her deadly against all ennemies weak to these, but then she has a good selection of statut effect mainly Mute and Sleep for many randoms and Slow for bosses, she got Demi and Quatr for good fractionnal damage, Dispel for ennemies that buff themselves and then ???? comes to play in WoR (which I miss in my first playthrough) and OH Boy does she can dish some serious AoE damage with it, and then again comes Illumina with her consume MP for Crit bonus AND Holy as a Proc (there is only 1 Ennemy (outside of Wallchange bosses) in the game that absorb Holy and a lot of ennemies that are weak to it, and Holy ignore Defense) Illumina with a C/C set up and Oath Veil to boost the Proc rate can end up doing some serious damage. -Support : Her Cure 2 while not the best source of healing is still totally viable, she has Remedy and Life, she can apply Regen, Haste, Safe, Float and Rerise the only major buff missing is Shell, add to that she is resistant enough to Cover her allies (and as mention countering for some serious damage), Runic can protect the party from various spells if use right so you have a character that can protect allies from both Physical and Magical attack AND can heal them. So YEAH nothing to add there, there just isn't a single situation where Celes can't make herself very usefull, considering most character are better specializing in something havig character that can just do anything ad do it very well at that is just awesome. Want to add some other things in this second playthrough for other character : -Stam Relm and Stam Strago : I saw some people doesn't like these but in my case these are their best build by far, Relm and Strago share the same idea around their Stam Build, their base Magic Stat is already high enough to the point they actually don't need more EL in Magic, and their equipment already give them plenty of magic to perform well. As such their weakness is that they are fragile and don't have any HP's EL option, which is why Stamina is so good on them, it make them way less fragile as well providing them some usefull strong Regen ticks and a good Statut resistant. And as I mention they can still perform their magic very well with no EL investment. -Terra : So I test her famous Stam Build and... well while I can't deny it's good, I still think her Magic Build is her best build, with some Unicorn and Carbunkl EL to give her HP and MP (while still getting Stam, because regardless of the build she still needs it for Morph) and the rest in Maduin, thing is her spell selection is just to good to pass and by good distribution of EL and equipment she still get enough Stamina to make Morph viable and take advantage of the Regen and Statut protection Stamina provide, all of that while being able to destroy ennemies like nobody else buisness (which get ridiculous in Kefka Tower once you gain Ragnarok, enjoy the almighty over 8000 defense ignoring AoE Ultima) and awesome healing. -Gogo : I realise I didn't talk about him to much.... WTF was I thinking ? It just come down that Gogo's efficiency has so much variable into it but there is some things about, like I mention Mimicing Strong spell for Free Instant Cast, did I mention that this work with X-Magic ? Well it does so I just let you imagine how much destruction Gogo can cause when Teamed up with Locke casting Double Fire 3 or Strago casting Double Dark for instance, and also Stam Sabin and Gogo what's good about this pair ? Chakra, seriously just do Chakra with Sabin then Mimic it with Gogo it's an almost 100MP recovery for the 2 other, with these 2 your team will NEVER run out of MP pair that with Mag Terra destroying ennemies rank and Phenix Locke's healing and I let you imagine the result. There's also the classical Rage with a Rod, and access to anybody skills, just an all around good character.

Well BNW does has a multiple phase boss with Atma Weapon, which transition to a second phase after buffing and basically use all new moves, Yeti going to Pissy Boss Mod and Final Kefka starting to use Goner can be consider multiple stages, problem is writting such fight would be complex I assume and from what I understand BNW AI script is almost fully use.

To be fair tough the boss mentions regarding the HP for the most part, they were able to use all their abilities multiple time already before being done, so I think there's room to keep the challenge while reducing their HP a little + Their behavior will probably be better and so I'm confident their HP have been adjusted to their new AI. Anyway I'm going to copy/paste all the things to watch for and wait for the Beta ^^.

Actually that isn't a bad idea, FFIV 3D does that using Magic stat for offensive spells and Spirit stat for Healing Spell, which I think was an interesting approach, but doing that with current BNW would need a Lot of balancing.

Well in a way Stamina is already a Defensive Stat, as it affect Regen Tick and increase the chance of your characters to avoid Statut Effect.

I don't see your point, if abilities that use Stamina in their Damage calculation are given to some character that make their Stamina Build a unique aspect, that neither Vig or Mag build could get (not to their full potential). So consequentially if you remove said abilities and replace Stam EL option by Mag EL option you just hurt the game depth by a lot. While I agree that giving Stamina attack/heal to all character that can use Stamina Build is not a good idea (especially for characters like Relm and Strago for instance where Stamina is a Defensive option that their fully magic oriented Build can't exploit, making it basically a choice between getting maximum power or sacrificing Power for Defense), your ideas just don't appeal to me. Regarding the No Evasion while Covering : I don't see a reason for that IMO Realism is the very bottom least of my concern in a Turn-Base RPG, there's already a Evasion nerf when Covering and again it reduce the depth of the game, for instance I use Shadow to Cover why ? Because I liked using Shadow this way but this work because of Shadow Evasion without that Shadow suck at Covering, remove that and it cuts me this way of playing Shadow (and probably other characters as well), so again reduce the depth of the gameplay. So Yeah for me I don't see the point here what you propose is basically cut off a good portion of what make Stamina good by it's own, to makes it less useful and less interesting to invest in for many characters.

Hmm since 1.7 the biggest changes if I recall are : -Espers having equipment bonus. -The ways buffs are display. That comes in 1.8 IIRC, basically there's now a window that tells you what buff your character currently have (as with the glowing you couldn't tell if all buffs were set), except for Reraise which is indicate by the ATB turning green instead of white and Haste which is still through Red glowing. -Furthermore Scan now displays what statut the ennemy have. -Stamina now play a role in the Cover and Counter, basically you can no longer Cover from the Back Row, and Stamina give you a chance to Cover allies even if they aren't on Near-Death statuts. Same with Counter Stamina now affect the odd of countering, hence the popular Cover/Counter combo in 1.9. From what is writting this gonna be nerf a little for 1.10 ^^. -Life (not Life 2) Spell (as well as Rerise) have been made more potent, now it revive the character with around 250 to 500HP and Phenix Downs only Revive with 1HP. -Gau can now Leap anywhere (meaning no more time consuming grind in the Veldt), as long as you encounter a formation for which he can Leap (if he can't the Leap ability will simply be disable). And I think these are the biggest changes, the rest is mostly bug fixing and rebalancing, I would suggest grabing the 1.9's Readme and see the Version's Change part, everything is listed here ^^

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.

The problem for Lich IMO is that he also reduce effectivness of equipment so Magic Evasion isn't as high as it can in Vanilla and regardless it's still random if your character dodge it or not, and yes Auto-Life is a thing.... that only 2 characters out of 8 have access to and also since Boss's speed is increase, all death random and Auto-Life reset your ATB at 0 he might very well cast a second All Death, in my opinion this is just a cheap way to make a boss hard and Alternate Fantasy handle Lich better he has all death to in Alternate Fantasy but before using it he uses attack that inflict Zombie giving you actually a chance to survive without it being either complete RNG or force you to play a specific character.