Shax

"Setzer's dice no longer receive a damage boost from the Bserk status" oof that one hit me in my soul, especially after getting excited about the other dice changes. I'm not going to demand a change or anything entitled like that (in fact it might literally be the only change I dislike in this godly beast of a patch), but I'm curious about why this change was made. I'm guessing it was to make behaviours consistent or something?

When I beat Atma weapon the first time it was without reraise and dispel (more ignorance rather then trying to challenge myself). I can't remember the specifics beyond celes & strago doing the heavy lifting with Ice 2, and loading my team up with status resist items. Similarly, I beat all the dragons when I encountered them without power leveling or redoing an area. Except for the storm dragon because it was the first one I ran into. I personally disagree with almost all of your character evaluations in your second post. I think this just goes to show the mods success in character and build variety.

Cover Sabin really loves Death Ward(or the relevant Gaurd/Wall ring pre-Death Ward) and Regen, but can't have all three at the same time. I'm dubious whether auto safe & shell +regen would even be enough tankyness, but what that really means is I need to play this game again. Oh the humanity! Thankfully Regen is a fairly common spell so many teams will be able to buff him should he need it. Further proof that the father daughter dynamic duo is great for him with both regen and reraise spells each. Now if only he could get all of the above and counter because obviously Sabin needs EVERYTHING.

This also means stam Sabin doesn't actually need to single mindedly spam chakra and can still contribute at least every other turn. The question is: what does he contribute on non-chakra turns? Aura Bolt and Mantra, which the community consensus on seems to be "meh". Increasing his impact on non-chakra turns like with a change to air blade or buffed aurabolt/mantra seems the most needed. Bigger picture problem is that any mp usage that doesn't empty a character mid battle can be healed between battles with ether/tincture. That's a play style that maybe not everyone enjoys, but it does exist and kinda negates chakra outside of long single battles. Not that you can't change chakra. By all means it might be right. I haven't played stam Sabin with the new cover yet, but I suspect its a small buff.

Every turn Sabin uses chakra is a turn one of your other characters doesn't need to use a ether/osmosis and can instead use high cost spells with reckless abandon. Relm doesn't need him because osmosis, but never having to spend a turn casting osmosis(which can miss) passively increases her dps and support utility. This applies to everyone obviously. Sabin using chakra indirectly gives other players "additional turns" so to speak. Terra can equip MP+ gear and gem box making stam sabin weak, or she could equip other stuff and give the gembox to someone else while she is on a team with Sabin. Strago can get by just fine by leveraging cheaper spells and osmosis, or he could cut loose and nuke everything. The common theme I'm getting at here is that getting use out of stam Sabin requires you to fundamentally change how you build/equip/play the other characters on his team. Maybe I read wrong but it seems like the power of characters cutting loose with builds/gear optimized for infinite mp pools is being underestimated. Sure you can work around the mp costs in a few ways, but what if you don't have too? This is especially good for casual play and players who don't like using items very much. Expanding his usefulness outside of Chakra spambot seems the way to go imo. This kinda already happened with the stamina cover/counter update. Sure he isn't super tanky on his own, but there is no reason not to buff the hell out of him with infinite mp. Put him on a team with re-raise and you have an undying zombie party guardian.

Fair enough, although basing a build around interceptor seems kinda unreliable IMO. I'm not really against expanding Interceptor for Relm, just questioning the reason like the contrarian I end up being. I honestly don't know why I dislike shadow so much considering I should adore him on paper. Every time I save him I forget to use him and I don't have any memories of being impressed by him. Maybe if I had a more concrete plan/combo in mind things could be different.

People that enjoy Shadow aren't fucked because Relm doesn't need Intercepter. It's an Easter egg bonus that kinda makes up for missing an entire character and simply makes a strong character even stronger. Not to mention the potential "teleporting dog" issues that could arise from any solution that allows both characters to have the dog at the same time. I mean if you really like both characters it certainly lets you have your cake and eat it too, but I personally don't see the need.

Relm can already get Interceptor without using a relic slot. It's what I always do because I've never enjoyed Shadow.

It took me an embarrassing amount of time to think of defending Dadaluma's jump so I wiped a few times on my first play through. Once I did I beat him "first time" and he has been easy since. I attribute this to defend being pretty useless in most ff games and not because I had a brain fart, hmph!

This might be a bit late, but Setzer is absolutely useful as a back line attack user. It's something he can almost always fall back on regardless of his build. Setzer has a special relic that makes the attack option more juicy, and can be an absolute tank if you want. The new cover/counter buffs is something he can actually take great advantage of thanks to a +2 stam esper and the type of equipment he uses. It likely won't replace GP toss or slots, but it's not bad damage. My personal favorite way to play Setzer is angry dice throwing maniac. Dice always hit and ignore defense but the damage is a literal dice roll and only scales with his level. Well, that and berserk which gives a 50% damage boost right at the end. Rolled 500? Now 750. Rolled 6,666? Now 9,999. All ignores defense. Between berserk and his special relic, his damage is much more consistent and can actually hit pretty hard. It also scales at the endgame with fixed dice which was already good damage without berserk. I usually have him married to the hyper wrist for the convenience of auto-berserk however black belt could be really good with his high stamina and proper support. It's not a build that blows things out of the water except on a good dice roll against tanky opponents or bosses. Unless the idea of tanky uncontrollable character doing semi-random damage is off putting to you, I suggest you give it a spin. I really hope I'm not the only one who enjoyed this so much.