BTB

He asked if Stam Gau had better DPS with the Stam rages, not overall

Life was to make the spell itself more useful; 1/4 max HP still usually resulted in a character getting knocked right back down as soon as they got up. This makes Life effectively equivalent to Life 2 in the early game and keeps it at least mildly relevant in the late-game - the Phoenix Down change was just to drive this point home.

Some call it dedication, some call it madness.

I hope you wiped that Chee-toh dust off after that picture was taken.

He'll die less mostly by virtue of triggering less counter-attacks from bosses.

Other than that, the main thing is getting triggered less by status effects.

For the stam rages, Stam Gau definitely gets better DPS without even factoring in the fact that he will die less.

Cover and Counter were both tied to stamina as a way of introducing synergy between Vigor and Stamina, specifically for builds that are high in both (i.e. Phantom Celes).

RE: Swords, it's mostly the store-bought ones that are being changed to offer better early-WoR choices. The Rune Edge is the new Crystal and the Falchion is dual-wieldable.

Both of those sound like a bad patch job.

WoR also has Mesosaur, which is the strongest healing rage for stam Gau.

1.8.6 should make running a bit more easier for faster characters... slower ones still want to rely on warp to get out of fights, though.

What typically happens with the FC is that the randoms are overwhelming when you first get there, but a combination of a few levels and figuring out how to shut them down quickly makes them very manageable by the time you get through it.

Running being more difficult is an unintended side effect of nATB. It has been brought up on numerous occasions. Are you running 1.8.5 or 1.8.6?

Gau more than any other character rewards experimentation. He's fragile, but he's also fast and has access to a lot of attacks that can disable enemies. This goes hand in hand with my above point about dealing with randoms.

And you have all of the WoB espers, yes.

Not really, no.

Well, again, it's not *what* you do so much as how you do it. If you really want to boil this down to its core, the only thing we're really going to ban anyone for is being a complete asshole.

http://ngplus.net/index.php?/forums/topic/259-1st-play-no-random-battles-run/

Ask and ye shall receive

So... it sounds like you tried a challenge run meant for vanilla and it didn't really go as expected. That's kind of what I'm getting from this whole post.

6 hours ago, Bishop said:

Ooh, can we lampshade Cyan by having him speak even more outrageously overwrought Early Modern English?

Of course!

So, in ye olden days of ID Chat, we just exercised some common sense and labeled any potentially NSFW links when we posted them; something that automatic embedding would undo. Obviously, there is some onus on the incoming user to prevent this since it's a feature that can be disabled on their end (as it is on mine).

My opinion is biased by the fact that I loathe automatic embedding and honestly can't see why anyone wants it at all.

If anyone needs access to the dialogue source, let me know.

Tying stamina to both cover and counter was another very deliberate balance decision so as to provide meaningful synergy with stamina and vigor since the two often come from the same source (i.e. Phantom, Genji equipment).

Stamina has always been magic damage only.

Vigor being physical defense was a deliberate choice I made as a key balance point for heavy vigor builds (i.e. Cyan) to make them a little better suited to being in the front row.

I'll just lock this thread to keep things tidy.

The Drill is bought in Figaro Castle, not South Figaro

But yes, it's helpful to keep questions all in one place like Funnyman said.