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RME posted:I got FFX International setup and now I'm kind of wondering if I should bother with the expert sphere grid, because I think I'd probably put everyone down their default paths anyways. Though I guess there's slightly less stat gains so it'd work as a sort of slighty-harder difficulty for this replay. Also I guess I could make Kimahri only pretty bad instead of terrible. Here is a thing I posted in The Dark Id's lets play about the sphere grid differences; quote:re: The expert sphere grid. Short version: If you're going to be using default paths there's not much use in using the expert version.
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Aug 11, 2012 03:41
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iTrust posted:
Thanks, this pretty much confirms what I was feeling about it. The lock spheres thing is kind of discouraging, I think it would have been cool if the grid was tuned to be more expert like in that it gave abilities quicker at the cost of lower stat growth overall, so it was more about using your tools to overcome stuff but now it just sounds like you get lower stat growth and slower ability gain so eh. Maybe when if FFX HD comes out with it included I'll try it then (Which reminds me I'd kill for proper widescreen support in the game).
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Aug 11, 2012 03:53
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ApplesandOranges posted:As for Quina... yeah, no argument. The only ones you'd be using at the end of the game are Frog Drop, White Wind, Angel's Snack, Auto-Life, and possibly Earth Shake/Twister/Vanish/Mighty Guard, all of which can be done by Eiko better. Twister is no good because the damage variance is too high, Mighty Guard is okayish (but limited in use unless you really grind Spirit), but you're ignoring the fun poo poo like Magic Hammer and Matra Magic. Thanks to Auto-Life, Limit Glove is very gameable as well (not to mention that Phoenix Downs generally have like a 1/8 chance to revive you with 1 HP anyway at lower HP). Frog Drop you probably won't be using until very late game since the formula involves Quina's level, but I'll tell you for certain that it kicks the rear end of anything Eiko can do. Honestly you use Quina for the huge damage potential thanks to access to mid-lategame weapons really early in the game, and guaranteed 9999 attacks later on. Oh and grinding Grand Dragons to 99. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Aug 11, 2012 |
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Aug 11, 2012 03:58
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The White Dragon posted:Twister is no good because the damage variance is too high, Mighty Guard is okayish (but limited in use unless you really grind Spirit), but you're ignoring the fun poo poo like Magic Hammer and Matra Magic. Thanks to Auto-Life, Limit Glove is very gameable as well (not to mention that Phoenix Downs generally have like a 1/8 chance to revive you with 1 HP anyway at lower HP). I guess I'm just not a fan of Quina because h/she feels like it just takes a lot of effort. If you steal some high-level-ish forks early on, Quina can be good DPS early on, but if you don't, s/he becomes near worthless on offense (to the point where I end up skipping getting Quina on Disc 1, just to avoid the EXP loss) unless you remember that an enemy is a multiple of 4 or until you get 1000 Needles/Earth Shake. Limit Glove is fun but so many things can go wrong with that strategy - I'd rather use Charge! Late-game, not that Quina doesn't stack up, but you practically need Frog Drop to compete with other members. And even getting the number to fight Quale is an exercise in patience. You don't physically attack because the forks become too random, so your only worthwhile option in the meantime is Twister, which is random, and Earth Shake, which is fine... except you have Fenrir. Eiko might not have guaranteed 9999s, but she does almost everything else. She's a lot easier to power up, since Fenrir just needs gems, Madeen grows with her level, and Holy just is strong naturally and is of a great element (the only monsters to even resist/absorb it late game are the Friendly Monsters, I think, and you shouldn't be fighting them). If she gets into Trance? Hey, Holyx2 beats Frog Drop. She can also use Mighty Guard for a fraction of the MP by using Carbuncle with Boost; she can even use Vanish on the entire party if you equip her with a Moonstone. (Just like how Regen is useless when you have Reis' Wind) Even her equipment options are better. The only other thing Quina has on her is Auto-Life and Angel's Snack, which requires 4 Remedies. Quina is a potentially fantastic party member, and I've used him/her a couple of times, but the effort needed to get there turns me off him/her on casual runs.
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Aug 11, 2012 04:24
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I don't use Quina cause even though I can deal with 9's whimsical designs and blue-mage bullshit Quina literally looks like an out-of-place muppet weird a weird face and the Qu are painful to look at and have a dumb gimmick. 
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Aug 11, 2012 20:57
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Quina's pretty much the best character in IX.
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Aug 11, 2012 21:05
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Blue Mage is the best Final Fantasy class.
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Aug 11, 2012 21:18
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The only FF game I felt had Blue Magic as an actually useful class for the amount of hassle you need to get the spells was FFV. Seriously, after my FJF run this year, I have a new found appreciation for Blue Magic in V. It basically can do everything that White/Black can do (other than the ultimate spells) and for less MP or in the case of Mighty Guard/White Wind, better than the alternatives.
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Aug 11, 2012 21:38
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What really turned me to Quina in IX is the point before reaching Terra, and the Earth Guardian scoffs at a monkey and a weird clown chef trying to defeat him. And then you can eat the fucker. Call it a stupid reason, but for the child me that was the best. The Eat mechanic I found annoying, but worth it for the smug factor. Frog Drop is just icing on the cake.
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Aug 11, 2012 22:32
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Frozen_flame posted:What really turned me to Quina in IX is the point before reaching Terra, and the Earth Guardian scoffs at a monkey and a weird clown chef trying to defeat him. And then you can eat the fucker. Call it a stupid reason, but for the child me that was the best. The Eat mechanic I found annoying, but worth it for the smug factor. For me, it was when Quina licked the source of every life/memory on the planet and didn't give a drat.
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Aug 11, 2012 23:32
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Frozen_flame posted:What really turned me to Quina in IX is the point before reaching Terra, and the Earth Guardian scoffs at a monkey and a weird clown chef trying to defeat him. And then you can eat the fucker. Call it a stupid reason, but for the child me that was the best. The Eat mechanic I found annoying, but worth it for the smug factor. Also consider that later he comes back in Disc 4. Which implies you're fighting whatever Quina digested and came to life.
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Aug 11, 2012 23:55
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ShadeofDante posted:The only FF game I felt had Blue Magic as an actually useful class for the amount of hassle you need to get the spells was FFV. Seriously, after my FJF run this year, I have a new found appreciation for Blue Magic in V. It basically can do everything that White/Black can do (other than the ultimate spells) and for less MP or in the case of Mighty Guard/White Wind, better than the alternatives. I think the Enemy Skill materia from VII would like to have a word with you. Unless you don't consider that a "class," but still. I was always upset that FF Tactics didn't have a blue mage class- I mean, they even had the "learning by being hit" mechanic implemented, and it hardly even got used. Then they came out with the WotL version and STILL didn't do it. Bah.
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Aug 12, 2012 00:35
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ShadeofDante posted:The only FF game I felt had Blue Magic as an actually useful class for the amount of hassle you need to get the spells was FFV. Seriously, after my FJF run this year, I have a new found appreciation for Blue Magic in V. It basically can do everything that White/Black can do (other than the ultimate spells) and for less MP or in the case of Mighty Guard/White Wind, better than the alternatives. Mighty Guard is a truly ridiculous spell (and is pretty awesome in every game with some iteration of it), but I don't really see what's so hot about White Wind; it's useful but I don't feel like it's any better than Cure 3. I feel Blue has really anemic offense endgame; stats are too low to put those swords to good use, Aero 3's damage isn't quite up to par especially MT, and stuff like Lv4 Flare requires too much doofy manipulation. Then again I had the opposite experience with the hardmode fiesta this year. I got Blue first, and I went in knowing how awesome it was, but I'd always sort of been under the impression that White Mage was only useful for healing. Holy ended up being the best attack for 3/4 of my characters (not only is the damage massive, but it's really efficient) and there's a lot of utility I'd never messed with before, like how the Confusion spell works to grab Mighty Guard in FJF. If I had to pick one skill that could enable any party, no matter how stupid, it'd probably be White Magic. Schwartzcough posted:I was always upset that FF Tactics didn't have a blue mage class- I mean, they even had the "learning by being hit" mechanic implemented, and it hardly even got used. Then they came out with the WotL version and STILL didn't do it. Bah. Replacing Geomancer with this would be a pretty good FFT improvement. Baku fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 00:42
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Replacing Geomancer with this would be a pretty good FFT improvement. I'd say that would depend on the skills you could get (since I doubt it'd just be all of them, considering how many are useless/redundant) but even if it was just Choco Cure/Ball/Esuna/Meteor it'd be more useful than Geomancy was.
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Aug 12, 2012 01:22
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ApplesandOranges posted:Also consider that later he comes back in Disc 4. Which implies you're fighting whatever Quina digested and came to life. When you've been shat out by Quina, you don't hold much fear anymore.
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Aug 12, 2012 02:25
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'd say that would depend on the skills you could get (since I doubt it'd just be all of them, considering how many are useless/redundant) but even if it was just Choco Cure/Ball/Esuna/Meteor it'd be more useful than Geomancy was. I'd say the reason they kept it out is because you can just put monsters in your party. There's proper coding for skill learning, and it even checks if you're trying to bullshit it targeting your own party members, but they clearly ignored it and there's probably some dev's reasoning behind why Blue Mage was kept out.
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Aug 12, 2012 10:08
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So hey, stupid question time. What am I missing out on by not doing blitzball?
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Aug 12, 2012 14:46
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Pasteurized Milk posted:So hey, stupid question time. What am I missing out on by not doing blitzball? The full power of Wakka's ultimate weapon and hours of wasted time.
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Aug 12, 2012 14:53
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Pasteurized Milk posted:So hey, stupid question time. What am I missing out on by not doing blitzball? Early access to Teleport Spheres, Dark Matter, and you end up saving a bit of gil and lots of time. Also, Attack Reels.
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Aug 12, 2012 15:11
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The White Dragon posted:I'd say the reason they kept it out is because you can just put monsters in your party. There's proper coding for skill learning, and it even checks if you're trying to bullshit it targeting your own party members, but they clearly ignored it and there's probably some dev's reasoning behind why Blue Mage was kept out. You can learn ultima by hitting Ramza with it via your other party member in WotL, but you have to have the guy learn it in Riovanes to get it early. It sure was fun getting hit with Ultima, hoping to survive, then trying to kill one of the enemies before Rafa got one-shot. 
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Aug 12, 2012 15:44
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Dr Pepper posted:Blue Mage is the best Final Fantasy class.
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Aug 12, 2012 16:00
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ApplesandOranges posted:I guess I'm just not a fan of Quina because h/she feels like it just takes a lot of effort. If you steal some high-level-ish forks early on, Quina can be good DPS early on, but if you don't, s/he becomes near worthless on offense (to the point where I end up skipping getting Quina on Disc 1, just to avoid the EXP loss) unless you remember that an enemy is a multiple of 4 or until you get 1000 Needles/Earth Shake. Limit Glove is fun but so many things can go wrong with that strategy - I'd rather use Charge!
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Aug 12, 2012 16:47
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:Good to know! Planning to play through FF9 when they get it working on the Vita and I wanted to use a party that isn't just Steiner-Vivi-Dagger. How was Amarant? I know Freya could be powerful if you do it right. I like to use Eiko over Dagger in most of my FFIX runs. My last run was a Vivi, Freya, Eiko run and it went pretty well. Freya's main issue is that her damage output isn't that great by the end of the game. She's really good midgame though
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Aug 12, 2012 17:29
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Harlock posted:I want a whole game focused around Blue Magic as the battle mechanic. Make it so you can only remember so many enemy attacks or something. Rothgil posted:Freya's main issue is that her damage output isn't that great by the end of the game. She's really good midgame though THE AWESOME GHOST posted:Good to know! Planning to play through FF9 when they get it working on the Vita and I wanted to use a party that isn't just Steiner-Vivi-Dagger. How was Amarant? I know Freya could be powerful if you do it right. Amarant is actually pretty good and his No Mercy can do quite a lot of damage with no effort aside from what it takes to master it so you can use it with a better weapon than the one that teaches it. He'll do around 9000 with a good weapon equipped even if his level is kind of low, and his Trance makes his Flair skills target all instead of just one.
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Aug 12, 2012 17:58
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Harlock posted:I want a whole game focused around Blue Magic as the battle mechanic. Make it so you can only remember so many enemy attacks or something. Final Fantasy XI has Blue Mages that work something like that. Each skill is worth some amount of "points", and you can only equip so many points up to a cap that rises with your level(?). Mind you, this information may be a few years out of date, and as I never played BLU, could be wrong entirely. But it seems familiar.
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Aug 12, 2012 18:00
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THE AWESOME GHOST posted:Good to know! Planning to play through FF9 when they get it working on the Vita and I wanted to use a party that isn't just Steiner-Vivi-Dagger. How was Amarant? I know Freya could be powerful if you do it right. Amarant is kind of... average, personally. His physical attacks do decent damage, but then again, Steiner hits harder and his Sword Art skills outclass any damage output Amarant can do by the end of the game. He can Throw, but you'll need a solid supply of weapons to use it regularly. No Mercy is good, cheap damage, but that doesn't really fly by the end of the game. It can hit all enemies if you go into Trance, but Climhazzard beats that. Amarant's best strengths are Chakra, Revive and his elemental claws. Chakra and Revive are both great supportive spells, and become that much better when he goes into trance. Amarant is arguably your best source of Wind damage with some of his claws, as Twister is unreliable, Fenrir requires an accessory and Rackets require you to attack physically with Dagger/Eiko. (Dagger can use a physical build fairly well actually due to her great selection of equipment, but most people likely won't go there) Compared to the other physical attackers, Amarant is about on par with Zidane but falls behind if you build up Thievery. He hits less than Steiner but has better support and doesn't require an Ether every 3-4 moves. He hits harder or about on par with Freya until she gets Dragon Crest. Amarant generally shines mid-game, when you're possibly running out of MP from time to time and Steiner, Freya and Zidane don't have their killer moves yet. He's competent enough late-game, as is any other character, but Chakra and Revive are really the main reasons to use him above other characters. His final niche is being one of two characters with Return Magic, which is nice against Ozma if you choose to do that, but Vivi fills that slot much better.
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Aug 12, 2012 18:51
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Evil Fluffy posted:You can learn ultima by hitting Ramza with it via your other party member in WotL, but you have to have the guy learn it in Riovanes to get it early. It sure was fun getting hit with Ultima, hoping to survive, then trying to kill one of the enemies before Rafa got one-shot. It's even more fun having the game taunt you with it. Playing the PSX version, on my last playthrough I changed Ramza to a different class (ninja maybe?) to try to get my way through that fight as smoothly as possible. What's the first thing one of the ninjas do? Target him with Ultima.  As some sort of strange gently caress you to Elmdor, they finished the fight by putting him to critical with that Ultima.
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Aug 12, 2012 18:58
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Amarant is the Red Mage of FFIX. He can do all sorts of things well, but none as well as the focused characters.
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Aug 12, 2012 19:33
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Captain Vittles posted:Amarant is the Red Mage of FFIX. He can do all sorts of things well, but none as well as the focused characters. But I thought he was a Monk 
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Aug 12, 2012 19:35
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The White Dragon posted:But I thought he was a Monk Monk with a Red Mage attitude? 
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Aug 12, 2012 19:53
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Amarant and Freya are both really good imo. I never use Vivi after the start of the game really, I don't get the appeal so much. I've never found the damage of his black magic to be much better than the damage Amarant or Freya can do, and they're more robust and have more varied abilities to boot.
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Aug 12, 2012 20:02
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Paperhouse posted:Amarant and Freya are both really good imo. I never use Vivi after the start of the game really, I don't get the appeal so much. I've never found the damage of his black magic to be much better than the damage Amarant or Freya can do, and they're more robust and have more varied abilities to boot. Vivi's great early game while his magic hits almost anything for a weakness. He tapers off around Disc 2 when there are less enemies that does so and are gaining more HP, and Bio isn't quite strong enough to make up for it. Once he gets the Octagon Rod and the -ga spells, he becomes pretty useful again. The -ga spells are useful till Terra at least, and the Octagon Rod is an excellent weapon due to its natural Water/Wind absorption. Only the Ribbon has the same kind of elemental protection, and as it is it makes certain fights (Red Dragons, Silver Dragon, Kraken) a cakewalk. It also allows Vivi to heal himself using Water. Vivi can also equip items like the Coral Ring and heal himself using a powerful -ga spell, which is nice. Vivi's also incredibly self-sufficient with Drain and Osmose. If SCCs weren't so easy due to the EXP split, he'd be one of the better ones anyway due to being able to only fear attacks that knock him out in a single blow. If the game was harder, he would be better. Unfortunately, he kind of starts to lag behind after that. Flare is good, but non-elemental isn't such a big deal when every enemy except humanoids have a weakness. Doomsday is very nice on Disc 4 for healing+damage and for taking out Yans, but it also forces you to wear certain equipment. Dbl Black is very nice with Doomsday, but if you're not using it, Dbl White is arguably better. He's still a great pick against some end-game bosses like Nova Dragon and the Element Four where he can abuse his -ga spells and the Octagon Rod... but beyond that he kinda slips to middle of the pack, especially with Dragon Crest and Bahamut around.
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Aug 12, 2012 20:28
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How exactly does the Freelancer class function in FF5? I'm not sure I understand it totally. Is it right that it uses all the non-command abilities from jobs the character has mastered? So, for example, if I have Faris master Ninja, her Freelancer class will automatically have Dual Wield equipped, and assigning it to a slot is a waste of time? Does that work with all non-! abilities?
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Aug 12, 2012 20:28
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Leovinus posted:How exactly does the Freelancer class function in FF5? I'm not sure I understand it totally. Is it right that it uses all the non-command abilities from jobs the character has mastered? So, for example, if I have Faris master Ninja, her Freelancer class will automatically have Dual Wield equipped, and assigning it to a slot is a waste of time? Does that work with all non-! abilities? Essentially yes. Freelancer just gets better as you master more jobs, with only the penality of not having any natural abilities. Berserk I think is the only non-! ability that has to be manually set for it to have an effect. Also, since Freelancer automatically equips all non-! abilities, this also means it will always have the best positive stat gains from other jobs if possible. So if you mastered Thief and Summoner, your Freelancer would automatically have its Agility and Magic bonuses.
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Aug 12, 2012 20:31
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Leovinus posted:How exactly does the Freelancer class function in FF5? I'm not sure I understand it totally. Is it right that it uses all the non-command abilities from jobs the character has mastered? So, for example, if I have Faris master Ninja, her Freelancer class will automatically have Dual Wield equipped, and assigning it to a slot is a waste of time? Does that work with all non-! abilities? Freelancer can wear any equipment and can equip two abilities. They automatically benefit from all passive abilities from all the jobs that class has mastered, except the ones that have a downside like Berserk, and as a result, they also have the stat boosts from all mastered jobs. The tradeoff is that they gain no AP and their stats are rather poor until you've mastered some jobs. To answer your question, a Freelancer who has mastered Ninja will be able to dual-wield without equipping Dual-Wield, and the same holds true for almost all passive abilities.
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Aug 12, 2012 20:51
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ApplesandOranges posted:Unfortunately, he kind of starts to lag behind after that. Flare is good, but non-elemental isn't such a big deal when every enemy except humanoids have a weakness. Doomsday is very nice on Disc 4 for healing+damage and for taking out Yans, but it also forces you to wear certain equipment. Dbl Black is very nice with Doomsday, but if you're not using it, Dbl White is arguably better. Of course, that's kind of a Lv60+ setup, but still. Also both Eiko and Garnet have a passive that ignores Reflect so you can run this and continue to heal your party. It even has the added benefit of caster-type enemies cooking themselves; the only thing you have to worry about at that point is monsters with AI to bounce magic off of their own Reflects.
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Aug 12, 2012 21:11
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Haha, five minutes after I asked that question I found my way back to the newbie house at Tule where the lady explained the whole thing at length. Edit: Incidentally, are there any SA references in FFV Advance? I know FFIV had one or two, and I've seen a couple of pop-culture references in FFV so far, like one of Faris' pirates singing the Lazytown pirate song, and Ghido talking about pizza. Leovinus fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 22:06
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fount of knowledge posted:Final Fantasy XI has Blue Mages that work something like that. Each skill is worth some amount of "points", and you can only equip so many points up to a cap that rises with your level(?). You've pretty much got it. FFXI actually has my favourite implementation of Blue Mage in the series because of the ingenious way they managed to balance the class compared to, say, the FFV Blue Mage who basically can break the game over their knee with the right spells. In FFXI, you can learn the billion or so BLU spells and hold onto them all at once, but can only set a limited number (and each time you change them up you're locked out of casting for about a minute). More direct, useful spells like big damage moves or AoE cures cost more to set then smaller ones that might only buff you for a short while or put an enemy to sleep or something. It's more than just the spells, though, as each "set" spell gives a unique stat boost. Setting certain combos of spells also provides different passive abilities from the other FFXI jobs; so if you want your Blue Mage to have the Double Attack of a Warrior or the Magic Attack Boost of a Black Mage, you can do that. The end result is you could set up a combination of spells to be a good physical attacker with supporting stat boosts and passives, and yet with another combination you could trade some of the offensive power to be a backup healer, or a distance nuker, or an actual tank, with wildly different equipment sets to go with each. It's not perfect, as they'll always be most effective just doing straight damage then anything else, but they can pick up any shortcomings in the small groups that most of FFXI's recent content has encouraged. Of course FFXI doesn't let anyone have anything nice without twisting the knife a little, and as far as BLU is concerned that basically shows up in spending hours trying to get your spells, which don't have a 100% learn rate. This can really suck when you've carved through a dozen mobs to only encounter the learnable move once and not get it when you finally see it.
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Aug 12, 2012 23:01
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drat you guys know your FF9. I remember the game switches your party a bunch of times anyway but I'm definitely gonna try to settle on Eiko and Freya at least.
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Aug 13, 2012 00:50
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Despite his appearance, Amarant does tend to shine most as a support character rather than a fighter. Often I'll bring him along with my mages and just use him as a MP-battery with Chakra. With my other characters spamming their most powerful attacks every turn and Amarant constantly topping them off, nothing survives long. He can also give enemies elemental weaknesses if I recall, allowing Vivi to murder things even harder. I guess he wouldn't be as appealing for people who aren't OCD about using Ethers, but I am. And yeah, as for powering up Dragon Crest I find the best area is near the ocean in the valley below Lindblum. I think pretty much the only encounter is the floating manta-ray type dragonites, which often come in groups of two and are easy to kill. If you wander too far away, you've still got a good chance of running into the scorpion dragon dudes. You can pretty easily get it powered up in about a half hour.
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Aug 13, 2012 01:59
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