Question: Complementary builds for Terra and Celes

Please remind me (maybe with spoiler tags?).

Looking at the printme that came with the ROM, both Terra and Celes get some pretty awesome weapons and accessories. I'm, like, 90% sure that they probably can't BOTH have their cool swords and cool accessories. Is that correct?

In light of that, one probably wouldn't want to build both of them as vigor builds or both as magic builds, right?

Magic build doesn't really care about weapons as far as I'm concern the choice, while Illumina is great for Celes (both for it's Proc, and it's stats bonus) Ragnarok is just an extra for Terra, I honnestly see little to no reason to pick Ragnarok over Illumina, Stam Terra already have Atma Weapon, Magic Terra has her vast spell list and other weapons are possible for Vig Terra.

On the opposite side Gem Box is more valuable than Soul Box unlike Celes Terra has no way to recover on her own, as such giving how usefull she is with magic the Half MP accessory seems IMO more usefull for her than for Celes.

Ultimately these equipment aren't necessary and while the builds can profit from it they aren't mandatory.

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.

Hard disagree on the above. Gem/Soul Box are really only worth it on caster builds that don't stack +MP ELs. They're not worth the relic slot for half MP on MP Crits.

In addition, a vigor Terra or Celes can function very well without their respective swords. Zantetsuken + Wing Edge is pretty beefy damage, as is 2-handing Excalibur (when you're not hitting the damage cap there).

Their super cool swords are basically the best option they have as a caster stat stick as well. A better way to decide between the 2 weapons is that if one of them is using a Stam build (and therefore probably wants Atma Weapon) get the sword for the other character. So both weapons and relics are really nice but all the builds for both characters can function very well without them.

30 minutes ago, Nowea said:

Hard disagree on the above. Gem/Soul Box are really only worth it on caster builds that don't stack +MP ELs. They're not worth the relic slot for half MP on MP Crits.

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.

30 minutes ago, Nowea said:

Their super cool swords are basically the best option they have as a caster stat stick as well.

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.

Crystal Orb, Hero Ring, another Stat Stick for a few examples for Vigor Celes that 'is' running Illumina. I was more disagreeing with the apparent importance being pushed on having the items. Notice that 2 of these relics also increase her MP pool while increasing her damage output via +7 to direct damage stats (and +5 speed on Stat Stick) or +25% magic damage. Alternatively, yes a relevant status protection relic can have a huge impact.

If you're needing Vigor Celes to stop attacking so often that she runs herself OOM casting things like Rerise, you may need to consider more defensive gearing or some party adjustments.

4 hours ago, Nowea said:

Crystal Orb, Hero Ring, another Stat Stick for a few examples for Vigor Celes that 'is' running Illumina. I was more disagreeing with the apparent importance being pushed on having the items. Notice that 2 of these relics also increase her MP pool while increasing her damage output via +7 to direct damage stats (and +5 speed on Stat Stick) or +25% magic damage. Alternatively, yes a relevant status protection relic can have a huge impact.

If you're needing Vigor Celes to stop attacking so often that she runs herself OOM casting things like Rerise, you may need to consider more defensive gearing or some party adjustments.

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.

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I was more disagreeing with the apparent importance being pushed on having the items.

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.

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If you're needing Vigor Celes to stop attacking so often that she runs herself OOM casting things like Rerise, you may need to consider more defensive gearing or some party adjustments.

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.

3 hours ago, Reiker said:

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.

Why are you prioritizing MP cost reduction on an offensive character to begin with?

The topic creator was talking about how important the items are for those builds. It's perfectly viable to run a vig or mag Terra or Celes without the swords or the relics. 

Crystal Orb increases proc damage by 25% straight, this is going to be a more noticable boost than the +7 mag from soul box. In addition, the 25% MP boost helps with sustain.

Hero Ring gives +7 Vig and +7 Mag, a significant boost. It also gives +HP% and +MP% giving her survivability (so she can keep swinging) and sustain. If you want to go this route and want to go all in on Celes offense, you can bserk her and suddenly she won't cover anymore

Stat Stick: 100% worth the stats. 

There's a ton of other sources of Rerise (Setzer, Shadow, Relm, even Gau if you wanted to stretch it) and MP regen (a speedier character tossing a tincture or ether like 3 times in a fight isn't even a noticable loss, or Sabin/Edgar) where the MP reduction relic is made redundant unless the character is constantly tossing higher cost magic around. If you're spending half your turns casting Rerise and support spells you're losing out on Celes' damage anyway so you may as well build Siren or something for an actual support build.

3 hours ago, Nowea said:

Why are you prioritizing MP cost reduction on an offensive character to begin with?

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.

52 minutes ago, Reiker said:

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.

If you use a shield and that lets Celes not die so you can get an extra 1-2 fight commands from her on a boss, then using a Crystal Shield is actually a more offensive option

55 minutes ago, Reiker said:

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.

Using a relic slot for "Maybe I won't run out of MP while my character should be spending every turn doing something very MP efficient" is a terrible option for Celes. If you're utilizing Vigor Celes for her biggest strength she shouldn't be OOMing, and no 1-2 turns used (by any character) to top her if it's needed does not erase the the extra damage gained from using a good relic that actually contributes to damage or survivability directly.

57 minutes ago, Reiker said:

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.

Why is it that putting Mag Edgar or Stam Sabin in a party with Vig Celes means they're "just" covering her MP costs? It's entirely plausible that the other 2 characters in the party are MP chuggers. Edgar and Sabin have notable support toolkits that can be fully utilized. Celes is already good for MP anyway, hell you could make use of her varied toolkit by popping runic a couple times and she's suddenly fine on MP AND is contributing to the party's survival at the same time.

1 hour ago, Reiker said:

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.

The context of the OP was "Do I need to build Terra and Celes differently because of the sword and relic choices?" Me saying that the relic and sword choices are not build defining and the girls can shine without Apoc/Illumina and without Soul/Gem box is in fact the crux of the conversation.

On 5/1/2020 at 11:51 PM, Nowea said:

If you use a shield and that lets Celes not die so you can get an extra 1-2 fight commands from her on a boss, then using a Crystal Shield is actually a more offensive option

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.

Thank you guys for the input. While my original question was, indeed, about those items, it is very helpful to hear that either character can do decently well without them. I can especially see that for a Vig Terra not needing the sword as much.