A few suggestions for Relm

Hello all, I thought up a few suggestions for Relm, tell me what you think about them.


Interceptor

It's possible to get Interceptor on Relm, but only via giving up Shadow. But why not have Interceptor protect both Relm and Shadow? Probably as a reward for seeing all of Shadows dreams. I guess he couldn't protect both of them at the same time but, aside from real world logic not applying to video game logic in the first place, the vast majority of attacks Interceptor intercepts are single target anyway.
I believe it would be quite a thematic addition and some tuning may alleviate balance concerns.

Brushes

I find brushes quite interesting. It's a unique form of healing and support that could be played up a bit. However, as they currently are, I feel they are more of a nice gimmick than an actual asset. The lack of reliability and the opportunity cost of using them on a character that is all about the big guns sidelines the brushes by quite a bit.

Dropping the hits twice property for 100% chance of the cast(and adjusting bpow accordingly) would be a start. Alternatively, Brush casts could start off at 50% chance and get buffed to 100% with Radiant Gown. Trades raw healing power for reliability of the utility.
Furthermore, a few more brushes could be added to the game to expand the choices. Remedy, Haste or Regen come to mind.

The stats of brushes should be balanced around enabling choice. Most brushes should have similar - or even identical - bpow and secondary stats on them, so you don't feel like raw stats outweigh choice. Brushes with less powerful/redundant or difficult to execute effects could have slightly higher stats.

I think Brushes have an adequate pay-off, too.
Getting a bit of a heal along with a standard buff is not that much more powerful than simply casting the buff in the first place.
While there is great versatility in theory, you ultimately only have one buff available for any given battle.
The aforementioned opportunity cost is pretty high on someone like Relm, even with her high speed. On the flipside, a support-focused Relm is more of an actual option with buffs to brushes. One could even let their healing scale with stamina which would really open up a speed/stamina build, especially together with the Interceptor change... no idea if that is a desired direction, though.
And lastly, raw stats. Brushes could give, in general, less secondary stats than Rods - or even none in most cases. This would be the most direct trade-off - trading some damage for utility.

That's it. Tell me how you like the suggestions and feel free to criticise.

There's no way to do a 100% proc. I think the way the game is hard coded, there's only 25% and 50% options available. The brushes actually got changed from hitting once to hitting twice, just to make the proc more reliable.

I am a fan of the current brush set up:  Strike x2 with potential buff.  It gives her some healing method without having to spam Cure 3.  
I wouldn't mind higher proc rate for Radiant Gown (or if that is not possible, then a little something else).

But going back to brushes - I typically use brushes on Gogo as well.  It would be great to see a brush with Remedy on it.  I don't know how many brushes you would want when only 1 character (2 counting Gogo) a play experience would need... but I definitely would cheer to see one with Remedy on it.  

5 hours ago, copperflame said:

I am a fan of the current brush set up:  Strike x2 with potential buff.  It gives her some healing method without having to spam Cure 3.  
I wouldn't mind higher proc rate for Radiant Gown (or if that is not possible, then a little something else).

But going back to brushes - I typically use brushes on Gogo as well.  It would be great to see a brush with Remedy on it.  I don't know how many brushes you would want when only 1 character (2 counting Gogo) a play experience would need... but I definitely would cheer to see one with Remedy on it.  

Changing from 2x hit to single hit doesn't necessarily alter the healing aspect(bpow can be adjusted to compensate). So you wouldn't lose that aspect.
Remedy Brush probably won't happen, because it serves basically no purpose on Relm.

A regen Brush seems possible. While Relm has RegenX, single target Regen would hold some utility. Also a Regen(and also Remedy) Brush would heal for a LOT, as the cast heals on top of the Brush hit.

I mean, Shadow and Sabin have quite a few weapons to their name. I'd like to see about 2 more Brushes and a balance pass on their stats and chance(if that's possible, I really hope so). Regen or Haste Brush both seems good. Regen would be pretty big healing and haste just expands Relms repertoire.

12 hours ago, Dyne said:

There's no way to do a 100% proc. I think the way the game is hard coded, there's only 25% and 50% options available. The brushes actually got changed from hitting once to hitting twice, just to make the proc more reliable.

That'd be a shame. Weirdly restrictive, but I wouldn't be surprised. I hope there's a way around that.

2 hours ago, Vaylen said:

That'd be a shame. Weirdly restrictive, but I wouldn't be surprised. I hope there's a way around that.

That's just the way spellcast procs are implemented. Imagine you're making a game, and you come up with a system for weapons to cast spells, and you decide 25% chance is the sweet spot, with a booster for 50% chance on certain gear — would you then spend additional space in your game accommodating further additional exceptions to the probability that you don't intend to use? Likely not in the SNES era.

Fast forward to today, if you want something other than the standard proc rates or behaviour, you need to write custom hard-coded proc routines to do it. The wind blades, Kagenui (I think?), and Zantetsuken are pre-existing examples of this. Or you could probably relocate/rewrite the routine that determines the proc success and add new exceptions to it on the basis of item type or other equipped things or whatever. There's just nothing within the system as it is defined right now to do what you propose.

20 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

 

That's just the way spellcast procs are implemented. Imagine you're making a game, and you come up with a system for weapons to cast spells, and you decide 25% chance is the sweet spot, with a booster for 50% chance on certain gear — would you then spend additional space in your game accommodating further additional exceptions to the probability that you don't intend to use? Likely not in the SNES era.

Fast forward to today, if you want something other than the standard proc rates or behaviour, you need to write custom hard-coded proc routines to do it. The wind blades, Kagenui (I think?), and Zantetsuken are pre-existing examples of this. Or you could probably relocate/rewrite the routine that determines the proc success and add new exceptions to it on the basis of item type or other equipped things or whatever. There's just nothing within the system as it is defined right now to do what you propose.

That makes sense. Well, that means it may be possible with some work. Space might be a concern, I'd wager.

Tbh, I'm pretty fond of the changes - they create more gameplay depth in an intuitive way.

Aside from that, adding 1-2 more brushes to the game and rebalancing the stats of Brushes still feels like a good idea to me on its own.

What spells would they proc? Haste used to be on the Ross Brush, but it was deliberately changed to Reflect by BTB. Not sure if that was just for the symmetry of the three main defensive buffs being on brushes, or to keep her from overlapping with the characters with Haste (of which there are already very many), but I doubt you'll see it back.

What else is left? Curatives would be redundant, as the brushes already heal, and she can just cast Remedy, RegenX, or Rerise.

Something to set Image would be the strongest case. It would establish the Thamasa trio as the go to Image setters, each with their own unique way of doing it. Plus it fits into the theme of light and optics that goes along with her artistry kit. There's no "spell" to set just Image outside of Smoke Bomb though, so what would the proc use?

I think the only buff left is Float, which wouldn't be the worst, I guess. But is there any point adding a brush for it?

I want brush casting to be cool, I really do, but without altering Relm's standby kit or gutting a spell to make room for an Image brush proc, I can't think of how to go about it. You can bet BTB won't buy in to anything that involves a significant rework of character options — he wants to call BNW a finished product.

IIRC, the Ross Brush got Reflect for coverage purposes - Haste is very common, but only Terra and Strago can set a targeted/reliable Reflect. I anticipated it being a largely undesirable effect from most players, but Reflect has always been one of those statuses where the small handful of people who do use it manage to pull off some amazing shit with it.

2 hours ago, SirNewtonFig said:

What spells would they proc? Haste used to be on the Ross Brush, but it was deliberately changed to Reflect by BTB. Not sure if that was just for the symmetry of the three main defensive buffs being on brushes, or to keep her from overlapping with the characters with Haste (of which there are already very many), but I doubt you'll see it back.

What else is left? Curatives would be redundant, as the brushes already heal, and she can just cast Remedy, RegenX, or Rerise.

Something to set Image would be the strongest case. It would establish the Thamasa trio as the go to Image setters, each with their own unique way of doing it. Plus it fits into the theme of light and optics that goes along with her artistry kit. There's no "spell" to set just Image outside of Smoke Bomb though, so what would the proc use?

I think the only buff left is Float, which wouldn't be the worst, I guess. But is there any point adding a brush for it?

I want brush casting to be cool, I really do, but without altering Relm's standby kit or gutting a spell to make room for an Image brush proc, I can't think of how to go about it. You can bet BTB won't buy in to anything that involves a significant rework of character options — he wants to call BNW a finished product.

I like Ross Brush being the Reflect Brush, tbh. Its a very solid Niche option. As BTB said, reflect is kind of a love-it or hate-it type of effect. Incidentally, Brush-healing works well with reflect, so that's extra cool.

Haste is rather abundant, that's true. I'd still create one and put it into the WoB over the Monet Brush - I think it fits there very well and increaes her usefulness.

A Remedy Brush would be redundant. However, a Regen Brush has a number of things going for it.
For one RegenX is damn expensive. If you want just a single regen - which happens frequently enough - you got the Brush for that.
Furthermore, Regen also heals. You'd basically get a big single target heal out of the Brush for no cost.
So a Regen Brush would mainly help with MP management. Stats could be tuned a bit higher for this one

For more options, just a few come to mind. Image would probably be too good in the first place. Beserk would be kind of a fun option with some niche uses. If it could be worked, MP healing is always desirable - steps too much on other characters' toes, though. And lastly, safe+shell at once would be a really powerful option. No idea if you could work 2 spells on a single weapon, though.


So, we'd have~ A haste-brush for WoB - in my opinion, that's a bit more useful than safe for her early performance and might find use later on in some parties.
A Regen Brush - basically a heavy healing Brush that helps with MP Management and probably slightly higher stats.
The same old safe and shell brushes, only with similar/identical stats.
And lastly, if possible and if a really powerful option is desired, a safe+shell brush. It could have lower stats/healing output than the other Brushes to compensate.