Feedback on Equipment

Hey there, a few thoughts on equipment throughout the game as well as late/endgame gear.

Midgame Proc Swords

I miss a proc sword to bridge the gap between the Elemental Blades and Apocilluminalypse. During a decently sized chunk of the game, you got the elemental blades and Blood Blade/Soul Saber as the only options for proc swords. The latter aren't good at dealing damage, they are more about utility. The former are pretty weak and only see use for weakness sniping(which, granted, is pretty good). The power gap between those options and Apocilluminalypse is massive.
I'd like to see another proc sword become available to bridge that gap, probably placed in Mt. Zozo or Cave on the Veldt or replacing the Rune Blade(Haven't found much use for it, personally).
Casting Poison or Break seem like decent ideas to me. Break Blade sounds pretty snappy and Break fits the theme pretty well, as it is - more or less - a downgrade of Flare/Holy.

Scimitar and Elemental Swords

Mentioned this in my difficulty feedback, but I reiterate here.
You get access to both Scimitars and the Elemental Swords right before the Imperial Magitek Research Facility. The thing is, they absolutely wreck said Facility and turn it into a cakewalk, especially combined - many battles were over before I even executed a single command.

The Scimitar is a bit out of the way and, from what I can remember, quite expensive. It also makes you give up a Shield - which isn't that much of a problem, considering Shields aren't that strong this early.
In light of that, I propose to move the Elemental blades to after IMTRF. You still get them as you explore the facility via chests, likely powering you up during the IMTRF, which is a fine reward for exploration, in my opinion.
 

Rods

Is the backrow penalty on Rods a necessity? Most Rod users have a really tough time in the frontrow and the reward for the risk of putting them in the front is not exactly game-changing. This relegates rods, for the most part, to stat sticks with gimmicks that aren't worth considering.
If you want to seriously use rods for damage, you'd probably build a Cover/Counter set-up, which requires frontrow. Rod-jumping can be done from the backrow with no drawbacks anyway.

In short, I don't see a problem with Rods dealing full damage from the backrow, it'd only make their gimmick a bit more appealing to use.

Orochi

I don't really see the point of this weapon. It lacks something unique going for it. Strong vs Flying is nice and has some use, but I think Mutsunokami and Avenger outperform this weapon most of the time. Feel free to correct me on this one, though. Overall, I guess it's just kind of a unremarkable weapon.

Mutsunokami and Windbreaker

Those two weapons are pretty difficult to get, cause you have to give up something unique and powerful for them. And it's not a natural switch like Daryl's Soul <-> Heiji's Coin, as you swap for wildly different equipment.

I propose placing Mutsunokami as a Unique drop somewhere, keeping it a one-time item.

For Windbreaker, I'd place it in a chest in place of one Punisher. Additionally, I'd change some Coliseum trades a bit: Remove Punisher from the Wing Edge/Avenger trade loop and make it trade back and forth with Windbreaker.

Mutsunokami and Ross Brush could trade back and forth with Masamune, or simply trade into a consumable.

Force Gear(Armor and Shield)

I feel you get too many pieces of Force Gear(I think it's 4?). Force Gear is pretty specialized and has a few restrictions(as well as competitors) that do not make it all that appealing to most characters, in my opinion. I'd remove one piece of Force Gear, replacing it with something else.
 

Radiant Gown

This piece of unique, character-locked equipment stuck at as particulary weak to me. While the effects on Brushes is nice and the 25% MP boost is appreciated, I find it lacks a bit too much in raw stats compared to its competitors. I'd suggest a small buff to Mdef and/or Magic/Speed.

That's it. Thanks for reading and please leave a reply!

10 hours ago, Vaylen said:

Rods

 

Is the backrow penalty on Rods a necessity? Most Rod users have a really tough time in the frontrow and the reward for the risk of putting them in the front is not exactly game-changing. This relegates rods, for the most part, to stat sticks with gimmicks that aren't worth considering.
If you want to seriously use rods for damage, you'd probably build a Cover/Counter set-up, which requires frontrow. Rod-jumping can be done from the backrow with no drawbacks anyway.

In short, I don't see a problem with Rods dealing full damage from the backrow, it'd only make their gimmick a bit more appealing to use.

Orochi

I don't really see the point of this weapon. It lacks something unique going for it. Strong vs Flying is nice and has some use, but I think Mutsunokami and Avenger outperform this weapon most of the time. Feel free to correct me on this one, though. Overall, I guess it's just kind of a unremarkable weapon.

Force Gear(Armor and Shield)

I feel you get too many pieces of Force Gear(I think it's 4?). Force Gear is pretty specialized and has a few restrictions(as well as competitors) that do not make it all that appealing to most characters, in my opinion. I'd remove one piece of Force Gear, replacing it with something else.

Just to cover the 3 I see with easy counterpoints.

Without the back row penalty rods are better than casting the spell, thanks to MP Crit. In addition, rods doing full damage from back row would make rod jumping strictly worse than rod swinging. As is, jumping is better defensively due to not needing the front row.

"Strong vs Flying" weapons all have the "Randomly throws" effect, which has a 50% chance to do 100% more damage (or 200% more vs flying) so its bpow is effectively closer to 300 (400 vs flying) on average. This means it'll perform as well as Avenger on average vs weakness (vs holy and vs flying respectively). Mutsu is its own formula that I don't really feel like looking at too much, but I'd blindly wager that Orochi outperforms it vs flying enemies if you don't go out of your way to get a +Mag damage booster on Shadow.

You do get 4 Force Gear, however I'd disagree with it being specialized and not appealing. Of the characters that can use Force Gear, Cyan doesn't have a strong magic build. Cyan likes Force Armor as it's basically his only source of elemental mitigation, so against Fire/Ice/Bolt it's a viable piece of armor for him. Terra and Celes are better served by Minerva usually, yes. But Minerva's also a late game piece of gear. I'm also looking at 2.0 documentation though and don't remember if 1 force gear was swapped to something else for 2.1 or not.

13 hours ago, Vaylen said:

the reward for the risk of putting them in the front is not exactly game-changing.

To add the the rod thing, front row rod smacks from the starter rods give you a chance at the equivalent of a cheap tier 3 spell, effectively. There is no faster way to dispose of any of the bosses in the end WoB/FC. Punisher procs are effectively a tier 3.5 spell (only Esper summons can compete in terms of spell power). And don't discount what Gogo can do with them with a 3x rage multiplier instead of the 2x from MP Crit.

You can mitigate the downsides with things like Rerise, Image, and Golem. One of a differing opinion to yours might instead say that the downsides of rod fighting from the back row aren't worth the increase in safety. Different strokes, and all that. Having multiple viable options to appeal to different players' tastes is a sign of good design.

22 hours ago, Nowea said:

Without the back row penalty rods are better than casting the spell, thanks to MP Crit. In addition, rods doing full damage from back row would make rod jumping strictly worse than rod swinging. As is, jumping is better defensively due to not needing the front row.

19 hours ago, SirNewtonFig said:

To add the the rod thing, front row rod smacks from the starter rods give you a chance at the equivalent of a cheap tier 3 spell, effectively. There is no faster way to dispose of any of the bosses in the end WoB/FC. Punisher procs are effectively a tier 3.5 spell (only Esper summons can compete in terms of spell power). And don't discount what Gogo can do with them with a 3x rage multiplier instead of the 2x from MP Crit.

You can mitigate the downsides with things like Rerise, Image, and Golem. One of a differing opinion to yours might instead say that the downsides of rod fighting from the back row aren't worth the increase in safety. Different strokes, and all that. Having multiple viable options to appeal to different players' tastes is a sign of good design.

I agree with most of your points regarding rods. I probably underestimated their damage potential even from backrow. I also excluded Gogo from this, cause Gogo is pretty prone to break stuff. My train of thought was more along the lines of "Why use a rod from backrow when I can just cast spells?" - rods are not 100% procs, which decreases their average output. Additionally, Front Row is not a problem for Mog(he has a really easy time to get tanky, unlike the other rod users). But, I concede, I think you guys are right on this one.

22 hours ago, Nowea said:

"Strong vs Flying" weapons all have the "Randomly throws" effect, which has a 50% chance to do 100% more damage (or 200% more vs flying) so its bpow is effectively closer to 300 (400 vs flying) on average. This means it'll perform as well as Avenger on average vs weakness (vs holy and vs flying respectively). Mutsu is its own formula that I don't really feel like looking at too much, but I'd blindly wager that Orochi outperforms it vs flying enemies if you don't go out of your way to get a +Mag damage booster on Shadow.

Mutsu scales off of Stamina, something Shadow can get quite a lot of pretty easily and naturally.

But yeah, I see the use of Orochi. Looking at some numbers, looks like Mutsu outperforms it even against flying foes, though. Least on my build(15 Phantom and a Genji Armor).
As mentioned, I think my main problem with the weapon is that it's kinda boring.

22 hours ago, Nowea said:

You do get 4 Force Gear, however I'd disagree with it being specialized and not appealing. Of the characters that can use Force Gear, Cyan doesn't have a strong magic build. Cyan likes Force Armor as it's basically his only source of elemental mitigation, so against Fire/Ice/Bolt it's a viable piece of armor for him. Terra and Celes are better served by Minerva usually, yes. But Minerva's also a late game piece of gear. I'm also looking at 2.0 documentation though and don't remember if 1 force gear was swapped to something else for 2.1 or not.

Force gear is strong if you like magic and/or really want the mitigation, true. It also has a lot of competition from other gear.
While there are many characters that'd want force gear, in theory.. in practice, you probably won't build them all that way.
And even if you were to do that, there is good competition on Chest and Shield slots, so you won't end up with a "bad" slot on a character.
I am arguing that, most of the time, you do not need that much force gear and, if you do, you have desirable alternatives.

Thinking about it, one could even please both sides of this argument by utilizing the coliseum, re-arranging some stuff there and make the piece that replaces a Force Gear drop trade into a piece of Force Gear.. Would need to take a deeper look at equipment to figure the details out, but that would be an option.

I think the early elemental swords actually do stay viable until fairly late in the game, but you're right about them basically being for elemental sniping and nothing else; I think that's the point and is fine, but it would work better if they had more coverage.  That being said, I wouldn't *mind* a mid-tier option, particularly for the non-Celes/Terra characters who can use elemental swords (Edgar, Locke) I just think that may be hard to balance/ends up becoming undeniably the best option instead of a niche pick that requires thought/investment. 

I did a red-mage Edgar build in my most recent playthrough and his combination of healing magic, support from tools, and element sniping with dragoon elemental swords was good even into Kefka's tower.  It was a viable build basically all game, but the issue was more that it didn't feel good/fun to use the same weapons for Edgar (or whoever is built this way) for almost the entire game.  Expanding this roster of weapons horizontally rather than vertically (ie adding more spells/effects to proc rather than scaling them up in power) would be a good solution to this that would keep this sort of build feeling fun without overpowering it.

Also, I've mentioned this to BTB a few times, but one thing that really stood out to me on my most recent playthrough is I can't think of a *single*  situation the Excalibur is the best option for any character of any build at the point that you get it.  I think it needs some sort of tweak, even if it is so late game it's not a huge deal.

6 minutes ago, MorteTheSkull said:

I can't think of a *single*  situation the Excalibur is the best option for any character of any build at the point that you get it.

How about this: you have multiple sword users running magic builds, and the Soul Saber is spoken for. Makes a pretty good stat stick, and the crits help close the damage gap somewhat. If I'm using Locke more as a healer than a fighter, I'll often toss it on him.

If you're willing to 2Hand it on a vigor build, it hits like a truck... but I don't really go for that sort of thing with the characters in question.

I agree that it's a bit underwhelming given its late placement.

5 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

How about this: you have multiple sword users running magic builds, and the Soul Saber is spoken for. Makes a pretty good stat stick, and the crits help close the damage gap somewhat. If I'm using Locke more as a healer than a fighter, I'll often toss it on him.

If you're willing to 2Hand it on a vigor build, it hits like a truck... but I don't really go for that sort of thing with the characters in question.

I agree that it's a bit underwhelming given its late placement.

I may have to review this, as it's been a bit over a year since my last play-through, but I do recall running most hypotheticals through my head and finding a better option in all cases.  Either way, it's so niche and situational that it feels really disappointing that outside of a few possible ways your endgame can end up looking, it usually will get overlooked for something better.

7 hours ago, MorteTheSkull said:

I think the early elemental swords actually do stay viable until fairly late in the game, but you're right about them basically being for elemental sniping and nothing else; I think that's the point and is fine, but it would work better if they had more coverage.  That being said, I wouldn't *mind* a mid-tier option, particularly for the non-Celes/Terra characters who can use elemental swords (Edgar, Locke) I just think that may be hard to balance/ends up becoming undeniably the best option instead of a niche pick that requires thought/investment. 

 

I did a red-mage Edgar build in my most recent playthrough and his combination of healing magic, support from tools, and element sniping with dragoon elemental swords was good even into Kefka's tower.  It was a viable build basically all game, but the issue was more that it didn't feel good/fun to use the same weapons for Edgar (or whoever is built this way) for almost the entire game.  Expanding this roster of weapons horizontally rather than vertically (ie adding more spells/effects to proc rather than scaling them up in power) would be a good solution to this that would keep this sort of build feeling fun without overpowering it.

Hm... For the Edgar case specifically, you can't forget the spears. He has both Holy and Water element(holy on an especially strong spear). No procs, but added power on jumps. In that sense, adding another elemental spear would be an option. Does kinda feel like a good spear is missing in certain swathes of the game.

In terms of power vs coverage, I think the lack of a good "neutral" option hurts especially. Break seems like a great neutral option. Added bpower and secondary stats over elem swords, but those elem swords will certainly outpace the break blade on weakness. Poison is another sensible option - a number of enemies resist Dark but aside from those, a strong neutral option and extremely good vs humanoids. The added bpow is important, though.

Recently discussed "uncapped drain" - so that drain type spells can deal damage even when you are at full health. Turns Blood Sword into a pretty good neutral options.

7 hours ago, SirNewtonFig said:

How about this: you have multiple sword users running magic builds, and the Soul Saber is spoken for. Makes a pretty good stat stick, and the crits help close the damage gap somewhat. If I'm using Locke more as a healer than a fighter, I'll often toss it on him.

If you're willing to 2Hand it on a vigor build, it hits like a truck... but I don't really go for that sort of thing with the characters in question.

I agree that it's a bit underwhelming given its late placement.

8 hours ago, MorteTheSkull said:

Also, I've mentioned this to BTB a few times, but one thing that really stood out to me on my most recent playthrough is I can't think of a *single*  situation the Excalibur is the best option for any character of any build at the point that you get it.  I think it needs some sort of tweak, even if it is so late game it's not a huge deal.

Yeah, I also never found a use for Excalibur. Looking at it closely... it really doesn't seem useful. Only 4 can equip it and it's only good in very rare, specific cases. I think it's largely due to the weapon feeling a bit restrictive - you kinda want to 2-hand it, but that's pretty difficult to justify, cause all of those characters can equip the good stuff as shields or are inclined to dual wield. Soul Saber is better for a caster. Spears for a jumper. MP Crits are not exactly good on Locke or Edgar, imo, due to their limited MP pools. It doesn't really have a place and in the rare situations where it does, I think a very decent substitute is available. It's also not as interesting as Zantetsuken(I use that one on a Hybrid Locke).

The advantage of jumping with an elemental sword vs. with a shield is that the spells can still proc, so it's good for a build investing in Magic, whereas the elemental spears give better elemental coverage to a vigor build.  That's why sword-jumping is popular in a sorta red-mage Edgar build; the jump damage multiplier boosts the proc damage that's scaling from Magic iirc.  I think a flat "neutral" option would kind of lose some of the flavor of "okay let me pick the right sword for the right job" that this Edgar (and presumably other) build has, as part of what sorta balances it out and gives meaningful choices is managing using the half-turn to swap weapons as needed.  Also, iirc isn't Break a water-element spell in this?  Or am I tripping?  I think having options for water, wind, earth, dark, or holy procs from swords of similar mid-tier levels is a good balanced option (not necessarily ALL of those, but one or two more) although idk how proccing quake would work/if there's any single-target earth spells I'm not thinking of.

3 minutes ago, MorteTheSkull said:

Also, iirc isn't Break a water-element spell in this?  Or am I tripping?

Break is Wind. It's a fart joke.

Let's not all forget that BNW is all about creating niches for characters. Edgar can Jump for 5 elements (with a mix of physical and magical focus, as noted above), and hit another with his Tools — I think he can afford to leave Wind and Earth for someone else.

Another proc sword is not needed in the midgame. The T2 elemental blade procs carry themselves against weakness until late game options open up. If you're more Vigor focused, then you want Falchion and/or Rune Blade instead in the early WoR.

I get that sword procs are cool, and there's a tendency to want to make them more of a thing, but BNW isn't in the business of handing out more firepower for the cool factor. There is no current mechanical need (and furthermore, the challenges are balanced around the options currently available), so why throw a wrench into the mix?

32 minutes ago, SirNewtonFig said:

Break is Wind. It's a fart joke.

Let's not all forget that BNW is all about creating niches for characters. Edgar can Jump for 5 elements (with a mix of physical and magical focus, as noted above), and hit another with his Tools — I think he can afford to leave Wind and Earth for someone else.

Another proc sword is not needed in the midgame. The T2 elemental blade procs carry themselves against weakness until late game options open up. If you're more Vigor focused, then you want Falchion and/or Rune Blade instead in the early WoR.

I get that sword procs are cool, and there's a tendency to want to make them more of a thing, but BNW isn't in the business of handing out more firepower for the cool factor. There is no current mechanical need (and furthermore, the challenges are balanced around the options currently available), so why throw a wrench into the mix?

I agree on Edgar having enough options to be effective, tbh. However, another spear wouldn't hurt.

It's not more Firepower for the cool factor, it's about a proper powercurve for proc-sword based builds.

For Terra/Celes, an Oath Veil build seriously falters in WoR, until Apocilluminalypse. Aside from utility options, there is no good proc-sword in that powergap - and it's a sizeable gap.
That's why I proposed a rather neutral option in Break. It's, more or less, a precursor to Holy and Flare. The powerlevel should be similar to Rune Blade and it'd fill a definite powergap.

Poison would be another option - it'd increase coverage(especially juicy for certain Locke and Edgar builds) while being a sensible "upgrade" for proc sword in mid WoR.

Disclaimer: I am tired right now, I am sorry if I did not formulate this reply clearly. Have mercy.

On 5/9/2021 at 12:15 AM, Vaylen said:

it's about a proper powercurve for proc-sword based builds.

Proc-sword based builds are basically Terra/Celes only, since nobody else who can use them gets the proc booster equipment (if we ignore Dragooning, which has its own special considerations). Let's consider Celes then, as she's around when the blades first come online, and mandatory for the early WoR. Right from when you first get the elemental blades up until you get the Falcon in the WoR, using them against weakness (which is their purpose) exceeds the average output of any other weapon configuration you have access to at any given time for most builds. There are only a small handful of boss encounters in the mid-late WoR for whom none of these blades will hit a weakness. These blades will carry you just fine until you can get your Illumina or Apocalypse.

The only part of the game I can see being a bit of a bore would be the randoms as you traverse the WoR up to the airship: so the overland walk to Tzen from Albrook, Figaro Cave, and the tiny bit of walking around Kohlingen between the castle, town, and tomb. Pretty much everything else is chocobo rides. And even for these encounters, if you toss a Flametongue on Celes, she can hit the 3 primary elemental weaknesses on her own, so you can still snipe to your heart's content.

In short:

On 5/8/2021 at 11:45 PM, SirNewtonFig said:

There is no current mechanical need (and furthermore, the challenges are balanced around the options currently available)

First of all, Welcome to the forums!

Second of all, I love discussions about minute balance / thematics of BNW!

Midgame Proc Swords

Break Blade used to be a thing prior to 2.0. Never found much use, since it was also trying to be a Water-elemental blade, and Elec Sword does the same thing. Rune Edge is there for vig Terra/Celes prior to grabbing Apocalypse or Illumina. In theory, you could modify Rune Edge to proc Break, maybe lowering its BPow a bit. Mostly a thematic change, but aesthetics aren't unimportant.

Rods

Elemental Rods are stupidly powerful in the mid-game. They're similar to giving Strago, Mog, and Relm access to all the tier 2's, AND they work with Black Belt. Bolt Rod is especially nice in the mid-game. Punisher is an excellent weapon for Strago or Mog.

Force Gear(Armor and Shield)

Can't agree. Force Armor is a meaty +70 mg.def with Fire/Ice/Bolt resistance. Sure, the Mag+7 makes you think "oh, only usable for mages", but really, even Cyan likes those nice elemental resistances. Now, Force Shield IS a bit more niche; Force Shield's auto-Shell isn't as valuable as Genji Shield's auto-Safe. : /

Radiant Gown

Haven't played with it much, but IIRC, I agree. Filler ultimate for Relm, Moogle Hide is more desirable. Have no real suggestions for it though, as I don't value Brush procs. 50% chance for an ST buff on a character who all ready has Rerise; just let another character use a 100% MT buff and let Relm continue attacking or healing. Maybe if Relm had a way to "auto-Brush", THEN I'd value it for a support Relm.

10 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Maybe if Relm had a way to "auto-Brush", THEN I'd value it for a support Relm.

It would be pretty hysterical if you could have Relm Cover/Counter with a brush and she'd just... slap her damage away after taking the hit.

7 hours ago, SirNewtonFig said:

It would be pretty hysterical if you could have Relm Cover/Counter with a brush and she'd just... slap her damage away after taking the hit.

Oh, I was thinking more "every xyz* ATB ticks, if a brush equipped, then Relm picks a random ally and brushes them." It may or may not represent a significant buff to Relm, but it's about the only way that I'd respect using brush healing / fishing for brush procs.

*Simplest would probably be "every time her ATB bar fills, she auto-brushes." Makes it indirectly a speed-based thing.