Final Dungeon Setups?

You got the Falcon, you recovered everyone, you did all the sidequests, and you hunted all the goodies laying around, and now you're about to give Kefka the old heave ho.

So who do you bring, how do you usually set them up, and where do you place them?

It's been some time since I've played the game, and plan on giving it a replay very soon, but i'm thinking my party will be something like:

Team 1

Terra, Relm, Strago, Shadow.

For me, Relm is the only familliar face, as I've pretty much done nothing with Strago, or Shadow, and I'm thinking of going with Vigor Terra, sticking her in the front row with Morph, and giving her Zantetsuken (Or Apocalypse) That idea is kind of new to me.

I'm going to go a more Stam focused route for Strago and Relm (The latter I used to dip entirely into Ifrit) and Shadow will be nothing but Fenrir for item tossing. I can use Smoke Bombs/Refract for Terra, and between, Shadow's item tossing, Relm's Brush, and Strago's Holy Wind, I have heal sources for days, should I have to worry about Reflect. This team is mostly going to be about keeping everybody buffed and healed well, and letting Terra wreck things.

Team 2

Locke, Edgar, Sabin, Umaro/Mog.

I'm not really all that familliar with using Mog, as he's usually one of the people I leave out of the final dungeon. I've never been all that interested in memorizing the proper usages of Dance, and I've never really tried relying on Rods, so I was thinking of going the Mogoon route, giving much needed damage to this team, as I'll be trying some supportive alternatives. I usually go Ramuh/Ifrit with Locke, in favor of Ifrit, but I've decided to give him mostly Pheonix and alittle Ifrit, boost up his magic, and X - Cast my way to victory. I'll also be axing Palidor in favor of Siren for Edgar, as I'm really excited to try out his Engineer build, hoping that Mana Battery will help keep Locke casting. Stam Sabin is mostly for defensive purposes, but having access to Chakra will help his brother out loads with keeping Locke (as well as Edgar) casting. Mantra is there if I need it, but I'm covered. I'll obviously throw him several Terrato levels. (At least 5)

Team 3

Setzer, Cyan, Celes, Gau.

I thought about doing something new with Celes the way I did Terra, but ultimately decided that I needed the extra magic for this team. I don't have to worry about Runic screwing me, since two of my party members can heal the team for free without triggering it, which is nice.

I'm thinking of trying something different with Setzer. I see people talking about Seraph/Shoat, and Seraph/Starlet, but what about Starlet/Shoat? Starlet is effectively for a Stam build, using Regen X as a primary heal source, and Shoat keeps his offensive options viable without having to rely on Heiji's Coin, causing him to lose acces to the amazing Slots, or Daryll's Soul, which gives you the dillema of choosing to do okay damage in the back, or decent damamge in the front, but risk extra damage. Giving him more Shoat keeps him hitting hard. Sure, I'm missing out on awesome Seraph levels, but HP/MP can easily be aquired, and Setzer is pretty bulky anyway. Cyan will be tossing Dragons for moderate damage, but that's okay. He's just there to take hits and cast an occasional Life spell when everyone else is busy.

Gau will be Gau. I'm just gonna dump every level into Fenrir and have him cast buffs.

Also, what are some cool strategies you like to think up when deciding who to send on which route?

Team 1:

   "Hmm, this team is gonna fight Kaiser and Isis. I'll put Terra on & kill the other two dragons first just so I can have some fun with Ultima vs. Randoms. Also, a few other mages for elemental control against Kaiser, and to ignore Isis' stupid Love Token."

Team 2:

   "Fire protection, Wind protection, high physical damage, Image, Regen, yup, I'm all set for Myria. Wait, cripes, I got to kill Atma to and this team isn't optimal for Atma. Stupid, stupid. I'll just muscle my way through with Item spam."

Team 3:

   "Eh, this team looks good."

No great strategy on my end for Kefka's. If I'm feeling cute, I'll bring a Mog + Umaro combo to Team 3 for Asura.

6 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Team 1:

   "Hmm, this team is gonna fight Kaiser and Isis. I'll put Terra on & kill the other two dragons first just so I can have some fun with Ultima vs. Randoms. Also, a few other mages for elemental control against Kaiser, and to ignore Isis' stupid Love Token."

Team 2:

   "Fire protection, Wind protection, high physical damage, Image, Regen, yup, I'm all set for Myria. Wait, cripes, I got to kill Atma to and this team isn't optimal for Atma. Stupid, stupid. I'll just muscle my way through with Item spam."

Team 3:

   "Eh, this team looks good."

I haven't really memorized which route fights which bosses, despite having gone through the dungeon 6 or 7 times. This wasn't necessarily the exact order I would send them down. I planned to rearrange them by the time I got there.

6 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

 

 

Team 1:

  Fights Guardian and Kaiser. Cannot fight Myria.

Team 2:

  Fights Bolt Dragon and Atma. Cannot fight Asura.

Team 3:

  Fights Poison Dragon and Inferno. Cannot fight Isis.

I just did Kefka's Tower a bit ago on v1.7.0, so let's go through my team.

Team 'Kill the Dragons (and Atma)': Celes, Sabin, Setzer, Umaro

   Sabin exists to easily set Slow/Sap, Celes can sometimes do damage with Omega Weapon, but mostly the plan here was "let Umaro punch, everyone else sits on a full ATB to heal"

Team 1 (vs. Isis): Setzer, Locke, Gau, Umaro

   I...really didn't realize that this team was going to Isis when I set it up. Needless to say, that was a 'fun' battle.

Team 2 (vs. Myria): Cyan, Celes, Gogo, Edgar

   Celes was my primary DPS here with Omega Weapon. Gogo had Magic, Lore, Slots to heal and sometimes hurt stuff. Cyan and Edgar could do decent damage with Dragon/Chainsaw, but they were usually helping with damage control.

Team 3 (vs. Asura): Terra, Relm, Strago, Sabin

   Stamina Sabin wasn't working out too well for damage, so I put him in a party that'd love Chakra support. Relm and Strago were level 26 (EL 13) --by contrast, Terra was 37/25 and Sabin was 42/25-- but they were able to contribute some damage and suck up hits for the others. Morph Terra was hitting close to 9000 with Ultima, at least.

Team Kefka: Celes, Cyan, Setzer, Umaro

   Mostly identical to my dragonslayer team, and in retrospect, Sabin was more durable than Cyan so I should've just went with it. As before, the main plan was keeping up a Bserk'd, Haste'd Umaro long enough for Kefka to crumble. Celes helped pick off pieces since I could target her attacks, Setzer kept Rerise on everyone so I wouldn't lose anyone between stages. It's a good thing I had so many X-Potions to deal with Fallen Ones.

There's a lot I'd do over if I played again, like shifting Sabin toward Vigor instead of Stamina and maybe putting Shadow/Mog to better use, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting going in. Slots wasn't nearly as useful offensively for bosses as it had been, which was a little disappointing, but Go Fish was practically an X-Potion in itself, so healing wasn't ever too much of an issue.

I'm well aware you can get through the tower with pretty much any team set up, but I like to theory craft a bit on optimizing so each team has access to as many options as possible, for instance:

Life 2/ Defib

Terra/Locke/Edgar should be all each be on a separate team so 2/3 teams have Life 2 and the 3rd has Defib, which are all more effective than Phoenix downs and Life 1.

Regen X

Terra/Setzer and Relm should all be on a different team so all 3 teams have access to it

HasteX/Fenrir 

Shadow and Gau make should be different teams, and both are relatively squishy anyway so you wouldnt want that

Golem

Edgar and Sabin should be different teams so 2 teams have access to Golem

My tentative line up is:

Terra
Sabin
Celes
Gau

Sabin can feed Celes/Terra MP as needed, RegenX/Golem/Fenrir/Reflect all here 

Relm
Edgar
Strago
Mog/Gogo

Edgar can feed all 3 MP, Strago provides excellent support with Protect/shell and can apply Image since Fenrir is not here. RegenX and Golem present.  Edgar can revive well with Defib and functions as your between battle healer.

Setzer
Locke
Shadow
Cyan

Excellent revival with Life 2/ Sage stone option, Fenrir here, Regen X and Cyan is between battle healer, Setzer and Locke managing healing during combat. Has difficulty with Protect/Shell/Reflect support. Seraph summon for party Reraise definitely very welcome

On 12/14/2019 at 3:58 AM, GamingFiend said:

I'm well aware you can get through the tower with pretty much any team set up, but I like to theory craft a bit on optimizing so each team has access to as many options as possible, for instance:

 

Life 2/ Defib

Terra/Locke/Edgar should be all each be on a separate team so 2/3 teams have Life 2 and the 3rd has Defib, which are all more effective than Phoenix downs and Life 1.

 

Regen X

Terra/Setzer and Relm should all be on a different team so all 3 teams have access to it

 

HasteX/Fenrir 

Shadow and Gau make should be different teams, and both are relatively squishy anyway so you wouldnt want that

 

Golem

Edgar and Sabin should be different teams so 2 teams have access to Golem

 

My tentative line up is:

Terra
Sabin
Celes
Gau

 

Sabin can feed Celes/Terra MP as needed, RegenX/Golem/Fenrir/Reflect all here 

 

Relm
Edgar
Strago
Mog/Gogo

Edgar can feed all 3 MP, Strago provides excellent support with Protect/shell and can apply Image since Fenrir is not here. RegenX and Golem present.  Edgar can revive well with Defib and functions as your between battle healer.

 

Setzer
Locke
Shadow
Cyan

 

Excellent revival with Life 2/ Sage stone option, Fenrir here, Regen X and Cyan is between battle healer, Setzer and Locke managing healing during combat. Has difficulty with Protect/Shell/Reflect support. Seraph summon for party Reraise definitely very welcome

 

 

I really like how balanced all three teams are. The only alteration I would make, because I always build Celes as a tank healer, is swapping out Celes for either Cyan or Locke.  Terra does so much damage that that first team feels extremely stacked by comparison to the other two based off element damage coverage and Sabin's support with Chakra keeps things going better for Locke's low MP pool. It goes a little against the formula above and doubles up on the Life2 that you mentioned, but I always had trouble with Locke staying alive in my games. Maybe I didn't provide him the right gear for his set up, but he'd spend a lot of the time face down in the dirt instead of healing, even if he had the sage stone on. Maybe I'll start a fresh run in 1.9 and see if built him up wrong or was leaving him in the front row
 

3 hours ago, blitzkingjecht said:

I always had trouble with Locke staying alive in my games. Maybe I didn't provide him the right gear for his set up, but he'd spend a lot of the time face down in the dirt instead of healing, even if he had the sage stone on.

If you want Locke to be a tanky healer and not a glass cannon, give him a healthy dose of Phoenix/Kirin levels with a Hero Ring or Phoenix equip, and he should have enough HP to survive most situations (at least speaking from the experience of 1.9 and before, though I assume this still mostly holds).

Honnestly final dungeon set up vary a lot depending of build generally spreading each of the 3 groups needs 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 Physical Damage dealer and 1 Magical Damage dealer some characters can do both, and also need to cover at least Slow and Sap for bosses if to be specific then :

-Group 1 has to fight Guardian and Kaiser as such because of Kaiser this group need a lot of Elemental option to play with Kaiser's gimmick
-Group 3 has to fight Inferno and Gold-D both of which are weak to Water therefore character that has good Water element option (Vig Edgar/Vig Mog with Trident, Magic Mog with Water Rondo, Shadow with Wave Scroll or Strago with Tsunami) are great here.
-Group 2 has to fight Atma and Green-D, Atma is weak to Ice while Green-D is weak to Holy and Fire.

In my current playthrough with the build I have I think I'm gonna go like this :

Group 1 : Magic Terra, Stam Cyan, Magic Setzer and Vig Sabin

-Terra bring Ice, Fire, Bolt and Wind so quite a good elemental cover as well as good healing spell like Cure 3, Life, Life 2 and Regen X she also have Shell for support.
-Stam Cyan is mainly here to be a tank, he can also set Sap with Empeworer and pretty good at cleaning Mobs with Mutsunokami and Eclipse (good for set Blind)
-Magic Setzer is mainly the healer even if he runs out of MP Go Fish can be good he also bring Poison Element for Kaiser's gimmick, and Blackjack is a good Random Cleaner
-Sabin bring the damage also complete the team with Holy element with Aurabolt for Kaiser, can set Sap and 2 Stormfang will be use full on Guardian, Chakra and Mantra can also come handy for some situation.

Group 3 : Speed Shadow, Vig Mog, Stam Edgar, Magic Relm

-Shadow with insane speed is good to set Haste X, he can also set Regen and Image if needed against Inferno and Gold-D he can bring the pain with his Scrolls.
-Vig Mog will mainly Jump with his Trident for Inferno and Gold-D fight, Slow X will be use on Inferno and his arms he isn't really good for mob fight tough.
-Stam Edgar is mainly a Tank will be setting Slow and Sap on the bosses, Nirvana Band allow for some back up heal with Cure 2 if needed, Summoning Golem and Safe are also good option, Atma Weapon for getting some damage, Noiseblaster and Flash for Mob fight.
-Magic Relm is mainly here to heal, thanks to Osmose she shouldn't have trouble keeping her MP high enough, Meteor is good for Random cleaning and Flare is good against bosses, also if ever needed Warp for escaping mob fight.

Group 2 : Magic Celes, Magic Strago, Speed Gau and Vig Locke

-My Celes is actually more balance with a little Magic Focus, anyway Runic is a nice Defensive option, main healer with Cure 2, also Dispel, Regen, Safe all good and nice can deal damage to Ultima through either Icebrand's proc or Ice 3 and to Green-D with Illumina's proc.
-Magic Strago can clean mob fight with Black Omen, set sap with Blaze and Slow can also set Safe with Shield and Shell with X-Shell and can his MP back with Osmose or Raid, main damage dealer against Ultima with X-Ice 2, can get some decent damage on Green-D with Blaze also has Holy Wind for healing.
-Speed Gau can Haste X and Regen through Stray, Nastidon's Rage for Ultima, Revenant Rage for Green-D (maybe Witch Rage could be good to)
-Vig Locke physical damage dealer, will use Icebrand for Ultima and Flamtongue for Green-D, 2 Wing Edges is also strong but I fear he might lose to much defense for not wearing a Shield, also can back up with Life/Life 2 if even needed. 

Group 3 fights Inferno and 2 fights Atma, not the other way around/

OUPS I always mix up the 2

For end-game WoR:

I have one primary team in BNW that I feel has the strongest synergy and they carry me through anything difficult in the game. This team is:

Terra w/ full Maduin ELs - Spams Ultima for top DPS and still has great utility with Life 2, Cure 3, Slow, etc. Moderately defensive even.

Sabin w/ full Stray ELs - Sets Golem and spams Chakra to support the rest of the team. I haven't played through BNW since 1.8 but I figure Sabin makes this team even stronger now with Cover support. A more modern build might add in some Terrato ELs, I have to experiment with 2.0. Also sets Slow, Safe, and Float as needed.

Strago w/ full Shiva ELs and Sage Stone - Primary job is to keep the party protected with Shell (Zoneseek or X-Magic) and Safe (Shield). When those are set up he does respectable damage with Black Omen, 2x Dark, etc.

Relm w/ full Zoneseek ELs - Rerise, RegenX, Cure 3, Meteor, Flare, Bahamut. Big damage and all the restorative utility you need. Very similar to Terra, but Rerise is absolutely necessary.

The other teams are a lot more fluid and I generally just set up each character with whatever I feel is their best build and just create balanced teams with healing, damage, etc. Unfortunately there are only so many synergies you can take advantage of in this game, so the above team feels pretty optimized. The game lacks options to boost physical DPS characters. Like, there's no "physical Chakra" which would be something like a buff that increases each party member's physical damage for their next turn only. Like I mentioned, I haven't played since 1.8, but I suspect that the way Cover works makes physical builds drop off even harder in the end-game, primarily because of the whole evade thing. The exception turns out to be Sabin since he relies more on hitpoints and regen ticks than he does evade, which just further pushes you towards making a magic-focused team like the one above.

The WoB is very different and to me just revolves  around using the overpowered characters as a crutch. These are like:

S Tier: Setzer

A Tier: Cyan, Gau

B Tier: Edgar, Sabin

So some combination of those, depending on where you are in the story.

12 minutes ago, Reiker said:

Sabin w/ full Stray ELs - Sets Golem and spams Chakra to support the rest of the team. I haven't played through BNW since 1.8 but I figure Sabin makes this team even stronger now with Cover support. A more modern build might add in some Terrato ELs, I have to experiment with 2.0. Also sets Slow, Safe, and Float as needed.

Unfortunately, full Stam Sabin with Cover is gonna end up dead fast. Even with Terrato levels for bulk, I'd guess he doesn't have the defense to stay alive very long if he's the focus of attack.

Yeah I'm gonna remain highly skeptical of that claim. I never had problems keeping this group alive before Cover, when much less defensively capable characters like Relm and Strago would be more susceptible to attacks. This composition has Golem, Safe, Shell, and Rerise support. Sabin taking some occasional hits away from Relm and then regenerating the health back can only be an improvement.

These characters have some of the weakest defenses in the game. With defensive support abilities that doesn't matter. When you can set up Golem, Shell, Safe on the entire party and Rerise on half of the party within the first two rounds, it doesn't really matter how much damage you take from that point forward in the fight because you're already so ahead. That's a synergy that this composition exploits.