Mog: Mascot With Attitude, Kupo

Mog
Mascot with Attitude, Kupo

BASE STATS

Vigor: 30 / Magic: 36 / Speed: 36 / Stamina: 30

HP: 156 / MP: 0   BatPwr: 24 / Def: 36 / M.Def: 36 / Evade: 18 / M.Evade: 18

EQUIPMENT

Weapons: Spears, Rods, Thrown Weapons
---
Shield: Heavy Shields, Light Shields, Elemental Guards
Head: Helmets, Crowns, Hats
Body: Heavy Armor, Medium Armor, Light Armor, Parkas, Robes, Vests
 

SKILLS (Dance)

Wind Song (plains) - focuses on healing (Stamina) and multi-target wind damage (Magic)
Desert Aria (desert)  - focuses on evasion with multi-target earth/wind damage (Magic) and some healing (Stamina)
Forest Suite (forest) - focuses on status healing (Stamina) with assorted damage (Magic)
Earth Blues (mountains) - focuses on single-target Earth damage (Magic) and Healing (Stamina)
Dusk Requiem (caves) - focuses on fractional damage and instant death
Love Sonata (town/factory) - focuses on restoring Mog's HP/MP with assorted damage (Magic)
Water Rondo (river/underwater) - focuses on entirely on direct damage (Magic), mostly water and bolt
Snowman Jazz (snow) - focuses on heavy ice damage (Magic) with some evasion
(Note: the "home" dance of the current terrain will always succeed; success of non-native dances is determined by Stamina)
---
Jump  (replaces Fight) -  Fight (Vigor) + 100% damage (spears) or 50% (other weapons); ignores row
---
X-Magic (replaces Magic) - cast two spells instead of one

ESPERS

Maduin - Magic+1/Stamina+1  ---  24 MP: defense-ignoring wind damage (Magic) on all foes
Shoat - Magic+2  ---------------------  36 MP: sets Stone on all foes
Palidor - Vigor+1/Speed+1  -----  24 MP: party attacks with Jump (Vigor)
Terrato - HP+60  -------------------  64 MP: earth damage to all foes (Magic)

SPELLS

Sap - Magic
Poison - Magic
Break - Magic
Quake - Magic
Doom
Drain - Magic
---
Muddle
Mute
SleepX
SlowX
Haste
Float

Mog

The Mascot that has Nothing to do with the Main Story, Kupo.

Strengths

• Huge damage potential
• Good Weapon Selection
• Tanky; Good HP esper, heavy armor, unique Muffler
• Speed esper, Unique +7 spd relic
• Very good AoE & status control
• Diverse elemental control
• Potentially a tertiary healer, has Harvester
• Has a solid buff
• Shoat & Dusk Requiem

Weaknesses

• Dance is random, untargetable, & subject to stumbling; Can be very unreliable
• Rods (elemental control) are streaky
• Only one reliable buff
• Neutral magic damage is MP-hungry or otherwise difficult to use
• Healing is random
• HP esper & Muffler come late
• AoE damage is subject to randomness (dance) or troublesome (quake)

Mog is a mixed bag. Part of his toolkit is quite similar to the Figaro Bros. (Jump; speed; bulk; debuffs/AoE), part of his toolkit is similar to Gau (random; lots of AoEs, elementals, & debuffs; high base evade with Harvester & Haste), and part of his toolkit is like Cyan & Strago (huge attack stat fueling a slow, powerful, multi-hitter). No matter how he's built, however, he's going to be a tank with some quirky utility and damage options.

Builds

Dancer / Geomancer

Simplest Mog build. Wreck the mid-game with Dance (Rondo, Jazz, Blues, Suite) and Rod (Ice, Bolt, Punisher) attacks and counterattacks. By late-game, you've transitioned into being a bulky healer (Suite, Song), who also happens to have some utility with buffs (Haste, Aria), debuffs, AoEs (don't forget your new WoR options), elemental control, and even some modest neutral damage (Blues, Sage Stone). He's even got Cover/Counter synergy, or can forgo the Moogle Charm to just Dance (though he can't cover while dancing without the charm). Just don't expect him to be your primary or even secondary damage dealer against a big late-game boss or mini-boss.

His healing suffers from randomness, but he's still an easy-to-use, bulky Harvester user with lots of utility.

Magic Moogle / Black Mage / X-Mog

Same as the Dancer in the mid-game, but instead, maintaining the high damage into the late-game by transitioning into an X-Mage. By far Mog's hardest hitting build, the Magic Moogle has potentially some of the highest damage in the game, right up there with your berserkers, glass cannons, and tier-3's slamming a weakness. But, if you don't use him well, you'll be wishing you used Dancer or Mogoon instead.

While you shouldn't discount your late-game Dances for AoE or Rods for elemental-sniping (or both for MP management), your reliability (randomness), damage, and utility will fall behind unless you take up the Sage Stone and get some MP (Chakra/Battery) support. With said support, however, even Mog's second best attack rivals Tempest, X-Dark, or Shadow; while his best, X-Quake, is one of the strongest moves in Brave New World. And he's still a tank, as well as some nifty debuffs and buffs. Still, you do guzzle MP very quickly and can run into encounters where Wind or grounded Earth damage doesn't work.

Love Sonata can help maintain MP, but once you find a Crystal Orb, I personally recommend using it. After all, what makes the Magic Moogle special is his damage; if you ain't goin' for it, you're better off with Mogoon or Dancer. Even still, don't discount Love Sonata, Punisher, or your other less expensive crowd control (Jazz, Muddle, SleepX, etc) as options for maintaining MP in long dungeon crawls.

Mogoon

Moogle Dragoon, another easy-to-use build, with lots of vig/spd and late-game HP. Unusable for the WoB, but a good bulky fighter throughout the WoR. Despite lacking magic for Dance or Rods, Mogoon still has solid crowd control with his statuses or Shoat. Raw speed also allows him to be a utility healer with Wind Song, Forest Suite, or Item, though don't rely on Song/Suite after a big AoE attack. Be forewarned, the full Jump set-up does have very restrictive gear requirements.

Don't forget that you can snipe weaknesses with Wing Edges or Rods! Also, if you want, the Punisher and Doomstick are still perfectly good beatsticks, prior to getting your ultimate spears.

Misc

• Moogle Charm has very special effects for both builds. Though a mag Mog dancing Blues/Suite can probably ignore it.
• Rod spellcasts are strongest in the front-row and compatible with counterattack (Black Belt), but they're also compatible with the safety of back-row Jump.

Mog's getting Haste in 1.9. This is awesome. It looks like a great new tool for X-Mog. (SlowX & Haste for setting up for a battle, X-Haste acting almost like HasteX, and then commence the X-Break beatdown with Love Sonata for restoring MP. Use Quake for the few times it's useful). Also, the Counter/Cover changes look like they could be quite nifty for a Rod Maduin Mog. (Perhaps even paired with a Dance like Earth Blues or Forest Suite, possibly without even bothering with the Moogle Charm).

Unfortunately, I've committed to playing Mogoon next game. I've done mag Mog the past two games now, and desire to play vig Mog again. Also, I'm only one guy with one opinion.

Requesting someone please play X-Mog in 1.9 and give some feedback onto how well he performs, now that he has some utility to call his own. Also looking for a second opinion on the new Love Sonata of 1.8.6 (Specter is 1st instead of 2nd, so better odds of MP restoration).

Also requesting someone try out Maduin Rod Mog with counter/cover. With or without Dancing thrown in being up to the player to decide.

Much appreciated.

Moogle charm makes mog almost usable without save states.

With save states? He's MVP healer. I "gave up" on trying just cross my fingers.

Without save states, just dragoon him like edgar with a bit more HP.

You can still use Forest Suite & Earth Blues as solid healing / magical damage dances. He won't be the best healer, but it's free, it takes pressure of your main healer, and you have your choice of either a really powerful attack (Earth Blues) or an added Remedy effect (Forest Suite). Just stop trying to use him as a solo / primary healer.

I don't know if it'll help much since I play through slower, but I'm committing myself to playing some version of grounded Mog. I want to try him out with Umaro doing bodyguard duty and/or throwing Mog, maybe with Edgar Jumping for maximum throwing. Probably X-Mog, that seems interesting to me. 

artemi, if this is about getting information on 1.9 Mog: I also play slow, so I'm willing to wait to hear on your feedback.

I'm now in WoR Maranda to recruit Cyan, so I want to talk about my experience with Mog in WoB, to be more specific, in Floating Continent

I used a 5 Maduin / 5 Shoat Build with Element rods / Gold Shield / Magus Hat / Gold Armor and Stat Stick/Amulet as accesories, and it made a great work there. During the approaching to Floating Continent Mog made a good work dealing with random encounters using Water Rondo. Against Ultros it sticked with Thunder Rod procs dealing a good amount of damage. Against IAF I returned again to use Water Rondo, dealing a great amount of damage to this boss. The Floating Continent was a bit hard but Mog helped against enemies not called Gargoyle (too much magic bulk to be useful) and Behemoth (water resist) with Water Rondo, otherwise, I used Wind Song when I really needed healing.

Against Atma is where Mog shined the most. Black Belt / Amulet protected me against the most dangerous things Atma offered, and Ice 2 procs made around 3700-4000 of damage, sometimes even being able to deal twice more damage due to Black Belt counters. It was surprinsingly consistent despite the randomness Ice 2 procs give.

In previous version I tried X-Magic Mog against Magimaster and heck, it was really useful, making around 16000-20000 of damage when it was weak to Earth, Poison and Wind. I'll try it again in this version to see the results (This is why I like Esper resetting so much)

Mog can be a bit random, but it is certainly useful

Mog's mid-game magic and his options for hitting elemental weaknesses are all solid. The elemental rods especially are ridiculously powerful. Pretty sure he can slam any elemental weakness in the game. Past the mid-game and without an elemental weakness, however, I've found that he's best just going on auto-pilot with Earth Blues or Forest Suite.

On 10/10/2017 at 10:32 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Mog's mid-game magic and his options for hitting elemental weaknesses are all solid. The elemental rods especially are ridiculously powerful. Pretty sure he can slam any elemental weakness in the game. Past the mid-game and without an elemental weakness, however, I've found that he's best just going on auto-pilot with Earth Blues or Forest Suite.

Better than Dragooning?

28 minutes ago, pogeymanz said:

Better than Dragooning?

Oops. Should've clarified: IMO, WoR mag Mog is best going on auto-pilot with Earth Blues or Forest Suite, unless he's got an elemental weakness to slam. Some people like giving mag Mog Punisher in the WoR instead. X-Magic is the third option for mag Mog, but it's mediocre - average in 1.8.6 and earlier.

Mogoon is strictly superior to Punisher mag Mog, unless the latter is building Maduin for Cover/Counter fishing. Mogoon vs. auto-pilot Mog is comparing apples to oranges, though I think? that Mogoon is generally regarded as the better of the two?

I figured that's what you meant- just wanted to make sure. He's a pretty bad-ass Dragoon...

It seems like most people around here only think that Locke is worth having X-Magic on. I'm surprised, since I'd think that X-Magic would be considered pretty damn OP, even with a non-ideal selection of magic.

Locke's got a streamlined & powerful selection of magic. He can also grow his MP stat, even if it is slowly. He is the game's best healer. Also the most powerful fire elementalist, though his magical damage without weaknesses is rather limited. His magic stat is modest, sure, but the awesome power of his magic selection more than makes up for that.

Mog, otoh, has a limited magic selection, mostly consisting of (highly) niche moves (Drain, Bio, Quake, status control). Despite his top tier magic stat, he cannot grow his MP. While you can support an X-Break Mog (now with Haste) with Battery/Chakra/Ethers, Mog has a huge alternative selection of magical damage in his Rods & Dances. Much of that alternative selection can serve the same exact purpose as X-Magic, except without any of the downsides. Punisher, Water Rondo, Snowman Jazz, Dusk Requiem, etc.

Strago, outside of an Ice or Poison weakness, has little reason to equip the Sage Stone. Strago's utility, non-elemental damage, and even some of his elemental damage options are all found in Lore, Summon (Zoneseek), or Rods. What's more is that Strago can hit an Ice or Poison weakness with Rods anyways (Ice Rod and Punisher), which has some real advantages over X-Magic (less MP, counterattack possibility, freed up relic slot). X-Magic Strago doesn't have Mog's downsides, but there's just little he can do that another Strago set-up can't do better.

It sounds like even with Haste, you don't seem to think X-Mog will be very viable. I just think it's a shame that 2/3 of the people who can equip this super-cool item don't even care about it.

Really with X-Magic on pretty much anyone else it's going to either be completely broken or useless. X-Magic is hard to balance around without making it required.

I don't think he was asking for X-Magic to be on anyone else. More just voicing the complaint that only 1/3 of X-Magic users actually gain significant, build-defining benefit from it.

2 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

I don't think he was asking for X-Magic to be on anyone else. More just voicing the complaint that only 1/3 of X-Magic users actually gain significant, build-defining benefit from it.

Definitely. But it... doesn't need to be build defining. Because the other 2 have other things to be doing. X-Magic still enables a few more things for the 2 without forcing the relic to be on them. I think that's actually a good place. "Mandatory for 1 build, supplemental for the others"

Even if you don't think it's that great, X-Ice or X-Shell or mixing spells up has its uses. (X-X-zone? Osmose+X-Zone for random clearing?)

It's supplemental for Strago, sure, but pointless for Mog. (Tbf, haven't played 1.9 yet. Otoh, mogoon can use haste too). Aesthetically, its disappointing that such a relic is reduced to being mostly supplemental or not even that, with its major build being mostly a healer. Doesn't help that the relic doesn't even give good stat boosts (low stat boosts suggests to the player that its effect is powerful, but except for Locke, its not really).

On my last run, my endgame Mog looked something like this:

(None of this was planned out, just kinda ended up here)

Punisher
Crystal Shield
Circlet
Light Robe
Moogle Charm
Sage Stone
Shoat

Maduin 17/Shoat 6/Terrato 2

Stam: 70
Mag: 85

Honestly, most of his turns, he ran damage control gambling on Forest Suite for Harvester to top up HP and deal with AoE debuffs. Dualcasting Quake, whenever mobs weren't immune to it, was pretty awesome (he was rather underlevelled when I took him to the Ancient Castle, and he was MVP for the caves portion). He was also a bit of a badass against undead mobs thanks to Rasp spam (though I frequently forgot about this option). He was awesome to have along for boss fights in the WoR - Harvester, dual-Haste, and the occasional bit of offensive pressure with Avalanche/dual-Bio/Break/Quake gave him plenty of options. Quartrstaff/Doomstick procs for trash mobs wasn't too bad, and opening with a SlowX+SleepX/Muddle also ensured quick and painless cleanup. I tended to team him with support Sabin, so between Chakra and Spectre-fishing with Love Sonata, he was never at a loss for MP. I think he would have been fine even without Sabin's help.

This was my first time using the Sage Stone with anyone (I tend to let Locke be a fighter for some reason, maybe I'll respec him to a healer and play around with him a bit). I usually find Mog to be a little underwhelming; but on this playthrough, I was actually relatively satisfied with him. I do still feel like he could use a little something to make him shine just a tiny bit more, but I can never seem to figure out what would be appropriate. His whole shtick seems to be based around risk/reward (rods, dances, instant death, potent debuffs), so it's hard to give him more without breaking theme. Another buff like Safe, Shell, Regen (drool) or maybe even Reflect (this one fits the theme of risk/reward best, I guess) would certainly give him another support option to make his Sage Stone sparkle. There doesn't seem to be a graceful way of doing this though, short of breaking Esper form by adding a third user or a fourth spell somewhere.

And is a +5 Magic on the Sage Stone too much to ask for? I agree the +3/+3 it currently provides is a little lacklustre, and I know Locke wouldn't hate a couple extra points of Magic. Strago certainly doesn't care either way.

Aaaand....I'm eating my own words about X-Mog turning out. Someone thinks the new mag Mog changes are just enough to make him satisfactory.

Well, I'll eat my humble pie. It's good to hear one of my favorite characters finally turning out well. (There's an awful lot of people who like gambling on Forest Suite. Maybe I'll give it a shot).

Kinda curious as to when & how often you used each of Avalanche/Bio/Break/Quake. I think I could guess on Bio, but I'm curious to hear someone else's thoughts on the other three. Especially since I don't often mix Avalanche with X-Magic.

Quarterstaff/Doomstick on trash mobs probably works better with vig Mog. The Battle Power of those staves is high enough to put on the hurt, and vig Mog's huge speed gives him a good chance to flat open the battle with "X-Zone, you're all dead." Imma try it out whenever I finally do get around to the WoR in 1.9. (Might be a while. >_>)

On Sage Stone, I guess another option is +5/+7 stamina. Mostly to avoid giving Locke too much +mag options. Guess it does help mag Mog with dance-swapping & with Harvester/Sun Bath heals. Does nothing for Strago though, dunno how well it'd work for Cover/Counter shenanigans. So maybe the straightforward +mag is the best option there.

I guess I'll fire off a handful of ideas for how to make Mog shine a little more:

• Quake: Non-Elemental  and/or More / Re-designed Multi-target (Mini-)Bosses - The latter seems very appropriate. Quake is designed to huge AoE damage, but there's few important encounters where it can shine. Of the few (mini-)bosses that are multi-target, they either punish AoE (Hidon, Inferno), null Earth or are better handled by something else (Vectagoyle x2), or have other reasons for why Quake doesn't work (Dream Stooges = can't hit floater, plz use Punisher; Tier-2 = Float is dispelled on transition from tier 1). Having more important opportunities to watch Quake rip apart the opposition might really help Mog feel more satisfactory. Even something as simple as "Hidonites, instead of reviving when all die, revive on a timer regardless of number still living, much like Dadaluma's helpers" would help Quake, methinks.
  
  Non-elemental Quake just insures that Quake can be used on anything that ain't floating. Quake has enough restrictions anyways; sides, Flare, despite being obviously fiery, is non-elemental. As for tier-2, X-Quake is hitting all targets there for big damage, it'll still be fine (once the whole "Float is Dispelled on transition" is fixed). Downside is that "null/absorb Earth" on foes is mostly limited to Avalanche, Demi, and Quartr, but, eh, few elemental strengths on foes actually do anything to change optimal strategies anyways. Restricting Demi/Quartr is still quite important, and does do more than "null Ice" does.
   
• Drain: Uncap - Uncap the damage on Drain. No more "Max damage restricted to how much you can heal." Just let Drain do whatever damage its BPow says, and let it restore a % of the damage dealt. This gives Mog an assured self-heal (unlike Spectre) that also deals offensive pressure; unique in all of FFVI, except for Merton w/ Flameguard x4. Dunno what the exact numbers of Drain's Battle Power or HP % drained should be. Would also require minor re-works on other drain moves (Empowerer, Ocean Claw, Spectre, Osmose, Raid, some of Gau's Rages), but my gut says that this task looks harder than it would actually be. Most of the actual work would be in the coding. >_>
   
• Buff: Reflect - Just following SirNewtonFig here. I personally like Shell or Reflect. Both are very uncommon buffs (Terra, Strago, Relm only). I also think either of these two can be put on Maduin, somehow, without ruining the house of cards that is "spells on espers." >_> Shell is the stronger buff, but I'm worried that Shell Mog would be a wee bit too much for Mog; back-row + heavy armor + X-Haste/Shell + drain moves + damage + elemental defenses + potential Image = lulz. I also agree with SirNewton that Reflect is more appropriate for Mog.
  
  Another idea, instead of giving Mog that Reflect magic, is to re-configure Snowman Jazz to be a "Reflect dance." IIRC, there was a relatively recent (several months ago) poll on favorite Dances, where Snowman Jazz was the least popular dance. Sides, Mog all ready has AoE and Ice options anyways. Also has some nice symmetry with Desert Aria. (Hot desert gives Image, cold desert gives Reflect). Doesn't directly help X-Mog though. Also a little loathe to suggest this, thematic as it is, b/c I'm currently unimpressed with Desert Aria. (Like BTB, I wish FFVI had better debuffs. Mog as a debuffer would work better if debuffs weren't all restricted to "kill trash mob").

On 1/16/2018 at 4:07 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Kinda curious as to when & how often you used each of Avalanche/Bio/Break/Quake. I think I could guess on Bio, but I'm curious to hear someone else's thoughts on the other three. Especially since I don't often mix Avalanche with X-Magic.

Yeah, 1xAvalanche < 2xQuake. Avalanche only really made an appearance because I misremembered the odds on the Earth Blues steps and thought I was getting a 7/16 Sun Bath with a 5/16 Avalanche backup rather than the other way around.

Quake was the offensive spell of choice, generally speaking. Bio was mostly for knocking off solo surviving human trash mobs (in groups, Quake is better), or targets that are Wind/Earth immune (like dinosaurs and bears, though I think Doom also works on the latter?). Break made an occasional appearance when something wasn't affected by Quake and wasn't weak against poison, but I still wanted to try for some dependable damage – pretty situational (can't think of specific examples where I pulled this out), but good for some damage when it worked. Quake saw the most frequent use of all of these for sure, being quite effective against:

• Cave to the Ancient Castle randoms
• some Phoenix Cave randoms* (also Red Dragon, though weakness sniping with Snowman Jazz might still be better)
• Magimaster's Earth Wallchange, and the Lv. 4-6 Mage formations
• some randoms in Kefka's Tower

(*just don't get hit by a G-Force from a Weedula while waiting for your dualcast to execute... probably safer to Float+Quake in these formations, since one Quake should do the trick anyway)

I didn't bring him along for Cyan's Nightmare, but I'd guess Quake would be effective against many of the randoms there, as well as the Soulfires at the end.

In a nutshell, if it's not flying or Earth immune, X-Quake eats it for dinner. Sure, counters sometimes eat Mog in return; but if that's the price of ~7k+ AoE damage, I'll take it. 

But before you eat that pie – while the Sage Stone was a tool that I enjoyed having in Mog's kit, I'm undecided if it's actually objectively better than playing without it. I think if you're someone with the Printme committed to memory (or if you like checking it frequently to optimize your strategy, or if you simply Scan* every monster you come across), then you can probably do comparable damage output by elemental Dance sniping (and a more Dance-centric Mog would be happy to use something like a Crystal Orb over the Sage Stone, once available).

(*Speaking of Scan, that's another spell Mog would be happy to have in his kit. X-Mog would be especially well suited to identifying everybody's weaknesses prior to summoning the most optimal natural disaster to exploit it.)

On 1/16/2018 at 4:07 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Quake: Non-Elemental  and/or More / Re-designed Multi-target (Mini-)Bosses

Funny, I was originally thinking a non-Elemental Break (like a baby Flare of sorts) would help give Mog a reliable, but not overpowered, fallback option. Then I decided to look through enemy data in the Printme, and I'm finding that many targets that are Wind or Earth immune are wrecked by Water Rondo or Snowman Jazz (or both), so maybe he's fine. Dinosaurs are really the only enemies I've found Mog feels sort of helpless against, since their dual Wind/Earth immunity shuts down so many of his options.

On 1/16/2018 at 4:07 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Drain: Uncap - Uncap the damage on Drain. No more "Max damage restricted to how much you can heal." Just let Drain do whatever damage its BPow says, and let it restore a % of the damage dealt.

I want this so bad on Gau's Tumbleweed>Suck attack so that it doesn't do virtually nothing

See post below

Eh, thinking about it more, I'm not sure how much I really want to debate against someone's actual experience with the new X-Mog. That, and looking over the WoR again, I think the only real area where I can complain about X-Magic is in X-Quake's usability against Kefka's Tower bosses; X-Break possibly needs something to, though it's still perfectly usable in various areas of the WoR. All of the recent changes have given X-Mog a lot more utility than I've been willing to admit, and Quake's certainly got more uses than I've been willing to admit. (My preference for large MP pools may also be coloring my opinion, which is unfair to X-Mog).

So...maybe pay attention to those Drain/Reflect ideas above. But X-Mog's natural disasters (attacks) don't really need much, if at all.

This might be a stupid question, but how do I recruit mog in this mod?

In the regular FF3 playthrough I always recruited him in the Narshe cave before leaving for the floating continent. However on this mod, when I speak to him in the Narshe cave all he does is say "Kupo...po" and nothing else.

Am I forgetting something? Do I only need to have a party of 3 before speaking to him?

EDIT: Nevermind. Totally forgot you have to talk to him in front of the frozen esper. It's been awhile since I'v played FF3 lol.

On 10/2/2017 at 9:31 PM, artemi said:

I don't know if it'll help much since I play through slower, but I'm committing myself to playing some version of grounded Mog. I want to try him out with Umaro doing bodyguard duty and/or throwing Mog, maybe with Edgar Jumping for maximum throwing. Probably X-Mog, that seems interesting to me. 

Came here to say the same! Grounded Mog + Umaro throwing him + Eddy and Gogo leaving the ground with only Mog left for Umaro to throw, it's a very interesting team. Mog can haste the slow yeti and dual cast another spell against enemies so to not feel like it's a chore to buff Umaro all the time before being allowed to start attacking or perhaps consider sharing the chore with Edgar and another mate with haste in order to focus solely on building one helluva dancer. Mog's Palidor summons with multi-jumping Edgar also sounds cool as it would give Edgar a free jump to rain more stabs (can you have two raining dragoons in this mod?). I haven't seen anyone else mention a Mog and Umaro team which is strange considering Umaro was designed for it. EDIT: Forgot about the Umaro thread, doh. 

...I have simply never considered trying to abuse "Umaro Throws Mog for 9999" strats. And, with a severe lack of experience, I'm not sure how to theory-craft them properly. Kneejerk thought is that they're technically sub-optimal, although probably very fun and perhaps far less sub-optimal than other sub-optimal options (mostly sub-optimal because of Umaro, though Cover Umaro does exist nowadays?). Still, without at least 2-3 runs of actually giving it a shot, I simply cannot comment, not even pairing Sage Mog with it.

Looking back through this topic, it seems SirNewtonFig kinda hit on the only real gameplan I thought was really worthwhile for Sage Stone Mog: a Dance Mog, primarily Forest Suite, who uses X-Magic for its utility and more reliable damage. And, in that regard, his conclusion isn't totally dissimilar to mine: the gameplan works, but it doesn't feel totally satisfying. (I've traditionally looked to X-Mog as a full-on "X-Quake blaster caster with Crystal Orb", which....I don't think really works out too well). Again, never played Sage Mog + Umaro, though I'd wager that if it's this Dance Sage Mog with Umaro, it's probably working fine.

Gogo has better things to do than jump around all day anyway. Replace him with Fig's chakra Sabin idea, though I feel weird having a non-magic user ingest mp he won't use, and Edgar would miss the juice while in the air, which makes Sabin feel underused all because I want to gamble on the moogle toss. Perhaps modify the toss so that Umaro doesn't feel underused when Mog isn't by his side. 

9 hours ago, Nomjitsu said:

Perhaps modify the toss so that Umaro doesn't feel underused when Mog isn't by his side. 

Put Umaro into Berserk it doubles his strength and for some reason he can still use all of his ability which will get the boost from berserk ^^

12 hours ago, Nomjitsu said:

Gogo has better things to do than jump around all day anyway. Replace him with Fig's chakra Sabin idea, though I feel weird having a non-magic user ingest mp he won't use, and Edgar would miss the juice while in the air, which makes Sabin feel underused all because I want to gamble on the moogle toss. Perhaps modify the toss so that Umaro doesn't feel underused when Mog isn't by his side. 

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with pairing at least Dragoon Edgar with Umaro and Mog to try and get better chances of Umaro throwing Mog (1/3 chance to 1/2 chance). Just would need the 4th party member to be a healer / support instead of yet another attacker.

2 hours ago, Nesouk said:

Put Umaro into Berserk it doubles his strength and for some reason he can still use all of his ability which will get the boost from berserk ^^

...This is beautiful. You know what, I think I might actually bring Umaro to Kefka's more often. Hero Ring Cover strats and Berserk damage multiplier sounds great.

11 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

...This is beautiful. You know what, I think I might actually bring Umaro to Kefka's more often. Hero Ring Cover strats and Berserk damage multiplier sounds great.

Sadly berserk still prevent him to Cover

23 minutes ago, Nesouk said:

Sadly berserk still prevent him to Cover

Herp. Forgot about that. Yeah, just pick between Cover or Berserk, that's fine.

Updated for 2.0

Mog is probably a little unhappy to lose the discounts he was getting the severely underpriced Break and Quake spells, and that's... really the only major thing worth mentioning aside from the sizeable boost (+36) to his base HP.

; _ ;

Rip X-Mog as an attacker. Though I guess Sage Stone is still all right for Dance Mog.

Yeah, imo, Break-&-Quake X-Mog just ain't gonna perform well without changing some of the non-numeric special effects of Break and Quake. ('Twas why I mentioned +1 multiplier against Floating on Break. Try to aesthetically focus X-Mog around the idea of Float shenanigans. Alas, Quake is still an issue).

So, to make up for the increased cost, along with the general enemy defense changes I'm making (which shouldn't include many end-game bosses), Break and Quake both are getting an 11% power boost.

lol.

For Mog, lower overall magic defense means that Mog will actually prefer using X-Bio (or X-Poison, as it is now known in 1.10), instead of X-Break or X-Quake, as it'd be nearly as strong as X-Break but at a much cheaper cost. Also means Dance Mog's Avalanche won't be any stronger than Razor Leaf, so Forest Suite ahoy!

...plz don't nerf enemy magic defense. It'll just bugger everything up.

How viable is doing a MagMogoon? As in, mostly Shoat levels, Dragoon Seal, and primarily just jumping with rods?

Obviously, the non-proc'd jumps will be lackluster compared to a Palidor build, but the proc'd casts will be really pumped by the high magic stat + jump bonus. Maybe it evens out? With the Moogle Charm, he'll still probably jump pretty quickly.

Rod jumping in general is less damage than rod fighting. If you have the MP for MP crits then being in the front row swinging the rod is a higher damage multiplier than jump. It's basically just a more 'defensive' form of rod fighting (jump delay and back row)

3 hours ago, Nowea said:

Rod jumping in general is less damage than rod fighting. If you have the MP for MP crits then being in the front row swinging the rod is a higher damage multiplier than jump. It's basically just a more 'defensive' form of rod fighting (jump delay and back row)

Ah! Good point(s). MP crits don't happen with Jump, right? That's a bummer.

Jump still give a 50% damage bonus, and isn't affect by row so it is still strong and technically safer.

Major update to the guide. Splitting off Geomancer from X-Mog (why on earth didn't I do that before), and being far less critical of X-Mog, if still a little reserved.

staff, plz delete this post