Relm Arrowny: Age Is Just A Number

Relm Arrowny
Age Is Just A Number

BASE STATS

Vigor: 24 / Magic: 42 / Speed: 36 / Stamina: 30

HP: 6 / MP: 45   BatPwr: 16 / Def: 24 / M.Def: 30 / Evade: 12 / M.Evade: 18

EQUIPMENT

Weapons: Paintbrushes, Rods
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Shield: Light Shields, Elemental Guards 
Head: Crowns, Hoods, Hats
Body: Hides, Dresses, Vests
 

SKILLS

Sketch - use a foe's own attacks against it (relevant stat varies depending on attack used)

ESPERS

Ifrit - Speed+2  -----------------------  32 MP: fire damage (Magic) on all foes
Zoneseek - MP+20/Magic+1  ---  48 MP: sets Shell on party
Starlet - Stamina+2  --------------  80 MP: restores party's HP to max & lifts *all* bad statuses
Bahamut - MP+40  ---------------  99 MP: massive non-elemental damage (Magic) to all foes; ignores defense

SPELLS

Fire
Fire 2
Flare
Meteor
Drain

(All of Relm's black spells scale with Magic)
---
Osmose - Magic
Warp
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Cure 3 - Magic
Rerise (???)
Remedy - Stamina
RegenX - Stamina

Relm

The Foul Mouth, The Artist, The Living Nuclear Weapon, and The Poor Girl Without Father or Mother ; _ ;

Strengths

• Great offensive options, both ST and AoE
• Primary Healer, has Rerise
• Has Osmose; Magic esper gives MP
• Speed esper
• Can get Interceptor, greatly raising her p.eva
• Unique Hide armors & magic helmet
• Decent party buff & ST heal options
• Sketch is sometimes quite useful

Weaknesses

• No HP espers, no heavy armor, low p.def
• No debuffs; doesn't learn Life
• Offense is MP hungry, Osmose isn't terribly strong
• Interceptor requires killing an extremely valuable character
• Brush healing & buffs are so-so
• Most Sketches are mediocre/useless, with a few being an active detriment

A simple character. Nukes stuff, heals the party, spams Rerise, drains MP with Osmose, and prays desperately that she doesn't eat a physical or defense-ignoring nuke. In many ways, she's like the magical version of Locke, except without the option to become tanky.

Builds

Sage

The simple, standard magical nuke, built with a mix of magic, speed, and MP. Could simply build pure Zoneseek, lots of Ifrit with some Bahamut, or some other mix of Ifrit, Bahamut, and Zoneseek. Does everything you expect out of Relm and does it well. Gear her for magic & speed and blow stuff up. Don't forget those good Sketches! Heavy Zoneseek will lead to more damage and fatter MP pool, while heavy Ifrit's faster reaction time / more turns lends her more to support (best chance to gamble on Brush spellcasts). Still, it's more of a continuum, rather than strictly different builds.

Highly recommended to always equip the Bahamut esper, unless it's a boss fight where you want Zoneseek but have someone else to set Image/Safe/Golem. Or unless you have Interceptor, but why would you kill Shadow?

Stamina

Relm trying to be tanky by building stamina, with some speed & MP as well. There's some decent synergy with stamina-based damage (Interceptor, Wind Breaker), equipping Black Heart and nullifying much of its downsides with elemental shields / hides, and RegenX spam, including those beefy regen ticks. Also, her attack power doesn't suffer too much, as it was only a +1 magic esper. Also, if you build only stamina, then by endgame, Relm may have enough stamina to reliably dodge status effects, even without immunity relics; though that does mean sacrificing MP & speed to help round out the build.

The biggest problem is that much of Relm's defense toolkit works just as well on the Sage build (Interceptor, Bahamut, elemental defenses, immunity relics), meaning the main benefit is still adding the Regen + Black Heart combo to her defensive set-up. Also, the Interceptor part of the combo requires killing a valuable character. Mind you, it's not a bad set-up; RegenX + Black Heart + potentially good status evade + elemental defenses + Interceptor + Bahamut equip is a good combo, and frail characters are gonna appreciate what help they can get. At the end of the day, however, she's still a low HP character with poor physical defenses.

Sketches

Relm does have a solid selection of good Sketches to go for. However, the majority of Sketches are still mediocre / useless (can't circumvent those MP issues that easily), and there are a few Sketches which are just straight up "avoid." Provided below is first the handful of Sketches to avoid, after which, the longer list of good Sketches. Do note, I'm only listing the primary Sketch (happens three out of four times), as well as ignoring Sketches prior to getting Relm, in Owzer's Mansion, or on the WoR overworld.

Good

• Floating Continent: Several good ones. Atma (Flare/Raze), IAF (Diffuser), Behemoth (Meteo), Dactyl (Aero), and Brainpan (Blowfish)
• Doom Gaze: Bolt 3
• Cave on the Veldt: Intangir/Z (Meteo), the Cluck + Basilisk encounter (Net and Glare respectively)
• Phoenix Cave: Roc (Giga Volt), Umbro (Bolt 3), Revenant (Holy; beware the Witch's Reflect though)
• Narshe: Tritoch (Fire 3), Wizard (Dark), Hoodwink (Aero). Also, Rhyperior (Sun Bath) is decent too
• Cyan's Soul: Soulblazer (Flare/Meteo), Larry (HasteX). Also, Suriander (Harvester) is decent too
• Ebot's Rock: Hidon (Quasar), Hidonite, leftmost (Shield), Warlock (Dark), Opinicus (Surge)
• Ancient Castle: WEAPON (Diffuser). Boxxy (Bolt 2) is decent too
• Fanatics' Tower: Magimaster (Dispel), Level 1 (Holy), Level 2 (Quartr), Level 3 (Bolt 3), Level 7 (Starlight), Level 9 (Flare/Meteor)
• Kefka's Tower: Asura (Dark), Isis (Holy), Myria (Flare), ??? (Ultima), Inferno (HasteX), Atma (Flare/Raze). Warmech (Diffuser), Searcher (Diffuser), Ahriman (X-Zone), Ogre Nix (Avalanche). Raptor (Holy Wind) is decent too.

Bad - Sketches that the foe will absorb the damage, or otherwise hurt the party.

• Elemental Dragons: All eight of 'em absorb their Sketches
• Phoenix Cave: Anemone (absorbs), or Witch (nice Sketch, but it'll be reflected right back at you)
• Narshe Mines: Fuzzy (Exploder, killing Relm)
• Cyan's Soul: Eukaryote, Gorokan, Parasoul (absorb)
• Ancient Castle: Sponge, Pond Scum, Mephisto (absorb)
• Kefka's Tower: Tarokan, Thanatos (absorb), Prometheus (Merton)

Misc

• Black Heart's problems can be mitigated with the right shield + hide, although the hide simply brings you back to normal damage. Works with RegenX, though not with Cure 3.
• Pure Zoneseek levels with an MP booster gives Relm an enormous amount of MP. It's very possible to drown out Relm's "MP hungry" weakness under a giant pool of MP.
• Radiant Gown, brushes, and speed levels can sorta combine to make Relm a decent buffer. Sorta. It's still a gamble though

Putting forward an Idea for stam Relm (Relmception):

• 1) Interceptor can be swapped between Relm & Shadow somewhere in the WoR (Thamasa?). You are not forced to kill Shadow to use Interceptor.
• 2) Instead of stamina-based counterattack damage with 50% dodge chance, Interceptor's chance to block a physical is related to the character's stamina stat. (something like Stamina/128, maybe?)

stam Relm is supposed to be defensive Relm, but without some unique mechanic to take advantage of (Morph, Chakra, Dance's Stumble), a pure stamina build just isn't good enough as a tank or support build. Relm's main flaw in her defenses are p.def & HP, and lo and behold, she's got a unique mechanic to defend her physically. It just needs to be actually, you know, usable without killing off the game's best glass cannon / speedy support. Also needs to key off the stamina stat to reward building stamina specifically, instead of being a straight 50%.

Give Relm Interceptor, one of Red Cap or Black Heart (works with RegenX), proper elemental resistances, maybe Bahamut, and maybe our RegenX Relmception build can finally be tanky enough to compete with Nuke Relm.

Maybe. Mostly shooting the idea out there. (Also calling attention to the fact that all my character guides are finished).

As to how Interceptor is transferred, it could be linked to after Shadow has had all his dreams.  If you want Shadow to keep Interceptor, don't let him sleep at inns.  If you want Relm to get him, you gotta hit up the 1 GP Thamasa Inn a bunch.

I actually think it makes sense, and is super simple, to just link Interceptor to both Shadow and Relm no matter what.  

So, Interceptor always linked to Relm/Shadow, and my idea is still that Interceptor's block chance is stamina/128 or stamina/192 or something like that. Could care less what stat the damage keys off of.

Also, make it so you can always see all of Shadow and Relm's dreams in a single playthrough; you don't have to kill off Shadow.

Make it so there is absolutely nothing to be gained from killing off Shadow; after all, why in the blue blazes would you want to do that?

Edit:  Hell, I'd support making it so that Shadow can't die.  Reaching the airship automatically triggers escaping the Floating Continent, and Shadow automatically turns up and is 'rescued'.

FYI, Relm will be getting Life and Demi in 1.8.7 in place of Drain and Warp.

On 8/22/2017 at 1:27 PM, zeteginara said:

I actually think it makes sense, and is super simple, to just link Interceptor to both Shadow and Relm no matter what.  

I second this.

On 8/22/2017 at 2:42 PM, zeteginara said:

Also, make it so you can always see all of Shadow and Relm's dreams in a single playthrough; you don't have to kill off Shadow.

Make it so there is absolutely nothing to be gained from killing off Shadow; after all, why in the blue blazes would you want to do that?

Edit:  Hell, I'd support making it so that Shadow can't die.  Reaching the airship automatically triggers escaping the Floating Continent, and Shadow automatically turns up and is 'rescued'.

I second all of this too.

2 hours ago, BTB said:

FYI, Relm will be getting Life and Demi in 1.8.7 in place of Drain and Warp.

Wait.... legit!?!

That's fucking awesome. I now have a reason to go back to 25 Ifrit Relm again. Life spells for days.

Speed Relm is looking like another ultimate healer type character, though with Zoneseek & Radiant Brush to try and set Shell & Haste or something. Also outputs better damage than Celes & Locke, though frailer & the loss of Osmose's BPow does kinda favor mag Relm for Flare spam.

Half-tempted to separate spd Relm & mag Relm into two distinct builds, half-tempted to just leave them both classified as variants of the same build.

stam Relm still sad.

Seems more like Speed Relm and Stam Relm might be the same build, honestly. An even mix of the two with a few Bahamut levels for MP seems pretty viable.

Eh, you & Mishrak see it, but I'm not really convinced. What's that stamina doing that more speed or magic couldn't do? Zoneseek lets you ignore Bahamut for more raw magic/speed. More speed means more turns for support. What's stamina doing? I'll grant status dodge & RegenX, but Regen (ticks) more useful if you've actually go HP/def to begin with & mg.def variance is really quite small.

The RegenX + Black Heart combo is real, since Relm has elemental resistance options with Hides & Shields. So I'd say stam Relm is a bit of a narrow specialist, built on the synergy of Black Heart with Hide/Shield & RegenX. Not bad, just...flat?...compared to mag & spd Relm.

This is a total beginner perspective (first timer, working my way through Kefka's Tower in 1.8.6), but I'm struggling to make use of Relm. There are so many attacks that just overwhelm her low HP, and IMO it means she can't actually function as a primary healer. Given the difficulty of recovering from death-revive-death-revive loops, this is kind of a problem for the other HP-less characters too (Gau, Strago, Shadow), but for a primary healer it's kind of a dealbreaker. When Shadow goes down, it means my offense suffers temporarily. When Relm goes down, and she does, it starts a cascade. I'm having a hard time either satisfactorily mitigating that or finding her other strengths good enough to overcome that. What party, in what circumstances, would be stronger for Relm's inclusion?

28 minutes ago, Franklin_WI said:

This is a total beginner perspective (first timer, working my way through Kefka's Tower in 1.8.6), but I'm struggling to make use of Relm. There are so many attacks that just overwhelm her low HP, and IMO it means she can't actually function as a primary healer. Given the difficulty of recovering from death-revive-death-revive loops, this is kind of a problem for the other HP-less characters too (Gau, Strago, Shadow), but for a primary healer it's kind of a dealbreaker. When Shadow goes down, it means my offense suffers temporarily. When Relm goes down, and she does, it starts a cascade. I'm having a hard time either satisfactorily mitigating that or finding her other strengths good enough to overcome that. What party, in what circumstances, would be stronger for Relm's inclusion?

You may want to consider using Relm as a primary attacker instead of a primary healer then. Flare spam is a mighty fine dps strategy. Not quite as good as Shadow, spd Gau, or Valiantsuken Locke, but with Relm's speed & magic, it's one of the game's best damage sources. In this case, consider her more of a secondary healer.

I presume you have Bahamut equipped all the time for the auto-Safe? You could also try setting Image, but your only reliable Image setters are also frail (Strago, Gogo, Shadow). Summoning Golem is another strategy (Edgar & Sabin ain't frail), though it won't last the whole fight (could last a while though). For boss fights, you could also try and equip the right combo of Hide + shield to resist any elemental attacks, then equip Black Heart for a mighty HP+50%. (Black Heart will also null Holy & Poison attacks. Float might be helpful as well). Just be aware that equipping a Black Heart means you'll be relying on RegenX healing instead of Cure 3.

Could also try Rerise spam.

Updated for 2.0. Magic Relm will enjoy the extra MP that Zoneseek provides, Stamina Relm (AKA "Love You Long Time" Relm) will enjoy her new rod (giggity) that's basically a 1-handed Mutsunokami that triggers a stamina-based wind attack and a new regen formula that favors stamina over maximum HP (resulting in a huge buff for her), and pretty much any Relm will enjoy the MP bonus (re-)added to the Radiant Gown. But what REALLY changes for Relm in this update are her brushes. Improved stat boosts aside, brushes now hit twice (i.e. X-Fight) to improve the chances of getting a random spellcast. Further, the Ross Brush now procs Reflect instead of Haste in light of the hack which makes Reflect behave like Image instead of being a "timed" status.

Updated for 2.0. Biggest change, really, is adding in a list of good Sketches (as well as Sketches to avoid).

I considered separating mag Relm from spd Relm, as "build spd Relm" is a fine strategy. However, like with Shadow's or Gau's espers, I considered it instead to be more of a continuum, so I simply opted to explain the choice in more detail within her Sage build.