Gogo: Slave To The Power Of Death

Gogo
Slave to the Power of Death

BASE STATS

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

HP: 0 / MP: 0   BatPwr: 16 / Def: 24 / M.Def: 24 / Evade: 24 / M.Evade: 24

EQUIPMENT

Weapons: Knives, Rods, Brushes
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Shield: Light Shields, Elemental Guards 
Head:  Crowns, Hats
Body: Light Armor, Hides, Parkas, Vests
 

SKILLS

Mimic - repeats the last action taken by any ally
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Gogo's command list consists of Mimic and three of *any* other command/skill

ESPERS

Gogo cannot equip espers

SPELLS

Gogo can use any spell that anyone else in the current party can use

Gogo

He banished himself from FFV and found himself in FFVI.

Strengths

• Very versatile support skill set
• Good AoE / debuff / crowd controll skill set
• Rod + Rage is good synergy for raw damage
• Decent mg.def with Hide / Muffler armors
• Decent speed gear options
• Mimic

Weaknesses

• Bad stats with no esper growths
• Poor HP, no heavy armor
• Magic is dependent on team composition
• Damage set-up (Rod + Rage) is untargetable & a little random

Gogo's role on the team is as a semi-speedy, frail, all-around support guy who can choose to go full ham with damage. He also has a very wide range of minor application. He's honestly quite similar to Strago, just less powerful but more diverse. Another good comparison is that he's a weaker but more controllable Gau.

Set-Ups

Support

Gear Gogo for speed, pick 3 of Tools, Runic, Throw, Lore, Magic (with a proper team), Steal, or Item. Maybe even Slots (Go Fish) or Blitz (Chakra). Also has some niche uses for Fight with Brush (heal) or Rod (elemental sniping). Solid support character. Mimic can be used to copy a teammate's attack on any off-turns; just be aware that you don't Mimic Rage / Dance, lest you lose control of Gogo.

Noticeable characteristics include being a:

• 3rd MP Battery
• 2nd Runic user
• 3rd (reliable) Image user whose also the 2nd (reliable) Image user with a shield
• 2nd Shield user
• 4th Life 2 / Defib user

Tools, Lore, & Magic could also give him some AoE debuffs / crowd control for randoms. Cleave (Bushido) or ??? with speed gear is also a great random clearer, though these skills do little else and are incompatible with Rod or Brush equips.

Rod Rage

Gear for mag/spd, Equip Rod, pick Rage, blow something up. Your options are Dragon (raw damage), Tek Armor (Safe), Allosaurus (1/3 AoE debuff), or Defender (1/3 heal). While the physical hit itself won't be too amazing, the random spellcast will do absurd damage, possibly hitting 9999 even without a weakness. You do need to be in the front row for maximum damage, so it's a glass cannon set-up.

Rage also gives a few other options for AoE control (Cicada, Adamantite) or healing (Tumbleweed), so there's some flexibility between fights here. If you equip a knife in the offhand, you can equip ??? or Bushido (for Cleave) as your second Command for solid all-around offense. Fill the other two commands with whatever other utility you want: Magic, Item, Tools, Throw, Lore, Steal, Slots, Blitz (chakra), or Runic (with a knife in the off-hand).

Misc

• N/A

On 7/27/2017 at 4:22 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Fight must be equipped for the rods to auto-critical properly.

Having some trouble with this one.

I've been experimenting with different Gogo builds, one of which is Punisher/Avenger /w Thief Glove. ~50 magic and vigor, Slots/Magic/Rage. The idea is he can switch-hit between pulling magic support next to Gau/Celes with free Go Fish rolls for maintenance heals, or swap to a single target Dragon-beast while stam Gau rages Tumbleweed for boss fights.

Against a Tyranos he'll Hurtmore around 3.1k twice, maybe random cast Dark for 8.5k. Not bad at all. Swapping out Slots for Fight however doesn't seem to do anything special. No noticeable crit cues and the same average damage over a dozen or so fights. Running 1.8.6, did Hurtmore get fixed to put the nix the rod crits?

Nope, that hasn't changed.

15 hours ago, GreenSun said:

Having some trouble with this one.

I've been experimenting with different Gogo builds, one of which is Punisher/Avenger /w Thief Glove. ~50 magic and vigor, Slots/Magic/Rage. The idea is he can switch-hit between pulling magic support next to Gau/Celes with free Go Fish rolls for maintenance heals, or swap to a single target Dragon-beast while stam Gau rages Tumbleweed for boss fights.

Against a Tyranos he'll Hurtmore around 3.1k twice, maybe random cast Dark for 8.5k. Not bad at all. Swapping out Slots for Fight however doesn't seem to do anything special. No noticeable crit cues and the same average damage over a dozen or so fights. Running 1.8.6, did Hurtmore get fixed to put the nix the rod crits?

Then I officially have no idea. I thought that's what I was seeing when I played with Gogo, but apparently not.

Also, added a note that I have little knowledge about Gogo, so people's insights are welcome.

13 hours ago, BTB said:

Nope, that hasn't changed.

Alright so I did some testing. My theory was maybe some equipment piece or relic was interfering, so I ran Gogo naked against a bunch of Harpy mobs outside Thamasa.

I used two single weapon setups, Ice Rod and Demonsbane since they have the same Bat power(Demonsbane has +3 vigor but I figured that's small potatoes). Skill setup was Steal/Fight/Rage. I switched up my rage to Hornet for a free haste buff, and maybe to see if it was a Dragon problem.

-Under Ice Rod, Gogo was Needler'ing Harpy for ~2k. No noticable crit procs.
-Under Demonsbane, Gogo was Needler'ing for ~2k.

Alright, so same situation as dragon. Maybe it's an ability thing. I go into his Relic list and reequip the Thief Glove. Steal is now Mug, and he'll get a +25% boost.

-Under Ice Rod, Gogo Mugs Harpy for ~750. Rod noise and animation both trigger, but no "white flash" indicating a crit.
-Under Demonsbane, Gogo Mugs Harpy for ~750. No crits.

Now as a control, still with Thief Glove, Fight command hits.

-Under Ice Rod, Gogo hits Harpy for a whopping ~1,480. Crit flash triggers.
-Under Demonsbane, Gogo Fights Harpy for ~750. No crits.

As an extra experiment, I equipped him with an Ice Rod, Imp'd Celes a dozen times and drained him down to 0 MP. Fight for ~750 damage, no white flash, consistent with Mug.


So basically, Rods aren't critting on Gogo under special abilities. They work for Fight, but not Mug or Rage. For these two they just do baseline non-crit damage, with an off-chance of procing a random cast. Fight was an equipped command for all the above tests. Of course I don't know what the intent is in Mug's case, maybe it's not supposed to crit, but if it used to trigger for Rage something's changed.


Running 1.8.6 currently, patched from 1.8.5+hotfixes. I patched 1.8.6 onto a clean file for giggles, same results.

Thank you for the clarification.

Is there any special thing Gogo can do with Rod Fighting that Mog, Strago, or Relm cannot? Only thing I can think of is dual-wielding a Rod with a knife, which doesn't sound to incredible to me.

2 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Thank you for the clarification.

Is there any special thing Gogo can do with Rod Fighting that Mog, Strago, or Relm cannot? Only thing I can think of is dual-wielding a Rod with a knife, which doesn't sound to incredible to me.

The coolest thing about Gogo is exactly what makes him special in this case, he can use abilities in ways they were never intended to be used on the original character.

In the case of rods he's making all sorts of weapon-based special attacks, but Relm and Strago don't have any of these fancy physical bells and whistles, so the interaction issues never come up. Mog on the other hand can Jump with a rod, with a similar outcome to Gogo's shenanigans. He gets the Jump damage boost and some spell procs but no autocrits. The duel-wielding bit on the other hand means Rage attacks are hitting twice, which is big. Rods just happen to be one of his better main-hand choices.

As cool as the crt-hits would be in Rage, it might be a little much on top of that x4 Dragon multiplier. A rod-Mug build on the other hand could be all sorts of fun! A funky, hobo-ragged man stealing your jerky with a magic wand and a shiv would be a beautiful build.

13 hours ago, GreenSun said:

In the case of rods he's making all sorts of weapon-based special attacks, but Relm and Strago don't have any of these fancy physical bells and whistles, so the interaction issues never come up. Mog on the other hand can Jump with a rod, with a similar outcome to Gogo's shenanigans. He gets the Jump damage boost and some spell procs but no autocrits. The duel-wielding bit on the other hand means Rage attacks are hitting twice, which is big. Rods just happen to be one of his better main-hand choices.

Thing is, I don't think Gogo has any special interaction with his weapons. He's got, what, Jump, Fight, Rage, & Mug? Mog's better at dragooning & there's no reason to Jump with brushes/knives. So, there's really just elemental rod utility that he shares with Mo/St/Re, and dual-wield Rage. If dual-wield Rage works.

Going to update my Gogo guide a bit.

1 hour ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Thing is, I don't think Gogo has any special interaction with his weapons. He's got, what, Jump, Fight, Rage, & Mug? Mog's better at dragooning & there's no reason to Jump with brushes/knives. So, there's really just elemental rod utility that he shares with Mo/St/Re, and dual-wield Rage. If dual-wield Rage works.

Going to update my Gogo guide a bit.

You're right, considering the rod crits don't actually happen there aren't any. Duel wielding rage definitely works though, there are two distinct hits happening. I haven't closely tested the numbers but I think the Rod spell procs might even be multiplied, which is crazy. IIRC Dark was hitting Tyranos for ~4k using Fight, but in Dragon rage they're chunking 9999 every time! It was pretty intense.

Ah, so the spellcasts gets multiplied, though the rod itself doesn't. I never saw that in my tests because I was blowing up Owzer's Mansion randoms in one hit anyways.

OK, so I actually do have to fix my Gogo guide then. Derp. Not right this second, gonna ruminate and see if I didn't miss some other dps application for Gogo besides straight Rod Rage.

Rod-rage will get the most impressive results for a damage-focused Gogo, bar none. Just make sure it is paired with someone that can support it, like Shadow, Strago or Gau.

For a supportive/magic based Gogo I like to pair him with Terra, Celes and Relm using Magic, Lore, and either Throw or Tools. With Magic equipped, it gets access to most of the spell list, which is great and awards a lot of flexibility. Mimic also comes in very handy here for obvious reasons - free casts of top-tier damage spells and summons devoid of cast time. You can Mimic Relm after she uses Sketch and don't need to be using a brush. *Likewise, you can Mimic Celes after she uses Runic and enjoy two spell absorbtions and don't need a blade equipped.

The only thing I feel Gogo is missing is more access to equipment, specifically the Sage Stone. X-Magic would be amazing on Gogo, but I don't feel it would be broken considering its' limited stats and MP pool.

* Disclaimer: this may only work because I am using the Runic Forever hack along with BNW. 

I agree on support Gogo, and I'm pretty sure the guide reflects that. He's just so diverse.

Damage Gogo, yeah, sounds like it's mostly Rod Rage for raw dps, and Cleave / debuffs / ??? for random clean-ups. Shame Rod Rage & Cleave are incompatible with each other. Combine with Tools for an all-around skill set for handling randoms.

EDIT: The Gogo guide is properly complete now. Added Rod Rage, added Strengths / Weaknesses.

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2017 at 4:22 PM, thzfunnymzn said:

Unfortunately, Runic, Bushido (cleave), and Sketch are not options with Rod Rage; 

Got home and gave this a quick test. Runic, Bushido, and ??? all work just fine with a rod as long as you're duel wielding a dagger in hand #2. No offhand artistry though, so still incompatible with Sketch. And of course there's still the whole stop-rage bit.

Thank you. Sketch isn't important, but opening up ??? & Bushido (cleave) lets the build be good for all-around offense, while Runic rounds out the support skill set.

Double thanks, because now I know what to do with Gogo whenever I play him again. Which might happen sooner than later, now that I know what I'm doing.

I suspect Specail! attacks (which Hurtmore is) aren't capable of being critical hits.  Certainly don't recall it happening in vanilla otherwise someone would have hped Catscratch with an auto-critical weapon.

What about rod + berserk with no Fight command equipped?  Suspect the auto-criticals will still work but I don't have a save handy to test it.

Just plain Rod + Berserk will add 25% damage to the rod attack. Rod + Berserk + Rage? I think GreenSun's tests predict that the answer to that is a "no," but we can check anyways.

Pretty sure Rage cancels Berserk. This is why you can't Berserk Gau while he is raging or double-Berserk Umaro(if only!).

If Gogo was ever given the Oath Veil as a helmet option you'd probably see a boost in damage equivalent to Berserk when using Rods.

Oath Veil does nothing for rods; it's the same bonus and they don't stack

14 hours ago, Brave New EarlHi said:

Pretty sure Rage cancels Berserk. This is why you can't Berserk Gau while he is raging or double-Berserk Umaro(if only!).

Yeah, I tried this a bunch trying to create a Hurtmore-only Dragon. It would hit but there was no noticeable difference in any way.

Quick update on Dragon Warrior Gogo: Just finished my first run. Oh man, did he wreck house in Kefka's Tower. 19k+ damage rounds vs. Myria.
Punisher/Avenger/Dragon Helm/Dragon Hide, Muscle Belt+Sprint Shoes.

Updated for 2.0

Nothing to say here except that Gogo can't wear robes anymore.