Who's your MVP?

Exactly what the title says - which character got the most use and/or contributed the most in your last playthrough? It'll be interesting to see how the results of this poll differ from the one on the ID forums, which is is somewhat corrupted by the fact that it's been up since forever and most of its votes were cast based on older versions of Brave New World.

Terra gets the first vote.  She's just that good.

Ninja is my MVP. Jus' sayin'.

Gau of course.. funny, fast, versatile, and unlimited. He by far was the star of my unoptimized team run saving their asses more than once with speedy Griffon heals.

I'd go with Setzer; able to heal a good amount of HP either at low cost or no cost while adding extra yet consistent damage to many battles. He's just really useful and versatile for me.

High five Mishrak!

More comments about characters than votes for them.. strange.

Relm has saved me form my own stupidity so many times with spam buffs and heals.

Strago.

Mog, because his Dances are a legitimate option now, and I always liked Dragooning with him even in Vanilla.

Hm. I think I picked Locke last time for his durability, healing, and versatility, but the lack of MP self-sufficiency might make me switch. Cyan, Setzer, Celes, Mog, and Gau would be good for the same reasons plus they have MP-free healing or MP recharging. Celes was a bit unimpressive last time I tried her out because I didn't focus enough and went stamina heavy. Mog and Gau aren't consistent enough for MVP status for me, even though I love them now. Unfortunately Cyan does physical damage and I just like magic more.

Setzer it is!

Voted Sabin, almost voted Edgar (can't re-vote). Figaro Bros. are just solid damage dealers & supporters all game long. Edgar isn't as good a damage dealer, but he's also an even better supporter, as well as a tank.

Would vote Strago or Relm, if the game was only the WoR. The Figaro Bros. are kicking butt all game.

Would vote for Setzer, Celes, or Cyan, but they'd undeserving of the vote on certain builds. Edgar's always awesome. (Sabin has this issue too, which is why I wanted to change my vote to Edgar).

You should be able to switch votes. I'll bug Ninjas about it.

I've fiddled with the settings. See if you can change your poll vote now. 

I haven't even finished WoB yet so I'm not going to vote on the thing; but, Cyan is my favorite so far!

22 hours ago, BTB said:

You should be able to switch votes. I'll bug Ninjas about it.

Thanks

Sabin, because there's no party he can't improve and no fight in which he can't contribute, as of several versions ago when I last played. He hits like a tank, tanks like a truck, inflicts valuable status ailments, uses Golem... what's not to like?

gonna lift my post from ID to further cement my firm stance on strago:

Quote

My original vote was Celes, but I've since taken the vote back because–while I cannot deny her value in any group, the least of which being the unbreakable titan of defense in my LLG–she's more of a favorite than an MVP, and I consider the two to be different ideas. While she's no doubt my favorite character to use, there are others that would be more appropriate to be considered the most useful or influential in their roles in battle.

Namely, Strago and Shadow.

I've gushed enough about Strago in my LLG and other places (looking at you, Discord chat), but that doesn't mean he's any less worthy of the title. His bases are min/maxed so that he can fill his designated roles to the best of his ability (more so than most any other character), and while his versatility isn't as vast as, say, Locke, his stats and equipment loadout is optimized to an extreme degree to complement his options, few as they are. In a magically oriented role, his damage is beyond measure, with big numbers coming from neutral elemental hits. Against elemental weaknesses, his power is only rivaled by Terra, and his access to X-Magic means that even though his speed is lackluster (which can be fixed through equipment without sacrificing too much magic power since his bases are good enough to carry him for a long time), he can devastate anything that has the audacity to have a weakness to Ice, Poison, or instant death. Beyond X-Magic, Lore grants him some major variety with his magical options at the cost of dual casting. Tsunami is ridiculous against anything that doesn't negate water damage, Blaze and Bad Breath are incredible for setting statuses, Shield grants him a very special role as the fastest character that can set up Safe and Shell on the whole party (two turns with Zoneseek, three with X-Magic), Raze is so powerful that even its intentionally shitty double-elemental property can't stop the carnage, and Black Omen is almost literally a reskinned Quasar. 

In a Stamina build, Strago has, bar none, the single greatest magical defense in the entire game. Even without investment in Magic ELs, his 48 base Magic can service him up to the endgame with the right equipment, and he's basically a Ribbon on wheels with the right EL investment.

This is my go-to Strago, and he doesn't give a wrinkly old fuck about magical damage. Inherent Regen coming off of 109 Stamina makes him self-sufficient in battles where magical attacks are flying around, and 60 Magic hits pretty hard no matter what an enemy's magical defense is. Death Ward is honestly optional considering how quickly he can set Safe and Shell on everybody, and sometimes I replace it with an Amulet for some more bulk if Safe/Shell isn't and issue. Strago's awesome. 

And then there's Shadow. Fantastic evasion, fantastic speed, fantastic utility, and his speed works incredibly well with his damage options, so much so that Shadow's DPS is among the highest on the roster (I'm of the firm belief that Shadow/his Scrolls are due for a good nerf, but that's a different story). His options are pretty few with only two and a half real builds, but he does them so magnificently that that's all he needs for his claim to fame, so to speak. Phantom ELs for counter king and knife throwing, Fenrir for breaking the game in half in ways that other characters wish they were capable of, mix for a nice balance of both.

  Not only is this one of my favorite builds in the entire game, it's also one of the most effective at basically everything that Shadow's options allow. 104 speed +Haste and 84% evade (74% if Ninja Mask is opted over Dark Hood, which I usually choose for counters) allows Shadow to zip around the battlefield faster than anyone else on the roster, and his speed complements his utility options fantastically. There's no one better than Shadow when it comes to throwing Phoenix Downs out when needed, and access to Smoke Bombs and Inviz Scrolls lets him apply one of the best overall buffs and one of the best situational buffs (respectively) with incredible ease. His Throw tools are cheap and relatively easy to maintain, especially in the WoR where their prices are basically non-issues, access to Regen, Rerise, HasteX, and Fenrir let him set even more buffs on the party, and Butterfly/Man Eater knives make his anti-humanoid potential rival Cyan. Even Healing Shivs, while somewhat uncommon, are an interesting and surprisingly potent ST heal when thrown by Shadow.

But above of those options, Shadow's DPS with full Fenrir investment reigns supreme. Like I said, humanoid enemies get wrecked by Butterfly/Man Eater Throws, Shurikens are ridiculously cheap for how useful they are throughout the majority of the game, but the elemental Scrolls are far and away the most ludicrous of Shadow's DPS options. With b.pow values of 100 apiece, the elemental Scrolls are almost on par with Fire 3's overall power (108), and even with split damage, Scrolls hit incredibly hard for how cheap they are and for how early they are available. Even early game, having that kind of power as early as Jidoor is crazy when you consider that Shadow's base Magic is, for some reason, on par with Celes', and it gets crazier as the game progresses. The Kazekiri gives a big boost to Magic (and Wind Slash counters fucking hurt), the Memento Ring's +7 Magic is hilarious on the Floating Continent, the Mutsunokami's higher Magic and better proc compared to the Kazekiri is insane, and the Rogue Cloak's 25% damage boost makes Shadow's Scrolls/Aero procs hit outrageously fucking hard. And then when you factor in that he gets about two turns to the average character's one, his DPS is honestly really scary; god forbid he hits an elemental weakness, he may as well be a Terra on wheels at that point. 

Yeah, he's one of the flimsiest characters on the roster, and his evasion stats only go so far to avoid damage, but considering how cheap his consumables are and how easy it is to maintain his upkeep through Rerise/Regen/Image/Haste, Shadow's options make him an incredibly potent team member in whatever role he needs to fill. With nATB's effects on Speed and the removal of the soft cap for speed as a result, Shadow's Speed opens up options to him that are otherwise impractical or otherwise impossible to any other character, and his equipment loadout allows him to be dangerously effective at what he does.

Third pick: Yeti. Who needs finesse when you throw your own teammates at enemies for the damage cap? 

 

hope y'all like big, thick, girthy walls of text as much as I do.

My opinion will be rather biased considering I haven't fully dived into the options of every character, but here's my rough opinion so far:

I was skeptical at first, but after this playthrough, I'm gonna have to go with Sabin. Pump him with Stamina and a Life Bell and you won't even NEED Terrato. Aurabolt hits absurdly hard, and is especially useful on undead foes. Sabin has offense, defense, free healing AND free MP for the party. Sabin can take on any role effectively from my experience.

Close contendors go to Locke, since he's fast, hits like a truck, and is a literal life saver, Relm, for easy heals and surprisingly consistent Sketch abillity (2700 damage to Atma every turn! o.O) and Gau for his massive utillity, especially with Griffin (Playing 1.8.4)

I also want to give my boy Setzer some love. He is hands down the most effective healer from what I've experienced. Heals for alot, and has MP for days. Even his Slots heal my party a good 700 HP as early as Daryll's Tomb. His defensive options are godlike, making him survive as long as Sabin (if not longer) and his Slot attacks (Solitaire <3) hit for MASSIVE damage. It's especially awesome since even without using pause/slow mo cheats, I can still hit it roughly 95% of the time, and of course, no MP so...

Edgar is the man. I pumped him mostly with Palidor and he does enough damage with Jump to make Sabin jealous. Even after neglecting his tools, I still find Flash pretty useful.

I've recently come to appreciate Cyan alot more this time around. I kept obsessing over the idea of pumping him full of Vigor and sticking him in the front row only to do not so great damamge till later on. I've found that pumping him full of HP/Stamina and throwing out Dragons and Eclipses from the back row was far more rewarding.

Still not a fan of Mog, Gogo, Shadow, and Strago is taking some getting used to (I have high hopes for him)

Umaro is fun to use, but moves too slow for how little damage his regular attacks do (Haste barely helps)

Terra and Celes are great (Especially Terra) but I find them somewhat boring to use, mostly because they can do pretty much anything. I'm a sucker for characters who are lopsided as all hell (Looking at you, Locke)

Sabin's winning, I see. Mention this because I am borderline between Sabin & Edgar (currently voting Edgar).

"Pump him with Stamina and a Life Bell and you won't even NEED Terrato. "

Why not both

25 Terrato Sabin is a magical thing

On 5/25/2017 at 11:57 AM, MagiteKira said:

Gau for his massive utillity, especially with Griffin (Playing 1.8.4)

He's still quite effective in .5 so far. Griffin used to overheal for me now it seems to be just enough right around the time you can get it and razorleaf works on most mobs. Tumbleweed then is what Griffin used to be in .4 once you can get it. Gotta speak up for my vote! =P

Tumbleweed is actually a bit better since it comes with inherent Regen and status immunities.

Sabin not because I'm the one who introduced Hybrid Sabin in the first place, but because:

- Solid bases all round: The guy can do pretty well all across WoB and decent enough until Kefka's Tower 

- Dual-wield killing machine: Claws are the most efficient way to deal good physical + elemental damage and you can mix them to get various debuffs/stats 

- Blitz: He can set statuses while dealing damage reliably (especially now that you can add slow via suplex)

- Dodgy Tank: He's not supposed to absorb several hits but rather take one or two and avoid the rest like a champ 

And finally:

-He's a well designed character: I always crack with his jokes, get sad when his cut-scenes with his bro are on the loose and he's actually one of the few people in the world that it's actively doing something more that watch as the world crumble around him

I want to say Cyan merely for the fact just how much he has improved compared to the slow-as-shit turtle he was in unmodded FF6. If the WoR didn't exist, he's basically be top tier with both Dispatch and Mindblow being useful exactly around the point you recruit him, Empowerer being a full heal + reasonable damage early on and Flurry being great at both damaging and confusing random encounters. Later on, Dragon and Eclipse benefit greatly from a stam build and are always useful even in the WoR, though not anywhere DPS-wise due to his slow speed. 

Besides, he's one of the few not 'main' characters who gets a lot of character develop and detail, even if the vanilla plot seems bipolar-like in switching between angst-ridden survivors guilt and 'hur hur, antiquated accents'. Then there's dat 'stache as well.

But yeah... anything he can do, someone as can probably do better - or with more support or healing options available - but as a crutch character who's builds clearly define what he'll perform best in, Cyan's the best. 

Endgame, I'm thinking either Terra, Celes or Locke would be MVP merely for their diversity and suitabillity for whatever you build them for. 

On that: anyone who enlighten me why Setzer gets a decent share of votes? After two playthrough, I don't really see the appeal in his rather limited magic pool or equipment choice (tried both Magic build + Dice and Stam build + 2X Doom darts) but aside from free heals there wasn't anything that set him apart. Maybe it's because I suck balls at slots or just missing the obvious...

2 hours ago, SharmatOfLove said:

But yeah... anything he can do, someone as can probably do better - or with more support or healing options available - but as a crutch character who's builds clearly define what he'll perform best in, Cyan's the best. 

There is one thing Cyan does better than most characters: Provide effectively infinite item-free out-of-combat healing and revival. He knows Cure, Cure2, and Life, and Empowerer will almost always restore him to full MP if there's any enemy in a random that has MP to steal. Sure, he's too slow and low on Magic to be a battle healer, but outside combat Speed doesn't matter. Plus he's not generally spending his MP in randoms anyway, so he might very well go 2-3 battles before needing to Empowerer. As long as you top him off, he can sustain your group forever. Only Magic Edgar can really do the same thing if he Mana Batteries himself now and again, but Edgar doesn't have Cure or Life, and the Defibrillator doesn't work out of combat. Cyan saves you Dried Meat and Tonics, but perhaps more crucially he saves you Phoenix Downs. And the odds he'll be alive after a fight are... well, pretty high, let's be honest, if anybody in the party is alive after a fight.

2 hours ago, SharmatOfLove said:

On that: anyone who enlighten me why Setzer gets a decent share of votes? After two playthrough, I don't really see the appeal in his rather limited magic pool or equipment choice (tried both Magic build + Dice and Stam build + 2X Doom darts) but aside from free heals there wasn't anything that set him apart. Maybe it's because I suck balls at slots or just missing the obvious...

Slots is really good now that it's skill-based for one thing, meaning Go Fish stretches his MP a looooooooong way (and you'll almost never accidentally fail to fail if you want Go Fish anymore), and Setzer isn't a character who has a low MP pool to begin with. That gives him lots of utility with the MP to spam Rerise/Remedy/Regen or go all out with Bio against a weakness and never be in a position where he can't AoE heal the party or attack the enemy because Slots is free. His Stamina build can use RegenX as a primary heal since his damage sources are not MP dependent (Slots is free, GP Toss doesn't cost MP, and Daryl's Soul makes Fight more efficient), which is basically a full party heal plus constantly reapplying one of the best buffs after Haste. He is a staggeringly efficient healer -- Gau and Mog are too but Go Fish can happen 99.99% of the time instead of 2/3 or 7/16ths of the time and that matters when you need a heal now -- even if he isn't a particularly exciting one.

Equipment-wise he's got heavy armor and great shield access plus a +HP/MP Esper available right away which just makes him tanky as hell regardless of build, and gives him some viability as a dual wielder with Daryl's Soul since he isn't going to explode if a hit gets through his evasion like Locke or Shadow might. Less damage sure but there are anti-Human daggers and Dice/Fixed Dice get around the limitations of X-Fight while also ignoring defense. He can also back row with his cards/darts, some of which proc stuff that also gets around X-Fight. Also worth noting that his Speed's not even that bad and he has +Speed equipment options like the Aegis Shield (or Switchblade/Avenger, or Heiji's Coin...) that other slow characters like Strago or Cyan would kill for.

Really the main thing about Setzer is he can always contribute. He never runs out of gas, and he can change up his offensive and defensive options to be what the party needs him to be.

Yeah, Cyan is easily BNW's best OOB patch-up guy.
As for Setzer, my opinion is that he's the bulkiest of all the game's primary healers.
 

Changed my vote to Cyan, as he's usually my #2 and he needs some love right now.

Setzer's great as a bulky healer, who can occasionally contribute some offensive power. Even if Slots are too difficult, he can still summon Shoat for randoms or, against the appropriate enemy, can can equip Daryl's Soul + Power Glove + Man Eater / Avenger x2 for some great damage while still wearing heavy armor. Daryl's Soul + Fixed Dice is random, but for a healer, it's pretty sick.

My guess is that you'd be happy if you only took enough Magic ELs to keep Cure 3 strong, and then dedicated the rest to HP/MP. Something like an even Seraph/Shoat split, or maybe even more Seraph than Shoat.

I'm not a fan of Setzer's other options outside of this or Slots Spam (which takes finger skill & concentration, unlike anything else in BNW). Bio's weak, which means mag Setzer has no attacking options if Slots is too difficult. And I was very disappointed with stam Setzer in 1.7, and it doesn't look like he's changed terribly much (excepting the Starlet equip).

*****

Another thing (stam) Cyan does arguably better than others is provide a solid mid-game tank (Magitek Factory thru early WoR). Figaro Bros aside, I'm not sure any other character quite has stam Cyan's combination of offense + defense in the midgame, and even Sabin's debatable on the defensive side (especially if he went the stamina route). stam Cyan does drop off offensively around endgame though, especially in 1.7 and 1.8. At least he's still rocking one of the highest HP values in the game.

*****

Lookin' at the votes & what I've been thinkin' lately, starting to think that vig Sabin may be a cut above the rest of the cast. (Not a big fan of stam Sabin though, and I don't remember how many votes are there b/c of stam Sabin).

5 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Lookin' at the votes & what I've been thinkin' lately, starting to think that vig Sabin may be a cut above the rest of the cast. (Not a big fan of stam Sabin though, and I don't remember how many votes are there b/c of stam Sabin).

72 it's the magic number for stamina: You can reliably sustain lvl 2/2.5 spells like Break,Storm and Bio or heavy hitters like Quake, Dark and Quartz using Chakra without issues and heal 630 Hp per Mantra (Or you know, use Cure 2 since Mantra it's not worth using in the first place) at lvl 30 . Reaching that number needs at minimum 10 Stray and 10 stamina points from equipment. 

When that happens, You can stack like crazy vigor+ equipment and be a decent evade tank that does actual damage (You can stack as far as 80 vigor while having 60 speed with just only 10 Golem)

Edit: Take note I'm just using 20 EL, otherwise Sabin can just shrug it since 5 terrato solve pretty much that

Interesting. Thanks.

My main issue with Chakra is still that, as far as I'm concerned, in order to be worth sacrificing a good damage dealer (Bum Rush), I'd need at least two very Chakra reliant users on the team who are good enough to make up the difference, while being ineffective when they're not being fueled by Chakra. I've never been convinced that any character really needs MP support outside of X-Mog & X-Locke. With the Osmose nerf, though, Relm may be added to the list, so maybe I'll find Chakra spam more palatable.

Shame to hear that Mantra still isn't too hot. Guess it still isn't even that great as a utility tool for hyb Sabin? As I'm running a hyb Sabin with some Terrato this game.

20 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Interesting. Thanks.

My main issue with Chakra is still that, as far as I'm concerned, in order to be worth sacrificing a good damage dealer (Bum Rush), I'd need at least two very Chakra reliant users on the team who are good enough to make up the difference, while being ineffective when they're not being fueled by Chakra. I've never been convinced that any character really needs MP support outside of X-Mog & X-Locke. With the Osmose nerf, though, Relm may be added to the list, so maybe I'll find Chakra spam more palatable.

Shame to hear that Mantra still isn't too hot. Guess it still isn't even that great as a utility tool for hyb Sabin? As I'm running a hyb Sabin with some Terrato this game.

The real problem with mantra is...........You won't have Sabin at max hp all time and you need a healer to make sure mantra has something going on in the first place (And yes it's free, but no because you can miss the input or do chakra by mistake)

Hybrid Sabin it's all about fists to the face and AoE MP charges so if that's not your style, you might prefer Vigor Sabin for more flashing moves and better DPS but with the drawback of severe allergy to magic (And really, who don't like seeing a guy suplexing a frigging train?!?!?)

Well, I'll find out if I think Chakra's worthwhile now.

I've never been a fan of Mantra, not because it's weak but because it doesn't heal Sabin. If I'm using Stamina Sabin I'm using him for Chakra, and if I'm doing that then I presumably have some MP hog in the party like Locke or Terra, who can toss out a potent heal fairly easily. I guess it's okay for emergencies but other than that I don't want Sabin not getting healed. Comparatively speaking Magic Edgar fares a bit better. Yeah Mana Battery isn't MT but it can be potent, Edgar's Cure 2 is a reasonable heal with a Magic build that also heals himself, and he retains some decent offense options (breaking rods, Jump with elemental swords, and the Flash to blast randoms). Nothing fantastic but it still feels like more than Stamina Sabin brings to the table.

Don't forget that mag Edgar also has:

• A powerful, spammable revive
• Speed
• No waiting on a late-WoR esper for his HP (like Terrato)

Also, I believe the "only ST, but stronger" Mana Battery fairs better in general team building. If there's only one MP hog on the team, than Battery is better than Chakra. Traditionally, I've only really considered X-Locke or X-Mog as big enough MP hogs to warrant MP support, and I'm guessing it's quite rare for anyone to put them both on the team. Osmose is nerfed now - dunno if that means Relm needs MP support, or if she's still manageable without. Some people like low MP builds, so I guess that could boost the number of teammates who need Chakra support instead of Battery support.

*****

Flavor-wise, I like how Mantra doesn't heal Sabin. It's unique. Not every heal has to be "Heals everyone for a gazillion HP with no drawbacks, & its perfectly spammable". IIRC, for a Life Bell stam Sabin committed to spamming Mantra & Chakra, it's not bad.

The problem is that it's not up to par with the standard set by Cure 2, Cure 3, RegenX, Tumbleweed, Go Fish, Holy Wind, or even just spamming Potions with a fast character. I'd take stam Sabin's Mantra over stam Mog's Forest Suite, but that's about it. The other problem is that stam Sabin doesn't do anything BUT spam Mantra & Chakra. And...well...when Mantra is the 2nd worst endgame heal, when Aurabolt is THE worst endgame damage source, and when Chakra is arguably not all that hot / too niche / outdone by Battery...you're left with a build that's "Average, but not up to par with the bar set by the rest of the cast." Iunno if it's power creep in the rest of the cast, or if stam Sabin's just weak.

Oh well, I'm committed to trying out hyb Sabin at least. If Chakra doesn't turn out despite the nerfed Osmose & using X-Mog, Sabin can at least fall back on Bum Rush + Terrato ELs.

There's something about seeing '9999' that delights me, so I'm gonna have to go with Umaro, since he has the easiest time hitting it.

(Admittedly, I'm still only playing v1.7.0, so I might have to revise this if I ever try out a newer version.)

Still torn between Edgar, Sabin, and Cyan. vig Edgar, vig Sabin, and stam Cyan are just plain beautiful. Gonna stick with Edgar, mostly b/c his other build (mag) is also really awesome, while vig cyan is a heavy late bloomer and stam Sabin is mediocre. Also b/c vig Edgar can go toe-to-toe with the other two builds, though the other two are even easier to use.

Would like to change my vote from Sabin to Terra.

Terra with 20 Bismark, and 5 Pheonix (I don't believe in that "don't go past EL 20" crap), and Morphed makes her hit harder than any character in the game period. Giving her a Zantetsuken and Wing Edge (You can replace Zantetsuken with whatever) is absolutely OP. Wing Edge alone breaks the damage cap every time it crits (Which is more often than not for her for some reason)

Couple that with the fact that she has the best spell selection in the game (in my eyes) and while Morphed, even without boosting her magic at all still hits harder than most, she can dish out damage to any enemy, period.

Need physical damage? Terra's got your back, and about a million other backs to go with it. Nothing is more satisfying than landing something like 15,000 damage in a single attack. Even better when you get two in a row due to counter attacks (Which Zantetsuken gives inherently, saving a Relic slot) Double Wing Edge is also probably an option, but I don't know how to get a second one (Colliseum probably) Either way, Zantetsuken + front row is probably worth it just for instant kill/critical/counter alone.

Need magical damage? She's got that too.
Need to spike a weakness? Terra has pretty much every element that matters save for Poison and Earth. She has the best versions of all three primary elements, the only character to do so.

Need to heal, revive, remedy, or regen? Terra has all of those, and even if she isn't Morphed, none of those really matter based on magic, save for healing, and even that still heals for alot when not Morphed with zero magic investment, and Pheonix levels ensure that, while her magic may not be as high as a more magic focused one, she can make up for it with massive MP storage, which will feel even bigger than a Magic type Terra simply on the grounds that you'll be spending far more time hitting things instead.

Need to tank magic? Minerva lets her pretty much make the basic elements a joke, and compromises very little of her Vigor in exchange for it (In the event you planned on using Genji Armor or something like I did)

Need to tank physical attacks? Yes, Terra can even do that too, and yes, while Morphed, WITHOUT having to rely on Safe/Image (Although it certainly helps alot) Yes, she still takes all fuckloads of damage, but investing a mere 5 levels into Pheonix (20 Bismark is MORE than enough. You can really get by with just 15) gives her 150 HP and 75 MP, which is a huge boost. With 10 levels, it's 300 HP and 150 MP. By the time I fought Kefka, she was only at like level 35 tops and still had basicaly 2000 HP. (Granted, I used the Hero Ring at one point) which means, yes, she'll still be taking like 1200 damaage when she should really only take like 900 or so, but if Terra survives with even 1 point of health, she's golden, since you can fully heal her with even the crappiest of heals (Morph = more heal too) and even if you're too busy/lazy to do it, just have Regen on her before hand, and she'll end up getting 250 HP PER TICK! 6 - 8 ticks later, and she's fully healed. I'm not sure if even 25 Stray Sabin can regen that much. Keep in mind, all of this happened in the front row. I simply had THAT much HP to spare.

The only real downside to this build is pretty much what I just negated a minute ago; she's too damn frail. Yes, I know what I said, but everything was golden.... until Kefka's tower. She was fine (great even) against randoms, but she really struggled against the bosses, particularly Kefka (Tier 1 and 2 mostly) She simply died too quickly. Best case scenario, I Morphed and got 1 attack off before she died and I had to do it all over again. Fortunately, this can be mitigated quite well with equipment, but against defense ignoring attacks and the like, she's boned. There's also speed, but that's a lesser issue, as Haste makes anyone's speed manageable at the very least.

That being said, this makes her MVP pretty much from the Sealed Cave sequence to Kefka's Tower, which is a long gap. She's absent during Act 2, but if she was available, she'd still be one of the best characters, seeing as she's still one of the better characters in Act 1, before Magicite is a thing.

Good to see someone besides the Figaro bros. get the vote. I'm starting to like vig Terra myself as well. Especially looking forward to 1.8.7, where she'll have a WoR Rune Edge to handle the early-WoR. Also will chime in that she is just as great an elemental mage and cleric Terra & that her regen ticks are beautiful. Didn't do much with dual-wielding last game, will have to try out Wingsuken vs. Apocalypse vs. Apocalysedge.

2 hours ago, MagiteKira said:

The only real downside to this build is pretty much what I just negated a minute ago; she's too damn frail. Yes, I know what I said, but everything was golden.... until Kefka's tower. She was fine (great even) against randoms, but she really struggled against the bosses, particularly Kefka (Tier 1 and 2 mostly) She simply died too quickly. Best case scenario, I Morphed and got 1 attack off before she died and I had to do it all over again. Fortunately, this can be mitigated quite well with equipment, but against defense ignoring attacks and the like, she's boned. There's also speed, but that's a lesser issue, as Haste makes anyone's speed manageable at the very least.

Kira, if it's helpful, I prefer bringing vig Terra onto Team 2 of Kefka's Tower, where she'll fight Atma, Bolt Dragon, and Myria. She can defend herself against Myria's attacks with a Crystal Helm/Shield, Minerva, Image support, and, optionally, a status relic. Such defenses are tailor-made to declaw Myria, allowing Terra to Morph with impunity and easily break the damage cap (even moreso, now that Myria's p.def has been lowered - dual wielding should break the poor goddess in half). Could even be cute and two-hand Excalibur with no Power Glove, just Black Belt & Ribbon. Should still hit 9999. As for the other two, Bolt Dragon is also easily countered with Minerva & Image, allowing for Morph to break him. Atma can also be attacked with Morph Ice 3 (8k damage, IIRC), followed up with some Morph Icebrand (or, ya' know, be smart, unlike me, and wait for phase 2 before slinging Ice 3 - though Rasp may have a word to say about that strategy).

Her frailty is an issue, and I definitely prefer giving her 8-10 Phoenix or Unicorn ELs so that she doesn't drop in one hit. If you plan on Morphing in the WoR prior to Phoenix, you will need Unicorn. Pure vigor is fine for the WoB, but Morph croaks too quickly against WoR bosses without HP ELs. (I agree that Phoenix is better statistically and opens up very strong elemental mage options). Not surprised you had trouble with Morph in the final fight. That sounds absolutely awful.

22 hours ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Good to see someone besides the Figaro bros. get the vote. I'm starting to like vig Terra myself as well. Especially looking forward to 1.8.7, where she'll have a WoR Rune Edge to handle the early-WoR. Also will chime in that she is just as great an elemental mage and cleric Terra & that her regen ticks are beautiful. Didn't do much with dual-wielding last game, will have to try out Wingsuken vs. Apocalypse vs. Apocalysedge.

Kira, if it's helpful, I prefer bringing vig Terra onto Team 2 of Kefka's Tower, where she'll fight Atma, Bolt Dragon, and Myria. She can defend herself against Myria's attacks with a Crystal Helm/Shield, Minerva, Image support, and, optionally, a status relic. Such defenses are tailor-made to declaw Myria, allowing Terra to Morph with impunity and easily break the damage cap (even moreso, now that Myria's p.def has been lowered - dual wielding should break the poor goddess in half). Could even be cute and two-hand Excalibur with no Power Glove, just Black Belt & Ribbon. Should still hit 9999. As for the other two, Bolt Dragon is also easily countered with Minerva & Image, allowing for Morph to break him. Atma can also be attacked with Morph Ice 3 (8k damage, IIRC), followed up with some Morph Icebrand (or, ya' know, be smart, unlike me, and wait for phase 2 before slinging Ice 3 - though Rasp may have a word to say about that strategy).

Her frailty is an issue, and I definitely prefer giving her 8-10 Phoenix or Unicorn ELs so that she doesn't drop in one hit. If you plan on Morphing in the WoR prior to Phoenix, you will need Unicorn. Pure vigor is fine for the WoB, but Morph croaks too quickly against WoR bosses without HP ELs. (I agree that Phoenix is better statistically and opens up very strong elemental mage options). Not surprised you had trouble with Morph in the final fight. That sounds absolutely awful.

Yeah, right as I was making the teams, I remember your comment from before, but didn't have the interenet access at the same to reconfirm who fights what, so I kinda had to wing it abit. Thanks for the tips though.

I had to have Pheonix Locke, Siren Edgar, Golem Sabin, and Fenrir Gau (Basically almost completely a support team) go against Atma and it.... it was awful.

42 minutes ago, MagiteKira said:

Yeah, right as I was making the teams, I remember your comment from before, but didn't have the interenet access at the same to reconfirm who fights what, so I kinda had to wing it abit. Thanks for the tips though.

 

I had to have Pheonix Locke, Siren Edgar, Golem Sabin, and Fenrir Gau (Basically almost completely a support team) go against Atma and it.... it was awful.

Welcome.

I'm going to have to put in a big vote for my wildboy Gau. Gau has always been one of my favorite characters with his whole feral child vibe, but the endless rage lists in Vanilla was pretty overwhelming to a 10-year old(although an early Templar rage was pretty cool!). A big draw for my BNW experience was Gau's overhaul breathing new life into the beautiful mess that is Rage.

The best part of Gau BNW or otherwise is he's your first non-Esper or Dr. Frankenstein'd source of magic. Terra's basically half alien and the government has a secret baby-torture program to breed living weapons, most of the world's population is pretty sure magic is a myth ...meanwhile here's some illiterate raised-by-wolves kid casually busting out Fire 2.
 

This is still my first run starting from 1.8.4 but let's break it down so far:

- Gau joined in for Sabin's separation arc. AoE attacks are still at a rare premium, in pops the Leafer morph with a free AoE guaranteed on every turn. Between Cyan and Sabin you don't have a free heal to stretch your supplies, but Solider has an occasional Remedy as icing on some decent damage. And when all else fails, x3 damage from Tek Armor is great and the Laser hasn't fallen off quite yet.

- Did I mention the free Reraise spam via Conjurer?

- In Narshe he teams up with Celes or Terra for some stacked AoE damage. Solid stuff.

- Magitek Lab comes online with Espers. Now there's only Stray available, and Gau's in my party 24/7, so he's getting some massive Stamina boosts quick. Defender and Rhinotaur are starting to come online for some powerful, although riskier heals.

- Thamasa is the turning point here. Up until now, Gau was utilitarian with good AoE damage, but no major-leaguer for single target. My first Cephalid morph was a "hey maybe I'll try this" moment that shocked with multi-thousand damage. As his stamina stacked it just got more absurd, I wasn't referencing the PrintMe much at this point but it was pretty clear Tentacle was scaling with stam. Now every turn he has is a 2/3 chance of massive AoE output or a single instant-kill on the Floating Continent.

 

Gau's been my heaviest hitter since, rivaled only by Vigor Cyan and the eventual Rage Belt Umaro. At low 30s he's clocking 7k+ Shrapnel hits. His build is just a full-bore glass cannon with Sprint Shoes and Blizzard Orb. If Gau rolls Shrapnel first turn, the encounter's over. Fanatic Tower was a joke with consistent, element-free AoE nukes(up until Magimaster, who just slaps him for not using magic and heals the 8k hits with elixirs). He's fragile, but a healer topping him off and keeping him buffed with Reraise handles that well enough. Gau has registered more damage my whole run than most of the other characters combined. And if that isn't enough for the encounter, he plays a great pinch support with Harvester and Sun Baths(Silver Dragon thaws anyone?) upwards of 1k.

So the MVP of my run? Wildboy Gau, roughing them up and shutting them down. Filled a much needed role at nearly every story point, runs on autopilot, eventually transitioning to a damage-dealing deathmachine. All for 0 mana.
 

TL;DR: Full stam, sprint shoes Gau. Hits like a truck, loves the word Thou, thinks he's a squid.

23 hours ago, GreenSun said:

I'm going to have to put in a big vote for my wildboy Gau. Gau has always been one of my favorite characters with his whole feral child vibe, but the endless rage lists in Vanilla was pretty overwhelming to a 10-year old(although an early Templar rage was pretty cool!). A big draw for my BNW experience was Gau's overhaul breathing new life into the beautiful mess that is Rage.

The best part of Gau BNW or otherwise is he's your first non-Esper or Dr. Frankenstein'd source of magic. Terra's basically half alien and the government has a secret baby-torture program to breed living weapons, most of the world's population is pretty sure magic is a myth ...meanwhile here's some illiterate raised-by-wolves kid casually busting out Fire 2.
 

This is still my first run starting from 1.8.4 but let's break it down so far:

- Gau joined in for Sabin's separation arc. AoE attacks are still at a rare premium, in pops the Leafer morph with a free AoE guaranteed on every turn. Between Cyan and Sabin you don't have a free heal to stretch your supplies, but Solider has an occasional Remedy as icing on some decent damage. And when all else fails, x3 damage from Tek Armor is great and the Laser hasn't fallen off quite yet.

- Did I mention the free Reraise spam via Conjurer?

- In Narshe he teams up with Celes or Terra for some stacked AoE damage. Solid stuff.

- Magitek Lab comes online with Espers. Now there's only Stray available, and Gau's in my party 24/7, so he's getting some massive Stamina boosts quick. Defender and Rhinotaur are starting to come online for some powerful, although riskier heals.

- Thamasa is the turning point here. Up until now, Gau was utilitarian with good AoE damage, but no major-leaguer for single target. My first Cephalid morph was a "hey maybe I'll try this" moment that shocked with multi-thousand damage. As his stamina stacked it just got more absurd, I wasn't referencing the PrintMe much at this point but it was pretty clear Tentacle was scaling with stam. Now every turn he has is a 2/3 chance of massive AoE output or a single instant-kill on the Floating Continent.

 

Gau's been my heaviest hitter since, rivaled only by Vigor Cyan and the eventual Rage Belt Umaro. At low 30s he's clocking 7k+ Shrapnel hits. His build is just a full-bore glass cannon with Sprint Shoes and Blizzard Orb. If Gau rolls Shrapnel first turn, the encounter's over. Fanatic Tower was a joke with consistent, element-free AoE nukes(up until Magimaster, who just slaps him for not using magic and heals the 8k hits with elixirs). He's fragile, but a healer topping him off and keeping him buffed with Reraise handles that well enough. Gau has registered more damage my whole run than most of the other characters combined. And if that isn't enough for the encounter, he plays a great pinch support with Harvester and Sun Baths(Silver Dragon thaws anyone?) upwards of 1k.

So the MVP of my run? Wildboy Gau, roughing them up and shutting them down. Filled a much needed role at nearly every story point, runs on autopilot, eventually transitioning to a damage-dealing deathmachine. All for 0 mana.
 

 

TL;DR: Full stam, sprint shoes Gau. Hits like a truck, loves the word Thou, thinks he's a squid.

I can agree with pretty much all of that. I never really went Stam Gau past WoB though, opting instead for Speed Gau, mostly for Rerise spams and Harvester (Weaker, but Remedy is Remedy)

I'll definitely do Stam Gau next time.

Posting for posterity that in vanilla, I'd sabin (tank), Cyan (dps), Celes (magic) and then one "fun" character like Relm to control after getting a fake mustache or gau if farming rages. Strago often made a wonderful healer if I was having difficulty.

I'll edit this post last after finishing a BNW run, though

I made my own personal analysis below, a tier list of sorts. It's hard to break individual characters into a tier because of how many different builds they have. For the sake of this analysis I'll be looking at end-game builds (So the fact Stray Gau and Kirin Cyan are incredible in WoB doesn't factor into the ranking) and not considering Hybrid builds, just the more extreme focused builds. This is also for 1.86, many builds that are low on here may get a significant boost in 1.9. It's also only my opinion, and I may not realize the full potential of certain builds I ranked as lower.

Terra: 

Maduin (Magic) Build-(A-) Mostly Maduin with some Carbuncle for MP makes for an incredible potent mage who can reliably hit 9999 cap from backrow, and since Magic and MP are linked to Stamina being in Morphed form isn't as detrimental as it might seem. Really capitalizes on Terra' offensive and restorative strengths and superior regen ticks

Bismarck (Vigor) Build (B-)- The ultimate glass cannon, astonishingly squishy in morphed form and requires a LOT of support to stay alive but is capable of dishing out arguable the best damage in the game. Does not make the best use of one of Terra' best assests, her incredible spell list. The frailty of the build prevents this from being any higher in my eyes. No Stamina focus which is so paramount to Morph and her regen ticks.

Stamina Build (Unicorn OR Tritoch Focused) Build (A+)- Mixed in with a few Carbuncles levels to provide MP is IMO Terra' strongest build and also IMO the best build of the game.  It eclipses Maduin build because having higher HP and Stamina correlates to much more survivability and Terra is able to damage cap without Maduin evels and RegenX/Life 2/Reraise makes her the quite possibly the best white mage  of the game, only possibly beaten by a Sage-Stone Locke. Terra doesn't lose out on much by not building Magic and gains so much here. Factor in Omega Weapon and Gem Box to bring this build just way over the top. She's a Tank, a Offensive Powerhouse with access to almost every possible weakness and a Primary Healer all together in one incredible package. As a side note, a Phoenix Terra is viable too, but you're so much better off simply going a few Carbuncle levels for MP than switching to Unicorn if you're considering that route due to how important Stamina is on her.

Locke: 

Vigor (Ramuh) Build- (B)- Gau and Shadow are somewhat forced into DPS/Glass Cannon type builds due to lack of options, and both of them can do a lot more damage than Locke. This build makes Locke to frail to be a very reliable Healer and Double Life 2 user but also somewhat redundant and unnecessary when you already have Gau and Shadow to fill in for this role. Locke's access to very good evasion helps but magic damage will tear this Locke apart and fails to capitalize on Locke's best assets. This build can work great though if you're very careful. I believe if you choose this route it's better to go a Hybrid of Ramuh/Phoenix to make Locke a balanced and well-rounded party member.

Stamina (Kirin) Build- (A-)- Shockingly a great build despite Locke's magic list having no synnergy with Stamina due to Omega/Valiance combo working so extremely well with this build. Locke can provide very consistent high damage with this tanky build using those 2 weapons and make incredible use of his Drain magic, while saving his precious MP for Healing and Life 2 spells playing the role of support in the mean time. Not quite as good as Stam Terra but damn close.

Magic (Phoenix) Build- (A) Same HP as Kirin, replacing Stamina for MP. The end result is a Locke with massive magical reservoirs able to burst down bosses with Double Fire 3s and Bolt 2s  both very common weaknesses while having plenty of HP for reliable healing. The sheer amount of damage that he is capable of coupled with the ability to perform actions such as Double Life 2 makes Phoenix Locke one of the most impactful players of the game. Granted, Stamina Locke can do this exact same thing but Phoenix Locke is a bit better because the massive MP boost allows the player to be much more liberal with his magic and negates the need for MP support.

Edgar: 

Vigor Golem/Palidor mix (B+): Fantastic Spear damage with Dragon Helm consecutive attacks and tools and with the auto-crossbow buff really impressive Random Encounter wave clear potential. Can apply strong Golem summon support, but has weak Cure 2s, Mana Battery and Defib support with this build which prevents him from being an A level

Magic Siren Build- (A-)- The speed coupled with Magic really makes Edgar shine being able to provide constant HUGE MP boosts, Defib revivals that can come quite close to Life 2, Flash Damage for randoms and massively powerful Cure 2s. He has surprisingly high damage for bosses due to his selection of elemental sword jumping (and 50% proc rate from Dragon Soul) allowing him to utilize his high magic to hit enemy weaknesses.  A very well rounded hero who misses out on A status due to frailty especially when compared to HP focused Terra/Locke builds that can do similar things to Edgar. Golem summons are also mediocre on this build.

Unicorn Edgar-(D+)- Low speed/Magic/Vigor means weak and slow healing and damage. Has high HP/Magic and status resistance and will be Edgar's best Golem summon build, but why do this when you could do a Golem Edgar, giving you ALMOST as much HP and having useful Vigor so you're a Tank who also has a cannon to fire rather than an unarmed tank?

Sabin:

Golem Build (B-)- Pretty good damage when striking weaknesses with double claws, reliable Bum Rush and still has good Mantra/Chakra/Golem summon support skills. Cannot justify an A placement due to weak defenses secondary to a lack of shield on top of needing front row for full effectiveness, which makes him a lot less of a tank than one would imagine. He also has no revival skills. Sabin's natural access to a plethora of status options and spammable AoE keeps this in the B range, but if I was not factoring that in I might have gone C+

Stray Build (C-)- Stamina does a surprisingly poor job of fueling Chakra/Mantra, and Aurabolt is simply too weak. Like above, Sabin's other talents not related to Esper growth really help remedy this, but it's still mediocre and I find myself consistently disappointed with this build every time I tried it.

Terrato Build (B+)- IMO Sabin's best option, he's probably the only character who can truly build all HP and still dish out numbers that are high enough for him to stay relevant. This is due to his naturally exceptional Vigor and how Mantra, Drain and Golem scale so tremendously well with HP. He still suffers from Golem's weak defense issue, but no matter what with 3,000+ HP he won't be going down easy. He can brush off 1,000+ damage hits with ease and use Drain to restore it all back and go right back supporting and attacking. Incredible Golem support with sky high HP. This Sabin is not A because his damage is sub-par, he has no revival skills and Mantra is a much less reliable healing skill to Cure and Regen magic.

Celes:

Vigor Build (B)- Ramuh with a relatively even mix of Alexander can make for a tanky and reliable hard hitting build. Only having access to Life 1 and Cure 2 without a magic investment makes her fairly average for supporting.

Magic Build (Either Shiva or Siren mixed with Seraph)- (A-) - I personally prefer Shiva but I feel either one is viable. Cure 2 is now strong enough for reliably healing and magic offense with Shiva can be competitive with a Morphed Terra.  Illumina doesn't lose out much due to Holy Procs here either. She lacks the elemental diversity and spell selection of Terra and revival potential of Locke. She still fits A tier here due to ??? for MP free random AoE giving her an advantage and the extremely powerful although Niche Merton Spam set up. With MP support and Flame protecting gear for the team she can obliterate battles and keep the team healed at the same time. It's an incredible combo that no one else can pull off

Crusader Build (Stamina/Speed) -(B+) ??? Spammer. Really inspiring damage, great regen ticks, can maintain backrow safety and support when necessary. Lack of Runic is rarely an issue and no HP investment isn't so bad due to backrow/shield and high Stam for mag defense and status resistance. Suffers from same issue as Vigor, poorer magic/mp means less support capability.

Cyan:

Vigor Build (B+)- Bismarck with a relatively even mix of Alexander. A MASSIVE damage dealer with Tempest but even with the Alexander investment front row + no shield can take it's toll. Fortunately access to Empowerer means the enemy really needs to kill him before he can get his next turn. Poor party support/healing, very much a one trick pony. Can function as a "field medic" for long dungeons extremely well.

Stamina Build (C+)- This build seems a lot better early before Tempest and Alexander becomes available, making dungeons very manageable with AoE Eclipse and limitless Cures and Lifes saving you on item costs. The criterion of this tier list is late-game though, and late game he is tank with relatively poor damage/healing output

Shadow:

B+ Not going to bother distinguishing these builds. He has extremely valuable Haste X and Fenrir support coupled with being a powerful glass cannon damage. Interceptor and high evasion gives him a great edge over Gau. I personally wouldn't put him as an A since he falls too easily in battle and lacks healing abilities. Excellent in a tanky team to provide much needed HasteX support and damage.

Gau:

Speed Build- B- Gau is the only person I'd even consider doing pure speed with since he will act automatically so the speed never feels wasted. His DPS is hilarious with Dragon and Cerberus here. Like Shadow he can provide HasteX and Fenrir support. To me, Shadow is superior due to his controllability and access to the AoE and blink support of Shrurikens and scrolls. Sure, Gau in theory has MUCH more options than Shadow, but because he is locked into a rage and 1/3 of the time you don't get the action you want, I simply find Shadow more useful.  Speed Gau still has to remain in B tier since he can shut down even end-game bosses before they can wipe out the party, provided he can stay alive in the front row!

Stamina Gau (C+)- Another example of an early bloomer. Lower DPS takes away Gau's boss wrecking prowess a bit, though he is more likely to stay alive here. The bonus of being able to heal with certain rages is far too unreliable to be useful for my tastes. He makes for an excellent random clearer but not super helpful in boss fights after setting up HasteX and Fenrir

Relm:

Zoneseek Build (B+)- Osmose, high MP and powerful healing and damage but lacks revival and falls quite easily in battle

Starlet Build- (D)-Regen X is nice I guess? Murdering Shadow to give her interceptor?  This need helps

Speed Build: (B)- A better option to Starlet, mixed with Bahamut for MP levels it's not too bad. Lower magic power and higher turn rate however will translate to huge MP guzzling, will require MP support and use of Sketch to stretch her ability out. Can be a speed healer with brushes

Strago:

Magic Build- (B+) Osmose and massive magic damage, decent elemental options. Cure 3/RegenX replaced with Holy Wind which is less reliable in general. Amazing support options compared to his granddaughter

Stamina Build- (C)- Stamina synergizes with nothing at all for Strago, even Relm at least has Regen X. It does VERY indirectly help his supporting ability by keeping him alive with regen and stat resistance, but Magic Strago can support as well while still maintaining the option to nuke enemies hard with insane magic damage. I'm not really feeling this one.

Setzer:

Magic Build- A- Once you master slots, and with pausing the game isn't that difficult, Setzer is god like. You might never even need to his magic, his healing and offense is reliable and powerful. Seraph is an excellent support Esper that I forgot to mention with Celes which helps to make up for his lack of life spells. Seraph levels can be used to improve his tankiness though I feel the MP bonus is a bit of a waste on him

Stam Build-B+ Gil Toss is great and keeps getting better with each update, though it still pales in comparison to the utility, healing and pure power of Slots. Needs to rely more on his MP for healing this build is really requires some Seraph levels. However, stellar Regen ticks and Stam defenses is a major plus

Mog:

Maduin Mog: B Balanced Healing and Damage and reliable Dances. Dances are unpredictable and may not heal/dmg when you need it.

Magic Mog- B+ More geared toward utilizing his Magic skill and is quite powerful with all damage dances such as Water Rondo. Dances may fail and healing with this is poor. Jumping with elemental rods in conjunction with the high magic stats and proc rate elevates this build above Maduin for me.

Vigor Mog- B a step below Edgar (who is B+) because unlike Vig Edgar who can use the Vigor for his tools, Dance does not synergize at all with Vigor, so you end up basically giving up most of Mog's utility. Mog also does not have elemental swords but rods instead, which don't synnergize as well with Vigor.

Tier List Synopsis:

A Tier

A+ : Stamina Terra

A: Phoenix Locke

A-: Maduin Terra, Kirin Locke, Magic Edgar, Magic Celes, Magic Setzer

B Tier

B+: Vigor Edgar, Terrato Sabin, Crusader Celes, Vigor Cyan, Shadow, Gogo (infinite versatlity poor stats), Zoneseek Relm, Magic Strago, Stamina Setzer, Magic Mog

B: Vigor Locke, Vigor Celes, Maduin Mog, Vigor Mog, Speed Relm

B-: Bismarck Terra, Golem Sabin, Speed Gau

C Tier

C+: Stamina Cyan (late game), Stamina Gau (late game)

C: Stamina Strago

C-:  Stamina Sabin

D Tier

 D+:Unicorn Edgar

 D:Stamina Relm

 D-: Umaro (Uncontrollable almost no utility)

Very interesting take on things! Thanks for taking the time to write this all up.

I'd say that there's a pretty clear pattern where you favor magic damage and lack interest in stamina, which is a fairly common outlook. To address a few specific concerns, Aurabolt is getting a damage boost in 1.9 and Relm will pick up Life. Aside from that, the defensive benefits of stamina tend to be a bit more on the... invisible side. Sabin and Strago in particular are able to hit stamina levels high enough to act as a permanent built-in Shell and they will be virtually immune to status ailments - which is a bit more notable now since there's only one Ribbon left in the game. Strago really needs this since, as you mention, he lacks an ability that directly synergizes with stamina. Rather, the point of a stamina build with him is to run him as pure support (which he is more than capable of doing) rather than as a nuker.

1.9 also focuses heavily on the use of stamina for covering and countering, so purely tanky builds like Kirin Cyan and Unicorn Edgar (the latter of which was never really considered to be a significant build in development) will benefit from it.

Aaaaaaaaaaand......someone opened the can of worms that is tier lists in this mod. Sigh. I've certainly given such an idea thought in the past, but refrained myself from talking about it.

Guess I've got something to keep my busy for the next week or so.

Looking over it quickly, in terms purely of endgame, I can't say I wholly disagree. I do disagree with only factoring in the endgame into a tier list. Really undersells the value of Kirin Cyan, vig Sabin, etc. Still, need to sit down with this one.

23 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Aaaaaaaaaaand......someone opened the can of worms that is tier lists in this mod. Sigh. I've certainly given such an idea thought in the past, but refrained myself from talking about it.

Guess I've got something to keep my busy for the next week or so.

Looking over it quickly, in terms purely of endgame, I can't say I wholly disagree. I do disagree with only factoring in the endgame into a tier list. Really undersells the value of Kirin Cyan, vig Sabin, etc. Still, need to sit down with this one.

You could make a whole separate one for WoB possibly!

9 hours ago, BTB said:

Very interesting take on things! Thanks for taking the time to write this all up.

I'd say that there's a pretty clear pattern where you favor magic damage and lack interest in stamina, which is a fairly common outlook. To address a few specific concerns, Aurabolt is getting a damage boost in 1.9 and Relm will pick up Life. Aside from that, the defensive benefits of stamina tend to be a bit more on the... invisible side. Sabin and Strago in particular are able to hit stamina levels high enough to act as a permanent built-in Shell and they will be virtually immune to status ailments - which is a bit more notable now since there's only one Ribbon left in the game. Strago really needs this since, as you mention, he lacks an ability that directly synergizes with stamina. Rather, the point of a stamina build with him is to run him as pure support (which he is more than capable of doing) rather than as a nuker.

1.9 also focuses heavily on the use of stamina for covering and countering, so purely tanky builds like Kirin Cyan and Unicorn Edgar (the latter of which was never really considered to be a significant build in development) will benefit from it.

Generally I did rank Stamina lower I noticed too, although I felt Stamina builds for Terra and Locke in particular were top notch. I am a bit speculative about going pure Stam +2 over Hp+30/ Stam +1 a lot of times simply because Stamina goes so well with HP, and how effective really is magic defense and massive regen ticks without a big hp pool to back it up? I certainly find that Strago would be incredible if Odin was a Hp/Stam and in Sabin case if you mix in Terrato Levels he can already do that anyway. I'm glad Aurabolt will be stronger that is certainly going to help his cause

I'm surprised that Sabin is ranked so highly. In the WoB I feel like Stam Cyan is usually better (Better tank, early Bushidos > early Blitzes IMO, good healer). In the WoR I feel like Sabin's physical damage is good, but is it that much better than, say, Vig or Hybrid Edgar, or Vig Cyan?

I know he can element-snipe, but I often found the elements to be a liability about as often as they were an asset. He's honestly been one of my less played characters.

I voted for Edgar. I only just got everyone back in the WoR, so I'm not "end game" yet. But my MVP is pretty close between Edgar, Terra, and Cyan. (Stam) Cyan hasn't really started waning yet, like everyone says he does, but he's not nearly as versatile as the other two. Edgar has just been freaking solid the whole game. I did all Golem levels in WoB and I'm doing all Siren in WoR, so he has transitioned smoothly from Dragooning to playing more support (but still doing decent damage with Chainsaw and Drill).

On 12/16/2017 at 11:05 PM, GamingFiend said:

because Stamina goes so well with HP, and how effective really is magic defense and massive regen ticks without a big hp pool to back it up?

+1.

Not to mention that boosting one's HP leads to massive regen ticks just as / faster than stamina does (no HP booster / HP booster).

On 12/16/2017 at 11:05 PM, GamingFiend said:

I certainly find that Strago would be incredible if Odin was a Hp/Stam

+1.

So, WoB Tier Lists are a lot simpler than WoR, but I figured I might as well. I'm ignoring any area where a character is forced. This is all 1.8.6. I'll try and mention areas where I think 1.9 might change a rank. Probably a lot of mistakes here.

Terra, Narshe Fight - D(amsel in Distress)

Vig Terra, Floating Continent - B. Solid fighter with heals, Storm, & Morph.

Unicorn Terra, Floating Continent - B(+/-). Bulky healer with Storm & Break. Outclassed by Seraph Celes & Seraph Setzer though.

Maduin Terra, Floating Continent - C(+/-). Straight inferior to Unicorn Terra. Not terrible, but not great. Lacks bulk. (I'm presuming the player took few Unicorn ELs).

Tritoch Terra

Locke, Narshe - Zozo - C. There's some important stealables, but overall, he's a fairly average thief. Not all that impressed with dual Butterflies / Full Moons.

Kirin Locke, Late WoB - B+/A-. Solid paladin. Speedy too. Lacks Cyan's Empowerer (& Dragon) though. Still a really nice paladin.

Vig/Spd Locke, Late WoB - D. Too frail without Kirin investment, especially when forced to team with Te/St/Re or with Shadow. (Kirin + Ramuh is same as Kirin. Ifrit + Kirin is probably a C or something).

Phoenix Locke

Edgar, Narshe Fight - IMF - A+. Best character here. Only thing preventing a perfect is weak ST damage & no healing. Still A+ though.

Golem Edgar, Late WoB - A-. Bulky, has Golem, has good magics, can sword jump, still has Blasters. Golem is significant - 1.9's Golem nerf will drop this rank.

Siren Edgar, Late WoB - B+. Not significantly different from Golem Edgar, really. Lower rank b/c of lower bulk, but early speed is nice.

Stam Edgar, Late WoB - B/C? Inferior to Golem build, but it's still Edgar. I don't think 1.9 will change Unicorn Edgar's WoB rank.

Hyb Edgar, Late WoB - A-/B+. Golem & Siren builds ain't significantly different, so hyb Edgar is clearly about where they're at.

Sabin, Narshe Fight - IMF - A. Second best character here, and solid compliment to his brother (ST damage & AoE control). Early game is Figaro Bros. game.

Vig Sabin, Late WoR - A-. Not as powerful as early game, but still has Golem & Suplex (slow) with good HP. Golem is significant - 1.9's Golem nerf will drop this rank (moreso than Edgar's rank too).

Stam Sabin, IMF - Floating Continent - C. Straight inferior to vig Sabin, lack of HP really hurts. Still has Suplex & Golem though. (Remember this build being better in earlier versions).

Hyb Sabin - Built purely as vig Sabin right now. He hybridizes later in the WoR, when he gets Chakra.

Celes, Narshe Fight & Zozo - C. Healbot. Not a bad role, but with Dried Meats, not a necessary role either. 1.9's new flails may improve her rank.

Fighter Celes, Floating Continent - C. Not bad, but not great. Strictly inferior to mag Celes. 1.9's new flails should improve her rank. New Cover/Counter should help too.

Magic Celes, Floating Continent - B+/A-. Great magic selection for the Floating Continent. Speed is nice too. Best to take mostly Seraph ELs.

Hyb Celes, Floating Continent - ??. Never played. Logically, somewhere in the range of her two main builds. May be too early to build a hyb Celes though.

Cyan, Narshe Fight - IMF - B(-). Gets significantly better with Kirin ELs, but for most of this time, he's a fairly average fighter.

Stam Cyan, Late WoB - A(+). It's stam Cyan.

Vig Cyan, Late WoB - C-. Lack of bulk hurts, as does the high defense stats of a lot of FC bosses. Still better than vig+spd Locke though.

Shadow, Zozo - B+/A-. Pricey, but high damage + Smoke Bombs is nice. Drops a bit if you forget Smoke Bombs though.

Gau, Vs. Dadaluma - A. Conjurer Rage is highly desirable.

Gau - C+/B-. Frail, but Brawler & Cephalid are nice. Gets better as the WoB progresses.

Spd Gau

Mag Mog, Late WoB - B+. Dances are in their heyday. Biggest weakness is lack of HP ELs, but he's naturally bulky enough to be work.

Vig Mog

Mag Setzer, Late WoB - A-. Seraph is better early on, but it's still Setzer. Why the high rank? Well...

The Bank, Late WoB - A+. Bulky healer with spammable Black Omen? Why, yes, he is overpowered. Only a lack of buffs prevent a perfect rank. 1.9 will drop him a little bit. Not being able to use Slots drops him by a lot.

Mag Strago, Floating Continent - C(-). Frail, and lacks his fabled support skillset. Still has Holy Wind, Aqua Rake, and Blowfish though. Rod Strago is more of a B- though, b/c of how powerful Rods are at this point.

Stam Strago

Mag/Spd Relm, Floating Continent - C+. Frail, but Sketch is a good command right now. Also has Rerise (and, soon, Life and Stop). Best to take a mix of Zoneseek & Ifrit for MP & speed.

Stam Relm

Hyb Relm - Can't hybridize until Starlet (stamina).

Gogo

Umaro

I picked Locke, not because i think he is the best character or has the biggest potential, but because he contributed more than any other character and he was my most dependable damage dealer. his damage output was coming in at just a bit more than morphed Terra and he dodged most attacks, survived a lot he didn't dodge.

Locke actually topped the old MVP poll we had for the longest time. It's really interesting to see how the ides have shifted.

I'm not surprised to see Sabin at the top. He carries the early game alongside his brother, has superb tools for the late WoB (Golem, Slow + Muddle Suplex) that continue to be useful in the WoR, and then snags his ultimate blitz quite early. Simple, easy to use, but very strong; great for newbies. Veterans love him too, with things like Chakra, elemental claws + berserk, or a Terrato build. From his introduction with beating down Vargas & Ultros and his scenario being the most important, all the way through the mid-WoR, he's superb. He only really "falls apart" for the final dungeon. Even then, he's not bad, just reduced to merely average.

Still tempted to switch my vote to him. Only holding back b/c I dislike stam Sabin. >_>

Surprised Locke's so much lower than last time. Would figure he'd still be quite high, thanks to being the game's best healer. Not surprised to see Celes so high up. Am surprised to see Terra so high up. Maybe it's because I haven't played Omega Terra, but I've never considered Terra a contender for MVP.

I'm on my 3rd playthrough of BNW now.

The first time I used Shadow with pure speed investment the most, especially against certain elemental dragons with the rogue cloak.

The second time my favorite character was mage Mog with the Sage Stone, especially for dual-casting quake/break and throwing muddle and slow x around.

Right now my favorite is Stamina/HP Celes tanking, throwing ??? at poor unsuspecting encounters, countering w/ omega weapon, and generally playing a supportive role with the speed from the Crusader ELs and her great grey spells.

So gonna do quick review of the build I used in my playthrough so :

Terra : Build her with mostly Maduin and a little Unicorn until I get Tritoch in which I put the remaining EL, she hits really hard with Magic, tank decently and is easy to heal due to Morph also increasing the healing she receives (MP regeneration quite usefull with Edgar's Mana Battery)

Celes : Well did go for an Hybrid build mixing Ramuh, Shiva and Seraph it ends pretty well quite hard to kill, can hit Hard with both physical and Magic and have some good support option, also the Merton + 4 Flamegards set up is fun to use ^^

Locke : Give him mostly Ramuh and Ifrit's EL and the rest on Phenix, a good support but he lacks some MP recovery option, he is definitly the best of the 3 potential Sage Stone users, and has enough Vig to get some good damage.

Edgar : He is the only character I reset in WoB I used him as a Dragoon was usefull but I wanted to try him as a supportive Tank mixing some Unicorn and Siren EL but he get his best support tools (Defibrillator and Mana Battery) in WoR, so good support, good tanking, can deal good damaging by Jumping with a Sword (for the spell), Cover/Counter or using Flash.

Sabin : Full Golem what else can I say he just hit like a truck (especially if he targets elemental weakness) and his hard to kill, Blitz are usefull, summonning Golem for Defense really nothing wrong with this build.

Cyan : Full Kirin until I get Alexandr toward the end and gives some HP, IMO Stamina Cyan is awesome now, nearly impossible to kill (especially with Empowerer), good Damage with Cover/Counter, Dragon and Eclipse, can still get a really high Vig with equipment to make use of Dispatch against Human and Tempest and make the counter stronger (also he can equip Nirvana Band), awesome out of fight healer (since he can get his MP back very easily) and even in Battle his Cure 2 isn't to bad really nothing wrong here the only thing he lacks is speed for me.

Gau : Well go full speed with go since he is in auto-pilot through Rage might as well speed him up he can be really great when use properly but I felt like he was lacking end game.

Relm : I mix Zoneseek and Ifrit's so basically a speedy mage very good Healer, great Non-Elemental damage Osmose for MP Recovering, and Sketch can be really great.

Strago : Full Mage going Zoneseek and Shiva, Raid and Osmose are really good MP recovery option, Lore are good, and Dual-Casting Dark and Ice 2 against ennemy weak to hit is very effective, is probably the character that can set Safe and Shell on the entire party the fastest.

Setzer : I mix Seraph and Shoat's EL one of the best healer in the game, Slot are great once mastered, lack some Offensive option End-game in my opinion.

Shadow : Go for a mix of Phantom and Fenrir, people have told me that most of his damage come from Scrolls and Shuriken, I say grab 2 Sakuras in WoB if you get the 2 Break damage is really great, in WoR grab the Orochi and Kagenui increase his Evasion as much as you can (Dark Gear and Dark Hoods works well and we can just buy them and later there is the Mirage Vest) and you get IMO the best physical Damage Dealer in the game, he evades a lot while protecting his allies (not to mention Interceptor) and counter violently, alternatively with his insane speed putting him in Berserk works very well to, Haste X is nice but outside of it and Smoke Bombs Shadow lack support option which is his only down side.

Mog : I'm going to put it simply easily the best Rod user putting points in Maduin to increase Mag and Stam to increase both the odds of spellcasting with Rod and the odd of Cover/Counter, and then once you get Terrato put all the remaining EL into Terrato and you get a really hard to kill Mog, and then it's either Cover/Counter with Rods by having Hero Ring and Black Belt OR Jumping with Rods in the back row with Moogle Charm and Dragoon Seal in both case Mog is best Rod user for because he is the only one that can get very tanky, Dance have their use early on but didn't find very usefull in WoR and I really don't see any reason to use Sage Stone with Mog over Locke and Strago.

Gogo : Jack of all trick master of none can put some really combo such has Rage + Rods or Mimic powefull magic for a free and instant cast, really I liked him but to fragile and low stats

Umaro : Gonna say if you want a brutal and brainless physical Damage Dealer Umaro is the man, he punch thing and do it with passion.

So overall there wasn't bad character in my playthrough, I think for me the best were Cyan, Shadow and Terra all three were usefull in every way and I think that of the 3 Cyan was the best because his usefulness bloow earlier than Shadow and Terra and he stay usefull until the end for me. 

Just putting a vote out there for Mr. Thou. On my casual first play-through, he pretty much soloed all the Magitech factory bosses and he has been this consistent bastion when all else failed. He might fall aside once I unlock all the espers and can kit out people into neat builds, but even on a derp build Cyan is pretty awesome.

For me the answer to this question is always going to be Setzer.

Yes, he's not the most powerful character by the end game. But that's okay. He's still the most valuable character. He's the workhorse that gets you there.

When I played vanilla FF6 I always thought to myself, "Man, I wish Banon was a permanent character. Health is so powerful!" Well, Setzer is vanilla Banon and more. All you've gotta do is throw this guy in your party and at the very least you have powerful MP-free healing every single turn. That's more than worth it even if you can't learn the other Slots. I see so many streamers complain that the game is too difficult, or that they die too often, yet they refuse to use Setzer. I don't get it!

If you have a turn where you don't need the healing of Go Fish, then Setzer also has Solitaire and Blackjack as very respectable MT damage options which I tend to refer to as "mini Ultima." All you really need to do is learn the timing of one of these attacks, but both are easy to learn and learning both gives you the extra edge of being able to squeeze the most damage out of Setzer (as long as you know the defense properties of the enemy(s) that you're facing). If you want to be a real Setzer pro then you can learn Chocobop for MT Stop, Bars for random esper support, and Jackpot for a full party revive (which usually isn't useful enough to be worth learning the timing to be honest).

A lot of people roll their eyes when I talk about learning the Slots inputs, but it's not that difficult. For Solitaire you wait about a second after selecting slots for the first input, then about half a second for the 2nd input, and then about half a second for the 3rd input. For Blackjack you press A almost immediately after selecting slots, then about half a second for the 2nd input, and then a little under half a second for the 3rd input.

With that rough guide you should be able to create a save state just before you select slots, practice for a couple minutes, and learn both inputs pretty easily.

Now you have a single character with the two most powerful and useful RPG abilities: 1) Clearing away groups of enemies, and 2) Fully restoring your entire party's HP. And he doesn't even need to expend resources to do these things. You would think a character with such powerful abilities would be frail as hell, but nope... Setzer is one of the more tanky characters in BNW. And you can hide him away in the back row.

Since these abilities never change from the time you recruit him until the end of the game, of course they start to fall off in power by the end. But honestly by then he just starts to feel balanced rather than weak. Because for the first half of the game he sure doesn't feel balanced.

It actually reminds me a lot of vanilla Sabin: very strong through most of the game, but falls off at the end due to poor equipment selection and when Blitz/Fight is outshined by Ultima spam. And despite this, most people would probably consider Sabin their vanilla MVP.

And yet for some reason people don't give Setzer proper credit for how powerful he is. Not only is he the most valuable character, he's maybe also the most consistently underrated character.

On 4/24/2018 at 11:08 AM, Reiker said:

Since these abilities never change from the time you recruit him until the end of the game, of course they start to fall off in power by the end. But honestly by then he just starts to feel balanced rather than weak. Because for the first half of the game he sure doesn't feel balanced.

+1

I'm voting for Locke for one reason: he is the most balanced character in the game. Every build of his is very good and not overpowered.

He gets a nice amount of HP/Stam making him a good "light tank" being able to equip sword/shield and heavy armor.

He is one of 4 character to receive a +2 speed esper, making him a very fast character with Mirage Vest/daggers.

Both build options above are partnered with the fact that he has access to Ranuh which allow him to compete with Terra/Celes/Edgar when it comes to Vigor.

X-Mage Locke can absolutely demolish machines and undead alike. Not to meantion he is the best healer in the game, being able to throw out a Cure2 AoE and a Cure single target on your tank will almost always get everyone back on their feet.

He does have one flaw that is prominent throughout the game: he has almost no MP. He runs out of MP fairly quickly in WoB, and once you recruit him in WoR you have access the more MP via EL's; but, you will have him using X-magic by this time so the +MP doesn't help too much. Basically just throw a Tincture at him every couple turns and he will be good.

No MP growth in the WoB is a very unfortunate flaw with Locke. Thankfully, he comes back with his MP+ esper, though Phoenix Cave is "traditionally done late," so you never really see the fullness of Locke's gameplay until late in the game. Phoenix also has slow MP growth, which does limit his total MP (lest X-Life2 and the like become too easy), but it does exasperate the the flaw just mentioned.

No real way to fix that. Sadly, his healing capacities in the WoB are mostly limited to a hidden item.

You know I've always felt that Locke was weak in WoB and strong in WoR (the opposite of how I think about Sabin)

In my most recent playthrough I decided to just make him a tanky healer with the healing shiv and respecced him as soon as I got him in WoR.

I hear people talk about how good his X-Magic build is but I didn't like it when I tried it. I used him in Narshe and in Cyan's Dream, were those just bad dungeons for him? Or am I maybe just doing it wrong?

2 hours ago, JohnFuklaw said:

I hear people talk about how good his X-Magic build is but I didn't like it when I tried it. I used him in Narshe and in Cyan's Dream, were those just bad dungeons for him? Or am I maybe just doing it wrong?

The interesting  thing with Sage Stone is that he gives him option to economize MP like Cure 2 + Cure isn't very far of Cure 3 in terms of power and cost only 20MP instead of 32MP or Life + Cure 2 on same character is as good as Life 2 but with 28MP instead of 60MP, to increase the power of his healing you can use Rogue Cloak but honnestly if you want the most of him as a caster you should go ahead and reset his EL in WoR and invest all his EL in Phenix it will make him very tanky and will give a LOT of MP to use.

X-Mage Locke, offensively, is mostly good for Fire weak bosses. The raw power of 108 x2 x2 will melt said bosses very quickly. In all other cases though, he needs immense MP support to maintain any decent offense.

X-Locke is mostly the game's ultimate healer. Speedy, tanky, all the best heals, Rogue Cloak to boost his effectiveness, and X-Magic with said heals. He's undeniably strong, but I find that it's all overkill. Hence, I much prefer a mixed Ramuh / Phoenix build so as to have good, reliable offense with the bulk and healing.

Why isn't best girl Celes everyone's MVP

Are we playing the same game?

At 2nd place I'd tie Terra/Edgar for being really solid throughout the whole game.

4th Setzer because 7 flush is one of the best "cost-free" random encounter destroyer, and he can switch roles from AoE monster in dungeons to the most reliable healer in boss fights.

Guess I'll chime in that, looking at the poll results, I think Terra is overrated, while Edgar and Shadow are underrated.

I should clarify, because I forgot it in my original post. By the time you reach the Floating Continent the player has already been accustomed to Locke's low MP, just throw a tincture or two at him every couple of battles and he will do fine; besides, you will only really use his healing in battle when necessary or to hit elemental weaknesses. His MP usage becomes exaggerated once you reach the WoR but he does have Pheonix to help mitigate this.

31 minutes ago, thzfunnymzn said:

Guess I'll chime in that, looking at the poll results, I think Terra is overrated, while Edgar and Shadow are underrated.

As someone who plays all three regularly, I agree. I think Shadow and Relm get low votes because people forget to apply buffs on them.

It's probably because of their frailty, neither being freely usable until the WoR, and being resource heavy (Relm is MP intensive, Shadow's big physical throwables are GP intensive). Relm is a little underrated too, yes, though it's Shadow's low votes are strike me a little more than Relm's.

Sabin, Celes, and Setzer don't surprise me. Locke's lost a lot of votes since previous poll, but w/e.

1 hour ago, Mr. Ultima said:

As someone who plays all three regularly, I agree. I think Shadow and Relm get low votes because people forget to apply buffs on them.

The problem with them both is that they don't get there best stuff until Middle/Late WoR otherwise Shadow would have get my vote.

Huh. I'd have thought that be more of a problem for Relm. Shadow's mostly good to go once he comes back. He'll have Ninja Mask, Fenrir is simple to grab, Rogue Cloak is in another easy dungeon, his buyables are available right there in Jidoor, Dark Gear is buyable and practically endgame worthy. It's mostly a few ninja blades he doesn't have access, I think mostly just the one in Cyan's Soul. He's also got more WoB availability than Relm, and he performs well in the WoB. All in contrast to poor Relm.

Then again, Shadow is one of the few characters without an AoE heal and he's also the frailest character, being unable to even equip shields, so that probably weighs against him as well.

Terra is useless in random battles unless Storm is super effective or muddle/imp work. Other powerful spells are too MP costly to really spam until Gem Box (lategame). Morphing requires setup so that's out of the question.

But against almost every boss in the game she can do *ridiculous* damage. I'm not a fan of Vigor builds, but Maduin Terra in the back row is tanky enough even when Morphed.

Honestly I can't find a better boss destroyer than Terra. That doubles up as extra healer if needed, is extremely resilient when unmorphed (and if you don't get oneshot and have the right build, even when morphed thanks to regen ticks), and has plenty of utility magic in general. Unmorphing takes like, less than half of a turn. If you're in dire straits, that's all it takes to switch from monster damage dealer to sturdy healer / patcher upper (whatever the actual word is for someone who does patch-up).

Shadow and Relm are both very strong, but they're a lot more "niche". All the top picks for MVP are characters that are solid no matter what party you put them in and what enemy you're facing. Shadow and Relm are awesome in a *lot* of situations, they're also very frustrating to use just as often, especially if you don't know the mod inside out.

I won't argue your point because I agree with you that shadow is really good, but this MVP poll makes complete sense to me.

I'm still on 1.8.6, but I don't think my vote would change terribly based on the changes in 1.9. I've only got the dragons, Fanatics Tower, and Kefka's Tower left.

But, it's really hard for me to choose an MVP. I guess if we are defining MVP as most valuable over the course of the whole game so far, it would exclude Locke for me, despite being my strongest asset for much of the WoR.

So the running is probably Cyan, Edgar, and Terra. I'm doing Stam Cyan, Hybrid Edgar (10 Golem in WoB, 10 Siren in WoR), and Stam Terra. Cyan hard carried me for much of the WoB. Edgar is always tanky and super-useful, and stam Terra is whatever you need her to be: Huge regen ticks, huge magic damage, good physical damage, decent HP, etc, etc.

I'm also not surprised that Shadow and Relm are not ranked highly. It's not that they aren't awesome- it's just that they aren't going to be MVP. I think that's because Relm and Shadow are not as do-everything as the others who are ranking highly.

Edgar was my favorite character in vanilla, and he’s still my favorite here. Very reliable survivability, healing, damage, and status. A great fit in any party.

I didn’t focus on any one Esper. All my characters are balanced to whatever degrees their espers allow. Maybe I’m playing wrong, because at low 20’s everything in WoR was a huge threat, but at 30, the remaining challenges were trivial, even Magimaster.

Replaying through Brave New World for a second time, and also I test out various build with each characters, I just wanted to share some thoughts.

Last time I gave my vote to Stam Cyan, and I still think he is an awesome party member to have due to being insanely hard to kill, able to dish out good damage and keeping his ally alive through Cover and Cure 2 (which despite his crappy magic isn't to bad thanks to the Nirvana Band boosting it's power).

But I have to take it back, now I will give this vote to Celes, it just occur to me last time I focus to much on her Magic, while that doesn't make her bad with this playthrough I just realise how much I didn't exploit her potential and miss the point with her, so the point of Celes is just she has the most balance stat in the game, so I decide to just do that giving 10 EL to Siren (10 Mag/Spd), 10 EL to Phantom (Vig/Stam) and 5 EL to Seraph (150HP/75MP). With this you just get the most versatile and flexible character of the game, due to her vast equipment selection you can gear her how you see fit depending of what you want to do, and just like that there isn't a single thing Celes can't do :

-Offensive : Having access to Bolt and Ice spell selection makes already her deadly against all ennemies weak to these, but then she has a good selection of statut effect mainly Mute and Sleep for many randoms and Slow for bosses, she got Demi and Quatr for good fractionnal damage, Dispel for ennemies that buff themselves and then ???? comes to play in WoR (which I miss in my first playthrough) and OH Boy does she can dish some serious AoE damage with it, and then again comes Illumina with her consume MP for Crit bonus AND Holy as a Proc (there is only 1 Ennemy (outside of Wallchange bosses) in the game that absorb Holy and a lot of ennemies that are weak to it, and Holy ignore Defense) Illumina with a C/C set up and Oath Veil to boost the Proc rate can end up doing some serious damage.

-Support : Her Cure 2 while not the best source of healing is still totally viable, she has Remedy and Life, she can apply Regen, Haste, Safe, Float and Rerise the only major buff missing is Shell, add to that she is resistant enough to Cover her allies (and as mention countering for some serious damage), Runic can protect the party from various spells if use right so you have a character that can protect allies from both Physical and Magical attack AND can heal them.

So YEAH nothing to add there, there just isn't a single situation where Celes can't make herself very usefull, considering most character are better specializing in something havig character that can just do anything ad do it very well at that is just awesome.

Want to add some other things in this second playthrough for other character :

-Stam Relm and Stam Strago : I saw some people doesn't like these but in my case these are their best build by far, Relm and Strago share the same idea around their Stam Build, their base Magic Stat is already high enough to the point they actually don't need more EL in Magic, and their equipment already give them plenty of magic to perform well. As such their weakness is that they are fragile and don't have any HP's EL option, which is why Stamina is so good on them, it make them way less fragile as well providing them some usefull strong Regen ticks and a good Statut resistant. And as I mention they can still perform their magic very well with no EL investment.

-Terra : So I test her famous Stam Build and... well while I can't deny it's good, I still think her Magic Build is her best build, with some Unicorn and Carbunkl EL to give her HP and MP (while still getting Stam, because regardless of the build she still needs it for Morph) and the rest in Maduin, thing is her spell selection is just to good to pass and by good distribution of EL and equipment she still get enough Stamina to make Morph viable and take advantage of the Regen and Statut protection Stamina provide, all of that while being able to destroy ennemies like nobody else buisness (which get ridiculous in Kefka Tower once you gain Ragnarok, enjoy the almighty over 8000 defense ignoring AoE Ultima) and awesome healing.

-Gogo : I realise I didn't talk about him to much.... WTF was I thinking ? It just come down that Gogo's efficiency has so much variable into it but there is some things about, like I mention Mimicing Strong spell for Free Instant Cast, did I mention that this work with X-Magic ? Well it does so I just let you imagine how much destruction Gogo can cause when Teamed up with Locke casting Double Fire 3 or Strago casting Double Dark for instance, and also Stam Sabin and Gogo what's good about this pair ? Chakra, seriously just do Chakra with Sabin then Mimic it with Gogo it's an almost 100MP recovery for the 2 other, with these 2 your team will NEVER run out of MP pair that with Mag Terra destroying ennemies rank and Phenix Locke's healing and I let you imagine the result. There's also the classical Rage with a Rod, and access to anybody skills, just an all around good character.

My vote goes to Locke almost entirely because of my experiences in the final gauntlet. Having always been a fan of Rerise, I decided to try taking a team of Double-Wing Vig Terra/Phantom Shadow/Crusader Celes/The Bank Setzer into the final battle, but Setzer just wasn't able to keep everyone on their feet, we never even made it past Tier 1

I replaced the Bank with Phoenix Locke and sailed right through, beating the whole tower and Kefka in one go. Such is the power of the Sage Stone. 

Locke initially ran away with the first character poll we did back on ID. Seems he's been reeled in a bit since then...

On 1/27/2019 at 5:36 AM, BTB said:

Locke initially ran away with the first character poll we did back on ID. Seems he's been reeled in a bit since then...

I'd say it has more to do with an increase in general balance. My choice was up in the air until I hit the final battle. Celes, Setzer and Shadow were all in the running until Locke turned a very tough battle into a borderline cakewalk.

The balance that has been achieved over the past few versions has a sort of cascading effect. More balanced (usually less difficult overall) bosses and enemies allow a wider variety of builds to be viable. At the same time, other characters and Locke's other builds have been (mostly) brought up in power. This leads to people playing with non-Phoenix Locke, which is totally fine, but it leaves them less familiar with the power of Locke's X-Magic. 

I feel like I made my point, but I want to make sure I point out that everything I'm saying is positive. Text can be woefully inadequate at communicating tone, and as I read what I wrote, it sounds much more negative than I intended. Can't wait to see what new character builds become viable in 2.0! (Dog Farts, yo!)

It's a matter of opinion I played Phenix Locke and for me it didn't feel better than other characters, in fact I didn't use it for Final Kefka at all, you were comparing him with Bank Setzer well yeah Bank Setzer has some Magic issue end-game I give you that, but a Shoat Setzer (with some Seraph to keep him alive) is definitly better than Phenix Locke for me Go Fish being almost a free Cure 2 (almost as powerfull as 2 Cure 2 cast with Sage Stone Locke), Blackjack being basically a lesser but free Ultima that set Sap, Trifecta setting Stop and Solitaire setting Blind (2 usefull statut effects for mob fight and again free of charge), and unlike Phenix Locke all this tools for Setzer are available as soon as he joins, while Phenix Locke is endgame only making Setzer overall more usefull throughout the entire game than Locke (Yeah people seems to forgot that there is an entire game to go through not only the end game stuff XD).

2 hours ago, ff7hero said:

I'd say it has more to do with an increase in general balance.

 

Yep, that's the idea! The entire point of this poll was to help me identify which characters needed buffing and which didn't, so the ultimate goal is a wide variety of responses.

22 hours ago, Nesouk said:

It's a matter of opinion I played Phenix Locke and for me it didn't feel better than other characters, in fact I didn't use it for Final Kefka at all, you were comparing him with Bank Setzer well yeah Bank Setzer has some Magic issue end-game I give you that, but a Shoat Setzer (with some Seraph to keep him alive) is definitly better than Phenix Locke for me Go Fish being almost a free Cure 2 (almost as powerfull as 2 Cure 2 cast with Sage Stone Locke), Blackjack being basically a lesser but free Ultima that set Sap, Trifecta setting Stop and Solitaire setting Blind (2 usefull statut effects for mob fight and again free of charge), and unlike Phenix Locke all this tools for Setzer are available as soon as he joins, while Phenix Locke is endgame only making Setzer overall more usefull throughout the entire game than Locke (Yeah people seems to forgot that there is an entire game to go through not only the end game stuff XD).

Yeah, if I ever master Slots, my opinion of Setzer might change. Using a team without two super squishies like Vig Terra and Shadow might have also helped. No one else can repeatedly wake two characters up from their dirt naps. Even with Setzer, Celes and Terra, I couldn't Rerise fast enough to keep up. 

Generally I found every "squishy" character not dying that often, I always make sure said character have at least a +25% HP bonus (either equipment or Esper equip), with Safe and Shell they can survive good enough (and in Shadow's case a high Evasion also help ^^). I've never use Rerise to be honnest yet manage to go through, I see that in the case of having a team with 2 or 3 Glass Canon with nothing to increase survivability casting 2x Life would help a lot but that wasn't my case ^^".

My vote has changed to Celes after my last playthrough.

She can do everything and well at that. Hit hard, tank physical or magical damage, absorb spells. He only "weakness" was her spellcasting potential as I didn't really build her to have alot of Magic Power but it was still enough whenever I needed to cure or hit a weakness. 

Can't believe I used to avoid using Terra/Celes.

With 1.9 on its way out, it's time to go ahead and lock this old pupper up. Thanks to everyone who voted - hope to see you again in the 2.0 thread.