Gaming Fiend BNW Edit

Hello BNW fans. In anticipation for 1.10 I made my own personal edit of BNW 1.9 using FF3UsMe. The changes I made are mostly for personal taste and for the excitement of making your own personalized experience. I have no skills outside of using FF3UsMe for editing and I don't even know how to make a Patch and upload it so others can try this edit, if there is interest and someone can explain how to do that I'd be glad to share it. Here are the changes I made with respect to 1.9

MP changes for Ramuh/Shiva and Ifrit from 48>>32 and MP cost of status spells reduced as per version 1.10. Also switched the spell list around to reflect Version 1.10 and buffed the strength of respective summon like Maduin/Bismarck and the made changes to Sap/Bio/Dark to reflect version 10. I didn't edit all the spells (like Quake and Break for instance) because I am not sure what their spell powers were changed to following the MP changes. Also Crusader learning Demi/Quarter and Celes learning Life naturally was done.

Ice and Bolt special reduced MP. Ice now costs 5-18-54  (From 6-20-60) and Bolt 6-20-60 (From 8-24-72). It is now proportional with MP>Spell Power and frankly it never made sense to me why Bolt was so much more expensive than Fire but was only 20% stronger.

Terra:

Buffed by the changes in Ice/Bolt cost but otherwise the same.

Celes:

Holy now STAMINA damage and is buffed to the power of Flare ( now 45mp with a power of 60).  For consistency, Alexander is also Stamina Based now and casts Imp on all enemies. While Stamina Celes didn't necessarily need Holy, it does synergize well with the AoE special ability. This change was more for Cyan which i'll explain in his section

Due to this being a nerf to Magic Celes, she gets a buff to Merton. Merton now boosted from 120>>150 base power and the HIT ALL gimmick now removed, enemies only. It also causes Sap. Magic Celes may have lost Holy but Ice/Bolt magic have the MP reduced  too.

Locke: 

Drain is now STAMINA based, which synergizes extremely well with Kirin's Hp+30/Stam bonus and Atma weapon HP mechanic, making the build even more viable.

Edgar:

Warp is replaced with Wind a new spell on Palidor that is essentially a stronger version of Break at 36 MP, spell power 48, defense ignoring, but also STAMINA based.  Now Stamina Edgar isn't completely defenseless. Edgar base Stamina also boosted from 24>>30 to make it so that Wind spell can actually out damage spears.

Note Warp Whistles still function identically to WARP despite the spell no longer existing meaning the item essentially replaces the spell entirely.

I'd like to give Edgar a spear that functions like Atma weapon for Stamina damage or make Bio Blaster a Stamina based Tool for dmg, but it is beyond what I can do in FF3UsMe. Unicorn is an incredibly silly and gimmicky build at this point in time for Edgar

Cyan:

Holy being Stamina based now means Cyan actually has a reason to use this over Dragon, and with the power boost can out damage Dragon. Alexander mixed with Empowerer gives him even more random clearing potential and a reason to utilize that summon over Eclipse. Kirin also changed back to Stamina making it a one time RegenX cast.

These changes do serve to further buff the Kirin Cyan who was probably already the superior build. Cyan Vigor boosted from 42>>48 to tie him with Sabin and his Swords buffed in Battle Power

Kazekiri 150>>160

Murasame 160>>180

Masamune 180>>200

Mutsunokami 210>>240

Sabin:

For quality of life, I made his Blitz all 1-2 button inputs on the direction pad.

The Drain change being Stamina greatly benefits him, especially with Terrato levels

I incorporated some of 1.10 changes to his Blitzes that I could:

Aurabolt-30>>36
Sonic Boom 36>>50 Stamina Based no longer ignore defense
Suplex sets Stop

Gau:

Starts with the Magic Bone equipped. I never could find it normally anyway.

Fenrir changed from Spd+2 to Mag+1/Spd+1. Meant as nerf to the stupidly simple speed Gau and to diversify him a bit. Gau's base magic dropped from 30>>24 and base Vigor from 36>>42 to help compensate for speed loss and mitigate early game weakness of attack damage with him. Magic Gau potential to be an absolute monster if used properly.

Shadow:

Fenrir now Mag+1/Spd+1 instead of Spd+2 actually gives Shadow 2 REAL builds, and a Hybrid build.  Shadow Base magic reduced from 36>>30. Phantom Shadow also benefits from the buffs to Katanas.

As an aside, I am not a big fan of piling on speed, it feels like wasted levels most of the time. I understand the value of it when characters have a lot of Espers to choose from, but with Shadow/Gau only having 2 to choose from and one of them being Spd+2 it felt very limiting.

Relm: 

Perhaps the biggest change. The spell Slow is completely removed from the game, and is replaced with SlowX in every instance in the Esper list and Terra/Celes natural magic list. This opened up a spell slot for Comet, a STAMINA based spell that hits 4x (like Flurry and Tempest )at a magic power of 20 (x4) at a cost of 60mp. Hits random targets . The spell is learned on Bahamut. Gives Relm a possible reason to build Stamina.

Strago:

Dark boosted to 72>>90 as per 1.10 and now Raze is STAMINA based.

Quality of life change: Strago starts with all Lores EXCEPT Black Omen. I was never a fan of going through the effort to find and learn them all. Did not edit Lore MP and power values to 1.10 values yet.

Mog:

Only really affected by addition of Wind of Palidor which doesn't change him much.

Setzer:

Blackjack/Trifecta and Solitaire changed to reflect 1.10

Blackjack 36>>45 no SAP

Trifecta 75>>90 and causes Sap (no longer stop)

Solitaire 90>>75

Overall the characters received buffs, which I admittedly did not off-balance with any difficulty increases. You can self-impose difficulty with NO EXP or limiting Esper levels anyway, or use the Nowea Hard Type. The main theme here was definitely introducing more Stamina uses, especially for Relm and Edgar whose Stamina builds were not very good or interesting. Fenrir change should make Shadow/Gau more interesting, even with the nerfs to their base magic end game Fenrir builds on them may be devastating. Comet on Relm having random nature makes it less reliable than Flare/Meteor but it would likely outdamage those spells when hitting single targets like bosses. I may possibly nerf it down a bit so Stamina Relm doesn't become the clear way to go.

Anyway, hopefully some of these ideas were interesting to you guys. I haven't given this "version" a playthrough yet, and wanted to make a few more edits based on feedback and adding some more 1.10 stuff in where I am able to with FF3UsMe.

Main observation I see here is something I see get suggested to me a lot, which is "give everyone a stamina attack". I've avoided doing this specifically to avoid homogenizing stamina builds across characters - giving everyone a stamina attack just makes stamina a better (or worse, depending on the attack) version of vigor, and I've really only designed a few characters with "stamina as an attack stat" as a truly viable option. Different characters are meant to get different benefits out of stamina, something I hope will become much more apparent with the regen formula rework in 1.10 (among other things).

3 hours ago, BTB said:

Main observation I see here is something I see get suggested to me a lot, which is "give everyone a stamina attack". I've avoided doing this specifically to avoid homogenizing stamina builds across characters - giving everyone a stamina attack just makes stamina a better (or worse, depending on the attack) version of vigor, and I've really only designed a few characters with "stamina as an attack stat" as a truly viable option. Different characters are meant to get different benefits out of stamina, something I hope will become much more apparent with the regen formula rework in 1.10 (among other things).

Are Relm/Edgar getting anything in 1.10 to make their Stamina builds more than just a gimmick? I remember reading somewhere Relm was getting a staff that proced a Stamina magic attack

I gave Relm and Strago a rod that procs a stamina attack out of sheer annoyance for the lack of respect that their stamina builds get, but it's a very gated weapon that requires you to give up something equally cool. Really, the bigger draw with Stamina Strago in 1.10 is going to be better magic defense and ~200 HP regen ticks.

As for Edgar, he doesn't really have a "stamina" build so much as he as a "tank" build that stacks HP and just happens to get some stamina on the side.

7 hours ago, BTB said:

I gave Relm and Strago a rod that procs a stamina attack out of sheer annoyance for the lack of respect that their stamina builds get, but it's a very gated weapon that requires you to give up something equally cool. Really, the bigger draw with Stamina Strago in 1.10 is going to be better magic defense and ~200 HP regen ticks.

As for Edgar, he doesn't really have a "stamina" build so much as he as a "tank" build that stacks HP and just happens to get some stamina on the side.

Oh I apologize if I struck a nerve with my Stamina attack fetish! I think I see where you're coming from where it's meant to be a defensive build option sacrificing some damage/healing output for increased longevity.

What do you think about Fenrir change?

Nah, you didn't have a nerve, it's just something that's come up a lot. And Mark Rosewater's first rule of games is "change your game to fit your players, not the other way around".

The Fenrir change is something else I see a lot, though most people target Phantom. It makes the most gameplay sense of any of the suggestions I've seen at the cost of removing a +2 Speed esper from a character I think thematically deserves one.

On 12/17/2018 at 0:46 PM, BTB said:

Nah, you didn't have a nerve, it's just something that's come up a lot. And Mark Rosewater's first rule of games is "change your game to fit your players, not the other way around".

The Fenrir change is something else I see a lot, though most people target Phantom. It makes the most gameplay sense of any of the suggestions I've seen at the cost of removing a +2 Speed esper from a character I think thematically deserves one.

Oh Phantom I like it, It's a unique bonus Vig/Stam that works well on both Celes and Shadow. +2 speed for my tastes is boring and usually overkill, I don't use it on Locke or Relm either. Even on Gau who benefits from it the most, 15+ levels of Fenrir how much will extra levels really increase your DPS before diminishing returns start to kick in. Shadow is in many ways the most interesting character to me from a story telling standpoint, the developers put a lot of love into his background while keeping him mysterious at the same time. I think that it is fitting then he'd be more interesting to play rather than a 1 Trick Pony with regards to his Esper build.

Well, I've also spent many versions working to make sure that Phantom wasn't a total waste on either Celes OR Shadow... and that took a lot of doing.

As for a magic bonus on Shadow, I always leaned away from it on the basis that there's really not a whole lot he DOES with that stat - it boosts his scroll damage, and that's it. He does have a freely-available magic-boosting relic for that purpose, and as with Locke I had no desire to stack that "free" relic with a magic boost from espers.

I really like these changes. I completely understand where BTB is coming from by not giving many different stamina attacks, but I generally prefer stamina builds to vigor, so I appreciate the changes made here. At this point 2.0 is close enough to where it's not really worth using the patch, but I plan on making similar changes when 2.0 comes out to make stamina based attacks more numerous.