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W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
Man, I don't think I even finished my initial run last year. I dunno what it is, but I keep losing motivation to play through this and it kinda bums me out because this is legitimately one of my favorite FFs and I really do enjoy the challenge run itself. :smith:

Gonna give it another go again this year, though, because I am nothing if not a creature of habit.


:allears:

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W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

agradine posted:

My understanding is that this has always been true about the Double Lance. If memory serves me, I think the Man Eater too?

Yeah, both the Double Lance and the Man Eater are coded to use the Spear formula for their damage calculations, including the bonus to damage from !Jump.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
Yeah, Thief is a great quality of life class. Immunity to back attacks, the ability to just "nope" the gently caress out of bad random encounters, plus all the useful crap you can steal way ahead of the power curve, like farming free hi-potions on the Fire Ship when they're not available in stores until you get to the second world... and worst comes to worst, !Mug lets you shank fools in the face with the Chicken Knife without worry.

If you have a good deal of familiarity with the game, Thief is legitimately one of the best jobs you can pull for the Fiesta.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

Per asking eLmaGus on his stream just now, the runners for this year's The Run will be:

eLmaGus/jenja23/Yagamoth/:siren: the one and only DRAGONDARCH :siren:

Never forget:

W.T. Fits posted:

Okay, for those who haven't been following the streams, I have to put this down to preserve it for prosperity because holy loving poo poo this is terrible.

Dragondarch's team is Monk, Mystic Knight, Beastmaster, Dancer. Here's his foolproof strategy for dealing with the Seal Guardians in Moore Forest.
  1. After getting the wind drake from Bal Castle, go to Kuza and grind to level 32.
  2. Proceed with the game until the Barrier Tower. Grind there for Reflect Rings.
  3. Go to Drakenvale and get a Poison Eagle to cast Float on everyone.
  4. Go to the Gil Cave to grind out 370,000 Gil to buy Hermes Sandals with in World 3.
  5. Let the Aegis Shield be transformed into the Flame Shield.
  6. Make Bartz a Mystic Knight and weaken him to critical HP.
  7. Give Bartz the Flame Shield, give everyone else Reflect Rings.
  8. Reset the game because Bartz got one-shotted immediately in the Seal Guardian fight.
  9. Kill the Water, Earth and Wind Crystals.
  10. Kill off everyone except Bartz.
  11. Use !Focus + Drain Sword to kill the Fire Crystal.
SIMPLE! :pseudo:

:allears:

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Kyrosiris posted:

Black Mages wouldn't be that bad, you have the Carwen frost rod to snap on Magissa, and anyone can shank some Ricard Mages in Walse Tower for Fire Rods to snap on Garula.

White Mage, on the other hand, would be a nightmare.

Yeah, the only thing that makes a white mage run bearable until you get the Water Crystal is the fact that you're practically immortal and can just win boss fights through sheer attrition.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
I lack the funds to donate at present, but I really, really hope something knocks Geomancer out of the Fire slot. :ohdear:

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
Once more, for those joining us for the first time, I present my

List of Abilities You Want to Give Your Berserker

As we all know, the Berserker is uncontrollable in battle, meaning that most active commands are useless for it. So what do you fill that extra ability slot with when you're setting up your job? Well, there are a number of options that may surprise you, but let's just go down the list, job by job.

Knight: Two-Handed and Equip Swords are the main draw here. Most axes in the game are flagged to be compatible with Two-Handed, which can really pump up your damage numbers. On the other hand, if you want your Berserkers to actually land hits with some consistency, Equip Swords gives them access to a better weapon class and also bumps up their Strength by a few points, just to let them hit even harder. A Berserker with Equip Swords is one of those rare niche cases where you might want to actually consider grabbing the Brave Blade, assuming you don't have other classes that can easily use the Chicken Knife. So in the end it comes down to do you want the potential for huge burst of damage on occasion? Give them Two-Handed. Do you want consistent damage output? Give them Equip Swords.

Monk: Basically, either HP+30% or Bare Handed. As far as HP+30% is concerned, you actually probably don't need it; Berserkers have the second highest Stamina stat in the game, meaning that their HP numbers are actually almost on par with Monks, who beat them in the Stamina department by a single measly point. The practical upswing to this is that unlike Monks, who are stuck in light armor and thus need that extra buffer of HP to survive more than two hits, Berserkers can wear real armor and shields that will allow them to tank hits without immediately folding like wet cardboard. So while extra HP can be nice, it's not really necessary.

Bare Handed on the other hand is always useful for Berserkers, both early and late game. Early game, you can just have your Berserkers punch poo poo to avoid having to put up with the accuracy penalty of axes/hammers or the weaker damage of daggers, with the added bonus of possibly scoring critical hits. However, it's important to note that just because Bare Handed gives you the option to use your fists, you're not required to do so. So later in the game, once you've got some of the better axes and hammers and the damage from fists starts to drop off because of the poor scaling, Bare Handed is still useful because it bumps your Strength up to the same score as a Monk would have.

Counter is a trap. Avoid Counter. The reason being that the Berserk status you're constantly locked into prevents Counter from going off.

Thief: Artful Dodger is really your only option here, mostly due to the fact that all the other passives are redundant by virtue of already having a thief in your party. Artful Dodger doesn't really do anything except give your Berserker the same Agility score as a Thief, which is arguably more useful in the versions where the ATB for Berserkers isn't buggy, but there are still plenty of better options out there.

White Mage: Surprisingly, you want to give your Berserker !White 6. Even though you can't cast spells in battle, giving your Berserker this ability boosts their Magic stat to be on par with a White Mage's, which in turn increases the amount of MP you have available, and also affects your damage output for two late game axes, the Rune Axe and the Gaia Hammer. As an added bonus, you can still have your Berserker use their healing spells outside of battle to top off your party if you feel like you need to, thus conserving your real White Mage's MP for actual combat situations.

Black Mage: You want !Black 6 for the same reasons as !White 6, minus the whole "can heal the party outside of battle" part of it.

Blue Mage: Either !Blue for the same reason as the other two mages, or Learning, just so that you have an extra body on hand to help learn Blue Magic spells.

Summoner: You want !Summon 5 for the same reasons as !Black 6.

Time Mage: Did you guess "!Time 6" for this one? Give yourself a gold star. Though Equip Rods is also there as a comedy option if you're bored.

Red Mage: Same deal as the other mage classes, give yourself !Red 3 to boost your Magic stat. In theory, you could also achieve the same results with !Dualcast, but in practice if you were to do that, I'm pretty sure everyone else in this thread would personally track you down and slap you upside the head for it.

On that note, if you happen to roll into multiple Mage jobs alongside your Berserker, here's how you'll want to prioritize which ability to give him: !Summon > !Black > !White > !Time > !Blue > Equip Harps > !Red. Yes, Red Mages actually have worse Magic stats than Bards.

Mystic Knight: I suppose you could give your Berserker !Spellblade 6 if all else fails; you're not going to get a huge increase to the Magic stat, but it's better than nothing. You don't really benefit from the Strength boost, since as a Berserker you have a natively higher strength to begin with. Magic Shell's not really worth bothering with - if the enemy can knock you down to low enough health for it to trigger, something has gone horribly wrong somewhere and you're probably about to die anyway.

Bard: You want Equip Harps for three four reasons:

1. It boosts your Agility, so you're not slow as poo poo anymore.
2. It boosts your Magic, which powers up the Rune Axe and Gaia Hammer.
3. You can give your Berserker the Apollo Harp and let them shred dragons with it.
4.

Ranger: Equip Bows is pretty good. It helps you by giving your Agility a boost, and also gives you the option to shove your Berserker in the back row with a Bow instead of an Axe, making them even harder to kill. It should be noted that bows tend to have accuracy issues similar to axes, so there's honestly no reason not to do this if you have the bows to spare and you don't need anything a given axe might offer you in return.

On a related note, Rangers themselves can actually make pretty good use of Equip Axes before you pick up !Rapid Fire to replace it. It'll boost their Strength to be on par with a Berseker's, and their innate !Aim command makes axes' poor accuracy a non-issue.

Beastmaster: Equip Whips is a solid choice. They don't have much to offer in the way of attack power, but they'll let you sit in the back row and potentially paralyze enemies you hit with them. Also, most whips tend to deal bonus damage to certain kinds of enemies, and there's plenty of them to go around so you won't really be stepping on your Beastmaster's toes when it comes to endgame weapon selection. It also gives you a slight boost to your Agility, but it's not as big a deal as it is for Artful Dodger, Equip Bows or Equip Harps.

Ninja: Dual Wield. Like with Thieves, the other passive offered by a Ninja is redundant, since you'll already have a Ninja providing it for you. You'll take a slight hit to your durability, since you're giving up the protection of a shield for another weapon, but your damage numbers will generally make up for it, since you won't be taking hits from dead enemies.

Geomancer: This class has nothing to offer you; the passives skills it teaches are redundant since you'll already have a Geomancer in your party. And that hippie poo poo !Gaia won't pass along the Geomancer's Magic stat, unlike real magic commands. I mean, gently caress, even the goddamn Red Mage gives you a boost to your Magic stat, and when a loving Red Mage outclasses you at something, you know things are pretty goddamn dire.

As for the Geomancer itself, it's another class that can get some good mileage out of Equip Axes, because it still has a beefy innate Magic stat, so it can put out some decent damage with the Rune Axe or Gaia Hammer.

Samurai: Can't decide between the consistency of Equip Swords or burst potential of Two-Handed? Consider Equip Katanas! Like normal swords, they have a consistent damage formula and aren't hampered by the same accuracy penalty axes suffer from. But they also have innate chances to crit, meaning you can still suddenly explode a random enemy's face out of nowhere on a lucky swing! It's the best of both worlds!

Alternately, Shirahadori/Blade Grasp makes for a fine defensive passive if you feel like you need to worry about enemy physical attacks. Giving a Berserker the Aegis Shield, the Main Gauche, an Elf Mantle and Shirahadori on top of their already insanely high HP totals and high defense scores from heavy armor makes them insanely difficult to kill with physical hits... and since you've got the Aegis Shield on there, you're also avoiding nasty enemy spells 33% of the time.

Dragoon: Equip Spears is... eh, it's fine. It's fine, really. I mean, it's more consistent than Axes, and there are a few that have elemental properties that can hit weaknesses, or deal extra damage against dragons, I guess. I mean, ideally you'll have better options than this, but if you don't, it's fine. Equip Spears is fine.

Dancer: The misleadingly named Equip Ribbons actually gives you the ability to equip the four Dancer-specific pieces of gear in the game - the Ribbon, the Man-eater dagger, the Rainbow Dress and Red Shoes. Of the four, the Ribbon and Man-Eater are really the only ones worth considering. Ribbons give you +5 to all stats (mostly you just care about the Strength) and immunity to a host of debilitating status effects. The Man-Eater, despite being a dagger, is coded to deal damage as a spear, and also effectively crits any enemy that's humanoid. You have better options for armor and accessories than the Rainbow Dress and the Red Shoes, both of which basically only offer you Confusion immunity (Berserkers are innately immune to Confuse due to permanent Berserk status) and an increased chance of getting Sword Dance when using !Dance (which Berserkers can only do randomly if you give them the Dancing Dagger).

Chemist: Since you can't use Items in combat as a Berserker, you don't get any benefit from Pharmacology. That said, it doesn't really matter because you have a loving Chemist in your party, which means you have access to !Mix, and have basically already won the game, so what you choose to give your Berserker is immaterial at that point.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Unlucky7 posted:

I did not remember that Fire jobs are split up. I have a question about that: Do you query Gilgabot for fire job on getting the first set, or after getting the second set? I imagine it is on the first set, and if the chosen job is in the second set to just procede as normal until you get it.

Yeah, general rule of thumb is to Tweet for your fire job after Karnak Castle explodes. If you get Ranger or Bard, you're stuck waiting until you get to the Black Chocobo to use them (unless you're using cheats or hacks to unlock all jobs automatically from the start).

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

KataraniSword posted:

This can, how we say, be A Problem if your draw is something like Thief - Berserker - Ranger. It makes surviving Byblos quite unpleasant.

Thief - Berserker - Group 2 Fire Job's not that bad, because you can at least keep up the healing by having your Thieves toss out hi-potions (you did remember to farm hi-potions in the fire ship before the castle blew up, right?) while your Berserkers attempt to smash Byblos's face in.

Monk - Berserker - Group 2 Fire Job on the other hand... :negative:

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

OzFactor posted:

The ship's still there, isn't it? I could have sworn I did this post-Karnak in a random run when I only had Thieves and Monks.

Yeah, I forgot you can still enter the ship after the castle blows up but I prefer to get it done at the first available opportunity.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

KataraniSword posted:

I'm pretty sure Equip Swords passes on the Knight's Strength, too, so it makes gunching with the Brave Blade even more appealing.

It does. I'm at work right now, so I'll post the actual numbers for each skill when I get home (assuming someone else doesn't beat me to it), but basically almost every Equip [Weapon] passive will boost the Strength of the character it is set on to match the Strength of the job it comes from, unless your current job's Strength is already higher.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Kyrosiris posted:

As follows:

code:
7.2) ABILITIES THAT MODIFY STATS

Note that none of these modifiers are applied if it ends up lowering a character's stat (i.e. Knight with Equip Whip will retain his own Strength value and not the Beastmaster's Strength).

WHITE
Magic Power = White Mage Magic Power - 2 * (6 - White Mage Job Level)

BLACK
Magic Power = Black Mage Magic Power - 3 * (6 - Black Mage Job Level)

SUMMON
Magic Power = Summoner Magic Power - 4 * (5 - Summoner Job Level)

TIME
Magic Power = Time Mage Magic Power - 2 * (6 - Time Mage Job Level)

BLUE
Magic Power = Blue Mage Magic Power

RED
Magic Power = Red Mage Magic Power - (3 - Red Mage Job Level)
If Red Mage Job Level = 4, Magic Power = Red Mage Magic Power

X-MAGIC (Dualcast)
Magic Power = Red Mage Magic Power

MAGIC SWORD (Spellblade)
Magic Power = Mystic Knight Magic Power - 2 * (7 - Mystic Knight Job Level)
Strength = Mystic Knight Strength - 2 * (7 - Mystic Knight Job Level)

EQUIP SWORD
Strength = Knight Strength

EQUIP SPEAR
Strength = Dragoon Strength

EQUIP KATANA
Strength = Samurai Strength

EQUIP AXE
Strength = Berserker Strength

EQUIP BOW
Strength = Ranger Strength
Agility = Ranger Agility

EQUIP WHIP
Strength = Beastmaster Strength
Agility = Beastmaster Agility

EQUIP HARP
Magic Power = Bard Magic Power
Agility = Bard Agility

BRAWL (Barehanded)
Strength = Monk Strength

DBL GRIP (Two-Handed)
Strength = 37 (applied before Character bonuses)

AGILITY (Artful Dodger)
Agility = Thief Agility

And now for the actual values:

code:
7.1) BASE STATS

These are the base stats of each job.  Each character receives specific bonuses to various stats as well.

               Str  Agl  Vit  Mag
Butz            +4   +1   +3   +1
Lenna           +1   +2   +1   +4
Galuf           +3    0   +4    0
Faris           +3   +3   +2   +2
Cara            +1   +4    0   +3

               Str  Agl  Vit  Mag
Normal/Mimic    24   24   24   24
Knight          47   25   44   10
Monk            50   25   50    1
Thief           25   40   26   18
Dragoon         42   29   39   12
Ninja           39   38   27   14
Samurai         43   26   43   12
Berserker       45   15   49    1
Hunter          40   36   25   19
Mystic Knight   38   38   38   25
White Mage      17   25   24   49
Black Mage      15   24   22   55
Time Mage       19   26   21   48
Summoner        14   23   23   57
Blue Mage       16   25   27   47
Red Mage        32   29   18   32
Mediator        37   25   32   21
Chemist         26   27   30   20
Geomancer       28   26   28   48
Bard            16   32   15   35
Dancer          29   29   14   19
So if all you care about is boosting your character's stats, here's how you prioritize:

Strength: Barehanded > Equip Swords > Equip Axes > Equip Katanas > Equip Spears > Equip Bows > !Spellblade Lv. 6 > Two-Handed = Equip Whips

Magic: !Summon Lv. 5 > !Black Lv. 6 > !White Lv. 6 > !Time Lv. 6 > !Blue > Equip Harps > !Red Lv. 3 = !Dualcast > !Spellblade Lv. 6

Agility: Artful Dodger > Equip Bows > Equip Harps > Equip Whips

Equip Ribbons does not pass on any stats from the Dancer (but Ribbons themselves provide a +5 boost to all four stats), and Equip Rods doesn't pass on any stats from the Time Mage.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
This... this is why we Fiesta. Because no matter how deeply we plumb the depths of this game, no matter how many times we twist it and bend it and break it over our knees... it alway, always finds new ways to surprise us. :allears:

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
Chaos Run here, looks like I got Monk to start with.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Rirse posted:

Gone ahead and looked up the last job since it a while before the earth crystal, and it's dancer. Man my party feels like the one from this The Run, with knight replacing thief. Would dancer benefit from any of the knight stuff like two handed chicken knife sword dance?

Chiming in late on this, but your best options for a Dancer from Knight is either Equip Swords or Equip Shields. The former boosts your Strength, increasing your overall damage output, while the latter allows you to just flat-out avoid getting hit sometimes, which on a class as fragile as the Dancer is desperately appreciated.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

The General posted:

I've got a Whitemage, Beastmaster, Dragoon and Cannoneer. What the hell can do I to beat Omniscient!?

If you're not playing on the Matrix (mobile/Steam) version, take your White Mage and a Dragoon, hit Omniscient with Berserk, then just kill him with physical attacks from the Dragoon while keeping your party alive with a combination of Blink and healing spells from the White Mage.

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Mega64 posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPKj7NKrwk

Got a Triple Crown with Berserker/Summoner/Monk/Chemist. This team gels surprisingly well with each other. Chemist loves Summoner's Magic stat for making out, while Summoner loves making Leviathan useful and the extra MP. Berserker loves that Summoner Magic stat for Rune Axe destruction, and Monk loves Equip Axes and !Mix so that they can be useful. Just a solid team all around, had fun with this group outside the random encounters being cruel and getting some bad luck with wipes fleeing from everything.

Another successful Fiesta.

:golfclap:

W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

fits posted:

!spellblade prevents the !flee from going off

No, it doesn't. The only things that prevent the !Flee effect from triggering are !Focus, !Mug, !Rapid Fire, !Jump, !Dance, or dual-wielding it with a Twin Lance in your top hand.

All !Spellblade does is either add a guaranteed status effect on hit, or changes the damage type and/or damage calculation. Attacking normally with a !Spellblade-enhanced weapon will still check for the !Flee trigger as normal.

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W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.

Cattail Prophet posted:

No summoning them, though, since you do that through the magic menu. But magicite shards are OK, I guess!

Most people care more about the stat boosts espers provide on level ups than they do about summoning.

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