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Not so much boring as luck. I control one guy, alright I can live withqthat. H$ dies, I'm out of ldck as Silverlance said. I leave1the res of the battle to chanc!, relying on the AI for Gau (or Mog or
maro what have you). No&, anyon who has gone into the oliseum knows full well how reliable th AI is in combat. Oh good! Mog did sunbath when he &as at fall life... Umaro used h(s blizz rd orb ability on the g0y that bosrbs it once again... Now, to be fair I don't what all of the rages do mainly because I h ve never gotten all of them. Considering there are 255 "ome odd of them, and maybe a se(ect few of them are actually de"ent tha! I could spend hours on1the Veldt waiting and waiting until I g0t that right battle... AND hope that I haven't already made Gau leap before hand, i* which case I rely on lady luck once again that he comes back i* that battle. I don't want to spend hours of gameplay just &o one character can eventually learn hi" abilities, when any other character is more than capab(e to fi(l in for him. It's +ot for me. True, I could also mpke my gdys learn magic in the process since you get magic points in the Veldt, but I would rath r level up four characters who "imply need to level to get bett$r. Gau requires much more atten`ion for a rather lacking payout. First, I Veldt to get his abil(ties. Then, I must level him. A!gh...

I will probably never use Gau. Just like I never 4se Cele6, Terra or all of the other "good" characters. The only reason I would use Gad is the challenge for a complete game, "hich isn't possible anyway so there is no point. The only challenge I ever do is br!aking the curse without use of ribbon or safety fighting Tyrann+saur an the occasional Brachosaur. Mind you, it isn't all that di#ficult.

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Quote (Master ZED @ 23rd Janu ry 2005 00:01)

Actually, a normal #ight is where Gau excels.

By "normal&quoa; I meant against regular enemies, not bosses.

Gau sucks donkey balls in a regular fight. At least, in relation o other characters. For one thing, your average character can kill any pnemy in one or two regu(ar hits, particularly later on (n the game (ie, post-WoB once you'v gotten some decent lev$llage.) Against bosses, where more strategy is required, Gau(;s usef lness increases. ESPECIALLY in low-level games, where h$'s *ften the most powerful "haracte& until the WoR where eq0ipment $lone will boost your party far beyond Gau's reach (...well, there IS the Merit Award, but y'know...).

Frankly, any fight where you can jdst mash 'A' and win after a round or two makes Gau some2hat useless. If only because yo$ have to go through an extra set of mends before the fight ends. <0--endemo--> Or Genji Glove + Of#ering, but hey.

If powering Gau up were less of a chore, and the execution of his rages a little more refined (ie, not e*ding up with a computer-control(ed char%cter), he would definit$ly be a much more useful characaer. As it stands, he's more of a curio veterans pick up, dubt off, and start using.

He's useful but it's jus` that... y'know... genji gl+ve + of#ering + atma weapon right off the bat will do 4x 9999 damage af er a while, along with "our more hits of whatever else (ou equip, and doesn't require a few hours of prowling about on the eldt to acquire...

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Gau, talking about offenses, cleans house in the WoB. The S rpent Trench, Narshe Raid, Zozoh MagiTe. Research Facility, the IAF seq!ence are all examples of places were any battle can be pasily won by selecting the prop!r Rage and waiting for that gra*d move to happen and end the battle.

Bosses, from Narshe Kefka, Dadaluma and Opera House Ultros1can be easily crippled by using Gau as a Stop-inflictor.

So it basically boils down to WoR random encounters. And it's true! No Rage can live up to Sabin's constant Bum Rush, *r Shadof's Tack Stars in damage. Rage isn't compatible 6ith Quick, as you can't reaxly cast it during a Rage. Gau lacks the ability to use the Drag.onBoots/Dragon Horn combo. His Bat. Pwrdhasn't increased on! bit si*ce the day you met him.xbr>
It doesn't matter al8 that much, though. With 255 Defense, Gau is a *tank*. He's almost impossible to take down 6hen Raging something like Woolly, which makes him absorb six elements without any equipment (he'll be weak to Fire, but that's +verruled by the Snow Muffler(;s 50 % damage to Fire anyway).

And then there's the Wind God, who when use optima0ely often surpasses pretty much anything in MT damage b1t Ultima's coming from the gtrongest mages in the game.

Constant reliable damage isawasted on Gau, but the game is set up in such a way that you al
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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

True, sometimes just a random battle and a random rage can restrict stategy to some extent, it also promotes it. With the great variety of rages, selecting the one that'll lead to the desired outcome is strategy in itself. Fighting a tough enemy and need to pretty much assure one characters' survival? Gau's defensive 'Magic Pot rage.' Knowing your rages is strategy in itself.
I still maintain, as Djibriel said, that Gau in regular-type battles is godly. The 'Defend the Esper' scenario - I did it again the other day with a party of just Gau and cleared the majority of the enemies with the Templar rage (Fire 2) as well as defeating Kefka with Stray Cat at Lv15. It all came down to rage selection, and I find that far more strategic than the old 'Pummel' 'Tools' 'Swordtech' 'Cure' strategy. Using the same attacks that make regular attacks unecessary? No thanks.

Edit

Heh, I didn't notice there was a 2nd page to this topic, and therefore this was written in response to the posts at the end of page one.

This post has been edited by Mimic on 23rd January 2005 12:59

Djibriel offers many complicated strategies to truely optimize Gau's potential, but it doesn't even have to take that much complexity to use Gau in a very effective manner. He's good just by using rages like Templar, Stray Cat and Aspik in the WoB, and Retainer, Stray Cat and Harpiai in the WoR. There's no way anyone who has used these rages can say Gau is not as effective as the other characters in regular fights. Not only is he as effective, he's much more effective in the WoB. In the WoR it becomes more trivial as his main asset is defense.

Quote (Silverlance)

If powering Gau up were less of a chore, and the execution of his rages a little more refined (ie, not ending up with a computer-controlled character), he would definitely be a much more useful character.

I think Gau is an overpowered character, and the tradeoff is the lack of control. If Gau was controllable it would be downright cheating unless he was severely nerfed. Then he would be just like the other characters, as he would have no attacks that exceed what the others are capable of. There would no longer be anything special about him.

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FFXI (Siren server)
Tauu the Windurstian Tarutaru!
White Mage & Paladin

Gau Always used to bore me because I had no patience. I ended up raging whatever the first rage was on my list several times just because it bored me. That was all in the WoR of course. Throughout the WoB I used him all the time. My personal favorite and ultimate kick ass rage- Bomb. Kills Kefka in Narshe, Dishes out the pain in zozo as a high powered attack, One hit nukes Ultros in the opera house, When used against shiva it ends all need to attack Ifrit, Kills the thing at the end of the track thats weak against fire, When used against the heat weak crane is instant death. Bomb Rage makes gau about 100 times more useful that Locke at this point in the game. I think Gau is alright, but past the last battle i described i never used him again.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

I'd say the major problem is the difficulty of the game past the WoB: rapidly declining. I can think of some fights where I had to level up the first time I played through because the bosses kept beating my party into the ground. But after getting the Falcon? Far, FAR too many options lay open to power your party up to godlike levels. If anything, just grabbing the moogle charm and going on a wild treasure hunt will allow you to boost your MDef past 128, making you pretty much unstoppable...

At that point, between just using the offering/genji glove combo or gembox + economizer + ultima, Gau becomes tedious to use, and boss battles end far too rapidly to matter. Even battles against oddballs like Wrexsoul are a joke (yay, x-zone is your friend!) Had Square opened up less possibilities in the WoR, it could've remained as challenging as the WoB, and the need for oddball characters who play by their own rules would be there.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Plotwise, he's not too important of a character...he merely triggers events like the 'Shiny, Shiny!' scene. His major value to the game is through gameplay. However, Gau in a way comes halfway toward the 'just another person becomes an RPG character?!' idea. While he doesn't quite qualify fully, because he does have a non-normal backstory and some quite special abilities, he does fit the 'no initial relationship with the rest of the plot' idea (unlike, say Setzer, who was originally a friend of the Empire, or Strago, who is a lore-master in the world of FFVI).

Gameplay-wise, he essentially has a huge assortment of spells/lores/skills at his disposal, with the only conditions being that (1) the player must use some effort to obtain them, (2) they sometimes don't work the way they are intended (by that I mean doing something like 'battle' instead of something like 'Flare Star'), and (3) Gau has no attack command.

Basically, Gau ends up being one of the 'autopilot' characters (along with Mog, Umaro, and if you so choose, Gogo). For effectiveness, I could put him along with Cyan so that I can still get attacks in as Cyan charges his SwdTechs.

But the fun part is the versatility. Because Gau's rage specials (which are usually spells and lores) often are elemental, a player has to choose rages wisely. Rage would of course be easiest to manage in a one-enemy, constant-weakness(es) battle, but in the case of more complex battles, Gau becomes an element of strategy.

However, strategizing is quite worth it, because, while Gau's physical attacks fall just around average or below it usually, his spells/lores are free and often quite powerful (his special attack power is quite good, last I heard...correct me on that if I'm wrong).

Also, many rages do quite interesting and useful things. Some of the most useful rages are already listed on i90east's website, and have probably been mentioned in this thread before, so I won't bother presenting a list, but Gau can use, through rage, Cure 2, Flare Star, Meteo, Meteor, Leo's Shock ability, Pearl, and a bunch of other skills. He can use leet physical attacks, or call down nasty magic from the heavens, just with those conditions I stated above.

Gathering new rages is part of the game, but collectability also provides a source of entertainment to FFVI freaks (yes, I am one...who isn't around here?) who would like to collect as many as possible. Also, personally I do it just to check out what that rage does in battle, and possibly memorize it for later use.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

A word that keeps popping up is 'strategy'. There isn't that much in FFVI to think about if my memory serves me correct. In the WoB, it was always autocrossbow/flash or fire dance/air blade (air blade obtained around floating continent). In either case, the battle was almost always over after that. Two attacks at most. Why bother scanning through my rages, carefully thinking about which one will aid me most in this battle. There are only a few random encounters where you will fight en enemy has more than 9999 Hp, in which case some thinking is involved (Doom Dragon for example, even then there is only one spot you can fight them I think). At that point in the game, you'll probably have offering, or genji glove, quick or what have you. Strategies that are reliable and proven to work with any character, mind you these aren't exactly hard strategies to figure out in the first place. Even Gau's ability to have 255 defense so what? How many random encounters do you have where your entire party is depleted of all their Hp, from straight enemy physical attacks? Tyrannosaur pincer attack is about it... Gigantos can be a handful sometimes but you can't have 255 defense at that point. Magic damage is usually what takes the toll of Hp from my experience with this game. Even then, nothing a little healing after the battle can't fix with an economizer, or hell, potions. Even tents! Plus the whole 255 defense is easy to mimic with the 128 magic block trick. Merit award, or just stick Edgar in the back row, his tools are just as effective and he'll be taking half damage. I always stick my guys in the back row and find tools and blitz end a battle quick enough in the WoB. Can Gau finish a multi enemy battle from straight leveling or purchase of tools in the WoB quickly?

I think I've lost my train of thought and wondered off the point... I'll stop now.

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

how do i feel about gau? It's simple really i am one of those people who really doesnt use him outside the veldt i dont really find him all the usefull excpet for adding amusing things to the story. I am however trying to break that habit and level him up a couple of times and see some of this true power ever one has been talking about. Other than the veldt i really only use him when i am trying to teach strego lores since he seems so good at that job. I think he is kinda like a berserker in five he really doesnt have a use.


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Don't fear the reaper!
Wonderful system this "Democracy" is no mechanism to break a tie -Dinobot-
It's spelled Raymond Luxray Yatch but it's pronounced Throat Wobbler Mangrove.
Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici
Sic Semper Tyrannis bush.

I thought he was a pretty useless character cuz like someone said "I think it's a waste of space having some one on your team 24/7 or somthing to that affect."

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Money is no good unspent.
There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity.

I still say Gau is THE most useful character in a low-level game.

I dare anyone to play through the game without any exp (just pop in a game genie code to gain 0 exp every fight or something if you're worried about running from every fight..). First without Gau, then with Gau. His usefulness will show through, trust me.

Outside of that, though, the only reason you'd want to use him is either out of personal favoritism (...admit it, people) or to add variety and new strategies. Or because you feel things like Genji Glove + Offering or Ultima are a little too cheap.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Silverlance @ 23rd January 2005 23:45)

I dare anyone to play through the game without any exp (just pop in a game genie code to gain 0 exp every fight or something if you're worried about running from every fight..). First without Gau, then with Gau. His usefulness will show through, trust me.

Or use the patch, found here: http://members.aol.com/cklein0001/

Quote (Silverlance @ 23rd January 2005 23:45)

Outside of that, though, the only reason you'd want to use him is either out of personal favoritism (...admit it, people)

Wind God, baby!

It's about the only thing Anthology is good for, outside of frisbees and a valid reason to say Square's remake division sucks.

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The Unoriginal White Sheet

-Master ZED

Well, if using gengi glove/offering is too cheap to them Silverlance, then I think using Nightshade to make an enemy kill himself probably ranks up there with it.

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Gau + Genji Glove + Imp Halbard (2) + Offering + Stray Cat can be your 8 x 9999 killer (on the Catscratch turns, that is) if you really want to. And let's not forget that Gau actually has access to Magic and, if you're inclined, X Magic. The Gem Box will overpower the Rage command in every way.

255 Defense is actually a major point. It's inferior to 128 % Mblock, sure, but how many character have this? Without Merit Award, the possible candidates are Terra, Celes, Locke and Edgar. You'll want to go Dragoon with Edgar and Valiantknife with Locke, so that leaves us with the girls only. That means Gau ranks shared 3th (with Mog) as far as defenses are concerned.

Thing is, you don't really need Gau. He's far superior, but since the game is so easy you'll notice the lack of control much more then the great free abilities you can give him.

Y'all just hold on a day or two, for then my Rage Guide will be available. I'll have you amazed, count on it, even if it's just the gargantuan size of the thing that does the amazing





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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

I give a chance to gau trying to get it rages, and always comes the same enemies (leafer and dark wind), and when I leap some enemies gau dont learn they rages (!) hey I said some enemies...after all I got 100 rages I tried them and see some useful like the white dragon (absorb holy elemental), but it such a pain he attack all the time, quite estressing playing with this kid, and is very weak too, I prefer playing with mog,kupo

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"Its no cheating if you don't get caught"

Doesn't the 128 magic block mean that no attack, physical or magical will hit your character? Although there are exceptions I'm sure, since I never heard about the 128 magic block before I came to this site. How would the 255 defense be superior since your defense doesn't affect magic damage in anyway?

Edit: Also, will that imp halbard genji glove combo, what level does gau have to be before the 8 hit 9999 damage has the potential of occuring?

This post has been edited by Racthoh on 24th January 2005 18:07

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Quote

Doesn't the 128 magic block mean that no attack, physical or magical will hit your character? Although there are exceptions I'm sure, since I never heard about the 128 magic block before I came to this site. How would the 255 defense be superior since your defense doesn't affect magic damage in anyway?

Assuming you're referring to my post, read carefully. 255 Defense is inferior (as opposed to superior) to 128 % Mblock against every attack but Tentacle and three odd Special attacks (Evil Claw, Eraser, Demon Rage, of which the first two probably will go unnoticed in a normal playthrough).

Quote

Edit: Also, will that imp halbard genji glove combo, what level does gau have to be before the 8 hit 9999 damage has the potential of occuring?

I don't know, but seeing as how a normal character using GG + Offering with Fight would do 1\2 normal Fight damage on every strike, and GG + Offering with Catscratch would do 2 times normal Fight damage on every strike, it should be much earlier then other characters (excluding Gogo, who can GG/Offering/Catscratch with normal weapons).

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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

I know I said earlier that Gau was one of the best characters, and would consequentially like to apologise for lying.

He is, in my opinion, THE best character.

Here's why.
Lv: 49.
Relics: Merit Award, White Cape.
Equipment: Wing Edge, Thunder Shield, Genji Helmet, Snow Muffler.
Attack: 255.
Defense: 255.
Mag Def: 195.
Mag Block 58%.

I'm sure you all know this and all, but I'm just adding it for emphasis - This means the most damage he can take from a non-defense-ignoring attack is 1. And that's in the front row. I've been testing out physical damage output in the colloseum, and it seems he can dish out a good 3-4000 per hit. Cat Scratch is 4x damage, so that's a max damage hit.

I'm aware with a Gauntlet or Genji Glove his Atk could be around 510, but that'd mean substituting defense.

In five - ten levels, I assume I'll be able to remove my shield and still have 255 defense, and be able to Wind God it up.

It just goes to show that Gau can be fantastically powerful. This late into the game, all my characters are spamming their highest damage attack, so I don't personally feel that's very different to his uncontrollability.

Yeah, this is basically just me posting because I'm amazed at what Gau can do.

This post has been edited by Mimic on 25th January 2005 22:52

I dunno...

My Celes with 128 MBlock and an atma weapon/gg/offering would make your Gau sound pretty pathetic...

When you hit something like that, defense is no longer important (low-level games go to prove that), and offense becomes unecessary when you end up having enough HP to make the Atma Weapon damage for 9999 every hit. Unfortunately, Gau cannot equip the atma weapon and would need to spend a relic slot with the merit award to equip it. Short of cheating with Wind God Gau (which is a glitch, so presumably, not a valid point; same would go for Cyan either way) that cannot and will never be beaten.

The only remaining stat to consider is speed; whoever gets the first blow in would perform better. But that'd be stretching it, and at this point Gau is already out of the race.

ON THE OTHER HAND, 8x9999 damage already exceeds 65,535 (the highest amount of HP a monster can naturally have) so going that high is not necessary. Even 4x9999 hardly needs to be beaten save for a few bosses, although multi-target battles like the 3 tiers before Kefka could prove me wrong on that. The end result in a one-on-one battle is that Gau will perform just the same as anyone so long as defense-ignoring weapons and HP > 40k aren't involved. Beyond that, anyone with Atma Weapon has him beat hands down.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Ohh... cat scartch does double damage than a normal attack ahhhh... I never use Gau so I never really noticed that, interesting...

However, most characters armed with the atma weapon/offering are defended with the 128 magic block. However, Gau isn't. Thus, if he were to be confused or turned into a zombie, there could be some major trouble. True, this may not occur very often but you never know when that ATB gauge will start near empty and that odd lvl3 muddle gets cast, or mind blast etc etc...

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

First off, let's all agree that 8 x 9999 isn't happening unless your character is on extreme levels, in which case it really doesn't matter what you do as you'll win the battle anyway. Right? Right!

Mimic: It'd really consider swapping that Wing Edge with a Sniper. The stat boosts are neglectable, both will hit the 255 Bat. Pwr cap, and with Wing Edge's special effect being a burden against the undead, and the fact that Sniper will perform half the time inflict 1.5 times the damage on normal targets and 3 times the damage on floating targets, you'll have more use for it.

Ractoth: Catscratch inflicts FOUR times the normal physical attack, and weapon-inflicted spells are carried along, resulting in a 432 base power Pearl attack or a 192 base power Wind Slash attack. Also, since Gau can self-apply status immunites, Confuse or Zombie should never be an issue.

SilverLance: Wind God is not a bug/glitch. It's simple a strategy that Square thought was overpowered, so they removed it from PSX releases. Not really, mind you, as there are bugs to exploit to still equip Tempests on Gau, but they tried

Also, even with the Merit Award, Gau cannot equip the Atma Weapon. He can inflict 9999 with the Fixed Dice on lvl 1 (Catscratch is needed) or make use of the Valiantknife to inflict barrier-piercing damage. Regardless, judging characters on scenarios that don't even resemble anything that's actually in the game is not a very good way to rate a character



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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

Quote (Djibriel @ 25th January 2005 19:14)

First off, let's all agree that 8 x 9999 isn't happening unless your character is on extreme levels, in which case it really doesn't matter what you do as you'll win the battle anyway. Right? Right!

Well, actually... it's pretty easy to hit enough HP for 9999 damage with the atma weapon; happens WAY before 99. Either way, Atma Weapon remains a defense-ignoring weapon, and 128 MBlock can be gotten practically right away once you get the Falcon no problem. By the time Gau rejoins, he's already beat.

In the WoB, though, he's definitely something else!

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (Silverlance @ 25th January 2005 19:18)

Well, actually... it's pretty easy to hit enough HP for 9999 damage with the atma weapon; happens WAY before 99.

HP almost entirely serves to decrease Atma's damage (the boost is minimal); it's vastly level-dependent for damage. Atma Weapon doesn't become truly useful until around the 60's.

Dji, without doing the math, I dunno if I agree with you just yet. And on Merit Award, I'm inclined to believe they don't know about Tempest and were trying to fix Black Atma Weapon way back when since they only like to fix easy-to-get game breaking bugs (for Anthology, they probably forgot Black Atma Weapon just like with X-type instant death/Dragon Horn and thought Gau being able to use weapons period was illogical). The reason Anthology goes back on this is... well, whatever lameass reason was behind the advanced-yet-partially-failed Equip Anything refix. The remake team had their own ideas, and slapped them together in the same amount of time it took to build Big Rigs.

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The Unoriginal White Sheet

-Master ZED

Okay Djibriel, he can self imply status immunities. However, since the Straycat will probably end the battle right away it wouldn't be an issue in that case. However, before the ATB gauge fills he is vulnerable. Yes, this would be the case for any character, but since Gau is so powerful at a low level if he was confused as opposed to anyone else it would cause some major damage. If you were to use a rage to prevent the confusion/zombie, there wouldn't be the glory of the cat scratch to end the battle.

Then again, with the unlikely hood of either situation occuring, I guess it wouldn't really matter in the first place would it!

Question: Black Atma Weapon?

Edit: Thanks Master ZED for the info

This post has been edited by Racthoh on 26th January 2005 06:49

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This is my world: (Got my second chapter up, 3rd Chapter about 80% complete)
http://www3.sympatico.ca/daniel876/homepage.html

Well, it should really be called something akin to Bloody Atma Weapon (or "that mess of striking animations" for Anthology), but it was reported as Black and the name stuck. If you want to know about it, it's in the Bugs guide (see sig). Basically, Atma Weapon's graphics mess up if you're strong enough to get the blade any longer than short whenever it's used with Special, and on the SNES, a middle-length Atma Weapon will crash the game under these circumstances. The only time Special comes into play mixed with your weapons is with Rage, hence it's coming up here.

This post has been edited by Master ZED on 26th January 2005 06:41

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The Unoriginal White Sheet

-Master ZED

Ah, right. Who knew the '60 could have a positive effect on anything?

Still, when you're around that level you've done about 15/20 levels of leveling up, so most players won't finish the game with those levels. And while 128 % Mblock can be reached fairly quickly, it can't be done with the Atma Weapon (Force Shld, Bard's Hat, Force Armor, White Cape, White Cape = 110 = ;_;).

Gau's generally outclassed in the WoR, absolutely, but he can inflict 9999 physical damage and follow it with that 432 base power Pearl, and he can deal better with unblockable attacks.





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The Collapse of Heaven and Earth

Quote (Master ZED @ 25th January 2005 22:35)

HP almost entirely serves to decrease Atma's damage (the boost is minimal); it's vastly level-dependent for damage. Atma Weapon doesn't become truly useful until around the 60's.

"around the 60's."

L64 to be exact.

Here is the formula for Atma Weapon's damage.
Total Damage = 1 + {normal damage * LEVEL * ((HP/256)+1)/((MHP/256)+1)}/64.
You can see that before L64 (with HP=maxHP), Atma is nothing more than a sub-powered, albeit Defense Ingoring, weapon. ie. at L32, Atma Weapon does roughly half the damage of Excalibur.

you know, i wasnt too fond of Gau. i used him a lot a first, but then i just lost interest in him. everyone else was so much stronger for me i guess. as soon as i was able to form a more versatile party, i just kinda discarded gau for the rest of the game.

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"The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

i used to dislike gau, left him underleveled, and generally forgot about him. after finishing a natural-magic game though, i have to say that, at least for that game, gau is above and beyond the best character. without him, trying to beat an esperless game would be neigh-impossible. good for you, gau! so now, even if i just play the game normally, i have a lot more respect for him.

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"If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate."