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What do you prefer: pure strength or useful equipment abilities?

I find that equipment abilities set themselves apart from other "generic" weapons, especially the ones that only give an additional PA point or are without an ability themselves. Weapons like the Blood Sword or Faith Rod (for example) distinguish themselves from the rest of the same-type weapons and thus increase their playability; weapons that are just roadstops on the way to a better weapon fall into disuse.

Besides that, strategies can revolve around weapons that have unique characteristics. Two Blood Swords turns into a mini-Night Sword; a Blind Knife and a Mage Masher increases your chances of impairing the enemy. That's what I love about weapons that focus on something other than damage dealt--their uses extend beyond the better ones.

Some people may know that I like to use the Save the Queen over the Chaos Blade; not because it's necessarily better, but you get a nice inherent status as well as leaving the battle a little leeway. That one equip alone won't kill everything in one hit, whereas a Chaos Blade mows down everything in its path or petrifies the enemy, at least. Knight Swords brings a combination of both strength and ability to the table, which is why they're sought-after and unique, but what about the other lowly weapons that get passed by at regular intervals? They make or break themselves on the abilities/stat boosts they present, and that goes for equipment, too.



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Generally, I'd rather try and kill the enemies outright as that "impairs" them permanently (barring enemy pheonix downs and revive spells, of course). For purposes of impairing enemies, I'd sooner use abilities like magic sword or holy sword (which, btw, does a healthy amount of damage, too).

Still, there are two or three weapons with special abilites that I would rather use than their more damaging counterparts. I had a ninja using two spell edges as their "Don't Act" attribute outweighed the extra damage that the more unique ninja swords did. I always liked the wizard rod for it's MA strength +2 attribute. Hell, even your double blood sword strategy might not be such a bad idea...so long as the character equipping them doesn't have them there knight swords as options, that is.

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Console RPG Cliches

It all depends on timing, I guess, and wether you go for power leveling or not.

I'm a big fan of Mage Masher and Blind Knife, but unless I'm going for a power game, I usually do not have Two Swords for anyone at the time they're availabme, so I more often than not end up training some guys in the Tihef job class, mostly in the story battles where these two status ailments are very valuable (blinding a warrior class and muting a magician class...do you need anything else with that?). At low level, I also use the elemental rods for added damage for my mages, it's quite useful.

At mid level, I tend to rely on stats boosting equipment, because it does make a difference. Red Shoes, Wizard Robe and Wizard Rod for wizards or summoners, any stat boosting hat (that's all they do anyway) and Power Wrist or Bracer for warriors. I tend to reuse a female Monk after the battle where you reunite with Alma, solely because female monks can equip the Berette she brings along.

After that, it's a savant mix: the best robe is the best both in status given and stat boosting, the Faith Rod is extremely useful at first, but is overshadowed by the fact that you can tweak your Faith with mediator skills. I do tend to use the Spell Edge for ninjas instead of the more powerful counterparts that are Koga, Iga and Sasuke Knife just because it can add the Don't Act status. I sometime use the Nagrarock for the fun of it, and I abuse of the Excalibur for its power and statuses.

This post has been edited by Mr Thou on 26th August 2005 09:45

Quote (Mr Thou @ 26th August 2005 04:44)

After that, it's a savant mix: the best robe is the best both in status given and stat boosting, the Faith Rod is extremely useful at first, but is overshadowed by the fact that you can tweak your Faith with mediator skills. I do tend to use the Spell Edge for ninjas instead of the more powerful counterparts that are Koga, Iga and Sasuke Knife just because it can add the Don't Act status. I sometime use the Nagrarock for the fun of it, and I abuse of the Excalibur for its power and statuses.

Of course, the Excalibur is a mega beatstick that anyone and his dog would use. In fact, if ye can use any and all the knight swords, why don't ye? These don't exactly fall under the "generic" category that, I think, Shotgunnova is more interested in discussing here.

Ye did bring up non-weapon equipment, though. To that, I will add that I would, indeed, rather use the reflect armor for it's reflect attribute over the somewhat beefier genji armor. Over the maximillion? Well, that might be a different story. And head gear! I would rather use the thief hat (maybe even the flash hat for the additional MA strength for the spell slingers) for its speed boost over the crystal or genji helmets as, by that time, the extra +20 or +30 hp that the latter two give are no longer significant amounts. Over the grand helmet, though? Again, that might be a different story.

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Console RPG Cliches

I play off my defensive side a lot, so I, too, would probably go for the Reflect Mail/Ring over simple HP boosts. Most magic can be reflected, so as long as you watch out for your positioning and the magic being cast, you've got yourself a nice deterrent.

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I sometimes use the Nagrarok for the fun of it...

Me, too. In fact, I tend to give it to Orlandu so he becomes more demure in the fray. For any experienced player, you wouldn't need to use Orlandu or even keep him around ('cept for Excalibur), so it's just a way to give him some battle time without allowing him to get automatic field advantage.

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It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck can change

I use pure power for some of my characters, but my preference lies in equipment usefulness. I'd prefer a Blood Sword or Defender (with Weapon guard) over a Chaos Blade or Ragnarok most any day. The Defender is a nice balance between power and usefulness.

This post has been edited by FabulousFreebird on 2nd November 2005 01:48

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I'm a performance man. I'll take the lower powered weapons if it means that I get to have a shiny positive status effect that I desire.

I almost always go with status protection/boosting. Regen/Reraise/Haste/Protect/Shell............gotta love 'em all

I'm an elementalist, not for defense but for higher damage. I prefer using a fire rod instead of a wizard staff to cast a more powerful version of salamander/ifrit

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Sayonara

For weapons, I go with pure power. For regular equipment, though, I tend to go with performance. For example, once I swapped the Triangle Hat for the Barette for my Summoner because the Barrette nullifies Death.

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"Only those who are already at the top are rewarded without trying."----- Delita Hyral, Final Fantasy Tactics

http://www.ffshrine.org/fft/fft-midi/1-42-back_fire01.mid ---- My favorite FFT battle song

I always prioritize Speed over all other stats. If you have a strong Speed advantage over your opponent, it's much easier to dominate. Next after maximizing Speed I try to maximize PA/MA, then go for powerful Auto-effects, then HP, then status-protection. With weapons, auto-effects not provided by armor/accessories is the most important start, then PA, then status-effects. My priority list is far from infallible/absolute, especially with the Spring Shoes (SO many better alternatives....), but I think that's the most important order to set one's priorities.

I don't see the point in heavy status-protection. The Thief Hat's +2 Speed, the Flash Hat's +1 Speed +1 MA, and the Grand Helm's +150 HP are much better bonuses that the protection granted by any Ribbon, particularly because the only enemies with troublesome status effects are found in random battles and the darkest depths of the Deep Dungeon. Most status effects are surmountable, anyhow, and it isn't hard to end a battle quickly after being affected, particularly if you have good Speed, PA, and MA across the board. Plus, if your evade rate is high enough, you won't even get hit with any stati. I'd rather have my Chirijiraden deal an extra ~100 damage than add a status effect that I don't need.

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My personal enjoyment of the game comes from creating a squad of tank characters. This usually includes duping Excalibers and Chaos Blades so everyone has one of each to use with their two-swords ability.

What you are talking about is something that piqued my interest for a brief time a while ago, Shotgun. Status effects and disabling abilities are fun to play around with, but they are not in any way part of my normal strategy for this game.

As I've always said... the best status effect isn't paralysis or poisoning or sleep..... it's DEAD.

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I prefer more strength than status cancelling equipment, however it gets me in trouble sometimes ill admit, but that's nothing a quick reset won't fix. Usually if i want a battle to end quickly i have a monk with 2 sword ability with me, and the battle usually is over very fast. The only time i really play around with statuses is when im just messin around and tryin to figure out different ways to lvl up a specific job without using accumulate all the time.

-Oh and i forgot, hamedo said the best status is dead... no way, chickens and frogs can be milked for jp, dead guys can't lol (unless you keep usin revive or fenix downs)

This post has been edited by dajdawg on 11th September 2005 00:06

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This post has been edited by Neal on 15th September 2005 15:07

its all about power yall status dont help when it comes 2 power unless ur invisible and about Orlandu he aint useless train him put Genji on and there you go ur battles will consist of u and him (i have 17 Chaos Blades 13 Excaliburs and 15 Ragnaroks lol)

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Those who encounter me are also the ones that return to the city without they're armies I alone can beat all who oppose me.
Trox lvl 99

My team lives and dies by three stats.

Brave, PA, and Speed.

If you're lucky numbers for those are on or near:

97, 24, 13

then you're gonna do some damage in the world of FFT. >=)

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

ya true and also take some time in game with Scream lol i fought the Weigraf and Valious battle with 88 Strength and 50 speed #cough#50 turns before his one#cough# lol

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Those who encounter me are also the ones that return to the city without they're armies I alone can beat all who oppose me.
Trox lvl 99

I haven't played through to the end recently enough to give details, but equipment choices depend a lot on what I want to accomplish in the battle.

I tend to be a control freak, so while I like a high speed, to me dominate doesn't mean ending the battle as quickly as possible, dominate means you maintain a high degree of control the entire time. I like to use status-protection items to that end, in particular with a calculator or two. If your whole party is protected against paralyze, then when you try to cast it on the whole battlefield you don't have to worry about hitting your own players.

Equipping your calculator with a good status protection item opens up a lot more possibilities with CT4 and CT 5 as well, attacks that will always strike the caster. For pure power, absorb items used in this fashion can be an amazing combination. CT4 Holy while the caster is wielding Excalibur... purify the battlefield for sure.

I tend to get as many status boosting items, that give Regen status, Haste, Protect, Shell, and have Reflect Armor on, that way it is really hard to change the status of the character since slow is reflected. I'm not too sure if a character with Auto Haste can get slowed down, but I do it anyways.

When I first played tactics, I went for brute strength, and damage. I was a big fan of the Jump command, which works nicely if you time it right and check the AP for each enemy unit.

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Who is Byblos?

I perfer the pure strength then abilitys because a mime can do anything but the abilitys do help

Concerning Blind (actually called 'Darkness' in this game according to the BMG), it's actually not very useful. It certainly doesn't have anywhere near the power against physical fighters as Silence does against mages. All it does is double the target's evasion. If you're facing a unit without a shield and/or mantle, it only affects ther class evasion, which is almost always rather negligible.

Dak'kon rule #2: 'Balance in all things'

Power is good, so is tricky performance. You can throw rocks at a Knight, running away as far as you can. He won't be able to catch up with you. But it's rather ineffcient no? Much easier to just unleash a Monk on him.

Take the Blind Knife and Mage Masher. Pretty weak, but if you can disable almost anyoner with one two-sworder, it's worth it. The two Main Gauche has decent attack power and gives insane weapon evade. But if your Squire can equip two Ice Brand and 108 gems, is that weapon evade really that important?

Being gung-ho and attacking with the strongest as much as you can won't win the game. But all complicated strategy won't win the game. You need the power of Knights, Monks and Wizards, just as much as you need the tricky stylings of Thieves, Oracles and Time Mages.

But that's my opinion, which is actually worth less then anyone else's! Random fact of the day, ladies and gents.

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So if you're done reading this, you know I have nothing to say and you've wasted your time. Thank you come again.