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I've been playing through i90east's expert version 2 revision of FF6. It certainly lives up to its name. In fact some monsters have been made overkill - particularly the ghosts in phantom forest which cast X-zone and another fire spell that one-shot kills a party member at that stage in the game. Also you can't run away from them. The only way to get past it was to save and reload over and over and get past the final two screens without having a random encounter (in which case the player is confronted with 5 ghosts instead of the usual 1; took me two hours). I'm guessing the creator managed to get through without having a 5 ghost encounter.

Anyway - because of the difficulty I've been taking early advantage of equipping specific espers at level-up to mold characters toward specific ends and I've noticed one, Unicorn, that has the indication "At level up...Strength +1." However in the status screen there is not a Strength stat. And I can tell that battle power isn't increasing. So are these type espers doing anything at level up?

Furthermore if anyone has advice on what stats characters would be best suited to increase I'd be happy to hear it. I'm guessing one character should get a lot of attention from the HP +10% and Strength (if it does anything) in order to eventually wield the Atma weapon and another weapon with a genji glove and offering. I can't remember which characters can wield it though.

This post has been edited by drivebymessiah on 1st October 2007 01:19

1) Strength = Vigor

2) The raw amount of HP you have doesn't affect Atma Weapon's damage. It works like this: With 100% HP, Atma Weapon will do full damage, and the damage of Atma Weapon decreases as the percentage of your HP decreases. Also, it does less damage than it should if you're under level 64.

The characters that can use it are Terra, Locke, Edgar, and Celes. However, a Genji Glove/Offering setup isn't necessarily the best idea, especially if the hack is as hard as you say it is (I haven't tried it, so I wouldn't know). You probably won't want to give up a shield and both relic slots to use it.

EDIT: Which stats are best to increase. Right. Here you go:

Terra: Vigor and/or Magic
Locke: Vigor
Edgar: Vigor
Sabin: Magic
Celes: Vigor and/or Magic
Shadow: Vigor
Cyan: Vigor
Gau: Vigor and Magic
Setzer: Magic
Mog: Vigor
Relm: Magic
Strago: Magic

This post has been edited by Lord Bob Bree on 26th September 2007 00:05

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"The Lord Bob Bree is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me post in Scenario topics.
He leads me beside GameFOX;
He restores my karma.
He leads me in paths of moderation
for His name's sake."
-Nick of Five

in response to Lord Bob Bree:

Would you mind briefly explaining why you chose the stats you did with the corresponding characters?

Those stats are what each character's best attacks use to do damage. Well, kinda. Setzer is best with Fixed Dice, but since those are totally independent of everything but level, it's best to raise his magic, since that affects his slots, and let's him get good use out of Magic when necessary.

Terra and Celes are good whether going physical or magical, so you can raise either/or.

Gau always has a 50% chance of using a physical, so Vigor doesn't go to waste on him, and a lot of the time the attack you want him to use is magic-based. Not to mention that the Magic command is his only completely reliable means of offense.

Also, Cyan gets his best damage via Tempest x2, Genji Glove, and Offering. However, that requires you to get both Tempests (which you may not have done. One is stole from Number 128, and the other is found in the Cave to the Sealed Gate), and it murders his defenses. But, if you want to go this way, you'll want to raise his Magic.

Also, once you've maxed out a character's stat(s), you should switch them to Speed.

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"The Lord Bob Bree is my shepherd,
I shall not want;
He makes me post in Scenario topics.
He leads me beside GameFOX;
He restores my karma.
He leads me in paths of moderation
for His name's sake."
-Nick of Five

Personally, I like boosting Shadow and Locke's speed, and then equipping Marvel Shoes on them.

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NEVER put salt in your eyes.

Thank you for the recommendations Lord Bob. Through your explanation and further reading I have a much better understanding of your reasoning.

However in my particular case there has been a setback. It seems that i90east's Expert Version 2 patch causes the Bismark level up bonus of Strength + 2 to be eliminated. Meaning the only Esper with a Strength + 2 bonus will be Raiden (assuming that one wasn't changed either). Considering the difficulty I will not be able to get Raiden until a considerably advanced level. It would seem to me that this would significantly impede the growth of a Strength/Vigor based character.

Bismark losing his level up bonus has got me bummed. I was hoping to change it back for this playthrough and possibly a second but hex code is Greek to me.

update: I think I might have uncovered the way to change Bismark back. Looking through the guide http://www.tales-cless.org/docs/ff6hack.htm I changed a byte from FF (empty) to 0A (strength + 2) and bismark had the stat upon reloading the ROM.

Hooray. Hooray Forever!

I'll throw my 2 cents in: The later espers are very nice for things like upping speed. better to do 9000 damage in .5 seconds than 9999 every 10 ;-)