Final Fantasy Tactics: Redesign Main Discussion [Newest: HUGE GEAR EDITS!]

[The Damned]

(SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIELD!)

Yeah, shields are rather...annoying to design. I would have thought you would have it easier given that you're allowing everyone to use them. Thus, unlike me, you wouldn't have to worry about heavily armored classes having both the most HP AND the most evasion--Ninja and maybe Thieves with Abandon aside--again like in vanilla and trying to design around that as well.

I see you apparently don't share this sentiment.

I'm going to skip commenting on the shields before the elemental shields that mostly obviate each other, though in Round Shield and Mythril Shield's cases I feel this growth is valid due to the fact that PA boosts are probably still more important than MA boosts.

Speaking of elemental shields, the weaknesses for those seems a bit...backwards given that ice doesn't conduct electricity and lightning tends to have (a lot) more energy than fire. That might just be me, though. I think that Kaiser and Venetian designs should stay as rare, though, and not be something emulated by commons if I'm reading your "ripping out" idea correctly.

Beyond that, I think your shields outside of Diamond Shield and maybe Escutcheon II look okay. Luster Shield seems like it might be a bit bloated for a common and it's weird to see something that's common absorb both Holy and Dark, but I think it's ultimately okay. Why no Earth or Wind absorb on Shields though? Is it because of Gauntlets?

(That said, I could easily see you breaking up Luster Shield into two different lesser shields since we share the same OCD issue.)

As for the "problems" with Diamond Shield and Escutcheon II, Diamond Shield just seems too redundant with it obviating Round Shield, even knowing that you don't mind equipment redundancy (since it honestly does make things a lot easier); Escutcheon II just seems like it might have too much evasion at a glance, but you know you're numbers better than I do, so....

Honestly not much to say beyond that outside of my thoughts that Aegis Shield should have something besides MA +1. Would Block: Silence or Block: Berserk be too much?

As for replacement ideas, there's always the option of a Hero Shield.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Honestly, alternatives to Buckler/Bronze Shield/Round Shield/Mythril Shield are where I need to help, Mr. McSkippicutty.

I could invert the tree, but remember that "Ice" now encompasses all of Ice and Water, so being weak to Lightning is pretty fair.  You're reading that comment correctly, but the actual Venetian Shield and Kaiser Plate would be gone, so it'd not be "something common found better as a rare" but rather just outright two more common Shields that emulate the empowering concept of Kaiser Plate and make it easier to balance my design OCD.

Now Earth or Wind Shields because I don't have enough.  I was converting Round Shield and Mythril Shield into them, but when I looked at how that would affect Shield Unlock rate, I didn't like it.  I can, but that means taking at least one of the Rare Shields down to keep the scaling going.  I'm honestly probably going to be cutting into Rare Shields at this rate, this mess needs a fixin'.

Diamond Shield actually came first.  Round Shield is kind of a piecemeal offering to help give PA boosts earlier on.  In the same vein, Aegis Shield (obviously) came before Mythril Shield, which is why I'm trying to bump off Round Shield, Mythril Shield, etc and not their higher cousins.  I'm not sure I see the need to buff Aegis Shield though, its primary purpose is to be that Shield that boosts MA.  I could give it more P-EV maybe, though.  Escutcheon II is obviously uber evasion - but that's all you get, and with how I plan to rework evasion (100% functional on front, 50% functional on sides, 0% functional on back), you can still get to the side as and use positioning to overcome even the sturdiest evasion tank.

How would I animate a Hero Shield though?  I guess I could replace one of the Shield battle sprites with Teta...

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Big update:

Pokeytax said he intends to fix ALMA's display errors, so I've begun making use of it for HP/MP related things, and will be slowly editing things existing here to further incorporate it.

Shields saw a big overhaul due to this, with a nice shuffle that only leaves me with Buckler and Bronze Shield as needing changes now.  I've also posted all of both Helms and Armor after spending some time reworking my HP scaling to compensate for both the above ALMA shenanigans and my lower WPs from the last time I checked it over.  I need some ideas for the third to fifth sets of armor (Iron Helm/Barbuta/Gold Helm, Iron Armor/Chain Mail/Gold Armor) still, though.

All the info is where you'd expect it to be in the OP.

[The Damned]

(Whoops. This is what I get for putting stuff off for a bit.)

I'm rather liking the changes to Mythril and Crystal Shields. I'll have to look at that Helmets and Armors when I get back since I have a bit of stuff that I need to do before I leave for my appointment.

I might as well respond to this, though, given that I had intended to respond to it like a two weeks ago.

How would I animate a Hero Shield though?  I guess I could replace one of the Shield battle sprites with Teta...

Perhaps. Aren't there also those doll sprites that didn't end up getting used? I really need to look over weapon sprites again beyond the ones that actually got used. It's been a while since I did that, if I ever even did that in the first place....

[RavenOfRazgriz]

It's cool, take your time.  I've hit a bit of a rut working on Hats/Clothes/Robes anyway.

The doll sprites, eh?  Could be humorous...

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Boom, big update time.

Added a few new Gauntlet concepts.

More Shields dickery, including some minor reorganization and introduction of the Gaia Shield and Gust Shield.

Helms and Armor reorganized, all slots filled.

Added Hats and Clothes.

Main issue is names, a few of my Helm/Armor set names (specifically Shadowed and Terrain) are incredibly weak and could use being redone, and I have a Hat/Clothing set with no name currently.

Big change: Robes no longer exist.  They were identical to Clothing in every regard except that one or two armored classes could use them, so I merely combined the two together.  The unused space will go to new pieces of unique clothing, and possibly more unique headgear as well if I can get turning armor into headgear working properly.

More updates to come as I go over weapons with some ALMAfication later.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Started up a few basic Shoes/Rings/Armlets/Cloaks.

Did them off the top of my head instead of using my notes so I've probably got more lying around here somewhere and better descriptions for some of the ones I did post, but it's a start.

[The Damned]

(Well, might as do something with my insomnia.)

I finally get my lazy ass around to typing up a reply to the latest updates like I said I would. Now if only I could do that with my own thread...:

1. Gloves: I'm guessing everything after Magician's Glove is new? Admittedly, Sturdy Gloves is (are?) the only thing I'm sure wasn't there before. The description for it seems a bit odd given everything else is meant for battle, but whatever works.

2. Shields: Rather liking the new shields and the adjustment to Luster Shield. I don't know why I didn't immediately think of the concept for a Dragon Shield given how much other crap in my patch has +1 Jump. Although maybe that number is why I didn't....

3. (Shadowed) Helms: Not sure how I feel about Shadowed Helm or Terrain Helm even before the main issues. Shadowed Helm in particular is rather "troubling" because the description makes me think that it relates more to blindness or even the obscure "Longbows have an accuracy penalty at night" mechanic that rarely pops up. Not sure I can think of a better name considering I'm not even sure what it's trying to do--then again, I haven't even been able to think of a suitable name for Blue Mage still. Additionally, I highly doubt that I'm decent at making names given the names for most of my equipment pieces at present.

Also, +36 HP seems a bit low for how common Fire probably still is and how hard I recall you saying you want that element to generally hit. Maybe you think the strengthening Dark aspect merits it, though.

Enough about that Helm (for now), though. The other helms seem fine and I rather like Vicious Helm, but at present that's all I can say with regards to Helms (or any +HP equipment) in a vacuum.

4. Hats: Hats seem fine. I like Calm Cap. I'm not sure about the unnamed hat. Perhaps some type of metal headband like the ones male Geomancers wear?

5. Armor: I find it odd that the armor HP is in increments of 17, but I'm sure there's a reason for it.

Beyond that, the Shadowed Armor's HP here makes a bit more sense, though I'm not sure I understand internal connection between the three sets of Shadowed, Terrain and Storm equipment outside of the obvious inversions here. In this case, Shadowed and Terrain's weaknesses are really odd, especially Terrain Armor's; yes, I know water counts as terrain, but given how little that actually tends to show up in significant areas.... Then again, to me, a "set" is two or more items that either directly compliment each other or cover up each others' weakness(es). (Those or adds another weakness if the set would be otherwise OP). These three just seem like they make it more likely you'll kill yourself if you miscalculate your AoE and get your spell redirected or something, which I guess isn't necessarily a bad thing in a tactics game. However, that's still kind of a weird motivator to be staring the player in the face so directly.

Otherwise, Righteous Armor like Vicious Helm is likable enough, though unlike Vicious Helm's Fury, I'm still not sure how I feel about the "new" Will mechanic.

6. Combining Clothes and Robes: I guess I can see why you would do that since even though it never occurred to me and I'm not sure I'd ever adopt it, yeah, Robes were largely superfluous as they were. (Well, outside of being pretty much the only sources of substantial MP, even though Faith-based and MP-based magic gets blown away by Draw Out and Geomancy in vanilla and most patches still.)

7. Clothes: Nothing much to say about these except noticing the same weird prime number increment increase, this time it being 11. I can't really think of a suitable "model" for the nameless set of clothes at present. Maybe some type of darker or sneakier garb like one worn by Ninja or something?

Like Righteous Armor and Vicious Helm, I like Calm Cap more than Clear Gear, though at least Clear Gear helps to avoid the "Confusion turns the AI into a buffoon" problem.

8. Shoes: I have nothing to say about shoes since I'm not a woman. [/needless misogyny]

More seriously, though, I didn't think you would recreate Sprint Shoes (or so many other Speed +1 items) since you seemed to be trying to make a Speed a lot more constant.

In addition to that, Battle Boots and Magician Shoes seem like they'd better than Spiked Boots in most instances, especially with all that other Dragoon gear.

Still, these are decent enough starting places.

9. Rings: These don't seem to fit any sort of pattern. I'm not sure really sure I feel about them, though it is nice to see that you tried to make Cursed Ring more worthwhile. Always: Poison seems a bit much, though. If anything, Cursed Ring probably could stand to lose the Speed boost and gain an HP boost since you can't resurrect Undead (unless you found a way around that), which means that there's always half a chance that you won't get your Undead unit back when it goes down (to a couple of unavoidable X-Potions).

10. Armlets: These seem fine. Really not much to say about them outside of the fact that I still find the whole "Resist and Weak to make something always neutral" thing a bit odd. But, hey, if it works....

11. Cloaks: A good start. I thought you already had more than three ideas for these. In fact, didn't I take two of these from you like a year ago when you gave a whole bunch to philsov for ASM'd? What happened to those? (Oh, right. Your hard drive crashed.... Damn it. I still have to back my stuff up.)

12. Not for Ivalicians?: I'm curious, so I'll ask just in case I may know: How are you going to make these items ones that only (Sector 7) Cloud can equip?


I think that covers everything for new for now.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@Gloves:  That's about right.  They need some more design work and WP balancing, it's just right now I'm more tossing ideas on the wall.

@Shields: The Dragoon Shield took me ages to think of myself for it being such a simple and obvious thing, honestly.

@Helms: The Shadowed and Terrain sets could do with new names and descriptions entirely.  Those are really just mock descriptions.  The weakest set being related to Fire is because Fire is the strongest Elemental in terms of damage - giving up health for more power, etc.

@Hats: I was thinking that for the unnamed Hat/Clothing, relating them to the Geomancer even though the class itself was removed.

@Armor: Same deal, the name scheme needs a redo at some point.  They increment in 17s because that gets me the HP parities I wanted between Helms/Hats/Armors/Clothes.  How are Shadowed and Terrain's weaknesses odd?  Like you said, they're inversions - the Helm makes you weak to one element and boosts the other, the Armor boosts the other and makes you weak to the former.  Slap on a Flame Sabre / Ice Brand / Coral Sword + Luster Shield / Gaia Shield / Gust Shield or some other combination of Weapon + Shield to absorb both elements you just made yourself weak to while boosting your weapon's offense element.  The "Will" mechanic is technically not new - it's just renamed Faith with the removal of all non-Faith MA skills.

@Combining: That was basically my thought set.  All that was lost was Knights/Samurai being able to equip Robes for MP, but the Mythril Armor set already meets their MP needs and the Circlet/Carabini Mail set meets their MA needs so it seemed superfluous to keep Robes around.

@Clothes:  The 11 HP tiering is the same as the 17 HP one - it created the parity I wanted.  Calm Cap and Clear Gear are mostly meant to stop mages from losing their Charge to status (Confusion/Berserk, +Don't Act if you wear a Diamond Shield) at the cost of MP and MA.  Then again, protecting from Confusion in 1-player without making the AI actually attack Confused units isn't the greatest, true.  ->Eyes Loss strategy.

@Shoes: I'm keeping Speed +1 at huge costs.  Notice how related gear gives nearly 0 HP, etc.  Haste also only gives a flat +2 Speed, so that aspect of Speed whoring is weaker too.   Maxing Speed results in a unit working essentially off its base stats.  As for Spiked Boots not being useful, a lot of classes only have 2 Jump now, and 2 Jump -> 4 Jump is a huge boost compared to 2 Jump -> 3 Jump and 3 Jump -> 5 Jump (as it would be in Vanilla).  You can use one of the Dragoon gears and Battle Boots instead to get +2 Jump (eg), but that means you've given up one of your armor perks to get away with Battle Boots or something else, and inverse if you stick with Spike Boots and take a different armor set.  There's more than one way to skin the cat, but that's intentional and true for most things in Redesign, with each having different perks.

@Rings: They're mostly set to a "Save Fading Life" pattern, to use Auto Battle AI as a category.  Cursed Ring itself is meant to be "a bit much", offering the largest boosts for the largest drawbacks.  As for Undead - anything that's Undead cannot be inflicted with Crystal or Treasure in Redesign, meaning they always come back to life when the turn counter runs out.  This is why Undead normally wears off on death when its inflicted to a unit.  I'll probably toss in some HP/MP bonuses though.

@Armlets: That one's mostly a "Why not?" idea honestly.  I have tons of Accessory space and with the emphasis tossed on Elements, something to go "Fuck Elements" seemed appropriate, especially since 1.25 x .75 only comes out to .90 or so, meaning you do actually get a small defense boost from it with my new number setup.

@Cloaks:  I still have that file actually, I just didn't have it open when doing that update.  I think I would've scrapped most of the remaining concepts anyway, honestly.  I'll need to look through it once I get my emachine working properly again.

@Not for Ivalicians: Flag/Graphic trickery.   They'll be a Hair Adornment / Robe / Gauntlet (accessory type Gauntlet) with the graphics of a Hat / Clothing / Armlet.  I'll likely do similar with the Enhancer.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Heavy updates to Rings, Armlets, and addition of Incense Accessories.

Rings now affect your Elements.  Armlets now affect your hard stats in some way (PA/MA/HP/MP/etc.)  Incenses each block a single Status.  

I removed Earth Clothes and Wind Tunic to try and curb people being able to absorb tons of elements at once.  After some overhauls, Shields and Accessories (and maybe a couple Swords, undecided) will be the only things able to absorb elements, meaning a maximum of ~2 Elements being absorbed on any one unit at maximum.  In the places of the removed items are the Demon's Sash and Maelstrom Coat, with the Black Hood and Planar Pin replaced by the Demon's Hairpin and Maelstrom Hood.  This makes Clothing the only Item capable of granting an Elemental Resist not paired with an Elemental Absorb of some kind.

Next will probably be me fleshing out Mantles some, then moving on to finishing up weapons and fleshing their Elementals out some.

[The Damned]

(Maelstrom Coat has its resists listed twice.)

I guess I'll list things like how I listed them last time since that seemed to work:

1. Elemental Absorption Limitation: I approve of this. I think I realized the same problem with some of my equipment, though my equipment as a whole has quite a few problems, so that isn't surprising.... Not sure how necessary it ultimately is, though.

2. Rings II: Due to Pearl Ring, I had to check again that you were using the "all White Magic is Holy element" design that I had used but then decided against. Otherwise, I suppose these work.

3. Armlets II: Pretty much the same as before except with Focus Band now, so there's nothing for me to say.

4. Incenses: I'm really not sure how I feel about accessories that block only one status yet at the same time I can understand why you're doing it and why it should be done in at all some instances--you've seen how bloated some of my accessories are. Well, that's something of a lie: I usually don't like the idea of an accessory that only blocks one thing, but considering all of your accessories are minimalist, this means that they won't get outdated at all. I was surprised you didn't have one that blocks Death Sentence...and then I finally realized, after all these months, that you apparently don't even have Death Sentence status anymore.

Also, are these supposed to be named after actual plants? Because the only I recognize at all is Aloe. If not, then good job making them sound like actual plant names.

5. Dragoon Shield: Well, I feel slightly better about that now then. Slightly.

6. Shadowed Helm: I am aware of that, which is why I was asking why Shadowed Helm, the strengthening Helm with the lowest HP, is weak to Fire. In the case of Shadowed Armor, it makes sense for that to have the least HP, but using Shadowed Helm seems like it's just asking to get nuked unless Dark element is really good, which is what I was getting at.

7. Geomancer Equipment: Well good to see that worked out. It's weird that I even suggested it since, now that I think about it, I don't think I have any Geomancer-related equipment despite a lot of my equipment being based on classes....

8. Speed: I wouldn't have any problem if all related gear gave no HP, but that's probably draconian, especially with the change to Haste as well. Does that mean Slow is -2 Speed now then?

9. Flag Trickery: I "see". Not that I understand. Also, Enhancer?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@Maelstrom Coat: Fixed.

@Element Absorb: I don't want people to be able to go "I absorb all of Martial Arts along with Fire and Ice, have fun with your low-damage Wind and Lightning spells!"  Honestly, you can still do the latter (sans Machinegun Punch) due to Emerald Ring and Gaia Shield combination, so I need to meditate a bit on their skill spread.  This was the main reason I originally intended to not have Earth/Wind shields, but leaving them out felt cheap.

@Armlets: Focus Band was already there.  The old Rings being moved to Armlets was the change.  Probably dropping Angel Ring though I think.

@Incenses: Bad Status is the primary gimmick of the Oracle, the secondary gimmick of the Dimensionalist, etc., so I don't want huge amounts of Status resist.  It'd be like allowing you to absorb every element in the game when making a skillset like my Samurai uses - the entire thing becomes completely useless.  The Incenses basically follow the same rule - and since they take your Accessory slot, offer you the widest range of Status Block to choose from, which you can then supplement with Clothes/Armor/Shield, and probably Weapon when I get back to updating those again.  So in total, you'd be able to block 4-5 Statuses with full dedication, not enough to fully obviate a Status-based skillset but enough to be very worthwhile because of the number of classes that take Status as a secondary or tertiary role.  No Death Sentence proc because I've done something cool with it.  It's going to be a "bleed out" status that causes the target to die instantly next turn, but can be removed by anything that restores HP or removes bad status, possibly sans Potions.  It's one of the "new" toys that bosses and certain monsters will have at their disposal.  The names are actually a homage to a game Celdia used to play ages ago.  (I've actually never played it!  I'm now officially referencing things I barely know anything about!)

@Dragoon Shield: I think your equipment list gave me that idea?  I'm not sure entirely.  I think I looked at it, went "eh" when making my initial Shields and thumbing through old files and random sources I had, then when I needed a Helmet/Armor/Shield set I remembered it and made an entire Dragoon setup since I intend to make Jump use the Jump stat as one of its factors and base 2 Jump on most armor classes makes the Jump boost actually desirable.

@Shadowed Helm: It's because it and Shadowed Armor are a set.  Notice they're directly inverted, and are the third Helmet/Armor set the player gains access to.  (The first set they'll see in Chapter 2.)  All the Helmets/Hats/Armors/Clothings are in the order they'll appear, 2 in Chapter 1, 3 in Chapter 2, 3 in Chapter 3, 3 in Chapter 4.  Shields are also that way, though they'll be 1-2 in Chapter 1, 5-6 in Chapter 2 (due to Element Parity), 3 in Chapter 3, 3 in Chapter 4.  Which reminds me, I need to get to removing Genji Shield since Elmdor doesn't have 3 arms...

@Geomancer Equipment: I think the worst part is I don't even have Geomancers anymore, and I'm likely removing the Geomancy Support.  It just seemed like a fitting thing to do since they're the mixed clothing wearing class in Vanilla.

@Speed: Slow will be -25% Speed, otherwise it'd be biased to raping already slow units while not doing anywhere near as much to faster ones.  It still sort of is at -25%, but not as heavily so.  I'll probably raise base speed from 6-8 to 8-10 then muck my CTs a bit as needed so that the Speed+ gear won't be as jarringly effective.

@Flag Trickery:  Basically, the Ribbon will be a Hair Adornment as far as the game knows, but cosmetically, the player won't be able to tell it's just another Hat.  SOLDIER Garb will be a Robe, but the player won't be able to tell because all the cosmetics will say it's Clothing.  Materia Bangle will be a Gauntlet [Accessory Type, think Power Wrist and co. and not the weapon type I added], but all cosmetics will scream "Armlet! Armlet!"  Enhancer is the bottommost rare Greatsword on my list.  It's the stand-in for Materia Blade, and the weapon Cloud is most likely to be wielding when he goes comatose at Mideel.

[The Damned]

(Part of me feels guilty for the lengthy back and forth with being unable to be brief.

The other part of me just keeps typing.)

I see. Needlessly lengthy response activate!

Form of, sleeping-inducing wall of text:

1. Armlets III: Ah, I stand corrected. Thanks.

2. Incense II: Fair enough. Like I said, I can understand why it would be done and it certainly seems like it would work if you're being minimalist about all other accessories. I'm still just wary of it, even if I may end up stealing it from you later (but only if I completely overall my equipment...which is possible) like so many other things.

3. Bleed Out: Hunh. Sounds like the Heat status from FFIX that I was vaguely considering when trying to think of possible new statuses...before I realized I couldn't even understand rudimentary coding. Sigh.

Anyway, good luck with that.

4. Dragoon Shield II: Even without double checking, I can safely say that I don't have anything like Dragoon Shield (among my shields). So, no, as much as I steal from you, you didn't get that from me.

5. Shadowed Helm II: I'm aware of the inversion because of it being a set. My concern was more the HP on the helm seeming too low because of Fire's already noted strength, even after Weak and Strengthen lessening. However, it's not a huge issue and I am content with seeing how it ultimately plays out.

6. Genji Shield: Of course Elmdor has three arms. He has super version of Asura for a reason, after all.

7. Geomancer Support: Do you mean the Geomancy Support that's like the one from FFT:A? Or do you mean the skillset that you planned to change into a Support? If the latter, why did you plan to get rid of it?

8. Slow: Ah, I see. That's probably for the best and makes me feel slightly better about wanting to make Haste and Slow do +25% and -25% Speed respectively.

9. Flag Trickery: Ah. I should have suspected since I think I was intending to use the same "trick" for something in my patch (that wasn't character specific, maybe); I forget. Good attention to detail with the Enhancer thing, especially since Materia Blade and a few of his other swords are far more well-known. (I'm guessing Mideel is the part where he ends up falling into the Lifestream eventually? I've forgotten given how long it's been since I've played FFVII and having no present desire to revisit it among other things.)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@Dragoon Shield: It wasn't you?  Well fuck.  I know I stole that idea from somebody.

@Shadowed Helm: That's kind of the idea, like I said.  Being hit with a Fire skill isn't as common as other things because they're still slow to charge, so you're at far less risk of suffering due to your Fire weakness.  Honestly, with the raw power of Fire-related skills, if someone's using a max damage setup, chances are you'll get obliterated even without the Weak: Fire because of the fact it's tier 3 Helm/Armor HP to begin with.  In this regard, the Weak: Fire/Dark on the Shadowed set is honestly kinda negligible since Fire is so strong it'll walk you anyway if it actually wants to and Dark is mostly percentage-based skills.

@Genji Shield: I loled.  I'm probably making it into the Buckler.  First shield available after Escutcheon, 8/8 evasion, innate Monkeygrip so anyone can use it.  Don't want to do that with the Escutcheon itself else parity will force me to do it with the rare Escutcheon.

@Geomancer Support: I mean mine with it accessing Geomancy skillset.  Draw Out already allows for access to an MA-based skillset, and removing it gives me a huge pile of skills to make use of for other things.  The AI can also only "remember" 34 skills at a time, and I want it to be able to use up to 4 skillsets + innate Defend + innate Charge, so I need to stick to my thin skillsets to ensure the AI never breaks its cap of skills it "knows."

@Slow:  I didn't have Haste be +25% for the same reason I didn't make Slow -2.  It's weird, but that's how things usually go.  Hard addition and percentile division are the best means of balancing boosts and decrements respectively, I find.

@Flag Trickery:  You're thinking of the correct scene.  The idea of the Enhancer was actually Hana's when I spoke to her on IRC elevenetybillion years ago.  She's not been around for ages though.  It is a nice piece of detail, though, yes.  I'm thinking of scouring for the proper Bangle Cloud would have been wearing as well and renaming the Materia Bangle.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Random update: 2 new Greatswords, 2 new Spellswords, 1 new Wand, Genji Shield replaced with the common Buckler, and random touchups in Swords and Katanas to uniform them to my new Shields/Bodygears/Headgears a bit better.

I'm still unhappy with a few things.  Spears I need to look at, I want them to be a Tank's anti-Tank weapon, to contrast Axes, which are more an aggro unit's anti-Tank weapon.  Spears/Bows/Crossbows really just need a design niche in general, and I need some more elements up this bitch without them feeling forced.  It's starting to feel polished finally at least, I think.

[The Damned]

(While I'm not exactly the paragon of having my stuff together, I don't think it would be hypocritical of me to advise that perhaps you say what weapons got added or changed if there's specific ones. I'm certainly not a paragon of memory.)

Yeah, weapon niches are...difficult, but I think that you're more on track than most other people. Certainly far more on track than me--not like that's saying much, though.'

As for what I can tell is different at present, I suppose I'll comment as best I can before I disappear for the entire weekend in 10 minutes:

1. Vigor and Magus: I'm kinda surprised they don't have the same weapon power and that, if one of them did happen to have less weapon power, that one that grants HP isn't the one's slightly weaker. I mean, it makes for sense for Vigor to have more power given that it presumes that unit using is going to be a close range, I suppose. However, HP is always going to be more valuable than MP (except in cases of stupidly broken things like MP Switch) and I haven't really seen anything so far that has shown me that any class that gets a Greatsword innately has that much use for MP.

2. Windweaver and Earthsplitter: These are more along the lines of what I expect when you say that you add a pair of something considering our agreement on patterns and you being able to get away with it far more with your minimalism. I must confess, however, that even having been around when LastingDawn was working on Mercenaries, I'm still not seeing the "point" Spellswords in this patch.

3. Guardian Wand?: I'm guessing this is the new one? I must admit that I can't say I really like it, which is one of the few weapons I can say that about presently. It just seems odd for a wand to have NO special properties. Oak Wand can at least get away with it because it's the most basic Wand and Black Wand at least has elemental properties. Guardian Wand having the most WP and the only W-EV doesn't seem like much considering....

4. Tri-elemental?: ...Wait, you made something tri-elemental? How's that going to work? Did you or FDC figure out a way to split the damage on multi-elemental attacks or something? Because that would be excellent.

5. Buckler: Looks interesting. I'm a bit wary of it given Innate: Monkeygrip might lead to stupid things, but I'm usre you're on top of things like that, so there's not much else to say about that.


I'll have to look over Swords and Katana later.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@Vigor and Magus: I forgot to adjust the WP, Vigor actually is supposed to be the weaker of the pair.  As for Greatsword classes needing WP, I have a draft of a Paladin-like thing I'll be including that'll need a decent sum of it, and there's always people who wish to run their Knights with things like White Magic or Divination Magic secondary, which will also need solid MP pools to work well.  The Knight's own skills also have small costs, which do end up adding up over time if you're not handling it somehow.

@Windweaver and Earthsplitter: I'll be straight up - Spellswords exist in this patch because of the Moonlight and Luster Sword.  It's less of a true weapon class and more of an extension of Swords.    I'd like to give them their own definition with time, though.  They'll probably begin finding it as I get my Paladin-like class sorted out and re-distribute weapon pools again.

@Guardian Wand:  I should've clarified which weapons were new, but I was kind of distracted at the time.  Channeling Wand was the newest one, actually.  Guardian's Wand main purpose is to give a magic user who wants to use their Attack Command aggressively a proper Wand option.  Its "feature" is meant to be the W-EV - since these are the literal "I'm a stick!" kind of Wands, the implication is this one can be quickly used to throw up a barrier and block attacks (W-EV) as its "feature."  I'll likely give it a small HP bonus as well though.

@Tri-Elemental: No, it works how it does in Vanilla - it has all 3 Elements, but if you affect any of them in a certain way, the entire damage total is affected.  Black Wand's particular claim is that its boosted by either Hat choice and fits snugly in several different Elemental Absorption strategies, whereas weapons like Coral Sword or Windweaver aren't as flexible in the strategies they fit in.  (Basically, you can have your Wizard with a Black Wand then your team's Elemental Absorption can be spread between Fire/Ice/Lightning and he can heal them all easily, whereas Sword users are stuck picking a single Element or only being able to heal specific members.)

@Buckler: Not much can come from this Innate: Monkeygrip since one of your hands are already taken.  Its meant to be an atrocious default Shield for anyone using a Two Hands Only weapon or the Doublehand Support ability, though I may remove it.  Part of me likes that fact, part of me feels like it defeats the point of Two Hands' disadvantage.   I'm a bit stuck on a decent Shield concept that can settle for being 8/5 and being available at Chapter 2 Start, though.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Minor update:  Helmets/Hats/Armors/Clothings had their HP scalings tweaked because I realized my HP cap had dropped by 150 points somewhere.  Hats now scale in multiples of 10, Clothes 12, Helmets 14, and Armors 16.  Because I closed the gap between Head and Body again, Take/Shatter Armor have returned as usable skills.  To cover the gap not covered by the above changes, Crystal Shield was also upped to +60 HP, and the Vital band was upped to +80 HP, though these additions won't be too harsh on the overall HP scaling because they'll both appear around the times the player is also getting or expected to be getting a solid buff to their damage output as well.

Going to rework some other things later.  I really want to condense my 5 Element Shields into Storm Shield / Shadowed Shield / Terran Shield. (Terrain Gear is changed to Terran Gear, random aside, not reflected in the OP currently.)  The problem is that this feels like it'll step on the toes of the Luster Gear, mostly because Shadowed and Luster overlap on Dark Element.  ...Eh, probably do it anyway.  Means I'll also need more Shield concepts.  Again.  I'll also probably change Circlet and Carabini Mail to Aegis Circlet and Aegis Mail to make that reflect being a "set" as well.  Thoughts on Shields and more general gear is much appreciated.

Next update will include anything decided on with Shields, as well as more WP refining based on my finalized changes and calculator cramming in the Job Thread.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

HUGE UPDATE:

All gear info replaced with spreadsheet screenshots for easier browsing and editing.

MANY Items reworked, Elemental distribution fixed, etc.  Many item descriptions were also made far less clunky and shitty, and names were also fixed where possible.  All elemental cycles LOST their parity.  Mechanical edits: Positive multipliers such as ATKUP will now sum and then perform one multiplication, so what used to be a boost of value*1.25*1.25 is now only a boost of value*1.50.  This is to help smooth out the high-end damage curve.  Also, if a move that decreases a stat such as CT, etc. is Elemental and Absorbed, that decrement becomes a bonus instead.

Dagger gained Steal Gil. Stun Knife now inflicts Immobilize over Slow, Ninja Knife inflicts Slow over Immobilize.  Daggers reordered and WP stabilized some.  Hidden Knife is now a Lightning weapon.   Iga and Koga Knives are pair Earth/Wind Ninjato as usual, however one is Earth Elemental and inflicts Damage/2 MP Damage, while the other is Wind Elemental and inflicts Knockback.  While they work as a nice combo, they don't Element Boost, so there's no penalty to only using one of the pair.  Swords heavily reworked.  Element Swords, Ancient Sword, Sleep Sword removed, Sword tiering and WP completely redone.  Diamond Sword became Behemoth's Tusk.  Paladin Sword (damage as healing) added.  Onyx Sword added as a generic damage weapon.

Rare Greatswords no longer Boost Elements, but now are set to be the elements they once boosted (usually Holy).  WP down on rare Greatswords, HP and MP bonuses up on Vigor and Magus.  Valkyria added, which gives Auto-Refresh, which is an MP Regen Status.  Osafune now drains MP, weapons such as Blood Sword and Muramasa now only restore half their damage to HP.  WP reordered some, Murasame turned into a proper healing blade.  Executioner Axe added, procs shifted to make room for Shatter Armor.  Rare Shattering Axe that deals Shatter Weapon added.  Statuses broken by each of the three status-breaking axes shifted around some to reflect changes to the status tree and to-be-made changes to Ranger, Thief, and Knight.  Dual Element Storm Brand, Terran Edge, Shadow Sabre added to Spellswords, each with a unique proc.

Wand tiering and WP adjusted.  Catalyst Wand added over Wizard Wand.  Black Wand now gives +2 PA to allow cross-tree setups like most physicals have access to.  Gun power adjusted.  Crossbows shifted and adjusted.  Comet Crossbow added.  Longbows no longer appear in Chapter 1.  Magus Bow removed among others.  Long Bow replaced with Compact Bow.  Shock Bow and Icicle Bow added.  Mythril Spear and Obelisk replaced with Air Glaive and Frigid Spear.  Holy Lance now gives HP and MP over Auto-Reraise.  Whale Whisker now gives HP over Auto-Regen.  Heptagon Pole now attacks as All Elements instead of Boosting them.  WP for both Polearms and Poles heavily edited.  Gauntlets gained proper WP values and became PA*WP.  Many Gauntlets saw huge edits in their effects.  Power Glove replaces Genji Gauntlets as the rare Gauntlet.

Shields heavily edited in spots.  Old Element Shields canned as well as Buckler.  Storm Shield, Terran Shield, Shadow Shield added. in their places.  Genji Shield re-introduced.  Kaiser Plate and Venetian Shield still need replacing eventually.  Heavy armor given heavy flavor reworks in some areas, elemental heavy armors re-ordered.  Elemental clothes saw edits in which elements they affect.  HP scaling for Helmets/Hats/Armors/Clothes redone.  MP scaling given mockup values far closer to what the end values will likely look like.    Rings no longer Resist the element they Absorb.  Angel Bracelet removed.  Feather Cloak, Dracula's Cloak, Vanish Cloak added.

That... should be everything.  Gear is likely hitting a place of near-completion outside of more things being added now.  I've become very happy with almost all of it now.