Which weapons to upgrade!

[Atreides]

I've been doing the highest magic weapon for both (Hawkwing/Pearlwind Staff) for now, but thinking about if that's a mistake or not...

For Vanille, Belladonna Wand (Improved Debuffing) gives a better MAG bonus than her well-rounded weapon, so I was consdering this as it's only 100 MAG less than a fully upgraded stage 3 Pearlwind.

So I guess it'd make more sense to main Belladonna wand (upgrading it to Nirvana) and then just take a Healer's/Physician's Staff to Stage 2 for fights in which Van will primarily play MED?


As for Hope, the only real alternative to Hawkeye that I can see is Otshirvani since he'll be on RAV most of the time, 204 less MAG in exchange for enhanced Fearsiphon and accessory abilities that help him raise the chain gauge even faster. Anyone with both know which is better?

Too tired atm to type out the other 4 pt members, I'll do it tomorrow. Any thoughts so far?

[BerenTebogo]

Somewhat related: Does STR matter at all for ravager or are all their xxxstrike attacks MAG based?

[Atreides]

-strike attacks are STR based, and Ruin (for COM) is MAG based

Hope doesn't get access to the -strike abilities so str is nearly useless for him

edit: actually neither does Vanille, does she?

[Elcura]

Don't think so, STR for Vanille and Hope is useless, don't waste your time (or CP) hitting those nodes until you can farm massive amounts of CP.

[Appie]

I actually think STR is also related to how much damage you take. At least I think, got nothing to back this up. Except some eyeballing of attacks doing less damage to me while all I did was upgrade STR and HP. If it didn't affect it, all the extra HP should do is give a bigger HP pool after a stomp from a turtle, but it seems to also do less damage (going from 10k stomps to 8k or maybe this was a fluke). Maybe the same goes for magic spells on me and my amount of magic. I don't know.

[Elcura]

I don't see that much difference in damage taken really, except when using SEN of course. I always figured that only the accessories you used reduced damage.

[Appie]

Must have been a fluke then. I'll test it seriously with some STR +180/250 accessories at some point.

[Elcura]

If different characters take different amounts of damage from the same enemy, there could be hidden defense mods for everyone. Snow and Fang would likely have the highest, Hope and Vanille the lowest. Of course, that's probably bullshit from my part, since without SEN on, my characters seem to lose HP at the same rate. Kind of annoying there's no defense of evasion value outside of SEN.

[KoD]

So far what noticed more sphears you do less dmg you take, tested it on giant turtle,
farmed up 100k/cp on ech char, did turtle checked stomp dmg> retry did sphears, and then tested again and took slighty less dmg, thow again only checked it once

[Wakabo]

So far what noticed more sphears you do less dmg you take, tested it on giant turtle,
farmed up 100k/cp on ech char, did turtle checked stomp dmg> retry did sphears, and then tested again and took slighty less dmg, thow again only checked it once

That's interesting I will have to test this myself when I get the chance.

[Julian]

So far what noticed more sphears you do less dmg you take, tested it on giant turtle,
farmed up 100k/cp on ech char, did turtle checked stomp dmg> retry did sphears, and then tested again and took slighty less dmg, thow again only checked it once

What the fuck are sphears

[Appie]

Think he means the nodes I mentioned.

/wooshed?

[Julian]

Oh, spheres. I thought he was talking about some other thing I had no idea what.

[Elcura]

Oh, spheres. I thought he was talking about some other thing I had no idea what.

Oh, you.

[Julian]

What I had only been awake for like 20 minutes when I posted that, it was a legitimate question!

[Appie]

Well just did a very little test:
Lightning equipped with 3x maxed Warrior's accessory (180 str) and 1 power glove (250 str). Did 3 stomps with this (said it was a little test XD). They did around 11k dmg to Lightning and the others, but one time it even one-shot Fang who has 17k HP.

Then I went back to my normal setup (with only 1 str accessory, hp bangle, sprint shoes and th item) for 3 stomps which did around 10k damage. So I guess str doesn't have jackshit to do with it =D

[Atreides]

Looking at weapon final stats, it almost seems like the difference between final form weapons is so insignificant by the time you get to that point as your character will have enough str/mag to not really notice 50-100 points, especially if you take into consideration the bonuses on those weapons.

The only trouble I'm having deciding is Fang, since her weapons tend to be pretty specialized, but I think I've decided on the following for my characters (although I'll probably upgrade everything to at least level 2 star, eventually):

Lightning- Lionheart
Hope- Otshirvani
Vanille- Belladonna Wand, Healer's Wand to 2nd form
Sazh- Antares Deluxes
Snow- Paladin, maybe Umbra
Fang- Gae Bolg, Pandoran Spear to 2nd form

Snow is kinda a tough call since I guess both Improved Ward and Improved Guard are nice for fights he'd have to be on SEN. Fang I'm really torn between Gae Bolg (since Fang will most likely be my SEN until after I beat the game) and something like Taming Pole since she'll have Hope/Lightning on RAV/COM or RAV/RAV to push the Stagger gauge over the edge.

[Gregorio]

Back to upgrading...I'm doin Gae Bolg for Fang and Vidofnir for Hope and need Scarletite. Now I'm only ealrly in Chapter 11, but where do ya get it? I noticed later it sells for like 100k in shops but I'd rather save my money.

[Lbelle]

Back to upgrading...I'm doin Gae Bolg for Fang and Vidofnir for Hope and need Scarletite. Now I'm only ealrly in Chapter 11, but where do ya get it? I noticed later it sells for like 100k in shops but I'd rather save my money.

drops off of mobs in Ch.13 near the end of the game quite frequently

[Atreides]

hmm.. it seems like the Improved Guard weapon would be the most worthwhile for Snow on SEN, since he only gets 1 Ward ability and it sucks anyway?

On that note Siphon Boost (since he only gets 1 Siphon ability) seems a little worthless for Hope in comparison to the relatively large magic boost given by a fully upgraded Hawkeye, but Otshirvani lets you get the ATB rate+ effect from accessories so I'll still probably go with that.