[FF8PC-Steam] Ragnarok Rebalancing Mod (v1.2.3 & v1.1b)

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Version 1.1.5 now available

Changes Overview

Enemies

  • All enemy levels are now fixed, not just bosses, to further encourage leveling up and keep perceived difficulty more constant throughout the game.
  • Turn skips have been removed for most enemies, and have been preserved only for enemies that use major counter attacks or are just very fast.
  • Sacred's base chance to inflict Confuse has been reduced to around 50% (and can be further reduced by Vit and Stat Def junctions).
  • Malboro's Bad Breath status infliction rate has been reduced.
  • Hitrate for physical attacks has been generally increased.
  • Certain enemy AoE attacks such as Grendel's Thunder Breath or Granaldo's Poison Gas inflict less damage.
  • Stat changes have been applied to many enemies in general.

Spells, Card Mod and Refinement

  • Meteor base power has been reduced.
  • Base power of Flare, Holy and Ultima has been slightly increased.
  • Regen, Death and Meltdown have been removed from early-game Card Mod.
  • Grendels can still be turned into Catoblepas Cards/Black Holes/Degenerator, but Eject resistance has been increased for some enemies.
  • Ammo refinement is now less generous and relevant items drop in fewer numbers.
  • Some more insanely uneconomic Refine Rates have been spotted and adjusted.

Boss changes

Almost all bosses have been changed in some way. The most notable changes are as follows:

  • Granaldo uses an additional attack when on the battlefield alone.
  • Diablos casts Haste on himself after his HP drop below 50%; counters Draw Cast Demis as well.
  • Iguions use a new move when on the battlefield alone.
  • Edea (1st) uses an AoE up to two times per battle.
  • BGH251F2 in FH has been changed to some kind of durability battle.
  • Odin unleashes a powerful attack every 4 turns.
  • Tonberry King has some changes to his attacks.
  • Fujin & Raijin in Balamb have been generally overhauled.
  • Adel has access to two additional attacks.
  • Krysta is more durable and has changes to its attack pattern.
  • Ultimecia (1st) is more structured, can no longer spam the same move multiple times in a row.

Pigtail Girl sidequest

It has recently become known that Zell receives a spell during one of the events in Balamb Garden's library, depending on the survey answers from one of the previous events. The player can pick Zell's favorite color and food from 3 selections each, so there's a total of 9 different outcomes, and therefore 9 different spells Zell can get. The rewards are a little underwhelming in the base game, so they have been improved in this version of the mod. Credits go to gamefaqs user aladore384 and myst6re for discovering this. The rewards are as follows:

Code: [Select]
Code: 
Base game  Red  Blue  PinkBeef  1x Meteor 1x Scan  1x DemiFish  1x Triple 1x Holy  1x UltimaHot dogs 1x Shell 1x Full-life 1x ZombieNew  Red  Blue  PinkBeef  10x Meteor 100x Scan 50x DemiFish  5x Triple 10x Holy 5x UltimaHot dogs 10x Renew 10x Full-life 100x Zombie

Other changes

  • At Centra Ruins, the way back will be blocked after examining the blue orb, and if the timer runs out, it's Game Over instead of just being thrown out.
  • At Missile Base, an extra battle can be triggered when visiting it on disc 1.
  • A new sidequest is available in Dollet. Talk to the girl at the beach if she is alone to initiate it.
  • Another sidequest is available in Esthar after the Lunar Cry. Talk to the assistant in Dr. Odine's laboratory to initiate it.
  • Irvine's previously hidden critical hit chances for each of his weapons can now be viewed in Weapons Monthly magazines.
  • The Queen of Cards generally plays stronger cards than before.
  • Some more overpriced items have been spotted and reduced in cost (Draw Scroll, HP-J Scroll etc).
  • The number of Tonberries that need to be killed to make the Tonberry King appear has been reduced from 20 to 8.
  • A few Draw Point contents have been changed.
  • Gilgamesh can be aquired again if there are no Amethysts in inventory when battling Seifer inside Lunatic Pandora.

A list that contains the most important Cards/Items/Spells swaps will soon follow.


@Nsandro: Yes, Hard Mode is compatible with this mod, but keep in mind that enemy physical damage will be 1.5 times higher than intended, and own physical attacks weaker than intended.

@Nesouk: I haven't made any changes to Duel yet, but maybe will soon, depending on how Duel performs for you late-game. I think it's ok if it's stronger than other Limit Breaks in many situations, as in return, it requires more skill to be used efficiently, and using it to full extent is quite time-consuming, and therefore dps is rather low, but we'll see.
 
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Nice, thank you for this update !

edit : in centra , if we leave , tomberry kill is no more reset?
 
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Alright so Centra 2.0 (gonna put on spoiler in case other players doesn't want to spoil it) :


OH Boy it was like I was routing a speedrun XD, had to retry several time until having a good plan, tough I was probably at a disadvantage since now every monster has fix LV I assume if I would have play the mod like that since the beginning I probably would have been at an higher LV and more powerfull magic, anyway so beat Odin with around 2:00 left, 1 good thing however it seems the code for Odin's chamber never change  once you enter Centra for the first time, so once you get it memorize the first time if you die you just have to go take the Eye at the top, come back put on the statue above Odin's chamber and put the same code directly, this is good as it win a bunch of time due to that ferning animation when climbing to the statue abover Odin's chamber so the plan is as follow :

-Get to the Blue Orb
-Before interacting with the blue get out of Centra and come back to have more time.
-Defeat the monsters
-Goes to Odin's chamber
-Beat Odin

As for the fights :

-Chimaira + 2 Armadillos : The fastest way I found is put the 2 Armadillos on Berserk then on Zombie kill them with Life since they are in Berserk this prevent them from using Earthquake before dying. The Chimaira is really annoying tough, she has no weakness, no usefull statut ailment works against her and even Demi doesn't work as a result she is a big waste of time, fastest way I found is put Vit 0 with Meltdown, lower Squall's HP and spam his Limit Break.

-Odin : So his new attack Heaven's Wrath despite the name and the animation it doesn't seem to be Lightning elemental weird, so it does 3000 damage and inflict stop, so it's a one shot for me at this point without Shell at first I really didn't see how to beat him before the time reach 0 he has a good defense and lot of HP, is immune to Vit 0 and Demi to (again spamming magic with -aga tier probably would have work but I didn't have any), so my strategy was spamming Squall and Zell limit break with Quistis who has 100 Stop and 100 Reflect junction to statu defense to get immune to Stop as a support so basically :

-At the beginning I put Shell and Double on Quistis.
-Then I wait for him to attack, I then use Double Life on Squall and Zell
-I use Double Cura with Quistis to heal her then she just wait for the next Heaven's Wrath, I use Zell and Squall's Limit break, Squall does 350 per hit but Fated Circle can go up 1700 or double if it crit (very rare), as for Zell well I have the advantage of knowing where Meteor Strike is so despite it being invisible I can use it ^^ and it's good here as Odin has a good physical defense, Dolphin Blow and Mach Kick are decent  but clearly inferior to Meteor Strike who does around 900 in this fight.
-Repeat

So yeah safe strategy but it does work I had 2:00 and reach Odin at around 12:00, so quite fun but will definitly require some die and retry to be done properly, tough again maybe it's just that I'm underlevel and don't have best magics so in this case I think it's fine if I can beat this while being underprepare then someone with better stuff should succeed without to much trouble.

EDIT : As for Tomberry Senior, beat him with the same strat as before no difference, the only difference I notice is that his normal attack does Curse which is of no consequence to me cause the character that I plan to use Limit Break are always on Low HP so they will die from his hit anyway, still didn't see Junk so he is still just an HP Sponge to me.

Will try Fujin and Raijin next.


edit : in centra , if we leave , tomberry kill is no more reset?
Click to expand...
Tomberry kill is never reset I don't know where that legend come from but even in Vanilla you can perfectly kill like 17 tonberries in Disc 2, then progress to the story until Disc 4 and come and you will only have to kill 3 Tonberries, the Tonberry kill will only reset if you make Tonberry King appear and run away from him.
 
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I read that in my official guide from Peggyback, "Il vous faut maintenant tuer 20 tomberry sans sortir des ruines" and if i translate "You must now kill 20 tomberry without leaving the ruins". i thinks the translation is missing something like " You can leave the ruins for save , but you cant fight another monster because it will reset all tomberry kill"

Thank you
 
@Nsandro: Yes, it is as Nesouk said. You can safely escape the Centra Ruins without having to worry about the Tonberry kill counter, as long as you don't interact with the blue orb on the upper levels (if you do, your party will be trapped inside the ruins until Odin is defeated).

@Nesouk:


As for Odin, leveling up more would have helped a little indeed. With Regen (from the Guards in D-District Prison) on HP and levels around 30-35, HP would have been over 3000, which should be enough to survive Odin's Heaven's Wrath attack safely with all characters. It's not thunder elemental for now as the fight would likely become too easy otherwise. The idea behind this was to create a battle in which the Spirit stat is of utmost importance, especially in regards to minimize the chance of the entire party falling victim to the Stop effect (it's not very high to begin with, but sometimes happens if Spirit stats are too low). But it's good to know that you managed to win the battle with just one character immune to Stop and durable enough to survive Heaven's Wrath, although I can imagine it was very close.

Other than that, some more things would have helped. For example, Chimera only has low resistance against Degenerator, and maybe it would have been better to make Quistis one of your attackers instead of Zell, as Quistis can use Acid, which ignores enemy Spirit and is faster than Zell's Duel (total damage is lower than a well-performed Duel, but time matters more in this battle). It's also possible to make Odin Vit 0 using Quistis' Ray-Bomb Limit Break, but getting Power Generators is difficult when attempting Centra Ruins at the first opportunity. It's also a good idea to defeat Tonberry King before Odin, so you can draw Curaga from him which is a great help against Odin because of the good junctions effects on HP and Spirit. The ladder climbing speed in the ruins is indeed low and annoying. I'll look for a way to increase it.

In regards to Tonberry King not using his Junk attack, I've just realized what was going on in your case. He is meant to counter with it after he has taken either physical or magical damage five times, but for some reason, Quistis' and Irvine's Limit Breaks will not add towards this meter, despite actually being physical and magical attacks (that's also why the normal Tonberry never counters their Limit Break with Everyone's Grudge). I'll change the counter condition to a general counter, no matter what Tonberry King was last hit with, as being able to circumvent a major counter by just spamming Limit Breaks is not how it should be.

Anyway, thank you for testing the new version so soon. Just to say it advance, Raijin will still use Hi-Potion+, I forgot to change this to Cura.
 
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I read that in my official guide from Peggyback, "Il vous faut maintenant tuer 20 tomberry sans sortir des ruines" and if i translate "You must now kill 20 tomberry without leaving the ruins". i thinks the translation is missing something like " You can leave the ruins for save , but you cant fight another monster because it will reset all tomberry kill"
Click to expand...
AH French guy to, yeah for some reason this is a common mistake in french guide and website.

@Callisto :


AH I didn't know Acid ignore Defense, in that case then yes replacing Squall by Quistis as the attacker and maybe stocking up AP Ammos with Irvine would have been more effective for Odin, also I always fight Odin first before Tomberry cause to be honnest I despise being on a timer for a boss fight XD.

As for Tonberry Junk "countdown" I should have figure that's already the case in Reloaded, also Zell's Duel wasn't adding to Tonberry's counter cause my refight was with Zell instead of Irvine, also Irvine's limit break is just weird as to how the game handle it like it's suppose to be physical I think BUT :

-His Limit Break doesn't wake up sleeped ennemies unlike Squall's Renzokuken.
-When taking an ennemy with a back attack Irvine's Limit Break doesn't make them turn around (meaning all Irvine's Shots will deal Double Damage in that case).

I don't know if these are just dev's oversights, also the game handle it like an AoE for ennemy's counter, so if you have 2 ennemies that can counter, even if you focus all your shots on 1 ennemy both ennemies will counter XD


EDIT : So for Fujin and Raijin so I fight them without Slow (I didn't try actually so don't know if you immune them or not), so the fight honnestly kind of feel the same, also I actually manage to kill Raijin before he uses Hi-Potion + so whatever you put at the place of the Hi-Potion + just know that it can be skipped, and I did that just by spamming Double Bio on him I suppose this is due to the turn skip unless you manage to remove it from Raijin (I know mexico didn't succeed at it, Raijin is one of the few bosses he didn't found a way to remove it without turning the game into a graphical mess), also Fujin is fragile to physical (5000 with Squall's Darkside) and Metsu is a golden occasion to use Limit Break since it does good damage and Poison boosting the crisis level, the part where she put Aura Stone into a Metsu was interesting but then she use a new attack Aerial Slash who honnestly is a none issue with 70% Wind resistance, actually I wonder if the Aura Stone was for her or for Raijin since I kill Raijin just before she uses it, I honnestly have trouble seeing how we could improve this fight without breaking it's idea (Raijin being the physical dude who hit like a truck and take little damage from physical but weak against magical and Fujin more of a glass canon) or entering into hard mod territory.
 
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I see Mcindus release i lot of update for remastered version, i hope this mod going to be compatible with FF8R very soon ^^

Where i can give you donation?

Thx
 
@Nesouk:

That's some interesting observations regarding Irvine's Limit Break, especially the handling as AoE for counters. I didn't knew that. Sounds like an oversight to me, but I don't think it can be corrected easily. I managed to change Tonberry King's counter behavior though, so that all kinds of Limit Break will add to his counter, and not just a few, like Squall's. Probably wouldn't have noticed this without your help, so thank you. It's always surprising to learn something new about this game after all these years.

Raijin doesn't have any random turn skips in his script, but he will idle if there's only one female party member alive while Fujin is alive, and if Fujin is above 50% max HP (otherwise, he would occasionally heal her). I think you didn't see his healing as you finished him off too fast with Double Bio, and also because of the fact that he uses his healing only once when near death. I haven't noticed the latter until very recently, so I will change the moment he uses his heal to something sooner, and will also increase their defenses a little, so their weak spots aren't as glaring anymore (but of course still weaknesses worth abusing). They can still be slowed down by the way, but their resistance is higher than before, and Aerial Slash was added to have something stronger than Aero, but yes - when at 70% Wind resistance from Aero and Float, it's no problem at all. But better to not go overboard, as you said.


@Nsandro:

I hope so too, and it looks like I can work with most of the files that are relevant to gameplay. Still unsure about a few because of tool incompatibility with the new files (like mngrp.bin that has all the refine data) but in case of doubt, I'll have to apply the changes by hand. I'll send you a PM regarding donation, thanks.
 
HA I forgot 1 thing about Odin, considering your change maybe it might be better to increase the chance to mug his Luck-J Scroll or make it a reward for winning the fight cause honnestly it's kind of luck base to win the fight with mugging the Luck J Scroll as mugging bosses is kind of a pain in the ass and can take quite some tries before succeeding.

Anyway as for end of Disc 2 especially G-Garden, I like that you add an extra battle when recovering the first Key, but why not go further and do it for all 3 keys ? Would make senses, as for the bosses :

-Cerberus : I haven't try him in the last update so maybe what I will say is outdate (I actually fought him last week forgot to report about him ^^), sadly I forgot to keep a save right before him, so I had to replay some part in order to fight him again, anyway he seems to love using Quake so naturally some Earth protection is needed, he has a good defense so I decide to rely on Irvine's AP Shots, as for when he uses Triple I don't know what spell he can use and honnestly I don't care, the simple fact that when in his Triple stance he counter with a guaranteed Critical Hit was enough to set my mind on dispeling him right away goddamn his counter hurts, so yeah I just keep him dispelled, use Irvine's AP Shot whenever I got the chance and Squall and Quistis as back up also he doesn't have Spd-J Scroll to steal anymore well that's unfortunate for me ^^.

-Seifer : Very easy, I can actually kill him with 2 Duels if I get lucky and got a good timer, an easy strat to cheese him is to make the middle character which was Squall with Cover cast Protect and shell on him then cast Reflect on the other as long as I keep Squall alive the 2 other are invincible and he can't one shot him (his Demon Slice does 3000 damage with Protect tough), so the 2 other team mates are free to spam their Limit Break or do whatever they want ^^.

-Seifer + Edea : First doing the exact same strat, except this time I use this to pull off a Cerberus summon to get Triple (Cerberus as only 600HP so I needed a way to prevent Seifer to kill him), since Seifer is almost completly harmless with a character with Cover and Fire Protection I put Protect, Shell and Haste on everyone (not Reflect cause if you keep the Reflect up Edea will eventually resolve to spam Ebon Wave which is honnestly annoying), once set I kill Seifer with Duel and make absolutly sure that 1 character can act. Seifer's Protect on Edea while dying is kind of useless cause we already has access to Dispel so yeah whatever, Edea open directly with Maelstrom have to cast a Triple Haste to get rid of the Slow, Edea's most annoying attacks are Ebon Wave, Maelstrom and Death but I make tactical mistake that screwed up my plan, first off I forgot to put back the Draw command for Selphie and Squall so I had to heal Zell to Draw Alexander. Funny enough the hardest part isn't beating her it's tanking her while mugging her ferning item took quite sometime, but it's worth it as she has a Royal Crow (Mgi + 30%) to mug, after that she is weak to physical so I just put Squall on low HP and the 2 other on support and spam his Limit Break while healing until she fall. So overall it's not to hard but it's a fun fight.

EDIT : Progressing through disc 3 now :

-Did grind a bit manage to get High-Mgi-RF with that I stock up -aga tier spell as well as Quake and Tornado to my character Tornado being my best spell to Junction to Strength.

-Ruby Dragon with Laguna and co : Just make sure to constantly be on Protect and Shell and have at least 2 character in Double should be enough to heal his damage, main damage way is Double Blizzaga deal around 7000 damage on him.

-Salt Lake : The Lefty hand are rough with Quake and Meteor compare to it the Righty hand are kinda pathetic, but overall it's a short area so not really much to say about it. I must say I'm not sure if there is a point playing Edea here, she has a very good magic and spirit stat, but playing her mean no EXP for one of the main characters so not sure I'm gonna use her outside of the part she is forced in.

-Abadon : Man I'm still have nightmare of this guy on Reloaded (man easily one of the hardest storyline boss in Reloaded) and also of Requiem (the fact that he could use Rapture was one of the most bullshit thing of Requiem), fortunatly is neither hard and doesn't pull off cheap stuff like that overall an easy yet fun boss so basically he has to stance when he is seat down he mostly use physical, he Claw attack doesn't hurt to much with protect, his tongue attack is even less powerfull but has a chance of instant-kill the target, on this stance he low defenses especially magic defense Quistis could around 5800 with Firaga, 6500 with Curaga and almost 9000 with Holy so magic is definitly the way to go, Irvine can deal good damage thanks to his Fire Shot (around 780 per Ammo 1560 if it Crit I think the max shot I got was 8 and the lowest 4 so that's around 3120 to 6240 (no counting crit), so basically for this stance I put Protect on Squall and Quistis, Squall is mainly my tank, set Double on Quistis and the she is my main Magic Damage dealer, Irvine is in low HP and spam his limit break.
Once he stand up he switch to a more magic base offense, he also get a HUGE boost in Defense as well as Auto-Shell so Quistis can still get good damage with Curaga (around 6000 with Double) since Healing spell ignore Spirit, Irvine is an even est source of Damage her thanks to AP Shot (deal around 750 per shot (1500 a crit) so that's 2250 to 4500), as for Defense well to put it simply Reflect make almost all of his spells irrelevant as they bounce back to him the only exception is Quake but I can simply immune my self to Earth thanks to 100 Quake to the Elemental defense, so the stand up stance is effectivly harmless against me ^^.
 
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Just killing Odin in 2 turns ( i spam lb of team), the fight before was more hard ?
Lvl 22/31/16 with 100 quake/tornado in str
 
Well I didn't have Quake or Tornado of course with spell like that to junction you should be able to kill him very fast, how did you get them ?
 
Hey there! Will this ever be added to the remaster? Bc my god, this is too good of a mod to miss out on! lol, i've mostly just been focusing on the remaster version, because personally i feel like it'll be the more favored version of the future. :)
Keep up the great work though! I'll be keeping track of the updates as time goes on, bc it's looking very promising! :D
One of the best mods around, for sure!
 
Probably an oversight balance wise, so the Propagators are a complete joke, as they can be berserked just have either Squall or Linoa with Initiative and cast Berserk at the beginning and it's GG, as a consequence the Purple Propagators can drop Aura Stone which means it's extremely to just farm the Purple Propagators over and over to get as much Aura Stones as you want.
 
@Nsandro:

I assume you got Odin on disc 3? If so, then I think being able to rush him down with an appropriate setup is alright. He is supposed to be a challenge when attempting Centra Ruins right away after getting control over Balamb Garden, when there are no Speed Junctions or high-tier spells available yet. It's unfortunately very difficult to keep an enemy challenging for the entire game, no matter your setup (at least if you want to keep him beatable on disc 2). But I'll see what I can do to make him be at a higher level for discs 3 and 4, without enabling level scaling. Thank you very much for the donation by the way. Much appreciated.


@Nesouk:

Tornado and Quake are available on disc 2, but getting them takes time. For Tornado, you can steal Windmills from the Abyss Worms in Kashkabald Desert on Centra, but they don't appear very often. One Windmill refines into 20 Tornados using T-Mag RF, as usual. For Quake, you would need to get the Tonberry GF first, and then use LV Up on an T-Rexaur on Balamb or in Balamb Garden Training Center so you can draw it from him.

The Aura Stones from the Propagators are actually not an oversight, and rather meant as an opportunity to get a few for those who are patient. They should drop only rarely, with a chance of about 5%. How many did you get? If it's too many, I'll change the drops for sure.

Thanks a lot for the progress report otherwise. Cerberus can use Break when under Triple and will only target characters without Break status when using it and yes, his tail attack still hurts. So he should be dispelled as soon as possible, but maybe you noticed he counters Dispel with a standard physical attack since the latest version. This has been implemented so he can no longer be staggered easily after using Triple on himself. As for Duel, it looks like it's still performing very well for you, as you rushed Seifer down so easily using it, so I guess something needs to be done about it sooner or later. Also Righty's physical attacks should be a little stronger indeed. Well observed. 

Just to say it in advance, there is an issue with Jumbo Cactuar not attacking. It'll be fixed by tomorrow.


@HeavensFury:

Thank you. Yes, it will be added to the Remaster version, unless I end up in a dead end in regards to file editing, as file structure is a little different compared to the 2013 version. Can't say when though. Probably takes a few more months.
 
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For Tornado and Quake well I did encounter Abyss Worm but when I mugged him he gave me a Mystery Fluid so I thought Windmill were removes or high Level only XD, but I wasn't seeking for Tornado and Quake, disc 2 was easy enough without these so I think it would have just been overkill ^^

For Zell's Duel I kinda want to wait and see how it perform on boss with higher VIT later especially now that I unlocked all his finisher would like to see if using them is worth it, also for Seifer that's honnestly was just lucky I got 7.33 seconds 2 time in the row of course that ended up being brutal for him. Also I'm not always to perform at his best, didn't mention it but I don't know if it's just personnal issue but sometime I got some weird lag input on Zell's Limit Break which of course mess up my input and timing this happen often and it's annoying. And also now that I got meant to use Triple, Angel Wing and more of Quistis's blue I would like to see how Duel performs compare to these would need a good test subject for that.

By the way I kinda have mix feeling about Linoa's Angel Wing, from what I test she can use Ultima, Flare, Meteor, Holy, Bio, Pain, Firaga, Blizzaga, Thundaga and Demi and her selection don't depend of what is in her inventory, I guess you did that for avoid the infamous Angel Wing Meteor tactics, but I kind of feel the Limit Break isn't as practical since you have no more control on it basically it's impossible to set her for exploit elemental weakness or avoid elemental resistance, also Demi is waste of turn if she uses it on something immune to it.

As for Aura Stones from Propagator I actually just got lucky and get 2 Aura Stones in the row on my 2 first fights against the Purple one since then I didn't get any so that was just pure luck on my side, but I'm gonna farm them anyway theyr are so easy to kill might as well finish teaching my GF's ability as much as I can with them ^^.

EDIT : Well since Jumbo Cactuar currently can't act I guess I can use him for Damage testing, he is good cause he has quite an high Vit which is what I was seeking for Zell's Duel (Jumbo Cactuar is perfect as he has so much Vit that even Critical Dolphin Blow doesn't do as much Damage as a normal Meteor Strike XD) and he has an elemental weakness so I tested various thing with the following stats :

-Squall : 162 Str, 100 Water to Ele Atk
-Zell : 167 Str
-Rinoa : 168 Mgi
-Quistis : 150 Mgi
-Irvine : 137 Str and 89 Luck

And so the results :

-Zell's Duel with 9.33 seconds : 38353 (22 hits)
-Zell's Duel with 5.66 seconds : 20999 (14 hits)
-Zell's Duel with 7.66 seconds : 29596 (16 hits)
-Zell's Duel with 3.66 seconds : 15791 (9 hits)

-Rinoa's Triple Water with 168 Mgi : 17700-19800

-Quistis's Aqua Breath : 14000-19000
-Quistis's Homing Laser : 7600-18000

-Irvine's AP Shot : around 1600 per shot 3200 with Crit so 3200 up to 9600 Crit excluded (theorically could reach around 19200)
-Irvine's Quick Shot : average of 260 (520 with Crit) per shot manage to shot 31 Ammos at best (maybe could shot more ammo) so 8060
-Irvine's Canister Shot : around 1200 per shot (2400 with Crit) so up to 6800 crit excluded (PS : Seems to have a far higher Crit Rate than AP Shot)
-Irvine's Pulse Ammo : Around 1500 per shot so 9000 damage at best (double with Crit)

-Squall with Darkside : 7000-8000
-Squall's Renzokuken : Around 1200 per successfull hit meaning 8400 on Jumbo Cactuar (fix sequence of 7 hits), Fated Circle does around 3700

OK so for observation out of this :

Zell's Duel is the big one, the damage vary depending of the number of Critical and especially which moves crit, as of now I think the biggest factor here is Meteor strike that move alone can up to 5000 if it Crit that almost the double of a Dolphin Blow's crit, the 9.33's 22 hits chain included 5 Meteor Strike 3 of them were crit these 5 almost deal half of the total damage so I can imagine if we were to find a loop that include more Meteor Strike (the loop I'm using currently include only 2 Meteor Strikes) by the way the loop I'm using currently is the following

1-Meteor Strike (Start with Booya here for 7.66s and 9.33s timer)
2-Dolphin Blow
3-Mach Kick
4-Dolphin Blow (Start with Punch Rush here for 3.66s and 5.66s timer)
5-Mach Kick
6-Dolphin Blow
7-Heel Drop
8-Meteor Strike
9-Dolphin Blow

(EDIT : While I was writing this I manage to found a better loop but didn't get numbers for it ^^")

EDIT 2 : Get the number for the new one :

3.66 second : 19468 (10 hits)
5.66 second : 27707 (15 hits)
7.66 second : 29792 (17 hits)
9.33 second : 43637 (23 hits)

New loop is as follow :

If timer is 3.66 of 5.66 (start with Punch Rush) then :
1-Dolphin Blow
2-Mach Kick
3-Dolphin Blow
4-Heel Drop
5-Meteor Strike
6-Dolphin Blow
7-Heel Drop
9-Meteor Strike
Back to number 6 (Dolphin Blow) just chain Dolphin Blow, Heel Drop and Meteor Strike as much as you can from there.

If timer is 7.66 or 9.33 (start with Booya) then :
1-Meteor Strike
2-Dolphin Blow
3-Mach Kick
4-Dolphin Blow
5-Mach Kick
6-Dolphin Blow
7-Heel Drop
8-Meteor Strike
9-Dolphin Blow
10-Heel Drop
11-Meteor Strike
Back to number 9 (Dolphin Blow) keep chaining Dolphin Blow, Heel Drop and Meteor Strike as much as you can from there.

As for the finisher, they honnestly feel kinda useless like my Final Heaven dealt 3320 (no crit) the one time I tried it they don't seem worth it, my suggestions would be :

-Nerf Dolphin Blow a little (currently can reach 2600 damage with Crit on Jumbo Cactuar, if you can drop it to 1800-2000 on average with Crit on Jumbo Cactuar with the Stat I give that would be good)
-Make Meteor Strike respecting ennemy's Vitality but slighty stronger than Dolphin Blow (the power of actual Dolphin Blow would do I think)
-Make the Finishers ignore Vitality (and adjust their Power for it) or increase their power by a lot, maybe not Burning Rave as it's available right away and for now Burning Rave is good for an early game move, but the 3 others aren't available until quite later and as of now once they became available there's no reason to use them over doing a chain with as much Dolphin Blows and Meteor Strikes as possible.

Outside of Duel the balance seems fine overall for now just the following  notes :

-If Jumbo Cactuar is one of the ennemies with highest Vit possible then I guess Irvine's Limit Break is fine, but if not then I'm bugged by the fact that AP Ammo are his best Ammos, I think AP Ammo should be the best option only against the bosses that has the highest Vit possible, on bosses with average Vit I think it would be fair to make at least Pulse Ammo and Demolition Ammo deal more damage than AP Ammo.

-Squall's Renzokuken seems weak compare to Irvine and Zell's Limit Break, I'm fine with Darkside being a better option if the ennemy has an elemental weakness, but I dunno currently Squall's Limit Break seems very weak for a Limit Break, maybe it will get better with Lion Heart I don't know.
 
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Updated the latest version with a Documentation folder and few changes recently discussed:


  • Raijin now uses a dedicated healing ability after his HP drop below 50% (also heals status effects; Balamb encounter only)
  • Fujin's Vitality stat and Raijin's Spirit stat have been slightly increased (Balamb encounter only)
  • All player actions will now add towards Tonberry King's Junk counter attack (except Scan and Draw)
  • Odin Steal success rate for Luck-J Scroll has been increased from 25% to 50%.
  • Windmills can now be stolen from the mid-level Abyss Worms in Kashkabald Desert (not a guaranteed Steal though)
  • Fixed an issue with Jumbo Cactuar not attacking
  • Increased Strength of Propagator's standard attack, Righty and many other common higher leveled enemies

@Nesouk:

Thanks a lot for all the testing and numbers. Jumbo Cactuar's Vitality stat is at 148, and many of the upcoming bosses will have around the same Vitality, so it should be easy to make general adjustments based on your recent damage test on Jumbo Cactuar. Irvine's Shots don't seem to differ in total damage a lot, but differences should become more noticable as you increase Irvine's Strength further. Canister Shot has in fact the highest critical hit rate of all shots to give it an edge over Armor and Hyper Shots in certain situations (in the base game, there's hardly a reason to use it at all).

As for Duel, yes, it seems to be in need of a change, as it does way more damage than the other Limit Breaks even on higher Vit enemies when repeating certain combos fast enough. Your ideas about how to change Meteor Strike and Finishers sound good, but I guess something about move sequences should be done as well (I've been quite hesitant about the latter as changing it can result in glitches - sometimes even game-breaking ones).

Other than that, I understand your worries about Rinoa's Angel Wing, but if you use it a little more, you will notice that she casts non-elemental spells most of the time (Flare is the most common one with a 25% probability), so this Limit Break should be most useful on enemies without any major elemental strengths or weaknesses. I left Demi in as it has the ability to actually kill enemies when used under Angel Wing, but I see using Angel Wing against normal enemies is hardly worth it, so maybe it will be replaced or removed from the spell table soon. I'll post the whole table later so you can make more suggestions if you like.
 
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I actually run the same test using a Save Editor to make my character LV100 and best junction stats to Str/Mgi/luck and so here how it goes :

Irvine 255 in Str and 126 in Luck :
AP Ammo : 5700 per shot (Up to 34200 crit excluded)
Pulse Ammo : 5000 per shot (Up to 30000 crit excluded)
Demoliton Ammo : 4200 per shot (Up to 25200 crit excluded)
Fast Ammo : 850 per shot (26350 crit excluded)
Darkside : 24000-26000 with Crit (Irvine Crit Rate is good enough for Darkside to be a good option for him)

Rinoa with 255 Mgi :
Triple Water : 26400
Triple Meteor : 30000

Zell with 255 in Str and 104 in Luck :
3.66 second : 36800 (9 hits)
5.66 second : 54355 (12 hits)
7.66 second : 89574 (18 hits)
9.33 second : 115493 (26 hits)

Squall with 255 Str and 100 Water to ele atk :
Darkside : 17500-19500
Renzokuken : 2900 per succesfull hits so 20300 on Jumbo Cactuar, Fated Circle does 9100 (double with Crit)

Quistis with 255 Mgi :
Aqua Breath : 16000-24000
Homing Laser : 12000

So yeah Zell's Duel definitly need a nerf in one way or another, I'm honnestly amaze that nobody picked up how freaking strong Duel can be before, I mean even with the lowest timer possible he does more damage in 1 turn than pretty much anything else, and with highest timer possible that is the best damage here I don't think anything come close (except maybe the Lion Heart) (and we are note even mentionning if the target can get hit with Vit 0) and as expected of FFVIII Physical scale way more with higher Level than Magic that's hold true here as Irvine's Limit Break can compete with Magic on higher LV and even Squall's Renzokuken get good with finisher.
 
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Thanks for the latest results. You seem to be quite fast with the inputs, and it honestly took me quite some time to reach the same number of hits when checking it out myself today.

Of course, more than 100k damage is way too much on an enemy that has a decent Vitality stat. So for now, I further reduced Duel time limits and Dolphin Blow base power, also made Meteor Strike respect enemy Vitality (but increased its base power) and got the following results on Jumbo Cactuar:

Zell with 255 Str and 104 Luck:
3.66 seconds: 21202 (8 hits)
5.00 seconds: 29182 (11 hits)
6.33 seconds: 38529 (14 hits)
7.66 seconds: 46713 (17 hits)

That's still more than most other characters can do, but if you keep in mind that Duel is the most skill-based Limit Break in the game, and also that it requires a good Luck stat to achieve above results, I think it's ok that it's superior in most situations, depending on input speed and finding a good move sequence. Feel free to check it out yourself by putting these main files in your lang-en folder.

As for AP Ammo vs Pulse Ammo, there is a good number of end-game bosses that take more damage from Pulse Ammo (and probably even from Demolition Ammo, due to its higher critical hit rate):

Fujin
Mobile Type 8
Adel
TC Sorceresses
Sphinxara/Sphinxaur
Catoblepas
Tiamat
Omega Weapon
All final boss forms (except Griever)

The Angel Wing spell table currently looks as follows:

Code: [Select]
Code: 
Flare  64/256Meltdown 32/256Meteor  24/256Ultima  23/256Holy  20/256Quake  12/256Tornado  12/256Firaga  12/256Thundaga 12/256Blizzaga 12/256Water  8/256Bio  8/256Pain  8/256Demi  8/256???  1/256
 
Number for Zell's duel seems more reasonable indeed, I also tested more Angel Wing seems indeed more viable than I thought as long as the ennemy doesn't absorb an element also what is the ??? in the table ?

So anyway beat Jumbo Cactuar and Bahamut recently :

-Jumbo Cactuar : Well the challenge seems more to defeat him before he runs away than anything else, his normal physical hit like  truck tough and could one-shot my LV35 Rinoa if she hasn't Protect, also love to use Ker Plunk I think that is the move he uses the more, Sand Storm is honnestly not threatning it does around 1000 and that's it and he also like to make you waste your time with Mighty Guard and 10000 Needles counter (which seems to come faster when you use dispel on him by the way), so I decided to take Rinoa and Quistis and just spam Double Water on him with Squall as a support and that's pretty much it just heal when needed, dispel his mighty guard revive when the 10000 needles counter happen and that should do it.

Before going for Bahamut I get Doomtrain which I forgot to take, the I wanted to see the Island Closest to Hell and Closest to heaven, seems they are fix at LV100, so I gain a couple of LV here and grind Pampas in order to learn abilities (mostly Auto-Haste for Cerberus) before going for Bahamut :

-Like the fact that instead of 2 Ruby Dragon we fight 1 Ruby Dragon then 1 Behemoth, altough the 2 are defeated the same way, Irvine is MVP here and can put both of them to sleep easily and slow with his Dark Ammos, so just has to use magic and Ammos while they are sleeping.

-Bahamut is tougher than Jumbo Cactuar but still manageable, just have to get immune to Stop because of Mind Blast, Irvine was my main damage dealer with AP Shot, Squall was in charge of mugging him (he has an Hyper Wrist for Str+30% so nice) then he and Selphie are on support, setting Protect, Shell and Haste on both they are pretty safe, Selphie is really good thanks to her natural speed, speed junction, Auto Haste and Spd+30% she sometime can act 2 times before Bahamut'snext turn. The most dangerous attacks for me are his normal attack which like a truck, Mega Flare who does 3000 damage with Shell and Maelstrom who set Slow and reduce your HP (I wasn't expecting this attack had I know I would have immune Squall to Slow as well thank god for Selphie having Auto Haste). So yeah Irvine does damage and Squall and Selphie heal, buff and revive Irvine, it did go well just a long fight.

So get Bahamut and Forbide-Mgi-RF with it, so back to Esthar as I wanted to check if you remove that weird black Esthar Soldier or not and you didn't so that's cool the thing with this guy is when you talk to him it put you in a unescapable battle against an Elnoyle, don't know what he is suppose to be, maybe it was gonna be part of a sidequest but they give up and forgot to remove him, but this is convenient cause Elnoyle is a pretty rare ennemy otherwise thanks to this dude you can just fight Elnoyles over and over (as the dude respawn by exit and reenter the area). So first I got the Moon Stones for the Lion Heart by mugging him and also the Pulse Ammo by killing him to get Energy Crystal, and now currently doing the biggest grind up to now which is kill this guy 30 times in order to get 60 Energy Crystals and so get 100 Ultimas on everyone (probably gonna do it more in order to have a good stock of Pulse Ammos as well).
 
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Well defeated Ultima Weapon reaching it wasn't tough :

-Tri-Face dies very fast I take advantage of them to get 100 Curse Spikes to get a Dark Matter to learn Shockwave Pulsar, also modde Bahamut Card into Shaman Stone for Irvine's final weapon, in any case Tri-Face are weak to Fire, Earth and Holy just have to junction this element to elemental attack for Squall and Irvine/Zell and they are killed in no time.

-Imp + Grendel : 100 Holy to Elemental attack and Squall can deal over 50k damage with Darkside to the Imp effectivly one shotting them while Quistis can Degenerator on the Grendel both with Initiative.

-Behemoth : They can be Berserked and put to sleep so Quistis's Homing Laser is really good to put opponent to sleep then Quistis can just set Vit 0 with Ray Bomb and kill them with Shockwave Pulsar (was reaching around 45k at best).

-Ruby Dragon : Same strat as Behemoth except I also use Double Blizzaga with Rinoa to speed things up.

-2 Iron Giant : Quistis with Initiative can neutralize them with Bad Breath with either Sleep or Blind then just spam Shockwave Pulsar until they die.

Now for Ultima Weapon, once I saw he had Triple to draw I decided to draw 300 Triple out of him as for now I didn't found anyway to get it, to do that I took an entirely magical team with Squall, Quistis and Rinoa.
That being done this is easily the hardest fight of the mod so far and this fight is hard because of 2 moves really, first is Light Pillar is it magical or physical I don't know but Protect seems to half it's damage but despite having the highest vit by far Squall was taking more damage from it than Quistis and Rinoa, in any case Light Pillar is a OHKO regardless dealing more than 9999, the second worse move is even worst Vengeance not only he deals decent damage (enough so that if Ultima Weapon use Ultima before we can heal it can end the fight pretty easily) but it also dispel all buffs a very nasty moves right there, in other word this fight is basically like the Dragon Quest bosses that have disrupted wave if he decides to spam Vengeance this fight can become very annoying very fast fortunatly I found a way around it so the strat was as follow :

-I change my junction in order for Quistis to have the lower Spr of my team, my goal was to make sure Ultima would put her in the range of using her Limit Break, I also make Rinoa's spr slightly lower to for the same purpose, Quistis also has Auto-Protect as otherwise Ultima Weapon's normal attack could one shot if he crit.
-The beginning of the fight he doesn't use Vengeance right away so I can safely buff just has to revive if he uses Light Pillar once I'm done Drawing the triple I start damaging him using Triple Flare with Rinoa.
-Once he uses Vengeance I purposely cast Pain on Quistis so that she get statut Effect which boost her Crisis Level, thanks to this a simple vengeance is enough for Quistis to use her Limit Break, so Quistis can heal out of everything (mainly Vengeance and Ultima) with White Wind.
-As for damage as soon as I get the chance I put Rinoa in Angel Wing, thanks to that I have a good offense that Ultima Weapon can't interrupt, Rinoa can deal up to around 20k with Ultima, Meteor, Flare and Holy less with other spells.
-And so from now on Squall just keep Protect on Rinoa, heal when Ultima use his normal attack and Revive if Light Pillar is thrown
-Quistis use her White Wind whenever Vengeance or Ultima are casted

So this strat is rather risky but it worked out in the end so yeah that was a fun and challenging fight.

EDIT : Just I wanted to run a damage test with Zell's Duel modification, I thought I would try on Iron Giant at Tear's Point, I think he has even more Vit than Jumbo Cactuar however so how much does Vit Iron Giants have at Tear's Point ?

Also I think Duel's finisher are in a good position now, my Final Heaven is an awesome AoE can deal up to around 38k if the target has Vit 0 and it crit, on an Iron Giant My Final Heaven does around 4500-5000 and around 10000 if it crit, this is really good to finish a combo currently a Non-Crit My Final Heaven does more damage that a Crit Meteor Strike considering My Final Heaven inputs are pretty easy it's a cool way to finish a combo.

Speaking of which I forgot to say that I also did the new Lunatic Pandora lab battles before Deep Sea and Geez Zell and Quistis are an amazing duo for these fights, just set Vit 0 on all of them with Ray Bomb then a Duel with Zell and conclude with My Final Heaven and laugh at Zell hitting the poor dudes for 19k (38k if it crit) XD, Elastoid seems immune to Vit 0 tough so My Final Heaven only does 8k (non crit, yeah Vit 0 really make a HUGE difference).

EDIT : Well did the Fire Cavern revisit quest, like it so basically it's just like Deep Sea, fix encounter on all areas and a boss at the end so :

-Armadillo + 2 Turtapod : Put the Armadillo on berserk to avoid Earthquake, Zell use his Duel, My Final Heaven is enough to kill the Turtapod so I just target the Armadillo to kill all 3, while Squall is covering Zell.

-Ruby Dragon + 2 big fish : The must annoying fight seems that without Quistis or Irvine putting the Ruby Dragon to sleep is hard but at least Slow work, the big fishs can be berserked so they are a non issue, need 2 My Final Heaven to kill them with Slow I should have the time to do it before the Ruby Dragon use Ruby Breath which hurt like a truck and will kill Zell, so I put Protect on Selphie and Squall so they can survive, Squall with Darkside and 100 Blizzaga to Ele Atk can finish off the Ruby Dragon as he hit for almost 20k with the damage Zell deal he should die fast.

-2 Hexdragons : Doesn't have a lot of HP and with Fire Protection they aren't to threatning, Zell's Duel and Selphie use Water spell they should die fast.

-2 Elnoyles : Despite being the last fight it's the easiest, this guy can easily be put on Vit 0 and with Vit 0 Zell's Duel is deadly and My Final Heaven alone can hit for 38k if it crit

-Boosted Bomb : Alright good job on this fight, really tricky the bastard has huge Defense and Magic Defense complete with Auto-Protect and Auto-Shell, his physical attacks are pretty strong as well as Flare, and everytime we hit him he heal for 17k-18k, so yeah even AP Shot wouldn't be enough to one shot him, also he destroy your GF once you attempt to use them, and he also heal himself if Flare is reflected at him. So honnestly the only way I found to beat is soloing him using Squall with Auto-Haste, Spd + 30%, Mgi + 30% and Return Damage, Return Damage is the only way I found to damage him without making him heal, so I just cast a Renew at the beginning of the fight (awesome spell by the way) and just try to stay alive while Return Damage kill him. Also at the end he uses Suicide on himself not sure if that was intended XD.

So now Zell finally got his final weapon.
 
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