Orlandu WTF

[Micar]

Just got him and wow is he insane.
One shots all monsters, AoE, haste.

Takes away the challenge :|
Why did they make him so damn strong...?

[T.G. Oskar]

Just got him and wow is he insane.
One shots all monsters, AoE, haste.

Takes away the challenge :|
Why did they make him so damn strong...?

Well, the thing is threefold:

First, Orland(ea)u is a swordsman of legend. He's essentially one of the best swordsmen in all Ivalice, period. The only equal in skill died already, and that was Balbanes/Barbaneth, father of Dycedarg, Zalba(a)g and Ramza. To represent that, they made him a bit more powerful than the rest.

Second, Orland(ea)u has the second best stats and stat progression of all characters. The character with the best increase in stats, believe it or not, is Reis. Orland(ea)u's benefit, however, is that while Reis is a bit of a generalist (needs good Magic for her breath weapon attacks, good Physical for her unarmed damage given her lack of weapon proficiency and automatic Brawler/Martial Arts feature, and good HP for her lack of armor proficiency), Orland(ea)u's stats progress just where he needs them. For example: look at the Physical Attack stat of Orland(ea)u without the Bracer equipped; his should be close to 15, while Ramza and Agrias and Meliadoul and Beowulf quite probably have at most 12. Not only his damage with weapons is high, his sword skills are also powerful (since they are based specifically off his Physical Attack stat).

Third, it's how the system works. Sword skills are based on this simple system: Physical Attack times the sum of the weapon attack power plus the power of the skill. Let's make simple math: Agrias might have mostly 12 Physical, while Orland(ea)u has at least 15 Physical (and that's without Bracer!). Let's say both are using the Excalibur, which has a base attack power of 21, and both use the Stasis Sword/Judgment Blade sword skill, which has a base attack power of 2. While Agrias would deal 276 (12 x [21+2]) maximum points of damage, Orland(ea)u would do 345 (15 x [21+2]) maximum points of damage. The difference in damage is of 69 points of extra damage; of course, that's basically what you get if you multiply 23 (the sum of the Excalibur weapon attack power plus the base power of Stasis Sword/Judgment Blade) by 3 (the difference between Orland[ea]u's Physical Attack stat minus Agrias' Physical Attack stat). However...Orland(ea)u has a Bracer right from the beginning, while Agrias may have another weapon; give Agrias a Bracer and her sword skills should improve, but not to the degree of Orland(ea)u's.

Fourth, and this is mostly an assumption, is that Orland(ea)u's sword skills are 50% stronger than that of a character using the same ability. You'll notice this because, using the same weapon and based on the earlier calculations, Orland(ea)u shouldn't do that much damage. Now, increase that 345 damage an Orland(ea)u without Bracer using Stasis Sword/Judgment Blade with an Excalibur equipped by 50%; the end result would be somewhere around 517 points of damage, which is usually what Orland(ea)u pulls off when on the class. Notice that if Agrias dealt twice the amount of damage that she would otherwise deal, the damage would be around 552 points of damage, which would require her Physical Attack stat to be somewhere around 24 (something naturally impossible unless you tweak the character for that). The difference between the amount of damage Agrias with 24 PA would do against Orland(ea)u's 15 PA and 50% swordskill bonus would be of 35, which would be roughly 1.5 less PA than Agrias would require to have. It's certainly less than Orland(ea)u dealing damage with a Bracer equipped (18 PA, which would mean his damage would actually be somewhere around 414 points of damage), but since damage may be reduced by the Zodiac compatibility factor, you may often see Agrias dealing little damage and Orland(ea)u dealing lots.

So, most of what you can do is give Agrias or Meliadoul a strong Knight Sword and Bracer, while leave Orland(ea)u without a Bracer AND with a weaker weapon. That's enough to "nerf" Orland(ea)u a bit, but he'll still be insanely strong (specially because his PA growth stat is obscenely high).

TL;DR - Orland(ea)u is just THAT strong, but look more towards his PA rather than his OMGWTFBBQ awesomeness. That's a big key-.

[Micar]

Wow thanks for big reply.

I think i might take Excalibur from him as i dont want him to ruin the game for me but i do like using him.

I didnt know everyone knew all these formula's for attacking and stuff. So often i attack one thing and deal 150 damage, other times its more like 50 and im like whaaaaaat. I mean in general for like my lancer and samurai and stuff or wizard spells.

Btw are cloud and beowulf and all those fun characters easy to get? Do i get them anyways or is it a secret out of the way thing?

Man i wanna finish this game so i can start again already, get a time mage and summoners and oracles and all the jobs i didnt get this time around.

[T.G. Oskar]

Wow thanks for big reply.

I think i might take Excalibur from him as i dont want him to ruin the game for me but i do like using him.

I'll be frank; there are stages in which having Orland(ea)u still doesn't ensure a victory. All I can say is: beware of Bariaus Hill. If you're with your best team and all of a sudden you see several Dark Behemoth, Hydra, Tiamat and a few dragons, you're set for a losing battle.

I didnt know everyone knew all these formula's for attacking and stuff. So often i attack one thing and deal 150 damage, other times its more like 50 and im like whaaaaaat. I mean in general for like my lancer and samurai and stuff or wizard spells.

I re-checked them on GameFAQS, so they're not popular knowledge anyways. But still; the game mechanics are made in a way in which you don't lose much from bad Zodiac compatibility. If it helps:

Lancer/Dragoon works based on your Physical Attack and your speed. Spears cause your Jump attack to deal double damage, but it's your Speed (basically, 2x your Speed as your "charge" time, so if you have 20 Speed you need only 5 "ticks" to land the jump; any lower than that, and you need to Immobilize the enemy, so you want 11 or higher speed.

Samurai Draw Out skills are based on your Magical Attack stat instead of your Physical Attack. So, if you train your characters to have high M-Atk (such as training your eventual Samurai in Wizard for a few turns), your attacks will deal better damage.

All spells are based on your Magical Attack stat, the power of the spell, and your rod or staff attack power (if any), multiplied by your Faith and the enemy's Faith. Since you have a maximum Faith score, the total attack is multiplied by your own Faith (usually as a percentage) and then against your enemy's Faith (again, as a percentage) so it's a double percentage; if you have 100 Faith (by means of the Faith status) and the enemy has 81 Faith, the spell will actually be 81% effective.

But yeah...it took a few years to find out the mechanics behind that game, so you might wanna check GameFAQs for that one.

Btw are cloud and beowulf and all those fun characters easy to get? Do i get them anyways or is it a secret out of the way thing?

Cloud, Beowulf, Reis and Worker 8 are all secrets. You need to get Beowulf, Worker 8 and Reis to get Cloud, so it's not that hard. Beowulf is pretty easy (Chapter 4, go to Goug Machine City, then check the rumors at Goland Coal City, then go to the mines and end that quest). Reis is a tad harder (you get her at the end of the Coal Mines, but to make her human you need to go to Nelveska; you need to trigger the event with Cloud successfully in order to do so). Worker 8 is easy if you are looking for Cloud (just finish the Coal Mines quest), and Cloud...well, you need to finish Nelveska (not that easy because of the Worker 7 New/Construct 7) and then another battle at Zarghidas, and THEN get his Materia Blade.

As for fun...Beowulf is the ultimate Oracle/Mystic (all the spells done immediately, with better chances of success plus you get Shock!/Vengeance), Reis has the best stat growth in-game but sucky A-Abilities (she works wonders as anything you change her into, but only if you spend up to level 99 as a Dragoner/Dragonkin), Worker/Construct 8 is an awesome monster character, and Cloud...is frankly annoying (starts at level 1, you need the Materia Blade to use all Limit skills so that means your physical damage will be weak, Limit skills are charge-related).

Man i wanna finish this game so i can start again already, get a time mage and summoners and oracles and all the jobs i didnt get this time around.

As I'd say, "all you need is Mathematics". (Or if you're playing the PSP version, which I know you don't but still you might get the chance, "all you need is Arithmeticks"). Summoners are fun but only if you get Zodiark/Zodiac.

[Micar]

Sweet thanks for all that, its good to see these boards are still pretty active, i loooove final fantasy.

Im gonna play FFX after i am done with FFT.

So does being a wizard for a few levels permanently increase my magic stats? I thought it stats were based completely on the job you currently had so doing multiple jobs was only for the abilities. If you follow me...

If thats the case then im gonna switch around some jobs and stuff on my characters.

Btw Hell and Heaven Knight people (malak and rafa or whatever), are they any good? I just unequipped all their crap and am leaving them alone haha..

[T.G. Oskar]

So does being a wizard for a few levels permanently increase my magic stats? I thought it stats were based completely on the job you currently had so doing multiple jobs was only for the abilities. If you follow me...

If thats the case then im gonna switch around some jobs and stuff on my characters.

Well, the progression of a character depends on its class, but it's not an exact science. If you go 1-99 on a character making it a Knight, the character will have very good HP and Physical Attack stats, but not so much Magical Attack or Speed. On the other hand, a Thief gone 1-99 will have good Speed, but not so good HP, PA or MA.

This is important because of the Deleveler trap. There's a few places where you can find traps that reduce your level by 1. If you reduce various levels, you'll reduce your stats accordingly, at the same degree as you'd otherwise lower your stats. Thus, assuming you got a Wizard from 1st level to level 99, and then you started de-leveling him as a Knight, you'd have abyssal PA (quite probably 1) but your MA wouldn't be so affected. Technically, you'd have lower HP and PA stats than when you got the character at 1st level, but you'd have a higher MA stat.

This is the trick towards buffing characters. Thing is: males have the Bard class, which has the worst growth stats ever. The only thing it has moderately strong is MA; it's alright, since Bard is traditionally the class that grants the worst progression in all stats on all Final Fantasy games (some grant a good boost in Magic, but nothing spectacular as Black Mage). Conversely, if you take levels in any class, then delevel that character to level 1 as a Bard, you'll have little loss in stats (since they're so bad in growth, they'll conversely have little loss when de-leveling). For females it's a tad harder, since Dancers have a decent PA score so you'd be losing a few PA points that way. Then, if you want, you can take a character from 1 to 99 on another class, repeat, and then have PA and MA scores close to 50, while having max Speed (50).

Of course, this isn't the intended way to prepare a character. If you thought Orland(ea)u was bad, imagine de-leveling Reis and getting 1-99 again with her Dragoner/Dragonkin stats!

Btw Hell and Heaven Knight people (malak and rafa or whatever), are they any good? I just unequipped all their crap and am leaving them alone haha..

They're...an acquired taste. Very hard to work with, but ironically, they are unique in a way. This is how I've always played them, and ironically it's...weird and useful.

You see: both the abilities of Rafa/Rapha and Malak/Marach work differently from spells. Essentially, their abilities use this mechanic: 0.5 x Magic Attack x (Magic Attack + Power). So, basically, the higher the Magic Attack of the twins, the more powerful the attack. However, they're unique in that they deal all that damage per attack, so even if you have 5 MA, you'd still do a reasonable amount of damage (for example: Heaven Thunder has a Power of 10, so they'd deal 37 points of damage each tick, for about 8 ticks total). Of course, the biggest problem is ensuring those attacks land in the right spot. It also requires you to have better Magic Attack than anything else. Since their growth rates are bizarre (they NEED Magic Attack, but they have a really bad MA growth rate), they need a class that gives them a LOT of Magic Attack.

That's problem number 2: they need to be magicians, but Malak/Marach is built for low Faith. This is because, while Rafa/Rapha's attacks ignore Faith, Malak/Marach's attacks use the inverse of Faith: the lower the Faith of both Malak/Marach and the enemy, the higher the damage. So, if Malak/Marach has 10 Faith and the enemy has 90 Faith, the total damage is basically 9% of the total damage (so Malak/Marach is even more gimped than Rafa/Rapha). You can attempt to make him a Samurai, but...it's a hard task.

So...what you can do? Think: Rafa/Rapha is a magic-inclined female, with bad MA scores but with a very decent PA growth. Malak/Marach is a warrior-inclined male, with bad MA scores and good PA growth but who desperately needs more MA than Rafa/Rapha. However, their classes oppose each other. So, which other classes both oppose each other and are basically the same, plus allow them to contribute without much trouble? Malak/Marach makes a good Bard (you can keep him afar, give him Magic Boost to raise his MA in case he needs to heal more HP/MP or use his Un-Truth abilities), while Rafa/Rapha can become a Dancer and use her better PA + carpets for some decent damage (not to mention staying afar and debuffing the enemies). The most important thing is that they can use the buffing/debuffing songs and basically buff your allies to the max or debuff your enemies to virtually nothing. Since the buffing/debuffing songs don't require any stat to work, they're excellent for them; not to mention that, despite Songs and Dances not boosting with Short Charge/Swiftness, their Truth/Sky Mantra and Un-Truth/Nether Mantra skills do. So you can equip them with Short Charge, leave them on the back either buffing or debuffing, and if anyone gets close, use the stick (or carpet) to strike from afar or use a faster skill.

One final trick: the best way to use Truth or Un-Truth is to take advantage of the terrain. If there's two enemies you can get, get both; if you can place the attack in a way that you can eliminate one or two squares, do so. This increases the chances you might land a hit, and thus actually deal damage.

But...unless you're willing to spend all that time on them, just ignore them. People actually ditch them because they aren't that powerful.

[Micar]

Oh wow thanks for the insight, really aaawesome stuff. How many times have you finished FFT btw?

Im thinking i wont touch Rafa and Malak this game, maybe another.
I am going to work on a time mage and wizard combo now

I never realized how much depth this game has, too bad there is no difficulty setting to make this game uber hard. As it is - if i can get my hands on the boss for a turn or two i will dominate it. Otherwise ill just get owned by their ultra moves and stuff (limberry castle was so hard but i got few decent attacks on him on like my 7th try and he died).

ePSXe is soooo good.

[Micar]

Naww i finished FFT :[
It was sooo easy in the end haha.

Orlandu and Ramza couldve solo'd that whole church place.
Next time im not going to get any holy knights or knights or any type and just rely on my own army. Woop wooop

[Larick]

ninjas are a fun addition to your team. Super high attack but not to great defence wise. You can always raise their defence by giving them the equip armor ability, or raise their attack even more by giving them equip sword.

On the topic of cloud i acutly really like him, hes a pain to raise but if you have him at a decent level and give him the time mage short charge ability he becomes pretty distructive.

I really wish i had my copy bck from my friend I love this game.

[Micar]

Ninja's are aaawesome. I mastered it on ramza then made him a samurai. Also almost mastered it on another guy but he was a bit underleveld so was ultra frail and weak.

Those damn morning stars are so random, anywhere between 10 and like 300 damage.

Only annoying thing is that there's little room between getting cloud and worker 9 and deep dungeon before you finish the game D:

I wish it was longer

[HUNK]

Yeah me too.

Anywho I wanted to say for the first issue of your topic, Yes, Orlandu is just that awesome.

Y'know, if you gave any Holy Knight, or Dark Knight or Templar, you could still get the same kind of totally L33T warrior. However there is so little you have to do to make Orlandu powerfull, that's what really makes him special. I normally just master SwordSaint (Holy Swordsman) and then leave it at that.

Cloud though...untill he gets short charge(Don't remember the PSP name) he's kinda useless.

[T.G. Oskar]

Y'know, if you gave any Holy Knight, or Dark Knight or Templar, you could still get the same kind of totally L33T warrior. However there is so little you have to do to make Orlandu powerfull, that's what really makes him special. I normally just master SwordSaint (Holy Swordsman) and then leave it at that.

Monk or Samurai. Monk is really a handyman's class, since you get great utility from just about everything; a long range attack (longer than Holy Explosion/Divine Ruination), a single-target range attack (though the changes to Unyielding Sword in PSP make this slightly irrelevant), heal and restore MP of allies, remove status effects, and even revive allies. Samurai, on the other hand, is a bit of a nerf for Orland(ea)u because it requires boosting his Magic stat to get utility out of the Draw Out/Iaido abilities. However, you get a good multi-target healing ability and a pair of multi-target buffing abilities (Kiyomori which you can spam early in battle, Masamune if you're lucky to get one and save it for important areas), and a set of abilities which work within area and strike all enemies (without striking allies), just in case it's hard to aim your multi-target sword skills. That still makes All Swordskill/Sword Skill THE most effective ability around, but you get more bang out of Orland(ea)u.

Cloud though...untill he gets short charge(Don't remember the PSP name) he's kinda useless.

[HUNK]

Yeah, since I never really get much other then swordsaint mastered I normally just have his second skill as Item or somthing...but he never has any good items. (Seriously, I think it'd hurt me to see Orlandu as a chemist)

[xxpanzasanchoxx]

Orlandu is my biggest tool in developing everyone else. I can sit there and build the others via accumilate or some other method while Orlandu alone wipes out all the enemies except one in a map. His second job is knighthood so that I can power and speed break the last enemy so I can focus on building. Other than that, I dsont use him just because I want to see my other developed guys in action.

[Dan558]

I never really use the unique characters in this game because of what you say for Orlandu.

Using special characters in FFT makes the game very un-fun in the way that there is basically 0 challenge or variety in play. If you use a team of unique character you will plow through everything and get very limited extra convos (especially once they permanently join your team)

Especially after playing a game like Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (without OP characters) FFT would be an even bigger joke of a challenge if i didn't find ways to specifically make it hard (aside from a couple of battles). Don't get me wrong though FFT is still probably in my top 3 FFs.

[T.G. Oskar]

I never really use the unique characters in this game because of what you say for Orlandu.

Using special characters in FFT makes the game very un-fun in the way that there is basically 0 challenge or variety in play. If you use a team of unique character you will plow through everything and get very limited extra convos (especially once they permanently join your team)

Especially after playing a game like Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (without OP characters) FFT would be an even bigger joke of a challenge if i didn't find ways to specifically make it hard (aside from a couple of battles). Don't get me wrong though FFT is still probably in my top 3 FFs.

Meh, it's really that they exceeded the power potential when making Orland(ea)u. Compare to Ogre Battle, where secret characters are no less and no more powerful than a well-built group (except the Opinion Lord/Lady, who's pretty powerful), or Tactics Ogre where getting the secret characters was usually a hit-or-miss situation, with the female protagonist (Kachua, now called Catiua) was broken and the rest were merely decent.

There's also the fact that Final Fantasy games have a definite power limit. Random encounters vary wildly, and range from easy stuff (your basic battles) to near-darn impossible (Grog Hill, Bariaus Valley, Mount Germinas if you wish to steal the Stone Gun/Stoneshooter) where you get the secret missions. Deep Dungeon can be slightly hard with all the Ninjas as well. However, the main quest was expected to be completed somewhere around level 40-45, which was generally the expected completion level without grinding (and the generally expected level in Ogre series games).

Also: Calculator/Arithmetician >> Orland(ea)u, if only because they get all spells, cast without MP and cast immediately, cover the entire map and can potentially cover ALL enemies (or a lot of enemies and a few allies) while Orland(ea)u luckily can cover just about one or two. There's no denying that Orland(ea)u is strong, nor Beowulf; say the same about Agrias, or Mustadio (which are pretty average and decent to use) or Rafa/Rapha and Malak/Marach (which are hard to optimize). Monks, Ninjas and Calculators/Arithmeticians are really powerful classes, and if built well they can drop the game difficulty just as if you had played with Orland(ea)u. Also: Ramza can be built to a monster just with Scream.

TLR - the game is easy, and only one or two characters are really broken; the rest are average or borked.

[Dan558]

TLR - the game is easy, and only one or two characters are really broken; the rest are average or borked.

Most battles are easy, yes, but some I particularly find difficult every time I play. Some battles I have found difficult in the past I have found my way around to make really easy so it's possible that they all have an opportunity like that but I find that hard to think that applies for some straight-forward fights. Maybe I'm just not at the "skill" level of some people but I don't really strive for that because then the game would become bland and useless. Again that's the reason why I don't use OP characters.

[T.G. Oskar]

Most battles are easy, yes, but some I particularly find difficult every time I play. Some battles I have found difficult in the past I have found my way around to make really easy so it's possible that they all have an opportunity like that but I find that hard to think that applies for some straight-forward fights. Maybe I'm just not at the "skill" level of some people but I don't really strive for that because then the game would become bland and useless. Again that's the reason why I don't use OP characters.

Consider that not all characters are OP. Orland(ea)u and Beowulf certainly do, and if you're up to the task Reis and Cloud may be too, but Agrias is actually quite balanced (aside from her sword skills), Mustadio is pretty fine (he can actually do stuff with his gun, something you might be capable to with Knight skills but not with anything else) and Rafa/Rapha & Malak/Marach are pretty UP (underpowered), given that their abilities are pretty random. They're also unique characters, but not as powerful as the former ones; heck, in the case of the latter two, they are even harder to use than regular characters because of their abysmal growth rates.

[Dan558]

Consider that not all characters are OP. Orland(ea)u and Beowulf certainly do, and if you're up to the task Reis and Cloud may be too, but Agrias is actually quite balanced (aside from her sword skills), Mustadio is pretty fine (he can actually do stuff with his gun, something you might be capable to with Knight skills but not with anything else) and Rafa/Rapha & Malak/Marach are pretty UP (underpowered), given that their abilities are pretty random. They're also unique characters, but not as powerful as the former ones; heck, in the case of the latter two, they are even harder to use than regular characters because of their abysmal growth rates.

True, Rafa and Malak are terrible.

[HUNK]

On the subject of Rafa and Malek, I actually enjoyed having them on my team.

You see, once upon a time, I had sent(like and idiot) every charecter I had on a job. I thought there was another town nearby and I could just run back and forth but unfortuately I was wrong. No biggie right, I'll just get to a group of two towns and I'll be okay. Well I left town and imedietly got into a fight in the dreaded Grog Hill...that's right, 13 monks awaited eagarly to slaughter my team. (Ramza, Malek, Rafa, Agrais, Mustadio) Thankfully the randomness of thier spells did massive amounts of damage. I was getting attacks in about 3 turns and doing like 400 per hit. It probably had somthing to do with the enemies faith but I don't remember enough about my Rafa and Malek to remember what their magick attack and stuff was. Barely survived the fight, and still haven't beaten it on the PSP version.

[Henry]

Orlandu is just too powerful. I remember when i was a kid and i first got him i was like "Excalibur and Agrias,Gafgarion and Meliadouls swords skills! O_O". The game just go too
easy with him.. But i didn´t use him lot.

[HUNK]

Well, yes but what you need to understand is that they did that to emphasis the fact that he is the Legendary Knight Commander T.G. Cid! They (Square, fyi) are trying to show how powerfull he is.

If Orlandu wasn't totally beastly people would have been all like "THIS is the commander of the Order of the Southern Skies?! What a pun!" Orlandu is no pun!
Square just wanted to clairify that.