Status effect spells always miss?

[thekingchem]

I've given up on using spells like Silence and Sleep. I'm about 8 hours in and I've not landed them a single time. Constantly miss.

I've checked online and can't find anything written on how to increase the accuracy of these. Even tried grinding them to a higher level but I still miss on level 1 enemies. Is this normal, bugged, am I doing something wrong or are they just useless?

[SC_Nikki]

Believe it or not, wearing armor (like helmets, gloves, and anything other than clothes/robes) seriously hampers spell effectiveness, especially status spells. Yeah, it kinda sucks...

[Renfield628]

Wow Nikki is so right. Since I missed Paul's stupid missable chest room, I started a new game to get the last achievement for all chests, and in doing so I started a 4 black mage run. I tested what Nikki said and not only is it all armor pieces, it's empty hands as well. You need to have empty hands for max damage. It's the same for bare handed combat too. You need to be naked to do max damage with punches. I guess that means near weightless items like clothes, robes, and ribbon? maybe are the only things you can put on methinks. There's absolutely no indicators about this in the status menu. Nothing tells you anything about any of this.

[SC_Nikki]

Yeah, it's pretty mean. I think you can use staves and knives without penalizing your magic. The Gold Hairpin is also okay.

[thekingchem]

Ah great, I've had Firion with a sword, shield, best armor and using black magic, Maria as using a bow, best armor and using white magic. So I guess they've been gimped this whole time because I've had them have stuff equipped?

[Renfield628]

Indeed kingchem. I would venture to say the algorithm is something like this:
If equipped evasion stat is less than 0.8 * base evasion, then spell damage and spell affliction rate are 1/3. For fighter hand damage, i'm not sure. I haven't tested enough.

[Renfield628]

You can save your current character builds though, just dress with lighter weight gear (try cuirass armor) and whenever you cast just un-equip their hands mid battle by using the item command and scrolling all the way up, then once more, then pressing the y button to bring up the menu. I use controller btw.

[Renfield628]

Originally posted by Me:

...I would venture to say the algorithm is something like this:
If equipped evasion stat is less than 0.8 * base evasion, then spell damage and spell affliction rate are 1/3...

After further testing it appears to be the number 14+ weight, or perhaps 15+. I couldn't nail it down to the exact number because my gear options wouldn't let me, but it's either one of those numbers. So this means if your base evasion is penalized by 14+, or perhaps 15+, weight points from the gear you equip, then you are overweight for magic use and get a half spell damage penalty. I'm assuming this carries over to a half spell affliction rate for status effect spells as well.

[fmalfeas]

Note there are more benefits to the 'we're naked' run method.

If you do that for most of the game, you'll have tons of money, huge HP and stamina, and since barehanded works brilliantly on everything that's not 'must use magic', you can go to the point where once you decide to level some weapons and shields, you can push them to max level against the foes you're facing, instead of them being capped at 4 to 8 for ages.

Despite it being brutally counter-intuitive, naked brawler mages is the way to go for most of the game.

[thekingchem]

After unequiping all armor from Firion and Maria and switching Firion to dual wield daggers and Maria to a bow them as a black mage/white mage works so much better now. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

[Renfield628]

Well I guess I'm wrong again guys. Apparently this remaster is based off the older version of the game. The PS1 and later versions removed a hidden magic penalty system, but now it's back.

Originally posted by https://finalfantasypixelremaster.square-enix-games.com/en_US/faq:

Q: Are these ports of the originals?

A: These are remasters based on the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo versions. No changes have been made to the stories. The game balance has seen overall tweaks and adjustments, while still respecting the balance in the original games. The UI has been overhauled and improved to make these versions easier to play, with completely different interfaces for the Steam and mobile editions.

Some of the things that were altered or added in previous remakes are not included in these versions, but there are also new elements and features unique to them, such as the gallery or sound player.

Armor Table - Final Fantasy II (Famicom)[guides.gamercorner.net]

^This is the best link I've found so far that holds every thing in an easy to read table. Click "Mag. Pen." in the header row to sort out the best mage armors.

[Renfield628]

Weapon and Shield Table - Final Fantasy II (Famicom)[guides.gamercorner.net]

And here's the table for weapons and shields. Interestingly, there are some weapons that give only 5% penalty.

[thekingchem]

Originally posted by Renfield628:

Well I guess I'm wrong again guys. Apparently this remaster is based off the older version of the game. The PS1 and later versions removed a hidden magic penalty system, but now it's back.

Originally posted by https://finalfantasypixelremaster.square-enix-games.com/en_US/faq:

Q: Are these ports of the originals?

A: These are remasters based on the original Nintendo and Super Nintendo versions. No changes have been made to the stories. The game balance has seen overall tweaks and adjustments, while still respecting the balance in the original games. The UI has been overhauled and improved to make these versions easier to play, with completely different interfaces for the Steam and mobile editions.

Some of the things that were altered or added in previous remakes are not included in these versions, but there are also new elements and features unique to them, such as the gallery or sound player.

Armor Table - Final Fantasy II (Famicom)[guides.gamercorner.net]

^This is the best link I've found so far that holds every thing in an easy to read table. Click "Mag. Pen." in the header row to sort out the best mage armors.

Thanks for all of the invaluable info! Just a shame these stats are hidden in-game and not explained in the tutorial room. Real shame SE didn't think to incorporate these in the PR

[Renfield628]

No problem. It probably wouldn't have been such a confusing mystery had the later remakes not taken it out. I don't mind it, as everything is in line with FF standards. I've decided to do the brawler mages fmalfeas's talked about earlier. This is the only equipment I'm going to use:

Arms - Power Armlet, Protection Ring
Head - Twist Headband, Gold Hairpin, Ribbon
Body - Copper/Silver/Ruby/Gold/Diamond Cuirass, Power Sash, Black Garb, Black/White Robe

I'll probably sell everything else I get to buy potions. True 4 black mage run doesn't use cure or teleport. Only black magic and occasional hands when you're out of mp.

[Renfield628]

Yikes I'm getting no agility gains, which means I'm gonna get floored in the later game from lack of evasion. It seems the best thing here is to force train agility up by being naked and having double shields. This is because agility gains fastest from having high evasion and being physically attacked. If you have low evasion, agility won't raise practically at all, ever. A good thing is, bare hands skill rises along with shields even if you double carry shields.

[fmalfeas]

Originally posted by Renfield628:

Yikes I'm getting no agility gains, which means I'm gonna get floored in the later game from lack of evasion. It seems the best thing here is to force train agility up by being naked and having double shields. This is because agility gains fastest from having high evasion and being physically attacked. If you have low evasion, agility won't raise practically at all, ever. A good thing is, bare hands skill rises along with shields even if you double carry shields.

I probably should have been more clear about how naked brawler works.

Spend the time all the way up to rescuing the princess just punching things. Exception when you have the patience is to set aside time to in-battle cast Basuna and Esuna until MP is depleted against enemies that can't really hurt you, like goblin swarms. The key is to get small hits and dodges in to improve stats, casts in battle to improve MP, and get Esuna and Basuna to level 7 so they can cure all but the weirdest things. The accelerated auto-battle thing where you repeat commands is a godsend for that.

It takes like 32 casts of esuna or basuna to level it, so it's good MP growth practice for later. And when there are enemies that will absolutely spam you with loss-inducing status effects, you need the ability to cure everyone at once, not rely on item use.

Once you're in a comfortable spot from that, find the strongest enemies you consider to be 'not really a threat', and practice your black magic on them. Offensive stuff seems to be linked to value of the enemy, so you can't really spamcast it up on goblins.

When you get the ship, you can use sea encounters to get most skills and spells to 8 right along a coastline next to a town for inn stays to recharge whenever you deplete.

Don't forget that the enemy fleeing is still a victory in FF2, so it doesn't cost you any stat XP or anything. So you don't have to rush the weak ones down. If they run away before you stop casting and punch through their chests, no biggie.