Will 1.4 be significantly different than the one I played?
Really want to replay FFVII again and while I loved your mod and am eternally grateful for all the help you gave me, I'd be interested in seeing new things.
Also since you probably don't remember me, I last played the NT mod in October of 2014.
Long time no see, Nikk; I remember you. 1.4 has a different progression curve that puts you on Disc 3 at roughly around Lv.70+, some of the sidequests are different and start earlier in the game, and I streamlined some things like Junon Leagues and Extra Battle to mix their enemies more into Disc 1 & 2.
Hi All - I wanted to see what everyone thought about playing New Threat with the NT Custom .exe Patch. I played 1.3 extensively last summer without the patch, (and am a long time ff7 fan) but have yet to play the mod with the Rank-Up and other new features of 1.35. Hoping to hear some comments and thoughts about playing through with the custom .exe patch or not! Thanks in advance!
-Web
I need to fix the custom .exe patch; it isn't a good fit with NT at the moment due to the HP problem in 1.35 and weak Limit damage.
How does one get around Emerald's time attack storm thingy? He's otherwise completely manageable except for that one attack that totally wipes out my party (my timer's pushing 70... shaddap). I know it can be dodged, and sometimes my characters do, but whether they do depends on luck and that's not a strategy I can rely on. Speaking of luck, I was thinking of bringing Yuffie into the fight in the hopes of activating her lucky dodge innate, but she's so squishy it's hard to keep her alive until Emerald even starts using Emit Kcatta. There's also how Yuffie's lucky dodge will cancel if she's hit with magic effects, and most of Emerald's attacks are magic-based. Besides, getting lucky dodge to activate at all is... well, luck. Which I don't feel like depending on.
Lucky Dodge isn't the innate, her evasion against physical/magical attacks itself is raised to 255%; if hit by a critical hit (or Lucky Hit as it can be called) then this standard evasion won't help. Time Attack Storm has 255% physical accuracy as well, so even with that on it won't be a sure thing. To use Lucky Dodge, you need a high Luck Stat; try swapping party leaders to Cid and using him, Cait Sith, and Yuffie in that fight. Bolster Cid and Cait's Luck with whatever equipment you can find (Amulet should raise it by 75, and certain armours do as well; you want to be pushing 200 Luck on both of them for a solid chance of dodging this attack consistently). If you have Final Attack, you can put that on Cait or Cid to give yourself a safety net as well.
As for damage, physical attacks are likely the way to go so Cid can cover that as well. Load him with Bolt + Elemental in his weapon, and either 2x-Cut or Mug + Added Cut (4x-Cut randomly targets enemies so when his eyes open it'll make Cid less effective, so stick with 2x or an Added Cut set-up). He only has 180,000HP and low defence, so if you're aggressive enough you might even be able to kill it before his eyes open. If his eyes do open, the he'll start counter-attacking any damage that isn't Limits or Bahamut Summons with Revenge Stamps.
One thing to note though is that if you kill all four eyes when they open, Emerald will be knocked out of his 2nd-phase AI and won't use Storm at all so that's another possible solution; you could prevent the attack altogether. For that, you'll want to either have a multi-target Limit Break ready (Fury could be handy for that) or Bahamut Summons to avoid the counters, or go after the eyes individually with 2x-Cut and Bolt3.
Finally, if you bring Aeris along you could pop Planet Protector or Great Gospel when his eyes open to give yourself some temporary invincibility for a little extra time in destroying the torso/eyes. Slow can make Peerless last longer, but avoid using Haste as it'll make it tick off faster.