By having Edgar in your FF6 party, you’ll be granted access to one of the most versatile ability sets in the game: Tools. These MP-less items can be bought or found around the world, and they provide the team with powerful options for dealing with encounters throughout the game, random and boss alike. Not all of these Tools are created equal however, so we’re taking some time to rank them based on how useful we’ve found them to be, over the course of the entire game.
Debilitator
- Gives the opponent a random elemental weakness.
Technically speaking, elemental weaknesses are the gateway to massive damage in FF6. Once the second level of spells are unlocked, and characters with a high magic stat take up the mantle, the damage done becomes almost unparalleled. This is a trend that continues into the late game, where spells and indeed your party members get ever more powerful. Why then, would we consider the Debilitator to be so poor?
Well the unfortunate fact is… Everybody already has a weakness. Almost every boss in the game already has an elemental weakness of sorts, which makes the whole thing rather moot. Add to this the fact that it’s random, it wastes a turn that could otherwise be used dealing damage, and there are myriad better Tools available… It’s just not worth it. Perhaps if it gave an amplified weakness or some such it may be of use, but as it is the Debilitator is by far the worst of Edgar’s Tools, and one that you’ll want to avoid.
Bioblaster
- Weak poison damage to all targets & chance to apply poison.
Strangely enough, the Bioblaster Tool actually starts out doing pretty well. Some enemies at the start of the game will take similar damage from this and Auto Crossbow, but with the added benefit of applying Poison. Humanoid enemies in particular seem quite weak to its power, and you’ll likely find yourself bringing it out in battle quite often at the start of the game. Alas, this is likely the full extent of its useful lifespan in FF6.
Weak damage, immunity to Poison and indeed absorption of Poison completely will soon be found, rendering the Bioblaster obsolete in very short order. Even enemies that do suffer at its hands often share the battlefield with those that don’t, making it much more reliable to simply shoot them with the Auto Crossbow, or opt instead for a single target option each round. Nice spell effect, partially useful in the very early game, but really not worth relying upon further than this.
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Noiseblaster
- Confuses all enemies.
Speaking of nice spell effects, the Noiseblaster has to be one of our favourites in the entire game. You can take your massive elemental spells and Esper summons and keep them – we enjoy the wobbly screen and huge comedy speaker just as much thanks. Sadly, even though it does have some uses at key points in the game, the Noiseblaster isn’t a Tool that’s likely to see regular use at all.
To sum it up: Most random battles in this game can be blasted out of sight with your powerful skills, but for those that can’t be demolished in such a way, the Noiseblaster can be a good idea. This is particularly useful on the Floating Continent, as noted HERE in the guide, where tough enemies can use some pretty nasty spells and ruin your day. One toot of your horn and they’ll turn on each other, giving you some extra time to focus on one target at a time. Unfortunately, outside of situations such as this, you’re often much better off picking one of Edgar’s more damaging choices.
Air Anchor
- Applies a wound to one enemy, causing them to die after acting.
You know, with a name like Air Anchor, you could be forgiven for thinking that a huge airship anchor might descend from the sky, ripping the enemy apart as it leaves, cleaving them in two whilst it ends their existence. Sadly, Edgar simply fires a rather piddly little anchor at the enemy and, if they’re vulnerable to it, they’re instantly killed when they take their next turn.
Now, there are clearly a few niche cases for this. Difficult encounters exist in quite a lot of the dungeons in the World of Ruin, so it can be useful to remove awkward enemies with a single skill. The problem here is that the enemy still gets to act before they’re slain, so they’re going to damage your team regardless, which they may have failed to do if you simply opted to deal with them in the first round… Needless to say, this isn’t too useful at all. If you’re versus an annoying formation of 4 enemies and one of them is particularly awkward, then we could perhaps see it being a good choice, but even then we’d much rather throw the defence-ignoring Chainsaw at it.
Auto Crossbow
- Deals physical damage to all enemies.
As you might imagine, the Auto Crossbow reaches this high in our list almost entirely based upon its early game performance. It’s a great way to deal with annoying random encounters in the first quarter-to-third of the game, especially when magic spells are both thin on the ground and at a premium of MP. In most cases this will outperform Bioblaster for group damage, and it’ll exist for quite a long time as Edgar’s best source of damage in regular encounters.
This will certainly fall off later on, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely out of the question. As you approach the mid game, it can still be used to thin out annoying enemies, especially those more resistant to the magic based Flash tool. Still, it’s here almost entirely on the back of its early game performance, in which it’s an essential part of Edgar’s kit.
Drill
- Deals defence-ignoring physical damage to one target.
If we’re honest, it was a bit of a toss up between this and our next choice for the second most useful tool, but the Drill lost out mainly as a result of it falling off in the late game. That doesn’t mean it isn’t very powerful though, because that defence-ignoring portion of the tool makes it very, very handy versus a good deal of enemies. It’s also categorically Edgar’s best option for single target physical damage against enemies resistant to instant death.
The only thing holding this back from taking our number one spot is the damage, which is less than the Chainsaw. This is fair enough, because you’re technically taking a chance with the Chainsaw, but against a great deal of enemies you really won’t mind which option it chooses. Versus bosses in the mid game, the Drill is absolutely king, because it’ll eclipse any magic that Edgar knows in terms of damage, and the boss will be KO immune versus the Chainsaw, which could waste a round. All in all the Drill is a very useful tool, and one that is only very marginally defeated by those that follow.
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Flash
- Deals defence-ignoring magical damage to all targets & inflicts blind.
The amount of usage that you get out of the Flash Tool really comes down to the way that you’ve built Edgar. As standard, it functionally replaces Auto Crossbow or Bioblaster as a way to simply deal damage to an entire team, especially when facing enough enemies to have it beat out Drill or Chainsaw in overall damage. The damage isn’t too much higher than other options however, so it can end up feeling quite underwhelming.
Until you build up Edgar’s magic stat that is. You see this Tool will scale up based on his magic, and whilst it’s not going to win awards for it’s damage totals, there are certain Relics that buff your magic stat, like the Earring or Hero’s Ring. Using these, and indeed giving Edgar some time with a magic stat increasing Esper to level up, can eventually make Flash deal 1200 – 1500 damage to every enemy on screen. This might not sound like a lot, but bear in mind that there is no MP cost to this at all, so whilst the huge amount of dungeon encounters might make your mages crave the nearest Tent, Edgar can keep going for as long as you need.
Chainsaw
- (75% Chance) Deals defence-ignoring physical damage to one target.
- (25% Chance) Instantly kills the target.
Here we have it then, the Tool that we consider to be the very best and most useful for Edgar throughout FF6, the Chainsaw. This can be picked up pretty early by completing the clock puzzle in Zozo, and you’ll immediately notice that it does a huge amount of damage compared to pretty much anything else you have at the time. It’ll outdo all of the ‘ra ending spells, likely do more damage in total than any member with the Genji Glove, and it’ll also occasionally just decide to remove an enemy completely. It’s super powerful, does more damage than any other Tool and as a bonus, Edgar spins around like a spinning top when he uses it.
There are limitations, after all it still has to check for instant death activation, which means that the 25% chance to instantly kill can actually completely miss, but in the majority of occasions it’ll either kill or severely maim your target, which is ideal for a damage choice overall. It will eventually be eclipsed by massive magic damage coming from other party members, but even then it’ll still be useful, with Flash and Drill alongside basically forming the entirety of Edgar’s offensive kit. Take the time to give him some supportive magic, some powerful equipment, and you have yourself the ideal swiss army knife party member, which we suspect was always the point of his character design, if we’re honest.
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Categories: Final Fantasy 6