Damages or instantly dispatches an enemy. Use with the Tools command.
Description
Chainsaw is one of Edgar's Tools in Final Fantasy VI. When used with the Tools command, it deals extremely high physical damage to one opponent, and has a 25% chance to inflict instant death. Chainsaw is Edgar's most powerful single-target attack against most enemies, but on enemies who are immune to or healed by instant death, this can be detrimental, though this now works in the Pixel Remaster.
When the Chainsaw's Death attack is used, Edgar and Gogo don a hockey goalie's mask in similar fashion to Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th.
Obtained[]
The Chainsaw tool can be obtained in Zozo by solving the clock puzzle (the correct time is 6:10:50). It can later be stolen from Duel Armor.
Gogo can also use any Tools abilities as long as the tool still exists in the player's inventory and Tools is equipped in Gogo's ability menu.
Mechanics[]
As a physical ability, it deals damage with the following formula:
where "Level" refers to the user's level, and Strength refers to the user's Strength. Chainsaw is unblockable.
Chainsaw has a 25% chance to inflict instant death, killing an opponent. If the enemy is immune to instant death, this will simply waste the turn; if the enemy is undead and is healed by instant death, it will revive them to full health.
Use[]
Chainsaw deals immense physical damage to one target, with a small chance to instantly kill them if they are vulnerable. As such, it is Edgar's strongest attack in the vast majority of cases. When not used against enemies immune to or healed by instant death, Chainsaw should almost always be used as the default attack, unless the player needs to hit multiple enemies at once (in which case Auto Crossbow is a better choice).
Chainsaw deals greater damage than Drill, the most comparable Tools ability. However, Drill is more reliable against bosses that are immune to instant death. The instant death effect can work on undead enemies.
Though the Chainsaw's physical damage is immense, there are other ways to potentially deal greater physical damage with Edgar against single targets. Though very few weapons have an attack power higher than Chainsaw's 252, combining them with relics such as the Genji Glove and/or Master's Scroll can deal more physical damage than Chainsaw, especially when using the Ultima Weapon with Edgar at high HP, or high-tier sword such as Lightbringer. However, this option is available to other characters (such as Terra, Locke, or Celes), and may be better used on them. Edgar is one of only two characters who can equip spears, meaning he can use the Dragoon Boots and Dragon Horn to both deal greater damage than Chainsaw and avoiding damage from enemies in the process, if players choose this setup.
Since Edgar's most powerful Tools abilities are physical attacks, the player should prioritize magicite that boost his Strength when leveling up his stats. If this is done, though Chainsaw's built-in attack power cannot be increased, between boosts to Edgar's Strength and level, the ability will still continue to scale in damage output.
Due to Gogo's naturally lower Strength stat, Gogo benefits more from using the magic-based Tools than Drill, and should use Bioblaster or Flash instead.
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