<Untitled IAQ Project> Round 6: Character balancing. What MvC2 ignored.

[Namagomi]

Jin

The big guy of Yiu's entourage, and...he's a bard?  Well, definitely a case for playing against type, to say the least, but Jin is a rather unusual character.  His basic durability is pretty much the highest in Yiu's group, and he hits as hard as the physically-oriented characters on a basic.  He appears like he'd be a solid fighter...

...until you look at some of his other stats.  D-ranked Dexterity with light armor hurts, even with that VIT and HP.  Worse is his evasion--he's not dodging anything that has a chance of hitting anyone else.  On that same note, his own hitrate is utterly abysmal--the best he's getting against average is 55% with instruments.  45% with axes and hammers.  Expect him to be missing.  A lot.  It's a rather easy trap to fall into to treat him like a heavy melee unit, since he only has half the durability of one and all the power without any of the accuracy.  He's very much a support unit, and it shows.

On the plus side, he's got unrestricted limitless support use, which means that you don't have to worry about healing running out if you're willing to drag the battle on long enough.  The problem is that it, like him, starts out slow.


Onto skillset:

Instrumental Talent: Nothing really wrong with this skill.  Swaps STR and DEX with an instrument equipped.  This has little offensive benefit, mind you, since instruments have a bad DEX mod to begin with (0.8), marginally better accuracy than hammers, and ATK that's barely better than a shortsword; furthermore, his base DEX sucks ass, meaning his damage will not matter worth shit.  However, given his role as a support character, this becomes an amazingly important skill for survivability, allowing him to DEX-tank like mad and compensating for his lack of armor against light weapons.  He'll still get the shit knocked out of him by heavy weapons, but that's to be expected from his bad evasion and light armor.

Healing Harmony: One of Jin's basic skills, and probably a standby; heals himself and surrounding allies for 4% mHP, increasing by a flat 2% mHP per turn (so 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%...)  Positioning is a notable factor here, and while this is potentially powerful given enough turns, it does have the issue of being slow to start, and running off of Jin's bad speed; as well as competing with other songs for attention...

Resounding Rhythm: Like this one.  4% speed boost, plus 2% per turn.  Speed is powerful in this system, notably, and it shows here.  Unfortunately for poor Jin here, as with all percentile speed boosts, this one's effectiveness is based on the initial speed of the recipient.  The higher the speed to begin with, the bigger the boost; and Jin's speed is tied with Rafael's for second-last.  Can't really benefit himself too much with it, but giving Meilin and Xun a boost can't hurt (especially with Xun's summons.)  Might stand to be a bit stronger, but I'll see how useful this will be for now.  Really comes into use if he's put into a party with one of the speedsters (Ilona, Claire, Katarine, Selena), though.

Dissonant Dirge: This is weird.  It's a song that deals HP damage to all enemies, triggered on Jin's turn.  His speed aside, I'm thinking this is reasonably accurate (130-135 MACC range?) just to counterbalance the fact that he has no other reliable source of damage at all.  Though due to this, its currently nontyped nature, its AoE nature, and how he can still smash people while singing, it shouldn't be very high power to start.  Thinking base power = 200, increment value 50, though if that goes up too slow it could be increment value 75 or 100.  Given how his speed goes, it might be decent to consider the latter option.

Proposed Technique: [Unnamed Song 1]:  My first of the additions fo Jin's songs, and arguably one of the more useful ones for him.  Not sure what order these will be learned in, so I'm just listing them as they come up mentally.  Don't mind the lack of name; I can't do the goofy alliteration thing.  Anyway, this song boosts accuracy for Jin and allies in adjacent hexes, resulting in a boost of (6+3 per count) to hit-rate.  Furthermore, it boosts critical rate for them as well, albeit at a smaller rate of 3+1 per count.  Might be the last one learned, what with it managing to fix Jin's biggest problem.

Proposed Technique: [Unnamed Song 2]:  Next is a song that boosts DEF and MDEF.  This being rather powerful, functionally (again, consider the effect on heavy and antimage armor in particular), it can afford to be small.  4% + 2% per count.

Proposed Technique: [Unnamed Song 3]:  A song that boosts counter rate.  Nonzero counter rates under this gain a bonus of, again, 4+2 per count.  A subtle boost, but one that starts showing after a couple of rounds.

Proposed Final Technique: [Unnamed]: So sue me, I'm bad with musical terms.  I'm a Computer Science major, not a Music major.  Anyway, this would result in doubling all currently active Song effects from Jin...at the cost of them ending on either the end of the relevant PC's next turn or Jin's next turn, whichever comes sooner.  This might be either OPB or run on a cooldown, to prevent abuse.  Has a bigger payoff the more he's kept buffs running, but then he'd have to start all over again.  I figured this would be a halfway neat capstone ability for him, though I could just make one more song instead.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Something to keep in mind with Jin, it was talked about that he might take over some of Meilin's old healing moves. They don't really clash with his songs too much anyway, but worth keeping in mind. (Also this should probably be formally decided one way or another.)

[DjinnAndTonic]

I'm in favor of giving Meilin's healing abilities over to Jin, though they will have to be renamed/tailored to his resource system.

Think you could come up with something for this, Nama?

I don't think his final skill needs to be OPB or run on a cooldown. It seems like ending the buff effect immediately afterward is enough of a penalty. It also could be AoE instead of full-field if you're really worried about it being overpowered.

Buffing Acc, Crit, and Counter rates are a really neat niche and directly buffing DEF/MDEF is nice and potent. It really gives him a different niche from the other buffers, and at endgame (with the crit/acc buff), he's actually quite a competent Melee option (especially if you're anal like me and love PCs that have unlimited resources).

[Namagomi]

I'm admittedly not in favor of giving Meilin's healing abilities over to Jin, for a couple of reasons.  It could be done (I'd still go for a cooldown on those regardless), but there's a couple of other reasons I oppose this.

1: I originally put them on Meilin partially because, frankly, I wanted to not make her so one-dimensional in a way that didn't involve weapon switching (which is a pain to begin with).  The problem with Focus-gauge characters is that all their skills usually go along one line (Claire's another exception, but I say this could be a good distinction for those with Focus who don't have Shrouds--they trade that off for a bit more variety), and does anyone really weapon-switch outside of a FE game to begin with?

2: I am deliberately attempting to avoid 'lynchpin support' syndrome in Yiu's group; It's notable that each group has at least one distinct 'vulnerable' member in some way that shutting down would hamper the party to some degree (Noemi's group averts this by having two revivers, of all things.  Isolde's group has Katarine[though she lacks revival, her support helps the blitzing power and minimizes damage when properly used], and Mirek's group has Eirwen, with Claire as a status healer).  Best way to do this?  Spread the support around.  And frankly, is it wrong to have one more character with a couple of healing abilities?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Flavor-wise, Meilin shouldn't have healing spells. You can give them to one of Xun's pets if you'd prefer, but status healing and revival are really fitting with Jin. Also, Fahim has some of that stuff too, so it's not like taking it off of Meilin makes Yiu's group into 'only one person has any support stuff!'. If anything, it actually balances Yiu's group with the other groups a bit better since as is, Meilin, Fahim, Jin, Yiu, and Xun can all do healing of some type. >.>;;

[Namagomi]

Flavorwise, I didn't imagine them as spells as much as 'field treatment'.   The point about variety and weapon switching still stands, though.

[EDIT]That aside, I am willing to compromise; Give her something else that adds variety without requiring weapon switching, and I'll be fine.  Even if I'm still not a fan of it being on Jin specifically

[Namagomi]

Aurel

Aurel's stats fit what most imagine of a typical 'knight' type of character.  Decent power, amazing defenses, he exists more to take damage than avoid it--which is good, because he can't dodge worth crap; his pEVA goes into the negatives when he's in any armor heavier than light, and his mEVA leaves him as statusbait.  A mix of C DEX and B STR gives him decent combative ability, while he manages to be among the most physically durable thanks to his A HP, S VIT, and ability to equip heavy armor.  His potential seems like it'd be more desirable on Mirek's side of the matter, as he is on Noemi's team, but it's arguable that this makes her side the clear 'easiest' to go through to start (Again, the LEAST durable person on her team there is Kasia.  Noemi isn't bad on her end and can DEXtank, Shao's generally good on both fronts IIRC, and Erastus is surprisingly tanky for a mage).  However, as is usual, PC tanks have the problem of being often ignored in favor of the much squishier everyone else.  As such, the usual answer is to make said tank able to draw attention and attacks away from the other party members.

Damage ranges are deceptive here, as Aurel does not survive to endgame.  None of these values beat average DEX, thus will assume single hit:
Physical, Hammer:273->546, 65% accuracy, 6% Critical, 5% Counter
Physical, Great Axe:234->468, 65% accuracy, 24% Critical, 5% Counter
Physical, Greatsword:218->436, 70% accuracy, 9% Critical, 10% Counter
Physical, Spear:156->312, 75% accuracy, 18% Critical, 25% Counter
Physical, Shortspear:140->280, 80% accuracy, 18% Critical, 25% Counter
Physical, Javelin:140->280, 75% accuracy, 12% Critical, 0% Counter, range 3

While he has a wide selection of weapons, it's notable that his accuracy barely beats average, and it shows.  Hammers, as for everyone who has them, are the heavy offense weapon for him, though he might prefer Great Axes instead.  Greatswords once again fall into a novelty class by comparison, but that's to be expected for this weapon category (to compensate, we perhaps need more 'special' weapons in this class once we get to equips).  Spears and shortspears are for the evasive and for counter rate, while javelins give him a ranged option which may prove to be useful if he is stuck unable to attack (or unable to attack without massive risks).

However, attacking isn't his forte to begin with, for obvious reasons that his skillset will show.  Armor-based learning is...awkward, I think.  It's doable, but it -is- awkward, since it forces him to give up one of his big advantages and is otherwise counterintuitive unless we do something along the lines of staggering the availability of armor for Noemi's group.

Master of his Body: Aurel regens 10% of his HP at the start of his turn. Resonance. Starting skill.

10% HP regeneration on top of his defenses is huge.  Flavor insists that this would be a starting passive for him, at the very least.

Never Say Die: Aurel's Vit and Spi increase significantly while he is below 50% health. Dissonance. Active with a Medium Armor equipped, learned after 15 battles.

 

Okay, as amusing as his raw tankiness after this would be, no.  We don't need him to be even less killable, what with him already having Meiling-grade durability.  Andy has suggested a minor STR boost instead, which lends itself to making a bit more sense and not making him literally impossible to kill without status.  (If you're thinking Kasia has no other way only because of this, just consider the majority of her damage output)

Refuse to Fall: Aurel has a 25% chance of surviving a fatal attack with 1 HP remaining. Dissonance. Active with a Heavy Armor equipped, learned after 30 battles.

25% Guts activation rate.  I'm a bit opposed to this working on actual ID, but fine with it working on damage.  Not too much of an issue here that I can think of.

Trained Bodyguard: Aurel has a 25% chance of intercepting an attack directed at an ally in his hex. Dissonance. Active with a Light Armor equipped, learned after 30 battles.

Blocker.  And, I argue, possibly one of the core, if not the core skill to his tankiness actually -working-.  Light armor is something counterintuitive for him, so unless heavier armor isn't readily available, he'd have problems.  In fact, I think this should be a starting skill for him, given how outright important it is for his tankiness to actually matter.  It's tempting to add a corollary that if he defends, this rate doubles to 50% interception or the like while he continues to defend.  Regardless, an important ability, one that he should start with if he doesn't gain it extremely early.

Brief Resurgence: When hit with an attack that would deal MP damage, all of Aurel's currently ready skills are not usable next turn, as if sent into a 1-turn recharge state. Starting skill.

Standard MP damage corollary to cooldowns.

Bolster: Recover a moderate amount of HP, but cancels his regen for several turns. 1-turn cooldown. Dissonance. Useable with a Light Armor equipped, learned after 10 battles.

3-turn regen cancellation for active self-healing.  Not really much I see wrong here.  Next.

Return From the Brink: Recover 100% of his HP, but takes significant penalties to his stats, decreasing all stats 33% for 4 turns. 3-turn cooldown. Dissonance. Useable with a Medium Armor equipped, learned after 25 battles.

This is his emergency healing, and it takes the everliving fuck out of him.  Really, if he's alone and he has to use this, he's just plain screwed, though that plus some repositioning could save him in that battle.  I don't mind it at all.

The Iron Wall of the Empire: Aurel takes 0 damage from physical and magical damage for a short time, but his Vit and Spi are dropped to G levels for 4 turns afterwards. 3-turn cooldown. Dissonance. Useable with a Heavy Armor equipped, learned after 45 battles.

One of a scant few invincibility abilities, and probably the first one in the game.  I'm thinking a duration of either "half turn" or "until next turn", for which he's just plain impossible to hurt by damage.  I'm tempted to say that this should auto-activate covering, since it's just a fancy way to survive a single attack otherwise and has a massive penalty.  The drop needs to be in terms of a numerical value at this point, not letter ranks, and I'll suggest a flat 50% or so drop to VIT and SPR.  That should suffice.

Reckless Strike: Moderate damage, but increases the damage he takes until his next turn. 1-turn cooldown. Dissonance. Useable with a Light Armor equipped, learned after 20 battles.

Hm.  The name and description imply that it leaves his defenses open.  I think I'm going to instead argue that this inflicts 100% immunity-ignoring Misfortune on himself until the end of his next turn--he overextends himself like hell and not only leaves his defenses open, but is in a position where he really can't mount an effective counterattack.  That should probably be sufficient penalty for this.

As for the damage mod, I'm considering a simple 1.5x damage boost.  His base damage isn't exactly awesome to begin with, and he's not really meant to be a powerhouse.  At the same time, the short cooldown makes it relatively spammable.

[Namagomi]

Ilona

Ilona's pretty much the FE Thief/Assassin of the game, and it shows.  She's pretty much the fastest and most physically evasive character in the game, bar none--and she's no slouch on the end of magic evasion either.  Good thing, too, since her defenses are straight-out abysmal; cast-worst PDUR, and tied for second-worst MDUR, light armor only.  Needless to say that she doesn't like mages to begin with, despises anything accurate, and dies upon being looked at by ITE.  On the offensive side, her Accuracy is solid, and her Dexterity is, once again, cast-best, boosted further thanks to her weapon selection.  Her Intelligence (A-rated), incidentally, doesn't really help her at all, while she's once again hurt by her -low- Strength--tying with Eirwen and only better than Faron (who has no reason to be physically attacking, ever).  She's in an odd case where she exists to kill low-VIT low-DEX enemies, with some tricks for the types who are more physically sound.

Values are against average defenses.

Physical, Knife: 145 over 7 hits->290 over 7 hits.  155% accuracy, 3% critical rate, 40% counter rate on evade
Physical, Dagger: 112 over 6 hits -> 224 over 6 hits.  155% accuracy, 15% critical rate, 60% counter rate on evade.
Physical, Guardian Blade: 134 over 4 hits->268 over 4 hits.  150% accuracy, 9% critical rate, 30% counter rate on evade.
Physical, Scythe: 111 over 2 hits->222 over 2 hits.  125% accuracy, 12% critical rate, 20% counter rate on evade.

She is, far more than any other character, intolerant to increases in DEF and VIT, and tolerant to decreases of such, with her basic physical.  Criticals are likewise big for her--she gets more out of defense-halving than damage-doubling for certain, and she's unlikely to have trouble hitting enemies as she is just doing notable damage.

Equally notable is her Focus gauge: Starts at 10%, increases by 5% for every basic physical executed, plus an extra 1% for each extra hit launched.  +2% focus for each attack evaded.  Speed, Dexterity, and Evasion increase by 1% for every 20% focus (and thus at full Focus, she's a bit faster and dodgier than normal, not that she arguably needs it)

Anyway, onto techs.  As she is a Guardian, it's natural that she has an assload of passives.

Shadow Stance: If Ilona doesn't move, grants an extra 50% chance to evade any attacks sent her way Goes away if she moves or is successfully attacked.

Basically, free Double Image when she doesn't move.  I'm admittedly a bit iffy on this already, since she's -damned- hard to hit already (40% hitrate with average physical accuracy, 65% with average magic accuracy.)  On the other hand...she does pretty much die horribly when getting hit.  I'm on the fence about this, though it makes it rather easy to negate her evasion by forcing her to move and Isolde's group lacks forced-movement skills.  This is much more a skill for defense than offense.

Fleeting Feet: If Ilona uses a basic physical or evades a physical attack, speed is increased by 10% until next turn. Stacks with itself, but wears off completely after the next turn.

Rapid Attack with a twist.  I'm going to say, since it's not made clear, that the 10% is based off of her base speed, not the modified speed (so that it'd be 100, 110, 120, 130... rather than 100, 110, 121, 133, 146...).  Half-tempted to say that counterattacks don't count, though if the intent was such that she'd gain 20% off of an evade into counter...eh.

Unrelenting Momentum: Each of Ilona's hits after the first in an attack gain a bonus to damage, starting from 10% and increasing by 10% each time.

Tal, I hate you.  You made me have to recalculate every single goddamned basic attack damage value again and have -doubled- my time working on those.  I hope you're happy.  Bastard.

Opportunity: If Ilona evades an attack, she has double the chance of countering it. If Ilona does not evade the attack, she cannot counter it.

Given how often she'll be dodging attacks, that'll lead to a functional doubling of counter rate.  At this point I'm against letting counterattacks count for Focus gain or Fleeting Feet.

Illusion Dance (10%): Normal physical that causes confusion.

Still needs revising.  Confusion doesn't exist, Charm would be too powerful, and we have enough people who use Delay on Isolde's team as-is.  I'm halfway thinking Paralysis, but that too doesn't work so well.  Possibly an Evade debuff?

Target (20%): Normal physical + locks on to an enemy. If an ally attacks the enemy, Ilona will immediately attack it with a basic physical. She cannot evade or counter any other enemies' attacks. Wears off if the target moves out of melee range, Ilona is successfully attacked by an enemy, or Ilona acts on someone other than herself or the targetted enemy.

This is a deceptively good skill, and probably something she intends to use against single targets.  This not only increases her damage against said single target by the number and rate of people attacking the enemy, but also increases her focus gain rate like crazy.  Of course...an enemy that could get away from her in one move (either through moving through/away from her, or moving her away) will negate this trick.  The mobile will negate this from her before there's a -really- good chance.  Utter suicide to use against groups as well.  Doesn't look too bad.

Backstab (30%): Adds half of Speed to Strength for damage and auto-crits, but only hits once regardless of Dexterity difference. Has a chance to instantly kill the target. If a knife/dagger is equipped, ignores defense and lowers target's Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and Speed by 5%.

This, IIRC, is the big skill that's created so much debate about her.  30% focus for a single, big hit, with bonuses if she's using a knife or dagger.  The damage works as such based on weapon:
Knife: 422->844.  ITD.
Dagger: 409->818.  ITD.
Guardian Blade: 264->528
Scythe: 396->792

Key word here: Not For Use With Sword.  That aside, a sizeable chunk of damage, and for the most part cements her as a knife-user.  ...except when she's up against something with low defense (in the case of Guardian Blades, less than 24 at start, 48 at end.  With Scythes, less than 54, 108 at end).  Synergizes with speed buffing as well as typical offense buffing.  The chance of ID, I'd think would be small (10% to 15% or so?  It's not the star of this move, given the heavily boosted damage).  I'd argue that the stat-drops on knives are so small as to be negligible, honestly, so if you really want them on there, I don't see too much of an issue.

Flurry Rush (50%): Normal physical at 2.5x Dexterity. If a guardian blade is equipped, this increases to 3x and Ilona's speed is doubled until next turn.

Okay.  This...is going to give me a headache thanks to Unrelenting Momentum.  Once again, this will have to be looked at on a weapon-by-weapon basis.  (Sidenote: Tal, I hate you, this number of hits is a pain in the ass to calculate mentally)

Knife:619->1238 over 21 hits.
Dagger:528->1056 over 20 hits.
Guardian Blade:823->1646 over 18 hits, Halves time until next turn
Scythe: 424->849 over 8 hits

Due to critical rate, these values are on the low side.  And honestly?  Remove the bonus DEX for Guardian Blades.  Yes, I know they get shafted on Backstab.  Quick Hit's a powerful enough effect to start with, honestly.

Enlightened State (100%): Increases counter/critical rate to 100%, doubles evasion and speed, adds 2% to the focus meter each turn. Ilona immediately gets two more actions.

Okay.  This is a somewhat complex effect, so I guess I'll have to look at each portion separately.  Most notably, there's no duration listed, but it's presumable that it lasts for the whole battle.  If it weren't for the fact that she's NOT seeing 100% Focus outside of excessively long fights or intervention from Eirwen or Claire, I'd say "screw that shit."  As it is, it's almost never coming out, so I'll let that deal slide.

Increases counter/critical rate to 100%

Change it to doubling, I'd be fine.  I'm iffy about it being 100%.

doubles evasion and speed

I'll let it slide that this move was made before the stats came out.  As it stands, she's only hittable by ITE and magic.  I'm saying -no- to the evasion boost.  Also, speed doubling results in not only the predictable effects, but also Backstab damage going up.  1.5x seems like it'd be a solid boost for speed?  I'm opposed to Evade going up on the basis that she already has cast-best evade AND halves final hit-rates while standing still.

adds 2% to the focus meter each turn

Sure, why not.

Ilona immediately gets two more actions

Don't mind too much here either.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Mirek
Stats

HP: 770/1540 (C-)
MP: n/a
Strength: 102/204 (A+)
Dexterity: 103/206 (S)
Vitality: 42/84 (F)
Intelligence: 46/91 (D)
Spirit: 75/150 (A-)
Speed: 36/72 (G)


Accuracy: 70% (A)
Evasion: 70% (A)
Magic Evasion: 20% (D-)
Move: 2

Equipment Options
Weapons - Guardian Blades
Armor - Light
Accessories - Light, Male, Guardian


Mirek is a Guardian. His skills are a microlevel version of the Unified Flow Cycle, channeled by the Focus Meter. Starts at 25% and increases by 10% every turn. Also increases by 5% whenever Mirek or an ally in his hex takes damage.

10% per turn is quite low when his cheapest ability is 15% and his speed is loltastic. However, the 5% Focus building off of damage is pretty good, especially since you should be playing him as a damage sponge due to his 100% counter rate anyway.


Skills
Passive

Guardian's Strike: Mirek can only swing once, but his damage is increased by 1.25x.
-Pretty deadly in some ways. He ruins any bosses we have that built on DEX-tanking. Well, assuming he can hit them. He's so slow that might be a bit of a feat in the first place.

Guardian's Swiftness: Mirek automatically goes first at the start of combat.
-This is really important to making him useful at all. He'll probably want to use it to position himself in front of people 9 times out of 10, just to start his counter game.

Guardian's Fury: Mirek's Guardian's Strike bonus increases by .05x for each 20% focus he has, capping at 1.5x. At 100% Focus, Mirek's attacks ignore Defense.
His main feature. He gets up to 100% and then smashes. Endgame physical damage against average is 1224 at 100% (ITD).
516 at 0%
591 at 80%


Guardian's Revenge: Mirek counters any physical attack from within his range 100% of the time with a 75%-damage basic attack.
This is kind of what makes his charging up come together as a very competent group player. He can actually get some damage in despite the speed thanks to his counters.
382.5 at 0% Focus
444 at 80% Focus
918 at 100% Focus (ITD)

Guardian's Shroud: Mirek reduces all effects from Dissonant and Disquiet sources by 10% (this effect increases as he levels, capping out at about 25%). All allies sharing a hex with him receive half the effect.
Mostly plot power at the moment, but this should eventually be used to play around with our Field Effect system when that gets worked out.

Active
Frustration: (15%) Physical with enhanced crit rate.
Guardian Blades have a mere 9% Crit Rate. I would suggest that this has an above-average crit activation rate, since otherwise it's just a physical and it would lower the damage of his next attack for no increase in damage here. I think 80% sounds good. I think this stacks with Mirek's 100% ITD effect, and clearly would be a great damage boost at the top. Easy to refill, too. That might make it too good since Crits are double final damage. Assuming the Critical hits:
1020 at 0%
1183 at 80%
2448 at 100% (ITD)

Peace: (25%) High damage attack that ignores resistances.
It costs more than Frustration, but it has a 100% activation rate at least. Still subject to evade, so it's not a huge leap just in function. Especially since there's only one resistance type involved (Slashing) due to Mirek only using Guardian Blades. Needs a higher multiplier than a Crit to make it worth the extra 10% Focus. 2.5x is too high, but 2.25x and more reliable than Frustration makes a worthwhile move, I'd think.
1147 at 0%
1331 at 80%
2754 at 100% (ITD)

Hatred: (50%) Instant Death if the attack hits (Accuracy = Focus).
Straightforward, and not nearly as awesome as any of his other moves unless his opponent is immune to physicals or something.

Despair: (30%) Mirek preemptively counters any attacks against him from an adjacent hex for the next five rounds, and decreases the accuracy of that attack. Stacks with Guardian's Revenge.
Love: (75%) As per Despair, but applies to anyone sharing his hex.
Does this mean he double-counters for five rounds? It reads like it does. I'm going to assume that GR's 75% damage mult applies to both counters, or this is insane. Damage is including 2 hits if someone attack Mirek in his range:
765 at 0% Focus
888 at 80% Focus
1836 at 100% Focus (ITD)

Catharsis: (0%) Disables Guardian's Shroud and Mirek can no longer gain Focus while this attack is active. Mirek's stats increase by 5% and he deals Dissonant damage to all characters in his hex or nearby hexes at the start of their turn. Mirek's attacks deal extra Dissonant damage.
How long does it last? This is basically Mirek's only method of dealing pseudo-magical damage. So I'm assuming his physicals hit Magic Resistance, which isn't bad. This needs an actual magic power formula. Not really sure what seems appropriate. Any ideas?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Random scattered notes. Sorry I haven't had much time for indepth analysis lately.

Mirek (active skillz)

-Frustration is problematic. If Mirek is hit once between his adjacent turns, he gains ongoing 2448 damage every turn due to getting enough focus back to use this every turn. lolwhat. Either this needs a focus cost increase, a way to be less broken at 100 focus, or just be not as good (e.g. only a 50% crit rate). A couple ways to make it less broken at 100 focus are to change it to "attack ignores half enemy's def", or just make the def-ignoring property of Guardian's Fury only apply to basic physicals. Peace has similar issues.

What I was thinking of was doing this.

Peace (20% focus): Attack that ignores half enemy's Def and slashing resistance, -20 hit (remember, Mirek is very accurate at base). Does ~800 endgame, depending on current focus. Note that this one doesn't benefit from the ITD property any more than a basic physical would, so we sidestep the broke at 100 focus here. It's quite a power move, especially since it mocks enemy defenses so well, though is a little more vulnerable to evade to compensate.

Frustration (40% focus): Attack at 1.5x STR that has a 50% chance to be a critical hit. For the gambling man, as an attack named frustration should be. Randomly 836/1672 (1254 average) as soon as it's available, but at 100 focus it -does- go psycho, and pretty much acts similarly to Meilin's 100-focus "someone's gonna die now" moves. Randomly 1836 (already really good...) or 3672 (zomg), averages 2454. And Mirek can get back to 100 focus and use this again much faster than Meilin can despite the speed, although the unreliability holds it in check. A little. Maybe. Given some of the buffers in the party, may need to watch out a bit here...

Hatred: Works wonderfully.

Love: Countering twice bugs me a bit. I'd say just move the counter to pre-emptive and double its damage (to 150%), which ends up with exactly the same numbers Djinn had but is more elegant. Also, since this was never quantified: "If the counter hits, accuracy of incoming attack is reduced by 40."

Despair: As above, but doesn't get the damage boost, so the counters are still 75%. It's got a much lower cost than Love, so it losing both damage and ally protection makes sense.

Awesome buffs, they give Mirek something to go for besides loldamage.

Catharsis: Needs a look, but I'm getting sleepy.


other things I mentioned in chat tonight

I'm a bit concerned about Rafael's Ruination, particularly combined with the "one big shot of awesome" Mirek can build up to. Buff from Eirwen, Frustration at 100 focus... etc. We can fix this by totally redesigning Eirwen but even then the problem is kinda temporary: Isolde, Meilin, and to a lesser degree Ilona also have ridiculous single attacks (Oversurged and 100 focus techs) which get buffed to hell by this. A general nerf to Ruination could work, but someone else may hopefully have a better idea.

Claire's Firemelon is currently useless as hell. I understand why it was nerfed, but as is it has no reason to be used ever besides some esoteric counter avoiding. 2x self-only damage buffs are useless when they also double costs; this is why Energy Charge and Power Charge and so on are more than 2x. Not sure what fix I recommend at the moment, but it's something to keep in mind.