So yeah, I'm starting this topic as a placeholder. If at some point, someone else comes in hijacks it or creates a new one like Pyro did with XF, then all the more power to them. I just wanted to post down some thoughts as well as general stuff that I think is cool to think about. Even though we rarely rank anything nowadays, I guess the theorycrafting side of me is interested in looking at how the PCs in the game would work DL wise so I'm creating a topic. Random/Snowfire/Niu - would love to hear your opinion on some of this stuff as well since I think it would help to portray a view that isn't completely lopsided in one side or another. Or throw your interps into the pool, let people choose, etc.
Anyway, gonna do what I traditionally do, which is talk about some of the overview, how I think the game would work DLwise and then some interp stuff before any real notes. I may be all over the place, so bear with me. But I will try to remain focused and keep a general flow within the topic. On with the show then:
Gameplay Overview
Game is essentially divided into separate Chapters and in each chapter, there's also a few different phases. There's the introductory phase, which often deals with getting to the location or reaching the first objective at the start of the chapter. Following that is a free phase, where you're allowed to explore the map/area you're allowed to go. This is the period where you usually have side quests, which can involve solving riddles to beating up bonus monsters. Once you manually decided that the Free Phase is done, you go into the Operation phase, or the main goal/objective of the Chapter. There is usually a boss at the end of each Operation and once that plays out, you go to the last phase, which is the Bonding Phase. There's no combat here; just talking to NPCs/your party members to get more character development. When you manually declare this to be done as well, then the game moves onward to the next Chapter. In total, there are about 10 Chapters, with 2 Gaiden Chapters. Other than the guest PCs in one of the Gaiden Chapters, I believe its best to take the PCs in the Last Chapter where everyone is available. This avoids issues such as scaling temp PCs since at this point they all become playable. Thanks to Trails' EXP scaling, it's not too difficult to keep everyone within the same ball park either, so should make gathering data easier too.
When you're in a map area, random enemies will be walking around the field. Making contact with one initiates a fight, where PCs are positioned on a field shaped like a circle. While positioning is important as attacks have different area of effects, there are no terrain penalties or bonuses. There is however, an event wheel that can offer different bonus/penalties on specific turns. Battles works on a CTB system, so players can smartly place their characters along the turn order to gain the best advantage. The event wheel by and large benefits the players(and therefore the PCs) over the enemies since the enemies won't actively try to line up their turns properly. Since it's a Trails game, it has 3 bars for each character: HP, MP (called EP) and CP. CP stands for Craft points but are basically the currency you use for using special techniques or abilities. It works the exact same way as in previous Trails games (so it increases when you attack/take a hit and goes down when consumed), so do check out Pyro/Snowfire's Skies topics. I'll be going some specifics afterwards, but again, by and large, its the same thing. Once combat is initiated, characters take turn according to the turn order and the fight goes on until one side is completely incapacitated.
Special Commands in Battle
Swapping
In battle, there is the option for the player side to swap out PCs. Only one swap can be done per character turn and the character swapping in takes a +50% Recharge penalty.
Linked Attacks/Bonuses
Characters in battle can be linked together. Physical attacks in this game have the effect of staggering enemies based on how vulnerable they are and the character's proficiency at that physical type. If an enemy is staggered, then the linked character can join in and add a base physical hit as well. There are advanced versions of these linked attacks where you can get 2 PCs attacking a small group or the entire party to attack all enemies at once. You can swap links between characters freely with no penalty, so it is possible in-game to be always linked to the strongest physical PC if you so wish. Linked characters also provide support effects to those they are linked with including stuff like restoring MP, CP or Covering for another character when an enemy attacks.
Overdrive
A new function added in CS2 is called "Overdrive". Only members of Class VII can Overdrive with each other and to do so requires clearing a trial boss. It can only be activated if the character who is activating is not suffering from a status that removes control (so for example, you can be poisoned and activate it, but you cannot be confused). When it is triggered, it will clear all negative status on the 2 linked characters, restore 40 CP and 30% of Max EP. It will then provide the 2 linked characters with 3 free actions, the first of which has zero recharge. During this time, spells can be insta-cast and any physical attack made automatically staggers the enemy regardless of their vulnerabilities. Rean is special in that he is an exception and can freely link with anyone, even guests and without needing a trial boss.
S-Breaks
Like in previous Trails games, when a player character has 100 CP stocked, he/she can utilize their S-craft, which is basically a technique that hits much harder, often with a big multiplier and has a greatly increased rate at inflicting status. Some S-crafts do not deal damage. However, all S-crafts share the ability to cut into the turn order immediately at any point, which is called an S-break. You can use S-Breaks to snipe useful event wheel icons such as the Guaranteed Critical or +50 CP. Note that using a S-break doesn't increase the recharge normally associated with S-crafts, however, you are *locked* into using the S-craft. So even if it means you can instant turn, it doesn't mean you can instant turn and do something freely.
DL Relevance
Why is all this important? Well a couple of things come to mind immediately. First, is whether or not you want to reward people with good physical proficiency. Physical attackers in CS2 are quite pronounced because of the fact that they may be able to effectively hit different vulnerabilities with greater success rates. This in turns grants you a linked attack, which can double the physical damage you are doing that turn. If you get enough Linked attacks off, you can also use the advanced versions, which can multiple enemies multiple times, so it increases the damage output done by fighters. Because of this, in-game, physical attacks and crafts tend to be a bit weaker than magic since its anticipated for you to stagger enemies and pull off linked attacks. One idea I had was to have phantom PCs; meaning that someone who is good at unbalancing will still get the bonus damage from a linked attack, even if there is no other dueler beside him/herself. And of course, this Phantom PC only provides linked attack support, not any defensive support.
Second and more importantly is how you want to factor this in for the bosses. Of course, on the PC end, it doesn't matter much more than the first point because the DL is about individual strengths and uniqueness. So things like Overdrive and Defensive Link Bonuses and Swapping all don't matter. However it does a number to bosses in game, letting you pull off strategies normally not possible and of course, greatly diminishes their durability. Many late game bosses have huge HP pools, but because of some of the stuff I just mentioned, a large part of it is inflating it to deal with the broken. This is only scratching the surface so, yes,it gets worse for the bosses (or better if you like breaking things)
EDIT: One complication arising from Linked attacks is that proficiency and chance of staggering is not displayed in percentages in game. Instead, it uses a 4-star system to show vulnerability and a letter grade for each PC's proficiency at a physical type. This means that this is a huge pain in the rear test. From personal experience, when a S-class character hits a 4 star vulnerability, the chance of staggering is 100%. If we assume that S-class represents 4 star rating in proficiency (the in-game manual does!) then we can assume that each "star" or rank is a +12.5% chance to stagger. When an enemy has multiple vulnerabilities, each proficiency is checked, so a character who can strike multiple of them at once (and well at that) will perform better than those that may strike only one. Since enemy vulnerabilities are largely random, one possibility of determining the chance to stagger is to take the number of ranks a PC has and weight them across an enemy that has a 2 star unbalance rating (the average) on each vulnerability. This is the simple way of doing it, but uses more assumptions. A better way, assuming I can find the time, is to average the vulnerabilities or stars across the enemies in the final dungeon and then compare PC ranks to that. Both methods are largely guesswork, but they should work for our intended purposes I think.
Master Quartz and Regular Quartz
Pretty easy in terms of the DL for Master Quartz. PCs get the copy of the Master Quartz that they either come with or are equipped with when they join the party. This extends to guest characters as well (heck,the game re-equips them with their starting MQs in the epilogue if its not being used by someone else). The only person who may be screwed here is Alfin, but I'll check up on that pretty soon. As for where to take the MQ levels, taking it at Level 5 (Max) seems appropriate. While you may not be using the starting MQs for all that long, the game is long enough that you will typically be able to fully level up 10-11 MQs without too much of a problem. At that point, it really is just easier to assume all the MQs are maxed out since getting the additional 5 other ones to that point is easier and avoids sandbagging someone arbitrarily. You have 6 party members accompanying for most of the game (4 in the front, 2 in the back) and those in the back still get equivalent experience to building MQs. So leveling up weaker MQs is pretty simple. The final two dungeons in the game are also quite long with quite a bit of EXP, so getting an extra 4 MQs maxed out seems reasonable to me. Besides, the weaker MQs typically are already punished in the DL by having passives that are not as strong, so no point in really hurting them a second time.
Regular Quartz on the other hand, is more complex. The basics is that quartz are like materia. You can slot them into open nodes in a person's ARCUS, which gives them abilities, stats or other neat effects. So the absolute purist view of this is to just disallow all other quartz other than starting ones and update the starting ones to what is available at the end. This tends to favor the guests because when they rejoin in the final chapter, they tend to have better stuff equipped on them. This is certainly the easiest way, but I'm not too comfortable with this.
The thing that makes quartz different then materia are elemental nodes. These are unique amongst *each* PC's ARCUS. For example, Rean has 2 Time, 1 Fire while Gaius has 2 Wind and 1 Earth. Every PC only has 8 nodes with 3 of them being elementalized, so elemental nodes play a huge part in game in determining what a character is good at and what they can equip as well as even the type of MQ they should set! In the above case, Time nodes emphasize on speed so setting up Rean to be a delayer/fast striker is much easier and something he is better at than Gaius. If you use the first interp, then you basically kill of this branch that also separates the PCs away from each other. Since every PC in game is capable of doing something unique (helped by these elemental nodes), it feels strange to just say remove it for the DL. The most basic way to keep this in tact without overpowering PCs IMO is to give them access to the base level stat boosters and spells of the same element.
Let's be clear. I'm not proposing to give them rare stuff or one of a kind quartz in game. Not even the quartz that requires U-materials and give stat boosts. I'm talking about quartz that can be easily forged from a shop which at the end game, is very easy to do. Typically, this means that the fighters will prefer stats as opposed to spells since they don't have the magic stats to really stand out. I'm okay with this because this is a legitimate advantage that fighters have in-game. Since they don't need spells, they can concentrate on bumping up attack/defense/speed/evade and so on. For mages, they may want the extra spells for variety and because they will have more EP to fuel the abilities. This is also relatively true to in-game where you don't want your mage to be a one trick pony and get walled by an enemy blocking the element. For spells though, many of them have added low status odds. I personally don't see these as too much of an issue (we're talking about stuff like 30% chances - typically low), but one option is to just give them the damage so they have access to another spell avoids distributing status around to every one. So the basic elemental quartz on their specific nodes + starting quartz is what I propose as a DL 'set'. It seems the most fair way to me, though I'm curious of course to see what other people want to do. I know Snowfire and Pyro's topic already have different ways of handling this and it's probably the most complex issue with Trails games.
Chrono Burst
Most support spells are relatively straight forward...except for this one, which needs its own section because it existing creates a huge amount of problems for DL interps. What is Chrono Burst? This is a time elemental spell that when cast gives a PC an extra turn. In essence, it is very much FF Quick. However, there are several things that make it absurdly silly:
1. Unlike FF Quick, you can recast Chrono Burst immediately within itself. This allows you to chain Chrono Burst'd turns repeatedly until you run out of EP (the only saving grace in the DL)
2. Chrono Burst has 0 Charge time, meaning it's actually instant-cast.
3. Chrono Burst is very easy to access: 600 Time Sepith, 150 Space and 150 Mirage. In the words of Random: Falcom, please fix your shit.
These 3 things creates a variety of issues. First, if we're using my proposal, this awards all PCs with Time Elemental nodes access to this spell. Granted, this is only 4 out of 16 PCs (Rean, Fie, Elise, Sharon) but the principal remains that is it over-rewarding them? Fie naturally has it on her MQ, but Rean and Sharon don't. Rean also doesn't have enough MP to cast it more than once, so I'm not too concerned on the surface for it to be overpowering. A secondary thing you could do is to just ban Chrono Burst from being allowable unless its on that character's MQ. This actually isn't a bad idea; it works very similar to tournaments where a card or character is too powerful so there is a universal rule to disallow it. We could so something similar with this spell for DL purposes (it IS a tournament in theory!).
On the boss end, well, let's just say this spell is the bane of their existence. Both in-game and for interpretation DLwise. Remember, in-game you can restore your EP and EP restoring items aren't super rare since you can also do cooking. There's also link support bonuses as I mentioned earlier that help restore EP along with the event wheel, so all together, bosses can basically be eating 10-20 player turns in a row before being allowed to act (and if you know what you're doing, essentially never acting). You also have to deal with the Moebius MQ which ups item efficiency. It gets hosed in the DL, but in-game, you can eventually turn items to have double the efficiency and have an AoE effect, allowing you to restore multiple characters' EP at the same time. The sole thing sort of holding this back is that Chrono Burst costs 400 EP without any reduction, so for most characters, this is OPB. In-game however, you can stack EP Reduction Quartz together, making it only cost 240 EP (or in 1 character's case, 160 EP). When you have like 1200 EP at the end of the game, 160 EP for an extra turn is dirt cheap. It gets worse because of everything I mentioned before, to the point where it is possible to net gain EP on the casting turn as well (EP restoration link bonus + event wheel bonus). So Chrono Burst chains can literally go on for ages.
DL Relevance
Chrono Burst is really the main cog that makes a lot of things silly. One of the more powerful crafts in the game is functionally GT Turn Shift. This works in conjuction with Chrono Burst, so you can actually give everyone an instant turn this way at only 160 EP cost, and then still take a second action. You also have food items that can give you major buffs in a single use versus needed to cast it. With Chrono Burst, you can use this item instantly. But don't spells have Area of Effect? Well yes, they do. But when used in conjunction with a Mastered Moebius, items become GT as well and instant. This now makes it superior to spells since you can't chain spells through Chrono Burst (the first turn makes your casting delay zero, but the second turn is spent casting the magic). So getting super buffed the boss even moves is really easy. Then, there are quartz that double the power of the first spell/attack you use, which with the above is easy to set up. The end result when you factor all these things in is that boss durability becomes a thing that is as lopsided as FF8/VP2/Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Bosses can be at 1.5 PCHP or higher! Or they can be sub Jeremy tier! With a potential vote split that massive, ranking bosses becomes a headache.
Boss Rankings
The good news for the antagonists is that many of them have an alternative form they could use before they get hit with the cheese in game. My thoughts regarding this is to use the earlier forms for the majority of the antagonists as many of them have usable forms and there's none of the interp issues that's present with the late game ones. Just for clarification, here's what I think works for the bosses. Note that this is SPOILERS territory, so stop reading if you haven't completed the game (or CS1 for that matter). I'll be using some code names as a result:
Reno (Xeno) - First form. Always fights with Rude. You have to take out about 70-80% of their HP anyway, so just cut their HP back by about 20% of the stated value works.
Rude (Leonidas) - See Reno. Same deal.
Lolita (Altina) - She actually 2 forms that would avoid the cheese - either her 1st form or her Gaiden form. 1st form is generally better. Fights with Tuxedo Mask and must be actually killed.
Tuxedo Mask (Bleublanc) - Well the later forms summon worse reinforcements! But due to the cheese, he wants his 1st form anyway. See Lolita above.
Valkyrie (Duvalle) - Uses her 2nd form. 1st form is based on a timer and you don't actually need to do any damage. 3rd form has to deal with cheese. 2nd form might too! But it is much earlier than the final series of fights so the broken might not be as silly.
Pyro (McBurn) - Has to use 2nd form because 1st form is a plot fight (you can't win and it's a timer based fight). Which means he is our first victim of Chrono Burst cheese! Congrats Pyro, your DL life is probably gonna suck (I have no issues with this).
Jade Rook (Rufus) - Ahaha, never mind. Unrankable. His 1 form is actually timed. So even if you can't do enough damage to him to unleash his super move, you can just sit there and wait until the fight ends.
Azure Knight (Crowe) - Quits and uses his CS1 form! If you take him in CS2, he either gets his 1st form which is garbage or his 2nd form which gets to deal with the cheese. He also has a secret epilogue form, but there are problems with this that he probably doesn't want it either. More on this later.
Witch of the Abyss (Vita) - Same boat as Azure except she doesn't have a CS1 form. So, she's uh...also kind of screwed like Pyro. Her secret form might be okay? Maybe? I dunno which form would be worse since one has to deal with the cheese and the other gets to deal with secret character problems. See below.
Secret Characters
Sekrit characters?! That's right. In the final dungeon of the game, you can buy an accessory called a Lady or Gentleman Mirror, which when equipped changes that character into the secret character. So why are they secret? Well, aside from only being usable in the final dungeon, the mirrors cost 200,000 Mira. Each. In case you're wondering how much this is, let me put it this way. In the time it takes for you to get the money for a mirror, you could have instead spent the money on two copies of an accessory that give you +20 speed (so +40 speed total) and still have money left over for other great accessories. Since speed is linear, 40 speed is huge. End game speed on average is somewhere between 100-110, so you're giving up a lot of cash that could be spend making your main team a lot better. Since it's 200,000 mira per mirror, getting all the secret characters takes 1,000,000 Mira, which is a crazy amount of grinding. These forms, IMO, if used should be penalized in a similar way as FE:Fates characters might, where you take the party with a higher average due to being able to spend funds more freely. To their credit though, secret PCs also have powerful bonus effect on them where they get +10 CP Regeneration per turn that has passed along with +50 Crit rate. So, don't feel sorry for penalizing them if you agree with me that 200,000 Mira is quite a bit of money!
There are 5 mirrors in total: Lolita, Azure Knight, Witch of the Abyss, Lloyd and Rixia. Lloyd and Rixia are PCs in the Crossbell games and have perfectly usable forms if they really want to be part of Cold Steel thanks to the Gaiden chapters. They actually have surprisingly *less* issues as a result. Lolita as I mentioned, can fall back to her 1st boss form, and not worry about the problems associated. Azure Knight has his CS1 form as I mentioned, so the only person who really has any issue really is Witch of the Abyss. Note that secret characters do not have a status screen or a way to change their quartz. They instead take them off the character who they are replacing from the mirror, which can make them quite a headache for an interpretation anyway. Personally, the only person I would consider this a valid form for is Witch of the Abyss (and even then, I'm not sure if its better).
Starting CP
In Pyro's topic, starting CP was at 50. Snowfire had averages listed for 3 values (50/100/150). Note that max CP is 200. Obviously what value PCs start as is important since it determines what options they can do at the start of a fight. So where does it feel right in CS2? My gut instinct tells me that the answer is 100. Here's the arguments I can think of for this:
1) CP is relatively easy to keep up, unlike say, Limit Gauges or even Grandia 3 SP. You gain SP on linked attacks too, so a smart player can swap links with faster/better proficient attackers to get CP back on those who may be consuming it a lot.
2) CP gain is calculated per enemy hit. So a +10 CP on hit, hitting 5 enemies means you actually get 50 CP back. Since many randoms are fought in clumps, you don't drain CP as quickly as you would think since its possible to hit multiple enemies in game to keep CP relatively high before tougher engagements.
3) After story events or certain triggers, the game automatically will refill your CP to 100. Even if it was originally at 0. CP higher than 100 doesn't get reset.
4) Once you get the airship, you can return to Ymir and freely use the footbath, which freely restores your CP. It doesn't take long to get a maxed CP gauge as a result even if you consumed all of it in a tougher boss.
5) CP Restoration items exit. Most of won't restore your gauge to full. BUT, since most of these restore between 20-40, its relatively easy again, to remain afloat within the 100 point mark.
The biggest issue with 100 CP actually is figuring out how to take the damage average. Since it gives everyone access to their S-craft immediately, it could be in the PCs best interest to use it immediately. But I have some doubts regarding this, since S-crafts have very long recharge times and if they aren't buffed, don't do as impressive damage as you would want. Guess we'll cross that bridge once we actually have numbers.
EDIT: Random has confirmed for me that 200 CP S-crafts get an additional 50% damage boost. This is most likely irrelevant for a large part of the cast (since they will want to be using crafts or casting magic), but is important for Rean and Alisa, who have MQs that provide 200 CP as a limit.
EDIT 2: Some further conversation has me believing that a 3 turn average is the way to go for comparing PC damages as a result of the starting CP. This prevents the case of grossly over killing people with dropping S-crafts instantly but also factors in a character's ability to maintain their damage levels as both EP/CP are consumed through a fight.
Weapons / Armor
As is the case for Trails games, weapons is easy. Just take the penultimate for every character. The best weapon is limited to 4 the first game, but the last one you don't even get before the final boss, so in practice, its 3 at most. As a result, the most fair way is to just take the 2nd best one, which is available at the last shop in the last dungeon. These can be bought for money and are relatively affordable (unless you are trying to save for a mirror, in which case, you get to hose like 10 characters!).
Armor is trickier. Like in the case of SC, DEF/ADF are not terribly great stats from experience. I'm sure they reduce damage, but the effect isn't great unless you're missing loads of it. There's a variety of end game equips that's available although depending on how much stats are worth, this can certainly vary. For reference, one level in CS2 gives you about 6-7 points in Atk, 2-4 points in Def, 11-13 points in Magic, 11-13 points in Magic Defense and about 100-150 HP. Speed growth is somewhat irregular but occurs about once every 3 levels. So if Atk and Magic are strong stats, then it certainly makes sense for fighters to take armor that may have more attack power over evade. In general, these are the equipment available that characters would be interested in (and are universal):
Genderless
Armor
Red Jumper - +25 Str, +800 Def, +540 ADF, 10% EVA
Patterned Shirt - +350 Def, +150 ADF, 20% EVA
Gorgeous Gown - +30 ATS, +500 Def, +800 ADF
Footwear
Red Boots - +400 Def, +7 Speed, +3 Move
Jeweled Boots - +250 Def, + 15 ATS, +3 Move
Males Only
Armor
Platinum Jacket - +45 Str, +880 Def, +590 ADF
Females Only
Body
Crystal Dress - +30 Str, +30 ATS, +870 Def, +600 ADF
Footwear
Crystal Heels - +15 Str, +15 ATS, +435 Def, +4 Move
tl;dr version: By default, pretty much all fighters want the Red Jumper. It provides strength and gives them a little bit of evade. If the stats are meaningful,then switching over to the Platinum Jacket/Crystal Dress might be worthwhile to squeeze out all the offense possible. For Fie and Sharon, their default is likely the Patterned Shirt, since they have great base evade and the extra 10% Evade is likely more meaningful to them than increases to Strength/Defense. Mages are similar. By default, they probably want the Crystal Dress (if female) or the Gorgeous Robe (if male). If the stats aren't that meaningful, then they would rather trade it in for Red Jumpers instead. Footwear though is easy. I think pretty much everyone wants the Red Boots because +7 Speed is no joke. The other shoes don't provide as large of a boost as the armors (+15 to 30) so this one is probably pretty simple.
Status Blocking
There is a nice plethora of status blocking equipment that is available. I know recent DL trend has been to make the characters give up other default accessories for the blockers as a trade off. Cold Steel 2 is a little messy in this regard because most of the status blockers have an upgraded version that provides stat boosts! So, is there really a trade off then if you can equip the blocker that boosts the stats anyway? Well, in fact, yes. While these stat boost blockers are available, in my experience from playing the game, they aren't a high priority buy or exchange item because there are better things you can get. What's the more realistic in-game picture?
Typically, you can get one of the colored pendulums which will block a group of status effects. This is what you typically use in-game for status blocking. There are upgraded versions of these of course, but the line is easier to draw because the upgraded versions are much rarer and take more materials than the standard blockers to improve. Obviously, the upgraded versions in this case are illegal. As for what you give up to equip a pendulum? The in-game cost is about 5000 Mira,which is an improved basic blocker. So the stat cost is easy - just use the stats on the improved basic blocker. A second alternative is to default to the Warrior Badge. This costs 150 Fishing Points in-game, but is reasonably quick. It provides 1000 HP/15 STR/15 ATS, which is actually surprisingly close to the first level improvements on basic blockers.
For reference, here's a list of status that can occur in-game:
Poison - Lose ~10% MHP every round
Blind - ACC and EVA - 50%
Seal - Cannot use physical abilities (Attack or Crafts)
Mute - Cannot use magical abilities (Arts)
Sleep - Target cannot act. Next hit on this target wakes them up, but is also a guaranteed crit (crits are 50% more damage and guaranteed stagger)
Burn - Lose ~20% MHP every round
Freeze - Lose ~5% MHP every round. If attacked, 30% chance for the target to be instantly incapacitated.
Petrify - Target cannot act. If attacked, 30% chance for the target to be instantly incapacitated.
Faint - Target cannot act. All attacks on this target are guaranteed critical hits.
Confuse - Target will attack any allies in range. If no allies in range, than move about randomly
Nightmare - Target cannot act. Next hit on this target wakes them up, but is also a guaranteed crit and adds a random status effect that is not ID, Vanish or Delay
Instant Death - What it says on the tin. Target is incapacitated
Vanish - Target is ejected. Can return after a period of time with 0 EP, but is functionally dead until return
Delay - Target takes additional clockticks for his next turn, where the number of clockticks is equal to the Delay value. Success rate is influenced by Speed.
Stat Down - Target is debuffed in the corresponding stat.
I need to check the amount of HP lost from the various poison type status, but the rest should be accurate. Also take note of the following. While PC status blocking is 100% immunity, boss status resistance is divisive/multiplicative. Meaning that if an attack has a 70% chance at inflicting something but the boss is susceptible to it only 20% of the time, it means that in practice, there is a 14% chance for the status to land (70% * 20%) instead of 0 (70% - (100%-20%)). I don't know if we'll ever get around to getting boss stats due to the complications noted above, but its worth mentioning. This is why there are attacks in game that have say 300% chance at something. Typically this means it awards high status resistance and penalizes lower status resistance. How you want to take this against PCs with status attacks is up to you. Personally, I would just take it as addition/subtraction for the sake of ease. But maybe someone else has a better idea of how to get the better representation.
Notes Regarding Guests
These are just some of my crib notes for the guest PCs. As I noted, taking them in the Epilogue makes the most sense since at that point, they all become permanently playable. Also avoids scaling issues and availability. This is just to note down what they start with, levels and so on. Goes without saying but SPOILER Territory, this is.
Elise Schwarzer
MQ - Aries
2 Water, 1 Time node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Silver Thorn, Altair Cannon, Athelas, Holy Breath
Level - 115
Toval Randonneur
MQ - Wing
2 Wind, 1 Space node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Yggdrasil, Chrono Drive, Ragna Vortex, Analyze, Cross Crusade
Level - 130
Note: Toval is permanently affixed with the Quick Caliber accessory, which cuts Casting Time by 1/2
Claire Rieveldt
MQ - Moebius
2 Water, 1 Space node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Crystal Flood, Altair Cannon, Spirit Breaker 2, Hit 2
Level - 130
Sharon Krueger
MQ - Juggler
2 Time, 1 Mirage node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Shadow Blade, Tearal, Impede 2, Mind 3
Level - 130
Alfin Reise Arnor
MQ - N/A (Ouch)
2 Fire, 1 Mirage node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Seraphic Ring, Fortuna, Purgatorial Flame, Shining, Impassion, EP Cut 2
Level - 115
Angelica Rogner
MQ - Emblem
2 Space, 1 Time node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Voice Breaker, Wrath, Action 3, Attack 3
Level - 125
Note: Angelica has a slight claim on the Lightning Belt accessory, which provides Str+50, Acc+50%, Speed+5 and Crit+5%. During the time when she's guesting, this accessory is permanently affixed on her and in the epilogue, a forced quest that you do has her handing this to you upon finish with the indication that she's giving Rean a copy of the belt that she uses. YMMV obviously.
Towa Herschel
MQ - Scepter
2 Earth, 1 Water node affixed.
Quartz: Starts with Claiomh Solarion, Earth Pulse, Adamantine Shield, Holy Breath, Maelstrom, Ancient Glyph
Level - 125
Shakier claims exist for Sharon, Claire and Towa. In Sharon/Claire's case, there is a cutscene at the beginning of Act 2, where they see Class VII off and the person between them (and Toval) who has the highest affinity with Rean will hand a Rean an accessory, with the indication that the accessory is something they themselves once used. They do not have this accessory affixed while they are guesting and have free accessory slots otherwise, which means this is primarily a plot claim. Towa's case is even shakier. In CS1,when you receive the Medal of Charity, the instructor who hands you the Medal will comment that the person who received the distinction in the previous year was Towa, which indicates she should have a copy of this accessory (technically). For the purposes of the topic, I won't be assuming any of these since they are all relatively dubious IMO, but those of you that like to allow everything (Djinn, I'm looking at you) might want to chew on this for a bit. I will assume though that Angelica and Toval have their accessories. In Toval's case, there is basically no argument since you can't even remove it from him.
Formulas
Special thanks to Random for pulling / deciphering some of these for me. We have both the base damage formula as well as the speed formula, so its a good start to figuring out damage values without needing to completely test everything (hopefully).
For the most part, CS2 uses the same formula as CS1 and from the sounds of it, Azure and Zero (the Crossbell arc games). Only difference is, the multiplier stacking can get really silly, which also explains why the damage numbers are larger. Oh, and speaking of stacking, you can stack stuff that normally isn't stackable in the older games. That also probably explains why the later entries are a little easier (more broken being handed out? Hell yes).
Base damage formula:
<+RandomKesaranPasaran> ((Atk * 5 * mult) - (Def * 2.5)) / 2
Note that Towa, Elliot and Emma have base physicals that use Magic and hit M.Def instead of Def. The formula above is the exact same for magic, except swap out Atk for Ats and Def for Atd.
Base speed formula:
Delay value / Speed = CT until next turn.
Delay value varies depending on the action taken. EDIT: Where to take the Standard Delay value is interesting because it alters the quickness of actions for the entire cast. My kneejerk is to default to base physicals as the standard since this constitutes a turn in many games. However, the catch here is that in-game, you are very unlikely to use a standard physical as part of your offense unless you are poking something to death or chipping. This is because the basic multiplier on physicals is really weak. Enemies also tend to appear in groups (so GT/MT is vastly better) so you're likely using crafts/spells which can hit more than 1 target at once. So if you're more likely to be doing pretty much anything else but using a basic physical, should it really represent what constitutes a normal turn? An alternative is to use 2500 as the Standard or even 3000 since these are the values where most crafts/base spell casting falls into. Random suggests another alternative where the Delay of all actions is averaged (so Move/Item/Crafts/S-crafts/spells, etc.) and grouped as 'General Delay', then compare PC speeds to that. All recovery is then expressed relative to the General Delay value.
Note that the Average Delay (factoring in Casting/Recovery) of all actions performable (Crafts, every single spell, Attack, Item, S-craft, Movement) is 3198. This is quite close to 3000 which in some ways is not surprising (as again, you're largely using crafts/magic for offense, so it makes sense they would better represent the average).
For now, I am assuming 2000 as the standard - this will likely change in the actual topic.
As long as PCs are performing the same type of actions, Speed is linear.
Spells work a little differently because spells have both a casting delay and a recovery delay. Casting delay is the charge time before the spell goes off and recovery delay is the actual recharge value after the spell is cast. Both of these are influenced by speed so speed is quite important! Busting speed likewise has a very detrimental effect for casters. EDIT: I will try to summarize spell speeds without copypastaing the chart from GameFAQs. For the most part, they are largely the same as CS1. Some other quick notes:
- Wind spells tend to cast faster than the rest and Time spells tend to recover faster than the rest
- Because spells have a charge period, they can be interrupted by anything that has "Impede" in their description. So hype those Grandia cancel techs.
- Delay values are truncated and this is more significant for casters where it is possible to get very low delay values, allowing fast casters to take multiple turns. While theoretically possible to be reduced to 0, this should DL irrelevant as it requires some illegal stuff (even for Toval).
- Outside of spells, Moving (or passing a turn) is approximately 25% faster than using a basic physical. Most crafts are about 50% slower than a standard physical. This sounds bad, but basic physicals have junk multipliers so most of the cast will be using crafts if not arts.
- S-crafts have a delay value of 4000 (highest in the game) and are therefore 100% slower than a standard physical.
- Note that all basic elements have 5 tiers of offensive spells, while higher levels only have 4. For the sake of referencing, assume that the higher elements do not have a tier 1. This will make more sense why in below.
Spell Speeds (Casting)
- Tier 1 spells other than Air Strike have a Casting Delay value of 500 (0.25 of a turn). Air Strike has a casting Delay value of 400 (0.2 of a turn)
- Tier 2 spells other than Spark Arrow have a Casting Delay value of 700 (0.35 of a turn). Spark Arrow has a Casting Delay value of 600 (0.3 of a turn)
- Tier 3 spells other than Aerial have a Casting Delay value of 1000 (0.5) of a turn. Aerial has a Casting Delay of 900 (0.45 of a turn)
- Tier 4 spells other than Judgment Bolt and Grim Butterfly have a Casting Delay value of 1500 (0.75 of a turn). Judgment Bolt has 1400 (0.7), while Grim Butterfly has 2000.
- Tier 5 spells for Basic Elements other than Ragna Vortex have a Casting Delay value of 2000. Ragna Vortex has a value of 1800 (0.9 of a turn)
- Tier 5 spells for Higher elements (so Time/Space/Mirage) have a Casting Delay value of 3000 (1.5 turns).
- Purgatorial Flame (a Tier 6 Fire element spell) has a Casting Delay value of 2500 (1.25 turns). Yes, it's faster than most Tier 5s. However, in exchange, it costs more EP and has a smaller AoE.
- Tear has a Casting Delay of 300 (0.15) - the fastest in the game
- Teara has a Casting Delay of 400 (0.2)
- Tearal has a Casting Delay of 600 (0.3)
- Seraphic Ring has a Casting Delay of 1000 (0.5)
- Most buffs (Earth Pulse, Crest, La Crest, Chrono Drive etc) have a Casting Delay Value of 500 (0.25). Breath (Small GT Healing) and Thelas (small Revival) also falls into this category
- Holy Breath (Large GT Healing) and Athelas (Large Revival) have a Casting Delay of 700 (0.35)
- Both Guards (Physical/Magic) have a Casting Delay of 1000 (0.5)
Spell Speeds (Recovery)
- With the exception of Time spells, all Tier 1, Tier 2, Buffs and Tear, Teara, Seraphic Ring and both Guards have a Recovery Delay of 2000 (so standard recharge)
- With the exception of Time spells, all Tier 3, Tier 4, Tearal, Holy Breath and Athelas have a Recovery Delay of 2500 (1.25x Recharge)
- All Tier 5 except for Flare Bomb have a Recovery Delay of 3000 (1.5x Recharge). Instead, Purgatorial Flame takes the 3000 Recovery Delay spot while Flare Bomb joins the 2500 group.
- Soul Blur (Tier 2 Time) has a Recovery of 500 (0.25x Recharge)
- Demonic Scythe (Tier 3 Time) has a Recovery of 1000 (0.5x Recharge)
- Grim Butterfly (Tier 4 Time) has a Recovery of 1500 (0.75x Recharge)
In case it wasn't obvious, Casting Delay + Recovery Delay = length of time needed before the PC gets his/her next turn after the spell. So for example, casting a Soul Blur would take 1200 Delay in total, while casting a Luminous Ray would take 2500 Delay in total. So you can pull 2 Soul Blurs over in the time it takes to cast any other Level 1.
Evade and Accuracy
No notes on these other than personal experience unfortunately. From many other players and in-game performance though, Evade is very much what the stated number translates to. The percentages are additive, so 10% Eva + 20% Eva = 30% to dodge an attack (instead of say 0.9 * 0.8 or 72% chance for something to hit). Most PCs have a default evade value of 0. Sara, Toval and Gaius all get an evade bonus from their MQ (10/15/15 respectively), while Sharon and Fie have 30% Evade on base. Most enemies in game (probably about 95%) do not have any notable accuracy modifiers, so a stated evade rate of 100% is in all essence physical immunity barring ITE (which does exist in game).
Magic evasion works the same way and is additive. However, the only character who has Magic Evasion by default is Toval (from his MQ). The Shield series (a regular Water Quartz) also provides some minor Magic evasion as well as M.Def if you allow those for the PCs with Water nodes. Generally though, they will probably want HP over it unless they can stack the Magic Evade. Unlike physicals, Magic is always 100% accurate barring forms of evade on a PC. Note that CS2 doesn't have any elemental resistances on the PC end, so Magic Evasion is the best that they get.
As for accuracy, this is much harder to determine. Physical attacks in general tend to miss more in CS2 compared to CS1. This could be due to a modded accuracy equation or just providing more enemies with evasion. More specifically, flying enemies and agile type enemies (such as wolves) tend to be more evasive and dodgy. I estimate from experience that accuracy on these things with no boosters is about 60-70% at best. However, with even a single Hit boost (Hit 1 offers +50%), enemy evasion becomes relatively infrequent (maybe once in every 30-40 attacks). With 2 or more (so 100% Hit or higher), enemy evade is pretty much non-existent. For the most part, like with evasion, most PCs have a default accuracy boost of 0. Only Angelica (from the Lightning Belt), Sharon (from her MQ) and Claire (from her weapon) have modified Accuracy values in the order of 50%/75%/100% respectively.
The Insight status adds +50% Hit, +50 Evade and +10% Unbalance chance. This is added to the raw score by the way, so a PC with Insight gets to take their base evasion and add it to the boost provided. Alisa/Angelica/Gaius can all cast Insight due to their MQs, and in Gaius' case, he starts with Insight beginning every battle. This makes Gaius something of a massive evade tank (and he can BLIND you too), making him quite a pain to hit (which is true to the in-game Falco user).
Elements
Not too complicated for the most part. There are the 4 basic elements in game: Fire, Water, Earth and Wind. Fire and Earth spells are self explanatory, however, Water and Wind spells actually house 2 elements based on flavour (Ice and Lightning respectively). This is important because while PC spells have clear elemental attributes of hitting weakness/resistance, enemies don't as PCs in CS2 cannot get any elemental protection. So in practice, spells used by the enemy would be no different if they were non-elemental. Only if you attach flavor arguments do enemy spells get elements. I think most people do, so this shouldn't be a big issue.
The game also has what it refers to as Higher elements. This comprises of the 3 more advanced schools: Time, Space and Mirage. How you want to treat this is up to debate. Many areas in the game do not have higher elements functioning so for all intents and purposes, the majority of the time, these spells are non-elemental. If you go by flavor arguments though, Time is most closely associated with Darkness (Colouring, ID type spells as well as names and animations of their spells) while Mirage is most closely associated with Light (Colouring, many attacks focus on brightness and are light themed). This leaves Space which doesn't really have an analogous element. It has attacks that use gravity and light and is probably the one true non-elemental typing. YMMV of course on how you want to take this.
End Game Levels
I finished the Epilogue with a party level of 140, so that's what I am going to shoot for with the PCs. In practice your characters' levels will likely be greatly scattered since you can only take 7 of the 18 characters into the party at once. If you don't plan on running up and down the final dungeon, trying new party combinations and sticking with one group, then that one group's levels will rise much higher than the rest.
For reference, all members of Class VII will be at a minimum level of 108, with Sara being the exception who will be at level 112. The game expects you to use the entire party for the last series of fights in the penultimate dungeon, so they graciously bump up everyone's levels to a point at the start. Similar to the final dungeon, if you don't swap characters out at all, then levels will tend to be somewhat lopsided as you should be finishing the penultimate dungeon at about Level 128-130, while those you aren't using will be stuck at the level minimum. Due to the large level disparity, I think its just fairer to take all the PCs at the same level of 140. Otherwise, you will have PCs at anywhere between 108-140 spectrum, which is quite a wide range and stats will start mattering when you're short 30+ levels.
As a result of this, this also means that Rean will be at a higher level than the rest, but I don't expect much of a difference (thanks to Trails' scaling) and whatever, he can take that advantage with him since he can't be removed from the party in the game. I've noted the level up gains on average, so you can dock him those few points if you wish. Since Alfin/Elise start at lower levels than the other guests, you could penalize them somewhat if you wish, but again I wouldn't bother. Due to the EXP system, catching up isn't terribly bad and since you can choose any set of PCs for the final dungeon (other than removing Rean and needing 4 members of Class VII for boss fights) there's no way to tell where the level disparity will be like say in ACF for Mariel.
