Messages

1

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: April 26, 2024, 05:31:14 AM »

But if I'm thinking of "what's the best way to protect saving throws with Paladin and Wizard banned" it's not a bard with bardic inspiration, it's not an artificer.  It's any party member grabbing a 1 level Peace cleric dip.

I get that this is assuming a "power player" perspective, but I feel like if there's one area where this really shouldn't be assumed and the GM should step up, it'd be the Cleric class, and especially for something like Peace as a domain.  Obviously Level 1 Clerics are fairly easy to justify via backstory, but if an existing character wants to take a level in Cleric strictly for what provides the best benefits in battle, I as a DM would say great, your domain is apparently War without some really good explainin'.  (And yes, I know that 5e is a little less eager to just have the DM veto stuff, but I'd say this is an exception.)

2

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: March 08, 2024, 09:17:49 AM »

On the classic NES Tetris note, there was an interesting video recently for a deep dive to see why that crash is "really" happening, why it only happens at high levels, and why it's erratic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAbRx9obM1M

3

Unranked Games / Re: Triangle Strategy

« on: March 03, 2024, 11:36:46 PM »

Having finally beaten the game, an Extremely Not Important comment...  So for Travis...  who is a four-way splitpath PC and thus probably not the most votable anyway...  he has a choice at tier 2 between upgrading Mug's damage and upgrading Backwards Toss to reduce the TP cost by 1 (from 2 to 1).  It seems like Backwards Toss (210 dmg) deals more damage than Mug+ (202 dmg).  Ergo, think he's picked the wrong upgrade here - if he upgrades Backwards Toss, he can spam that forever.  This means that his 3-turn damage goes up by a mighty 8 damage, as the current one has him going 2x BT -> Mug, and he gets mildly, mildly better long-term damage in some sort of stallfest vs. a healer.

EDIT: Also, as an AI note, if Anna is the only PC left alive and she goes for a pure Take Cover cheese strat, it kinda just wins.  The AI gets confused with nothing targetable and just kinda wanders around doing nothing, they won't "blind fire" area of effects at her location or anything.  Might get her an upgrade to Godlike if given full credit?  I guess the real interesting test would be vs. the Hireophant, who has a map-attack ability, to let Anna be the only one alive and also have more than 3 TP.  My suspicion is that the AI still won't do anything.

Also, figuring out how to take boss AI is always tricky, but Erika deserves like negative credit for having Oil as a move.  She'll use it if she's bored near the start of the battle, which is often closer to her allies than the PCs, and if you have someone with fire-elemental capabilities (or just a Firestone), you can set HER on fire, too.  Unsure if her 30% Fire Resist applies to start-of-turn terrain flames, though.

4

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2024? Battle strength determined by frilly outfits

« on: February 10, 2024, 01:26:51 AM »

Momodora 5 - Finished.  It's pretty good.  A nice, short indie Metroidvania.  It's very similar to Reverie Under the Moonlight, but has some more impressive sprite work due to a slightly larger team (from 1 guy to...  1 guy + an animator + some support?  That's still a significant effort increase!).  It's also a little longer than RUtM, although..  still not quite long enough?  I had ~8 hours on the clock, which is probably closer to 7 hours without some idling.  The game will nicely mark areas with secrets with a question mark, and there aren't really weird Shinespark puzzles like modern Metroids, so it's pretty easy to be a completionist.  I got 109%/111% completion.  Maybe will get to 111% after doing the postgame boss rush?  We'll see.

In general, if played on Normal mode, it's of the style of high enemy damage but also enemy attacks being fairly dodgeable and telegraphed.  There'll be nice red warning marks even for off-screen attacks coming to give you a chance to get out of the way.  The game also has some aggro-encouraging mechanics where enemies are fairly easy to stunlock, so a strategy of just "immediately run toward enemy and unload your combo before it can get going" often works.  Although there's the By Law Obligatory enemy designs in 2D platforms with a dodge, like enemies armored from one side that you're supposed to let them attack you, then roll through the attack and hit them from the other side.  Archery is fairly busted for range games if you want - one of the very first Sigils you get (Think Hollow Knight Charms) increases the damage dealt by your first arrow hugely at Stamina cost, so getting that in as a first strike will blast a lot of regular enemies good.  And a decent number of bosses can be handled by just cowardly staying to the side and unleashing a hail of arrows with a bunch of arrow-enhancing Sigils.

Anyway, this style of combat is my jam, and the play control is real smooth.  Once you get to late game, you get a Sigil that makes perfect dodges more lenient to get which is a little centralizing, but whatever.  The lategame bosses are also a tad on the easy side?  Maybe they'll have more teeth on modes harder than Normal, but you get enough broken stuff that I was beating them on the first or second try, compared to having to take a few deaths to learn patterns earlier in the game.  The randoms can still be scary, though.  (Although the VERY final area is a bit of a letdown on challenge...  kinda wish they'd made the final final dungeon like 2x bigger just to let you style somemore with your endgame superpower builds.)

Speaking of lategame, one odd balance bit is that they sorta forgot to have a money sink?  There's several mechanics that reward money (Explorer companions, a Sigil that increases money drops, fishing) but nothing to use it on past the early game.

And yes, there is a topless demon whose weak spot is her breasts, again.  Ain't my jam but it's back.

Okay, back to the main event: nitpicking Metroidvania plot written by a non-native English speaker!  I think he muffed it up here, which, well, it's Metroidvania plot, so this hardly counts against the game.  But I like to write about such things anyway, and after Reverie under the Moonlight's success this had a real localization team (Jeremy Blaustein!), so what the hell.  Minor spoilers, followed by more major ones?  RUtM kept the plot pretty simple, there is an insane evil queen doing evil magic and shit and you gotta stop her to stop the curse, so just Dark Souls moodiness of a ruined town was enough.  Moonlit Farewell is more of a standard heroic quest but has some...  puzzling...  choices.

** (Minor spoilers begin here)
First, the game is called "Moonlit Farewell", so we're expecting to wave goodbye to someone.  Is someone going to die or heroically sacrifice themselves?  Something change forever?

The problem isn't where we end up, but rather that there's a setup that seems like it's setting up one plot, and then it does a different plot, and the switch is done less in a "cool plot twist" way but more a "wait what" way. There's demons loose, and also two warring sibling gods who hate each other.  There's also an expedition of an archaeologist from Karst (aka where RUtM took place) and her knight guard poking around ancient monuments with curious inscriptions, along with some sealed old temple areas.  Your mission is to get back the Big Magic Artifact summoning demons, but you also need to intervene in this divine quarrel.  Here are the two most basic ways to take this plot:

* Shonen option: Probably after getting your ass kicked, Our Heroine realizes she needs some Power-up.  She uses the archaeologist's research to collect the Four Doohickeys and do some ritual and beats some sense into the two gods, and maybe even kills 'em both (the "Farewell" part?).
* Making Friends option: Same as the above, but it involves doing sidequesty doohickeys to "fix" the problem and resolve the quarrel's source.

What actually happens:
First, the archaeologist and her escort are a total plot dead end.  You find them cowering in bandit town and send them back to safety.  They never help out in getting the needed vague power-up, despite the fact that said power-up involved poking around in ancient temples, which should have been the main reason for their existence!

Second, our heroines just take the side of the goddess in the feud.  Despite that the goddess is the one who attacks us for no reason other than it's boss fight time, twice!  We never actually see the brother god take any direct hostile action against us.  He's just sitting in his moon pillow fort doing nothing until we charge in to murder him.  Okay, okay, I guess the demons that are bad are sorta related to him, and we get TOLD that he's up to an evil plan to reset the world...  but by his sister, whom we meet by her attacking us and being told that she's part of a petty quarrel.  In almost any normal bit of writing, this would add a bit of tension - are we being lied to?  Are we just being told to go gank a mostly harmless rival by the Real Villain?  But I'm pretty sure that no, that was not the intent.  Now, there's no problem with the brother god indeed being bad news and the Final Villain.  Just...  why set up the plot to act like both sides were equally at fault earlier?  Or at least set it up as a direct plot twist that the goddess you've been fighting is actually good and she was fighting you because (insert excuse here)?  It comes across as just confused rather than a plot twist the way it's written.

And there is no Farewell to anything in this game.  The title is a lie!


--
Okay, back to no spoilers.  There's a carryover character from the earlier Momodoras that the game clearly thinks is very cool, but the only thing they let her do in this game is mostly get her ass kicked and let Our Heroine do the boss fight afterward, so...  meh. 

Anyway, still recommended.  Short Metroidvanias are around my attention span for video games these days it seems.

5

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 5 + Rankings!

« on: February 06, 2024, 10:39:27 PM »

Yuna (Final Fantasy X) vs Belial (Wild ARMs 4)
Dodgy, not inclined to hype up 4D pocket.

Light

Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage) vs Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics)
Mediator has 1.07 PCHP, at least taken by the generic "overall best" HP average.  Ivy deals 24 damage with Bolganone.  This clearly won't 2HKO vs. the Silvers or Smash average, but vs. the Silvers with accuracy damage average (the nicest option), she deals 0.535 PCHP, or exactly a 2HKO.  I think I hold to the basic Silvers average myself when Smash weapons aren't in play (reflects that Smash does exist and accuracy isn't really a huge problem in the DL), but it doesn't matter, because even if the silvers-with-accuracy killpoint is used, that just means Solution does its thing instead.  Whether Mediator is telling himself or Ivy that magic isn't real, the effect is the same in shrinking Ivy's damage, and Ivy has 0 backup physical damage.

--
Abstain on Persona 1.
Rank Persona 5, I guess.  What the hell.  There's some pretty nasty interp issues (do they get auto-revives?  do we hype up obscura gun status that isn't that good in-game and dominates their DL performance profile if allowed?), but that isn't new.  My one preference is to *not* rank Joker, or at least consider Joker a Bluelikes-only nom.  A headache, but not in a cool way.
Rank TriStrat, sure.  Pretty straightforward.

6

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 4

« on: January 28, 2024, 05:00:24 AM »

Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
I'll just note since it came up a bit ago that, while DL "interps" that are sometimes in-game nerfs (e.g. FFX characters all starting at 0 Overdrive) are necessary...  Vritra probably does win this if given the arms on turn 1?  Saying they start pre-dead is always a tad arbitrary, even if it makes Heat a more reasonable Godlike rather than Bluelike.
Goddess (Final Fantasy VI) vs Belial (Wild ARMs 4)
I'm not so certain about seeing Tank Drop as getting around Love Token counters, but not inclined to give Goddess judgment calls.

Light

Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Zelkov (Fire Emblem Engage)
Chickens.

Data Mine

Bravely Default II
Chained Echoes - Own, will probably play some day.
Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny
Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless
Fire Emblem Engage
Labyrinth of Touhou: Gensokyo and the Heaven-Piercing Tree
Octopath Traveler II - Own, need to start.
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess
Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom
This Way Madness Lies - Own, need to start.
Triangle Strategy - Technically unfinished, but I'm deep enough in to consider myself votable on it.

7

RPG Stats Forum / Re: Final Fantasy V (Boss)

« on: January 23, 2024, 04:01:54 AM »

Necro'ing a topic last posted in over 10 years ago, but inspired by recent FF5 events…  we missed out on the feared superboss of Final Fantasy V, the first World 3 boss: Antlion!

--
Antlion
HP: 8100
Speed: 6 CT to 8 average first turn, 2 CT to 3 average afterwards (same as Castle Exdeath)
Elements: Immune to Earth.  Weak to Water.  (Water is an extremely rare PC element at this point, if it matters.)
Status immunity: Heavy type, Dead, Stone, Toad, Mini, Poison, Paralyze, Charm, Stop
Evade: 10%
MEvade: 10%

Attack: ~280 (to front row)
Critical attack: ~280 (to front row)
Sonic Wave / Dischord: Halves target's level. 80 Hit.
Stomach Acid / Digestive Acid: 120 damage, ignores row, inflicts HP-leak.  Always hits (ITE).  (AI script will use every 5th turn.)

Fights 2 PCs (Butz & Cara / Bartz & Krile).

PC stats should be same as Act 2 Exdeath listed above (edged up a tiny bit because Antlion's defenses are a little worse than Exdeath's, 20 vs. 25).  So average PC HP of 1055, average damage of somewhere around 600 (non-optimized, assuming classes are picked randomly) or 900 (more optimized setups).  Ends up with Antlion's HP coming in at 2.7 PCHP / 1.8 PCHP (held against 2 PCs), or 1.54 / 1.03 PCHP (held against 3.5 PCs).

Notable status holes include Sleep, Darkness, Slow, and Old.

When Antlion dies, it flees (but you still get AP).  In the current patch of FF5 Pixel Remaster, if Antlion is sleeping (and perhaps other forms of loss of control?), it will full-heal rather than flee.  (Does not apply to SFC / GBA)

--
Antlion sucks!  4HKOs the front row and uh 8HKOs the back row, and that's if all his attacks hit.  If you managed to beat Castle Exdeath, you'll be fine against Antlion, even with 2 random PCs.  No double actions, no level 3 spells.  Antlion's basic attack has all the usual FF5 problems of PC evasion & blocking as well as back row for far less damage than Exdeath's Vacuum Wave.

It seems pretty hard to imagine a situation where you managed to beat Exdeath but had trouble with Antlion that isn't a Faris solo or the like.  You'd have to be hugely underlevel and have whatever strategy you used for Exdeath not be operational due to the 2 missing crew members.  But even in a challenge run, just chugging potions and using back-rank characters would probably get you far.  The one trick he has that might be relevant is Sonic Wave / Dischord - level is a potent stat in FF5, and the effect stacks.  It can make PC offense real bad (although unlikely to cause damage to tink...  except for Zenigage, which is super-defense reliant in its formula).  In the DL, this means he might prey on the most damageless of healers (your Tales of Phantasia Mints and the like), dropping HP leak and lots of level-halving before slugfesting.  Low Light.


(For those who missed GDQ: See the section linked below at 2:04:45.  Imagine telling someone in 2000 that the wildest cheers of an FF5 run would be for Antlion.. There aren't any random encounters to grind on, Bartz didn't learn !Mix because he was dead in a fight, and Krile's damage with Zenigage / Giltoss goes to 0 after a single Dischord, meaning Antlion will actually win the slugfest.  Plan B was sleeping Antlion, but the documentation for the healing surprise was lacking, because what are the odds, right?  Match of doom with Xenogears Elly if she's force-equipped with the Dream Rod as she frantically tries to win with Ethers.. )
https://youtu.be/amyuJjTe5gk?si=vAf_7xsHiLuwYDP9&t=7485

8

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 3

« on: January 12, 2024, 06:15:24 AM »

Riou (Suikoden II) vs Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
This fight has happened many times.
Goddess (Final Fantasy VI) vs Aeterna (I am Setsuna)
Auto-Haste strikes again.  If Aeterna is seen as faster due to FF6 speed wonkiness AND you let Mirage status stop status-attacks, then maybe, but...  doubtful.
Belial (Wild ARMs 4) vs Ryu (Breath of Fire IV)
Strictly by the stat topic numbers, Belial's Tank Drop deals 0.6 PCHP damage, and Pyro's stat topic has Ryu at 1.13 PDur.  OTOH I am inclined to harshly tiebreak against Belial's damage for various reasons so it wouldn't take too much of a downward adjustment for Ryu to survive 2x hits unlike Polaris.  On the other hand, there's 4D Pocket hype which would render this moot anyway.  If Ryu does survive, he should have tricks to handle the Distortion.  Leaning Ryu, but could be argued?

Middle

Dedue Molinaro (Fire Emblem Three Houses) vs Kyrie (Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark)
If we're giving Kyrie Merc skills (A little uncertain on that), then Flash Strike does let her get past counters, but for terrible damage that will lose the race.  She does have some magic in Wrathful / Holy Beam, but it's not necessarily THAT great, given that it can't double.  I think Kyrie might pull it out anyway despite being "countered" just from being a tad underranked in Middle, since the Slow reaction + Excalibur Renew might give her some stall game here.  Dedue has great damage but he only gets his own turns fairly rarely after Slow comes down, which is bad vs. the regen.


Light

Primrose Azelhart (Octopath Traveler) vs Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage)
Primrose is faster and doubles, but Ivy 2HKOs Primrose.  And doubles don't even necessarily help that much due to the way BP works (I'd see as the equivalent of a Patience extra action, i.e. no extra BP from it).  She'll survive to turn 3 anyway thanks to Encore auto-revive but it hardly helps given that she loses her BP (and any Allure'd allies) on revival.

Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Heather (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
This...  this might actually be a Mediator win?!  Heather's doubles in Random's stat topic deal 23 damage to a 56 HP kill point.  Mediator has 306 HP to the 286 HP average, so Heather is 3-rounding unless she gets a lucky Bane proc in her first 3 hits.  However, Mediator is 10 Spd to the 9.4 Generics Average.  And if that's seen as too close to average and a threat range tiebreak is preferred, FFT Threaten / Guns have better range than RD knives, and Heather's move is less than the cavalry & fliers in her home game.  So... Heather becomes a chicken?!  Her low damage comes back to haunt her...

9

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 2

« on: January 06, 2024, 09:03:13 PM »

Elf: Am I missing something?  Once Yulie uses Sacrifice, she dies horribly on the counterattack.  I guess the argument is that FE12 Dragonstones are range 1?  The problem is that the WA4 Hex grid is incredibly claustrophobic and dodging range-1 counters there is nearly impossible.  Even if Yulie & Tiki spawn on opposite hexes, Tiki will just move next to Yulie, and it still won't be safe for her to use Sacrifice, except as a finisher.

Also, I think you bolded the wrong winner in Heather vs. Benedict.

10

Discussion / Re: 2023 Gaming in Review

« on: January 06, 2024, 07:10:52 PM »

I got really into reading in late 2021 / 2022.  Then I got a new job in late 2022 and have been busy with both that & reading random stuff, so...  yeah, gaming has definitely fallen off, although I've made room for the occasional Civ5 game and such.

Notable incompletes:
* Slay the Princess.  I played the demo very deeply, getting all the achievements, but the main game doesn't carry over demo progress, and the first two routes I picked that went beyond where you could get in the demo were kinda underwhelmingly nonexistent.  Maybe just bad luck?  I loved the demo, though.  Good sense of humor.
* Paradise Killer.  I was told this was a nice bite-sized snack of a mystery.  I'm sure it is, but they stuck their mystery in a big ol' Unreal Engine indie island to walk around that is Too Big.  I would have liked this game so much more if you just had Phoenix Wright style navigation where you pick a location you wanna go and you're there.  Instead you're stumbling around cliffsides playing an exciting game of pick up the glowy items for currency?  I deeply do not care about that game, I want to get back to the interrogation and mystery-solving.  The island is just too big, with tons of empty apartments.  Even with the little heads-up display theoretically saying where a character I could talk to was, it took, no lie, over 15 minutes to actually FIND the way to them, and not in a charming Zelda / puzzle style, but a frustrating "I don't get how this map connects" style.  And oh yes, there is some teleporting on the island, but not to people, but rather places; then they CHARGE you a non-renewable resource that is also your currency for other semi-required plot coupons to do this teleportation.  What were you thinking, devs?!  Why?!  Why!  Stop trying to prevent me from playing the actually interesting part of your game by making me play a crappy collect-a-thon!

Good (7/10)

3. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC, 2023)

Make no mistake, this is a very high 7, considering it's totally free.  Just hard for games that are like 90 minutes long at most without particularly deep gameplay to score super-high.  But just...  insanely charming and cool, with a hilarious script, and I'm not even remotely a Sonic plot expert.  Mad respect for just asking the player straight-up who killed Sonic with giving you just enough to figure it out, but not directly hinting you from NPC dialogue before it's time to come to the conclusion.  Makes you feel like a proper detective.

Great (8/10)

2. Fire Emblem Engage (Switch, 2023)

Complicated feelings here.  The FE game closest to Engage in some ways is Fates of all things, which makes sense as it was done by a similar team at Intelligent Systems (I believe?), and I had complicated feelings there, too. Like Fates, it has some really deep and interesting gameplay that combines letting you the player do really, really powerful things, while also making the enemies a legitimate threat, yet without falling back on "I have bigger stat numbers booga booga" too much.  It results in some really deep, rewarding gameplay that lets you feel like a badass when you pull off something cool. 

Also like Fates, the world building is just completely garbage.  The world of both Fates & Engage barely exists; it's cardboard cutouts in the background, and it doesn't feel like the characters are influenced by it or came from any recognizable milieu.  I'm not saying FE6/7 or FE10/11 were perfect, but both Elibe (if you read the obscura support conversations) and Tellius feel substantially more "lived in" rather than being a backdrop that produces cute anime nobles.  Fates, to its credit, at least has some interesting characters, even if the world they live in is either nonsense or underspecified or contradictory.  But Engage has a few engaging enough characters, they just aren't given much to work with.  The few characters that Engage genuinely tries with - Alear & their enemies (no, really, Veyle / The Four Hounds / Sombron have more plot than Alfred / Diamant / Ivy / Timerra) - mostly don't get a very interesting version of their plot.  And that's ignoring all the slack plotting and plot holes and such.  The game doesn't even work great as a fun romp of an adventure, which is what they were theoretically going for.  It's bizarre that the designers said they were going back to the GBA games with this, because freaking Eliwood vs. Nergal has a deeper and more serious plot than Engage, and this is not a compliment to FE7!  Sigh.

There are a few decent moments, although they'd be just 1 good moment of many in a game like Chrono Trigger - the C5-C7 stretch with the Firene castle / Anna / Yunaka / Alcryst maps are actually fine.  Everything afterward is mostly downhill. 

Okay, I still liked the game.  In particular, speeding up the Somniel vs. the Monastery was badly needed.  The graphics & character designs grew on me with time.  And I already praised the gameplay above, right?  So still recommended.  Just woof on the plot & characters.

Excellent (9/10)


1. Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Steam, 2021)

I ranked this back in 2021, and here we are again, after I finished it off.  It was indeed pretty great!  Maybe the best of the Ace Attorney series, shockingly enough.  The second case of the second half (Case 7 overall?) drags and is just repeating plot beats from the first case, which is why I took a long break, although I get the budget is limited.  But Cases 8, 9, and 10 are really friggin' good.  There's one or two nonsensical plot twists, and as usual, a few more red-herring characters would have been nice (but budget for animation is tight, I get it), but it's great.  Play it!

11

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 2

« on: December 31, 2023, 06:18:13 AM »

Chris Lightfellow (Suikoden III) vs Aeterna (I am Setsuna)
The good news for Chris: The multi-hit nature of S3 physicals means that Mirage is a bad play, since multiple hits can knock off the shield in the middle of a combo.  The bad news: idk if I'd hype S3 Yellow Scarf as stopping IAS Stop, and I'm pretty generous with S3 Yellow Scarves.  Problem is that Paralysis is a separate status in IAS, and Stop immunity is fairly rare IIRC.  The other bad news is that Oblivion's damage formula doesn't take Def into account that much, so Chris can't rely on some sort of tanking strategy.
Belial (Wild ARMs 4) vs Polaris (Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2)
Huh, shoulda taken some stats down for Polaris I guess.  Based on
https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Polaris
as a refresher...  Polaris 3 has access to Cepheid, which is multi-target and has Pierce to stop nulling, and Megidolaon, which is both multi-target and Almighty explicitly goes around shields like Makarakarn in-game, so Belial's Distortion isn't working here.  I'd be shocked if she isn't just OHKO'd.  Plan B is to get an insta-double and KO Polaris... hmm, the DS2 endgame average AGL is 17.2, and Polaris's AGL is 20.  Given Belial's 272% speed, I suppose she probably does still hustle out the insta-double.  So Belial probably wins anyway?  The damage average of twink'd lategame demon teams is really high, just the problem is surviving the rocket tag to get in.  Open to arguments if people have better memories.

Ryu (Breath of Fire IV) vs Simeon (Octopath Traveler)


Heavy

Rofel Wodring (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Anna Pascal (Triangle Strategy)
Anna is ramming into Save the Queen, but Invisible -> backstab gets around that Crystal Shield evasion very nicely.  And her damage is even better than the topic indicates since it seems Dhyer didn't bake in back attacks by default and she should get a Surprise Attack bonus here.  I think that's enough to probably KO Rofel.

Middle

Axl (Mega Man X Command Mission) vs Kyrie (Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark)
Kyrie is very scary in Middle with the patch, because the patch gave her Penumbral Mastery and she has a decent plot claim to the Excalibur, a Holy-elemental weapon with regen.  But I'm not an MMXCM voter.

I know Namagomi has a Fell Seal stat topic under way, but from my halfway completed one, an L50 Marked (well, 25 levels of Marked and 23 levels of a mixed Hybrid set and Kyrie's L2 bases):

HP=433  MP=176  Atk=406 (w/ Excalibur), 396 (w/ Heavy Lance), (279 base) Def=318 (210) Mnd=267 Res=267 (215) Spd=163 (150) Eva=5 (0) Crit=7 (1) Holy/Dark Resist=5 Move=5 (4) {{Status|Swim}} Jump=5 (7)
PCHP=1.03, 103% avg. spd, 1.02 Phys Durability, 0.97 Mag Durability
Weapon=Heavy Lance, Helm=Flash Cap, Body=Lorica Musculata, Accessories: Gremlin Treads, Sapphire Earring

* {{Highlight|Execute}}: Damage is increased by 0.45x when target's HP is below half of their maximum.
* {{Highlight|Avenger}}: Kyrie gains 0.2x bonus damage and 0.125x damage reduction for each fallen ally (up to 3 stacks).
* {{Highlight|Slow}}: Counters any offensive action taken on the character by inflicting the offender with {{Status|Slow}}.
* {{Highlight|Penumbral Mastery}} (versions 1.2 and later only): Kyrie reduces the target's resistance when dealing {{Highlight|Light}} or {{Highlight|Dark}} damage.  Does not work if target's elemental resistance is over 100.  If the target has between 0 and 100 resistance, it will lose 50. If the target has less than 0 resistance, it will lose 25. Resistance cannot be brought lower than -150.
* Kyrie has a plot claim to the Excalibur, as it's her own personal sidequest that gets this item.  Additionally, Marked as uniquely good at using it, since it has Holy damage that synergizes well with Penumbral Mastery.  If you allow the Excalibur, then Marked has permanent Renew (regen health per turn), absorbs Holy damage (+150 {{Status|Holy}} resist).

So pretty average stats.  The problem is a damage average to compare it to is where I lost my will to finish up, but Excalibur should be markedly better than Heavy Lance thanks to Penumbral Mastery as noted above, although it loses 2 range. 

Yulie Ahtreide (Wild ARMs 4) vs Tiki (Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem)
Yulie's pretty scary in Middle.  That said, Random's topic lists Tiki as having a 14% crit rate, and FE12 dragonstones are physical, so a crit is total death.  Yulie needs to attack into Tiki's counters while also getting plunked on her own turns, so that adds up fast.  She fails forever at damaging Tiki, but Tiki has bad HP (31 HP to a 44 HP average = ~0.695 PCHP) and good Defense, so Sacrifice being ITD is unusually potent here...  that's what, around ~0.48 PCHP ignore defense damage if she can cast it while at full HP?  That leaves 0.21 PCHP of Tiki's to grind through the hard way, which is really more like 0.35 defense-adjusted damage Yulie needs to deal.  I...  don't think she even needs the Gaia Hoop?  A single default weapon double is a bit more than the naive damage average (although there's certainly an argument that the damage average should be higher due to nonsense like Intrude).  But...  wait, this still doesn't work.  Yulie's durability is so bad that she's getting 2HKO'd, so even when getting double-actions thanks to Quicken, she can't ever get a single attack in - she needs to first heal, then attack, then heal again so Tiki's regular attack doesn't kill her.

Yulie still has a weak argument in the 3/7 chance she starts on an elemental Hex, because Material would give her a way to do damage that gets around counters.  But then she's ramming into Tiki's fantastic MDef and probably giving Tiki too much time to find a crit even if allowed.


Light

Heather (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) vs Benedict Pascal (Triangle Strategy)
Heather is actually a pretty decent High Light, and evadable fighters are where she thrives.
Big Joe (Xenogears) vs Velkov (Fire Emblem Engage)
Big Joe isn't quite a Puny to me, but...  yeah.

12

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 1

« on: December 27, 2023, 06:21:05 AM »

Heavy

Mei-ling (SaGa Frontier) vs Tim (Brigandine: Legend of Runersia)

Olberic Eisenberg (Octopath Traveler) vs Temenos Mistral(Octopath Traveler II)
Well...  Olberic seems to win during the daytime.  If we assume ~3000 as the 8PT2 damage average and 7500 as the average killpoint, then Tenemos's 2-turn of 6577 doesn't match Olberic's 1.19 Elemental Defense.  If the Def Down is +50% damage like 8PT1...  then that does do the trick during nighttime, as that'd be 1.30 PCHP.

Quick question for Pyro: Is Temenos's Rise Again like Primrorse's Encore and the revival doesn't get any BP back?  Which would make it not too helpful when outsped in a duel since it means that their opponent will just immediately go first the next turn and bonk his revived self back down again.  So Temenos absolutely needs to win on turn 2 given his bad speed.

Kyra Tierney (Phantasy Star IV) vs Xander (Fire Emblem Fates)

Middle

Peter (Shining Force II) vs Rinkah (Fire Emblem Fates)

Light

Primrose Azelhart (Octopath Traveler) vs Seraphina (Disgaea 5)
Don't know D5, but I will say that I don't think Primrose summons (if allowed) would trigger counterattacks in 8PT, so probably wouldn't here.  (And Primrose will be saving up for a single mega-spell that she won't cast until it finishes the fight, presumably.)
Umaro (Final Fantasy VI) vs Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage)
Elsurge is clearly non-elemental, so yeah.  The way you beat base Ivy (no Lyn) is just by doubling her, and Umaro shouldn't.

13

Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 NOMS

« on: December 25, 2023, 07:32:35 PM »

Godlike
Aeterna (I Am Setsuna)
Alyssa (Cosmic Star Heroine)
Rean (Trails of Cold Steel)
Simeon (Octopath Traveller)
Veroinca (DQ XI)
--
Ryu (BoF4)
Sephiroth (FF7)
Blue Fiend (Lunar2)
Nemesis (FE3H)
Velius (FFT)

Heavy
Tim (Brig:LoR)
Delthea (FE Echoes)
Serena (DQ11)
Anna (TriStrat)
Olberic (Octopath Traveller)
--
Strago (FF6)
Purim / Primm / Girl (SoM)
Ferdinand (FE3H)
Chie (P4)
Cloud (FF7)


Middle
Sylvando (DQ11)
Rinkah (FE Fates)
Cerya (Tactics Ogre)
Serenoa (TriStrat)
Merrin (FE Engage)
--
Kresnik (Wild Arms 4)
Lugh (FE6)
Lucca (CT)
Vivi (FF9)
Henry (FE Awakening)


Light
Subaki (FE Fates)
Benedict (TriStrat)
Io (SMT Devil Survivor 2)
Velkov (FE Engage)
Vander (FE Engage)
--
Annette (FE 3H)
Tony (WAXF)
Nara / Meena (DQ4)
White Mage (Bravely Default)
Viktor (Suikodens)

14

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: December 18, 2023, 02:41:55 AM »

On WarCraft II: Are sea maps a thing in multiplayer?  On one hand, if you want to do a sea map, I guess you're stuck doing WC2 since WC3 doesn't support that.  But it seems like such a swingy mechanic, due to the way oil works where warships need oil and oil is found at sea.  If you get behind even a little at the warship race, then your oil patch gets camped by enemy warships and you can't build any more warships while your opponent can.  I guess you can use fliers to maybe get back in the game, but once you start winning the ship race, you can just mix in destroyers that can shoot up. And...  that will be that, as while you could hypothetically defend yourself from shelling with catapults, presumably your opponent just takes the map and locks you in.  (In the campaign, the enemy ship AI is nicely not very aggressive, so it's not a thing there, of course.)  But this is just theorycraft - maybe people found a way to make sea maps work?  Or maybe have some optional sea component on the side?

15

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: December 01, 2023, 03:01:22 AM »

To quote Ciato: "Ya'll should argue about Aura vs. Abraxas"

Pretty good list overall.  On Aura vs. Abraxas, I agree that for your average random mage running Reason proficiency, Abraxas is probably a bit better (although still pretty terrible).  And this also assumes you've probably made a mistake in your build in going for A Reason / A Faith rather than just tunneling on S rank Reason.  Comes up with Annette as already noted - first time through the game I got an out-of-house Annette to Faith Rank A and was rewarded with a spell I'll never cast, great.  But Aura would have been even more never-cast.  But maybe once in a blue moon Abraxas is useful then.

I'd say that Aura > Abraxas comes largely from the idea that you are building a unit that just wants to use offensive White Magic for whatever reason despite the game really not supporting this that much (so an angry Bishop or a Holy Knight), and it's mostly from that 2 vs. 3 uses (+50% for Aura!).  Maybe you're doubling a slow monster with high HP and don't have Seraphim, which just eats up your non-Nosferatu WM charges really fast.  Aura holds out mildly better, and also has that 1 Wgt less.  And while crit-farming is generally a losing trade, I feel that at the low end of the spell pool, the rules change somewhat.  Abraxas is just almost always a worse option than high-rank Reason spells, and thus never gets used.  Aura might help if you're in some sort of desperate situation where you're willing to "spend" Divine Pulses to help arrange a key crit or something.

But yeah.  Black Magic being a bit bland is fine, and Dark Magic all has gimmicks, but White Magic probably needed more gimmicks than Nosferatu's healing and Seraphim's monster effectiveness.  I know that 3H intentionally depowered most weapon triangle mechanics as being a little too "gamey" for the feel they were going for, but having some sort of bonus vs. Dark Magic would have been the easiest thing to toss onto one of the two dreadful A-- white magic spells.  But just...  something.  Especially for Aura, as while enemies are equipped with Abraxas, Aura is really rare in enemy hands IIRC?  So players won't get "ambushed" by it doing something weird like applying a free Retribution effect or whatever.  And if they truly wanted to keep White Magic a tier below Reason to keep it from being overcentralizing, just toss a few extra uses out for the poor sods who at least try to build a WM-based mage anyway - Abraxas to 4 uses, Aura to 6 uses, say (which would then be 8/12 in Bishop / Gremory).

16

Discussion / Re: Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

« on: November 12, 2023, 04:58:52 AM »

The topic of Fire Emblem drafts came up in Discord awhile back, and specifically FE3H.  One issue with drafts is that they really mostly make sense "competitively", i.e., if you're trying to measure against something.  You get weird results if one person is drafting their faves and someone else is playing to win.  Furthermore, for FE Three Houses in particular, the game is friggin' long.  So it's a little awkward - you can do a short draft, but then it's probably a Normal mode warp-a-thon.  But if you do Hard or Maddening and ban Warp, you have something that takes so long that you fully expect some Did Not Finishes mixed in from real life / boredom / etc.

Anyway.  The REAL fun is the drafting part, IMO.  Playing it out is just a long formality.  So…  why not draft against myself as a sample?  There were two funny YouTube videos from someone who is clearly far more of a FE6 fanatic than most people on the planet where he drafted against himself and also actually ran the game 4 times:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SIO6xqhPNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhwWMSdV9sE 

So…  why not draft 3H against myself?  Except skipping the actually playing part.  Maybe.

There's a lot of 3H draft rulesets out there you can find (and also a lot of seemingly abandoned drafts).  In general, I'm assuming some sort of soft LTC is the criteria (rather than real-time), combined with…  well, not quite Ironman, but an expectation that you are not doing dopey LTC things like resetting until you get that turn 1 crit.  If you're Divine Pulsing due to a mistake, whatever, but DP'ing as a core strategy for crit / key dodge farming is no bueno. 

Lords/Warp/Stride all make the game go faster and thus be more about feeding XP to boss-slayers, since everyone else isn't getting tons of combat.  As such, I'm gonna restrict this as much as possible to make it closer to normal play rather than specialized LTC stratz.  I think the draft ends up the most interesting on Silver Snow with Warp / Stride banned.  Silver Snow means no Lord hard-carry (without having to arbitrarily ban Lords) which makes a lot of the draft pointless since you'd be building a carry Lord no matter what (although you still have Byleth in SS, of course).  If Warp isn't banned, you end up with a massive rush on Linhardt / Lysithea and a consolation prize of Manuela which is weird.  Stride is most defensible, but you can still get pretty far with flyers and a Dancer even without it.  There's still some wackiness here - Vantage / 100 Crit / Retribution strategies start looking pretty good, most notably - but I think this is reasonably close to "normal" play.

One weird rule I saw in two drafts posted on serenes which doesn't appear to be very common, but I liked, is "Paralogues are free up to 10 turns / One auxiliary/quest battle per month is free up to 10 turns" (see https://forums.serenesforest.net/index.php?/topic/96042-fe16-azure-moon-draft-every-last-one-of-them/ ).  Basically it means that characters' Paralogues are actually relevant rather than just skipping almost all of them (maybe you still do the one-roundable ones like Ignatz / Raphael).  I'd also assume that for White Clouds paralogues where you've drafted half of the pair but have access to the Paralogue, you only get the benefit of the part you drafted (e.g. Caduceus vs. Spear of Assal if you only drafted one of Seteth / Flayn and do An Ocean View).  I might be a bit harsher on this than 10 turns…  maybe something like 6 turns are free, turns 7-17 are at half-cost (i.e. a 10-turn clear costs 4/2 = 2 turns), and any turns after that cost full price.  But whatever, point is, doing the Paralogues can now make sense (especially for Maddening).

Finally, one last point.  Silver Snow Reunion at Dawn is dumb, especially on Maddening.  I don't like having to obligate people to have a Byleth build that can solo-survive.  While one solution is simply to have a 3 person draft rather than a 4 person draft, I went with the Black Eagles all having two entries, meaning two separate players can draft 'em.  Should make the Eagles a little more viable and has the nice aspect of making the early game less rocky too.

Per notes on other Silver Snow drafts, Edelgard / Hubert are free, Prologue is free, C1 is "pick one character to be free", and C13 Seteth is free.

Anyway, my self-draft, along with reasoning.  I'm creatively calling our drafters Player 1, 2, 3, and 4, or P1/P2/P3/P4 for short, with P1 drafting first.

--
P1: Petra
P2: Petra
P3: Dorothea
P4: Dorothea, Ferdinand
P3: Ferdinand

First things first: making Reunion at Dawn reasonable.  If you don't draft for this early then it's your own fault IMO.  Plus, getting some Eagles will speed up C2 when non-Wolves recruitment isn't really possible yet.  The left-side joinees in SS Reunion at Dawn are Petra, Dorothea, and Caspar.  Petra is the obvious power pick (in a turn count draft, you're probably making her a Wyvern, act shocked), with Dorothea your next best option.  This will ensure you at least have 3 capable units at the start in Byleth / Seteth / First Pick.

The next option for Players 4 & 3 in snake order is the secondary pick.  Now, for Frue LTC strats, I know that Bernie gets some hype, because you can do some goofy Pass + Pegasus Knight + getting her low + huge Vengeance hits.  But, per above, I'm trying to go for more reliable strats.  Ferdinand is an Eagle who'll be around for C1/C2 and isn't that much worse a carry than Petra who'll make a nice dodgetanky Wyvern who can still KO the boss.  I think he's safer than a Bernie pick.

--
P2: Constance
P1: Yuri, Hapi
P2: Lorenz

The Wolves join really fast (can speed up C2) and have some amazing loot in their Paralogues, which per above are doable without tanking the turn count (although.. Yuri & Constance's doesn't mess around!).  Constance gets you Nuvelle Fliers and, importantly for P2 (which doesn't have Dorothea), the possibility of late-game Bolting sniping of bosses.  With Warp / Stride banned, "double dance Dorothea / Constance to smack a boss twice with long-range magic" becomes one of the main ways to speed some maps up.

P1 can take Yuri & Hapi.  Yuri offers the mighty Fetters of Dromi, which is good for all the usual reasons, plus.. probably ending up a Sniper in an LTC scenario, honestly.  Not worth trying to slog through skill ranks for Mortal Savant or something.  Hapi's just one of the strongest remaining mages who can offer Physic support and do goofy monster games, who also offers an incredibly good battalion in her Paralogue in Timotheos Magi Corps.

Having taken a powerful but frail mage in Constance, P2 can snipe Lorenz.  Not for him, of course, but extra range on boss Bolting snipes or just in general from Thrysus is a thing.

--
P3: Ingrid
P4: Shamir, Sylvain
P3: Leonie
P2: Felix
P1: Flayn, Balthus

P3..  definitely getting debatable at this point, but I'm a fan of Ingrid.  One, she has good out-of-house growths in enemy Pegasus Knight and a reasonable training scheme, so you can grab her later without needing to level her.  Two, you get her excellent Galatea battalion from her Paralogue now.

P4 - well one of the drafts banned sniping the DK in C6 from outside his room, which is a dominating thing a Shamir pick can do.  The "psuedo-Ironman" ruleset suggests that this isn't reliable, but she's still solid anyway as a Sniper ready to go with little effort.  Sylvain is another strong pickup - can either be in C2 for fast training, or in C6 for Cavalier growths.  Can switch over to a mage-y build if the rest of the draft requires it, too.

For P3, Leonie's a still outstanding power pick on just good-stats grounds, and also can come with enemy Cavalier growths for extra tankiness.  For P2, Felix is notably worse out of house due to his Sword / Fist training regime, but you can just make an effort to recruit him quickly.  Player 1 already has Hapi, and Lorenz is already taken, so Flayn suddenly becomes more interesting so as to grab Caduceus to set up long-rang magical sniping with.  Also grab Balthus as another instant recruit who can maybe be Rescue'd back by Flayn if he ends up going Grappler?  Who knows.  P1's already drafted a bunch of Wolves, too, so hey, more Support bonuses.

--
P2: Linhardt
P3: Linhardt   
P4: Marianne   Seteth

P2 doesn't have a dedicated Physic healer yet, and there's a lot of picks from now until their next pick, so taking Linhardt seems respectful.  P3 has Dorothea, but grabbin Lin would let her build more offensively rather than being on Physic duty, so yeah.  Even without Warp, Linhardt still has a role.  Player 4 grabs Marianne on similar logic - in an LTC-ish situation with an out-of-house recruitment, she's probably on Bishop duty, although you could maybe still make her a Valkyrie or something if recruited quickly enough.  Seteth, meanwhile, is a safe pre-leveled pick in an LTC, and also can now participate in C12 some to have a few extra levels for C13 I guess?

--
P3: Raphael
P2: Lysithea
P1: Mercedes, Caspar
P2: Bernadetta
P3: Bernadetta
P4: Caspar, Hanneman

Is SF crazy, picking Raph that early?  Well…  maybe, but I'm more thinking that he has a very short Paralogue whose reward is a pretty good battalion.  And he can uh punch stuff still, sure.  Lysithea is nerfed with no Warp and out-of-house recruitment and a worthless Paralogue but let's not get too crazy, she's still a fine pick.  Strictly speaking, P1 doesn't need Mercedes since they already have Flayn, but it's not like Mercedes is terrible in general, and the Mercedes / Caspar combo is still around to maybe grab a Rafail Gem to make the final boss more reliable.  Unclear if this is really worthwhile in an LTC situation as that Paralogue is scary to do fast, but eh.  Plus, Caspar also helps at Reunion at Dawn.  Players 2 & 3 pick up a redundant Sniper in Bernadetta and another way to make C1/C2/C3 easier.  P4 shrugs and grabs Caspar for the easier Reunion at Dawn, and also Hanneman for more boss Meteor sniping fun to go with Dorothea.

--
P3: Alois
P2: Ignatz
P1: Ashe, Annette
P2: Catherine
P3: Manuela
P4: Hilda
Not picked: Cyril, Anna

Filler picks.  Reminder goes here that Catherine, Hilda, and Cyril are worse than usual due to greatly delayed join time, and Annette is worse than usual due to not having access to her Paralogue.  (And of course Manuela is worse due to Warp being banned, although P4 would have liked to wheel her so she could increase Hanneman's damage - but 'twas not to be.)

Overall draft:

Petra     Yuri       Hapi     Flayn   Balthus   Mercedes  Caspar      Ashe     Annette
Petra     Constance  Lorenz   Felix   Linhardt  Lysithea  Bernadetta  Ignatz   Catherine
Dorothea  Ferdinand  Ingrid   Leonie  Linhardt  Raphael   Bernadetta  Alois    Manuela
Dorothea  Ferdinand  Shamir   Sylvain Marianne  Seteth    Caspar      Hanneman Hilda

Nobody: Cyril, Anna                        


Looking at the overall draft...  hmm, I think they end up reasonably even.  P1 notably lacks a source of Meteor or Bolting, but does have Fetters of Dromi + Petra + Caduceus Hapi.

I suspect that for LTC conditions, I probably undervalued building some sort of Vantage / Retribution tank (because it's not a strategy I use casually).  Not Azure Moon so no Dimitri to do it, but I suspect it's a strategy that if you set up does pay off in finishing rout maps faster.  Felix can do it for P2 and Seteth for P4, and maybe a dopey Balthus build for P1?  P3 kinda doesn't have a good candidate, though I guess RAPHAEL could maybe work.

Anyway, that was my fun theorycraft for the day.  (Actually I did this two weeks ago, but didn't want to just dump some picks, so wrote up some thought processes / explanation.)  No idea how it'd go in a real draft or if I actually tried to run one of these squads-  maybe if I run SS, I'll roll a d4 and try one of these groups to see how it goes.

17

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 10, Grand Finals: Deja Vu, I've Been Here In This Place Before

« on: October 16, 2023, 05:58:19 AM »

Red XIII (FF7) vs. Byleth Eisner (FE3H)
Normally, FE characters are good vs. Limits because they can chip around them, and normally FE characters are good at slugfests because they get free counterattacks, but...  these two aspects work against each other here?  I'm pretty sure counterattacks in FF7 still fill the Limit Gauge.  So a vanilla strategy is:
R13: Attack, Byleth counterattacks with SotC
B: Brave Sword attack
R13: Attack, Byleth counterattacks with BS (1x hit)

Red has taken 30+50+25 = 105 FE3H damage, which still isn't a KO to average.  But that last counterattack probably sets up a Red Limit, so even if Red is just running the vanilla L1 Sled Fang, this should still 3HKO Byleth, assuming Byleth didn't evade or get multiple healing procs or the like.  But given that Limited Moon is listed at 114% base accuracy, I think Red actually takes this.  Byleth can equip an Iron Sword or something to reduce the damage of the first counterattack, which if this is seen as preventing an L1 Limit might be the right call, but then Byleth risks not KO'ing on their second turn and needs to gamble on getting Crest of Flames (but only in their second attack, not too early and thus handing the Limit over anyway!).  Seems Red-favored.

Virginia Maxwell (WA3) vs. Heather (FE10)

18

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 9, Losers Finals: Winners Don't Do Thievery.

« on: October 10, 2023, 07:17:20 AM »

Fenrir (VP1) vs. Belial (WA4)

Heavy:

Levin Brenton (WAXF) vs. Edgar Roni Figaro (FF6)
MBlock / Evade is not Levin's friend.


Middle:

Tony (WA4) vs. Byleth Eisner (FE3H)
Tony doubles with his basic attack, but I'm inclined to respect-check him here.  Maybe he barely 4HKOs but if he ever misses or Crest of Flames ever triggers or if Byleth gets a crit on SotC counters, Tony is toast (either immediately or once Byleth gets a turn).  For that matter, since Byleth is getting doubled anyway, the goofy White Magic setup with WM Avo +20 and Nosferatu also serve the cause of just ensuring Byleth gets one turn with which to Sublime Heaven and blow Tony up with.

Light:

Heather (FE10) vs. Karn (BoF1)
Traditionally, having counterattacks is a huge swing in Light slugfests.  And I don't think I'd let Karn double, Heather is pretty blazingly fast (even if Karn is too, but in a system where this is less meaningful).

19

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 8, Winners Finals/Losers Semifinals: Technical Difficulties

« on: October 07, 2023, 09:25:38 PM »

Heavy Losers:

Edgar (FF6) vs. Lilka (WA2)


Middle:
Winners:

Red XIII (FF7) vs. Tony (WA4)

Losers:

Byleth (FE3H) vs. Florina (FE7)
I'll buy Windsweep hype.

Light:
Winners:

Heather (FE10) vs. Virginia Maxwell (WA3)
There are interps that make this closer (e.g. involving phantom Leadership stars) but nah.

Losers:

Karn (BoF1) vs. Fina (SoA)
Not hyping the Stone as accurate enough.

20

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 7, Losers Quarterfinals: Edgar's second SaGa run-in

« on: September 26, 2023, 03:01:59 AM »

Belial (WA4) vs. Killer (SH3)

Middle:

Byleth (FE3H) vs. October (CSTW)
Florina (FE7) vs. Elena (G2)

Light:

Karn(BoF1) vs. Queen (S3)
Poshul(CC) vs. Fina (SoA)
Probably.  I'd say skip the stone and just build for a turn 3 Eternum, I kinda doubt Poshul 2HKOs.

21

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 6, Winners Semi/Losers 3: Godlike is Doglike this week

« on: September 20, 2023, 06:40:47 AM »

Belial (WA4) (No 4D Pocket) vs. Nailah (FE10)

Heavy:

Winners:

Levin Brenton (WAXF) vs. Lilka (WA2)

Losers:

Eirika (FE8) vs. Edgar (FF6)


Middle:

Winners:

Red XIII (FF7) vs. Elena (G2)
October (CSTW) vs. Tony (WA4)

Losers:

Florina (FE7) vs. Nephenee (FE10)


Light:

Winners:

Fina (SoA) vs. Heather (FE10)
Yeah, no Cupil Ring, so no dice.  Note that Heather's damage is bad enough that I actually ran the calcs - with the halfshifted killpoint, Fina comes out to ~42 RD HP, while 4x Heather attacks are 44-46 RD damage.  Heather needed that because she'd just get Eternum'd if she let Fina get to turn 3.
Queen (S3) vs. Virginia Maxwell (WA3)
I suppose.

Losers:

Karn(BoF1) vs. Linhardt(FE3H)
Poshul(CC) vs. Selphie(FF8)

22

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 5, Losers Pools 2: A Dispute Among Three Houses

« on: September 12, 2023, 06:05:43 AM »

Sir Leopold (DQ8) vs. Jowy Atreides(S2)
I dunno if I'm willing to hype double criticals for Sir Leopold which gives him absurd damage, but I think even a crit + regular attack does the job here?  Jowy only has .95 PCHP.  DQ8 bosses are tanky enough not to get OHKO'd.
Nailah (FE10) vs. Rayquaza(PKMN)


Heavy:

Alexia Lynn Elesius (WAXF) vs. Eirika (FE8)
Doubled and dies horribly.
Kanji (P4) vs. Edgar (FF6)
I didn't actually get Fast Heal in P4G, but...  documentation on how exactly it works is sketchy.  Does it halve status ailment time?  Reduce it to one turn?  Who knows.  FF6 statuses don't really have durations, but even if we say that Fast Heal cures Air Anchor fast enough to not die, it seems like Edgar can just spam Noiseblaster every single turn and get at least one confused action off.  FF6 enemies have their own wacky confuse script from Relm's command so I dunno if P4G confused Kanji can even break his own regen, but whatever, assuming there's some self-destructive HP cost moves in there.
Clarissa Arwin (WAXF) vs. Auron (FFX)
Auron gets very, very few turns due to the turnsplit and Rob Turn.  But it just...  doesn't matter, because Magic Break doesn't wear off, and Clarissa's backup damage is so heinously bad after spending her HP on Sacrifice.  Given that Auron's weapon powers up over time, she actually probably doesn't even want to use Sacrifice ASAP, but rather save it for a finisher (even with low HP), which will at last make Auron's damage similarly bad...  until he gets his second turn and Power Breaks her, sending her damage back into the gutter.  This is probably one where you'd want to roll it out given that Auron wants to get the 2nd turn ASAP to greatly slow Clarissa's clock.


Middle:

Byleth (FE3H) vs. Sylvain (FE3H)
Close match.  With standard DL scaling, Byleth's Renewal is definitely an issue...  Silver Lance SS is 0.535 PCHP, Iron Lance SS is 0.425 PCHP, Byleth has 1.11 PDur meaning they regen 0.22 PDur equivalent.  Byleth can gamble on a little Crest of Flames healing, Sylvain on Gautier procs for a little more damage.  Byleth needs 6 smacks with Sword of the Creator to win.  Sylvain wins in three turns off 3x Silver Lance SS for sure, or probably off 2x SL SS & 1x Iron Lance SS.

So assuming no procs and no evasion, Sylvain gets wrecked because 2x Swift Strikes don't kill but Byleth but SotC counters + regular attacks 8 times in the first two rounds.  So yeah, Sylvain needs to heft an Iron Lance at least once and just hope for some Gautier procs in there, which would push Byleth down to 6 smacks and at least allow evading one of those hits to win.  Of course, even the very scrubby Crest of Flames healing might be enough if Byleth gets 1 proc there, given that Sylvain is already gambling on at least 1 Gautier proc if he goes for the Iron Lance strat. 

I dunno.  Think this is looking Byleth-favored, 99 Hit on the Creator Sword is still good and 79 Hit is still acceptable with the two random number system.  Byleth also has 19 Crit vs. Sylvain's average Luck.

Note that if you throw out DL scaling for fun, Sylvain OHKO's Byleth and Byleth doesn't OHKO Sylvain (unless you spot them a free Death Blow or the like), and Sylvain has higher range, so he wins pretty cleanly under those assumptions, at least!

Florina (FE7) vs. Blanca (SH2)
Nephenee (FE10) vs. Anastasia(SH2)


Light:

Edward (FF4) vs. Karn(BoF1)
Peppor (CC) vs. Linhardt(FE3H)
Chrono Cross boss speed plot!  My recollection is that the wacky way CC bosses got turns made them mostly "slow", and Peppor really needs to be seen as at least average, since the way you kill Linhardt is by doubling him.  Which is not hard, especially when he's using Nos strats, but not inclined to kneejerk for the CC boss.
Jelanda (VP1) vs. Poshul(CC)
Boco (FFT) vs. Selphie(FF8)
Boco's terrible damage lets Selphie set up for limit nonsense.

23

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 4, Winners' Quarterfinals: Light: Home to Thieves Since 1993

« on: September 07, 2023, 06:17:15 AM »

Alicia (VP2) vs. Levin Brenton (WAXF)
Lilka (WA2) vs. Auron (FFX)
Auron might have an argument in the normal DL, but banning Eject tosses his only route to victory.

Middle

Red XIII (FF7) vs. Anastasia (SH2)
Blanca (SH2) vs. Elena (G2)
Tony (WA4) vs. Sylvain (FE3H)

Light

Fina (SoA) vs. Selphie (FF8)
Heather (FE10) vs. Poshul (CC)
Evasion is generally good vs. CC.
Linhardt (FE3H) vs. Queen (S3)
Virginia Maxwell (WA3) vs. Karn (BoF1)
Kneejerk.  Karn is not that bad and may actually outspeed here (although this is really more an artifact of being in a larger cast).

24

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 3, Losers' Pools 1: BERSERKER CRUSH PUNY HARPS.

« on: August 28, 2023, 07:19:49 AM »

Magus (CT) vs. Arceus (PKMN)
Sir Leopold (DQ8) vs. Chaos (FF1)
ITD is how you beat Chaos, and assuming Leopold can double-up on the ITD crit...
Belial (WA4) vs. Edelgard (FE3H)
This is actually close!  Belial deals 1.21 PCHP according to the stat topic with 2x Tank Drops, and Edelgard has 1.19 P Durability according to the stat topic.  So...  this is reasonably close (and if you allow shenanigans with equipping Shields or the like, maaaaybe?).  Edelgard probably wins if she gets a turn, so Belial does need the insta-double KO, and assuming a higher PC level might mess with that.
EDIT: And yes, re Random, if you let these attacks double, then Edelgard is super-splattered, but I can see treating these as more like Combat Arts than basic attacks.
Nailah (FE10) vs. Shania (SH3)
Sanlitto Bell -> 2x Fire Magic perhaps?  Just has to survive a single Nailah turn and that's gonna be a hell of a lot of weakness-hitting damage (for all that Nailah faces fire magic fairly rarely in game...)
EDIT: Backing up what Random said...  I think Nailah's best argument is that turn 1 KO.  61.2 damage = 1.087 PCHP damage vs. the halfshifted average, and OK's stat topic has Shania at 1.07 PCHP.  Shania is listed as having above-average defense, but only mildly so, so I'm not sure if it's enough to hype Shania surviving here.

Heavy:

Maya Schrodinger (WA3) vs. Alexia Lynn Elesius (WAXF)
Haishao (XG) vs. Kanji (P4)
P4G Kanji even absorbs Lightning, so Haishao has to heal Kanji before ever doing damage.  Humiliating.
Guv(DQ8) (No Call Team) vs. Clarissa Arwin (WAXF)
Probably the usual Clarissa victory?  It's been awhile but my recollection is that if her first Turn Steal connects, she generally wins with 2x Sacrifice being a lot of damage.  (Which is...  not reliable in a series of matches where eventually 75% chance luck runs out, but potent in a single match).


Middle:

Aht (RH) vs. Fafnir (WA3)
Florina (FE7) vs. Dalton (CT)
I think Dalton was robbed last week, but he's getting doubled here and his final attack is going up against good Florina Resistance.
Nephenee (FE10) vs. Aika (SoA)
The good news for Aika is that I don't think Neph 2HKOs (half-shifted averages), and Aika is blazingly fast so she doesn't double either, so a 3HKO is something Aika can look to do healing games against.  Neph doesn't even want a Javelin for counters to the boomerang.  The bad news is that trying to take this slow just eats a Radiant Dawn hahaha you die tier 3 super move eventually.  Some really miserable luck for Aika running into two straight FE characters with good basic physical attacks.

Light:

Edward (FF4) vs. Berserker (FF5)
Peppor (CC) vs. Lelei (S5)
Tony (WAXF) vs. Jelanda (VP1)
Boco (FFT) vs. Mogu (BoF1)

25

Tournaments / Re: RPGVO 2023 Round 2: Two Tonys? I must be going crazy! Also BoF1 Scrub Match.

« on: August 23, 2023, 02:21:22 AM »

Jowy Atreides (S2) vs. Belial (WA4) (No 4D Pocket)
Oh fun, Suikoden 2 damage averages time.  I think Jowy has enough for the OHKO here along with not dying to Belial's damage.
Nailah (FE10) vs. Fenrir (VP1)

Heavy

Guv(DQ8) (No Call Team) vs. Edgar (FF6)
I don't consider Dragon Soul particularly legal and I don't think it even matters here.  Don't think DQ8 PS2 had a way to get instant death / confusion protection, although maybe the 3DS version has a better shot.
Worker 8 (FFT) vs. Eirika (FE8)
So...  Work isn't the list of Countergrasp'able commands, and is also apparently ITE.  This means W8 is clobbering Eirika in two undodgeable attacks.  That said, Eirika will get 4 attacks herself, and while I might normally potentially doubt there's enough Oomph there to get through the tanky W8, his type is apparently "Demon."  RIP.

Middle

Dalton (CT) vs. October (CSTW)
Dalton's HP doesn't sound THAT hot, so October just 2HKOs, right?  She only has to withstand a single HP-halving + the death counter then.
Nephenee (FE10) vs. Tony (WA4)
Sylvain (FE3H) vs. Aika (SoA)
Sylvain's Brave Lance basic attack deals 0.46 PCHP damage (because the 3H damage average is crazy high), and Aika's HP is 0.90 with slightly below average defense, so... Sylvain just barely has the 2HKO, which is what he needs (barring bad luck on dodging).

Light

Linhardt (FE3H) vs. Tony (WAXF)
Queen (S3) vs. Jelanda (VP1)
Boco (FFT) vs. Virginia Maxwell (WA3)
Karn (BoF1) vs. Mogu (BoF1)