The RPG Duelling League
RPG Debate => RPGDL Discussion => Topic started by: Pyro on March 13, 2014, 02:41:46 AM
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For those who have played it, what do you think about the following issues regarding a stat topic of Bravely Default: Where The Fairy Flies.
1. Job stat topic (where the PCs are Monk/White Mage/Black Mage/Knight/etc...) or PC-specific stat topic (Tiz/Agnes/Ringabel/Edea)? The former is the same as FF5's job stat topic or the FFT/XF generic stat topics. The latter would involve allowing some kind of jobs... probably the ones that the PCs are 'advertised' as upon obtaining a new job.
2. Normal or Hard mode stat topic. This affects PCs because it impacts the relative value of defense (Hard mode makes high-def PCs less tanky, for example). Obviously it has a pretty huge impact on bosses.
3. Norende village. An optional minigame that unlocks equips and special moves. Getting far in this minigame involves connecting to the internet and leaving your DS in Sleep Mode rather than shutting it off when not in use.
4. Endgame Level. Job Levels are easy enough to max, but the the actual level the game is beaten at will vary depending on when the game is beaten and how much, if any, grinding is done. Endgame level will affect damage scales due to varying PC attack stats but constant enemy defense stats.
5. The usable form of certain bosses will be in question, along with some boss' actions in combat that may be construed as not usable by them in a 'legal' battle.
Use spoiler size font as appropriate.
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1. I'd be fine with either. Job stat topic is a must I think. The PC interp is interesting and I've certainly toyed with it myself (it's a less opaque, more plot-reinforced version of the similar FF5 interp) but I'll be surprised if that ends up as a majority view, whereas the jobs are a definite that anyone can get behind voting on, I'd think.
2. In general I'm of the opinion that the stat topic should go with the version which most people play. Do a poll? I kinda assume the answer is Normal Mode, but I'm a HM player as a data point.
3. I will not consider Norende myself. Call me a traditionalist but it'll be a cold day in Gurgu Volcano before I start considering anything that requires online as DL-legal, and even the sleep mode thing bugs me a fair bit. Even if I end up in a minority I would be very appreciative of a non-Norende version (and/or once the mechanics are understood I can probably do it myself... mechanics seemed fairly straightforward aside from the way Job Level affects damage/swings?).
4. I'm in chapter 3. <.<
5. Oh man there are probably major spoilers associated with this aren't there. (Please use spoiler code, anyone talking about this!)
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As a comment from someone who's barely started (beat the very first boss battle and have the first two jobs), I'd just like to note that BD PCs are a bit weird, and may or may not end up with an important interp split. Notably, the Brave / Default system (unless it dramatically shifts later on, which I doubt) makes the whole cast similar to Trails in the Sky (100 CP interp) - they can surge out 4x their normal damage any time they want (and sometimes better!). If a 3 turn damage average is used, that makes the cast really good at slaughtering frail PCs and have problems vs. tanks. (Although their own durability boost from stocking Default turns vs. tanks will help, of course.) They're also champs at evading HP limits (which is also true to in-game, and useful, from Jo'ou's comments in WGAYP).
I personally have no particular problem with this, even with the side-effects. I think rewarding tankiness occasionally is good, as it often doesn't matter as much in the DL as it does in-game (but in the DL, status / buffs renders tankiness moot often). Of course, there's a way around this - ban Brave & Default. Presto, damage averages look more like a vanilla game. I really don't like that, though, as I'm generally in favor of allowing basic cast commands like that. That said, some voters don't allow RH characters Switch, so this is potentially a similar case. It would also lead to some weirdness in that I'd argue that bosses using Brave should be pretty unquestionably legal - they do it to you in-game - which would further incline me to allow it for the PCs.
Anyway, the hijinks in the DL the PC cast can pull off with sudden Brave surges strike me as likely to be accurate to the in-game feel, so I'd personally be in favor of baking the stat topic around that assumption. That said, whoever does the work gets to decide, and maybe there's craziness later that would cause me to change my mind. Just throwing out my 2 cents based off the all-Freelancer early game stat topic.
(Also, as a data point, I'm doing Hard mode as well.)
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Totally should have asked a question 0.
0: How should Brave and Default be taken into averages? A 3-turn where the casts stacks up a 4 turn recharge after that 3rd turn?
It is kind of silly if no turn averaging is done at all since quad-acting KOs most things in that case. But a straight 3-turn means each the kill point is 2x what it would otherwise be, serving as a brutal penalty vs. bosses.
Other options include a 4 or 5 turn damage average.
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It's a brutal penalty vs. bosses and a brutal bonus against the fragile (average turn 1 damage from BD one-shots anyone with less than 80% durability). Kinda inevitable I think, just use a 3-turn average or you inflate the cast's frontloaded damage even more. You can only avoid this by banning Brave entirely, I think.
But banning Brave is problematic because you have some characters (Valkyrie for instance) who rely on it BP to do things. If you allow those BP skills but not Brave that's a ridiculous boon to those classes (e.g. Judgement, which costs 2 BP to do 3x damage). If you ban those skills you are crippling those classes.
I guess my inclination for now is to allow Brave to alleviate the above problem (and for the reasons Snowfire gave, it does let the cast do some things which are true to in-game) but not Default, or at least not the damage-reduction side of it, because it's ridiculous for the cast to halve all damage until they're ready to kill as a uniform thing.
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Because of the 4 action/turn limit, Defaulting is not as good as you may think there?
Cerainly for some jobs that have damage that requires additional BP. And a Healer can Default -> Heal/attack to improve long term efficiency. Or if a PC nees 6 attacks they can Default->double -> quadra for a slight improvement. If you let BP go negative the default thing is a comparatively minor boon.
This ia not an averages interp issue, so no worries.
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For those who have played it, what do you think about the following issues regarding a stat topic of Bravely Default: Where The Fairy Flies.
1. Job stat topic (where the PCs are Monk/White Mage/Black Mage/Knight/etc...) or PC-specific stat topic (Tiz/Agnes/Ringabel/Edea)? The former is the same as FF5's job stat topic or the FFT/XF generic stat topics. The latter would involve allowing some kind of jobs... probably the ones that the PCs are 'advertised' as upon obtaining a new job.
I'd say make both if you have the time, jobs-only if not. I've toyed with PC interps with certain given jobs myself (there are jobs that make sense to be given by plot for pretty much everyone, though Edea really does hit the motherload on that, while Tiz gets boned relatively) and the visual cues from the game... well, they're better than nothing. But the job-by-job data gathering is honestly indispensable.
2. Normal or Hard mode stat topic. This affects PCs because it impacts the relative value of defense (Hard mode makes high-def PCs less tanky, for example). Obviously it has a pretty huge impact on bosses.
Normal would be the one most played so far (I'm doing Normal myself and I think only NEB's doing a HM playthrough straight). I'm of the opinion that NM bosses won't have much problem being competent in-DL as is.
3. Norende village. An optional minigame that unlocks equips and special moves. Getting far in this minigame involves connecting to the internet and leaving your DS in Sleep Mode rather than shutting it off when not in use.
Considering how slow Norende shop grinding is without having the Internet, I'd probably set a limit on what I'd allow from them. I'd also recommend a no-Norende setup (which may also affect Salve-Maker depending on how harsh you are on Compound materials, since they're only storebought on a Norende shop. Good thing those are really common drops come the lategame, at least).
4. Endgame Level. Job Levels are easy enough to max, but the the actual level the game is beaten at will vary depending on when the game is beaten and how much, if any, grinding is done. Endgame level will affect damage scales due to varying PC attack stats but constant enemy defense stats.
Can't comment yet, but given how I'm L60 at the end of C4... I suspect those numbers -will- end up pretty high.
5. The usable form of certain bosses will be in question, along with some boss' actions in combat that may be construed as not usable by them in a 'legal' battle.
Haven't got to such a point where I'd have to make that kind of assessment, I guess. Will weigh on that once I reach such a point. The game has a huge swath of memorable boss fights, though.
For the Brave/Default matter... if you allow Brave -at all-, it definitely should be factored in - and I think the sanest way would be a three-turn average with a Brave blitz on the last turn. It does skew the cast overall into a frailty spoiler that gets screwed against tanks, but it's kinda inevitable. I'm also in the same boat as Elfboy about the mechanics as well - allow Default's BP building, but not its generic damage halving. Same clause I apply to defend commands with unique quirks. (And yes, also allow Brave blitzing)
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One other issue...
6. What equipment in the maingame would you consider allowable for the various types? For example there are many shields that are better than the best storebought shield.
Me, Snowfire, and NEB played on Hard I think. Snow, Random, and Djinn played on Normal... I think others also played on Normal. It is easy enough to list. how much damage increases by between the modes but Normal is probably what will be assumed.
spoiler issues.
The Asterisk Bearers should probably get their World 1 forms. Vampire castle is a World 3 sidequest in my view. The World 2/3 forms are just revamped fights and are both more optional and less likely to be seen (who wants to do all those same fights?)
The engame level for C5-C8 ending should be ~60ish For the Frue ending it'd be ~80ish
For the big spoiler boss of the game, I would assume the formchain at the true ending or the 'ultimate' form, whichever is better. The final boss would be a pain in the butt to think about
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0) One comment on Default is that one lategame class is kinda build around heavy Default use, with one passive that makes Default twice as effective at damage reduction (which is pretty awesome) and another that increases your max BP limit, plus several BP-based moves. Ignoring Default entirely kinda shafts that class, but allowing it to Default and nobody else to wouldn't be right either. Not sure how to best handle this.
1) Job stat topic is the more important one to me. Handing out classes based on the PC shown in-game works okayish but there are some odd choices later on in the game, i.e. Arcanist/Spiritmaster distribution based seemingly on purely aesthetic grounds rather than the obvious intended functionality of those classes.
2) Normal is what I'm playing on and my kneejerk, though both would be neat if it wouldn't be too tedious.
3) I actually think Norende matters more for boss stats than PCs. Norende weapons are often way more powerful than the in-game alternatives, plus special attacks made up a huge part of my damage vs bosses midgame. I'm not sure anything in Norende would be hugely imbalancing for an endgame PC topic except maybe Falcon Knives, and moreso for the agility boost than the raw damage. +40 for double Falcon Knives is nuts and kinda imbalancing, especially for Ninjas.
6) Storebought only for all equipment, all jobs, IMO. S ranks do strongly suggest what equipment you end up using, but shields are one really obvious case where you still equip stuff despite an E rank. I would not give any class credit for being the only one with an S rank or whatever in a given weapon type, it's not really that big a difference in-game.
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I don't think Norende equips matter that much for bosses? The REALLY good stuff you can't afford till way lategame, and they aren't much of a boost over other options. How the early-midgame Norende stuff plays out is also dependent upon HOW you play the game, whether you leave the DS in Sleep mode, and so on.
Norende equips do matter for a stat topic. Especially with regards to knives and axes. I think a stat topic would be cleaner were they ignored. The best storebought shield is 28 def, vs. 30/32 defense for dropped shields (of which there are >4). I don't think it matters too much for in-game storebought vs. chests/boss drop stuff though.
Accessories are another small issue, as the 'ideal' one is hard to pin down.
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The default accessory is definitely going to be a class-by-class deal if they're considered. Listing the storebought ones besides the status blockers would be nice for those (like me and NEB) who apply penalties based on the storebought equips a blocker replaces.
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One more note on Brave/Default: I would absolutely only allow bosses to use brave/default in ways they display it in-game. This is kind of crucial; many bosses in-game could completely annihilate you with Default x3, quad, quad if they chose to do that (or hell, just a quad turn 1), so it's pretty clear they can't. Lots of bosses can't Default at all (choosing to Brave upfront) and some can't Brave at all, and still more have limits on how many times they can Brave in one turn.
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Another good question is: would you give them free reign over the actions they use on their Brave setups? One boss in particular can dole out anywhere in the range of 9x-15x ITD ITE PC HP in damage with its Brave string given free action usage (where it'd be ~only~ 3.5x-6x PC HP if hardwired). It's the Ghaleon mix-matching conundrum all over again (my kneejerk is to allow freedom on the Brave actions used given their Brave/Default limitations in-game, but so it goes. It makes the boss unrankable, but hey).
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Also, for equipment: I'd allow storebought+infinitely stealable from randoms equipment+limited equipment that there are enough of to hand to a full four-PC party.
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Any thoughts on how much money should be available to spend on skills? For example how much money should be allowed to the class that throws cash?
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I'm actually playing on Easy with encounters turned off so I suspect normal mode bosses will at least look familiar with a stat topic.
I'm strongly in favor of a 3-turn average with a full blitz on the third turn. And fully allowing brave and default as options. So we have some badass pcs? Be nice to round godlike out a bit.
There needs to be a job stat topic, though I think there could be a PC post too with allowing advertised jobs. It's an easy distinction in a tournament.
If you mean a generic Valkyrie, then list it as
Valkyrie (BDFF) vs. Alicia (VP2)
If you mean a PC with job/skill choice based on their advertised options, then list it as
Ringabel (BDFF) vs. Nash Rumack (Lunar1)
Simple. Rank both. Everyone's happy and can nom what they like.
Norende equips don't feel overpowered for endgame at all to me, I'd allow them. And I'm on Easy.
To be fair, Endgame is mean.
I'm curious if we are allowing limit breaks based on what weapon a Job/PC uses? Most of them seem legit though I don't know about allowing customizing them with Norende stuff since that gives them way too many options... Alternately, actually getting a limit is kinda difficult in a DL setting so maybe they should be freely customizable to make them a worthy reward for pulling them off?
Generally most of the interns I see people posting so far look good and I wouldn't have a problem with them.
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0. For the Brave and Default system, I would allow both the commands in their entirety. It is rather powerful, but I typically haven't been bugged by that in the past (FE Counters, RH Switch, VC healing every turn, and so on and so forth). I suppose a 3-turn average will be the thing to use.
1. Job stat topic (where the PCs are Monk/White Mage/Black Mage/Knight/etc...) or PC-specific stat topic (Tiz/Agnes/Ringabel/Edea)? The former is the same as FF5's job stat topic or the FFT/XF generic stat topics. The latter would involve allowing some kind of jobs... probably the ones that the PCs are 'advertised' as upon obtaining a new job.
2. Normal or Hard mode stat topic. This affects PCs because it impacts the relative value of defense (Hard mode makes high-def PCs less tanky, for example). Obviously it has a pretty huge impact on bosses.
I played the game on Hard, but I believe a 'Normal' mode topic is the best one to use. You have to intentionally decide "I want more challenge than originally intended" to put it on Hard.
3. Norende village. An optional minigame that unlocks equips and special moves. Getting far in this minigame involves connecting to the internet and leaving your DS in Sleep Mode rather than shutting it off when not in use.
I am unsure about the Norende village equips. I don't want to allow EVERYTHING certainly, but there is a certain amount that is probably fair. My gut is to ban anything that requires maxing out a shop (Which leaves out the Foxtail and Falcon Knife). This would leave a variety of relatively representative weaponry, and nix out the destabilizing supergear. It would also allow a good amount of Compounding stuff. I would like more thoughts on this matter! I know the game gives you extra townspeople even without going online (4?). And you CAN leave your DS in sleep mode to get things done (as it seems most folks do).
I think there is some happy medium here, and finding it shouldn't be that hard! The back-ended nature of the shop man-hour curves makes some of the early stuff fairly reasonable even without using an internet connection/streetpass...
- The Armor Shop... takes 156 man-hours to max out! But only 48 man-hours if you stop before the 'Heike' gear. Which leaves you with Bloody Shields and Red Hats, which are viable endgame equipment.
- The weapon shop doesn't have such a generous early selection of equipment. 105 man-hours of stuff that doesn't beat out endgame equipment, and then another 110 man-hours for two weapons that do (Swords/Katanas). So I would ignore these two weapons.
- The compounding shop takes 70 man-hours just to reach! But a meager 7.5 man hours to then get enough for Salve-makers to be viable offensive threats in a duel.
- The Special Move Shop takes just 8 hours to max out all the Level 1 super-moves (which are the only things likely to see the light of day in a duel).
- Customizing the special moves is mostly about power bonuses, which are functions of the River Parts shop. Which takes 110 hours just to reach.
So I think the baseline 'reasonable' Norende stuff are... Red Caps, Rainbow Dress (confuse immunity), Lambent Hats (25% Bonus to Thunder damage), Red Caps (+5 Agility), and Bloody Shields (best defensive shield, but cuts Evade to 0). The Level 1 Super-moves, and storebought damage for the Compounding skillset (and the ability to inflict weakness). Further Compounding stuff can be listed but does not affect averages.
Any objections to this being reasonable?
4. Endgame Level. Job Levels are easy enough to max, but the the actual level the game is beaten at will vary depending on when the game is beaten and how much, if any, grinding is done. Endgame level will affect damage scales due to varying PC attack stats but constant enemy defense stats.
I am of the opinion that endgame level should be for the 'True' ending. Which means ~80-85. I would like more people to quote their endgame levels to get an idea here.
5. The usable form of certain bosses will be in question, along with some boss' actions in combat that may be construed as not usable by them in a 'legal' battle.
Massive spoilers here, yep.
World 1 form for bosses, as the only required ones are World 1 and most people will do those sidequests while potentially ignoring the subsequent world re-fights. The exception might be Alternis, whom you HAVE to fight at the end of World 2, but I don't think that changes much and technically the Alternis who gets the most screentime is World 1, so W1 form for him makes sense too!
For the Big Bad Bug, Her C6 ending formchain and her C9 ending formchain are fairly similar although C9 has less durability. Her 'perfect' form I have no problem with as far as the mid-battle heals go. But some people might raise an issue with it.
For the ULTIMATE FRUE END BADDIE, I need to remember where you get full heals in the fight. A few Armageddons followed by the last leg of the fight are probably reasonable, as again I have no issues with plot matters. But at least his very last form is legal enough. And hey another big bad awesome final boss dude whom Arngrim OHKOs!
6. Money... I am uncomfortable with spending a lot more money to win fights then you get from most fights, so there are several money-taking moves that might bug me. I imagine that there is some limit to what should be considered 'okay' to spend to win a fight. On the other hand you have a LOT of money at the True End and relatively little to spend it on unless you go for the high-level Norende stuff. Some more opinions would probably help here. Essentially, what damage/pg ratio is acceptable to people to allow a move to be spammed, and what about healing/pg?
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I'd probably put a cap on the maximum amount of pg you could use in a fight (for this and other resource-based moves, like FF5 Zeninage/Throw Fuma, etc.). I've never set that number specifically and wouldn't encourage a stat topic to do it, but a stat topic should note costs for pricy moves. For me at least, it's not about the ratio, it's about the total expenditure in a single fight, so generally speaking I'd say duellers can't use costly moves to heal-lock with (or withstand an opponent heal-lock) for a significant duration, and so on.
I'll probably take a harsh view of DL Salve-maker like most such things that require even more effort than just "collect money" to power their moves. Usual suggestion of just not to nom them applies.
No specific comments on these issues with regards to this game until I'm done obviously.
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Salve makers' damage and elemental manipulation stuff is storebought (and VERY reasonably priced excepting one thing), but is of course Norende village material. It requires an investment 77.5 villager man-hours to get their good stuff. A fairly reasonable amount given the 'bots' and assuming you leave the DS in sleep mode sometimes (which the game double-encourages).
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Mentioned this to Pyro already, but a friend of mine's Hard ending level was L99. Make of that what you will.
For offensive item-use characters with a giant interp split on what they can use (Salve-Maker?), I suspect that I'd be happy with just leaving them out of the damage average entirely, and then never nominating them. For money throwers, I suspect I'll have to play through the game to tell. The key issue for me isn't amount of money thrown vs. money gotten per battle, but rather how much money is worth for other things at end-game and how much there is. If there's plenty of important stuff to buy until the final dungeon and you're generally cash-strapped, I don't particularly care that this eases up at the end, it isn't generally a viable move and the very endgame shouldn't be over-emphasized; if gold is plentiful and Not A Big Deal, then go nuts.
For allowable equipment, I'll have to get to the endgame to comment, but in general I suspect I'd be in favor of being pretty lenient with "uniqueness" for guaranteed treasure chest items but harsh on monster drops. I definitely reserve the right to change my mind, especially on power level concerns.
I implied this earlier, but I'd allow Default, and would certainly let the damage-reduction effect apply. I might apply a *light* defensive penalty to the entire cast if I'm feeling particularly fair (at absolute worst, it's +16% damage, but since Default -> 2x -> 4x attack isn't even that common a strat, it should probably be even lighter, maybe +5% damage), but this thing is minor enough that I'm fine with having it be a cast quirk. Basically there are three reasons to ban default: uniqueness, power level, and general DL philosophy. To ramble some:
1) Uniqueness - The fact that some classes have a functionally different Default command with bonuses dampens the uniqueness argument, and I in general don't care too much for this interp myself anyway; I usually allow cast-wide commands. This complaint is fair enough, though.
2) Power level, see Pyro's notes, it's actually not THAT big a deal. It matters in a straight slugfest only when psuedo-3HKOing, and only has a noticeable effect when psuedo-4HKOing or 5HKOing; if the BD job is giving the other side that much time, there's all sorts of nasty things that can happen (buffs, debuffs, low % status), and if the other side can't do 'em, they may well deserve to lose. Note that surgeable damage also tends to get around Default in a slugfest pretty well - do the one-shot of big damage on the non-Default turn. Default matters most for healers who can do the Default -> Heal + attack strat which basically requires the other side to do 67% durability damage to effectively 2HKO them; but healers tend to have weak damage, so they're even more affected by the high damage average. It won't be uncommon that healers have a psuedo-5-10HKO in the DL, so that's handing a LOT of time for criticals, charge-up moves, buffing, low % status, the works.
3) General DL philosophy, eh, not something I share, so I can't really talk about this, but I respect that some people just don't allow this to work! There's obviously some degenerate strategies that involve "guard" type moves depending on how you see DL matches proceeding sometimes, but I just don't consider them, problem solved. Certainly when uniqueness isn't the issue, there's all sorts of "charge up with damage reduction for big damage later" moves in the DL, and I presume most people let, say, Pokemon Fly's damage-nulling vs. non-Sky Uppercut type stuff work, so the idea of defensive buffs isn't something inherently bad for the DL, and this isn't even nulling.
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Yeah on reflection I find myself agreeing, especially if there are classes which use the mechanic in a unique way. Will have to see how it shakes out in practice and obviously I may rethink this at a later time.
(For the record, it is definitely point (1) which is the concern for me... why do we ban PCs from using Item then turn around and allow both other universal commands and other item-using commands? And as always, I find the idea of "defend-tanking against Jump/Silent Lake/etc." kinda eyeroll-worthy when enemies aren't capable of doing this in-game, so banning Defend outright gets around this stupidity and generally cuts down on stupid defend/counter-defend strategies, though there are other hacks to neutralise those, such as forcing stalemates into offence and simply banning Defend in those specific situations.)
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I'll also have to note that Salve Makers can actually get their ingredients outside Norende: all the ingredients are common steals -and- drops from a multitude of randoms -all around the world- and a Salve-Maker skill actually lets you collect them for free. I don't think that should be a split matter. To boot, I think the difference in offense between storebought-only Salve-Maker and non-storebought Salve-Maker isn't really that huge (they're more about the brilliant stalling, which mostly comes from the storebought item healing mixes). Certainly not enough to bring even half a division shift.
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And as always, I find the idea of "defend-tanking against Jump/Silent Lake/etc." kinda eyeroll-worthy when enemies aren't capable of doing this in-game
Bravely Default enemies can do this! And do! And the Dragoon-type class doesn't care!
For salve-maker, the difference in offense between attack item mixes and staff thwacks is massive. And their ability to put someone down in a decent timeframe greatly affects their ability to win.
So offense item components matter a lot. I feel these are relatively 'reasonable' Norende purchases (i.e. you can get them if you go for them even in a playthrough without streetpass/internet). The other question is whether to allow them a single Dragon Fang / fight for buffing purposes, which takes a 375 rather than 77.5 man-hour investment in the compounding shop and costs 5000/one instead of the more reasonable 200 pg for other offense item components. If you were excessively generous you could let this be spammed in compounding for the 5000 damage Shadow Flare. This would bring us back to the discussion of 'how much money can you spend to win a fight'.
As far as the money question goes, I'd be willing to let the PCs spend 3-4 encounters worth of pg to win a battle. Which is probably ~10-15K? And probably more for one of the classes because they have an innate passive that boosts pg gain by 50% .
As far as Dragon Fangs go, I might allow one but I will definitely not allow more than one.
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Right now I'm inclined to allow all storebought equipment, minus the high-end Norende stuff (Red Caps are fine) and nothing else. Checking the faqs and gamefaqs board, it looks like most of the non-storebought stuff is available via boss steals and/or rare drops. Compiling what exactly is available in what ways and what quantities would be a pain of alternating between multiple tabs of data, while sticking to the the last set of storebought gear keeps the weapon lines reasonably balanced
More philosophically, I don't see why Bravely Default PCs should benefit from rare steal Dark Shields and rare steal/drop Lustrous Shields but FF6 PCs can't use infinite rare steal Flame/Ice/Thunder Shields.
Right now my inclination is to disregard special attacks entirely on the PC side; they're 100% universal and depend on how much you unlock from Norende; not just the specials themselves, but also powerups like +x% damage, elemental affinity, status, etc.
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The L1 specials are easy to unlock and should probably be allowed. The power-ups are considera ly barder to get and so can safely be ignored.
Storebought equips minus high end Norende stuff sounds fair.
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Specials are dependent entirely on what weapon a Job/PC equips. Not allowing the specials feels akin to not allowing storebought equipment...
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Played Hard up until chapter 3 boss, decided I wasn't enjoying the game like I wanted to, swapped to Normal.
0: allow Brave/Default. can't bring myself to argue otherwise. If necessary remove the damage reduction from Default for classes that don't get a unique bonus from it Templar, but.
1: Job stat topic most def. PC stat topic could be neat but is a minor concern.
2: Normal, though it mainly only impacts damage. having played both I think translating from hard->normal is a b it easier than from normal->hard as you may not have the feel for what moves wind up on the cusp of OHKOing like they do in hard.
3: Allow all norende items, with following conditions:
1) Ban anything over 75k gold. this both elims certain overpowered items that'd overcentralize equips (falcon knife) and reflects not permitting high-time requirement equip options, which since a lot are spears/axes, which only a few cast members use, makes most sense to me. Also, without grinding, your money drops off heavily after chapter 4 ( because 99% of the refights drop 0 gold and you have little reason outside of compendium/vampire to do randoms anymore )
2) Ban reflect rings because passing that out so easily sits poorly and they're kinda bad in game for a variety of reasons, overinfliation of worth should be avoided.
3) I reserve the right to rethink this, but limit dragon fangs to between 1-5. 5 makes the most sense to me but I could see even that being too much.
Every time you update friend data you get three people a day. Doing this can easily get you to the # of people that makes tasks complete in 1-3 hours. Sleep mode is not necessary, as a result; neither is having friends, as you'll still get three or so random people to join the "town" every day. In other words the Norende stuff isn't really time limited except in a way that prevents most from early game grinding it. cost is my only concern as a result. Allow all specials/special mods. basically the only way you're going to miss out on most of Norende is by actively ignoring it for most of the game. I think allowing optional stuff fits better in general, and esp. here (specials, e.g., seem a very intended part of the system, as does the item functions of expanding Norende. the main breakable thing is earlygame highpower weapons, but again, those are class restricted mostly so it's possible few will even benefit from it.)
4) I completed the game in its bad ending at L70. did some grinding, also had encounters off often. Would consider L70 a minimum for a full stat topic due to a variety of reasons, but maybe 65 or so? that seems pushing it but w/e
5) spoilers ahead. It seems most simple to use first world forms. Second and third world forms change little. Fourth/fifth look like they're mostly group boss fights which present durability interp issues, but do expand skillsets (Ominas in world 4, e.g., has an OHKO in his lightning magic and a MT 2HKO in his fire. Much better than what he packed world 1 IIRC.)
6) If you get enough of a drop/chest item to give one to each member of the team, allow it, allow storeboughts, the rest... I like the idea of being more flexible on equipment but since others don't seem to be that way my view would just be the above. (If I were doing this myself my interpretation would line up with Jo'ou Ranbu - allow steals as well, since there's multiple ways to make steals much easier to work with). Default accessory should be Hermes Sandals (that's what I'd take in as penalty for people switching for offense/defense/resists/status blocking).
Also would prolly personally only allow people to equip weapons from their top two ranks (so someone w/ S can equip S+A weapons, someone with a top of A can equip A->B, etc) to try and keep equipment from being "Everyone who isn't a mage just takes a spear or a sword, but probably a spear".
Agree with Dark Holy Elf that bosses should be held to their Brave/Default patterns. (Ch. 2 spoiler: one of the bosses there doesn't Default (which I would hold them to) but will Brave a relatively fixed pattern of status->MT damage->heal; allowing them latitude/the ability to switch to MT damage x3 inflates them too far to me.
Money allowed for skills... 3-4x random sounds fair, so 20k or so. Actually that settles the Dragon Fang issue nicely, they can buy those and have blitz but minimal healing/buffing, or go for stall damage tactics.
so yeah. also hi.
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Bows and knuckles are going to be the most common "sub-optimal" weapon types, almost surely. 2-handed weapons are a lot more desirable when you can't inherited Two-Handed for basically free, and more damage is generally more desirable than the modest defense boosts that the average class gets from a shield.
Well, unless you allow the elemental immunity shields via rare steals.
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And as always, I find the idea of "defend-tanking against Jump/Silent Lake/etc." kinda eyeroll-worthy when enemies aren't capable of doing this in-game
Bravely Default enemies can do this! And do! And the Dragoon-type class doesn't care!
For salve-maker, the difference in offense between attack item mixes and staff thwacks is massive. And their ability to put someone down in a decent timeframe greatly affects their ability to win.
I'm not so sure that's a -huge- deal outside Shadowflare - their offense outside Shadow Flare is going to be either Toxic X-Potion, which is uh storebought by C4, or attack item mixes, whose ingredients you can, at the absolute worst, procure with their Experiment skill for cheap and easy in-game. Shadowflare -is- a big deal (over double the offense of those methods I pointed), I suppose, but I'd certainly at best view it as once-per-battle limited myself, since those are the rarest materials (and I'd apply a harsh numeric limitation to just about any mix from steal/drops in the game, and, outside the elemental walling items, they're really not all that great, mostly because of duration issues - though they're not so amazing off Salve-Maker's defensive stat spread either).
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Bows and knuckles are going to be the most common "sub-optimal" weapon types, almost surely. 2-handed weapons are a lot more desirable when you can't inherited Two-Handed for basically free, and more damage is generally more desirable than the modest defense boosts that the average class gets from a shield.
Well, unless you allow the elemental immunity shields via rare steals.
I said swords/spears since a lot of classes get B/A or so ranks in those two and they're pretty strong onehanders that don't sacrifice durability. Bows also may work out, though a lot of classes I suspect may not actually find those to be usable. Ditto knuckles. Good ranks in those are rare and ranks matter immensely. (This also doesn't matter much for me, I'd hod jobs to their top two ranks but) but lemme check...
Classes with bad shield ranks that have theoretical physical use:
Thief: Goes bows, but has an A there so that's not unexpected.
Merchant: Bows C, Spears S: bows outdamage spear+shield, but not by major amounts and Bloody Shield is pretty powerful. Wash?
Red Mage: Sword A, Bows C: Bows will more solidly outdamage here, Sword A won't outcompete Spears S. Bow's valid for RM here.
Salvemaker: Uh if you don't allow offense items, Bow B is their best option for actually doing anything. But if you allow specials, they probably go staves for the super? idk.
Performer: Uhhh, hum. Not sure what the best storebought fist is, it may outdo A Sword, though. Bows look to be a bit weaker for them.
Conjurer: Probably goes knuckles or bows, yes.
so yeah I guess you have a point, bows/knuckles are probably best for some of these people esp. Red Mage so it has an actual offense.
Re: items, yeah, I'd actually probably limit Salvemaker to spending 15k (about average over all boss fights using them, I'd guess? some fights higher in which I shadowflared, some fights lower in which I didn't need much item/healing) so they'd get 2x shadowflare at best. Merchant I'd say 22k thanks to More Money, so.
While I'm thinking about it:
Specials: Require performing certain actions X times. Basically high damage + some stat buff listed that lasts until the song ends (four rounds, less if you're doing Brave shenanigans since the song plays through menu options - I'd say three turns), occasionally elemental/slay (creature)/status. Matters rarely in a duel, but so everyone has a compiled list (I'm referencing a FAQ for this):
Sword: Brave 10/20/30 times. Possibly decent for Spell Blade, who can use drain sword to keep durability up. Otherwise won't likely see use.
Rank 1: ST, PDef -25% down on target, Hit # up +20% on allies. Hits 5 times for 0.6 average phys damage/hit.
Rank 2: MT, +35% PAtk allies, hits for 2x average phys dam.
Rank 3: ST, +50% PAtk allies, hits for 6x average phys dam.
Axe: Kill 5/10/15 enemies with physicals. This will never see duel use unless you allow people to enter with a special prepped (I definitely wouldn't)
Rank 1: MT, +20% PDef allies, hits for 1.5x average physdam.
Rank 2: ST, +35% hit #, 5 hits for 0.8x average damage per hit
Rank 3: ST, +50% PDef allies, hits for 6x damage, base earth elemental
Spear: Deal physical damage to 10/20/30 enemies. Slow in a duel but may occasionally get used.
Rank 1: ST, +300% crit rate allies, hits for 3x average phys damage.
Rank 2: ST, +35% PAtk allies, hits 6 times for 0.6x average damage, has a chance to paralyze (unsure on odds).
Rank 3: MT, +50% PAtk allies, hits for 5x average damage, fire element.
Rod: Cast magic 10/20/30 times. It's another option for BMs and RMs, I guess.
Rank 1: ST, +20% MAtk allies, hits for 1.5x average damage (does this use MAtk?).
Rank 2: MT, +35% MAtk allies, enemies debuffed -15% PAtk/MAtk/PDef/MDef for 4 turns. No damage. (1)
Rank 3: MT, +50% MAtk allies, hits for 5x average damage (does this use MAtk?). Gets an added *150% (so 7.5x) against demon type enemies.
Staff: Heal 10/20/30 times. Items work for this, so it's a Salvemaker option, and other classes with minor healing can find a way to use this.
Rank 1: +100% Healing Magic effectiveness, Heals all allies. At endgame it's still basically a fullheal (6-7k to 5k HP), though that may scale with Norende options allowed. (2)
Rank 2: +35% Speed all allies, buffs all allies +25% PAtk/MAtk/PDef/MDef for 4 turns. (3)
Rank 3: ST damage, +50% MAtk allies, hits for 7x average damage (does this use MAtk? Pretty sure not but), gets an added *150% (so 10.5x) vers. Undead.
Knife: Use 5/10/15 items. Only Salvemaker would wind up having access to this, if anyone, and their physical offense is horrific. Still, for the record:
Rank 1: ST, +20% hit # all allies, hits 5 times at 0.7x damage each.
Rank 2: ST, +35% hit # all allies, hits 15 times at 0.3x damage each.
Rank 3: ST, +50% hit # all allies, hits 10 times at 0.7x damage each.
Bow: Hit elemental/species weakness on 5/10/15 enemies. No elemental bows exist IIRC, and Rangers don't get a slay human option, so this really won't see use.
Rank 1: ST, +300% crit rate allies, 3x phys damage.
Rank 2: ST, +35% hit # allies, hits 5 times at 0.8x damage each, fire elemental.
Rank 3: MT, +50% MDef allies, 3x phys damage, light elemental.
Katana: Default 5/10/15 times. This is a legit option if allowed, and probably the most prevalent special that could see use outside of staff.
Rank 1: ST, +20% PAtk allies, 2x phys damage, inflicts paralyze (low odds?).
Rank 2: MT, +900% crit chance (!) allies, 2x phys damage, water element.
Rank 3: ST, +50% speed allies, hits 5 times at 1.2x damage each.
Knuckles: Critical 3/6/9 times. This... isn't that easy to build up if only due to the inconsistent crit rate. Still, Monks may appreciate it.
Rank 1: ST, +20% PAtk allies, 3x phys damage
Rank 2: ST, +35% hit # allies, hits 16 times for 0.3x damage each.
Rank 3: ST, +50% PAtk allies, 5x damage, lightning element.
Finally, these can all be customized. Any that deal damage to enemies (everything except Staff 1/2 and Rod 2) can be given up to 150% additional damage, an element of choice, the option of slaying a monster type of choice (-NOT- Humanoid), and the ability to try and inflict a status of choice. This can all be done simultaneously (can't choose two monster types or two elements, etc, but can have one of each category simultaneously)
The first staff ability can have additional healing, status curing (any status in game), MP healing, and BP healing (of up to 2 points per use). Very, very handy for WM, as it lets them basically healtank even harder through enemy offense if needed and give a few extra turns. Again, this can all be on simultaneously.
The second staff ability can buff PAtk/MAtk/PDef/MDef/Speed/Evade/Crit% further, give a status resistance effect, give an element resist effect, and have the duration of all this (except the Speed buff) enhanced by up to 5 turns.
The second rod ability can debuff PAtk/MAtk/PDef/MDef/Speed/Accuracy, debuff status resistance, make an enemy element-weak, and have the duration of all this (except the MAtk buff) extended for up to 5 turns.
I'm providing this for a better idea of what's doable with the specials for informed decisions. Many won't even see DL use; staves/katanas/swords will have the most consistent ones, but since the cast is on average going to be good at blitzing and bad with protracted battles, even they won't be common.
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Oh yeah if this for some reason in debate, all classes can use all (legal) equipment. If some have better ranks in some things then they benefit more from using said things. There are plenty of times I've wanted to use an equip despite a low rank, though (shields most obviously, but weapons which boost MAtk/Mind as well since for some reason the rank only affects the raw Atk making it pretty academic in the case of, say, rods).
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Some of the weapons can be a bit obnoxious though, like say every class ever trying to dual-wield Assasin Daggers for turn 1 Instant Death (and no damage). This is an advantage of bows and daggers however, so I suppose it is fair for Hunters/Ninjas/Thieves to get to use these weapons.
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If they're not better at inflicting ID with them than any other class, they deserve no credit for it.
Personally I'd ban such weapons (or more accurately, their added status) because they're completely non-unique, just like I do with FFX unless you want that entire cast to have 100% sleep and 100% zombie. (I think those were the statuses anyway.)
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This leads to a minor subquestion: one of the classes has a skill that causes high damage to poisoned combatants, but their only access to poison status comes from a storebought rod. I don't think this is terribly relevant for them other than more efficient offense - though them having access to Sleep Swords -would-, since they have a skill that IDs sleeping fighters. Would this classify as unique enough or tough luck? (My own kneejerk goes to "yeah sorry", but wanted to hear other thoughts in the matter)
Also, on the matter of equipment steals from randoms, I see no reason why not allow them - BD's steal command is good, the system allows for practical stealing through odds buffing in a multitude of ways (like Freelancer's Prayer and MT stealing -and- a skill that doubles the amount of items earned per successful steal) + a strong Mug command + Brave mechanics and the stealing isn't stupid like FFIX in limiting the amount of items you can get because screw you). It's functionally not very different from WA4's DL equipment set, which comes almost entirely from rare drops that are easy to get. Steals from BOSSES are another matter, since those are fundamentally limited and I'd probably not let them fly freely.
So yeah, I'd probably allow the Iceflame Shields and Dark Shields if they can be stolen from randoms.
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Hunter and Arcanist are the classes better at inflicting statuses with those weapons, because of passives that boost accuracy and status odds respectively.
Arcanist only cares about sleep which is not storebought anyway. Her damage will come from her ultimate attack.
How should self-damage factor into damage averages?
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I think NEB has an equation handy to calculate the effective damage post-factoring HP loss. I'm not sure how it works in practice, since it, IIRC, also required some degree of reverse-engineering average calculations.
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0. I'd ignore Brave/Default (for PCs) in general, as part of a larger trend of ignoring systemic traits of characters (eg. FE counters, RH switching, Persona knockdown). I'd want to look at how Templar strategies shake down with it and possibly evaluate them for usage but yeah, self-consistent interps and all.
1. Job stat topic (where the PCs are Monk/White Mage/Black Mage/Knight/etc...) or PC-specific stat topic (Tiz/Agnes/Ringabel/Edea)? The former is the same as FF5's job stat topic or the FFT/XF generic stat topics. The latter would involve allowing some kind of jobs... probably the ones that the PCs are 'advertised' as upon obtaining a new job.
A PC topic would be cool, but a job topic is absolutely essential.
2. Normal or Hard mode stat topic. This affects PCs because it impacts the relative value of defense (Hard mode makes high-def PCs less tanky, for example). Obviously it has a pretty huge impact on bosses.
I played normal as a datapoint, and in general I think middle-difficulty is correct for DL purposes.
3. Norende village. An optional minigame that unlocks equips and special moves. Getting far in this minigame involves connecting to the internet and leaving your DS in Sleep Mode rather than shutting it off when not in use.
Hm. Other shops kinda peak as C4 equipment, and the game basically assumes you're diversifying your classes enough for gear from treasure chests to sustain you at all subsequent points. However, at a minimum I wouldn't allow the L11 equipment; Falcon Knives are immensely overcentralizing (like, every class wants those instead of their native proficiencies) in particular. As well I'm not entirely sure how much Norende helps on weapons because the shop basically shafts mages and monks in favor of more swords. Still, I also feel like the topic will look a lot closer to endgame with the norende equips than without with the level 10 shops, so I lean towards allowing it.
4. Endgame Level. Job Levels are easy enough to max, but the the actual level the game is beaten at will vary depending on when the game is beaten and how much, if any, grinding is done. Endgame level will affect damage scales due to varying PC attack stats but constant enemy defense stats.
I kinda levelled up to beat Vampire in C4 which is... nooot intended as far as the game's concerned. I was about level 65 when I did so, and I think if we take the topic as C6 somewhere between that and L70 would be appropriate.
I finished Finale: Bravely Default at level 90 for reference, then went BACK and did the other Finale chapter. Yeaaah it was sad.
5. The usable form of certain bosses will be in question, along with some boss' actions in combat that may be construed as not usable by them in a 'legal' battle.
C6 for the first Finale chapter (and Vampire) sounds about right to me, yeah. Other bosses... yeah, just use their first appearances. For the most part everyone except Barras and Holly are pretty similar in their non-C8 battles as I recall. Barras doesn't care THAT much and Holly's the cast scrub anyway. The C8 forms are so utterly different from the preceeding four forms I'm not even inclined to allow them, let alone consider them default.)
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You guys levelled up to beat the Vampire asterisk-bearer? I found the fight was mainly knowing how his patterns and moves work (and found him very viable at C4 as is, which is good because otherwise one of the class's money moves becomes unavailable until god knows when). If you don't understand how that particular boss rolls to a somewhat decent degree, he's perfectly capable of blowing you up no matter what level you are because of his number game gimmicks, but he can get very badly walled by freaking Utsusemi (a Ninja -L2 skill-). I honestly found the world 1 fight easier than the world 2 fight and I had a huge number of mastered jobs over the first fight... but then, personal experience means nothing.
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Point, but I don't think a single move that you'd have to blow every single characters secondary slot on constitutes intentional design really. More to the point, best as I could tell the fight is identical regardless of when you do it in C4-6 (same moves, same HP total, and if there's minor buffs in other stats I didn't notice), and the stats line up pretty well with the C6 Finale final, so better to take it at its latest point and all that.
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Actually, I used it only on one person and didn't even use it that much (there's an exploit with his AI you can use to trivialize Bone Crush, but I mostly just kept healed to spoil it, though it also spoils Energy Burst, which was what I mostly used to handle. And he telegraphs -that- move by using Battle Thirst first, which -also- gets walled by Utsusemi). There are other, less readily available and more esoteric means to handle it without knowing the basic mechanics behind the moves, but the fundamentals are mostly knowing his Energy Burst pattern and knowing how Bone Crush works. Mind, it's simpler to do it on C6 - and, scaling-wise, I'd take him as that - but, as far as in-game optimum performance goes for getting mileage of his class, I think it may be a better idea to face him at C4, though his contrivances at C4 -definitely- require some setup tailoring to handle at that point (those DO require slapping Spirit Ward on your entire party. Good thing it's a L1 ability on the class).
(Basically, I'm going off thinking you can't get Fireball until the very endgame if you don't get it at C4. And Fireball is pretty much the money ST damage skill on the class. White Wind also qualifies, but White Wind isn't as useful.)
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Idly, Snow, re your comments in the Futurama thread, where do you know BD boss status vulnerabilities from?
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Some of the FAQs on the game point them out. I've done some testing and confirmed quite a few of them to be true, but they -do- have some degree of resistance to the status they can suffer, which gets higher as the game advances. Which, honestly, means trying to exploit them isn't too efficient due to short duration. It makes Spell Fencers with Status Amp pretty cool, though!
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The reason I ask is I notice sleep is on that vulnerability list and there were a couple of bosses were I used sleep spellblade to control a summoned minion (rather effectively I might add) then used that same PC to attack the boss on other turns and never saw sleep kick in even once, which seems improbable if the susceptibility chance was anything above 5%. I've never tried to hit a boss with the other listed statuses (just poison) so I dunno if that's sleep being special or those bosses being special or what.
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I think the base odds on Sleep Sword are pretty low (the -weapon- itself is listed as 25% in-game, and I've only seen sleep connect once via physicals ever, both with Spellsword and with the weapon itself). I've started hitting bosses only after using Status Amp (though, in fairness, I only -discovered- those vulnerabilities by the time I got Arcanist). And I wouldn't be surprised if the resistance was subtractive either - and, hilariously, one of the most often immuned statuses on those bosses is -Poison-. I'll be rather honest and say that, given the resistance and erratic duration on BD status, I never found trying to status them a terribly effective strategy. But it's there. And there may be errors on the listed vulnerabilities anyway.
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Spellblade's Sleep Sword magic is 75% even. Bosses just seem to resist status by some godawful high number.
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That makes some degree of sense. I'm not sure -how- stats interact with Spellblade accuracy post-bases (magic is pretty simple, and Int plays a huge role on it), though Poison Rod was one that I found bizarrely accurate. That might have been just leaving Status Amp on and not noticing, though.
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Figured I'd throw in my two cents.
0: I'm not a fan of a 3 turn average with a 4x brave at the end at all. It more than doubles the damage average and almost ensures that all but the very best damage dealers will have substantially below average damage on a per turn basis. I don't want to throw it out, but doing things like limiting the amount of times you can brave or default could help prevent having a cast of Godlikes and heavies who can quadra act at will to end a fight. Maybe prevent them from letting their BP go below -1? That way at least they'd have to have a few dead turns before unleashing the multi act. That way the cast can't blitz everyone immediately. Opposing buffers would have a chance to prepare for the damage surge or blitzers could just take them out faster while they wait to get the turns.
1. I'd just go with job classes. We didn't give classes to the FF5 pcs and giving them jobs based on crystals is less arbitrary than jobs based on class intro videos.
2. Normal mode. The bosses already seem like they would be better in the DL than in game. No need to flood godlike with a bunch of hard mode bosses.
3. I think special moves are fine. I don't know how far it goes up, but they seem like neat little limit breaks from what I've acquired so far.
4. Only at the third continent so can't speak for this one.
5. Only allow bosses actions they can use in game. If they only brave certain attacks, then so be it. Brave is already a really good action for bosses. Also they can only brave when they've reached the appropriate health thresholds where they start doing it ingame.
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If they're not better at inflicting ID with them than any other class, they deserve no credit for it.
Personally I'd ban such weapons (or more accurately, their added status) because they're completely non-unique, just like I do with FFX unless you want that entire cast to have 100% sleep and 100% zombie. (I think those were the statuses anyway.)
Is status hit rate based on a per hit basis or is it a flat rate for a weapon? I think that a Ninja who hits 10 times with a 5% per hit ID dagger should be able to wield it and get credit for the ID compared to a character who only hits 3x with it.
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a) I believe it's a flat rate (I've observed "mostly missed" attacks inflict status at a comparable rate to anything else, and the fact that the game says "25% chance to do ___" is also a hint), though more testing should confirm that.
b) The gap in hit count between classes at equal job level is nowhere near 10 vs. 3. (edit: in particular, it should be noted that weapon rank has no effect on hit count, just on Atk stat... which is irrelevant if we're discussing the weapons as pure status options.)
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Something of note that I just confirmed: a boss with 0 MP cannot use MP-reliant skills. This doesn't mean skills cost MP for them (I MP Busted a notable endgame boss to check this) but it does mean that without MP, spells and MP-costing abilities don't work.
They definitely have inflated MP pools, however; this was a good... 10k MP damage?
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Boss MP mechanics are not like PC mechanics, however. Notice the spamming of skills like Amped Strike that should consume MMP/2.
I don't think this will, practically speaking, ever come up?
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Yeah, the two have differing mechanics: it's why I said that skills may not cost MP for them. And unless they face some very solid MP busting PC or boss, yeah, it won't. (Chorno Trigger's Queen Zeal vs., say, Ominas, is like the one case I can immediately think of)
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Well it's nice to confirm MP-damage skills actually do something; I wasn't actually sure. MP being missing from the otherwise perfect scan is strange... it's almost as if they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that enemy MP works differently.
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Well it's nice to confirm MP-damage skills actually do something; I wasn't actually sure. MP being missing from the otherwise perfect scan is strange... it's almost as if they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that enemy MP works differently.
That's possible. Also, one idea that did occur to me while out shopping is that their skills may cost MP, but be capped at 500 or so MP each (the cost for a skill that costs 1/2 MP when you have 999 MP); that plus very large MP scores would create the illusion of infinite MP in most fights unless you deliberately set out to MP break somebody.
Also, to answer the final two questions in the first post more broadly...
4) Without grinding, 75-80 feels about right. Lower would mean more heavy use of the -100% option than I'm comfortable with, higher means grinding (which is easy in this, but). I ended at 95 after doing all optional content save Norende bosses, and a fair few levels probably came from going through that optional content.
5) Human bosses should be held to either their first or last forms. The latter are infinitely refightable and have full mastery of their skillset, but are much less durable; the former still have excellent damage but may not be fighting to their fullest (in a duel, they'd have better durability for relatively little tradeoff in most cases, so the last appearances may be better? I don't know.
I'd allow Airy to choose one of her three forms, but wouldn't allow a form chain from first to second. Ouroboros uses his final form, and doesn't get Armageddeon as a result, which neatly solves his major interp issue. All his other matches are meant to wear you down/test resources and durability, and are all ended by plot, so I can't really see allowing any except the final form which... has an insanely brutal status ingame (only available commands while under it being Default and Summon Friend, the latter being duel-useless) and thus probably still can compete top-tier.
EDIT: I can go check and see if an enemy can run out of MP without MP busting, actually. Is this something people would like to know, or is it generally handwaveable?
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It's actually interesting to know. It's worth noting for MP-busting whores such as Zeal. Also may be relevant for the likes of Nel, who can play around dealing MP damage all day in an attrition fight.
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Tested and confirmed; enemy skills do consume MP. (Tested vs. the optional boss chain's Barbarossa, since I figured his Amped Strikes would confirm this the fastest. He went about 30-40 turns spamming Shell Split->Amped Strike or so (Hasten World). Confirmed MP was out by trying to drain it with Ringabel and getting nothing for it.
I'd presume enemy skills have MP costs equal to PCs but capped somehow, with inflated MP pools to match.
EDIT: This does leave the question of what moves the final bosses have that cost MP, but that shouldn't be too hard to test. ...some other time, but I can test that later, too.
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Notes for later posting in a topic.
PC averags for Barras and Holly (face 2 PCs):
HP: 231
Damage: 15
Speed: 10
Monk Barras Lehr:
HP: 300
Pdef/Mdef: 5 (Average)
Attack: 22 damage.
Brave->Invigorate->Physical: 30 damage. 1 turn recharge.
Below half HP, Invigorate has a 25% chance of failing and doing 80 damage to everything on the field.
Comments: Scrub. Light.
White Mage Holly Whyte:
HP: 250
Pdef/Mdef: 5 (average)
Attack: 16 damage.
Aero: 44 wind magic damage.
Usable below 50% HP:
Cure: 73 healing
Comments: The game's way of introducing you to the idea of brave-blitzing a boss at low HP. You will run out of healing items and die if you don't brave up and take her down quickly because her healing will be too hard to break. While theoretically MP limited it isn't reasonable to see that limit. Not difficult when you can borrow 3 future turns but the Healing will wall some fighters from other games, interestingly.
PC averages for Ominas Crowe:
HP: 302
Damage: 37.5
Speed: 11.75
Black Mage Ominas Crowe:
HP: 1800
P.Def: 10 (cuts damage by 16%)
Speed: 9
Attack: 22
Black Magic:
Poison : Inflicts Poison at 75% rate, MT. [Poison takes 10% MHP off at the end of every round]
Sleep: Inflicts Sleep, 75%. [Sleep keeps the foe asleep for 2-3 rounds, is not broken by magic]
Silence: Inflicts Silence, 75% [Silence bars the use of magic and magic only, permanent]
Fire: 158 magic fire damage.
Below 50% HP:
Brave->Fire->Fire: 316 fire magic damage. Normally the first Fire is MT'd to do half damage, but in a duel it focuses.
Comments: Burninate the villagers with good durability and plenty of status effects to make people uncomfortable. Probably a Heavy.
PC averages for Heinkel:
HP: 363
P.Def: 27
Damage: 100 (Thanks, Ominas!)
Speed: 13 (1.8 stdev)
Knight Argent Heinkel
HP: 2400
P.Def: 20 (cuts damage by 32%, 65% after two Shield Strikes, 17% when Stomping)
M.Def: 20 (Cuts damage by 32%, 17% when Stomping)
Speed: 14
50% weakness to Lightning.
Attack: 112
Shield Strike: 112 physical damage, buffs Heinkel's defense by 25% for two turns.
Below 50%:
Stops using Shield Strike.
Gains:
Stomp: 150 physical damage to one (reduces defense to 15).
Brave: Can doubleact Stomps/physicals with a one turn recharge.
Comments: Durable boss who can put out a finisher below 50% HP. Middle/Heavy?
PC averages for Jackal:
HP: 522
P.Def: 36.5
Spd: 14.5 (stdev: 3)
Damage: 150
Note: The Jackal fights with Khint, another boss who retreats when either boss is reduced below 50% HP.
Thief The Jackal:
HP: 5000
P.Atk: 75
P.Def: 35 (cuts physical damage by ~45%)
M.Def: 13 (~average)
Aim: 92
Evade: 30
Speed: 11 (this is enhanced by some passive ability The Jackal has, his usually goes first)
Brave: Double-act with a one turn recharge.
Attack: 109 damage over 3 hits.
Steal: Steal a potion
Potion: 500 healing
Below 50% HP:
Bravex3: Quadra-act with a 3 turn recharge.
Comments: Durable! But he is not exactly damaging... except for the quadra-act finisher. Middle/Heavy? Probably does not deserve credit for his partner because of the partner leaving when EITHER drops below 50% HP.
PC Averages for Profiteur:
HP: 634
P.Def: 64.25
Evd: 12.75
Damage: 260
Speed: 19.25 (7 stdev)
Note: Since Profietuer is optional, I took him after the trip to Yulyana rather than right after The Jackal. You can just bump up the Jackal stats a tad if you feel he should be scaled against when he first becomes available.
Merchant Chairman Profiteur:
HP: 6000
P.Atk: 85
P.Def: 26 (cuts physicals by 12.5%)
M.Def: 17 (average)
Spd: 14
Takeover: 300 ITD damage.
Pay-to-Play: Quadruples Critical HIt rate. Profiteur doesn't care.
Default: Halve damage, +1 BP. Alawys used as a charge turn for...
Brave->Takeover->Takeover: 600 ITD damage. (is not reduced by Default)
Comments: Default->Takeoverx2. Repeat until foe is dead. This is a fairly effective strategy. And this becomes even more horrifying if you take him when he first becomes available to fight.
PC averages for Khamer&Khint:
(L19)
HP: 717
P.Def: 63
M.Def: 29
Spd: 20.75 (stdev: 6.65)
Time Mage Khamer VIII
HP: 6000
P.Atk: 120
M.Atk: 55
P.Def: 50 (reduces physicals by ~42%)
M.Def: 20 (~average)
Aim: 94
Evade: 20
Speed: 16
Attack: 191 physical damage.
Quara: 385 earth magic damage (uses MT, focuses).
Veilga: Evade up 50% (to 30%) for 4 turns, MT.
Stop: 75% chance of inflicting Stop. Stop negates Actions/BP generation for 2-3 turns.
Below 50% HP:
Default:
Brave->Quara->Stop.
Comments: His earth magic damage isn't bad, and Stop can let him get around some healers? He isn't very impressive really. Heavy?
Spell Fencer Cigma Khint:
HP: 6000
P.Atk: 120
M.Atk: 50
P.Def: 55 (~49% reduction)
M.Def: 20 (~average)
AIm: 94
Evade: 20
Speed: 16
Attack: 200
Sword Magic Silence: physical attacks inflict silence at a 75% rate for 10 turns.
Sword Magic Fire: Attack turns fire elemental and deals an additional 72 damage.
Brave: Double-act with a 1 turn recharge time.
Comments: Silence Sword can let him own some mages. Otherwise he is a mediocre at best slugfester.
PC Averages for Artemia:
HP: 778
P.Def: 70
Speed: 24.25 (5.8 stdev)
Damage: 550
Speed: 24.25 (stdev 5.8)
Ranger Artemia:
HP: 15000
P.Atk: 150
M.Atk: 48
P.Def: 36 (~14% reduction)
M.Def: 24 (~average)
Aim: 94
Evade: 31
Speed: 20
50% weakness to fire.
Default: Halve damage for one turn. +1 BP
Attack: 277 physical damage.
Targetting: 346 physical damage. Ignores default (not defense)
Multiburst: 1396 damage over 4 hits. Takes 1 BP (so has a recharge turn unless Default is used before it)
Below 50% HP:
Brave->Multiburst->Multiburst: 2792 physical damage over 8 hits. Takes 4 BP...
Comments: She has damage. Lots and lots of damage. Godlike.
PC Averages for Mephilia:
HP: 918
P.Def: 72
M.Def: 34.75
Speed: 25.25 (3.8 stdev)
Damage: 700
Summoner Mephilia
HP: 9999
P.Atk: 144
M.Atk: 48
P.Def: 50 (cuts physicals by ~28%)
M.Def: 24
Hit: 94
Evade: 31
Speed: 20
Attack: 250 physical damage.
Girtablulu: 666 earth magic damage, MT. She only uses this every 3rd turn.
Summon Soldiers: Summons a Legion Archer and a Legion Impaler (who do not act the summon turn)
Legion Impaler:
HP: 1000, P.Atk: 144, M.Atk: 48, P.Def: 24, M.Def: 24, Aim: 94, Evade: 11, Speed: 20
Execution: 384 physical damage.
Legion Archer:
HP: 2200, P.Atk: 155, M.Atk: 62, P.Def: 31, M.Def: 31, Aim: 96, Evade: 11, Speed: 25
Chaos Arrow: 530 physical damage. 75% Chance of confusion.
Comments: She's honestly kind of a scrub! Which is so weird to me. Anyways if you let her use Summon Soldiers she can do well. Otherwise she is in danager of being a rather bad slugger.
PC Stats for Einheria:
HP: 1125
P.Def: 75
M.Def: 37.5
P.Atk: 134
Damage: 950
Speed: 34.25 (stdev 5.2)
Valkyrie Einheria:
HP: 20000
P.Atk: 186
P.Def: 62 (Reduces physicals by ~30%)
M.Def: 20 (Takes ~10% more from magic)
Evade: 31
Speed: 25
Attack: 600 physical damage.
Crescent Moon: 625 physical damage, MT. Costs 1 BP.
Jump: Jump in the air at the end of a round. Come down next round dealing 1397 physical damage. This also has a 1-turn recharge time in addition to the charge time in the air.
Below 50% HP:
Spirit Barrier: Divides incoming damage by 10 and applies the damage to Einheria's MP, which is ~500. 'Overkill' damage to the barrier does not spill over into Einheria's HP.
Comments: Strong physical attacks. Mad ups! But that is only useful as a finisher vs. something that doesn't defend, really. Heavy boss.
PC Stats for DeRosa:
HP: 1179
P.Def: 75
M.Def: 38
Damage: 1050
Speed: 35 (5.4 stdev)
Red Mage Fiore DeRosa:
HP: 20000
P.Atk: 170
M.Atk: 100
P.Def: 30 [~average]
M.Def: 60 [Reduces magic damage by ~38%]
Evade: 31
Speed: 24
Revenge: 25% chance of getting +1 BP anytime DeRosa takes damage.
Attack: 519 physical damage.
Fear: Inflicts Fear, MT, 75% [Fear negates Brave and Default options, lasts ~4 turns]
Cura: 1171 healing
Thundara: 916 lightning magic damage (always uses MT)
Captivating Cologne: Inflicts Charm, 75% rate. [Charmed targets will use actions favorable to Derosa, but can not physically attack themselves. Damage cancels Charm.]. Lasts 2-3 turns.
Anytime DeRosa has 1 or more BP above 50% HP:
Bravex2->Cura->Thundara->Physical.
Anytime DeRosa has 1 or more BP below 50% HP:
Bravex2->Thundara->Thundara->Physical
Comments: Has decent thunder magic damage. If he gets a BP from Revenge he can do something quite nasty with a triple-act. Charm status is kind of nasty v mages. Heavy/Godlike.
PC Stats for Qada:
HP: 1567
P.Atk: 154
P.Def: 98
M.Def: 49
Damage: 1350
Speed: 39.75 (6.2 stdev)
Qada:
HP: 40000
P.Atk: 250
M.Atk: 74
P.Def: 54 (reduces physicals by ~14%)
M.Def: 67 (reduces magic by ~24%)
Speed: 30
Attack: 936 physical damage.
Poison Hi-Potion: 1000 ITD damage, inflicts Poison 75%
Water of Life: Grants 1200 HP Regen to Qada.
Default: Halve damage for a round, +1 BP. Used as a charge turn for...
Bravex2->Dark Breath->Physical->Poison Hi-Potion [1 turn recharge]
Dark Breath: Deals Qada's (MHP - CHP) in damage (max 9999). Used only during the Brave chain above. No this isn't very fair.
Comments: Dude that is cheating. Godlike. Seriously that is gratuitious overkill damage after he is so much as tapped.
PC stats for Barbarossa:
HP 1979
P.Def: 102
M.Def: 57
Speed: 48 (8.4 stdev)
Damage: 1600
Barbarossa
HP: 45000
P.Atk: 200
M.Atk: 62
P.Def: 50 (~7% reduction in damage)
M.Def: 31 (~7% increase in damage)
Aim: 91
Evade: 21
Speed: 25
50% weakness to Lightning. 50% resistance to Ice/Water.
Double Damage: 1050 physical damage.
Shell Split: 525 physical damage. Reduces target's P.Def by 25% for 4 turns (increases Barbarossa's damage by 25%)
Defang: 525 physical damage. Reduces target's P.Atk by 25% for 4 turns (Barbarossa will take ~40% less from physicals after this.
Brave: Shell Split -> Double Damage: ~1837.5 physical damage, factoring in the pdef down. One turn recharge time.
Comments: He is much better on Hard Mode! As it stands, he can 2HKO with some degree of durability and has a finisher for 2HKOing the durable/OHKOing the frail. And he can make himself more durable in a physical throwdown with Defang. Heavy?
PC Stats for Praline A La Mode:
HP: 2047
P.Def: 103
M.Def: 58
Speed: 48 (8.4 stdev)
Damage: 1650
Diva of the Battlefield: Praline A La Mode:
HP: 40000
P.Atk: 200
M.Atk: 64
P.Def: 32 (Takes ~5% more)
M.Def: 52 (Takes ~10% less)
Aim: 96
Evade: 21
Speed: 26
Immune to Light/Holy
Attack: 502 physical damage
Love Power: +25% P.Atk for all allies for 4 turns. (Increase in damage is 51%/casting)
One More For You: Gives an extra BP to an ally of Praline's, who will then doubleact the next turn.
Bodyguards: summons a Black Blade and Black Axefighter who do not act that turn.
Black Blade:
HP: 2800, P.Atk: 185, M.Atk: 74, P.Def: 37, M.Def: 37, Aim: 97, Evade: 11, Speed: 30
Edge of Madness: 336 physical damage vs. one target. 75% chance of confusion
Black Axefighter:
HP: 3000, P.Atk: 195, M.Atk: 78, P.Def: 43, M.Def: 39, Aim: 97, Evade: 11, Speed: 32
Shell Split: 580 physical damage. Reduces P.Def by 25% for 4 turns (~25% increase in damage, stacks additively with any Praline Love Powers).
Praline, below 50% HP:
Pass Turn: Pass a turn to get 1 BP (not Defaulting... okay!)
Brave->Love Power->Physical:
Comments: The only thing in the game that passes a turn without Defaulting... Anywho, Praline is all about her fanclub. She herself isn't very good, but vs. those without MT she can do some nastiness by calling in the fanclub and buffing them and herself into meanness. Those with MT... did I mention she's locked into calling Bodyguards whenever she doesn't have them out? Yeah. Middle?
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PC Averages for Kamiizumi:
HP: 2161
P.Atk: 207
P.Def: 116
M.Def: 62.75
Damage: 1940
Speed: 51.5 (stdev 9.29)
Kamiizumi
HP: 60000
P.Atk: 380
M.Atk: 86
P.Def: 70 (~16% reduction)
M.Def: 43 (~average)
Aim: 98
Evade: 21
Speed: 35
Attack: 1805 physical damage.
Nothing Ventured: Kamiizumi halves physical damage the turn this is used and counters with a 2x physical attack if hit by anything physical.
Before Swine: Kamiizumi halves magical damage the turn this is used and counters with a 3x physical attack if hit by anything physical.
Know Thine Enemy: Kamiizumi picks a single target (unannounced). Any attacks from that target are countered with a 4x physical attack.
Bravex2->Physicalx3: Triple-act's Kamiizumi's physical for 5415 damage. Two turn recharge.
Below half HP Kamiizumi does nothing but this.
Comments: His counter techs are of questionable value... but his physical is not. That he can triple-act it as a finisher is just ugly, ugly business. If you allow him to use the counter abilities intelligently against other bosses they could prove quite devastating.
PC Averages for Kikyo:
HP: 2250
P.Atk: 207
P.Def: 118
M.Def: 65
Aim: 94.33
Speed: 54.175 (stdev 8.2)
Damage: 1950
Konoe Kikyo:
HP: 60000
P.Atk: 280
M.Atk: 86
P.Def: 70 (~16% reduction)
M.Def: 43 (~average)
Aim: 98
Evade: 61
Speed: 35
Attack: 1128 physical damage.
Shippujnrai: 1128 physical damage. Has initiative.
Utsumemi Technique: Allows Konoe to completely evade the next physical attack sent her way. Unlike normal evade this is rather all-encompassing in what it affects.
Transience: Counters any evaded attack with 1128 physical damage.
Default: Halve damage for a round and store a BP.
Brave->Shippujnraix2: 2256 physical damage. Has initiative.
Note that Kikyo does NOT have to use Default prior to Braving.
Comments: Brave->Shippujnraix2 can probably KO some things before they move. Beyond that she can slug it out by alternating Default and Shippujnraix2. Utsumemi is a nasty trick vs. physical foes. Heavy/Godlike...
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Also worth noting that Nobutsuna's counter stances all have initiative, for whatever that helps.
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Beats Ramsus by having faster counter stance. 10/10 would rank again.
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Well, just a different system. Turn based in the FF1 style rather than CTB style.
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I invite comments on the boss notes, while admitting that the process for getting stats isn't perfectly rigorous (glancing at a few different class options and generally keeping a balance of 2physical/2magical PCs isn't perfect)
PC Averages for Victor&Victoria:
HP: 2564
P.Def: 120
M.Def: 58.5
Damage: 2100
Speed: 54.75 (stdev 5.5)
Victor S. Court
HP: 80000
P.Atk: 260
M.Atk: 122
P.Def: 49 (average)
M.Def: 49 (average)
Aim: 99
Evade: 32
Speed: 40
50% Weak to dark, 50% resist to Light.
Fairy's Aid: All elements boosted 50% for 4 turns. Costs 1 BP.
Holy: 1355 holy magic damage
Attack: 1161 physical damage.
Curada: 3100 healing.
Victoria:
HP: 70000
P.Atk: 245
M.Atk: 123
P.Def: 49
M.Def: 49
Aim: 99
Evade: 22
Speed: 40
50% weakness to Light. 50% resistance to Dark.
Corpse: 75% chance of inflicting Doom, which kills at the end of 4 turns including the one it is cast on.
Attack: 1036 physical damage.
Poison: 75% chance of Poison, MT.
Exterminate: 2512 dark damage to any poisoned allies or enemies.
Dark: 1355 dark magic damage.
Below 50% HP,
Brave->Dark->Dark.
Comments: Victor and Victoria both are durable and have 2HKOs. Victoria can Brave for an OHKO below 50% HP, and has some status gimmicks to go with. Victor has a little bit of healing that isn't worthwhile. Heavy for both?
PC Averages for Braev Lee:
HP: 2956
P.Atk: 192
P.Def: 122
M.Def: 68.75
Damage: 2380
Speed: 55 (stdev 7.2)
Braev Lee:
HP: 35000 (With 2 auto full-heals upon being reduced to 0 HP)
P.Atk: 300
M.Atk: 98
P.Def: 49
M.Def: 49
Aim: 99
Evade: 22
Speed: 40
50% weakness to Dark. Resists Light 50%
Default: Quarters damage for the turn. +1 BP
Radiant Blast: 2125 light-elemental physical damage. Ignores default.
Heart Strike: 2870 physical damage (auto-crit). Costs 1 BP to use. (Braev will only use this if he has 1 or more BP stored).
Attack: 1435 physical damage.
When he has enough BP (2 or more), he can Brave->Radiant Blast->Heart Strike
At any point at low HP (below 25% or so on any one of his 3 lifebars) Braev can do the following regardless of his BP level:
Brave->Giant Slayer->Heart Strike->Radiant Blast
Giant Slayer: 1435 physical damage. x1.5 if Braev's HP is lower than target (hah!)
Comments: Default until he wants to put out an offense string, then go ahead and do so. Since he quarters damage while Defaulting his effective durability while doing this strategy is somewhere between nuts and mind-boggling. He does not 'call' his shots either, so you can't predict when he will go ahead and unleash the double or triple-act. Godlike.
PC Averages for Alternis Dim:
HP: 3140
P.Atk: 201
P.Def: 125
M.Def: 72
Damage: 2600
Speed: 57 (stdev 10)
Alternis Dim:
HP: 100000
P.Atk: 312
M.Atk: 104
P.Def: 52 (average)
M.Def: 52 (average)
Aim: 105
Evade: 32
Speed: 42
Immunes Darkness.
Attack: 1744 physical damage.
Dark Bane (Costs 1000 HP to use): 2048 dark-elemental physical damage to one.
Black Bane (Costs 2000 HP to use): 2048 dark-elemental physical damage to all.
Below 50% HP, Alternis can use the following:
Minus Strike: 9999 ITD damage to one target.
Comments: Durable and with a weakish 2HKO, Alternis isn't an impressive dueler until below half HP, at which point he ends the duel. Godlike.
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Looks good! Though... no stats for Praline or Barbarossa? Did you forget to post them or do you just hate people with DL avatars? :(
Random comments:
-I'll definitely be holding bosses to in-game restrictions on Brave, Default, and the moves they can use while braving (or while not braving, in Qada's case). They're still -fine- in the DL, few fall below Heavy. I also like rewarding the ones who actually use Brave/Default intelligently and unpredictably ('sup Braev).
-BD boss speed is weird, and I haven't played on NM so I'd like someone to weigh in here. In HM, they're definitely faster than the numbers look, on average going earlier in the round rather than later. Any general experiences to report from NM? I definitely have trouble taking the SDs literally regardless, not least because I think they're undersold: Hermes Sandals (the option to switch on/off +10 speed at will) and the thief passives mean PC speed is actually highly variable. But yeah it makes a big difference as to whether these bosses are kinda slow, kinda fast, or very slow, all of which seem possible depending on exactly how NM works and how you take speed values in this game.
-My own damage progression was definitely a bit different from Pyro's. I'm not saying this to judge his stats or call them wrong, but it does depend what you do. In particular, I built around fighters for offence. This means, for instance, that I had a large offensive spike early in chapter 3, since Iron Poles become storebought (powerful 2H-able weapon which any class can S rank easily thanks to Staff Lore) and Performer yields 150% attack which is probably like +75% damage to the entire team. I felt like Qada, Barbarossa, and DeRosa died extremely quickly compared to almost any other asterisk boss.
-Yes, I fought DeRosa in C3. This makes him horrible (I mean... still kinda okay in the DL because dat focussing and dat charm, but his HP is some shade of hideous and in particular I only saw Revenge kick in once...). I found the game pretty unhelpful for telling you how to get him, I figured it was just "come back later in the plot" like the previous time it had been weird with showing a blue exclamation point over a city. (I also fought Barbarossa later than I should have.)
-In general I take a pretty harsh view of optional bosses in terms of when to scale them, generally feeling that when in doubt, err on the side of fighting 'em later. BD's likely to be no different, although at least in the case of many of them the game both (a) is very obvious about how you can find them, and (b) offers large rewards for fighting 'em (classes!). Still expect me to assign a minor respect hit to every optional boss compared to the listed figures.
-This doesn't apply to the required ones of course. Braev Lee and Alternis Dim for Godlike.
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- Praline and Barbarossa are right there I have no idea what you are talking about there is no way I would have forgotten them just because of a spreadsheet skip nope.
- The game is pretty clear for scaling on when to fight bosses (in the chapter they appear, and there is the blue exclamation mark thing), and there is some weirdness later of which I am sure you are aware that should speak to their scaling as well.
- Performer is pretty good at raising offense stats. You may see that in the reflection of the damage spike b/w Praline and Kamiizume. (considering I have them fought right nexxt to each other. Pralaine for least convenient Asterisk, Qada for most).
- Order would matter for Asterisks. I based it on the idea of 'order jobs are listed in except in egregious cases'. Those egregious cases being Praline/Barbarossa/Kikyo. These 3 require advancing the plot significantly and hunting/travelling the world compared to Qada and Kamiizumi, who are easy to get to without going to another continent). Order for those bosses listed in the topic was Qada->(Fire Temple)->Barbarossa->Praline->Kamiizumi->Kikyo. I can understand this being switched up player to player but this feels like the most logical progression in terms of what is easiest to come across first.
- You are correct about speed, in that some bosses lie about when they go. But in general on Normal I found that bosses rarely, if ever, went before PCs. Hermes Shoes and Red Caps being +15 agility is kind of a kick in the balls in that regard, but the bosses do face those things (you have Red Caps early even if you just use 1 townsperson).
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Hermes Sandals are more important than the Red Caps - I doubt I'd scale the bosses against Red Caps, but I so do against Hermes Sandals, which are nutso good. Later on, Hermes Shoes also become relevant, but that's a C6-7 thing.
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Praline's sidequest absolutely opens up before Qada's; just checked a FAQ to confirm this (Praline is after the Automatons, Qada after the mythril mines). I see no reason to give Qada extra respect because of Praline's sidequest length: its length is entirely from overworld trekking which doesn't get any easier as time goes on (unless you wait for C4, I suppose). That's the only major issue I'd have with the order you chose. But I will restate that the mere ability to be fought a bit later definitely merits at least a minor respect hit.
Fair enough regarding speed (and yeah, even without internet I got Red Caps, although I don't recall when. Could you note when you first start factoring them in? Eh, whatever, +5 isn't that big a difference). I'd still be inclined to take the SDs higher (because yeah, you may or may not equip a Hermes Sandals and that makes a large difference), but good to know they're all some shade of slow anyway.
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I believe Red Caps became a default equip in late C1-Mid C2? No internet access, played a few hours a day, used SLeep mode.
SDs being higher makes sense given the high variation of the system. That is why I didn't bother listing bosses SDs compared to average. Just had the number there so I threw it in.
Qada is indeed after the Mythril mines, but does not require you going around the planet without an airship to unlock! Indeed he is quite literally one turn (and a short passageway) away from exactly where you have to go to rescue Egil.
You kind of need to go significantly out of your way to fight Praline before Qada.
Barbarossa can be hard to find, but you will likely hit him up on your way back to Caldisla... say on your way there for Praline's quest, or delivering Egil there.
Kikyo/Kamiizumi I can understand swapping.
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You need to go significantly out of your way to fight Praline, whether you do it before or after Qada. The timing isn't relevant, unless you save her until after the airship. Which you didn't, so I'm not sure what's up. The only way you fight Qada first is if you actively ignore her sidequest and advance the plot by going to the Mythril Mines.
But hey, optional bosses, people will respect how they will. For my part, it's good to know I can c/p Kamiizumi's damage average for Qada/Barbarossa, since that fits with my in-game experiences pretty well. <.<
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Worth noting that Praline immunes Holy as well.
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I'd either hold bosses to as soon as they unlock (Profiteur benefits the most from it) or from once the crystal is awakened. Not inclined to wait a chapter for any of them (though I can def. respect doing it for DeRosa's dumb sidequest) or anything, but clearing those at end of chapter would be legit.
This being said, personally would probably scale to as soon as each unlocks on average. And yeah Praline immunes Holy, just as the DK immunes Dark.
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Now that I've finished the game...
2. NM stat topic, yeah. Sounds like a lot more people played that than HM. The difference it makes for the PCs is pretty damn minor so I can't bring myself to care, and NM bosses are already -fine-, thank you very much, with at least a couple of them hanging out in Godlike champ territory.
3. If I were making the stat topic myself I'd from on almost everything from Norende probably. Without online it's just not practical beyond some really early stuff and I'm firm in my views not to allow anything gained from online. Some mid-range armour is still better than storebought stuff this way, such as Red Caps. Apparently I was very close to unlocking Bloody Shields so I'd probably allow those too? Helps preserve the advantage of 1H weapons which is lessened in the DL due to Two-Hands not being legal for non-knights.
Salve-Maker gets storebought items only. That shop is not practical without online; your Norende hours are limited and better spent on things which benefit the whole cast: armour, weapons, specials, etc. Echoing Snowfire, here: don't nom Salve-Maker, and either create an average without their damage or list multiple ones because there's not going to be any reconciling the 3+ different views of legal items for the class. (Unfortunately it sounds like, contrary to Snow's hopes, the items allowed will make a ridiculous difference for the class' duelling ability, because the brave system greatly amplifies small damage differences in the DL*.)
I'm on the fence about allowing specials period. They're completely non-unique. However, if some classes can legitimately get them more easily than others I could see a case to allow them in that case. Definitely would have specials start unchaged, though; I can see the case for half-charging for some limits, but not for something that isn't unique.
4. I finished a little over Level 75. Anything from 75-80 sounds reasonable to me. Unless you wanted to scale things to the first ending, which would definitely be a bit lower (I was 65?). I don't really care. There's a wide reasonable endgame level here depending on encounter control and the number of optional fights you do (for me: I didn't turn off encounters unless I was backtracking, but didn't do many optional fights in C5-8 since the rewards were minimal and the game was already quite long enough).
5. No way to talk about this without spoilers! For the asterisk-holders, use their first forms. In the case of Holly, Barras, Ominas, Heinkel, and the C4 bosses, this is their only required form, except Alternis who has two, but not only are they pretty damn similar but the first fight is the "real" Alternis whom the player has interacted with throughout the game. DeRosso I take scaled to C6, same with Yulyana. If for you wanted to rank the crystal guardians as well (due to fighting them so many times they are certainly very memorable!), yeah, first forms again. For Airy, good ending form 3 seems obvious. It's her "true" form appearance-wise and combines her previous tricks in one final badass package, and is far better than the first two forms unless you chain them which is of nebulous legality. For the final boss, all those plot fights make him a headache. I'd probably just give him the final form, which amusingly means he has less HP than Airy but whatever he's still Godlike. Divergence (seals all skillsets except Default and Summon Friend, and yes he can refresh it) is a mean trick and really makes him as a dueller, which is a bit of a headache since it's not clear exactly what it would work on (all PCs and no bosses? How do you account for the weakness of not blocking Summon Friend, which has no DL analog? I dunno). I'll restate my views that "when" you take any of the optional bosses is pretty arbitrary so I won't ever take the most favourable view possible of an optional boss. The fact that you can make any one of them into a weaker boss by leaving, advancing the plot or fighting another asterisk-holder first, and returning, is a legitimate weakness that should be held against them to some extent.
*I'll speak more about this now because I feel like people often don't quite grasp the significance of what the brave system does to the average. Let's take a three-turn damage average. Most duellers (ignoring a few shenanigans involving BP generation or costs) can get six actions in three turns: (Default), Act twice, Act four times. Thus the average damage per turn is that done in two actions. If an average damage-dealer does 40% to an average opponent (DL convention), then...
-an average damage-dealer does 20% per attack, borderline killing the average opponent on turn 2 (otherwise 3).
-a dueller with half average damage does 10% per swing, and kills an average opponent in 6-7 turns (as opposed to 5-6 for most casts)
-a dueller with 150% average damage does 30% per swing and kills the average opponent in a single round. In fact they only need 125% average damage to do this. In most casts, such duellers have a (low!) 2HKO.
Basically BD's higher-damage-dealers are very inflated in the DL, while lower-damage-dealers suffer disproportionately (although not as much as the higher-damage types benefit, because being able to burst your damage is powerful). I guarantee you that everyone is going to go "... what?" to at least one class which will OHKO average on turn 1 in the DL. Taking other averages can't sidestep the core problem here; placing restrictions on Brave would, but introduces its own share of problems (anything besides banning is arbitrary, and see previous discussions on the problems of just banning it). And in fairness, this mechanic is at least fairly true to how randoms work in-game.
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Amusingly enough, the Compounding shop is in fact the best way to spend your Norende hours after obtaining the Red Cap/Bloody Shield. While it takes 70 hours to unlock, that is 3 days in real time, and unless you blitz the game it's not likely to be a huge fraction of your time spent playing it.
With the exception of the shop max bonuses (which takes a crazy amount of time), there is very little that is better to get out of Norende. THe specials are most useful for the L1 specials, which are easy to get. The special bonus shop is nice, but takes even longer to unlock. Compounding items gives you quite nice damage for cheap.
The strongest argument to ban the Compounding shop is to espouse both "Don't use the online functionality the game encourages you to use" and "Don't leave your DS asleep to generate SP/Norende restoration progress". Both of those are rather against what the game encourages, and I seriously doubt most people play in that way.
The DEGREE to which you allow Compounding Shop storebought stuff is crucial though, as well as how much money you allow to be spent to win a fight (also an issue for Merchant). As Dragon Fangs, if allowed to be spammed, are absolutely mind-boggling and propel Salve-Maker into Godlike.
Any thoughts on Cash allowable for Merchant/Salve-Maker?
Anyways, relevant Norende times again, for the curious.
- The Armor Shop... takes 156 man-hours to max out, but only 48 man-hours if you stop before the 'Heike' gear. Which leaves you with Bloody Shields and Red Hats, which are viable endgame equipment.
- The weapon shop doesn't have such a generous early selection of equipment. 105 man-hours of stuff that doesn't beat out endgame equipment, and then another 110 man-hours for two weapons that do but not by much (Swords/Katanas). So I would ignore these two weapons.
- The compounding shop takes 70 man-hours just to reach! But a meager 7.5 man hours to then get enough for Salve-makers to be viable offensive threats in a duel.
- The Special Move Shop takes just 8 hours to max out all the Level 1 super-moves (which are the only things likely to see the light of day in a duel).
- Customizing the special moves is mostly about power bonuses, which are functions of the River Parts shop. Which takes 110 hours just to reach. And then a fair bit more to make effective. Special moves aren't likely to be a significant part of any cast member's strategies.
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For Salve-Maker, I'd pretty much allow them 99 Hi-Potions, X-Potions, 99 Phoenix Downs and 99 Hi-Ethers per season. I feel that cash gains disproportionately explode in the lategame and it's pretty trivial to keep a full stock of non-online storeboughts. And yeah, Elfboy's right about their damage differences (I -badly- underestimated Shadowflare, which is very powerful and makes the difference between Salve-Maker being a solid Middle or a bonafide Godlike). For Merchant, my personal sideline would be between 50k-75k PG total per fight to spend, depending on whether I feel like giving him a bone for boosting cash gains or not.
Also, I don't think people will suffer too much from storebought/early Norende-only equipment, though yeah, I'd set my limit on Bloody Shields. The difference between stolen boss items on C6 and C5 storeboughts is like 10 points in attack, and Dimension's Hasp items are pretty much a no-go regardless. They lose -some- interesting armor sets, but them's the breaks.
Also, I probably won't allow specials at -all- except maybe the Sword L1, being completely non-unique -and- a pain in the ass to unlock and all. They were also entirely irrelevant for me the entire game (I never unlocked anything besides the Sword L1, which is automatic).
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How much Norende did you unlock?
I maxed it out playthrough 1. Playthrough 2 had 1 villager and got Bloody Shields/specials/compounding shop up to dark Matter, and unlocked the power up upgrade store up to... power +30%
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Let's just agree to disagree on Salve-Maker special shop stuff. For me it's not even close to legal ("online = no" is not negotiable to me), but I don't expect I'm going to convince you either. It's not as if Salve-Maker is being screwed over in the DL as is (lots of other classes are being restricted from reaching their in-game damage potential).
Re the money question, it's interesting. Like FF5 you don't gain that much money per fight late, but on the other hand you also don't have much to spend it on. (I think FF5 put more in chests though.) My general rule of thumb for the pricier things remains "don't let 'em heal-lock with pricy stuff for a long time" and I'm generally willing to decide that holistically on a match-by-match basis. Cheap things are of course far less of an issue; I'd probably give Salve-Maker a virtually unlimited supply of Hi-Potion + Ether for full healing, for instance.
[Tangent, since I looked some things up: Samurai's Zeninage/Gil Toss in FF5 is pretty damn reasonable against one target! Just costs 2k at Level 40. Compared to 25k for a Fuma, and the fact that there is a final dungeon random that gives out 10k (plus one rare formation that drops 150k!), I can't say I find its drawback much of an issue at lategame any more; more of an early- to mid-game thing (since your gil supply increases far more quickly than your level, and the move's cost is based on your level). Flipside, Fumas are reasonably pricy, notably moreso than their FF4/6 counterparts, and the next best storebought is a huge damage hit, unlike Shadow's drop from Falchions to Ninja Stars.]
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The other healing items are all fairly cheap, but there's no way in hell I'd allow 99x Turbo Ethers for Salve-Maker when they cost 5000 a pop. I don't think they're good for anything besides Half Elixir which is probably overkill anyways, so it's largely a moot point, thankfully.
I was willing to consider 1x Dragon Fang per fight for buffing purposes earlier, but now that I've had a closer look at Shadowflare I'm more inclined to disregard them entirely. They're too expensive to use on even a semi-regular basis in boss fights until you get far enough in the game that the damage would be fairly unimpressive in-game, yet even OPB Shadowflare would be nuts in the DL.
The other non-storebought compound ingredients can all be obtained from Collect and Experiment in addition to the Norende shop where they're dirt cheap, so I'd definately allow them in some quantity. Likely not 99x, though.
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Also, I probably won't allow specials at -all- except maybe the Sword L1, being completely non-unique -and- a pain in the ass to unlock and all. They were also entirely irrelevant for me the entire game (I never unlocked anything besides the Sword L1, which is automatic).
Well, yes, if you don't get them, they won't have any relevance. :p For what it's worth, if you do bother to get them - and I found the level 1s easy to get off of even 1 villager if you leave your 3DS in sleep mode - they are quite good in-game, if not cheaty good. Specials definitely allowed me to beat some boss fights without grinding more, as uber damage + buffs is pretty great, and before Performer / Pirate hard to set up even intentionally. Even then, the special music buffs are still better because they ignore character death - a character can bite it & be revived and get their buffs back immediately. With enhancements, the debuffs can last 5 turns after the music even stops. Also, you probably know this already, but chaining specials extends the buffs of *all* of the previous specials - I haven't done this yet, but it seems theoretically possible to even chain 5 effects at once, by opening with a Katana / Sword special that can easily work back up to a level 1 by the time you finish chaining the other 3 character's specials whenever the music gets close to ending. But even still, chaining 4 specials is pretty disgusting, there was at least 1 boss I took on "too early" and was kicking their butt until my chained special music ran out, and then he thrashed me. It is a significant advantage for the PC party. (but not cheaty, like FFX bosses vs. Yuna walking in with all her Aeons in Overdrive. the poor doomed things.)
For just a few quick examples - Withering Ripple, the L2 Rod one, slaughters almost every boss in C2 thanks to debuffing them AND sticking 'em with an elemental weakness of your choice when you have Spellblade + Black Magic available, and is just fine in C3. Katana Ultimate offers +50% Speed for your team and easily hits 9999 damage, pretty awesome vs. speedier bosses. You can even do silly stuff like strip Poison Resistance from bosses then use a Poison touch special. It's good stuff! (and it won't be nearly as good in the DL anyway, since the team buff + special chain effect are MIA, and starting uncharged means that only healers / drainers will realistically see 'em ever, and the specials probably lose out on all the upgrades. Although... I guess that damageless healers might fear a Katana L1? In general Katana users would rather just 3x Default -> 8x beatdown vs. true tanks, but if somehow that doesn't work, then 5x Default -> Moonshadow + 3x Attack -> 4x Attack might do the trick. But shame on any dueler that can't kill the BD character given 6 turns to do it in, even vs. Default in most of those turns...)
Also, interesting points from Elf on BD high-damage duelers, at least the ones whose damage is spammable and doesn't require too much setup. Trails in the Sky might have been the wrong comparison then as the damage queen of that cast, 100 CP Estelle, "only" threatens 1.00 PCHP damage or so on turn 1... high-damage BD duelers might yet do much better than that! We'll see.
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Yeah you'll have the following Classes one-rounding with a 4x action.
Monk
Black Mage
Knight
Time Mage
Salve-Maker * (With compounding shop. Ranges from gratuitious w/Dragon Fangs to 'scrapes a 1-rounding' without)
Pirate (only if twinked for offense, which sacrifices speed/a LOT of durability)
Arcanist
Dark Knight
That is... 8 out of 24 classes! You'd be hard pressed to find that much one-rounding in a cast!
The flip side is that performance against something with, say, 3x durability is way worse than a cast with similar numbers. But simple fact of the matter is that there are a lot more 1x durability things than there are 2.5x + in a DL format.
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That definitely looks right from my kneejerks regarding the cast. Of course, in a three-turn average, pretty much all buffs will also be seen in the averages (Conjurer applies Atk and Crit Up before his string, Performer does Love Power x2... this also applies, with more strings attached, to Arcanist and Dark Knight...).
(The most egregious one from that list is Knight, though Black Mage also benefits disproportionately because of Pierce M. Def. Arcanist was pretty much obvious from the Focus Magic+Interment combo and Time Mage reaches 9999 a pop from Meteor with solely DL-legal stuff even before endgame, so it's pretty in-line with in-game.)
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It is true Knight is a bit surprising for those who didn't land the Jlvl 14 skill. But you can land it well before endhame so I don't think it is too bad.
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It's still kinda mind-boggling to me because the skill itself feels pretty inefficient. 1 BP for 6.5k range damage when you're twinked for defense?
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I actually find Knight the least surprising name on that list (except Dark Knight obviously). They get Two Hands! Even if you did a stat topic based on lower-JL abilities only they'd probably be one of the better damage-dealers (unlike Monk/TM/BM).
One thing I do have to add re Salve-Maker is the fact that there are non-storebought ways to get their items isn't really relevant here; it is completely impractical/grindy to get them in the numbers needed for their DL matches without a store. For instance, in most DL matches with those items allowed, Salve-Maker is probably going to need to make their opponent weak to earth then use Earth Mallet ~4 times (less if the target is frail, but potentially a -lot- more if the target is durable... due to how Feel No Pain works I'm going to use 5 actions as the benchmark, though). This requires no fewer than 9 Desert Roses (and an Insect Antenna). It's completely impractical to run an offence off of these without a shop. It's much much worse than Rikku who at least can stock up on the one Petrify Grenade she needs to win a DL fight in a single action (not that I allow that either, of course).
In-game it's even worse. In order to do your "share" of party offence against a lategame boss with 200k HP (assuming one PC is given over to pure defense) you need to do 67k damage. In order to do that with Desert Roses you would need nearly 30 of these items. Per boss fight. This is insanely impractical to restock with Steal/Collect/whatever. So yeah, either you allow high-level Norende or you shouldn't be allowing these items in the DL.
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So, Question:
Thief's 150 speed (thanks to the passive *1.3 and *1.2) has a gratuitous effect on the averages. To give you an idea,
Agi: 78.25, stdev: 16.75
W/o Thief:
Agi: 75.13, stdev 7.00
Does this warrant any kind of outlier consideration? Basically Thief just makes the entire cast look 'averagish' for speed while it weighs in at +4.2 stdev...
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Hmm. There's really no precedent for removing anyone from the speed averages (e.g. Alena and Kanon are considered), so I'd be pretty opposed to making an exception here. Additionally, it fits in-game pretty well too: you are fast if you have thief's speed-boosting passives, otherwise not really. In fact, there's only one other class whose speed I even noticed (in the positive direction, at least): ninja.
It will also make me feel a lot better about a cast with 7 characters who OHKO average that most of them are below average speed.
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I don't think dumping all of Thief's SP into Speed +20% and 30% is DL-optimal. I mean, she also wants the Atk-boost passive on Steal, since it also activates upon using Life Thief - which is -already- most of Thief's DL damage outside Godspeed finishers). Still, that's a +40% to an already cast-best base (+10% and +30%, I'd be very shocked if the Atk-boost passive was 2 SP), so there's not much difference.
EDIT: Mainly, I think this won't really jeopardize Godspeed Strike much at all (no speed twinking involved, by the very endgame, I've had it doing 6k or so), since +40% still boosts it notably. Raising all of Thief's other damage by a maximum of 75% while -healing- sounds like a more important deal, and might even slightly raise her average damage in comparison unless the damage loss from -10% speed on GS is disproportionate.
Besides that, no-no to taking Thief out of the speed averages. Honestly, Thief being really fast, Ninja being kinda fast and everybody else failing to be noticeable (besides Knight, Summoner and Templar, who are -openly- slow) sounds exactly like in-game.
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According to job guide I have open it is 1 BP. I assume there is going to be some flex in thief setup based in if they need the extra healing from the buff or are juggling default/heal turns for Godspeed Strike.
Sitting in Chapter 3 with a fully kitted out Norende I honestly can't see myself not allowing most of it. Unless you blitz the game faster than a week I am pretty confident that with a bit of management and checking in frequently you should be able to get any specific thing from the village in most normal play timeframes if you update online once a day.
That is as someone that would allow full flexibility for people to change specs in DQ8 fight by fight though.
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Thief's default setup is defender and Bloody shield and only breaks def with God Speed Strike.
An allternate setup is with a bow and a minor speed hit to gain parasitic healing at the cost of def.
Other interesting setup choices!
Power Sash and accessory for +10 atk on some classes like spiritmaster and ninja where small boosts translate to large % changes in damage.
Naked Monk! Because my god that damage.
Pirate may want to dual wield for 20% more damage at the cost of more in durability.
Red Mage wants a defensive setup with a shield instead of a 2-rod setup that does not actually win any fights ever.
Vampire wants 2 diamond staves for the boost to the itd damage. Alternate would be a more durable setup with less damage.
Knight will never pick up a sword again. Even 2-H Stomp is aub-par...
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I believe it is spelt au pair actually (this is a joke).
I had been meaning to ask generic mechanics questions, if anyone knows them?
Dual wield of rods doesn't seem to scale M. Atk down with skill scaling or is it just not a display thing?
Evasion, does it only work on basic physicals? Because if it works on special attacks then I assume stuff is either going to be ITE a lot or stuff like Mirage Vest are going to scale really weird.
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Dual wielding rods doesn't scale down M.Atk... it just adds both bonuses to it.
Evasion does only work on basic physicals. Except for Utsumemi.
That said, there are still some cases where a fighter may want to go for 2 main Gauches, a Mirage vest, and a Black Cowl... this will tend to nix damage/durability... but if the PC has an evade buff they can turn this into >100% evade... so that'd be only TIme Mage, Ninja, and Conjurer.
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So lolrodlore and ffffffffffffffffff evasion interpretation if every actually had to vote on it in the DL (and stop caring about Evasion and just worry about P.Def in future).
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Vampire wants 2 diamond staves for the boost to the itd damage. Alternate would be a more durable setup with less damage.
Diamond Rods outdo Claymore in damage? Man, the difference an S does.
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Diamond Staff is only 2 points weaker, outdoing Claymore with an S-rank is a given.
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I keep forgetting how solid attack-wise some of the rods and staves are. It actually makes them viable choices for fighter classes running weapon lore.
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Staff Lore + Crescent Moon is how I learned to stop worrying and destroy chapter 3-4 randoms.
For what it's worth, I'd probably only see BD evasion working against basic physicals. (Same goes for any other games with similar evade stats.) Still lets the three classes Pyro mentioned spoil certain casts.
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The physical damage rods are pretty bad, but several of the staves are quite good, especially with MT moves where they get +25% damage.
Ninja spoils a ton of people with Utsusemi+Transcience anyways, which is much better than the evade stat both in-game and in DL. Evasion is limited to multi-actors/multi-hitters who rely on basic physicals, which are admittedly enough to be worth noting in the stat topic.
Idly, how effective would evade-boosting setups be for people who can inflict blind?
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Doesn't PS4 evade work in the same way? And Grandia for that matter? Is it traditional to constrict evade in those games to basic physicals only? Should Bravely Default physical skills be subject to evade now?
Other thing worth noting...
Poison Rods are of viable use for Arcanist, even if it is only allowing them to inflict the 'dummy' of the status. Exterminate is better damage and way less MP than the 1/4 MP ultimate.
Vampires beat any PC that gives them a turn. Battle Thirst is utterly ridiculous vs. anyone vulnerable to it in a duel at all.
Status in general is of a higher rate than the raw listed numbers due to the game's algorithms. As I don't understand the algorithms that well and don't have the game to continue testing them I'll leave that out.
Planning on using 380 as the assumed enemy Atk stat for effectiveness of defense. This is the average of (physical) optional C8 bosses and the required bosses. There is only one PC who can exceed the lowest enemy Atk stat, and they nearly null the highest enemy atk stat period. Knight > physicals seems completely fair. So 380 should work to give you a feel for how good the defense stat is.
Still not sure how to correlate Mdef and raw magic durability. It isn't nearly as strong as Pdef. I'll just list the average and each class' mdef.
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I dunno. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing it from now on anyway, though. Might be a case-by-case thing... there are some attacks which I would consider suitably close to basic physicals to be hit by this style of evade (for instance, FFT Battle Skill and Charge) but I do feel like reflecting the fact that this type of evade works against way fewer things and respecting it less as such.
EDIT: oh yeah, an example of a case where this is already common to do: Disgaea bosses. A lot of them apparently have amazing evade against physicals. Nobody gives a damn, because they can't evade techs, the source of all your in-game damage. (And, in fairness, a few things can evade techs... kind of an Utsusemi parallel?)
EDIT: Regarding Bravely Default Blind, I'm fairly sure it is independent from evasion; that is, the two are separate checks entirely. (Same as FFX, etc.) Certainly it should be noted that Blind, like Utsusemi, works on techs.
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Poison Rods are of viable use for Arcanist, even if it is only allowing them to inflict the 'dummy' of the status. Exterminate is better damage and way less MP than the 1/4 MP ultimate.
I suspected as much. Though the highest-mag storebought equip is the Poison Rod anyway.
Status in general is of a higher rate than the raw listed numbers due to the game's algorithms. As I don't understand the algorithms that well and don't have the game to continue testing them I'll leave that out.
That's definitely right. As far as I could test on C8 randoms, Black Mage status went 100% outside of specific randoms having high resistance against a status in particular (the armadillos in the final dungeon, for instance, highly resist ID, but they're the only ones who do). Vampire's magical status, untwinked for Magic, had a rate closer to the listed percentage, but generally still above.
Vampires beat any PC that gives them a turn. Battle Thirst is utterly ridiculous vs. anyone vulnerable to it in a duel at all.
Because the multiple, brutally accurate match-winning status attached to damage didn't do that as it stood. And then, there's the free, rather powerful draining and the parasitic stat buffing game. Vampires are just crazy good in the DL.
EDIT: Also, Pyro, I still have my endgame BD file, so once you have the numbers up I can do some tests on effective mdef. My levels are considerably higher than the upper threshold for levels (88, endgame ranges from 75-80), but there's a fair deal of flexibility involved with number manipulation via jobs and equips. I can testify that, on the enemy end, mdef is very potent (Lamp enemies, for instance, roughly third magical damage compared to average enemies around them), but I can test how the numbers effectively pan out for PCs. Probably some self-casting would be required, since enemies tend to stick to physicals. However, the MDef curve is considerably tighter than the PDef curve.
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Hmm. There's really no precedent for removing anyone from the speed averages (e.g. Alena and Kanon are considered), so I'd be pretty opposed to making an exception here.
Taishyr's DW3 topic included speed averages without Fighter and I believe he hyped that at some point? (Hyped Sage as above average speed, at least.) http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,1839.0.html That said, I agree, it's a dangerous policy that should be avoided. Also, per Jo'ou & Grefter, I'd actually be kinda surprised if that's truly Thief's optimal build anyway - the life-draining bow sounds better to me, draining is awesome in the DL and draining is even better when you can do Default -> 2x Life Thief, repeat. That said, even given the all-the-speed build... since this is a turn-based game, I might be willing to cap Thief's speed at some point where it becomes truly irrelevant, which isn't the same as throwing out Thief's speed. Past a certain point, TB speed becomes irrelevant - what if Thief had 1000 speed? 10000 speed? 100000000 speed? Fine, we get it, he goes first even underlevel vs. the speediest enemies, it stops mattering (except for Godspeed Strike damage). Where exactly the cap should lie depends on in-game enemies. (For an extreme example, take some hypothetical bugged game where all enemies have 0 Speed. Well, Speed is a trash stat in such a game, all your PCs are always faster than all the enemies, so speed doesn't actually matter.) I don't expect it'd have a huge effect on the average regardless. So... what's the endgame enemy speedrange? Add +30 to the fastest enemy in the game, and that might be a sane "cap" if it's really felt to be necessary.
Also, re money amounts for Salve-Maker & Merchant: Should be pointed out that this is a case where if you do Norende, you have lots of money sinks, so I'm a bit suspicious of the idea that there's nothing to spend money on late-game. All the Heike Armor, all the character costumes, Growth Eggs I suppose... Still only in C4, but I imagine that the 200,000 price tags should count as something reasonable to save up for if nothing else.
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Regardless, Thief's likely ramming something like 4 SDs above average at worst no matter what (1 SP on Burgle 'n Bluff+40% boost to cast-best speed by a notable margin in a game with otherwise tight speed numbers. And, besides B&B, the speed IS the best investment she can make, it boosts both her hit count and Godspeed Strike). She's hitting almost every TB arbitrary cap conceivable (what that entails for each person obviously varies). For me, for instance, she'd hit my TB speed cap at 3.5 SDs.
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Not like I'm anywhere near the point in the game where I can speak truly intelligently here, but the default DL builds used in averages should be whatever is statistically superior unless there's a strong reason otherwise (generally that strong reason would also need to be something in game to me). For example, Nosferatu often is both meh in game and a huge stat cut in the DL, so I don't take it as default. Sounds like this could be similar?
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I really doubt that two shots of slightly speed-twinked Godspeed Strike, which spends 2 BP (i.e. has a two-turn cooldown -by itself- and needs BP storage to even be used more than once in a burst turn) would outdo two shots of Life Thief (one of them being buffed by Attack +25%)+two slightly less speed-twinked Godspeed Strikes. Pyro's default build chosen can't even deal damage with anything outside Godspeed Strike, which honestly sounds like a complete bust in terms of duelling. I know Thief gives up at least 50 points of defense under that setup (and that's hugely significant), but I think if Thief deals even 1500 damage at base with Life Thief (up to a total of ~2500 with Burgle & Bluff), it risks being a net gain.
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Life Steal only does damage with a bow, which would give thief trash durability (kinda doesn't work well with any parasitic healing, let alone Life Steal which is going to be dogshit at endgame untwinked; I'll be surprised if it restores more than 20% of thief's HP per shot). I'd have to see the numbers but until I do, I'm inclined to trust the assessment of the person who has: that Godspeed Strike is the only viable thief move in a duel.
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My problem with it is how it's still a move that can be used once every -three- turns, or twice every -four-. Considering either average would have -two- Godspeed Strikes etched in there anyway (Default first turn is a given, Thief just wouldn't use the stored BP until turn three), unless the 10% speed has a huge effect on GS, I can't see it even outdoing a Bow average. Though I may consider it if Thief ends up with something like 0.5x pdur with a bow, that'd justify it. (And it's certainly possible, BD defense is goddamn potent)
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Again with the more gameplay oriented questions than duelling, but do we know hit count is based on Dex and not job level? Asking just because I got around to throwing 2 hands and Equip Spear on my thief and was very surprised at the amount of work that I am getting out of her. Sky rockets damage from 1/4 of Knight 2 Hands (before weaknes) on low defense enemies and struggling to break defense with a dagger to doing a bit more than the Knight now shifted over to Pirate (basic physical, not skill).
It isn't amazing or anything, but it is more solid than I expected. Especially knowing you can milk the most out of skills ignoring evade (Mug pretty legit because of this. Not great, but not bad).
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Hit count is based on both Agi and job levels at the very least, from what I know - and possibly also influenced by the class itself. Thief in the midgame actually doesn't do too badly for damage, high hit count and if you hand her a decent weapon (either a bow or a Lore weapon) she makes decent mileage out of it.
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Yeah it was Spear Lore because after reading this discussion (and hitting plateau of feasibly progression of JP at that point) I wanted to see if BP Amp was worth it for Godspeed Strike (It doesn't feel like it) and got it on the way. Spear and Axe stupid good in chapter 3 (Might require steal from Barbarossa to really make Axe so strong? Forget where I got that thing from).
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Godspeed Strike is based on Speed more than anything, so you want to use Speed + and Hermes equips to power it up (BP Amp I found largely not worth it, only Valkyries can really fly it even remotely properly because of how Jump works). Axes are just crazy good as long as you can mitigate their accuracy woes (Axe Lore on a Ranger, for instance, or just Hawkeye or using skills rather than basic physicals). Spears also finally come into their own at C3.
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OH OH OH stupid DL related thought.
Do people allow Time Slip for Time Mage to take effect? So Time Mage gets 2 rolls vs enemy status chance and stuff?
Not that I really am interested in my own thoughts, just a funny thing that passed through my mind.
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I think I probably do, but it's very rarely relevant due to how Brave works and Time Mage's modus operandi goes. It -is- quite funny, though.
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Yeah I was thinking of that earlier today and I realised I don't know. It certainly does matter for getting those ~80% opponent status odds down.
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Yeah it probably wouldn't really matter in the divisions that Time Mage would dabble. It would be a fun skill to throw on a bush league tournament full of shitty lights twinked to make them just that tiny bit less shitty in weird ways (or ruin good builds with crazy shit I suppose).