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Messages - Dark Holy Elf

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1
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Replayed this. Eirika HM. Decided to actually do early promotions. Core team was Eirika (promoted at 20), Ephraim (20), Seth, Tana (11, Wyvern Knight), Colm (16, Rogue), Vanessa (17, Wyvern Knight), Gerik (10, Hero), Duessel, Saleh, Lute (10, Mage Knight), Kyle (11, Paladin), and Tethys. Colm got pretty RNG blessed early, almost immediately turning into an excellent fighter. And then Tana possibly got even more RNG-blessed, even despite promoting early she was 23 str / 29 spd by the end, crazy.

Metroid

Amy wanted to see this. This is the first time I've played it since 2001, when I played it once before. It's... clunky. The DNA of later Metroid games is visible but it's just not very fun to play. Starting at 30 HP every time you die (which is as little as like ~5% later) is awful, the way the game emphasizes very slow grinding to heal is bad, lack of map is a bad combination with how same-y the areas are.

Kid Icarus

See above, another NES game which I consider much worse than at least one later game in the series. Made by some of the same people right after Metroid 1, so it's neat to play it as a pseudo-sequel. This one I haven't played since ~1996! Anyway while also obviously aged, I do think it's notably more fun than Metroid 1; enemies NOT dropping health is actually a huge addition by subtraction so I'm never tempted to grind, and you start off at reasonable HP anyway (100% early, as little as 40% later). Game's an odd hodgepodge of stages, the three castles have a bit of a Metroid feel but the rest of the game is either sidescrolling or upscrolling, with the latter being particularly dangerous because you can't go back, so if you fall you die, have fun.

Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line

Currently playing this. There's very little to say about it, it sure is more Theatrhythm. Which, naturally, means I'm having a good time.

2
Discussion / Re: RPG Ratings
« on: April 14, 2024, 12:17:59 AM »
Unicorn Overlord at 8/10. Good gameplay (which is both unique and well-polished), amazing spritework, kinda eh on writing. I think it would need either A+ gameplay or better writing to get a really good score, but I still had a lot of fun.

Star Ocean 4 down 1 to 7/10
Mario Rabbids 2 down 1 to 7/10
XCOM 1 down 1 to 6/10

3
Unicorn Overlord

Beaten. Around 75 hours, Level 40-43 or so.

Had a lot of fun with this one. I think from a purely tactical perspective the game could definitely be better, but I get it; this is an incredibly difficult sub-genre to do well-balanced combat for and all things considered they still manage okay. But really, there's just such a joy in tuning squads in so many ways to respond to threats the game presents. I can't say enough good things about how the game is very public with how everything works and wants you to interact with it. Definitely just an unexpected joy of a gameplay game. I averaged over 2 hours per day until I beat it which is pretty unusual for me.

Lovely art/sprites. I do wish the story were better; that is certainly gonna keep the game out of the 10/10 range. But very fun. In a weird way, despite the obvious genre difference, it reminds me of a Warriors game... not quite as mechanically tight as some of its competition, but extremely playable. (The mix of different sizes of maps also calls the mind this comparison.) Will definitely play again at some point, and it's a good sign when I'm saying that so quickly about a 70+ hour game.

4
Unicorn Overlord

Still having fun, nearing the end of Bastorias.

UO difficulty is a bit odd. Playing on Expert, and since the earlygame my only deaths are due to third-party loss conditions (which Hallowed Corne Ash can't even save you from, lol) which are often kinda hard to see coming. Which isn't really great. That said battles are engaging anyway. Short maps can't really challenge you too much because items let you stomp things, but in long maps the 10 item limit is definitely a consideration.

Phantasy Star 4

Completed with no helmets or items. The hardest boss indeed proved to Lashiec, since with no armour even Thunder Halberd 2HKOs everyone, as does Another Gate, so I'm healing all the time, and only have four Star Dews. Profound Darkness had me worried about losing at a couple points (Megid after Cancelling one-shots some people so every time the latter is used, a bit of luck is needed to have Wren outpace the boss) but I pulled through, Raja was clearly the best choice since his Blessing buff let me Chaz and Rika survive the physicals, even without shields.

Air Castle and Garuberk Tower were both tough dungeons. Frost Sabers (an enemy) are very dangerous in particular because if they get a turn at 50% health or below they will use Air Slash which as a MT physical does crazy damage. Best solution against more than one ended up being to have Rika cast Saner so that I'd then reliably outpace them next turn and blitz them down. Tonoe Basement was probably still the toughest ultimately; Chaz and Rune getting to hang out in the back and cast Rever if necessary after the fight ends is certainly a big help.

The shield decision is always the biggest one for equips in this game. Kyra always had two shields which tended to make her the tankiest PC (although I usually put Wren in front for randoms), Hahn/Seth/Rune/Raja too though that's unsurprising. I only bothered with shield Chaz for the brief sections lategame where he's alone (more on that below). Rika was the one who varied the most; in the first half of the game I often had her with one shield just to have someone who could take hits near the front. After getting the Silver Tusk and Thunder Claw her offence is just too good to curtail in randoms, so I always used two claws for them, but usually switched to a shield for bosses (notable exception being PD, as above).

I actually lost the Chaz duel with Alys's ghost/illusion which feels like it shouldn't happen. 2HKOed by someone faster! Even with two shields! Yikes. The loss of endgame armour is a huge hit. Anyway I solved that by using the Swift Helm itemcast to outspeed her, then heal and wait for a dodge with my boosted speed, RPGDL strats here.

Was fun! Never really had too much trouble at any one point of the game but it made for a pretty neat hard mode experience.

5
Unicorn Overlord

What if Vanillaware wrote a giant love letter to Fire Emblem but borrowed Ogre Battle's gameplay concept? Having a blast with this. I'm not the biggest fan of Ogre Battle or Soul Nomad's gameplay so I was a bit leery about this too but the game is such an evolution of their formula. The game really wants you to get into building squads, considering how they imteract with enemy squads, and even adjust your tactics (AI settings basically) to get the results you want. It ends up being a lot of fun.

The game has a damage projection system which tells you how the battle will go, even accounting for the RNG. It's a bit of an odd choice since if you don't like how a battle is projected to go, often a good strategy is to mess with the RNG in various ways (toggling on/off assist actions, for instance, or doing a different combat first). But it ends up working pretty well anyway? The game might be even better with a detailed battle projection that included the percentage chance of each individual unit in the battle to fall, but it could have been much worse with no projection at all since combats are too complicated to hand-predict, so I'm not gonna complain too much.

The story's a bit disappointing. There are glimmers there, but yeah, this is definitely more in the style of Archanaea or Elibe Fire Emblem. Really feel the game could have stood to be more ambitious here; the two main villains are both particularly dreadful so far.

On the other hand the graphics and animations rule. Octopath Traveler had me thinking I just don't vibe with sprites these days but clearly that's a lie, since the spritework in this game is beautiful. I spend more time than I should watching the battle animations because they're so great (fortunately the game lets you choose whether to watch a battle play out or whether to skip it each time, good QoL there).

Playing on Expert, currently in Elheim.


Other things:

Phantasy Star 4

Replayed this for the heck of it. Enjoyed it a lot, but I know the game too well at this point and I was craving something more difficult. So I'm now replaying this again with a challenge run of "don't use helmets or armour". This has the effect of making everything tougher, but randoms moreso than bosses; enemies can do loads of damage so it's important to find ways to kill random formations as fast as possible. Hahn and Gryz are even worse than usual because they're so slow. Up to the Air Castle. The hardest dungeon was Tonoe Basement (a flashback to my first playthrough where I missed the Tonoe shops), with Nurvus being a notable second. Bosses aren't as buffed relatively but Dark Force 1 having a multitarget physical made him nasty (which is funny, I'd consider him one of the easiest bosses normally) and Xe-A-Thouls having three of them is also scary, for all that I've beaten every boss on the first try so far. Lashiec having another multitarget physical will likely test that.

Metroid Dread - Beat the game in hard mode in under 4 hours, which is the "best" ending. Also beat it on normal mode in under 3.

6
Metroid Fusion - I got 100% items. And then I realized that there's an ending for getting 100% in 2 hours and I'd never gotten it, so my task was clear. 2 hours is definitely not too far from speedrun territory (the world record is a bit over an hour as I recall) so it's a bit tight, but I had fun plotting out a route (no clue if it's the best) to snag everything and then executing it. Took a few save loads on some of the more difficult items, but less than I feared. Ended up at 1:38 which is hardly great (included several major errors which I decided to shrug off) but good enough for me.

Fire Emblem Engage - This is the ninth mainline FE game I've completed three times. The women only run is done. Some notes:

-Chapter 1 is in theory trickier without Vander but is still largely scripted.
-Chapter 2 is... tricky without Vander for sure, but manageable.
-Chapter 3 is the hardest map of the run without question. Enemies come at you in waves of several, and I only had three units (Alear, Framme, Etie). Took several tries to execute a plan to survive the opening round, and the boss is just hellish since she basically can't be damaged except by Alear's personal boosting one of her allies and even then only barely, and she's carrying a vulnerary to heal and drag things out further! Ack. Eventually I manage it. I don't want to imagine what this map would be like if the pegasus knights had even 1 more HP so Etie would miss one-shots on them, y'know like how FE normally treats its earlygame archers.
-Chapter 4 and 5 are tougher than normal, and I'm unable to keep Louis from dying, the only casualty of the run. Still, our lord and saviour Chloe joins and that helps a lot. Celine's nice too.
-From Chapter 7 on the game plays fairly normally, with lack of Seadall being the only major noteworthy thing.

Alear (180/90): Griffin Knight with Lucina. So I'd read about Bonded Shield (engage command which protects adjacent allies of same movement type from first hits, doubles/braves/chain attacks go through) but never used it as much as it probably deserves. This playthrough... yeah I decided to leverage it more. I didn't always rely on it but typically used it on one or two turns in most fights, and it's really good at protecting a fast mounted mage. Alear is a good user because of the support list and personal.
Framme (13/13): Staffbot. Was basically only used when deployment was very high, but hey, she was one of the top fourteen, so that's something. Chain Guard has some nifty uses early but way too much worse than Bonded Shield later.
Etie (183/116): Warrior, used Marth earlygame. Her high kill count says more about her high availability and lack of staff access or utility than anything else, she was actually #13 and definitely benched in a bunch of maps. Good at killing fliers with Radiant Bow midgame but eventually even that falls off. Perhaps I should have forged her a brave or something for the lategame but I was worried I'd be too underlevelled for even that to work.
Celine (179/99): Sage with Byleth. Thyrsus good, Byleth's boost to magic and speed very good, Goddess Dance busted as always. Generally competent magical unit at most points.
Chloe (312/232): Wyvern with Sigurd. Just ridiculous. Post-well I think Chloe has a case to be the best physical unit in Engage, just dominates from the moment she joins and never lets up, has Canter when her competition doesn't in part 2 and then Lance Power plus her innate speed on Wyvern (which she reaches without a Second Seal) is just kinda amazing forever. Sigurd's a very good emblem, canter is extremely good and having it without a skill slot rules, and move is always the best stat.
Lapis (22/15): Filler in Chapter 7-11 (held Leif) and again in 14. You can make her work but I didn't really bother.
Citrinne (176/105): Mage Knight with Micaiah. Micaiah giving staves to someone with high magic is always nice. Kinda rocks right out of the gate due to promotion giving her speed but it does fall off eventually. Still the Micaiah user always has uses and her Levin Sword does wonderful things to enemy armours.
Jade (7/2): Filler in Chapter 10-11, not much to say.
Ivy (224/171): Lindwurm with Lyn. Here we are, default "canon" Ivy. Her naturally high magic combined with Lyn's high speed leads to someone who can easily reach ORKO thresholds with Elfire/Bolganone, Speedtaker to really get rolling and then Bonded Shield lets her clear out enemy formations like a champ. Would have been even better if I'd thought to put Celica engraving on a Fire (and upgrade it to Elfire) but still was probably the MVP of the run.
Hortensia (156/35): Sleipnir with Corrin. Flying 3 range Corrin user OP, it is known. Hortensia can't do the damage with it Ivy does, and the battle/kill numbers speak for themselves, she was always chipping enemies to freeze them and debuff them. She uses staves sometimes too of course, since she is good at that, but not nearly as much as she did evil debuffy combat. Corrin also lets her take hits with her beefy +15 HP, how novel.
Goldmary (143/78): Wyvern with Roy. Roy lets her easily get Sword Power so that was her build. It'd be nice if she were a bit faster but the offence is adequate (high atk) and the bulk is ridiculous, we're talking something like 45 def/30 res with Binding Blade by the end. And Hold Out for the extra hit at the end. Not quite as durable as the Ike-user and also no free Reposition, but significantly better offence.
Timerra (139/88): Picket with Eirika. Despite favouring her (I gave her the C14 boots, they're from her castle!) she was one of the less useful PCs overall. I gave her Lance Power (though it took longer to get than Chloe because of needing Sigurd levels via bond fragments) but the offensive stats just aren't great and proc skills aren't as useful as just building up reliable kill numbers, and don't stack with crits as nicely as you might like. No Eirika user is ever BAD lategame, mind, Sieglinde rocks (though kinda highlights a flaw of the build, Eirika wants Sword Power, not Lance).
Merrin (125/71): Wolf Knight. The opposite of Timerra, I did not favour her at all, never even giving her an emblem until the end when Marth rejoins. But she's so good midgame anyway, those bases. With no favouritism dagger offence does fall off a hell of a lot, major damage issues toward the end and there's no Knife Power to fix this, and Marth doesn't really do enough the way Eirika or Roy can.
Panette (170/110): Warrior with Leif. Standard Wrath/Vantage Panette build. Pretty good! You obviously have to watch numbers but nobody else has her power/crit combo (and good hit too!) so she pulls the build off well, impressively so considering it uses such a low-demand emblem.
Anna (11/4): I'm impressed I somehow got her 4 kills, though I did use her until Chapter 11 I suppose. Anna used as filler is very bad. Hey guys do you want Boucheron's bases four chapters later? Yeah me neither.
Yunaka (48/25): Filler for Chapter 6-11 and 14. To her credit, is better at it than my other filler units, Thief is a good earlygame class.
Saphir (99/42): Warrior with Ike. So Panette used Ike until she got Wrath and Leif. Conveniently Saphir joins shortly after, so Ike's gotta go somewhere! Her build also lends itself to Wrath since she gets a hit boost at low HP, but the power's no Panette so I didn't try to pull of Vantage/Wrath with her. Okay filler, durable and longbow chain attacks and all that.
Veyle (52/22): Dragon with Celica. So Celica's Echo gets range+1 on dragons, that's actually pretty sexy for Caduceus-esque counter ignoring. Too bad about her HP, and also the lack of staff access (outside Celica's Recover, which is nice to be fair) but she pulled her weight decently as magical might late without needing much investment or taking an in-demand emblem.

Was fun.


Since then the two things I've played are Troubleshooter and Unicorn Overlord since y'know I like SRPGs. Troubleshooter looks kinda interesting but is a bit of a slow starter, definitely seems like a game with too many systems for its own good so far.

7
Since kicking the year off with Super Metroid and Three Houses, I've followed that up by played various other sidescrollers. And also Fire Emblem.

Super Mario Bros. 1 - I didn't take a hit until world 3 and didn't lose a life until world 5 (blame the surprise water stage in a pipe). Felt pretty good. Still game overed a couple times in world 8 though; still remains rude after all these years.
Super Mario Bros. 2 - Played through entirely as Mario, who is generally pleasant enough even though not being able to hit some of the bigger horizontal jumps is unfortunate. That said I decided not to take any of the major shortcuts through levels anyway. Built up loads of lives so never had to fear the game over screen, final level is still mean though.
Metroid: Samus Returns - This game is definitely proto-Dread, so it's interesting to revisit. Dread really is quite a lot better though; this game doesn't have nearly as good boss design (the second type of Metroid isn't really much fun to fight and you fight way too many of them) and the controls don't feel nearly as good, it's a more boring exploration experience too. That said it's still checks all those good Metroid boxes and was fun to revisit for sure; a very good game, just not outstanding like Dread or Super or...
Metroid Fusion - I feel I just appreciate this game more and more with time. So many brilliant atmospheric moments which really elevate the story. Good boss fights, good exploration, the feelings of slowly breaking free of constraints really resonates with me more than "here is a big open environment, go do whatever", good use of horror elements. I basically like everything about this game. Gonna have to play Dread again to decide which one is my favourite Metroid, I think. Or just leave it as a tie. Anyway, so far I've done a playthrough where I got 100% and a playthrough which I finished in 1:08. I realized there's an ending for 100% in under two hours and I don't think I've ever gotten that, so that's next.

Fire Emblem Engage - Doing a women-only playthrough. No Vander makes Chapter 3 hard, man. That said past the earlygame it's normal enough; Seadall is certainly the main unit I miss, not having him keeps some of the worst nonsense Corrin and Byleth would normally enable under control. This is the first time I kept both Lucina and Lyn on their starting users and the combination is completely cracked.

8
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 5 + Rankings!
« on: February 07, 2024, 02:06:48 AM »
Godlike

Yuna (Final Fantasy X) vs Belial (Wild ARMs 4): Don't really see a problem hyping 4D Pocket here myself.

Heavy

Mei-ling (SaGa Frontier) vs Cthulhu (Cthulhu Saves Christmas): His damage is dark, not physical, so I wouldn't see Deflect working. And while there's a chance LIghtsword buffs Mei-ling durability enough to not get one-shotted (would have to check), Mei-ling needs to heal on turn 1 to not get finished by this, and thus Lightsword turn 2, and then Cthulhu goes first on turn 3 and uses some other random magic damage.

Light

Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage) vs Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics): Yep, Solution is a thing. Mediator too much for Light.

Rankings

Yes to Persona 5 (DNR Joker?) and Triangle Strategy (DNR Idore? Weird case where he's apparently waaay better on a route which is extremely difficult to see outside NG+). Overall would prefer not to see P1 but could be argued.

9
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 4
« on: January 28, 2024, 03:04:41 PM »
Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
I'll just note since it came up a bit ago that, while DL "interps" that are sometimes in-game nerfs (e.g. FFX characters all starting at 0 Overdrive) are necessary...  Vritra probably does win this if given the arms on turn 1?  Saying they start pre-dead is always a tad arbitrary, even if it makes Heat a more reasonable Godlike rather than Bluelike.

Definitely not convinced this is true. Yuna still goes first and if I look at the Magus Sisters vs. Vritra I'm definitely favouring the former, he just does not have the offence to overwhelm them and sooner or later they'll punch through his defensive game.

But more generally I do agree that it's a bit of a "compromise" interp about whether support is allowed in fights or not - my general view is "no unless the support is summoned as part of gameplay". If you want to argue it would be more true to in-game to just allow the tentacles from the battle start, that's fair, but I'd point out it's also more true to in-game for Heat to sit around not resummoning them for a few turns after you kill them.


Re Tank Drop and Love Token, while I could potentially see going either way on that one, I don't think it matters? It only kicks in 1/3 of the time as a counter to physicals, so it shouldn't kick in after one Tank Drop, and if Belial needs more than two to win she'll have bigger problems (but nobody seems to consider Goddess to have enough pdur for that, certainly not me). I suppose you could scale it up to account for the fact that one Belial attack represents multiple PCs attacking Goddess in-game, but the combination of that and "works on Tank Drop" (when it doesn't work on physical swordtechs, tools, or blitzes) seems highly suspect.

10
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 4
« on: January 28, 2024, 02:28:48 AM »
Godlike

Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
Goddess (Final Fantasy VI) vs Belial (Wild ARMs 4): Belial 2HKOs with Tank Drop, but Goddess is probably something like 150% speed so doesn't get instant doubled and OHKOs. So... Belial puts up distortion instead? Yeah, that probably stops everything Goddess does, her MT focuses so at best the barrier existing should make it do half damage = not OHKO. And Belial should 3-2. Charm's deadly but not turn 1.

Heavy

Mei-ling (SaGa Frontier) vs Kyra Tierney (Phantasy Star IV): Kyra's only argument requires giving Telele a judgement call and Telele does not deserve judgement calls. (Even with that judgement call Mei-ling might still win.)
Cthulhu (Cthulhu Saves Christmas) vs Anna Pascal (Triangle Strategy): Close. Take Cover gives Anna a definite shot, since it blocks most of what Cthulhu does. The problem is that Cthulhu can still apply Hyper Plague on his first hyper turn, and this kills Anna around turn 5 (opening Torment + four turns of poison + Tentacles defend Tentacles again). Anna... can't really kill Cthulhu before then while keeping regen up. Unstoppable is a major issue since she can't just go for a blitz or Cthulhu will murder her with something (he keeps the fourth move as damage, maybe Berserk), she needs to Take Cover again on the turn she kills him, so it takes too long to get there.

Middle

Dedue Molinaro (Fire Emblem Three Houses) vs Ba'Thraz (Chained Echoes): Goes first and 2HKOs? Ba'thraz was impressive in earlier matches but here he just doesn't get enough time.

Light

Amalia (Chained Echoes) vs Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage): Ivy 2HKOs and counters, Amalia... best bet is to use Aura to turn that into a 3HKO, though Ivy's class skill means she'll still unreliably 2HKO making a slow win risky. Like... even with that, her only hope is to use her terrible MT physical to avoid counters and she'll still lose when Grasping Void kicks in after a turn she stops to heal.
Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Zelkov (Fire Emblem Engage): Probably fast enough to avoid doubles, in particular I was also thinking about the point that Mediator is probably faster than the stat topic implies due to Sprint Shoes being their obvious default accessory. Match entirely hinges on that, Mediator wins on turn 3 and Zelkov is clearly not 2HKOing but equally clearly is at least 4HKOing.

On reflection Mediator is an extremely good Light (if they belong there at all), "wins on turn 3 with above average speed and fine durability and incredibly good equipment options" (and is even better against mages due to Solution) is quite the combo there.


Data Mine

Bolding the ones I've played

Bravely Default II
Chained Echoes

Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance
Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny
Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless
Fire Emblem Engage
Labyrinth of Touhou: Gensokyo and the Heaven-Piercing Tree
Octopath Traveler II
Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess
Rhapsody III: Memories of Marl Kingdom
This Way Madness Lies
Triangle Strategy


11
Super Metroid

Played this randomly for the first time in a few years. I'm rusty but 52% in 1:24 is still pretty good. Just a really fun game to play around with even if the controls feel a bit clunky these days.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

New run idea: everyone trains exactly one skill. No variety! Well mostly. More of an interesting science experiment than an actual challenge run. It was harder than normal, but not dramatically.

1. Each character can only train one skill. "Train" covers faculty training (Byleth), setting as a goal, active instruction, and group tasks. It does not cover any automatic training before recuirtment (obviously) or actions in battle. However...
2. Characters whose chosen skill is a weapon or magic type (i.e. swords, lances, axes, bows, brawling, reason, faith) can ONLY use that weapon or magic type in battle. Characters who have a movement or authority skill are not restricted in this way.
3. Seminars are banned.
4. For battles where the deployment limit is 11 or less, each deployed character must be specializing in a different skill. For battles where the deploy limit is 12, there may be exactly one pair of characters sharing a specialization, since there are only 11 trainable skills. Adjutants may have any specialization, though rule (2) still applies to them.
5. Characters' advanced/master class(es) must in some way correspond to their specialization. i.e. I can't get Jeritza, train him in armour, and then keep him in non-armour advanced classes.

Results of the above rules:
1. Recruitment of many students (especially Ferdinand and Caspar) becomes significantly more difficult.
2. Most characters will likely need to certify in a one-prerequisite Advanced class. However, some caveats:
a. Lance specialists will likely need to go through Cavalier to gain enough skill exp to reach Paladin. Lance specialists basically need to start with at least E+ riding to have a shot at this path.
b. Riding specialists will need to use lances in battle in order to reach Cavalier / Paladin.
c. Flying specialists will need to use axes in battle to reach Wyvern, optional lances for Pegasus.
d. Armour specialists will need to use axes in battle to reach Fortress Knight.
e. Authority specialists will likely have serious trouble reaching any high-end classes. Dancer, however, is a legal choice for them.

Anyway, the hardcore mono-focus has interesting effects, particularly on the characters I focused on manual training for. Because authority/armour doesn't really need much training beyond B, riding/flying beyond A+, this means that the weapon specialists got a lot of attention. Anyway, for them:
-Characters reached A in their primary specialization around Chapter 7. Great for Sylvain (Swift Strikes) and Dorothea (Meteor).
-Characters reached A+ around Chapter 9.
-Characters reached S around Chapter 11(!)
-Characters reached S+ around Chapter 15. Crazy.
Coversely, authority obviously caused problems. Edelgard and Byleth hit B in late part 1, others (not Felix) hit C around then or slightly earlier, and never hit B... except Petra who used a Knowledge Gem for much of part 2. Felix hit D authority in early part 2 and then I wondered why I bothered.


Unit notes include battles/kills in parentheses, in ascending kill order.

Linhardt (faith, 30/13): Priest->Bishop. Seiros Holy Monks. I mean aside from losing armour- and flying-killing this isn't too different from vanilla Linhardt, Physic all day with occasional Warp or Stride. His damage was wretched but White Range+ (yes!) lategame actually mattered for expanded threat.

Jeritza (flying, 28/14): Wyvern Rider. Training him in flying gives him Darting Blow, so he was pretty generically cool, though since he didn't get Alert Stance+ or even to Wyvern Lord (due to failing five ~70% certifications in a row) he was definitely the backup one.

Mercedes (riding, 78/46): Mage->Valkyrie. Empire Magic Users. Asked to join around chapter... 10 I think? And I realized that I kinda wanted a second Physic user, so I set her to riding since she already had C+ reason and faith and thus made a capable Valkyrie. She certified in Chapter 14 and I added her to the team then. Didn't get Fortify or Ragnarok but wielding Thyrsus and sniping things from range 5 while also having Healing Staff Physic is still real good as it turns out.

Hubert (authority, 109/50): Mage->Dancer. Unlike normal Hubert he can't use any faith magic at all, and he was slower to get his key spells, so definitely subpar until dancer made this not matter. Authority is important but super authority focus not so much, apparently, though it'd be an interesting thought for Dimitri if I tried this run on AM.

Balthus (armour, 160/63): Brigand->Fortress Knight. Impregnable Wall battalion. Fortress Knight just ruins units, even ones designed for it. I got him in Chapter 3; at that point he was one of my best units with Curved Shot and Smash and good str/def. Falls off with time as he always tends to but when Advanced hits he really fell off a cliff, couldn't kill anything and all he could do is struggle to reach better units and protect them with Wall. Ended up like Level 27 when everone else was in the mid 30's.

Bernadetta (riding, 157/65): Cavalier->Paladin. Lances were her weapon of focus, but since I couldn't train her in them she didn't get Vengeance until like... Chapter 10? By which point other people were getting better killing power anyway, so she never really excelled. At least having both Tempest Lance and Curved Shot early was useful. Was replaced by Mercedes after Chapter 13.

Felix (brawling, 187/93): Brawler->Grappler. Jeralt's Mercenaries. From here on we hit the combat mainstays. Easy to recruit thanks to Byleth being a swordy. Anyway no 2 range sucks. Pretty good at killing things if he reached melee but definitely not perfect? Sylvain was better even at that. Really wish Brawl Avoid didn't require faith for this, I kinda used him as a semi-dodgetank with Jeralt+Ingrid adjutant and he'd be so much better if I could go all the way. As is, kinda meh, and particularly bad in Intermediate despite Nimble Combo.

Sylvain (lances, 234/110): Brigand/Cavalier->Paladin. Supreme Armoured Co. Did you know Chapter 2 Sylvain starts with D+ axes, letting him reach Brigand? Wild. Anyway Swift Strikes in 7, with Death Blow soon after, is silly. Kills all but the bulkiest enemies with high move and canter, yes please. Lategame CF isn't too cavalry-friendly as always which hurts him a bit but still very solid overall. Turns out pure lance is very much a valid Sylvain build!

Shamir (bows, 205/127): Sniper. Empire Snipers. Sylvain and Linhardt don't lose much from mono-focus, sure. Shamir, though? Basically loses nothing, besides B rank battalions. Get Hunter's Volley, kill things with Hunter's Volley. What more can be said?

Byleth (swords, 301/131): Thief->Enlightened One. Gloucester Knights. Swords would not be a fun specialization for a lot of people due to the lack of 2 range, as usual Creator Sword goes a long way toward making this more palatable. So, for that matter, is Enlightened One; even with magic banned, having +1 move on Swordmaster is a big deal. Windsweep is fun. Otherwise, generically solid stats.

Edelgard (axes, 305/151): Brigand->Warrior. Empire Heavy Soldiers. Emperor vs. Warrior is a reasonable debate (power/speed vs. defence), Armored Lord is trash though. Anyway, I gave her Fetters of Dromi to make Raging Storm better and generally to get my strongest statistically unit to better places faster. A pale shadow of Wyvern Edelgard but still one of the better units throughout the game.

Petra (flying, 313/145): Pegasus/Brigand->Wyvern Rider->Wyvern Lord. Galatea Pegasus (eventually). Alert Stance+ in Chapter 9 is a fun time! That said lack of other sources of evasion midgame (namely B authority for Galatea or Secret Transport, and a flying adjutant, and lower prowess skills) do hold the build back a bit. Had to really muscle it out in lance and then axe training to reach pegasus and wyvern. So a bit awkward, but with Death/Darting Blow and AS+ she was never going to be anything less than outstanding.

Dorothea (reason, 273/164): Mage->Warlock. Vestra Sorcery Engineers. Blast away with range 5-6 Thoron, great times. Black Tomefaire is wonderful, she one-shots axes/swords/bows and one-rounds armours all the way to the very end of the game. Not having healing was bad but early Meteor/Agnea/Range+/Tomefaire go a long way for making up for it, really good for a 4 move unit.

I dunno who the overall MVP was. Probably one of the Eagles women or Sylvain.

12
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 3
« on: January 14, 2024, 10:08:26 PM »
Godlike

Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Lamington (Disgaea: Hour of Darkness): Lamington doesn't really have a great way past the tentacles.
Riou (Suikoden II) vs Yuna (Final Fantasy X): Faster.
Goddess (Final Fantasy VI) vs Aeterna (I am Setsuna): Yeah this seems rigt.
Belial (Wild ARMs 4) vs Ryu (Breath of Fire IV): 4D Pocket is kinda evil. She probably doesn't need it.

Heavy

Mei-ling (SaGa Frontier) vs Mystic Knight (Final Fantasy V): See Snow, this is probably an initiative 2HKO and even if she misses, she can buff once with LightSword first.
Temenos Mistral(Octopath Traveler II) vs Kyra Tierney (Phantasy Star IV): Bindwa to the rescue! That can buy her time until the debuffs wear off. Of course, she'll actually have to win at some point, and that... would basically need her to get lucky with sleep's duration. Temenos can also do massive damage to her (like 90%) so I imagine he can heal-lock somewhat (she's faster I guess but Octopath speed). I'm not certain. If Kyra had more than four shots of Bindwa I'd definitely vote her, but as is she'll need to get lucky reasonably quickly. EDIT: Going with 074's vote.

Middle

Dedue Molinaro (Fire Emblem Three Houses) vs Kyrie (Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark): Dedue 3HKOs, Kyrie 4HKOs. After a slow counter, Dedue gets his next two turns in the time it would normally take him to get three, but that still means he gets his third turn just before Kyrie gets her fourth. Dedue's 3HKO is high so I don't think regen saves Kyrie here.
Ba'Thraz (Chained Echoes) vs Tiki (Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem): Tiki is just durable enough to survive a Heaven and Hell Metal Dagger, so Ba'Tharz doesn't win until turn 3. Tiki also wins on turn 3, and is faster. Except... wait. Ba'Tharaz gets massive damage boosts at low HP, both from Revenge and from SOS Atk Up (which I don't think Tiki can dodge). So he just one-shots. Wild.

Light

Corselia (Suikoden Tactics) vs Amalia (Chained Echoes): Both fail at killing each other, but Corselia runs out of MP and panel regen eventually. Heal/Concentration lets Amalia stay afloat indefinitely.
Primrose Azelhart (Octopath Traveler) vs Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage): Doubt Primrose doubles to me, and she may win even if she is because I definitely agree that doubles would not give extra BP.
Mediator (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Heather (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn): Think this is right.
Vitali (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters) vs Zelkov (Fire Emblem Engage): And this.

13
Discussion / Re: 2023 Gaming in Review
« on: January 07, 2024, 01:07:33 AM »
I've put the games in order as a thought exercise but I really want to emphasize: the seven games I've played this year are not far from being in a seven-way tie. They probably run from a high 7/10 to a high 8/10 in my sccoring system.

7. Octopath Traveler 2 (Switch, Square Enix, 2023)

Easily the best game I've ranked last in one of these year-end reviews. Did you want to play more Octopath Traveler 1? Because that's pretty much what this is. You follow the stories of eight characters, four women and four men, each representing an archetypical Final Fantasy class (the same eight as the previous game), the stories largely not intersecting until a brief endgame which ties them all together. In battle you hit enemy weaknesses to break them for a turn, stunning them and allowing you to do big damage with a stored resource called BP.

Fortunately the core Octopath gameplay remains fun, and the increase of unique skills for each character, including a limit-break-like "latent power" unique to each PC, is welcome. The game takes a while to hit its stride, but the later boss fights are definitely quite enjoyable.

Writing's a bit of a mixed bag. Some stories are quite good, some are meh. It's not really a game I'd recommend primarily for writing but there's some at least moderately interesting stuff there. Music is pretty great. The artstyle isn't very good IMO (the combination of no character portraits and the zoomed-out sprites make many cutscenes feel lifeless) but it's unique I guess.

I'm not sure. In some way when I look back on it, I don't think this game is THAT good but I certainly had a good time playing it.

6. Chained Echoes (Switch, Matthias Linda, 2022)

Chained Echoes reminds me a bit of a Zeboyd game, in that its Chrono Trigger-esque pixel art could trick you into thinking it's backwards-looking, but it actually has a neat and unique combat system. Core to the experience of Chained Echoes is the overdrive gauge, a party-wide gauge you want to keep in a "sweet spot"; you're rewarded with lower ability costs if you do and get punished by taking extra damage if you don't. Some abilities raise the gauge, and some lower it, and which does which can change with the flow of the battle. Characters have interesting skillsets and there's in-battle party switching so "what should I do with my turn" tends to be a fun exercise which rewards thinking ahead and planning. It's a lot of fun!

On the writing front, the game's... okay? The English of the game isn't the best and while the story has its moments, it also has some awkward bits too. The game tries, which I appreciate (it's trying to be Xenogears more than Chrono Trigger), but overall it's not a game I'd recommend for this alone.

The pixel art is wonderful if that's your thing.

5. Stray Gods (Switch, Summerfall, 2023)

Stray Gods is a delightful little game. I'd liken it to a single-case Ace Attorney game: there's a murder mystery to solve, and of course, the protagonist has been accused of the crime and is guilty until proven innocent. Which makes a bit more sense in this world than in Ace Attorney-land, because your accusers are the Gods of Greek mythology, who have survived in secret to the present day. Also there is lots and lots of singing.

The game's a fun romp. Puzzling out the motivations of these immortal beings, as informed by the rich backstory the game paints for them, is definitely enjoyable. The characters are well-done

Even compared to other similar games, it's not really a gameplay game... the biggest thing is you can control the directions songs take and while that's definitely fun for roleplaying reasons (and certainly your decisions during the songs can influence a bunch of stuff in the game), it's not really a pass/fail type of experience. So in it is less a game and more of an interactive musical murder mystery.

And there's only so high I want to rate that. But for what it was, I definitely enjoyed it a lot.

4. This Way Madness Lies (Switch, Zeboyd, 2022)

Zeboyd hits another one out of the park. Like Cthulhu Saves Christmas it's a game with well-balanced battles and a neat system. The story of magical girl Shakespeare nerds is endearing and amusing (not winning any awards for serious plot, but that's not really what it's going for) and it turns out that yes, I am here for Zeboyd giving their opinions on Shakespeare plays.

Mostly it's a gameplay game above all. Compared to Cthulhu Saves Christmas I liked that it had more PCs and party choice. You get to choose all seven abilities again, and there's enough updates and particularly a constant influx of new traits (passives) which keep things interesting. As ever, Zeboyd games do a good balance of making you want to win quickly as enemies power up, and making status ailments a very effective part of your gameplan.

A good time. I enjoyed it enough to play it through twice, including once on New Game Plus, which is not something I do in games very often!

3. Into the Breach (Switch, Subset Games, 2018)

I was a bit skeptical about this game. It's a SRPG, but one which eschews pretty much any writing. (You are defending a timeline from aliens. There are many timelines, each playthrough represents a different one. That's about it all there is to say.) So I get to answer the question, would I enjoy almost non-existent story/characters? Turns out, yes.

It's an addictive little game because each playthrough can be a bit different - you can play as many different squads, get different upgrades even if you use the same one, etc. And yet battles just feel very fundamentally fair, at least on the difficulties I played (normal and hard). Enemy moves are telegraphed at the start of each round, so each round involves you planning on how to mitigate the damage they'll deal, both to your units and to the cities you are protecting. It's very fun because your toolkit, while limited (most units will have at most two "weapons"), includes many options that move things around: your allies, enemies, etc. So it's often very fun to puzzle out ways to use your three turns, your interesting action options, and the environment to win.

Playthroughs are short but the game is highly replayable and intended as such. I played it a lot! It's good.

2. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, Nintendo, 2017)

Speaking of games I was skeptical of, let's talk about Zelda.

I've joked about this before: before this, the most recent mainline Zelda game I played all the way through was made before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's a big series in the mind of gamers, yet for the most part it doesn't really appeal to me.

Does Breath of the Wild change that? Not entirely. I can't say I'm jumping up and down to play more open-world games and I'm certainly not interested in doing some big full-series Zelda playthrough. Yet Breath of the Wild is unquestionably extremely good at what it does.

It's surely the best game I've ever played evoking the feeling of exploring a world. The environments are beautiful and varied, from deserts to snowy mountains to everything in between. The game constantly rewards you for this exploration, with finding new temples (which give both loot and health/stamina upgrades). Enemies can be remarkably dangerous and the game gives you many, many ways to deal with them, both through combat and avoidance. The world is post-apocalpytic but still beautiful and hopeful.

Ultimately I don't think it does amazing work in the categories I play games for. The story which you piece together from memories is a relatively simple one, the action gameplay is better than I expected but not really the selling point either. But it's extremely good at what it does.

1. Fire Emblem Engage (Switch, Nintendo/Intelligent Systems, 2023)

Goodness, what an oddball of a game.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: this is a modern Fire Emblem, and pretty much every modern Fire Emblem has stellar gameplay. This one is no exception. Is it quite as good as Fates or Three Houses? Maybe not, but that's a high bar, and I appreciate the things the game tried to do differently (the emblems and the options they give; weapon triangle and its break effects) as well as the Fates-like strong map design combined with the lack of annoying Fire Emblem habits like ambush spawns. It's certainly an all-time great game for gameplay as far as I'm concerned.

It's also an immensely frustrating game. After Three Houses delivered both a thought-provoking story which asks the player to think about when conflict is justified in the face of oppressive systems, and some of the most outstanding characters I've ever seen, perhaps it's not surprising that the followup game couldn't be as good, but I wasn't expecting the degree to which they didn't even try! I even understand that the game is going for something simpler and lighter, but honestly it's not very good at telling a light story anyway. The cast has some decent moments and there are some supports in there I like, but I can't say I'm surprised that this game is clearly falling short of not just 3H, but Awakening and Fates as well, when it comes to the volume of fan content being created.

I ended up placing it in the top spot this year — I did play it for around 175 hours, more than any other new game this year by a lot (3H replays still beat it out, though) — but in the decade-plus we've been doing this, it's probably the top-ranking game I feel the most conflicted about. Certainly it's one where if I see someone give it a harsh review, I tend to shrug and say "yep, fair". It's a good game, certainly. But I really wish it was better.

14
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 2
« on: January 07, 2024, 01:04:31 AM »
I'm not giving Tiki credit for the size of the WA4 battlefield, any more than I would give her credit for "Final Fantasy X characters can't move away from her". If Yulie were a FE12 enemy, she would walk away from Tiki before using Sacrifice, which is range 2, and the FE12 system is what counts to me when judging how Tiki's counters work.

(It's also worth mentioning that there's a case that WA4 attacks all target hexes and therefore aren't counterable by FE. I don't like this view for the same reason I don't like the above - it's not how FE counters actually work. IMO Tiki should be able to counter Raquel's physical and Jude's Assault Buster, but not Blast or Jude's gunshots or Sacrifice.)

And thanks for the catch.

15
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 2
« on: January 06, 2024, 04:56:06 AM »
Godlike

Chris Lightfellow (Suikoden III) vs Aeterna (I am Setsuna): Should get the drop in before Silent Lake (she's very fast), and yeah Stop's a win.
Ryu (Breath of Fire IV) vs Simeon (Octopath Traveler): Simeon's one of the worst C4 bosses outside his relative lack of weaknesses... and Ryu manages to hit his anyway.

Heavy

Shadow (Final Fantasy VI) vs Cthulhu (Cthulhu Saves Christmas): Cthulhu goes first, and Shadow can't stop Cthulhu from blowing him up on turn 2.
Rofel Wodring (Final Fantasy Tactics) vs Anna Pascal (Triangle Strategy): Take Cover's just a lockdown against opponents without MT, I think. Which is good because trying to physically blitz Rofel doesn't work well.

Middle

Dedue Molinaro (Fire Emblem Three Houses) vs Baba Yaga (Cthulhu Saves Christmas): This pretty much comes down to "does a character get to complete a double while unstoppable before the death effect kicks in". And also "can CSC characters double with non-reusuable moves" I suppose. Baba wins if the answer to both is yes; after Power=Ailment, doubled Wind Arrow in desperate is gonna easily kill Dedue. But if not... yeah she probably just falls short. Anyway I kinda lean toward "yes" on both the above questions but am open to arguments.
Axl (Mega Man X Command Mission) vs Kyrie (Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark): I don't allow Ninetales (very clearly aftergame) so Axl is very reliant on lightning. One Thunder Shield later and he has issues. If Excalibur is allowed (I'm on the fence) he's incredibly hosed but frankly even regular ol' First Aid during his invincible turns is something he doesn't like, since he's just not doing very good damage generally.
Therion (Octopath Traveler) vs Ba'Thraz (Chained Echoes): Heaven or Hell, let's rock.
Yulie Ahtreide (Wild ARMs 4) vs Tiki (Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem): I think folks are underestimating Sacrifice. Yes, Tiki can do about 2/3 of Yulie's HP using the lowest average, but even after that, Sacrifice still does 16% to average = 23% to Tiki. And then when she's ready to win she can do triple that by healing first, then Sacrificing (leaving her at 1 HP). So... she actually only needs to do this three times, thanks to Tiki's low HP? Tiki gets in an attack on turn 1, and then three more before Yulie can do this... plus one more because there will be one turn Yulie fails to double due to being 170% speed rather than 200%. A total of five attacks... yeah I don't see a 14% crit rate kicking in that fast.

Light

Heather (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) vs Benedict Pascal (Triangle Strategy): Yeah none of Benedict's skillset is actually any good and Heather easily wins a slugfest via evasion and counters.
Vitali (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters) vs Frederica Aesfrost (Triangle Strategy): Fire mages don't do well against Vitali.
Big Joe (Xenogears) vs Zelkov (Fire Emblem Engage): As *exciting* and *dynamic* as Big Joe is...

16
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 Week 1
« on: December 28, 2023, 12:09:47 AM »
Godlike

Riou (Suikoden II) vs Ezel Granada (Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier): Probably just OHKOs to me. If he just misses he might be able to get in a basic physical instead and then heal until a dodge first.
Yuna (Final Fantasy X) vs Satanail (Star Ocean: The Last Hope): Probably. Satanail has problems with evade which does him no favours here. He does have a ridiculous HP pool to cut through but I imagine Yuna can.

Heavy

Mei-ling (SaGa Frontier) vs Tim (Brigandine: Legend of Runersia): LightSword gives her too much evasion, she ignores Tim's counters, and she can use healing to stall through Mark of Domination.
Olberic Eisenberg (Octopath Traveler) vs Temenos Mistral(Octopath Traveler II): Heavenly Shine on turn 2 is 1.26 PCHP which kills Olberic.
Kyra Tierney (Phantasy Star IV) vs Xander (Fire Emblem Fates): Xander does not beat Heavy mages. Let alone ones with physical spoiling.

Middle

Peter (Shining Force II) vs Rinkah (Fire Emblem Fates): Counter is probably too much.

Light

Thief (Final Fantasy V) vs Corselia (Suikoden Tactics): Isn't thief.
Nanami (Valkyrie Profile) vs Amalia (Chained Echoes): When I first saw this match, I misremembered Nanami as having Heal, which would have been a terrifying stall-off. She does not, so Amalia should be able to heal off anything Nanami does and slowly win.
Umaro (Final Fantasy VI) vs Ivy (Fire Emblem Engage): Yeah Ivy's danger is being doubled. Without that happening she's pretty good.

17
Tournaments / Re: Futurama 2023 NOMS
« on: December 26, 2023, 04:33:40 AM »
Ranked:

G:
Yuna (FFX)
Xorn (G3)
Chris Lightfellow (S3)

H:
Petra Macneary (FE3H)
Rune Walsh (PS4)
Raquel Applegate (WA4)

M:
Lightning Farron (FF13)
Ramza Beoulve (FFT)
Lysithea von Ordelia (FE3H)

L:
Lucius (FE7)
Hubert von Vestra (FE3H)
Primrose Azelhart (OT)

Unranked:

G:
Rudo Marco (Brig2)
Satanail (SO4)
Kaguya Nanbu (EF)

H:
Cthulhu (CSC)
Rabbid Luigi (MRKB)
Myuria Tionysus (SO4)

M:
Baba Yaga (CSC)
Xander (Fates)
Della (Brig2)

L:
Orochi (Fates)
Benedict Pascal (TS)
Frederica Aesfrost (TS)

18
Unranked Games / Cthulhu Saves Christmas
« on: December 24, 2023, 05:09:28 AM »
Cthulhu Saves Christmas



Spreadsheet used for stat topic construction, which includes all equipment and ability data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa3ZAYWhBS_jKfRTDv966waR4_R4phiiOW7XpedJvF4/edit?usp=sharing


Stats

HP: Die if this is lowered below 1... unless you have the unstoppable status; see below.
Power: Base stat for damage, both physical and magical
Speed: Go earlier in the turn order. CSC does not normally allow doubleturns, and you enter commands whenever you get your turn, so this is relatively weak as far as speed stats go. Note that Cthulhu always goes first in every battle, so his listed speed is cosmetic.
Healing: Base stat for healing abilities used by the character
Ailment: Makes it easier for the character to inflict ailments, increases the damage dealt by poison this character inflicts, and increases resistance to enemy ailment attacks


Basic calculations

Damage = Power stat * Move power * Elemental modifier * turn modifier
Healing = Healing stat * Move power
Ailment damage = Ailment stat * Move power

For enemies, the median and most common elemental modifier is 0.85, so that is what damage is taken against. The exceptions are Pierce attacks (ITD), which always use a modifier of 1, and poison, for which the median / most common enemy modifier is 0.8.

For PCs, elemental modifier = 100% - target's resistance.

Note that CSC uses a "physical" element rather than having distinct physical/magical damage types. "Wind" includes lightning. For non-elemental magic damage from other games, as well as elements not present in CSC (e.g. holy/light, water) I suggest using the PC's median non-physical resistance, and that is how I have calculated "magic durability" seen in the stat topic.

Turn modifier is always 1 for damage dealt by PCs. For damage dealt by enemies, it begins the battle at 1, but then increases roughly as follows:
-About 16.7% of base damage (1/6) for every previous turn the enemy has gotten. Turns the enemy gets while stunned do not count toward this.
-About 13% of base damage (might be 1/8=12.5% or 4/30=13.3%) if the enemy is Insane.

For example, an insane enemy on their fifth turn will have their base damage multiplied by (1 + 0.167*4 + 0.13) ~= 180%.

Insane

Insane is a status effect, used exclusively by PCs (specifically Cthulhu) against enemies. Insane always works, nothing is immune. Once inflicted, it never wears off. It has the following effects:
-Insane enemies take 30% more damage from dark-elemental attacks, and 10% more damage from everything else, except pierce (ITD) damage which is unaffected.
-Insane enemies deal slightly more damage, as noted above.
-According to the game descriptions, insane enemies are more susceptible to Charm, Vulnerable, and Enrage, but less susceptible to Stun and Disarm. No clue by how much in either case.

Unlike in Cthulhu Saves the World, enemy skillsets are unaffected by Insane.

Hyper and Desperation

Returning from Cosmic Star Heroine, though slightly modified.

Every character has a "hyper gauge" which increases by one hyper bar at the start of each turn. When the gauge fills up, the character gets a hyper turn. In hyper, characters' abilities are usually more powerful, though exactly how varies by ability. A damage boost of 1.5x or 2x is pretty common, but sometimes the ability may become multitarget instead, for example. Once the character takes a hyper turn, their hyper gauge is set to zero. If the character suffers from stun (which prevents action), they also get no hyper bar for that turn.

Desperation is when a character is alive despite having less than 1 HP. To access this, the character must be in "unstoppable" status (every character has some method of accessing this). If the character is in unstoppable status, any damage they take which reduces them below 1 HP will not kill them, but will instead send them into desperation. The unstoppable status itself will end as soon as the character drops below 1 HP and can not be reapplied until the character is above 1 HP again.

While in desperation, the character can continue to take damage, taking their HP further into the negatives, or receive healing. The character will get one more turn, and then die at the end of that turn. If the character heals to 1 HP or more before the end of said turn (on their action or another), the desperation state ends and they survive. Any damage the character deals while in desperation is multiplied by 1.5. Healing is not affected this way; not sure about ailments.

Status ailments

No enemies are immune to status ailments. PCs sometimes are! A fun reversal.

Recent Zeboyd games (including CSC) use an unusual system where enemies have an "HP" stat associated with each non-poison status ailment. That is, they have a "Stun HP", a "Disarm HP", and so on. Hitting an enemy with an ailment does "ailment damage" to said ailment HP. If the ailment HP reaches zero, the ailment is inflicted. The starting point for each ailment HP varies both by enemy and the ailment in question, and the stats are hidden so it's difficult to test all of them. Once the enemy receives an ailment, their ailment HP for that ailment will be set higher than it was originally, so it becomes progressively harder to inflict a given ailment on the same enemy multiple times.

I suspect PCs use the same system. The game states that the Ailment stat makes it harder to land ailments on a character, so one possibility is that the game uses the Ailment stat to as the starting "HP" value of enemy-inflicted ailments. But I'm not sure.
 
From general observation, I'm inclined to say that most ailments should land on the first try against an average opponent if their user is in hyper (>= 360 ailment damage) and typically don't otherwise, unless the attack in question has an ailment multiplier greater than 1. This might deserve more testing.

Poison is different: it always works, but the damage it does is subject to the target's poison elemental modifier.

Poison: afflicted target takes damage at the start of their turn. This damage can be fatal, and kicks in even if the target is stunned. Does not wear off.

Disarm: afflicted target deals 35% less damage. Lasts until the target takes a non-stunned turn, whether or not they deal damage on that turn. Non-damage actions are not affected.

Stun: afflicted target loses their turn. The turn does not count toward status duration or enemy turn modifier, but poison and regen do kick in. Lasts one turn.

Enrage: afflicted target deals 25% less damage with multitarget attacks. They are also easily taunted by any damage they receive; that is, they will use singletarget attacks against whoever targeted them most recently, usually. Does not wear off.

Vulnerable: the next instance of damage the target takes is multiplied by 1.5. Sadly, poison counts toward this, which tends to be a bit of a waste. Lasts until damaged.

Charm: afflicted target attacks themself or an ally; if they use a healing move, that targets the enemies instead. Lasts until the target takes a non-stunned turn.
-> Charmed enemies deal far more raw damage than they do when targeting PCs, which makes sense given the different HP scales. Healing's raw numeric value is unchanged. No enemies use Charm against PCs.

Successfully inflicting an ailment with finite duration on a target already affected by it (relatively difficult to do) will extend its duration by one instance of received damage for Vulnerable, and one turn for other ailments. Inflicting poison on an already poisoned target will cause the higer poison damage to take effect, but they do not stack.

From a DL scaling perspective, it is worth noting that final dungeon enemies, when charmed, do damage which is remarkably close to the PC average damage in this stat topic... on turn 1. Charmed enemy damage is affected by the turn modifier! So e.g. if enemy is charmed for their fourth turn, they will do 1.5x their base damage. This makes Charm an incredibly dangerous status in a long fight. (This is true in-game as well; charm can easily do many thousands of damage.)

PC Abilities

PCs have access to eight abilities during battle, and use one on each turn (PCs can also use items or unite attacks, but neither is DL-relevant). Most abilities can be used once, and then can not be accessed until the PC recharges. Some abilities are flagged as "reusable", which means they can be used on any turn.

-One ability is the PC's defend/recharge command. These are unique to each PC (yes! An unquestionably legal defend command!), multiply incoming damage by a certain percentage for one turn, and also recharge all used abilities.
-Four of them are normal abilities, which must be chosen before the fight.
-Three of them are insanity abilities. These are randomly chosen when the fight starts. They can be chosen from the list of whatever abilities the PC has not set for their main four, in addition to a list of insanity-only abilities. The game "rerolls" the insanity abilities whenever the PC recharges, whether the insanity abilities were used or not. Since they can not be chosen, they should probably be ignored in the DL, although a general observation that PCs will likely have one or two extra sources of damage should be noted.

I will list a recommended default DL set by placing those four abilities at the top, but will emphasize that these can easily be swapped between fights in-game.

In the stat topic entries, the hyper mode version of each ability is shown in brackets. Also note that abilities listed with "Ally" targeting CAN target the user unless otherwise noted.


Other Interpretation Notes

Levels are taken at 38, which is where I finished both times I played the game. Abilities gained after this level are ignored.

Between dungeons, Cthulhu can visit various locations to deepen his r'lyehtionships (yes) with his fellow party members and various NPCs. Each such event provides a reward of some sort, either an item or piece of equipment. 28 such events can be done over the course of the game. For this thread, I've assumed that no PC has access to more than 7 such events' worth of gear. This didn't end up mattering as much as I expected because most of the best gear is found in the final dungeon anyway.


Averages up top
HP: 477
Speed: 306 (excluding Cthulhu)
Ailment: 304 (used for status resistance)
Physical resist: 38.75
Three-turn damage: 492 per turn
Kill point: 1230


Cthulhu

Hyper on turn 2, 5, 8, 11, ...

Eldritch Sword (20% more damage vs insane enemies)
Eldrich Tunic (immune to ailments)
Life Tentacle (start: unstoppable)

HP 498, Pow 344, Spd 251, Heal 177, Ail 295
Resistances: 40 phys, 60 dark, 40 ice, 40 wind, 45 other magic.
Durability: 1.07 physical, 1.14 magical
Takes 27% less from dark, 9% extra from ice/wind

Cthulhu's speed stat is ignored; he always goes first

Alternative equips:
Sharp Tentacle: -25 HP and -5 all resistances (durability becomes 0.97/1.03), lose unstoppable, gain 35 power (+10%) and 35 ailment (+12%)

Abilities:
Taunt (locked) - Self: -40% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge. (Self: -60% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge.)
Dark Blast - One: 350 Dark. Insane (One: 701 Dark. Insane)
Berserk - One: 584 Physical. User: -50% Def penalty until next turn (One: 877 Physical. User: -50% Def penalty until next turn)
Shadow Strike - One: 365 Physical. 50% more damage vs insane enemies (One: 584 Dark. 50% more damage vs insane enemies)
Torment - One: 584 Dark. Can't kill (One: 877 Dark. Can't kill)
-
Slash - One: 292 Physical. Reusable (One: 438 Physical. Reusable)
Tentacles - All: 204 Physical.  (All: 409 Physical. )
Unstoppable - Self: 141 Heal. Cures ailments (Self: 212 Heal. Cures ailments. Unstoppable buff)
Plague - All: 118 Poison.  (All: 188 Poison. )
Fireball - Row: 380 Fire.  (All: 380 Fire. )
Terrify - One: 1x Stun. Insane (One: 2.5x Stun. Insane)
Piercing Strike - One: 430 Pierce.  (One: 688 Pierce. )
Madness - All: Insane. Reset user insanity slots (All: Insane. Reset party insanity slots)
Bootleg -  Next item used is free ( Next item used is free. Reusable)
Shatter Strike - One: 292 Physical. 0.75x Vulnerable (One: 438 Physical. 1.5x Vulnerable)
Gathering Dark - Self: Power boost to next move. 25% per insane enemy, min 50% (Self: 177 Heal. Power boost to next move. 25% per insane enemy, min 50%)
Chaos Strike - One: 292 Physical. 25% more damage per spent ability (One: 584 Physical. 25% more damage per spent ability)

Insanity abilities:
Mock - One: 1x Enrage (All: 1x Enrage)
Bury - One: 380 Earth.  (All: 380 Earth. )
Lightning - One: 467 Air.  (Row: 467 Air. )
Necronomicon - Ally: 35% more dmg against insane enemies. Power=Ailment. 5 turns (Ally: 35% more dmg against insane enemies. Power=Ailment. 10 turns)
Void - All: 292 Dark.  (All: 438 Dark. )
Disarm - One: 292 Physical. 1x Disarm (One: 438 Physical. 2x Disarm)
Hyper Strike - One: 146 Physical.  (One: 1023 Physical. )
Finisher - One: 365 Physical. Double damage if enemy HP under 25% (One: 731 Physical. Double damage if enemy HP under 25%)
Inferno - All: 467 Fire.  (All: 701 Fire. )

Optimum three-turn damage:
Dark Blast (350, insane) + Hyper Shadow Strike (1366) + Berserk (770) = 2486/3 = 829
If Cthulhu's third attack is not a kill, he can use Torment instead of Berserk and do even more damage.

Comments: Cthulhu is very good. Deals one-hit kill damage on turn 2, and is very good at living to turn 2, between ailment immunity, unstoppable, and first strike. He can do good damage either via dark or physical, and can fish for even more damage via Gathering Dark or (in long fights) Chaos Strike, so he has no shortage of ways to overcome hardier foes and/or bypass limits. High Heavy.


Crystal

Hyper on turn 3, 6, 9, 12, ...

Caduceus Wand (regen abilities +50%, factored in)
Caduceus Robe (Gentle Rain ability becomes reusable)
Apocalypse Cloak (start: unstoppable; damage x1.5 when desperate)

HP 423, Pow 296, Spd 314, Heal 339, Ail 254
Resistances: 35 phys, 35 dark, 40 ice, 35 other magic.
Durability: 0.84 physical, 0.82 magical
Takes 15% extra from fire, 8% less from ice

Alternative equips:
Hyper Wand: -25 power (-8%), -30 speed, -45 heal (-13%; -42% regen), -85 ailment (-33%); hyper on turn 1 and every 3 turns thereafter
Frozen Wand: -15 power (-5%), -35 speed, -50 heal (-15%; -43% regen), -35 ailment (-14%); ice damage x1.2 (overall +14% ice damage)
Glamourous Cloak: -30 power (-10%), -30 speed, -30 heal (-9%), lose unstoppable; +40 HP (+9%), +10 ailment (+4%), Hyper Mistletoe becomes more powerful

Abilities:
Inspire (locked) - Party: -20% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge. (Party: -40% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge.)
Good Cheer - Ally: 152 Regen for 3 turns (Party: 152 Regen for 3 turns)
Mistletoe - One: 1x Charm (One: 1.5x Charm. Charmed target deals double damage [with Glamourous Cloak, triple damage])
Warm Wishes - Ally: Adds hyper bar. Reusable (Ally: Max hyper bar. Reusable)
Resolution - Ally: 339 Heal. Max HP +30% for 1 turn (Ally: 508 Heal. Max HP +30% for 3 turns)
-
Chill - One: 251 Ice. Next stun on target is 50% stronger (One: 377 Ice. Next stun on target is 50% stronger)
Hot Chocolate - Ally: 339 Heal.  (Ally: 339 Heal. 177 Regen for 3 turns)
Wrap - One: 1x Stun (One: 1.5x Stun. No penalty vs insane)
Freeze - One: 176 Ice. 0.5x Stun (One: 352 Ice. 1x Stun)
Cleanse - Ally: Cures. May recharge 1 ability (Party: Cures. May recharge 1 ability)
Second Chance - One: Unstoppable buff (Party: Unstoppable buff)
Throw Gift - One: 201 Physical. More damage with more used items (up to 2.5x damage) (One: 301 Physical. More damage with more used items (up to 2.5x damage))
Gentle Rain - Party: 118 Heal.  (Party: 237 Heal. )
Blizzard - All: 276 Ice.  (All: 415 Ice. )
Peace on Earth - All: 1.5x Stun. Stuns user (All: 2x Stun)
Revive - One: 50 Heal. Revives. (One: 101 Heal. Revives.)

Insanity abilities:
Smack - One: 314 Physical.  (One: 629 Physical. )
Bury - One: 327 Earth.  (All: 327 Earth. )
Lightning - One: 402 Air.  (Row: 402 Air. )
Heal - Ally: 339 Heal.  (Party: 339 Heal. )
Buff Up - Ally: 35% more damage for 3 turns (Ally: 35% more damage for 6 turns)
Flurry - One: 251 Ice. Target takes double damage from next ice attack (One: 503 Ice. Target takes double damage from next ice attack)
Secret Santa - Ally: Double ailment power on next ailment (Party: Double ailment power on next ailment)
Sweet Dreams - Ally: Recharge abilities (Ally: 678 Heal. Recharge abilities)
Christmas Eve - Self: 50% more hyper damage next turn (Self: No effect)

Optimum three-turn damage:
Chill (251) + Blizzard (276) + Hyper Freeze (352) = 879/3 = 293


Comments: Crystal's gameplan is simple. Charm -> opponent one-shots themself, or at least comes close enough that she can finish with some damage move. Between the turn modifier bonus and Mistletoe's hyper bonus, she should be able to pull this off. Healing and regen can buy her time, or Warm Wishes can speed her to hyper turns. She's a bit frail and is not good if charm is blocked, since her damage is both unimpressive and all ice-elemental, though Apocalypse Cloak can let her do a lot of damage on her desperation turn, at least. Note that Unstoppable is not very useful if she's planning to kill with charm, because she'll die after inflicting it but before the opponent can kill themself. Her ailment stat also isn't great so it shouldn't take much to make her charm turn 2, at which point she'll need to waste an extra turn recharging it as well. Middle.


Baba Yaga

Hyper on turn 4, 6, 8, 10, ...

Tornado Pestle (wind damage +20%; factored in)
Cosmic Dress (+20% damage with insanity abilities; factored in)
Rebirth Egg (start: unstoppable)

HP 435, Pow 261, Spd 280, Heal 228, Ail 349
Restiances: 30 phys, 40 dark, 40 wind, 30 other magic.
Durability: 0.80 physical, 0.78 magical
Takes 14% less from dark/wind

Alternative equips:
Shield Pestle: -80 power (-30%), -60 speed, -90 ailment (-26%), lose wind boost (overall -42% wind damage); +20 HP and +5 all resistances (durability becomes 0.87/0.85)
Pure Pestle: -60 power (-23%), -50 speed, -10 heal (-4%), -70 ailment (-20%), lose wind boost (overall -36% wind damage); gain immunity to ailments
Faberge Egg: -50 HP (-11%), -50 heal (-22%), lose unstoppable; +50 speed, +50 ailment (+14%)

About Chicken:
-Baba Yaga has a unique mechanic called chicken power. Chicken power begins the battle at 0%, but various abilities or equipment can increase it. The maximum chicken power is 200%.
-When an ability with the "Chicken" tag is used (be it damage or ailment), the power of that move (damage or ailment damage) is multiplied by (100%+Chicken power). Immediately after, chicken power is set to 0%.

About Power=Ailment:
This status effect causes the ailment stat to be used in place of the power stat in damage calculations. I believe the power stat will still be used if it is higher, but I haven't formally tested that. In Baba's case using her default gear, Power=Ailment results in her doing 34% more damage.

Abilities:
Cooped Up (locked) - Self: -15% damage taken for 1 turn. Chicken power +50%. Recharge. (Self: -30% damage taken for 1 turn. Chicken power +50%. Recharge.)
Chicken Feed - Self: 228 Heal. Chicken power +50%. Power=Ailment for 3 turns. Reusable (Self: 228 Heal. Chicken power +100%. Power=Ailment for 5 turns. Reusable)
Chicken Dance - One: 1x Charm. Chicken (One: 2x Charm. Chicken)
Wind Arrow - One: 399 Wind.  (One: 798 Wind. )
Mighty Peck - One: 277 Physical. Chicken (One: 554 Physical. Chicken)
-
Biting Winds - All: 266 Wind.  (All: 399 Wind. )
Rotten Egg - One: 139 Poison. Chicken (One: 223 Poison. Chicken)
Mortar Combat - One: 277 Physical.  (One: 277 Physical. Double next item power)
Bagawk - All: 0.5x Stun. Chicken (All: 0.9x Stun. Chicken)
Break - One: 1x Vulnerable (One: 2x Vulnerable)
Wither - One: 1.25x Disarm (One: 2.5x Disarm)
Toil and Trouble - Self: Double next ailment power (Self: Double next ailment power. Reusable)
Clockwork - Ally: 15% speed up for 4 turns (Party: 15% speed up for 4 turns)
Rooster Cry - Party: Cure (Party: Cure. Chicken power +100%)
Nyah Nyah - One: 1.5x Enrage. Chicken power +50% self (One: 3x Enrage. Chicken power +75% self)
Chickenize -  Next move has the chicken property ( Next move has the chicken property. Chicken power +50%)

Insanity abilities:
Burn - One: 372 Fire.  (One: 558 Fire. )
Bury - One: 345 Earth.  (All: 345 Earth. )
Icicle - One: 372 Ice.  (One: 558 Ice. )
Lightning - One: 425 Air.  (Row: 425 Air. )
Necronomicon - Ally: 35% more dmg against insane enemies. Power=Ailment. 5 turns (Ally: 35% more dmg against insane enemies. Power=Ailment. 10 turns)
Disarm - One: 266 Physical. 1x Disarm (One: 399 Physical. 2x Disarm)
Hurricane - All: 558 Wind.  (All: 558 Wind. Reusable)
Apply Leeches - One: Deal x3 poison damage as Dark damage (One: Dark damage based on poison damage)

Optimum three-turn damage:
Mortar Combat (277) + Mighty Peck (277) + Wind Arrow (399) = 953/3 = 318


Comments: Baba's main strategy is to repeatedly heal using Chicken Feed, powering up Mighty Peck for a one-shot. If she can make it to turn 4 she can do a crazy ~1855 damage with this. If she can spare a turn on Chickenize she can do some truly crazy damage with Wind Arrow this way as well. Charm's also a good option, with even a bit of chicken power it should likely be turn 1 without the need for hyper. She's a bit frail so her healing isn't too hard to overwhelm, though. She can either up her durability or get status immunity, but both come at a big hit to damage and turn 1 speed. Probably some sort of Middle.


Belsnickel

Hyper on turn 1, 5, 9, 13, ...

Metal Whip (physical damage +20%; factored in)
Gold Coat
Peppermint Candy

HP 551, Pow 325, Spd 325, Heal 304, Ail 316
Resistances: 50 all
Durability: 1.42 physical, 1.39 magical

Alternative equips:
Ratty Coat: -130 HP, -25/30 resistances (durability becomes 0.85/0.80), -30 all stats (-9% damage/ailment, -10% heal); gain immunity to ailments
Christmas Coat: -35 HP and -5 resistances (durability becomes 1.25/1.23), -15 all stats (-5% damage/ailment/heal); Jolly Laugh becomes resuable

Abilities:
Defend (locked) - Self: -40% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge. (Self: -80% damage taken for 1 turn. Recharge.)
Bash - One: 331 Physical.  (One: 828 Physical. )
Jolly Laugh - Self: 364 Heal. Taunt (Self: 608 Heal. Taunt. Max HP +30% for one turn)
Nice Strike - One: 331 Physical. Double damage if user's HP at max (One: 580 Physical. Double damage if user's HP at max)
Slap Sense - One: 414 Physical. Removes insane (One: 828 Physical. Removes insane)
-
Candy - Ally: 273 Heal. Taunt (Ally: 273 Heal. Taunt. Unstoppable buff)
Protect - Ally: Resistances +20% for 3 turns (Party: Resistances +20% for 3 turns)
Sandstorm - All: 276 Earth.  (All: 414 Earth. )
Naughty - Ally: 35% more damage for 3 turns (Ally: 35% more damage for 6 turns)
Nice - Ally: 65% more Heal power for 4 turns (Party: 65% more Heal power for 4 turns)
Enrage Blow - One: 331 Physical. 1x Enrage (One: 497 Physical. 2x Enrage)
Naughty Strike - One: 331 Physical. More damage if user's HP is low (up to 2x damage) (One: 663 Physical. More damage if user's HP is low (up to 2x damage))
Tag - Ally: Taunt up (Ally: More taunt up)
Entomb - One: 345 Earth.  (One: 690 Earth. )
Celebrate - Party: Gain a hyper bar (Party: Gain a hyper bar. Reusable, user remains in Hyper)
Silver Fox - All: 0.5x Charm (All: 1.5x Charm)
Punish - One: 331 Physical. x2 damage to enraged (One: 331 Physical. x5 damage to enraged)

Insanity abilities:
Disarm - One: 331 Physical. 1x Disarm (One: 497 Physical. 2x Disarm)
Burn - One: 386 Fire.  (One: 580 Fire. )
Icicle - One: 386 Ice.  (One: 580 Ice. )
Buff Up - Ally: 35% more damage for 3 turns (Ally: 35% more damage for 6 turns)
Heal - Ally: 304 Heal.  (Party: 304 Heal. )
Grab Bag -  Recharge an item ( Recharge all items)
Final Blow - One: 165 Physical. x5 damage if desperate (One: 497 Physical. x5 damage if desperate)

Optimum three-turn damage:
Hyper Bash (828) + Slap Sense (414) + Entomb (345) = 1587/3 = 529



Comments: Good durability, and he has lots of ways to win. If he goes first he can use Nice Strike for 1160 damage which is massive. In longer fights he can use healing (it's even spammable at a slight damage hit), with options like Enrage -> Punish for a turn 5 kill (or 4 with Celebrate), Naughty for buffing his damage, Candy for unstoppable, and charm. Like Baba he has access to status immunity but the hit to his durability is dire. Probably fits somewhere in Heavy.


Averages
HP: 477
Speed: 306 (excluding Cthulhu)
Ailment: 304 (used for status resistance)
Physical resist: 38.75
Three-turn damage: 492 per turn
Kill point: 1230

19
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2023: WGAYP, Engage!
« on: December 23, 2023, 06:10:26 PM »
Cthulhu Saves Christmas

Replayed this, as is appropriate for the season. Great fun. Is it more fun than This Way Madness Lies? ... maybe? I decided to write a comparison, focusing entirely on the gameplay because eh that's why you're playing these games. I think they're both pretty cute for what they are writing-wise.

Anyway, thoughts on the comparison:

-CSC only lets you set four abilities, with the other three appearing randomly. Overall I'm pretty neutral on this, and appreciate both games more for the difference. I like that TWML lets you make more than four choices, but I also like how the randomization of CSC shakes up battles just a bit... and maybe more significantly, lets me preview how the abilities I didn't take actually work. Sometimes I've liked one of them and have shifted it into my main set as a result!

-Both games have one major interface advantage. CSC lets you see the turn order (as well as what status effects are active on your PCs), while TWML lets you see enemy stats, which is particularly important for status. Really wish we got both!

-I think CSC's boss design is probably slightly stronger, I feel every boss in that game has a very clear identity. But they're reasonably close in this front.

-CSC has r'lyehlationships which give you choices of stuff to get, which is neat, but you also miss a bunch of stuff as a result and the choices are blind and based on name.

-CSC has equipment, TWML has traits. Equipment can be found in various ways, traits are gained only by level. Traits are a bit more flexible since you can choose any three.

-Probably my favourite thing in TWML's favour is how abilities "upgrade" at certain levels, which can cause you to shuffle in an old ability again.

-TWML has party choice past a certain point, which is fun.


Tales of Berseria

Finished a replay of this. Really couldn't muster energy to care about the gameplay so I left it on the default. One day I need to figure out why I just don't vibe with Tales gameplay at all, but that's probably giving it more thought than it deserves.

Anyway the game was a great joy to play again knowing all of its twists and turns. The core story beats of the game are excellent, Velvet is super-compelling in particular. I don't have much new to add but way the game deconstructs and skewers the idea that reason is the highest human virtue remains really good.

I also did all the sidequests this time and honestly I was almost tempted to lower the game's score a bit just for that. While there's some good stuff in there (in particular, Rokurou's sidequest gives some important context for his character which is kinda hand-waved in the main plot) there's also some of it that is very cringe, namely anything when Zaveid is on-screen. What a terrible advertisement for ToZ he is.

Fortunately after that I got to play the conclusion of the game and it rules, one of the best final confrontations in gaming tbh. So the game can stay where it is.


Stray Gods

What if an Ace Attorney case were also a musical?

I enjoyed this a lot! The setup of the game is that the Greek Gods are real and still living secretly in the world. One of them dies in your arms in the opening and you are assumed by the other gods to be their killer. In Ace Attorney-like fashion, you are guilty in their eyes unless you prove yourself innocent. (It makes more sense than AA at least.) Cue visiting locations, talking to lots of deities / mythological figures, and figuring out what the heck actually happened and why, before you face your trial.

The complicating issue is that the protagonist has inherited the powers of the god who died, and that god is a Muse, who can inspire others to sing what's in their hearts. So the major adventure-game moments of the game are musical numbers, where you inspire people to sing and then nudge them in the direction you want. Apparently there are a crazy number of variations in how the songs can actually go.

The game is not intended to challenge; in fact as far as I'm aware it isn't possible to truly "fail". But there are certainly branches in character relationships and fates, and of course major ones in the ending.

In that sense perhaps the better comparison for the game is something like AI: The Somnium Files (or other Uchikoshi games, but AI is the best parallel I think). It's a really compelling yarn, but it doesn't really provide even Ace Attorney levels of gameplay. While speculating in advance of what's going on is a lot of fun, it's not really necessary. That said, the game very much sets up its own lore in service of the story and mystery, and does so very well.

Where the game probably excels most is that the characters are compelling. The protagonist, Grace, is of course a bit of a cipher for the player, but with oodles of good dialog choices she's a very enjoyable one. The other major characters are pretty much all very well-done, and coming to understand them, and the unique perspectives they have due to their long history, is perhaps the great joy of the game. The game is also rather unabashedly queer and there are romance options, so that's fun too.

As far as "games that basically don't have gameplay" go, this is certainly a good one. Recommended.

20
Discussion / Re: RPG line counts
« on: December 17, 2023, 07:52:01 PM »
Tales of Berseria

Tales of Berseria is one of the more line-dense games I've counted so far. Hope you like dialog! All six PCs talk a lot, each individually having more lines than all but a small handful of characters featured in this thread so far (Sieg and a few FE3H characters).

I've chosen to combine the numbers of certain malakhim and their human forms (if you've played the game, you know who) because the line between their personalities is quite blurry. I've spoiler-guarded the big one, but as always in these threads, minor spoilers still exist. On with the show!


1. Velvet Crowe - 3449 (19.1%)
2. Laphicet - 2262 (12.5%)
3. Eleanor Hume - 1866 (10.3%)
4. Rokurou Rangetsu - 1821 (10.1%)
5. Magilou Mayvin - 1742 (9.7%)
6. Eizen - 1720 (9.5%)

7. Bienfu - 356 (2.0%)
8. Artorius Collbrande - 252 (1.4%)
9. Innominat / spoiler - 214 (1.2%)
10. Grimoirh - 202 (1.1%)
11. Benwick - 200 (1.1%)
12. Teresa Linares - 198 (1.1%)
13. Dyle - 191 (1.1%)
14. Zaveid - 186 (1.0%)
15. Kamoana - 168 (0.9%)
16. Seres / Celica Crowe - 158 (0.9%)

17. Melchior Mayvin - 113 (0.6%)
18. Tabatha Baskerville - 111 (0.6%)
19. Medissa - 107 (0.6%)
20. White Turtlez - 99 (0.5%)
21t. Percival Asgard - 85 (0.5%)
21t. Shigure Rangetsu - 85 (0.5%)
23. Kurogane - 81 (0.4%)
24. Oscar Dragonia - 72 (0.4%)
25t. Confessor - 61 (0.3%)
25t. Niko - 61 (0.3%)

Jude Mathis - 42 (0.2%)
Videl - 36 (0.2%)
Brigid Brigand - 35 (0.2%)
Phoenix - 33 (0.2%)
Majelu - 25 (0.1%)
Morgrim - 25 (0.1%)
Shipping Guild Master - 24 (0.1%)
Valta - 21 (0.1%)
Milla - 20 (0.1%)
Van Aifread - 16 (0.1%)
Lancelot Capulus - 13 (0.1%)
Gideon - 12 (0.1%)
Donera - 9 (0.0%)
Orthie - 8 (0.0%)
Russ - 8 (0.0%)
Guardian - 7 (0.0%)
Griffin - 6 (0.0%)
Mendi - 5 (0.0%)
Mahina - 3 (0.0%)
Silva - 2 (0.0%)
The previous Shigure - 2 (0.0%)
Diana - 1 (0.0%)
Other (Hellawes) - 197 (1.1%)
Other (Loegres) - 186 (1.0%)
Other (Taliesin) - 177 (1.0%)
Other (Port Zekson) - 175 (1.0%)
Other (Pirates) - 165 (0.9%)
Other (Reneed) - 129 (0.7%)
Other (Yseult) - 114 (0.6%)
Other (Aball) - 104 (0.6%)
Other (Exorcists) - 100 (0.6%)
Other (Stonebury) - 91 (0.5%)
Other (Katz) - 74 (0.4%)
Other (Haria) - 73 (0.4%)
Other (Bloodwings) - 69 (0.4%)
Other (Port Cadnix) - 54 (0.3%)
Other (Meirchio) - 38 (0.2%)
Other (Normin) - 22 (0.1%)
Other (Malakhim) - 19 (0.1%)
Other (Beardsley) - 18 (0.1%)
Other (Prisoners) - 13 (0.1%)
Other (Dogs) - 8 (0.0%)
Other (Daemons) - 3 (0.0%)


GRAND TOTAL: 18042 lines

21
Discussion / Re: RPG Ratings
« on: December 09, 2023, 10:07:43 PM »
For the past few months I've been slowly reconstructing my RPG Ratings (I put the games in a random order then tried to binary-sort them, adding one game at a time until I had a full list and then making some final tweaks). Unsurprisingly I ended up with pretty similar ratings to before I started (and the top 13 was exactly the same!), but there were definitely some shifts, albeit nothing by 2 points or more.

List of rank changes:

9 to 10: Suikoden 3
8 to 9: Brigandine 2
8 to 7: Octopath Traveler
7 to 6: Mega Man X Command Mission, Fire Emblem Heroes, Bravely Second, Cosmic Star Heroine, Vandal Hearts 2, Final Fantasy Dimensions
6 to 7: Breath of Fire 4, Cthulhu Saves the World, Paper Mario
6 to 5: Fire Emblem SoV, Final Fantasy 13-2, Code Name STEAM, Breath of Death 7, Indivisible, Final Fantasy 4 TAY, Breath of Fire 3
5 to 6: Final Fantasy 3, Dragon Quest 11, Super Mario RPG
5 to 4: Invisible Inc., Wargroove, Suikoden Tactics, Wizard of Oz, Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, Pokemon DP
4 to 5: Suikoden, Breath of Fire 2
4 to 3: Trails in the Sky, Wild Arms 2, Final Fantasy 4
3 to 2: Legend of Legacy, Project X Zone
2 to 1: Dragon Quest 9, Tales of Symphonia
1 to 2: Secret of Mana

List of more notable changes within each rank:

9/10: Triangle Strategy down
8/10: Suikoden 5 up; Shadow Hearts 3, Star Ocean 4 down
7/10: Final Fantasy 7, Shadow Hearts 2, Final Fantasy 7R, Legend of Dragoon up; Mega Man X Command Mission down
6/10: Wild Arms 5, Endless Frontier up; I Am Setsuna down
5/10: Lightning Returns, Brigandine up
4/10: Seiken Densetsu 3, Final Fantasy up


And finally, I added the six RPGs I've played since my last update (which was July 2022, 17 months ago). They run a very tight curve!

-Mario + Rabbids 2 added at low-mid 8/10. I don't think this game is quite as good as its (borderline 8 or 9) predecessor, but I appreciate its effort and it's still a heck of a lot of fun.
-Fire Emblem Engage added at high 8/10. While the story went in a frustrating direction this is still an extremely solid game from a gameplay perspective. Honestly I might be underrating it, it vs. the GBA games certainly deserves a closer look.
-Into the Breach added at mid 8/10. Very fun for what it is. Like Engage it wins zero points for anything story-related, and I don't think the gameplay is quite as good, but it's pretty close!
-Chained Echoes added at very high 7/10. Kind of Zeboyd-ish, though a bit closer to a traditional full RPG in both scope and design sensibilities. The story has some worth but is definitely a bit mixed and not able to carry the game, fortunately the gameplay is a lot of fun.
-Octopath Traveler 2 added at very high 7/10. Basically the same game as the first, with some QoL/systems updates but also a bit of a retread, and ultimately that mostly balances in my eyes. It'll probably be a daunting game to replay but I did enjoy it a lot.
-This Way Madness Lies added at low-mid 8/10. Basically a coinflip for it vs. Cthulhu Saves Christmas, both are great and can share the title of best Zeboyd game as far as I'm concerned.


With all these changes, average score is now up to 5.73, slowly drifting upwards from the 5 to 5.5 I once set for myself. If I live to be a hundred my average might reach that of professional game journalism! #lifegoals

22
General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2023: WGAYP, Engage!
« on: December 03, 2023, 08:23:13 PM »
Fire Emblem Fates - Birthright Lunatic random team. As mentioned earlier, I rolled up a team of 12, and got a very strong team. As a result no fight caused me massive headaches, a reset or here or there to be sure but that was about it. Unit notes follow (battles/wins in parentheses):

Azama (20/15): Great Master. Mostly just a staffbot, he could do a bit of combat after promotion because his stats are pretty good but the weapon rank means that "pretty good" isn't too special. The extra bulk sometimes comes in handy. I had too many healers this run, probably, and should have promoted him earlier.

Dwyer (28/19): Butler. Got him just after Ryoma, before Chapter 14. Could have gone Strategist but I figured he woudln't get Inspiration. Again, maybe I should have promoted him earlier. Otherwise, see Azama, with worse stats but shuriken are cooler than spears in a few ways so that was nice.

Sakura (50/35): Onmyoji. Yet another healer! Tomes gave her a bit of offensive niche and Horse Spirit is great, so she actually got the most combat of the promoted healers by quite a bit. And her defensive aura was nice. I promoted her a little earlier than the others.

Felicia (97/77): Strategist. Early Inspiration is sexy as always. Got her as the second servant and for a while she was just staffbot #4 but as time went on I leaned on her combat more and more, she actually was my fourth best combatant by the end with her high magic/speed, Horse Spirit, and res-targeting.

Kaden (101/77): Kinda mediocre. Bet than last run since he was my only fox so got exclusive access to all three weapons, but for the most part he's just a worse ninja/swordmaster.

Hinoka (210/105): So I realized this playthrough that getting her to A+ with Setsuna (easy) and promoting her to Kinshi gives her Quick Draw so she has a ridiculous player phase, +4 atk / +5 spd on her already good stats. Ultimately moved her over to Spear Master for the lategame maps where flying isn't too special and Bow Knights are everywhere. Saw a ton of use throughout the game, always had great stats, her 1-2 range being iffy (either Javelin or Bolt Naginata) is her biggest weakness compared to the top types. And then she has that great +2 damage aura.

Setsuna (144/107): Sniper. Generally killed things pretty well once she got rolling. Doesn't have that much strength but speed + high Yumi power + Quick Draw is nice. Pursuer is great but only for a one full-size map. Bow lock is obviously a bit limiting. Solid physical pairup stats are nice as an option.

Mozu (137/108): Kinshi Knight. Had a bad start but I gave her the second Heart Seal and she got rolling as a competent Kinshi. Never really had amazing combat but competent enough.

Corrin (192/114): +HP -Def, but the RNG would make me believe she was -Spd instead; she gained like 4 speed in her first 20 levels, awful. Practice Katana could only go so far. Probably the worst Corrin I've ever had, though still not bad precisely, the flexibility of swords or dragonstones is nice. But more often her supportive contributions (+2 atk/def/res to either type of support partner) were what mattered.

Jakob (236/118): Paladin. So my team for Chapter 7 was Corrin/Jakob/Sakura and I didn't really want two staff users, so I heart sealed him to paladin immediately. He has extremely solid combat for a long time, unquestionably top three until everyone promoted, and respectable enough even at the end.

Ryoma (147/129): Swordmaster. Y'all know what he does. His performance in the game's hardest maps (IMO, Chapter 23 and 25) can not be overstated; he could intercept and one-round whole groups of enemies. He's definitely not invincible but figuring out how much he can safely delete (which is more than you might kneejerk from his stats, because of how he fills up the dual guard gauge and his personal buffing his durability) wins fights. I feel pretty confident calling him the overall MVP of this playthrough and Birthright in general. The only unit who hit Level 20, and also barely reached S rank in his weapon without an Arms Scroll (Hinoka and Setsuna got there with help).

Saizo (261/157): Ninja Master. Saizo is excellent as well. The lower attack (due to shuriken might and only average Str) is his main downside compared to someone like Ryoma, but he's even more durable (against physicals at least) and a wonderful enemy phase contributor, while also being good on player phase both against the very squishy (due to one-rounding them) and very durable (due to debuffs/poison).

I could have been more aggressive with my reclassing/money use; I had well over 20k in hand at the end of the game so I could have done things like have Jakob dip into Strategist for Inspiration or perhaps just forge some weapons up a bit more. But it's fine, this team was strong enough that I didn't need to be very fancy.

23
So on another forum I was on the subject of spells in FE3H came up and I made the offhand comment that if I were to rank all the offensive spells in the game in usefulness, Aura would probably be at the bottom. Which got my brain thinking: what if I did rank all the game's attack spells?

Of course, such a ranking depends on your criteria, seeing as spells have different availability. Here are the principles I adopted:

-I'm not rating the spells based on who gets them: e.g. I won't say "Miasma is better than Wind because Lysithea is a better mage than anyone who learns Wind", even though it means that I likely actually use Miasma more than Wind.
-I am considering spells at their most common rank for accession. In the case of a tie (which applies to Luna at C/B and Dark Spikes at B/A), I'll pretend they're learned at their midpoint.
-I am rating spells based on how much I like to see them on a unit's spell list.

The last part is vague, but I realized a method which gave results I was happy with: when comparing two spells (call them #1 and #2), I would compare the following:
-Considering units who learn spell #1 but not #2, would I trade #1 for #2?
-Vice versa: would I trade spell #2 for #1?
-Considering units who learn BOTH spells, which one would I rather drop from their list, if forced to?
-Finally, considering units who learn neither spell, which one would I rather add to the list? This last one is probably the case I considered the least.

Note that for all these thought experiments, I considered spells learned at their average rank, as per above. When considering Thoron vs. Bolting, I'm talking about "learning Thoron at C" versus "learning Bolting at A".

As an addendum to the thought experiments, I only considered swaps that were actually possible according to the conventions the game has for when spells are learned. In particular:

-Everyone gets one of Fire, Thunder, Wind, Blizzard, or Miasma at D reason. So when considering a character "losing" a D rank spell in the experiments above, I would assume they still end up with a D rank spell, just the worst one (spoilers: the worst one is Blizzard). You can argue this means I've underrated D rank spells as a whole.
-Nobody learns two spells at the same time, so when considering a character getting a new spell at a certain rank, I'd implicitly either push their old spell at that rank back by half a rank (e.g. from A to A+), replace their old spell, or push the new spell back half a rank, whichever was most beneficial for the comparison.

Finally, do note that I am not ranking non-offensive faith spells at all, at least for now. Attack spells only.

Useful references:
https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/weapons-and-items/black-dark-magic/
https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/weapons-and-items/white-magic/
https://serenesforest.net/three-houses/characters/learned-spells/


The List

10 is the best, 0 is the worst. If two spells are at the same tier it means I did not end up conclusively feeling that one spell was better than another; spells are not ordered within tiers. The gaps between tiers are likely not equal.

10: Mire at D+, Thoron at C, Meteor at A, Bolting at A
9: Death at B
8: Banshee at C, Luna at C/B, Dark Spikes at B/A
7: Ragnarok at A, Excalibur at A, Hades at A
6: Wind at D, Agnea's Arrow at A+
5: Fire at D, Cutting Gale at C
4: Thunder at D, Miasma at D, Bolganone at C, Sagittae at C
3: Swarm at D+, Seraphim at B
2: Nosferatu at D+, Abraxas at A, Fimbulvetr at A
1: Blizzard at D
0: Aura at A


10: Mire at D+, Thoron at C, Meteor at A, Bolting at A

Thoron is crazy. How crazy? Well, here's the thing: if you reduced its range from 1-3 to 1-2 (a massive nerf), it... still has the highest power of any C rank spell. It's less accurate than the rest but the point is even with this massive nerf it's competitive! The 1-3 range just makes it one of the absolute best spells in the game. You can target things you otherwise couldn't, and you get a better linked attack radius too (more on that in a moment). All on a spell which is powerful for its rank and not bad on accuracy.

Compared to Thoron, Mire is gained one battle earlier (the difference between D+ and C), is less powerful (by 6) and less accurate (by 5), but lowers defence by 5. Granted, you need to land two followup physical hits on the target before the defence lowering makes up for the low power, so the advantage only really comes up against monsters. It also has a lot of uses, but is dark magic so can't benefit from Black Tomefaire (Warlock, Dark Flier). Would characters trade for Thoron for Mire, or would Hubert trade Mire for Thoron? I think it's pretty close to a push. Both rule.

Meteor and Bolting are the other top spells. The ability to strike at range 10 is bonkers. Boss killing, ballista sniping, aggroing any formation you want, the possibilities go on. For some unearthly reason Meteor even strikes an area of effect, making it easy to finish off the neighbouring targets with weak attacks like Curved Shot. And there's an argument that casting these isn't even as powerful as their linked effect. Granted, it's only as good as your support list, but handing out +7 or +10 hit (more than that for gambits) to all your friends just by equipping it is pretty great. Excellent on a dancer, good on everyone else. Far and away superior to any other spell gained at A rank or beyond.

Of the two, Meteor is more accurate (by 15) and hits a splash, but Bolting has more power (by 2) and can be used twice as often. I don't have a strong opinion on which is better.

I have trouble comparing the siege tomes and the 3-range spells. Would Marianne etc. trade Thoron at C for Meteor/Bolting at A? Would Constance/Manuela trade Bolting A for Thoron C? I'm unsure. It's a question of early power versus later power. Interestingly I find myself thinking that Manuela should make that trade for sure, because she has trouble reaching A reason, while Constance... maybe not? So it depends. As such, all four of these spells get the top rank.


9: Death at B

3 range is really good! But getting it B instead of C is obviously worse. On top of that, Death is kinda worse than Thoron anyway: -3 power, -5 hit, +2 weight... all for +10 crit? Yeah crit isn't nearly that important on spells (note: this is not the least time I will say this). That said this is still a great spell to have. Lysithea not having it (or Mire) is a major downer; I'd trade her B rank spell for it in a heartbeat. And that says something, because I'd say Lysithea already has the best B rank spell that *isn't* named Death!

One interesting thing is that one 3 range spell devalues another: for Hubert, getting Death is not very important, because he already has Mire (he would rather have learned Dark Spikes or Luna). Similarly, Dorothea or Marianne wouldn't be very interested in trading their B rank spells for Death, even though I don't rate their B rank spells as highly. But since the large majority of mages don't have Thoron or Mire, I'm inclined to rank Death highly, because it's a game-changer for Hapi and it would be for anyone else for whom it were their first 3-range spell.


8: Banshee at C, Luna at C/B, Dark Spikes at B/A

Luna's effect, ignoring resistance, is completely unique. In practice, this means it has a might of "Target's Rsl + 1". On Maddening this tends to be a pretty big number, making it comparable to "power" spells such as Ragnarok. Compared to other power spells it has low hit (65) and low weight (but this doesn't help much since you can't double with it). It has 2 uses, the same as Hades/Agnea's Arrow. The real question is, how does it stack up in terms of power?

Well, at C rank, Lysithea (and hypothetically, other units with Reason boons) can conceivably have it in Chapter 3 (at B rank, e.g. Edelgard, you're waiting longer). It's honestly a pretty weak spell in Chapter 3; average Rsl is about 5 here, giving it a might of 6... which is actually worse than any other C rank spell, on top of its fewer uses and bad hit. This actually just further emphasizes that Luna deserves comparison with power spells, since while those aren't gained until A rank, Luna arguably doesn't start coming into its own until around the point of the game you're getting A rank spells.

By midgame (Chapter 10-16, or 10-14 CF), average enemy res is into the mid teens, so during this stage, Luna is pretty comparable to the power spells. In the last few stages (Chapter 17-22, or 16-18 CF), enemy average res climbs into the twenties, which is ahead of all of them.

Of course, comparing to average Res honestly undersells Luna. This is because low-res enemies can be killed by other spells very well, but high-res enemies? Luna can do far more. No other magic does significant damage to falcon knights, infantry mages, or bosses like Cornelia, Rhea, and Nemesis.

So overall I'm pretty comfortable saying it beats out all the power spells. Lysithea would sooner give up Hades than Luna. Would she sooner give up Dark Spikes? Tough call. Dark Spikes is gained early enough to have a power edge for a while, has +15 hit, and outperforms on cavalry forever (which helps make up for Luna's other wins). I think Luna (at any rank) is better than Dark Spikes at A, but probably worse at B? Since I'm rating by average accession time, I'm willing to give them an equal score.

The last spell I've grouped in here is Banshee, another dark spell. Banshee is a pretty generic C rank spell (better than average power, worse than average hit and weight)... except that like Thoron, it has a very cool extra effect. In its case, it reduces enemy move by 5. For most targets this reduces move to zero and frequently just lets you ignore the enemy for a turn which is quite potent. Hubert has both Banshee and Dark Spikes, and I'd certainly sooner give up Dark Spikes on him... but to be fair that's because his Dark Spikes is gained later, at A - if he had it at B my decision might be reversed. Would Hapi give up Banshee for Luna and/or Dark Spikes? I dunno; that's a tough call. Almost certainly, if she didn't have Hades... which makes me think Banshee is slightly worse than the other two spells I put in this group, but only slightly.


7: Ragnarok at A, Excalibur at A, Hades at A

And now we get to the rest of the power spells. Ragnarok is the middle child. Compared to it, Dark Spikes has -2 might but hits weakness on cavalry. Excalibur has +20 hit, but -4 might, and hits weakness on fliers. Hades has -15 hit, but +3 might.

I'd say power trumps hit in all these cases (it's easy to find a battalion which trades power for hit at a 1:5 ratio, the relevant gap), which would lead to Hades > Ragnarok > Excalibur, but some things complicate this. In Hades's case, it's a dark spell, so there during Advanced tier it takes a power hit compared to Ragnarok if you go Warlock or Dark Flier; it also has one less use. And in Excalibur's case, it hits weakness on fliers, so while it will miss some kills due to lower power (which enemies depends on point of the game), it gains some by killing fliers. I tend not to value flier-killing quite as highly because they're already easily killed by archers, but it's still worth mentioning.

Excalibur vs. Dark Spikes is also worth drawing attention to. Both high-rank, high-power spells strike a weakness. Excalibur has +20 hit and isn't a dark tome, Dark Spikes has +2 power (so +6 against a weakness). I tend to value cavalry weakness more than flying weakness because there are cavalry bosses who lack protection, and because the other anti-cavalry options are range 1 (i.e. Knightkneeler, Spear of Assal), while the other anti-flying options (bows) are long range. And then of course there's the fact that Dark Spikes is sometimes gained before A, so yeah, I'm comfortable saying that Dark Spikes is better.

In conclusion I think this tier is roughly equal: all worse than Dark Spikes and Luna, but all better than some other power spells still to come!


6: Agnea's Arrow at A+

Agnea's Arrow is another power spell, and it's worse than most of the rest, simply because it's gained later. It's got +1 power and -10 hit on Ragnarok (one less use as well) which was already probably a losing trade, but the accession time really makes the difference. Heck, Lorenz gets both this and Ragnarok, and since Ragnarok is a tier earlier, there's no question which one he values more. And while Constance and Dorothea certainly appreciate Agnea in their arsenal, but they'd rather have its power earlier.

That said, Agnea is still good! I think it's comparable to Wind, and that's a good thing. I'll say more on Wind in the section about basic spells, but for now, some quick thought experiments: would Dorothea or Constance give up Agnea for Wind? Lategame power vs. earlygame accuracy... for Constance I think the answer is no (Fire's not much worse than Wind), but for Dorothea maybe yes? Conversely, giving up Wind for Agnea... well, Linhardt or Flayn would do it in an instant, because they have Fire, while Annette... maybe. In all cases, +5 damage vs. Excalibur is enough to attract notice at those midgame one-shots. On the other hand, Lorenz would happily trade Agnea for Wind, since he already has Ragnarok, and +10 hit early matters more than +1 power late.


For the next two sections, I'm going to split the spells by type, rather than rank.

6: Wind at D
5: Fire at D
4: Thunder at D, Miasma at D


Most mages get one of these at D. They're kinda balanced against each other. Compared to Wind, Fire trades 1 weight and 10 hit for 1 power. Thunder makes the same trade compared to Fire. Miasma almost makes the same trade compared to Thunder, but mercifully for it, it doesn't lose accuracy.

On the whole I think Wind > Fire > Thunder is an easy call to make. The power differences do matter - Thunder vs. Wind is often the difference between needing a finisher hit from steel vs. a finisher hit from iron, and there are a few foes like Chapter 1 Dedue (for the Eagles/Deer) where you really want every bit of magical oomph you can get. But 10 hit alone is surely close to outweighing 1 power (worth noting that iron sword vs. iron lance is 1 power vs. 8-9 hit at low levels), and the weight certainly matters. Since this will be the character's lightest spell with a couple exceptions; its weight will be the limit on them doubling.

Miasma vs. Thunder is harder to call. Since Miasma doesn't lose hit, 1 power vs. 1 weight is a comparison which IMO favours Miasma in the earlygame, but favours Thunder later when you're just using the spells to try to double armours anyway most likely. And of course if you're in Advanced tier and don't have Valkyrie access, Miasma suddenly loses power by a lot.

As a side note, Wind even has 10 crit (Thunder has 5, the other two zero). You can't really do crit builds with mages (outside zany double Wrath setups, I suppose) but it's a nice bonus on an already solid spell.


5: Cutting Gale at C
4: Bolganone at C, Sagittae at C


These spells are similar; they're the baseline C rank spells. You want to have one of them: they represent a +5 power increase, give or take, over your previous spells. But these three aren't very exciting past that. Almost everyone has a C rank spell (either these, or the similar-but-better Banshee or Thoron), though Anna and Lysithea buck the trend (Lysithea with Luna, which is quite different; Anna just has nothing!).

Interestingly, they're actually quite accurate, averaging 90 hit (a few characters, like Dorothea and Marianne, even have one as their highest-hit spell). Sagittae sits in the middle (though it does have a strangely high use count at 10); Cutting Gale has +5 hit, +5 crit, and -1 weight, while Bolganone has +1 power, -5 hit, -5 crit. I'd say Cutting Gale's a touch better than the other two, but only a touch.

Comparing them to basic spells is hard. Most people have one of each, so the question becomes... would I rather trade my basic spell for Blizzard, or lose my C rank spell entirely? The former gives you bad accuracy for a couple chapters and in some cases a game-spanning AS hit, the latter gives you power woes for several chapters. I think the answer depends a lot on which spell we're talking about (Wind to Blizzard is 30 hit, ouch) and what spell you get at B rank or beyond. Of course, characters with two D rank spells wouldn't mind losing one, and characters who have two C rank spells (which could include Thoron) don't mind losing one too much either.

On the whole I think I value Wind>Blizzard too much for any of these spells to trump, and otherwise I find it hard to call. Hence my decision to put Cutting Gale (the better C spell) with Fire, and Bolganone/Sagittae with Thunder/Miasma... though this also implies the gap between my 5 and 4 tiers is very small.


3: Swarm at D+, Seraphim at B

Swarm vs. Mire is depressing. Both D+ dark spells. Same hit, a similar debuff effect (Swarm's is speed instead of defence). Swarm gets to win weight/power by 1, Mire gets to win range by 1. This is hilariously unequal.

Swarm mostly shows up and manages to be slightly lighter than Miasma, which is nice, but also weaker and has Blizzard-level accuracy. The speed debuff is only very rarely useful (mostly against monsters). I'm pretty confident saying it's worse than Miasma; Lysithea and Hapi would much sooner give up Swarm then be stuck at 70 hit until C or even B rank. But it's not much worse because it always maintains its niche use against monsters. Just... most units would only give up an already redundant spell to get it.


Seraphim is the first faith spell on this list, and they play by different rules. First of all, the thing to know is that Faith Prowess does not boost hit as much as Reason Prowess (it boosts evade more, but this is only rarely useful because faith spells are so heavy). The gap ranges from 4 points at D+ to 10 points at A+. Additionally, because there are so few offensive faith spells, it becomes reasonable to not set Faith Prowess at all and save yourself a skill slot, at which point the hit gap versus Reason instead varies from 11 (D+) to 20 (A+).

Seraphim has 75 hit, but if you consider the math posted above its actual effective hit is in the 60's at best, i.e. not good. Fortunately its only real use is targeting monsters who usually (not always) have terrible evasion, and hitting them with 24 power. It's honestly not an amazing damage move even against them since it has trouble doubling, but it does cut through barriers nicely (particularly noteworthy since with Caduceus/Thyrsus it makes a great opener to begin a chain of uncounterable barrier-breaking attacks)... unless the barrier in question is an anti-magic one. Still, this is a pretty cool niche. Would mages trade Nosferatu for it? ... yeah, probably, in most cases. Would they trade a non-garbage D rank spell (even Miasma or Thunder) for it? Probably not. I'm inclined to say it's comparable to Swarm: it's overall better (but different) at its monster niche, but doesn't have Swarm's slight earlygame utiity, and requires investing into a faith tree which some would rather not bother.


2: Nosferatu at D+, Abraxas at A, Fimbulvetr at A

Fimbulvetr has 12 might and 65 hit. What were they thinking? As a reminder, Ragnarok is 15/80, Hades is 80/65, Agnea is 16/70. Yes, Fimbulvetr has crit, but good luck doubling anything with this (except maybe the slowest of armours, who you'd kill without a crit), and it's hard to get excited about a 15% higher chance of maybe killing something on your non-doubling chip damage.

It's worse than Agnea. Constance manages to get Fimbulvetr at B (unlike the A rank it is for everyone else) and Agnea at A+ and I'm pretty sure I still care about Agnea more (though at that point it's at least competitive). Dorothea would rather have Agnea too, the extra power is worth the wait. Lorenz wouldn't care either way. Looking at things from the other side... would people with Fimbulvetr trade it for Agnea? Interestingly, people with Fimbulvetr are usually neutral in Reason, so it would be a rather long wait for the added power. So it's actually close in those cases. But there's no case I'm willing to say Fimbulvetr is definitely better, unlike Agnea. And if you're looking to add a power spell to someone's resume, like Linhardt or Annette, they'd certainly prefer Agnea by a lot, +5 power over Excalibur has a major niche would Fimbulvetr can't really fill with its +1.

Marianne and Ingrid would trade Fimbulvetr for Fire, and Constance would rather keep Fire than Fimbulvetr, I think.

What about Thunder/Miasma? This seems more promising, but... honestly, nobody with these would trade them for Fimbulvetr, since they basically all already have a high-power spell of some sort at that rank which outclasses Fimbulvetr. Even Mercedes, who barely cares about Thunder, wouldn't make this trade. What about Seraphim? Would Marianne give up her A rank spell for Seraphim? She... loses 3 peak damage against humans (god, Fimbulvetr only beats Thoron by 3, depressing), but gains 12 damage against monsters, and breaks their barriers, and gets this spell earlier. Yikes? Seraphim feels more important to Ingrid than Fimbulvetr does too. Okay. I think I can convincingly say Fimbulvetr is the worst spell considered yet.


Let's talk about another underwhelming power spell.

Abraxas has 14 might, 90 hit (but really, compared to Reason spells you should hit it by 10-20 points or so), and is heavy with 2 uses. It's best described as worse Ragnarok. Now of course, worse Ragnarok is still useful enough, as Agnea's Arrow proved. If it were a Reason spell with 75 hit gained at A, I would consider it comparable enough to Agnea's Arrow, maybe even a bit better: lose 2 power, but get it earlier. Unfortunately, it's not a reason spell, it's an A rank faith spell. This is bad.

See, the thing is, almost everyone slinging spells wants to go to A reason and beyond, with S being the real goal. Reason Prowess has a strong effect on accuracy (up to 20 hit), and most offensive spells are reason spells. So pushing this up leads to both more accuracy and new spells, and pushing it to S gives a very nice bonus of +1 range. It's safe to say anyone training seriously in magic classes is likely to reach at least A reason, barring the odd hybrid build which sacrifices reason for weaponry (think Holy Knight Bernadetta or maybe Dark Knight Sylvain). On the other hand, because there are no great offensive faith spells, few people want to raise faith ranks just for Prowess. And if you learn Aura at A, there's a guarantee your last useful spell otherwise was at B, so that's a big extra investment for this. To top it off, unless you do go Holy Knight, there's a shortage of classes which boost white tomes: Warlock, Dark Flier, and Valkyrie all buff black spells, but not this. Gremory at least evens the playing field.

For all these reasons, Constance would far rather give up Abraxas than Agnea's Arrow, and Dorothea would not think of trading the reason A+ spell for the faith A spell. The comparison is not close.

Would Annette rather give up Abraxas or Wind? Joke question, I've never gotten Abraxas with her even though it's nominally her strongest spell, it's just too out of the way since she's faith neutral and learns nothing else past C. Would Lysithea rather give up Abraxas or Miasma? Again, silly question, she gets virtually nothing from Abraxas due to already having other power spells. Would anyone trade their non-Blizzard D rank spell for Abraxas? Honestly I'm having trouble seeing it. Maybe Linhardt but since he wouldn't want to delay Warp he wouldn't get this until A+, which is... ugh. So probably not him, even.

What about Abraxas vs. Seraphim? As faith spells they're easier to compare. And Seraphim feels like it wins this competition; while Abraxas does offer power for some, it's power that many people already have in other ways, and very late. Seraphim being earlier with a clear niche at monster-fighting gives it the edge.

What about Abraxas vs. Fimbulvetr? Now we're finally talking. Abraxas has more hit (under any assumptions about reason vs. faith), more power (unless Black Tomefaire enters play), but is more out of the way for most. Do I think this balances? Actually... yeah, roughly. These are our two power spells that aren't very good but fill a niche because any power spell is better than none. Which one is better will depend somewhat on the unit; Marianne would probably prefer Abraxas, but Constance would likely get more out of even an A rank Fimbulvetr than Abraxas. Annette gets very little out of either. Rarely do I feel they'd be too far apart.

To bridge to the next section, how about Abraxas vs. Nosferatu? I think some units might reasonably give up Nosferatu for Abraxas, just to have more uses of a power spell, or a power spell at all. But... certainly not everyone, Nosferatu does have a little niche of its own, and you get it almost for free, while Abraxas requires going out of your way. I'm fine with these two on the same tier.


Finally, let's talk about Nosferatu. Everyone gets this, but very few care about it much. 1 might obviously sucks, 8 weight sucks, 80 hit... is okay. Notably, earlygame is where faith spells suffer least for hit, the gap between Thunder at D+ and Nosferatu at D+ is just 4 hit. So if your D rank spell is Blizzard, Nosferatu is actually your most accurate spell for a bit! (Sorry, Marianne.) Anyway, Nosferatu's niche is that if its crappy stats are good enough to get the job done, you can heal yourself with it, either on player phase or potentially enemy phase if you're feeling spicy. And while this is definitely a niche I have made use of, I feel like it's probably a smaller niche than Swarm has... Swarm being obtained at the same rank, and having similarly poor stats (a bit less hit, better power/weight). but debuffing a monster's speed probably comes up more than the self-heal? You could argue me, but that's my kneejerk. I think Lysithea and Hapi would rather give up Nosferatu than Swarm, and plenty of units would trade Nosferatu for Swarm. Not everyone: notably Marianne and Linhardt start with this and nothing else, so it's a bit better for them. But overall, I think this is where this goes. This is one I could easily be argued on.


1: Blizzard at D

Blizzard is the worst reason spell.

My assumptions for these ratings is "everyone has a D rank spell". As such, Blizzard gets no credit for being better than an empty slot. And it's the worst D rank spell by a lot, so nobody actually wants it. Everyone with it as their solitary D rank spell would rather have another D rank spell instead.

Let's compare Blizzard to Thunder, which is already one of the weaker D rank spells otherwise. Blizzard's numbers? -1 power, -10 hit, +10 crit. As I've noted previously, crit isn't very useful on spells. Blizzard is heavier AND less powerful than the average D rank spell, and also has the lowest hit by far. All for... 5 more crit than Wind? Yeah who cares.

Shamir and Bernadetta are the only characters who learn this as well as another D rank spell. Would they rather have Blizzard, or... almost anything else? Especially for Bernie, who currently lacks a spell above 80 hit, almost anything else would be better. For Shamir, maybe you could sell me on Blizzard for a second C rank spell being a losing trade. Maybe.


0: Aura at A

If you've ever had the joy of watching Roderigue get attacked by bandits in Felix's paralogue, seeing him get doubled while having 50-some displayed hit on them in return, you may have an idea how bad Aura is.

Aura tries its best to make the other offensive faith spells look good. Compared to Abraxas it has -2 power and -20 hit. Gross. It's the least accurate spell in the game, fullstop. Compared to Fimbulvetr, it has +5 listed hit (so anywhere from -3 to -15 in reality), equal power, and... even 5 less critical, which is sad since crit might be the one thing Aura has to try to have a niche. Plus it's a faith spell, which as mentioned is a bad thing.

How about Aura vs. Blizzard? Again, Shamir and Bernadetta are the only characters who have a use for Blizzard using my assumptions (that everyone must get one D rank spell, and that Blizzard is clearly the worst). Would they trade Blizzard for Aura? ... honestly, I don't think so. The slight critfishing niche Blizzard has against slow monsters beats Aura trying to do the same with 5 more crit but 8 more weight, I think, and more to the point they just get Aura way earlier; Shamir won't ever train faith to A (bane). It's closer for Bernie but I think the answer is the same.

What about everyone else? What if we make them an offer: you get Blizzard at D+ in addition to your other spells, or you get Aura either at A, or a half-rank after your existing A rank spell (since nobody is trading their existing A rank faith spell for this). ... again, I think some characters *might* get a little value out of Blizzard for its tiny crit-fishing niche, while basically nobody is grabbing Aura. You could make a slight case for someone like Linhardt, but... on average, I think no.


So there you go!

24
Congrats!

On your final thoughts: Spell Absorb specifically is extra good against Altima (since it takes a higher percentage... I forget if it goes through Wall?) so I would be surprised if Oracles don't manage. And to be clear, I felt like Summoners could manage, just... would need more levels than I got (I think I was in the 30's? Would have to check), so that says good things for Time Mage as well.

25
Neat idea! Some thoughts:

-With Warp banned but LTC the goal, Rescue skyrockets in value (it's... about 50-75% of Warp in terms of distance it allows, typically, assuming you go Dark Flier which well of course you do). I think Constance should be taken earlier. Like... if we're allowing full use of Byleth for all players, Constance should quite possibly be the first pick? P1 gets screwed over at Reunion at Dawn this way buuut you can build a super Byleth if that's not banned. If you try to avoid Byleth hardcarry (e.g. ban Byleth from killing bosses or something) then yeah Dorothea/Petra offer too much value, but I don't think Constance should be taken later than fifth even then, certainly before Ferdinand. Flayn should go sooner too, especially since she's part of a package deal with Caduceus.

-Alternatively you could also ban Rescue too. (The thread you linked might have but it instead banned DLC, and Rescue without DLC classes is way, way less potent.)

-Wrath setups are indeed cool for Rout maps, but... there actually isn't a non-paralogue Rout map post-timeskip, with the sole exception of Chapter 14, which is a bit of a tricky map to do enemy phase setups for (still a bit early for Wrath, and tricky to get a battalion down low enough for Battalion Wrath... gotta do it in Chapter 13, gross). Seteth/Alois as Heroes can thread the needle to set up both Vantage and Battalion Wrath at once, but their mobility is just so awful on 14, so much forest reducing Hero to as little as 2 move. Petra's Battalion Wrath Alert Stance+ build is probably the best method, for the two players who have her.

-Regarding Manuela as a Hanneman adjutant, note that she has the same effect on Dorothea too.

-I also do like the idea of "if you draft a character, you get X turns of their paralogue for free" (for a given value of X, 10 is pretty generous but works I suppose). I don't like extending this to aux fights, except maaaybe the merchant quest ones (and the post-timeskip one should be, like, 3 turns IMO). Other aux fights are just blatant grinding and I see no reason to give free turns there but penalize turns in story fights. That's just me though.

-If you don't allow the player to benefit from undrafted units in any way, Sylvain goes up in value compared to where you have him, I think. Knightkneeler Lance of Ruin from a Cavalier is one of the quickest reliable ways to end Chapter 6 (and is useful in other places too).

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