Soul Hackers 2

[SnowFire]

The sentient Internet supercomputer has calculated that the world will end shortly, and the only way to stop this is to send shards of itself sleeved into cyborg form to go run around abandoned dockyards, unfinished buildings, and underground rail tunnels collecting loot...


This is something of a provisional topic.  There are some dramatic interp questions here.

Interpreting Soul Hackers 2 in the DL
SH2 characters are sorta split into two halves in-game, the human/cyborg and the equipped demon.  Your summoners use "Aion-Empowered Summoning" which is basically summoning a demon into their COMP, which is their weapon (rather than actually summoning it as a separate entity).  The humans have slots for 3 passive skills called "Mistiques", and these all have the role of stuff like XYZ Amp and XYZ Boost in other SMTs.  You get more Mistiques both by leveling up demons and by buying them from a vendor.  Your demons only have 6 slots which are generally active skills, elemental resistance passives, and quirky other passives. 

The stats of the combined character are the human's stats + the demon's stats.  You CAN run demonless and just use basic attacks / guarding / items, but there's a substantial stat hit from this (especially by endgame), so you're really not expected to.  The characters don't really have "canon" lategame demons attached to them; to the extent they have pet demons, it's their starters (mostly Saizo & Hare of Inaba, which the game shows together several times).

So we have some options in a stat topic..
* A Solo demonless characters with affordable Mistiques.
* B Solo demonless characters with the best, but expensive, Mistiques.
* C Characters with their starting demon leveled up appropriately to be on-level par for stats, and their default, garbage-by-endgame skillset.
* D Characters with their starting demon leveled up appropriately, and a skillset updated to be endgame-viable (e.g. swapping Dia with Diarahan, Agi with Agidyne, etc.).  You COULD do this with Mitamas or other funky fusion chains if you were eccentric in-game.
* E Characters with a neutral-to-all composite demon based on an average of L60-66 demon stats, and skills based on if their starting demon's skillset was updated to endgame equivalents.
* F Characters with a neutral-to-all composite demon based on an average of L60-66 demon stats, and skills based on the summoner's natural mistique affinities.

This topic will cover option A, the simplest one.  It still doesn't solve quite everything (do we assume monsters are similarly scaled down in stats to reflect the artificially lower personal stats?) but is a useful baseline of just-the-character's stats.  A long-term solution is probably one of the other ones, but would want to hear opinions.  (And note that the "starting demon leveled up appropriately" basically is "do a NG+ with that demon equipped constantly" if you don't want it wildly behind on XP.)

I've included some basic information on the info that would be in one of the other options.

Character affinities

• Ringo: Physical, Lightning, Almighty
• Arrow: Gun, Ice, Support
• Milady: Physical, Fire, Ruin / Status ailment infliction
• Saizo: Gun, Force, Healing

This is useful for Mistique choice + an F interpretation, based on what high-level skills & stack bonuses the characters get that fit their affinities.

Stats:
HP: Insert witty joke here.
Str: How powerful Physical & Gun attacks are.
Int: How powerful everything else is (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Force, Ruin, Almighty).
Vit: Affects damage taken mildly; gives a bit more max HP.
Agi: Affects Aim, Dodge, and escape rate.  Also affects action order between PCs, but see below, this isn't really a useful guide to "initiative".
Luk: Affects critical rate and status ailment infliction rate.  (It definitely helps offensively as far as inflicting statuses; I'm not sure if it helps defensively as far as resisting them.)

COMP upgrades
The character's weapons are called COMPs in SH2.  In general, I assume you collect all the COMP upgrades (perhaps excluding the irrelevant lesser Affinities since you won't be equipping weaker Mistiques anyway).  The one exception is that come endgame, there's a final "star" tier of upgrade, but you're only allowed a single one.  Getting a different star-level upgrade will send the other one back down to the penultimate level.  I've noted when it's not clear what star upgrade a character desires. 

Summoner skills
As characters increase in Soul Level and you do the PS2 loading screen dungeon, characters unlock personal upgrades.  I assume you've learned all the relevant ones and gotten everyone to 100 Soul Level, but didn't do the "Depths of the Soul" 100+ SL tier 5 stuff.  Technically, this means that some skills will be left unlearnt, but it's pretty easy to just do the combat-relevant ones and skip the "exploration" related ones.

Commander skills
These are special effects that run off a cooldown timer.  Very very late in the game (last half of the last dungeon late), you can get a 1-turn discount on the cooldowns via an upgrade to Ringo's COMP.  They're flavorfully tied to Ringo like Sabbaths, but these are also mechanically tied: they can't be used if Ringo is KO'd.  However, I'm a little hesitant to hype up letting Ringo go nuts with them, as Ringo should be alive 99% of the time in-game, and while she is alive, anybody can use them.  Additionally, the most important Commander skill in-game is Conversion, which lets you switch a single summoner's demon.  Conversion is not super-helpful in the DL, though, so all the also-ran skills that get in the way of using Conversion get maybe more prominence than they should.

In the DL: You might ban these entirely.  You might allow them but assume they're mysteriously all on cooldown, so Ringo will only get an Overclock extra turn 5 turns in.  You might just straight-up allow them.  Up to you!  (Overlock is the money one, although Shield Deployment is handy if you assume it's available turn 1 vs. powerful but frail status slingers where even a single turn of status immunity is enough.)

Elemental weaknesses and Sabbaths
First, up front: weakness hitting mechanics for the player and for the enemy team are NOT the same.  When enemies hit a PC weakness, they do more damage and that's it.  This is unfortunate, but not the total disaster it is in some SMTs.

When you the player hit an elemental weakness, the reward are "stacks".  The stacks turn into more damage that goes off at the end of the player turn in a "Sabbath" which is sorta like a Persona team-up attack but with demons.  It's similar to SMT Strange Journey's Co-Op attacks in the remake, if you're familiar with that.  My guess is that the damage is based on a basic attack of all the demons summoned into the stack.  There's some minor focusing at work too - with 2 enemies, you lose ~20-25% damage per target; with 3 enemies, you lose ~30% damage; etc.  It's not pure focusing where you'd lose half your damage per-target by going from 1->2.  Mostly just means Sabbaths hurt more against just 1 enemy.  Sabbath damage is completely unresistable elementally, similar to physical Almighty damage.  (In-game, if there's an enemy you have trouble damaging, hitting them incidentally via building Sabbaths on their friends with friendlier weaknesses is a valid tactic.)  Sleeping enemies, debuffed enemies, etc. will take more damage from Sabbaths, although they inexplicably won't break Sleep status.

In flavor, Ringo is the one commanding these Sabbaths, and they also require sufficient demons in the supply (e.g. if you somehow have no demons not in the Sabbath left in the supply, further stacks are wasted).  In practice, a lack of demons will never ever ever come up, and if it does it's a "good problem to have" because that means you already have a 12+ stack rolling.  And mechanically, it's not tied to Ringo - even if Ringo is dead, she'll temporarily get back up to order the Sabbath to go off.  So fair game for the full cast IMO.

From testing, unequipped endgame Sabbaths were dealing 70-90 damage with 1 stack vs. 1 enemy, 140-160 damage with 2 stacks, and 220-240 damage with 3 stacks.  (If you get more than 3 stacks in a single turn in a duel, something is up, although I guess Ringo can get it with a Recursive Processing extra turn proc while fighting a lightning-weak enemy.)


Status ailments:

Characters and enemies can only be inflicted with a single status effect at once; they can't be stacked.  (Hypothetically, this could mean intentionally letting yourself be inflicted with one not-so-bad status to ward off a scarier one, but the opportunity to do this never really comes up.)

Status is most often inflicted via Ruin skills, although there's a few other effects that can apply it (e.g. the Physical ability Blight can inflict Poison).  Crucially, there are four mistiques that let you apply a status with any ol' damaging effect in the right element: Lightning gets Paralysis, Ice gets Sleep, Fire gets Seal, and Force gets Poison.  These mistiques are amazing and you should totally equip them in-game.

The Lck stat governs both status infliction and status resistance (as does Level as usual, I'm sure).  The exact formula is not given in-game, but Persona 3 Reload's formula includes multiplying everything by ((Attacker's Luck + 100)/(Defender's Luck + 100), so wouldn't shock me if something similar was up here.

List of status ailments:

• Paralysis - Skip all turns.  Wears off after ~3-4 turns.
• Sleep - Skip all turns. Take ~+100% (?) additional damage from Physical, Gun or Sabbath attacks.  Wears off if hit with a physical or gun, or after ~3-4 turns.  Restores 2 HP / 2 MP at start of turn (basically nothing).
• Seal - Can't use skills that cost MP (i.e. everything demons provide).
• Poison - Lose 25% max HP after acting.  Can't be fatal.  Lasts around ~4-5 turns; wears off early if Poison knocked the character to 1 HP the previous turn.
• Faint - Skip your next turn.  (i.e. 1-turn paralysis, basically.)
• Dread - Enemies have a higher critical hit rate.
• Daze - MP Poison, basically.  Lose MP after acting.
• Bomb - If character takes damage, all their allies take damage as well.  Only enemies inflict this status.
• Target - Enemies focus attacks on the character.  Only enemies inflict this status.

Initiative

Battles open in one of three ways: a bonus attack, regularly, or an ambush.  In a bonus attack (more likely if you slash a random on the exploration map), you go first and get a bit of free multitarget damage on the enemies.  In a regular fight, your team goes first.  In an ambush, one or two of the enemies get an action first (not necessarily all of them), then your team goes.  There's strict alternation of player turn, enemy turn afterward.  Boss fights always open regularly.

I am pretty opposed to using Agility for speed or initiative any more than as a grudging tiebreaker between two average speed characters.  Agi doesn't seem to help at all as far as the PC side getting more turns on the enemy - you always go first vs. bosses, and even if you fail to slash an enemy, the tool tip doesn't say anything about team AGI helping you go first.  It's strictly inter-team turn order this can affect.  (Even if Agi somehow did help you avoid ambushes, which I doubt, by endgame you should have Arrow's Vigilance skill greatly reducing the rate of ambushes anyway.  And should just slash everything regardless.)

Short version: Everyone's average speed, and Agi is okay for tiebreaks I guess.

Meals

Probably not DL-legal, but in-game by mid-game and beyond, there's really no reason not to always have a Meal effect up, and some of these can be reasonably potent.  Notably, meal effects include increasing evasion, reducing enemy status ailment hit rate, providing a free Taru/Raku/Suku - kaja buff after 3 turns pass, or providing MP restoration if low on MP.  Maybe something to tiebreak long battles with.


Stats table
For a just-the-stats approach.  Includes the minor stat boosts from Summoner Passives.  Characters are taken at level 66.  Parentheses indicates stat boosts from the default Accessory picked for this topic (e.g. Saizo having HP+180, MP+100 off Vintage Lighter).

	HP	MP	Str	Int	Vit	Agi	Lck	Comp	Armor
Ringo	945 (1105)	398	49	49 (61)	44	50	39	80	61
Arrow	998 (1031)	370	48	44	54 (66)	48 (58)	38	80	55
Milady	855	416	45 (57)	57	43	48 (58)	35	80	62
Saizo	914 (1094)	399 (499)	43	46	46	55	37	80	60
Averages	928 (1021)	396 (421)	46 (49)	49 (52)	47 (50)	50 (55)	37	80	60

[SnowFire]

Ringo

HP: 945 (1105) MP: 398 Str: 49 Int: 49 (61) Vit: 44 Agi: 50 Lck: 39
PCHP: 1.08 Comp: 80 Armor: 61

Attack: ~95.
** Critical hit: ~140.  If Warrior's Insight ★ is chosen, guaranteed crit on turn 1.
Zionga: 160 lightning damage.  50% (?) chance of paralysis.

[Sabbaths: 1-stack: 75 Almighty damage.  2-stack: 150 Almighty damage.  3-stack: 225 Almighty damage.]
Gets Sabbath stacks (usually +1, sometimes +2) for hitting physical / elec weakness or a critical hit.

Mistiques:  Bolt Crystal, Elec Augment IX, Elec Paralysis
Equipment: Equipment: Zirconia Band (61 Def, HP+160, INT+12)
(There is a female-only armor, Fae Queen's Band, from Titania.  You might see it as legal if you assume you got her gift, then either re-summoned a pre-max one or recruited a new one for a 2nd copy.  It's 70 Defense, MP+125, INT+10, AGI+10)

COMP upgrades (Antikythera):
Phys Arcana I   Decreases MP cost of Physical skills by 10%
Phys Boost III   Increases Physical skills' damage by 50% when striking an enemy weakness.
Warrior's Insight III   Greatly increases Critical Rate of Physical skills
** Warrior's Insight ★   Vastly increases the Critical Rate of Physical skills. Guarantees critical hit on first turn's attack.
Surveillance Scan III   When a battle begins, chance of analyzing all enemies and revealing affinity resistances. (Some enemies immune.)
Phys Pierce III   Your Physical attacks pierce enemy's Resist/Null/Drain affinity.
** Phys Pierce ★   Your Physical attacks pierce enemy's Resist/Null/Drain/Repel affinity. (Cannot pierce Tetrakarn.)

(Must pick one of Warrior's Insight ★ or Phys Pierce ★)

Summoner passives:
Relevant:
Electricity Stack, Physical Stack, Critical Stack:
When striking a weakness to Electricity / Physical, or getting a critical hit, add an additional +1 to the stack.
Weakness Stack+:
(??)% chance when striking any weakness of an additional +1 to the stack.  (Doesn't seem to proc very often - 15%?)
** (Short version: Hitting an electricity or physical weakness provides a 2-stack Sabbath, or occasionally a 3-stack Sabbath.  A physical critical hit provides a 1-stack Sabbath (unless it hit a weakness, in which case it was a 3-stack Sabbath).
Optimize Process   When using skills in battle, there is a chance you won't spend MP. (20%?)
Recursive Processing   Low chance of increasing action count by 1 at start of turn. (20-25%?)
Shortcut Command   Decreases turn cost of Commander Skills by 1.

Already baked in to above stats:
LUK Hack   LUK increases by 3.
VIT Hack+   VIT increases by 4.

Irrelevant:
Initiator Stack   When an ally's Bonus Attack succeeds, 1-2 demons join the Stack.
Traesto   Instantly escape a dungeon and return to the City Map.
Estoma   For a given distance, enemies 3 levels below Ringo will not appear.
Demon Skill Unlock 1   Increases demonic allies' skill slots by 1.
Demon Skill Unlock 2   Further increases demonic allies' skill slots by 1.

Commander skills:
Conversion (1)   Can change 1 ally's demon.
Stack Optimization (6-1=5)   For the turn used, all allies' Stack gains based on dealing HP damage increase by 1.
Master Conversion (4-1=3)   Can change all allies' demons.
Damage Condenser (4-1=3)   Narrows sabbath to a single target and increases its power.
Shield Deployment (4-1=3)   Increases all allies' defense and prevents status ailments for 1 turn.
Overclock (6-1=5)   Increases a target ally's actions by 1.   

The "-1" is from the Shortcut Command passive above.

Auto-commander skills:
Auto-Repair   At the start of an ally's turn, low chance of slight HP recovery for all allies over 3 turns.
MP Optimization   At the start of an ally's turn, low chance of halving their MP costs.
Turn Extension   At the start of an ally's turn, low chance of extending all allies' active buffs.
Ailment Purge   At the start of an ally's turn, low chance of healing an ally's ailments.
Reboot      On ally's turn, if 2 or more allies are KO'd, they will be revived with full health. 1 use per battle.


Other interps:
B
Equip a Stormcloud Crystal Mistique for Perun's Strike (instead of Zionga).
C
Starting demon: Pixie (weak to Gun and Force, resists Electricity)
Zio, Dia, Dodge Gunfire
D / E
Scaled up: Ziodyne, Diarahan, Dodge Gunfire EX
F
Skills by Mistique Affinities: Ziodyne (Maziodyne), Bamboo Slice (Empty Wave), Life Leech, Megidola

Arrow

HP: 998 (1031) MP: 370 Str: 48 Int: 44 Vit: 54 (66) Agi: 48 (58) Lck: 38
PCHP: 1.01 Comp: 80 Armor: 55

Attack: ~90
** When below 25% max HP: ~140
** Critical hit: ~175
** With Charge active: ~180 (2x damage, +1 to Stack if hitting a weakness)
Bufula: ~95 ice damage, ~50% chance of Sleep

[Sabbaths: 1-stack: 75 Almighty damage.  2-stack: 150 Almighty damage.  3-stack: 225 Almighty damage.]
Gets Sabbath stacks (usually +1, sometimes +2) for hitting gun / ice weakness, killing an enemy, or a critical hit.

Mistiques: Icicle Crystal, Ice Augment IX, Ice Slumber
Equipment: Marshal Glove (55 Def, VIT+12, AGI+10)
(This equipment isn't that impressive at endgame.  As it's mostly defensive, if you assume you fight a final dungeon Risky Enemy, you could get a Sapphire which is 75 Defense, which is more defensively useful than the Vit / Agi.)

COMP upgrades (Mk90 Summoning Gun):
Gunfire Arcana I   Decreases MP cost of Gunfire skills by 10%.
Gunfire Boost III   Increases Gunfire skills' damage by 50% when striking an enemy weakness.
Capote III   Greatly increases critical hit damage for Gunfire skills.
Vigilance III   Greatly lowers chance of being ambushed by enemies.
Golden Gun III Greatly increases damage of Gunfire skills when HP is below 25%.
** Golden Gun ★   Greatly increases damage of Gunfire skills when HP is below 25%. Taking damage activates Charge.  (Charge = single shot of 2x Phys/Gun damage and +1 to the stack if hitting a weakness.)

Summoner passives:
Relevant:
Ice Stack, Gunfire Stack, Deathblow Stack, Critical Stack
When striking a weakness to Ice / Gunfire, or an enemy is slain, or a critical hit is made, 1 demon joins the Stack.
Weakness Stack+   When striking a weakness, chance of 1 demon joining the Stack.
Vengeful Opportunist   When guarding, slightly recover MP.
Barricade   May automatically raise your guard when damaged by enemy attacks. Cannot synergize with Vengeful Opportunist. (Read: Take damage as if Arrow had used a Defend command.)
Macho Gallantry   Low chance of jumping in to take a hit that would kill a near-death ally.

Already baked in:
INT Hack   INT increases by 2.
LUK Hack+   LUK increases by 4.

Irrelevant:
Riberama   For a given distance, enemies appear more often.
Adept Healer   Strengthens the healing power from demons on recon.
Treasure Hunter   Demons on recon may acquire additional rare items.
Wild Uproar   Higher Stack counts in battle provide higher EXP bonuses.
Brotherly Guidance   Increases EXP gained by demonic allies on standby.

Other interps:
B
Equip a Glacier Crystal Mistique for Cocytus (instead of Bufula).
C
Starting demon: Poltergeist (weak to Fire and Electricity, resists Gun)
Bufu, Needle Shot, Sukunda
D / E
Scaled up: Bufudyne, Freikugel, Acid Breath, Fog Breath
F
Skills by Mistique Affinities: Bufudyne (Mabufudyne), Freikugel (Heaven's Bow), (Support is a weird set - Luster Candy / Debilitate for something "Fair" perhaps?)


Milady

HP: 855 MP: 416 Str: 45 (57) Int: 57 Vit: 43 Agi: 48 (58) Lck: 35
PCHP: 0.84 Comp: 80 Armor: 62

Attack: ~135
** Critical hit: ~ 205
Piercer: ~150 almighty damage, restores ~14 MP
Agilao: ~150 fire damage, ~50% chance of Seal

[Sabbaths: 1-stack: 75 Almighty damage.  2-stack: 150 Almighty damage.  3-stack: 225 Almighty damage.]
Gets Sabbath stacks (usually +1, sometimes +2) for hitting physical / fire weakness, inflicting an ailment, or a critical hit.

Mistiques:  Flame Crystal, Fire Augment IX, Fire Seal
Equipment: Equipment: Victoria Bustier (62 Def, STR+12, AGI+10)
(There is a female-only armor, Fae Queen's Band, from Titania.  You might see it as legal if you assume you got her gift, then either re-summoned a pre-max one or recruited a new one for a 2nd copy.  It's 70 Defense, MP+125, INT+10, AGI+10.  This is notably better for Milady since she prefers being a mage, other than the better Def of course.  In-game, Ringo already has an Int-boosting Accessory, so it kinda slots to Milday easily.)

COMP upgrades (Stigma):
Phys Arcana I   Decreases MP cost of Physical skills by 10%
Phys Boost III   Increases Physical skills' damage by 50% when striking an enemy weakness.
Piercer III   Piercer skill: Weak STR-based Almighty damage to 1 enemy. Can be used even if Sealed.
** Piercer ★   The Piercer skill removes target's Tetrakarn and Makarakarn effects.
Ms. Surprise III   Greatly increases chance of a Bonus Attack when starting a battle with a slashed enemy.
Harvest III   Moderate MP recovery when attacking or using Piercer.

Summoner passives:
Relevant:
Fire Stack / Physical Stack / Ailment Stack / Critical Stack
When striking a weakness to Fire / Physical, or inflicting an ailment, or doing a critical hit, 1 demon joins the Stack.
Carmilla's Echo   When an enemy is slain, slightly recover MP.
Meditative Breath   Increases MP recovery rate in battle.

Maybe relevant in a team match:
Mercy Kill   If an ally's attack has left an enemy near death, chance of performing a finishing blow.

Already baked in:
VIT Hack   VIT increases by 3.
STR Hack+   STR increases by 3.

Irrelevant:
Assassin's Steps   Pre-Ver 1.02 only: Ringo's movement speed increases on the map.  After version 1.02: Enemy detection range for aggroing on the map is smaller.
Coercive Glare   For a given distance, enemies cannot ambush you easily, and Bonus Attacks become easier.
Fundraiser   Increases money found by demons on recon.
Assassin's Eye   Increases chance of material/item rewards from enemies slain in sabbaths.
Sublime Massacre   Higher Stack counts in battle provide higher money bonuses.

Other interps:
B
Equip an Inferno Crystal Mistique for Muspelheim (instead of Agilao).
C
Starting demon: Onmoraki (nulls Fire, weak to Ice and Ruin)
Agi, Tarukaja, Dodge Force
D / E
Scaled up: Agidyne, War Cry, Bloodlust, Dodge Force EX
F
Skills by Mistique Affinities: Agidyne (Maragidyne), Bamboo Slice (Empty Wave), Stun Gaze, Dormina, Poisma (pick 6 out of 7)


Saizo

HP: 914 (1094) MP: 399 (499) Str: 43 Int: 46 Vit: 46 Agi: 55 Lck: 37
PCHP: 1.07 Comp: 80 Armor: 60

Attack: ~75, ~20% chance of Faint
** Critical hit: ~115
** Double hit: ~150
** Triple hit: ~225
Zanma: ~100 wind/force damage, ~50% chance of Poison

Items: You might allow Saizo storebought healing items per his passives.  If so, he gets Natural Ointments (max supply of 20), which heal 200 HP (=300 HP w/ Decadent Feast). You're not allowed to use a healing item on a full-health target (but ARE allowed to cast a healing spell on them.)

[Sabbaths: 1-stack: 75 Almighty damage.  2-stack: 150 Almighty damage.  3-stack: 225 Almighty damage.]
Gets Sabbath stacks (usually +1, sometimes +2) for hitting gun / force weakness, recovering his or an ally's HP (even if already at full health), or a critical hit.

Mistiques:  Gale Crystal, Force Augment IX, Force Poison
Equipment: Vintage Lighter (60 Def, HP+180, MP+100)
(Notable alternate option: Quartz Bangle, 47 Def, VIT+5, passive that increases evasion against Gunfire attacks.  Similar to Arrow, if you allow the Risky Enemy drops in the final dungeon, he might prefer just a raw 75 Def Sapphire.)


COMP upgrades (Tommy Gun):
Gunfire Arcana I   Decreases MP cost of Gunfire skills by 10%.
Gunfire Boost III   Increases Gunfire skills' damage by 50% when striking an enemy weakness.
Duplicator III   (Basic) Attacks have a chance to double-hit.
** Duplicator ★   Attacks have a high chance of hitting 2-3 times.
Pick-Me-Up III   Greatly increases chance of obtaining items from defeated enemies.
Chandler III   Chance of Gunfire inflicting Faint ailment on the enemy.
** Chandler ★   Greatly increases chance of Gunfire inflicting Faint on the enemy.

(Must pick one of Duplicator ★ or Chandler ★.  No, I don't know if the extra hits from Duplicator increase the proc rate of Chandler.)

Summoner passives:
Relevant:
Force Stack, Gunfire Stack, Recovery Stack, Critical Stack
When striking a weakness to Force / Gun, or recovering HP, or getting a critical hit, 1 demon joins the Stack.
Weakness Stack+
(??)% chance when striking any weakness of an additional +1 to the stack.  (Doesn't seem to proc very often - 15%?)
Thrifty Habits   When you use an item in battle, there is a low chance it will not be consumed.
Decadent Feast   Effects of HP recovery items used in battle are 1.5x more potent.
Sharpshooter's Spirit   When an enemy performs a Physical/Gunfire attack, adds a chance it may be Nulled. (~20% chance?  Don't think it even has to target Saizo.)

Already baked in:
STR Hack   STR increases by 2.
INT Hack+   INT increases by 3.

Irrelevant:
Slowma   For a given distance, slows enemy movement speed.
Appraisal   Demons on recon may acquire additional rare items.
Freelancer's Wit   Increases chance of demons on recon introducing high-level demons.
Slick Negotiator   Increases chance of receiving powerful Mistiques as gifts.
Worldly-Wise   Increases chance of getting more gifts from demons who have already given you gifts.


Other interps:
B
Equip a Tornado Crystal Mistique for Sanjiva (instead of Zanma).
C
Starting demon: Hare of Inaba (weak to Fire and Force, resists Electricity and Ice)
Zio, Dia, Trafuri, Dodge Physical
(Yes, Saizo's starter demon doesn't have Force, but rather lightning.  Odd.)
D / E
Scaled up: Ziodyne, Diarahan, Trafuri, Dodge Physical EX
F
Skills by Mistique Affinities: Zandyne (Mazandyne), Freikugel (Heaven's Bow), Diarahan, Lourdes, Samarecarm

[SnowFire]

Bosses

I have a save file before Iron Mask 3 if there's any desire.  He's basically an odd version of Chrono Trigger Magus, all about building elemental barriers then dispelling them.  Not very difficult in-game but probably still Godlike in the DL anyway just by dint of some spoiling and boss durability.

I've uploaded a YouTube video of the final boss here:

* https://youtu.be/GRFyrg0sA-I

Probably not super rankable - as you can see I win on my first try so it's not THAT crazy a fight, but final boss durability + a formshift + most DL duelers not having the kind of cheaty elemental blocking you can easily get in-game means slugfests are gonna be tough.


These damage averages assume interp A, demonless (and thus the damage values are way, way lower than would be realistic in-game).

Basic, 1-turn, no Commander Skills, no Sabbaths, no 1st-turn only effects
1. 160 Ringo: Zionga
2. 150 Milady: Agilao
3. 100 Saizo: Zanma
4. 95 Arrow: Bufula

Damage average: 126 (2.5x killpoint: 315)

3-turn, no Commander Skills

Same as above, but Ringo damage rises to 178 on average:
1. 178 (535) Attack (Guaranteed crit), 1-stack Sabbath, 2x Zionga

Damage average: 131 (2.5x killpoint: 328)

In practice it will be a tad higher due to Saizo Duplicator procs (if he attacks rather than use spells) and Ringo Recursive Processing procs.

3-turn, Commander Skills

Same as above, but Ringo damage rises:
1. 232 (695) Attack (Guaranteed crit), 1-stack Sabbath, 3x Zionga (w/ free Overclock turn)

Damage average: 144 (2.5x killpoint: 360)

[SnowFire]

DL thoughts

Ringo is a bit of an interp headache.  Her damage ends up good, partially due to having a good Int-boosting endgame Accessory, partially due to getting a late-breaking powerful turn 1 attack.  If she lands her Elec Paralysis this is extremely bad for her opponent and probably match-winning, maybe even worth giving up her turn 1 crit for to fish for faster.  If you give her Summoner Passives, she gets that free turn and maybe a bit of status defense for even more blitzing power.  She's probably a High Middle at minimum, makes it to Heavy if you give her either better skills or Commander Skill hype.

Arrow's damage is not great.  However, he is saved by his extremely late-breaking Golden Gun ★ upgrade, which isn't THAT special in-game.  If you hurt him, he gets a free Charge effect for double damage, and in the DL pulsing your damage is much more useful than in a boss fight against a tanky foe. If you stall too long buffing for a OHKO he'll icy sleep you which is probably deadly given that his spells won't break sleep.  He gets a buffing game of his own if given Demon abilities.  He's a bit tankier than his PCHP suggests with his cast-best Vit and random chance of free guard actions.  Probably High Middle?

Milady is mildly annoyed her endgame accessory helps her physical game (in-game, she's the obvious choice for Fae Queen's Crown even if you only get one) but Seal (=Silence) is still a powerful status to land with her fire damage, and she'll get a Sabbath if she manages to land the status.  She's a tad frail in raw HP, though, so she ends up a bit like Ringo Minus in the DL if given the demonless interp with less HP, less damage, and a less match-winning status.  She likes interps that let her utilize her Ruin spell game, as there's lots of powerful, accurate statuses to play with there.  Probably a Low Middle at base, can get to High Middle with nicer interp tools.

Saizo varies a fair amount by how much you spot him.  He's very random at base, with cast-worst damage and the weakest status in Poison, but having a bunch of proc chances on Duplicator / Chandler / Sharpshooter's Spirit to make something happen.  If you give him Items, then you need damage sufficient to overcome his healing game - remember that healing himself is giving Sabbaths for damage every turn, although storebought items aren't THAT amazing at endgame.  And if you let him get spells, his healing game becomes much better (maybe even full healing) backed by the Sabbath damage.  He has odd feelings about interps that scale up Hare of Inaba - he gets the wrong element (I guess he can equip a weaker Elec Augment Mistique, but won't get free Sabbath stacks off it), but Dodge Physical EX is really good in the DL for healers.  He starts at Low Middle but makes High Middle with healing item usage (he is notably cast-best at doing this and they're utterly trivial to have by endgame) and can clearly make Heavy with interps that give him full healing.