Alright, time for another DS game stat topic - this time, one with Judy Garland for Heavy champ hype. Let's start with the mechanics mumbo-jumbo. Stats are taken at level 42 across the board, as those were the levels I beat Oz with. Test subjects for damage testing were the Snowy Apes in the last two areas of Yellow Brick Road (the game's last dungeon), since they are typeless and have pretty averagish defensive stats. Status odds were tested throughout the game and are mostly stable across the board, except for Falcon Swoop, which took a bit of a dive from 75% to 50% in the final dungeon due to a bunch of key enemies resisting it.
StatsHP: The closer to zero these are, the higher the odds of Dorothy's house falling on your head are. The Wicked Witch of the East has a permanent zero on this stat.
MP: Use these for all your spellcasting and skill-using needs.
Attack (ATK): Affects the power of physical attacks and skills.
Magic (MAG): Affects the power of magical attacks and healing - might affect buff/debuff effects and such, but I can't be certain. Only Dorothy and Strawman have any use for this.
Defense (DEF): Affects how much damage you take from physical attacks.
Resistance (RES): Affects how much damage you take from magical attacks.
Accuracy (ACR): Affects how often you hit enemies. By endgame, even Tin Man very rarely misses, but the stat definitely makes a difference.
Agility (AGI): Affects how often you dodge enemy physicals. Oz evasion affects both basic physicals and physical skills. I put an eyeballed effective evasion percentage from casual observation.
Speed (SPD): Defines who goes first in battle and how many actions can a character get before enemies (Strawman consistently gets his second action before the first action of a Tin Man-level slow enemy, for instance, and Dorothy more or less gets all her actions before average enemies after Overclock).
Damage FormulaThe estimated basic damage formula is (ATK-DEF/2)/2, swapping ATK and DEF for MAG and RES for magic attacks. This is what I used to figure the rough durability figures for the PCs. This formula is also tentative, so I could be wrong - particularly, you may want to take the mdur scores with a grain of salt, since the magic formula could be finickier. Thanks to Tal for bringing this up, regardless.
WARNING: I used a 1x mult, which may not be terribly accurate to in-game (as I mention later on, very few single attacks even go above 110 damage, and enemies almost universally multi-act). If I do add a 2x mult and spread the damage per hit thinner, the durability figures are bound to change, but I'm not even 100% sure on this formula as is and I might botch it up horribly. Since lategame defense stats sorta dwindle anyway, I'm not particularly uncomfortable with keeping the 1x mult either. I'll make adjustments if others who played the game -do- feel it's necessary, however.
Ratio MechanicsIn Oz, you have four points to arrange your front row for the turn. Dorothy and Strawman spend one point, Lion spends two points and Tin Man spends three points. You cannot spend less than all four points unless it's absolutely impossible to do so (i.e. all PCs but Tin Man are dead. In this case, Tin Man can go by himself, spending only 3 ratio, but that spillover ratio doesn't get stored in any way). The characters can perform any actions they want within the turns given, and the arrangement can be done in any way you like as long as it doesn't go under or over 4 points: you can have two Strawman and Dorothy actions in a turn, have Strawman go three times and Dorothy go once, or you can have Dorothy hog all four actions in a turn. Every action after the first that a character gets in a turn has a speed penalty, so the actions don't all go at once - and your party cannot double their own party members. They -can- double enemies. Enemies also can double themselves besides being able to double your party (>__>) and they're bound by the same ratio system as your party. This may seem a bit dense, but it's actually fairly simple in-game.
Status AilmentsPoison: A poisoned character takes 20% mHP damage at the end of the turn (after all actions are taken). Lasts 3-6 turns. Various enemies inflict this.
Silence: A silenced character cannot use spells or physical skills. Various enemies inflict this.
Charm: A charmed character doesn't act. Delphi inflicts this.
Sleep: Enemies don't act while they're asleep. An enemy hit by a physical is woken up, but skips his turn. Magic spells don't wake up a sleeping character. Dorothy and various enemies can inflict this.
Confuse: Enemies become unable to use any attack besides their basic physical, also becoming unable to target their attacks (they may randomly attack other enemies or the party, but cannot target themselves). They also have a chance to not act at all while confused. The odds of spacing out seem to be roughly 33%. Gets undone by magical damage, but not by physical damage. Status spells don't affect it either. Strawman and various enemies can inflict this.
Fear: An enemy afflicted by fear can't act on his next turn. Only works if the character inflicting Fear is faster than the enemy. Basically, this is stun. Only Lion can inflict this status.
Critical HitsA critical hit ignores defense and its damage roughly equals the character's attack stat. PCs seem to have varying crit rates - Dorothy and Strawman seem to have roughly a 5% crit rate, while Lion seems to have 10% and Tin Man seems to have 20% for a crit rate. This is just out of casual observation, though, and I could obviously be mistaken. This is just for a quick reference. Also, this is important:
only basic physicals can crit.
Having that out of the way, let's get straight to the point: the PC cast!
Dorothy Gale1x Ratio (gets four actions per turn)
HP: 237
MP: 147
Attack: 207 (120 base)
Magic: 343 (217 base)
Accuracy: 385 (235 base)
Defense: 289 (187 base)
Resistance: 341 (225 base)
Agility: 397 (237 base)
Speed: 349
Effective Evasion: 25%~
EquipmentWeapon: Magic Cane (77 Attack, 126 Magic, 150 Accuracy)
Armor: Mystical Gown (112 Defense, 126 Resistance, 160 Agility)
Attacks and SkillsPhysical: 72 damage. 148 under Power Boost. Deals 1.5x damage to ghost-type (gases, ghosts, undead) enemies.Healing Hand: Heals 270~ HP to an ally. 4MP
Dream Land: Inflicts sleep status on an enemy group. 75%~ hit rate. Lasts 3-6 turns. 4 MP.
Overclock: Doubles the speed of the front row allies. Lasts 3-6 turns. 6 MP.
Cleanse: Cures all status ailments from an ally. 6 MP.
Heaven's Door: Revives an ally at 20% mHP. 10 MP.
Mirror Skin: Puts up a reflector that bounces off most enemy magic (a few special spells, like Oz's Sound Waves and Ju Kaku's Light Fall, don't get reflected). Reflects status and debuffing spells as well. Ally spells don't hit the reflector. Lasts 3 turns. 12 MP.
Power Boost: Raises an ally's physical damage. Lasts 3 turns. 14 MP.
Melt Down: Deals magical, non-elemental damage that's dependant on Dorothy's current HP at the time of casting, and also consumes half of her cHP. 405 at full HP, 342 at half HP, 264 at 1 HP. MT. 18 MP.
Comments: Um, wow. The skillset errs to the side of badass even in a vacuum, but once it sinks in that it's running off a character who acts four times per turn and has pretty solid speed to begin with, you realize the kind of monstrosity you have to face if the random little girl from Kansas crosses your path. Mages loathe Mirror Skin, the sleep-vulnerable loathe Dream Land and everybody loathes the combo of speed buffing with cheap full healing that she can use while still dishing out offense that can be buffed. Melt Down is expensive and risky, but Dorothy can use it with relative ease as a finisher, and it works as a backup if the enemy walls physicals. The big issue with Dorothy, though, is the physical durability. While it's not Yulie-level bad, she is rather vulnerable to good physical beatdowns and she has no real way to mitigate those long-term - the modest evasion can only go so far. On the other hand, the durability does -not- matter unless she's OHKOed, and doing that honestly could be a lot easier. Having no status immunities also hurts, particularly against those faster than her, but against the slower, she has Mirror Skin for magical status. All in all, I feel safe in calling her
Heavy/Godlike. She's a little terror in Heavy, but the highest division is just too good at exploiting her lack of straight-up statistical dominance.
Strawman1x Ratio (gets four actions per turn)
Takes 2x damage from Fire attacks
HP: 250
MP: 86
Attack: 198 (129 base)
Magic: 316 (203 base)
Accuracy: 418 (254 base)
Defense: 248 (152 base)
Resistance: 298 (185 base)
Agility: 416 (252 base)
Speed: 392
Effective Evasion: 30%~
EquipmentWeapon: Bolt Spear (69 Attack, 113 Magic, 164 Accuracy)
Armor: Stylish Hat (96 Defense, 113 Resistance, 164 Agility)
Attacks and SkillsPhysical: 69 damage. 82 damage after Gnaw. Deals 1.5x damage to water-type (frogs, fish, jellyfish, penguins) enemies.First Wind: Makes the target get the first action in the next turn. 2 MP.
Plunder: Steals an item and deals 54 physical damage (72 under Gnaw). Evadable. Deals 1.5x damage to water-type enemies. 2 MP.
Gnaw: Decreases defense of an enemy group. Perfect accuracy, works on bosses. Lasts 3-6 turns. 6 MP.
Tomato Bomb: Inflicts confuse status on a group. 75%~ hit rate. Lasts 3-6 turns. 4 MP.
Fox Hunt: Decreases the accuracy of an enemy group. Perfect accuracy, works on bosses. Raises Strawman's evade to effectively 75%~ or so (50%~ against the accurate). Lasts 3-6 turns. 4 MP.
Falcon Swoop: Inflicts instant death to an enemy. 50%~ accuracy. In-game, ghost-type enemies (which means undead and phantoms) immune this spell. 8 MP.
Purifying Wind: Dispels all positive and negative effects (all buffs and debuffs period) for all allies and enemies. 6 MP.
Pure Luck: Randomly picks a skill from Strawman's skillset and uses it. Besides those, there are three additional possibilities: doing absolutely nothing (that does what you think it does), Heavenly Dance, which is ST 340 magical damage, and Lucky Recovery, which is MT 80 HP healing. 3 MP.
Comments: Hey look ma, it's a fast bastard with turn two ID that acts four times a turn! That alone would make Strawman a Heavy, but that's really selling him short. Strawman is very much a strange twist on Arnaud, trading more powerful and varied debuffs (including the speed debuffing) for a stronger status game and better speed. Tomato Bomb and Fox Hunt synergize amazingly, shutting down mages and physical fighters alike really fast, and he only needs half his turn to get this going. Afterwards, he can just spam his ID safely until the enemy dies - or pelt him/her ingloriously with his mighty 16HKO a pop pitchfork thwacks. Buffers also find him a pain in the ass due to Dispel. But, really, you either immune both Confusion and ID at once or you OHKO him before he gets that annoying game of his going if you want to live. Doing the former is the most crucial - and most difficult, but the latter is sorta viable: Strawman sports game-worst durability on both fronts. And he -really- hopes he doesn't have to face decent fire damage he can't shut down, because that weakness is really pesky. Still, he's such a goddamned whore that I can't see him as anything else but a
Heavy, probably on the high side - the two-fold status/spoiling game is just a pain in the ass against PCs. What's with Oz characters turning out to be badass duellers?
