Final Fantasy XIII

[Talaysen]

Over here: http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Final_Fantasy_XIII

Still need to some cleanup on it but lazy.

[SnowFire]

Some further thoughts / interp notes.

* Status Blocking / Accessories.  By endgame, every character has 3 Accessory slots.  Accessories are totally non-unique - there is nothing like Shadow / Relm's Memento Ring to my knowledge.  They are also, however, storebought.  Your call on if they should be legal, and if so, how they should be interpreted / what should be allowed.  In game, these will probably be handy stat-boosting accessories that cover your main stat - Magic for Hope / Vanille, Strength for Snow / Fang, etc.  There are also some solid HP boosters and defense boosters with things like "resist all elemental damage by 25%" or "resist physical and magical damage by 15%".  I can totally see throwing all the stat boosters out for sake of sanely deciding what's expected of characters, though I'd offer some nebulous general bonus to statistics, which would have the effect of slightly flattening out the curves (Hope's HP isn't as bad with accessories taken into account, since +1000 HP for him is more noticeable than +1000 HP for say Snow).

More relevantly, there are storebought status-blockers for every negative status ailment in the game, save Doom (= instant death countdown, used only in plot fights, not by normal enemies).  They all resist by 30% unupgraded, and 45% upgraded.  It is orders of magnitude cheaper to upgrade these then to grab a maxed lvl. 3 weapon, mind, even if you wanted to have every status blocked for all 3 characters.  They also have lvl. 2 forms if they are transmuted; these go from 40% resistance at lvl. 1 to 60% resistance at max level, but they are not storebought directly.  However, the Perevoskite necessary to transmute lvl. 1 -> lvl. 2 is storebought.  I personally would not allow the level 2 items, but your call.   Stealing from Daetrinn's FAQ on GameFAQs:

Resist Debrave  | Giant's Glove, Warlord's Glove
Resist Defaith  | Glass Buckle, Tekite Buckle
Resist Deprotect| Metal Armband, Ceramic Armband
Resist Deshell  | Serenity Sachet, Safeguard Sachet
Resist Slow     | Glass Orb, Dragonfly Orb
Resist Poison   | Star Pendant, Starfall Pendant
Resist Imperil  | Pearl Necklace, Gemstone Necklace
Resist Curse    | Warding Talisman, Hexbane Talisman
Resist Pain     | Pain Dampener, Pain Deflector
Resist Fog      | White Cape, Effulgent Cape
Resist Daze     | Rainbow Anklet, Moonbow Anklet
Resist Death    | Cherub's Crown, Seraph's Crown

Debrave is -STR, Defaith is -MAG, Deprotect is -PDEF, Deshell is -MDEF, Slow is the usual, Poison is the usual (FF13 poison is not very scary, FWIW), Imperil reduces elemental resistance by one level (usually equal to double damage - neutral becomes double, halved becomes neutral), Curse is "you are easier to stun-lock and make you lose actions from being attacked", Pain is "physical silence = no physical-based abilities, including the base Attack", Fog is Silence (no magic-based abilities), Daze is Stun/Stop, Death is Death.

You can stack the same equip multiple times in-game, or for that matter stacking these with a Ribbon (="resist all status ailments by X%").

EDIT: See Tal's note below. 

Stacking works multiplicatively, so putting three 30% accessories on is 1-0.7*0.7*0.7 = 65% resistance.  (Three 60% accessories is 93% resistance.

And three 45% accessories would be 83% resistance to the status ailment.

If you are lenient and allow accessories to be reserved for status-blockers, FF13 characters can mostly stop a single status ailment of their choice.  Of course, FF13 characters are in more trouble if they have to defend against multiple potential statuses.  Personally, I would assess a nebulous "stat penalty" to FF13 characters who are stripping what, in normal gameplay, would be stat boosters for status resistance.  (I do the same for, say, Shadow Hearts 2, where that Leonardo's Bear is replacing a Defense-boosting Belt.)

* Allowable Weapons / Accessories.  I don't want to torment Talaysen and make him re-run the numbers yet again, but I definitely prefer the upgraded lvl. 2 weapon statistics to the upgraded lvl. 3 statistics.  To get the materials needed to transmute lvl. 3 weapons means taking on aftergame powered monsters, so it feels aftergamey.  (I took on a mere A-class sidequest and got my ass kicked but was still able to beat the final boss, and getting Trapozohedrons requires beating up Adamantoises and the like.)  In fact, just as a general rule, I think I'd even prefer max upgraded *level 1* weapons.  It's tough to draw a sensible line, but considering the large numbers of weapon options characters have, I can sorta see upgrading all your level 1 options to the max, but getting even all your level 2 options for 3 characters by normal endgame would be insanely expensive.  I think saying "if it's storebought, it's legit, but no transmutation" works well as a semi-arbitrary dividing line for power.  Continuing the above note on accessories, I'd cap the allowable status blockers at upgraded lvl. 1 equipment, so Cherub's Crowns are fine but not Seraph's Crowns.  (Side note: In game, I took Tonfa's advice and didn't bother upgrading my weapons ever, so I ended the game with unupgraded lvl. 1 gear.  Upgraded my accessories instead, which gives you party flexibility - switch in whoever you like but give them the sweet accessories.  Make of that what you will.)

* Allowable Paradigms.  I am against allowing the secondary roles.
-- In the DL, letting everybody have all roles reduces uniqueness.  We don't let FFX characters wander outside their segment of the sphere grid despite Teleport Spheres making it doable in-game, so we should apply the same standard here.
-- It's not a good deal in-game, unless you're power leveling and capped with nothing else to spend the CP on.  The costs on the secondary role abilities is very, very expensive and quite inefficient compared to the primary roles.  For example, Lightning has HP +180 for 10000 CP in her lvl. 9 Commando Crystarium, a less efficient HP +150 for 12000, and a very inefficient HP +80 for 18000.  Yet even that horrible +80 for 18000 (225 CP per HP) shines like a diamond compared to Lightning's off-class HP +10 for 3000 CP in Sentinel (300 CP for 1 HP).  And Sentinel is the class with the best HP growth, and the rates get EVEN WORSE after that.  When I finished the game, I hadn't finished getting all the stat boosts in my primary roles for each character, so yeah.  Getting up to lvl. 3 in each off-class strikes me as taking an overly late gameish average, although I will grant this is probably plausible if you sidequested heavily in Chapter 11 (I didn't).
-- Since you are restricted to just 6 paradigm sets anyway, it'd be quite difficult to slip off-classes in anyway.  I know that there have been many times I wished I could switch to a different formation of just my 3 primary roles for each character I hadn't created in advance.  You just can't cover every possible formation, so you have to pick and choose.  Considering that most characters are pretty bad at their off-classes, even if you develop them, it's hard to actually see much use in game for them.  Don't get me wrong, they exist (I think triple Sentinel was hyped vs. telegraphed super attacks), but even if you do bother to develop the off-classes, they probably won't see much in-game use.

There is one possible exception to this.  Synergist Fang is the only character in the game (pre-aftergame Crystarium) to get Bravera, Faithra, Shellra, and Protectra.  In other words, there is actually reason to level her off-role and it's not a strictly worse shadow of somebody else's version of that role.  Plus, there's a uniqueness argument.  I wouldn't be averse to letting Fang have this, although if I were being hyper-fair, if she wants the Synergist abilities, she'd have to buy them using the same base amount of Crystarium Points as everyone else.  This would mean ignoring a few stat nodes in her primary roles to get the inefficient low-level Synergist boosts, and would be a stat penalty, basically.

Unfortunately, assuming that the characters have spent 0 CP on the secondary roles adjusts the stat spread from the Wiki topic a bit.  The bonuses are pretty bad, but I suspect it makes each character accentuate their strengths and weaknesses a bit more - Hope isn't getting HP off Commando / Sentinel, Fang isn't getting Magic off Ravager / Synergist, etc.

* Bosses.  Are all insanely ubergodlike and unrankable, even more so than FF12 bosses.  FF13 turns go by *fast* so a 2 minute fight is really about 15 rounds, and most boss fights take longer than that - 5 minutes to 10 minutes is more common.  Even throwing away healing turns and including all the buffs / debuffs, we're talking about 30-60 rounds of pure damage to kill your average boss, or 12x-24x PCHP.  This means that outslugging an FF13 boss is generally "do you have infinite healing yes/no" even for the sucky ones with bad damage and no tricks.  There's actually not that many plotty bosses anyway - not very many characters bother to chat and introduce themselves before trying to kill you.  And surprisingly enough, despite it being one of the possible ways the game's plot could have unfolded, the party doesn't go on a tour of Cocoon's fal'Cie followed by killing them all in awesome boss battles.  Not to mention that the fal'Cie are a pretty quiet bunch anyway, with one exception.

The one boss vaaaaaaaaageuly rankable:

Anima - Great scene before this guy at least.  Has two extra parts, can regrow them, does damage.  Chrono Trigger boss, basically.  HP isn't as insane as later bosses, too.  Fun fight that is quick and deadly!  If it wasn't a fight that translates boringly to the DL, alas.  The party is a bunch of mortals for this fight so not many tricks aside from "toss potions" on their side as well.

[Talaysen]

To my knowledge, there's nothing stopping you from stacking the same resistance item, or for that matter stacking these with a Ribbon (="resist all status ailments by X%").  In other words, if you are lenient and allow accessories to be reserved for status-blockers, even with unupgraded lvl. 1 items FF13 characters can stack 90% resistance to a single status in FF13.  Upgraded lvl. 1 items means they can get 90% resistance off just 2 slots, or 135% resistance if they really want to be sure.  Of course, FF13 characters are in more trouble if they have to defend against multiple potential statuses.  Personally, I would assess a nebulous "stat penalty" to FF13 characters who are stripping what, in normal gameplay, would be stat boosters for status resistance.  (I do the same for, say, Shadow Hearts 2, where that Leonardo's Bear is replacing a Defense-boosting Belt.)

Stacking works multiplicatively, so putting three 30% accessories on is 1-0.7*0.7*0.7 = 65% resistance.  (Three 60% accessories is 93% resistance.

* Allowable Weapons / Accessories.  I don't want to torment Talaysen and make him re-run the numbers yet again, but I definitely prefer the upgraded lvl. 2 weapon statistics to the upgraded lvl. 3 statistics.  To get the materials needed to transmute lvl. 3 weapons means taking on aftergame powered monsters, so it feels aftergamey.  (I took on a mere A-class sidequest and got my ass kicked but was still able to beat the final boss, and getting Trapozohedrons requires beating up Adamantoises and the like.)  In fact, just as a general rule, I think I'd even prefer max upgraded *level 1* weapons.  It's tough to draw a sensible line, but considering the large numbers of weapon options characters have, I can sorta see upgrading all your level 1 options to the max, but getting even all your level 2 options for 3 characters by normal endgame would be insanely expensive.  I think saying "if it's storebought, it's legit, but no transmutation" works well as a semi-arbitrary dividing line for power.  Continuing the above note on accessories, I'd cap the allowable status blockers at upgraded lvl. 1 equipment, so Cherub's Crowns are fine but not Seraph's Crowns.  (Side note: In game, I took Tonfa's advice and didn't bother upgrading my weapons ever, so I ended the game with unupgraded lvl. 1 gear.  Upgraded my accessories instead, which gives you party flexibility - switch in whoever you like but give them the sweet accessories.  Make of that what you will.)

Why would you upgrade all the weapons?  I only upgraded the ones I was going to use.  Quite reasonable to get those to tier 2 maxed by endgame.  And beating the turtles for the Trapezohedrons is doable before endgame, you just need to cheese them.

-- In the DL, letting everybody have all roles reduces uniqueness.  We don't let FFX characters wander outside their segment of the sphere grid despite Teleport Spheres making it doable in-game, so we should apply the same standard here.

FFXIII characters get their own secondary role grids with different skillsets and statsets, so it is not the same as FFX.

[SnowFire]

Interesting notes on status.  And no, you wouldn't upgrade all the level 2 weapons in game of course, but I was more thinking for a DL setting where it's presumed that a character can "switch" between legit weapons options.  If a character has reason in different duels to want to use 3 different level 2 weapons depending on circumstance, that implies that you had access to all three level 2 weapons in-game.

I know the bit about cheesing turtles.  For those that don't know, you can kill turtles with Vanille's Death, which has a terrible hit rate, but you use a SAB/SAB/SAB formation to up the odds, and just restart if it doesn't work.  Point stands, though, it still feels aftergamey even knowing there's a way to do it without aftergame stuff.

I realize that the FFX comparison is not perfect but it's close enough.  Notably in FFX, if you give Yuna Lulu's skillset or vice versa, they'll actually be good at it and can use it.  However Commando Hope will not have all the neat passives boosting him that the "real" Commandos get, so he'll be kinda meh at it, comparatively.  Same with Sentinel Hope.  Saboteur Hope has a limited skillset compared to a real Saboteur, which limits the attractiveness of setting it in one of your six scarce role sets.  And while the crystariums are technically a bit different, for the vast majority of cases the off-roles will just be someone else's skillset minus.  You'll get the basic lvl. 1 Ravager spells but not the MT ones or not all elements, for example.

Also, knowing what options the off-roles even have isn't something that most people will know on an average playthrough, I'd wager.  Precisely because you probably won't have CP to spare to master all three off-roles unless you seriously sidequest, this will be a bit obscure, especially since even the people that DO bother to do this probably won't use the off-roles as much as the primary roles.  So aside from the uniqueness issue, there's also a votability issue with allowing the off-roles.

Anyway, far be it from me to force my interp on others, but I'm putting it out there. 

[Talaysen]

Interesting notes on status.  And no, you wouldn't upgrade all the level 2 weapons in game of course, but I was more thinking for a DL setting where it's presumed that a character can "switch" between legit weapons options.  If a character has reason in different duels to want to use 3 different level 2 weapons depending on circumstance, that implies that you had access to all three level 2 weapons in-game.

Most of the weapons aren't useful very often in the DL.  Just let them have an upgraded tier 2 weapon of the one they want to use most and less/not upgraded versions of the others or something.  No sense punishing because they have weapons they COULD be upgrading but don't need to.

I realize that the FFX comparison is not perfect but it's close enough.  Notably in FFX, if you give Yuna Lulu's skillset or vice versa, they'll actually be good at it and can use it.  However Commando Hope will not have all the neat passives boosting him that the "real" Commandos get, so he'll be kinda meh at it, comparatively.  Same with Sentinel Hope.  Saboteur Hope has a limited skillset compared to a real Saboteur, which limits the attractiveness of setting it in one of your six scarce role sets.  And while the crystariums are technically a bit different, for the vast majority of cases the off-roles will just be someone else's skillset minus.  You'll get the basic lvl. 1 Ravager spells but not the MT ones or not all elements, for example.

The fact that they ARE worse at secondary roles is a point for them.  That lack of ability will be reflected in the DL.

Also, knowing what options the off-roles even have isn't something that most people will know on an average playthrough, I'd wager.  Precisely because you probably won't have CP to spare to master all three off-roles unless you seriously sidequest, this will be a bit obscure, especially since even the people that DO bother to do this probably won't use the off-roles as much as the primary roles.  So aside from the uniqueness issue, there's also a votability issue with allowing the off-roles.

Um, you can see what skills they learn without learning them you know...

[Dhyerwolf]

FF 13's damages are pretty straightforward, so I believe any theoretical alterations are pretty easy to do (I have some capped tier 2 weapon numbers myself). That said, given that Tal only took very few levels of secondary roles and that secondary roles are so bad at stat boosting, they should have little effect on average. I think that not allowing the secondary roles isn't that uncommon. Not really comparable to FFX, but all the other reasons hold pretty true to me.

[SnowFire]

Nothing new here, but just for sake of ease of comparison, here's some tables for the maxed lvl. 2 weapons that Talaysen prepared and only allowing primary roles.  (Note that I personally would ideally throw out the off-class stat bonuses and use lvl. 1 items, but the first shouldn't make TOO huge a difference.  The second, hard to say.)  Nothing wrong with Tal's format, just I like to be able to compare everyone's HP/damage/etc. all at once rather than one-at-a-time + scrolling to the averages, and the averages are slightly different.  (Mostly Hope hates not having access to Commando now.  Vanille doesn't care as much because Imperil makes Ravager still cool in a duel.)

HP:
1. 10020 Snow (1.25)
2. 8595  Sazh (1.07)
3. 8085 Fang (1.01)
-- 8040 Average
4. 8005 Lightning (1.00)
5. 7675 Vanille (.95)
6. 5860 Hope (.73)

Speed:
Everyone is the same speed and has 5 ATB.  To the extent people are faster, it's that Sazh's ranged attack will go off faster than Snow running up and Froststriking someone, say.  If the actions don't add up, there's a slight boost in initiative for the ATB bar unused - i.e. if Sazh opens with Haste / Protect, that only uses 4 ATB bars, and he can do his Bravery / Enwater or whatever "sooner" next turn.  Also see "Cut & Keep" below - there's an argument that effects that tie up enemy turns like attacking are effectively "faster" than status / healing.

Turn 1 damage:
1. Fang (Commando) 5x Attack: 20082 physical damage  [21086 w/ Powerchain, i.e. the first time Fang attacks and builds chain]
2. Snow (Commando) 5x Attack: 16962 physical damage [17800 w/ Powerchain, i.e. the first time Snow attacks and builds chain]
3. Lightning (Commando) 5x Attack: 16287 physical damage [17101 w/ Powerchain, i.e. the first time Lightning attacks and builds chain]
-- Turn 1 Average 13670
4. Sazh (Commando) 5x Attack: 12205 physical damage [12815 w/ Powerchain, i.e. the first time Sazh attacks and builds chain]
5. Hope (Ravager) 5x [Element]: 8812 (lightning/ice/water/fire/air) magic damage
-- Snow (Ravager) 5x Alternating [Element]strike: 7950 (ice/water) physical damage
-- Lightning (Ravager) 5x Alternating [Element]strike: 7932 (lightning/ice/water/fire) physical damage
6. Vanille (Ravager) 5x [Element]: 7672 (lightning/ice/water/fire/air) magic damage
-- Fang (Sentinel) 5x post-Entrench attack: ~6540 physical damage
-- Sazh (Ravager) 5x Alternating [Element]strike: 5724 (lightning/fire) physical damage
-- Vanille (Saboteur) Death: 5695 multitarget magic damage [only relevant if not dead]
-- Snow (Sentinel) 5x post-Entrench attack: ~5537 physical damage
-- Fang (Saboteur) 5x status attack pity damage: ~1600 magic damage

Average: 13670 (2.5x killpoint: 34175)

Post buffs / debuffs damage vs. enemies who don't immune the debuffs:

1. Fang (Commando) 5x Attack [Bravera self, Deprotect enemy]: 75910 physical damage (Synergist is allowed for Fang) (20082 * 1.8 * 2.1)
-- Fang (Commando) 5x Attack [Deprotect enemy]: 42172 physical damage (No Synergist allowed for Fang) (20082 * 2.1)
2. Vanille (Ravager) 5x [Element] [Deshell + Imperil enemy]: 31455 (lightning/ice/water/fire/air) magic damage  (7672 * 2.05 * 2)
-- Post buffs / debuffs average ~29000 (Fang SYN) / ~23500 (no Fang SYN)
3. Sazh (Commando) 5x Attack [Bravery self]: 17087 physical damage (12205 * 1.4)
4. Snow (Commando) 5x Attack: 16962 physical damage
5. Lightning (Commando) 5x Attack: 16287 physical damage
6. Hope (Ravager) 5x [Element] [Faith, En-Element self]: 16038 (lightning/ice/water/fire/air) magic damage (8812 * 1.4 * 1.3)
-- 3 Turn Average ~15000
-- Turn 1 Average 13670
-- Hope (Ravager) 5x [Element] [Faith self]: 12337 (lightning/ice/water/fire/air) magic damage (8812 * 1.4)

3 turn damage average:
I am ignoring paradigm shifting speeding up characters who repeatedly switch between paradigms for this (which makes things very weird if taken into account).  As a reminder, this is not necessarily realistic for buffers / healers who probably don't want open like this.  I am also not bothering to exactly compute the damage bonuses from the repeated attacks here, so numbers are estimated.

-- Fang vs. vulnerable to status: 1x SAB debuffs, 2x COM ~86000
1. Fang-with-SYN vs. status immunity: 1x SYN: Bravera (slightly accelerated next turn), 2x COM ~75000
-- Vanille vs. vulnerable to status**: ~1x SAB status, 2x RAV magic ~65000 (if both Deshell and Imperil connected)
-- Fang-no-SYN vs. status immunity: 3x COM ~62500
2. Snow: 3x COM ~52000
3. Lightning: 3x COM ~50000
-- 3 turn average: ~45000
4. Sazh*: 3x COM ~38000
5. Hope: 1x SYN: Faith / En-element, 2x RAV magic ~32000
6. Vanille vs. status immunity: 3x RAV magic ~23000

Average: ~45000 (1 turn damage: 15000.  2.5x killpoint: ~37500)

Not actually that much different from the one-turn average, unless you use Vanille's debuffs in the average.  Don't think debuffs should be held against the cast as full-status immunity is more common in the DL than FF13.  As another note, Fang's 4 turn damage average would be insane, not that she needs it since she tends to 2HKO most people anyway.

* This set is totally ludicrous, as Sazh does almost as much damage with SYN:Bravery + (any buff) -> damage [Sazh], and he wants that extra buff.  Like, uh, Haste, for example.  The above works for simplicity; Haste+Buff + 2x turns of damage + credit for the .4 of an extra turn or whatever probably comes close enough to the above "spam damage" anyway.
** Vanille:  If she only cares about damage (and not, say, Fog / Pain), then she opens with Deshell / Deshell / Imperil / Imperil / Imperil, at 53% / 40% odds of hitting each attempt.  They will probably both hit but it's not guaranteed; she can go back for another shot.  (Fang can theoretically do 5x Deprotect which will pretty much hit, although in real-life she does something more like 2x Deprotect / 3x Slow.)

Some more random comments:

* Doom.  Apparently most bosses will cast Doom on the party if you dally for a long time.  Since FF13 does not have MP, this is the equivalent of resource exhaustion, basically, and is the incentive to not set Sentinel / Sentinel / Medic then walk away from the PS3 for 3 hours while you counter a boss to death.  While by default this would be seen as a property of the boss, you can use this to argue that Snow / Fang shouldn't win vs. bosses using a strategy like "turtle with Sentinel until Summon."
* Chain bonuses.  Nobody is getting staggered in the DL, sorry.  While you can stagger people fairly fast with a Relentless Assault combo while buffed up in-game, "fairly fast" is still like 4-8 turns depending on resistance.  Maybe 2-3 for those with the worst stagger resistance, but those enemies are not common.  To see staggers as being reasonable to get, you also have to scale stagger resistance just like HP, as trying to stagger someone solo unscaled is going to take awhile.  And worst, as Tal notes in the wiki, a solo Ravager, the best class for getting staggers, will see the chain gauge reset by their next turn.  The only characters who can realistically stagger are Lightning, Snow, and Sazh - I think the boost from Powerchain means that they can open their damage with Commando, then switch to Ravager, then eventually stagger somebody.  Except their damage is worse in Ravager form, so they might not be maintaining a heal lock anymore if they do this.  Yeah.  I guess Stagger does come up in the occasional infinite stally fight against someone slightly faster who's hoping to win on rare doubles - just Commando heal-lock them until a Stagger 40 turns later or whatever before they've gotten enough doubles to matter.  About the only other case is a boss with monstrous HP but terrible damage (BoF1 Sara?!) - there might theoretically be time to get a Stagger when just Commando attacking wouldn't kill in such a situation, and once Stagger starts Launch juggling fun begins.
* Cut & Keep.  Much like Action RPGs, characters can be stun-locked, and have different resistance to this based on the move they're using.  I suspect most of the DL throws this out, lest characters like Raine / Jade / etc. be Punies who can't realistically use their spells ever.   If you do consider this, Medic notably gets much, much worse - try surviving as a solo Medic sometime vs. enemies, it doesn't work.  Hope & Vanille also hate this for having spell-Ravager defanged.  If you want to get fancy, you can consider moves likely to disrupt an enemy as "faster" - they keep the enemy locked down and not taking actions, while stuff like buffs / debuffs / healing doesn't, and thus gives an enemy more actions in a duel.  This makes regular attacks (especially from Sazh) "fast", offensive spells "medium," and Synergist / Saboteur / Sentinel / Medic all "slow."
* Elemental weaknesses.  Probably bears noting that the vast majority of the cast can smash these pretty good.  Fang can't, but Hope / Vanille hit everything, Lightning hits everything but Air, Sazh hits Fire and Lightning immediately but can hit Water & Ice too with the En-spells, and Snow hits Water & Ice.

Also.  General character thoughts, how they work in the DL to me (bearing in mind this is primary class only, 45% status resist items allowed):

Lightning: In-game, Lightning's healing is fine...  until the final dungeon, where your HP leaps up massively with the last Crystarium level and Light's healing doesn't really catch up.  Still, ~40% spammable infinite healing would still clean too much of Light (the division)'s clock, so Middle she is.  Elemental variety + hitting MDEF without too big a drop in damage helps too even if she's ultimately an averageish stat spammer of averagish damage ultimately.

Sazh: Opens Haste + (Protect / Shell) your best damage, can cast the other defensive buff next turn + Bravery / Faith as needed.  So nice and versalite.  Lack of healing does mean he doesn't have time to buff forever, but his offense is pretty decent post (BRavery / Faith) and can hit whatever defense is worse, and can hit any elemental weakness he likes too.  Bar[element] for halved damage nicely screws over one-element wonders, which is a lot of the DL.  Moderately tanky to survive throwing up the buffs, too.  Low Heavy - good blitzers still ruin him, especially if they have variety in their attack types.  So he's not that great in Heavy, but he's too good for Middle.

Snow: If you ignore the "Doom" note above, Sentinel turtling -> Shiva smashes a large amount of the DL that can't buff their damage / status him out.  Even ignoring that, he's an okay slugger anyway.  He's a Middle if you ignore Sentinel, but smashing through Sentinel is hard enough that I'd say make him a Low Heavy anyway.  There are probably cases where Snow can quickly chip some damage, then switch back to Mediguard spam, then chip some more once at full health.  Challenge is also hilarious vs. enemies with no infinitely spammable attack - watch as FE characters are taunted into breaking all their weapons, for example.

Hope: Is like Sazh in that he can open Haste + (Protect / Shell / Barelement).  Also has Veil, which makes him sort of okay vs. multi-status whores, though still not good.  Just...  that HP is bad.  A lot of Hope fights will go Haste + (defensive buff), heal a lot, wait for double, cast more buffs, etc.  Still, faster blitzers can just smash through, and blitzers with physical / magical variety can hit whatever defense Hope didn't buff, so Hope really doesn't survive in Heavy much.  Another Middle.

Vanille: Eeeeeeevil status.  Move block is not commonly immuned so Pain/Pain/Pain/Pain/Pain screws over a lot of the physical sluggers in the DL, as it even turns off "Fight."    Fog/Fog/Fog/Fog/Fog of course still messes with pure spellcasters, though Silence is a more common immunity.  This is another case where different interp definitions are important- Pain doesn't stun-lock an enemy, so you can argue that a slightly below average speed character can still start beating up Vanille if they survive the first Pain or two?  But whatever.  OHKOing Vanille is non-trivial even if she's a bit below average HP.  She's not totally lost against bosses - a fair number of bosses I'd see as immuning stuff like Fog, but not Deshell, so she can still try Deshell / Imperil -> (heal up) -> damage.  It won't work that often in Heavy as Heavy bosses should be able to heal-lock her, but it's something.  Plus she has Dispel to ruin negative-status immune PC buffers.  Far too evil for Middle, she's definitely a Heavy.

Fang: Hey look it's Vanille's status package + Slow + game-best damage.  Allowing SYN doesn't even matter that much, as Fang generally wants to open Deprotect/Deprotect/Slow/Slow/Slow vs. people who immune Fog / Pain anyway, then unleash smash.  Without Mediguard, her Sentinel game is useless, but it totally doesn't matter.  Fang lacks the variety the rest of the cast has - her Commando Ruin game is notably worse than her physical game, and she doesn't hit elements - so she can be spoiled by physical tanks.  But a lot of those tanks die to her status onslaught anyway.  Heavy / Godlike border, she doesn't like Godlike much due to average speed + average health still instantly dying a lot to Godlike, but she's definitely Heavy champ material.

Dhyerwolf has his thoughts in this thread for another take on the cast.

EDIT: Changed the calculations to use 2.10 as the multiplier for Deprotect and 2.05 as the multiplier for Deshell, based off Talaysen's figures of 19% average physical resistance and 14% average magical resistance.  (The 1.89 figure assumed no damage resistance whatsoever).  If you want to be hyper-correct it'd be 2.03 as the multiplier for Deshell, but since the resistance scores trend up in the final dungeon anyway, will round up to a multiple of 5.

[Dark Holy Elf]

While I'm quite fine with the arguments that FF13 characters not be considered to have any skills or stats from their grids, the idea that they not have access to the roles is something I'd have to speak out strongly against. It's pretty blatantly unfair to Hope and Vanille, in particular, who basically lose the "does damage" role for no real reason. You can't even claim this is true to in-game (where limited paradigm slots would cause you to not use Commando), since in-game they serve a valuable damage role in upping the chain gauge (which doesn't translate to the DL).

I also favour using maxed Level 2 weapons rather than ultimates or Level 1's, both of which feel far too extreme in either direction. In theory I can see cutoffs for non-maxed but those are less intuitive.

[Clear Tranquil]

List of "Optional Abilities" per character (thanks/credits to Nemyar from GameFAQS) -

Lightning
Blizzara
Fira
Aerora
Flamestrike
Froststrike
Thundaga
Raise
Cura
Lightning doesn't really have much abilities to skip without gimping her stat... <.<

Snow
Blitz
Ruinga
Water
Aquastrike
Aero
Blizzara
Watera
Aerora
Blizzaga
Waterga
Mediguard
Entrench
Note that it is possible for Snow to learn just one out of four water elemental attack.

Sazh
Aero
Fira
Sparkstrike
Thundara
Firaga
Thundaga
Aeroga
Barfire
Barfrost
Barwater
Barthunder
Protect
Shell
You could skip Sazh's defensive buffs, so he would only use offensive buffs instead.

Vanille
Fire
Thunder
Fira
Watera
Blizzara
Firaga
Blizzaga
Dispel
Deshellga
Deprotega
Posionga
Imperilga
Fog
Pain
Raise
Curaja
I already mention that Vanille could choose just one out of three Fire magic. Say, which of the following queue is preferred?: 6 Fire, 3 Fira or 2 Firaga?

Hope
Aerora
Thundaga
Waterga
Firaga
Blizzaga
Aeroga
Barfire
Barthunder
Enwater
Enthunder
Enfrost
Enfire
Bravery
Faith
Haste
Esuna
Raise
Curasa
Curaja
Well, I suppose you could theoretically skip Haste, Bravery and Faith to ensure that Hope use Protect or Shell first.

Fang
Ruinga
Challenge
Entrench
Vendetta
Slowga
Cursega
Fog -> Fogga
Pain -> Painga
Daze -> Dazega
Deprotect
Deshell
Imperil
Note that you can't get Fang's multi-targeting debuffs without getting single-target debuffs first, but you could get single-target debuffs and leave out multi-targeting debuffs.

**

Now I just have to add the CP costs for all those >_>

[SnowFire]

So the Wiki has semi-cryptic "adds Protect status" comments for the buff / debuff spells, and I keep forgetting what they mean, and people were chatting FF13 stats in IRC last night.  So.  They're actually not too bad, mostly doubling & halving damage!  ...just with some interp issues to figure out that's really what's going on.

Bravery / Faith : ~40% damage boost to physical / magical damage.
Bravera / Faithra : ~80% boost to physical / magical damage.  One of the rare buffs with a "short" duration, so more like ~4 turns rather than the very long durations of other buffs (~20 turns).  Essentially unique, if Synergist allowed, to Fang (Vanille gets them too but at even more absurd cost than Fang, it's aftergame.)

Protect / Shell: 33% damage reduction to physical / magic damage.
Protectra / Shellra: 50% damage reduction to physical / magic damage.  Not really legal to anyone, but Fang & Vanille get it with aftergame grinding.

Bar [Element]: 50% damage reduction to that element.
En [Element]: Target's weapon has that element on its damage.  Also buffs that damage if it's already elemental by 30%.  (So Enfire -> Fire spam, say.)
Veil: All hostile status chances reduced by 50%.  Multiplicative with status resistance accessories, not additive.  This includes debuffs (Debrave / Deprotect / etc.)
Vigilance: Aids Cut & Keep, that is, losing your action from getting interrupted by attacks.  Spoils Grandia cancel attacks?!

Haste: Depends on how you count actions.  It's a +50% boost to the action gauge, but that ignores the animation of actually performing the action, so slow actions or ones requiring a lot of movement aren't helped as much.  Luckily for Sazh, gunshot spamming is among the fastest animations in the game and never requires any walking speed.  Hope isn't too bad off either, his spell spams are moderately fast and also don't require walking around the battlefield.  I'd call it something like +30-35% for physical spamming Sazh, and +20-25% speed for spell spamming Sazh / Hope.

Deprotect / Deshell: ~double damage when hit by physical / magical damage.  Affects high DEF / MDEF opponents more, low DEF / MDEF opponents less.  Specifically, it's a 89% boost...  but an "additive" boost, not a "multiplicative" boost like the above.  So an enemy with a 100% physical multiplier would go to 189%, and take +89% damage, while a super-tank with a 31% physical multiplier would now take 120% damage, or 4 times as much as before.  According to Talaysen, the average physical resistance in the game is more than 11% (the exact double damage mark), so this is probably a bit more than double damage on "average."

Imperil: Knocks all elemental resistance down a stage, which generally means +100% damage.  (Neutral becomes a 2x weakness, 50% resistance becomes neutral, and possibly immunity becomes 50% damage?  Unsure on the last one, it practically never comes up.)

Curse: Reverse Vigilance.  So reduces Cut & Keep, makes someone more likely to get stunlocked.
Pain / Fog: Pain blocks all physical actions, Fog blocks all magical actions.  Pain is a really good version of this effect - it turns off *basic physicals* as well.
Daze: Equivalent to Stun or Sleep.  Take no actions, take double damage from the next hit.  This isn't as bad as you'd think, since FF13 is mostly a lot of multihit attacks and only the first hit will get the bonus.
POIZN: Poison reduces HP by 1% every 3 seconds.  That's about 3-4% per turn.  (Credit to Talaysen)
Death: Target dies from death.

[SnowFire]

Also, super delayed response!

While I'm quite fine with the arguments that FF13 characters not be considered to have any skills or stats from their grids, the idea that they not have access to the roles is something I'd have to speak out strongly against. It's pretty blatantly unfair to Hope and Vanille, in particular, who basically lose the "does damage" role for no real reason. You can't even claim this is true to in-game (where limited paradigm slots would cause you to not use Commando), since in-game they serve a valuable damage role in upping the chain gauge (which doesn't translate to the DL).

The 'real reason' is character uniqueness.  It also reflects how in-game using the off-roles is chancy and certainly something I never did, so reflecting that aspect of in-game play.

Also, as came up in chat last night, Vanille actually likes the damage average being lower.  She does about the same 2 turn damage off Deshell / Imperil -> Ravager spells as she does with Deshell -> Commando Ruins or 2 turns of Ruin spam; it's just a bit chancier since she's only doing 2 Deshells & 3 Imperils rather than 5 Deshells and it's more likely a debuff will miss.  In the rare circumstances where Vanille is "blitzing", the better turn 1 damage off Commando matters almost never.  (Maybe...  Eruca?  Nah, she's got good MDef.  WA4 Jeremy?!)  So it's mostly Hope who's annoyed by this interp, and even then not all that much...  he still wins a lot of matches off Haste / Defense buff, turtle with Medic, wait for doubles.  It enables him to do things like BLITZ VIVI though, so.

As for roles, well, yes, Hope does help you do damage in-game...  by being in a team and spiking the chain gauge.  (Ravager) Hope in a duel doesn't get that (but Vanille in a duel does, because she also has Saboteur, and Imperil + Ravager is a great combo in the DL just like it is in-game, so she's rewarded).  Seems similar to how Relm has great damage in-game but bad damage in the DL because Esper magic is DL-illegal, or how Aht can't spam traps forever because she only has Push Attack despite that not being a problem in-game, or how Arnaud's Hyper is far worse in the DL than in-game because he can't cast it on Raquel.  Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cases where I hack the DL to make something reflect its in-game value, but eh.  It's a duel, Ravager's chain gauge boost just doesn't translate well.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It also reflects how in-game using the off-roles is chancy and certainly something I never did

In-game I never used Zidane's Soul Blade either, can I ban that? Because that would make me very happy. "Something you never did" isn't really relevant, it's a valid thing to do in-game and has its advantages especially for certain teams.

Basically you're banning the off roles for... understandable but still very arbitrary reasons. You try to claim that's truer to in-game. Then you turn around and say "well, it means Hope/Vanille damage doesn't translate to the DL, which is too bad, sometimes things don't translate". I agree with the sentiment, except you literally took an interp that makes things less like in-game (banning secondary roles) in order for this to happen in the first place, which is just kinda "..what?"

I mean, I disallow Sentinel for people who aren't Snow/Fang because passive damage reduction as a universal cast thing is something I give the boot, but otherwise the default should be to make things more like in-game, which is to say, secondary roles do exist. Possibly not with much CP, but they exist!

[SnowFire]

I consider mentioning my own experience "supporting evidence."  If you don't care then pretend you didn't read that.  Also, the Soul Blade analogy doesn't work.  Read my original post in the thread where I said that going off-grid with FFX characters is roughly the closest equivalent; getting the secondary roles is, basically, a very inefficient way to spend your CP.  AND you are locked into 6 Paradigm sets.  If Zidane getting Soul Blade was somehow clearly an optional side weirdness, and half the cast already had Soul Blade, and it cost 40 crystal points to set, and harmed Zidane's stats, then yes, it might be a good analogy.

Basically you're banning the off roles for... understandable but still very arbitrary reasons. You try to claim that's truer to in-game. Then you turn around and say "well, it means Hope/Vanille damage doesn't translate to the DL, which is too bad, sometimes things don't translate". I agree with the sentiment, except you literally took an interp that makes things less like in-game (banning secondary roles) in order for this to happen in the first place, which is just kinda "..what?"

I'm not sure what the "turn-around" is.  It *is* truer to in-game play, at least in-game play that doesn't CP grind much.  You literally don't have access to those off-roles because you didn't invest the CP in them, and if you did because you had CP to spare, you probably didn't set them in your Paradigms because Hope is a trash Commando compared to real Commando options.  Thus Hope is stuck with Ravager damage.  The end?

To go more into the CP aspect, there is some amount of CP that is "endgame" CP.  If you are Tal and assume fairly ubered characters, then yes, you can unlock every single ability and stat boost that isn't in the final aftergame ring.  That leaves only the 'uniqueness' argument, I'll grant.  However, I assume there is less CP to spend - a lot less, so not that much C11 sidequest grinding.  So characters will have to pick and choose what to invest in.  Due to the whole "6 paradigm slots" thing, investing in all their off-roles seems like a huge waste of CP and a generally suboptimal build in-game when CP is limited and the stat bonuses for the off-roles are pathetic compared to staying with the main roles.  It's usually sub-optimal in the DL, too!  Easy solution?  Assume they don't invest there, problem solved.  (And to be clear I have no problem with interps like Tal's that assume you have in fact ubered everything; that's fine too.)

This is, again, similar to the FFX issue if you somehow didn't get enough points to even complete each character's "home" grid (since I certainly didn't finish out the 'main' roles in FF13 before defeating the last boss).  It is totally 'legal' in-game for FFX characters to wander off their grid, especially at endgame when you have more Teleport Spheres...  but...  better to just assume their home grid only, despite it being unarguably legal for Rikku to go grab Quick Hit or something in-game.

So in short: arbitrary restrictions in my DL?  Oh noes.  After banning Sentinel, next we'll be banning Diamond Armlet from granting +1 PA / +1 MA.  Unless of course it's on Agrias since she starts with it.  I mean, duh.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Due to the whole "6 paradigm slots" thing, investing in all their off-roles seems like a huge waste of CP and a generally suboptimal build

Hope needs to invest... 6000 CP to get Ruin. That is not a "huge waste" since it literally doubles his damage, and costs less than every single node in the final sections of his primary roles. I agree with finite CP availability (not sure quite where I'd set it, I don't think it matters too much) but it's very, very obvious Hope wants to spend that 6000 that way. Vanille needs to invest 57000, which is less of a complete no-brainer, but considering she has no use whatsoever for Strength boosts in her own grid (which you're forcing her to spend her CP on?), she can just cut out some of the optional ones there and get the points she needs. Yeah, just checking Vanille's grid, her maingame Ravager alone contains over 100,000 CP in optional strength nodes.

Sure, it might be a waste for them to invest half a million CP in Commando. But nobody is suggesting they do that, so attacking that as a waste of resources is a strawman. Sure, they'll be worse Commandos than people who actually have role levels in it, but the DL will reflect that!

It *is* truer to in-game play

It's truer to your in-game play, but certainly not everyone's, and especially not to anyone who chooses a team that lacks one of the six roles as a primary (which is 12 of 20 possible teams, I think). And of course, more holistically, "Hope and Vanille have poor offence" is not true to in-game play. There's nothing wrong with taking a strict interpretation over holistic of course, but usually the strict interpretation is actually the one that is closer to in-game rules, not further as in this case!

(Soul Blade, incidentally, is a less bad example than you make it sound: Zidane has to equip a weapon significantly inferior for that point in the game to get a useful status attack out of it, often. FF9 does not allow you to switch weapons in battle and Zidane's physical is his best source of damage if you don't grind Thievery so this is a big problem, since you never know when you'll run into status immunity. I actually think it's a very unlikely ability to be used as a result, and certainly I've seen far less people use it than use secondary roles in FF13!)

Regarding the FFX parallel... the big difference is uniqueness. Going out of grid isn't unique in FFX, you're going into other PCs' sections. However, this isn't the case in FF13... Lightning's Synergist (as a random example) is different from everyone else's, unique to her. A few PCs (mostly Fang and Vanille) even have some unique abilities in their off-roles.

[Talaysen]

Deprotect / Deshell: ~double damage when hit by physical / magical damage.  Affects high DEF / MDEF opponents more, low DEF / MDEF opponents less.  Specifically, it's a 89% boost...  but an "additive" boost, not a "multiplicative" boost like the above.  So an enemy with a 100% physical multiplier would go to 189%, and take +89% damage, while a super-tank with a 31% physical multiplier would now take 120% damage, or 4 times as much as before.  According to Talaysen, the average physical resistance in the game is more than 11% (the exact double damage mark), so this is probably a bit more than double damage on "average."

Average physical resistance is 28% and average magical resistance is 20%.  This is only taking enemies in the final dungeon.  If you use all enemies it's 19% and 14% respectively.  (The former is what I used for damages.)

Imperil: Overwrite previous elemental resistances with elemental weakness.  +100% damage if that element was neutral before, more if it was resisted.

Imperil only drops the resistance down a level.  Resistance becomes Halved becomes Normal becomes Weak.  I don't know if it works on Immune or not.

Curse: Reverse Vigilance.  So reduces Cut & Keep, makes someone more likely to get stunlocked.

I believe Curse drops your Keep to 0, so you get stunlocked by literally everything.

POIZN, Death: I don't think these need explanation.

Poison reduces HP by 1% every 3 seconds.  That's about 3-4% per turn.

I definitely used COM for Hope, pretty often too.  COM still doubles his damage and boosts his allies' damage by a small amount, so if you're using him why not?  He may be a weaker COM, but you use him for the MED and RAV and SYN and then have one COM/COM/COM paradigm to just push as much damage as you can through a stagger.  The idea that there's absolutely no reason to use COM ever is completely mindboggling to me.  There are obviously reasons to use it.  It's not like you can just swap in someone else to COM when you want the damage.

EDIT: For the record, I didn't assume secondary roles were completely filled.  Only to level 3.

[Dark Holy Elf]

For those of you like me who scale statusblockers against default accessories... the best default accessory for FF13 depends. If you allow max tier 1 accessories (these are very cheap to make endgame, for what it's worth, so I think I do), then the best is the Damage-15% accessory. So the cast can unequip these for statusblockers, but each time they do they take 18% more damage (stacking multiplicatively to 38% and 63%).

If you don't allow upgrades at all then the best is one each of the physical and magical resistance boosters (-15% each, so same comparison as the above), and then a third of whichever damage type they fear more, probably (which is physical in general). There's an argument for str/mag as the third too at that point. In-game you'd probably value str/mag more for your main Commando and less for the rest but the DL doesn't make that distinction.