Romancing SaGa 3 - Where sinful RPG mechanics go to die.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Hello and welcome to Romancing SaGa 3’s unofficial stat topic! This work tries to give some baselines for interpreting the game’s cast in a DL environment. As usual with SaGa, the game carries things like growth randomness and entirely arbitrary lines of what could be considered endgame or not, alongside a few more pressing issues (like the obtuseness of actual growth rates and far more limited documentation on these specific mechanics). However, besides that, the game mechanics have more or less been cracked open, and I pretty much couldn’t even begin working on this if Djinn hadn’t scoured a bunch of Japanese RS3 mechanics sources and compiled them into documents in a gift wrap. Cheers for him on that account. So, here are the guidelines:

- Stats were taken against an 800 HP threshold to calculate base party levels. This figure was chosen because it’s a reasonable range for endgame parties. The effective party levels, which affect the cast’s base weapon/magic levels, WP, JP and even HP upon joining the party, were calculated from that inferred PLevel. These calculations also don’t factor in growth priorities, but doing so is essentially impossible without knowing how they work. The Party Level approximations give a good enough baseline, at least, since, unlike SaGa Frontier, RS3 PCs scale in power with your party even if they’re not participating in battles.

- For weapon levels, the formula was roughly (Joining Weapon Level at Character’s PLevel + Growth Bonus), and (Joining Weapon Level At Character’s PLevel + [Growth Bonus x2]) for characters who use only one weapon type, in order to emphasize their specialization. This is fairly arbitrary, but considering how Growth Bonuses take the current weapon level as if it was a certain number of levels lower than the enemy rank’s, it ended up working neatly enough. There are some discrepancies (take a look at Undine, Bai Mei Niang and Zhi Lin at some point), which even led me to impose a 42 hard cap for DL levels, but even for those PCs the level lead makes sense. It also rewards characters with high base levels, but this is also often a legitimate in-game boon.

- For weapon/magic specializations, the basic idea is: if a PC starts with skills and levels on a weapon type, s/he gets all the skills from that type on his/her/its talent list. In most cases, the overlap means that the PC ends up getting pretty much all skills from a certain type, or at least the really relevant ones. If the PC only has one weapon type and his/her/its learning list doesn’t cover all relevant skills to that weaponry, he gets exactly one relevant skill outside that talent list as long as the character’s own talent list covers the skills needed to learn it. This benefits pretty much only Poet, Tatyana and Elephant, as the other single-weapon PCs get all the techs they possibly want from their lists. This, once again, emphasizes their specialization.

- Still on weapon specializations: past weapon levels and weapon skills, things can get a little sketchy. Some PCs start with no weapon skills, but have clear weaponry levels and starting weapons to point out their bent. This affects primarily Leonid, Elephant and Fairy, who get Epees and Bows and Spears, respectively (all of them start with significant levels on both types, equipped weapons for those -and-, in Fairy’s case, high growth bonuses and learning trees heavily emphasizing both weapons. In Elephant’s case, Martial Arts (MA) is his highest level and presents the highest growths as well. His learning tree is Axe, but he doesn’t even start with Blunt levels, so no dice). There’s one further exception made for Ellen, who starts with an Axe and the Tomahawk skill. However, she starts with higher levels on Martial Arts than Axes, giving her a headstart on MA - and her learning type as a recruit is Martial Arts as well. Given that, even as a main, she has a very comprehensive MA learning list -and- still has higher levels on MA (having equally high growths on MA and Axe), I decided to allow her both weapon types, but taking her learning type as a main character.

- For magic, the guidelines are simple: if a character starts with magic of a certain school, the PC gets access to the entire school. There are no naturally learned spells in Romancing SaGa 3, which is a strike against this interp. However, storebought spells are very accessible (the highest-end spells for non-Moon/Sun schools are even free and infinitely distributable!). The fact that most spell schools are mutually exclusive also works in this interp’s favor in my mind (you can have two schools at most: one of Earth/Wind/Fire/Water and one of Sun/Moon). Also, the character builds in general seem to take into account how the stat spreads interact with the entire class skillsets as a rule of thumb (see all the Wind Magic users having 12 LP, making them good Dragon God Descent candidates, or the Sun Magic users all having high Will, which plays a lot into many relevant Sun Magic spells, the only Moon Magic user having high Charisma for better usage of Glare Light, etc.). As such, I don’t really feel bad for giving them all of their school spells instead of overemphasizing starting skills only, which would only de-emphasize magic as a viable DL strategy.

- As for Muse, as you will see, she has absolutely no claim for any weapon or magic, starting with no levels on anything, having the worst talent list in the game (pretty much no talent on ANYTHING), no starting equipment outside of a consumable scroll and no growth bonuses outside a +4 in Moon Magic. As such, I took her as having no skills and relying on a Greatsword physical at a scaled weapon level, which is the best she could have given her characteristics. You’ll see how it goes for her when we get to her entry.

- For equipment, all storebought weapons and armor – including via blacksmith, as long as they don’t require materials or the materials they require are reasonably storebought – are DL-legal from my standpoint. This slightly hurts Sword, Epee and Mace users for damage, but weapon power is quite a minor part in the damage formula – check out the offensive difference between Harid (who gets a unique, high-powered sword for himself) and Julian (who’s stuck with a weapon that gets obsoleted in the midgame). Mace users also benefit from this – and hugely so, since the weapon that grants them their DL-money skill comes from forgery. This also applies to most of the game’s Bow users, but they get by pretty well without their forgery Bow skill. >_> Unlike Elfboy, I didn’t set a hard money cap, although I –could–, but the storebought endgame equipment is pretty straightforward and money also comes by significantly easier in RS3 than SF, both with and without exploits. There’s also no storebought Wonder Bangle here! Also, all characters can equip the suits worn by Wood, Snowman and Elephant – however, look at the weight on them. The 15 speed penalty is something nobody ever wants, and only those three are low enough at base speed to make the penalty academic. Considering the fastest of them (Wood) basically rams the turn-based floor for standard deviations under the 25% per SD convention at his –base–, the tradeoff is actually worth it, which can’t be said of pretty much anyone else.

- For plot/uniqueness claims: Katarina gets the Masquerade Epee (for all the good it does her), Harid gets the Kamsheen. Katarina starts with the Masquerade, and retrieving that sword is basically her plot. The Kamsheen is a unique weapon for Harid, which he can only get in his own quest and is locked to his first weapon slot. Sharl gets the Silver Hand, an accessory that everyone else wants for allowing someone to simultaneously equip two weapons, but on Sharl it changes his base stats (Strength and Dexterity go from 5 and 3 to 21 and 19 respectively). This effect is unique effect to him, and is backed up by RS3 backstory - for whatever good it does. Other equips: Tatyana is forced to equip her Teddy Bear, Leonid has the Dusk Robe locked to his armor slots, Poet has his locked instrument, Boston is stuck with the Lobster Armor, Snowman must equip the Eternal Ice accessory to be usable outside Snow Village, Fairy has a forced Fairy Scarf (shirt equip) and Elephant must wear his Cotton Shirt. The effects of those equips will be listed in the character entries. Also, for relevant starting equips: Mikhail and Tiberius start with a Life Staff in their equipment (the weapon is quite rare in the game and not obtainable outside of a few chests and characters starting with it). I allow it to both Mikhail and Tiberius - however, only Mikhail gets weapon levels and skills to use the Life Staff in a relevant manner. Tiberius gets damned better free healing from Life Water as is.

That should cover just about everything for topic guidelines. Onwards to the more important stuff!

Stats And What They Do

HP: Your [insert faux-witty joke here]. If they’re depleted, [insert faux-witty whimsical possibility here]. You can only be so clever when trying to shake things up with a stat as ubiquitous as this. HP are restored after every battle.
WP: Your friendly resource for weapon-based skills. Also factors into the powers of very few specific skills, but those aren’t likely to be relevant here.
JP: Your neighborhood resource for magic-based skills. Also factors into the powers of very few specific skills, but those aren’t likely to be relevant here either.
LP: Basically your life points. Whenever your HP gets knocked down to zero, you lose one LP. If you’re hit when dead, you lose a point of LP as well. A character who loses all LP gets taken out of your party and will only reappear for recruitment after certain circumstances are fulfilled. If your main runs out of LP, it’s game over. This stat is also relevant for skills like Dragon God Descent and Reviver due to unique quirks relating to them.

Strength: This stat influences damage for Swords, Greatswords, Axes, Maces, Spears and Martial Arts. Also factors minorly into accuracy  for these weapon types (majorly in Martial Arts and Axes’ case).
Dexterity: This stat influences mainly accuracy, also influencing Bow and Epee damage in lieu of Strength.
Speed: This stat governs turn order and base evasion, also factoring in for accuracy and being another major factor in the damage dealt by Martial Arts skills. It bears mentioning that all magic damage spells bypass base evade - however, they still mostly ram into shield evade or magic shield evade (so, ITE hype for them is a wash).
Constitution: This stat factors into the physical and magical defense formulas, mainly. It’s less than half as potent as Defense and Magic Defense, though, and runs off a significantly more restrictive numeric spread as well.
Intelligence: This stat influences magical damage, all forms of healing and also factors into accuracy for some spells.
Willpower: This stat influences status resistance. One point of Will raises/lowers status accuracy by around less than 0.5% in practice.
Charisma: This stat governs the accuracy of charm-inflicting attacks and a character’s resistance to it. The resistance effect is roughly the same as Will’s, while the effect on accuracy is more or less irrelevant – I already laid down accuracy for all charm attacks available DL-legally, although it’s worth noting the stat has a very small effect (roughly 1% boost to accuracy per point above enemy Charisma. Bases and weapon levels are the big factors for the accuracy on those moves).
Defense: This stat affects all the physical element resistances: slash, blunt, pierce and shot. The number given is pretty much the same for all the resists across the board, unless otherwise noted. For physical attacks, this is pretty much the ur stat for defining a character’s durability, being quite potent. A single point of Defense raises or lowers your effective durability by about 2.7%, to give you an idea, with some variance accounted for Con differences as well.
Magic Defense: As it happens with Defense, this stat affects all magical element resistances: heat, cold, electricity and status. Status is a bit of a funny case in that it doesn’t encompass simply status accuracy: it’s pretty much the generic magic element whose scope doesn’t fall within any of the big three, much like SaGa Frontier force element. The number given is pretty much the same for all the resists across the board, unless otherwise noted. Also, as it happens with Defense, this is the big stat for defining magical durability. Each point of Magic Defense raises/lowers your mdur by about 2.1%, with some variance being allowed by Con differences, and each point of mdef also raises or lowers your status resistance by roughly 0.5%.
Weapon/Magic Levels: These rank among the big factors on the effectiveness of skillsets in general. They factor into damage (considerably more heavily than core stats, even!), accuracy, status accuracy, healing and even stat boosts and penalties given to buffs and debuffs. The general guideline is: the higher it is, the better your general proficiency with your weapon/magic skillset is.

Boundary Values (BV)

Because Romancing SaGa 3 doesn’t believe in simplicity, instead of running a straight accuracy formula, it actually runs a formula and then –runs its results through a table– in order to accrue attack accuracy. Basically, a table that runs numbers from 0 to 100, each number relating to a hit rate value, defines the final accuracy of any given attack. These numbers are called Boundary Values. Since the majority of attacks against average enemy evasion reach a boundary value over 100, I listed them as “>100% hit rate (X BV)” for the sake of simplicity. It’s likely possible to infer a kind of accuracy post 100% hit rate anyway, but the percentage for boundary values is erratic – the difference in accuracy between 90 and 100 BV is 7.3%, but the difference in accuracy between 0 and 10 BV is 11.3%, for instance. You could use the 90-100 BV as the base for above 100% hit rate due to the lower end accruing higher differences than the higher end (in which case, for values above 100 BV, you could say that 1 BV = 0.73% hit), which would be a fair extrapolation. For any value below 100 BV, I’m listing the straight percentages instead.

Counters

These get a section all for themselves because a lot of PCs get counter skills and they run off fairly unique mechanics. Essentially, when a character enters a counter stance, they commit their action to this – if they’re hit by an attack that -can- trigger the counter, they have a chance of deflecting the attack and using the counter attack, which cannot be evaded or negated in any way (all counters ignore target defense). The counter interrupts multi-hit attacks, but triggering a counter does not end the counter stance, nor does hitting without triggering it. So, someone with a multi-hit attack will have multiple chances to trigger a counter and doubleturns can incur multiple counters as well. Due to the odds of failing, counters can be rather chancy, but these characteristics also help their duelling worth out. Counter odds factor in character -and- enemy speed, so faster enemies can lower the odds a bit, but the effects are sorta subtle (1 BV per point of speed, in a spread that runs off low double-digits from highest to lowest. This is -not- a check of PC speed against enemy speed, either). A counter stance lasts for one turn. Also, it’s worth noting that the WP needed for a counter stance is only spent when the stance is triggered. However, the character must have the WP needed to use it before activating it.

Status Effects

Most status effects last anywhere from one to five turns - the exceptions being poison and silence, which last until the battle ends or until healed. On average, they last two-three turns, some statuses being skewed towards the lower end (paralysis, sleep) and others to the higher end (mental status).

- Poison: deals max HP-based damage at the end of the turn. The amount of damage dealt is proportional to target Constitution (higher = less damage), but, at endgame, clocks in at roughly 20% or so mHP/turn. More exact amounts will be given when skills that inflict poison show up in the character skillsets.
- Dark: Lowers accuracy on all physical attacks. I don’t have exact numbers for the reduction, but it’s very powerful (likely affecting base hit instead of things like Dex). Kneejerk is that it lowers effective accuracy to 25% of its usual value.
- Sleep: A sleeping target cannot act and has his/her/its evade reduced to 0. Being hit by any damage while asleep wakes the character up, and he/she/it loses his/her/its turn if awoken after its turn was up in the queue.
- Mixed: Lowest tier of mental status that can be inflicted. For reference, mental statuses all ram into the same immunity (mental status in-game). A mixed character has a low chance of targeting his allies or himself instead of the target he intended, but still has full choice of skills to use and targeting. Bears noting that all mental statuses that involve hitting your own allies –do– allow the character to hit him/her/itself, and hitting them with magic or physicals does -not- cure them out of the condition.
- Mess: Similar to Mixed status, difference being that the character cannot choose a target, only skills.
- Confusion: A confused character is entirely out of control, choosing both skills and targets at random.
- Berserk: A berserked character can only use basic physicals, targeting only enemies.
- Charm: This is the highest tier of mental status, and the nastiest as well. A charmed character will act choosing skills and targets at random, but always with the intent of either helping its opponent (via buffs and healing) or harming its allies (by damage, status, debuffs).  Lasts the longest of all statuses, usually not lasting less than three turns.
- Silence: A silenced character cannot use weapon skills nor magic, being limited to basic physicals.
- Paralysis: A paralyzed character cannot act and has evade reduced to 0. Damage does not break the status, and status skills that inflict paralysis will always hit if reapplied while it’s in effect (i.e. this applies to status-only stuff like Blunt Strike and Shadow Sew, but not skills like Meteor Thrust which cause damage and have paralysis as an added effect).
- Stun: A stunned character loses his/her turn and has evade reduced to 0. Stunning someone faster than you just causes the evade loss effect.
- Stone: Petrifies target. Against enemies, this is instant death. Rams against stone immunity.
- Instant Death: Exactly what it says on the tin. Rams against death immunity (so, stone and death have the same practical effect, but ram against distinct immunity flags).

Added Effects

Added effects on attacks run off an accuracy formula that uses all target stats -except Charisma-, ignoring character stats entirely. Sometimes, they also use status defense. All the attacks with added effects have their accuracy percentage listed against average enemy stats in their own entries. For reference, here are the relevant average enemy stats used for the calculations. They happen to run off pretty much the same spread as the PCs, outside of status defense. It's worth noting that each point up or down in any stat raises or lowers the accuracy on those added effects (both debuffs and status) by half a Boundary Value (so, ranging from 0.3% to 0.5% per stat point. Landing, say, a Beast God Stab would lower the enemy's stat total by 20, raising the accuracy of the next debuff check on it by 10 BVs or so - thus, a 7% to 11% increase depending on the current BV threshold). So, landing one stat debuff will gradually raise the accuracy of the next effect. This does not apply, however, to debuffs that affect defense directly (it would for magic defense in a few specific cases, but there are no mdef/status defense debuffs available in-game).

Strength: 18
Dexterity: 19
Speed: 19
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 16
Willpower: 18
Charisma: 18 (Not really all that relevant, but why not)
Status Defense: 24

Buffs And Debuffs

Buffing spells in Romancing SaGa 3 also have a few peculiarities. Buffs to stats run off a degenerative formula and can be - theoretically - stacked ad infinitum. Basically, from the turn it’s cast, a buff loses its effectiveness slowly, at a rate of (Current Stat – Base Stat)/4 per turn, rounded up. So, if Ellen casts War Cry, she raises her Strength from 21 to 34 in that turn. On the very next turn, her Strength value will be lowered by (34-21)/4 = 3.25, rounded up = 4, thus making her Str at that turn 30. The next turn, if she doesn’t use War Cry again, the value it goes down by will be 2.25, rounded up to 3 – so, her Str will be 27, and progressively so until her Strength goes back to its base value. If she uses War Cry twice in a row, her Strength at the turn when she casts it for the second time will be 43 (30+13), but at the end of the turn, it’ll be lowered by (43-21)/4 = 5.5, rounded up to 6. So, the higher you buff a stat, the higher its deterioration will be, which makes using stat buffs a messy matter indeed.

Debuffs, on the other hand, do not degenerate and are permanent – they can be dispelled, but will not disappear on their own. Like stat buffs, they also stack indefinitely. Buff spells that grant special effects, like Water Pole, Dancing Leaves, Dragon God Descent, Reviver and Feather Seal, are also permanent unless dispelled.

Shields

Romancing SaGa 3 has two types of shields: bangles and proper shields. Any person can equip them, but they’re only functional if the character uses an attack or skill with a one-handed weapon – those being Swords, Maces, Axes and Epees. Magic, Greatswords, Martial Arts and Bows count as two-handed for shield usage purposes. Shields have two stats: defense and defense rating. The defense rating equals the odds of blocking an attack (different shields block different types of attacks). An attack blocked by a shield is taken against the character’s defense plus either the full defense stat of the shield or a lower amount (usually half). Bangles lack this stat, however, simply blocking the attack entirely (there are select few attacks that trigger bangle blocking, yet aren’t dodged, however, hitting the bangle user for full damage). For the purposes of this topic, all characters who can make actual use of shields equip bangles, due to the overall more potent effect. All listed attacks will note whether they can trigger shield blocking or evade.

Within this topic, there are also magical shield effects, which certain equips can give and various spells also can accrue. None of the equips with a magic shield effect are DL-legal, so this explanation will mainly focus on the spells. Magic shields basically give you a dodging chance that depends on the spell. The attacks that can be dodged also depend on the spell, and all attacks listed in the topic will note whether they can trigger magic shield evade as well. Water Pole and Dancing Leaves affect all physicals (i.e. slash, blunt, pierce and shot) that trigger magic shield evade, while Illusion Sun affects all elemental attacks, be they physical or magical, that can be magic shielded (so, slash, blunt, pierce, shot, heat, cold, electric and status).

Field Elements

Most spells in RS3 (and a select few physical skills) are capable of switching the elemental field in a given battle. The field always starts neutral, and using a spell that applies an element to the field immediately applies the effect. The changes are quite subtle – it basically allows a few buffs (particularly, Dancing Leaves and Water Pole) to function and grants 10% mHP regen per turn to a character whose armor possesses the elemental affinity (these cases will be noted in character entries). Spells can change the field back, but don’t always do so, and, once a field has been changed, the dynamics to swap it from the current element are kinda convoluted (involving multiple castings sometimes). For simplicity, I simply allow elemental spells to swap the field to whatever, also allowing spells from other games to make that change, as long as there is a precedent in-RS3 to allow them to do so. Worth noting that the spell Squall has unbeatable priority in changing the field element: cast it and the field will always become Water.

Things To Do

These are mostly for my reference, but feel free to bug me about these:

- More alternate equip options. There isn’t much of a wealth in equipment options in RS3 and tweaking them will mostly tweak averages a few ways, but alternate defense-twinking or magic defense/damage-twinking for a few specific characters besides Ellen and Yan Fan do exist. In fact, for instance, Elephant and Snowman can use the same setup as Yan Fan and Ellen, but those turn them into wonderlands who get 2HKOed and 3-2’d by average while not even 2HKOing themselves after factoring in accuracy, so I didn’t bother with a setup like that - even in Light, they end up getting 3-2’d and 3HKOed awfully often under those flags. But sake of completeness, etc.

And I believe that’s it for now. Now, for the meat of the topic – playable characters and numbers!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Editor’s digest PC averages up top!

Damage: 2147.8 (Kill Point: 5369)
HP: 823.5
Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Equipped Speed: 12.83. St. Dev. 5.39 (13.26 without suits, St. Dev. 4.41)
Strength: 17.43
Dexterity: 17.37
Speed: 17.06
Constitution: 16.43
Intelligence: 17.1
Willpower: 16.96
Charisma: 17.36


Characters




Julian Naul

“I wanna be a platinum blonde, just like all the movie stars.”

Specialty: Sword (L32)

HP: 855 (1.03 PC HP)
WP: 96
LP: 10
Strength: 18
Dexterity: 17
Speed: 17 (13)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 16
Will: 22
Charisma: 14

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Effective Speed: + 0.03 SD
Defensive Modifiers: 0.99 pdef, 0.99 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.02 pdur, 1.02 mdur

Equipment:

Silver Sword (25 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Sword):

Golden Dragon: 2511 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (169 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 11 WP.
Sword Flash: 2027 slash-elemental damage, ranged, hits enemies in a line, >100% hit rate (149 BV). Avoids all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Summer Rain: 1530 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (119 BV), initiative. Triggers all shields and counters. 9 WP
Split Body Sword: 1103 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (119 BV). Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. Ignores counters but triggers all shields. 2543 damage if used after Golden Dragon (highest base power of all sword skills). 6 WP.
Backstab: 849 slash-elemental damage, ranged, 99.3% hit rate, 1.9% chance to cause Instant Death. Avoids all counters and shields except magic shields. 6 WP
Dimension Slash: Deals 18.8% mHP damage against average defenses, affected by Defense (specifically slash resistance) and Con, 84.3% hit rate. Triggers all shields and counters. 2 WP
Sweep Down: 293 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (109 BV), 24% odds of stun. Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP
Parry: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. While in this stance, the user has a 63.3% chance of deflecting an enemy attack, taking no damage. Parries most melee and ranged attacks, protects from attacks against a row. The odds of activation run against enemy speed (an enemy with 25 RS3 speed, pretty much the highest it can go without buffs, reduces the odds to 53.10%, for instance). 0 WP.
Silver Sword Physical: 420 slash-elemental damage, melee, > 100% hit rate (129 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Comments: Well, he solidly 3HKOs and has above average durability and speed by a hair! Depending on your view regarding initiative moves, he's a  spin on Jude - Summer Rain x2 => Golden Dragon manages a 3-2 -and- a 3HKO, which is pretty nice blitzing - with the caveat that this option is far less swingy than Jude's Assault Buster shenanigans. Without treating TB initiative as capped SDs, though, he's basically a boring, middling slugger with a few options to avoid some niche problems like melee walling and counters – think Ryudo trading evade ignoring for better resources. He can range from Low Middle to Low Heavy this way, which is quite a weird gap. I tend to walk more in line with the latter, but YMMV.




Ellen Carson

“I don't like giving you the third degree, I just want what’s due, what’s due, what’s due to me.”

Specialties: Martial Arts (L29), Axe (L28)

HP: 865 (1.05 PC HP)
WP: 115
LP: 10
Strength: 21
Dexterity: 14
Speed: 18 (14)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 15
Will: 18
Charisma: 20

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.99 pdef, 0.99 mdef (0.68 pdef, 0.91 mdef with Sorcerer Robe)
Effective Durabilities: 1.05 pdur, 1.05 mdur (0.71 pdur, 0.95 mdur with Sorcerer Robe)
Effective Speed: + 0.21 SD

Equipment:

Bulova (36 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Alternate Equipment:

Sorcerer Robe (12 Defense, 14 Magic Defense, +2 Intelligence, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Martial Arts:

Tiger Break: 2525 non-typed ITD damage (2841 damage with Sorcerer Robe), melee, >100% hit rate (115 BV), ignores all shields and counters. Strength and Con +8. The Str/Con increase is treated as a buff, and can be stacked as such, as well as suffering the degeneration applied to all buffs. Avoids all counters and shields. 2823 damage on the second consecutive use, 3011 damage on the third use. 3148 damage on the fourth use (2985 damage after one Accel Turn, 3318 damage after two Accel Turns). Raises pdur and mdur to 1.14 and 1.11 respectively on the first use, 1.22 and  1.17 on the second, 1.29 and 1.22 on the third, 1.34 and 1.25 on the fourth. 11 WP.
Niagara Buster: 1477 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (130 BV). Triggers counters and magic shields. Fish-slayer (1984 damage against fish-types). 7 WP.
Meteor Kick: 1448 blunt-elemental damage, 84.3% hit rate, 1220 average damage. Triggers magic shields and counters, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10, 24% odds of stunning target, Throw-type. 7 WP.
Powerup Fist: 1431 blunt-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (115 BV). Ignores all counters and shields. 6 WP.
Giant Swing: 558 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (120 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -3 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Con, Intelligence, Will and Charisma. 28.6% odds of paralysis. 24% odds of stun. Triggers counters and magic shields. 5 WP.
Thumbing: 476 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (119 BV), 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.
Focus: 227 healing, self-only. 0 WP.
Counter: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 64.8% chance of deflecting and countering for 910 ITD damage. 0 WP.
Punch: 526 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (107 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Axe:

Sky Dive: 1968 slash/blunt-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (121 BV), 45.3% odds of lowering enemy Con by 10 (in practice, raises damage by roughly 5% per stat drop). Ignores all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Dimension Chop: Inflicts Instant Death at 34% odds, MT. 5 WP.
Dynamic Hit: 1777 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 97.2% hit rate, 1727 average damage. Avoids counters, triggers all shields, plant-slayer (deals 2376 damage against plants). 7 WP.
Deadly Spin: 1162 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 97.2% hit rate, 1129 average damage. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. Avoids counters and shield evade, triggers evade skills and magic shields. 2403 damage if used after Dynamic Hit (highest base attack available to Ellen), 2335 average damage. 10 WP.
Accel Turn: 1061 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 89.6% hit rate, 950 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters, Speed+8. 4 WP.
War Cry: Raises Strength and Con by 13. Can be stacked, degenerates over time. 0 WP. (Roughly a 29% damage increase on the turn immediately after casting for axe skills, 19% damage increase for MA techs. For durability, it raises Ellen’s pdur to 1.19 and mdur to 1.16 on the turn it’s cast)
Bulova Physical: 481 slash/blunt elemental damage, melee, 89.6% hit rate, 436 average damage. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Let’s take a look at Fenrir’s favorite mad killer: above average speed, above average durability, above average damage that improves her long-term slugfesting -and- mocks things like counters and shields -and- can’t be walled by defenses, shoddy healing, low-end instant death and a few more ways to buff speed, damage and durability. She kinda plays the jack of all trades aspect with the caveat that she gets better as the fight goes on without having to sacrifice much pressure at all, and you pretty much don’t wall her slugging short of physical immunity or amazing evasion. If she wants, she can trade a lot of durability for a faster 2HKO, which really depends on the fight – on average, I feel she wants the durability because of her long-term potential, though. Anyhow, Middle/Heavy probably works for her. Not amazing at first, but gradually gets very scary and she has a bunch of fun tools to deal with stallers. It works, bitches.




Sara Carson

“I’m awake, no I’m not scared, shoot an apple off my head.”

Specialty: Bow (L29)

HP: 786 (0.95 PC HP)
WP: 87
LP: 10
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 19
Speed: 20 (16)
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 20
Will: 11
Charisma: 21

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.96 pdef, 0.97 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.91 pdur, 0.92 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.58 SD

Equipment:

Enhanced Bow (34 Attack)
Canarya Bow (25 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Bow):

Million Dollar: 2395 shot-elemental damage, ranged, MT, >100% hit rate (126 BV). Ignores all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Plasma Shot: 1604 shot/electricity-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 7 WP.
Continuous Shot: 914 shot-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate, 818 average damage. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. 2219 damage after using Million Dollar, 1988 average damage. 6 WP.
Resonance Weep: Inflicts Charm at 73.1% odds, ranged. Sonic-typed. Canarya Bow-specific. 0 WP.
Shadow Kill: Inflicts Instant Death at 32% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 3 WP.
Shadow Sew: Inflicts paralysis at 60% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 0 WP.
Provoke Shot: Inflicts Berserk at 66% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 1 WP.
Id Break: 536 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (106 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence. 27.8% odds of inflicting Confusion. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 2 WP.
Quick Arrow: 660 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (116 BV), initiative strike. Triggers magic shields. 4 WP.
Flash Arrow: 335 status/shot-elemental damage, magical, MT, 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers shield evade and magical shields. 3 WP.
Enhanced Bow Physical: 397 shot-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate, 355 average damage. Avoids counters but triggers shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Bows are a pretty loaded DL weapon and Sara shows it straight off. Two very annoying status options running off pretty good speed are a nice start (Charm being pure evil in particular). Her damage isn’t amazing (solid 3HKO), but it’s very hard to wall with gimmicks and certainly more than enough to let her pick off her targets after she gets that status game going to boot. Her durability honestly isn't very good, but she's not getting OHKOed particularly often in comparison to average, at least. She reminds me of a spin on Ulrika’s status game, trading more accurate odds and some durability for more -powerful- status and considerably superior damage. Ultimately a winning trade, considering she’s very good at shutting down both skillset and actions, and that many status options make it hard for an enemy to block off all the threats. It’d be nice to have -some- sort of stalling options to make the less accurate statuses more attractive, but she can make do without. And hey, decent 3HKO. Some shade of Heavy.




Thomas Bent

“This man said 'it’s gruesome that someone so handsome should care'.”

Specialties: Spear (L26), Water Magic (L26)

HP: 825 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 83
JP: 78
LP: 10
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 15
Speed: 18 (14)
Constitution: 19
Intelligence: 20
Will: 13
Charisma: 19

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.03 pdef, 1.02 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.03 pdur, 1.02 mdur

Effective Speed: + 0.21 SD

Equipment:

Blitz Lancer (38 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Spear:

Meteor Thrust: 2026 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (116 BV), 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. Avoids counters and shield evade, but triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 9 WP.
Triple Thrust: 1937 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (106 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 10 WP.
Double Dragon: 1356 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, hits both front and back row, >100% hit rate (106 BV), avoids shield blocking but triggers shield evade, counters and magic shields, turns field to Wind. 6 WP.
Beast God Stab: 1089 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (116 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of inflicting -5 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed and Con, turns field to Earth. 6 WP.
Great Wheel: 941 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (116 BV), avoids shield evade. 5 WP.
Brain Split: 582 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (106 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 2 WP.
Dragon Hit: 515 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (116 BV), avoids shield evade but triggers counters, magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Poison. 3 WP.
Windmill: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 51.5% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 2194 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Blitz Lancer Physical: 363 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (109 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Water Magic:

Squall: 161 status-elemental damage, Water-type, turns field Water-elemental, MT, salamander-slayer (???). 1 JP.
Life Water: Heals 241 HP and sleep status, ST. 1 JP.
Mystic Water: Heals all status but petrify, ST. 3 JP.
Sparkling Mist: Lowers Dexterity by 8, 66% hit rate, MT. Worthless as an accuracy debuff for the most part (lowering Dex to 0 on average doesn’t even reduce the Boundary Value below 100 against typical accuracy equation values). 2 JP.
Water Pole: Grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks at a 60% chance and regens 10% of the user’s HP per turn. Only functions if the field is Water-elemental. 6 JP.
Thunder Clap: 669 thunder-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence. 7 JP.
Quicktime: Grants initiative to entire party for an amount of turns equal to (JP spent/16). All JP.

Comments: Weird little fellow. His offense isn’t all that great, but it still 3HKOs. He also sports a bunch of annoying added effects and status that can turn the tide of a fight at the right time, and his other stats land at the right side of average. To compliment that, his magic gives him a very neat stalling game against physical fighters with Water Pole and Life Water, alongside an option that grants him insane speed for a few turns in Quicktime. He’s gotta watch out against certain elemental mages, since Water Pole relies on that water field being up, but otherwise, 60% evade against physicals running off decent speed and durability are cool for defensive fights, synergizing well with his status options and debuffs too. High Middle as a kneejerk: a decent mage won’t be exactly scared of him, but physical fighters have issues against the stalling and the RNG will often play in his favor with so many alternatives at hand. Now, if only the healing was better.




Harid (Tornado)

“Here we stand and here we fight all your fallen heroes!”

Specialties: Sword (L31), Spear (L22)

HP: 876 (1.06 PC HP)
WP: 119
LP: 10
Strength: 21
Dexterity: 12
Speed: 20 (16)
Constitution: 17
Intelligence: 15
Will: 19
Charisma: 20

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.01 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.07 pdur, 1.06 mdur

Effective Speed: + 0.58 SD

Equipment:

Kamsheen (41 Attack)
Blitz Lancer (38 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Sword:

Golden Dragon: 2671 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (167 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 11 WP.
Sword Flash: 2211 slash-elemental damage, ranged, hits enemies in a line, >100% hit rate (147 BV). Avoids all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Summer Rain: 1640 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (117 BV), initiative. Triggers all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Split Body Sword: 1196 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (117 BV). Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. Ignores counters but triggers all shields. 2636 damage if used after Golden Dragon (highest base power of all sword skills). 6 WP.
Backstab: 910 slash-elemental damage, ranged, 98.7% hit rate, 1.9% chance to cause Instant Death. Avoids all counters and shields except magic shields. 6 WP
Dimension Slash: Deals 18.8% mHP damage against average defenses, affected by Defense (specifically slash resistance) and Con, 82.6% hit rate. Triggers all shields and counters. 2 WP
Sweep Down: 328 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (107 BV), 24% odds of stun. Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP
Parry: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. While in this stance, the user has a 74.1% chance of deflecting an enemy attack, taking no damage. Parries most melee and ranged attacks, protects from attacks against a row. The odds of activation run against enemy speed. 0 WP.
Kamsheen Physical: 467 slash-elemental damage, melee, > 100% hit rate (126 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Spear:

Double Dragon: 1376 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, hits both front and back row, >100% hit rate (103 BV), avoids shield blocking but triggers shield evade, counters and magic shields, turns field to Wind. 5 WP.
Great Wheel: 962 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (113 BV), avoids shield evade. 5 WP.
Brain Split: 597 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (103 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 2 WP.
Dragon Hit: 527 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (113 BV), avoids shield evade but triggers counters, magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Poison. 3 WP.
Windmill: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 50.2% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 1780 ITD damage. 2 WP.
Blitz Lancer Physical: 368 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (119 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Comments: He misses the 2HKO by a hair. Welp. Harid’s pretty similar to Julian at base, but he sports considerably better speed and the minor RNG options from his spear skillset help round him out a little further. 2HKOing the frail with more ease is a point in his favor too (I mean, he ekes out 99.4% PC HP with two Golden Dragons. That’s probably worth a survival roll). Also, with the caveat of TB interps in mind, Summer Rain => Golden Dragon spam is a pretty potent blitzing option, especially running off his better overall damage and speed (so his third turn comes faster and all). Ranges from High Middle to Heavy this way – even if denied the vicious Summer Rain speed game, solid damage and slugfesting stats alongside minor tricks make for a nice package and he doesn’t suffer much from resource issues either.




Earl Mikhail Ausbach von Loanne

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put baby together again.”

Specialties: Epee (L30), Mace (L24), Sun Magic (L30)

HP: 826 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 121
JP: 90
LP: 10
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 17
Speed: 19 (15)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 18
Will: 21
Charisma: 21

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.99 pdef, 0.99 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.99 pdur, 0.99 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.4 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Life Cane (10 Attack)
Golden Bat (19 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Epee:

Final Letter: 2195 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (177 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 9 WP.
Fire Cracker: 1095 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (177 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 8 WP.
Southern Cross: 1462 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (177 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 2011 ITD damage against undead. 7 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 772 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (192 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 5 WP.
Imprison: 60% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 1 WP.
Mindstare: 69% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 2 WP.
Feint: 71% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 57.3% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 2121 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Estoc Physical: 359 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (177 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Sun Magic:

Illusion Sun: Grants a magic shield that dodges all attacks susceptible to magic shield  evade (both physical and magical) at a 30% rate. 11 JP.
Revival Light: 383 healing, heals all status but Petrify. 7 JP.
Day Break: 37.1% chance of ID, MT, triggers magic shields. 7 JP.
Solar Wind: 866 heat/cold/electricity-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 9 JP.
Star Fixer: 610 heat-elemental damage, ST, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 27.8% odds of inflicting paralysis. 5 JP.
Heat Wave: 321 heat-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Speed -5. 4 JP.
Sunshine: 177 heat/status-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 1 JP.

Mace:

Stone Cut: 1019 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all counters and shields, Golem-slayer (deals 1440 ITD damage to stone enemies). 7 WP.
Escape Out: 614 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (124 BV), triggers all counters and shields, causes user to hide, becoming untargettable by single-target attacks. If the user performs any action besides defending or Escape Out, he/she/it will leave the hiding state. MT can hit a hidden character. Golden Bat-only. 5 WP.
Midas Hand: Inflicts Stone at 41.3% odds, melee. Effectively instant death against enemies, triggers all shields and counters, checks Stone immunity. Golden Bat-only. 4 WP.
Head Split: 358 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all counters and shields, 45.3% odds of inflicting Sleep, 45.3% odds of inflicting Intelligence -3. 1 WP.
Power Heal: 233 healing to one target. Life Cane-only. 0 WP.
Shatter Staff: 515 healing to the entire party. Breaks Life Cane. Life Cane-only. DL-illegal for all I care. 1 WP.
Golden Bat Physical: 356 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Holy -crap-, Mikhail is a dirty little whore. The earl of Loanne can’t really blitz, but he can set up a brutally mean defensive game fast and hard. Illusion Sun may not be the healer wet dream that, say, LightSword is, but it’s more than good enough with its comprehensive evasion whoring (very few skills in RS3 can bypass it). The healing, once again, could use some work, but it’s acceptable in light of Illusion Sun. The speed debuffing from Heat Wave is very good for long fights as well. And then, we have Escape Out, which very much walls ST-reliant losers with a vengeance (oh hai eat 3.4x PC HP worth of damage while you can't touch me before i run out of wp lolololol). To make matters worse, he also boasts two fatal status options that, while inaccurate, work very much in his favor on the myriad stalling fights he’s bound to have – the other, non-fight-winning status skills are a bit of an added bonus, but yeah. And he even has solid enough slugfesting stats, ending squarely on the right side of average for speed and damage. Durability is very marginally below average, but it’s really hard to care. Getting blitzed is a concern, but many of those get handled by his ST spoiling too. A strong Heavy, in the boiling of eggs: he's pretty much the fabulous manspawn of a coke-induced one-night stand between Mesarthim and Mei-ling, but he really needed his non-ST spoiling options to kick in faster or his healing to be better for him to really make waves against Heavy's top echelon, let alone in Godlike.




Princess Monica Ausbach

“I’m a baaaaaaaaaaaaad luck a woman and I caaaaaan’t see the reason why.”

Specialty: Epee (L27)

HP: 796 (0.96 PC HP)
WP: 81
LP: 10
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 19
Speed: 20 (16)
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 16
Will: 17
Charisma: 24

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.97 pdef, 0.98 mdef
Effective durabilities: 0.93 pdur, 0.94 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.58 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Epee):

Final Letter: 2155 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (176 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 8 WP.
Fire Cracker: 1064 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (176 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 7 WP.
Southern Cross: 1436 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (176 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 1976 ITD damage against undead. 7 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 746 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (191 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 4 WP.
Imprison: 57% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 0 WP.
Mindstare: 65% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 1 WP.
Feint: 68% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 55.9% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 2023 ITD damage. 2 WP.
Estoc Physical: 351 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (176 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: While her big brother sports a gargantuan skillset with all kinds of crazy cheese, Monica resigns herself to a certain simplicity - which is more of a testament on Epee skillsets, really. Accurate, but wallable 3HKO damage off decent speed, a few status options with kinda shaky accuracy, some speed buffing that doesn’t go many places. Nothing really bad, but nothing really impressive - though turn two paralysis off solid speed hurts absolutely nobody for duelling worth. Middle, I guess. A solid 3HKO off 1.1x speed spreads unmitigated terror in Light and garners you wins even in the higher division.




Duchess Katarina Lauren

“Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass.”

Specialty: Greatsword (L32)

HP: 826 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 100
LP: 10
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 21
Speed: 23 (19)
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 10
Will: 16
Charisma: 17

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.02 pdef, 1.01 mdef
Effective durabilities: 1.02 pdur, 1.01 mdur

Effective Speed: + 1.14 SD

Equipment:

Flamberge (34 Attack)
Masquerade (9 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Greatsword):

Tres Flores: 2374 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (114 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 10 WP.
Harvest Moon: 2171 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (139 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Bull Crush: 1429 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (114 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 5 WP.
Blunt Strike: 58% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 0 WP.
Stealing Hands: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee counterable attack, the user has a 60% chance of deflecting the attack. If the enemy used a weapon to attack and the user has a free weapon slot, then the enemy weapon is stolen and the user counters for 3560 ITD damage. 6 WP.
Formless Stance: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee or ranged counterable attack, the user has a 70% chance of dodging the attack, taking no damage. 1 WP.
Cut Down: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee counterable attack, the user has a 42.9% chance of deflecting and countering the attack for 2686 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Earth Run: 1132 slash-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (114 BV), avoids counters but triggers shields, hits the front and back row, misses fliers, turns field to Earth. 3 WP.
Awakening: 578 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (164 BV), triggers all shields and counters, turns Masquerade into a 35 power Greatsword. Since it’s only 1 attack higher than the default, the damage difference is -literally- negligible. 0 WP.
Moulin Rouge: 1005 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (144 BV), triggers all shields and counters, Greatsword Masquerade-only. 3 WP.
Flamberge Physical: 446 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (114 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Comments: Another 3HKO machine, but this time she’s fast! Katarina sports the typical averagish durability/offense combo of most of the main character peers, but she shakes it up with a chancy, fun anti-physical game. If she’s facing a non-martial artist physicaller, he/she has to take chances with Stealing Hands – even if it’s just 60% odds, that’s a 40% chance that Katarina -won’t- chomp the opposition down with nearly 6k Romancing SaGa 3 damage (the counter+her own turn), and multi-hit attacks are actually -more- vulnerable, since getting hit through the counter stance doesn’t undo it. In fact, only Katarina getting another turn does. The ghetto Ramsus game running off that speed works really well and she usually has the durability to run it for more than a round. The option of high turn two paralysis also works pretty nicely off 130% average speed, and the status has the added perk of being free and always connecting if she tries to reapply it while the enemy’s still paralyzed (so, it ain't far from a free win. These gimmicks may not be able to propel her straight to Heavy, but decent slugging off good speed alone make her solid, and the ripples in her skillset should be enough for a borderliner nod. Middle/Heavy it is.




Count Leonid

“Tell me one thing you would never do - I was looking for a hooker when I found you.”

Specialties: Epee (L25), Martial Arts (L25, for the sake of improving his unique skillset), Vampire Magic

HP: 666 (0.80 PC HP)
WP: 115
LP: 0
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 13
Speed: 21
Constitution: 17
Intelligence: 25
Will: 13
Charisma: 27

Defense: 66
Magic Defense: 66
Defensive Modifiers: 1.31 pdef, 2.1 mdef, 0.70 modifier against heat
Effective Durabilities: 1.04 pdur, 1.68 mdur, 0.56 durability against heat
Effective Speed: + 1.51 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
Dusk Robe (42 Defense, 42 Magic Defense, 0 Weight. Grants status immunity including instant death, 10% mHP regen per turn and undead status [healing spells and skills do not affect undead in any way. Thus, Leonid can only be healed by Blood Suck, Gentle Touch and his own regen. Reviver -does- apply as an exception to this, however]. Has 0 Defense against heat attacks)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Epee:

Final Letter: 1901 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 8 WP.
Fire Cracker: 879 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 7 WP.
Southern Cross: 1298 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 1976 damage against undead. 7 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 634 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (191 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 4 WP.
Imprison: 54% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 0 WP.
Mindstare: 62% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 1 WP.
Feint: 65% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 60% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 1334 ITD damage. 2 WP.
Estoc Physical: 278 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Vampire Magic:

Gentle Touch: 74% chance of draining 100 LP from an enemy. Effectively instant death. Fully heals Leonid if successful. Ineffectual against undead, checks against Death immunity. 12 WP.
Stare: 68.6% chance of inflicting Charm, MT. Only works on females. 4 WP.
Blood Suck: 245 damage to an ally, drains all damage as HP. 0 WP.
Control Undead: Unknown chance of controlling an enemy for a single turn to perform an attack (can self-target). Only works on undead. 8 WP.

Comments: Gentle Touch/10. Turn one instant death off 137% average speed along with magic tanking and full status spoiling. Naoto won a Heavy season with a less wholesome package than that, so there’s really no question where Leonid belongs. An extra status option against females is a funny ripple as well (doesn’t hurt that Charm is very good). His damage kinda needs work, and he really really hopes he doesn’t have to face fire offense – that weakness is quite pesky. But he doesn’t really do that badly even then – I mean, he still 3HKOs average, which is a lot more than Naoto can say.




Shonen

“Japanese God Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes. For all we know and all we care, they might as well be martians.”

Specialty: Greatsword (L29)

HP: 795 (0.96 PC HP)
WP: 88
LP: 10
Strength: 23
Dexterity: 14
Speed: 16 (12)
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 17
Will: 13
Charisma: 17

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.00 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.96 pdur, 0.96 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.15 SD

Equipment:

Flamberge (34 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Greatsword):

Tres Flores: 2562 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (110 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 10 WP.
Harvest Moon: 2407 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (135 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Bull Crush: 1518 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (110 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 5 WP.
Blunt Strike: 55% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 0 WP.
Stealing Hands: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee or ranged counterable attack, the user has a 54.7% chance of deflecting the attack. If the enemy used a melee weapon to attack and the user has a free weapon slot, the enemy weapon is stolen and the user counters for 2662 ITD damage. 6 WP.
Formless Stance: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee or ranged counterable attack, the user has a 64.8% chance of dodging the attack, taking no damage. 1 WP.
Cut Down: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee counterable attack, the user has a 30.7% chance of deflecting and countering the attack for 2011 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Earth Run: 1277 slash-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (110 BV), avoids counters but triggers shields, hits the front and back row, misses fliers, turns field to Earth. 3 WP.
Flamberge Physical: 505 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (110 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Comments: Take Katarina, give her slightly better damage and take away her speed. That’s Shonen in a nutshell. The counter game makes a return here, but without Kat’s great speed, it just doesn’t really pan out anywhere near as well - even the paralysis looks a lot less attractive when you're running off below average speed. Low Middle.




Tiberius

“If you’re feeling sinister, go off and see your minister.”

Specialties: Water Magic (L33), Sun Magic (L29)

HP: 785 (0.95 PC HP)
JP: 128
LP: 8
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 13
Speed: 14 (10)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 23
Will: 20
Charisma: 14

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.99 pdef, 0.99 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.94 pdur, 0.94 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.52 SD

Equipment

Life Cane (10 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Sun Magic:

Solar Wind: 1081 heat/cold/electricity-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 8 JP.
Illusion Sun: Grants a magic shield that dodges all attacks susceptible to magic shield  evade (both physical and magical) at a 30% rate. 10 JP.
Revival Light: 417 healing, heals all status but Petrify. 6 JP.
Day Break: 35.8% chance of ID, MT, triggers magic shields. 6 JP.
Star Fixer: 799 heat-elemental damage, ST, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 27.8% odds of inflicting paralysis. 4 JP.
Heat Wave: 428 heat-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Speed -5. 3 JP.
Sunshine: 220 heat/status-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 0 JP.

Water Magic:

Squall: 200 status-elemental damage, Water-type, turns field Water-elemental, MT, salamander-slayer (???). 0 JP.
Life Water: Heals 262 HP and sleep status, ST. 0 JP.
Mystic Water: Heals all status but petrify, ST. 2 JP.
Sparkling Mist: Lowers Dexterity by 11, 71% hit rate, MT. 1 JP
Water Pole: Grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks at a 60% chance and regens 10% of the user’s HP per turn. Only functions if the field is Water-elemental. 6 JP.
Thunder Clap: 984 thunder-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence. 7 JP.
Quicktime: Grants initiative to entire party for an amount of turns equal to (JP spent/16). All JP.

Comments: So, Romancing SaGa 3 mages. You see that damage? Yeah, that gives you an idea of their slugfesting failure. However, the rest of the skillset compensates that shortcoming with copious cheese, as Mikhail so earnestly showed. Sun Magic is really a staller’s dream skillset with the combo of healing, speed-busting, instant death and Illusion Sun evade. Against physical fighters, Tiberius can augment this further by stacking Water Pole and Illusion Sun into endless annoyance, and his healing’s also a bit better than Mikhail’s. The speed is sketchy, but at least the durability isn’t too bad, if subpar, and once even Illusion Sun is up, Tibby can keep his stalling up for -ages- (the shoddy infinite healing actually helps here!). Against physical fighters in particular, stacking up Illusion Sun and Water Pole alongside Earth Guard nets him a ridiculous 79% evade rate. Doesn’t like blitzers, but what can you do. A quirky, fun and actually rather solid Middle.




Wood

“Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie son? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the cowboys gone?”

Specialty: Greatsword (L33)

HP: 875 (1.06 PC HP)
WP: 111
LP: 15
Strength: 22
Dexterity: 16
Speed: 10 (0)
Constitution: 23
Intelligence: 12
Will: 18
Charisma: 13

Defense: 75
Magic Defense: 51
Defensive Modifiers: 2.23 pdef, 1.31 mdef, 0.94 modifier against electricity
Effective durabilities: 2.36 pdur, 1.38 mdur, 0.99 durability against electricity
Effective Speed: - 2.38 SD

Equipment:

Flamberge (34 Attack)
Fort Suit (45 Defense, 26 Magic Defense, 15 Weight, grants weakness to Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Greatsword):

Tres Flores: 2625 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (115 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 10 WP.
Harvest Moon: 2487 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (131 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Bull Crush: 1560 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (115 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 5 WP.
Blunt Strike: 59.4% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 0 WP.
Stealing Hands: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee or ranged counterable attack, the user has a 57.3% chance of deflecting the attack. If the enemy used a melee weapon to attack and the user has a free weapon slot, the enemy weapon is stolen and the user counters for 3102 ITD damage. 6 WP.
Formless Stance: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee or ranged counterable attack, the user has a 67.2% chance of dodging the attack, taking no damage. 1 WP.
Cut Down: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a melee counterable attack, the user has a 33.2% chance of deflecting and countering the attack for 2343 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Earth Run: 1343 slash-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (115 BV), avoids counters but triggers shields, hits the front and back row, misses fliers, turns field to Earth. 3 WP.
Flamberge Physical: 524 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (115 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Comments: Wood curses missing a 2HKO to average with all his impotent might. The physical durability is simply amazing (3HKOs average, gets 6HKOed back? Welp), but holy crap that’s Ghaleon-level speed. The counter game is more useful on him than Shonen, since he at least has the durability to take a lot of cracks, thus having more margin for error when gambling for wins that way. On the other hand, everyone and their mom gets at least one free hit on him before he can do anything, often two. He reminds me a lot of Tin Man, only being even hardier and slower. Light/Middle - being 5% away from eating instant doubles against average speed just sucks too much, but that physical durability, 2HKOing the frail and counters are going to spread terror in the ocean of non-durable people and physical fighters of Light.




Paul

“With a hip-hip-hop, with a flip-flip-flop, gonna steal some bananas from the grocer’s shop.”

Specialties: Bow (L29), Sword (L26)

HP: 825 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 113
LP: 11
Strength: 18
Dexterity: 19
Speed: 17 (13)
Constitution: 19
Intelligence: 13
Will: 15
Charisma: 16

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.03 pdef, 1.02 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.03 pdur, 1.02 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.03 SD

Equipment:
Enhanced Bow (34 Attack)
Silver Sword (25 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Sword:

Golden Dragon: 2349 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (166 BV). Triggers all shields and counters. 11 WP.
Sword Flash: 1840 slash-elemental damage, ranged, hits enemies in a line, >100% hit rate (146 BV). Avoids all shields and counters. 8 WP.
Summer Rain: 1419 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (116 BV), initiative. Triggers all shields and counters. 9 WP
Split Body Sword: 928 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (116 BV). Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. Ignores counters but triggers all shields. 1828 damage if used after Golden Dragon. 6 WP.
Dimension Slash: Deals 18.8% mHP damage against average defenses, affected by Defense (specifically slash resistance) and Con, 81.9% hit rate. Triggers all shields and counters. 2 WP
Sweep Down: 257 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (109 BV), 24% odds of stun. Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP
Parry: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. While in this stance, the user has a 64.8% chance of deflecting an enemy attack, taking no damage. Parries most melee and ranged attacks, protects from attacks against a row. 0 WP.

Bow:

Plasma Shot: 1604 shot/electricity-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 7 WP.
Continuous Shot: 914 shot-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate (131 BV). Avoids counters, but triggers shields. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. 2219 damage after Golden Dragon. 6 WP.
Shadow Kill: Inflicts Instant Death at 35.8% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 3 WP.
Shadow Sew: Inflicts paralysis at 62.3% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 0 WP.
Provoke Shot: Inflicts Berserk at 68.8% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 1 WP.
Quick Arrow: 660 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (116 BV), initiative strike. Triggers magic shields. 4 WP.
Enhanced Bow Physical: 397 shot-elemental damage, ranged, 89.6% hit rate, 355 average damage. Avoids counters but triggers shields. 0 WP.

Comments: The Paul formerly known as Thief is sorta like Julian and Sara’s degenerate manbaby, mixing up both their skillsets and stats but picking the sketchier parts of each character. He has pretty much Julian’s slugging options but slightly weaker, as well as Sara’s status game… sans Resonance Weep. Great way to miss out on one of RS3’s best DL status, boy. Berserk works in a pinch against skillset-reliant people, but then he also has Julian’s speed instead of Sara’s. You’d think the mix would end up a bit better than that, but Paul just goes out of his way to mix and match the wrong choices there. The Summer Rain => Golden Dragon game is also there, but isn't as potent (he misses the 3HKO to average, which kinda sucks). Probably a Low Heavy in the boiling of eggs (the status options still go a long way off even 101% average speed and he could do considerably worse as far as slugfesting goes), but definitely not one of RS3’s most successful breeding experiments for duels.




Slim Robin (Lime)

“I am, I am, I am Superman and I can do anything!”

Specialties: Epee (L33), Wind Magic (L30)

HP: 825
WP: 109
JP: 90
LP: 12
Strength: 21
Dexterity: 17
Speed: 20 (16)
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 17
Will: 12
Charisma: 17

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.97 pdef, 0.98mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.97 pdur, .098 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.58 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Epee:

Final Letter: 2334 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (184 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 8 WP.
Fire Cracker: 1199 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (184 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 7 WP.
Southern Cross: 1541 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (184 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 2117 ITD damage against undead. 7 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 885 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (191 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 4 WP.
Imprison: 56.1% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 0 WP.
Mindstare: 64.5% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 0 WP.
Feint: 65.3% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 59.7% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 2453 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Estoc Physical: 402 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (184 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Wind Magic:

Dragon God Descent: Grants the target zero cost for all skills and magic and all damage received instead becomes 1 LP damage. Multi-hit attacks deal 1 LP damage per strike. Self-only, Grants 10% mHP regen per turn when the field is Wind, turns field into Wind. 18 JP.
Dancing Leaves: When the field is Wind, grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks with a 60.4% chance and 10% mHP regen per turn. 5 JP.
Tornado: 822 pierce/status-elemental damage, anti-air, MT, anti-air, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind. Deals 1158 ITD damage against fliers. 8 JP.
Thorn Vine: 283 pierce-elemental damage, Ground-type, MT, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind, 24% odds of stun. 4 JP.
Nap: Inflicts Sleep at 61.1% odds, MT, turns field to Wind. 3 JP.
Suction: 301 shot-element damage, drains all damage as HP to caster, 88.7% hit rate, turns field to Wind. 5 JP.

Comments: So, about Wind Magic. Dragon God Descent is kinda ridiculous if you have decent enough manpower to win fights reliably before your LP runs out, and it’s even nastier against physical fighters because Dancing Leaves is pretty much Water Pole for those windy days. Considering Robin’s speed, stopping him from getting going can get awfully hard and he even has adequate slugfesting (like most of the cast, 3HKOs and gets 3HKOed back). By the time his LP runs out, he could get in upwards of 4x PC HP after you factor in the occasional double, and not a lot of people live through that. Nap and Imprison also help in giving him extra breathing room for piling up the cheese game further if he cares. The Dragon God Descent strategy badly fails against multi-hitters, but them’s the breaks, and Dancing Leaves+his base evade from bangles can mitigate that a lot as well. Low Godlike.




Fat Robin (Truck)

“I just can’t seem to get a message to you that the rescue you planned has just backfired.”

Specialty: Epee (L39 [!])

HP: 876 (1.06 PC HP)
WP: 123
LP: 9
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 17   
Speed: 22 (18)
Constitution: 17
Intelligence: 14
Will: 15
Charisma: 19

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.01 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.07 pdur, 1.06 mdur

Effective Speed: + 0.95 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Epee):

Final Letter: 2528 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (185 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 7 WP.
Fire Cracker: 1370 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (185 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 6 WP.
Southern Cross: 1652 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (185 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 2265 ITD damage against undead. 6 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 977 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (192 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 3WP.
Imprison: 59.4% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 0 WP.
Mindstare: 68.2% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 0 WP.
Feint: 72.5% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 64.8% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 3007 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Estoc Physical: 464 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (185 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Monica Plus, pretty much. Same skillset, but better at more or less everything relevant except having a flat abdomen. 2HKOing the frail also doesn’t hurt. -In fact-, his game actually reminds me of Katarina's in practice due to the stat similarities, only with more (if not necessarily great) status options. Middle/Heavy.




Muse

“It takes courage to enjoy it – the hardcore and gentle, big time sensuality!”

Specialty: None (… yeah. Her calculations take her as having L22 on Greatswords, as per her calculated Current Party Level)

HP: 786 (0.95 PC HP)
WP: 66
LP: 6
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 20
Speed: 15 (11)
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 19
Will: 18
Charisma: 25

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.94 pdef, 0.95 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.89 pdur, 0.90 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.33 SD

Equipment:

Flamberge (34 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Greatsword):
Greatsword Physical: 328 slash-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (101 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Muse gets outslugged hands-off by Alfred Schroedinger and struggles against half the Suikodogs, dying horribly to the rest of them. That’s a winner alright. Puny. Way to make Rody look good, girl.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Sharl

“He’s got double-vision when you want him double-jointed.”

Specialties: Spear (L35), Fire Magic (L33)

HP: 825 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 115
JP: 99
LP: 9
Strength: 5 (21)
Dexterity: 3 (19)
Speed: 16 (11)
Constitution: 21
Intelligence: 19
Will: 16
Charisma: 18

Defense: 57
Magic Defense: 42
Defensive Modifiers: 1.02 pdef, 1.02 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.02 pdur, 1.02 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.33 SD

Equipment:

Blitz Lancer (38 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Silver Hand (7 Defense, 7 Magic Defense, 1 Weight. Fixes Sharl’s Strength and Dexterity)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Spear:

Meteor Thrust: 2577 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (129 BV), 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. Avoids counters and shield evade, but triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 9 WP.
Triple Thrust: 2339 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (119 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 10 WP.
Double Dragon: 1679 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, hits both front and back row, >100% hit rate (119 BV), avoids shield blocking but triggers shield evade, counters and magic shields, turns field to Wind. 6 WP.
Beast God Stab: 1469 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of inflicting -5 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed and Con, turns field to Earth. 6 WP.
Great Wheel: 1230 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (129 BV), avoids shield evade. 5 WP.
Brain Split: 796 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 2 WP.
Dragon Hit: 691 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (129 BV), avoids shield evade but triggers counters, magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Poison. 3 WP.
Windmill: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 51.5% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 3370 ITD damage. 3 WP.
Blitz Lancer Physical: 549 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (125 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Fire Magic:

Reviver: Grants an auto-revival effect that fully heals the user and takes away 1 LP if HP reaches 0 and grants 10% HP regen if the field’s element is Fire. Sets field to Fire. 16 JP.
Hard Fire: Raises Speed of one target by 12. Sets the field to Fire. 2 JP.
Feather Seal: Grants hide status to user, making him untargettable by single-target attacks (MT attacks can still affect the user). If the user performs any action besides defending, the effect is cancelled. Sets field to Fire. 3 JP.
Fire Wall: Grants immunity to heat and cold elements for the duration of the turn to the entire party, and, at the end of the round, deals 287 heat-elemental damage to the front row, turns field to Fire. 7 JP.
Self-Burning: Grants a barrier that gives immunity to heat element for the duration of the turn and counters melee attacks. The counter deals 260 damage and cancels the user’s turn if he/she didn’t act before the counter. Lasts until the counter is triggered. 5 JP.
Bird Song: 107 status-elemental damage on entire field (allies and enemies), sonic-typed, initiative strike, 15.1% odds of inflicting silence. Turns field to Fire. 3 JP.
Air Slash: 320 slash-elemental damage to a row, Flight-slayer. Deals 488 ITD damage to fliers, turns field to Fire. 1 JP.

Comments: Well, the speed could be better off the cusp, but durability and damage are okay, with the caveat that spear skills generally have neat long-term options for putting ripples into drawn-out fights. And what do you know, Sharl gets one of the best spells he could possibly ask for to synergize with spears: Reviver. Full auto-life that grants you 10% regen per turn is just fucking amazing. And that on someone who can gradually lower just about all relevant stats (speed in particular) and apply a slew of annoying status while dealing damage? Yeaaaaaaaaah. He even gets some speed boosting and a ghetto Hide Rune clone in order to capitalize on the regen - i.e. he gets an effective, long-term full heal IN ADDITION to Reviver cheese. Only the subpar speed really keeps Sharl in check. High Heavy at worst – that’s a really mean stalling game running off generally decent offense and options. 




Poet

“It takes two to tumble, it takes two to tango.”

Specialty: Mace (L26), Martial Arts (L26, solely for the sake of raising Everyone’s Song)

HP: 825 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 110
LP: 10
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 18
Speed: 17 (13)
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 13
Will: 14
Charisma: 22

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.00 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.00 pdur, 1.00 mdur
Effective Speed: + 0.03 SD

Equipment:

Golden Bat (19 Attack)
Poet’s Fiddle (Allows use of Everyone’s Song)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Alternative equipment:

Hair Ornament (1 Defense,7 Magic Defense, +1 Charisma, Status Defense * 1.5)

Skills:

Mace:

Shell Split: 1835 blunt-elemental damage, melee, > 100% hit rate (136 BV), Dragon Slayer (deals 2452 ITD damage to dragons), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of lowering slash, blunt, pierce, shot and heat defenses by 50%. The effect in practice is that each successful bust raises physical damage by roughly 10% against average defense, pretty much flatlining by the third successful hit – damage gets raised by roughly 20% after the first hit, then an additional 10% after the second. Against high defenses, the effect is substantially higher, but that’d requiring converting some other system’s defense to RS3 defense. ENJOY. 10 WP.
Stone Cut: 1180 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (136 BV), triggers all counters and shields, Golem-slayer (deals 1596 ITD damage to stone enemies). 6 WP.
Escape Out: 766 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (131 BV), triggers all counters and shields, causes user to hide, becoming untargettable by single-target attacks. If the user performs any action besides defending or Escape Out, he/she/it will leave the hiding state. MT can hit a hidden character. Golden Bat-only. 4 WP.
Midas Hand: Inflicts Stone at 35.3% odds, melee. Effectively instant death against enemies, triggers all shields and counters, checks Stone immunity. Golden Bat-only. 3 WP.
Head Split: 466 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (131 BV), triggers all counters and shields, 45.3% odds of inflicting Sleep, 45.3% odds of inflicting Intelligence -3. 0 WP.
Justice Mete: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 36.1% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 1427 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Golden Bat Physical: 425 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Misc.:

Everyone’s Song: Raises Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Constitution, Intelligence and Will by 3 for all party members. 0 WP.

Comments: Escape Out and Midas Hand cheese. That’s pretty much all there’s to talk about Poet. It’s kinda annoying, but the ST spoiling is just very powerful and healers, who could certainly handle that cheese, instead have to deal with stone. Damage sorta sucks, but it doesn’t matter. Escape Out is more than enough to make him work out and he even falls on the right side of average speed to boot. Heavy.




Tatyana Lasaiev

“I’m miss sugar pink, liquor liquor lips! I’m gonna be your bubblegum bitch!”

Specialty: Epee (L26)

HP: 796 (0.96 PC HP)
WP: 78
LP: 10
Strength: 18
Dexterity: 16
Speed: 15 (11)
Constitution: 19
Intelligence: 17
Will: 13
Charisma: 20

Defense: 52
Magic Defense: 37
Defensive Modifiers: 0.88 pdef, 0.92 mdef, 0.94 against Cold
Effective Durabilities: 0.84 pdur, 0.88 mdur, 0.90 against Cold
Effective Speed: - 0.33 SD

Equipment:

Estoc (28 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Teddy Bear (2 Defense, 2 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, 2x defense to Cold element)

Skills (Epee):

Final Letter: 2002 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 1.9% odds of inflicting ID. 8 WP.
Fire Cracker: 953 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers magic shields, avoids counters and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence, turns field to Fire. 7 WP.
Southern Cross: 1353 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV),  triggers all shields and counters, Undead-slayer. 1866 ITD damage against undead. 7 WP.
Bolt Pierce: 691 pierce/electricity-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (183 BV), initiative strike, Speed +8. 4 WP.
Imprison: 55.2% odds of inflicting Paralysis on target. 0 WP.
Mindstare: 63.5% odds of inflicting Mixed or Confusion on target. 1 WP.
Feint: 66.3% odds of inflicting Stun on target. 0 WP.
Matador: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 50.2% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 1732 ITD damage. 2 WP.
Estoc Physical: 303 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (168 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: While Fat Robin was Monica Plus, Tatyana is relegated to being Monica Minus, sporting noticeably worse stats and damage across the board – to the point of actually being actively sorta bad. Notice a pattern with pure Epee users here? She 3HKOs, but being kinda frail and slow just doesn’t do her any favors. Light/Middle, probably. It’s kinda hard to assess how much the skillset works in Middle off questionable stats, but it certainly scares the lowest division (._.).




Yan Fan

“Oliver’s Army is on their way!”

Specialties: Martial Arts (L25), Moon Magic (L27)

HP: 876 (1.06 PC HP)
WP: 90
JP: 81
LP: 12
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 15
Speed: 21 (17)
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 23
Will: 21
Charisma: 19

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.94 pdef, 0.95 mdef (0.66 pdef, 0.89 mdef with Sorcerer Robe)
Effective Durabilities: 0.99 pdur, 1.00 mdur (0.69 pdur, 0.94 mdur with Sorcerer Robe)
Effective Speed: + 0.77 SD

Equipment:

White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Alternative Equipment:

Sorcerer Robe (12 Defense, 15 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, +2 Intelligence)

Skills:

Martial Arts:

Dragon Inferno: 2540 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 84.3% hit rate, 2141 average damage (2767 damage the turn immediately after casting Moonglow once, 89.6% hit rate, 2479 average damage. 2703 damage, 87.2% hit rate, 2357 average damage with Sorcerer Robe). Triggers all shields and counters. 15 WP.
Reverse Throw: 768 blunt-elemental damage, >100% hit rate, melee, Throw-typed, triggers counters and magic shields, 24% odds of stun, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat resistance -10. 5 WP.
Evil Breaker: 834 ITD non-elemental damage, 99.3% hit rate, 828 average damage, -45.9% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence, Will and Charisma. Undead-slayer (not sure what the effect is, since it’s already ITD). 6 WP.
Powerup Fist: 535 blunt-elemental damage, MT, 99.3% hit rate, 531 average damage. Ignores all counters and shields. 7 WP.
Focus: 227 healing, self-only. 0 WP.
Punch: 277 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 99.3% hit rate, 275 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Moon Magic:

Shadow Servant: Calls a shadow that doubles damage of any attack done by the caster. The shadow takes a single hit for the caster if he/she is attacked, negating damage. If hit, the shadow disappears and the doubling effect is lost. Self-only. 10 JP.
Glare Light: 84.3% odds of inflicting Charm to an enemy. 3 JP.
Moonshine: 474 healing to one target, also cures darkness. 5 JP.
Moonglow: Speed and Will +10 to one target. 2 JP. 
Soul Freeze: 650 cold-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields, 27.8% odds of inflicting paralysis. 6 JP.
Shadow Bolt: 336 status-elemental damage, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 24% odds of stun, 15.1% odds of silence. 1 JP.
Moon-reading Mirror: 74% odds of dealing 18.8% mHP damage to an enemy, triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 2 JP.

Comments: Yan Fan’s basic strategy is pretty simple: cast Moonglow, survive an enemy turn, get an immediate 3-2 if the speed spread allows him, then apply Shadow Servant+Dragon Inferno and hope it hits. If the attack doesn’t miss, that juuuuuust scrapes a OHKO and works out oddly well - and if it doesn’t finish the job, Yan’s still pretty much guaranteed to live another turn to clean things up. He can also attempt to stall slower folks with Shadow Servant (albeit not for long), set up kills with his abusively accurate Charm and even play a more typical haste-healing game, for all that RS3’s buffs don’t really lend to that so well. As typical for the higher-end setup machines in RS3, Yan Fan doesn’t -blitz-. On the other hand he can set up oddly fast kills with the options he has, and stopping him from methodically getting his game up can be surprisingly tough (the speed alone is huge, and both Shadow Servant and Glare Light go a long way to give him further breathing room). Evasion is a big concern for Yan, though, with Dragon Inferno’s cruddy accuracy - the Social Security agents have to ask him to point on the doll where the bad Arnaud touched him. Still, Moon Magic and Martial Arts combine into a really mean package. High Heavy.




Undine

“I know how it feels to be your age – how I love to feel a girl your age!”

Specialty: Water Magic (L42 [!!!!])

HP: 785 (0.95 PC HP)
JP: 126
LP: 7
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 20
Speed: 16 (12)
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 24
Will: 17
Charisma: 13

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.99 pdef, 0.99 mdef (0.71 pdef with Lake Robe)
Effective Durabilities: 0.94 pdur, 0.94 mdur (0.67 pdur with Lake Robe)
Effective Speed: - 0.15 SD

Equipment:

White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Alternative Equipment:

Lake Robe (14 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, +1 Intelligence, Immunes Water)

Skills (Water Magic):

Note: Undine's Water Magic has a 25% boost to damage. This is already factored in.

Thunder Clap: 1507 thunder-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence. Turns field to Water. 6 JP.
Squall: 392 status-elemental damage, Water-type, turns field to Water, MT, salamander-slayer (???). 0 JP.
Life Water: Heals 356 HP and sleep status to a target, turns field to Water. 0 JP.
Mystic Water: Heals all status but petrify, ST. 2 JP.
Sparkling Mist: Lowers Dexterity by 14, 72.8% hit rate, MT. 1 JP
Water Pole: Grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks at a 60% chance and regens 10% of the user’s HP per turn. Only functions if the field is Water-elemental. 6 JP.
Quicktime: Grants initiative to entire party for an amount of turns equal to (JP spent/16). All JP.

Comments: Oh wow, 4HKO thunder damage off below average speed and durability, what a great start. At least Undine gets the typical cheesestalling evade game so common to many magic schools in RS3 and her healing is free. Unfortunately, Quicktime is completely useless for her, since it leaves her stuck with Muse-level offense. Low Middle probably works: I can see the hordes of runeless Suikoscrubs and Shining Force filler losers running in despair from Water Magic's defensive game from miles away, and hey, at worst, she passes the Grandia 2 Middle test. >_> <_<




Zhi Lin

“Seven Chinese brothers swallowing the ocean, seven thousand years to swallow away the pain.”

Specialty: Bow (L41 [!!!])

HP: 826 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 134
LP: 12
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 24
Speed: 15 (11)
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 10
Will: 20
Charisma: 16

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.02 pdef, 1.01 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.02 pdur, 1.01 mdur

Effective Speed: - 0.33 SD

Equipment:

Enhanced Bow (34 Attack)
Canarya Bow (25 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Bow):

Million Dollar: 3306 shot-elemental damage, ranged, MT, >100% hit rate (158 BV). Ignores all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Plasma Shot: 2316 shot/electricity-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (118 BV). Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 28.6% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 7 WP.
Continuous Shot: 2007 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (118 BV). Avoids counters, but triggers shields. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. 3747 damage after using Million Dollar. 6 WP.
Resonance Weep: Inflicts Charm at 70% odds, ranged. Sonic-typed, hits mental status immunity. Canarya Bow-specific. 0 WP.
Shadow Kill: Inflicts Instant Death at 40% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 3 WP.
Shadow Sew: Inflicts paralysis at 68% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 0 WP.
Provoke Shot: Inflicts Berserk at 74% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 1 WP.
Id Break: 873 damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (138 BV). 46.9% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence. 28.6% odds of inflicting Confusion. 2 WP.
Quick Arrow: 1068 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (148 BV), initiative strike. Triggers magic shields. 4 WP.
Flash Arrow: 299 status/shot-elemental damage, magical, MT, 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers shield evade and magical shields. 3 WP
Enhanced Bow Physical: 661 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (118 BV). Avoids counters but triggers shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Well, Zhi Lin is just Sara with considerably better damage (game-best damage and our first inarguable, no-strings-attached 2HKO, yo) and slightly better durability at the cost of speed. I’m not sure if this is a winning trade, but it’s a fair one, and all the relevant statuses are still accurate enough (along with paralysis breaking the turn one border). Continuous Shot can get pretty scary after a Million Dollar, which is funny, but otherwise it’s pretty much the solid base package with a few spins. Heavy.




Fullbright the XIII

“You’ve got the looks! I’ve got the brains! Let’s make lots of money!”

Specialties: Earth Magic (L26), Sun Magic (L26)

HP: 795 (0.96 PC HP)
WP: 15
JP: 104
LP: 9
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 20
Speed: 16 (12)
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 19
Will: 21
Charisma: 14

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.97 pdef, 0.97 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.93 pdur, 0.93 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.15 SD

Equipment:

White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Earth Magic:

Super Gravity: 1511 blunt/status-elemental damage, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 45.9% odds of inflicting Speed -5. Turns field to Earth. 9 JP.
Gold Touch: 41% odds of inflicting Petrify on an enemy. Triggers magic shields and evade techs, turns field to Earth. 6 JP.
Earth Heal: 334 healing, also heals sleep, turns field to Earth. 4 JP.
Crack: 507 pierce-elemental damage to a row, Ground-typed, 24% odds of causing stun. Turns field to Earth. 4 JP.
Berserk: Raises Strength and Constitution by 13, turns field to Earth. Raises Fullbright’s pdur to 1.10 and his mdur to 1.07 on the turn it’s cast. Turns field to Earth. 3 JP.
Stoneskin: Raises Defense by 13 on one target. After the first turn, the target gains 5 extra defense every turn until the value hits 64, at which point the target is petrified. In practice, casting this on Fullbright leads him to being pretty much immediately petrified. >_> Would be very useful if it could be casted on enemies rather than allies. Turns field to Earth. 3 JP.
Stone Bullet: 252 blunt-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shield and shield blocking, turns field to Earth. 1 JP

Sun Magic:

Solar Wind: 828 heat/cold/electricity-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 9 JP.
Illusion Sun: Grants a magic shield that dodges all attacks susceptible to magic shield  evade (both physical and magical) at a 30% rate. 11 JP.
Revival Light: 384 healing, heals all status but Petrify. 7 JP.
Day Break: 37.1% chance of ID, MT, triggers magic shields. 7 JP.
Star Fixer: 585 heat-elemental damage, ST, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 27.8% odds of inflicting paralysis. 5 JP.
Heat Wave: 305 heat-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Speed -5. 4 JP.
Sunshine: 150 heat/status-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 0 JP.

Comments: Stoneskin is the new Lufia 1 Stone, folks. This amazing piece of design aside, though, Fullbright pretty much plays a variant on Tiberius’ stalling game. Better damage and speed (best of the pure mages in both cases! Says so much), worse resources and healing, a second fatal status option, no Illusion Sun/Water Pole stacking… probably ends up in a similar place, though Gold Touch might scrape turn 2, which gives him a better shot at winning fights in a reasonable time. Probably ends up in roughly the same place, all things told. Rather solid Middle, once again.




Bai Mei Niang

“She knows every neighbor, chats at their doors, compare econosize electric appliances, my mother the war.”

Specialty: Wind Magic (L42 […])

HP: 795 (0.96 PC HP)
JP: 126
LP: 12
Strength: 17   
Dexterity: 16
Speed: 14 (10)
Constitution: 17
Intelligence: 23
Will: 18
Charisma: 8

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.01 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 0.97 pdur, 0.96 mdur

Effective Speed: - 0.52 SD

Equipment:

White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Wind Magic):

Tornado: 1429 pierce/status-elemental damage, MT, anti-air, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind. Deals 1980 ITD damage against fliers. 7 JP.
Wind Dart: 728 pierce-elemental damage, triggers magic shields and shield blocking, turns field to Wind. 0 JP.
Dragon God Descent: Grants the target zero cost for all skills and magic and all damage received instead becomes 1 LP damage. Multi-hit attacks deal 1 LP damage per strike. Self-only, Grants 10% mHP regen per turn when the field is Wind, turns field into Wind. 17 JP.
Dancing Leaves: When the field is Wind, grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks with a 60.4% chance and 10% mHP regen per turn. 4 JP.
Thorn Vine: 525 pierce-elemental damage, Ground-type, MT, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind, 24% odds of stun. 3 JP.
Nap: Inflicts Sleep at 68% odds, MT. Turns field to Wind. 2 JP.
Suction: 516 shot-element damage, drains all damage as HP to caster, 88.7% hit rate. Turns field to Wind. 4 JP.

Comments: Bai Mei Niang is weird. The poor speed and low 4HKO-level offense certainly work against her when applying the Dragon God strategy. On the other hand, the stalling game at the side is considerably better – Suction is very good draining (probably the best healing the game has to offer aside from Revival… except when it misses) in her hands and Sleep is turn one, letting her put up the cheese game more leisurely. That said, Dragon God Descent is hard to argue with as long as you don’t utterly suck with it (as in, at least 5HKO average). She probably works as a good Heavy – too slow and undamaging for Godlike, but she’s definitely competitive elsewhere. It's even kind of a shame Dragon God is so broken, since it makes Bai's fascinating defensive draining/status game a lot less meaningful.




Nora

“If you had a hammer you would knock the whole thing down.”

Specialties: Mace (L32), Spear (L27)

HP: 876 (1.06 PC HP)
WP: 123
LP: 14
Strength: 23
Dexterity: 24
Speed: 16 (12)
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Will: 13
Charisma: 13

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 0.95 pdef, 0.97 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.00 pdur, 1.02 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.15 SD

Equipment:

Blitz Lancer (38 Attack)
Golden Bat (19 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills

Spears:

Triple Thrust: 2217 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (122 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Double Dragon: 1581 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, hits both front and back row, >100% hit rate (132 BV), avoids shield blocking but triggers shield evade, counters and magic shields, turns field to Wind. 5 WP.
Great Wheel: 1143 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (132 BV), avoids shield evade. 4 WP.
Brain Split: 733 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (132 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 1 WP.
Dragon Hit: 620 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (132 BV), avoids shield evade but triggers counters, magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Poison. 2 WP.
Blitz Lancer Physical: 457 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (129 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Maces:

Shell Split: 2058 blunt-elemental damage, melee, > 100% hit rate (151 BV), Dragon Slayer (deals 2744 ITD damage to dragons), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of lowering slash, blunt, pierce, shot and heat defenses by 50%. The effect in practice is that each successful bust raises physical damage by roughly 10% against average defense, pretty much flatlining by the third successful hit – damage gets raised by roughly 20% after the first hit, then an additional 10% after the second. Against high defenses, the effect is substantially higher, but that’d requiring converting some other system’s defense to RS3 defense. HAVE FUN. 10 WP.
Gravity Break: 1298 blunt/status-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (151 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of inflicting Speed -5. 5 WP.
Aero Beat: Deals roughly 38% mHP damage to target, 78.1% hit rate, Sonic-typed, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind. 2 WP.
Grand Slam: 1500 blunt-elemental damage, MT, ground-typed, 24% odds of stun. 8 WP.
Stone Cut: 1272 blunt-elemental damage, melee, ignores evade, triggers all counters and shields, Golem-slayer (deals 1717 ITD damage to stone enemies). 6 WP.
Escape Out: 859 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (146 BV), triggers all counters and shields, causes user to hide, becoming untargettable by single-target attacks. If the user performs any action besides defending or Escape Out, he/she/it will leave the hiding state. MT can hit a hidden character. Golden Bat-only. 4 WP.
Midas Hand: Inflicts Stone at 34% odds, melee. Effectively instant death against enemies, triggers all shields and counters, checks Stone immunity. Golden Bat-only. 3 WP.
Head Split: 515 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (151 BV), triggers all counters and shields, 45.3% odds of inflicting Sleep, 45.3% odds of inflicting Intelligence -3. 0 WP.
Justice Mete: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 60.4% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 1906 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Golden Bat Physical: 515 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (151 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Escape Out and Midas Hand cheese make their triumphant return, now with the side dish of spear skillset, a speed-busting attack and better resources to spam Escape Out with! Nora lacks money moves as God Beast Stab and is slower than Poet, but it works out okay. Better damage doesn’t hurt either – she can start doling out 2HKOs as soon as she lands Shell Split’s defense busting. Heavy.




Black

“Yo ho Sebastian! Let’s go far away! Somewhere where the captain won't be mad!”

Specialties: Axe (L30), Wind Magic (L26)

HP: 825
WP: 96
JP: 78
LP: 12
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 20
Speed: 15 (11)
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 16
Will: 24
Charisma: 14

Defense: 58
Magic Defense: 43
Defensive Modifiers: 1.00 pdef, 1.00 mdef
Effective Durabilities: 1.00 pdur, 1.00 mdur
Effective Speed: - 0.33 SD

Equipment:

Bulova (36 Attack)
Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Axe:

Sky Dive: 1913 slash/blunt-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (114 BV), 45.3% odds of lowering enemy Con by 10 (in practice, raises damage by roughly 5% per stat drop). Ignores all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Dimension Chop: Inflicts Instant Death at 39.2% odds, MT. 6 WP.
Dynamic Hit: 1737 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 92% hit rate, 1598 average damage. Avoids counters, triggers all shields, plant-slayer (deals 2324 damage against plants, 2138 average damage). 8 WP.
Deadly Spin: 1122 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 97.2% hit rate, 1032 average damage. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. Avoids counters and shield evade, triggers evade skills and magic shields. 2362 damage if used after Dynamic Hit, 2173 average damage.
Accel Turn: 1029 slash/blunt-elemental damage, melee, 84.3% hit rate, 867 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters, Speed+8. 5 WP.
War Cry: Raises Strength and Con by 13. Can be stacked, degenerates over time. 1 WP. (Roughly a 29% damage increase on the turn immediately after casting. For durability, it raises Black’s pdur to 1.16 and mdur to 1.12 on the turn it’s cast)
Bulova Physical: 467 slash/blunt elemental damage, melee, 84.3% hit rate, 393 average damage. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Wind Magic:

Dragon God Descent: Grants the target zero cost for all skills and magic and all damage received instead becomes 1 LP damage. Multi-hit attacks deal 1 LP damage per strike. Self-only, Grants 10% mHP regen per turn when the field is Wind, turns field into Wind. 18 JP.
Dancing Leaves: When the field is Wind, grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks with a 60.4% chance and 10% mHP regen per turn. 5 JP.
Tornado: 683 pierce/status-elemental damage, anti-air, MT, anti-air, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind. Deals 972 ITD damage against fliers. 8 JP.
Thorn Vine: 227 pierce-elemental damage, Ground-type, MT, triggers magic shields, turns field to Wind, 24% odds of stun. 4 JP.
Nap: Inflicts Sleep at 66.7% odds, MT. 3 JP.
Suction: 263 shot-element damage, drains all damage as HP to caster, 88.7% hit rate. 5 JP.

Comments: Once again, below average speed isn’t great when you’re relying on Dragon God Descent to make headway, but Black at least is faster and more damaging than Bai Mei Niang. Fatal status and Dragon God also synergize pretty well, even if the ID is inaccurate – Black just gets a lot of shots to work with. Being able to augment the base evade with Dancing Leaves like Robin does doesn’t hurt either. That aside, Dragon God Descent/10 works its magic. High Heavy as a kneejerk.




Fairy

“Blind among the flowers, I’m unable to see. Wild among the flowers, nothing means nothing to me.”

Specialties: Spear (L39), Bow (L32)

HP: 796 (0.96 PC HP)
WP: 149
LP: 7
Strength: 21
Dexterity: 22
Speed: 25 (21)
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 12
Will: 11
Charisma: 20

Defense: 45
Magic Defense: 42
Defensive Modifiers: 0.70 pdef, 0.93 mdef (0.35 modifier against anti-air)
Effective Durabilities: 0.67 pdur, 0.89 mdur (0.33 durability against anti-air)
Effective Speed: + 1.51 SD

Equipment:

Blitz Lancer (38 Attack)
Enhanced Bow (34 Attack)
Canarya Bow (25 Attack)
White Silver Trail (28 Defense, 18 Magic Defense, 4 Weight)
Fairy Scarf (1 Defense, 7 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, grants floating status, immunity to ground attacks, immunity to stun, weakness to anti-air attacks, grants 10% HP regen when field is Wind or Earth-elemental)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Spear:

Meteor Thrust: 2700 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (140 BV), 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. Avoids counters and shield evade, but triggers magic shields and shield blocking. 8 WP.
Triple Thrust: 2429 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (130 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 9 WP.
Double Dragon: 1753 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, hits both front and back row, >100% hit rate (130 BV), avoids shield blocking but triggers shield evade, counters and magic shields, turns field to Wind. 5 WP.
Beast God Stab: 1551 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (140 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 45.3% odds of inflicting -5 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed and Con, turns field to Earth. 6 WP.
Great Wheel: 1295 pierce-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (140 BV), avoids shield evade. 4 WP.
Brain Split: 845 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (140 BV), triggers all shields and counters, 27.8% odds of inflicting confusion. 1 WP.
Dragon Hit: 732 pierce-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (140 BV), avoids shield evade but triggers counters, magic shields and shield blocking, 45.3% odds of inflicting Poison. 2 WP.
Windmill: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 64.8% chance of deflecting the strike and countering for 3665 ITD damage. 2 WP.
Blitz Lancer Physical: 529 pierce-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (127 BV), triggers all shields and counters. 0 WP.

Bow:

Plasma Shot: 1823 shot/electricity-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (101 BV). Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 27.8% odds of inflicting Paralysis. 7 WP.
Continuous Shot: 1573 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (101 BV). Avoids counters, but triggers shields. Uses the base power of the last attack used to calculate its formula. 2878 damage after using Meteor Thrust. 6 WP.
Resonance Weep: Inflicts Charm at 73.1% odds, ranged. Sonic-typed. Canarya Bow-specific. 0 WP.
Shadow Kill: Inflicts Instant Death at 37.1% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 3 WP.
Shadow Sew: Inflicts paralysis at 61.1% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 0 WP.
Provoke Shot: Inflicts Berserk at 66.7% odds, ranged. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 1 WP.
Id Break: 658 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (106 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence. 27.8% odds of inflicting Confusion. Avoids counters, but triggers shields. 2 WP.
Quick Arrow: 807 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (116 BV), initiative strike. Triggers magic shields. 4 WP.
Flash Arrow: 243 status/shot-elemental damage, magical, MT, 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers shield evade and magical shields. 3 WP
Enhanced Bow Physical: 493 shot-elemental damage, ranged, >100% hit rate (101 BV). Avoids counters but triggers shields. 0 WP.

Comments: 2HKOing and spamming turn one Charm and Berserk off that speed is a great start for Fairy. Sure, the 2HKO is pretty much skin-of-the-teeth, but that’s a good blitzing package. She really needs it too, because she’s built of papier-mâché. OHKOs are a very sensible threat – particularly against physicals – and she’s just really happy she can Charm people and attempt a throttle blitz before they snap out of it with the offense and speed. Heavy works as a kneejerk – she loathes people who can get more than two turns against her, and sometimes even guys who can live more than -one-. The long-term debuffing and status options from spears are also massively wasted on her, considering how fast her fights usually end.




Boston

“He was in a jam! S'in a giant clam! Down, down! Underneath the waves!”

Specialties: Martial Arts (L35), Water Magic (L33)

HP: 826 (1.00 PC HP)
WP: 105
JP: 99
LP: 17
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 13
Speed: 20
Constitution: 19
Intelligence: 21
Will: 17
Charisma: 9

Defense: 55
Magic Defense: 30
Defensive Modifiers: 0.95 pdef, 0.79 mdef, effectively immune against Pierce, 0.86 against Status
Effective Durabilities: 0.95 pdur, 0.79 mdur, effectively immune against Pierce, 0.86 against Status
Effective Speed: + 1.33 SD

Note: Boston is immune to Charm.

Equipment:

Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
Lobster Armor (25 Defense, 5 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, 3x Defense against Pierce, 2x resistance to Status, immunity to Water. Turns Boston’s Punch attack into Trim, which doubles the power of his basic physical and the Counter technique. This boost is already factored in)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Martial Arts:

Tiger Break: 3287 non-typed ITD damage, melee, ignores defense, >100% hit rate (116 BV). Strength and Con +8. The Str/Con increase is treated as a buff, and can be stacked as such, as well as suffering the degeneration applied to all buffs. Avoids all counters and shields. 3746 damage on the second consecutive use, 4079 damage on the third use, 4468 damage on the fourth use. Raises pdur, mdur and status dur. to 1.03, 0.83 and 0.91 respectively on the first use, 1.11, 0.86 and 0.96 on the second, 1.17, 0.89 and 0.99 on the third, 1.21, 0.91 and 1.01 on the fourth. 12 WP.
Dragon Inferno: 3365 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 91.2% hit rate, 3068 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters. 15 WP.
Niagara Buster: 1978 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (137 BV). Triggers counters and magic shields. Fish-slayer (2023 ITD damage against fish-types). 7 WP.
Reverse Throw: 768 blunt-elemental damage, >100% hit rate (157 BV), melee, triggers counters and magic shields, 24% odds of stun, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10. 5 WP.
Meteor Kick: 1595 blunt-elemental damage, 75.9% hit rate, 1210 average damage. Triggers magic shields and counters, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10, 24% odds of stunning target, Throw-type. 8 WP.
Evil Breaker: 1754 ITD non-elemental damage, >100% hit rate (108 BV), 45.9% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence, Will and Charisma. Undead-slayer (not sure what the effect is, since it’s already ITD). 6 WP.
Powerup Fist: 1454 blunt-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (108 BV). Ignores all counters and shields. 7 WP.
Giant Swing: 588 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (120 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -4 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Con, Intelligence, Will and Charisma. 28.6% odds of paralysis, 24% odds of stun. Triggers counters and magic shields. 6 WP.
Thumbing: 444 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (108 BV), 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.
Focus: 282 healing, self-only. 0 WP.
Counter: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 72.2% chance of deflecting and countering for 2540 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Trim: 1294 blunt-elemental damage, melee, >100% hit rate (108 BV), triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Water Magic:

Note: Boston's Water Magic has a 1.25x boost to its damage. This is already factored in.

Squall: 273 status-elemental damage, Water-type, turns field Water-elemental, MT, salamander-slayer (???). 0 JP.
Life Water: Heals 303 HP and sleep status, ST. 0 JP.
Mystic Water: Heals all status but petrify, ST. 2 JP.
Sparkling Mist: Lowers Dexterity by 11, 70.1% hit rate, MT. 1 JP.
Water Pole: Grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks at a 60% chance and regens 10% of the user’s HP per turn. Only functions if the field is Water-elemental. 6 JP.
Thunder Clap: 1117 thunder-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence. 6 JP.
Quicktime: Grants initiative to entire party for an amount of turns equal to (JP spent/16). All JP.

Comments: Really fast lobster who 2HKOs stuff right and left and only grows in durability and offense as the fight goes on. Spot the dadaism in the picture in less than ten seconds! To further expand on this, he can get even -faster-: a casting of Quicktime and suddenly he’s a SaGa Frontier gunner on crack just because fuck you. To top it off, he even gets the niche Water Magic stalling game - not that he really cares about it given the package, but it’s there. The healing is pretty much useless in Heavy, where the 2HKOs flow like wine, but hey. Boston’s fundamental problem is the durability spread, though. Physical durability isn’t too bad, if below average, but his magical durability just sucks, especially against the big three elements. The likes of Geddoe and Nelis can drop him down in a hurry, for instance. On the other hand, he hilariously walls pierce-based losers and water-elemental damage, which are ripples in his favor. In the end, it’s hard to go wrong with this level of slugfesting. High Heavy at worst.




Elephant

“To me, 'tis mighty clear! This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!”

Specialty: Martial Arts (L36)

HP: 946 (1.14 PC HP)
WP: 111
LP: 36
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 14
Speed: 7 (0)
Constitution: 26
Intelligence: 18
Will: 20
Charisma: 13

Defense: 64
Magic Defense: 48
Defensive Modifiers: 1.38 pdef, 1.24 mdef (0.91 modifier against electricity)
Effective Durabilities: 1.57 pdur, 1.41 mdur (1.03 durability against electricity)
Effective Speed: - 2.38 SD

Equipment:

Fort Suit (45 Defense, 26 Magic Defense, 15 Weight, grants weakness to Electric attacks)
Cotton Shirt (3 Defense, 6 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, allows Elephant to wear shields with two-handed weapons)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills (Martial Arts):

Niagara Buster: 1982 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (134 BV). Triggers counters and magic shields. Fish-slayer (2644 ITD damage against fish-types). 7 WP.
Dragon Inferno: 1798 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 78.1% hit rate, 1444 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters. 14 WP.
Tiger Break: 1468 non-typed ITD damage, melee, ignores defense, 95.7% hit rate, 1404 average damage . Strength and Con +8. The Str/Con increase is treated as a buff, and can be stacked as such, as well as suffering the degeneration applied to all buffs. Avoids all counters and shields. 11 WP.
Meteor Kick: 737 blunt-elemental damage, 64.8% hit rate, 477 average damage. Triggers magic shields and counters, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10, 24% odds of stunning target, Throw-type. 7 WP.
Powerup Fist: 1454 blunt-elemental damage, MT, >100% hit rate (108 BV). Ignores all counters and shields. 6 WP.
Giant Swing: 757 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (134 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -4 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Con, Intelligence, Will and Charisma. 28.6% odds of paralysis, 24% odds of stun. Triggers counters and magic shields. 4 WP.
Thumbing: 26 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 93.4% hit rate, 24 average damage, 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.
Focus: 310 healing, self-only. 0 WP.
Counter: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 57.3% chance of deflecting and countering for 1312 ITD damage. 0 WP.
Punch: 11 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 86.6% hit rate, 10 average damage. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Comments: Elephant, Elephant, how did you manage to screw up Martial Arts as a DL skillset so damned -bad-? The speed reliance for the damage formula on MA really sinks him something fierce: a single-digit value on it is the last thing you want off that equation, let alone a -zero-. Compare Boston’s Tiger Break with Elephant’s and tell me the problem there. If that wasn’t enough,  even going for a suit to augment his durability doesn’t help quite that much: his Cotton Shirt really bites out on his durability potential and he still gets 4HKOed by average, which combines poorly with the depressing speed. At least he still 3HKOs average, but none of the quirks from the skillset really pan out. Every game has its big DL loser and, Muse epic aside, Elephant is clearly it for Romancing SaGa 3. Light.




Snowman

“Frosty the snowman was as live as he could be and the children say he could laugh and play, just the same as you and me.”

Specialties: Martial Arts (L26), Water Magic (L39)

HP: 825
WP: 78
JP: 117
LP: 8
Strength: 11
Dexterity: 17
Speed: 8 (0)
Constitution: 24
Intelligence: 14
Will: 23
Charisma: 18

Defense: 71
Magic Defense: 44
Defensive Modifiers: 1.82 pdef, 1.09 mdef (0.83 modifier against electricity)
Effective Durabilities: 1.82  pdur, 1.09  mdur  (0.83 durability against electricity)
Effective Speed: - 2.38 SD

Equipment:

Earth Guard (25% evade against Slash/Blunt/Pierce/Electric attacks)
Fort Suit (45 Defense, 26 Magic Defense, 15 Weight, grants weakness to Electric attacks)
E. Martial (14 Defense, 9 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)
Eternal Ice (4 Defense, 1 Magic Defense, 0 Weight, grants Cold and Heat immunity, Stun immunity)
Guard Ring (8 Defense, 8 Magic Defense, 0 Weight)

Skills:

Martial Arts:

Niagara Buster: 1463 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (107 BV). Triggers counters and magic shields. Fish-slayer (1966 ITD damage against fish-types). 7 WP.
Dragon Inferno: 1777 blunt-elemental damage, melee, 72.2% hit rate, 1282 average damage. Triggers all shields and counters. 15 WP.
Tiger Break: 684 non-typed ITD damage, melee, 90.2% hit rate, 616 average damage. Strength and Con +8. The Str/Con increase is treated as a buff, and can be stacked as such, as well as suffering the degeneration applied to all buffs. Avoids all counters and shields. 12 WP.
Reverse Throw: 774 blunt-elemental damage, >100% hit rate (127 BV), melee, triggers counters and magic shields, 24% odds of stun, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10. 5 WP.
Meteor Kick: 442 blunt-elemental damage, 57.3% hit rate, 253 average damage. Triggers magic shields and counters, 45.9% odds of lowering Slash, Blunt, Pierce, Shot and Heat defenses by 10, 24% odds of stunning target, Throw-type. 8 WP.
Evil Breaker: 457 ITD non-elemental damage, 90.2% hit rate (108 BV), 412 average damage. 45.9% odds of inflicting -5 to Intelligence, Will and Charisma. Undead-slayer (not sure what the effect is, since it’s already ITD). 6 WP.
Powerup Fist: 461 blunt-elemental damage, MT, 90.2% hit rate, 415 average damage. Ignores all counters and shields. 7 WP.
Giant Swing: 774 blunt-elemental damage, melee, throw-type, >100% hit rate (127 BV). 45.3% odds of inflicting -3 to Strength, Dexterity, Speed, Con, Intelligence, Will and Charisma. 28.6% odds of paralysis, 24% odds of stun. Triggers counters and magic shields. 6 WP.
Thumbing: lulz (0) blunt-elemental damage, melee, 87.2% hit rate, 23.4% odds of inflicting Darkness. Triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.
Focus: 241 healing, self-only. 0 WP.
Counter: Enters a counter stance for the duration of the turn. If hit by a counterable melee attack, the user has a 51.9% chance of deflecting and countering for 1072 ITD damage. 1 WP.
Punch: lol (0) blunt-elemental damage, melee, 87.2% hit rate, triggers all counters and shields. 0 WP.

Water Magic:

Squall: 168 status-elemental damage, Water-type, turns field Water-elemental, MT, salamander-slayer (???). 1 JP.
Life Water: Heals 254 HP and sleep status, ST. 1 JP.
Mystic Water: Heals all status but petrify, ST. 3 JP.
Sparkling Mist: Lowers Dexterity by 13, 74% hit rate, MT. 2 JP
Water Pole: Grants a magic shield that dodges physical attacks at a 60% chance and regens 10% of the user’s HP per turn. Only functions if the field is Water-elemental. 6 JP.
Thunder Clap: 646 thunder-elemental damage, MT, triggers magic shields and shield evade, 15.1% odds of inflicting Silence. 6 JP.
Quicktime: Grants initiative to entire party for an amount of turns equal to (JP spent/16). All JP.

Comments: Snowman manages to take Elephant’s issues one step further by adding an abysmal Strength score to already egregious speed, and the results can be seen above. The offense is just trashy with the accuracy problems (getting owned in damage by almost all of the mages? Are you serious?). In Snowman’s defense, though, he’s a fair deal more physically durable and he at least can try to win battles faster by using Quicktime, which solves one of the problems and probably ekes him above Elephant. The Water Pole stalling game isn’t really going all that far with that speed, but the durability helps him out. Low Middle, I guess – Water Magic/10 is kind of a thing in Light and he's got the pdur to fly it, if not the speed. For the curious: his amazing basic physical hits the -negatives- even before the final damage formula is applied. A round of applause, ladies and gentlemen.


Statistical Curves

Damage Spread:

1. Zhi Lin's Million Dollar - 3306
2. Boston's Tiger Break - 3287
3. Fairy's Meteor Thrust - 2700
4. Harid's Golden Dragon - 2671
5. Wood's Tres Flores - 2625   
6. Sharl's Meteor Thrust - 2577   
7. Shonen's Tres Flores - 2562   
8. Fat Robin's Final Letter - 2528
9. Ellen's Tiger Break - 2525
10. Julian's Golden Dragon - 2511
11. Sara's Million Dollar - 2395
12. Katarina's Tres Flores - 2374   
13. Paul's Golden Dragon - 2349
14. Slim Robin's Final Letter - 2334   
15. Nora's Triple Thrust - 2217
16. Mikhail's Final Letter - 2195
17. Monica's Final Letter - 2155
Average: 2147.8
18. Yan Fan's Dragon Inferno - 2141
19. Thomas' Meteor Thrust - 2026
20. Tatyana's Final Letter - 2002
21. Elephant's Niagara Buster - 1982
22. Black's Sky Dive - 1913
23. Leonid's Final Letter - 1901
24. Poet's Shell Split - 1835
25. Fullbright's Super Gravity - 1511
26. Undine's Thunder Clap - 1507
27. Snowman's Niagara Buster - 1463
28. Bai Mei Niang's Tornado - 1429
29. Tiberius' Solar Wind - 1081
30. Muse's Physical - 328


Physical Durability Spread (Higher is better)

1. Wood - 2.36 (0.99 vs. electric)
2. Snowman - 1.82 (0.83 vs. electric)
3. Elephant - 1.57 (1.03 vs. electric)
4t. Fat Robin - 1.07
4t. Harid - 1.07
5. Ellen - 1.05
6. Leonid - 1.04 (0.56 vs. heat)
7t. Paul - 1.03
7t. Thomas - 1.03
8t. Sharl - 1.02
8t. Julian - 1.02
8t. Zhi Lin - 1.02
8t. Katarina - 1.02
9t. Nora - 1.00
9t. Black - 1.00
9t. Poet - 1.00
10t. Yan Fan - 0.99
10t. Mikhail - 0.99
11t. Slim Robin - 0.97
11t. Bai Mei Niang - 0.97
12. Shonen - 0.96
13. Boston - 0.95 (0.86 vs. status, immune vs. pierce)
14. Tiberius - 0.94
15t. Fullbright - 0.93
15t. Monica - 0.93
16. Sara - 0.91
17. Muse - 0.89
18. Tatyana - 0.84 (0.90 vs. cold)
19. Fairy - 0.67 (0.33 vs. anti-air)


Magical Durability Spread (Higher is better)

1. Leonid - 1.68 (0.56 vs. heat)
2. Elephant - 1.41 (1.03 vs. electric)
3. Wood - 1.38 (0.99 vs. electric)
4. Snowman - 1.09 (0.83 vs. electric)
5t. Fat Robin - 1.06
5t. Harid - 1.06
6. Ellen - 1.05
7t. Paul - 1.02
7t. Thomas - 1.02
7t. Sharl - 1.02
7t. Julian - 1.02
7t. Nora - 1.02
8t. Zhi Lin - 1.01
8t. Katarina - 1.01
9t. Black - 1.00
9t. Poet - 1.00
9t. Yan Fan - 1.00
10. Mikhail - 0.99
11. Slim Robin - 0.98
12t. Bai Mei Niang - 0.96
12t. Shonen - 0.96
13t. Tiberius - 0.94
13t. Undine - 0.94
13t. Monica - 0.94
14. Fullbright - 0.93
15. Sara - 0.92
16. Muse - 0.90
17. Fairy - 0.89 (0.33 vs. anti-air)
18. Tatyana - 0.88 (0.90 vs. cold)
19. Boston - 0.79 (0.86 vs. status, immune vs. pierce)


Equipped Speed Spread

1t. Fairy - 21
1t. Leonid - 21
2. Boston - 20
3. Katrina - 19
4. Fat Robin - 18
5. Yan Fan - 17
6t. Slim Robin - 16
6t. Sara - 16
6t. Harid - 16
6t. Monica - 16
7. Mikhail - 15
8t. Ellen - 14
8t. Thomas - 14
9t. Julian - 13
9t. Paul - 13
9t. Poet - 13
Average: 12.83
10t. Nora - 12
10t. Shonen - 12
10t. Fullbright - 12
10t. Undine - 12
11t. Muse - 11
11t. Sharl - 11
11t. Zhi Lin - 11
11t. Black - 11
11t. Tatyana - 11
10t. Tiberius -10
10t. Bai Mei Niang - 10
11t. Wood - 0
11t. Snowman - 0
11t. Elephant - 0

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

one more (rank nitori)

[Niu]

Snow, martial arts is consider two handed. Punch is the only move that is treated as one handed.

Also, Bangle is only more potent against single hit attack. Normal shield is more potent against multi-hit attack.
For example, if you have a shield with 30 def and 30 trigger rate with base def of 30, and you face off 5 hit attack.
The shield only have to trigger twice and your defense will be up to 90, which is enough to reduce all physical damage to 0.
But for bangle, it has to trigger against all 5 hits to full null that attack.
They really want shields against ARPG characters or other SaGa character where almost all the ability they use are multi hits.

Also, bangle can trigger when using magic, but shield can't.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Martial Arts are two-handed? Welp, suddenly Elephant's shirt has a goddamn point again.

[Niu]

BTW, Dragon God Descend isn't as useless as against multi hits as you believe.

As it absorb all hits from a single attack as 1 LP. It counts against number of attacks, not number of hits.
So say, Autumn San Storm from Tales has 12 hits total, but will it'll still deal only 1LP damage as it'll be treated as only 1 attack to Dragon God Descend.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

For shields vs. bangles: both options are DL-legal anyway, so when I -do- post the extra equipment, there'll be a quick reference anyway. They're still more limited in terms of elements they hit, so I prefer having bangles as default. Regarding multihit... man, RS3 multihit is a bit of a trainwreck. Since there are multiple hidden hits (multipliers) in techs and there are separate multihit attacks. I leave -that- interpretation whimsy to the wind.

[Niu]

You have to understand multi-hit and multi-attack are different concept.

Multi-attack are like Trinity Blaster or Chaos Disaster, which packages multiple attacks in one casting sequence. But it has absolutely no affect on the original property of the individual attack. It is just a programming trick to give enemy more number ofattacks, as the enemy's attack turn slots are limited.
In other words, the damage of each attack will NOT bundle together.

Multi-hits are actually built in number of hits inside an attack that actually affects the damage deals. Split body moves like Split Image Sword and Rond Slicer etc, is impacted even heavier by it. But no matter how big the hit number is, a single attack will never be treated as more than one.

In the case of Bangle and Sheild. When confront with a Multi-Attack, the check against individual attacks as they'll treat a normal single casting attack.
In a normal single attack, the Bangle and Sheild will check against every hit in that attack before the damage is produced.

[dude789]

Wow. Boston's official art reminds me very much of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7GNzFs3Zk

Neat cast overall.