Shining Force 1

[Pyro]

Sega Genesis Shining Force 1 topic redone with calculated stats and non-equal levels to account for join-time/level. Bear in mind that ShF1 stat gains are rather heavily randomized, so this may not reflect the units you had when you played exactly.

Stats:
HP: As normal
MP: Used for spells
ATT: Attack. (ATT - DEF)* (80% +[random between 0-20%]) = Damage. So average is (ATT-DEF)*.9
Enemy Defense used for damage was 32.
DEF: Defense.
AGI: Agility. Used to determine who takes the first action on a map. Does not matter past the first turn, but some fights do lay you relatively right on top of enemies (the majority don't, though).
Threat Range: A combination of Move and Attack range. This and AGI give you an idea of initiative.

Defense Modifier: A PC's ability to take damage as a percentage of average. Higher is better (so 200% takes half damage from physical attacks compared to average). This is calculated against 63 enemy ATT, which is significantly above average and only the bosses Ramladu/Dark Dragon beat.
Physical Durability: HP% multiplied by Def modifier.

Level Comments: Level taken at 10/16, which is a bit high but fair enough if you consider a few 'losses' here and there. The following PCs had their levels adjusted to account for joining time. While ShF1 does have an exp curve to even out levels it pretty much goes *poof* past ~map 21 or so where enemies start handing out maximum exp like candy. So here are comments on levels:
Domingo: Joins L1 before Battle 12. As he does not Promote and gains exp as a pre-promoted unit he is taken at L18.
Lyle: Joins at L8 before battle 17. Taken as 10/14
Bleu: Joins at L9 before battle 18. Taken as 10/13 (he has a few issues that make him worse at levelling than Lyle).
Musashi: Joins at Level 10 promoted before battle 21. This is rather overlevelled. He is taken with a 3 level advantage at 19.
Alef: Joins at L15 Unpromoted before Battle 23. This is rather underlevelled for this time so she is taken at 15/9.
Torasu: Joins at L16 Unpromoted before Battle 23. Again taken at 16/9.
Adam: Joins Level 10 Unpromoted before battle 24. *RANT* Let me pause for a minute here. Adam joins with the ability to break defense on only a HANDFUL of enemies for the rest of the game. You have to feed him kills like a baby at it's mothers tit to get use out of him. As such he is given 3 levels. He does not want to promote as a result because that would be a big stat hit. *End Rant*

There are terrain effects in ShF1, but they are glitched and the terrain bonus for the last 5 maps is 0%, so I'm ignoring it.

Averages up top:
HP: 46.1
Def: 38.1
AGI: 39.5 (stdev 7.85)
Threat Range: 7.3
Damage: 18.7
(2.5x kill point of ):46.9

Weapons: I assumed a reasonable weapon for everyone, not necessarily "The worst weapon they could possibly be forced to use". So Halberds (+25) for spear users, Atlas (+33) for Axe users, Doom Blade (+25) for swordsman not named Max (Chaos Breaker +40), and Buster Shot (+35) for archers. Halberd and Doom Blades feel fair enough. There are better weapons (Vaklyrie, Katana) and there are multiple copies of these weapons.

Let's go! For the Hordes of Runefaust are still on the attack!


Max:
EQ: Chaos Breaker
HP: 54 (117%)
ATT: 69
DEF: 47 (155% mod)
AGI: 43
Physical Durability: 182%
Threat Range: 7

Attack: 33.3
Item Use Chaos Breaker: Freeze 3, 16 GT Ice Damage.

Spell
EGRESS: Retreats the party back to a preacher.

Comments: Hits like a truck and takes hits like a wall. Has backup 3HKO Ice magic damage that increases his Threat Range to 9. So Freeze 3 -> Physical KO is a valid option to get the drop on someone. Middle/Heavy.


Mae:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 53 ( 115%)
ATT: 49
DEF: 42 (118% modifier)
AGI: 46
Physical Durability: 136%
Threat Range: 8

Damage: 15.3

Comments: Tanky but the damage sucks. Light.


Pelle:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 49 (106%)
ATT: 51
DEF: 46 (146% Modifier)
AGI: 40

Physical Durability: 155%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 17.1

Comments: Damage is... passable. Physical durability is quite good. Still Light.



Ken:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 56 (121%)
ATT: 49
DEF: 29 (73% modifier)
AGI: 40

Physical Durability: 88.8%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 15.3

Comments: Failure Knight. Light




Vankar:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 59 (128%)
ATT: 47
DEF: 34 (85.7% Modifier)
AGI: 44

Physical Durability: 109%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 13.5 damage

Comments: Failure Knight MK2. Light.



Earnest:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 49 (106%)
ATT: 50
DEF: 34 (85.7% Modifier)
AGI: 47

Physical Durability: 91%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 16.2 Damage

Comments: Failure Knight MK 3. Light.



Arthur:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 39 (84.5%)
ATT: 44
DEF: 32 (80.2% Modifier)
AGI: 35
MP: 18

Physical Durability: 67.8%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 10.8 Damage.

Spells:
Blaze (2 MP): 6 fire magic damage
Freeze (3 MP): 8 ice magic damage.

Comments: Failure Knight MK 4. THIS TIME WITH MAGIC! Arthur is great if you get him to 20/20 but if you don't he sucks balls... as you can see.


Gort:
EQ: Atlas
HP: 49 (106%)
ATT: 60
DEF: 53 (249% modifier)
AGI: 31

Physical Durability: 264%
Threat Range: 7

Attack: 25.2 damage

Comments: And done with failure Knights. Gort hits hard and tanks harder. Middle.


Luke:
EQ: Atlas
HP: 45 (97.5%)
ATT: 65
DEF: 53 (249% modifier)
AGI: 39

Physical Durability: 242%
Threat Range: 7

Attack: 29.7 damage

Comments: Hits like a truck and takes hits like a tank. Thisi s what a good ShF1 PC looks like.


Guntz:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 40 (86.7%)
ATT: 54
DEF: 63 (.... yeah. Guntz doesn't take physical damage unless Ramladu hits him)
AGI: 34

Physical Durability: See above.
Threat Range: 5

Attack: 19.8 damage

Comments: Physical tank (he even LOOKS like an actual tank). Damage is decent enough but not special. Middle.



Anri:
EQ: Guardian Staff
HP: 37 (80.2%)
ATT: 32
DEF: 33 (82.9% modifier)
MP: 53
AGI: 41

Physical Durability: 66.5%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 1 damage
Blaze 2 (5 MP): 10 fire magic damage
Freeze 4 (10 MP): 46 Ice magic damage
Bolt 2 ( 15 MP): 14 Lightning magic damage.
Muddle (6 MP): Halves accuracy on one target. 50% chance?

Comments: She's frail but man does Freeze4 pack a wallop. That's going to snatch an OHKO off of anyone who is the slightest bit magically frail. She can at least tank a physical to lay it down, and she is slightly above average at going first. Middle/Light feels fair enough.



Alef: L15/9
EQ: Guardian Staff
HP: 28 (60.7%)
ATT: 29
DEF: 20 (57.8% modifier)
MP: 44
AGI: 33

Physical Durability: 35.1%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 1
Bolt 3 (20 MP): 22.5 thunder magic damage. GT
Freeze (3 MP): 9 ice magic damage

Comments: Well uh. She doesn't like being hit. On the bright side she can at least 2HKO the magically frail! If they don't OHKO her! And... yeah Alef sucks. She'd have all-powerful damage in Bolt4 if she got a bunch more levels but No. Light.


Torasu: L16/9
EQ: Holy Staff
HP: 34 (78.7%)
ATT: 42
DEF: 16 (52.9% modifier)
MP: 39
AGI: 27

Physical Durability: 39%
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 9 damage

Spells:
Heal (3 MP): 14 healing
Aura 3 (15 MP): 27 healing.
Shield (5 MP): Negates one magic spell from the enemy

Comments: Hey he has healing! It doesn't help. It reallllly doesn't help. Light.




Tao:
EQ: Guardian Staff
HP: 35 (75.9%)
ATT: 32
DEF: 30 (75.3% modifier)
MP: 57
AGI: 55

Physical Durability: 57.2%
Threat Range: 7

Attack: 1 damage
Spells:
Blaze 4 (8 MP): 36 fire magic damage.
Sleep (6 MP): Puts foe to sleep. ~50%
Dispel (5 MP): Silences target. ~50%

Comments: Frail but has 2HKO fire magic damage. High Agility but the Threat Range is sub-par. Dunno what to think about that.


Domingo: L18
HP: 51 (111%)
ATT: 28
DEF: 44 (131% modifier)
MP: 51
AGI: 38

Physical Durability: 145%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 1 damage
Spells:
Freeze 3 (10 MP): 16 Ice Magic Damage.
Muddle (5 MP): ~50% chance of Blinding enemy for half accuracy.
Desoul (8 MP): ~40% chance of Instant Death.

Comments: Good durability, but the damage is bad (too bad he doesn't learn Freeze4 at a reasonable level). Desoul may be a better offensive option. Some form of Middle.


Lowe:
EQ: Holy Staff
HP: 46 (99.7%)
ATT: 44
DEF: 30 (75.3% modifier)
MP: 48
AGI: 47

Physical Durability: 75.1%
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 10.8 damage
Spells:
Heal (3 MP): 14 healing.
Heal 3 (10 MP): 27 healing
Heal 4 (20 MP): Full Healing
Quick (5 MP): +10 AGI/DEF for two turns.
Slow (5 MP): -10 AGI/DEF for two turns.

Comments: Could be worse, but still pretty bad! Light.



Khris:
EQ: Holy Staff
HP: 43 (93.2%)
ATT: 45
DEF: 38 (99.4% modifier)
HP: 43
MP: 46
AGI: 38

Physical Durability: 92.7%
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 11.7 damage
Spells:
Heal (3 MP): 14 healing
Heal 3 (10 MP): 27 healing
Heal 4 (20 MP): Full Healing
Quick (5 MP): +10 AGI/DEF for two turns.
Slow (5 MP): -10 AGI/DEF for two turns.

Comments: She manages to get to the level of just "Bad Healer!" Light.



Gong:
HP: 49 (106%)
ATT: 40
DEF: 34 (85.7% modifier)
MP: 32
AGI: 39

Physical Durability: 91%
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 7.2 Damage
Spells:
Heal (3 MP): 14 healing
Heal 3 (10 MP): 27 healing
Heal 4 (20 MP): Full Healing

Comments: Ugh. ShF1 healers. Light.



Diane:
EQ: Buster Shot
HP: 43 (93.2%)
ATT: 53
DEF: 31 (77.7% modifier)
AGI: 43

Physical Durability: 72.4%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 18.9 damage

Comments: Frail 3HKOer. Light.


Hans:
EQ: Buster Shot
HP: 35 (75.9%)
ATT: 52
DEF: 29 (73.1% modifier)
AGI: 42

Physical Durability: 55.5%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 18 damage

Comments: Hans sucks. Light. ShF1 has a lot of scrubs, you've noticed?


Lyle: L10/14
EQ: Buster Shot
HP: 38 (82.4%)
ATT: 58
DEF: 26 (67.2% modifier)
AGI: 35

Physical Durability: 55.3%
Threat Range: 10

Attack: 23.4 damage

Comments: Lots of range and decent damage. I have nothing else to say that is nice about him. Flying archer is cool I suppose...


Amon:
EQ: Doom Blade
HP: 42 (91%)
ATT: 47
Def: 35 (88.8% modifier)
AGI: 45

Physical Durability: 80.8%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 13.5 damage

Comments: Scrub. Light.


Balbaroy:
EQ: Doom Blade
HP: 44 (95.4%)
ATT: 51
DEF: 37 (95.6% modifier
AGI: 44

Physical Durability: 91.2%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 17.1 damage

Comments: Frailish 3HKOing fighter. Light.


Kokichi:
EQ: Halberd
HP: 46 (99.7%)
ATT: 50
DEF: 35 (88.8% modifier)
AGI: 42

Physical Durability: 88.5%
Threat Range: 7

Attack: 16.2 damage

Comments: Meh. Are you sensing a theme with ShF1 fighters yet?


Bleu: L10/13
HP: 54 (117%)
ATT: 45
DEF: 50 (191.2% modifier)
AGI: 31

Physical Durability: 224%
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 11.7 damage.

Comments: Strong physical tank but not much on damage. I should get more info on his Thunder Breath


Adam: L13 unpromoted [again, has SERIOUS problems damaging almost anything... whacking for 1 dmg only gives 1 exp]
HP: 32 (69.4%)
ATT: 26
DEF: 27 (69.1% modifier)
AGI: 14

Physical Durability: 47.9%
Threat Range: 5

Attack: 1 damage

Comments: It's easy to overlook Adam joining the force. No loss if you do. Puny.


Zylo:
HP: 55 (119%)
ATT: 58
DEF: 41 (113% modifier)
AGI: 44

Physical Durabilty: 135%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 23.4 damage

Comments: Not a scrub! Not exactly good though. Middle/Light.



Musashi: (L19... he joins overlevelled and stays that way when you use him)
EQ: Doom Blade
HP: 77 ( 169%)
ATT: 64
DEF: 67 (Like Guntz, doesn't take damage from most anything)
AGI: 38

Physical Durability: (again, don't try to kill him with physicals)
Threat Range: 6

Attack: 28.8 damage.

Comments: What the hell, Shining Force. What. The. Hell. Great HP, functionally infinite defense (minus Ramladu), overlevelled besides... Nasty person this guy.


Hanzou:
EQ: Doom Blade
HP: 56 (121%)
ATT: 56
DEF: 50 (191% modifier)
MP: 33
AGI: 51

Physical Durability: 232%
Threat Range: 8

Attack: 21.6 damage
Spells:
Sleep (5 MP): ~50% chance of Sleep
Dispel (5 MP): ~50% chance of Silence
Shield (5 MP): Negates one magic attack.
Desoul (8 MP): ~40% chance of Instant Death.

Comments: Hits decently hard and is very durable. Middle. Sleep/Desoul backup isn't a horrible thing even though it kinda sucks.


Jogurt:
HP: 1
ATT: 1
DEF: 1
AGI: 1

Physical durability: .01%

Attack: 1 damage.

Comments: Puny overlord.

[Nephrite]

When does Domingo learn Freeze 4?

[Pyro]

26

[Dark Holy Elf]

Between even most "physical" lategame SF1 enemies rocking some sort of ITD attack and Ramladu existing I can't bring myself to offer 200%+ durability respect for many people in this game offhand. Guntz and Musashi sure (but this stat topic is painting them as near-infinite).

Otherwise this looks really good! Definitely approve of the stripping away overlevelled spells these days. Bleu and Zylo aren't as awful as they should be but whatever, levelling unarmed fighters in SF1 plot.

[Pyro]

I can understand the reaction, but Shining Force 1's defense curve really is kinda nuts. And the PC's relative vulnerabilities to ITD/magic is preserved in their HP scores. While ITD isn't too common, magic sure as heck is.

When it comes to PHYSICAL durability, this is fairly accurate at relative durabilities. Sure Musashi and Guntz aren't literally invincible, but the "Don't bother trying to kill them with physicals" thing applies.

Ramladu was taken into account. 63 is quite a lot higher than the straight average of endgame enemies.

tldr: Shining Force 1 tanks tank, and non-tanks suck arse.

[superaielman]

Do you know what the double/crit rate is, or is that already factored in?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ramladu can 2HKO Guntz's listed stats (despite being pre-endgame). "Don't bother trying to kill Guntz with physicals?" He obviously disagrees. Over half the DL is physical (though maybe a bit less if you subtract physical folks with ID/petrify or have ITD crits, etc.), so you are proposing Guntz nulls out a huge amount of the DL when almost every endgame enemy 3-4HKOs him at worst thanks to ITD being everywhere. I won't be signing onto that, I'm afraid. I certainly respect Guntz's defence, mind, but I have no trouble seeing him well short of physical immune when the game decided to have Ramladu exist and be pretty much the only memorable lategame enemy who is acutally physically reliant.

(Obviously I'm just using Guntz as an example. I actually kinda like Guntz, in no small part because his Def actually exists before the game decides ITD is the coolest thing ever (unlike, say, Hanzou).)

Don't get me wrong, I think it's worth listing the numbers as you did (nothing has more than 65 atk save Ramladu, and the memorable endgame randoms are all close to 63... although they do all have ITD moves), but I certainly won't be showing SF1 defence the respect you are.


Also, idly, is Jogurt in the averages? I don't care too strongly either way (kinda kneejerk skipping him, but can see the arguments otherwise), but this should be noted.

[Pyro]

Endgame enemy attack average ~60 if you ignore the fact that here are more randoms than bosses (feels fair, Ramladu is pretty memorable).

I can understand your trepidation. Ideally the best way to do physical durability would be to take the sampling of enemies, tally up the damage they do to the defense in question, and then divide by the damage those enemies deal in total to average. This removes the "Infinite durability" thing (unless you just don't take damage from *anything*, and works better because it removes any 'negative damage' you get from an average that just does average defense vs. average enemy attack. If I can figure out a good way to do this in Excel I'll probably do this sort of thing in the future. That sounds good and fun!

Kinda disagree with the 'disrespect because ITD exists'. That's just flavor and is part of what makes the DL interesting, since we're not just directly comparing outright in-game worth. All PS4 bosses mock Saner's evade boost (and a fair number of enemies apparently can too?). I still think people assume Rika has 100% + evasion after it, right? I can understand the kneejerk reaction but strongly disagree. If you want to do that method of markdown based on in-game respect then you should do things like prorate status odds based on the # of enemies it can work on, and so on and so forth. There is an argument for that, but I feel it removes the 'flavor' from the format (tends to make everything more similar and bland). Basically Guntz and Musashi are "only realistically vulnerable to ITD and magic". This reflects their in-game performance fairly well, except for Ramladu who may as well be ITD. The fact that the game does have ITD and magic to throw at them shouldn't change the way their defense works.

[Dark Holy Elf]

There are certainly people who don't see Rika's evade working against techs and I've never objected to that view. Since she's in Godlike there actually isn't much for her to dodge anyway so eh, can't say I feel she ends up overrated. <_<

Totally agree with you about that being a good way to deal with subtraction defence conversion by the way, I've commented on that in the past but never put in any work myself, just tend to handwave it away with "Caineghis' def isn't -that- good". Actually in general I start disrespecting defence multipliers alleged to be above 2x, and certainly above 3x, compared to listed numbers, because there are almost always Ramladus/Dheginseas/etc. to power down said defences.


Honestly, for SF1, I do think it's quite significant that almost all endgame randoms have "randomly do ITD damage in place of a physical" (it doesn't even appear to be a separate skill, more akin to what Bleu does). You can't throw Guntz at these enemies and expect him to null them out. [Warning: massive making up of numbers for the rest of this paragraph.] Say they use their ITD 1/3 of the time (no idea on the exact number). Let's say a monster does 16 damage to an average PC, and 1 to Guntz, but 1/3 of the time does 22 ITD damage instead. Guntz takes 8 damage per average engagement with this enemy, while the average PC takes 18. Guntz is reducing damage by 55%... good but nowhere close to immunity. This might be closer to how I'd respect SF1 physical durability. (Again, I can't emphasise enough that Guntz/Musashi are certainly still tanky under this view! Just far more sanely so.)

By the way, there is precedent for this in my own work! Go look at the FF1 boss stat topic. Taken against no crits at all, bosses are very, very close to nulling out physicals (and in some cases, certainly do null out average physicals, so like Guntz would at least require some prorating to see them as physically vulnerable). However I chose to reflect their physical durability by factoring in FF1 PCs' (ample) crit rates and comparing how much damage they take after crits are factored in to both average enemy def and the boss' def. This pretty much feels like the same case to me honestly, the only difference is that SF1 enemy "randomly do ITD damage" has a different animation.

[Pyro]

In ShF1 at least 3(?) enemies do the ITD only at ranged, so you are in the clear if you are right up on top of them.

I don't see how the "randomly does ITD damage" is any different from a monster in a TB game where they randomly do one of 3 things: ITD attack, Magic attack, physical attack. Someone who nulls the physical attack should null physicals in the DL.

Going "Well only 1/3rd of enemy offense is physical, so the PC only reduces damage by 1/3rd" is missing the point and you may as well just average in physicals, magic, and ITD durability together to create one "master durability stat". It loses out the flavor of someone who mocks physicals but is susceptible to ITD and magic.

Sometimes you get things that are inflated compared to in-game use, but that happens with status and healing magic all the time. I don't see what is wrong with Gort and Luke halving physical damage.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's not "only one third of PC offence is physical", it's "one third of enemy physical skills are ITD" (physical skills defined here as not consuming MP, or hitting magic resistance in the remake). I do see what is wrong with Gort and Luke halving physicals, personally.

Pretty sure this is agree-to-disagree territory now though. I see this more like FF1 (with Ramladu being the only memorable pure fighter removing my doubts), you see it more like something else, that's fine.

ps don't nom Musashi for anything.

[Dhyerwolf]

Just an aside, Caineghis probably loves heavily factoring Dheggy in more. Sure his defense doesn't look as good, but his offense looks even better!