Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 39

[Nephrite]

Congratulations! Let's see if you can continue your flawless streak!

Team Taishyr vs. Floor 2
Team Piggyman and Commander vs. Floor 1



Team Taishyr's Matches

Floor 3b: Multiples (Before Midgame)

So you want to try multiple foes? Let's see how you like this, then!

*All ST is MT for this floor. ALL of it.

Battle #11: Eirika

Eirika: I won't lose to you!

Battle #12: FFT Chemist, FFT Mediator and FFT Samurai

Chemist: We won't lose!
Mediator: That's right!
Samurai: Hiyah!

Battle #13: Auron and Tidus

Tidus: This is MY--
Auron: Enough!

Battle #14: Alice and Nina4

Alice: I won't give up... No matter what!
Nina: For my kingdom!

Boss Battle #3: Alma, Ramza and Zalbag

Alma: Let's go, brothers!
Ramza: All right, Alma!
Zalbag: Alma... I will not allow them to continue!



Team Piggyman's Matches

Floor 2d: Sunny DPS

I think you've had it too easy... Let's see if you can survive this onslaught!


Battle #6: Cloud, Tifa and Barret

Cloud: Come on, let's get this over with.
Tifa: Okay, Cloud!
Barret: FUCK YEAH!   

Battle #7: Belenus, Grey and Lucian

Belenus: Ha! You cannot beat us!
Grey: ICICLE DISASTER!!!
Lucian: Platina!!

Battle #8: Valeria and Anita

Valeria: Falcon Rune!
Anita: I guess...

Battle #9: Halley and Keith

Halley: My mother told me about you...
Keith: Ah... Let us have a wonderful battle.

Boss Battle #2: Orlandu

*The team has been fully healed!

Orlandu: I'll show you why they call me 'Thunder God!' (hint: it makes no sense)


Team Commander's Matches

Floor 2c: Tanks for all the Fish

So, I suppose it's time for something new... Let's see what you can manage when you can't do any damage!

Battle #6: Ox, Rand and Cray

Ox: Hah! You won't get past us!
Rand: Yeah!
Cray: I... er... right!

Battle #7: Ephraim and L'Arachel

Ephraim: Let's go, Rachel.
L'Arachel: Er... um... that's not...

Battle #8: Augustine and Domingo

Augustine: Ah, my friends... It is so good to see you again. Let us have a fair battle.
Domingo: Wooo~~~

Battle #9: Auron and Steiner

Auron: I will guard this place with my life.
Steiner: You will NOT pass!

Boss Battle #2: Boss Magus

Magus: Now, the chosen time has come... Die!


---------------------------------------------


Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 3b]
[Bartz: Ninja (Unmastered) / X-Magic]
*All ST is MT
Team Taishyr vs. Eirika
Team Taishyr vs. FFT Chemist, FFT Mediator and FFT Samurai
Team Taishyr vs. Auron and Tidus
Team Taishyr vs. Alice and Nina4
Team Taishyr vs. Alma, Ramza and Zalbag


Team Piggyman | Benjamin, Magus, Tidus, Robo
[Floor 2d]
Team Piggyman vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret
Team Piggyman vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian
Team Piggyman vs. Valeria and Anita
Team Piggyman vs. Halley and Keith
*Full Heal
Team Piggyman vs. Orlandu


Team Commander | Yuri2, Cloud, Juan, Bowser, Mime
[Floor 2c]
[Cloud: Restore (M), Transform (U)]
Team Commander vs. Ox, Rand and Cray
Team Commander vs. Ephraim and L'Arachel
Team Commander vs. Augustine and Domingo
Team Commander vs. Auron and Steiner
Team Commander vs. Boss Magus

[Taishyr]

Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 3b]
[Bartz: Ninja (Unmastered) / X-Magic]
*All ST is MT
Team Taishyr vs. Eirika - Eirika vs. status spam. This doesn't end well. Evade doesn't hold out long enough, to boot.

Team Taishyr vs. FFT Chemist, FFT Mediator and FFT Samurai - Counting Mini and Frog as blockable by the same status, the enemy needs to block Frog, Sleep, Confuse, and ID; Mediator has to block Silence, too. Good luck with that one. In addition, Rika Doubleslash + Crowley L1 leaves them massively hurting from the getgo, Chemist can't full heal, and FFT Samurai can't stave off death. Arguably Doubleslash + Bartz Doublehit physical + Crowley ends this fight as-is, since the team's taking HP hits to block status (not large ones, but they add up).

Team Taishyr vs. Auron and Tidus - Rika IDs before Tidus can Quick Hit spamkill. Still, this does some fair damage. But...

Team Taishyr vs. Alice and Nina4 - Cute stallfight. Sadly, Nina can't immune all status (I think she can cover ID?) and Alice can't block sleep. They eventually get zonked out and the fight pretty much ends there. Nina4 can't capitalize on the weakened team despite her speed, since her damage is woe, and Alice is too slow - Crowley or Eiko can heal the team while Rika Saners. Eventually Bartz lands a status and the battle ends.

EDIT: Lawl I'm an idiot. Ouroboros + Diana's Dress blocks status. That makes this a nastier stall-fight, but Alice is still bad against physicals and as such Rika/Bartz can apply a lot of pressure there. Alice has the "which damage set do I block" issue again; she blocks physicals and suddenly Crowley/Bartz are hammering with magic instead. Question is, can Nina4 remove status? If not, Frogging Alice eliminates her fairly effectively (and Alice goes mad fast enough anyway). From there, I just wear down Nina4 with physical swarms. Sure, she has high AP. But I can wait, and she isn't putting anything resembling pressure on my team.

Team Taishyr vs. Alma, Ramza and Zalbag - See the first FFT fight, but Alma isn't statused out! Doesn't matter - Alma alone isn't enough. Rika Doubleslash plus Crowley MT damage makes a sizable chunk in all three, especially in Ramza/Zalbag of the High Faith club. Eiko chips in with whatever summon or just countering whatever Alma does (I think Dispel is at this point).


Team Piggyman | Benjamin, Magus, Tidus, Robo
[Floor 2d]
Team Piggyman vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret
Team Piggyman vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian
Team Piggyman vs. Valeria and Anita
Team Piggyman vs. Halley and Keith - Gut kneejerks Magus slaughterhouse. Lit/Ice/Fire 2 at this point's still pretty nasty.
*Full Heal
Team Piggyman vs. Orlandu - Not sure how he fares against Orlandu. Benjamin got any non-reverse'd spell statuses here? If not, gut is MP busting Magus leads to sorrow; Benjamin's not at his damage prime here. Robo is decently good when you get him, though, and earlygame physicals shouldn't suck too much from Magus. But an OHKO is needed or else the team gets worn down badly. ...Helps that the team's decent against physicals, though; I don't buy an OHKO on anyone here. It becomes an attrition war.

EDIT: Looking at Flamerus Rex, I'm quite wrong - Benjamin's damage is a low 2HKO here with Quake, and Bombs are decent enough. Orlandu goes for Gaia Gear, he drops a fair bit of durability, and he can't afford that. Not to mention I let Life act like ID so he has to counteract that, leaving his offense also decently lower. Yeah, not seeing this end well for him.


Team Commander | Yuri2, Cloud, Juan, Bowser, Mime
[Floor 2c]
[Cloud: Restore (M), Transform (U)]
Team vs. Ox, Rand and Cray - Transform Rand, move on.
Team vs. Ephraim and L'Arachel - Mmm. Yuri2/Cloud should be able to bump off Ephraim?
Team vs. Augustine and Domingo - Bump off Augustine.
Team vs. Auron and Steiner - Status.
Team vs. Boss Magus - Yuri2 lawls. Even if you don't see him as having Wind L1/Fire L1/Water L1/Dark L1, this is still kind of a laughter.

I want to hear arguments on this one, though. The second and third fights could cause some issues, though gut is Eph only kills Bowser, and the rest of the teams are ST damage which synchs up well with Yuri2/Cloud works here.

[SnowFire]

Quick comment: Ben probably does not have Life on Floor 2.  Floor 3 or 4 is more like it.  (And I certainly don't allow reversed uber-Life to work except on undead anyway.)

Team Piggyman | Benjamin, Magus, Tidus, Robo
[Floor 2d]
Team Piggyman vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret - Magus + Benjamin have a MT 2HKO between them, and they're both faster than average.
Team Piggyman vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian - See above.
Team Piggyman vs. Valeria and Anita - This is trickier, as Magus might well go down?  I think he at least gets a spell off anyway, he's pretty fast as he joins pre-Swallow for Crono and pre-Ribbon for Robo.
Team Piggyman vs. Halley and Keith - If Magus is alive: See first two fights.  If he's not: I think Piggyman still wins.  Beat up Halley so he can't revive, Keith kills Ben, then Tidus and Robo probably finish off Keith.
*Full Heal
Team Piggyman vs. Orlandu - Here's where blood spills.  The fight basically comes down to whether Orlandu insta-doubles Robo.  Orlandu can't wipe out Ben (if he does equip Gaia Gear I'm sure Ben has plenty of backup even on floor 2), but he can either OHKO Tidus or nuke Magus's MP (for about the same drop in damage coming his way either way, since Magus can still toss a physical if MP nuked).  Orlandu will survive Ben & Magus's joint 2HKO thanks to his good HP (or Ben/Tidus/Mag-physical), but toss in a Robo attack and he's probably dead.  On the other hand, allow Orlandu to Dark Sword back up, Robo-turn, then re-Dark Sword (with the two DSes probably offing Ben), and the fight is over.  Let's see...  Robo is 6 Speed to a floor 2 average of (13+6+8+11+6)/5=8.8 (if we consider Robo himself as floor 2, which is fair).  That's...  68% average speed, which is pretty awful.  Orlandu is 160% average.  Yeah, it looks like Robo doesn't even go before Cid's turn: 200/160 = 1.25 < 100/68 = 1.47 as far as when in the turn sequence their turns come. 

[Clear Tranquil]

Uhhh ... Is everyone scaling down Keith and Halley so they don't have ID or something? Since if they have access to all their skills I don't see that fight as even remotely possibly for floor 2 unless the challenger has ID protection or a really good/fast blitz team~

(Keith's ID is MT Snowfire?)

Team Taishyr vs Dungeon - First three fights look simple enough with a combination of Crowley magic nukes, Ninja offense and team supports. The rest of the floor actually seems pretty challenging ... Uhhhh ... need to think about this some more. Nina gets Remedy for status curing Tai ^^

Eiko's skill list -
Cure
Cura
Life
Shell
Protect
Fenrir
Phoenix
Bright Eyes (>.>)
Antibody (!)
Jelly
Loudmouth
Auto Regen
Haste (Emerald in Cleyra)
Reflect/Auto Reflect (Auction House)
Silence
Esuna
Float/Auto Float (Auction House)
High Tide
**
Esuna
Regen

If Eiko can be seen as Floor 3 being when she normally would join then she can definitely get the above two as well.

Edit: Yeah I think they can do this. Pass to team Tai.

Btw something that I'd forgotten was that Sapphire teaches High Tide and my mind was refreshed when I was checking a FAQ today. So Eiko can have High Tide (higher chance of Trance) from the start of the dungeon =)

[superaielman]

Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 3b]
[Bartz: Ninja (Unmastered) / X-Magic]
*All ST is MT
Team Taishyr vs. Eirika- Erikia's no threat against three fast PC's.
Team Taishyr vs. FFT Chemist, FFT Mediator and FFT Samurai- Status zerg rush works for me. Chemist's the only real problem.
Team Taishyr vs. Auron and Tidus- ID Tidus. Auron is status bait.
Team Taishyr vs. Alice and Nina4- Alice is a nonfactor. Nina.. well, the tam has issues damaging her, but I donno. Attack buffing+Bartz should overwhelm her in time?
Team Taishyr vs. Alma, Ramza and Zalbag- Too much fast status, Bartz does a number on this floor.

Abstain on Piggyman, Cmdr advances.

[Dhyerwolf]

Uhhh ... Is everyone scaling down Keith and Halley so they don't have ID or something? Since if they have access to all their skills I don't see that fight as even remotely possibly for floor 2 unless the challenger has ID protection or a really good/fast blitz team~

In all fairness, they only really have to knock off Keith, and it sounds like 3 characters are probably faster and with good damage. That said, if Ben's only good damage is Earth, that may kind of be a major roadblock since both Keith and Halley halve that, and should Keith get a turn, 3 of the 4 party members are going down. So it's pretty crucial that they knock Keith out before he goes.

[Clear Tranquil]

Yeah that's what I was thinking Dhyer. Keith has to be taken out asap other wise he nukes out most of Piggy's team in one foul swoop. If he does the remaining character probably gets mopped up pretty fast after that.

According to the "handy link" Ben has Cure, Bombs, Fire and Quake for this floor. Don't know how his Fire is though. Keith might just scrape a survival yeah >.>

Edit: Ok so apparently my memory about Magus being slow was wrong. Yeah he definitely goes before Keith and Magus is pretty nuke hmmm ... hold it though just checked the stat topic and Keith halves wind/lightning/earth. Hmmm.

[Bardiche]

Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 3b]
[Bartz: Ninja (Unmastered) / X-Magic]
*All ST is MT
Team Taishyr vs. Eirika - Too much Healing for Eirika to do anything.
Team Taishyr vs. FFT Chemist, FFT Mediator and FFT Samurai - Crowley MT damage + Rika buffs + Bartz taking out at least one of them? Seals the deal.
Team Taishyr vs. Auron and Tidus - Hurts, but they should push through. Auron's speed is nothing impressive.
Team Taishyr vs. Alice and Nina4 - Jerking.
Team Taishyr vs. Alma, Ramza and Zalbag - Hm, okay, let's see... Crowley hurts them all. Bartz Ninjas and offs one of them? Well, I think at least one of these act before Crowley and hurts the team, then Eiko has to Heal and Rika throws buffs. Mm, think the team'll handle this but its getting tricky.


Team Piggyman | Benjamin, Magus, Tidus, Robo
[Floor 2d]
Team Piggyman vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret
Team Piggyman vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian
Team Piggyman vs. Valeria and Anita
Team Piggyman vs. Halley and Keith - here we have a bit of a problem. So I only know these two from stat topics, but anyone that blocks out Magus damage takes out a major part of this team's offensive. Also ID is nasty.
*Full Heal
Team Piggyman vs. Orlandu - Assuming they make it, though? Orlandu puts serious hurt out but I -think- Benjamin should be able to settle with survival and so does Robo. Even if Tidus or Magus die, Ben and/or Robo can slugfest it. If Orlandu breaks Benjamin's defenses, Bennie should be able to get a round of damage in before he goes off and then Robo should be able to get damage in moar.

Basically: either Magus or Tidus dies, but all the others hurt him. Then the other one dies, Ben and Robo hurt. Orlandu breaks Ben's equipment, then Ben, then Robo? ... Huh.


Team Commander | Yuri2, Cloud, Juan, Bowser, Mime
[Floor 2c]
[Cloud: Restore (M), Transform (U)]
Team vs. Ox, Rand and Cray
Team vs. Ephraim and L'Arachel
Team vs. Augustine and Domingo
Team vs. Auron and Steiner
Team vs. Boss Magus - Eh. Nothing impressive before this fight ─ at least nothing they cannot handle.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah that's what I was thinking Dhyer. Keith has to be taken out asap other wise he nukes out most of Piggy's team in one foul swoop. If he does the remaining character probably gets mopped up pretty fast after that.

According to the "handy link" Ben has Cure, Bombs, Fire and Quake for this floor. Don't know how his Fire is though. Keith might just scrape a survival yeah >.>

Edit: Ok so apparently my memory about Magus being slow was wrong. Yeah he definitely goes before Keith and Magus is pretty nuke hmmm ... hold it though just checked the stat topic and Keith halves wind/lightning/earth. Hmmm.

I think Fire is probably pretty bad compared to Quake since Ben probably has what? 15 or 16 magic at this point, and Fire has really bad damage growth. That said, sounds like Magus has equal Fire/Lightning/Ice damage, but completely unsure how much of it he has. Low 2HKO MT, or something? That said, voting against Piggyman. Having issues seeing him taking out Keith giving Keith's high HP, and since there is a really good chance Halley lives too...not good.

[Taishyr]

Team Taishyr vs. Alma, Ramza and Zalbag - Hm, okay, let's see... Crowley hurts them all. Bartz Ninjas and offs one of them? Well, I think at least one of these act before Crowley and hurts the team, then Eiko has to Heal and Rika throws buffs. Mm, think the team'll handle this but its getting tricky.

Ninja and Rika go before all three, Crowley and Eiko goes before Ramza (Alma and Zalbag go before them). Arguably Ramza can speed-twink but doing so leaves him even more open to debilitating status or a damage rush, and that makes the other two a bit slower than they are now (doesn't change turn order really, aside from Ramza, Mind) if you're considering them all trying to speed twink (i.e., taking someone to an average twinked in the direction they're trying to twink in).

So let's just assume C/E go after all of them.

Rika goes first, Saners; either this kicks my entire team ahead of them or you see the speed part as kicking in on the next round. (This of course presumes the enemy team was intelligent and blocked ID. If not, she pretty much ends the fight here.) Bartz goes next, double-statuses. Odds are both Ramza and Zalbag will get hit once, which is all I need.

However, I'm perfectly willing to accept that some people won't see the status landing on them, despite their below average MDef (Aegis Shields help but I get two shots, pretty much nulling their advantage). In that case, Rika Doubleslashes and Bartz double-physicals instead. This is... pretty bloody close to finishing them here; admittedly the match is closer this way, but a doubled physical at this point in FF5 is pretty murderous, since magic picks up later.

The above scenario also presumes that Saner won't kick in this round. Crowley getting a go before the enemy insures -someone- dies, due to his damage still being above average by a fair bit. Yeah, 50% chance of missing one of the two, but odds are it nails someone.

But okay. Let's presume that in point of fact you don't see either method working. Rika Debans instead, and Bartz throws up Protect and throws out a status shot. Zalbag and Ramza's damage is now pretty miserable, and Alma's facing a team which is pretty bloody good at magic. Zalbag/Ramza/Alma can try to stall (Scream/Speed Ruin (which gets negated by Saner)/Mbarrier), but Rika's got buffs to counter most of what Zalbag goes for and the team can keep up physical pressure just fine after a Shift. Zalbag's MP bust is an issue, but going for that gives Bartz another shot at status, and three rounds is likely to nail them out no matter your status views. It's a close match, I won't argue, but the enemy team can't shut me down fast enough to stop the inevitable statusing/damage rush.

...and there may even be a status weapon available to Bartz at this point, which sinks the enemy chances even further. I'll look into that.

In essence, it takes most all the calls going against me to have my team fall here.
EDIT: I'm not trying to say you're wrong or anything, just further elaboration on how I see the match going.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Tai could probably ID cheese his way through most of this floor, with Crowley smash to handle the rest.

For Piggyman, I want to say that a focused blitz should take Keith out. Taking out Orlandu is simply a matter of 4 on 1, a lot of his team dies, but Orlandu eventually bites it.

Kneejerking a pass due to Transform materia!!! on Commander.

All three make it.

-Djinn

[Excal]

Eh, the problem with Orlandu is that if you're relying on eventually and attrition then you've lost.  You either blitz him, or watch as your offense dips beneath his ability to simultaniously kick your ass and heal from your attacks.

[dude789]

Taishyr and Commander make it Piggyman doesn't

[Bardiche]

*facepalm*

I forgot to read Taishyr's fight is on the MT Floor. Vote's unchanged, but yeah. Now it's much more solidly "yea".

[Nephrite]

Updating this tomorrow or Wednesday, so get your votes in.

[Cmdr_King]

Tai vs Dungeon- Maybe I'm missing something I guess, but Ninja+XMagic seems pretty sufficent to get the drop on the floor and clean house.

Piggy vs Dungeon- Magus respect, mostly.

[ThePiggyman]

God damn, this is a bit late, but I really didn't have time 'til now.

My team passes. Magus/Benjamin MT damage pretty much destroys everything come Halley and Keith, and even at that point, if they manage to kill someone, the other three can blitz them.

With the full heal comes Orlandu, and like Tai said, Quake makes things too dangerous for Orlandu at this point, so he opts for a Gaia Gear, which lowers his HP by a fair bit, which just allows my team to blitz him either way. I don't see Orlandu OHKO-ing anyone on my team, and if Orlandu opts to nuke Magus' MP first, he's just blowing another turn that he needs to quickly take out atleast one person on my team. Magus physicals aren't that bad at this point either, anyways.

Team Taishyr passes, too. Read Tai and CT's arguments, view points are exact same over here.

Team Commander passes as well. Yuri2 and Cloud handle the floor well enough, add in the others for a laugh.

[SnowFire]

Hmm, looking up...  didn't know that Keith & Halley resisted Earth, and didn't know that Keith's ID was MT.  This means...  huh.  I suspect the team can still rush out Keith even if Halley revives for him, but it does make it absolutely critical that Magus walk into the fight alive.  Which, looking up...  seems like yes, that'll happen.  Valeria & Anita's damage isn't that much higher than average, and Magus is tankier than average, so there's no way he gets 2HKOed.  They might get lucky and critical though, which would ruin Magus's day...  20% chance for either one, so around 64% chance of Magus making it to the next fight alive.  That kind of split generally causes me to be leerier of letting later events break a team's way.

Re the Orlandu fight, to expand on that...  I think that Orlandu has an extremely solid OHKO on Tidus if nothing else.  Tidus has below average HP with the full cast, Rikku arguably doesn't exist yet to drag the average down, and Orlandu OHKOs average anyway.  I still think that Orlandu will be using normal armor here and just eating the Quake - it's not THAT much of a reason to panic, and Ben's backup physical is fine.  Arguably Aegis Shield might even screw with Magus / Ben's Quake anyway (though I'm not so sure on that; I can easily see those spells as M-evade ignoring).  This is not to say that a Piggyman vote is out of the question here, you just have to have quite high Magus respect for Magus + Ben's Quake to knock out Orlandu, whose HP is respectable but not super-tanky.

Taishyr & Commander pass.  Yuri2 is awesome, and I'll buy the status storm hype for Taishyr.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Keith's ID isn't MT, unless I've been horribly wrong about Deathblade Jiru. Just Halley's crappy ID may be MT, although I don't remember well.

[Dhyerwolf]

Deathblade Jiru isn't ID, but Gift inflicts ID with an excellent hit rate and is MT. Halley's is just crappy 25%. So Keith gets that turn, and three team members are gone. And given that Keith has like 115% HP...what is everyone else doing? Ben's notable damage is halved against Keith, not sure about Tidus but he's never great at damage, well, Magus is probably solid on damage, but looking at things...his L2's do 860 if at endgame? Dark Mist does 1180, but not sure he comes with that.

Not sure where the other PCs might normally be seen but again looking at endgame, but asking in chat the answer I generally got were that Magus only starts with elemental spells and the other PCs are up to all but the last spell.
So yeah, Crono's Confuse for about 900, Marle's Ice 2 for 585, Lucca's Mega Bomb for 1480!!!, Frog's Leap Slash for 917, Robo's Area Bomb for 914, and Ayla's Tail Spin for 1100. Now some of these were extrapolations based on the mechanics, but based on these numbers, Magus doesn't have 2HKO damage, and is more special thanks to having solid MT. With Ben's damage being halved, I just don't see Magus being able to kill. If someone has any other numbers to toss out please do, but I haven't seen any other ones at all.

On top of that, I'm not even sure Ben is fast at this point? I think, Tristam is in the averages, and he has like 80 speed when Ben has 60. Just...dunno, seems like a lot of numbers would have to go a certain way that I don't think they do.