Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Monado Mandala Week 6

[Nephrite]

You can't switch equipment during floors. Can Rena resist all that from the start and be okay?

[AndrewRogue]

Eh. I consider well made hacks as legit enough material to be counted as legit forms for PCs. *shrugs* If I'm outright told by Neph that I can't, I'll drop it. Until then, I stand by it.

Vote remains the same in general (Reflect Mail, har) either way.

[Nephrite]

Umm... I'd probably personally prefer you stick to the FFT forms if you know them at all. If you're completely sol on the knowledge then just go with what you feel is best, but be aware you'll be in the minority on voting on those forms.

[074]

Also, nobody respects Reflect Mail for a reason, I would note.  Not that it changes later outcomes, but it's just to let you know that nobody's going to base ANYTHING on Reflect Mail.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It does change things if one allows it, and Andy does. Most people don't -allow- Reflect Mail, but if he does, there's not much you can do. He's aware of what most people think about it.

[Taishyr]

Glen/Nama fall, Snowfire passes. Turns out that my boss respect just barely lets them swing a few of the fights, which is amusing.

Re: LFT, Reflect Mail:

I myself have always been on the fence about it; doesn't help that I don't see it hitting much more than basic magic, but. And LFT...

Pretty much, I'd consider allowing it myself without ill will, but... the floors simply are usually not balanced for such things (MF6, LFT, allowing alternate forms of NIS people, etc etc.) As a result, I don't vote on such primarily to give the entering teams a fighting chance.

[Clear Tranquil]

Yeah ... Snowfire passes. High Jessica/FF9/SO series respect and low boss respect balance things out well enough I think. Insulate lasting five to six turns changes things a lot for me. I know Garnet isn't Eiko but I tend to respect Eiko's buffs generally so the same probably roughly applies here.

Team Snowfire vs Dungeon

*nods @ Tai* Yeah ... I'm usually pretty liberal with what I'll allow myself but I think PCs would *have* to be allowed non DL legal stuff in the dungeon that's fair game for them to use in game like the dancer's/bandit's equips in LoD, MP increasing equipment, regens,  elemental changing accessories (offense/defence), stat boosting accessories, etc from games in general to give teams a fair change against some of the fan hacks out there >_>

[superaielman]

Voting against Snowfire. Think he's running out of MP soon enough on the floor, Rena can't keep everyone alive.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Nama, Glen, out.

Snowfire passes to me. My kneejerk is that Garnet/Rena's resources are holding out for them. I never had problems with them spamming their higher-level spells at this point in their respective games. It's a lucky view for Snowfire, since I know I tend to favor my healers and they might have been more leveled/gotten more stat-increasing items when I played FF9/SO2 than what most people did. Take with a grain of salt, I suppose, but apart from the resource issues, Snowfire's arguments are solid to me.

[SnowFire]

Just want to say that I'm back from my vacation (GenCon was awesome), and will address arguments made in the topic tonight (currently on lunch break, will not be able to do justice to it at the moment).  Interesting comments.  Will try and give a runthrough on my thoughts on Garnet's Resource usage.

The really big issue is pressure.  For example, if the Lunar bosses are OHKOing left and right, then I'm spending too many of my team's turns on healing, and resources WILL matter.  However, thanks to defensive buffs, they're only KOing one person on their second turn at the earliest, and that's if you let Flamebird turn off Firefly (which is totally reasonable, of course).  This means that my team is able to mount a strong offense and doesn't need to spend time constantly healing, so the pressure is on the Dungeon team instead.  Once any dungeon team loses a character the situation instantly gets far more manageable.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Xenobia and Royce have non-ST, you know (and I believe Xenobia's status is also at least GT, attached to 2HKO damage to boot). Any sort of MT should > Firefly, and that lets them actually circumvent Firefly nicely. If you're not entirely ST, you can circumvent Firefly too.

EDIT: The debate is mostly irrelevant now, though, looks like you'll make it.

[SnowFire]

Right then.  First a quick reply to Jo'ou...

I dunno, you -do- have to consider that Purim's buffs are getting neutered by the MT (each extra target that is aimed by a Purim MT spell lowers its effectiveness and duration by a fair amount. Spread around five PCs, the boost just sorta fails), Garnet's buffs have awful awful duration and can't be MT'd, and I'm still having a hard time swallowing any DQ8 buff not named Acceleratle or Oomph doing anything but fail horribly. Turns spent buffing are also turns spent not making any offensive leeway - which is not good in a bevy of fights that's heavy on strong MT offense.

* Jo'ou Ranbu nods. Then, OK just forgot to note it. Does figure, though, Insulatle already blows being MT, it'd just be worthless if ST.

DQ8: Eh, the DL is a place where random spells and abilities you didn't use are suddenly and randomly awesome.  And it's not like Insulate is even bad in game, just rather specific when it's good - it's fantastic in the boss fight in the Dragon's Graveyard, for example, changing a reasonably tough fight into a joke.

SoM: I don't believe that's correct?  To my knowledge, Defender and other buffs have reduced duration when cast MT, sure, but their power is the same.  And I don't want to get into an interpretation holy war, but just say that I don't agree with punishing a cast in a way that's impossible to happen in the game anyway by scaling the power down more past 3, and also note that spell effects are not consistent in how they scale.  Lucid Barrier, for example, is at 50% strength when cast MT, not 33%...  it's impossible to say how it would scale in a 4 or 5 target situation.  Oh well.

The debate: Actually, by my count, I'm losing 4-6 right now?  Maybe I counted wrong, which I wouldn't complain about, but even if it the vote was more lopsided I'd want to write up my thoughts.

---

Next, resources...  Jessica has basically an infinite bag of MP (~250 MP with a Whip).  She regenerates MP with her Staff and Kazing /Kaboom cost a mere 15 MP.  Kazing is full revival, too.  Everything else is even cheaper - TDL / Accelerate / Insulate are 3 MP and everything else of note is near that.  Assuming she never ever uses her staff that's 15+ Kazings, and the early fights are likely fought with a Staff out so the MP cost is only coming from the extra map MP+100 mana.

Rena's pretty excellent as well.  She can theoretically run out, but if she does then Garnet surely has, so I'll skip her.

Purim I posted the spell list on earlier, but she's got 55 MP or so and most of her spells cost 2 MP.  She doesn't want to spam Revifier - more of an emergency backup - but that's okay.  Revifier also brings back the character with 75% health, as a note, if something better than Garnet's 50% health is needed.

Garnet...  Cura's ST max healing, or MT decent healing (60%ish?).  Curaga is MT max healing.  Life's 10 MP, Cura's 10 MP, Curaga's 22 MP, Shell's 6 MP.  As for her summons...  assuming you allow the unique Odin's Sword skill, she's doing her best damage with Odin for 28 MP (and it's actually pretty excellent, checking the stat topic - 8125 damage at endgame).  If you don't, then Bahamut does cost a bunch of MP at 56 MP... but Ifrit is only 26 MP, and it still does about 75% of the damage of Bahamut.  Garnet isn't summoning often anyway, and the difference should only come into play when someone's HP is right on the edge of mattering - IOWs, in the Dungeon, Ifrit is just fine most of the time.  She's got maybe ~280-300 MP.

Okay, more specifically, to focus on what Garnet & Purim are up to...  I'll try and take into account multiple interpretations here rather than just my own.

Team Snowfire vs. Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin
Garnet uses a Summon, Purim uses MT Blaze Wall.  This fight does not seriously last into round 2.  Garnet's summon is even theoretically optional here, the team is pretty owned by Firefly.

Team Snowfire vs. Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian
Garnet uses a Summon, Purim uses MT Blaze Wall or Lucent Beam.  Actually...  now that I think about it, especially for those who hold to LOL FFT boss HP, this fight is very likely over in round 1.  FFT average speed is 10, same as the bosses....  except that Worker 8 / Beowulf / Reis / Cloud all really shouldn't count, and all of them except for Cloud are below 10 speed (they're 7/8/9/10).  Meaning that the party average speed is likely a nudge above 10, meaning Purim gets the drop on the enemy team, and now they're eating Kaboom / Garnet Summon / Purim spells before even going along with a Lyn double.  (Or, if you do say they're all average, tiebreak for Purim due to her being a PC.)  I guess Kletian likely survives thanks to his Mantle, but he's not getting anything interesting done.  I suppose the point is, even if you respect FFT HP enough to let Rofel / Kletian get to Round 2, Garnet likely doesn't need to summon round 2 to mop up.

Best case: Garnet 1 Summon, Purim 1 Attack spell
Bad case: Garnet 1 Summon + Life / other healing (?), Purim 2 Attack spells
Worst case: Garnet 2 Summons + healing during mop-up round 3, Purim 2 Attack Spells + Cure Water

Team Snowfire vs. Rubicante and Barbariccia
Assuming FF4 original:
Rubicant is dying early round 2 for sure (the whole Ice Sabre Jessica, Twin Dragon Lash thing).  Val & Rubicant can combine to kill Lyn round 1 and Weak someone else at worst I guess?  Rena is resurrecting Lyn, though, and Garnet Curas the Weaked person.  Now Val is stuck messing with Lyn, while Lyn gets revived.  If you see magic as able to hit Val, then it's not a big deal as Purim / Jessica quickly zap her out.  If you don't, then it's still not a big deal due to the accuracy buff that Purim has on Jessica.
* Standard case: Garnet ST healing (2 Curas?), Purim Ice Sabre + Blaze Wall (1x Blaze Wall + 2 Kabooms should do it for Val)
* Val can dodge magic case: Garnet healing (4 Curas & a Life?  Val isn't MT, no need for Curaga), Purim Ice Sabre + Speed Up + (Cure Water's Light Healing?)

Assuming FF4 DS:
If the team wants to waste my resources rather than go for an MT magic kill, Barb never spins and just attacks Lyn.  Keeping up with Inferno, if you let Rubicante spam it, requires either an MT Curaga from Garnet or Cure Water + Fairy Light.  The fight is over as soon as Barb misses Lyn as Purim then does the Moon Energy -> Lyn kills Rubicant thing.  If Barb stays lucky, then Jess Accelerates on turn 2, so double turns start kicking in; Rubicante shouldn't last TOO long.
* Garnet Shell x1-2 + Curaga x1-4 (heal Inferno 'till Rubicante's dead), Purim Cure Water x2-4 + Moon Energy (Heal Barb's attacks on Lyn, make Rubicante explode)
The numbers vary as it depends on when Lyn evades / when Accelerate based double turns start kicking in.

Team Snowfire vs. Xenobia and Royce
Obviously a bit of an interp split here.  Also impossible to tell which boss is faster in initiative, as they're both slower than Dragon Cane Mia.  But plenty of Stone healing here (Garnet's Stona, Purim's Remedy, Rena's Dispel all work) and furthermore Defender is turning off their chances of OHKOing someone assuming you let it do anything at all.  Presumably they have to both target the same person to get a proper KO going.  If you respect their Stone, their Stone is not consistent, and Jessica also has Magic Barrier.  It reduces statuses that would normally hit 100% to hitting 50% of the time, statuses that would normally hit 85% of the time to hitting 20% of the time, and statuses that would hit 50% of the time to hitting 10% of the time.  There's no way their stone chances are better than 85% (stat topic doesn't say how good the odds actually are), so I'd consider 20% a good cap on their potential of hitting with it - meaning it really sucks and is nigh-worthless aside from making Jess spend a turn to Magic Barrier.  It's also attached to a physical, meaning that I'd argue that if a physical got entirely nulled due to Lucid Barrier, it has no chance of hitting anyway.

Anyway, as noted before, I really think that the ladies are in big trouble here.  It's an easy win if Flamebird doesn't turn off Firefly, but assuming it does they're still being massively outsped and running into a metric ton of buffs.  Due to different interpretations, hard to guess what people see going on here, but even if for some reason Jessica can't start spamming Ice Sabre / Growthed Twin Dragon Lashes, Purim can still kill Royce with Lucent Beams.  Once Royce is down, the fight's easy.  Admittedly, this fight IS where the resource issue really comes into play, if you see the two as consistently killing Jessica and thus forcing Purim to do the job.

* Garnet 2-5x Cura, 2-5x Life (?), 0-2x Stona, 0-2x Shiva on extra turns.  If they go for MT damage Cura not being full is fine, Rena can cover the rest.  Life only matters if they go ST on Jessica.  Purim: Defender, 1x Ice Sabre or 3x Lucent Beam, 0-2x Cure Water (emergency healing?), 0-4x Lucid Barrier (if you respect Stone?).  Note that this is too much, she won't be casting all this as which set she casts depends on respect and the strategy Xenobia & Royce pick.

Team Snowfire vs. Zog, Melfice and Zera Valmar
Once Zera goes down, this team has no shot.  Melfice is cool but he's not really an HP god (great for Grandia II, admittedly, but his competition sucks), and the pressure is off my team once Popey dies thanks to the hyped buffs (Anti & Defender, really, messing with Melfice / Zog's magic and Melfice's Demon Horde Slash).  Melfice shouldn't be able to take that much punishment?  Zog admittedly can take a ton, but by then he's rammed into Anti + Insulate and is doing utter crap for damage.
* Garnet: 1-2x Curaga (heal Mel's initial Demon Horde Slash, perhaps toss another in for safety on round 2), hang out.  She can toss in Curas, but others can handle the healing once the two are under control; by now their damage is extra bad, and Rena can start healing once Anti is cast anyway.  Purim: Defender, Moon Energy so Lyn kills Melfice quickly, and whatever (2-4x Cure Water to take up the slack if Garnet wants to take a break from healing?).

END RESULTS:

Best case: Garnet is casting 2-3 Summons, 3 Curagas, 1-3 Lifes, 4-8 Curas, and some cheap utility spells.  This should take ~200 MP, well within her bounds.
Purim is casting 2-3 Defender,  0-3x Lucid Barrier, 2x Arbitrary attack spells (probably Blaze Wall as it's cheaper than Lucent Beam), 2-10x Cure Water, some random cheap utility spells (Remedy is 1 MP, Speed up is 2 MP, etc.).  This should take ~35 MP, easily within her limits and allowing for random emergeny revivals with Revifier.

Worst Case: Garnet is casting 3-4 Summons, 4-5 Curagas, 5-6 Lifes, 6-10 Curas, and some cheap utility spells.  This should take ~330 MP, which is a bit too much.
Purim is casting 2-3 Defender, 3x Lucent Beam, 0-3x Lucid Barrier, 4x Arbitrary attack spells (probably Blaze Wall), 6-12x Cure Water, some random cheap utility spells.  This takes ~60 MP thanks to the damn Lucent Beams, also a bit too much; a reduction of only 1 puts this back to safety.

In general, I lean toward the "best case," obviously.  If you see everything as going against me, then yes, the team can run on out of MP...  but eh, all I can say is that I don't see that happening.  And it only takes a few things to not go as badly wrong as I describe to push the MP amount back to doable - this isn't "get through the dungeon with plenty of MP left," it's "get through even if the gas tank is sputtering at the very end."

Obviously, your results may vary, so adjust as you see fit based on fights you don't agree with my take on.

[SnowFire]

A few other quick comments:

AndrewRogue on Val / Rubicant: Takes way too long. My general interpretations are pretty bad for Snow on the whole. Boss durability respect and TB speed views just make this a mess for Snow. Even if he somehow scrambles through this fight, he's not going to be in much condition to take on both of the next fights, which also benefit a lot from my views.

Well, can't say if the team passes anyway due to not knowing your views exactly, but...  the fiends fight shouldn't take too long.  Even with high fiend HP respect, the team has some extreme offense against them.  Against original, there's really nothing the fiends can do to stop Ice Saber Jessica -> 4x damage Twin Dragon Lash on Rubicant, which should be 2.8x PCHP damage?  Well, aside from Rubicant closing his cape on turn 1, but then he sucks at offense and he beats out Purim anyway, so she can spend her turn more productively.  And Jess can probably do it again next turn thanks to revival on Lyn if Rubicant is somehow still alive, or other damage could chip in.  Against DS, as soon as Barb misses (or if Barb spins turn 1), Purim Moon Energies Lyn and Lyn unloads two triple damage criticals on him for ~2.4 PCHP or so.  And Lyn will continue to have extreme damage next turns, too, against Barb (or Rubi if he's still alive), as Moon Energy lasts for seven hits.

---

As for Royce / Xenobia, since that seems the main focus, here's how I see it going at least for those who respect Sonic Boom's Stone.  (I believe it's line target, meaning it hits 2 people 2/3 of the time and one person 1/3 of the time in game if you set up in a standard X pattern; furthermore, since Jessica is likely the target here, if in Lunar I'd have set Jessica up to be the middle of the X so no one else got hit.  Which is also where Lunar Jessica is, amusingly enough.)

Turn 1: Lyn double, Jess Magic Barrier, Shiva, MT Defender, Anti.  Them: Flamebird Lyn, Sonic Boom try and Stone Jess (<20% shot?).
Turn 2: Accelerate, Protect Jessica, MT Ice Saber, Fairy Heal Jessica.  Them: Either Arch Flare + Sonic Boom (keep trying to Stone Jessica, MT damage), or Shoot Lancer + Xenobia Physical to KO...  uh, Purim, let's say.
Turn 3: This is where I get a double turn, as their team was slow before and this is after Accelerate.  Plus Jessica was already quite fast anyway.  Jessica Twin Dragon Lashs for double damage...  twice.  Royce has just taken ~2.8 PCHP damage + ~.7 PCHP damage from Shiva, and everyone else can easily chip in if that still isn't enough due to high durability respect.  (EDIT: Forgot about the Lyn double, too, so toss in another .8 PCHP damage with the possibility of a crit.  Might not even need the Jess double turn anymore.)  Everyone else gets the team back on their feet, and Xenobia is now alllll alone against a buffed and accelerated team (with the exception of a recently revived Purim).  Oh and Lyn's about to break out of Flamebird.

(Edit: This was before I was reminded that Xenobia has Slow Stone.  Well, Magic Barrier is irrelevant now, just open with Accelerate, or even damage - Kacrackle should do pretty good damage on Royce, arguably Kacrackle + Shiva  + Ice Sabered Twin Dragon Lash + Garnet/Purim/Rena damage wipes out Royce before she even gets a second turn anyway.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

A few relevant things to Andy's interps is that he has a very lenient scaling on boss HP, isn't harsh on their AI and he also doesn't allow doubles from TB characters, and doesn't respect slow TB characters being doubled much either. This helps against the Royce/Xenobia fight because suddenly they're not getting one turn for your party's two.

[Clear Tranquil]

I counted five for the dungeon, four passes (including Snowfire) and abstains ... I think. Lots of votes this week! 

Mrrfs. I seem to remember Angelo/Jessica running out of MP after dungeon trekking in game ... or maybe that was just Angelo ... Also is it just me or is FF9 healing reduced when it's MT? That might already be taken into account though. FF9 Odin's Sword is a twink/tweak set up based on the number of ores one has irrc. It involves tossing the orbs you've bound to have picked up trekking ^_~  So ... I'm not sure how people take that in the dungeon. Only that it applies to Garnet's other summons and Eiko's as well only with different gems/accessories. However I know the last time I tried to hype summon boosts it didn't fly all that well.

[AndrewRogue]

Switching my vote on Snowfire to an abstain for the moment. Not sure enough either way anymore.

[SnowFire]

Also, brief additional comment: Totally forgot, but I knew there was some reason to disrespect Xenobia's Stone.  Like Valvalis, it's a slow stone that takes time to kick in.  Meaning it gets Remedied / Stona / Dispeled off if Xenobia tries it.  Yeah, they're better off with other options. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCDHc-I2OcA )

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You're also neglecting her Stone is attached to 2HKO damage and isn't ST. You -do- have to spend two healer turns staving that off regardless. If it wasn't slow stone, your team would be dead and we wouldn't even be having this debate, because it's perfect hit rate and your entire team is status-bait. <_<

[SnowFire]

It's not perfect hit rate, watch the video.  The Stone hits Kyle but not Nash.  Stat topic agrees that it's not perfect anyway.

As for the damage, it sucks after Defender - now it's like a 4HKO and Rena easily heals it off.  If I can't blitz Royce out in two turns - which is really possible now that I think about it - they want to use their ST damage, it's better.  But even then...  Purim can cast ST Lucid Barrier on Jessica round 2, and it can't happen round 1 due to needing to Flamebird Lyn.  So they can't really kill Jessica at all, which is going to kill them, and furthermore kill them in an MP cheap fashion (TDL is 3 MP with Jess resources.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I... honestly have to ask, Snowfire. How much damage do you see TDL dealing? It... can only go so far given the fact it's not an average buster, even if it's game-best damage, it's running off against Royce and Xenobia defense and HP -and- it's in a four-people average where they're not even that far from Jess at this point in the game (endgame is creeping in, Angelo and Yangus' best damage is also approaching and both should be around 200 damage at least). You're going on this tangent of a Royce blitz while still wasting half your working force on buffing and healing and it honestly sorta baffles me because the only person attacking there will be Jess as soon as Lyn is out of the picture (the only people that can stand to attack are Lyn and Jessica anyway, you're also neglecting that you will need to heal -anyone who has been hit by stone, finished or not, at any time one of the people get it hit-. Tangentially, you still haven't addressed the watering down of SoM buff effects the more targets they hit either. Lucid Barrier is worthless for me anyway, I see it taking spillover damage and spread out like that, it might soak a Krin physical before spillover. Hooray). The way you're describing, TDL sorta needs to be a OHKO to average, and she's not even much of a 2HKOer if you -don't- take Dragon Soul into the averages by the endgame...

[SnowFire]

Looks like I lost anyway, but for what it's worth since I'd already typed most of it...

Yes, I'm offering two possibilities because nailing down exact respect for boss durability is hard.  The "don't bother buffing blitz" is obviously not done with high Royce durability respect / low Jess damage respect, but it's a notable possibility.  Xenobia lacks a OHKO and Jessica resists physicals, so this means I can theoretically spend turn 1 not buffing but doing damage instead.  In that case, Royce eats, at worst, Kacrackle-Shiva-(Ice Sabre)-Lyn double-(Rena still Antis to stop MT horror)-Icey TDL-Shiva-Lucent Beam-(Rena heals so Xenobia can't do much).  If you see that as killing Royce, my team does that.  If you don't, they go back to the strategy I've described elsewhere involving buffing.

As for how much TDL does, if you go by endgame damage averages from the stat topic and say that Gigaslash is legal, it does .63 PCHP damage.  I personally eyeball it as higher than that, but it doesn't really matter much whether it's .6 or .65 or .7.  And hell no as to allowing Dragon Soul on Floor 6, that's clearly Floor 10 (or maaaaaaaybe Floor 9). The important thing is that it's getting Ice Sabre on it, and Royce is weak to Ice.  Lunar bosses are really durable but they're not psychotically durable - 1.3 PCHP damage or so HURTS.  The base damage from the blitz strategy (ignoring defense & magic defense) is around .8 (Lyn double assuming no crits) + .6 (TDL) + .6 (Shiva) + (1.2-1.4) TDL + .6 (Shiva) + .5 (Lucent Beam).  That's ~4.3-4.5 PCHP damage before defense reduction, aka "ow ow ow" even once you take into account defense.  Now, if you still think Royce survives that, fine, but I think she won't for many people, which is why I'm noting the possibility.  (EDIT: Checked the damage on KaCrackle, worse than expected, so just use a normal TDL.)

Tangentially, you still haven't addressed the watering down of SoM buff effects the more targets they hit either. Lucid Barrier is worthless for me anyway, I see it taking spillover damage and spread out like that, it might soak a Krin physical before spillover

This comment I will get snarky with however.  For the billionth time, I'm not casting Lucid Barrier MT, I've never suggested it should be cast MT, and that's even assuming that it's better than your interpretation (I'd make it a straight 50% strength when cast MT, like in-game).  So nerfing MT Lucid Barrier is totally irrelevant if only Jessica matters, and a ST Lucid Barrier is obviously enough to keep her alive (by endgame, ST Lucid Barrier should absorb more than 1 PCHP in damage; even if you nerf THAT to .75, that's plenty).  As for the buffs like Defender, I'd have to check, but I already said that I don't believe that that's how they work in game - duration is affected when you cast it MT, not strength.  That's confirmably how the various Sabres work, at least, I don't see any reason it'd be different for other buffs.

To reiterate the relevant part of the normal, non-blitz strategy: Defender (and Anti) are on the team round 1, Xenobia can't OHKO her even without Defender (Jess lightly resists physicals, Xen's best damage) and doesn't even get close with Defender up, Royce Flamebirds Lyn.  Round 2, Purim has thrown single target Lucid Barrier on Jessica (and she's been Stone healed if Xenobia used Sonic Boom) (Also: If you let Protect & Defender stack, Garnet can cast Protect on Jess for the same result, which frees up a valuable Purim turn).  Shoot Lancer takes down Lucid Barrier, fine, but Xenobia still can't OHKO Jess and sucks even more thanks to Defender.  So they can't kill Jess.  Maybe they can kill someone else, at best, but meanwhile Jess starts destroying them by spamming normal TDLs at worst.

EDIT: And to clarify.  I don't agree with this at all, but let's say you make Defender awful when spread to 5 targets.  I still don't think it matters - Xenobia can't OHKO, and ST Lucid Barrier is enough to keep Jess afloat.  If they go for MT, I think Royce is stuck with magic damage in Arch Flare as her MT, so Anti saves the day and stops a mass OHKO even if you see Defender as sucking.  Which it doesn't in-game.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

This comment I will get snarky with however.  For the billionth time, I'm not casting Lucid Barrier MT, I've never suggested it should be cast MT, and that's even assuming that it's better than your interpretation (I'd make it a straight 50% strength when cast MT, like in-game).

Then, allow me to be snarkier: Purim casting ST Lucid Barrier is an utter waste of time. Xenobia doesn't give a fuck if she's not OHKOing Jessica or anyone, she's spamming Sonic Boom so she can keep your healers busy no matter what because they need to both be healing damage and status (even if the damage sucks after Anti, the petrify is still GT, only Purim and Garnet have status healing, the status is accurate, Royce will start birding more people once Lyn is out of the picture and you do need to heal it even if it's not at full, and I can't see why would you say otherwise). Lucid Barrier is irrelevant to this match, Royce and Xenobia aren't trying to OHKO people, just to disable them through more practical means, and Birding/Sonic Booming is a far better idea there.

[SnowFire]

Royce can't use Flamebird once one person has been stuck in the sack.  Meanwhile, let's say Xenobia's Sonic Booms are perfect MT rather than Line I can't blitz Royce out.  Then see my post from before when I thought Xenobia's Stone was immediate; Jessica opens with Magic  Barrier then and only Accelerates on round 2.  Now her hit rate is somewhere between 10-20% on the Stone.  Oh noes.

(EDIT: For those curious, Jo'ou and I chatted this one out in IRC so as not to spam the forum with now irrelevant talk.  Jo'ou sees Xenobia's Stone as 90%, which Magic Barrier would have be at an unclear hit rate between 20-50% then.  Still don't think it's enough, but so it goes.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

She can't do it in the "the AI won't use it again" sense or in the "if someone else is hit by bird, the other one autoheals" sense? The former is honestly irrelevant to me (Also, soooooooo not giving that level of credit to a single Magic Barrier casting myself, I don't even know if it works in a straight subtractive manner or percentage-based, and I respect Sonic Boom accuracy a lot due to it never failing to petrify).