Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Monado Mandala Week 11

[Nephrite]

"Hm... Continue on then. Let us see what you can do."

Team Taishyr Vs. Floor 4
Team Tal and Piggy vs. Floor 1


Team Taishyr's Matches

Floor 5c: Fly Me to the Moon

"So, you've found your way here. Very well, I think I'll make you fight some interesting people from beyond this terrestial plane."

Battle #21: Luna, Alex, Lucia and Ghaleon (EB/EBC Boss)

Luna: Alex...!
Alex: I will protect you, Luna!
Lucia: Ghaleon, I expect of you...
Ghaleon: Yes, yes... I'm aware.

Battle #22: Zeromus, Fusoya and Golbez

Zeromus: AS LONG AS THERE EXISTS DARKNESS OF THE HEARTS OF MORTALS...
Fusoya: Lunarians...
Golbez: I will defeat you.

Battle #23: Albedo and Virgil

Albedo: Let's go, ma peche.
Virgil: If you call me that one more time I'm going to kill you.

Battle #24: Dolan, Kevin and Lugar

Dolan: I don't get any lines. :T
Kevin: Kevin think this fun!
Lugar: HRRR!!

Boss Battle #5: Orgulla and Margulis

Orgulla: Sir, that wasn't a moon, that was a planet!
Margulis: We'll destroy them all with our DS system.



Team Talaysen's Matches


Floor 2a: THESE! ARE! BOSSES!!

Battle #6: Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)

Milon: I have returned from death to crush you!
Kainazzo: Oh, that fool? The one who refused to give his kingdom to me...?

Battle #7: Booster

Booster: WELCOME TO MY TOWER!!!

Battle #8: Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)

Scarmiglione: Ha ha ha... I have come back from death yet again...

Battle #9: Kary and Kraken

Kary: I, the Fiend of Fire shall stop you!
Kraken: I am an octopus.

Boss Battle #2: Augus and Nimufu

Augus: Yes! Fight to the death for my god...
Nimufu: Um... you're cute, I guess.


Team Piggyman's Matches

Floor 2b: Assaulting the Castle

"Well, let's see if you can manage to overtake this castle on your journey to me...

Battle #6: FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard and FF1 White Wizard

Knight: They're assaulting the castle! Repel them!
Wizard: Haha... you'll never get past us!

Battle #7: Frog and Crono

Frog: I am sorry, Sir Crono, for dragging thou into such a fight.
Crono: ...!

Battle #8: Kain, Freya and FFT Lancer

Kain: Dragoons! Let's stop them here!
Freya: Let's go!

Battle #9: Gilliam, Oswin, Galleon and FF1 Knight

Gilliam: You will not pass the royal guard!
Oswin: That's right! You'll have to kill all of us!
Galleon: Let's go, lads!

Boss Battle #2: FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4

Cecil: I'm sorry this had to happen while you were visiting, Princess.
Nina: It is quite all right... let us show them why you should not attack us.


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

Team Taishyr | Kyogre, Maya (MT), Garnet, Kyra, FFT Priest
[Floor 5c]
Team vs. Luna, Alex, Lucia, Ghaleon (EB/EBC)
Team vs. Zeromus (FF4), FuSoYa and Golbez (FF4DS, No plot paralysis)
Team vs. XS1 Albedo and XS1 Virgil
Team vs. Dolan, Kevin and Lugar
*Full Heal
Team vs. Orgulla and Margulis (XS2)

Team Talaysen | Raquel, Jude, Arnaud, Yulie
[Synergy Bonus: This team fully heals after every battle. However, if a character dies they suffer a Max HP penalty until a full heal]
[Floor 2b]
Team Talaysen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Talaysen vs. Booster
Team Talaysen vs. Scarmiglione-Z (FF4 DS)
*Full Heal
Team Talaysen vs. Kary and Kraken
Team Talaysen vs. Augus and Nimufu

Team Piggyman | Orlandu, FF5 Chemist, Cray (Speed?), Garnet, Adray
[Floor 1]
Team Piggyman vs. FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard, FF1 White Wizard
Team Piggyman vs. Frog and Crono
Team Piggyman vs. FF9 Freya, Kain and FFT Lancer
Team Piggyman vs. Gilliam, Oswin, Galleon and FF1 Knight
Team Piggyman vs. FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4

Multitarget - One person on the team's actions all become Multitargetted. However, the damage of regular attacks, the healing of all spells that restore HP or MP, the status rates of status spells or attacks and the effect of buffs or debuffs (rounded down to the nearest half point in the case of Pokemon) is reduced to 50% of the original base chance. (For example, Deadly Fingertips has a max 50% chance of hitting all targets.) This applies even if there is only one opponent left.

Speed? - The effective speed of one character is reversed (60% becomes 140%), but after the first round of combat, their speed returns to default and can not be increased in any way.

[SnowFire]

Piggyman...  most problematic fight is the first one, weirdly enough.  FFT Knight's Weapon Break on Orlandu might only have a ~40% shot of hitting but Orlandu with no Sword = Sure Doom on the floor, so he really doesn't want to let Knight ever take a turn.  Problem is, I don't think Piggyman has the offense to kill both Knight and Black Wizard?  Meaning he has to pick one and either risk Weapon Break or a lucky QAKE.  I'm not very familiar with Chemist - when does he get his Berserk trick?  That'd help here as far as dispensing with Black Wizard...  wait, Orlandu has EQUIP CHANGE legally.  This came up in chat before as a joke but actually counters Weapon Break pretty well if Orlandu has a spare sword lying around.  So.

Frog / Crono is kill Frog followed by Garnet healing.  Now that Freya's companions are nerfed, Piggyman wins easily even if Luna goes off.  The slow Knights can't kill both Garnet and Chemist - (Chemist does have revival early, right?  Phoenix Downs if nothing else if they're legal) so healing + Orlandu breaks their stuff.  (Edit: Even if Chemist doesn't have revival - weird - Garnet is faster than the mooks and just casts Protect on herself, so she's safe.)  And in the boss fight Cecil & Nina4's equipment gets broken.  

Piggyman gets a pass.

Team Talaysen | Raquel, Jude, Arnaud, Yulie
[Synergy Bonus: This team fully heals after every battle. However, if a character dies they suffer a Max HP penalty until a full heal]
[Floor 2b]
Team Talaysen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES) - I don't think they have enough fast offense to even kill Yulie, and they have the Slow Down / Intrude combo unleashed on 'em (thanks, FP Advantage!).
Team Talaysen vs. Booster - Uh don't know Booster but assuming they win.  And they get a heal afterward anyway.
Team Talaysen vs. Scarmiglione-Z (FF4 DS) - Slow Down, Fragile, etc.  Yulie even has Sanctify here, but even if that triggers a counter... just hang out healing and building FP until Raquel unleashes the usual killer Intrude turn.
*Full Heal
Team Talaysen vs. Kary and Kraken - Let's say Kary OHKOs Yulie.  Don't think it matters.  Kraken is eating Slow Down, and Kary eats Jude shot + Intruding Raquel for the KO (not sure the Jude shot is even necessary).  Slow Kraken dies soon after.
Team Talaysen vs. Augus and Nimufu - According to the stat topic Nimufu's durability is awful?  Since Jude doesn't suck yet she might well just die immediately.  Failing that, Augus sounds slower than Yulie, so if Yulie wasn't slept she defends and staves off the OHKO.  Since any one of Arnaud or Raquel getting a turn spells trouble for the bosses - Raquel doing mop-up, Arnaud unleashing Slow Down - I suspect Talaysen wins this one short of Nimufu having a lucky opening Sleep.

[Monkeyfinger]

Short version: Everyone passes.

Tai: First fight's a bitch, but manageable. Maya uses her makakaja buff, Kyogre turns alex into a stain (to prevent RDA + dual hell wave wipe). Garnet summons something, Kyra finishes off Luna, Priest waits. Now Ghaleon has all the killing powers. He has to rely on fate storm spam for kills (no one gets one rounded by hell waves), and he can't really spare one for Kyogre because killing Kyogre = leaving 2 revivers alive = Ghaleon can't make any progress. So say he knocks off Maya and Garnet. Then 1.5x SAtk Kyogre doubleturns Ghaleon and beats the living shit out of him. Priest doubles thanks to that wait and throws 2 revives.  Ghaleon kills them again. Priest can't double anymore. Another action by Ghaleon would kill priest + her revive target. But he won't get it because Kyogre will finish him off. With Lucia alive, round robin healing and revival commences.

FF4 fight is trivially simple, Kyogre could solo that. XS fight is a bit annoying because Albedo can nuke someone's MP before dying (he probably wants to do this to Kyogre), but the fact that both bosses rely on limits to do anything truly dangerous makes the fight easy to manage thanks to Maya's buffs. SD3 fight... Kevin is owned by Telele, Dolan is gimped by MT'd Sama Kaja,
Lugar is owned by being Lugar. Slower going without Kyogre's godly offense, but buffed summons from Garnet give them the punch needed to win before Spiral Moon's MHP bust adds up enough.

LOL KYOGRE VS. ORGULLA. Maybe she could wipe the rest of that team with her ridiculous ice damage, who gives a shit, she can't do anything to lamp oil.

Tal: Milon's the only tough one. Drops Yulie like a sack of shit before she can move, 2HKOs everyone else (Arnaud and Raquel don't have any evade this early.) Still.... he can only hit one person at a time, he's ceding the first strike to Raquel, no one's triggering his uber status counter, and I don't respect pre-10 FF slow very much. His HP's rather good but I don't think he can take 3 hits from Raquel + 4 from Jude + whatever arnaud scrapes together. If I actually saw Milon's slow as speed halving I'd give this fight to him, but no.

Piggyman: Average speed or faster high priority targets (black wizard, Crono, FF1 knight, freya, Nina4) all get the "orlandu breaks armor, cray breaks FACE" treatment while slower dangerous targets (FFT knight, FFT lancer) suck down one of the chemist's charm potions. The royal guard fight has 3 decent physical beaters with average speed, which means 2 of them get turns and skewer Garnet, but it doesn't matter. A charm potion and another break from orlandu neutralizes the rest of that fight, and the boss fight is so damned easy that it can be handled with no healer.

god damn kyogre's good.

[Yoshiken]

Team Piggyman passes. Seems pretty simple to me overall.

Oh, and Snowfire: Chemist gets 100% HP & MP revival from F1. (But no healing for a while after. >_>)

[SnowFire]

Monkeyfinger: Note that that's Lunar 2 Ghaleon in Taishyr's fight, so no Double Hell Waves or anything.  On the other hand while Lunar doesn't really have a Water element Alex halves all Lunar elements so he's probably shrugging off Kyogre damage?  Unless Kyogre has some big physical damage.  (The team still does want to kill Alex before he ever moves since RDA + even Lunar 2 Ghaleon's turn is a lot of pain).

[superaielman]

Team Talaysen | Raquel, Jude, Arnaud, Yulie
[Synergy Bonus: This team fully heals after every battle. However, if a character dies they suffer a Max HP penalty until a full heal]
[Floor 2b]
Team Talaysen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)- Ugly.
Team Talaysen vs. Booster- Mmmyes limit boss vs Raquel this works
Team Talaysen vs. Scarmiglione-Z (FF4 DS)- One rounded. Sanctify should work it's magic and Raquel hits like an Abrams tank.
*Full Heal
Team Talaysen vs. Kary and Kraken- Slow down just fucks Kary over. Kraken dies horribly even if he OHKOs Yulie. Doesn't matter if Yulie dies, she revives for the next boss.
Team Talaysen vs. Augus and Nimufu

Thinking on the others.

[Bardiche]

Talaysen passes. Considering the others.

[Monkeyfinger]

If it's Lunar 2 Ghaleon but Alex can't be stopped from getting a turn, Maya will buff the party's MDef instead of MAtk. That should keep the whole team alive in the face of an RDA + Ghaleon combo.  Let's see Alex take 2 Kyogre attacks and 2 Kyra spells, with the turn 2 ones buffed.

But it's irrelevant to me since there's no water damage in Lunar, only ice, and since Alex's elemental halving all comes from different equipment (i.e each individual dragon equip halves one element), I'm not going to extend his resistance to stuff that's not in Lunar.

EDIT: Wait, it's worse than that. "Rain continues to fall." RDA is a gentle warm breeze thanks to that. (Screws over Margulis too, not that he was a potential threat to start with)

[Taishyr]

Kyogre is brutal shiny, yes; locks down Alex/Marguilis offense kinda painfully with Drizzle and brings his own painful offense to the table. Maya and Kyra buffs allow for way more stalling than the enemy team would like, too.

EBC Ghaleon kinda wishes he could provide MT offense but his magic gets a resounding "lol no u" from my team, Alex is left with physicals (which Kyra can pretty much mock if further stalling is needed)... yeah. It's cute and potentially dangerous but the first fight should be easy enough to wall out, with Alex damage nerf stick'd and Kyogre/Kyra/possibly Garnet dropping damage on the field. (Garnet Odin hype? I forget when that comes around, may not be this floor, but Odin Sword should do a number to the enemy side).

[Yoshiken]

I can't vote on the team, but it's worth looking at Tai's team again, considering what happens if the dungeon were to emply a stall strategy in each fight. He's got 4 matches to get through before the full heal, and Kyogre's only MT damage is dependant on its own health - depending on turn orders, it's possible to waste Kyogre's PP by forcing him to use a different move (or a weaker Water Pulse) before the healers can bring him back up.
Also, do people hold Pokemon to 4 attacks? I know I do, and I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one, so... which attacks would Kyogre have here, exactly?

[Monkeyfinger]

Current skillset for Kyogre is probably hydro pump/ice beam/calm mind/scary face. Replace hydro pump with water pulse if you think it's too early to give him HP, replace scary face with body slam if you think a decent but not amazing physical is more valuable than Slow.

None of Tai's opponents can implement a "stall strategy." All the healers he faces really suck at it and no one he faces has any cheesy meatshield tricks. Nonetheless, as I already stated, Albedo's MP attack will leave Kyogre without PP for the SD3 fight. (he gets it all back if the team wins, since there's a full heal afterwards.)

Of course, the SD3 fight is pretty hard and I could be talked into voting it over Tai. Tai's healing and buffs are powerful enough to handle the conventional damage, but with essentially no Kyogre and everyone else's resources taxed it's questionable if he can outrun Spiral Moon's gimmick.

(Before anyone reminds me: Yes I know Lugar gets to counter Garnet's summons he'll be Telele'd before any counters are triggered so they don't do much shut up)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Spiral Moon's HP busting doesn't stack anyway, unless there's something horribly wrong with my memories or enemy HP busting works differently from PC HP busting.

[Taishyr]

Yeah, the HP down doesn't stack, which means the buffs counter++ his attempts to down me that way. Garnet isn't summoning until Lugar's threat is neutralized via buffing anyway (she can Protect/Shell in the meantime, crap duration doesn't matter when you're just waiting on someone else to finish up their actions so yours can be optimally effective).

Outta curiousity, Calm Mind x6 Kyogre does how well against Albedo? (Also Monkey Kyogre might still want Water Pulse, since it's a 90 effective power thanks to Drizzle which makes it better for anything besides a different damage source for Kyogre. Iunno, really) Looks like both Virgil and Albedo are effectively limit fighters, so a quick buffing up -> smash might be best (Suku Kaja for the speed boost). Iunno, really, I'm tired and laptop death has made me quasi-incoherent.

[ThePiggyman]

Team Piggyman vs. FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard, FF1 White Wizard - To begin with, Orlandu's going to nuke Knight's weapon, to prevent the opposite from happening, while Adray and Cray use their turns to finish him off. The FFT characters immune Charm, thanks to N-Kai Armlets, which I do allow, so Chemist is gonna be charming BW (or WW, if she decides to Wall BW). Assuming BW does get Walled, my team's taking a 3HKO-ish Nuke from BW, and a Charge from Archer. This isn't killing anyone, and if you think it does, Garnet/Chemist can revive. Orlandu's next turn is spent taking out BW, while Adray and Cray hurt Archer, and Chemist keeps WW Charmed. Garnet can heal as necessary.
Team Piggyman vs. Frog and Crono - Orlandu takes out Crono, Adray and Cray mop up.
Team Piggyman vs. FF9 Freya, Kain and FFT Lancer - Freya's taking an onslaught from Orlandu and Cray. Even if she DOES survive, and chooses to use Luna, she's just dooming her team to a heavy offense. The dragoons can't kill anyone before they die themselves. And if she doesn't Luna, Chemist is Charming Kain, Adray is finishing off Freya, which leaves Lancer to take on my team.
Team Piggyman vs. Gilliam, Oswin, Galleon and FF1 Knight - Initial nuke on Knight by Orlandu, and charming one of the other knights should take away enough offense to make sure, at worst, only one of my healers die. Cray, Adray and Orlandu take the rest out on round 2. Chemist can leave someone Charmed if I need healing.
Team Piggyman vs. FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4 - More breaking fun. I don't need to go in depth for this one, far too much pressure for them.

Tal's team passes, as well, looking through the arguments.

I'll look over Tai in a bit.

[SnowFire]

ThePiggyman: I don't think Orlandu's Weapon Break helps vs. FFT Knight IIRC FFT mechanics correctly; unlike Orlandu's Swordskills, you can Battle Skill with any weapon at all, which includes silly things like punching swords into pieces or shooting someone's armor off.

Talaysen's matches: super's on point, forgot Kraken had a somewhat competent physical.  Yeah, it helps the Elements if Kraken can kill Yulie while Kary Holds Raquel...  but Kary is eating Slow Down then, and her Hold lasts only ~3 turns or so.  Since Kary herself has just had her speed nuked, this isn't working out very well.

Taishyr's matches: Don't forget Garnet also has Leviathan for Water damage, even if the stat topic antihypes it (fairly enough) for Aquamarines being hard to stockpile.  I'd say Odin's Sword is legal by now and it even requires only 0 Ore, which is obscure but also very easy to satisfy if you know about it.

As for the first fight BUT ALEX HAS FLASH HIT.  Yeah, actually, even if Alex is halving Water damage...  Garnet probably just summons Odin who isn't really elemental to finish the job if Kyogre couldn't.  I'll presume that the rest of Taishyr's team can make sure that Luna never lives to see a turn.  If Ghaleon goes for slow MT damage it gets healed off even without any MDef buffing (unless Tai's team is frailer than I think), if he goes for the faster ST and 80% paralysis move...  well, he'd want to hit someone more relevant than FFT Priest with it, but Priest has Esuna.  So Ghaleon's a bit of an MP drain at worst.

Also since it came up before Garnet's best hat on Floor 5 anyway also halves Fire / Ice / Lightning, which also interferes with Orgulla / Margulis's attempts to kill her.  And while FFT Priest's buffs don't last tons of time either, she can toss up Protect and Shells as needed.  At best, I suspect the XS2 crew can try and run Priest out of MP while inefficiently killing Garnet, and while Orgulla durability is pretty ridiculous, it doesn't sound like nearly enough time.

[ThePiggyman]

ThePiggyman: I don't think Orlandu's Weapon Break helps vs. FFT Knight IIRC FFT mechanics correctly; unlike Orlandu's Swordskills, you can Battle Skill with any weapon at all, which includes silly things like punching swords into pieces or shooting someone's armor off.

Ahh, Battle Skills are useable without a sword? Well then Orlandu, Adray and Cray are probably gonna have to bum rush Knight. That... should be enough to take him out? Orlandu's gonna break a piece of his armor instead then, which will hopefully lower his HP enough for Adray and Cray to take out.

[superaielman]

Knight loses 14% accuracy on all of it's breaks assuming it's using a rune blade (13% if it's using an ice brand).

[ThePiggyman]

Knight loses 14% accuracy on all of it's breaks assuming it's using a rune blade (13% if it's using an ice brand).

Which drops the 55~% Weapon Break to about 40~%? Coupled with the fact that Orlandu's gonna have a shield anyways?
My gut says that percentage is gonna be too low to be considered dangerous anyways.

My original idea remains, Orlandu shatters Knight's sword, which makes him a non-factor.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Piggyman and Tal pass.

Not sure on Taishyr just yet, but leaning yes. Need to check that SD3 fight.

[SnowFire]

Outta curiousity, Calm Mind x6 Kyogre does how well against Albedo? (Also Monkey Kyogre might still want Water Pulse, since it's a 90 effective power thanks to Drizzle which makes it better for anything besides a different damage source for Kyogre. Iunno, really) Looks like both Virgil and Albedo are effectively limit fighters, so a quick buffing up -> smash might be best (Suku Kaja for the speed boost). Iunno, really, I'm tired and laptop death has made me quasi-incoherent.

Still don't want to comment too much due to not knowing Taishyr's team well, but as a warning you don't want to screw around TOO long in the XS1 fight due to boost-building  (XS1 did have it for bosses, right?  I know XS2 and XS3 did for sure, at least, 95% sure so did XS1.).  Assuming that Albedo gets a turn below 50% health at all, if he's managed to build one boost he can guarantee at least one turn and an MP-nuke.  And if he gets a turn naturally at low health and has boost, he can theoretically MP-nuke two characters which would be really bad...  though I'm not sure he does this in-game?  Eh, people are generally lenient on allowing bosses to do stuff like this.

Anyway, you'll also want to avoid MT judging from the XS1 stat topic, as if you knock Virgil into his second phase he gets a free turn off Counter-Boost and starts becoming a pretty scary status whore slinging Confuse, Stop, etc.  So Maya isn't very useful for that, and Garnet's summons are all MT too...  hm.  Virgil Form 1 will also be tossing around Slow, but XS1 Slow doesn't slow that much and it sounds like Maya has a (semi-nerfed) speed buff anyway?

Anyway, also note that Albedo cuts all elements by 70%, and it sounds like Kyogre's best damage is all elemental.  As another interp issue...  does Calm Mind help Garnet bust past the FF9 damage limit?  I'd say so, so tentatively chip Albedo to 51% health and then use buffed Odin or Bahamut to smash Albedo in one hit?  Dunno how much Calm Minding this will take, but tentatively sounds doable.  This'll also trigger Virgil but the status isn't so bad if Albedo is dead.  If it takes too long, though, and Albedo knows he never gets to MP-nuke, he can use boost to kill one person for sure with two 50% max health hits... probably Garnet, to better tax Priest's resources.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I highly suspect the party one-rounds XS1 Albedo through resistance anyway. Offense is there enough when you're dealing with HP as awful as that. The Boost threat seems pretty much moot. Not to mention Water/Ice aren't separate in XS1 and -are- in Pokémon, which gives Kyo an admittedly not terribly solid argument to bypass that.

[dude789]

I think all 3 pass.

[Random Consonant]

Thinking that Tai and Piggyman pass.  Abstaining on Tal's team.