Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 114

[Clear Tranquil]

Healing Breeze is the first item shop on disc 2 is that right Piggy?

Also -

When used in battle, Charm Potion causes enemies to ignore you until 3 of your turns are passed. If you are the only person in the battle, you'll basically get 3 turns in a row.

ST. Not sure if this helps your team any but I thought it was interesting. Doesn't work on bosses in game though only randoms, I would let it work vs PC types only in the dungeon but YMMV~

[Dhyerwolf]

Rika doesn't really join on floor 1 to me though (Gryz, Hahn, and even Rune for a bit all come in first) and doesn't start with Saner (the evade effect on Saner is also a lot more limited to at first). Bad floor 1 is like Rika's only downside that I've seen manifest much in dungeon.

And yeah, Rika going first, but I wouldn't take the average speed for S3 at 45 now, since that would be extrapolating complete end game. Right now it would be a lot higher, so Rika's turn may come at 45.

[Nephrite]

^^^ Fair enough Dhyer.

Allow me to give this a more in-depth look since it seems that there's some doubt on my passage.

Team MICHAEL | Rika, Arnaud (MT), FFT Chemist, Yulie, Juan
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team MICHAEL vs. Big Joe, Evil Gaia, 10 Jogurts, VP1 Hrist, Euram Barrows, Gobi, A DQ1 Slime, Garland and Igglanova (PS4) - MT Blast handles his, as has been said.

Team MICHAEL vs. Cecil, Kain and Rosa - Okay. By this second fight, a few things should happen, depending on how you view levels in the Dungeon.

Rika should be level 5 or 6, which gives her decent agility. No one else probably leveled much, but here's the thing: Arnaud can learn Slow Down at 14, which according to SI's FAQ is entirely reasonable. So let's go on the assumption that it's possible by this point.

The turn order should be something like Rika>Arnaud>Kain>Cecil>Chemist>Yulie>Rosa (Juan).

Rika hits Juan and wakes him up. Arnaud uses Slow Down, which is reduced by 33%, but should still have a pretty profound impact on the enemies. This probably shoves Cecil and Kain's turns back somewhere. Chemist hits Rosa. Yulie probably also attacks Rosa.

Here's the thing, Juan is Berserked, and even if you only assume he gets one swing, that's a lot more damage than Cecile, Thomas and the others at that point are doing. A Chemist hit, plus Yulie hit, plus Juan hit really ought to kill Rosa.

I guess I don't really see what exactly Rosa is doing in the first place. If she goes for Holy, that has a casting time of 3, Mini has a casting time of 4. For reference, Meteo's was 5 in Easytype (FF2SNES) and 10 in other versions. So, really, if she goes to try and cast a spell, it's going to take a little bit for it to resolve, especially if she's already slow from having Slow Down put on her.

Let's pretend, though, somehow Chemist dies but everyone else is alive for the next fight.

Team MICHAEL vs. Augus and MC Tusk (BoF2) - Okay, so pretend that Rika isn't faster and MC Tusk goes first and whacks her. Rika's turn is then spent on Illusion. The turn order here is probably something like

MC Tusk>Rika>Arnaud>Augus>Yulie. (Juan)

If you assume Arnaud has Slow Down, he uses it on his turn. That probably cuts Augus to behind Yulie. Yulie will then cast Protect on... let's say herself. Augus goes, he probably kills Rika with his first hit. His second hit is on Yulie. It probably doesn't do as much to her because of Protect, so maybe he'll go after Arnaud? Dunno.

Next turn, Arnaud hits Juan and wakes him up. MC Tusk goes and probably attacks Yulie. I think she can survive that based on Protect. So now Yulie goes and Heals herself. Augus hits Yulie again, saves strength.

Next turn, Juan hits Augus. Arnaud casts Blast. MC Tusk hits Yulie again. She heals, again. Augus double-hits Yulie and kills her.
Next turn, Juan hits Augus. Arnaud casts Blast. MC Tusk hits Juan. Augus hits Juan twice and probably kills him.
Next turn, Arnaud Blasts again. That's three (66%) Blasts and two Juan turns. That -ought- to kill Augus. So now it's Arnaud vs. MC Tusk.

If Arnaud has been able to use Fire-based Blast, MC Tusk is probably almost dead at this point.

There are several things that I think swing this in my favor:

Illusion should mean that MC Tusk and Augus miss -something- on someone.
Slow Down means that there's probably a double turn somewhere that ought to be factored into this.
EDIT: One other thing. Yulie has Crisis Speed. That really ought to help me out in regards to her getting turns. If Chemist goes into the final fight dead, that's 1, and if Rika dies, that's 2 stacks of it.

If I missed anything please let me know, but I do think I win, albeit incredibly barely.


EDIT: If you don't see Illusion having an effect on the bosses, Rika will use Saner instead, which may let double turns come more easily in conjunction with Slow Down and Crisis Speed.

[Dhyerwolf]

I guess I don't really remember PS 4 much, but is Rika going be at the point where she's gaining levels. She's the 6th PC to join. She needs to join and gain 7 levels. Again, little memory of PS 4 (Also of note, Rune probably does unfun things to those average).

Arnaud is also in a weird average place. His damage will never look better (no Raquel?). His speed will never look worse (no Raquel) in that in may be average. If Arnaud is opting for Slow Down (which he can access when he's L7 or L8) then he doesn't get the class level and he probably is legit below average speed since we assume to equip for stats generally. NEB, where you would about say the F1 ends for PS 4/WA 4? Obviously that can make a huge difference.

Was under the impression that charge times at FF4 end were pretty mild minus just crazy stuff due to having so much of the relevant magic stats?

[ThePiggyman]

Healing Breeze is the first item shop on disc 2 is that right Piggy?

Also -

When used in battle, Charm Potion causes enemies to ignore you until 3 of your turns are passed. If you are the only person in the battle, you'll basically get 3 turns in a row.

ST. Not sure if this helps your team any but I thought it was interesting. Doesn't work on bosses in game though only randoms, I would let it work vs PC types only in the dungeon but YMMV~

Yep, the first place you can buy Healing Breezes is in Twin Castle Fletz, which is where Disc 2 starts. As for the Charm Potions, I've literally never used one, but it's an interesting thought. In theory, it could actually help my team even more, since I can use that on anyone who doesn't get Clear status from the initial Inviz Edge... but it feels cheaty. But I suppose it wouldn't be the first time something in the Dungeon has been disproportionately more useful than it is in-game.

[Nephrite]

Oh, now I understand. I've always assumed that people who join, regardless of when they join, just start "gaining experience" regardless of when they join.

I guess if, say, Nino were in, I'd see her just gaining stats like normal from Floor 1 and not being completely useless until Floor 6. I don't know if this has ever come up specifically before, but I see where you're coming from.

As for Rosa, I definitely remember Holy having a charge time. May not be that much of one, but it's there.

[Pyro]

Maybe it makes sense to have late joiners gain 1/7th of their progression every floor, where their progression is from when they join till endgame(or when they leave I guess).

Could get ugly but meh.

[Nephrite]

I just always viewed it Ancient Cave-style, except with the caveat that now people who join later who have higher stats & abilities (Orlandu) aren't removed anymore.

I know there are some that view the floors not as "gets experience here, learns blah at this point" but that they get all their experience and abilities for that "section" (1/7) from the start. That certainly makes things easier to vote on.

[Dark Holy Elf]

As always, I think the dungeon is more elegant and natural when the PCs either (a) join early in-game or (b) their performance is very easy to extrapolate backwards. Beyond that I have no real opinion on how best to deal with PCs who don't fall into either category.

Arnaud is also in a weird average place. His damage will never look better (no Raquel?). His speed will never look worse (no Raquel) in that in may be average. If Arnaud is opting for Slow Down (which he can access when he's L7 or L8) then he doesn't get the class level and he probably is legit below average speed since we assume to equip for stats generally. NEB, where you would about say the F1 ends for PS 4/WA 4? Obviously that can make a huge difference.

Yeah, Slow Down is available with an HP hit at Level 7 which is... insanely early. I think Arnaud joins at like Level 5 so yeah. (Raquel joins at 10, that one I remember for certain.)

PS4? Um. Once Rika joins she levels extremely quickly. (As in she usually gains 2 levels in her first random battle; she has a faster levelling speed than anyone else.) I would kneejerk the first seventh of the game being enough to give her Saner, though if you hand things out in sequential fights (instead of all at once on a floor) it's probably late floor 1.

[SnowFire]

If Rika gets Saner extremely quickly after she joins up, I'd definitely say that's good enough for me.  It's not the very second someone joins that matters; it's the rough vicinity thereof, allowing you to do things like buy crap for them if they came underequipped and run a single dungeon or something.

That said, still leery of voting on Team Neph, would have to research earlygame PS4 Rika myself more to figure out a more coherent view.  (PS4 is in often enough I have a pretty good idea of lategame Rika, at least, despite not playing the game...)  Also, can PS4 PCs attack themselves?  If they can, then I'd say Rika waking up Juan is pretty darn legal, it should be based on the character doing the action, not the character getting woken up.

On another note, sure, pass for Piggyman, I'll buy the hype.

[Nephrite]

To my knowledge, it is not possible to target yourself manually, but there may be a confuse status I'm forgetting that does that?

I can certainly understand not allowing it, but it seems strange to me since there's no need to ever do it in-game, but here it's a bit different.

[Dhyerwolf]

Okay, if that stuff is that early, pass for Neph (Which...btw, Rika having a shit floor 1 was kind of one of the few things keeping her in check even as a 4. Those MT buffs that last through death are kind of brutal otherwise due to the amount of stuff in dungeon that can be gotten around by buffing everyone's evade at once. The other 4s are...customizable slow starters, 1D or run into MP issues).

I guess Eiko has MT revival floor 1 then, right? Embarrasing Garnet even more.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Rika's not super-fast floor 1, nor is Saner a great evade buff floor 1, nor does it persists through death at any point (Deban does, of course). Deban isn't floor 1 for what it's worth.

[Tide]

Getting Slow Down ASAP isn't as much of a stat hit as you would think. It certainly hurts *less* than getting a single stat blocker in the DL for starters if you go that route. The reason is because early on, you don't have that many points to invest into other skills anyway. If all other party members invest in class levels, that total is going to come to one extra class level. It drops him out of 114%, but he's probably still negligibly above is my kneejerk. Also, guess I'll vote since I'm here even though I've pretty much sworn off voting

Team MICHAEL over dungeon

[superaielman]

Vote changed to team Neph.

[Random Consonant]

Neph and Snowfire pass.