RPGDL 2012 Season 2, Week 1: Mostly Suikoden, some Fire Emblem

[MalcolmMasher]

Heavy
Gau (Final Fantasy VI) vs Jeremy Non (Wild ARMs 4) - Jeremy 4 can KO with a quadruple Wild Savate, so Gau has a ~75% chance to get one turn and a ~50% chance to win with it. Nope!

Middle
Canas (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword) vs Kahn (Breath of Fire IV) - Tonight, Kahn swims with the dolphins while Canas sleeps with the fishes.

Light
Shana (Legend of Dragoon) vs Riki (SaGa Frontier)

[Dhyerwolf]

Godlike

Loki (Valkyrie Profile) vs Atma Weapon (Final Fantasy VI)- Gut
Jessica (Dragon Quest VIII) vs Citan Uzuki (Xenogears)
Riou (Suikoden II) vs GenocideHeart (SaGa Frontier)- Hell no at the even more insulting version of Jenna.

Heavy

Gau (Final Fantasy VI) vs Jeremy Non (Wild ARMs 4)
Mia (Fire Emblem Series) vs Wugui (Shadow Hearts)
Vigoro (Skies of Arcadia) vs Kiryl (Dragon Quest IV)
Crono (Crono Trigger) vs Garan (Shadow Hearts: Covenant)- Crono has like a borderline 4HKO to me here...

Middle

Hellion (Suikoden) vs Albel Nox (Star Ocean: Till the End of Time)
Neimi (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones) vs Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4)- Sukukaja also means that Neimi's evasion won't be that good, and she probably 4HKOs at base (counting in an extra attack for the auto revive)
Tear Grants (Tales of the Abyss) vs Rudy Roughknight (Wild ARMs)
Canas (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword) vs Kahn (Breath of Fire IV)

Light

Franz (Suikoden III) vs Gorudo (Suikoden II)
Shana (Legend of Dragoon) vs Riki (SaGa Frontier)
Joker (Suikoden III) vs Solt (Chrono Cross)

[Dark Holy Elf]

GenocideHeart has less "guaranteed" damage than Jenna if you block lightning! ... way more if you don't, though.

Granted, I'm pretty sure I take HP buffering at some sort of limited effect. It's worth some respect since you definitely lose damage to each buffer, but I definitely see people with good offence skipping some of the shifts. I think I let damage which overkills past a certain point through the buffer, but I haven't decided exactly how yet. This isn't enough to let Riou win, but it will probably give good Godlikes an actual shot.

[ThePiggyman]

Godlike

Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) vs Luca Blight (Suikoden II) - Dheginsea's got the durability.

Heavy

Vigoro (Skies of Arcadia) vs Kiryl (Dragon Quest IV) - Vigoro's not in his element here.

Middle

Canas (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword) vs Kahn (Breath of Fire IV) - Canas can outpace.

Light

Franz (Suikoden III) vs Gorudo (Suikoden II) - Better Suikoscrub.
Joker (Suikoden III) vs Solt (Chrono Cross) - Not Solt.

[Clear Tranquil]

Godlike

Loki (Valkyrie Profile) vs Atma Weapon (Final Fantasy VI)

Heavy

Gau (Final Fantasy VI) vs Jeremy Non (Wild ARMs 4)
Crono (Crono Trigger) vs Garan (Shadow Hearts: Covenant)


Light

Shana (Legend of Dragoon) vs Riki (SaGa Frontier)

Yaay Lucia! *dances*~

[Twilkitri]

Godlike

Heavy

Vigoro (Skies of Arcadia) vs Kiryl (Dragon Quest IV)

Middle

Neimi (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones) vs Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4)
Canas (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword) vs Kahn (Breath of Fire IV)

Light

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Loki (Valkyrie Profile) vs Atma Weapon (Final Fantasy VI)- Kneejerk, seems pretty close.
Jessica (Dragon Quest VIII) vs Citan Uzuki (Xenogears)- I'm inclined to take Fire Shield fairly literally considering how similar DQ damage is to XG HPs.  And it doesn't matter, he still lives through a peak-MP Magic Burst with it up.  And that assumes a Staff on jess, meaning she can't really do much else to him after except suck and die.
Riou (Suikoden II) vs GenocideHeart (SaGa Frontier)- Hum.  Probably shouldn't vote on final bosses I didn't see hey.
Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn) vs Luca Blight (Suikoden II)- Same basic game, tend to think Luca's staggered damage if nothing else gives Dheggy the edge (ie Dheggy gets his third turn before Luca finishes his.)

Heavy

Gau (Final Fantasy VI) vs Jeremy Non (Wild ARMs 4)
Mia (Fire Emblem Series) vs Wugui (Shadow Hearts)
Vigoro (Skies of Arcadia) vs Kiryl (Dragon Quest IV)
Crono (Crono Trigger) vs Garan (Shadow Hearts: Covenant)- Math was pretty clear, Garan has to be under 85% PCHP to die first, I think I kneejerk him more like 90%.

Middle

Hellion (Suikoden) vs Albel Nox (Star Ocean: Till the End of Time)- man I should totally stop accepting noms from non-Nel SO3ers.  I know so little about this game!
Neimi (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones) vs Yosuke Hanamura (Persona 4)
Tear Grants (Tales of the Abyss) vs Rudy Roughknight (Wild ARMs)- Tear gives him plenty of time to build to a OHKO.
Canas (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword) vs Kahn (Breath of Fire IV)- If memory serves Canas ends up doubled by average with Nos on, on top of everything else.  And he ain't doing much without Nos on.

Light

Franz (Suikoden III) vs Gorudo (Suikoden II)
Shana (Legend of Dragoon) vs Riki (SaGa Frontier)- Well if Riki is one thing it's a healer with HP.  (If Riki is two things... he's probably not two things)
Joker (Suikoden III) vs Solt (Chrono Cross)
Lucia (Shadow Hearts: Covenant) vs Leonardo (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)

Update will probably be in 8 or so hours.

[SnowFire]

CK, if you take Fire Shield literally, then it's subtractive defense of .20 PCHP.  Citan is 1.2 PCHP.  Magic Burst is 1.5-1.6 PCHP, depending.  Jessica has some room to spare on bad interps.  (Heck I think even the inconsistent stat topic figures w/ lvl.65 Guv vs. lvl. 40 everyone else give Magic Burst at 1.4 PCHP, so.)

Of course there's excellent reason to not take Fire Shield literally, since as DHE noted DQ elements do not really deserve respect from a holistic standpoint, and subtractive defense often results in wacky things (for example, if the fire shield was 200 HP absorption and you used DHE's suggestion of percentage scaling vs. average damage, it's suddenly perfect fire nulling!  Yeah, subtractive can get weird.)  So no complaints about a Citan vote, just that doesn't involve "literal" Fire Shield hype.

[Dark Holy Elf]

To be quite honest, 1.5-1.6 PCHP sounds like a bit of an overestimate for Magic Burst. DQ8 damage averages are a bit of a mess, and while I'm open to not holding Dragon Soul or Gigagash against Jessica, I'm certainly going to hold Magic Burst itself against her. Take the following 3-turn average:

Jessica: 384 (Kafrizzle x2, Magic Burst)
Guv: 176 (Gigaslash)
Yangus: 169 (Big Banga x2, Stainless Steel Sickle)
Angelo: 140 (Kaswoosh)

Average: 217
Kill point: 543

This puts Magic Burst at about 1.37 PCHP, which feels a bit more reasonable.

One could also allow weapon switching (I don't), which raises the damage done by Jessica and makes the average 228.


EDIT: While I'm at it, on the subject of Dragon Soul, here's the Level 65 averages!

Jessica: 649 (Twin Dragon Lash 466 x2, Magic Burst 1016)
Guv: 413 (Dragon Soul)
Yangus: 350 (Big Banga)
Angelo: 195 (Pearly Gates)

Average: 402
Kill point: 1005

That's whip Magic Burst for the record since TDL has gained so much damage. Maxed Magic Burst now does 1228, and hence is only 1.22 PCHP. Feel free to point and laugh at Dragon Soul, which is barely above average and misses the 2HKO even if you remove Magic Burst from the average!

EDIT yet again: the above figures assume you are holding the Level 65 PCs against the same average defence as the level 40 PCs. If you don't, the figure for TDL drops. If you're curious, the -max- the average would drop by is to 386 (with Kafrizzle and a staff in place of TDL and a whip), and hence the kill point to 954, which isn't a huge change.

[Cmdr_King]

Snowfire: I take the Dragon Soul L40 average.  Kill point was like 550 damage I think?  Little higher?  And unless I missed something Jess can only get her MP up to 373, so 746 damage.  Which when you lop around 100 damage off is enough for Citan to live.

[Pyro]

One-shot moves that leave you with no resources to fight with after using them are typically ignored in the DL from what I've traditionally seen. That kind of average feels like it is unnecessarily harsh to DQ8 compared to other games. (Raises the damage average by like 140 at L65). Call Team... I dunno how to even think about that <_<

Isn't it kind of silly to assume that Guv has Dragon Soul but that everyone is level 40? It completely ignores the stats/equip situation surrounding it and messes with the damage average...

Anyways none of this should matter. Citan's Fire Shield is +100 Fire Defense basically. If you scale subtraction defense you should be scaling Citan's fire shield move. And there are very good reasons to scale subtractive defense.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you want to argue it's too harsh to Angelo, Yangus, and Guv, I'm all ears. I'm somewhat less sympathetic to arguments it is too harsh to Jessica, though.

[Cmdr_King]

Isn't it kind of silly to assume that Guv has Dragon Soul but that everyone is level 40? It completely ignores the stats/equip situation surrounding it and messes with the damage average...

*shrug* It's an abstraction.  I've been using it for years.  I don't see a compelling reason to change it, because allowing people their full skillset is highly desirable to me while inflated levels are not.

[SnowFire]

DHE, fair enough, using that 3-turn damage average would nerf Magic Burst vs. literal Fire Shield just barely enough looks like.

Amusingly enough, just as a random thought experiment which is probably what I'd do in a computer program but not worth calculating most of the time might be to combine subtractive & percentage based so that it works as it does in-game vs. average damage.  So....  25% reduction followed by .10 PCHP subtraction (which means .40 PCHP average fire damage heads to .20 PCHP damage, just like 50% reduction or .20 PCHP subtraction).  At that point Magic Burst does ~1.05 PCHP damage against the fire shield...  which means Citan is at a survival check or so if Jessica tenses up once before bursting.  So yeah, definitely a fight where flipping a coin is totally cool, I like both duelers.

CK, I'm just really strongly against that DQ8 interpretation, far more so than DHE's proposed views which also nerf the DQ8 damage average.  If you want to use a consistent lvl. 65 average for everyone that's fine.  But damage figures at lvl. 40 for some, and lvl. 65 for someone else is just right out.  I talked with OK about it at the time, and he verified that the non-Dragon Soul figures are from lvl. 40.  If there was such thing as a "lvl. 40 Dragon Soul" scaled down to compare them against then maaaaaaaaaaaybe but there isn't.  The best comparison I can come up with is imagine if, ignoring the fact that FF6 has a 9999 damage cap & Esper learning, you think that Ultima / Meteor are legal for Celes / Terra....  and thus decide to stick lvl. 98 Celes's Meteor in the damage averages because hey she must be that level to cast it.  That's pretty ridiculous to the rest of the cast and would be even more so if the damage cap didn't kick in for lvl. 99 Terra's Ultima.  (Luckily for FF6 Espers exist so it's quite easy to have an actual lvl. 40 Meteor to compare against, but that's not how DQ8 rolls; lvl. 40 Dragon Soul does 0 damage because you can't use it.)

[Cmdr_King]

... it's not "Guv is L65, everyone else sucks".  It's "You hack the game to give L40 Guv Dragon Soul".  If the listed damage doesn't reflect that then that's an issue, yes.

Unless the game has been hacked for just that and it demonstrably does 0 damage for some reason (say the spell forumla uses level with a 65 baseline that creates a 0 in the formula at lower levels), I'm not really going to adjust my numbers here.