Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 115

[Random Consonant]

Snowfire and Time Capsule Sage fail, Neph passes

[Pyro]

I will call team piggy s psas.

[Dhyerwolf]

Snowfire fails, Yoshi passes (kudos on dungeon breaking defensive combos, now prepare to have all subsequent floors upped to match!)

[Pyro]

I think NEB raises a point about Vanish being undone by Delta Shield.

It's good but it's not breakingly so? Honestly I felt his blitzing power was much better than trying for the defensive gimmick in a few fights.

[Dhyerwolf]

Advantage of Delta Shield activating before Vanish is that he'll at least generally get one turn with both up. An enemy will need both damage types as well as to just generally live for a while. It works.

[Nephrite]

It's much more of a function of the MT Sealstone, which I think I will just be removing.

[Dhyerwolf]

Hmm, I'd rather it be tweaked than removed personally (I did  note to a few people at con that obviously is was getting a lot of play. Felt like it was initially designed to play with damage and healing spreading. Thinking on it now, has no one run some strong mass revival setup?)

The obvious suggestion would be make the penalty 50% instead of 66%. Or make the penalty different for non damage moves since it still getting better use with someone like Ted or Kyogre would still be notable.

[Nephrite]

I'll ruminate on it, but that's not a bad idea.

[dude789]

I think the simplest solution would just be to change it so it doesn't affect buffs and debuffs that don't have an explicit stat or numeric change attached to them. For example a pokemon 2 stage buff like Barrier or Sword's Dance can be MTed because it's easy to calculate that it boosts everyone's attack by 66% instead of one person's by 100%. Skills like Vanish or Reflect however would be unable to be MTed.

[Pyro]

Vanish should be reduction by 2/3rds since, it is 100% reduction to start with. Still cancelled by magic.

[SnowFire]

Vanish is a case where it's a on-or-off status, so I'd definitely say that MT'd Vanish has a 66% chance of hitting every target and being normal Vanish or else doing nothing for that target.  (I was assuming the same for Yuna's Auto-Life as well.)

Was going to roll out my own fate once I got back from vacation (e.g. now) but looks like people finally chipped in some fail votes anyway, so maybe not much point!  Maybe I'll do it for fun anyway.

[Nephrite]

No, I'd really see it as being a 66% chance to have 66% physical damage evasion. It really needs to double dip.

[Dark Holy Elf]

From the point of view of making it easier to analyse matches, "66% physical damage reduction" is a heck of a lot easier to handle than "66% chance for Vanish to hit in the first place" (or the other possibility, 66% chance to dodge physicals"). On the other hand, the way damage reduction works, 66% physical damage reduction is far more than 2/3 as good as "100% damage reduction" since in most matches you accomplish the same thing: the enemy will use magic next turn since why bother with physicals? So arguably going with the status hit rate version (or perhaps even the chance to dodge version) makes more sense.

I'd disagree with hitting it twice, whatever you do. Hitting it with two 66% effects leaves it at 44% normal effectiveness, which is a far bigger hit than other things receive. Then again I'm generally opposed to anything which nerfs status and buffs more than it does damage.

[SnowFire]

Vanish is clearly a status to me, not a bizarre set of buffs.  So it should get the normal MT Sealstone stauts rules.  (Which  actually makes Vanish weaker, it means that if Piggyman's matches entirely rely on getting Vanish up, he's eating a 10-40% chance each match of Vanish hitting the wrong people, or not enough people, or whatever.)

Team Piggyman & MICHAEL pass.  Team Sage fails.

I rolled up my Dungeon team's match in #NyarlieDungeon, and I'm voting fail for my team.  Good times, though.  If the bored want to see the IRC log:


[18:38] <SnowFire> Anyone mind if I spam up this chat?  It's normally pretty quiet anyway.
[18:40] <@Nephrite> Yes.
[18:40] <@Nephrite> (go ahead)
[18:42] <SnowFire> Right.  Well, just going to roll up my own personal fate to see if my team gets lucky and gets its ~35% chance of victory or whatever for my own personal vote.
[18:42] <SnowFire> (I've done this before some other people's teams, of course.  If it's borderline, sometimes just roll the dice and see.)
[18:43] <SnowFire> Anyway, I think that rather than aim for Yuna and go for the instant win, I think I'll have the BoF2 team focus on Stocke first.  They still pretty much win outright if Yuna's Auto-Life misses her.
[18:43] <SnowFire> (and Stocke is the only other source of revival)
[18:44] <SnowFire> And no bot around, so Python shell it is.  Anyway, Deis IDs Stocke...
[18:44] <SnowFire> random.randint(1,100)
[18:44] <SnowFire> 99
[18:44] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well, I can only speak for myself but Auto-Life probably ends up as aftergame to me if I see it as legal at all.
[18:44] <SnowFire> Yeah, that's the other reason I leaned fail for my team.
[18:45] <SnowFire> I probably do give Yuna Auto-Life, but the team requires a number of judgment calls to even have a shot.
[18:45] <RandomKesaranPasaran> I avoided that floor for my team for a reason
[18:45] <SnowFire> Hrmm.  I probably should have declared whether high was good or bad first.  Certainly easier to have 80% chance be "roll under this."
[18:45] <SnowFire> Yeah, as I noted, for hte most part my team roflstomps the boss floor.
[18:46] <SnowFire> Except the Wizard of Oz bosses, which as best I can tell, since Neph said they *each* get their double acts before, you really need the right status blocking to stand a chance against.
[18:46] <SnowFire> anyway, rolling against, but low declared to be good, high bad for status hit rates.
[18:46] <SnowFire> random.randint(1,100)
[18:46] <SnowFire> 21
[18:47] <SnowFire> Okay, so Stocke is dead.
[18:47] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well F8 would've been death by Team PS4 anyways
[18:47] <SnowFire> Heh.
[18:47] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Because Neph loves that setup so.
[18:47] <SnowFire> Katt...  does her best damage on...  Hawk I guess?  Arnaud & Yuna have evade, Elincia has counters.
[18:48] <SnowFire> Sten does something.
[18:48] <SnowFire> Yuna casts Auto-Life, because it's a loss if she isn't allowed it anyway.
[18:49] <SnowFire> Since Auto-Life feels cheesy if it just means everyone revives with 66% normal HP (for all that that's how Life itself works), it's a status...
[18:50] <SnowFire> Elincia: 47 (hit) Yuna: 27 (hit) Arnaud: 4 (hit) Hawk: 2 (hit)
[18:50] <SnowFire> Okay, lucked out.
[18:51] <SnowFire> Arnaud casts Hyper on Elincia.  Hawk uses either the MT attack-down Jutsu or the MT Magic / MDef down Jutsu, depending on the main source of damage...  probably the physical attack-down.
[18:51] <SnowFire> Since the mages are spamming Death.
[18:52] <SnowFire> No point in Bow using Shot on Yuna with subtractive ID resistance, so he uses Shot on...  Elincia I guess?
[18:53] <SnowFire> I wonder if Shot's formula is similar to Death's and is resisted by absolute MDef?
[18:53] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Assuming you do go in for the death blocker at any rate
[18:53] <SnowFire> Well, Yuna not equipping Death resistance is suicide.
[18:54] <SnowFire> Even if an interp forces her to give up her Phantom Ring for it.
[18:54] <RandomKesaranPasaran> IIRC Shot is a flat 50% chance.
[18:54] <SnowFire> Yeah, I think so too.
[18:54] <SnowFire> Stat topic certianly makes it sound that way.
[18:54] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well the issue is you need a bunch of steals to get Deathward
[18:54] <SnowFire> So, Shot on Elincia...
[18:54] <SnowFire> random.randint(1,100)
[18:54] <SnowFire> 46
[18:54] <RandomKesaranPasaran> so not everyone sees it as legal in the first place
[18:55] <RandomKesaranPasaran> I agree that it's a total nobrainer to equip here if you allow it
[18:55] <SnowFire> Yeah.  I'm assuming all the calls go for my team to even bother rolling it out.
[18:55] <SnowFire> Since it's just a flat fail otherwise.
[18:55] <SnowFire> Elf indicated that it's " All are available BOTH as common drops AND through customisation using stolen items."
[18:55] <RandomKesaranPasaran> indeed
[18:56] <SnowFire> Since I'm generally pretty lenient with status blockers, sounds good to me, although I agree that in general I frown upon equips that must be stolen / dropped.
[18:56] <SnowFire> It probably helps that I'm sure that doing the Calm Lands capture a bunch of shit quest tends to give you a zillion of these items as well.
[18:56] <RandomKesaranPasaran> I'm not really sure how I feel about as a universal thing.
[18:57] <SnowFire> Anyway, Shot hits!  46/100.  But Elincia just auto-revives.  And even keeps her Hyper, arguably?!
[18:57] <RandomKesaranPasaran> well isn't hyper a hex status
[18:57] <SnowFire> Pretty sure there's something in WA4 that grants an auto-revive effect, and you just stay in the same hex if so.
[18:58] <SnowFire> Goat doll or whatever.
[18:59] <SnowFire> Hmm.  Arguably I should have waited anyway, since checking, Bow has perfectly average Vigor, and Elincia's excellent move should mean she'd go first anyway.
[18:59] <SnowFire> Anyway, Hyper'd Elincia splats Nina2 even through the damage-halving of the floor.  Then she revives.
[19:00] <SnowFire> Meanwhile, Spar has Ag-Down to halve enemy speed, but "unsure of hit rate."  Right, tossing that move in the garbage pile then.
[19:00] <@Nephrite> Maybe this will be a good time to bring up ideas on what can be done to balance the MT sealstone once you're done.
[19:01] <SnowFire> The MT sealstone was too weak when it was a 50% drop, I think.  Nobody used it then.
[19:01] <SnowFire> Piggyman just came up with a clever and creative way to break it.  I think the sealstone is fine.
[19:01] <SnowFire> Just that kind of defensive shenanigan is an edge case that does break it.  A little bit of that is fine.  (See also: Don't attempt to balance Firefly around Worker 8 using it.)
[19:02] <SnowFire> Also, already commented on the stat topic, but Vanish status isn't "100% damage reduction + 0% Mevade" to me, it's a specific weird status like instant death, which is not 100% HP removal.
[19:02] <SnowFire> So even though it makes analysis tricky, I'd definitely have it be a 67% chance per of hitting.
[19:04] <SnowFire> Anyway, backing up, due to the floor gimmick, I think Sten & Spar actually should just use Atk-Up buffs rahter than attack the first turn.
[19:05] <SnowFire> Since Spar can't even kill 25% HP Elincia.  Sad.
[19:05] <RandomKesaranPasaran> well when it was a 50% drop it was pretty bad unless you had something where it was specificially abuseable, now it's okay for more people but probably too good on the people for whom it was useable for before
[19:05] <RandomKesaranPasaran> sort of a Speed? Raja situation
[19:06] <SnowFire> anyway, Jean's turn.  More ID time.  This one will be aimed at Yuna, Auto-Life be damned.
[19:06] <SnowFire> random.randint(1,100)
[19:06] <SnowFire> 1
[19:06] <SnowFire> Hit!  By a lot!  Okay, Yuna's AUto-Life is busted.
[19:09] <SnowFire> No idea what Rand should do.  He can do horrible earth damage to tink Yuna a little, or he can buff his attack.
[19:09] <SnowFire> I'll come back to that.
[19:09] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Rand can pretend to be relevent.
[19:09] <RandomKesaranPasaran> By uh reviving someone maybe?
[19:10] <SnowFire> Oh good point.  He can revive Nina.
[19:10] <SnowFire> The stat topic didn't list his revival moves, so I forgot about 'em.
[19:11] <SnowFire> That said, it's gg anyway once Jean's death hit.
[19:11] <SnowFire> Rather than try death again, Deis2 just blasts Yuna with BoltX.  She did just get auto-revived after all and has 25% health.
[19:12] <SnowFire> And the damage-halving goes away on turn 2.
[19:12] <SnowFire> Although...  there is still Hawk's jutsus...  hmm.
[19:12] <SnowFire> And wait, did Phantom Ring get Lightning?  If Yuna's allowed to graft Deathward onto it?
[19:12] <SnowFire> Hmm, Yuna's Phantom Ring does get Lightning.
[19:12] <RandomKesaranPasaran> I don't think it has any blank slots
[19:13] <SnowFire> It does.
[19:13] <SnowFire> (Lulu's does not.)
[19:13] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Go figure
[19:13] <SnowFire> BUT it's a one-way trip, so its legality is questionable.
[19:13] *** Glen (~chatzilla@c-71-225-105-15.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) joined
[19:14] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well if we assume that the question is does Deis have some other way around that
[19:14] <SnowFire> Anyway, Deis can fall back to Missile, which is apparently Wind elemental...
[19:14] <SnowFire> But it only does averageish damage if not criticalling.
[19:15] <SnowFire> But the chance of a critical is better than the chance of ID connecting, so she does it anwyay.
[19:15] <SnowFire> It's ~.38 damage or so, so call it ~.19 damage post Hawk Jutsu.
[19:16] <SnowFire> Yun has .86 PCHP at max, so .215 PCHP now.
[19:16] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Yeah if she didn't get debuffed Yuna is probably back down to dead even without a crit
[19:16] <SnowFire> So... she baaaaaaaaaarely survives.  If we grant the Phantom Ring nonsense.
[19:16] <SnowFire> (she doesn't against BoltX)
[19:16] <SnowFire> ANd of course, if the crit misses, Katt can just try and murder Yuna through her evade as well.
[19:17] <SnowFire> Anyway, roll for deis crit....  73.  Misses.
[19:18] *** Nephrite changed nick to Morrie
[19:18] <SnowFire> (but Yuna at the brink of death now).  As for Katt...  hmm.  She can also try to OHKO Elincia, which would put the offense of the team into a total freeze.
[19:21] <SnowFire> Elincia's evasion is pretty darn good, though.  Remind me how much respect 53 "raw evasion" should get in your stat topic, Random?
[19:21] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Coinflip
[19:21] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Slightly biased in Elincia's favor
[19:22] <SnowFire> Okay, so raw = run with it.  Got it.  (Sometimes raw is code for "if facing a 0 accuracy enemy" or the like.)
[19:22] <SnowFire> Right, roll for Katt to hit Yuna then...  ends the fight more decisively and all...
[19:23] <SnowFire> 100, misses horribly.
[19:23] <SnowFire> Okay, so Yuna's turn.  Um.  Probably she just needs to recast Auto-Life.  There's more ID coming up, so healing Elincia & herself seems a bad idea.
[19:24] <SnowFire> Both Elincia & Yuna are hit (3, 2).  So yay.
[19:25] <SnowFire> Sten murders Elincia with Wind magic, triggering auto-life.
[19:26] <SnowFire> Arnaud...  hmm, Illusion or Slow Down.  Let's go with Slow Down on Jean, which should render his turns laughably rare.
[19:27] <SnowFire> Hawk uses his other MT-jutsu, whichever attack debuff he didn't use before.  So both Magic, Attack, &MDef are all debuffed.
[19:27] <SnowFire> And gets in some light damage.
[19:27] <SnowFire> Elincia kills Nina2.  Again.
[19:28] <RandomKesaranPasaran> And yeah I used raw as code for I am too lazy to crunch what it actually translates into
[19:28] <SnowFire> Bow...  shoots Yuna?  On second thought, now that I look at how it works, it feels more like "50% chance of 100% ID, or 50% chance of 1 damage."  Or he can murder Elincia, perhaps.
[19:30] <SnowFire> On second thought, no point in going for Yuna, she'll die to the next magic poke.
[19:30] <SnowFire> And actually, curses, the BoF2 stat topic is one of those ones that doesn't mention what is MT and what isn't.
[19:31] <SnowFire> So she can probably be swept in some MT damage.
[19:33] <SnowFire> Hmm...  yeah, Missile is MT.
[19:33] <SnowFire> So w hen Sten used Missile, he murdered not just Elincia, but Yuna as well, even through the magic debuff.
[19:34] <SnowFire> So they both hit Auto-Life.
[19:35] <SnowFire> And actually...  bah.
[19:35] <SnowFire> This meant that I have to rewind time, because when Deis2 used Missile, she killed Elincia then, too.
[19:35] <SnowFire> And she wasn't even around to be Auto-Lifed.
[19:35] <SnowFire> Hmm.  I think that's just gg.
[19:36] <SnowFire> Yuna MUST cast Auto-Life lest she die (and she does have a double coming up soon on round 3 or thereabouts), or heal herself or something, but without Elincia applying pressure...  blah.  She could also cast Life and hope that Stocke survives & revives her?
[19:38] <SnowFire> Let's go with that.  Top of round 2, Deis casts Missile, Katt attacks and whiffs Yuna, Yuna casts MT'd Full-Life, reviving Elincia & STocke at 67% HP each.
[19:38] <SnowFire> Arnaud & Hawk have Auto-Life up, nobody else does, Elincia has Hyper up.
[19:39] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Houston, we have a problem, Full-Life is in Rikku's section.  For whatever reason.
[19:39] <RandomKesaranPasaran> (I know)
[19:39] <RandomKesaranPasaran> (It's weird)
[19:39] <SnowFire> Off to GFAQS!
[19:40] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well.
[19:40] <RandomKesaranPasaran> http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/20045
[19:40] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Not exactly but close enough
[19:41] <SnowFire> Weird.  Seems pretty clear Yuna is expected to wade through that bit once she's picked up Holy, and Rikku herself will go north to get Mug and likely won't have a L4 lock ready at the time.
[19:41] <SnowFire> BUT it clearly is in fact in Rikku's section so uh.
[19:42] <SnowFire> For F7, I think I'm going to give that to myself, since I've usually considered F7 to be "final dungeon + early aftergamey sidequests" (e.g. I'd see Dark Seraphim as legal for Yuri on F7).
[19:42] <SnowFire> But uh yeah.  Fun times.
[19:42] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well, I've said all I care to on that issue, you and whoever else can have all the fun you want arguing that.
[19:42] <SnowFire> I think I can safely say that at least for this rolled-out scenario, I suspect the enemy team easily MT-sweeps if Full-Life is disallowed.
[19:42] <SnowFire> Yeah.
[19:44] <SnowFire> Anyway, Arnaud Slow Downs Jean as before, Sten casts Missile again which kills the .02 PCHP Yuna and horribly weakens Elincia despite her great RES & the magic debuff.
[19:44] <SnowFire> Suppose I should roll for crit as well...  27, no.
[19:45] <SnowFire> Hawk uses his PDef down Jutsu.
[19:45] <SnowFire> No idea what to make of Elincia's initiative, she technically was only revived on Yuna's turn, but Yuna's fairly fast...
[19:46] <SnowFire> (as in, building up for a double fast) so she might still outrace bow here.
[19:46] <SnowFire> Eh, just flip a coin.  low = Bow wins.
[19:46] <SnowFire> Elincia wins the init-off.
[19:47] <SnowFire> (Stocke's initiative seems clearly worse to me despite being "faster", as a side note.)
[19:47] <SnowFire> Elincia probably needs to just heal Stocke because STocke dying is horribad.
[19:47] <SnowFire> Bow uses ID on Stocke....
[19:48] <SnowFire> and misses.  1 damage.  (79)
[19:48] <SnowFire> Nina2 lived because Elincia had to heal...  hrmm.  Actually maybe Elincia should have killed Nina2 anyway.
[19:49] <SnowFire> Yeah, let's run with that.  Okay, so Bow..  can revive Nina2 (maybe), do bad damage to a weakened Stocke, or try the ID again anyway.
[19:50] <SnowFire> The ID is the best, I think, so sure, he does that.  And misses as above.
[19:51] <SnowFire> Stocke revives Yuna.
[19:51] <SnowFire> Spare uses Missile, killing Elincia, and possibly killing Stocke as well, since he wasn't healed?  Let's see.
[19:51] <SnowFire> (Also an argument that Spar went before Stocke anyway)
[19:52] <SnowFire> Wait, Spar doesn't have Missile.
[19:52] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Sounds right
[19:53] <SnowFire> Spar might just attack Stocke.  He did buff his own Attack on turn 1.
[19:53] <SnowFire> Rand revives Nina2.  Again.
[19:54] <SnowFire> (Jean's turn is kicked somewhere into the middle of Round 3 due to Slow Down).
[19:54] <SnowFire> Now, who goes first, Deis or Yuna.  Not sure how much doubling hype I'm up for giving Yuna since she did technically die for awhile and RH revival is a bit laggy.
[19:54] <RandomKesaranPasaran> A bit.
[19:54] <SnowFire> So let's say Deis.  She uses Missile, finishing off STocke & Elincia for sure, and getting some damage on Yuna.
[19:55] <SnowFire> Katt takes another swing at Yuna FTW.
[19:55] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Also the disclaimer that Deis2 is just shy of +1.5 SD
[19:56] <RandomKesaranPasaran> So.
[19:56] <SnowFire> 34...   vs. 68% evasion...  misses by 2% points.
[19:57] <SnowFire> Arnaud...  uses Slow Down on Deis?  Less effective, but only way to ever start climbing back into this.
[19:57] <SnowFire> Sten uses his own Missile, so Yuna's eaten 2x Missiles since being revived at 70% health...  okay, she's probably still alive.
[19:58] <RandomKesaranPasaran> Well yeah, Deis outspeeding everyone is not where you want to be.
[19:58] <SnowFire> (.60 PCHP, the half-damage Missiles are .20 PCHP each or so.)
[19:58] <SnowFire> Although I should roll for crit again.  And for Deis's as well.
[19:58] <SnowFire> Since Deis's crit rate is way higher.
[19:58] <SnowFire> Deis crits, Sten doesn't.
[20:01] <SnowFire> Bleh.  What were BoF2 critical mechanics?
[20:02] <RandomKesaranPasaran> doubles damage, I believe
[20:02] <SnowFire> I think so too, just trying to confirm.
[20:02] <SnowFire> Since obviously in this case there's a big difference between "roughly doubles damage" and "actually doubles damage."
[20:03] <SnowFire> anyway, Yuna might still have her turn come before Sten's to do something...
[20:04] <SnowFire> ...but I think I've had my fun.  Since the BoF2 team has no way to get rid of Slow Down short of moving out of it, if my team somehow survives long enough, they actually do win.
[20:04] <SnowFire> But I'm willing to just give it to the enemy team, I've already been fairly generous in giving judgment calls to my team, so yeah.
[20:04] <SnowFire> Yuna gets wiped out before she can revive Stocke, the end.