Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 121

[Dark Holy Elf]

There is no way Gale is a 2x speed boost. SH speed boosts aren't that potent, or my goofy challenge runs would be much easier (and bosses with Gale would be impossible).

Aruhamel's special ability isn't random in what it targets; it attacks the most recently learned move. Which uh at this point is very likely her MT healing move? I forget her exact progression. Regardless it gets 2 things on average (at least 2, 67% of the time), and I'd be stunned if it isn't one of her two most recently learned moves.

[Pyro]

I was going off Dhyer's topic, and I remembered SH2 Gale being really good, although without a number to go by.

Agility (Effective Speed)
(Jutendouji, For Everyone'd Fusions- 99 (210%))
(T. Ring Galed Lucia- 94 (195%))

Aruhamel's ability is special in that it targets from the BoF2 magic list. I could see that being Crest magic instead of her Magic Arts, although this gets things like Ryu2's dragons in-game. It's a bit of a bone considering Aruhamel's kind of a headache in a team boss fight anyway.

Granted the team is kind of screwed without it on account of MT damage spam, and it looks like they get boned by the WAACF fight regardless thanks to two team moves that are forgettable in a duel.

Probably have to change my vote to Fail, anyway.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It targets things from the only BoF2 ability list there is, so I certainly wouldn't exclude anything from that just because it happens to be "special" instead of "magic" or whatever. It, without exception, goes after recently learned skills, and as you acknowledged this even includes dragon summons. The only things which are potentially immune to it are things the PC has literally always had, like Shot or Will or Attack or such.

I mean I guess you could argue Hilda unequips and re-equips her crests to make them the most recently learned but meh that -really- misses the flavour of the move IMO.

[Pyro]

The flavor of the move in-game is also "Penalty ends when Aruhamel dies" and "Items are still a go for every single PC". Not sure why it's stipulated that it lasts the remainder of the battle? Also probably doesn't matter since Full Bloom is needed turn 1, and it's the last move Hilda learns. No way Raquel kills Aruhamel in a hit without a crit, so no way to stop the MT ability erasure. I'd totally buy screwing around with ability lists to mess with what it targets, just to make it less obnoxious in this format.

But I don't think it matters here since the ACF fight ganks the team.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah, my mistake in this topic. I forgot that SH 2 speed is relatively linear until it gets really high and then goes off the charts (As you can see by T-Ring having that much effect for Lucia). Been messing around with SH 3 lately for topic stuff, so I forgot that they calced high speed a bit differently. Sorry about that. Still need to run some numbers playing around with Boomerang.

(Note that for NEB, if your challenge runs were SH 3, the effect would not be as potent, because the speeds are lower and they changed the impact of speed a little. I have those numbers around somewhere too. Also, Killer's Gale is 25%, which obviously is another factor in the difference).

[Random Consonant]

Yeah SH3 Gale kind of less good than SH2 Gale, 25/30/36 as opposed to 30/36/43.

But hey, if I eat it to the ACF fight anyways, I eat it to the ACF fight, fail for myself.  So it goes.

[SnowFire]

Whoa, wait, where's this 95% MT coming from, Pyro?  Hilda blows a turn on Full Bloom, so Burst Break isn't so crazy.  Of course Alhazad +Harken's NORMAL MT is like 80% MT damage, but that won't kill anyone...  unless Harken is seen as getting an instant 3:2 or something, which is hype I'm not down for.  If Boomerang cancels Yuri's turn, that also means Raquel cna start going on a killing spree and arguably off Berserk before his 2nd turn anyway, even if she has to spend a turn softening up Berserk for Raynie.

To go back to Dhyer's list:
Harken>Raquel>Boomerang>Chemist>Yuri~Raynie>Hilda>Berserk~Alhazad
Harken: MT.  Raquel: Hit Berserk.  Boomerang: Cancel Yuri.  Chemist: lol.  Raynie: Zap Berserk.  Hilda: Heal.  Alhazad: MT.  Rapid-Attack Raquel: Hit Boomerang.  Harken: Burst Break, but that's only ~55% MT.  Boomerang: Cancel Hilda (more important than Yuri I think).  Chemist: Heal Hilda.  Yuri: Something.  Raynie: Zap Boomerang.  Rapid-attack Raquel: Dragon Edge Boomerang, prolly dead.  Alhazad: MT, which may kill some people due to Hilda's turn getting cancelled, but not enough, I don't think, especially with Chemist AP and Raquel Dragon Edge.

The BoF2 fight doesn't look so bad either.  I DEFINITELY wouldn't see Amnesia wearing off as soon as Aruhamel dies, that's clearly a battle-end thing to me, but Kuwadora threatens what exactly?  He can't OHKO Yuri or Raquel or Curvy Hilda, which are the key targets.  Killing Chemist doesn't get the BoF2 team very far.  I'm leaning pass, actually.

[Pyro]

Alhazad- .71 PC HP, slow, 3x from Earth, arguably starts with immunity to ST damage (not...all that big a deal here), 38% MT Magic, Arguable MT Revival

Harken- 1.22 PC HP, FAAAAAST, 3x to Ice, 42% MT Physical, 17% ST Physical which then takes missing HP from allies, HP based ST limit physical

Alhazad MT + Harken's MT(which does Alhazad's MT again) = 93% PCHP damage, according to Dhyer. That would be enough to KO Raynie and Raquel, which sets the team seriously back, and with any attempt to recover just pushing Boomy/Harken doubles closer.


Team Random NEEDS MT healing in the BoF2 fight because Habaraku + Barubary are tossing out MT 2HKOs.  Without the healing the team goes down fast. Kuwadora can do some nasty ST damage too, or add on a tack of finishing MT damage.

[SnowFire]

Harken Tempest: 440 physical damage, MT
Burst Breaker: 180(?) physical damage, ITE?. After inflicting damage, take the target's missing HP and do that much damage to his or her allies.

The 42% MT physical is Harken Tempest.  Burst Breaker is 17% ST, but then inflicts the missing HP to everyone else.  So for the start of round 2, after Alhazad unleashed MT, Harken can either:

* Do Harken Tempest, everyone takes 42 + 38 = 80% MT damage to everyone
* Do Burst Breaker, ignoring defense issues which should deal 42+17 = ~59% to one person, and hten 59% to everyone else...   ah, but the Alhazad damage is still there, so there's where the 95% to everyone else number is coming from.

Still not sure Burst Breaker is enough to really get anywhere!

[Pyro]

So new turn order. Still assuming ACF squad really really really wants to stop Yuri from getting a turn.

Harken (MT 40% damage) -> Raquel Smacks Berserk -> Boomy cancels Yuri's turn (dick) -> Chemist shoots Boomy -> Yuri (cancelled) -> Raynie KO's Berserk with Thunder -> Hilda Full Blooms -> Alhazad does MT damage -> Raquel's turn from FA...

Raquel probably wants to Dragon Edge away her damage taken. Target might be Alhazad or Harken so that she is closer to death (Blocker doesn't stop Dragon Edge). She loses the FA bonus though. She may be countered. This MAY play into her hand though. If she is at full HP and takes an Azrael, then Harken Burst Breakers, it might trigger a Red Zone. That'd be unpleasant but assume it doesn't happen.

-> Burst Breaker happens and KOs Raynie and reduces everyone but Yuri to critical.

-> Boomerang wants to... prevent Raynie from being rezzed by Chemist , as she'll kill Harken and that would be bad.  He can Turn Cancel someone, or he can KO Yuri or Hilda. TK Hilda, and then Chem revives Raynie who freezes Harken dead. But that leaves only Yuri to heal before Alhazad's next MT attack, which will hurt a lot, probably KOing Raquel, Hilda, Raynie... And then Boomy is still around with only Chemist and Yuri, which is Bad.  Still not sure. The second Boomy turn has too many possibilities that are too dependent on specific CTs of characters.

[Dhyerwolf]

Also, do you people think Raquel has Princess Saber yet? 

[SnowFire]

I personally wouldn't because drop, but if you allow the drop, then probably?  WA4 has some sidequests so I'd probably let only Illsveil + sidequests be F7, which narrowly keeps the bridge & airport as F6.

Pyro's analysis sounds right to me, it's pretty trainwrecky, but PD does allow near insta-turns in FFT, and Harken does have that 3x Ice weakness...  which implies Boomerang might want to try and kill Chemist over Yuri if AP didn't proc enough, although that leaves Yuri's revival, which is...  probably not as good as PD revival in this case?  Did SH2 revival reset CT, or does no one remember?  This is weirdly relevant...

[Pyro]

Pretty sure  2/3 revival did not reset CT.

Raquel may also earn enough FP for an Intrude chain before Alhazad's second turn if she triggers Red Zone on Harken's second turn. So maybe the team is in shape to survive this.


Not sure how to deal with BoF2 bosses though.

[Dhyerwolf]

It's a drop? Do we know the percentage chance of actually getting it per battle then?

[Pyro]

Tide says that it is less than 3% /fight at least. Sounds more like it is <1%, taking into account positioning and the fact that he assumed the drop list of 7 items was even chance from top to bottom, which it probably isn't (Princess Saber is at the bottom of the list. Sounds like most rare stuff is?).

So make of that what you will I suppose.

[Dhyerwolf]

Wow. You know, I'm not sure I would hold that against him here since it's never really been brought up before (it being borderline in location on 6/7 is a strike against it too, so still thinking on it), but might definitely make me rethink that DLwise (especially when talking sub 1%).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Assuming all the items show up equally often, and I suspect they do (the order the items listed is based on their order in the file, according to SI/whatever guide he cribbed from... no mention of relative rarity is made), then there's a 0.6 * 1/7 * 2/7 = 2.4% chance of snagging the Princess Sabre if you end the battle with your PCs in two hexes. Hardly unreasonably low; I've gotten it myself twice without any excessive grinding. Compared to doing a whole sidequest for a reward it's not bad at all...

EDIT: To be clear I'm speaking for DL purposes. Holding it to floor 7 is a-okay by me.

[SnowFire]

Anyway, if SH2 revival doesn't reset CT, then I'm willing to say Random passes the ACF battle, sure.  No good options on the 2nd turn, Random manages to recover after the initial assault.

Team Random vs. Samille, El Jackson, Rupert (XF) and WA4 Tony
Blade Pulsar is all sorts of bad news here if Rupert can make it to turn 2 - which is more likely after offing Tony with it - but I think if Team Random throws everything but the kitchen sink at Rupert, they can stop that from happening.  Hilda heals off the first Pulsar, cruise to Victoly against Team ElfBros.

Team Random vs. Cid Raines and Barthandelus (FF13)
Sure I'll buy the Gale'd Speed? Raquel in a long-match hype.  I assume Bart 2 since that's the only one we have stat topics for, and how unfortunate for him his good moves are time-locked rather than HP-locked.  Bart 3 MIGHT be interesting but not really, Yuri uses Arc Shield and Hilda spams Full Bloom while huffing Hi-Ethers a lot in that case.  Cid isn't a threat alone, he's all ST.

[Dhyerwolf]

Assuming all the items show up equally often, and I suspect they do (the order the items listed is based on their order in the file, according to SI/whatever guide he cribbed from... no mention of relative rarity is made), then there's a 0.6 * 1/7 * 2/7 = 2.4% chance of snagging the Princess Sabre if you end the battle with your PCs in two hexes. Hardly unreasonably low; I've gotten it myself twice without any excessive grinding. Compared to doing a whole sidequest for a reward it's not bad at all...

EDIT: To be clear I'm speaking for DL purposes. Holding it to floor 7 is a-okay by me.

Glancing over SI's FAQ, it does seem to say that the the later on items are less common with "12. You can increase your chance of receiving rare items from BT by equipping
    Lucky Bird badge/s." It also says that items have specific base chances of appearing in (as opposed to all items having an equal chance).

It also later says about the Princess Saber "Receive as BT in Fallen Bridge XdXs, by either having 4 chrs in same hex at
    end of battle, or having 3 chrs in same hex at end of battle." so it may be that it needs to either be 4-0 or 3-1.

Of course, it says that this might not be the way it works in the US version!

So...yeah. Hmm.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's possible they aren't equal, I suppose, but any numbers would be pure unprovable speculation and too many DLers have gotten that weapon for me to think it could be that rare. I'll point again out that there are stat topics commonly made with things like 1/64 drops (off specific enemies, which are harder to encounter than anything in a specific dungeon), and that many sidequests are more time-consuming than getting drops of this level of rarity (I could pick on various suspects, but I'll bring up Vandalier for something particularly egregious). If you want to be very harsh on such things, go ahead, but I'll definitely be expecting consistency here.

[SnowFire]

Nitpick on other people's conversation: Actually that kind of thing is exactly the thing that's really hard to be consistent on!  (Unless you are OK and blanket allow everything even if it's super-annoying / obscure.) It depends a LOT on the game, the sidequest, the drop rate, etc.  I for one am much more forgiving to sidequests, especially non-obscura ones - at least if you do the sidequest, you are guaranteed to get the shiny at the end, and more importantly, doing sidequests is often "part of the game."  Grinding an encounter repeatedly is a lot less enticing than "do a new optional dungeon", even if in some cases the grinding technically takes less time.  WA4 has the problem that you can easily fight very, very few battles on the bridge in a "normal" playthrough - 2 or 3, perhaps?  That might make it easy to specifically grind up if you know where to look, sure, but also less likely to come across in normal play.  (While, on the other hand, a 1/64 drop that can happen anywhere in a huge final dungeon that you're expected to take multiple trips through might be more reasonable, although I can't think of any good examples of that off the top of my head.)

As a side point, a "lenient" interp of WA4 in the DL would quite possibly allow some of the earlier custom items from the super-shop anyway, which would render the point mostly moot I imagine as the stuff there is better than everything and guaranteed to be found, with the only weirdness grinding up some levels for the Black Market possibly.  (Not relevant on F6 of the Dungeon, of course.)

[Dhyerwolf]

I'll say that for my perspective, I'm really not big on 1/64 drops or things of that nature. It isn't always notated in stat topics (The big one in terms of stat topics I've made would be Dahna's Power Cards, which I don't allow).

From stat topics I've done, major drops I do allow
Skies of Arcadia- Enemy drops 1 item only (so no "rare" ones) and fairly commonly (matters for Fina and Gilder at least)
Arc the Lad 2- There are a few things that are rare drops. Most of the DL stuff isn't, IIRC, but there is Death Crimson at the very least. (Upon reading up, enemies I think have 1 rare and 1 common item. I can't remember drop rates though, so obviously that's a notable thing)

And that may be it (Can recall if there are any others). As Snowfire noted, a drop versus a sidequest is very different to me. I would be curious to have a more complete list of drops and rarities and such.

[Dhyerwolf]

Can confirm that SH 3 revival does not reset turn order. Will analyze later.

[Nephrite]

Thanks Dhyer.

[Dhyerwolf]

Team Random | Yuri2, Hilda, FFT Chemist, Raquel (Speed?), Raynie
Floor 6a: Underachievers
**The first four fights take 25% reduced damage.
Team Random vs. Viola, Heiss and Hugo (RH)
Team Random vs. Berserk, Alhazad, Lady Harken and Boomerang (WA:ACF)- Last we left off...not very inclined for Princess Saber right now. This is probably a pretty bad hit. Yuri/Hilda are great revivers.

Harken MT
Raquel attacks Boomerang?
Boomerang->Cancel Yuri
Chemist attacks Boomerang or Berserk (if Raynie could not finish him off herself. It's so close, so lets conservatively say he hits Berserk)
Raynie G-Thunders Berserk
Hilda MT Heals
Alhazad MTs
Raquel should 2HKO Boomerang (Boomerang does have the argument of support credit, but Lucied HP and such kind of tempers that)
Harken MTs. Raquel is down, as is Raynie.
However, I think awesome revival takes the day here.
Team Random vs. Kuwadora, Habaruku, Aruhamel and Barubary (BoF2)
Kuwardora- 1.9ish durability
Aruhamel- 1.3ish durability
Habaruku- 1.25ish durability, 66% MT Lightning Magic
Barubary- 2.1ish durability, 52% MT Lightning Magic
Turn Order
Kuwardora>Raquel>Aruhamel>rest of Random team>Habaruku>Barubary

Kuwadora- 33% MT
Raquel- Hit Habaruku
Aruhamel- MT Forget
Raynie- Hit Habaruku (Either Yuri or Hilda hitting him should now take him out)
Chemist- Heal someone
Yuri- Heal someone
Hilda- Hit Habaruku
Barubary- 52% MT. Now...this is where the worry starts a bit. Raquel may go before Kuwardora (assuming that Rapid Attack wasn't what was "forgotten". Obviously there is really weird interplay here), but isn't going to knock him out. A good chunk of the team (minus the two that were healed, and potentially Chemist himself) will be damaged enough for Kuwardora to be dangerous and killer (well, Raquel only if Rapid Attack is ITE). So Baru MTs and Kuwa...kills Yuri. Definitely the obvious choice. Raquel hits something.

Aruhamel will get a chance to put everyone back 4 moves then. Chemist can revive Yuri, but no one can heal back. Baru will come around again, MT blast. Yeah, don't think this fight looks good for the team either.

Team Random vs. Samille, El Jackson, Rupert (XF) and WA4 Tony
Team Random vs. Cid Raines and Barthandelus (FF13)

Team Pyro | Rikku, Ryu2, Lilka, FFT Chemist, and Rand (Firefly)
Floor 2a: Adventuring (Earlygame)
Team Pyro vs. Alex, Kyle and Luna
Team Pyro vs. Jack, Cecilia and Rudy(WA:ACF)
Team Pyro vs. Colm, Jaffar and Matthew
Team Pyro vs. Killey (S2) and Lorelai (S5)
Team Pyro vs. Boss Zed and Boomerang 2 (ACF)

Team Snowfire | Yuri2 (as Trode), Guv, Yangus, Jessica, Angelo (SSL)
[Floor 4a: Diff'rent Strokes]
Team Snowfire vs. Lucia, Gywn, Ramus, Luna, Laike and Tempest- Sure, ID goes well here
Team Snowfire vs. Kyra, Hahn and Demi- Emergency heal? Sure
Team Snowfire vs. Albel, Adray, Noel, Precis and Chisato- The most dangerous thing here is that I'm betting Guv probably comes out with very little resembling remaining MP (that emergency heal was about 25% of his MP). Also, all these people block ID. They need to kill Adray (revival), then Noel (healing), then Albel (MP damage), then the last two. Precis and Chisato can often have fun combining to OHKO people too.
Team Snowfire vs. Palom, Porom, Tellah, Fusoya and Yang-
Team Snowfire vs. Worker 8, FFT Cloud, Beowulf, Olan and Alma- The floor where SSL is a boon. Even then, this not the cleanest, but should be okay.