RPGDL 2014 Season 1, Week 1: Man you think Light sucks this week...

[Talaysen]

Godlike

Exdeath (Final Fantasy V) vs Tidus (Final Fantasy X)
Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
Celes Cher (Final Fantasy VI) vs Layna (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Zog (Breath of Fire) vs Killer (Shadow Hearts: From the New World)

Heavy

Sinspawn Gui (Final Fantasy X) vs Groudon (Pokémon)
Etward Dysler (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) vs Mog (Final Fantasy VI)
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu 3)
Scias (Breath of Fire IV) vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle

Lexis (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals) vs Aht (Radiant Historia)
Karsh (Chrono Cross) vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)
Stocke (Radiant Historia) vs Odie (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia) vs Mother (Wild ARMs)

Light

Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)
Nina (Suikoden II) vs Labyrinthia Wordsworth (Wild ARMs XF)
Tony (Wild ARMs XF) vs Piccolo (Suikoden III)

[Lance]

Godlike
Exdeath (Final Fantasy V) vs Tidus (Final Fantasy X)
Zog (Breath of Fire) vs Killer (Shadow Hearts: From the New World)

Heavy
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu 3)
Scias (Breath of Fire IV) vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle
Karsh (Chrono Cross) vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia) vs Mother (Wild ARMs)

Light
Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)

[Shihali]

Unless I'm reading the stat topics wrong, Castle Exdeath has a one-hit KO if he gets a turn. Vacuum Wave is usable in his first phase, deals 110% average PC HP physical damage (1160 damage to 1055 average and inflicts HP Leak), and Tidus's physical defense factor is 0.98 but his HP is only 88% average, which doesn't multiply out to survival.

Exdeath is also fast. His Agility is 50, which agrees with the observation that his charge time is 6 to 8 average (133%, or 4:3 average) and then rises to 2 to 3 average (150%, or 3:2 average) because being an AI he doesn't have an input delay.

Using that Tidus speed chart from the stat topic, Exdeath gets his first turn at 0.75, so Tidus should deal only 12300 damage before Exdeath gets a turn and kills with Vacuum Wave.

12300 doesn't kill Exdeath, scaled to average or taken flat. There may be a winning strategy for Tidus but an opening speedblitz isn't it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Evade and Counter completely shuts down Vacuum Wave.

[Shihali]

Can Tidus have Evade and Counter on anything but Caladbolg?

If only on Caladbolg, Exdeath gets the first turn (133% speed to Tidus's 113%) and opens with Hurricane, so by the time Tidus gets to act he's at <10 HP and his damage is reduced to ~9% normal due to Caladbolg's damage scaling with HP Ultima-Weapon-style. Tidus then has his counter and until Exdeath's turn comes around again (at 150% speed) to work with. ~2.5x PCHP for Exdeath / Caladbolg piercing defense / 9% damage = Tidus has to get through effective 24.5 PCHP before Exdeath gets his next turn, and I'm not sure how he could do that.

If yes, Tidus sees a second turn and it's back to the stat topic.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Personally, I have extremely low kneejerk respect for FF5 physical attacks; they face monstrous evasion in-game (Elf Mantles are the best W1-2 accessory, FF5 shields are potent), uber Golem, back row on the lower-durability folks, etc., etc. With all that considered, it doesn't take much base evasion for me to see them whiffing turn 1, so yeah, Tidus qualifies to me.

(You could also let him switch weapons. I don't, but I know some people do.)

That said I always forget that castle Exdeath isn't slow (being a post-Hastega boss in FFX will do that for my kneejerk reaction, at least I can hold Hermes Sandals against the W3 ones...) so I should possibly look at that fight more closely anyway.

[Shihali]

Castle Exdeath's Agility is 50, so he mechanically has 70 charge time to your 88 average, 125% speed. But he has no input lag, so effective 133% first turn/150% thereafter has been quoted by several people and feels right.

You should have Hastega by this point in FF5 since it's for sale in Moore.

I've tried a few ideas and keep coming up a single hit short; I can get nine Quick Hits before Exdeath's second turn but aeonless damage scaling for Tidus and no credit for high-for-the-time defense say Exdeath dies to the tenth. Caladbolg is useless since Tidus does not have the time to switch (switching weapons uses up as much time as a Quick Hit) and doesn't want it after Exdeath's turn anyway.

[Pyro]

Hastega, if factored in against Castle Ex-Death, should factor in against his durability, not his speed.

Vacuum Wave OHKO hype has always gotten a "Yeah no" from me, since lots of folks are back-row (in fairnesss, this is less true than in FF6 where everyone is) and it is barely OHKO if you take it only to the front. In practice it should OHKO almost no one.

So it is all about "Can Tidus kill with Sonic Steel before ExDeath goes Hurricane -> Zombie Breath? One of Tidus' finer boss blitz strategies (Haste/Slow/QH) is shut down by X-Death immuning Slow (effectively, he auto-counters with Haste on himself).

If X-Death isn't as fast as the stat topic suggests then Tidus probably gets an Overdrive with Sonic Steel (I assume he starts with a half-full gauge). That would mean scaled X-Death 1 probably dies for me (see the comment about Hastega being held against durability above).

FF5 battle speed default allows plenty of time for selecting actions, so no hype for x-death having no input delay.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, FF5 unlike most ATB games freezes the turn gauge whenever someone gets a turn (the duration depends on the battle speed setting, but even on the default it should be long enough for you to choose any action from the menu unless you really blank on what you want to do) so you can take speed fairly literally as such.

[Twilkitri]

Godlike

Heavy

Sinspawn Gui (Final Fantasy X) vs Groudon (Pokémon)
Etward Dysler (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) vs Mog (Final Fantasy VI)
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu 3)
Scias (Breath of Fire IV) vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle

Lexis (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals) vs Aht (Radiant Historia)
Karsh (Chrono Cross) vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)
Stocke (Radiant Historia) vs Odie (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia) vs Mother (Wild ARMs)

Light

Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)
Nina (Suikoden II) vs Labyrinthia Wordsworth (Wild ARMs XF)
Tony (Wild ARMs XF) vs Piccolo (Suikoden III)

[Dhyerwolf]

Godlike

Exdeath (Final Fantasy V) vs Tidus (Final Fantasy X)- Per both stat topics, Exdeath can do 85.3% magical damage over two turns at the start of the battle, Tidus has 84.8% Mdur. Doesn't that...make this easy?
Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
Celes Cher (Final Fantasy VI) vs Layna (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Zog (Breath of Fire) vs Killer (Shadow Hearts: From the New World)- Zog is probably about 4 PC HP to me. Killer is doing 65% after Zog's magic weakness, and then a whopping near 2 PC HP at the end with a combo. This gets worse if Prone carries over when Killer gets doubles. I do think that Killer does take this to me.

Heavy

Sinspawn Gui (Final Fantasy X) vs Groudon (Pokémon)- Gut reaction of FFX Poison is cool
Etward Dysler (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) vs Mog (Final Fantasy VI)
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu)- Isn't OHKOed (barely), gets turn
Scias (Breath of Fire IV) vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle

Lexis (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals) vs Aht (Radiant Historia)- Pass.
Karsh (Chrono Cross) vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)
Stocke (Radiant Historia) vs Odie (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)- Yeah, with my SN scaling views, this one is pretty clear.
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia) vs Mother (Wild ARMs)- Per the stat topic, Mother original has about 45% Magic Damage and a good helping of status. Regal has...questionable boss form, which...depends on getting a combo with 4 attacks in a row to probably 2HKO Mother. From my recollection of ToS, that isn't too realistic.

Light

Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)
Nina (Suikoden II) vs Labyrinthia Wordsworth (Wild ARMs XF)
Tony (Wild ARMs XF) vs Piccolo (Suikoden III)

[Shihali]

I'm out of my depth by now, so I can't post any more on Exdeath vs. Tidus, but I should go add the actual mechanics of FF5 speed to the game topic.

As far as I can tell, it's close enough to turn on how you take the FFX damage curve, how you take FF5 speed, how you scale high defense on a midgame boss to endgame, and how you discount boss stats. I'm inclined to give it to Exdeath since Tidus needs every single judgment call to go his way to win. If any one of those four judgment calls goes Exdeath's way, Tidus can't get enough damage in before his inevitable death on Exdeath's second turn.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Having now analysed it, I'm going to come down quite firmly on the side of Groudon > Sinspawn Gui.

Groudon is faster, and reduces Sinspawn Gui's physical to 4HKO. There is Venom I see getting hype but... yeah it doesn't matter. Groudon 2HKOs the head with Eruption so Venom (which has a one-turn charge time, AND can be interrupted anyway) never gets off. The head can't do anything else useful since Groudon immunes lightning. After that it's just lol with Bulk Up / Rest / Earthquake to win easily against the slower 4HKOer. (If you give Gui his arms and let them both be immune to Earthquake and cover the body from it, which is already a pretty big stretch, then he uses Fire Blast instead.) The only way Gui can take this if you give the body Venom AND don't let Groudon disrupt him charging it or something like that.

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Exdeath (Final Fantasy V) vs Tidus (Final Fantasy X)
Heat (Digital Devil Saga) vs Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
Celes Cher (Final Fantasy VI) vs Layna (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Zog (Breath of Fire) vs Killer (Shadow Hearts: From the New World)

Heavy

Sinspawn Gui (Final Fantasy X) vs Groudon (Pokémon)
Etward Dysler (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) vs Mog (Final Fantasy VI)
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu 3)- No vote.
Scias (Breath of Fire IV) vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle

Lexis (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals) vs Aht (Radiant Historia)
Karsh (Chrono Cross) vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)
Stocke (Radiant Historia) vs Odie (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia) vs Mother (Wild ARMs)

Light

Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)
Nina (Suikoden II) vs Labyrinthia Wordsworth (Wild ARMs XF)
Tony (Wild ARMs XF) vs Piccolo (Suikoden III)

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Exdeath (Final Fantasy V)- iiiii vs Tidus (Final Fantasy X)- iiii
Heat (Digital Devil Saga)- iiiii vs Dheginsea (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn)
Celes Cher (Final Fantasy VI)- iiiiiii vs Layna (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)
Zog (Breath of Fire)- iiiiiii vs Killer (Shadow Hearts: From the New World)- iii

Heavy

Sinspawn Gui (Final Fantasy X)- iiii vs Groudon (Pokémon)- iii
Etward Dysler (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) vs Mog (Final Fantasy VI)- iiiiiii
Stefan (Fire Emblem Series) vs Angela (Seiken Densetsu 3)- iiiiiii
Scias (Breath of Fire IV)- iiiiiiiiii vs Fujin (Final Fanasy VIII)

Middle

Lexis (Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals)- iii vs Aht (Radiant Historia)- iiiiii
Karsh (Chrono Cross)- iiii vs Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lavandaler (Tales of the Abyss)- iiii  (RANDOM.ORG)
Stocke (Radiant Historia)- iiii vs Odie (Soul Nomad & The World Eaters)- iii
Regal Bryant (Tales of Symphonia)- iiii vs Mother (Wild ARMs)- iii

Light

Shady Thousand (Wild ARMs 3) vs Luke fon Fabre (Tales of the Abyss)- iiiiiiiiii
Magikarp (Pokémon) vs Jelanda (Valkyrie Profile)- iiiiiiiiiiii
Nina (Suikoden II)- iiiiiiiii vs Labyrinthia Wordsworth (Wild ARMs XF)
Tony (Wild ARMs XF) vs Piccolo (Suikoden III)- iiiiiiiii