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Author Topic: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker  (Read 4192 times)

SnowFire

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Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
« on: September 17, 2015, 06:54:43 AM »


It is mankind's darkest hour.  A catastrophe has struck the globe.  The Big Dipper is attacking humanity.  A secret Japanese governmental organization, JPs, decides to unleash its most powerful weapon to combat the crisis: teenagers with magic cell phones.


This topic was compiled & tested using Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker ver 1.1 on the Path of the Septentriones and Apocalypse difficulty (= default difficulty).  My understanding is that not very much changed mechanically between the original DS2 and Record Breaker in the Septentriones path (a few new skills & demons), so this topic should basically be good for the original.  I may edit in the new character for the Triangulum path added specifically for Record Breaker later, but she won't be in the averages.

DL Translation & interpretations

In-game, you can deploy up to 4 demon tamers, each of whom can include 2 demons in their squad.  All PCs can also use "Summon" to replace dead demons or empty slots as a map action.  Unfortunately for the cast in the DL, every single action that isn't "basic attack" or "guard" is shared cast-wide.  In game, you "crack" a skill, then can set it on ONE of your 4 deployed characters on a map.  So the game forces build diversity.  Having an entire cast totally skilless is pretty lame, so I'm going to stretch usual DL legality a bit to guarantee basic damage skills for everyone so we aren't subject to everyone including mages spamming basic attack.  Giving mages magic means giving fighters physical damage skills as well, of course.

Game Mechanics
Battles take place on a map, with movement.  Engaging an enemy starts a skirmish which lasts 1 round by default, but characters can potentially earn an Extra Turn and take 2 rounds.  The attacker gets an initiative boost in the resulting skirmish.  I would assume that both sides trade starting a skirmish with the other in the DL.

Here are the stats:
HP, MP: The usual.
Level: Higher level characters do more damage to lower level characters.  This topic is taken at Level 60, which is near what you'd expect for the penultimate map ("Last Assassin" or "Strong Breaker").
Str: Do more damage with physical attacks, slightly reduce physical damage taken.
Mag: Do more damage with magical attacks, slightly reduce magical damage taken.
Vit: Reduce (all) damage taken.
Agl: Determines action order in combat.  Affects accuracy & evasion of physical attacks.  Accuracy is quite high at endgame for most characters (~100% hit rate).
Speed: Hidden stat, for good reason: it's identical for 13/14 characters.  Speed determines how long you need to wait before a new turn for *map actions*.  Without legal healing / map actions, high speed just means you'll be the initiator of a skirmish more often, which will give you the +5 Initiative boost more frequently.

Derived stats:
PCHP: The character's HP divided by the HP average.
DefMult, MagicMult: Multipliers incoming damage of this type by this amount.  0.5 would be "takes half damage", 2.0 would be "takes double damage."
PDur, MDur: The character's PCHP divided by their DefMult & ResMult.
Effective speed: Rate of getting turns.  See below.

Elements:
Physical element is...  well..  Physical.
Magical elements are Fire/Ice/Elec/Force (=Wind).
Curse element consists of status attacks & % of current HP attacks ("gravity").
Almighty element is almost always magical, always ignores shields + reflection (e.g. Makarakarn, Tetrakarn, Shield All), and is very rarely resisted.  DS2 associates Almighty more strongly as "Holy elemental" than some other games of the series. 

Extra turns & effective speed
After the first round of a skirmish, characters with an Extra Turn get to act in a 2nd combat round.

You can get Extra turns by: Just having high AGL (including the initiator bonus), inflicting critical hits, hitting elemental weaknesses, elementally resisting enemy attacks (a little), nulling / reflecting / draining enemy attacks (more).

You can lose a previously gained extra turn by: eating a critical hit, having your elemental weakness hit, having your attack be nulled/reflected/drained, and specific abilities that steal them.

Unlike many other SMTs, none of these are *guaranteed*, but probably increment some hidden counter or generate a new chance to gain/lose an extra turn, so inflicting 3 crits will be more likely to give you an Extra Turn than 1.  Having high AGL to begin with makes this easier.

For the "effective speed" stat listed for characters (not to be confused with map speed).  This is a rough estimate of the rate of getting turns vs. average, not the order within a turn.  It is based strictly on AGL; it doesn't include Extra Turns gained or denied via crits, weakness hitting, etc.

My assumption is that an average speed (17 AGL) character will get an Extra Turn 50% of the time due to sheer AGL.  So it would be something like "got an Extra Turn when I initiated, didn't when the opponent attacked me," or 3 turns in 2 skirmishes.  A 4 AGL character is assumed to never get Extra Turns even with the initiator bonus (2 turns in 2 skirmishes).  A 30 AGL character is assumed to always earn Extra Turns even when attacked (4 turns in 2 skirmishes).  Example: Daichi's 118% speed is because he's assumed to collect (3 * 1.18 = 3.54) turns in 2 skirmishes with his 24 AGL.

Skills
Each character has 3 active skill slots, 3 passive skill slots, and 1 automatic skill.  As noted above, you can't assign a skill to more than 1 character.

Passive skills & automatic skills are thrown out for sanity in the DL.  Many of the benefits from these would get eaten by the averages anyway.

Note that all physical skills cost percentage of max HP to use.  If you don't have enough HP to pay the cost when your turn comes around (e.g. due to intervening damage), you skip your turn.

Legal skills
For the most part, there are enough skills to go around by endgame, especially if you run a semi-balanced split (e.g. at most 3 mages + 1 fighter or 3 fighters + 1 mage).  So most everything is legal.  However, I'm not a fan of letting characters switch to backups that'd normally be horrible for them considering the 3 active skill limit, and additionally some setups only have enough "room" for 2 characters (rather than 3), so I'm going to lock down a few skills.

Physical (Str) - There's a crapload of comparable physical skills that are just based on raw Str.  Power Hit / Assassinate / Mighty Hit / Weak Kill are all comparable, with Mighty Hit potentially being the best alone (gives a free crit so potentially gets you an Extra Turn) although passives matter in-game (Ares Aid, Crit Up, etc.).  So.  Going to assume that Power Hit is the default, having a reasonable HP cost, not messing with crit/speed nonsense, etc.  Everybody can use it if they want and have the required Str 12.  Mow Down is a backup if multitarget damage is required.  PCs without Str 12 get Fatal Strike instead (although they are probably boned if they are resorting to physicals), which is similar but has a mercy effect: it can't kill unless the target's HP is 1.

Physical (Str/Vit): 4 options here in Berserk/Deathbound/Brutal Hit/Hassohappa, but the multi-hit Berserk & Deathbound are what you want in the DL.  That's only 2, so only PCs in the top half of Str have access to these to me.  These effects lose power as HP drops, although the formula is weird; you do roughly ~60-75% damage at very low HP at endgame, but this changes by level (drop is less relevant the more absolute damage you do, less relevant otherwise; so Io is more affected than Jungo), so what do I know.  Deathbound (20% HP cost) is more powerful than Berserk (13% HP cost) but costs more.  I've assumed Berserk as the default in the DL since the characters don't have easy map healing to undo the self-damage, so Deathbound's HP cost is more relevant here than in-game.

Physical (Str/Agl): 2 options here in Multi-Hit & Multi-Strike, which are identical in the DL (Multi-Strike is Multi-Hit on everyone for free with no loss in damage).  The formula is apparently:
* Multi-* user has less AGL: 2 hits
* Multi-* user has 0-4 more AGL: 3 hits
* Multi-* user has lots more AGL: 3 + (1 extra hit for every 5 AGL difference), max 7 hits

Only the top half of the cast in AGL is allowed to equip Multi-Strike in this topic.

Magic: Mostly legal (at least the damage magic).  Inferno is uniqueish and gained 2 seconds before game-end, so I'm ignoring it as illegal.  Megidolaon is similar, but it's actually worse than Holy Dance, so sure whatever it's legal.  Everything else is fine…  there are 5 Dances for multi-hits, 4 Dynes for good ST damage that's cheap on MP, 6 big MT nukes.  Plenty for everybody.

That said, to enhance uniqueness some and not have the whole cast able to effortlessly hit any elemental weakness with no loss, I've locked down elements a little further.  It doesn't make a big difference, feel free to allow all elements to everyone, but in-game, being able to equip the appropriate Elemental Amp makes the character uniquely good at using that flavor of magic.  I've additionally used slightly higher requirements than the in-game ones, to reflect characters good at that element on Day 5-6, not just getting the ability to equip the Amp at the last second on the Final Day.

* Strength>15: You're suited to equip Fire Amp, so you get Fire spells (except Inferno).
* Vitality>15: You're suited to equip Force Amp, so you get Force spells.
* Magic>15: You're suited to equip Lightning/Ice Amp, so you get Lightning & Ice spells.
* Magic>18: You get Almighty raw damage spells.  (Megido/Megidolaon have very high Magic reqs, 18 & 24.)

Note again that due to no passives, the amps aren't actually equipped for the damage in this topic, but so it goes.  (That also means that Almighty damage is arguably overhyped vs. in-game…  it certainly is overhyped vs. no resistance.  Of course, Almighty damage is good anyway because lategame enemies are shot through with elemental nulling, shields, etc. that Almighty usually cuts through, so whatever.)

Multi-hit / unfocused odds
In a duel, the multi-hit unfocused attacks are basically the best, for all that they're more balanced in-game (they'll hit the wrong enemy that reflects/drains it, the leader gets a damage reduction bonus while allies are alive so unfocused attacks aren't good at either focusing the leader (if you just want to gank them and be done with it) or at *not* hitting the leader so you can off the support first.  I have not confirmed these, but they seem about right from Cogito's FAQ:

*1 Target:  2-3 Hit - 2 (65%) 3 (35%)
*2 Targets: 2-4 Hit - 2 (30%) 3 (60%) 4 (10%)
*3 Targets: 2-5 Hit - 2 (05%) 3 (45%) 4 (40%) 5 (10%)
Any target cannot receive more than 3 hits with each skill use.

This means that for a 3-turn damage average for duel use, I'd assume 7 hits of the Elemental Dances/Berserk/Deathbound (2+2+3).

Demons
Aren't included here.  Demons play by their own rules, but by default they have "fair" stat builds ( 16+level stat points distributed) and have the same skills PCs do, but their skills are set on fusion / leveling-up and can't be rejuggled or reassigned.  BUT they don't have to worry about uniqueness or other demons / PCs having the same skill.  So if you did include demons, it wouldn't change the averages too much, unlike Ogre Battle or Soul Nomad.

Damage figures
Damage is taken from tests vs. an L64 Murmur on the free DLC map "Lost Demon Rescue" with 24 Str, 23 Mag, and 16 Vit.  (No dialog to skip past, very convenient to fight on turn 1, almost equal Str & Mag so it won't favor one or the other.)

The average of enemies on "Last Assassin" is 19.4 Vit & 16.6 Agl, but that agility figure is a bit slanted because of several 4 Agl Behemoths on that map, so for Multi-Hit/Multi-Strike I've assumed enemies with 17 Agl, the PC average.

If you're curious about some of the lesser magic options, I've included them under Yamato's entry.  Hopefully it should be easy to get a sense of how the damage for other characters would differ as well if they opt for them.

Damage averages
All physical skills are self-damaging in this game.  Similar to Persona 4, I've opted to reflect this in the damage averages via subtracting (%max HP) * (2.5 killpoint) from the actual damage to give an "effective damage" for the damage average.  So a move that inflicts .53 PCHP damage but causes the user to lose .13 PCHP on average is really dealing .40 PCHP net.

Possibly more controversially, I've elected to reduce Berserk damage to 85% of its normal power (roughly equal to being at 50-65% HP or so?).  Berserk users damage themselves so it's impossible to use the ability 3 times at max power, and it'll be even worse in practice as it simply isn't reasonable to expect opponents to do nothing or not occasionally outspeed.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2015, 12:17:00 AM by SnowFire »

SnowFire

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Re: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2015, 06:55:53 AM »


Stat chart, Level 60

HPMPStrMagVitAglResists
Hibiki (equal build)47420819191919
Daichi46417023141524Fire
Io43223623311012Lightning
Joe40427111271127Force
Hinako44616026131225Ice
Keita51009935061520Fire
Airi42125515251422Lightning, Force
Jungo54609340071811Force
Fumi38531007401019Ice
Makoto48120529221411Ice
Otome41034908371615Lightning, Curse
Ronaldo56514430122707Fire
Yamato45522829281011Phys
Al Saiduq60833218231619Fire, Lightning; Null Curse
Miyako43829022281315Fire, Ice
Avg. (no Hibiki/Miyako)47121922.621.914.517.2

Damage average (no Hibiki): 471, 2.5 killpoint: 1180
Standard deviation for agility: 6.2


Protagonist / Hibiki Kuze (equal stat build) not in averages
474 HP, 208 MP, 19 Str, 19 Mag, 19 Vit, 19 Agl.  Resists: Nope.
1.01 PCHP, 0.92 DefMult, 0.91 MagicMult, 1.10 PDurability, 1.11 MDurability, 1.05 effective speed.

Special: The protagonist (Hibiki in the anime) has fully controllable stat growth.  Pure balanced is a horrible build, do not attempt this.  See Appendix for more.

Fire/Ice/Elec/Force Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 100 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 233.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 90 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 210
Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 70 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 3.4 hits: 238
Power Hit (8% HP): 220 damage
Physical attack: 135 damage


Daichi Shijima
464 HP, 170 MP, 23 Str, 14 Mag, 15 Vit, 24 Agl.  Resists: Fire
0.99 PCHP, 0.98 DefMult, 1.08 MagicMult, 1.01 PDurability, 0.92 MDurability, 1.18 effective speed.

Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 90 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 4.4 hits: 396
Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 190 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 443.  Does less at low HP.

Fire/Force Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 65 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 151
Power Hit (8% HP): 285 damage
Physical attack: 175 damage


Io Nitta
432 HP, 236 MP, 23 Str, 31 Mag, 10 Vit, 12 Agl.  Resists: Lightning
0.92 PCHP, 1.14 DefMult, 1.03 MagicMult, 0.81 PDurability, 0.89 MDurability, 0.87 effective speed.

Fire/Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 260 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 606.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 250 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 583
Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 180 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 419.  Does less at low HP.
Power Hit (8% HP): 285 damage
Physical attack: 175 damage


Joe (Yuzuru Akie)
404 HP, 271 MP, 11 Str, 27 Mag, 11 Vit, 27 Agl.  Resists: Force
0.86 PCHP, 1.29 DefMult, 1.04 MagicMult, 0.67 PDurability, 0.83 MDurability, 1.25 effective speed.

Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 175 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 408.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 170 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 396
Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 45 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 5 hits: 225
Fatal Strike (8% HP): 100 damage, can't kill unless target has 1 HP
Physical attack: 60 damage


Hinako Kujou
446 HP, 160 MP, 26 Str, 13 Mag, 12 Vit, 25 Agl.  Resists: Ice
0.95 PCHP, 1.03 DefMult, 1.21 MagicMult, 0.92 PDurability, 0.79 MDurability, 1.20 effective speed.

Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 105 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 4.6 hits: 483
Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 215 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 501.  Does less at low HP.

Fire Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 60 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 140
Power Hit (8% HP): 315 damage
Physical attack: 230 damage


Keita Wakui
510 HP, 99 MP, 35 Str, 6 Mag, 15 Vit, 20 Agl.  Resists: Fire
1.08 PCHP, 0.86 DefMult, 1.19 MagicMult, 1.26 PDurability, 0.91 MDurability, 1.07 effective speed.

Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 310 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 722.  Does less at low HP.
Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 125 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 3.6 hits: 450

Power Hit (8% HP): 595 damage
Physical attack: 395 damage
Agi (4 MP): 20 damage


Airi Ban
421 HP, 255 MP, 15 Str, 25 Mag, 14 Vit, 22 Agl.  Resists: Lightning, Force
0.89 PCHP, 1.11 DefMult, 0.98 MagicMult, 0.80 PDurability, 0.91 MDurability, 1.12 effective speed.

Fire/Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 160 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 373.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 150 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 350
Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 60 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 4 hits: 240
Power Hit (8% HP): 150 damage
Physical attack: 100 damage


Jungo Torii
546 HP, 93 MP, 40 Str, 7 Mag, 18 Vit, 11 Agl.  Resists: Force
1.16 PCHP, 0.77 DefMult, 1.08 MagicMult, 1.51 PDurability, 1.07 MDurability, 0.85 effective speed.

Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 395 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 920.  Does less at low HP.
Deathbound (20% HP): 2-3 hits of 415 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 966.  Does less at low HP.
Power Hit (8% HP): 750 damage
Physical attack: 475 damage
Agi (4 MP): 20 damage


Fumi Kanno
385 HP, 310 MP, 7 Str, 40 Mag, 10 Vit, 19 Agl.  Resists: Ice
0.82 PCHP, 1.43 DefMult, 0.93 MagicMult, 0.57 PDurability, 0.88 MDurability, 1.05 effective speed.

Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 360 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 839.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 350 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 816
Fatal Strike (8% HP): 50 damage, can't kill unless target has 1 HP
Physical attack: 35 damage


Makoto Sako
481 HP, 205 MP, 29 Str, 22 Mag, 14 Vit, 11 Agl.  Resists: Ice
1.02 PCHP, 0.95 DefMult, 1.01 MagicMult, 1.07 PDurability, 1.01 MDurability, 0.85 effective speed.

Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 245 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 571.  Does less at low HP.
Fire/Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 125 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 291.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 120 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 280
Power Hit (8% HP): 370 damage
Physical attack: 250 damage


Otome Yanagiya
410 HP, 349 MP, 8 Str, 37 Mag, 16 Vit, 15 Agl.  Resists: Lightning, Curse
0.87 PCHP, 1.14 DefMult, 0.82 MagicMult, 0.76 PDurability, 1.06 MDurability, 0.95 effective speed.

Ice/Elec/Force Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 315 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 734.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 305 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 711
Fatal Strike (8% HP): 60 damage, can't kill unless target has 1 HP
Physical attack: 45 damage


Ronaldo Kuriki
565 HP, 144 MP, 30 Str, 12 Mag, 27 Vit, 7 Agl.  Resists: Fire
1.20 PCHP, 0.69 DefMult, 0.80 MagicMult, 1.74 PDurability, 1.50 MDurability, 0.74 effective speed.

Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 280 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 652.  Does less at low HP.
Fire/Force Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 55 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 128
Power Hit (8% HP): 415 damage
Physical attack: 270 damage

Special: Ronaldo is about the only PC who runs into accuracy problems before status, debuffs, etc. due to his horrible AGL.  I'd guesstimate he's about 90% accurate vs. normal AGL opponents, and maybe ~75% accurate vs. high AGL opponents.


Yamato Hotsuin
455 HP, 228 MP, 29 Str, 28 Mag, 10 Vit, 11 Agl.  Resists: Phys
0.97 PCHP, 1.06 [.53] DefMult, 1.06 MagicMult, 0.92 [1.84] PDurability, 0.92 MDurability, 0.85 effective speed.

Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 240 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 559.  Does less at low HP.
Fire/Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 195 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 454.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.

Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 185 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 431
Power Hit (8% HP): 370 damage
Physical attack: 250 damage
Agi/Bufu/Ziodyne (13 MP): 290 damage
Mar-Agi/Bufu/Ziodyne (40 MP): 210 damage, MT
Megido (50 MP): 230 damage, MT
Megidolaon (70 MP): 300 damage, MT

Special: Yamato's Phys resistance is to physical element attacks.  It does not work on elemental physicals (=Holy Strike in-game, various elemental physicals from other games - Cecil's Ragnarok, Tidus's Brotherhood, etc.) or vs. Pierce / Piercing Hit (the equivalent of "ignores target defense" from other games, a la FFX Piercing?)

Special 2: No, that is not a typo nor L62 Yamato.  He gets [18+level] stat points unlike the rest of the cast's [16+level].


Al Saiduq
608 HP, 332 MP, 18 Str, 23 Mag, 16 Vit, 19 Agl.  Resists: Fire, Lightning; Null Curse
1.29 PCHP, 1.01 DefMult, 0.95 MagicMult, 1.28 PDurability, 1.36 MDurability, 1.05 effective speed.**.

Fire/Ice/Elec/Force Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 135 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 315.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 130 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 303
Multi-Strike (13% HP): 2-7 hits of 70 damage, vs. 17 AGL avg. 3.4 hits: 238
Power Hit (8% HP): 210 damage
Physical attack: 120 damage

Special: High speed, so more map actions, so more gaining initiator bonuses, so his effective speed is a little better than stated.  Doesn't apply on turn 1, possibly.


Miyako Hotsuin (not in averages)
438 HP, 290 MP, 22 Str, 28 Mag, 13 Vit, 15 Agl.  Resists: Fire, Ice
0.93 PCHP, 1.04 DefMult, 0.97 MagicMult, 0.89 PDurability, 0.96 MDurability, 0.95 effective speed.

Fire/Ice/Elec Dance (23 MP): 2-3 hits of 195 damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 454.  ~20% chance of Freeze/Shock per hit for Ice & Elec Dance.
Holy Dance (45 MP): 2-3 hits of 185 Almighty damage, avg. 2.33 hits: 431
Berserk (13% HP): 2-3 hits of 180 damage @ 100% health, avg. 2.33 hits: 419.  Does less at low HP.
Power Hit (8% HP): 275 damage
Physical attack: 165 damage

Miyako's PCHP/Durability/Speed *do* include her in the average.
Damage average w/ Miyako (but no Hibiki): 470 (aka nearly identical to the 471 average without her)
« Last Edit: October 15, 2015, 03:54:09 AM by SnowFire »

SnowFire

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Re: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2015, 06:57:27 AM »
Damage chart

Normal figure assumes 2.33 hits for Berserk / Elemental dances, and a hit count vs. 17 AGL for Multi-Strike.  Berserk damage is taken at 50-65% HP.
Figures in brackets [] are Berserk damage @ 100% HP.
Figures in braces {} are without the self-damage offset, and also take Berserk @ 100% HP.  (With a killpoint of 1180, 13% max HP self damage = 153.)

1.   839 Fumi: Ice/Elec Dance
2.   734 Otome: Ice/Elec/Force Dance
3.   629 Jungo: Berserk [767] {920}
4.   606 Io: Fire/Ice/Elec Dance
5.   460 Keita: Berserk [569] {722}
6.   454 Yamato: Fire/Ice/Elec Dance  (Berserk: 322, [406], {559})
---  454 Miyako: Fire/Ice/Elec Dance
7.   408 Joe: Ice/Elec Dance
8.   401 Ronaldo: Berserk [499] {652}
9.   373 Airi: Fire/Ice/Elec Dance
10. 332 Makoto: Berserk [417] {571}
11. 330 Hinako: Multi-Strike {483} (Berserk: 272, [348], {501})
12. 315 Al Saiduq: Fire/Ice/Elec/Force Dance
13. 240 Daichi: Multi-Strike {396} (Berserk: 223, [289], {443})
---  233 Hibiki (equal build): Fire/Ice/Elec/Force Dance

Damage average (no Hibiki/Miyako): 471, 2.5 killpoint: 1180
Damage average (no Hibiki/Miyako, Berserk @100% HP): 504, 2.5 killpoint: 1260
« Last Edit: October 15, 2015, 04:06:36 AM by SnowFire »

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Re: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2015, 07:02:05 AM »
Appendix

Critial hits
Criticals only happen on physical attacks.  They deal roughly +50% damage.  Not 100% sure on the rate w/o Crit up Passives like Ares Aid, but it's probably ~12.5% or so, so only really comes up for Multi-Strike users vs. slow opponents.

Status
The following statuses persist from skirmish to skirmish, lasting about ~2-4 turns on the map:
* Poison: 20% HP loss every turn.  Stops at 1 HP.
* Paralysis: ~25% turn skip, lose all evasion.  Physical attack accuracy greatly reduced (-50% hit or so?).
* Petrify: User can't take action, but takes hugely reduced (~10%) damage.  Physical attacks and Force magic have a ~50% chance per hit of shattering the target and causing death.
* Curse: Can't recover HP or MP.  (Not to be confused with the Curse element.)

The following statuses clear at the end of each skirmish, so they will only matter for 0-2 enemy turns (e.g. if you freeze someone with an Extra Turn before they move you deny 2, if you freeze someone without an Extra Turn after they move you deny 0.)
* Freeze: 100% turn skip, always receive a critical hit from physicals.  Ice elemental (not Curse).
* Shock: 100% turn skip, always receive a critical hit from physicals.  Lightning elemental (not Curse).
* Charm: Act counter to own interests. Won't attack self.
* Forget: Skill / magic block, equivalent to Silence.

Status Resistance
Involves passives, so is probably illegal.  That said, there are >4 passives that offer some of it, so you could kit out your whole squad with it if needed.  Specifically, Null Curse > Anti-Most > Anti-Curse = Anti-Ailment. 

Range
All PCs have range 1 by default.  However, some demons have a skill that gives their squad long range.  If you outrange an opponent and attack them from range, then unlike normal combats, they can't do squat, not even guard.  Note that the vast majority of such skills that grant range also forbid getting Extra Turns (even in range-1 combat), so it's best stuck on low-AGL squads.  Anyway, the point is that depending on how harsh you are, certain long-range attacks own the cast by attacking from range 2+.  (I'd probably only apply this for the likes of FE Longbows, myself, or high-range abilities like FFT Holy Explosion / Earth Slash.)

Skill crack
DS2 PCs can "crack" an enemy skill to learn it permanently, at least barring a few rare boss-only skills.  They can even set it right then and there in the middle of battle!  The only problem: you get the skill on the enemy's defeat.  So…  this will almost never come up in the DL.  Maybe team matches, maybe duelers with auto-life, and maybe multi-form bosses who have PC-usable magic / skills in their first form that would be useful against their second form.

Guarding
Guard seems to cut received damage in half or so.  Note that the Guard state does NOT persist into an Extra Turn, so you'll lose the benefit then - unless you have an Extra Turn and Guard again, of course.

Scaling elemental resistances
I personally don't think it's necessary here, but if you do:
Phys resist: Yamato multiplies incoming phys damage by .52 .   Everybody else takes 1.04 times as much damage from physicals.
Elemental resists: The cast multiplies elemental (Fire/Ice/Elec/Force) damage they're resistant to by .57, and takes 1.14 as much damage from elements they're neutral to.
Status/Curse resistance: Otome reduces most status odds by .52 .  Everybody else increases them by 1.04.  Al Saiduq is immune to most status.

Fate bonuses
Ranking up a character's "Fate" ranking with Our Hero (think Social Link ranks from Persona) gives a variety of bonuses. 

At rank 1, characters gain their elemental resistance.  Note that the PCs generally lose this elemental resistance in their enemy forms because they don't have that speshul relationship with their kind but strong leader whom everyone agrees is possibly the greatest person to ever live, so you can argue they'd lose this in a duel too, despite there being no battles in-game where you can't deploy Hibiki/Hero.  I give this exactly as much credit as I would SO2 characters losing the ability to damage bosses without Claude/Rena in the party, that is, none.

At rank 2, PCs can joint skill crack with Hero (useless); at rank 4, they can use SDTP to send demons to the Hero in 1 action rather than 2 (also useless).

At rank 3 and rank 5, a special fusion is unlocked.  You can then fuse that demon and deploy it normally (i.e. as part of any character's squad).  A reasonably valid interpretation of the cast is to see "Summon" as legal, but only for the demons that are uniquely tied to the character.  While this would give the cast legal access to some cool stuff…  meh.  There are memorability issues here, especially since in-game the demons will be fused giving them other skills they won't have in the DL, and this will vary by player.  And then there's the whole headache about initiative for summoning your demon friends.  And there's the fact that some demons clearly don't really work without fusion (Baal, Yamato's, has 3 Amps but no active spells to USE the amps with without fusing).  And the level differences.  So…  too much of a headache.

Alternate Hibiki / Hero builds
Unlike DDS Serph, there isn't really an obvious "best" build.  Since the PCs don't have access to healing, a tanky build is very suspect, but blitzing builds can't TOTALLY neglect Vit lest they get OHKO'd left & right.  Anyway, here are three suggestions:

Magical Fumi-esque Hibiki:
Str 4 Mag 40 Vit 10 Agl 22

YOLO Daichi-esque Hibiki:
Str 36 Mag 4 Vit 4 Agl 32

Slugging Jungo-esque Hibiki:
Str 40 Mag 4 Vit 12  Agl 20

The Fumi build is pretty much just a faster Fumi.  Speedy high 2HKO, so the plan is smash, take 1 hit, smash on the Extra Turn.  The Daichi build hopes to just plain OHKO since it dies to a stiff breeze, but 36 Str makes Multi-Strike taps considerably more badass than Daichi / Hinako and he gets a pretty ludicrous number of hits (6 hits vs. 17 Agi).  The Jungo build is boring and invests in just enough Agl to be mildly faster than average, then hopes to outslug with Berserk/Deathbound.

Guest forms & enemy forms
Makoto, Ronaldo, & Yamato have gratuitously overlevel guest forms on Day 1/3/4 where they wander around murdering everything, but are not under player control.  They'd really love it if you allowed these scaled to the PCs level at the time!  I don't.  (Airi / Jungo / Keita have mildly overlevel guest forms, but it isn't a big deal.)

For Day 7 / Day 8 enemy forms, well.  They have the same stats as they would as PCs (except Alcor).  Take a look at the damage averages vs. the HP averages.  So yes, we have a glass cannon shootout where even if the enemy forms are not scaled at all due to support credit, they still get OHKO'd left & right, *but* they can OHKO you back quite easily as well.  (Usual reminder that demon block for half damage makes this a little trickier in-game, although not by enough, usually.)  So who gets the drop on the map and gets the initiator initiative boost is hugely important, as is long range.  Usually too much of a headache IMHO. 

If you allow them, be warned there's some instant spoiling that opens up for characters with Null/Drain/Reflect Phys; Jungo / Otome / Yamato now laugh off all pure-physical duelers.  Jungo & Yamato have the Revive autoskill as well, so they revive some blocking demons in along with them into a fight even if they start alone.  Fumi & Alcor are demon-summoners who will generate reinforcement squads on their turn; notably Fumi will drop her 3 summons next to her and have 1 back to the wall, preventing range-1 characters from getting in on her, and her summon action is *really fast*.  Alcor's reinforcements at least come in from the edge of the map and can probably be ignored if the battle ends in ~2 turns or so, but he also has the "do you force him to form switch as he does in-game" DL interp weirdness, as in the DL he probably wants to pretend form 2 doesn't exist with its phys-weakness.  Io gets an extra life and goes all superpowered after you kill her once.

Alternative interpretations

If you're generous, you could argue that the cast also has legal access to the 4th-best healing, 4th-best attack that inflicts a desired status, 4th-best draining, etc. as everybody wants these options.  Since FF6 & FF7 characters don't get extremely trivial in-game to get magic like that in the DL, going to ignore those though and stick to just basic damage.  If you do…  well, healing is the big one, which goes Prayer > Mediahran > Diarahan > Diarama, so the whole cast (barring Jungo/Keita) would get Diarama and be able to spam healing on their map turns, giving them quite significant regen and probably pushing everybody up by a division.  Don't think there's enough draining or status to go around for them to matter, though.

Another alternative interp: Give characters the active skills they have equipped when they have guest forms and enemy forms.  Again, not a bad idea, but be warned that the game has a few loopy builds, like building Hinako as a straight mage.  Various characters get DS2 healing, which as noted above is really awesome.  That said…  quick, can you name which ones have healing on their boss form?  If not, I don't particularly recommend this interp.

DL assessment

Denied all the powerful spoiling tricks you have in-game from passives, healing, autoskills, etc. the cast is entirely too fair.  Buncha Lights & Middles.  The one trick the cast does have is erratic damage off all the multi-hit abilities, which makes healers nervous, although the self-damage rapidly becomes a problem for Berserking heal-lockers, as can cases where a character really needs a reliable OHKO out the gate. The mages are better off; aside from the erratic damage, if the mage is fast, the threat of a Freeze or Shock proc is pretty good at ruining healers, and vanilla status resistance won't stop it, only Ice / Elec resistance.  20% hit rate may well be an underestimate (could be 25%?), but too lazy to check, it'd require a LOT of tests to be sure.

Fumi & Joe come off rather well.  Middle.  Fumi explodes the world with her damage, 2HKOing even magically tanky types, and is slightly fast.  Loses to the likes of fast thiefy types with crappy damage or those who can OHKO her, which is rather easy, but not bad.  Joe loses a lot of the damage but gets a ton more speed.  Sometimes a winning trade, sometimes not.

Io & Makoto are not as happy.  Mixed damage is very useful in-game with all the spoiling & nulling going on, but looks kind of lame in the DL, leaving both of them frail and slow.  Io at least still 2HKOs.  Mako…  doesn't, and also is killing herself with Berserk, and is probably cast-worst dueler. :(  They're both Light.

Yamato would be in the same boat as Io & Makoto, but hey look he has the best resistance in Phys, so bye-bye durability problems!  Fast mages still generally own him but not bad, Middle.

Daichi & Hinako…  sheesh, the DL is not the game.  Multi-Strike is probably the best ability there is in-game, hits everybody for free, throw in Ares Aid for infinite crits & Asura Karma so that you deny all your opponent's Extra Turns and take *2* Extras yourself, incoming triple turns.  They're probably even faster than their listed rates in practice, especially against the slow, via grabbing at least the occasional crit, and can fall back to Berserk against the fast, but the damage just isn't there.  Light.

Keita & Jungo are pretty one-dimensional, but that dimension works.  Spam Berserk a lot, watch stuff explode.  Note that they are unique in the cast as far as being uniquely BAD at equipping tons of useful abilities that require Magic…  they're the only 2 cast members who can't equip decent healing, revival, various useful nulling & resistance, etc.  This weakness sadly does not translate to the DL.  Keita is faster but less damaging and has Multi-Strike as a weird backup vs. the very slow.  They're both Middle.

Otome has badass damage like Fumi, and the status resistance would be really cool in Middle, but…  ugh, wrong side of the speed line, and despite the VIT investment, still gets 2HKO'd by average physical damage, so loses to an average speed average damage slugger.  Kneejerking High Light, but could just be a really crappy Middle.  Also from flavor, Otome is the character who most deserves some healing magic, but alas, the doctor cannot heal herself.  (Her enemy form does indeed have Prayer for MT full healing / status curing, at least!)

Ronaldo is the cast's sole tank, which is not a great place to be in-game where demon tamers sit behind mooks and enjoy -50% damage taken, so you want damage cannons.  Anyway, slow inaccurate tank has not traditionally worked super-well in the DL either, and Ronaldo's self-damage from Berserk hurts him relatively more thanks to his good HP & defense.  Light.

Airi & Al Saiduq have balanced-ish but favoring Magic builds.  They don't have tons of damage, but don't underestimate decent speed scoring 'em some victories anyway.  The better map speed Al Saiduq has is one of the best unique traits in the game, but it alas doesn't really translate.  His Curse immunity & super HP & MP does translate, at least, tanking hits better than Airi.  Light, but decent ones.
« Last Edit: September 22, 2015, 01:04:41 AM by SnowFire »

SnowFire

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Re: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker
« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2015, 04:03:04 AM »
Miyako-chan has been edited in above, although the averages not changed.  She's...  not very impressive, and kind of boring.  She's got the Hotsuin +2 to stats, but invested enough in Str to lose stats elsewhere, but not enough to make physicals a viable backup.  Oops.  She hits the trifecta of slightly below average damage, slightly below average durability, and slightly below average speed.  Worse than a pure-average dueler when her elemental resists aren't relevant.  Pretty much "Airi but worse."  Also possibly deserves some disrespect for joining crazy late - there's just 1 required battle then the final battle sequence left, although admittedly the final battle sequence is a bit long.  Okay and an optional superboss fight if you're on NG+ / Sept importing.

Needless to say she badly wants her boss form, which *is* one of the most dangerous boss forms out there, if still a bit of a headache.  3 parts that are all explicitly her ( a la FE10 Ashera) , the side parts null physicals and the main part reflects 'em, lots of elemental resists & nulling with no weaknesses, tons of damage, and tons of initiative map-action damage that is potentially blocked by an NPC ally in-game (and thus possibly not working in the DL where this ally may not be seen to exist).  AND an initiative half-damage shield too.  Yeah, she's decent even if scaled to 1 HP just from sheer offense.