Final Fantasy Class Warfare: Redemption Round

[DragonKnight Zero]

I'd talked about doing this at DLCon in 2015.  Only took nearly two years to do it.   

  A special tourney for the biggest losers of the class tourney: I'm giving them another chance to show their stuff.  Maybe they'll fare better when up against opposing teams closer to their power level.  Maybe they still suck.  Who knows?  They'll never be the cream of the crop but they may regain some respect.

Going to go with a pools setup since there are only 4 teams: Archer, Engineers, Red Mages, and Paladins.

Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine)
Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8)
Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille)
Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix)

Archers vs Engineers
Archers vs Red Mages
Archers vs Paladins

Engineers vs Red Mages
Engineers vs Paladins

Red Mages vs Paladins

BONUS: Two of each class (your pick) vs Rikku*, Tidus, FF5 Samurai, Garnet
* as in Snowfire's tourney, Rikku has access to common steals for Mix.

Can the scrubs pull out a victory in a 2 on 1 brawl or will the winningest classes show them why they're the top 4 and send them back to scrubland?

[superaielman]

Archers vs Engineers- Kneejerk.
Archers vs Red Mages- Also kneejerk.
Archers vs Paladins- Archers have problems with Meliadoul by herself, let alone the whole field.

Engineers vs Red Mages- RMs can't really damage Worker.
Engineers vs Paladins- Superior offense and durability.

Red Mages vs Paladins- Blitz down. Cecil and Meliadoul resist the worst of what red mages can do and Tellah's not getting a turn.

Paladins: 3-0
Red Mages: 1-2
Archers: 1-2
Engineers: 1-2

[Random Consonant]

Archers vs Engineers - Archers kind of suck at focus fire here but it probably doesn't matter given how inept at offense the opposing team is.  They might be able to bring down FF5 Ranger before they get down to just W8 but that's not saving them from anything.
Archers vs Red Mages - Something unpleasant will land on key members.
Archers vs Paladins - Probably, if they can't drop Meliadoul first thing, they're gonna have a bad time.  And might lose anyways since two of their people are kind of useless.

Engineers vs Red Mages - Probably?  Not real sure how RMs deal with W8 other than FF5 Coral Sword hype but it may not matter if Edgar can't get a useful turn since everyone else here sucks.
Engineers vs Paladins - Engineers can't really leverage Edgar's tools worth a damn here.

Red Mages vs Paladins - Should be able to knock Tellah/FF5 RM out of the fight fast enough to cruise.

BONUS: Two of each class (your pick) vs Rikku*, Tidus, FF5 Samurai, Garnet
Not thinking about this one too hard.

other two later i guess

[SnowFire]

Cool that you brought this back, good times.

Archers (FF3 Ranger, FF5 Ranger, FFT Archer [male], FFX-2 Gunner Paine)
Engineers (FF4 Cid, Edgar, Mustadio, Worker 8)
Red Mages (FF1 Red Wizard, Tellah, FF5 Red Mage, Vanille)
Paladins (Cecil, Agrias, Meliadoul, PC Beatrix)

Archers vs Engineers
All the Archers have are damage, but it should be enough to ensure Edgar never takes a turn without some blocks, and the rest of the Engies suck.  It takes awhile to grind down W8's defense but whatever.
Archers vs Red Mages
Letting any of FF5 or Tellah live is terrible, and Vanille living is pretty bad...  I don't think the largely MT & unfocused burst is enough to reliable get 'em all.  Could be convinced.
Archers vs Paladins
Dat auto-protect'd Meliadoul who goes around breaking shit.

Engineers vs Red Mages
Vanille status should mean that Edgar never gets a non-status'd turn.  W8 is a threat but the Red Mages have revival & healing, they can outlast him, especially if he's killing himself to do more damage.
Engineers vs Paladins
Too much status blocking for the Paladins, sure.  Air Anchor might nab one but it'll be too little, too late.

Red Mages vs Paladins
This is the tough match.  Suspect PC Beatrix scaling issues are here, with high Beatrix respect giving it to the Paladins from enough damage inflicted to keep the RM's revive-locked, while low Beatrix respect meaning the RM's can both undo the Paladin's offense as well as land some damage / non-immuned status.  Kneejerking Paladins but this is the easiest match for me to switch my vote.

ALL of the Archers, Engies, RMs, & Paladins vs Rikku*, Tidus, FF5 Samurai, Garnet
Initiative Hastega, Slowga, Zenigage/Gil Toss + Garnet summons + something unfair from Rikku.  Maybe Worker 8 & Meliadoul will see a turn?  Yeah, annihilated, especially if kept to a mere 2 picks per team.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Archers vs Engineers  I'm feeling generous in that Mustadio Arm Aiming someone will prevent enough damage to give Edgar one turn.  The archers will off him before his second so unless one sees Noiseblaster producing something disasterous, the Engineers are doomed.
Archers vs Red Mages  Gives the Red Mages too much time to get their status game going.
Archers vs Paladins  Auto-protected Meliadoul breaks weapons.  I'm not even sure the archers can pile enough damage on her with Cecil and Beatrix around.  FF5 archer's critters don't rely on equipment but HA HA.

Engineers vs Red Mages  They keep Edgar status locked until they can kill him.  Edgar can go with Enhancer and Bard's Hat but I don't think 31 M. Block is saving him.  Mustadio will be an annoyance with Arm Aim so he's the next target to status out.  Tellah will be eating dirt a lot because of Worker 8 but the mages' speed advantage and buffs can handle the bot once it's isolated.  Engineers are probably better off mixing up their status resistance since if they don't have at least one with sleep immunity, they'll just stay snoozing.
Engineers vs Paladins  For once, Arm Aim not complicating things.  Mustadio has bad compat with both Agrias and Meliadoul (so much for faster Arm Aim at 46%), Cecil is immune (I think) and has Esuna if Mustado does paralyze Beatrix.  Let us charitably assume Mustadio lands Arm Aim on Beatrix.  Let us also allow Edgar to get a turn before any of the other Paladins (Cecil probably outspeeds him but for the sake of speculation)  He's likely best off Air Anchoring Beatrix to shut down the Paladins' only source of revival.  The other three will dogpile him so he's not getting a second turn.  Which leaves Mustadio gunshots, a soon-to-be weaponless Cid, and Worker 8 who's sluggish against three healthy Paladins. with decent evade  Yep, slaughter. and getting trolled by Counter Tackle to boot.

Red Mages vs Paladins  Too beefy and status resistant for the Red Mages.  Then there's Esuna and Agrias' status procs and Meliadoul breaking stuff.  A drawn out fight is a terrible idea against the Paladins.

BONUS: Two of each class (your pick) vs Rikku*, Tidus, FF5 Samurai, Garnet
  I handpicked who I thought would be the most dangerous members of the Thieves, Time Mages, Samurai, and Summoners.  Bring on the slaughter.  Had considered limiting the number of targets they could hit at once with multitarget but decided that was too much to keep track of.

Two units with initiative plus two more who are already decently agile and hasted against slowed opposition?  Massacre.

[DragonKnight Zero]

Results:

Archers vs Engineers
Archers vs Red Mages
Archers vs Paladins

Engineers vs Red Mages
Engineers vs Paladins

Red Mages vs Paladins

BONUS: Two of each class (your pick) vs Rikku*, Tidus, FF5 Samurai, Garnet

Paladins: 3-0
Red Mages: 2-1
Archers: 1-2
Engineers: 0-3

Also, the winners of the bonus match are horrifically overpowered and now I'm curious just who they can take on.  Special Proving Grounds anyone?

[SnowFire]

A really tanky status immune boss with MT damage or powerful status is what you'd need, I suspect.  Anything that isn't status immune gets Rikku'd by items and/or Slow'd by Tidus.  Anything that isn't fiendishly tanky just dies.  The alternative is initiative I-Win status, but that's really rare.

Off the top of my head...  Ghaleon is like 4 PCHP with good defense to mess with Samurai's GP Rain damage, he probably survives the burst, and his MT magic should clean up Tidus at the very least and probably Rikku too (although maybe Rikku uses Shell off Use somehow to mess with even this).  Of course Haste'd Garnet has revival and healing so not even sure that's enough, might force Ghaleon to have to ID her first, which doesn't seem a winning strategy when Rikku can just revive her.  So maybe Ghaleon + some other really tanky help?

Also, because I'm playing through it at the moment, Sharon from Trails of Cold Steel II can arguably handle this team depending on how you see initiative vs. S-Crafts.  I suspect she still doesn't die to Tidus's best damage + Samurai (she has 0.90 Physical Durability according to Tide's topic) anyway, but once she gets a turn, she uses True Death's Embrace and MT ID's everyone.  That...  still might not be enough if Samurai blocks ID (at the cost of stats) and gets a 2nd turn, of course, but it's a start.  (EDIT: Elf claims FF5 doesn't block ID after all?  Guess my memory is off.  Well Sharon just wins then.)

You could also throw that team up against the DL Draft teams and see how they do.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ghaleon's MT magic may take out Tidus but so what, Garnet revives him and Rikku ABPs twice and so much for that. Really the only way he can break through is to Fate Storm Garnet but assuming you see Reflect working on that she just casts that and yeah no dice.

Lady is immune to slow and has Lost Progress for all other buffs so her MT death rain is probably unavoidable and fatal, though she could be seen as dying to Quick Hit x4 + Zeninage + a Garnet summon if she outspeeds + uhhhh some Rikku gem. Close! She definitely falls if Garnet outspeeds her IMO but that's not a given.

This team is actually horrendous at blocking instant death (nobody does, even with generous views on FF9? It's a tough status for FF to block generally) so maybe someone suitably durable (i.e. Wugui doesn't cut it) with MT instant death could win. Wild Arms 3 Humbaba? Takes a charge turn so he'll have to face a lot of damage. I'm not wading into WA3 boss HP estimates today.

Actually... Airy's probably the best bet. Dark Abyss turn 1 for MT dread, MT ID turn 2. She's even more durable and faster than Humbaba, and the entire team somehow lacks status healing to remove Dread (Esuna one of those random spells Garnet misses). There's probably an argument involving the Acedia/Zetaflare double to take out the entire team at once too, though you can quibble about if the team can use defend commands to survive it like you do in-game (though I don't remember off the top of my head which FF defends actually reduce magic damage, despite being a mega-nerd for two of the three games in question).

Obviously plenty of teams can manage it, Lady + Auron (to Power Break Tidus) for a simple one. And yeah, some of the DL draft teams have the right kinds of cheese for sure.