Season 43, Week 4 - Lady grinds another bishie. The audience plays Ritapon.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP)


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos)
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2)


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4)
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2) - Her first-turn D-Combo chain OHKOs Indy. It doesn't even need to, since she survives a ToT turn+crap he throws in the first turn.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4) - Does this bring back any memories of Rubi, Edge?


Middle

Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2) - Elim and that's that. Brad can't OHKO, and it's not even guaranteed that he goes first anyway. ._.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4) - Viktor vs. non-frail healing. That's going to work out well.
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7) - Counters. Pretty much it.

[Dhyerwolf]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)- Lady
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP)- Loki. Well, giant damage gap over XS 3 Virgil and XS 1...who the hell knows. But his HP isn't that great, certainly much less damage, and in form 2, that big damage is only below 50%.

Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)- Decus. Smash
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)- Saki. 1.5 PC HP=easily survives Time Gate to me.


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos)- Unsure.
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2)- Hahn


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4)- Jewel
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)- Stallion. 194 S2 Speed...makes me think that he doubles Erk. Which effectively means Stallion and Erk are trading hits. Stallion goes first and crits on turn 3.
 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2): At worst, Lady is awesome at chipping until it's time to strike with incredible fury. At best, see Snow.
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP): 2HKOs, so takes two Virgil turns at worst. Even if they're Spectre Wave + Eternal Storm... that's at best borderline OHKO damage, and it takes more than that to kill Loki. By quite a large margin to me.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4): I like Edge's writeup though.
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1): Unlike Dhyer I actually figured out the combo system, or that buffs were good; not sure which it is. Saki is PCHP at best, so loses.


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos): Cast Earthquake twice, collect victory. Yeah, not seeing 70% healing being enough with near-OHKO damage like that.
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2): Unlike Fu So Ya, can survive a Lock-On Mini-Scud. This fact saves me from looking up who goes first.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4): Heal and collect victory; pretty simple?
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7): Very close. Stallion doesn't double, as Erk is pretty speedy. However, Stallion -does- 3-2 to me, which means turn order goes Stallion, Erk counter, Erk, Stallion, Erk counter, Stallion, Erk counter, Erk. Erk isn't killing in three, Stallion is. Stallion gets his three first. But... Erk has like 22% evade (Stallion has almost average hit), which means 55% chance to evade at least once or so. Good enough.

[Monkeyfinger]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP): XS1 Virgil had elemental resists, I know that, but what were they like? They might be enough to save him from being 2HKOed, which to me would let him win.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos)

Light

Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)

[Ultradude]

Virgil. I seem to recall the form with the swords or whatever taking ether like most enemies, but then he switches to the flying form. At that point, Jr. becomes your only source of ranged physical damage, and he was pretty much the only one doing any noteworthy damage to Virgil, to the point where all my ranged ether attackers just sat twiddling their thumbs no matter how good they were at it. I know he resisted Beam, at least, since KOS-MOS barely scratched him, and I seem to recall him reducing at least one other element by a lot. He probably resists all four major XS1 elements, Beam, Fire, Thunder, and Ice. I'm thinking that at least his flying form has the same elemental resists as Albedo, which means 75% reduction on all elements in XS1.

Not sure if this helps against Loki, but that's what I remember him having. I also recall him being fairly fast and having much better damage than pre-50% hp Albedo for the whole match, but I think I was underlevelled, since I recall my endgame team not breaking level 35 with a single character... Sophie Piethos is annoying enough too...

[Dhyerwolf]

Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1): Unlike Dhyer I actually figured out the combo system, or that buffs were good; not sure which it is. Saki is PCHP at best, so loses.

My 3 turn averages included the MT buffs. Combos aren't so hot 3 turn wise thanks to delaying several of the characters acting (And then if you go and use your best damage in combos, you get delayed).

Think Virgil gets 75% Lightning res in form 1, and 75% Lightning and Ice res in form 2 (This is based on my memory of SI's FaQ). According to the FaQ, he definetely didn't get Lightning, Fire, and Ice though.

[Ultradude]

Lightning and ice in form one, from what I'm reading, and lightning and beam in form 2. Doppelwogel also has 40 Edef, if you respect enemy defense stats, which is the same as Albedo who's fought a few levels higher.

First form has 8 Agl., which is pretty much average. Form 2 has an excellent 12 Agl., making that the really fast form. Damage... I'm getting damage in the low-mid hundreds, no clue how much you should have at that point. Evade is 60 in form 2, not coming up against Loki but it's there in case it ever comes up against anyone. It's a somewhat noticeable evade stat, nothing too special.

[superaielman]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP)- Um. Can Virgil do anything about extension force? Closer than it should be for me. Luckily Loki's worthless HP saves the day.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)- About as close as Edge vs Rubicant 1: Ninja fritters in a cave.
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)- Think so, at least.


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos)- Don't respect Tengaar's offense as much as some.
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2)


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4)
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)- I think. This fails.

[Meeplelard]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2): No Comment.
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP): Virgil isn't much against pure slugfest bosses, which is exactly what Loki is.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4): <_<
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1): Time Gate wins it for me.


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos): Don't know, need to actually look up Tear one of these days.
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2): Yeah, Hahn survives Lock On Mini-Scud.  Eliminat should win from there.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4): One has Healing, the other does not.
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7): One counters, the other doesn't? I suppose Stallion's probably doubling given the speed, but...eh, more respect for standard FE Mage damage than Suikoscrub damage.

[Dark Holy Elf]

My 3 turn averages included the MT buffs. Combos aren't so hot 3 turn wise thanks to delaying several of the characters acting (And then if you go and use your best damage in combos, you get delayed).

All combos do is make you go as fast as your slowest PC. Given the SH2 speed curve, this isn't a big deal at all; all it really does is negate the Harmonixer speed boost (which we don't scale against bosses anyway!). Unless you are counting turns spent moving as part of a 3-turn average, which is ridiculous since your next turn could easily come about 10-20x as fast as usual depending on who you are comboing with.

A lot of the really good moves in-game aren't too laggy. Physicals, for one (Mind's Eyes are cool, and I didn't even use one in SH2!). The fact that bosses are slow probably factors in here, since they weren't lapping me even with some slightly laggy moves (like Karin's 15-hit one, and usually a strong finisher spell) being used.

I dunno about three-turns averages, but this was good enough to two-round Garan. (This translates to <80% pdur by your figures, less by mine... though with some leniency due to the fact that I used a clearly above average party with both harmonixers.) Saki's not as frail as him, but she is in the same ballpark.

[Dhyerwolf]

The slight lag in combos coming off to me means that I'd really really consider them as finishers. If you only use physicals in combos, it means you don't take full advantage of the hits. Also, combos don't really boost the damage that much.

However, if you used TRings, that might be different. I didn't, because I do not come anywhere close to getting in the correct area constantly with them, and they definetely cause the damage I do to fall.

[muakaka]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)- Pretty easy fight here. Chip, D-combo.
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP)


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)- No idea.


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos)- Near-OHKO damage isn't enough against Tear's Mdef for me to OHKO her.
So this turns into a slugfest. Tear's faster(Or as I recall, Tengaar was pretty slow. I judge Tales character's speed by their movement speed).
Starts off with Holy Song or Grand Cross, then heals every turn until she gets a double to fire off Grand Cross. Should it last long enough for her Mystic Arte, that's it.

Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4)
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)- Evade hype? Meh. Saves me from the headache.

[Magic Fanatic]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2) - Shadow Hearts Championships are always a plus.
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP)


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4)
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos) - Unless Tengaar can OHKO Tear on her first turn, she's not winning.  According to the stat topic, Tear has like...  95% average speed?  Suikoden II topic has Tengaar as dead average, so...  No doubleturns for a LONG while.  Eat Nightmare spam, Tengaar?  Eh...  Still, chip to big damage, I guess.  If she doesn't mind gimping her damage (back to average instead of 120% effectiveness), then she can opt for the Earth Cape to give her a little more leeway in this fight, right?  I mean, the Earth Cape lowers Earthquake's damage to, like, a mid 2HKO.

Going that way, Tengaar will probably want to buff up with either Canopy Defense or Revenge Earth (Canopy Defense first to stop Tear from outright threatening her), but she's still eating damage either way.  A physical combo may not be the best option to start off with, so she starts off with Nightmare.  That's either getting rid of Canopy Defense or stunning Tengaar.  Then she casts it again, and say hi to full Dark FoF!

As far as I see it, it's all a matter of whether or not you allow the Earth Cape and/or Tear's Pendant.  Allow the Earth Cape?  Tear wins.  Don't allow the Earth Cape but allow Tear's Pendant?  It's...  Quite close, but Tear probably takes it - sure, she's healing every other turn and working on a 20-turn clock (where Tengaar would double), but Nightmare lets her ease up quite a bit.  Don't allow either?  Tear...  MIGHT win, if she has the resources for a LOT of Nightmares, and ending with big damage before Tengaar's 20th turn.

I think this is all right, anyways.

Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2)


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4) - Unless Viktor has some shade of 2HKO I'm missing, this is obvious.
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Tengaar is average speed, muakaka.

You both seem to be missing that Tear's healing isn't full. That means if EQ does even 85% to her, she can't heal from it and gets killed second turn. I definitely don't recall TotA MDef (Def maaybe, but not MDef) being good enough to lower damage that much, not when Tear's below average HP means she's taking 99% from the spell alone.

Even if it is, though, she just starts using physicals. Those probably do 20-25% to Tear, forcing her to heal each turn because even if EQ is, say, only doing 80% to her, she's going to die if she's below 90% HP and Tengaar then uses it twice. If it's 75%, she has to stay above 80%, and so on.

Granted, Tear might pull it out if you allow that Earth Cape, but haha to element-blocking accessories from me. She's not winning without that, though.

[muakaka]

Tengaar is average speed, muakaka.

You both seem to be missing that Tear's healing isn't full. That means if EQ does even 85% to her, she can't heal from it and gets killed second turn. I definitely don't recall TotA MDef (Def maaybe, but not MDef) being good enough to lower damage that much, not when Tear's below average HP means she's taking 99% from the spell alone.

Even if it is, though, she just starts using physicals. Those probably do 20-25% to Tear, forcing her to heal each turn because even if EQ is, say, only doing 80% to her, she's going to die if she's below 90% HP and Tengaar then uses it twice. If it's 75%, she has to stay above 80%, and so on.

Granted, Tear might pull it out if you allow that Earth Cape, but haha to element-blocking accessories from me. She's not winning without that, though.

Well, thanks for notifying me of Tengaar's speed.
Even if she's dead average, I'm inclined to see Tear as quite fast, as I judge Tales character's speed by their running speed.
Agility in TotA BARELY makes any difference to their speed. Luke can have 500 more Agility than Guy(Using Persian boots, I've done this.....) and still run slower.

I also find Tear magically tanky, as she's got gamebest Mdef with the pendant, and her HP isn't atrocious.
I think Earthquake doing 80% to Tear is a fair amount. KO point in S2 is 1400 from the stat topic, Tengaar's Earthquake does about 1100.
That sums up nicely to about 79% PCHP.

Tear starts, gets off a nice damaging spell, gets hit, then heals every turn until she can double, where she bashes on her second turn.
It'll take forever, but Tear ain't running out of First Aids anytime soon.

Or, I could follow Magic Fanatic's Nightmare hype, which......according to interpretation, guarantees Tear a double turn against non-Stun immune opponents.
Nightmare and First Aid in sequence should see her through. Should Tengaar be near dead, Tear could replace First Aid with her damaging Cluster Raid FoF.

I...don't allow non-storebought elemental resistors, but Stone Charm should do the trick if the need arises.

If I see Tengaar as faster? No way does Tear win for me, unless Nightmare hype kicks in, or you allow Earth Cape/Stone Charm.
Tengaar slowly waits it out till the EVENTUAL double, then spams Earthquake.

[Magic Fanatic]

Personally, I see the stun Nightmare applies the same as applying Unbalance to a Suikoden character or something.  I just decided to crunch some numbers (still debating with myself about how right they are), and going with the Kill Point from allowing FoF Canceling...

Kill Point with FoF Canceling (Non-Anise crits):  28820
Tengaar's comparative HP:  93.3%
Match-specific Kill Point:  26889 (or 26890, it doesn't matter much).

Tengaar's MDEF:  ~110%
Tengaar's Damage (Using the second L4-but-no-Fire Emblem numbers):  77% PCHP

Tear's HP:  ~91.5%
Tear's MDEF (After Pendant):  83 points above average (~119%)

Tear's Damage with Nightmare (before Silver Hat Resists, after Pendant expectations):  Somewhere between 4176 and 4733
Tear's effective damage with Nightmare:  Between 2088 and 2366

Tengaar's Speed:  100%
Tear's Speed:  95%  (Agility score instead of running speed)

That means...  Tengaar doubles Tear in 20 of her turns.  Plenty of time - especially since Earthquake isn't OHKOing, even though Tengaar probably goes first.  All Tear has to do is survive one turn, and she wins with like 9 or 10 straight Nightmares (or more if Tengaar decides to be weird and use Canopy Defense instead), and then finishing up with Holy Lance, Judgement, or Grand Cross (don't quote me on that last spell option).

This match is mostly up to the interpretation of how one sees Nightmare's stun effects, and somewhat of whether or not you give Tengaar that second L4 charge and which S2 Damage Average one uses (Though even with the lowest numbers, Tengaar JUST barely misses that OHKO, as far as my calculations go - she'd need BOTH the straight damage average AND that second L4 charge to win it, then).

EDIT:

There's a few more small things to go in Tear's favor, as well.  According to an FAQ, Tear has the proper stats from the C. Cores to have (Relevant AD Skills only):
A chance of halving elemental damage (Anti-Element - gained at 40 FDEF from C. Cores),
Doing MORE damage with her spells through her spells critting (Critical Magic - gained at 20 FATK from C. Cores)
A chance of nulling Tengaar's offensive spells completely (Nullify - gained at 30 PDEF and FDEF from C. Cores)
Coming back to life after death (Resurrect - Gained at 50 PDEF and FDEF from C. Cores)
Going faster for repeated spells (Reducer - Gained at 30 FATK and FDEF from C. Cores)

Now, that last one is open WAY to interpretation, but...  Yeah.  Also can't say I know what the chances for each of those kicking in are, but...  They could easily assist in Tengaar's downfall - and I don't see why these shouldn't be allowed.  If you allow C. Cores (even only the ones that a character starts with), then the skills are just a natural result of leveling up.

[Pyro]

I never saw any of those skills. Any idea on the odds for them?

[Fudozukushi]

I never saw any of those skills. Any idea on the odds for them?

God awful.  Resurrect has a 5% (roughly) chance and it's the highest one by a longshot.

Reducer reduces casting cost of a spell by 25% when used twice in a row.

[Pyro]

Odds are that pitiful? Good reason for me not to have seen it.

Anyway. I don't think most people allow Nightmare locking. In no small part because stun only lasts for like 20% of the time it takes to cast the spell or so <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

Even if she's dead average, I'm inclined to see Tear as quite fast, as I judge Tales character's speed by their running speed.

Even if the Agility stat isn't what governs running speed directly, I found it pretty indicative, and apparently so did a lot of other people. Regardless, I recall Tear being considerably slower than both Guy and Natalia, making her averagish. If you have some running speed tests to prove me wrong, by all means post them for us.

Until then, I can't really see Tear doubling Tengaar ever, especially if she's using her healing spels, which are sluggish if anything.

KO point in S2 is 1400

The... "L4 average" leads to that kill point. I don't even know what that means, but I can tell you this: it's not an average based on DL-legal numbers. Kill point based on DL-legal numbers is 1230, and I strongly disagree with using non-DL-legal things in damage averages; all it does is nerf an entire PC cast.

So Tengaar does about 90% to average.

See Cryo on Nightmare hype; I was under the impression that couldn't be chained very well.

[Fudozukushi]

Agility really matters very little for run speed.  Some time ago I tested out some horribly skewed Agility ranges and Guy was still fastest, despite Luke having 1,000 more agility on him.

A character's innate running speed matters most, then the Dash AD skill, then agility bonus.

[Lord Ephraim]

Godlike

Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP) - The damage difference is a bit too much, even if I don't view Loki as durable (or most VP bosses for that matter!)


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4) - Edge enjoys his favorite way of dying.
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1) - Inclined to say "lol SH2 boss durability" and Saki doesn't feel any different. (I can't remember if she was solely a one-on-one fight or not)


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos) - I was definally leaning towards "yeah, healing/resources > crappy suikoden rune charges", until Elfboy made the notion that Tengaar can just open up with one physical to force a heal lock threat with EQ because Tear's healing is not full.  In this case, I few EQ doing exactly 75% (I usually see EQ being 80% damage, but I don't think PC defenses in TotA to really matter enough to offset the HP) to Tear and her physical doing 20%.

Tengaar -> Attack (20%) 80%
Tear -> Something other than healing (otherwise, we're back to where we started)
Tengaar -> EQ (75) 5%
Tear -> heal (70%) 75%
Tengaar -> EQ (75%) 0%

Which BARELY kills.  Hahaha

Light

Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7) - Erk's evasion and generally better offense is enough to handle standard Suiko Light.

[VySaika]

Godlike

Lady (SH3) vs. Indalecio (SO2)
Luis Virgil (XS) vs. Loki (VP) -Ker-SPLAT. I've got alot of respect for Virgil, but Loki is just a better class of slugger.


Heavy

Decus (SO2) vs. Edge Eblan (FF4) - Edge hates fire bosses.
Saki Inugami (SH2) vs. Feena (G1)


Middle

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos) - See the Elf. The arguments for Tear feel really weak, honestly.
Hahn Mahlay (PS4) vs. Brad Evans (WA2) - Sorry Brad, shit draw here.


Light

Viktor (Suikos) vs. Jewel (S4) - Easy enough. Viktor really needed to be stronger for all his plot importance.
Stallion (Suikos) vs. Erk (FE7) - Yeah, Erk's evasion will let him dodge one hit somewhere, and that's all he needs.

[Magic Fanatic]

Tear Grants (TotA) vs. Tengaar (Suikos) - I was definally leaning towards "yeah, healing/resources > crappy suikoden rune charges", until Elfboy made the notion that Tengaar can just open up with one physical to force a heal lock threat with EQ because Tear's healing is not full.  In this case, I few EQ doing exactly 75% (I usually see EQ being 80% damage, but I don't think PC defenses in TotA to really matter enough to offset the HP) to Tear and her physical doing 20%.

Tengaar -> Attack (20%) 80%
Tear -> Something other than healing (otherwise, we're back to where we started)
Tengaar -> EQ (75) 5%
Tear -> heal (70%) 75%
Tengaar -> EQ (75%) 0%

Which BARELY kills.  Hahaha

OK...  Approaching this argument from a different angle:

Tengaar (100%) ->  Attack  (20%)
Tear (80%)  ->  Holy Song -> Tear (100%), Tear takes...  2% less from physicals.  Whoo-hoo.
Tengaar (100%) ->  Attack  (18%)
Tear (82%)  ->  Grand Cross (35%) -> FoF Cancel into Searing Sorrow (Since Tear's PATK is getting a 20% boost from Holy Song...  6060?  6480?  Anywho, ~21%)
Tengaar (44%)  ->  Earthquake (80%)
Tear (2%)  ->  Grand Cross (35%) -> FoF Cancel into Searing Sorrow (~21%), win.

Tear needs one of two things to win:
1.  Be faster than Tengaar, or
2.  Allow FoF Canceling.

If you don't allow FoF Canceling, then they both have 3TKO damage (and Tear responds to a first turn EQ with her 70% Healing).  I'm going to try to puzzle out what average I go by for damage in S2 now, though.