Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Should make a Press Turns or Knock-Down Elemental Stone instead. If anyone manages to hit elemental weakness, then the target reacts as if they're from a SMT game - giving up Press Turns or being stunned for a round. I think that would make for an interesting team where having elemental damage would be awesome (but you'd also have to make sure to avoid picking characters with weaknesses... unless they were already P3/4/DDS characters~).

[Clear Tranquil]

Brief thoughts on Legend of Dragoon team with synergy bonus -

Albert -Taaank. Having the ability to keep himself and others around thanks to Rose Storm and naturally high stats like HP (which could be boosted further by synergy equips if needed) made him a solid team member, perhaps the most vital and the rock at the heart of it. Rose Storm was useful on a number of floors as was tanking Al's ability to remain around for vital item tossing if the faster but less durable female team members went down. He was also my most solid form of physical offence, infact I'm not sure if that ever really stopped since neither end game Dart nor Perky Step Meru had time to really get going (perhaps if they had made it to F9) Early Gust of Wind dance was niice and his additions never really trailed off from there thanks to that and an early final in Flower Storm too so yeah. Speed boosting equipment was great for him too.

Dart- Uhhh ... secondary tank I guess? Can't really think of much interesting to say about Dart ... honestly felt like deadweight compared to the rest but I don't really think this is something new. He has my vote for LVP though.

This might have changed if he'd been able to put game best damage with Divine Dragoon fully into effect but he didn't. So.

Meru- Item tossing speedster, best magical offence (dragoon spells), secondary healer. Didn't benefit from synergy bonus as much as I was hoping because I wanted Magical Hats to boost MP for my mages but it turned out it wasn't on the list like I originally thought afterall Amulet + Magical Hat combo for triple Blue Sea Dragon would have made her offence for the final floors a lot better. As it was she finally just struggled to stay alive without the needed offence and the limited MP meant she couldn't even opt for moar Rainbow Breath instead to save my item stock. I don't think there was a Dragon Helm there to help with the durability on that final stage either so no being uber with a Dragon Helm + max speed boosting (or speed/therapy ring combo) + Perky Step to boot! Given this ...  she loses out to Albert for the MVP here I think.

Sharanda- Main healer/reviver, secondary speedster, best MAG for item tossing w/th attack spells. Suffered from the same issues as Meru at the end more or less. Limited MP meant White Silver Dragon wasn't as godly for offence and healing in one as it could have been and hamstringed her as a dedicated dragoon healer/support. Being the main healer/reviver does mean she was a very important member of the team though ... perhaps even more so than Meru due to the circumstances making her the second most important after Albert.

Rose- Status slinger, secondary physical offence, back up item tosser off third best speed of this lot. Solid - ID and damage manipulation is always nice. So is a second early final addition. Rose's physicals tend to trail off after a certain point till Dragon Buster in game though despite early Demon's Dance. Being backed up by status was enough to carry her through here. Definitely better than Dart.

To sum it up Albert for MVP and Dart for LVP. Thoughts? Would Haschel have fitted in better if I could have replaced Dart for him? What if I had to replace someone other than Dart?

Thanks to the dungeonmaster for a delightfully delicious time! ;)

I like Djinn's idea too >.>

[SnowFire]

Elemental Advance sealstone is a headache right now and I support removing it.  However "everything is non-elemental" is kind of blah.  I propose instead:

Penetration Sealstone: Elemental damage cannot be absorbed, immuned, or resisted.

So yes, weaknesses will still be hit, but you don't have to worry about immunity.  This helps characters who are one-element wonders from getting walled (Nash, Lucca, Tir, etc.) at the cost of making characters with good elemental resist hax somewhat less useful (Eiko, Alex, Celes).  It's a pretty minor benefit but it's balanced.  (I think it's obvious from the phrasing, but this sealstone would still allow non "resistance" methods of reducing damage - Final Fantasy Shell would still cut half the damage on a fire magic attack, just it'd be because it's a magic attack, not the fire part.  FF1 / FFX NulFrost and friends would do nothing with this sealstone in effect.)

As for characters, I'm not sure she's in use right now, but I'd support keeping L1 Mia available as a 1.0 pick.  She's easy to interpret and she's not worthless - she's got MT damage and, once she gets the Wind Cane, the ability to buff a slower character's physical damage substantially on turn 1.  Later on she can do some elemental spoiling too (if she's willing to drop the Wind Cane).  Not amazing but it's 1 point.  I know I used her in my first dungeon team.  (To a lesser extent, I'd also cast a vote in favor of keeping Ziggy and Zhuzhen - neither are incredible but they're both harmless and can help fill out some theme teams.)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Any word on whether Elem Adv Sealstone is getting a makeover? Or the Life/Firefly/Status Symbol ones for that matter?

[Nephrite]

I will be changing the Elemental Advance stone into both the Press Turn stone and the Penetration stone. They're both unique enough that they can stand on their own.

Life will be changed so it doesn't offer revival to MT spells.

Firefly will change such that it stats the first attack of any enemy is redirected at the bearer -- in the event of MT, they will take all the hits of the move.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Press Turn - Any character who hits a weakness via an elemental attack gains an extra attack. This effect is used by both enemies and allies.

So does it work like P3/4? Where you can't get another turn off of the same enemy on your extra turn?

[Nephrite]

Press Turn - Any character who hits a weakness via an elemental attack gains an extra attack. This effect is used by both enemies and allies.

So does it work like P3/4? Where you can't get another turn off of the same enemy on your extra turn?

Ah, sorry, I'll make a notation, you can only gain 1 extra attack per turn with this. The enemy does not lose a turn.

[Dhyerwolf]

Since the end is imminent, thoughts on my team:

Ness: Worth the 3, I think. Ness is versatile. Healing, status (how much you respect that is always a big judgement call), MT Damage, and some physical defense skills. I would say that early on Ness doesn't have the the mettle to be a 3, but he's partially a pick that you want to get to the end, when you suddenly get this awesomely defensive MT healer. Great syngergy with SS too since he has the durability to take a hit.

Nina 1: Damn well worth the 3. When Nina shines, she is fantastic. The speed and healing, decent early revival, and a few buff options are all great. Even better if you see her getting all her skills by endgame (I don't). Murdered floor 5 most alone, and was really great a lot of other floors.

Cielo: Oh god no. I mentioned at one point to Neph that Cielo needed a downgrade. He...needs it more than 0.5 point. He may need it more than 1 point. Take a look at all Ness' pluses. Cielo is similar except...blockable (and worse) damage, notably worse durability (Cielo is 90% before SS), and right, needs a specific seal stone to not be raped by status. He needs a seal stone with massive penalties to just stand even with most other dungeon participants. Of course, which those names, I didn't fully realize some of his skillset gaps. No revival, but lots of shitty buffs (Note: Buffs are great in game. Battles are long, so using buffs/debuffs that give little punch but stack 4 times works. HORRIBLE in dungeon though). Cielo was a complete project, but he was just so bad for a 3. His biggest plus was interrupting people with average speed healing, which you don't need a 3 for. This was a half Cielo/half SS project, and the Cielo part was just a bust.

Seifer: Well worth the points, albeit not as broken as I thought. The balance of MT healing hurting him a little, but still better than a 1. He was the smash, and with ITE/MT OHKO, he did it well. One thing I didn't realize pre dungeon though was that he was a tad slow (I knew he was fast at L99! Just...not at L10 apparentally), which hurt a tad.

Raja: Well worth the points, but bad synergy with SS. In pattern, I didn't realize that his Pdur was so bad even with shields. That said, Floor 2 I could basically just say that enemies had to kill Raja first or MT Defense Up would rape them. That alone made him good. Also, I know it's been done before, but Speed Raja would be absurd. Blazing fast MT Defense up that takes someone who is OHKOed by the average in the DL and makes him near average. And dungeon is mostly physical, although 100% MT Silence too of course. So abusable that I almost feel that he shouldn't be a 1 for that alone (Or alternately, Speed is the seal stone that you want to abuse!)

Status Symbol: I built my team as a project to see if this could work at all. The good is that it just devoured floors 4 and 5 and a few evil fights in 6. I doubt I would have gotten past 4 or 5 otherwise because of status. Of course, without the seal stone, I would have then picked people who had some blockers. The bad is that it comes with pretty nasty penalties that are always in effect, and until 4, it's a really, really big liability. I would say that you can make it function to a degree, but it's not a good sealstone. Sometimes getting a team rolling those first few floors can be the biggest challenge, and that's where SS hurts the most.

[Nephrite]

Some changes for people to mull over:

Cielo to 2.5, changing some mantras around
Amarant to 2.5
Palom/Porom to 2.0
Bow to 1.0

Multitarget is being changed to a flat 50% damage or whatever reduction on normally ST abilities. MT abilities won't be affected by it.

Life is being changed to 25% reduction in healing and will allow for MT Revival once a battle.

Speed? Is being changed to grant 25% base effective speed to the bearer every time they take a turn, to a maximum of 200% effective speed (so four turns)


Dorothy is tentatively being added as 3.5, Strawman as 2.5.

Butterfree in as a 0.5.

Whimsicott (that Pokemon hinode mentioned) can go in at whatever point value seems good. 1.0? 1.5?

[Magic Fanatic]

I've been thinking of a new team, as the more I think of my current team, the less I believe it'll actually get anywhere in the dungeon...

Current thought:

Raquel (Body Charge) - 4.5
Arnaud - 2.0 Yulie - 2.0
Lilka - 2.0
Jane - 2.0
Ditto (Quick Powder) - 0.5

Raquel is there to smash things, and has Body Charge to help with both her speed and damage output (which is already nuts). Arnaud Slows things, Lilka is fast revival/healing/extra damage with MageWeapon/Blast, Jane gets Follow Me later, and Ditto copies either Lilka for utility or Raquel for SMASH.  Yulie is also very good for options.

Edit: Talking it out with Nama made me realize this is the better choice.

Tenatively, I switch out Arnaud for Yulie for FP Advance, so Raquel can SMASH two things at once instead of just one.

[dude789]

Some changes for people to mull over:

Cielo to 2.5, changing some mantras around
Amarant to 2.5
Palom/Porom to 2.0
Bow to 1.0

Multitarget is being changed to a flat 50% damage or whatever reduction on normally ST abilities. MT abilities won't be affected by it.

Life is being changed to 25% reduction in healing and will allow for MT Revival once a battle.

Speed? Is being changed to grant 25% base effective speed to the bearer every time they take a turn, to a maximum of 200% effective speed (so four turns)


Dorothy is tentatively being added as 3.5, Strawman as 2.5.

Butterfree in as a 0.5.

Whimsicott (that Pokemon hinode mentioned) can go in at whatever point value seems good. 1.0? 1.5?

Not a fan of the Speed? change. Currently it's one of the only ways for slow characters to work in the dungeon, and that change completely changes the purpose of the sealstone. Now it's more for making already fast characters faster so they can overwhelm the opponent with double turns. Does life change the healings effects to 75% or 25%? The wording is kind of vauge. Whimsicott's interesting. Right now I'd say he's a 1.5 because the skillset sucks, but MH is really good and he gets a few abilities that work with it if he stays as a Cottonee for a couple levels.

[Nephrite]

Life is a 25% reduction to healing, which means your healing heals for 75% of its normal value.

Speed?'s problem is that people have really only used it on... Raja. I thought this way would make it usable on slow, average speed people and fast people alike. If you have any suggestions on how to balance it then by all means.

[Bardiche]

Maybe add a Speed! sealstone that does the proposed change, and one Law of Inverse Speed that operates as Speed? currently does.

The only characters that can really use it are Raja, Bowser and Rachel, I think, but I am an inattentive bugger. And for Rachel, I'd rather speed her up or use SS for turn-swap shenanigans. :V (in fact, I should plan my next time around RachelSmash)

[dude789]

Life is a 25% reduction to healing, which means your healing heals for 75% of its normal value.

Speed?'s problem is that people have really only used it on... Raja. I thought this way would make it usable on slow, average speed people and fast people alike. If you have any suggestions on how to balance it then by all means.

You could make it so that all buffs no longer affect that person not just speed buffs. Raja would still be fast, but wouldn't be able to put up his def buff to cover his major weakness.

[Dhyerwolf]

Just confirming that I think the speed change is great, and the fact that it only before worked with about 5 people, and allowed a person with a 1 cost to essentially laugh off over half the fights in the dungeon with no real downside made it both niche and unbalanced. Now you have a seal stone that can get a nice bonus for basically everyone (All of a sudden, a whole mess of people with average speed are now a whole lot more viable with this seal stone). I got through a floor with just the threat of a slow, even less durable than normal Raja. There doesn't need to be something that makes him 130% speed on turn 1 without some major downside.

[SnowFire]

I'm not sure another round of the Dungeon is feasible, but the team I slotted in for it used classic Speed? on Strago.  Strago is ~80% average FF6 speed, so that's really 120% average speed on turn 1 to unleash Aqua Rake (early floors) / Big Guard / Sour Mouth / etc.  For extra twinkiness FF6 speed doesn't matter past turn 1 so I personally would say he reverts to 100% speed on later turns anyway since that's how I see all FF6 characters post-turn 1, though I know that not everybody would be on board with such an interp.  Raja is an odd pick- what's the point of him going fast?  Pretty sure people have used Raquel with it, though, which makes a lot of sense.

Not sure I entirely like neo-Speed.  Notably, how does it work with characters who can quickly "pass" their turn?  i.e. if FFX Yuna skips she gets another turn super-fast.  That would be a bizarre way for Yuna to self-haste herself on turn 1 by 4 skips in a row.  Pretty minor benefit but helps, uh, Jude I guess.

[Nephrite]

There's a clause in it that it doesn't work if you get granted extra turns from another source or from yourself.

[SnowFire]

Well, that turns off Intrude, but Yuna isn't granting herself extra turns; she's just using abilities that have a very fast "recovery."  Similar to how, say, Sacred Slayer gets a big init bonus for their next turn by turn swapping with someone.  If you want to say those don't work either, then fine, though.  I'd still say to keep old Speed? and add neo-Speed as a new option with a new name.  Though I'd be shocked if anybody sticks it on any option but Jude.  (Jude is definitely the person who wants that Sealstone, badly.  Maaaaaaybe Sacred Slayer but that's a niche pick.)

While in the topic and reminded of XF.  Any thought to adding Alexia to the allowed picks?  Think I recommended adding her a long while back.  She's not great but she's interesting, at least, a 1.5 pick or so.  (Initiative!  ST status immunity!  GT damage!  Terrible terrible speed after turn 0!)

[Glen Veil]

Mulling over a potential team:

Cloud(4), WAo Jack(2.5), ACF Cecilia(2.5), Eiko(1.5), Ditto(.5)

Kind of want to try Emma instead of Eiko but not really confident in the team being able to carry her through the early dungeon where she's practically useless.

Tentatively also considering adding either violent burst or the new speed as a sealstone also.

[dude789]

I will admit that part of the reason I don't like the new Speed? sealstone is that it ruins the current set up I have. (Bowser needs it so the team can reach the 2.5 PCHP fast MT and to help the teams suspect durability with Terrorize.) The purpose of the old Speed? sealstone was to help a normally slow character move before the enemy so they would actually get a turn the opponents did bad things to them. The new version favors fast characters as the slower characters might not even be above average until they're second turn and even then not by much.

What if we gave the old inverse speed sealstone an effect like Truant from pokemon where they skip every other turn and have them keep the inverse boosted throughout. This seems like it would fix the Raja problem as he would still be able to put up a quick Blessing, but he wouldn't be reliable enough to be the teams main healer. The truant effect would be a significant trade off, but it seems like a fair trade for the quick first turn, and the boosted speed would take some of the sting out of it somewhat.   

[Dhyerwolf]

Raja can basically halve physicals for all his allies. Giving him 130% speed and then making him skip every other turn is only marginally worse, than given him 130% and making him revert to 70% afterward. If someone is slow, the result is generally that they are notably cheaper anyways. Doesn't really deal with the fact that it's first turn speed that really, really matters a lot of time.

For Strago, given that FF 6 has semi randomized first turn, doubt he's at 80% (Probably 90% given how that usually works).

Jude...gets a speed based attack at like floor 4 or 5. NeoSpeed isn't that helpful early because Jude just can't do much with turns. There are plenty of characters that I might throw NeoSpeed on (Actually, 90% Speed Strago isn't a bad choice there. Now 110% speed Strago to start off). Take anyone who is average or a little slow but with some MT nastiness, and now you have someone who is a little fast with MT nastiness (Curvy Hilda, Early Sasarai, Millenia, Popoi. Momo...etc).

[SnowFire]

It's been awhile but I think 80% was with the constant all FF6 characters get added to their speed.  And yeah, FF6 speed is only good for init on that first turn.

Most Sealstones can be swapped, so someone other than Jude can grab the sealstone if he doesn't need it.  It's more that it's a way of making Jude's speed even more overkill later since NeoSpeed stacks with your average Haste effect.  Also, it sounds like your interp of NeoSpeed is different than mine (unless it's been edited again) - it sounds like a 25% boost that only triggers when they take a turn.  So round 1 speed is totally unchanged, turn 2 is with the 25% bonus, turn 3 is with a 50% bonus, etc.  Nephrite?

[Talaysen]

Well it does say that the speed boost is when they get a turn...

[Nephrite]

Until they get their first turn, their speed is 100%.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah, guess I initially read that as starting at +25% base speed. This version...I would agree would not likely be chosen.