Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[Clear Tranquil]

People could give her Speed! though not how that would work with FFXIII. I take them all as average myself~

Vanille gets Belladonna Wand early for boosting her status success rates. It's that and her early draw of the generally more important debuffs like Imperil, Deprotect and Deshell that make her the best SAB from early on in FFXIII.

She also gets the Healing Staff for boosted healing if needed which can become even more effective with HP bangles for the High HP:Power Surge ability (that also improves her damage/etc as well because of the stat boost)

Later on she can get the Mistilteinn for Ally Ko:Power Surge/Ally Ko:Power Surge II which can become even more effective with HP bangles for the Low HP:Power Surge ability.

*Ally KO: Power Surge - Each fallen ally increases damage by 110%. Buff duration and healing are also effected.
*Ally KO: Power Surge II - Each fallen ally increases damage by 130% - Buff duration and healing are also effected.

(Buff duration being relevant for Vanille's specialist SYN abilities - Protectra/Shellra if she gets the option of unlocking SYN as a role later in the dungeon w/th Bravera/Faithra for additional veery niice shinies post game if a Vanille team makes it that far~)
 

[Dhyerwolf]

All those status may be solid in FF 13, where sometimes randoms are about playing defensively while whittling them down, but those are not so hot dungeon wise. Similarly, healing isn't so impressive early (Remember, she's running around with 3 bars for much of the time). I don't see what would make her a 3.5 versus...a 1.5. Maybe if Raise was really early, but don't think it was. Sure, you can throw Speed on her, and...then she's basically Bowser (but ST and without cutting enemy damage!).

[Dhyerwolf]

Oh yes, the best thing FF 13 can bring to dungeon is most assuredly Sentinel. Mimic effect of a hard to use seal stone without tying up your seal stone slot! This is cool, and potentially actually worth something like a 3.5 since they can do other things if needed. Has some balancing flaws built it (Can't direct everyone towards them, etc).

[dude789]

3.5 may be a little high, but I was being conservative and I can't see giving her anything below a 3.0. Deprotect and Deshell do something like double the damage the enemy takes and she gets them early. Add in Imperil and elemental attacks are doing something like 4x what the attack would normally do.

Medic isn't great early on but it can help keep the team up and late game she makes a superb end of battle healer especially with Fog and Pain to keep the enemy from doing damage while she heals up. She is only average speed, but that's why there are characters like Tidus and Jane who specialize in making teams faster. TP attacks are only once or twice a floor but they are an excellent save your ass move if your team is in a bind.

Overall, she has her weaknesses but Saboteur is probably the best job you can have for the dungeon and she can be one of the most powerful and versatile lategame characters. 

[Dhyerwolf]

But again, Bowser can mimic Deprotect and Deshell at the same time, and he can do it against all enemies, and he can halve their damage at the same time...and he's a 1. Medic is better in game, as enemies do less damage by far than dungeon enemies, and battles are meant to least a while (Supplemented by a barrage of buffs). She's a statuser who takes a very long time to get semi-debilitating status, a healer without solid MT healing, and to top it off she's average speed and undurable. A 3.5 or even a 3 is a bit of a team cornerstone, and she doesn't come remotely close. Aren't the Sazh/Vanille sections generally thought of as...notably harder than Lightning/Hope? Because that's essentially what you are getting from her early.

[dude789]

But again, Bowser can mimic Deprotect and Deshell at the same time, and he can do it against all enemies, and he can halve their damage at the same time...and he's a 1. Medic is better in game, as enemies do less damage by far than dungeon enemies, and battles are meant to least a while (Supplemented by a barrage of buffs). She's a statuser who takes a very long time to get semi-debilitating status, a healer without solid MT healing, and to top it off she's average speed and undurable. A 3.5 or even a 3 is a bit of a team cornerstone, and she doesn't come remotely close. Aren't the Sazh/Vanille sections generally thought of as...notably harder than Lightning/Hope? Because that's essentially what you are getting from her early.

Deprotect and Deshell have a more potent effect than Terrorize and Vanille can also stack them both with imperil. One of Vanille's biggest strengths is that all of her stuff comes off of infinite resources and Bowser's stuff is limited due to Terrorize's cost. Her healing is not great at first, but once she picks up all of her skills it's quite good coming off of infinite resources (~100% ST healing with Curasa, revival and status healing and ~40% MT with Curaja which goes to ~55% in the aftergame)  Bowser is also a lot slower than Vanille and lacks her potent status options once she picks up Pain and Fog not to mention all the aftergame stuff she gets. Both of their damage is bad at first, but Vanille's boosts the rest of the teams damage by ~15% everytime she attacks while in Ravager. Finally, Summons and Renew give her MT revival which is extremely rare and valuable in the dungeon. There is some overlap with Vanille and Bowser, but Vanille offers so much extra stuff that Bowser can't provide that it justifies a significantly higher point cost.

[Clear Tranquil]

 

Aren't the Sazh/Vanille sections generally thought of as...notably harder than Lightning/Hope?

No. With the proper application of buffs and debuffs no. People for the most part from my experiences at the FFXIII boards find these sections difficult because they think they can just wade in there RAV/RAV and COM/RAV style like they've been doing with Lightning and Hope. Which of course doesn't work because Sazh is slow (casting/attack speed) and has crummy stats. They aren't used to properly integrating buffs/debuffs into the system yet. Once the proper advice is given to them regarding buff/debuffs and they apply it the Vanille/Sazh - Sazh/Vanille sections suddenly become a lot easier. When the SAB/SYN roles are properly utilised together with an offensive drive and worked into decks with other roles those sections become an absolute breeze (and not only that properly integrating them into the rest of the game knocks the stuffing out of it too ;p) Saboteur is an offensive role in the main for the most part not a defensive one. It slows the chain gauge and prevents decay like COM does stabilizing it and preventing chain level from dropping which enables Vanille to act like a pseudo COM in her sections. In addition to this as dude pointed out she is significantly boosting over all future damage output by applying debuffs at the same time. With Deprotect, Deshell and Imperil all out she is certainly more than tripling offence for when your characters switch into their main damage decks. During my FFXIII replays where I knew how to fully apply my knowledge and experience from my first whole run through the game (including post games) I integrated better paradigm decks for the Vanille and Sazh chapters from the get go which did indeed make them become an absolute breeze, a walk in the park as Adray would say Undermine (SAB/RAV) is a much better starting deck for those two than COM/RAV. I had Vanille doing thousands of elemental damage as Ravager too (RAV/RAV) once I switched her to it after significantly weakening enemies with debuffs and stabilising chains with SAB. She is better than the real deal with her pseudo COM Sabness during those stages of the game (Sazh gets trolled yes - well ok Faith on Vanille helped with finetuning the damage output)

Because that's essentially what you are getting from her early.

Well to be honest I am fine with this because truthfully I now have tons of early game Vanille/Sazh respect. They are top choice for ally priority for picking to go with Lightning at the end of Chapter 9. Early Imperil, Haste, Deprotect, Brave, Deshell, Faith, Poison and En elemental spells are all great stuffs. Haste and Imperil are especially incredible/amazing, they are two of the best abilities in the whole game

Vanille can also do multiple status effects at the same time once she gets going. Deprotect/Deshell are 53.3% chance of inflicting the status per use, Imperil has a 39.9% hit rate per use. This is without factoring in Improved Debuffing factors for the Belladona Wand series. Vanille will definitely eventually be applying more than one status a round. By the time she picks up Imperil and with the Belladonna Wand three at a time isn't impossible.

*Deprotect - physical damage taken increases by 89%
*Deshell - magical damage taken increases by 89%

(Tal says it's actually a bit more than this in practice too~)

*Improved Debuffing -  Increases the status hit rates of Debuffing type abilities used by this character by 1.2 - 1.2 the normal rate
*Improved Debuffing II - Increases the status hit rates of Debuffing type abilites used by this character by 1.4 - 1.4 the normal rate

(credits go to the FFXIII Game Mechanics guide and Tal~)

Vanille also gets MT Deprotect, Deshell and Imperil - Deprotectga, Deshellga and Imperilga.

Maybe if Raise was really early, but don't think it was.

Not really early but relatively so I think? Raise is Stage 6 Crystarium for Vanille (which is the stage unlocked after the Havoc Skytank boss at the end of Chapter 7) She picks up all the more potent/higher tier MED abilities like Esuna, Cura, Raise and Curaja earlier than Hope at least. For example Hope doesn't gain access to Raise until after the first boss in Chapter 10 (Stage 8 Crystarium)

40% MT with Curaja which goes to ~55% in the aftergame)

Curaja also gets more potent/powerful the less HP targets have too. It can restore as little as 1% (1HP!1!1!) when max HP is full becoming much more potent when characters are badly wounded

[Dhyerwolf]

Improved Debuffing balances out with those lower skill levels during the early section. Vanille...gains Sabotuer late floor 2/start of floor 3? And has 3 slots at the that time using 50% (non-disabling) status? I'm not talking about in game worth here, but solely dungeon.

I was wrong about Fear on the damage part but...I just don't see it. At worst, the MT makes it better (let alone, MT, breaks attack, and works with magic and physicals, unless you want to get a 3.5 Vanille, a physical bruiser, and a magical bruiser and still many points remaining for the last two). Yes, Vanille can get a lot of stuff late. Fog and Pain are late. Raise is late-ish (Probably floor 4, maybe end floor 3. As opposed to starts with).

Things like 40% MT healing (And...actually, takes until floor...5-6 to be 40%), 75% healing (I don't believe she can get 100% healing. Curasa is 22% of missing HP, not HP).

On Summons and Renew? Did FF 13 give you a game over if your lead PC died and the lead was the only one that could use these? That strikes me as...problematic for allowing these unless you want to keep both parts in tact.

Also, Bowser has bad damage at first? Bowser's damage is pretty constant through the whole game. His MT damage isn't much worse than Vanille's best ST. He's also more durable. Not to say Bowser is the only comparable, but more on that later.

Endless ability to spellcast is cool, but...again, the best dungeon stat is speed because dungeon really, really emphasizes the ability to end battles (or at least neutralize enemies in some way) ASAP. For 3.5, compare her to Ben, who picks up...solid MT damage, better ST and MT, healing, ID off better durability and generally equal (although sometimes better) speed. This is the niche she'd try to fill, and just doesn't come anywhere close. Momo at 3 has worse speed, but equip options, better MT damage, buffs!, better healing, and her status is generally more debilitating (and enemy skills!). Go way down...Nash at 2 statuses far better than Vanille and is fast. She's outhealed by some 1s pretty easily (Well, okay, technically a 0.5 in Mint, but that's just an unfair comparison).

[074]

Oh yes, the best thing FF 13 can bring to dungeon is most assuredly Sentinel. Mimic effect of a hard to use seal stone without tying up your seal stone slot! This is cool, and potentially actually worth something like a 3.5 since they can do other things if needed. Has some balancing flaws built it (Can't direct everyone towards them, etc).

Snow or Fang Dungeon hype now?

[Clear Tranquil]

Oh my apologies, I was under the thinking Vanille would be starting the dungeon with all three of her default/primary roles (which to me definitely makes her a more appealing pick) She would only have access to RAV, MED on F1/2 then? That ... does put things into perspective some then. I can see where you are coming from now I think.

On Summons and Renew? Did FF 13 give you a game over if your lead PC died and the lead was the only one that could use these? That strikes me as...problematic for allowing these unless you want to keep both parts in tact.

Summons automatically cast Arise when their leader falls in battle, fully reviving them/recovering their HP to max and removing status effects. In addition characters have invincibility frames while they are in the process of summoning, all characters have their HP fully recovered and their negative statuses removed when their summon appears. So both Summon and Arise automatically fully restore the party including from death and status. There is no game over while a summon is out and the leader dies. Don't know about Renew but I would definitely allow Vanille her Summon since she gets her own personal Eidolon unique to her like everyone else gets their own individual Eidolon. Gestalt mode renders characters invincible and opponents cannot target or hurt them in any way too, PCs can also draw out the effect of status effects like Poison this way having an significant chunk of enemy HP removed while they are sitting there in complete safety. Granted Vanille doesn't get her Summon until late either though.

I don't believe she can get 100% healing. Curasa is 22% of missing HP, not HP

Yeah.

*(lost HP * Multi) + [(lost HP * MA) / 100,000] = recovery amount (*Multi % and the character's Magic stat)

It is only 1 ATB though!~

[dude789]

Improved Debuffing balances out with those lower skill levels during the early section. Vanille...gains Sabotuer late floor 2/start of floor 3? And has 3 slots at the that time using 50% (non-disabling) status? I'm not talking about in game worth here, but solely dungeon.

I was wrong about Fear on the damage part but...I just don't see it. At worst, the MT makes it better (let alone, MT, breaks attack, and works with magic and physicals, unless you want to get a 3.5 Vanille, a physical bruiser, and a magical bruiser and still many points remaining for the last two). Yes, Vanille can get a lot of stuff late. Fog and Pain are late. Raise is late-ish (Probably floor 4, maybe end floor 3. As opposed to starts with).

Things like 40% MT healing (And...actually, takes until floor...5-6 to be 40%), 75% healing (I don't believe she can get 100% healing. Curasa is 22% of missing HP, not HP).

On Summons and Renew? Did FF 13 give you a game over if your lead PC died and the lead was the only one that could use these? That strikes me as...problematic for allowing these unless you want to keep both parts in tact.

Also, Bowser has bad damage at first? Bowser's damage is pretty constant through the whole game. His MT damage isn't much worse than Vanille's best ST. He's also more durable. Not to say Bowser is the only comparable, but more on that later.

Endless ability to spellcast is cool, but...again, the best dungeon stat is speed because dungeon really, really emphasizes the ability to end battles (or at least neutralize enemies in some way) ASAP. For 3.5, compare her to Ben, who picks up...solid MT damage, better ST and MT, healing, ID off better durability and generally equal (although sometimes better) speed. This is the niche she'd try to fill, and just doesn't come anywhere close. Momo at 3 has worse speed, but equip options, better MT damage, buffs!, better healing, and her status is generally more debilitating (and enemy skills!). Go way down...Nash at 2 statuses far better than Vanille and is fast. She's outhealed by some 1s pretty easily (Well, okay, technically a 0.5 in Mint, but that's just an unfair comparison).

Vanille starts with Ravager and Medic and gets Saboteur at the end of Lake Bresha so she should definitely have it (and Deprotect and Deshell)  by the start of floor two.  As for the some of her other things, Raise is probably floor 3 or so, Curaja, Fog and Pain are Floor 5.

As for summons and Renew, Souji gives a game over if he dies in game, but we brush over that in the dungeon there are a number of dungeon characters who are not identical to their ingame selves.

Momo's a fair comparison since I'm leaning towards Vanille being a 3.0 rather than a 3.5 and most people consider Momo a solid 3.0. As for healing, they're comparable early 3x Cure is pretty good at first and Heal is about the same for Momo, maybe slightly better. Vanille gets revival and MT healing before Momo, but Momo's MT healing is better once she gets it. Momo's MT healing is really expensive though (7 shots leaves her with single digit MP at the endgame). So overall I'd say their healing potential is about even. Neither is good enough to be a team's primary healer (Momo's revival and MT is too late and she doesn't have enough resources, Vanille's healing just isn't potent enough until aftergame) but they both make pretty good secondary healers.

Momo wins damage by herself, but again, Ravager makes the rest of the team's damage better.

As for buffs and debuffs, Vanille wins this easily. Deprotect and Deshell are so much better than Momo's Might for damage boosting purposes and Imperil is a nice bonus. Speed is nice, but it doesn't do enough to close the gap.

I think Momo has a slight edge in status just because Vanille's status is late, but when she gets it, Vanille's status is better. BoF3 sleep and confuse are mediocre and the hit rate isn't reliable enough.

So, overall I'd say the two are pretty close. Vanille's edge in debuffs and aftergame potential are enough to counterbalance Momo's better status and damage.

Fang would also be a cool 3.0 as well. Saboteur is always a good Paradigm to have and she has gamebest damage by a good bit. I'm not sure how good sentinel is going to be because she has to get a turn before she can provoke and MT damage gets past it, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. 

[Dhyerwolf]

I guess Summons or at least especially Renew is probably going to come down to a judgement call. I can see Summons...kind of due to technical uniqueness, but would Renew is....more difficult. Generic skill everyone gets that can only be used by 1 specific PC at the time at the cost of a weakness that might be thrown out. Eh.

Vanille technically starts with nothing! If you want to pretend the first two dungeons don't exist, that is of course a different story. If Vanille is using turns in Ravager...well, yes, she can boost damage of people shortly after her (15%) at the cost of using her own turn for horrible damage. Sleep is solid (since it's MT), but yeah, Momo's status isn't great. Buffs aren't quite comparable to debuffs. Vanille's debuffs have better effects, but...a large number of dungeon enemies are going to block or null them. The following people are arguably null at least 1 on floor 2: Justin, Feena, Flay, Nikki, Mispolm (maybe), Bowyer (I think), Yumi, and Ernest and Opera can halve. This may just be a bad floor that, but just want to note that in some battles, what is supposed to be Vanille's big draw (status) will have no impact.

[Clear Tranquil]

I would have pegged her at 2.5 - 3 earlier varying on the amount of perks she started with but now I'm not so sure. Perhaps 2.0 - 2.5 if she starts with RAV/MED only and Tech wise will only be able to use Summon (when she picks it up) Hnmmm she gets Dispel as SAB as well forgot about that. Dispel is also Stage 6 so starting roles depending she could have access to Esuna, Raise and Dispel F3/4 for support in addition to the healings. Why not give her a trial run as a 2.0 - 2.5 and see how it goes? It is a balancing act between not over pricing/hyping/respecting her in some ways but not under pricing/estimating/respecting her in others. Her end/aftergame and tink potential is reeally good after all. Both COM and SYN are very powerful/useful bonus roles for her. The Mistilteinn which boosts everything when Vanille allies fall is probably F6/7 based on the floor layout dude has going. The Mistilteinn is goood, triple damage/offensive output and significantly improved healing/revival to bring Vanille/teams back from the brink with. I've had Vanille heal herself back to full w/th only half the set of max ATB bars before using a fully boosted Mist, less even depending on Vanille's current/max HP total at the stages of the game I was using it at (I went back to complete Missions and fight turtles using only up to max Stage 9 Crystarium on my replay for example)~ The Mistilteinn powers up once each per fallen ally but that should probably be capped in the dungeon? *imagines Vanille running off 540 - 620% power - Vanille's own 100% base output + Ally down x 4 ...  *

[SnowFire]

I wouldn't really be happy with allowing TP based techniques in the Dungeon.  First off, I suspect that even if you A-ranked the first four battles in a Dungeon Floor by killing very efficiently, you still wouldn't have built up 3 TP for a Summon in the final fight - you'd probably have 2 TP for Renew / Dispelga hype instead.  Secondly, there's the note that I'm nervous since TP abilities can only be used by the leader in FF13, but being the leader also gives the terrible-in-the-dungeon drawback of death = game over.  I'd be okay with patching that for the Dungeon...  except...  this brings up a quasi-legal strategy that you'd basically never do in FF13, which is massively stall (and screw your battle-ranking over) and let the small natural TP regeneration bring you up to 5.  Since Vanille also has disabling status and infinite healing, this strategy is sadly awesome, and if allowed could potentially mean that 2 battles in the Dungeon get Summon-cheesed out should Vanille get a turn.  I'm okay with thinking about Summons if the *Dungeon* team is stall-happy (a la Alma / Kresnik / Marco MT'd) but meh to encouraging this strategy all the time.  (Maybe a Floor 7+ bonus could be "1 vial of Ethersol" so that just one battle gets killed by a Summon.)

Anyway, if we don't allow TP techniques except as an aftergame thing (and Vanille does get her Summon on like Floor 5 or 6 to be fair), Vanille feels like a 2.0 pick - maybe even 1.5 if we punish the earlygame more.  I'd kneejerk her speed as, if anything, slightly slow when in status or heal mode - magic at least stun-locks opponents in-game, while missed status and healing doesn't.  And the combo of average durability + average-to-a-little-slow speed makes her a dangerous pick in the dungeon.  Her status game isn't as good early, either - damage is damage and scales with everyone, but her early status attempts are only 3x hits rather than the 5x later, so those Deprotects will sometimes miss.  She does have versatility, though.

[Dhyerwolf]

Hmm, approximately how fast do people see Rydia? I'm thinking that Body Charge Rydia...is potentially a nasty lynchpin. FYI Neph, Body Charge as is a durability doubler. Double durability Rydia. 30% more Damage. 30% more Speed (Meaning...if 80%, now 104%).

[Nephrite]

Its intended for that sort of purpose. Unless you meant you'd rather it be that? I'm not sure what you're stating.

[Dhyerwolf]

I just wanted to be sure that you realized that it was doubling durability (just in case you had meant only one of the 30% HP boost and 30% damage reducer).

[Nephrite]

I am aware.

[Nephrite]

2.5
Stocke, Radiant Historia
Pros: Early, useful revival and all around cheap skills.
Cons: Not so great on damage and healing sucks a lot later on.

1.5
Raynie, Radiant Historia
Pros: Good damage in multiple varities. Has MP recovery as well.
Cons: Physical damage is pretty bad and so are most of her stats.

1.0
Marco, Radiant Historia
Pros: Healing, buffs, Trans-Turn. Also gets revival later.
Cons: Everything else about him blows.


Did you all hash out the FF13 nonsense?

[SnowFire]

Re FF13: Looks like no.  Some people say Vanille's a 1, others a 2, others a 3.  I say, from a completely unbiased fashion (side note: I think she's a 2), you should just average 'em and call her a 2, then mess with the price later if need be.

I proposed Marco as a 1.5 at http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,571.msg132710.html#msg132710 .  The thing about Marco is...  well, compare him to, say, Lunar1 Jessica.  They both have non-full MT healing, but Marco gets way better buffs than regen - Guard Rise is pretty darn helpful later for a stally team.  And Marco's positioning game helps a lot for a stally team - Push Assault physically-oriented bosses and all.  Trans-turn means that Marco isn't dead-weight offensively if there is even one good damage-dealer on the team, which is pretty huge, since many other 1.0 healers ARE dead weight offensively.  He's got revival.  Sleep Gas will put away some battles, although it's gotten a bit late.  Later fights he'll have a Turn Break stored up which is very useful in the Dungeon against final fight "boss" types.  He starts blocking all status on Floor 6 with Sky Drops.  And he's not insanely frail or anything like, say, CT Marle. 

Combined, it's a lot of flexibility, which someone like Aeris w/ Restore materia or Frog doesn't have.  The only other 1.0 healing/support type who seems remotely tempting over Marco is Tear, who used to be a 1.5 herself and probably gets avoided more due to some nasty interp splits for action RPG spellcasters.  At 1.5, Marco competes with Eiko and DoS WW, which seems fairer - Eiko has a turn 1 speed edge, good elemental resistances, and some nasty status, but lacks Turn Break / Trans-Turn, while DoS WW offers some solid utility and MT elements-spoiling.  Don't think Marco is broken at 1.0 or anything, but think 1.5 is closer to a fair price.

Flip side Raynie's probably a harmless 1.0.  She's got offense...  but Marco also has offense through Trans-Turn and somebody else on the team who can deal damage, so she's actually pretty much worse.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah, those two need to be switched certainly. Marco is very lackluster early (Can't remember when that revival comes) although really nasty late. Ending skillset with Transturn is enough to justify 1.5. Raynie on the other hand...not particularly good early, generally has decent ST damage (Although multiple offensive types=magical or physical, ITD or ITE or status. Raynie...has elements, which rarely mean too much Nyarly wise). Sleep...well, that's a bit late (and there are much, much better status choices).

For Vanille, part of the split heavily weighs on what you will allow her in terms of TP stuff, and then if allowing it, you allow her to be knocked out while not killing the team. I still think that Fang is a supremely more awesome choice for dungeon in terms of uniqueness.

[Clear Tranquil]

For the record I don't tend to allow characters full status blockers in general especially not in terms of catching status that doesn't even exist in their respective games. FFXIII status is a unique case for the most part and I tend to look at and use Saboteur primarily for debuffing rather than pure status (except for the more obvious cases in terms of classic game wide status names/statuses like Poison and Death)  So yeah I'm certainly not inclined to show leeway here in terms of letting everybody and their dog block unique debuffs when I don't usually even show this kind of leniency for full blocking of pure statuses in general  Justin, Feena, Flay, Nikki, et all don't get to block any of Vanille's debuffs as far as I'm concerned  (no buying Talisman/Aroma Materials hype for me~)

* Clear Tranquil shrugs

If people want Fang, use Fang. I just hope not to see mass/huge Fang debuffing/SAB hype when Vanille does this so much better =/ Fang doesn't even get Deprotect/Deshell till F4, Deprotectga/Deshellga till F5 and Imperil/Imperilga till F6/7 =/ Vanille will always hold the advantage for MT debuffing too with the Belladonna Wand from early~

(Vanille ... starts with 3 ATB, has access to Improved Debuffings from ... I think F3 and gains another 1 ATB level from her Medic role F4? I really do think/believe her status picks up relatively quickly and that she soon picks up a solid amount of skills/ATB/equip options to work with in general ... )

[Nephrite]

I have no problem adding both Vanille and Fang, I just know nothing about the mechanics.

Also, I swapped Raynie and Marco.

[Dhyerwolf]

Fang is cool because it's access to a psuedo Firefly rune (with more variation/flaws of course) who still have access to damage or debuffs (later) when that trick goes out.

FF 13 status...has some comparisons on some levels. For example, in game Nikki and Flay can block the status that just off their skillset. I would then at least assume the FF 13 status that shuts off their skillset is then blocked. So Pain, Fog, Daze (Paralysis)?, Poison, Slow and Death at least are pretty straightforward status wise. Deshell and Deprotect are Mdef Down/Def Down...which vary by game whether status gets those or not (But as noted, these are better in game than dungeonwise!).

[Talaysen]

Daze is more like Sleep than Paralysis.