Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[Clear Tranquil]

Here's my final suggestion -

Vanille 2.0 - 2.5 (vote!)

*Starts w/th SAB/MED/RAV
*Can use Summon w/th No Leader Death Penalty (begins floor w/th 1.5 TP, TP carries over between fights)
*Can Use Synthesis Group Effects w/th Weapons
- No Techniques other than Summon

F1 - Deshell, Deprotect, Cure, Aero, Fire, Water
F2 - Poison, Imperil, Cura, Esuna, Overwhelm, Fira, Thunder, Aerora, Belladonna Wand (Improved Debuffing)
F3 - Dispel, Raise, Blizzard, Blizzara, Watera, Healing Staff (Improved Healings)
F4 - Deshellga, Deprotectga,  Jinx, Poisonga (!) Thundara, ATB segment
F5 - Curasa, Curaja, Imperilga, Fog, Pain, Fearsiphon, Firaga, Blizzaga
F6 - Summon/Hecatoncheir Get, ATB segment
F7 - Death

Fang 3.0 - 3.5 (vote!)-

*Starts w/th SAB/COM/SEN
*Can use Summon w/th No Leader Death Penalty (begins floor w/th 1.5 TP, TP carries over between fights)
*Can Use Synthesis Group Effects w/th Weapons
- No Techniques other than Summon

F1 - Attack, Ruin, Slow, Curse, Blitz, Adrenaline, Smite, Launch, Mediguard, Evade
F2 -  Slowga, Cursaga, Dispel,
F3 - Steelguard, Lifesiphon, Ravage, Scourge
F4 - Challenge, Entrench, Counter, Powerchain, Deathblow, Jinx, Fog, Fogga
F5 - Summon, ATB segment, Vendetta, Ruinga,  ATB segment Jeopardize, Blindside, Faultsiphon, Deprotect, Deshell, Pain, Painga, Daze, Dazega,
F6 - Imperil, Reprieve
F7 - Highwind

[dude789]

CT's set up seems pretty fair. As such I'd say Vanille is a 2.5 due to Saboteur stuff and healing. Fang is probably a 3.0. Great damage, but the saboteur isn't as good as Vanille's and Sentinel's restrictions probably lower it's use significantly in the dungeon. Could be argued to 3.5 if her damage at the early on is as good as her damage at the endgame.

[SnowFire]

Can Use Synthesis Group Effects w/th Weapons

Remind me exactly what that would imply again?

Anyway yeah, CT's interp sounds fine to me as well.  Probably best for sanity's sake to assume that the Crystarium is grabbed on Floor 1, and it's not a huge stretch.  I would be kind of inclined to call Vanille's Summon Floor 6, as 13 chapters = 2 chapters for first 6 floors, final chapter for floor 7, and you get Hecatoncheir ~ 1/3 of the way through Chapter 11, so early Floor 6ish.  That said if you see Chapter 11 as long and sidequesty then it's fair to say the first third of Chapter 11 is on floor 5, so sure, but it's throwing her a bone.

Even with possible Summon abuse, I'd still kneejerk on the 2.0 / 3.0 side for the pair.  This is partially because their status games are, at best, perfectly average speed to some voters, and at worst a bit below average speed.  (I personally would see the status game as a bit slow, hence Edgar / Vanille being a close match back in CK's tourney rather than an easy Vanille win.)  This is a pretty huge drawback in the dungeon - you want your status to go off early, not late, and the same with debuffs.  So lenient costing would be good.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks guys

Oh yeah, you're right. For some reason I confused/combined Stage 8 Crystarium/Chapter 10 with Hecatoncheir's availability >_> Heca is indeed unlocked later than the Curaja/Imperilga/Firaga etc Crystarium Stage. F6 should be fine for Summon then and .... F7 for Death? (Death~COM for Stage 8!?)

Remind me exactly what that would imply again?

Nothing particularly broken but more so along the line of balancing things out for the dungeon rather. It would just twink, tweak and fine tune your performances some just as you would do in FFXIII to make battles run even faster/smoother, in addition to possibly justifying their costs to some (I am just trying to sweeten Dhyer up! )

Well here are the more relevant set ups I can think of from the top of my head -

Vanille-

Belladonna/Malboro Wand (Positive Effect Group)
Improved Debuffing/Improved Debuffing II
Watchman's Amulets (Critical Veil) - Positive Effect Group
Shrouding Talismans (Auto Veil) - Positive Effect Group
Synthesis Effect - Buff Duration +30%, 50%, 70%, 90% (depending on whether 2, 3, 4 or 5 items used)

Summary - Improves Vanille's debuffing game and enchances the effect debuffs have on her, for example if there is an ally in the team to cast buffs on her or particularly relevant for Vanille's own buffing game if the person chooses to unlock SYN for her later on.

**

Healing/Physician's Staff - High HP Group
Improved Healing/Improved Healing II
Iron Bangles (HP+) - High HP Group
Mythril Bangles (HP+) - High HP Group
Synthesis Effect - High HP: Power Surge (2 Items) Boosts stats/damage/healing/etc when HP is above 90%

Fang-

Bladed Lance - Physical Defence Group
HP Bands - Physical Defence Group
STR Bands - Physical Defence Group
DEF Belts - Physical Defence Group
Critical/Auto Protect Accessories/Critical/Auto Brave Accessories - Physical Defence Group

Synthesis Effect - Physical Wall :5, 10, 20, 30 (Negates the first 5, 10, 20, 30 points of damage from physical attacks depending on 2, 3, 4 or 5 Items)

Summary - SEN tinking!

**

Taming Pole/Venus Gospel - Gestalt Group
Champion's Badge (Victory:TP Charge) - Gestalt Group
Speed Sash/s- Kill: ATB Charge - Gestalt Group
Energy Sash/s - Kill: TP Charge - Gestalt Group
Hunter's Friend/s - Kill: Libra (!?) - Gestalt Group
Survivalist Catalog/s - Kill: Shroud Scavenger (!?) - Gestalt Group
Synthesis Effect - Gestalt/TP Boost (4 - 5 items)

Summary - Increases the rate at which Gestalt Points/TP rises/are built up (Vanille can do this set too but Heavenly Axis/Abraxis is a horrible weapon in terms of stats where as Taming Pole is practically Fang's best weapon/weapon series overall >_>)



Vanille/Fang wouldn't have access to all this stuff off the bat but build the sets as they progress through the game/dungeon~

From F6/7 they could also perhaps access/utilise the "Boost"  Sprint Shoes, Hermes Sandals, Whistlewind/Aurora Scarf group~

[Dhyerwolf]

I'm not sure what those effects overall amount to?

I'm assuming they start at 1.5 TP, but then gain TP after each match? Was 1.5 starting just to make it halfway to the only allowable limit?

Vanille I'd vote for 2.0, barring some effects being very good. Fang...I'd say start at a 3 and see. Speed is really important to her thanks to Berserk. I think I might personally be a bit more lenient on speed there in terms of breaking turns up. Hmm, thinking on it, the leniency might come at later floors. She started with 3 bars right? Cutting out 1 bar short doesn't overly impress me speed wise (2 Provoke castings being 70% MT), but I might have a bit more respect for that speed wise when she gets 4 bars. Noting when the extra bars come in would be pretty useful for decision making.

[Clear Tranquil]

Here's some math (from the FFXIII game mechanics guide by ximaus) -

"____________________TP Bar

 _________________________________________________________________________
| Lv1|   Lv2|                 Lv3|                  Lv4|               Lv5|
|====|======|====================|=====================|==================|
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
| 100|   200|                 600|                  600|               600|
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
|    |      |                    |                     |                  |
|<---------------------------- 2100 ------------------------------------->|

The TP bar is a total of 2100 points long with the first 2 bars being 100 and
200 points respectively and the last 3 bars being 600 points each.

TP abilities use the TP of only the full bars beginning at level 5 and
working its way down to the level 1 bar. In other words, TP abilities cost
more TP if your bar is full. For instance, a summon ability used at TP level
5 will cost 1800 TP or rather, bars 3 through 5. The same ability used at TP
level 3 will cost 1000 TP, or bars 1 through 3.

If you happen to have Bar 5 half full when you use a summon, the summon
ability will completely use bars 2 through 4 and the remaining half will fill
bar 2. In this case, even though Bar 5 had 300 TP, when it is converted to
fill Bar 2, it will only fill it by the same percentage. This means that you
will essentially lose 200 TP since Bar 2 will only fill by 100."

*Party recovers TP after battle


"*____________________TP Recovery


The amount of TP recovered after each battle is based on the enemy level and
the Battle rank at the end of battle.

Rank                      Recovery
0 stars               Sum of enemies' levels / 8
1 star                Sum of enemies' levels / 4
2 stars               Sum of enemies' levels / 2
3 stars               Sum of enemies' levels
4 stars               Sum of enemies' levels * 3
5 stars               Sum of enemies' levels * 8                   

Enemy levels are not intuitive in this game as even early bosses have levels
above 50 while one of the strongest enemies in the game is only level 7.
Levels are more of a battle calculation factor than an indicator of ability
so keep in mind that you may very well gain more TP from a group of weak
enemies than from a strong enemy."

"*Other methods of TP Recovery

Method                                             Recovery Amount
------                                             ---------------
Party member defeats an enemy                          2(*1)
Party member with Energy Sash defeats an enemy         12(*2)
Party member fully stacks their ATB gauge and          4(*1)
damages, recovers, or inflicts a status effect
Fang staggers an enemy with Punisher equipped          10
Fang Staggers an enemy with the upgraded versions        20
of the Punisher
Use an Elixir in battle                                Full
Use an Ethersol in the field                           Full

*1
During a summon, recovery amount = 0
*2
During a summon, recovery amount = 10

If a party member has the Synthesized Ability: Gestalt/TP Boost and is not
dead, all listed values become double; this doubling affect the actions of
all party members, not just the person with the ability. If the recovery
due to the increase from Gestalt/TP Boost becomes more than 10, then
recovery equals [(2 * normal) - 1]."

Yeah the idea here is that Vanille/Fang will start of a floor with 1.5 off the full 5.0 to begin with and hopefully build up another 1.5 from gaining TP after fights/actions in battles/etc to hopefully make it to the 3.0 needed for a Summon by the end of a floor =P They will carry over the TP they've earned to add to the TP they start with between fights but not between floors. Seems reasonable to me? Not particularly broken or anything since they don't pick up their summons till late (yeah they do get MT Full Healing/Status Recovery/Revival in one when they do but it's use is restricted)

* Clear Tranquil will look up ATB segment gains later

[dude789]

Would anyone be interested in a Breath of Death 7 or a Cthulu Saves the World character? I think Dem or Sarah fro BofD7 could be cool and Cthulu and Darche would be good too.

[dude789]

Here's a couple characters from Cthulu Saves the World.

Cthulu 3.5
Pros: Cursed Sword is disgusting with the right team. Superior stats and decent damage, and parasitic healing make him very self sufficient.
Cons: Aside from Cursed Sword he doesn't really bring a whole lot to the team as a whole. No support abilities and almost no MT mean that he can't do a whole lot more than good ST damage.

Dacre 2.0
Pros: Deep, deep resources. Fantastic buffs including a 50% MT speed buff, a 25% all stat MT Buff and a 20% MT Regen. Full Heal is a nice all around healing move. Good magic durability and parasitic healing physicals.
Cons: Very slow before Speed Hymn, has to make a decision between 50% ST Buff or 25% MT buff for most of the stats. Bad damage until Holy and it isn't great with it. MT healing is kind of lackluster. Frail on the physical end.   

[Random Consonant]

Cthulu 3.5
Pros: Cursed Sword is disgusting with the right team. Superior stats and decent damage, and parasitic healing make him very self sufficient.
Cons: Aside from Cursed Sword he doesn't really bring a whole lot to the team as a whole. No support abilities and almost no MT mean that he can't do a whole lot more than good ST damage.

3.5?  Really?  That's a bit much considering that stat edge isn't something that exists until F7 and the Cursed Sword is also pretty late, and other than those he has not much going for him.

[dude789]

I'm being conservative with his ranking. I'd say Cursed Sword is first available on Floor 4 or 5 or so, but it really is pretty devastating with the right team configuration and his stats are still pretty good before he gets the Cthulu Equipment and the beating Dem stat boost. Without Cursed Sword he's probably a solid 2 but Cursed Sword seems like it would be worth 1-1.5 points.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

No one-maingame-floor boost is worth 1.5 alone unless it's win-dungeon-level. I'm not sure that would eke Cthulhu above 2 even, looking at the stat topic. Pure ST damage in the dungeon just isn't that great.

EDIT: At least, not unless it's near-OHKO-level at least coming off some pretty wicked stats from the get-go.

[dude789]

No one-maingame-floor boost is worth 1.5 alone unless it's win-dungeon-level. I'm not sure that would eke Cthulhu above 2 even, looking at the stat topic. Pure ST damage in the dungeon just isn't that great.

Sorry if I was unclear, but what Cursed Sword does is make all opponents start out Insane at the start of the fight. Insane is an unblockable status effect that makes the enemy take 1.5x damage and deal 1.2x damage.  In other words, once Cthulhu reaches floor 4 or so, the teams does 1.5x damage to the enemies from there on at the cost of the enemy doing 1.2x damage to them in return. It's one of Cthulhu's equip options, so in a duel it's not that great because Cthulhu has to sacrifice a bunch of stats to  equip it but in the dungeon it's almost always his best option.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I understand -that-. Problem is that enemies -still- get a damage bonus there as well. I don't think that a double-edged effect like that justifies the 3.5 tag - not much actually does. Probably justifies a 2.5 or a 3 if you're kind, but not a 3.5. Any fight you don't end in a turn will get to bite you in the ass kinda hard, especially on the MT-happy fuckers you find hanging around.

[dude789]

I understand -that-. Problem is that enemies -still- get a damage bonus there as well. I don't think that a double-edged effect like that justifies the 3.5 tag - not much actually does. Probably justifies a 2.5 or a 3 if you're kind, but not a 3.5. Any fight you don't end in a turn will get to bite you in the ass kinda hard, especially on the MT-happy fuckers you find hanging around.

I was being conservative with his score. 3.0 could work, but if you're building a team with Cthulhu you're probably prepared for the 1.2x boost and are adding him to take full advantage of the 1.5x damage boost which can get completely nuts with a fast blitzing team.

[Dhyerwolf]

Your team would have to be extremely fast to never really the downside (Otherwise, damage plus Sephiroth or damage plus Emelious/Melfice floor 6. Floor 5 has some speedsters too that like the damage boost). It will turn against you at times, although wise seal stone use can alleviate that to a degree (because uh...really too little reason not to use a speed booster). 3.5 is defintely too high; don't know him otherwise to say what would be worth it.

[Random Consonant]

Pretty much what Snow and Dhyer said.  Cursed Sword's not until F5 at the earliest (noooooo way is Ice Cave F4) and without the stat boosts from beating Dagon and DEM Cthulhu's own stats and dedication to unimpressive ST damage pretty much consign him to whatever boy status. 2.5 sounds overly kind, let alone 3/3.5.

[dude789]

Your team would have to be extremely fast to never really the downside (Otherwise, damage plus Sephiroth or damage plus Emelious/Melfice floor 6. Floor 5 has some speedsters too that like the damage boost). It will turn against you at times, although wise seal stone use can alleviate that to a degree (because uh...really too little reason not to use a speed booster). 3.5 is defintely too high; don't know him otherwise to say what would be worth it.

Keep in mind though that it's an equip so if it's a detriment you can always unequip it before the next fight.

[074]

It's questionable as to whether or not anyone would allow weapon swapping without a break effect occurring first.  You'd have to pick for the floor whether or not it was in effect, more likely than not.

That aside, yeah.  Solely ST and nothing outside of the stat boosts and Insanity means that I'd only peg him as a 2.0, and we've already got other 2.0s who I'm certain do that, likely even better. (Lucian solo was that, IIRC.  Lucian+Shiho combo is only 3.0 because VP Heal/Might Reinforce are stupid as hell)

[Nephrite]

Give me some opinions on moving the Deises back to 4.0.

[Dhyerwolf]

The speed probably makes it okay given how much it matters as a stat. 2 seems to get more mileage than 1 thanks to more variety. I would support it just because I'd support a general change based on speeds. Certainly in practice feels like Deis 2 outperforms...oh...Benjamin and Ted decently enough to be worth more.

They certainly strike me as less unbalanced than say...some other choices for their points (Okay, maybe just Raja).

[SnowFire]

I think Deis1 is safe to keep at 3.5.  Her ID is notably less accurate and she doesn't have Deis2's buffs.  Better damage, sure, but being 1-dimensional is definitely a weakness - Deis2's ID and buffs cover a bunch of fights with versatility.  See dude's team (I think it was dude?) who had Deis2 / Emily for both the ID option and the ultimate buffed physical smash option.

[Nephrite]

Would people still choose Raja if he was 1.5?

[dude789]

Would people still choose Raja if he was 1.5?

Probably not, that physical durability is really too wretched for me to consider picking him if he was a 1.5. Deis 1 is definitely fine as a 3.5. As for Deis 2 I think it'd be best to wait and see a bit more. I think resource issues might hold her back too much to be a 4.0.

[Glen Veil]

Personally, I would probably consider Raja worth picking even if he was 2.0, for a healer he has huge resources, a very competent defense buff, and even MP restoration for resource scarce teams, and the best thing is he starts out with all of it.  His durability while not great, isn't as bad as it shows in the topic since Raja can safely go dual shields since the rest of the team can put out damage for him.

I think the closest healer to Raja in 1.0 is probably Tear, but she takes a while to get competent mt healing/revive, which is compensated with the fact she has at least some damage.

There's Eiko in 1.5 who I would probably consider even/slightly better then Raja at the keeping people alive game, but I'm of the opinion that she's slightly underpriced, so meh.

Then there is the 2.0 pool, that has people like Lilka/Yulie/Rosa(maybe relevant?)

Yulie is basically just as frail as Raja physically, may be interpreted to be ST healing only depending on how people see her in regards to starting hexes, is not especially fast, and even if her buffs are good, they're single target(compared to Raja's MT barrier that practically doubles his whole parties physical durability).

Lilka is entirely single target until endgame, doesn't do damage around midway through the dungeon, needs to take a hit starting midway through the dungeon to get access to her GOOD healing/revival(either that or waste a turn using her physical on someone), and absolutely MUST have a team that can protect her, because if she dies she is literally dead weight for the next 2 turns of the fight after being revived while she builds up enough fp to use her abilities again.  Also her only good buffs are single target and one of them is severly limited in use(Mage/Hypeweapon are great attack buffs yeah, too bad that attack boost only applies to basic physicals in game).

But yeah, totally think Raja is underpriced at the moment and wouldn't feel hurt to seem him go up .5-1 points.

[074]

Raja's a weird case insofar that he's too awesome of a healer for a 1.0...but too perceptibly easily-killed for anything higher.  Except that nowadays we have sealstones and other party members to mitigate that.  Particularly the speed-oriented and buffing sealstones.

Regarding others:

Deises: Deis1 has more raw power, it's true.  However, technically speaking, most of her stuff is elemental, and the good stuff is ST until Comet.  Which is pretty damn late.  In fact, IIRC, she's gained around F3-F4 or so ingame, so she actually doesn't LEARN new stuff for a while.  Deis2 has more variety (BoF2 Death, as well as ATK-Up), as well as infinite self-healing, albeit at a defense loss.  As for whether or not she's worthy of being a 4.0, we'd have to compare her to the others of that caliber...

Rika: Fast as hell, with accurate ID, evasion-busting, healing in ST and MT flavors, physical ITE damage, and two amazing MT defensive buffs.  All of which is gained surprisingly early (About F3 or so at latest, and that's for Disrupt.)  Can carry a team on her own, practically.

Bartz: FF5 skillset options are silly.  Very silly.  Even only being able to equip two at a given time, they're silly.  White Mage, Summoner, and Time Mage offer broken as hell ability sets, even if they don't come in until the halfway point.  Dear god.

Cloud: Say what you will, mastered Materia is a VERY powerful thing.  It doesn't sound that effective, but consider having Bolt3 by...say, Junon.  Yeah, he's a project character, but he can do some serious damage.  His problem is that he's all ST until Floor 5, but once you hit that he's able to do horrible shit to things.  Add to that Cover, Life, Esuna, Resist, and Transform...yeah, Cloud's a badass, enough said.  Oh and Cross-Slash if it's needed.

Athos: He's all-ST.  Not that good in his favor.  But he's got endgame stats throughout, so it's near-impossible to outslug him.  Furthermore, those stats mean he can smash the hell out of people.  So he's actually a pretty good "smash" party member for that point in the game, and FE Berserk might have its pros.  ...kind of falls off later, though, when I think about it.  Not the sort who can carry a team, so I can actually see dropping him a bit in value.

Blue: Say what you will, you have to build a team to support him.  He sucks early on.  Once you hit later on, though, his value starts to increase more.  While he doesn't QUITE get the insanity he can for his duelform by not getting the opposite magic types and thus being able to use everything, he still pretty much gets a ton of magic options.  Lategame Blue is still VERY strong here.

Cecilia: An utter arsenal of magic options, on top of magic immunity.  Not sure if that applies to pseudomagic or not, but magic immunity is still a thing.  Still needs to be carried through the early floors, but her options later on are undeniable provided you can use them.

Orlandu: On the one end, a lot can be said for early parasitic healing that'll probably last the entire game.  On the other hand, his stuff isn't going to be hyped as hitting more than 1-2 people at a time.  In addition, doesn't start with Excalibur, is pretty much mostly damage outside of Hellcry and Dark Sword to screw over PCs.  ...mind you, it's all ITE for him, and combining Hellcry and Dark Sword results in the ability to screw over almost any given PC at a time.  Hard to say, though, given that Excalibur's about F6.

Rikku: She's got insane 1/fight buffs and healing.  Furthermore, status options, and she's fast.  Set up the right team and she will run hell over quite a few things.

Souji: Slow start, and I wouldn't give Inheritance.  But naturally, it's GODDAMNED SOUJI.  He practically solos his home game around the end, no real reason he can't do horrible things to the Dungeon at that point.

Timelord: Needs to be built around, but oh GOD.  Fast, skillset from hell, and Overdrive as a panic button.

Virginia: Limited as far as mediums go to three, but that still provides a wide variety of options.  Start-of-game revival, as well as being fast as hell and having crazy access to magic.  She's not as twinkable as the others, but she's still a fairly strong option when you know what you want to do with her.

The question there, I'd say, is whether or not Deis2 is worth putting up there with the rest of them, as well as what the cutoff point for a 4.0 would be...