Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Brainstorming Topic!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In that case, Snow...

FF9 characters have their gauges filled by taking damage, and once they have a full gauge, they are automatically forced into Trance Mode, with their actions then drain the gauge at a rather rapid rate.  So...  Trancing out the first fight, then no more threat of that for the rest of the floor under the current definition.

This is still pretty much a nice benefit to tack onto any FF9 PC. It's not like it hurts their usefulness any, since they were hardly, if ever, seeing Trance in the Dungeon anyway.

Sure, but why sacrifice your Sealstone slot for a fringe benefit like that when you could use a far better Sealstone that could fit your party design far better and cover you for much more than the first fight in a battle? It's not something anyone would design their team around short of outright not caring, which is what troubles me most about VBL. It's a Sealstone that you can design, at most, a single PC around, and trying to design teams that actually take advantage of it often ends up in deadends where you realize they're better off without it. Even things like "zomg saved omnislash" is honestly pretty fringe and a hamper in the long run when you can make setups like Tonfa's, where enemies were -forced- to ram into Cloud's limit dangers, for an instance. Or, in Aeris' case, you have a healer that you -don't want to bumrush- if you can't OHKO her or chip, and that isn't terribly easy. It's a net loss for way too many people it was supposed to benefit.

[DjinnAndTonic]

*shrugs* My current team is built around VBL and I think it will work pretty well. It's a team that has decent synergy on its own, but each of them also have OPF Limits for big damage waiting in the wings. As soon as I saw Neph's VBL, this is the first idea that came to mind - build a team that VBL complements, not one that relies on VBL. But then... I'd like to think that that's how all the Sealstones are supposed to work. But some people are much better at finding ways to break the Sealstones such that the Sealstone becomes the main part of their team.

Also... Bumrushing Aeris into Limit range is only scary if you're not immune to status? And only really one or two statuses... I don't think her Limit's helping her much as a deterrent?

But again, even if it does, VBL is just trading one strategy for another. You can argue that non-VBL strategy is better, but it depends on what your team is doing.

[dude789]

Suggestion for Elemental Advance: At certain percentages, it starts ignoring certain features on targets, like...  At 50%, it treats absorption as immunity and immunity as 50% resistance and ignores resistance...  75% has it another step up, and then maxing out at 100% where an element would deal normal damage instead of a target absorbing it?

I think this is a very cool idea.

[dude789]

I had a team idea that I think could work very well and uses some characters who haven't really been used that much.

Yuri1 (3.5)
Sasarai (2.5)
Dragon Quest 3 Sage (3)
Gastly (1.5)
Ditto ( .5)
With Resourceless

The main idea is that the team has absolutely punishing magical offense. Sasari makes things explode with the TER and is able to provide some nice support with the Flowing Ruin and the rest of the TER spells. Yuri1 starts off slowly, but once he gets rolling watch out. Sage has a fantastic skillset and great stats along with a very important speed buff because some of the members of the team are kind of sluggish. Gastly provides status support for Sage and gets great damage once he evolves into Gengar and gets Shadow Ball his damage skyrockets. I didn't really want to use ditto, but there really weren't a lot of options. However, due to the way transform works he works very well with Yuri and Sasarai. I don't plan on using this team immediately, but I'm curious to see how people think this team will do.

[Magic Fanatic]

Suggestion for Elemental Advance: At certain percentages, it starts ignoring certain features on targets, like...  At 50%, it treats absorption as immunity and immunity as 50% resistance and ignores resistance...  75% has it another step up, and then maxing out at 100% where an element would deal normal damage instead of a target absorbing it?

I think this is a very cool idea.

My general idea was to have it follow somewhat in terms of the BoF4 elemental tiers of weakness/resistance/absorption.  It just seemed to fit, really.

[Clear Tranquil]

Sure, but why sacrifice your Sealstone slot for a fringe benefit like that when you could use a far better Sealstone that could fit your party design far better and cover you for much more than the first fight in a battle?

Exactly~

Especially for Eiko who ... uhh ... heals when she doesn't need to or casts two ST buffs when she could just summon Carbuncle! Arguably really wastes VBL except for -maybe- double Holy which isn't until F6 at least.

Also... Bumrushing Aeris into Limit range is only scary if you're not immune to status? And only really one or two statuses... I don't think her Limit's helping her much as a deterrent?

Stop is a really -evil- status though, one that's rarely immuned from what I've seen and Seal Evil is MT so yeah especially evil if it goes off. Also free healing forever and ever from Healing Wind isn't something that can be completely sneezed at either.  

L2 and L3s aren't terribly hard to gain in the dungeon either, DL maybe but there's leeway in the dungeon especially since I can see people allowing Cloud and Aerith Hyper here~

[Clear Tranquil]

Proposed changes -

Lenneth/Chaz/Eiko/Peppita/Lise to Lenneth, Chaz, Eiko, Peppita, Meru/Lucia (Body Charge) -or- Lenneth/Songstress/Eiko/Peppita/Lucia (Body Charge)

Depends on points or ... thoughts?

I thinking the former for more balance ... the latter for project/gamble (Songstress MP Mambo w/th Lucia's Third Key oil combos) which will probably just explode in my face before it goes anywhere so yeah~

[Magic Fanatic]

That...  Is a ton of healing on the latter, right?  Just gotta be careful of Lucia early, so she doesn't explode in your face.  She starts out with...  What, 6 SP?  7?  That's also a team that...  Has almost no damage early (except for Lenneth).  The former team has less of a chance of exploding in your face, I think.

[Bardiche]

Billy (3.0)
Eiko (1.5)
Peppita (1.5)

// either
Beecham (1.0)
Miakis (4.0)

// or
Scias (3.0)
Sacred Slayer (2.0)

// or
Lucian & Shiho (2.5) /w Body Charge
Nall (1.0)

------>

First two teams with Life: Sacred Slayer on one path, probably Beecham or Peppita on the first path. The idea was to fit a lot of healers in with one obnoxious attacker. Billy does good damage actually, and both Miakis and Scias can add damage to it. Especially when Peppita gets going.

All of the team members can heal, some can buff, with Life each of them can potentially revive...

... and, of course, the last team is really obnoxious with Lucian and Shiho turning into durable, above average speed demons with great MT Healing, Buffs, Revival and obnoxious damage. Nall is there because I would have a left-over point, which can also be used to replace Eiko for Garnet instead.

Thoughts?

[SnowFire]

Some random balancing thoughts.

Firefly - Asked Neph this in chat, but definitely think that, inelegant as it is, the "defend hack" should be put back.  As is for games with really good defense commands, this can render the first ST attack from opponents nearly irrelevant rather than simply force-targeted.  This is probably too good.

Gilder - As I noted here ( http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=1736.msg74710#msg74710 ), Gilder seriously needs a discount.  Aura of Denial is 3 SP, and Gilder's buffs either come on line later in the match or else require another SoA character to power 'em up in general.  Could be 1.5, could maybe even be 1.0 (but would be a rather good 1.0 - lots of options, durability, etc.).

Luneth - Currently 3 points, but I think this was done as a "safety valve" in case something was hideously broken like Ramza (who got moved down from 4->3.5 as well).  Looking at the class list, the classes of interest...

Warrior -> Basically Claude, lots and lots of damage but not much else.  Also nukes his defense later to use said damage and doesn't immune ID like Claude does.  So ~2 points, maybe less.

Viking -> Provoke is cool as Firefly has shown to be awesomely broken.  Buuut, it's an ST Provoke, so not as helpful against enemy teams, and further the Dungeon Rules means that he can't switch from dual shield to dual axe whenever he wants.  Speed is complete trash when not using Provoke, Damage is nothing special either.  1.5-2 points?  A potentially very useful niche but feels like an Aika minus.  (For a Luneth build, only available on Floor 4 anyway.)

Dragoon -> Great draining damage (though not as good as Warrior's), has Jump to pressure healers.  Fast.  2 points (though Floor 4 job).

Sage -> Fantastic skillset, horrible speed.  Damage gets comparatively bad by endgame.  Is a Floor 5 job anyway.  Maybe 1.5 pts?  Comparable with Rosa, though generally unfavorably since Rosa's status is much more accurate (though they're both slow MT Healers with Full Revival and options).

So yeah, I think Luneth could be dropped to 2 points safely.  All the other classes would probably be worse than these four.  Alternatively, we could just make a job available outright, sidestepping some weird JL issues.

Also on that note, I'd still be in favor of FE8 Ewan and Fina w/ Items being added to the Dungeon, but that's fairly minor.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I still want to see an FE Bard. Especially with things like Firefly and such, pulling an extra turn would be awesome despite the durability issues. Go with Nils for the best name-power.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks Magic~

Interesting ideas Bard. I'll have to do a more indepth analysis when I have more free time >.>

Idle musing -

I don't know Billy but ok Billy does good damage. This is good with Peppita, Peppita likes making your damage moar =-) Peppita's not a pure mage though she's a pseudo support fighter type with status but nevermind you have Eiko there for your dedicated healer/support/mage. Hmmm I would say you want at least one other attacker in there to make the most of the MTness of Power Dance (especially eventual 3.00% Power Dance) I really like the idea of Lucian or Miakis with Power Dance tbh (especially a powerdanced Double Edge, Boost, Power/Fury Miakis  >.> - just have to be careful she doesn't explode <.<) but I'm not sure which. I'm unfamilar with Sacred Slayer/how she works into your team and I forget what Scias does Don't know Beechem either. I like the idea of Shiho from what I've seen of her here and Nall always works if you have space =-)

Edit: Oh yeah! Lucian/Shiho are still 2.5 even with the added cost from Body Charge?

Also random Meru hype! -

Vs Triceretops (Moon)

L45 Albert/Dart/Meru (all additions mastered)-

Dart with Blazing Dynamo + Claymore - 1083
Meru with Perky Step + Basher - 1125
Albert with Flower Storm + Halberd - 1455

(Dart w/th Soul Eater/Therapy Ring combo - 1300
Meru w/th Giganto Ring - 1313)

First test run was something like this - Enemy > Meru > Dart > Meru *enemy dies* - Albert ;_; >_>

[Bardiche]

Luciho become 4.0 with Body Charge, but I'd have to ask Neph for how that works on doubles. Do both reap the benefits or just one?

Sacred Slayer trades turns with people and then her next turn comes up twice as fast.

So in FFT terms, if you need 10 CT to get a turn, and SS takes four turns to get 10 CT... SS turnswaps with that character who takes the turn immediately and SS then takes two turns to get 10 CT and get a turn again.

Scias deals obnoxious damage when he has 1 HP due to SHINING RAKSHASHA BLADE. And with Life he revives with 1 HP, so BING BING~ Sacred Slayer ensures he gets a turn while say, Peppita uses Healing Dance to bring him to life. Billy Hastes Sacred Slayer and Scias begins taking turns with the fury of which hell hath no.


Beecham is your generic sorta-durable Water Rune-user with some attack power. The plan is with Beecham/Miakis to have Miakis use Thunder until she can set herself up with super attack power, and then give Beecham Life and go the Bosses routes every time. Beecham with MT 50% Healing and revival is pretty darn nice off durability.

[Taishyr]

Rakshasa only has a chance of triggering at low HP. So it's not as shiny as it sounds.

[Bardiche]

Rakshasa only has a chance of triggering at low HP. So it's not as shiny as it sounds.

... Oh, darn. That would've been so bork otherwise.

Well, any physical fighter on the 3.0 slot would work with Sacred Slayer in that combi~ boss slaying team, yes.

[Nephrite]

Body Charge can't be used on pairs.

[dude789]

I was reading through the Persona PSP game manual and I discovered a rather interesting buff that could work as a sealstone.

Puppet Sealstone
If the wearer of this sealstone looses all of their hp they may continue to use physical attacks while they are dead. However, these physical attacks only deal 75% of their normal damage and revival effects do not take effect on this character until after the fight is over.

[Magic Fanatic]

Is there anything I'm missing about Lucian & Shiho that's keeping them at a 2.5?  Even apart, Lucian could probably be a 2.5 on his own.

Lucian only:
Kill point physical damage?  Check.
Resistance to the most common DL element out there because it's his innate?  Check.
Respectable HP and Defense?  Check.

Shiho only:
Awesome revival?  Check.
Awesome healing?  Check.
Doubling damage numbers with her buffs?  Check.

Lucian & Shiho:
That's a lot of damage.  If Shiho has CT, that's a lot of ITE damage.


Only downsides I can think of:
Average speed.  Some people might get the drop on them.
Status bait.  Given, though, the nature of the dungeon, there's not a lot of floors that can actually threaten with the deadly stuff since they're USUALLY slow.

Request raising of their point value to about 3.5.

[DjinnAndTonic]

It's true that Shiho and Lucian could be raised a bit in cost.

Though it should be noted that Shiho alone is all but useless due to the horrible Charge Time after she casts something. She has to have Lucian to knock out those pretty gems so that she can get a turn more than once every 5 rounds or so.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Elemental affinity does -nothing- in VP. Lucian isn't any more resistant to Lightning than KOS-MOS is. I know this is tangential, but just nagged at me.

EDIT: Also, keep in mind that you're spending -two- slots on Shiho and Lucian. Even if it is cheap, it limits the team building more than you'd think.

[Random Consonant]

Thing is, Shiho is flat out useless without Lucian, considering that she has to put up with long recharge times without Shining Bolt to shake out a million red gems to reduce CT with.  Lucian himself is pretty spoilable as well (cries against the evasive or those with high defense, statusable as hell), is ST only, and devoid of any tricks.  Plus I don't recall innate elements doing anything at all in VP1.

I dunno, 3.0 I could see, but 3.5?  Not so much.

[Magic Fanatic]

Elemental affinity does -nothing- in VP. Lucian isn't any more resistant to Lightning than KOS-MOS is. I know this is tangential, but just nagged at me.

...Then the information I was going over was incorrect.  Okay then.  Still, point stands, they're too cheap right now.

Thing is, Shiho is flat out useless without Lucian, considering that she has to put up with long recharge times without Shining Bolt to shake out a million red gems to reduce CT with.  Lucian himself is pretty spoilable as well (cries against the evasive or those with high defense, statusable as hell) and is ST only.  Plus I don't recall innate elements doing anything at all in VP1.

I dunno, 3.0 I could see, but 3.5?  Not so much.

Considering that there's no option but to have both right now, the "alone" things were just dingy little excerpts of what they offer to a team themselves, much less with each other.

If Shiho has CT, Lucian's attacks basically become ITE.  High defense is still a problem, but there is very little he can't 2HKO a least, legendarily durable Godlikes aside...  And this is before Might Reinforce and any other party buffs for attack on him.

The evasive would be a problem, yes...  But with Shiho, he doesn't care.  This is mostly explained in Monkey's current matches this week, where Shiva has nearly Lulu-level evade, and Yojimbo has almost half over Lulu's evade.  Lucian doesn't care.  Why?  If Shiho has CT, she basically turns the target's ability to Evade off.

The only thing those two have to fear are fast, accurate, MT status slingers (which, one has to admit, are incredibly rare, even in the dungeon).

EDIT: Also, keep in mind that you're spending -two- slots on Shiho and Lucian. Even if it is cheap, it limits the team building more than you'd think.

It's still a powerhouse team, and it leaves you 8.5 points for three other characters.  Alys, Tidus, Toadstool, maybe?  Cloud, TimeLord, Ditto?

Heck, even Ted (S4, currently 3.5 points) is jealous of this team-up.  He may be only one character, but he's also a point more expensive, only slightly more durable than Shiho, and is put to shame with what he can do compared to those two.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Elemental affinity does -nothing- in VP. Lucian isn't any more resistant to Lightning than KOS-MOS is. I know this is tangential, but just nagged at me.

It doesn't do anything? Why is it even there?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, I think there -is- some sort of mechanical affinity thing that was supposed to be there, but it has no real bearing in practice. I have no idea what the hell it does, Elfboy may know better. Although, honestly, I think it's mostly a flavor thing.

[DjinnAndTonic]

It would be easy enough to believe that from Phantasy Star or something... but VP was pretty far into the PSX era... What you're saying sounds possible, but it just doesn't seem likely. I don't know for sure, as I've never bothered to check, but still..