Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 37

[Nephrite]

Alas, we can't win them all, can we? No matter, you will have your time in the Sun someday...

Team Miasma vs. Floor 5
Team Magic vs. Floor 3
Team Ashe vs. Floor 1


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Team Miasmacloud's Matches

Floor 6a: Those that fight underlings (Before Endgame)

Battle #26: Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin

Reno: The Turks will show you no mercy.
Fujin: DESTROY.

Battle #27: Lich, Kary, Kraken and Tiamat

Lich: Earth!
Kary: Fire!
Tiamat: Wind!
Kraken: Water!

Battle #28: Xenobia

Xenobia: Master Ghaleon may not be here... but I will destroy you anyway.

Battle #29: Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian

*The team has been fully healed!

Rofel: The power of the Zodiacs shall stop you.
Adramelk: Hahaha... Fools.

Boss Battle #6: Zog and Melfice

Zog: I, the ruler of the Dark Dragons, shall end your lives here.
Melfice: Heh heh heh. You think this horn is just for show?



Team Lady Ashe's Matches

Floor 2d: Sunny DPS (Earlygame)

I think you've had it too easy... Let's see if you can survive this onslaught!


Battle #6: Cloud, Tifa and Barret

Cloud: Come on, let's get this over with.
Tifa: Okay, Cloud!
Barret: FUCK YEAH!   

Battle #7: Belenus, Grey and Lucian

Belenus: Ha! You cannot beat us!
Grey: ICICLE DISASTER!!!
Lucian: Platina!!

Battle #8: Valeria and Anita

Valeria: Falcon Rune!
Anita: I guess...

Battle #9: Halley and Keith

Halley: My mother told me about you...
Keith: Ah... Let us have a wonderful battle.

Boss Battle #2: Orlandu

Orlandu: I will show you why they call me 'Thunder God!' (Hint: It makes no sense)



Team Taishyr's Matches

Floor 1: An Introduction (The Beginning)

Ah, a new challenger... Well, I've decided to change things a bit since the last time you were here. Let's see what you can accomplish this time.

Battle #1: Rufus and Reno

Rufus: Reno, dispose of them.
Reno: Uh... sure, I guess.

Battle #2: Shuckle, Fred and Cecil

Cecil: Let us have an honorable battle.
Fred: For the Maximillian Knights!!

Battle #3: Alice and FFT Priest

Alice: Ah, Yuri... where are you?
Priest: Cure... power!

Battle #4: Solt, Peppor, Alenia, Zahhak and Miluda

Solt: Let's shake things up!
Peppor: I'll grind you to dust!
Alenia: Wh... why are we here with them...?
Zahhak: ...
Miluda: ...BROTHER?!?

Boss Battle #1: Lundgren, Zalmo and Baigan

Lundgren: Hah hah hah! You will never stop me!
Zalmo: HERESY!!!
Baigan: I am proud to challenge you.



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Team Miasmacloud | Terra, VP2 Lenneth, FFT Chemist, PC Seifer
[Floor 6a]
Team Miasma vs. Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin
Team Miasma vs. Lich, Kraken, Kary and Tiamat
Team Miasma vs. Xenobia
*Full Heal
Team Miasma vs. Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian
Team Miasma vs. Zog and Melfice


Team Lady Ashe | Raquel, Arnaud, Guv, Yulie, Ricardo
[Floor 2d]
Team Ashe vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret
Team Ashe vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian
Team Ashe vs. Valeria and Anita
Team Ashe vs. Halley and Keith
*Full Heal
Team Ashe vs. Orlandu


Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 1]
[Bartz: Monk (Unmastered)]
Team Tai vs. Rufus and Reno
Team Tai vs. Shuckle, Fred (S3) and Cecil
Team Tai vs. Alice and FFT Priest
Team Tai vs. Solt, Peppor, Alenia, Zahhak and Miluda
Team Tai vs. Lundgren, Zalmo1 and Baigan


Not for nothin', I liked all the conversation we had last week, but for this week let's try and not take anything too personally.

[Bardiche]

Team Mia fails. Too little offense, I do think.

Team Ashe passes.

Team Taishyr does so as well, on sole virtue of EIKOOOOOOO~

[Taishyr]

Team Miasmacloud | Terra, VP2 Lenneth, FFT Chemist, PC Seifer
[Floor 6a]
Team Miasma vs. Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin 
Team Miasma vs. Lich, Kraken, Kary and Tiamat
Team Miasma vs. Xenobia - Generally unsure if they make it to here. The previous teams are throwing around a lot of status to lock people down with, and I'm not confident the healing's enough. - EDIT: Forgot Lenneth did good status immuning and Terra's got her money spells here. Not a big issue to manage this.
*Full Heal
Team Miasma vs. Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian - But if they get to here, a Terra blitz on Adramelk ensures they win the last two fights. Close, but Zog and Melfice have issues challenging the healing at this point, and this fight's not threatening after Adramelk falls. (Rofel's cuter in a duel.)
Team Miasma vs. Zog and Melfice




Team Lady Ashe | Raquel, Arnaud, Guv, Yulie, Ricardo
[Floor 2d]
Team Ashe vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret - No limit, limit scaling. Arnaud reduces accuracy of Cloud, the team moves on.
Team Ashe vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian - Uhhhh uhm. Speed drop Lucian... Ricardo does something... is this good enough to prevent someone from being nuked? I'm gonna just say Yulie drops dead here.
Team Ashe vs. Valeria and Anita - Should be okay with Guv/Ricardo here, so long as Arnaud keeps them messed up.
Team Ashe vs. Halley and Keith - Rush Keith, finish off Halley.
*Full Heal
Team Ashe vs. Orlandu - Orlandu kills Yulie. Arnaud uses his speed debuff. Ricardo uses some sort of buff. Raquel and Guv hammer on him. Next to die is... Guv? Raquel? I don't know. Inclination is that the damage will stack up fast enough, though.


Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 1]
[Bartz: Monk (Unmastered)]
Team Tai vs. Rufus and Reno - Crowley.
Team Tai vs. Shuckle, Fred (S3) and Cecil - Crowley > physical tanks.
Team Tai vs. Alice and FFT Priest - Bartz has actual offense during this segment! So.
Team Tai vs. Solt, Peppor, Alenia, Zahhak and Miluda - I confessionally don't know the S5 bosses, but they're S5 bosses so apparently they suck or something? Also Crowley has MT magic. I'm pretty okay here with Rika and Eiko providing defensive support.
Team Tai vs. Lundgren, Zalmo1 and Baigan - Not really that big of an issue.


I'll present arguments on my team but not vote for it except in tiebreak or to cause a tie or something. >_>

[Random Consonant]

Team Taishyr - Pass.  Sure, I'll go with the Crowley hype.  That and it's floor 1.

Abstain on the other two.

[Dhyerwolf]

Thinking they all make. Mia...well, DoS for me means that second fight is a joke. So that leaves the first fight where the Fujin is the most dangerous (Just also slow and with bad HP).

[SnowFire]

Taishyr: Hmm, checking, I see that Illusion is Level 28 for Arnaud.  That seems..  rather optimistic for Floor 2.  Even if Arnaud is level 14, he'd have to forsake Shut Out and a Class level up to get it.  Suppose I can see it, but it's borderline (and definitely out if you allow per-battle advancement rather then per-floor, that is, only early Floor 2 skills in early fights).

Team Lady Ashe | Raquel, Arnaud, Guv, Yulie, Ricardo
[Floor 2d]
Battle #6: Cloud, Tifa and Barret - Um.  Everyone is roughly average speed and thus faster than Yulie.  How does Yulie avoid getting killed here?  I don't think Guv has Zing yet.  The good news is that with no Angelo, Guv is probably still mildly above average speed... 

Assuming no Illusion: Arnaud/Ricardo blasts Cloud, and Guv uses Flame Slash with a sword.  Problem is this still probably doesn't kill Cloud, and while it does reduce the efficacy of the Ultima Weapon, probably not enough to matter (and Cloud can just not use it).  Yulie dies for sure, and the team finishes off Cloud, and then mostly controls the fight with Ricardo's healing.

Assuming Illusion: Okay, Cloud gets Illusioned.  Problem: Yulie's effective physical durability is listed as 1.51.  Even if we assume the damage spread is less earlier in the game, she still gets easily 2HKOed by average physical damage.  So that means Tifa and Barret kill her even if Cloud is Illusioned.  No more revival, and the team's healing is much worse.  Assuming you don't let FF7 characters move, at least mopping up is easy as everyone gets Illusioned, then Raquel breaks past their limit after chipping.

Battle #7: Belenus, Grey and Lucian - PWS Ricardo; Arnaud would have to Illusion Lucian to stop it, and Lucian I'd see as hitting through Illusion (subjective call but he always breaks guard in VP, the closest analogue).  Guv's healing is Single Target and quite limited at this point.
Battle #8: Valeria and Anita - Kill Guv.  IIRC both these characters beat out Arnaud on Speed, so no Illusion problems.  (Also if you didn't think Yulie died before and these two do indeed beat Arnaud on speed, then she dies now.)
Battle #9: Halley and Keith - Kill Arnaud with spells.  He can slow one of them down but it won't help, he has no healing and he's surely 3HKOed by the two (and ID'ed if he doesn't use Illusion).

Boss Battle #2: Orlandu - Orlandu vs. Raquel is a Godlike match, but not when only one has a weapon.
Also, alternate history.  Assuming a fully loaded team came to this match...  interp call time, as Holy Explosion is clearly a line attack, and Lightning Stab possibly messes with multiple WA4 members at once?  Anyway.  Let's assume Orlandu's group attacks are functionally ST.  Don't start by killing Yulie, kill Arnaud instead (Slow Down BAD) with Shellburst Stab (hey, more HP for future Dark Swords, and Arnaud is no great shakes on defense either).  Ricardo Gales Raquel.  Guv..  does something (attacks I guess).  Yulie revives Arnaud.  Raquel Poison Bites (why bother attacking?).  Orlandu Shellburst Stabs Yulie out.  Orlandu Dark Swords Arnaud (and recovers from Guv/Poison damage) back down.  Ricardo, Raquel, and Guv try to kill Orlandu.  If they can't, they just lose. 

So on second thought, they should have tried that earlier and not even bothered buffing/reviving.  Orlandu opens by killing Arnaud, and then R/R/G/Yulie (!) try and kill Orlandu.  Which, since I'd give Yulie her 3/7 chance of starting on an elemental hex, just might be possible, actually, at least if Raquel hits through the shield.  But that's two chances that have to go her way, and I don't think Yulie makes it here anyway (she should die in two of the earlier matches), so the point is moot.

[Taishyr]

SnowFire: There's a fullheal before Orlandu. Yulie dies before that match but is revived there.

EDIT: Also, arguably Shut Out makes Cloud/TIFA ineffective, but fair.

[Magic Fanatic]

Team Miasmacloud | Terra, VP2 Lenneth, FFT Chemist, PC Seifer
[Floor 6a]
Team Miasma vs. Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin
Team Miasma vs. Lich, Kraken, Kary and Tiamat
Team Miasma vs. Xenobia - As the earlier argument?  Mia's team is WAY too tied down in status.
*Full Heal
Team Miasma vs. Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian
Team Miasma vs. Zog and Melfice


Team Lady Ashe | Raquel, Arnaud, Guv, Yulie, Ricardo
[Floor 2d]
Team Ashe vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret
Team Ashe vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian
Team Ashe vs. Valeria and Anita
Team Ashe vs. Halley and Keith - Even if they get to here...  At least one person's already dead, and Keith has a 75% MT ID spell, not to mention Halley's healing is really good (like, 90% average HP).  I really don't think that Ashe's team can take down these two fast enough (especially since Raquel hasn't hit hax power yet).
*Full Heal
Team Ashe vs. Orlandu


Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 1]
[Bartz: Monk (Unmastered)]
Team Tai vs. Rufus and Reno
Team Tai vs. Shuckle, Fred (S3) and Cecil
Team Tai vs. Alice and FFT Priest
Team Tai vs. Solt, Peppor, Alenia, Zahhak and Miluda
Team Tai vs. Lundgren, Zalmo1 and Baigan

[Taishyr]

Alice blocking Physicals means Crowley has a field day with her. Early game Cyclone Rune is rape.

She blocks Magic, suddenly Bartz is heal-locking her and FFT Priest is scrambling to try and assist.

Besides, Crowley's also got practically full healing off multiple charges. S1 rune charges are ^_^.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Team Miasmacloud | Terra, VP2 Lenneth, FFT Chemist, PC Seifer
[Floor 6a]
Team Miasma vs. Reno, Rude, Elena, Fujin and Raijin - This is actually one of the most problematic fight of the bunch. Reno... goes first, and Pyramids. To which Terra answers with Fire3 MT, solving the issue nicely. But that most likely wasted Lenneth's turn. Then, Seifer and Chemist focus on Fujin, and that's probably that. Elena would be annoying if almost the entire party didn't immune Confuse.
Team Miasma vs. Lich, Kraken, Kary and Tiamat - Kary resists Fire! Too bad Lenneth immunes paralysis and so does Chemist and arguably Terra, although Chemist may be OHKOed. My guess is Terra plays healer duty here. The main issue is that the fiends need to focus entirely, since they can't afford to spread much.
Team Miasma vs. Xenobia - Lenneth solos Xenobia with Heal+attack+immuning stone. Next.
*Full Heal
Team Miasma vs. Rofel, Adramelk and Kletian - Rofel breaks someone's armor and... eh. He gets bumrushed, Terra OHKOs him and Kletian is bait. This fight isn't enough.
Team Miasma vs. Zog and Melfice - Melfice is bait to Terra, Zog has issues against this much healing.


Team Lady Ashe | Raquel, Arnaud, Guv, Yulie, Ricardo
[Floor 2d]
Team Ashe vs. Cloud, Tifa and Barret - Non-issue.
Team Ashe vs. Belenus, Grey and Lucian - Okay, things get problematic here. Arnaud mocks Belenus and Lucian, but Grey has ITE. And Arnaud+Ricardo ain't 2HKOing Lucian. Which means Yulie dies and you've got no more reviver. I think they even get past this point, but, without a reviver, they're going to get increasingly threatened, and Guv probably isn't above average anymore due to Jessica already existing. And, once they reach Orlandu, they're in such deep.


Team Taishyr | Bartz, Rika, Crowley, Eiko
[Floor 1]
[Bartz: Monk (Unmastered)]
Team Tai vs. Rufus and Reno - Rufus fails, so does Reno against a party.
Team Tai vs. Shuckle, Fred (S3) and Cecil - Rika Illusions and Saners here. Battle won.
Team Tai vs. Alice and FFT Priest - ALICE IS GODLY AGAINST PHYSICALS oh wait too bad about her horrible resources and auto-losing in twelve turns. The team physicals FFT priest to death and now Alice is torn between a 4HKO MT attack that gets owned by Eiko's cheapass MT healing or expensive revival. This is not helping her.
Team Tai vs. Solt, Peppor, Alenia, Zahhak and Miluda - These bosses fail.
Team Tai vs. Lundgren, Zalmo1 and Baigan - Bartz's offense is good here, so he entirely mangles Zalmo. Lundgren gets one-turned by Crowley before getting a turn, and Baigan is Baigan.

[Taishyr]

Mmm, forgot about Team Miasma's status blockers. Switching to pass, then; the team -should- be able to cover enough.

[dude789]

Lady Ashe and Mia fall, Taishyr makes it.

[Taishyr]

Team Tai vs. Shuckle, Fred (S3) and Cecil - Rika Illusions and Saners here. Battle won.

Even if Rika doesn't have, say, Saner or Illusion yet, Crowley still carries the squad. Why?

Okay. Let's assume, despite the locked equipment that boosts his magic (since he's not on the team yet it makes sense to not consider this) that Crowley has no L3s.

Stat topic average with best damage: L2s/physicals only: 478.
Crowley's The Shredding: 506.

Not that much above average, right? ... Except weapons factor in a loooooot more than the magic stat does. (Don't get me wrong, it's still a vital factor, but not so much as the double hit of less strength/lower weapon).

So while physical damage is gonna be fairly bloody low for a while, Crowley's spells will be fairly high-octane until... probably floor 4? Where he's got at least one shot of his best spell anyway, meaning he's got an entirely different use.

So... yeah. Crowley's kinda a magical Marcus, except he has -use- after his damage flattens out. (Even then, he's barely under average, and he's got healing support, so.)

This is pretty much just part and parcel on "why Suiko spells are weird since they seem to use a set damage base and magic/magic resistance just gets kinda tacked on afterward".

[Talaysen]

Battle #7: Belenus, Grey and Lucian - PWS Ricardo; Arnaud would have to Illusion Lucian to stop it, and Lucian I'd see as hitting through Illusion (subjective call but he always breaks guard in VP, the closest analogue).  Guv's healing is Single Target and quite limited at this point.

VP has evade, and blocking ain't it.

This is pretty much just part and parcel on "why Suiko spells are weird since they seem to use a set damage base and magic/magic resistance just gets kinda tacked on afterward".

Yeah, Suikoden magic is something like base+magic stat-magic defense stat.

[Magic Fanatic]

Mia's party:  Uh, what happens when one brings up the record that Lich's Sleep 2 spell (according to the stat topic) ignores status protection?  I'm pretty sure a constant turnskip would screw over Mia's team.  Can everyone even equip all the blockers they need to get past the floor all at once anyway?



Tai's party:  Also, even with mage stats...  I'm not sure I see Crowley getting more than 3/1/0/0 on floor 1?  Maybe 4/2/0/0?  Not enough charges for how much he's being relied on...  Also, if he dies?  There's no one there to revive him, since FFIX Life is nowhere near this early.  Also, an MT'd Fire spell would be kinda pointless unless you were just targeting multiple pyramids.  My experience in-game has the pyramids as like...  A third party, really.

...What version of Cecil is this, anyway?



Nice to see my point on Ashe's team isn't being contested against, though.  Keith alone probably would have been almost manageable, but give him Halley?  Ow.  Halley's ID isn't as good as Keith's (MT 25% vs. Keith's MT 75%), but he plays awesome healer (second ONLY to Alice's Arc), and...  Doing anything to Keith's speed is kinda pointless, for all the stat's worthlessness in-game (it's...  A glorified counter of who goes first, basically, given how often doubles happen.  A 94 speed Yuri not doubling the 64 speed Alice for 10 turns before the tester gave up counting?  Yeah).

...Actually, I'm changing my mind.  Enemy Keith this early?  That's unfair (since most games don't even have storebought ID protection this early).

[Clear Tranquil]

Eiko starts with Life.

Team Mia vs Dungeon-  Sleep argument works? Edit: See Snow and other arguments. Also being reminded that VPII has an insane number of accessory slots for status blockers and that Lenneth has Normalise for everyone else doesn't hurt either! Edit 2: Damn you Super!  

Team Ashe vs Dungeon- ID blockers in the SH series usually come early but ... even if Ricardo is protected that doesn't help anyone else because he doesn't have revive .... unless he can access the status blocking serenade this early?~

Team Tai vs Dungeon - Pass.

[Taishyr]

As for Crowley's charges, sure... but he only needs one or so a fight, really. >_>

First fight, arguably doesn't even need it; Rufus is -zero- threat and Reno's Pyramid he can just personally hit, leaving Bartz/Rika to tear the opponent up.

Second, use one on Cecil, Bartz and Rika finish him off, there isn't anything of threat from there.

Alice and the Priest? If Alice blocks physicals a simple spell will knock her low enough the 4.0 Duo will finish her off. Magic, then Crowley assists in the heal-lock Bartz and Rika force.

So now he has anywhere from one to three at the second to last fight (due to if Alice walled magic or not.)

Second to last fight has Solt and Peppor who really aren't too much, Alenia and Zahhak who are apparently so bad they lack a stat topic, and Miluda who's kinda annoying but not a real threat. So the team removes Solt/Peppor/Miluda in whatever order they see fit. Crowley can probably just stay back, use his healing charges here.

And the final fight?

The team is all above-average speed, Lundgren can't double. Zalmo has pretty much zilch but he's the healer so Crowley drops his arguable final charge on him and lets Rika/Bartz finish him. Baigan's damage is unreliable, and easily covered by Eiko MTing stuff. So the group nails Zalmo, (Crowley uses another (final) charge on Lundgren) the group wears down Lundgren while keeping healed, though Rika's the only one in any danger since Bartz's durability's pretty damn good at this point (only Knight approaches it, and armor's not helping it much this early) so the fight just kinda goes downhill for them from here. Hell, arguably Rika/Bartz double Lundgren, which is kinda murder - Lundgren's speed is unimpressive as hell.

(Before you go "wait, Monk's below average speed", I point out that Monk's speed at this point is relative to the other five jobs. White/Black/Blue Mage/Knight are all bottom of the barrel speed-wise; Thief is far faster than Monk but he's not enough of an outlier by any means to make Monk below average speed at this point. (Kinda why I did this first.))

In short, the only fight that poses the -threat- of OHKOing, say, Eiko, is the final one, and that's if Lundgren focuses on her -and- Baigan gets high variance damage -AND- presuming Rika has none of her tricks. If she has Saner? Boom fight over. Illusion? Boom fight over.

Guess what?

She -starts- with Illusion.

Any of those fights have you going "welllll..."? Go apply Illusion to them. She even arguably has Saner at the end, here.

But she has enough charges of Illusion out of the gate to wall the second, fourth and fifth fight. She starts with three.

So now, at the one fight I see any issue with, Illusion goes up and suddenly Lundgren and Baigan are taking turns slower than a Raquel and arguably have no sorts of defense whatsoever. Bartz and Rika chew through like cardboard.

And since Rika is level 12 or so by the end of all this (her early levels flow like candy), she's arguably got far, far more.

Also: Uh, usually speed debuffs are taken at the effectiveness of the caster. So having someone else nerf Halley or Keith's speed -would-, for pretty much everyone, send their effective speed plummeting like a brick, no matter the effectiveness of SH's stat.

[Magic Fanatic]

...No, really, which Cecil is important.  If one considers the DS version...  He has decent MDEF (thanks to the raw MDEF/Spirit combo), physicals are like taking a feather to a brick wall just for his Stamina rating (...Even I lost myself in the imagery here)...  Decent healing...  Yeah, uh...  Unless you can get two of Crowley's L1s off on Cecil (isn't Crowley SLOW and not very durable anyway?) on Cecil...  Yeah, he's not dying anytime soon.

His healing is about 50% of his...  What, 125% average HP?  This is also that thing where he has Shell if he manages to go before Crowley?

From the looks of the stat topic, Fred's physical evasion is pretty insane, too...  And Shuckle (and its uber defense) can screw over any quick-change-needed movement with Encore.  Crowley's just wasting WAY too many resources in this fight.


May I also point out that...  Well, Alice and the Priest get an almost free chance to heal between a Shredding and a physical assault due to the speed differences (Priest healing should come out RIGHT about right after Crowley tosses a spell out)?

[hinode]

FFT Priest has huge resource issues in a long fight; she's only got 2 shots of Holy, with is ST 2HKO damage, or 3 with Gold Hairpin.  This drops further if she uses a lot of healing magic.  Even if Monk+Rika can't one round her somehow, despite the former being gamebest damage at this point, Rika+Eiko can easily outstall both Priest's MP supply and Alice's SP.

[Taishyr]

Crowley is above average speed. Also, Illusion breaks evasion/speed, and Rika's free to apply that.

(Average speed is 125. Crowley is 130.)

My team can afford to just sit there and wear down Fred/Shuckle slowly once Cecil is down, and Crowley's magic damage earlygame, even with a lower magic stat, is far more brutal than you seem to be giving it credit for, so nailing Cecil down is fairly simple. (Illusion makes things worse here). Fred and Shuckle -cannot- threaten the team, simply put. They rely on Cecil to give them their pressure, and Cecil's going down without any real issue.

Also, because Crowley's fast, as is Rika, as is Bartz right now, there is no time to heal in the third fight, and even if there was, they lack the offense to get past the healing resources my team has, especially since, even if you're -really really- generous to them, at least one if not both are being locked down into healing and they've got limited resources as well.

They aren't having any issues, simply put. Rika and Crowley early on have enough buff/debuffs and damage that this floor kinda crumples.

Hell, I'll entertain something here. Assuming DS Cecil is like 2x average durability, both stats, which he isn't, he's lower by good margins.

Rika Illusions, the enemy team is now slower, less evasive and less durable (Illusion also does some innate Defense busting). Crowley nukes -FRED-.  Bartz is probably doing about 66-75% to average, so 33% to Theoretical Tank Cecil, but Cecil's irrelevant! Why?

Bartz goes for Cecil now (or finishes off Fred, whatever; if you see this assume it's next round), as does Rika.

So at best it's Cecil and Shuckle, operating off a fraction of their speed and defense, against a speedy Bartz and Rika barreling down on him.  He's being forced into healing to keep up with the offense due to Illusion nerf, and Shuckle -isn't even really getting actions-. His speed is miserable and Illusion makes it practically nil. So Crowley has the freedom to target Bartz with a physical as well, making the heal lock that much more annoying.

The enemy team can't do anything. They are, quite simply, locked down by their own speed woes.

And see hinode; Monk/Rika have a damn solid damage output, so knocking out Priest would be simple if they really wanted to, and Alice can't wall both types of damage so at least one will be capable of bringing her to her knees.

[Clear Tranquil]

So ... Ricardo obtains Meteor Shower (full status immunity to allies) from his second muse item ... hmmm. Now if only I could remember what level he would be at Rio in game so I could compare it to acceptable levels for the dungeons at this stage >.>

Granted it's probably a moot point if Snow doesn't really even see them getting past Belenus and co <.< Even if there is a miracle and Ashe's team gets to the final fight ... Orlandu. Ouch.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Ricardo takes forever to get new Muse items. I'd see his second Muse Item as something like floor 4 at the earliest.

EDIT: Also, Sleep is worthless against the people who matter in the Fiend fight, since it's essentially single turn skip on one target. Terra's MBlock makes that turn two (it ignores FF1 MDef, FF6 MBlock evades magical status, FF1 doesn't have MEvade and thus loses the kneejerk war to me), and then she proceeds to OHKO Lich if she even goes after him. If he tries that on Lenneth, bam, Chemist heals it if he cares. If she goes first, this is just a laugher, since she makes him blow up hitting that weakness. If the fiends want to win, they need to focus efforts instead of trying crappy status, since their money one is blocked.

[Taishyr]

Floor 4's where I'd peg it, yeah. Doesn't help him that I think I see him joining around End Floor 2/Beginning Floor 3.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks guys~

[Magic Fanatic]

Um, Tai?  Did I miss the part where you addressed Shuckle's MAKING you waste Crowley's charges with Encore not a problem?  Sure, you may only need one shot...  But I'll be damned if Shuckle isn't forcing Crowley to spend more during this battle.

By the way, Snow, according to the stat topic, Sleep 2 is MT anyway...  And I did ask before, can everyone equip all the blockers they need all at once?  I mean, really; what is it that everyone has equipped that seemingly lets them block everything that seems dangerous?