Bluelike

[DjinnAndTonic]

I was looking at the DL roster recently and I was somewhat surprised to notice that BoF5 Ryu is not ranked. (Yes, I know, old news, but I hadn't played the game, nor was I around when it was ranked.) Checking the stat topic, I see that was simply overpowered, though not nearly as much as other Bluelikes that I've been hearing about lately.

So I was curious, of the ranked series, who are the notable Bluelikes? And what makes them so Bluelike that they couldn't possibly lose against Godlike? I'm especially curious if any of the older Bluelikes might be viable candidates for ranking against the new-and-improved Godlike field which now includes people like Lady, Heat, and Beatrice.

Bluelikes I know of:
Blue - Obviously. I'm guessing it's his Overdrive Loop that earns him this spot, though Tower and ID probably don't hurt.
Minato - Initiative, items, invincibility, insane overkill - he was a big point of contention recently.
Aigis (P3FES) - Likewise, Minato-lite.
Nyx Avatar - Invincibility tricks
Ryu5 - Too much damage without the *game over* penalty you get in BoF5, I suppose. He might be rankable against the current high Godlikes?
Jezuit - Don't really know much about this one.
Farmel - Invincibility tricks
Gawn - Gimmicky OHKO damage
Hauser - Free turns from nowhere! May not be Bluelike
Volsung - Invincibility loop
Nega Filgaia - 10-part form-chain!
Magimaster - Locks down physicals? Awesome final attack. May not be Bluelike.
Repede - Invincibility tricks, recently discussed
Marona - !? Not really a ranked series, but I remember that her Confining prowess were uber-respected for some reason.
Revya w/ Summoning - Similar to Marona, which is unfortunate because w/o summoning, she's a cool Godlike in her own right.
Zetta the Sacred Tome - Blitz version of Marona
SMT1 Hero - Yuna-lite summoning, but with a more varied skillset in his summons, possibly -not- Bluelike
SMT2 Aleph - Same as his predecessor
Demi-Fiend - Well, his DDS form is just ridiculous...
Brahman - Form-chaining, multi-turning, durable-as-hell
Sulphur - Varies on respect
Infinity (BoF4) - Regens 9999 HP per turn + Overkill damage. Yeah...
Neku (TWEWY) - OHKO combos, the Pins give him the skillset of the gods

...There's probably a ton of others, but I'm not very familiar with them. Anyone know of any more prominent Bluelikes?

-Djinn

[Mad Fnorder]

If you allow Shield Skills, Ryu5 can equip a status-immunity armor, and then set Valor, giving him auto-revive at 1HP. I don't know about Beatrice, but he beats Heat since he gets at least two Hurricanes in a round, and even if you see Lost Progress dispelling D-Charge, he can always D-breath her down and survive the final attack. This is assuming you don't allow his defenses to be infinite against non "Anti-dragon" attacks, like they pretty much are in game. Nope, still pretty Bluelike.

Marona gets respect from her Uber Initiative and being able to summon things also with initiative (Werewolves, Ash), as I recall. Not sure she's Bluelike off that alone.

Minato's hugest issues were always the Initiative and the ridiculous overkill, and what you allow for Persona effects the latter but not the former. For what it's worth, I think P4 Main is way more rankable, though still High Godlike.

[Rozalia]

Trump card seems pretty Bluelike to me with his 3x overkill damage and not being killed by hp damage. Though to be fair he does lose to quite a few godlikes with shields (Yuna, Asgard and Belial from the top of my head)

[Monkeyfinger]

If you allow Shield Skills, Ryu5 can equip a status-immunity armor, and then set Valor, giving him auto-revive at 1HP.

If memory serves people don't allow BoF5's status immunity armors because they were ridiculously expensive, to the point of being impossible to outfit a party with except for in NG+. Same problem people have with Lufia 2's ID blockers.

Can anyone set valor or just Ryu? If the former no one would allow it.

Anyway. There's also Brahman (final boss of DDS2), who has an insanely powerful stat drain, a shitload of HP that's buffered in 4 spots, and decent damage.

[superaielman]

Marona - !? Not really a ranked series, but I remember that her Confining prowess were uber-respected for some reason.

Durable fighters can still handle Marona. Sulphur feels closer to a Bluelike thanks to the speed and offense. Jezuit ended up as a verging Bluelike as well, I believe.

[Taishyr]

Didn't Jezuit pretty much have infinite invincibility spam?

Marona really depends on what you consider legal/how you see confine working, and she can range anywhere from a pretty bad Light to a High Godlike depending.

[Talaysen]

Minato: Items?

Aigis isn't Bluelike, just a really good Godlike.  Still fries to powerful NE damage.  I vote on the FES form, afterall.  >.>

Ryu5's still not rankable now.  The only way to win is to go first and OHKO pretty much (unless you don't allow the status blocker I guess).

Farmel: We almost ranked her by arbitrarily throwing out Darkness Stance.  I thought that was a stupid idea anyways.

Marona varies highly on respect.  If you don't see the arena cluttered with items to confine to, she's not that good.

Brahman's HP isn't all that great, really, and his damage isn't much before Eternal Zero.  Probably not a Bluelike, but certainly a great Godlike due to HP buffering.

Sulphur again depends a lot on respect.

[Taishyr]

P3Fes Aigis is kinda like P4 Main to me. Give us a valid interp of her and maybe the DL'll consider, but until then...

Ryu5 is ... yeah. Granted I have a few qualms with him not being ranked (nothing to do with him being the main, just... eh, I consider Full Aeon Yuna to be almost as bad in many ways, but your mileage may vary etc.,. It's why I don't vote on Full Aeon Yuna, though whether I allow one aeon or just force her solo I'm still fluctuating on. 3.0x durability influences this, mind.)

Farmel's silly yes. How many people can even beat her, DL-legally?

Marona is respect-based, Sulphur as well though most people seem to at least respect Sulphur a lot so.

Brahman... The HP is bad but he's Jenna-like in that he gets actions for each form after the first no matter what, so it really doesn't matter what his HP is - 14 attacks under Eternal Zero's gonna ravage anyone he faces off against (EZ+4 attacks+5 attacks*2). Lady beats him is my instinct, but no one else in the DL manages. granted, don't allow him the HP buffers and he's... a boss that unlocks his best attack at ~75% HP and has maybe 2xPCHP? Less? Far more beatable that way but still scary brutal.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Probably more than 2PCHP? It's worth noting he has over double the HP of the previous boss, who should certainly go past PC easily enough to most people. No HP buffering makes him viable in non-Bluelike I guess, but with HP buffering he's very clearly there.

Anyway, CK already ran a Bluelike tournament; I should dig up the link. Most people have already been cited that were in it: Gawn, Blue, Jezuit, Brahman. I think he also had an array of superbosses there: Ruby Weapon, Unlimited Indalecio, FFX Fenrir, etc.

Ryu5 isn't Bluelike on average, but he has other reasons for not being ranked: huge interp split. Running on a finite resource always means interp issues, and he varies based on what BoF5 stuff you allow more than most. It was particularly bad at the time because more people allowed Bari equips without taking them into the average, then.

[Pyro]

Repede suffers from being an ARPG PC and thus "average speed" to a lot of people. Also, fast dispel arguably gets him. Of course, if you do ARPG by time then he can activate Gale Dog stupid fast.

Sulphur ought to be ridiculously badass unless you are one of the folks who see Kefka/Sephiroth as .2PCHP or something.

Certain scalings of SRW bosses result in them being insanely good. I imagine the same holds true for The Last Remnant bosses.

That said, there aren't that many folks with actual initiative "instant-win" buttons.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wasn't there someone else from ToV with invincibility hax?

Would N1-style cameo PCs and superbosses count as "Bluelikes" or are they just unranked due to not being maingame?
Wasn't sure if Priere would be considered Bluelike, for example.

I think there was also a WA5 boss with an invincibility loop who should probably go on the list...

-Djinn

[Pyro]

The other ToV PC with invincibility is Estelle, who can randomly (~5% chance) get permanency on her buffs. One of those buffs is the traditional Force Field effect that grants temporary invulnerability. Commence mockery of whatever fight she's in if it kicks in. This is pretty much entirely an in-game thing, since she doesn't even have the TP to use it enough where she'd get a >50% chance of it kicking in.

The WA5 boss you're thinking of is Volsung, who has a "Use one turn to take two" skill. There is nothing that outright prevents him from using this skill again on one of the two turns granted by the first use, hence infinite turns.

[Talaysen]

Would N1-style cameo PCs and superbosses count as "Bluelikes" or are they just unranked due to not being maingame?
Wasn't sure if Priere would be considered Bluelike, for example.

Aftergame forms are generally not allowed, because, well, they're aftergame.  Pretty much the same reason we don't generally allow aftergame equips, skills, etc.  I mean in that case most (all?) N1 characters have alternate better forms they could be using, and some of those ARE ranked.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Just was thinking about this, but would TWEWY Neku be considered a ridiculous Bluelike?

Souji seems like he borders on Bluelike... or maybe he just has interp split.

-Djinn

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hey, the old boards had a tournament with this stuff!

[quote author-CmdrKing]
1. Blue (SaGa Frontier)
2. Infinity (Breath of Fire IV)
3. Demifiend (Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne)
4. Unlimited Indalecio (Star Ocean: The Second Story)
5. Gawn Bawdia (Wild ARMs 4)
6. Prinny Baal (Disgaea Series)
7. Magimaster (Final Fantasy VI)
8. Ruby WEAPON (Final Fantasy VII)
9. Bat(Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga)
10. Jezuit (Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter)
11. Ryu (Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter)
12. Nega Filgaia (Wild ARMs 3)
13. Brahman (Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2)
14. Yuna (Final Fantasy X)
15. Omega Weapon (Final Fantasy VIII)
16. Hauser Blackwell (Wild ARMs 4)
[/quote]

DQ5 has multiple Bluelikes... huh.

Why is it WA4 bosses all seem to be either unrankably powerful[Farmel] or ridiculously laughable[Emil]?

-Djinn

[Dark Holy Elf]

Scythe/Fiore/Asia/Tony hover around the middle. Likely Balgaine too, though interps could swing him lots of ways. And since I don't really get Darkness Stance hype for Farmel (it's another take on Zio's Magic Barrier to me) she also is in this range!

Then there's Belial/Lambda/Hugo (maybe), who are powerful, but rankably so.

[Talaysen]

Farmel can spam Darkness Stance even when you move her.  She usually DOESN'T, but she can.

[Yoshiken]

The WA5 boss you're thinking of is Volsung, who has a "Use one turn to take two" skill. There is nothing that outright prevents him from using this skill again on one of the two turns granted by the first use, hence infinite turns.

Think that sort of ruling would cut out quite a few Shin Megami Tensei bosses, seeing as a lot of them use moves like this, examples being any of the DDS1 characters' Solar Data - Harley, Bat, Mick & Varin.
That said, it'd be easy enough for the RPGDL to say that moves like this are limited/banned, in which case they wouldn't have any other reason to be classified as Bluelike, ya? (Well, except for possibly Bat, seeing as that status hits through any and all protection. ¬_¬)

(Oh, and when I'm talking about any DDS characters, I'm referring to DDS2 forms only - not played the first.)

[Taishyr]

Mmm. DDS2... There is a hard cap on the "get more actions" skills in-game, which I would force to carry over even under "full AI freedom", as that doesn't count as an AI restriction so much as an ability restriction. Sorta like Raquel Intrude, except they just get 25 FP a turn, get a larger amount of actions (some do), and can't accumulate FP via actions.

So eh. There really isn't any Bluelike DDS1 non-optional boss (except maybe Jenna due to interps), DDS2's final is probably Low Bluelike - there may be one or two duelers who can beat him but, in effect, there just aren't enough.

[Talaysen]

Like Tai said, DDS bosses have strict restrictions on when and how many times they can use those skills.  Volsung has no restriction at all.  It's just a %chance on certain turns (3,4, 7,8, etc.), but in theory if you're unlucky it's possible for him to chain that any number of turns.

[Cmdr_King]

I seem to recall having trouble filling in a bracket, hence Yuna and Ryu 5 (more of a "well, you say they're too awesome, prove it" than a "they are unrankably good godlikes") and some of the more boring uberbosses.  That said, that tourney predated the Persona revival, so Minato and Souji would be right at home there now.

Brahman... well.  The Eternal Zero basically means that you aren't killing him, while he nails you for overkill damage, unless you immune stat busts.  I remember playing DDS2 and bouncing him around in my head and ultimately deciding a single-digit number of Godlikes bested him.  Heck, I think he was the inspiration for the tourney.

Hauser... .well, he doesn't seem Bluelike does he.  But he's got Acellerator, which is pretty much literally "spawn turns from the nether regions of his bowels" with no discernable rhyme or reason.

Nega Filgaia is hilarious.  Averages about a 4HKO!  But it's a chain of gimmick bosses that, between them, can stop basically any Godlike cold.

Everything else is pretty straightforward, Blue is Blue, Infinity is a PC that regens 9999 damage per turn, Demifiend is immune to things with pesky 'Elements' attatched, that sort of thing.

[Yoshiken]

...From the sounds of things, it seems like another Bluelike tourney's in order...

And, I know it's not ranked, but some of the SMT:Nocturne bosses can use multi-turn attacks more than once in a turn. I've only seen it once, so it's definitely rare, but I'm not sure if the same is possible in DDS - they can only use the moves when they're down to 1 press turn, but I know Ose used Devil's Eye twice in a turn against me. (I remember that because he went and killed me as a result of it. >.>)

[Taishyr]

DDS has a hard lock. SMT:N can - I've also seen it - but it's really rare.

[Cmdr_King]

As I recall the mechanics of it, Rage/Psycho Rage act by converting a full turn into 2/4 half-turns, and failed if you only have half-turns remaining.  As such, they can't actually be used to create infinite turns.

That said, high end SMT bosses have an interesting way of having immunities and gimmicks such that they woudl be unrankable in DL terms anyway.  You'd be amazed how many Godlikes lose to someone that nulls Physical/Fire/Lightning at the same time, let along broad immunities like Demifiend's.

[Yoshiken]

Well, even with immunities, I don't think many would be unrankable because of ridiculous weaknesses. (Bosses weak to status/death? Good when playing, bad if you're controlling them.) I mean, the final two bosses of SMT:N, for example, have no specific immunities other than status, methinks. (Godly defence and an insane number of turns, but no immunities.)
And, actually, thinking about DDS2... Rage/Psycho Rage only activate at the start of a turn, don't they? I guess that explains why those are locked. As for SMT:N's Devil/Beast's Eye, they just turn one turn into multiple. Doesn't need to be a whole turn.