Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 48

[Nephrite]

Ah... It seems there is a crack in your armor after all. Alas, let us see what you can accomplish... especially with the many changes coming.

Team Bardiche vs. Floor 6
Team Grefter, Nephrite and Consonant vs. Floor 4

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Team Consonant's Matches

Battle #21: Xenosaga 3 Junior, MOMO and Shion

Jr: You can't beat us.
MOMO: Let's go!
Shion: A... all right!

Battle #22: FFT Cloud and FFT: LW Argath

Cloud: Uh... this is weird... Either way, I'll defeat you all.
Argath: HA HA HA! YOU CAN'T DEFEAT THE MIGHTY POWER OF ARGATH!!!

Battle #23: VP2 Brahms, VP2 Hrist and VP2 Lenneth

Hrist: Hah... you foolish mortals, I will show you the divine power of the Valkyries.
Brahms: As much as I loathe to fight on your side... just this once!
Lenneth: It shall be engraved upon your soul!

Battle #24: Castle Exdeath

Exdeath: Ha ha ha... you will die here.

Boss Battle #5: Narshe Kefka and Lufia 3 Gades

Kefka: Hahahaha! You cannot even possibly HOPE to defeat me!
Gades: Frue Destruction...? Ha...



Team Grefter's Matches


Floor 5a: Repeat? (After Midgame)


"Hahah! I have a special treat for you today..."

Battle #21: Guy, Guy and Guy

Guy: You guys are dead! I didn't lay down to the Sinistrals and I won't lay down to you!
Guy: Um... I guess if we have to do this, let's go.
Guy: Damnit, Luke! You're so stupid!

Battle #22: Kyra, Kary, Karin and Killey

Kyra: The power of Espers flow through me...
Kary: HUHUHU FIRE FIEND
Karin: A female soldier? In MY German army?

Battle #23: Albert Simon, Alex and Alena

Albert: Ha ha ha... let us go, my opponents.
Alex: With the power of the Dragonmasters at my side, you're all toast!
Albert: I replaced that one guy.
Alena: CRIT CRIT CRIT!

Battle #24: Sara, Serra, Sarah and Sarah

Sara: Light Dragons... protect me!
Serra: BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH I'M A BITCH
Sarah: If master Luc wishes it...
Sarah: SONIIIIC... BOOM!

Boss Battle #5: Nina1, Nina2, Nina3 and Nina4

Nina: Let's go, for Windia!
Nina: No, it's Wyndia!
Nina: No no, I'm sure it's Windia...
Nina: ...Either way, we'll get you!




Team Nephrite's Matches

Floor 5c: NR means Nice Rank (After Midgame)

Battle #21: Ewan, Ross and Amelia

Ewan: Just because we're young...
Ross: Just doesn't mean...
Amelia: You'll beat us!

Battle #22: Queklain and Velius

Queklain: Gua ha ha ha! Die!
Velius: CYYYYCLOPS!

Battle #23: Yaridovich, Johnny and Dodo

Yaridovich: Did you know 'Yari' means 'Spear' in Japanese?
Johnny: Arrr!!
Dodo: My name is ironic because I am a bird, but also an idiot.

Battle #24: FE Dragon and Fomortiis

Fomortiis: You will DIE here, fools!
Dragon: ...grr!

Boss Battle #5: Persona 2 Guido

Guido: Now... it is time you die...



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Team Consonant | Rika, Arc, Lilka, DoS White Wizard, Moulder
[Floor 5b]
Team Consonant vs. XS3 Jr., XS3 MOMO and XS3 Shion
Team Consonant vs. FFT Cloud and FFT:LW Argath
Team Consonant vs. VP2 Brahms, VP2 Hrist and VP2 Lenneth
Team Consonant vs. Castle Exdeath
Team Consonant vs. Narshe Kefka and L3 Gades


Team Grefter | Tir, Yuna, FFT White Wizard, Hellion, Raja
[Floor 5a]
Team Grefter vs. Guy(L2) and Guy(FE7), Guy (ToTA)
Team Grefter vs. Kyra, Kary, Karin and Killey
Team Grefter vs. Albert Simon, Alex and Alena
Team Grefter vs. Sara (BoF1), Serra, PC Sarah (S3), Sarah (ShF1)
Team Grefter vs. Nina1, Nina2, Nina3 and Nina4


Team Nephrite | Timelord, Nina4, Eileen, Raja, Bowser
[Floor 5c]
Team Nephrite vs. Ross, Ewan and Amelia
Team Nephrite vs. Velius and Queklain
Team Nephrite vs. Yaridovich, Johnny and Dodo
Team Nephrite vs. FE Dragon and Fomortiis
Team Nephrite vs. P2 Guido

[Random Consonant]

Team Consonant's Matches

Floor 5b: Something Completely Different (After Midgame)

Hoh... you want to try something else? Fine, then. Let's see how you like this.

Battle #21: Lich Warren

Warren: I have found the power of the undead and now... I shall show it to you.

Battle #22: FFT Cloud, FFT Balthier and LW Argath

Cloud: Uh... this is weird... Either way, I'll defeat you all.
Balthier: I get the feeling this shouldn't be... but that's okay. I'll show you how the main hero should act.
Argath: HA HA HA! YOU CAN'T DEFEAT THE MIGHTY POWER OF ARGATH!!!

Battle #23: VP2 Brahms and VP2 Hrist

Hrist: Hah... you foolish mortals, I will show you the divine power of the Valkyries.
Brahms: As much as I loathe to fight on your side... just this once!

Battle #24:  Lufia 3 Gades

Gades: Now you shall face TRUE DESTRUCTION!

Boss Battle #5: Narshe Kefka

Kefka: Hahahaha! You cannot even possibly HOPE to defeat me!

Team Consonant | Rika, Arc, Lilka, DoS White Wizard, Moulder
[Floor 5b]
Team Consonant vs. XS3 Jr., XS3 MOMO and XS3 Shion
Team Consonant vs. FFT Cloud and FFT:LW Argath
Team Consonant vs. VP2 Brahms, VP2 Hrist and VP2 Lenneth
Team Consonant vs. Castle Exdeath
Team Consonant vs. Narshe Kefka and L3 Gades

Uh... whoops?

[Nephrite]

That's what I get for not double-checking... Oh well, it's fixed now!

[Random Consonant]

Team Consonant | Rika, Arc, Lilka, DoS White Wizard, Moulder
[Floor 5b]
Team Consonant vs. XS3 Jr., XS3 MOMO and XS3 Shion - My team should be able to simply outlast here.
Team Consonant vs. FFT Cloud and FFT:LW Argath - Elim Argath.  FFT Cloud can't do much on his own.
Team Consonant vs. VP2 Brahms, VP2 Hrist and VP2 Lenneth - Seems like the best thing to do here would be to Elim Lenneth first, then go on from there.
Team Consonant vs. Castle Exdeath - Buffing evade should avert potential ugliness here.
Team Consonant vs. Narshe Kefka and L3 Gades - Rika Saners the team, WW throws up NulFrost to avoid Ice2 related nastiness, Arc slows Gades down with Weak Enemy so Curse doesn't pop up as often, Kefka gets dogpiled.  L3 Gades is hardly a threat to my team by himself.

Team Grefter passes easily enough.

Thinking on Team Nephrite.

[Nephrite]

Team Nephrite | Timelord, Nina4, Eileen, Raja, Bowser
[Floor 5c]
Team Nephrite vs. Ross, Ewan and Amelia - Not an issue, MT handles this easily.
Team Nephrite vs. Velius and Queklain - Timeleap owns Velius hardcore, Queklain is a non-issue.
Team Nephrite vs. Yaridovich, Johnny and Dodo - Nina and Eileen's MT damage hurt a great deal here. Time Eclipse keeps Yaridovich from being a threat. Easy enough to heal up from by leaving Johnny alive. Terrorize helps too.
Team Nephrite vs. FE Dragon and Fomortiis - Even if you don't see Terrorize working here, a Timetwister'ed Earthquake from Eileen should make this easy. Alternatively, just Overdrive.
Team Nephrite vs. P2 Guido - Even if Timelord used Overdrive in the last fight, Raja can easily spend a turn using Ataraxia. Guido can't really make anything stick here, since Nina and Raja can MT heal.

[SnowFire]

Conflicted on some of Consonant's fights.  Initial thoughts written below.

Team Consonant | Rika, Arc, Lilka, DoS White Wizard, Moulder
[Floor 5b]
Team Consonant vs. XS3 Jr., XS3 MOMO and XS3 Shion - Arc can stop any one status, right?  Jr. silences...  Lilka, I guess, since he doesn't quite get all of Rika's abilities (Meh, PS4 Skill/Technique difference silliness - I think Silence gets Rika's buffing and healing, but not her ID or doubleslash?).  Rika can Saner if Jr. doesn't silence her, but she probably wants to attempt ID anyway due to the threat of Disengage.  Though she probably doesn't want to bother with ID against the speedy Jr., so she tries for MOMO (the best target).  If she succeeds, Shion just revives her, but Arc has time to start spamming Weak Enemy.  I suspect a resource intensive fight, but eventually the XS3 characters get worn down due to getting their stats hosed.  If Rika fails, the team is in trouble - Shion weirdly enough has the best Break damage in the game, so Shion-MOMO- Round2Jr. team up to break Arc before he can go nuts with Weak Enemy.  Once Arc is seeing unhealable stars, the team probably starts using Quick and attempting Slow to make Eliminat not hit as often, though is NulAll legal for WW yet?  If he's got that, he can make Rika somewhat debuff resistant, maybe.  Anyway Consonant's team pretty much totally fails at rushing here, so the XS3 team screws around with buffs, stalls, tries to re-break Arc whenever he wakes up, and eventually gets to a lvl. 3 boost and unleashes something horrible.  So yeah, I suspect the fight rides on having that ID work against MOMO.  Which is fine for one fight, but if later battles keep on being chancy endeavors...

Team Consonant vs. FFT Cloud and FFT:LW Argath - I'd just like to point out that Argath is undead, so Eliminat is a bad plan here.  Also as noted above, this team is pretty bad at rushing, so Argath is going to start attacking MP - probably Arc's?  Whoever it'd be annoying to have even more depleted later on.

Team Consonant vs. VP2 Brahms, VP2 Hrist and VP2 Lenneth - Would Forcefield stop Eliminat from working on turn 1?  Sure, it's easy to knock down, but I wouldn't be surprised if that means that an attack like Eliminat can't "hit," especially since it isn't magic (as noted above). 

Team Consonant vs. Castle Exdeath - Normally I'd say "LOL Weak Enemy," but I'm not sure if Arc has anything left in the tank here.  Both Lilka & Rika's speed buffs are in turn-based systems, so I'm not overly inclined to let the team double Exdeath like crazy here, though I suppose Lilka can probably still stack defensive buffs in the pre-limit phase of the fight, which is probably enough for the win.

Team Consonant vs. Narshe Kefka and L3 Gades - No idea.

Team Grefter | Tir, Yuna, FFT White Wizard, Hellion, Raja
[Floor 5a]
Team Grefter vs. Guy(L2) and Guy(FE7), Guy (ToTA) - Tir kills everyone.  (Maybe FE7 Guy dodges, but he can't make damage stick, or even death.)
Team Grefter vs. Kyra, Kary, Karin and Killey - Tir kills Kyra and Killey I believe?  I think Tir's faster than Killey, at least.  Karin can't make damage stick, and both Yuna and WW pack Esuna here if Kary wants to try status.
Team Grefter vs. Albert Simon, Alex and Alena - The problem is that Hellion's Earthquake is probably a 3HKO to Alex and Alena by now, and the only other source of damage the team has is the very limited Holy from FFT WW?  I think the team can at least force WW to expand his mana on a Holy. Simon !!!'s and Alena beat up Tir.  Alex Vigors, somebody revives.  Tir gets flattened again by !!! + Alena, Alex gets his second vigor, Tir revives.  Third round Alena & Simon do the same thing...  and if Hellion's been trying Earthquake, Alex Blue Dragon Heals off the damage.  So FFT WW has to Holy Alex on Round 2 - which Alex can slow for a bit by blowing BDH earlier, but then he'll eventually run out.  Probably better to save one, then force FFT WW to use it.  Once Alex is dead, the rest of the team can start picking at Alena or whatever - they've got enough revival to keep Tir bouncing back and forth for awhile.
Team Grefter vs. Sara (BoF1), Serra, PC Sarah (S3), Sarah (ShF1) - Tir kills everyone but BoF1 Sara.  The actual process of killing Sara takes forever, but Yuna's got the MP.
Team Grefter vs. Nina1, Nina2, Nina3 and Nina4 - Um.

I suspect Grefter wins this one, pending notes from others on the final fight.

[superaielman]

Team Consonant vs. FFT Cloud and FFT:LW Argath - I'd just like to point out that Argath is undead, so Eliminat is a bad plan here.  Also as noted above, this team is pretty bad at rushing, so Argath is going to start attacking MP - probably Arc's?  Whoever it'd be annoying to have even more depleted later on.

He's undead in the plot sense, not the gameplay sense. Physical ID works just fine on him.

[Random Consonant]

Normally I'd say "LOL Weak Enemy," but I'm not sure if Arc has anything left in the tank here.  Both Lilka & Rika's speed buffs are in turn-based systems, so I'm not overly inclined to let the team double Exdeath like crazy here, though I suppose Lilka can probably still stack defensive buffs in the pre-limit phase of the fight, which is probably enough for the win.

Arc regens MP each turn with the Brave Crest.  L1 Weak Enemy costs 4 MP to cast.  There's no reason why Arc shouldn't be able to cast it.

Other thoughts:

Concerning the XS3 fight, I don't think Arc has to bother with equipping a Cure-All.  Lilka and WW can both cure Silence, as can Moulder if Restore staves are available (granted, I'm not sure if they are or not), so I'm not too worried if Jr. tries to Silence him.  There's nothing stopping Arc from hitting everyone with Weak Enemy right off the bat, and if Rika can off MOMO and Shion before Shion's second turn, so much the better.

As for Forcefield, I haven't played VP2, but I don't see how it could possibly prevent ID.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Can Arc equip the requisite Silence blocker AND the Brave Crest?

Also, does XS3 Silence carry over between battles?

[Random Consonant]

Can Arc equip the requisite Silence blocker AND the Brave Crest?

Sure.  It hurts his defense (and I'm not really sure he needs it), but he can equip both.

[superaielman]

Neph's team passes. Only threat is the Dragon, and his ST focus/lots of revival keeps Neph around for that.

EDIT: Constant fails. Gades 3 is just unpleasant for his team to deal with. Don't think he can outlast Curse spam.

Yuna, Tir, Hellion, Raja, WW

Team Grefter vs. Nina1, Nina2, Nina3 and Nina4 -  Bloody headache.

Nina 1 buffs>Nina 4>Nina 3>Tir>Yuna>Nina1 normal>Nina 2>WW>Hellion>Raja


Nina 1 protects Nina 2. Nina 3 attacks. Nina 1 is IDed. Nina 4 revives Nina 1 as soon as Tir IDs her. Yuna heals Hellion. Nina 2 kills Raja/damages the rest with BoltX. WW heals the team. Hellion Copper Fleshes herself.. Nina 3 attacks again. Tir... can't do a hell of a lot here. Assuming he goes before Nina4 thanks to the waiting, he can't really kill anyone. He can bat down Nina2's protective spell to get another crack at IDing her, but he can't kill and another swarm of Nina turns is coming up.

I've spent about an hour batting around this match, and I can't see even a perfectly resourced Grefter winning this. He has no MT damage to threaten the Ninas with, and half his team being really slow hurts.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Which Ninas block ID?

[superaielman]

3/4.

[Bardiche]

All groups pass.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I should vote before this closes.

Neph passes. His explanation sells me.

Consonant fails sadly. I like the idea of an Arc team actually making it to the point where Arc can use his signature move, but...  Well, SnowFire's explanation + my generally high L3 Gades respect tanks him.

Grefter also fails... I tried to figure out any way Grefter's team could stop the Ninas, but Suikoden characters have notoriously limited resources. Just not enough damage to get around all the healing... and he can't ID the healers...

-Djinn

[dude789]

Neph passes Consonant and Grefter fail.

[Random Consonant]

Consonant fails sadly. I like the idea of an Arc team actually making it to the point where Arc can use his signature move, but...  Well, SnowFire's explanation + my generally high L3 Gades respect tanks him.

Uhh, maybe I'm missing something in his explanation (never mind that fact that it's highly unlikely that Rika will fail to take out MOMO round 1), but if the idea of a failed Elim is so damaging to my team's prospects here, can't she just speed bust the enemy team first thing so that Arc gets to use Weak Enemy before he gets taken out of the fight instead?

Oh, yeah, Team Nephrite passes.

[Taishyr]

All three pass.

See Consonant for why I'm gutshotting his team gets through, Neph convinced me after I raised a few other objections in PM, Grefter.... his is close, but ahahaha to Earthquake being lower than 2HKO yet, it was near OHKO last floor for Eileen and it shouldn't have dropped overly much (you'd need Crowley level magic to be able to spam your L4 right now. Sure, it drops, but I think it's probably 60-70% here at worst?). Final fight is -really cute- but gut just says Raja silence lands on them at some point (don't think most could block it?) and Nina4 just cannot keep up with everything she needs to do in the fight.

[SnowFire]

Grefter/super's analysis: Looks like the main chances for success for Grefter are getting the slow Raja turns somehow (for his status or for the cruddy Ataraxia, which might actually swing this fight if it goes long), except he's getting flattened every turn by Nina2 before he can go.  Checking...  apparently Nina2 has 9 shots of BoltX.  Yuna's got a boatload of MP, but FFT Priest less so, and same with Hellion.  Also Nina4 could threaten to switch to damage rather than Healing after a BoltX, which would force the non-Raja team to keep their HP levels higher than they'd like?  Weirdly enough, I think the Ninas actually have to *win* this fight rather than outstall, but I think they may be able to. 

Djinn: Actually, Arc probably doesn't have MP problems from what super pointed out.  Never played FFTLW myself, but I'm mildly shocked that they forget to give Argath the undead regeneration & other affects a la Balk.  So he gets IDed and doesn't get to nuke Arc's MP, which renders the Brave Crest question mostly moot.  Arc can probably Weak Enemy like mad this floor.

Consonant: Yeah, especially since Arc has MP to spare now, Illusion -> Weak Enemies is certainly enough to win the VP2 fight.  The reason I suspect Eliminat vs. Forcefield is...  well, as a simpler example, a Lulu attack with a Fatal Cait Sith on Lenneth I'd assume would have no ID chance, because the pathetic damage would be entirely nulled.  Not that Eliminat is the same thing as an attack with added status, but it's in vaguely the same league?  I'm not sure if there are any physical-immune but ID-vulnerable enemies in PS4 to test it against, though, so I suspect it's entirely a kneejerk interpretation deal. 

Also IIRC from the stat topic Rika's Eliminat has only 70% accuracy or so, and less the faster their opponent is?  I'm not somebody who says a 70% happening is a sure thing - as an example, if two fights depended on a 70% status working first thing and were losses otherwise, that'd be only a 49% chance of passing the dungeon in general.  3 fights and it's down to a 35% chance.  So like I said before, I wouldn't vote fail on your team simply because they'd lose if they get unlucky one fight, but if the team needs to avoid bad luck a lot, then yeah.

Anyway, since one fight remains...
Rika, Arc, Lilka, DoS White Wizard, Moulder
Team Consonant vs. Narshe Kefka and L3 Gades - Rika Saners the team, sure.  Problem is that Narshe Kefka is pretty fast (120% avg. listed) and I only let the Saner start speeding the characters' CT after it was cast.  Let's see...  Rika is 1.27 avg. speed.  Lilika...  is a headache (apparently the stat topic gives other characters guardians but not her?).  Call her 1.03, the average of her two speeds (1.06 & .99).  Moulder is 1.00, avg. (wow, way better than I expected).  Arc is a wee bit below average (.98?).  WW is .76.  L3 Gades is sloooow (.60).  Anyway, Rika gets her turn after 79 clockticks, but Narshe Kefka gets his after only 84.  There's no way Lilka or WW can catch up in time to cast NulFrost (adjusted Lilka gets it ~88 ticks, WW even slower).  So...  Kefka flattens White Wizard.  Lilka revives WW.  Moulder heals WW rather than using a Saner'd double (if he doesn't, Gades might be able to use his MT attack to sweep out WW and do extra damage).  Arc uses Weak Enemy on Kefka (and if the area-targetness lets him get Gades, that's great, but not overly relevant against his big Curse attack).  Gades Curses Lilka, killing her.

Round 2: Dead Lilka, Sanered Rika/Arc/Moulder, normal WW, Weak Enemied Kefka, Gades.

...now, if round 2 had the same initiative as round 1, then Kefka could kill the other of the dynamic reviving duo (WW) and maybe the team could get somewhere.  Problem is that Kefka got WE'd, and while I'm not sure how much I respect the speed bust on that, Rika can pile on with an Illusion / another Saner just for WW here.  Plus Ice2 is probably much less scary in general after WE.  I don't think WW has time for NulFrost, but simply reviving Lilka is pretty good.  Also I'm not sure how much doubling respect Saner deserves as it's a buff from a turn-based system, but since the general consensus is to give it some help for doubles, that means that another raft of Consonant turns is coming up somewhere.  And Kefka durability is pretty bad if he doesn't have time to abuse Drain.  So long as WW and Lilka can keep reviving each other with Moulder chipping in occasional healing, Gades will never really be able to threaten on his own, so yeah.  Consonant passes.

P.S. to Consonant: How'd you upgrade Moulder?  The stat topic lists him as upgrading to a Sage by default, but a Bishop would be pretty awesome against Gades, not that it really matters here.

[Random Consonant]

Sage.  Honestly, I'm not sure if I'd see Slayer working on Gades, for all that I'd agree that it'd be fun if it did.

[superaielman]

Djinn: Actually, Arc probably doesn't have MP problems from what super pointed out.  Never played FFTLW myself, but I'm mildly shocked that they forget to give Argath the undead regeneration & other affects a la Balk.  So he gets IDed and doesn't get to nuke Arc's MP, which renders the Brave Crest question mostly moot.  Arc can probably Weak Enemy like mad this floor.

Balk isn't classed as undead. None of the FFT bosses are off the top of my head, even Zalbag/Elmdor. Balk's regen is from move HP up.

[SnowFire]

Zalbag isn't undead?  Interesting.  I know he's horribly Holy Weak, at least.  Learn something new every day.

Consonant: Actually I'd forgotten that FE8 Sages can cast Light magic as well; I was thinking more the Holy weakness on Gades.  Which Moulder does get to abuse anyway.

Edit: Would Yuna Shelling Raja help at all?  No Yuna healing that first turn which is kind of dangerous, so Hellion likely dies to the BoltX, but perhaps Raja lives... eh, on second thought, Nina3 hits Raja instead of Hellion then, I guess.  Probably still enough damage to take him down.

[Clear Tranquil]

Team Nephrite passes

Team Grefter falls

[Dark Holy Elf]

Zalbag isn't undead?  Interesting.  I know he's horribly Holy Weak, at least.

No, he isn't. That's just Holy being that damn good (although Zalbag's Faith is pretty high and he lacks MDef Up, so it is certainly an excellent spell against him).

[superaielman]

You can make a plot argument there (If they were undead, you toss a Phoenix down on them and they DIE), but gameplay wise they are 100% not zombies or holy weak. Altima's the only FFT boss I can remember who has any kind of elemental weakness, come to think of it.