The DL Tweak League: Noms

[SnowFire]

FF12 Quickenings: That would feel incredibly artificial.  By endgame you guaranteed will have 3 Quickenings a character, even if you rarely use them in battle, for the MP if nothing else.  It's just that allowing Quickenings as attacks would completely and utterly break the damage curve, and in an annoying and random way too.  That said, it's not a big deal.  Even if you only allowed one MP bar as a balancing measure, it doesn't actually matter much - thanks to charge, FF12 characters still have pretty good staying power in slugfests.  The only time this would really matter is if A) it takes awhile to get properly buffed up due to having to paranoia heal a lot *and* B) actually killing requires an MP-expensive magic blitz, rather than a slow grind downward with a weapon.  I suppose it would also matter vs. people with, say, an MP nuke that hits 80% of MP, as that'd hurt a lot more.

CC: Er, am I missing something?  If Serge is worried about evade he spams weak attacks, which is a downright advantage vs. other game's casts that don't have that accuracy increasing option.  And I don't see why his speed wouldn't be average.  I'd assume that your average CC "turn" would be 6 points of attacks -> an Element, because that's how it actually works in game if you want to maximize your turn-taking (a strategy based around, say, all physical attacks and no elements in-game would leave one character sitting around with 7 Stamina and nothing to do, so you're clearly intended to use an Element to "finish" your turn.)  So not really on the CC antihype train.

Anyway since CK thinks that Djinn's Serge is actually too weak, I will defer to others on that.

[Meeplelard]

Actually, regarding Quickenings...

On a solo PC, they're really kind of fail.  Its very hard to keep a legitly good Quickening going with just one PC.  You really need the entire team to get a good combo going.  Of course, this sounds weird considering Gabranth in Dissidia pulls off a full combo without problems, but shh <.<

I don't think they're gonna change much one way or another in a duel format, in any event.

[Cmdr_King]

Even Serge's weak attacks are only... I believe it's 85%?  accuracy.  He has a natural chance to miss, so enemy evade amplifies this into "go emo" levels.

As for speed, well... CC speed is messed up.  It has an agility stat.  This is meaningless for turn 1 speed, but instead affects how quickly you recharge your stamina.  As best as I can explain it, every Stamina expended in CC counts as a 'clock tick' (for lack of better term).  Your agility determines how much stamina you regenerate per clock tick, at a rate of 10 agility to 1 stamina.  So, the 'fast' characters like Kid, with twelve agility, recharge 1.2 per tick, the slow ones recharge .8 (at least, I think there's some characters that slow).  Serge has 10 agility, and thus recharges at an even 1 per click.  So, intuitively, his speed is average every turn after the first (assumign he doesn't put himself into the negatives, obviously).  However, the actual Agility average is higher than 10 (there are more 11s than 9s), so you could reasonably say that Serge is somewhat slow, though not by a whole lot of course.

[Clear Tranquil]

I agree with Meeple, solo Quickenings aren't that broken?

Yikes this is starting to get really interesting now. Some of those twinks look scary, I may have to work on mine a bit more.

[SnowFire]

CK re CC: Oh, that.  The extra speed that Kid has isn't that helpful since in a 3-person party, she's likely to spend time at 7 Stamina kickin' her heels with nothing to do.  Admittedly for people with a 0.8 collection of stamina, whom I used for approximately one battle before deciding they were worthless, would have "speed" issues, though technically it could be intepreted instead as fewer actions on your just-as-fast turn (that is, first turn is 6 stamina of attacks + an element, second turn is... 14*.8-7 = 3.2 of attacks + an element or 4.2 worth of attacks).  Ugh.  Basically, I wouldn't really penalize Serge on speed myself due to CC's wonky mechanics.

FF12: Just went and wandered around Nabudis a bit.  Bad choice, as randoms there will Anull your MP to 0.  Anyway... okay, yeah, a solo Quickener has problems in that a decent amount I was unable to follow up the first Quickening at all.  However, sometimes I was, and (not sure if this is intentional) but when I did follow it up, I tended to follow it up for a lot more.

At levels 48-50...
Save the Queen, no Bravery: ~3200-3600 damage.  Arguably should be a bit higher if you care about combo chance at full health.
Killpoint based off this: ~8500 (1 PCHP - amusingly enough, actually pretty close to a lategame Bubbled PC's real HP!)
Level 3 Quickening: ~5500 damage.  The lesser quickenings are basically divisible by this (lvl. 1 ~= 1850 damage, 2 ~= 3700 damage)

So a Quickening isn't very inspiring if you only get one off- FF12 characters likely will spend a bit of MP, and lvl. 2 Quickenings are somewhat pointless compared to physicals aside from being ITD/ITE (at least, I"m pretty sure Quickenings ignore defense, I'm sure they ignore evasion).  Buuuuut!  This is only if you don't combo it.  While half the time I wasn't able to combo it, the other half I was.  This included lvl. 3 - > lvl. 3 (~11500 damage; call it 33), 3321 (~16500), 3223 (~21000?  This one was a bit high), 3212 (~15500)...  this means that FF12 characters can just say "screw it, luck be a lady" and likely blast their opponents with overkill to start a battle off.  Quickenings charge basically immediately and have immediate priority, so they go off very fast.  Now...  this works out strangely in the RPGDL, where many people vote on who wins in general, but in a "real" tournament being able to change matches that would normally be a sure loss into a 40/60 proposition is pretty fantastic.  It still has some merit even in non-sure-loss matches; if a match has some areas where things can go badly for FF12 characters, even starting with just a lvl. 2 and hoping for a big chain allows FF12 characters to steal some wins.

So, less broken than I thought, but still somewhat headachey.  May test rates on solo quickenings some more later.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks for researching that, it's interesting stuffs.

Ok from what I've gathered here's what the LoD repeat items do -

Power Up - Increases target's damage and decreases the damage they take by 50% for three turns
Power Down - Decreases the damage the target deals and increases the damage they take by 50% for three turns

Speed Up - Triples speed for three turns
Speed Down - Decreases target's speed for three turns

Material Shield - Physically immune for three turns
Magic Shield - Magically immune for three turns

Magic Sig Stone - Blocks enemy movement for three turns
Psyche Bomb X - Heavy non elemental magic damage

I don't know if Meru would be too broke having access to all of them so perhaps a choice of three or four might be a good idea?

[Taishyr]

Okay, starting from my previous post at http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=3463.msg62979#msg62979 ...

Neph: Gale Rune decrease spell charge time? Mmm. Any equipment other than Yellow Scarf that can help, does he want to break a locked rune slot or something out for something else? I'm open and I'd have to think something can be done to get him in. Any ideas?

Meeple: I don't know the old FFT Agrias build. Mind posting it up for reference?

The Pokemon Discussion (yes, I know, lazy as hell of me): Seems vaguely like Heracross is the best/most popularly discussed contender here thus far, and his damage looks good enough to pull his weight here. Still open to arguments, but he's been penciled in for the time being. If Sir Donald / Yoshiken / Ultradude / Meeple / hinode could decide on a moveset for him and submit it?

Tonfa: Hatbot Final Boss entry accepted.

MagicFanatic: Someone else said why the Huge Jug won't work in this case; pretty sure they're right, from my own recollection. Also just gutchecking that this group generally lacking multihits makes him semi-inane anyway. Might be worth revisiting next season, but for now I think I'll have to pass. Thanks, though.

Glen Veil: Mmm, interesting; I could see using that instead, perhaps. Anyone else got thoughts on the earlier Lilka proposition and this Tim one? (I might be overselling one or both, but both seem applicable)

Sir Donald: Alright, I'll run with Quistis this time and get your Zell nom next season.

-----

Djinn: I may drop MagNegate and give the Dreamer's Sarong in this; this build seems like it could easily be either Godlike, borderline, or pretty crackish. Mmm. Tenative berth, talk with CK and SnowFire on this? CC's not my strong point.

Tide: Mmmm.... It's lower vote-draw, but submit it, at the least. Worst case is I include it next season when I'm struggling for ideas. >_>

Skipping around a bit here...

CK:  I thought Mastermune hitting weakness was disproven. No? If that's the case... mmm. See Djinn's note, repeating it twice won't help.

Clear Tranquil: Check PMs, working with you there on the LoD build. It's got a tenative berth as well.

SnowFire: Mmm. I'm a bit leery on FF12; perhaps it's an idea for the next runthrough? I confess a bit of bias, having not actually played FF12. Mmm. Is Meeple's earlier appraisal of a full license board PC accurate?

UltraDude: Mmm... I take it that's GS2, as I don't recall Berserker (this might be Tai faulty memory here) in GS1. This being said... my one concern is that not enough people may have played GS2, but it looks solid enough otherwise.

Granted, I can't save all the obscura for season 2 or else the damn thing will be a headache. Likely to get in, tenative berth right now.



If I missed anything, please tell me; with all three tenatives in we're still short one slot. I know Meeple submitted a Locke and a Tifa idea, may toss in the Tifa at worst. Still, more ideas, always welcome, etc. etc..


Ninja Edit: Hm. Yeah, I'd say probably only three of those would be sane. How well would Power Up/Speed Down/Psyche Bomb X fare her, for example? Also more in PM.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Toro: Gale doesn't decrease spellcharge times. A viable idea for Sasarai to play in the higher leagues would be giving him options that he could use in-game that aren't open to him in the DL: being able to shuffle that third Rune slot (since he has two of them locked) between any L1 or L2 magical rune he wants+a few non-storebought equips to boost his magic affinities in exchange for stats would make him more competitive. Sasarai with a Wind Rune and an... A+?A? on Wind, for an example, suddenly becomes a lot more viable as a twink idea, and he has pretty decent options all in all with rune shuffling. However, he still utterly blows at taking hits.

[Ultradude]

Berserker is def. GS1. 1 Mars Djinn, 6 Venus Djinn.

[Cmdr_King]

CK:  I thought Mastermune hitting weakness was disproven. No? If that's the case... mmm. See Djinn's note, repeating it twice won't help.

Everyone thought "hits weaknesses" mean "always hits elemental weanesses", which was indeed disproven.  The species weakness thing boils down to just doing double damage to everything; it's easily mistaken for a ludicrously amplified crit rate, and in fact for ages and ages that's what everyone thought it was. 
Beyond that, I'd rather see Serge lose one of healing or attack magic over Magnegate, myself; at most generous he's average speed, so he's plenty spoilable no matter what you give him, and MagNegate feels like the most interesting possible tool for him to exploit.

[DjinnAndTonic]

CK:  I thought Mastermune hitting weakness was disproven. No? If that's the case... mmm. See Djinn's note, repeating it twice won't help.

Everyone thought "hits weaknesses" mean "always hits elemental weanesses", which was indeed disproven.  The species weakness thing boils down to just doing double damage to everything; it's easily mistaken for a ludicrously amplified crit rate, and in fact for ages and ages that's what everyone thought it was. 
Beyond that, I'd rather see Serge lose one of healing or attack magic over Magnegate, myself; at most generous he's average speed, so he's plenty spoilable no matter what you give him, and MagNegate feels like the most interesting possible tool for him to exploit.

Yeah, drop his attack magic and he's pretty much a worse Chris clone (his MagNegate is slower to come out than SL, I'd think). And he only has ~2 shots of healing. And only one shot of MagNegate. So yeah, Chrislike with CC damage manipulation? Sounds low Godlike to me.

[Taishyr]

Hm. Okay, fair. If the attack magic's dropped I'll go with it. (And wait, seriously, the stat topic doesn't include the doubled damage? Wouldn't that, ah, be noticeable since you're doing it to everything?)

[Nephrite]

On the subject of Sasarai with a Wind Rune, how would Luc with TWR/Pale Gate/Wind Rune and a Yellow Scarf do?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

He'd be... a high Heavy, I think. Same issues, but Wind of Sleep covers two of his main woes.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks again Tai <(^^)>

I'm posting the builds again with edits and a third build which I actually think I might be going with for putting forward.

Magic/Dragoon Tweak - Pretty Hammer, Magical Hat, Armour of Legend, Dancer's Shoes, Amulet w/th LoD stat up/down items

Perks - Pretty Hammer gives 400 SP w/th Cool Boogie meaning Meru can seriously rack up the SPs to stay in Dragoon form for multiple turns when she transforms, Magical Hat boosts MP and the magic stat. Meru + moar speed, doubles MP - combined with the Magical Hat that gives her 300 MP, enough for three Blue Sea Dragons and some left to spare for Rainbow Breath/Freezing Ring. I don't know if that alone's enough for what Tai's looking for though so I'm tossing in the stat up/down items as an option just in case. With Power Up/Down and the magic boost from the Magical Hat Blue Sea Dragon will hit hard~

Item Build - Power Up/Power Down/???

**
Speed Tweak-Basher, Dragon Helm, Armour of Legend, Dancer's Shoes, Dancer's Ring w/th LoD stat up/down items

Perks - Insanely fast - multi turns Kongols like no tomorrow, the HP boosting Dragon Helm might save her from being OHKO fodder in some cases, Perky Step would be the addition of choice here with the Basher.  The addition mods,  with the enhanced game best speed and her strongest attack boosting weapon should allow her to apply some decent physical pressure.

Item Build - Speed Up/Speed Down/Material Shield
**

Balanced/Supportive Tweak - Basher/Magical Hat/Armour of Legend, Dancer's Shoes, Magical Ring (MP Regen - 10~ per round)

Perks - Well balanced between physical and magical options. The Magical Hat increases MP for both healing if she needs it and for getting in a decent enough magical assault with Freezing Rings, especially with the Magical Ring to regen that MP. Again the Basher giving her the option for decently damaging Perky Steps.  Increased speed with the Dancer's Shoes but not insanely so like the Speed Twink.

Toro Build - Power Up/Speed Down/Psyche Bomb X

Armour of Legend on all three builds helps with Meru's defence/P Dur woes~

Edit: Yeah I'm putting forward the third build - Rainbow Earring (full status immunity sans ID), Angel Scarf (halfs damage taken from magic), Dancer's Shoes (because more speed never hurts >_>), Magic Ring (boosts Magic), Giganto's Ring (boosts ATK/DEF) are all options if no to MP regen.

[Laggy]

You know, Emelia looks really bad now, and not all that interesting anyway.

Proposing this instead:

Blue (raised to 990 HP, normal stats otherwise... that is, normal for Blue), Tower and OverDrive not learned.

Still slow, but can now take a hit; lacks the OD loop of doom and overkill damage and instead uses the other billion tricks at his disposal. None are really as abusive as his trademark ones, though. For reference, the noteworthy spells he'd have from the legal schools: Realm (Implosion), Light (StarlightHeal, MegaWindblast), Shadow (DarkSphere), Arcane (Grail), Rune (Vitality, Hide, Soul), Space (ReverseGravity), Time (TimeEclipse), and Life (Reviva).

I remember Super commenting that OD-less (and Tower-less) Blue was a Heavy at best, so this should fit the bill.

[Sir Donald 3.2]

BTW, so we're going with Heracross with Guts (Ability), Adamant (Nature: +PA/-SA), Flame Orb (Item, Add:Burn to Self after Turn 1), and Close Combat/Swords Dance/Protect/Aerial Ace? 

That's the general setup.  There may be legit arguments to change the nature to Jolly (+Spd/-SA, IIRC), but I think the rest is set.  The only attack I see Rain Dance's nerfing of Fire Damage helping against (as opposed to Aerial Ace's ITE) thus far is Beserker-Garet's Supernova, and he also has Stone Spire which I see as Rock-Type (as opposed to Grand Gaia's Ground-Type and Wild Growth's Grass-Type).  So yeah...

[Yoshiken]

Yeah, I think Guts & Flame Orb covers the attack side of things well enough for most opponents. The speed is gonna be the major problem as far as I can see, so I'd be inclined to say Jolly > Adamant.

[Taishyr]

Okay. Sorry, been effectively out of commission as re: coherent thinking. I'll coalesce stuff in a little while and throw it up... somewhere; we'll get a season rolled out and running in a bit after that. (No more than 2 days between each of these events, ideally.)

I'll do some quick commentary as well before I close stuff up; at a glance, alright to Laggy's switch, CT I'm likely to give her accessory choice, unless anyone thinks that's too broken - otherwise it's good; confirmation of Heracross setup.

If you want to do any last minute changes or confirmations of what someone has, that'd be great.

If you want to make a really neat and concise post of options and whatnot they have with this, that'd be better! (Sorta like a stat topic entry, just with whatever's been made legal for this).

[Ultradude]

Heracross (Gen4)

Ability - Guts: Increases attack when afflicted with a status effect; cancels out attack loss from Burn.
Jolly Nature (+Spe -SpA)
Speed: 150 to average of... around 100.
A bit above average MDur and below average PDur according to Gen3 stat topic; shouldn't change much for Gen4.
Holding Flame Orb (Burns at the end of first turn, activating Guts and arguably providing status immunity, though dealing 12.5% MHP damage a turn)

Moves:

(~175 kill point)

Close Combat (Fighting, Physical, 5 PP) - Decreases own Def and SpD by 50%. Avg. 132; Avg. 197 with Guts; Avg. 326 with Guts and Swords Dance.
Protect (5 PP) - Initiative; invincible to everything until next turn. Base chance of 100%, halved (?) with each consecutive use.
Swords Dance (30 PP) - Raises attack by 2 levels.
Aerial Ace (Flying (Wind?), Physical, 20 PP) - ITE; Avg. 45; Avg. 66 with Guts; Avg. 109 with Guts and Swords Dance.

[Taishyr]

Okay, doing final composition of stuff. One last question, though: CT/Ultradude, could you do me a favor and delineate precisely what equips Meru and Garet will be coming in with (and their stats), respectively? (CT: The MP regen ring is fine). I just want to make sure I've got all this outlined properly before I commit the sets of sixteen.

Once this is done, I'll wait for a lull in the tourney topics, then post up the first topics. Thinking 3 pools of 6 each, will be choosing two DL Defenders to be distributed randomly through the pools. Top two advance to the next round (DL Defenders will not be eligible for advancement), ties... will be determined somehow. I'll figure that out once I get that far, too lazy now. >_>

[DjinnAndTonic]

Out of curiosity, can Serge keep the Saints summon?

In CC, summons can only be used when the Field Effect meter displays only a single color (in this case, White). The Field Effect stores up to 3 elemental colors which effect the strength of elemental attacks. For example, if the Field Effect is White-White-Blue, then White (Holy) and Blue (Water/Ice) spells' strength is boosted, while Black (Dark/Gravity) and Red (Fire) spells' strength is slightly diminished. However, the next spell is that cast will replace a color on the Field Effect meter. For example, if the next spell is Black, then the Field Effect becomes White-Blue-Black, bumping the first White out of the meter. This new field effect is neutral to Black and White spells (since the two colors are antagonistic), but still retains the Blue=increased, Red=decreased effect.

For Serge (or any CC character) to use a Summon element (such as Saints), this Field Effect meter must be all White (meaning only Holy/Light elemental abilities or non-elemental abilities can be used for three turns in a row AND Serge has to build up 8 elemental points even though he only replenishes 7 stamina a turn, a difficult trick to accomplish). Even though this is technically a kind of attack magic, the fact that it is so difficult to pull off, the fact that the game hands this summon to you after a story battle, and the fact that only White-innates (like Serge) can even equip it make it pretty interesting addition to a twinked Serge build, even though we're barring his other attack magic.

[Ultradude]

Okay, I can't get exact damage for Garet, but here's what I've decided on:

GARET          HP    PP      Att    Def     Agi     Lck
Berserker    180% 110% 160% 130% 150%  70%

HP 570 (121%)
PP 120
Attack 369
Defense 228 (115%)
Agility 337 (217%)
Luck 5

Muramasa - Atk 126 (medium unleash rate, high fire damage w/ chance of Haunt; Cursed)
Spirit Armor - Def 32; +15 to all resistances.
Mirrored Shield - Def 39; Item cast Delusion, may break.
Ninja Hood - Def 28; Agi 20
Elven Shirt - Def 22; Agi X 1.5
Cleric's Ring - Negates effect of Cursed equipment

Pertinent skills:
Planet Diver (16 PP) - Fire physical; based on cost and Garet's revised stats, ~240 damage.
Wild Growth (28 PP) - 3HKOish Earth magic.
Impair (4 PP) - Def down 25%

Unleashes:
Flint - Strong Venus/physical
Granite - Halves damage taken, MT
Vine - Drops Agility by 50%
Sap - Strong Venus/physical, heals Isaac for 100 HP
Ground - Paralyzes ~90%
Bane - Strong Venus/physical, inflicts Deadly Poison ~80%
Scorch - Moderate Mars/physical, inflicts Stun ~95%

[Taishyr]

Test post, to be edited if this actually works.

EDITED IN: Ultradude, alright, thanks. CT, check PMs. Djinn, sure.

Meru's equipment (changed from stat topic)

Magical Hat - MDEF+10, MagAttack+50, Max MP+50%
Armour of Legend - DEF+127, Evade +50%, Greatly reduces physical damage, has 0 MDEF so Meru is reduced to relying on her own innate MDEF stat/MDEF from other equipment for that
Dancer's Shoes- Speed+20
Magical Ring (MP Regen - 10~ per round)

Items: Power Up/Speed Down/Psyche Bomb X

[Taishyr]

All nominations have been clarified and confirmed, and a full list of all mods with relevant links is in the first post. Will likely throw out the first round later today, and the second this weekend. The third will be when I have time from Cali: the first round will close then.

For an unofficial list of matches, so people can begin considering:

Pool 1:
Relm
Dias
Yulie
Quistis
Meru
Nel

Pool 2:
Tengaar
Luneth
Serge
Sasarai
Garet
Marcello

Pool 3
Ramza
Cecil
Gogo
Blue
Mitsuru
Heracross