Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Monado Mandala Week 2

[Nephrite]

"Congratulations! Let's see if you can keep it up."

Team Dude, Snowfire and Glen vs. Floor 1


Team Dude and Glen's Matches

Floor 2a: THESE! ARE! BOSSES!! (Earlygame)

Battle #6: Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)

Milon: I have returned from death to crush you!
Kainazzo: Oh, that fool? The one who refused to give his kingdom to me...?

Battle #7: Booster

Booster: WELCOME TO MY TOWER!!!

Battle #8: Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)

Scarmiglione: Ha ha ha... I have come back from death yet again...

Battle #9: Kary

Kary: I, the Fiend of Fire shall stop you!

Boss Battle #2: Augus

Augus: Yes! Fight to the death for my god...


Team Snowfire's Matches

Floor 2b: Assaulting the Castle (Earlygame)

"Well, let's see if you can manage to overtake this castle on your journey to me..."

Battle #6: FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard and FF1 White Wizard

Knight: They're assaulting the castle! Repel them!
Wizard: Haha... you'll never get past us!

Battle #7: Frog and Crono

Frog: I am sorry, Sir Crono, for dragging thou into such a fight.
Crono: ...!

Battle #8: Kain, FFT Lancer and FF3DS Dragoon

Kain: Dragoons! Let's stop them here!

Battle #9: Gilliam, Oswin and Galleon

Gilliam: You will not pass the royal guard!
Oswin: That's right! You'll have to kill all of us!
Galleon: Let's go, lads!

Boss Battle #2: FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4

Cecil: I'm sorry this had to happen while you were visiting, Princess.
Nina: It is quite all right... let us show them why you should not attack us.


---------------------------------------------



Team Dude | Blue, Relm (Firefly), Zozma, FFT Monk, Rena
[Blue: Realm (All), Light (storebought only)]
[Floor 2a]
Team Dude vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Dude vs. Booster
Team Dude vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)
Team Dude vs. Kary
Team Dude vs. Augus

Team Snowfire | Purim, Jessica, Garnet, Lyn (Firefly), Rena
[Floor 2b]
Team Snowfire vs. FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard, FF1 White Wizard
Team Snowfire vs. Frog and Crono
Team Snowfire vs. Kain, FFT Dragoon and FF3DS Dragoon
Team Snowfire vs. Gilliam, Oswin and Galleon
Team Snowfire vs. FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4

Team Glen | Cecilia, Raquel, Lilka, Jane (Firefly)
[Floor 2a]
Team Glen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Glen vs. Booster
Team Glen vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)
Team Glen vs. Kary
Team Glen vs. Augus

[dude789]

I think everyone makes it.

Blue, Monk and maybe Zozma should have some form of revival at this point. Most of the bosses only have single target damage and as a result have trouble dealing with Relm+revive. The first fight is a little threatening, but if Blue opens with Vermillion Sand the rest of the team should be able to take out Milon and Cagnazzo fairly quickly.  Scarmiglione is probably the most dangerous fight, but Rena, Monk, and Blue should be able to use their healing magic to avoid counters. Kary is vulnerable sharp pain which gives Monk time to chakra those who need it. Augus doesn't have enough power to take out the whole team.

Snowfire's matches are probably the closest, but Jessica's damage is probably pretty good right now. Lyn is happy that the Mani Katti gets to hit a weakness on a bunch of enemies.

The bosses encounter a similar situation to my team against Glen's team. They struggle to get past Jane+revival and Raquel smashes them while they try.

 

[Random Consonant]

Okay, now that I know who Augus is...

Team Dude shouldn't have a problem.  Booster can be nasty but the team can probably blast past him since he's kinda slow and not really all that durable, FF4DS Milon is healed to death, and Augus doesn't look like he can take a whole team with fairly good healing out by himself.

Tenative pass to Team Snowfire.  The team's resources are probably stretched a bit thin by the time Cecil/Nina come around, but I'm kneejerking that they can squeak by.

EDIT: Wasn't aware that his team had an offense buff at this point.  This is a bit easier then.

Still abstaining on Team Glen.

[SnowFire]

Expect a lot of Protect'd / Defendered Lyn in this floor, as Lyn does her best Chris Lightfellow impersonation.

Floor 2b: Assaulting the Castle
Team Snowfire | Purim, Jessica, Garnet, Lyn (Firefly), Rena

Team Snowfire vs. FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard, FF1 White Wizard
The Wizards are the only threats here.  Jessica casts Accelerate.  Lyn overkills Black Wizard on a double.  Garnet... casts Protect on Lyn, I guess.  Rena & Purim beat down on White Wizard.  Archer and Knight are basically irrelevant, they have to attack Lyn (or try and break Lyn's Iron Sword OHNOES).  So, that leaves the wounded and possibly already dead White Wizard (earlygame Rena physical isn't bad, same with Purim, and WW has below average defense and HP that might be 2HKOed by average damage).  Let's say WW is alive but horribly wounded.  Healing obviously fails; Lyn just splatters WW next turn.  White Wizard can revive Black Wizard, but then Jess kills WW while Lyn kills BW again.  Lastly WW can just cast FADE for damage, which will be healed off.  So yeah, opposing team is screwed vs. an Accelerated team with Protected Lyn.

Team Snowfire vs. Frog and Crono
Frog is mildly below average speed.  How unfortunate for him.  Crono is cool but he can't win a fight alone.  Jess Oomphs Lyn, Lyn kills Frog on horrific buffed double, Purim MT heals off Crono's Luminaire, it's Crono vs. a team, gg.

Team Snowfire vs. Kain, FFT Dragoon and FF3 Dragoon
More characters that are slow!  Okay, except FF3 Dragoon.  Despite Weapon Triangle Advantage, they still impale themselves on mega-buffed Lyn who has the Protect / Defender / Oomph combo.  If FF3 Dragoon goes for early damage, then Rena heals it off.  If he goes for Jump, eh, Jump is barely a OHKO normally.  The Firefly penalty hurts, but Lyn would survive with even just one of Protect / Defender (including WTA and Firefly it's 1.3 PCHP, knocked down to .65 PCHP which Lyn certainly survives), and laughs with both buffs stacked.  With Lyn unable to be OHKOed, this fight is easy, just keep Lyn healed while Lyn beats them down / rest of the team blows them up.  (Jess can also toss in Kasap to make sure Lyn is killing the normally high-defense Dragoons quickly, or just use Magic attacks, or Accelerate, etc.)

Team Snowfire vs. Gilliam, Oswin and Galleon
See above except much much easier as none of these guys are even close to a OHKO and they're all below average speed?  My team has magic damage so they're quite killable, and Jess uses Kasap which ensures that Lyn's counters are hurting, too.

Team Snowfire vs. FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4
Cute fight.  So Nina4 has full revival, and Cecil has Cover as both a command and as an automatic thing when Nina's at critical.  My team has several ways they can win this one; listing them all in case different interpretations would make this harder.
* Plan A: Just kill Nina4 before Cecil gets a turn to use Cover.  Nina goes "too early" and has no way of buffing herself vs. physicals, and since she went before Lyn she can't heal off her attacks.  DS Cecil is slooooooow, so all my 5 team members get to go and figure out a way to beat Nina4 up that doesn't drive her to critical.  Shouldn't be too hard, tentatively, since you have to be really low on health to activate critical (<10%?).  Jessica can Oomph Lyn or Purim here (Purim might be better for getting the damage "later"), and while Nina4 resists physicals by 25% she's also notably below average HP.  An oomphed Purim should be doing 60% PCHP or so, which is way more than necessary to break through a critical stage.  After Nina4 dies to a combined 5-woman beatdown, Cecil has no shot.
* Plan B: If you don't see the above working, Cecil has some notable holes in his status immunity.  Notably he doesn't resist being turned into an adorable snowman.  Purim casts MT Ice Saber, and now everyone's strikes turn Cecil into Frosty 75% of the time.  Nina now has no one to cover for her.  (For the record: SoM Snow is not equivalent to paralysis or stop, as the target is immune from damage as well.  It's more like 4D Pocket.)
* Plan C: If you don't see A as working (let Cecil do an initiative Cover?), and give Cecil immunity to Freeze (it's not in FF4, but Cecil doesn't have blanket immunity anyway, so judgment call), my team is winning the resource war anyway.  Cecil isn't really attacking, and if he somehow got off an early Cover, I don't think it renews upon death.  And whenever Cecil attacks for bad damage, he's eating an Oomphed Lyn counter.  Basically, Cecil's a tank, but not THAT much of one especially against an entire team.  Just using physicals and a splash of Oomph the team can kill him every round pretty well.  Nina's damage is awful too, not that she'll be getting a chance to use it, and according to Meeplelard Nina's full revival costs 30 AP.  Meaning that after reviving Cecil 8 times, she's stuck using her item-cast Raise Dead which doesn't always work and doesn't restore Cecil with full HP.  That's not going to end well.

Waiting to see others' analysis for Booster and Scarmiglione before voting on the other two teams.

[Nephrite]

http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=202.msg1148#msg1148 <-- Augus is a BoF 2 boss.

[Random Consonant]

I... man, that guy must have been really unmemorable, then, since I thought I had at least a vague recollection of BoF2 bosses up until the point I stopped playing (which was... a little after Spar joined, I think).

[dude789]

Waiting to see others' analysis for Booster and Scarmiglione before voting on the other two teams.

Booster is all single target damage, and both teams have multiple revivers and someone with the firefly sealstone. Scarmiglione is only threatening because of his counters, and both teams avoid them by killing him with healing magic. 

[Nephrite]

I think you're overselling that healing power a little bit, but we'll see.

[Magic Fanatic]

Waiting to see others' analysis for Booster and Scarmiglione before voting on the other two teams.

Booster is all single target damage, and both teams have multiple revivers and someone with the firefly sealstone. Scarmiglione is only threatening because of his counters, and both teams avoid them by killing him with healing magic. 

Neither of the teams have any way of targeting enemies with healing (unless I'm forgetting something with Rena), but your views may vary.

[superaielman]

Team Dude | Blue, Relm (Firefly), Zozma, FFT Monk, Rena
[Blue: Realm (All), Light (storebought only)]
[Floor 2a]
Team Dude vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)- Warmup fight. Baigan alive, heal up via Monk, move on.
Team Dude vs. Booster- Edit: I fail at reading.
Team Dude vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS
Team Dude vs. Kary
Team Dude vs. Augus

Edit to dude: Zozma never gets revival.

Team Glen | Cecilia, Raquel, Lilka, Jane (Firefly)
[Floor 2a]
Team Glen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Glen vs. Booster- Buffed Raquel damage. Kaboom.
Team Glen vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)- Scarm is really bad firefly bait. Even if Jane's KOed in a shot, she can just be revived.
Team Glen vs. Kary- Fire 2 or firefly, take your pick.
Team Glen vs. Augus - firefly shuts down Augus well enough.

[Taishyr]

Spritz Bomb may be MT (stat topic doesn't mention this), but it's also a limit on a PCHP dueler against a mob of opponents. Goooood luck to Booster, I'm pretty sure even five scrubs can chip him to just before it and then blow past afterward without many issues. Monk at the least should provide the extra oomph, his damage should be at least competent still. (blah blah no one else respects FFT Monk. Still.)

[dude789]

Spritz bomb isn't MT.

Edit: Super, Zozma can get a healing skill through mystic weapons, in the dl he doesn't want it because he has to give up damage. I'm pretty sure he can get a basic heal skill off of an early monster. Granted you have to see Saga healing as revival as well, but I see it as doing both.

[Taishyr]

Also, just scanned through about five FAQs on SMRPG: conclusion seems to agree with dude, Spritz Bomb doesn't seem to be MT (one FAQ specifically mentions it as being ST).

Current thoughts: I'll buy the entirety of SnowFire's arguments re: his team. Unsure on the other two, but I think Dude passes (Augus is the scariest there, and I need to think on that one), but...

[Glen Veil]

Team Glen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES) – Fairly simple fight, Jane defends, which means she should be able to survive the damage from all three bosses,  Cecilia and Lilka can practically 1 round Kain due to his weakness, and Raquel should be able to finish him off.  Baigan dies next, Lilka can just heal Jane from now on, Cecilia can do staff whacks for lulz, and Raquel finishes off Baigan, Milon is just lol.

Team Glen vs. Booster – This fight basically goes Jane defends, gets shield stacked on her by Cecilia and Lilka with Lilka on heal duty, Raquel holds off on her turns until Jane is effectively physically immune, then all four girls pounds boss til dead.  Alternatively they could just revive spam Jane until the boss dies.  Lilka can also opt to buff Raquel’s attack until she can one round Booster, quite a few choices in how to go about this.

Team Glen vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS) – Jane defends as usual, Lilka heals her, Cecilia cast Light blow on Raquel to make the fight not take forever by allowing her to hit Scarm's weakness physically, and then basically chains quick on Raquel to counter that slow status counter which turns Raquel into a snail.  Fight takes a while since Cecilia and Lilka can't contribute any damage and after Raquel's first turn she's taking almost an eternity to get her next turn, but it shouldn't be very threatening since he can't get through a defending Jane, especially if she gets a few shields cast on her.

Team Glen vs. Kary – Fire 2’s damage is rather non threatening, Kary can use Hold on Jane to stop defend and probably kill her, but then she just gets revived, this pattern generally repeats until Kary dies.

Team Glen vs. Augus – The safest way to go about this fight is to have Jane defend so it absolutely takes Augus both his double turn boosted attacks to kill her. Lilka or Cecilia then revives her and then the other heals Jane to full.  On his non powered up turns Lilka can heal Jane and Cecilia can either opt to damage Augus or cast Shield on Jane, either way should be fine for handling the boss.  Raquel simply does what Raquel does best, smash the boss’s face in.

Had to stat topic Booster and Augus, bit of a fuzzy memory on FF4 also so feel free to yell at me if I got something wrong.

Edit: Changed comments to coincide with the correct form for Scarm >.>.

[Nephrite]

Since it's come up, the Scarmiglione fight from FF4 DS is the actual boss one, Scarmiglione-Z. In case that matters to anyone.

[Magic Fanatic]

Team Dude | Blue, Relm (Firefly), Zozma, FFT Monk, Rena
[Blue: Realm (All), Light (storebought only)]
[Floor 2a]
Team Dude vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Dude vs. Booster
Team Dude vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS) - Yeah, I'm going to go with super here.  No matter what the case is, the boss is a HUGE resource sink, and even though Monk's Mantra/Revive may be useful/free, it still can't compete with Blue getting turns never with this set-up (depending on interpretation), and most of the time is spent healing...  How do the Monk skills even work in here, anyway?  Anywho, even though Relm may have an Esper right now, she has no spells, and...  Rena's probably the only competent healing, and isn't it all ST until...  What, floor 3?

Still, if Dude gets past this fight, the rest of the floor is going to be harder thanks to that resource drain.
Team Dude vs. Kary
Team Dude vs. Augus

Team Snowfire | Purim, Jessica, Garnet, Lyn (Firefly), Rena
[Floor 2b]
Team Snowfire vs. FFT Knight, FFT Archer, FF1 Black Wizard, FF1 White Wizard
Team Snowfire vs. Frog and Crono
Team Snowfire vs. Kain, FFT Dragoon and FF3DS Dragoon
Team Snowfire vs. Gilliam, Oswin and Galleon
Team Snowfire vs. FF4 DS Cecil and Nina4 - I'll buy this.

Team Glen | Cecilia, Raquel, Lilka, Jane (Firefly)
[Floor 2a]
Team Glen vs. Milon, Baigan and Kainazzo (FF4 SNES)
Team Glen vs. Booster
Team Glen vs. Scarmiglione (FF4 DS)
Team Glen vs. Kary
Team Glen vs. Augus - This too.

[dude789]

Magic, Chakra restores mp as well as hp so even though Scarmiglione takes a while to beat, my team should be able to outlast him and have a solid amount of mp left. Worst situation is that only Zozma attacks and everyone else heals which due to monks ability to restore mp can continue until his hp is low enough for blue to finish things with a Vermillion Sand or something. I think Super saw my team loosing that fight because he thought Spritz Bomb was MT and they would enter with only two people which would result in my team being heal locked.

[Bardiche]

Snowfire passes.

[DjinnAndTonic]

All three pass, but Dude's match is really close. Hopefully his team will get a big boost on the next floor to stay in the game.

[Magic Fanatic]

Magic, Chakra restores mp as well as hp so even though Scarmiglione takes a while to beat, my team should be able to outlast him and have a solid amount of mp left. Worst situation is that only Zozma attacks and everyone else heals which due to monks ability to restore mp can continue until his hp is low enough for blue to finish things with a Vermillion Sand or something. I think Super saw my team loosing that fight because he thought Spritz Bomb was MT and they would enter with only two people which would result in my team being heal locked.

Nononono, I meant...  Does it hit everyone in the party?  Just one person along with the Monk?  'Cause with things as they are, it's really weird as to need to question positioning.

[ThePiggyman]

I'll go ahead and say everyone passes, I'll buy previously said arguments. Only one I could be swayed for is dude, but I think he manage Scarmiglione and Kary without losing too much.

[dude789]

It hits all of the squares adjacent to the monk so not the whole party but probably one or two people. Resources still aren't a huge problem for that fight. Monk can alternate between restoring Rena and Blue's mp. Both of them can heal at this point and the healing spells aren't that expensive. There really isn't anything Scarmiglione can do to break past the teams defenses if Relm defends and Rena and Blue heal her. The fight takes forever because Zozma's the only one doing damage, but Chakra allows the team to heal forever.

[superaielman]

Chakra I'd only see as targeting two people, the monk and the person who he wants to restore MP for. Mmm. *Goes to look at the rest of the floor*

Resource checklist for Dude's team:

Zozma: Sharp pain/some minor damage/some ID.
Rena: ST healing, a few buffs, some middling magic damage
Monk: Revival (65% hit rate), MP restoration, some damage
Blue: Good MT damage, revival (100%), Psychic prison
Relm: Firefly rune

[SnowFire]

Team Glen passes.  For the Scar fight, even if enemy healing is not allowed...  I think that Jane defending & Lilka / Cecilia stalling means that Raquel sloooooooooowly beats up Scarmiglione.  Since she gets slowed after the first hit and all.  But I think Lilka's Healing doesn't require her to attack by this point, and she's got infinite resources, and Cecilia has plenty too, so whatever.  And it shouldn't take more than 2-3 Raquel hits anyway.  Don't know Booster but sounds like he can be blitzed at worst, and the rest Glen handles fine.

Team Dude...  still no votes due to no Saga...  but as to the issue of Chakra...  the healing on it is really scrubby.  On the other hand, Rena's healing at least is quite cheap, so that even a 14 FFT MP heal or so is probably enough to keep that going.  As for keeping another person healed as well...  well, this is entirely his own team he's positioning, so I can see letting him at worst spending a "move" turn to set this kind of formation up.  After all, I certainly think it's legal for team members to enter Yulie's hex and leech off her Protect & Quickens, if they don't mind also being damaged by whatever hits Yulie as well and spending a turn.  Since this kind of tight formation is courting disaster in FFT, I'd also say that magic hits all three...  but with the Firefly rune, that may not actually matter in the Scarmiglione fight.  So tentatively sounds like Dude can slooooooooowly grind it out with infinite resources if Blue's MP costs aren't too bad.

[Taishyr]

All three pass.

Glen's team gets past the final fight with a blitzdown (Augus can't reliably blitz Raquel thanks to Jane, Raquel takes advantage of that low DEF to do some major pounding). Even without using Defend commands, one SaveStrength punch won't kill Raquel, and he badly needs it to.

Dude's is -really- close, but he can get to Kary little issue and prep up for Augus, which, admittedly, is -real damn close- (I think I see them managing the kill by the barest of fractions? Augus is nasty. Might be overselling Blue a bit, but I'm guessing he's got at least competent offense here and they do get a round at him (though he might go before... Blue? Maybe? QUI wasn't his strong point at any time, IIRC, unless he trained in a weapon.)

SnowFire's analysis is pretty much how I see things going. Weapon break kinda doesn't help much vs. Lyn and the rest of Knight skills won't apply enough. Nina4/FF4DS Cecil's cute but snowmen ruin Cecil's fun, Nina cries shortly afterward. Notable is that I don't think they want MT Ice Saber, Nina4 should be able to wall Ice thus making that a bad idea.