Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Monado Mandala Week 3

[Taishyr]

Oh, right. Yeah, definitely don't agree with you there, so it's an easy pass to me.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, agreed with you there. But, as I said, Glen is the team with the best odds of making it regardless. Doubt there'd even be enough argument for the other two, sadly.

[Taishyr]

I've not looked at the other two. SnowFire seems like it has a chance, not sure Dude's team even has that.

[SnowFire]

Will edit later, but quick note to Jo'ou Ranbu: Uh, I appreciate having Salamando already, but Purim doesn't even need it.  Sylphid gives Balloon which is 100% perfect Paralyze.  Lulu's evade only gets physicals, not magic attacks anyway (if she were an FE character then there'd be a POSSIBLE interpretation question at least).  So nulling fire is a nonissue here.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Sylphid is earlier than Fire? I was pretty sure it was the reverse. Regardless, if that's the case, it should warrant a votechange.

[Taishyr]

Yeah, Sylphid is much before Fire.

[Glen Veil]

Just figured I would clarify some things about some of Cecilia's spells/skillset real quick.

Cecilia has access two 16 different spells for level 1 black and white magic, the crest grid is 4x4 which gives a total of 16 options for each.  Once she gains access to lvl 2 spells she has a total of 64 spells she can cast.  Not including Randomizer spells.

Of her white magic, she does have Reflect as a level 1 spell, she learns Hi-Reflect as a level 2.

Suction acts just like Cecilia's Parasol when cast on someone, in that it absorbs a spell fully and converts it to MP.  It also has the unique property of healing the person that it was cast on if that person does not use MP as a resource(Rudy in game gains HP instead of MP when hit by a spell under suction since he uses bullets instead of MP).  It also happens to be one of the only buff spells WAo Cecilia casts that doesn't last the entire fight, though it still lasts ~5ish turns.

I'll see if I can find a video on youtube somewhere on someone using it to clarify further.  Also if you guys want I can put together a complete list of all of Cecilia's abilities, she starts out with some ridiculous lvl 1's >.>.  Other mages wish they had Multitarget slow along with 2 multi target statuses at level 1(sleep and silence).

Also about Lulu's evasion, Cecilia has access to Flash, which significantly reduces the enemy group's accuracy/evasion, so I doubt she can live long enough to get an overdrive when she becomes unable to avoid Raquel.

One last tidbit that I pointed out earlier in response to snow is that ACF defend is bad at reducing damage, yet apparently reduces the chance to be hit by statuses a good amount, which could make Hold a turn 2 status, I don't know exactly how the status chance is changed though so take that with a grain of salt <.<.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Glen: keep in mind that Hold is perfect accuracy (I.e. I don't see defending do anything to it). None of the info you gave me is relevant to my assessment, honestly, because, if Lulu gets a crack at non-Jane people on the team, you're suddenly in deep doo-doo - and given my harsh stance on Firefly, she -will-. Ceci casts Suction/Reflect on Lilka, she now is dead and your team is screwed as soon as the spell runs out (if it does) and she can't solo Nina+Lulu. Ceci casts Suction/Reflect on herself, now she has to handle the whole thing by herself and she can't because she's stuck with revival duty and her MP can run out (and she has to do that on one of those two, because your team is completely -fucked- without revival). There's even a chance they could escape -that- fight alive, but then they die to Demi/Wren if you don't pull off a shining performance against the former fight. That's a bit much suspension of disbelief for me, but YMMV. Also, Ceci takes many castings of Flash to lower Lulu evasion to a point where she struggles against Raquel, who may not even get turns due to Lulu being evil with doublecast ID. Ceci's skillset depth is all fun and games, but she needs a lot breathing room to pull all of it off in a single fight, which she doesn't get by virtue of having so many duties pawned off on her already. Pressure is an ugly thing.

EDIT: I think it bears noting how glad I am that Firefly's getting a nerfbat to the head, tangentially.

[dude789]

Slyphid's before fire and the wiki says that Purim gets it on floor 3.
With regards to my team, my team should have a good chance if you allow Relm's magic to be learned, but yeah they are screwed without it. That said, Neph is there any official ruling for when Relm learns her spells or his it completely open to interpretation?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You may not have a great chance even so, actually. Demi is faster than Relm and Barrier = Bolt2's weakness hitting is suddenly mitigated. Unless you're hyping Bolt2 OHKOing average mdur, which I'd raise my eyebrows to.

[SnowFire]

Jo'ou: Not that I'm complaining, since you're voting pass, but are you discounting Bounce for some reason?  Jess learns Bounce at Staff 21.  I'm using the Jess build I linked to earlier which is basically pouring everything into Staves (with a detour to whips for TDL, natch).  Unless you see Floor 3 as being still stuck in Maella Abbey or something, she should have it, which makes things like the Super Magus Bros. fight a bad joke even if the team were to go in with practically no MP (CADUCEUS HYPE VS. MAGUS PHYSICALS).

If you want WCYD? hype, Nina just Holds Jane and no game.

But wouldn't WCYD? cancel the Hold and result in Nina getting shot?  I'm still nervous about voting on Glen's team due to the amount WCYD? can swing things.  The impression I got earlier is that any and all ST becomes "you just got shot" instead, so long as Jane has bullets.  Also, see Glen's point that if Jane fears status anyway, then it sounds like defending is the right thing to do (even with the new nerfed Firefly!  Since defend commands still do everything else under neo-Firefly, just not reduce damage).  EDIT: Ninja'd by note that Hold is perfect?  Huh.  Well possibly ignore the defend bit then.

As for the issue of Bolt2...  still not likely voting on Dude's team due to no Saga, but as a reminder, even if Relm hasn't learnt Bolt2 yet (fair, Magic Points aren't handed out like candy yet and Ramuh's 2x growth is bad), she can still just summon Ramuh himself if the team needs to blow away Demi on turn 1.  Of course, then they probably waste a long time trying to kill Barrier'd Wren sounds like, since both Saga and FF6 physicals kinda fail.

[dude789]

You may not have a great chance even so, actually. Demi is faster than Relm and Barrier = Bolt2's weakness hitting is suddenly mitigated. Unless you're hyping Bolt2 OHKOing average mdur, which I'd raise my eyebrows to.

I don't but Monk and Rena can finish her off especially since Demi isn't average mdur, she's significantly below.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jo'ou: Not that I'm complaining, since you're voting pass, but are you discounting Bounce for some reason?  Jess learns Bounce at Staff 21.  I'm using the Jess build I linked to earlier which is basically pouring everything into Staves (with a detour to whips for TDL, natch).  Unless you see Floor 3 as being still stuck in Maella Abbey or something, she should have it, which makes things like the Super Magus Bros. fight a bad joke even if the team were to go in with practically no MP (CADUCEUS HYPE VS. MAGUS PHYSICALS).

I don't consider Jess having Bounce that early, honestly. Bounce is floor 4 for me most likely, and I don't even think I had it before Dhouly even though I only spent points on Staves and Whips for the whole game. You could've had it at that point, possibly, but then I wouldn't give you TDL and you need that far more throughout the dungeon (without it, have fun blitzing Demi/Wren, for instance). Dungeon skill scaling is a highly personal issue, and I honestly take it in a bit harsher light on average than usual. I agree that Bounce would trivialize way too much of this floor for you, but I'm harsh on my earlygame definitions.

EDIT: Also, regarding WCYD?, hm. I'll have to scratch what I said there due to uncertainty. I tended to discount it myself (don't think I see it as floor 3, since Volcannon Trap isn't earlygame by any definition for me. I bunch both it and Follow Me! into floor 4, in spite of Jane getting each of them at separate stints in the party. Although this honestly tempts me to push Follow Me! back to floor 5. Jane for 1.0 in this case), and I have no idea how it works with non-damage stuff. I know it worked against magic damage from CK's age-old testing, but have fun testing that against status stuff. Also, for Relm vs. Team dude, do keep in mind that Ramuh is OPB and it's damage that's closer to Bolt1 than Bolt2. That's just going to be utterly awful, especially for something that's only usable once. In that case, Demi may not even bother Barriering and just heals her way to victory.

EDIT:

You may not have a great chance even so, actually. Demi is faster than Relm and Barrier = Bolt2's weakness hitting is suddenly mitigated. Unless you're hyping Bolt2 OHKOing average mdur, which I'd raise my eyebrows to.

I don't but Monk and Rena can finish her off.

Wren is faster than either, methinks? Which means he heals Demi (remember, everything is now targettable. Wren can target his Recover to heal Demi).

[dude789]

I think that was only meant for MT attacks so people wouldn't see them as hitting a random target.

Edit: Even if all attacks can be targeted that's more of an advantage as that means that Monk can restore mp with Chakra. My team focuses on healing while Relm sketches Wren until she gets one of his anti-mech abilities and Monk Chakras to limit mp loss.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I think that was only meant for MT attacks so people wouldn't see them as hitting a random target.

I honestly don't think so, though, and that probably has been a matter of debate before. I could be wrong, but I doubt it matters here to me.

[SnowFire]

I don't consider Jess having Bounce that early, honestly. Bounce is floor 4 for me most likely, and I don't even think I had it before Dhouly even though I only spent points on Staves and Whips for the whole game

Are you sure you're not misremembering?  Or did you put points into Whips beyond TDL (I did too, oops)?  DQ8 skill growth isn't random.  According to the dungeon Jess workup I did, she can actually grab Bounce on floor *1*, but even assuming that this is too aggressive a level to pick...  Floor 2, 20th level, Jess has 67 skill points to play with.  TDL is Whips 23.  That leaves room for Staves 44, way past Staves 21.  On floor 2.

As another note on Demi / Wren, once the defensive setup is finished, aside from Oomphing Lyn Jess can Kasap the bots to negate Barrier.  Purim can also power up her (Oomphed?) kung-fu.  They can't stall THAT long, so it's not too bad a resource hog.

Okay, now as for Glen...

WCYD? sounds like it utterly annihilates the Dungeon in general, and if it works as it sounds like (All ST fails, bullets permitting) than it should probably be banned from Firefly.  If it does have holes - like to status - then maaaaaaybe Glen's team might lose, but I doubt it.  So let's see if Glen can beat the dungeon without WCYD?.  Also, for future reference, it would be good to settle the "What does Suction actually do?" debate.  (Ah, WA1o.  Easy enough with cheesing stat downs  that I never had to bother with the lesser cheeses.)

Also, as a note, I see Firefly as turning off if the bearer has a *fatal* status like Stone, but not one that doesn't end the fight.  So BoF1 Hold, no, but FF4 Hold yes.

Team Glen | Cecilia, Raquel, Lilka, Jane (Firefly)
[Floor 3a]
*All MT is ST and targetable
Team Glen vs. Eiko, Garnet and Rydia - See first post, but Defend making Odin fail makes this easier.
Team Glen vs. Geddoe and Hugo - Reflect on Jane, then revival from the phsyical beatdown.  Raquel takes care of business.  (Edit: If the team goes for fast spells that beat out Ceci's reflect, then don't even bother with Reflect, just stick to revival.)
Team Glen vs. Lulu and Nina1 - See above interpretation note.  This means that even a Held Jane eats the Fatal Cait Sith at worst after Ceci's Reflect.  Can Raquel & Lilka kill Nina1 in one turn?  Sure, I say, meaning that Nina doesn't get a chance to do anything bad to anyone else on Round2 with Jane dead.
Team Glen vs. Demi and Wren - Even if Demi / Wren offense is respected enough to be able to flatten Jane every round, Ceci & Lilka should be able to keep her on her feet.  Raquel will have spent her skill points on grabbing Moonlight early?  Forget the level it's at but I assume it's reachable if she throws away Class lvl. ups.  Intruding Raquel takes down the bots even if they throw up defenses.
Team Glen vs. Boss Magus and PC Magus - Reflect.  Magus's physicals with no one dead are awful.  Also Magus's counters to attacks get reflected at himself and break his own barrier.  Oops.

So Glen passes even without WCYD? to me.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I don't consider Jess having Bounce that early, honestly. Bounce is floor 4 for me most likely, and I don't even think I had it before Dhouly even though I only spent points on Staves and Whips for the whole game

Are you sure you're not misremembering?  Or did you put points into Whips beyond TDL (I did too, oops)?  DQ8 skill growth isn't random.  According to the dungeon Jess workup I did, she can actually grab Bounce on floor *1*, but even assuming that this is too aggressive a level to pick...  Floor 2, 20th level, Jess has 67 skill points to play with.  TDL is Whips 23.  That leaves room for Staves 44, way past Staves 21.  On floor 2.

As I said before, I take it more harshly than you do. I also put points on Whips past TDL, since, well, what the hell else does Jessica get in any other path you'd bother with besides Staves in-game? I raised it until I got the final attack bonus, since more damage for TDL I always want. Also, L20 at floor 2? That's... too early for my buttons. I think there's just a dissonance between where you see dungeon levels and where I do. I understand that skill growth isn't random, but that just looks rather off to me, especially given Jess doesn't get to start at L1 and pick up extra skill points to me, if it were (and she starts off skill-less for points). Also, keep in mind that I allow Jess all the skills she can potentially take given a certain skill point distribution. I assumed it to not go for Bounce at that point as of my vote, however. Dunno how much of an issue it is as it stands, though.

As another note on Demi / Wren, once the defensive setup is finished, aside from Oomphing Lyn Jess can Kasap the bots to negate Barrier.  Purim can also power up her (Oomphed?) kung-fu.  They can't stall THAT long, so it's not too bad a resource hog.

Demi and Wren immune stat downs. That includes DQ8 stat downs to me, which honestly don't feel much better than PS4 stat busts. Also, Kasap doesn't affect MDef. Oomph is a point, but that runs out fairly fast and Jess is getting to cast it once off the bat. Doesn't change the outcome for me, I'm too lazy to change the vote right now. EDIT: Also, that's one of the reasons I find Firefly to be spectacularly dumb in practice. I honestly think the most elegant and interesting solution to balance Firefly as it stood would've been to make it work both ways: the player gets to select someone to be the pincushion, but the dungeon master gets to pick one person on each battle that must be targetted first of all as well.

[Bardiche]

I'll give all three a pass.

[Talaysen]

I honestly think the most elegant and interesting solution to balance Firefly as it stood would've been to make it work both ways: the player gets to select someone to be the pincushion, but the dungeon master gets to pick one person on each battle that must be targetted first of all as well.

I honestly think that would be a good idea.  I gave Neph a few other ideas for it in PM as well, though who knows if he'll use any of them.

Firefly just sounds like a pain in the ass in general though.  All of the nerfs seem to be just banning all the things that make it useful.

[dude789]

Maybe if it couldn't be moved from one character to another it would be more balanced. Giving it to a character who is useless for a floor is a very powerful strategy, and if it was a permanent placement I think it would be closer to its intended use.

[Taishyr]

Alternately, merge Firefly and Wall. All attacks go to someone! ...who can't act that floor. Would be interesting, at a minimum.

[SnowFire]

Also, pretty much preaching to the choir on the brokeneness of Firefly.  As I think I mentioned before I seriously considered a dungeon team with Luneth for Viking Provoke hype (rargh)...   and that only distracts a single target, and only at Luneth, and costs 3 points.  Firefly is better than that and free.

Giving an enemy character the Firefly is interesting but would also really constrain Firefly teams - now they all have to be very MT-based for fear of running up against Firefly'd Jade or the like.  Of course this is a general issue with sealstones. The one thing Firefly is nice about is that you can drop it into pretty much any dungeon team - some of the other Sealstones are rather restricted "build around me or else lose all my value."

Re Taishyr's suggestion: Nah, that means that punching-bag Fireflys are still pretty useful like Onix.  Especially under the old Firefly that lacked the delayed-revive clause, ultimately what's broken about Firefly is A) Forcing the Dungeon to waste their first turns to some degree, and B) Mocking ST attacks revival permitting.  Forcing the bearer to do nothing doesn't really change that.

Also, as an ancient reply to Djinn..  I actually didn't build my team around Firefly at all, I wanted to run this team in the old dungeon.  The only change with Sealstone legalization was dropping a Sealstone in, as as the above notes Firefly pretty much makes any team better (even without something like dude's FFT Monk or Glen's Jane).

Jo'ou, re Bounce: Yeah, I understand that people will place floors differently...  but if lvl. 20 is questionable for Floor 2, it's certainly legit for Floor 3, which is why I brought the issue up at all.  Seemed like something pretty cleanly legal.  Also that skill point total is without giving Jessica any points at level 1?  It's her total she'll (always) have at level 20, which includes the early levels she got 0 skill points from.  Not sure what you're getting at there, that's more an issue for Angelo if you're referring to my old post (One strict Angelo interpretation would leave him entirely or nearly skillless on floor 1, which I don't feel is a fair representation of him in-game, but the point is moot for Jessica who joins early enough to get some skill points on Floor 1 anyway.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jo'ou, re Bounce: Yeah, I understand that people will place floors differently...  but if lvl. 20 is questionable for Floor 2, it's certainly legit for Floor 3, which is why I brought the issue up at all.  Seemed like something pretty cleanly legal.  Also that skill point total is without giving Jessica any points at level 1?  It's her total she'll (always) have at level 20, which includes the early levels she got 0 skill points from.  Not sure what you're getting at there, that's more an issue for Angelo if you're referring to my old post (One strict Angelo interpretation would leave him entirely or nearly skillless on floor 1, which I don't feel is a fair representation of him in-game, but the point is moot for Jessica who joins early enough to get some skill points on Floor 1 anyway.)

My main problem with that is how DQ8 has a total of 40ish levels -total- to work with, and they have to be divided by seven floors. Having the brunt of the growth happen in the first two floors = not okay with me, although, given the nature of DQ8, I can see why would you take it that way. THAT SAID, I may have to retract my Bounce statement, as I only got it late for -Angelo- and I was remembering him for Jess because Evil Jessica was the only fight in the game where I used that spell at all. If Bounce takes 20 skill points and I see Jess gaining at least eight levels from floor 1 to three (certainly would work), it's probably reasonable enough. Doesn't change the assessment, of course, but it makes your fight much more of a sad little joke.

[Glen Veil]

Flash is a non stacking cast, though you probably respect Lulu evade more then I do, I see Raquel as pretty damn accurate, to the point that before flash she's hitting Lulu 50% of the time and Lulu can't really take physical hits.  Flash pushes her evade low enough that Raquel can hit her first turn.

But going off of your interpretation of Firefly, Cecilia doesn't want to revive after casting Reflect on herself, I don't see why she would waste MP doing that when it would just be cheaper for her resource wise to Status Out both Nina and Lula with non fatal statuses under the safety of reflect.

So lets say Nina uses Hold on Jane and then you let Lula do her double cast mayhem thing, Cecilia reflects herself after being quickened by Lilka.  Cecilia is now getting three turns to Nina1's two and double turning Lulu and is immune to all of their abilities.  Nina has no protection from Prison and cries to silence.  Since Lulu has a generally dangerous overdrive, Cecilia Silences Nina, and after that she simply has to hit Lulu with Prison, Sleep, or Confuse.  If you see prison as Petrify then that's out, but Lulu can't fully block Sleep or Confuse, confuse is kind of meh so Cecilia goes for sleep.  After that Cecilia just safely kills Lulu, and after that just revives everyone while they laugh at a worthless Nina who can't really do anything to stop them.

Granted it basically comes down to who hits first with a status between Cecilia and Lulu, but Lulu's accuracy is terrible, and going off of 50% id probably makes it a turn three thing.  Cecilia if you allow the sketchy sleep ward is turn 3 at worst, but is going twice as fast as Lulu thanks to Lilka's quick.  So after Cecilia cast reflect on herself Lulu has to kill Lilka and Raquel with Dual Cast Death or else she's getting POIZNED by Raquel and chipped by Lilka to the point that she outright dies before she can hit with a status weapon.  Next round Cecilia Silences Nina and gets her first turn at sleep on Lulu, Lulu counters by trying to status weapon Cecilia, next turn Cecilia gets sleep off on her double, after this Cecilia simply kills Lulu with 2-3 Blasts then revives Lilka, who physically attacks Nina once to build up fp then revives and heals everyone else while Cecilia defends to preserve the rest of her resources.  At worst I think it would take about a third? of Cecilia's resources for this time in the game, but I'm more inclined to think that's about a fifth or so, depending on ones Respect for Cecilia's MP.  Actually Cecilia could probably just go straight to killing Lulu after Nina gets silenced.  Depends on how long someone sees it taking Cecilia killing off Lulu with blast I guess.

Cecilia really isn't pressured when she's alone unless the opposing team can immune all of her statuses and/or have a good physical offense, of which Lulu and Nina can do neither.

So I'm pretty sure even under your interpretation of Firefly with Lulu getting to attack others after Jane gets hit by hold that my team should be able to get through that fight.

I do agree about Firefly though, I wasn't surprised at all when Neph changed it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Flash is a non stacking cast, though you probably respect Lulu evade more then I do, I see Raquel as pretty damn accurate, to the point that before flash she's hitting Lulu 50% of the time and Lulu can't really take physical hits.  Flash pushes her evade low enough that Raquel can hit her first turn.

Raquel is decently accurate. Issue is Lulu has 85% evade or so. You need to be Wakka to break through that reliably, and even missing only once = you don't get the chance to miss twice. Raquel doesn't have ID immunity, and Lulu is so tossing Death on her.

But going off of your interpretation of Firefly, Cecilia doesn't want to revive after casting Reflect on herself, I don't see why she would waste MP doing that when it would just be cheaper for her resource wise to Status Out both Nina and Lula with non fatal statuses under the safety of reflect.

The issue with statusing out Nina or Lulu afterwards is that she sorta can't. She loses the status war. Nina also has a magic-countering armor that may prove statusing her out is a tricky proposition.

So lets say Nina uses Hold on Jane and then you let Lula do her double cast mayhem thing, Cecilia reflects herself after being quickened by Lilka. Cecilia is now getting three turns to Nina1's two and double turning Lulu and is immune to all of their abilities.

First, you're overrating Quicken a bit. Ceci should 3-2 Lulu fine, but I doubt she insta-doubles due to how Ceci's turn is already coming in a little, and Nina can screw over her own lapping with casting a support spell next (and even buffing Lulu speed so she doesn't suffer as much! She probably still gets 3-2'd, though, so that's pointless). And, for the rest, yes, there's a fine point there, but that is helping her clear -the floor- how? She can't win this fight and go to the next with half a world busted off, and keep in mind that a turn where Ceci is casting Reflect is a turn she's not trying to shut down Lulu, which means two people go down regardless of what she does. Ceci can probably even solo Lulu and Nina after Reflect, sure, but that's not the undermining issue. If she tries that, she's getting fried by Demi and Wren in the next fight, because she won't be able to handle them with a completely neutered party. Which is probably the true issue. You may be able to eke that one fight out, but it'll more or less guarantee you won't be able to do anything much about the next one.