Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Monado Mandala Week 9

[dude789]

MT MBarrier is pretty bad news for a magic-heavy team. Magic makes it to the boss, but Vermillion Sand, even MT, is running into MBarrier hard.

TL needs Overdrive here.

Which... he might be able to handle?

TL outspeeds Georg, uses MT Glass Shield instead of TimeLeap, Georg cries if he uses his physical, which gets nulled AND he takes 5 Glass Shards counters.

With Georg a non-factor, Blue/Lilka take out Tengaar. And Lucia has all the time in the world to refill MP as long as TL spams Glass Shield.

Hmm... Magic might pass after all.

Keep in mind that TL only has 4 magic slots. If he wants glass shield he has to give up something else.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Andrew's team explodes. I dunno about Lulu + Yuri MP draining as I can't remember if his MP draining was good enough for that or whether or not Nina buffs would work at reducing drain type attacks but that's not the only evil fight on this floor. Besides doesn't Lulu have MP draining anyway?

Wakka has MP draining, not Lulu. Problem is that, if the Yuris aren't 2HKOing Lulu's MP, uh it's not really happening, Lulu MP costs are hilariously cheap (YAY 2MP PER SPELL~) and Yuna could Reflect Lulu anyway, since she's faster than everybody except maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Chie in Andy's team (and Chie rams into not OHKOing Yuna -and- into her evade).

[dude789]

Jo'ou it's Nina 1 not Yuna.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Jo'ou it's Nina 1 not Yuna.

Does it change anything other than "oh look now not even Chie has a case to go first"? Nina has Reflect too.

[Nephrite]

I normally don't do this, so please don't count this as an actual vote, but I wanted to analyze this a bit more in-depth.

Team Andrew | Yuri1, Yuri2, Chie, Yukiko, Ditto (Love Love)
[Floor 3a]
*All MT is ST and targetable
Team Andrew vs. Eiko, Garnet and Rydia - Okay, all three of them are slower than everyone on their team except for Ditto and Yukiko at this point, I'd say. Let's say that Chie goes before the Yuris. Chie hits Rydia with... hmm, probably her best damage at this point is still Rampage, despite it being STed. If it hits twice, Rydia is almost dead, but let's say it only hits once. The Yuris go and kill Rydia. At this point, Garnet or Eiko need to revive her, let's say Eiko does it and Garnet casts Mini on Chie. Yukiko goes and torches Rydia again with Agilao. Ditto turns into Garnet, let's say? I dunno. Chie's mini'ed now, assumedly, but would that affect her damage? Let's say it does and that she can only cast spells. Both of the girls have Ice-nulling equipment, so Chie can't do anything right now. Yuris are up again, they put the hurt on Garnet. Eiko revives Rydia again, Garnet Minis one of the Yuris. Yukiko kills Rydia again. Ditto now Esunas Chie. Chie gets a turn, Garnet's dead. Easy mopup with Eiko left.

If they don't revive Rydia and instead try and go for damage... Garnet still Minis Chie, Eiko tries to silence Yukiko, but I don't think I'd let that hit. Ditto still transforms into Eiko, Chie's useless on turn two... Yuris pound into Garnet, yeah, it's just not a good idea to me. Even if they try and just outright kill Chie, Yukiko + Yuris should kill one of them and then they can revive her.

Team Andrew vs. Geddoe, Hugo and Luc - Okay, let's see. Hugo goes first and sleeps someone. Let's say Yuri1. Luc goes and IDs... we'll say Yukiko. Geddoe starts charging Hammer of Raijin. Chie pokes Yuri awake and both Yuris proceed to kill Geddoe. Ditto transforms into, let's say Hugo. Now, here's the interesting thing. Ditto is Hugo, so he has his charge times and everything, so he starts casting Wind of Sleep. This forces Hugo to hit Ditto with it. Luc now IDs Chie, since the Yuris have Leonardo Bears. Yuris go and kill Hugo. Luc is up again, since DittoHugo is sleeping and has to start charging for damage, since killing Dittohugo is a wasted turn. Yuri2 revives Chie, Yuri1 throws something on Yuri2 to keep him from dying to Luc. If it's a problem then Yuri2 just revives Yukiko first. Heal up and move on.

Team Andrew vs. Lulu and Nina1 - Okay. Nina1's first move here is to cast Dispel on Lulu so she doesn't die. However, Chie goes and bashes Nina1's face in. Yuri1 hits Nina1 and probably kills her. Let's pretend he doesn't so Yuri2 has to do it. Yukiko tries to hit Lulu but can't. Ditto transforms into Lulu, Lulu Deaths Chie and Yukiko. Yuris, however, just revive them and then DittoLulu kills the other Lulu. If it's a problem then Chie starts off attacking Lulu and Ditto just transforms into Nina1 and gets initiative crap to deal with Lulu's shenanigans. I'm not really in the mode of giving people from non-Persona games One Mores anyway, so.

Team Andrew vs. Ephraim and Cecilia - This isn't really a challenge. Chie and Yukiko should be able to kill Cecilia and even if she Prisons someone it won't really matter.
*Full Heal
Team Andrew vs. Demi, Wren and Aigis - Let's assume for this fight that the robots are, indeed, the sexes you'd assume they are. Demi goes first and wipes Chie off the planet with Phonon. Wren goes and Positrons... let's say Yuri1. Yuri2 revives Yuri1, Aigis goes and casts Orgia mode. Yukiko revives Chie. Ditto transforms into Demi. This all repeats itself again, except Wren can't kill Yuri anymore since he only has a shot of Posibolt. The thing is, Wren hits Yuri1 with Burstroc and... oh, right, DittoDemi. So DittoDemi hits Aigis with Spark. If you don't allow that, then DittoDemi hits Wren instead. Easy mopup from there, they can't keep enough pressure on his team.

Obviously there are some determinations made in Andrew's favor, but I am assuming that both Yuris have revival and so does Yukiko. If this is untrue then things change.

Made some changes now that I know Yuri1 can't revive.

[Taishyr]

Pretty much what Neph said. Lulu simply does not do enough to stop the enemy team - even if she kills Ditto and Yukiko instead, Chie still has status odds off Skull Cracker and both Yuris really should have revival at this point. Cecilia is ST'd this floor and as such even locking someone down can't stop the onrush before the full heal.

Geddoe/Hugo/Luc is a bit messier than he gives it credit for, but the enemy side doesn't have enough to down the Yuris before they turn the enemy side into paste is my impulse (and Yuri1 should be able to throw a wrench into any charging attempts with something, is my impulse? Faster than Yuri1 and isn't going against a full cast just yet); Chie should have picked up in speed around now, as well.

So yeah, gutcheck is Andrew passes, too. Unless someone can puncture Neph's view of the floor, my vote stands as he's kinda looking at things the same way I am.

EDIT: Yep, did some quick math and Geddoe needs Hammer of Raijin to pull the OHKO on either Yuri (for me at least, the Yuris are kinda good on durability early (Yuri1's just good, Yuri2 isn't facing off with Kurando in speed and likely has higher HP scaled to that time than he does endgame due to mage stats), which means the enemy side eats a brutal rushdown (Hammer of Raijin fails to go before either) and then it's probably Hugo and Luc vs. two Yuris + DittoHugo, and uh the other two can't do much to the Yuris as they eliminate another person (Wind of Sleep meets Ditto waking them with his now improved speed) and then re-set for the next fight. Hell, they can MP bust Luc and leave him using his AWESOME PHYSICALS AW YEAH. Right.

[Yoshiken]

Hunh. That... seems pretty solid to me. I'd agree on Yuri2 and Yukiko having revival, and I'm not really certain with Yuri1, seeing as I'm relying on GFAQs and stat topic info for that. So, overall, I'm definitely convinced by that, yeah. Vote changed.

[Taishyr]

Yuri1's probably right before Wugui/Dehaui fights to me? And I'm pretty sure that's far enough to grab it. So.

[dude789]

Pretty much what Neph said. Lulu simply does not do enough to stop the enemy team - even if she kills Ditto and Yukiko instead, Chie still has status odds off Skull Cracker and both Yuris really should have revival at this point.

This is only true if you don't allow one mores. If you do, she IDs ditto then smacks either Yukiko or Chie's weakness. Then she IDs the first girl and hits the other's weakness. Finally she kills off the second girl and damages one of the Yuri's. Both of the Yuri's have to revive someone or risk going into the next battle alone and Lulu just kills whoever was revived again. 

[Yoshiken]

Both Yuris can revive without Lulu getting the next turn. She's pretty horrendously slow, and Chie's got good speed. I'd imagine she'd be able to go from the first Yuri's revival to killing Lulu without Lulu getting a turn in between.

[Nephrite]

Pretty much what Neph said. Lulu simply does not do enough to stop the enemy team - even if she kills Ditto and Yukiko instead, Chie still has status odds off Skull Cracker and both Yuris really should have revival at this point.

This is only true if you don't allow one mores. If you do, she IDs ditto then smacks either Yukiko or Chie's weakness. Then she IDs the first girl and hits the other's weakness. Finally she kills off the second girl and damages one of the Yuri's. Both of the Yuri's have to revive someone or risk going into the next battle alone and Lulu just kills whoever was revived again. 

If that's an issue they could just defend to avoid the weakness, right?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Pretty much what Neph said. Lulu simply does not do enough to stop the enemy team - even if she kills Ditto and Yukiko instead, Chie still has status odds off Skull Cracker

Skull Cracker is running off against Lulu's utterly insane evade, though, and Chie accuracy with Skull Crack isn't great. I also have to chime in and disagree with both Yuris having revival - Yuri1 doesn't even get Holy element souls until Dehuai's dungeon (and not enough to -learn it-. At least, I didn't have his L1 Holy fusion when I beat Dehuai), and his revival is on a L2 Holy fusion - those only being available when he rejoins in Europe. That's floor 4. Dunno how relevant that will be, but I wanted to note it.

EDIT: Wait, did the L1 actually have revival? The L2 was noteworthy for the MT healing, now that I think about it.

EDIT: The revival's a L3? Ohgod, that's floor 5.

[dude789]

Pretty much what Neph said. Lulu simply does not do enough to stop the enemy team - even if she kills Ditto and Yukiko instead, Chie still has status odds off Skull Cracker and both Yuris really should have revival at this point.

This is only true if you don't allow one mores. If you do, she IDs ditto then smacks either Yukiko or Chie's weakness. Then she IDs the first girl and hits the other's weakness. Finally she kills off the second girl and damages one of the Yuri's. Both of the Yuri's have to revive someone or risk going into the next battle alone and Lulu just kills whoever was revived again. 

If that's an issue they could just defend to avoid the weakness, right?

Being hit takes them out of a defensive stance. She just hits them both with two spells which should be enough to kill with the damage boost from the sealstone.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And she gets to -doublecast- with the extra action, which is just ow. Flare+Firaga on Chie => Flare+Blizzaga on Yukiko => asplode both Chie and Yuki - or even pelt at Yuris. At least Yuri1 is already ID-immune, which eases the pressure some.

[SnowFire]

Yuri1 and revival: Huh.  Looked at a FAQ, and if I read it right it does claim that it's only Sandalphon (lvl. 3) that has the revival, the lvl. 1 Light fusion might just be healing.  Can someone confirm this?  Assuming it is just Yuri2 and Yukiko...

Can Lulu be MP drained: Looking it up, I see that SH2 Mind Assault has a 150% recharge time (aside from Yuri's fusions generally being fast anyway).  Against Lulu's .71 first turn speed and .75 later speed, Yuri2 is easily getting 3 Mind Assaults off before Lulu's 2nd turn.  OTOH, Lulu has 174% average MP and she does need to lose it all.  No idea how much to respect Yuri's draining since this isn't SO3 where you could actually make an MP damage average, but to use his own MP score as a baseline...  Yuri2 drains about 40% of his own max MP at endgame apparently?  And call it 30% for Yuri1 (worse than I thought).  I forget how much this would be different in the early game.  Anyway, 40*3 + 30*2 = 180% max MP drained.  It's close, but generally willing to tiebreak for players over the dungeon.  On the other hand...  can Nina1's Wall make a difference (Reminder: it's just one shot of half-reflect)?  I was inclined to think "no" before, but maybe so.  If she casts it the first turn, Chie & Yukiko kill her, but they don't have a spare turn to knock the Wall off...  if Chie does toss a worthless Ice spell to get rid of it, it sounds like Lulu is brutal enough to kill them all so that Nina can get away with Wall on turn 2.  Hrmm.  I'd assumed that Nina would need to Hold before, since I was assuming Lulu was Deathing Yukiko & Ditto...  Lulu being able to kill all three due to triple-turning (didn't know she could do that) does change things.

----

As for the Summoners fight...  this is really a fight where Love-Love stabs Andrew in the back, as it means the summoners easily flatten Yukiko while the Yuris have trouble even doing simple tasks like "beat up Rydia."  The team really can't let Rydia ever get a turn (Frog, elemental weakness hitting), but the summoners can't ever let Ditto get a turn once he becomes Eiko (status-healing, full revival).  Here seem to be the main ways this shakes out:

Girls don't defend round 1: Garnet Shivas Yukiko, Ifrits Chie, and...  Arks Yukiko for the KO (If Yukiko gets a turn, the Yuris would magic-buff her and she'd start OHKOing Rydia and others).  Chie...  can she OHKO Rydia with Love-Love help?  Doubt it, so Yuri1 probably has to chip in.  Yuri2 revives Yukiko.  Eiko...  hmm, Phoenix Flame would be ST team, ST enemy I assume?  Phoenix revives Rydia, knocks over Chie for a free turn, then Holies Yukiko dead again on the double.  Ditto becomes Eiko.  Round 2...  Chie defends rather than give Garnet a free KO (she's already eaten Love-Love powered Ifrit & Phoenix).  Garnet heals Rydia, Yuri2 revives Yukiko, Yuri1...  needs to heal one of Chie or Yukiko, and also needs to be concerned about the upcoming Eiko / Rydia turn.  Let's say he heals someone.  Eiko...  tries to Mini Ditto-Eiko?  Probably won't work, but then there's a speedoff between slow Rydia, who was revived at average initiative last round (so 100+~130), and the now-average speed Ditto who became average speed while slow (125+100).  So I guess Ditto-Eiko wins.  If he wasn't Mini'ed before, he heals whoever Yuri1 didn't heal.  Rydia now needs to Frog Ditto as Ditto has Esuna.  But still looking kinda bad, since while the summoners might be getting low on MP, Team Andrew isn't getting anywhere... the girls can't defend lest the team give up any chance to kill Rydia, so round 1 semi-repeats as Garnet wipes out Yukiko and damages Chie.  Chie hits Rydia, Yuri1 finishes the job, Yuri2 revives Yukiko, Eiko does Phoenix->Holy to re-kill Yukiko and revive Rydia, but Ditto's still Frogged.  Round 4, Chie defends again, Garnet heals Rydia again, and the Yuris are helpless to stop Rydia from Frogging Yuri2 now that Ditto isn't an issue.  Granted, Garnet has little gas left in the tank at this point (the two Arks she had to cast slurp MP like crazy), but it doesn't matter.  And this was all assuming that Eiko's Mini of Ditto didn't hit.

Yukiko Defends: Garnet Ifrit->Arks Chie, KO.  The Yuris...  could try their MP-suck magic on Rydia?  Maybe?  But FF4 is a cast where Kain & other 0 MPers drag up Rydia's effective MP, so probably not going to do it in 2 moves, which is what they need.  This means Rydia gets a turn which is Bad Times.  Yuri2 Raise Ups Chie, Yuri1 heals her.  Rydia Fire3s Chie then makes Yuri2 experience the "Frog" fusion, and next round Garnet & Eiko kill Ditto (before he can Esuna / Full-Life).  Garnet also tosses in a free Ifrit of Chie....  she might well be dead, but let's assume not.  Chie hits Eiko (but probably doesn't OHKO?), Yuri1 magic-buffs Yukiko, and she Agis out Rydia...  but I think it's too late to recover?  Yukiko needs to defend again round 3 lest she be destroyed by Garnet, meaning Eiko has a license to full-life Rydia while Garnet attempts to Mini or Berserk Yuri1 if Yukiko defends.

Okay, that didn't work.  What if three MP-drains would disable Rydia?  Backing up, the Yuris can go for that at the cost of reviving Chie and buffing Yukiko...  so round 1, Mind Assaulting from the Yuris, Yuri2 still gets Frogged.  Round 2... Garnet & Eiko still need to kill Ditto, Yuri1 finishes off Rydia's MP, Yukiko revives Chie (Agi isn't so helpful because FF9 is probably halving Fire here).  Round 3...  Yukiko defends again.  Garnet can probably kill revived Chie through Defend with Ark, but her MP reserves are getting low by now because Ark slurps MP like crazy.  Yuri1 finishes off Garnet's MP.  Eiko tries to Mini Yuri1?  If she hits, she can try to start Holying him out, but with Garnet out of MP and Eiko lacking Ice, Yukiko is free to just heal even a minied Yuri1 and win the resource war.  I guess she tries to Mini Yukiko instead, but Yukiko can revive Ditto, Mini doesn't last forever, and this required that Eiko hit Yuri with Mini in the first place (lest Yuri1 keep going and Mind Assaulting Eiko out).  Yeah, this requires too much luck, so Eiko probably doesn't take this herself.  Eventually, after the opposing team is reduced to mage physicals, Ditto is put into commission as an Eiko-clone to get the team back on their feet, even if Yuri1 has gone crazy.

Yukiko & Chie Defend: Garnet tries to Mini or Berserk Yuri2.  If it works, Andrew is now counting on Yuri1 and Yuri1 alone to do anything this round.  Let's assume it doesn't.  There's still not much for 'em to do - I guess there's still the MP-drain Rydia strategy, but even if the Yuris could MP drain Rydia in two actions, Eiko gets a shot at Mini, too.  Eh, if the Yuris could in fact MP drain Rydia out in two actions, they're better off with one of the above strategies, and if they can't the combination of status from all three means that the Yuris are out of the fight in round 2 which is deadly.

---
Tentatively, the second strategy does seem the best one for Team Andrew, but that does require 3 MP-drains being enough to reduce Rydia to 0 MP, which is pretty questionable.  Actually leaning more toward fail at the moment, the summoners fight is brutal.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Funny, the summoner fight -was- the first one that made me think "ohgod". Your analysis looks pretty good off a glance as well, although I'll read more into it later.

[VySaika]

Kinda dead, so not doing a full breakdown. But figured I should probably vote in this from time to time.

Team Toro Passes

Team Andy Passes

Team Magic Fail

[Nephrite]

Ah, I didn't notice Yuri1 didn't get it until later... I'll go back and redo my analysis with that information.

[AndrewRogue]

How does Lulu's doublecasting work anyway? Is it she chooses one spell, it goes off, then she gets to choose another? Or does she choose both at once? Or something else?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

How does Lulu's doublecasting work anyway? Is it she chooses one spell, it goes off, then she gets to choose another? Or does she choose both at once? Or something else?

She chooses both at once, but she can choose targets at will. She picks the first spell, then the target, then the second spell and its target. Then both spells go off as directed.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Final Verdicts from me!

Team Tai Drowns the Opposition!

Team Magic Makes Georg Cut Himself!

Team Andrew Beats Robots with Ditto! ...and that's just sad.

In short, all pass, somewhat surprisingly...

[Dhyerwolf]

Can Lulu be MP drained:

Which is highly dubious given that SH MP draining doesn't limit the enemy's ability to cast magic at all and is only there to restore Yuri's own MP.

Tentatively saying Andrew doesn't pass. Lots of elements running around+That Suikoden fight is pretty nasty with 3 people who can kill things in one hit in some manner.

[Clear Tranquil]

Yeah Andy requires a lot of generous interps in his favour here (Garnet not having decent speed, P4 defending, disabling One!Mores) Apart from that the team's healing/revival is not good. It's not full at least and they need something like that for what they're facing here.

I was under the impression that as a general rule of thumb Defending cheese was frowned upon for the dungeon >_> I think it'd be also very generous to disable One!Mores on Persona characters and they'd perhaps require a cost upgrade for that.

[Yoshiken]

To be fair, Garnet -doesn't- have decent speed, and I'm fairly sure only one of Defending or a lack of One Mores is necessary, because the only really problematic fight (Lulu/Nina) is followed by a depressingly easy fight, followed by a full heal.
Either defending or no One More will allow them to get through the Lulu/Nina fight (and I'm inclined to think that the Yuris can push them through it regardless) with Yuri2's revival allowing them to enter the next fight with Chie alive to sweep Ceci.
Also, just because the revival's not full, doesn't mean it's not good. Recarm is 50%, which is pretty damn solid both in-game and in the Dungeon. (And pretty cheap too! Yukiko would be the ideal healer/reviver if it weren't for that weakness...)

[dude789]

Actually Yukiko's healing right now is pretty hideous. She has like a 70% ST heal and a 25% MT heal.