Season 55, Week 5 - False Althena and Opera join forces in yaoific? Capital.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Godlike

False Althena (L:EBC) vs. Brahms (VPs)

Heavy

Edward "Edge" Geraldine (FF4) vs. Lyon (S5)

Middle

Elhaym van Houten (XG) vs. Massimo (MMXCM)

Light

Opera Vectra (SO2) vs. Cinnamon (MMXCM)

[superaielman]

FA, Lyon, Elly. None of those matches are worth chewing on.

Opera over Cinnamon is my kneejerk. Think she can run her out of damage and should cruise  at that point.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

False Althena (L:EBC) vs. Brahms (VPs) - Doesn't take much in magical damage to OHKO Brahms, and EBO FA can do it.

Edward "Edge" Geraldine (FF4) vs. Lyon (S5) - Parry+Yellow Scarf+hey look Edge MDef checks against Lyon's ID  and it's likely his own status is like turn three against Lyon at best = the ninja's fucked beyond belief. Took long enough. 

Elhaym van Houten (XG) vs. Massimo (MMXCM) - She's fractionally faster. Maaaaaaaang.

Opera Vectra (SO2) vs. Cinnamon (MMXCM) - My honest impulse is to say Cinnamon just heals forever until Opera runs out of MP, because her damage just sorta sucks. This takes years, but still, and the lag on the AT could definitely say otherwise, though.

[Sei]

Godlike

False Althena (L:EBC) vs. Brahms (VPs) - Brahms and powerful magic aren't compatible

Heavy

Edward "Edge" Geraldine (FF4) vs. Lyon (S5) - Edge and powerful magic aren't compatible, especially with his opponent having status resist equipment

Middle

Elhaym van Houten (XG) vs. Massimo (MMXCM) - Elly goes first. Massimo curses the lack of sleep (and thus, sleep protection) in his world.

Light

Opera Vectra (SO2) vs. Cinnamon (MMXCM)- Thinking that once Cinnamon's Kitty Gloves applies Power and Speed down on her already shoddy damage, Opera will be unable to break Cinnamon's infinite healing, meaning she's screwed once she runs out of MP. Iron Maiden's HP and WP gain boosts will ensure that the battle lasts long enough for these to hit.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike

False Althena (L:EBC) vs. Brahms (VPs): Finally a vote where it doesn't matter which form of Brahms I vote on! Ray cooks.

Heavy

Edward "Edge" Geraldine (FF4) vs. Lyon (S5): Setting Sun is turn 1, sleep resistance means the claws aren't.

Middle

Elhaym van Houten (XG) vs. Massimo (MMXCM): Huh, I had assumed Massimo would be faster for some reason. Sleep nonsense ensues!

Light

Opera Vectra (SO2) vs. Cinnamon (MMXCM): Opera's damage is good enough to handle Cinn outside Hyper Mode (Cinn can only heal every 2.5 turns or so, and it's nowhere near full healing). So Cinnamon needs to blitz. She may be able to, I dunno.

[Drifloon]

Edward "Edge" Geraldine (FF4) vs. Lyon (S5) - TAY Edge might have a chance. FF4 Edge, no. Just no.

[Monkeyfinger]

You guys are surprised that Massimo is slower than someone?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, the same often applies to Elly of the 8 XG speed. >_>

[Dark Holy Elf]

Monkey: The PC MMXCM speed curve is reasonably tight, so I tend to assume "slow" characters from other games are slower than Massimo. To be fair, Elly isn't cast-worst or anything. Massimo would totally outspeed Chu-Chu!

[SnowFire]

Of course, if Massimo fought Chu-Chu...  Massimo is a robot.  Gears are robots.  Chu-chu fights Gears using the Chuansformation.  Clearly MegaChu-Chu is legal vs. enemy robots like Massimo so he gets crunched anyway!  (Makes only slightly less sense than SLEEPING ROBOTS ZOMG).

Since nothing really to add otherwise, as a comment on a match that didn't actually happen due to Kasumi beating Zelos...  Zelos vs. Nina4 would have been rather hilarious since Zelos halves Wind.  Which would leave Nina with her physical as her best damage.  Zelos's damage is slightly messed up as well due to Nina's elemental resists, but if you let Last Fencer work on Nina (as she is pretty human all-in-all), he probably still 2HKOs.  Meaning that Zelos might well outheal Nina in a resource war which is just bizarre considering how bad Zelos's healing is, but against Nina4 physical damage...  I have no idea, but it's hilarious regardless.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Nina would use her godly 5% ID staff in that case, I'd wager. Granted, wouldn't Zelos just probably OHKO Nina if you allowed Last Fencer to hit anyway, evade notwithstanding (he'd probably get a string where enough hits connect before running out of long-term resources)?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Yeah, who here would actually let Zelos' weapon hit weakness against Nina4? Just curious, because I'm a huge Zelos fanboy, but I wouldn't.

Matches:

FA slaughters Brahams - Out of curiosity, why is Brahams1 being disallowed by most people these days? I know he's a plot fight, but he's pretty easy to interpret.

Lyon slaughters Edge - Setting Sun. I was wondering when she would finally have use for that over lolOHKO damage.

Elly status whores Massimo - This is the first time I've ever correctly predicted a season champion from the initial roster. Cool. Elly feels like a less potent version of Noa. 100% defense-ignoring one-status wonder with some back-up magic damage. Only a more-commonly blocked status and not fast. If Noa gets in next season, will we see a repeat?

Opera... -barely- beats Cinnamon - Kneejerking that Hyper Mode doesn't last long enough to ever put pressure on Opera.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FA slaughters Brahams - Out of curiosity, why is Brahams1 being disallowed by most people these days? I know he's a plot fight, but he's pretty easy to interpret.

A fight being easy to interpret doesn't make it notably less shaky for legality. VP1 Brahms' issue as a fight is that he's a fight the game suggests you shouldn't be doing, and the game rewards you for not fighting it, punishes you for winning the fight (both in a Seal Value shenanigans deal) and doesn't punish you for losing it outside of being tossed out of the dungeon like what happens when you game over in VP normally, but since you get the Seal Value drop from losing the fight, it ends up rewarding you for losing it anyway.

Also, if Lyon OHKOed Edge with Vermillion Sun, she'd be using that instead of the ID. >_>

[Dark Holy Elf]

To be fair, whether or not you fight him, AND whether or not you win the fight, does not affect anything: not Seal value, not how the game progresses, etc.

[Bardiche]

I just vote on VP2 Brahms on account of disliking VP1 Brahms as a boss.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

To be fair, whether or not you fight him, AND whether or not you win the fight, does not affect anything: not Seal value, not how the game progresses, etc.

Yeah, but I'm just going by what happens in practice: the Seal value loss is tied to meeting him. However, I -do- believe winning the fight ends up as a Seal value net gain, which hurts for A ending purposes.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Nope, Seal is affected by meeting him, fighting him, not fighting him, and losing to him all have the same effect.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

So, the FAQs were a bunch of lying bastards? Goddammit.

[Cmdr_King]

This is why you should only use Cap'n K Brand FAQs for all your triAce FAQing needs.

[DjinnAndTonic]

A fight being easy to interpret doesn't make it notably less shaky for legality. VP1 Brahms' issue as a fight is that he's a fight the game suggests you shouldn't be doing, and the game rewards you for not fighting it, punishes you for winning the fight (both in a Seal Value shenanigans deal) and doesn't punish you for losing it outside of being tossed out of the dungeon like what happens when you game over in VP normally, but since you get the Seal Value drop from losing the fight, it ends up rewarding you for losing it anyway.

So he's essentially an optional boss... Like Piastol. I understand the argument, but I personally don't see a problem. To each their own, but it sucks that Brahams is getting shunted to Heavy and boring VP2 form.

Also, if Lyon OHKOed Edge with Vermillion Sun, she'd be using that instead of the ID. >_>

Well, yeah, I'm aware of that, but this is the first match I've seen her in where that happened, including board tournaments.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

A fight being easy to interpret doesn't make it notably less shaky for legality. VP1 Brahms' issue as a fight is that he's a fight the game suggests you shouldn't be doing, and the game rewards you for not fighting it, punishes you for winning the fight (both in a Seal Value shenanigans deal) and doesn't punish you for losing it outside of being tossed out of the dungeon like what happens when you game over in VP normally, but since you get the Seal Value drop from losing the fight, it ends up rewarding you for losing it anyway.

So he's essentially an optional boss... Like Piastol. I understand the argument, but I personally don't see a problem. To each their own, but it sucks that Brahams is getting shunted to Heavy and boring VP2 form.

You will notice there are people who don't like the fact Piastol was ranked. >_> Also, Brahms has a more substantial issue in that he's a mezzo-plot fight (the insane defense+easy OHKOing to a C4 party nods to the fact that the developers wanted ways to disencourage you from fighting him, but also added some stuff in the case you actually beat him - thus the physical/magical split in his durability), and you can lose the fight without any consequences at all: if you lose, you don't lose any ground, don't get punished via Seal, etc. A fight one can lose without consequences is often viewed as a fight without DL-legal merit (see XS1 Margulis, for instance, or Asch's first plot fight. The former isn't even a very hard fight to win, but you don't game over if you lose. VP1 Brahms is in a similar stance and now I wonder why I ever saw VP1 Brahms as legal even before playing VP2).

Tangentially, VP2 Brahms is actually a more interesting (if weaker) dueller than VP1 Brahms. Doesn't egregiously fail against halfway competent magic slugging, sports status immunity and actually immunes stat-busts, the draining damage compliments his slugfesting well and all. No physical spoiling, but spoiling can often be very boring.

[alanna82]

I allow Asch's first fight its not too hard to win. *flees and gets a flame shield*
I also allow Kratos 2nd fight), as I didnt know that fight was loseable where you didnt get game over! I won it all three times. (Kratos 1st fight was a pretty obvious lose situation though)
I also allowed Dario when he was ranked. (he was booted for being optional. I voted to keep him)
I still allow Brahms 1, especially since I cannot vote on Brahms 2 because I got to chapter 3 in VP2 and hated the battle system.

Probably would allow Margulis if I had played that game if its not too hard to win.

oh votes:

FA beats VP1 Brahms. This doesnt matter either way. Yay first time champ!
Lyon beats Edge. Though I personally think neither should be here, glad Edge doesnt champ. Do not allow stat claws. (I allow elemental ones since you can buy them)
Cannot vote on the next two fights since I havent played MMXCM. Elly Champing is funny though.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

What matters to me in those regards is not how easy or hard the fight is. As said before, it isn't even terribly difficult to win the Margulis fight, for an instance, and you certainly can win, say, that Asch fight. But if you can't -lose- the fight regardless of what happens, then I'm not giving credit to the form. I mean, Asch can feel free to use his plottish form where you can lose to him. However, he can feel free to lose -every battle he gets into- if he uses that form, because that's what happens to him in effect in-game. I don't like giving credit to fights you literally can -not- lose.

[Dark Holy Elf]

  Brahms is in a similar stance and now I wonder why I ever saw VP1 Brahms as legal even before playing VP2)

Because compared to the issues presented by Freya, HM-only bosses, impossible-to-lose-but-get-plot-hype Punies, and to a lesser extent splitpath ending bosses, Brahms is barely notable. The whole series is legendary for creating ranking issues.

Brahms is a big plot player and his optional boss form is his most legal in VP1, so it makes sense that it got adopted. I agree that it is very shaky (no consequence for losing is a serious strike against) and of course am a VP2 voter myself but it's easy to see why it got generally accepted.

Food for thought: If VP2 had come before VP1 (and we'd ranked Brahms that way first), how many people would allow the VP1 boss? I'm guessing not many. I'm not faulting anyone for keeping with a form previously established as legal, but this hopefully should explain why a minority of us have moved away from it.

[Dhyerwolf]

My gut is that I'd fine either way (After all, I'm okay with boss Beatrix, aka beatable semi plot boss fights. So nothing like D2 Laharl, where you just aren't winning).