Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 21

[SnowFire]

Re team Monkey: Another thought on the final fight: if the opposing team is dependent on MT status nonsense, then Jessica being alive puts a severe crimp into those plans with Magic Barrier (which should make ~50-80% status fail hardcore with like a 20% hitrate instead).  Jessica alive with the whole party surely spells doom for them, if for some reason the Oomph Lucian plan doesn't work.

As for the FE fight...  I still don't see why if team Monkey beats team FE, he shouldn't be at full health for the final fight which I feel safe to call a Monkey victory.  So.  Suppose I have to pick how I see Accelerate working...  on one hand I definitely take TB speed at face value as far as FE doubles.  On the other hand allowing a buff to upend a system so dramatically feels off...  Accelerate doesn't boost evade like FE speed would, for example.  But even if Accelerate only works at half potency for determining psuedo-AS, that's enough to stop the doubles (and if it works all-out then team FE is doomed because everyone on Team Monkey is getting double attacks).  On the other hand I also let FE people go at AS for initiative, so maaaaybe Lyn & Roy beat up Mew before he / Jessica goes?  Probably not (don't know Roy well enough anyway).  So it's something like Lyn hits Mew, Jess Accelerates, Mew Reflects, Roy hits Mew (don't think this should be fatal, I assume Mew has some durability and Lyn only does average damage), Ike & Marth kill Mew / damage or kill Shiho as well if they got a crit somewhere...  and yeah, Lucian beats up Ike (his evade is not great) and Rosa can finish him off with spell damage, never mind Hold.  After this, the team is accelerated, Jess can either Kazing Shiho or else Oomph Lucian, Lucian then lays down multiple beats on someone else and even if there's some evade that's a lot of hits, Rosa can hold someone...  yeah, I'm going to vote pass for Team Monkey here.

[Clear Tranquil]

Monkey's team's burning resources like crazy. Well ok not Lucian and Shiho but yeah. I remember having resource woes while dungeon crawling with Jess and Angelo, I don't have a lot of Rosa respect period and I'm assuming pokemans don't have a lot of their version of MP. I don't remember. They have to defeat healthy Valerias, Robos, Pikachus, Wigglytuffs and Lucarios twice though remember. Don't know how Me First influences Monkey's team if any but yeah.

[Monkeyfinger]

SnowFire's argu,ment works for me, changing vote to a pass for my team.

VP folks have infinite resources, Jessica's using cheap spells, and Mew tends to get off 1 important move then die, which doesn't tax PP. Only Rosa's MP is really taxed here. Still, all she needs to cast after the full heal is a single hold on bowser, so she should have enough for the hard part.

[SnowFire]

Clear Tranquil: There's a Full Heal in the middle of Floor 6 now, so it should be nearly impossible for Monkey to run out of MP unless one fight turns into a massive stallfest.  Also since you mention Jessica, she's actually got one of the deepest resource pools in the Dungeon - almost all her spells that matter cost 2-3 MP and she's got hundreds of MP by now - and +100 max more if she has her staff out.  Only exception is Kazing which is 30 MP I think and even that has 10+ shots.  Obviously Magic Burst is the other big exception but that's generally Floor 7.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well it's not quite the same thing where Cloud's physicals are concerned but yeah I see where Djinn's coming from now. I just didn't imagine Cloud had a hidden limit gauge seperate from his physical to access >.> While Raquel if she used Attack in battle her FP would persist until she entered and used the FP skills section.

Thanks Neph. That was my understanding of the stone as it stood too.

So yeah Djinn pick your materia wisely from here on out 

Argh. Okay. It's an interesting handicap that I have to plan my strategies around now, but I suppose I can deal with it due to Cloud's nature of being a project character. Still, this type of 'being forced' to use my Limits really takes a lot of the strategy out of VBL because I can't save the Limits for when they are necessary, instead now we're blowing them all on the first fights instead of the bosses, where they are needed. It really hurts VBL's worth since most Limit characters would get their Limits by the boss of a floor without it...

I'm positive that I asked about this when I was making my VBL team to begin with. Specifically because I knew I was using FF7 and WA4 characters. The response seemed to be 'you are not forced to use your limits match 1, don't worry.' It doesn't affect Cloud and Aeris much, luckily, due to the nature of materia, but it's still a bit aggravating. However, FF9 characters probably need an official interp call here.

[Taishyr]

Djinn passes, Monkey barely passes I think could be argued either way, Consonant passes, abstain on Bard I need to math his matches out myself before I'm convinced either way.

[Clear Tranquil]

Zuh ... was that Full Heal there at the start or am I just being a ditz again? *goofballs*

Yeah Snow the revival is what I mainly meant for Jess but yeah ... Full Heal~

[ThePiggyman]

Bard likely fails. The second to last fight is pretty rough, and Eileen being deadweight thanks to Shhh pretty much seals it for me. Zio and Zog are a pain, and if Melfice gets another turn, things go awry. And if he gets through that, he's got the fiends to worry about, with a fair few of his team at 1 HP.

Abstain on Monkey. It's close, but the fact that his floor has Lucario makes me not want to think about it.

New teams pass.

[Mad Fnorder]

Re: Hold: Pretty sure Paralyze is one of the few statuses Ness can block via Travel Charm. He loses his other resists, but that leaves Rosa to... mini? Hurts Ness's defense, but doesn't stop him from dumping Flash or Rockin' Omega on them.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Berserk doesn't work to make Ness fail?

[Bardiche]

Bard likely fails. The second to last fight is pretty rough, and Eileen being deadweight thanks to Shhh pretty much seals it for me. Zio and Zog are a pain, and if Melfice gets another turn, things go awry.

You're aware both Eiko and Shiho can undo Silence, right? And that Eiko at least has worthwhile defensive buffing, including MT Reflect in Carbuncle to mock further attempts at Sssh'ing?

[Nephrite]

Statusing Ness et. al.

*These PCs cannot be hit with any kind of status or stat downs, including things like MP Damage, equip breaks or otherwise unblockable status.
Team Monkey vs. Ness, Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Ah. Okay, so Fnorder just happened to not read the fine print just like me. >_>

[Monkeyfinger]

Abstain on Monkey. It's close, but the fact that his floor has Lucario makes me not want to think about it.

My team doesn't care about Lucario. Me First doesn't work well when a lot of the enemies are faster than him and they all use ST moves.

[ThePiggyman]

Bard likely fails. The second to last fight is pretty rough, and Eileen being deadweight thanks to Shhh pretty much seals it for me. Zio and Zog are a pain, and if Melfice gets another turn, things go awry.

You're aware both Eiko and Shiho can undo Silence, right? And that Eiko at least has worthwhile defensive buffing, including MT Reflect in Carbuncle to mock further attempts at Sssh'ing?

Eileen's faster than both of them, though, and, when she gets her turn, she's Silence'd, so all she can do is attack. Eiko/Shiho can remove the Silence, but Zio + Zog arguably destroy her when they get their turns, and Melfice is getting his next turn before she does, too. No more Silencing on his part, but why do that when he can just kill off Eileen, assuming she isn't already dead?

EDIT: My point being that Melfice is preventing Eileen from doing anything significant on her first turn, and I'm not sure if she's going to get more than one turn.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Shhh! is good enough to be turn one? That's news to me. Also, it's MT?

[ThePiggyman]

Shhh! is good enough to be turn one? That's news to me. Also, it's MT?

Where do I mention it being MT? He's targetting Eileen with it.
And I'm fairly sure Shhh! was reliable enough to be turn one.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I always kneejerked it as being turn two (around 50% odds, and it's also hitting Eileen's crazy MDef to me. Your mileage on status checking, obviously, may vary), hence why I'm finding it sorta weird that it's a factor turn one unless it's MT, where it would actually hit people in Bard's team on average.

[ThePiggyman]

I always kneejerked it as being turn two (around 50% odds, and it's also hitting Eileen's crazy MDef to me. Your mileage on status checking, obviously, may vary), hence why I'm finding it sorta weird that it's a factor turn one unless it's MT, where it would actually hit people in Bard's team on average.

I'm just speaking from past experience (and frustration ;p). Shhh! very rarely missed against my party, and Eileen's MDef is indeed to be taken into consideration. Was MDef important when taking status into consideration in Suikoden? I honestly couldn't say, but I guess so?

[Bardiche]

Bard likely fails. The second to last fight is pretty rough, and Eileen being deadweight thanks to Shhh pretty much seals it for me. Zio and Zog are a pain, and if Melfice gets another turn, things go awry.

You're aware both Eiko and Shiho can undo Silence, right? And that Eiko at least has worthwhile defensive buffing, including MT Reflect in Carbuncle to mock further attempts at Sssh'ing?

Eileen's faster than both of them, though, and, when she gets her turn, she's Silence'd, so all she can do is attack. Eiko/Shiho can remove the Silence, but Zio + Zog arguably destroy her when they get their turns, and Melfice is getting his next turn before she does, too. No more Silencing on his part, but why do that when he can just kill off Eileen, assuming she isn't already dead?

EDIT: My point being that Melfice is preventing Eileen from doing anything significant on her first turn, and I'm not sure if she's going to get more than one turn.

Alright. Let's suppose Melfice lives through the combined powers of two Deis2 turns and Lucian, Zio doesn't lose turns casting Nightmare and doesn't care about Eiko's Reflect, and Zog just does what he does--arguably, if Zio doesn't care about Reflect, Eiko just waits a little and then throws down Cure2 on the party to heal the damage. Melfice takes his turn and, by some miracle of fate Eileen isn't dead, so he finishes the job. Shiho and Eiko still outspeed Zio and Zog, so Shiho or Eiko picks up Eileen, the other casts MT healing. Lucian has taken his second turn as well, however, so let's just say at least Melfice is dead, and Zio and Zog survive.

So, now what? They drop Eileen again? Shiho picks her up and the team proceeds to massacre the two dimbos. Zog's MT damage is downright awful, while Zio's magical, so either that gets Reflected or Eiko just casts Shell on Shiho. This ensures that no one's going to die to MT blitzes, and if they ST it I have two revivers.

There's a good reason to vote "Nay" on my team, Piggy, but it's not the fight with Melfice imo.

[Monkeyfinger]

Shhhh hits a moderate-sized circular area. Stat topic calls it 75%

[Nephrite]

We had this conversation last time as I recall, but Zog's Char is also MT for what that's worth to anyone.

[dude789]

Bard likely fails. The second to last fight is pretty rough, and Eileen being deadweight thanks to Shhh pretty much seals it for me. Zio and Zog are a pain, and if Melfice gets another turn, things go awry.

You're aware both Eiko and Shiho can undo Silence, right? And that Eiko at least has worthwhile defensive buffing, including MT Reflect in Carbuncle to mock further attempts at Sssh'ing?

Eileen's faster than both of them, though, and, when she gets her turn, she's Silence'd, so all she can do is attack. Eiko/Shiho can remove the Silence, but Zio + Zog arguably destroy her when they get their turns, and Melfice is getting his next turn before she does, too. No more Silencing on his part, but why do that when he can just kill off Eileen, assuming she isn't already dead?

EDIT: My point being that Melfice is preventing Eileen from doing anything significant on her first turn, and I'm not sure if she's going to get more than one turn.

Alright. Let's suppose Melfice lives through the combined powers of two Deis2 turns and Lucian, Zio doesn't lose turns casting Nightmare and doesn't care about Eiko's Reflect, and Zog just does what he does--arguably, if Zio doesn't care about Reflect, Eiko just waits a little and then throws down Cure2 on the party to heal the damage. Melfice takes his turn and, by some miracle of fate Eileen isn't dead, so he finishes the job. Shiho and Eiko still outspeed Zio and Zog, so Shiho or Eiko picks up Eileen, the other casts MT healing. Lucian has taken his second turn as well, however, so let's just say at least Melfice is dead, and Zio and Zog survive.

So, now what? They drop Eileen again? Shiho picks her up and the team proceeds to massacre the two dimbos. Zog's MT damage is downright awful, while Zio's magical, so either that gets Reflected or Eiko just casts Shell on Shiho. This ensures that no one's going to die to MT blitzes, and if they ST it I have two revivers.

There's a good reason to vote "Nay" on my team, Piggy, but it's not the fight with Melfice imo.

Zio is faster than Zog. Which means that he can kill Eiko before Zog acts. Also, Melfice has perfect evade to physicals unless he's staggering and Eileen and Deis are too fast for me to seem him as still staggering when Lucian gets a turn. If you try to have Eiko reflect the team then Zio kills her and Zog/Melfice finish off Shiho. Then it's Lucian, Deis and muted Eileen against Zog and Zio, two godlikes who are known for their durability. You might make it through the fight due to Shed, but the next one has the speed to pick off your weakened characters. 

[Bardiche]

We had this conversation last time as I recall, but Zog's Char is also MT for what that's worth to anyone.

... Oh, then yes, this fight is troublesome already.

If you try to have Eiko reflect the team then Zio kills her

How exactly would Zio pull this off? Eiko halves Fire/Shadow/Water with one Armour. Hewn isn't strong enough to kill her, and if she just goes for Carbuncle immediately, Reflect+Protect shouldn't let Zio do anything fatal to Eiko. He's not OHKOing her at the least.

Round by round:
Deis2 casts BoltX on Melfice. Melfice outspeeds Eileen, and Ssssh!s her. Let's go with a favourable interpretation that doesn't let him silence multiple people in one go. ( Please?) Eileen defends. Comes Shiho's turn, who Normalises Eileen. Eiko throws up Carbuncle for Reflect+Protect, and Lucian rounds against Zio and Zog, since Melfice dodges him.

Zio... can't cast anything due to Reflect existing. He physicals Eiko, who halves his 2HKO damage to 3HKO.

So then Zog comes. Eiko still halves Fire, so can he really take her down? Let's say Char doesn't hit against Reflect and hurts everyone, excepting Eiko who halves Fire and doesn't really care.

So Deis2 comes up again. She throws another BoltX in Melfice's face. Let's assume he still lives through that.

So what does he do now? Eileen's not in awful shape due to Defend existing, as well as Carbuncle's Protect. Melfice busts out the Demon Horde Slash? That's a 3HKO normally so under Protect it is reduced to a pitiful 5HKO. Given that everyone's already hurt from the earlier attack, he may drop Eileen (who should still be defending until she gets her turn) and/or Shiho (whose HP score just hurts her case).

If Eileen lives, she now drops a casting of Earthquake to add damage.

Meanwhile, Eiko heals my team back to full, and Lucian attacks once again.

At this point, Zog/Zio have taken two Lucian MTs, (at least one Earthquake MT) and Melfice has taken two BoltXes. If there's particular durability respect for all of them, they're not dead yet.

Zog and Zio do their non-lethal thing. (Maybe they drop Eileen since she doesn't Defend anymore, but there's still Reflect+Protect in play.)

Deis2's turn comes up again, she gives Melfice his THIRD casting of BoltX. I don't know about you, but three BoltXes (and an Earthquake) spell definite Melfice-related death to me.

Lucian once again attacks Zog and Zio. At this point, options arise. If Zio has died by now and it's just Zog, I've already won. Eiko heals herself with Cure, waits for her turn to come up again (Zog can't kill her even after Reflect+Protect fades), either doubles Zog by now or casts Haste to ensure she does on her next turn and summons Phoenix to pick the entire team back up AND heal them if Shiho cannot do so in time. Now it's Zog Versus Team Bard at full health.

Eiko may be down to half MP around now.

24 MP (Carbuncle)
22 MP (Curaga)
4 MP (Cure)
30 MP (Phoenix)
22 MP (Curaga)
8 MP Haste

30 + 20 + 30 + 30 = 110 MP worst case scenario, she has at least 230 if you factor in MP+10%.

If you let Eileen die during the first rounds of combat, and let Melfice live through three BoltXes regardless... Yeah, then I'm not sure.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Bard: Zio's -physical- OHKOs Eiko in a vacuum. It's good (I actually want to say it's his best damage in conjunction with his strongest spell, even). Thing is he's practically Zog-level speed, so I think the team's getting a turn there anyway.