Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 22

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It doesn't matter here either way.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Matters to me since I'm seeing Lucian as getting evaded long enough for Rosa to run out of castings of Dispel/Healing/Hold/Revival, whatever strategy she's trying. Also, if Lucian can't land even one hit, he's not getting enough of a gauge to PWS, dropping his damage significantly. MP-less Jessica isn't a threat (If she Magic Bursted, then she's using a Staff, right?), so it all comes down to what Rosa can do to stop Yuna with her anemic levels of MP.

It's... close. The earlier Aeons are going to make her waste a lot of Healing or Holy, and if she tries to keep Shiho alive in the Magus Sisters fight, she's wasting a lot of MP on Revival. The fact that buffs hold over is nice, but VP buffs only last 3 turns, so Shiho's not really seeing a lot of benefit from it. Though Jess or Rosa's buffs lasting longer -might- be able to swing things in Rosa's favor in the final two sections here. Once Mew is gone, he can't be revived thanks to Firefly, so it's an uphill battle.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Matters to me since I'm seeing Lucian as getting evaded long enough for Rosa to run out of castings of Dispel/Healing/Hold/Revival, whatever strategy she's trying. Also, if Lucian can't land even one hit, he's not getting enough of a gauge to PWS, dropping his damage significantly. MP-less Jessica isn't a threat (If she Magic Bursted, then she's using a Staff, right?), so it all comes down to what Rosa can do to stop Yuna with her anemic levels of MP.

I have to note that Lucian hits Yuna third turn at worst. And he -will- OHKO if he hits. In VP1, if you get hit by the first hit of the string, evade checks can't be made again, you eat the goddamn string. This is balanced by you whiffing the whole string if the first hit is dodged. Also, what can Yuna do to -actually pressure- the party? Holy gets owned by Shiho's Heal because it OHKOs nothing and it drops her to average speed due to recharge, so she's doubling basically never. If Lucian and Shiho alone are alive, they have won the fight. I can't see why Rosa matters here at all, she just makes things more convenient. The entire string is a different matter, but if they made it all the way to Yuna, they just aren't choking to her. Them dying to something in the aeon string, of course, is a perfectly distinct possibility, and that's what I should check.

[Magic Fanatic]

Doesn't Shiva also have some crazy-insane speed where she 3-2s average at LEAST?

If anything, she can double up on healing herself for basically full and lay down some real pain for Mew/other characters if/when Mew dies.  This really does also make her fight much more dangerous, also considering that Valefor is also pretty damn evasive to melee physicals due to being flying (from my memory, anyway).

All this would really serve to do, however, is waste those precious resources that Monkey needs to finish things up.  Shiva is probably the most dangerous of the first five, given that healing and how everyone has to waste resources to try to keep her from just Full Healing just fine, right?

...Nyarlie's interpretations confuse me...

In any case, the team really is relying on Lucian for damage, and I doubt he just straight-up OHKOs everything sans Valefor, who is an evasive bugger anyway.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Doesn't Shiva also have some crazy-insane speed where she 3-2s average at LEAST?

No. She's Rikku-level for speed (faster by one point - shouldn't make a difference on the benchmarks, though, unless Rikku juuuuuuuuuuuust misses one in the DL), so she gets a 4-3 to average - also, she only has eleven shots of healing and her damage will only be awesome on the Overdrive - her offense is pretty awful (barely 4HKOs average at best. Freeze is a waste of time against a full team, particularly off the recharge) until then, and I can't see how does she pressure the team into not being able to kill her before she hits Overdrive. Not to mention Acceleratle = the party is faster than her. Not really a problem.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Matters to me since I'm seeing Lucian as getting evaded long enough for Rosa to run out of castings of Dispel/Healing/Hold/Revival, whatever strategy she's trying. Also, if Lucian can't land even one hit, he's not getting enough of a gauge to PWS, dropping his damage significantly. MP-less Jessica isn't a threat (If she Magic Bursted, then she's using a Staff, right?), so it all comes down to what Rosa can do to stop Yuna with her anemic levels of MP.

I have to note that Lucian hits Yuna third turn at worst. And he -will- OHKO if he hits. In VP1, if you get hit by the first hit of the string, evade checks can't be made again, you eat the goddamn string. This is balanced by you whiffing the whole string if the first hit is dodged. Also, what can Yuna do to -actually pressure- the party? Holy gets owned by Shiho's Heal because it OHKOs nothing and it drops her to average speed due to recharge, so she's doubling basically never. If Lucian and Shiho alone are alive, they have won the fight. I can't see why Rosa matters here at all, she just makes things more convenient. The entire string is a different matter, but if they made it all the way to Yuna, they just aren't choking to her. Them dying to something in the aeon string, of course, is a perfectly distinct possibility, and that's what I should check.

That's assuming Shiho is alive and kicking... The Magus Sisters will be dropping her left and right and she's not the most durable of fighters.  Also, Heal isn't MT, and if Lucian ever whiffs, Shiho's stuck using wait reaction thanks to the awesome CT on her moves.

Point still stands, I think.

[Dhyerwolf]

VP 1 Heal is MT. It's later variations are not.

[Magic Fanatic]

Doesn't Shiva also have some crazy-insane speed where she 3-2s average at LEAST?

No. She's Rikku-level for speed (faster by one point - shouldn't make a difference on the benchmarks, though, unless Rikku juuuuuuuuuuuust misses one in the DL), so she gets a 4-3 to average - also, she only has eleven shots of healing and her damage will only be awesome on the Overdrive - her offense is pretty awful (barely 4HKOs average at best. Freeze is a waste of time against a full team, particularly off the recharge) until then, and I can't see how does she pressure the team into not being able to kill her before she hits Overdrive. Not to mention Acceleratle = the party is faster than her. Not really a problem.

Shiva is awesomely evasive (better evasion than Yuna, nearly as good as Lulu), and Monkey's team is kind of allergic to causing damage outside of Lucian's chain (which is physical and evadable) and maybe Jessica (who is...  Still saving MP for Magic Bursting Magus Sisters?).  Shiva fight really is the most dangerous before Anima, and Yojimbo still has that factor of randomness that's still dangerous anyway (1/4 chance of using Zanmato for free per turn...  Against people who are pretty much ID vulnerable?  Yeah.).

Assuming the Zanmato Level of the party is 1 (considering that L2 is giant enemies, L3 is giant tanks, L4 is bosses, and L5 is arena creations...  Yeah), and the amount of gil Paid was, say, 4,194,304 of 5,000,000 at max compatability with Option 1...  That's a ~70% chance of Zanmato right there, and it only goes up with how much closer to that 5,000,000 Gil that she'd pay.

Way too much is working against Monkey here, really, but I don't know which way the argument should go.


EDIT:  I can't believe I just hyped all that.

[Monkeyfinger]

Shiva evasion hype doesn't work because:

Lucian kills Ifrit, causing Shiva to come out
Shiho casts a spell (might reinforce?), giving her CT
Shiva does something ineffectual
Shiho uses wait reaction (ignores evade)
Lucian lands his first hit immediately after WR, when Shiva can't dodge

This also applies to Yuna come to think of it.

Yojimbo only gets one shot. Ha ha to letting him use Zanmato with it. 4 million gil, are you fucking kidding me?

[Magic Fanatic]

Shiva evasion hype doesn't work because:

Lucian kills Ifrit, causing Shiva to come out
Shiho casts a spell (might reinforce?), giving her CT
Shiva does something ineffectual
Shiho uses wait reaction (ignores evade)
Lucian lands his first hit immediately after WR, when Shiva can't dodge

This also applies to Yuna come to think of it.

Yojimbo only gets one shot. Ha ha to letting him use Zanmato with it. 4 million gil, are you fucking kidding me?

The problems with that is that:
1.  It's Ifrit-Ixion-Shiva. [/nitpick]
2.  If you're waiting for that exact set-up, you're giving the aeons time to live.
3.  Haha to Wait Reaction being ITE.  It's ITD (sort of), but not ITE...  By my research, anyway.
4.  Not-Shiva Aeons are fairly physically tanky.  I seriously doubt they're going to be OHKO'd.

As for Yojimbo?  I remember having 12 million gil by the final dungeon.  I just figured that with my somewhat grind-y nature, 5 million might be an acceptable number to cut to.

[Bardiche]

I, personally, would not hype Yojimbo's Zanmato like that. It's basically "I win" if he gets a turn, and there's something horribly wrong with letting that happen. I'd give it turn 2, perhaps, but definitely not turn 1.

[SnowFire]

Re Yuna / Aeon initiative: If they don't have it they have something darn close, like starting with 95% of their CT bar filled.  Inclined to not let teams play careful "line up the turn order exactly perfectly" games on this.

Re the Magus Sisters: They can't be controlled.  They won't necessarily go hunting for Shiho first; Yuna can't make them act intelligently on this.  Seriously not inclined to give them too much respect at consistently doing relevant attacks from the beginning.  Further more, since buffs / etc. carry over...  if you see the Magus Sisters as surviving Magic Burst, Jessica can Psyche up at least once in the Anima Fight, maybe more if you respect Accelerate (since Monkeyfinger doesn't want to let Anima get a second turn).  And with the Staff's MP regen I think they'll be eating a full-MP or nearly so blast.

[Bardiche]

Aeons seem to take their turn immediately when Yuna summons them in my experience. I am, however, inclined to take them as the Yu Yevon fight where you fight them in succession and they are, in fact, not summoned. Otherwise Yuna is vulnerable in the downtime, to me, and the team could end her before she summons.

All teams pass.

[Clear Tranquil]

I, personally, would not hype Yojimbo's Zanmato like that. It's basically "I win" if he gets a turn, and there's something horribly wrong with letting that happen.

Then he shouldn't be here >.>  Edit: Especially since Zanmato bypassess ID immunity anyway apparantly >.>

Unless ... I was under the impression that Yojimbo did not have First Strike and was slow thus blitzable ... if this is the case then Monkey may still have a shot regardless (depending on resources)! Yojimbo still has MT Wakizashi too so even w/o Zanmato he's still a threat if he does have First Strike <.<

I know all the other aeons except two of the Magus Sisters do have First Strike (thanks NEB!) Cindy's the sister who does for what that's worth ...

... I'm with Djinn and Monkey to an extent. Sure aeons aren't the best thing since sliced bread and shouldn't be over hyped or respected too much (*flees*)  but I don't think they're complete jokes either. Off hand Wakizashi, Impulse, Anima and yeah possibly Valefor and Shiva can't be completely sneezed at. Especially since Mew may be dying all over the place (Monkey has the new Firefly on what) Ixion has dispel too, probably doesn't matter because he may be too slow to use it before he dies but yeah. Another resource burn at least. Maybe. Just throwing it out there ... >.>

*flees*

[Bardiche]

I just checked Yojimbo's stats from a FAQ, which makes him as fast as Ifrit... with slightly more HP than Ifrit, less Def, and 122 EVA.

... wait, what.

Ifrit:
 HP    MP  STR  DEF  MAG  MDF  AGL   LK   EV  ACC
3067    68   46   84   62   62   30   17   22   20

Yojimbo:
3064     0   61   73   48   69   30   17  122   38

Anyway, his Zanmato attack is dependant on a number of factors (motivation, zanmato compatibility, summoner compatibility) that can fluctuate, so I'm definitely not inclined to give him a turn1 Zanmato for "I win!" off first turn.

ESPECIALLY considering that in best case scenario (Motivation at best, Zanmato Compat of 1-3, Full Overdrive, Summoner Compat at 240+) his odds of using Zanmato is 58%. That drops to 55% without Overdrive, and at starting Summoner Compat that is around ~150, so 38% chance to use it sans Overdrive. Also, you need to pay a sum of Gil equal to or greater than 536,870,912 Gil. For 4,194,304 Gil, with maximum Compats, you get 38% chance at best of him using Zanmato.

All things considered I'd say 30% is a normal number to take, since maxing summoner compat isn't fast (you start with around 150 iirc, and you get +4 at best from him using Zanmato, and get -1 for him using Daigoro, -20 if he dies/is paid 0 Gil, -10 if he is dismissed immediately after summoning, etc.) and that is not turn1. It's not even turn2 to me.

source of this information: here. It's a big read, though.

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks.

Well yeah if it's never consistently turn one in game then it isn't here! Indeed. Fair enough~

[Magic Fanatic]

You realize that those particular numbers are based on the idea that a person chose option 3 ("To defeat the most powerful of enemies.") instead of option 1 ("To train as a summoner."), right?

If going in through the Option 1 steps with Full compatability and, say, that 4,194,304 Gil, the numbers change a bit.

Base Motivation from that amount of Gil:  42
Motivation from compatability (255/30, truncate):  8

Total Motivation at this point:  50

Motivation bonus for giving him 100% of your Gil:  (Previous Motivation value) x 1.25 -> 50 x 1.25 = 62.5

Assuming Zanmato Resistance Level as 1 for all non-boss, non-giant enemies, non-arena targets: Still 62.5

Assuming Overdrive gauge as not full: Still 62.5

Adding a random number between 0 and 63.  To get Zanmato to pop up?  We need an 18.  All numbers it could be that are less than 18 take up 28.125% of that random variable.  The rest is 70.875% of that random number.

Yes, it is a giant read.  I did my best to read it all before mentioning something.



Thanks for the stats on those numbers, though, those were missing from the Stat Topics.  Lucian probably has issues hitting him FAR worse than Shiva before him, meaning that his full-MT Wakizashi attack becomes quite a ways more dangerous than before, as it's coming out more often...  And that's still not accounting for the 25% chance he has of doing an attack for free, of which has a ~75% chance of Zanmato on its own.

[Bardiche]

I will never assume any attack percentage values derived from a player using all his Gil on a single attack.

I'll also not assume Yojimbo at full summoner compatibility: his basic chance on acquiring to attack for free should be 12.5% rather than 25%. Let's work off of that number rather than assume someone goes through the trouble to get Yojimbo all the way to maximum compatibility, since we assume a normal player, shall we?

Let's also assume that no one would waste all their money on a single attack. In fact, I declare it save to say that very few people would be inclined to spend even 25% of their money on Yojimbo unless they really, really, really want that Zanmato... but that'd be like taking all status chances, probabilities etc under their most favourable circumstances, which isn't an interpretation I would be a fan of.

Also if I read this right it means Yojimbo does indeed evade a lot so... abstain on Monkey instead, for now.

[dude789]

Abstain on Monkey, others pass.

[Yoshiken]

Assuming the Zanmato Level of the party is 1 (considering that L2 is giant enemies, L3 is giant tanks, L4 is bosses, and L5 is arena creations...  Yeah)

Yeah, lol at that one. There is no way the party is Zanmato Lv 1 when things like Seymour/Kimahri are Lv 4, as are 2/3 types of Guado Guardian. The party would almost certainly be Lv 4, and that skews those figures a -lot-.

[Magic Fanatic]

Assuming the Zanmato Level of the party is 1 (considering that L2 is giant enemies, L3 is giant tanks, L4 is bosses, and L5 is arena creations...  Yeah)

Yeah, lol at that one. There is no way the party is Zanmato Lv 1 when things like Seymour/Kimahri are Lv 4, as are 2/3 types of Guado Guardian. The party would almost certainly be Lv 4, and that skews those figures a -lot-.

You realize that I already included L4 as bosses, and that's what Seymour and Kimahri are when they're assigned a Zanmato level, right?  There's two Guado enemies in the game that are L4, and that's a much, MUCH lower percentage of what is actually possible to meet in terms of enemies in game...  So unless you're hyping the PCs to be the same as bosses, that's a...  Bad argument to take.

[SnowFire]

Doesn't matter.  The "train as a summoner" option is really bad and also cripples future turns if you're spending 98% of your money each time - the actual amount of gil is going to be way lower on those later turns.

More holistically, a near-initiative turn 1 Zanmato is obviously broken and if that was for real than Nephrite would be changing the floor.  It's a bit tricky to me because "Zanmato level" obviously equals "near ID resistance to a specific type" where it's trying to make it very, very, hard yet possible to Zanmato off Braska's Final Aeon.  I'd say non-ID immune PCs are Z level 1, and ID-immune are Z-level 4...  but you never fight mixed groups in-game.  What does this imply, Zanmato for some and Wakazashi for others?  I'll just skip that headache, thanks, and note that assuming no turn 1 Zanmato, Shiho turns off Yojimbo's evade, and an Oomphed Lucian does his work.  Again.  (With spell support from Rosa / Jessica if you respect Yojimbo's HP greatly, he's not dodging spells.)

[Magic Fanatic]

Shiho turns off Yojimbo's evade

Is there any proof that you can show me that WR is ITE, instead of merely Break Guard?

[Talaysen]

Is there any proof that you can show me that WR is ITE, instead of merely Break Guard?

VP1 stat topic, maybe?

Note that Wait Reaction is an unevadable physical attack, though it is based off of the attacker's MAG.

Also, it's not ITD.

[Magic Fanatic]

Is there any proof that you can show me that WR is ITE, instead of merely Break Guard?

VP1 stat topic, maybe?

...Okay then, I thought I checked there before.  Nevermind the evade questioning then...  So, does VP evade only kick in at a Melee starting attack or something?