Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 24

[Nephrite]

"Ah... You were unable to pass my tests. Alas... let us begin anew once again..."

Team Monkey vs. Floor 8
Team Djinn & Consonant vs. Floor 4
Team Gatewalker vs. Floor 2



Team Consonant and Djinn's Matches

Floor 5a: Repeat? (After Midgame)

"Hahah! I have a special treat for you today..."

Battle #21: Guy, Guy, Guy and Guile

Guy: You guys are dead! I didn't lay down to the Sinistrals and I won't lay down to you!
Guy: Um... I guess if we have to do this, let's go.
Guy: Damnit, Luke! You're so stupid!

Battle #22: Kary, Karin, Killey and P3 Ken

Kyra: The power of Espers flow through me...
Kary: HUHUHU FIRE FIEND
Karin: A female soldier? In MY German army?

Battle #23: Alen, Alena and Alex

Alex: With the power of the Dragonmasters at my side, you're all toast!
Alena: For my kingdom!
Alen: Let us do battle.

Battle #24: Sara, Serra, Sarah, Sarah and Saradin

Sara: Light Dragons... protect me!
Serra: BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH I'M A BITCH
Sarah: If master Luc wishes it...
Sarah: SONIIIIC... BOOM!

Boss Battle #5: Nina1, Nina2, Nina3, Nina4 and Nina5

Nina: Let's go, for Windia!
Nina: No, it's Wyndia!
Nina: No no, I'm sure it's Windia...
Nina: ...Either way, we'll get you!


Team Gatewalker's Matches


Floor 3b: Multiples (Before Midgame)

So you want to try multiple foes? Let's see how you like this, then!

*All ST is MT for this floor. ALL of it.

Battle FF1 White Wizard, FF1 Knight, FF1 Ninja and FF1 Red Wiz

Knight: Let us go, fellow warriors!
White Wiz: Yes, we shall not allow your passage here!

Battle #12: Yosuke and Tengaar

Yosuke: GO, SUSANOO!!!
Tengaar: HIX!! ...Oh you're not here...

Battle #13: Kanji, Ramza, Tidus and Crono

Kanji: Crush 'em, Rokuten-Maoh!!
Ramza: Of course, Alma!!
Tidus: Heh heh! Let's go!

Battle #14: Yuna, Rand and Marle

Yuna: I will not allow you to pass!
Rand: I'll fight you.
Marle: *pats her butt

Boss Battle #4: Nina4, Yulie, Jane and FFT Chemist

Nina: I'm afraid I can't let you through here.
Jess: Er... um... ...I think it'll be okay?
Porom: I will defeat you all!


Team Unoriginal's Matches


Floor 1: A Re-introduction (The Beginning)

"Ho ho ho ho! You've decided to return! Let us see what you can accomplish."

Battle #1: Palmer and Mist Dragon

Palmer: Muahaha! I am Science!!
Mist Dragon: Turn back!

Battle #2: Steelix, Shuckle and FF1 Knight

Knight: You shall not pass here!

Battle #3: Marle, Alice and FFT Priest

Marle: Yeah! Let's go!
Alice: Yuri...

Battle #4: Lich

Lich: I will... devour you...

Boss Battle #1: Change Relic

*The team has been fully healed!

"Welcome to Monado Mandala! Here, you shall die!"


---------------------------------------------

Team Consonant | Celes, Alys, Lucian & Shiho, Ayla (Life)
[Espers: Siren, Kirin, Shoat, Carbuncle, Phantom, Seraphim (Mastered) | Tritoch]
[Floor 5a: Repeat?]
Team Consonant vs. Guy(L2), Guy(FE7), Guy (ToTA) and Guile
Team Consonant vs. Kary, Killey (S5), Karin and Ken (P3)
Team Consonant vs. Alen, Alena and Alex
Team Consonant vs. Sara (BoF1), Serra, PC Sarah (S3), Sarah (ShF1) and Saradin
*Full Heal
Team Consonant vs. Nina1, Nina2, Nina3, Nina4 and Nina5

Team Djinn | Cloud, Raquel, Aika. Tear, Aeris  (Violent Burst Law)
[Materia: Mastered: Cover, Revive, Transform, HP Plus | Deathblow]
[Floor 5a: Repeat?]
Team Djinn vs. Guy(L2), Guy(FE7), Guy (ToTA) and Guile
Team Djinn vs. Kary, Killey (S5), Karin and Ken (P3)
Team Djinn vs. Alen, Alena and Alex
Team Djinn vs. Sara (BoF1), Serra, PC Sarah (S3), Sarah (ShF1) and Saradin
*Full Heal
Team Djinn vs. Nina1, Nina2, Nina3, Nina4 and Nina5

Team Gatewalker | Fogel, Aeonless Yuna, Eileen, Tia, Ditto (Quick Powder)(MT)
[Floor 3b: Multiples]
*All ST is MT
Team Gatewalker vs. FF1 White Wizard, Knight, Ninja and Red Wizard
Team Gatewalker vs. Yosuke and Tengaar
Team Gatewalker vs. Kanji, Ramza, Tidus (Caladbolg) and Crono
*Full Heal
Team Gatewalker vs. Yuna, Rand and Marle
Team Gatewalker vs. Jane, Yulie, FFT Chemist and Nina4

Team Unoriginal | Bartz, Fogel, Peppita, Aeris, Ditto (MT Sealstone)
Floor 1: An Introduction
[Bartz: Thief]
Team Unoriginal vs. Palmer and Mist Dragon
Team Unoriginal vs. Steelix, Shuckle and FF1 Knight
Team Unoriginal vs. Marle, Alice and FFT Priest
Team Unoriginal vs. Lich (FF1)
*Full Heal
Team Unoriginal vs. Change Relic

Multitarget - One person on the team's actions all become Multitargetted. However, the damage of regular attacks, the healing of all spells that restore HP or MP, the status rates of status spells or attacks and the effect of buffs or debuffs (rounded down to the nearest half point in the case of Pokemon) is reduced to 50% of the original base chance. (For example, Deadly Fingertips has a max 50% chance of hitting all targets.) This applies even if there is only one opponent left.

Life - One character's healing effects now also allows for revival, but reduces the final effect of any healing by 50%. (This means full healing is always 50%) The healing also only revives characters with 1 HP.

Violent Burst Law - Characters with game-specific gauges begin each floor with them at 100%. They charge at 50% of their normal rates. Bars that normally reset after battle (FP, for example) persist through battles.

[Random Consonant]

For my team it comes down to whether or not I can keep my party afloat against the Unlimited Nina Works for long enough for Nina4 to run out of AP (this was hashed out, she has about 10 shots of revival).  If I can make it that long, I pass.  Thinking I do, but it's a close thing and I won't be shocked if people think otherwise.

Teams Gate and Unoriginal shouldn't have problems.  No vote on Team Djinn.

[Monkeyfinger]

Deathblow, Djinn? Really?

Eh, he still passes. Swirlmerang cripples fast threats like Killey, Nina5 and Alena, Transform cripples slower ones like Alex and Nina1. There are obvious scrubs on each enemy team and they can be allowed to get turns. Kary's the only threat. Cover handles her.

Free pass for Uno.

Consonant and Gate die to their bosses. Nina5 keeps on getting turns vs. consonant's team as Nina1 pressures them with hold, and eventually the RNG will hand Nina5 a streak of deaths that all work (12% chance of that.) That will be that. Fogel's brutal ST offense is pretty worthless against 3 revivers, Eileen is too resource constrained to do much herself, Yuna and Tia and Ditto are just useless here. (Ditto lacks a hard-hitter to mimic.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Deathblow, Djinn? Really?

Took the words out of my mouth.

Ahem. For the reason I actually came to post: Fogel's brutal ST offense is MT in Gate's floor.

[Monkeyfinger]

He passes then.

[dude789]

Random falls. Ninas 1+5 take out all of the revivers 1st turn and the gets worn down without them. Others pass.

[DjinnAndTonic]

But Consonant has 3 revivers. Celes, Shiho, and Ayla. And if they let Alys get a turn, then ID is happening.

[Monkeyfinger]

I see 5 IDing Alys first then the nina team stalling for time until they can pop off the big lucky ID chain.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not to mention the Ninas themselves have two revivers, one of which is immune to ID - and there is a second Nina dropping ID hammers and another one tossing effectively fatal status. I really question the sanity of having a full Nina army battle at this point, to be honest, especially given how Nina5 seems to be at least Strawman-level scary at the ID flinging thing.

[dude789]

But Consonant has 3 revivers. Celes, Shiho, and Ayla. And if they let Alys get a turn, then ID is happening.

Nina 5 has an armor that significantly reduces status and ID odds. Alys is faster than 5, but 1,3 and 4 are faster than her. Speed is what kills Random's team here because his team isn't fast enough to stop the Ninas from starting their ID/status game.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So... Nina4 does -what- exactly with that first turn?

It looks like Nina1 and Nina5 have to take out Celes and Alys first, otherwise Imp and ID start causing problems. Whichever one of them gets hit by Hold, Shiho uses normalize to fix up. Meanwhile, Lucian takes out Nina2 before she gets going. Ayla has Life, so she can revive whichever of Celes/Alys. Now Random has a full team up again and the Ninas are down by at least Nina2. Assuming that Nina4 revives her, this cycle repeats until Nina5's ID misses.

[ThePiggyman]

Initial thought is that Djinn and Random fail, because that Nina fight is still brutal. Although I will look into both of them.

And seriously? TWO teams with MT Ditto?
*head asplodes*

[Random Consonant]

On looking at some stuff, I'm changing my vote on my team to fail.  Yeah, it sucks, but what can you do.  In fairness the Nina fight is probably in need of rethinking for the reason Snow mentioned.

[SnowFire]

Djinn, if Cloud had a 255% accuracy weapon like Vincent, I'd tip my hat to you for Deathblow.  As is...  uh...  you do realize that Cloud defending if you want to save a limit is also a viable strategy?  Or heck, just some good old-fashioned magic damage materia?  We'll see, I suppose.  Djinn gets a pass anyway, Delta Shield messes up the Ninas fight along with refilled limits, and any trouble patches earlier get handled by unleashing one of Cloud / Aeris / Tear's uber damage.

Team Gatewalker | Fogel, Aeonless Yuna, Eileen, Tia, Ditto (Quick Powder)(MT)
[Floor 3b: Multiples]
*All ST is MT
Team Gatewalker vs. FF1 White Wizard, Knight, Ninja and Red Wizard
Okay, Yuna...  are Protect and Shell legal by now?  Kinda borderline, I think.  Yuna casts MT Protect if she's got it, passes otherwise.  Tia and Eileen are basically just magical damage hurlers, right?  Fogel gets one hit in, but the average initiative comes up and the FF1 team goes unhittable with triple RUSE and Ninja's FAST.  Tia's damage is bad, right?  Or is the stat topic ignoring the extra spells that she has legally in the Dungeon?  Anyway, does 1/3 a Fogel chain + two Tia spells + (2 Voice of Earth?) kill the opposing team?  Eh, kneejerk "yes" for now, but if it didn't, then WW would fullheal the team and Knight / Ninja would unleash a mighty beatdown.
Team Gatewalker vs. Yosuke and Tengaar
Slain before they get going.
Team Gatewalker vs. Kanji, Ramza, Tidus (Caladbolg) and Crono
The Fogel beatdown is probably enough here; Yuna being slower than Crono helps her heal off his damage to stop a Blitz-based strategy.  And if they don't blitz then Fogel messes them up.  I guess Crono could defend turn 1, then cast MT Life or something, but meh.  
*Full Heal
Team Gatewalker vs. Yuna, Rand and Marle
Evil Yuna tosses up Protect.  Suddenly Fogel is much less scary.  And when Marle gets a turn she Provokes the enemy team out (alternatively, MT Hastes which is also horrible).  Flip side Marle's PDurabilty is bad enough that maybe Fogel's hits + Tia / Eileen damage is enough to kill her anyway?  Unclear, Marle's a magic tank, and Fogel might only get 2/3 of his chain off anyway by the time of Marle's turn.  Will wait for clarification on what Tia's damage is roughly with more spells legal.
Team Gatewalker vs. Jane, Yulie, FFT Chemist and Nina4

[Bardiche]

Full Heals recover the Limit Gauge, Djinn?

Gatewalker passes. Not even Protect is saving Marle's godawful Pdur, and Eileen has damage at this point as well--I think Ditto can actually change things a lot here, potentially grabbing either Haste or Holy. I'm not letting Ditto transform into multiple people. :-(

Nina fight is, indeed, brutal.

[SnowFire]

Right.  Some Fogel notes.  According to super's new topic, Fogel does .78 PCHP with all three hits.  However, in OB, these hits don't come all at the same time; they're spread out across the battle.  Several possible interps of what an OB battle = in DL rounds, but the only interps that avoid TOO much headache are "1 battle  = 1 round" or "1 battle = 2 rounds."  In the 1 battle = 2 rounds approach, then Fogel's first hit is followed with a second hit at about the midpoint of rounds 1 & 2 (basically after all of round 1 but before any of round 2), and each hit does .52 PCHP damage.  In the 1 battle = 1 round approach, his hits are spread throughout the round, but his third hit is coming really late (like, Raquel level speed late).  Each hit does .26 PCHP.

So, assuming 1 battle = 1 round for now.  Marle is slow, but slow enough to catch all of Fogel's hits?  I doubt it.  So 2 hits are .52 PCHP worth of damage before defense, except Protect is up, so we're back down to .26 PCHP before defense.  Using the stat topic's PDurability of 168%, which includes HP (wish there was one that didn't include HP), that comes out to 44% damage out of 100% (it includes HP, so phrasing it this way).  Marle has 63% MDurability, so she's tanking Tia and Eileen pretty well.  Possible that Fogel's third hit hustles out Rand's healing, but huh, would have to check to see just how slow Rand is.

So let's see.  Protect, Fogel / Eileen / Tia damage.  Ditto transforms into either Evil Yuna or Marle.  Marle hastes, Rand full-heals.  Yuna can Holy...  would that kill Ditto?  Probably not if he transformed into Marle, and actually probably not if he became Yuna either.  So that's out.  Let's say MT Shell instead.  Still...  if Ditto became Yuna, he can cast MT Dispel, and if he became Marle he can Provoke 'em out.  Eh.  Guess I will give this one to Gatewalker.  (Since on second thought Evil Marle Provoking isn't SO deadly, they all do terrible MT damage and wake each other up fast.)

Team Gatewalker vs. Jane, Yulie, FFT Chemist and Nina4

This, however...  as I noted before, Fogel spreads his hits out.  Jane Follow Mes, Yulie opens with *Quicken*, not Protect.  This is nearly a CTB speed doubler, and everyone just took their turns at initiative speed.  This means that Jane is going to get to Follow Me again somewhat lateish in round 1, and Nina4 is casting Barrier.  Even two Fogel hits won't KO Yulie, and Barrier'd Yulie vs. magic damage practically tinks.  When Jane Follow Mes again, the team gets full healed and Yulie drops Protect.  They get to go yet again early round 2, before Ditto will have gotten his turn as anyone relevant, and Ditto loses all his pathetic number of charges thanks to a single Yulie Absorb.  Otherwise the team has an unstoppable defensive barrier, and Yulie is packing weak MP-theft to make sure they win the resource war.  Yeah, voting against Team Gate on this one, Fogel needs some backup to blitz these guys out.

[superaielman]

Right.  Some Fogel notes.  According to super's new topic, Fogel does .78 PCHP with all three hits.  However, in OB, these hits don't come all at the same time; they're spread out across the battle.  Several possible interps of what an OB battle = in DL rounds, but the only interps that avoid TOO much headache are "1 battle  = 1 round" or "1 battle = 2 rounds."  In the 1 battle = 2 rounds approach, then Fogel's first hit is followed with a second hit at about the midpoint of rounds 1 & 2 (basically after all of round 1 but before any of round 2), and each hit does .52 PCHP damage.  In the 1 battle = 1 round approach, his hits are spread throughout the round, but his third hit is coming really late (like, Raquel level speed late).  Each hit does .26 PCHP

That topic is scaled to endgame. The earlier you take Fogel the better his damage is. Floor 3 is still early  (Way before second class change) so his offense is well into the OHKO range. 

The swings scaling makes Fogel faster and each hit is still doing respectable damage thanks to his obscene STR. I'll just lol at any hype that has Yulie surviving a round of Fogel offense ever. With her speed and PDur it is not happening, let alone earlier in the game when he has a massive lead on stats.

[superaielman]

Vote!

Team Gatewalker | Fogel, Aeonless Yuna, Eileen, Tia, Ditto (Quick Powder)(MT)
[Floor 3b: Multiples]
*All ST is MT
Team Gatewalker vs. FF1 White Wizard, Knight, Ninja and Red Wizard- Fogel goes first and OHKOs everyone.
Team Gatewalker vs. Yosuke and Tengaar
Team Gatewalker vs. Kanji, Ramza, Tidus (Caladbolg) and Crono- Kanji survives a Fogel attack, not that he can do anything by himself.
*Full Heal
Team Gatewalker vs. Yuna, Rand and Marle- Fogel one rounds Yuna/Marle. He is not missing Yuna with his accuracy at this point in the game.
Team Gatewalker[ vs. Jane, Yulie, FFT Chemist and Nina4- lol healers vs Fogel.

[SnowFire]

Mm.  I'm always unsure and probably inconsistent on Dungeon scaling, super, since some characters get a "pretend they joined at the beginning" and others get scaled to roughly how good they are when they join (since Fogel is, what, a Floor 5 pickup or so?  Compared to Floor 5 he's not quite as crazy).  In general I do prefer the "pretend they joined at the beginning" approach which is good for Fogel.  Also I'm not hyping Yulie surviving a full round of Fogel offense, I'm hyping her surviving 2 hits from his full chain...  though yes, if Fogel has a OHKO with his full chain at this point, then even 2/3 of that is enough to kill Yulie, barely (especially since the tinking magic will still do a LITTLE to add maybe 10% PCHP damage total).

I'll think it over, if Fogel gets enough of a stat boost for the early floor bonus then you're right.

[superaielman]

Fogel's floor 6. He joins very late in the game.


I pretty strongly disagree with the slash method for scaling OB methods. It leads to headaches with recharge and all that (Since swings are hugely indicative of how useful a move is, see why Sonic Strike is useless in game/DL) and just muddles things. Any method where Yulie survives to see a turn against Fogel strikes me as incredibly wrong, or a method that rewards bad one swing attacks.

[SnowFire]

Well, except for being more true to the game?  If you need a lot of damage really fast out of the gate, you DO want those one-hit attacks of pain.  If you go for more attacks, then you're running the risk your character will die after only getting one attack off.  The need for this is even more apparent when you think about how, say, Witches work in OB.  Witches are not useless if an opposing character is faster than them, they can still null the later attacks.  I'd definitely be opposed to Fogel unleashing three attacks consecutively because that just isn't what happens in game.  (He still gets his crazy damage per round!  Just not immediately.)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Problem is that two attacks tend to outdamage a single backrow blow anyway (and the difference between a single front-row strike and that single back row attack tends to not be huge0, so the difference often does not matter.

[Dhyerwolf]

I seem to remember the advantage of back row attacks was that they tended to go after more dangerous enemies? Could be completely making that up though.

[superaielman]

Well, except for being more true to the game?  If you need a lot of damage really fast out of the gate, you DO want those one-hit attacks of pain.  If you go for more attacks, then you're running the risk your character will die after only getting one attack off.  The need for this is even more apparent when you think about how, say, Witches work in OB.  Witches are not useless if an opposing character is faster than them, they can still null the later attacks.  I'd definitely be opposed to Fogel unleashing three attacks consecutively because that just isn't what happens in game.  (He still gets his crazy damage per round!  Just not immediately.)

You're wrong about the trueness to in game, swings is almost always the indicator of what the better move is for damage. Sonic Strike/Ianuki suck bad and the rest of the OPB attacks blow bad unless they're MT and running off the right stat.  Any scaling that has a far worse in game and DL attack suddenly get inflated 'use' because of theorical frontloading can bite me.

I seem to remember the advantage of back row attacks was that they tended to go after more dangerous enemies? Could be completely making that up though.

MT attacks and magic ignore row, which is why you're remembering that.

[SnowFire]

Well, yes, and if we use 1 OB battle = 1 DL round, then the advantage the swings have does in fact shine through.  But it's not "theoretical" frontloading of damage in the OPB stuff, it's actual frontloading.  To compare for a Destin with nice round numbers:
1x Ianuki hit of 3/4 average (so 30% PCHP)
3x Slash hits of half average (so 60% PCHP over an entire round, but only 20% on the first hit)

Obviously in the DL a fighter with that kind of choice, like Destin, is going to pick the bigger damage over some sucky front loading.  Yes Ianuki does suck but I think that's being fairly shown?  So it will be true to the game after all.

Though on second thought, to be fair to OB characters, you can argue that in a 3 hit chain it's the *middle* hit that should come at their "normal" DL initiative?  I could buy that, which would make it far more likely Fogel would unload his chain in time.  It'd go something like 150% -> 120% -> 90% equivalent speeds then.  Not sure, would have to think on that.