Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

[metroid composite]

Ok, unlocked boss hive in Desktop Dungeons.

Beat it first try with...

Elf Sorceror
Gnome Warlord
Human Monk (discounting the attempt where I activated first strike right after worshiping Jehoira, and had an angry god; that's more facepalm than evidence of a hard dungeon)
Elf Transmuter

Did not beat first try with...

Elf Thief (not sure that's the class' fault; might be, but I was also walled a lot by high level monsters and needed to use potions to get past the earlygame).

Beat in three tries with...

Changeling (also my first time using the class, so I used it wrong at first; like...converting glyphs next to anything but the boss; not doing the boss petrify right).

There's definitely a bug, though, where snakes don't get boss stats, so that may have made things quite a bit easier than they should have been.

[TigerKnee]

I posted my first four on a different forum so I hope you don't mind that I'll repeat it here:

"Vampire - Early levels are kind of hard because while in Normal/Ranked you can pretty much one-shot level 1s even at 1hp, it's a lot harder with the boss stats but once you get going you can basically slingshot easily to a win.

Transmuter - One of the stronger classes in the game because it gives the finger to luck. Did you get "locked" in by powerful monsters? Just blow up a wall for a measly 1 MP. If you get Binlor it's basically an automatic win although I managed to do without on my first try.

Assassin - I used a Goblin for this one. The most useful ability is the "automatically kill lower level" one since it means Meatman and Zombies (two of the most annoying enemies in this mode) just roll over automatically.

Berserker - Slingshot against Mage-type enemies (most of them don't get the huge improvements of enemy types, it seems), hope you get Cydstepp.

I also did Thief, Warlord, Sorcerer (all very strong classes) and Crusader."

As of now I added Tinker and Priest to the list. Rogue is annoying me because at level 1 if you meet a vampire you die instantly due to rounding errors.

What do you think of the Changeling class? I think it's weak but the creator of DD apparently disagrees with me. The best you can get is maybe using a Medusa to take down a 50% dude but a lot of abilities you can steal don't seem to help much for taking down high level guys (which is the basis of DD high level play).

[metroid composite]

Yeah, I've since done Elf Fighter (first try) and Vampire (second try) and failed a bunch with Rogue.  In particular, I effectively didn't have a deity for Fighter (Pactmaker, but I only started worshiping at the very end and would have won without it) so...that pretty much shows that any non-Rogue class can do it if they get an early Pactmaker to recreate Fighter's one good ability.

Changeling seems...pretty good as long as there are gorgons on the map.  In particular, though, it's not an earlygame crusher like Sorceror, it's more of a boss crusher like Thief.  You get to polymorph the boss four times, and then can kill it at half health using First Strike Death Gaze.  So...can nearly always get away with dealing 200 damage to the boss and winning.

It's not totally worthless pre-boss either.  Stealing poison is quite valuable (steal it, fireball target twice, and attack once to poison.  Now regen).  Stealing protection from killing blow is also quite nifty, because it doesn't disappear when you shapechange.  Everything else is variations on "meh whatever" like one-use immunity to poison, one-use magical attack, one-use 50% defence, one-use first strike, one use 40% lifedrain.  I mean, like the Thief's one-time stabber bonus I'm not going to say no, but also like stabber it's not great.

I think I saw the post where you argued with the creator bringing up the challenge dungeons, and you're right about those.  Most of them don't have Gorgons and polymorphing is a lot less effective when you have two bosses to polymorph.  Granted, you should crush snake pit and I'm not too worried about Factory when level 9 animated armors exist to be fireballed, level 1 animated armors exist to give you free protection from killing blow, and you can polymorph Super Meat Man.  But like...the library; this class is practically vanilla in the library.

[metroid composite]

So...beat the boss hive with Rogue.  Reset until there are no vampires on the map!  (On paper, being dwarf and converting glyphs until over 10HP would work too, as would levelling up before encountering a vamp).

Granted, it was still dicey because Rogue sucks (the boss was Aequitas, which means I couldn't survive a hit even though I was Dwarf.  Luckily Pactmaker was on the map...).

Good things can certainly come from hands off design!  Let the gamers shape and form the meta game.  The biggest problem with competetive SC1 was always that insanely high barrier of entry though.  SC2 did something about it by making it a far easier game, but it is still there.  I prefer my info to be accessible and/or fairly self evident.  Without constantly updating the in game info (Something WoW does actually -try- to do from Blizzard) then you are just going to run into the same problems again.

It makes for truely impressive high level play to have things like that!  But it doesn't really help you develop an e-sports community unless you have a massive influx of people based on brand power and whatnot.  This isn't like Baseball or Football where people have grown up playing Starcraft or watching their parent's favourite Starcraft team on TV (although the former may be true in 2-5 or so years!  It is going to be pretty amazing come time for the final Starcraft 2 episode when we might have a crop of 16 year olds that have been surrounded by the game for their entire lives/nearly their entire lives).

That is mostly why I really like shooters as the e-sports game, they are fairly easy to understand the direct outcomes to even the more amazing pieces of technical prowess.  Also really lets me know what bothers me so much about this idea of turning MMO PVP into a pro gaming scene.  They are just nearly impenetrable without playing the game given class balance and whatnot.

WoW is a godawful e-sport, because it's not casually watchable, yes.

SC2 and SC1 don't have that problem.  If you look at Korean broadcasts, they focus almost entirely on the battles, the micro, where it is very obvious what's going on.  There is a mysterious black box for casual viewers (the macro) but as there's always fights to watch (particularly in SC1) the viewer stays on the edge of her seat.  Seriously, SC1 at its peak drew a larger stadium audience in South Korea than the Superbowl did in America.

And...FPSs are not always intuitive.  Bunny Hopping, for instance: it moves you faster than running.  Also, speaking of "unit counters", Pyro sure seems like it's built to counter soldier with its deflection ability.  Pyro does tend to counter Scout, particularly in numbers.  ...and most 6v6 teams run two Soldiers, two Scouts, zero Pyros.  And as far as spectatorship goes...you can watch a Starcraft match without having played an RtS.  If you haven't played an FPS then it's damn near unwatchable.

[TigerKnee]

When I beat Boss Hive with a Fighter (Human fighter even), I think I sort of realized it... really isn't that hard.

Speaking of hard, have you ever completed the campaign, MC? The campaign starts out at average difficulty (Elf Rogue, then Elf Wizard) and then ends with what the hell (Elf BERSERKER vs a magic teleporting goat) and you got to ration gold between all of them.

Incidentally, if you were to rate the DD classes on a tier list, what would it look like? For me, Sorceror, Warlord, Assassin and Transmuter would be tops, while Fighter, Crusader, Bloodmage (ESPECIALLY bloodmage) would be around the bottom.

[metroid composite]

Yeah, I've beaten the campaign.  Honestly I felt the first part of the campaign was decently hard: you're a non-Dwarf Rogue up against a boss who will always OHKO you with First Strike.  Part 3 well...if you get CYDSTEPP then you smoke it, and I've always gotten CYDSTEPP so......  I've heard it's still possible to win without but it sounds nasty.

Tiers...are we counting with deity or without deity.  For instance, Transmuter is ridiculous with Binlor, ridiculous with Eartmother (get stoneskin and drop gleefully into the negative piety range becaue Earthmother's punishment is irrelevant).  And...a pretty good user of Jehoira too due to so much free piety.  But without deity Transmuter is eh...okay.  Heal spell at half the mana...on an otherwise vanilla class with no health regen.  The amount you can heal per tile you explore is the same as a vanilla with HALPMEH.  Still a good class (you can heal twice the amount without exploring) but one dimensional (if your best strategy isn't healing: see Gharbad, Tower of Goo, Wraith, then you're screwed).

But then there's another question too: what matters more--power or consistency?  Like...Warlord is very consistent because it always starts with CYDSTEPP.  But...what would you rather be: a Warlord, or a Sorceror that happened to spawn near a CYDSTEPP?  Probably the Sorceror.

This is relevant when it comes to, say, Fighter, whose stats are indeed pretty sad, and yet I've never struggled with the class when I needed to use it to unlock something else.  Consistently fighter knows where to go with its radar, and consistntly Fighter reaches a decent level.  I wouldn't touch it in Gauntlet mode but I don't struggle to win in less-than-insane dungeons.

By comparison: Vampire: stupidly powerful at high level, but even in fairly easy dungeons they'll fail to get there half the time.

I will agree that Crusader seems to be awful, though.  I'm not even sure why; I look at the ability list and think "that sounds decent".

Bloodmage, they're hard to pilot, and inconsistent (can't use their best stuff until you have BURNDAYRAZ) but...wow, they can pump out a lot of damage against the boss, especially if you can preserve blood pools.  Thief is better at the same strategy, granted.

[Grefter]

Glibness for humor value because I am running late for work.

And...FPSs are not always intuitive.  Bunny Hopping, for instance: it moves you faster than running.  Also, speaking of "unit counters", Pyro sure seems like it's built to counter soldier with its deflection ability.  Pyro does tend to counter Scout, particularly in numbers.  ...and most 6v6 teams run two Soldiers, two Scouts, zero Pyros.  And as far as spectatorship goes...you can watch a Starcraft match without having played an RtS.  If you haven't played an FPS then it's damn near unwatchable.

I hear you girl.  BUFF PYROS.

[metroid composite]

They did one time.  The original Backburner Pyro with 225 HP did see competitive play and the competitive scene lodged a reasonable complaint that it was a no-skill class.

If they'll buff anything it's airblast pyro, and to be fair airblast pyro sees occasional competitive use (on maps where knocking opponents to a lower level is powerful).

But that's not really the point.  Let's suppose two highly skilled Pyros do beat two highly skilled Soldiers in 2 on 2 deathmatch, and let's suppose two highly skilled Pyros do beat two highly skilled Scouts in 2 on 2 deathmatch.  Running a few numbers in my head these both sound plausible.  But so what?  Even though Soldiers and Scouts form 66% of most teams, they're not what a team should focus on fighting.  You need to be able to kill Medics; Medics with body guards (and often Demos with body guards).  Scouts and Rocket Jumping Soldiers can do this thanks to mobility.  Pyros can't.  Furthermore, many maps are focused on getting to a central area fast and denying the other team entry to the area usually through long range spam because that'll hit their door faster than running.  Scouts, Soldiers, Demomen, and Snipers are good at this.  Pyros are not.  You might ask about defence, and yeah, they're sometimess used on defence, but only when they outclass Heavy and Engineer (to say nothing of how you still want soldiers on defence to charge ubers, and still want Demos).

[metroid composite]

So...TigerKnee asked me to do a tier list of how I would categorize the classes from the freeware version.  I gave a lot of "it depends" answers,  and roughly speaking that is accurate--the answer is "it depends" (like...some classes specialize in earlygame fighting, some specialize in lategame).  But, if we broke it down further into categories it's something I could number-crunch on.  And that's what I've done.

Quick note on these numbers--they're pretty naive.  They assumed an approximately level 8 hero fighting an approximately level 10 boss where the boss has 75 attack and no special defences.  The idea being that the same numbers scale to the lower level cases like "level 5 hero fights level 7 enemy for exp slingshot."  These numbers ignore little roundoff issues--which is to say, it assumes you use every last drop of mana and drop your HP to 1 with your attacks.  (I've done spreadsheets that accounted for roundoff error, but not for something so complex).  My one nod to roundoff error is that I assumed Priest and Bloodmage only used 80% of their full-heal effects.  One more assumption: these assume no great pickups in the dungeon--basically fireballs are the only good spell found, and no deity is found.


First up, how much damage you can deal when you're exhausting all your resources (including stuff like potions and Crusader's extra attack on death).  Basically, this is the power you pull out against the boss.  Note that I have a bunch of things listed as Elf, but most of these classes would squeeze in 50 extra damage or so in this table from being Halfling (or could be Human or Dwarf with ~30 less damage in this table but other advantages).

(undead only) Halfling Priest: 1601
High level vampire spamming fireballs: 1316   (intermixed with attacks on low level enemies to keep mana costs low)
Halfling Thief: 1145
Elf Thief: 1088
Halfling Priest: 890
Elf Transmuter: 886
(mage enemies only) Dwarf Berserker: 881
Elf Assassin: 769  (assumes an extra mid-battle level-up, because Assassins are good at that)
(physical enemies only) Human Paladin: 720 (Not counting healing from low-level undead)
Elf Sorceror: 698 (Gnome is a bit better but I didn't calculate it)
Elf Warlord: 693 (Gnome is a bit better but I didn't calculate it)
(physical enemies only) Gorgon: 641 (remember: Deathgaze 40%)
Elf Fighter: 639 (Assumes they gain an extra level from their 40 free exp, and that they saved their protection from killing blow)
Elf Crusader: 634
Elf Bloodmage: 590 (I assumed that all health potions were used to counteract mana potion damage)
Elf Tinker: 586 (I assumed +10% defence, Fine Sword, Pendant of Health, Pendant of Mana)
Dwarf Rogue: 572
(mage enemies) Elf Paladin: 540 (Not counting healing from low-level undead)
Human Monk: 540
Elf Wizard: 540
Dwarf Berserker: 508
Half-Dragon: 504 (assumes half knockback is the norm)
Vampire using physical attacks only: 445 (And this is why you should always plan to use spells as a vampire)
(mage enemies) Gorgon: 441 (Yeah, even with Death Gaze 40%.  Good thing the only mage boss immune to poison has nowhere near 441 HP).
Vanilla no-race: 375

Next up, regen-fighting.  Your damage-per-tile-explored.  Obviously the poison cases are going to vary--I'm assuming level 8 vs level 10 boss with 75ish damage, but if you're a level 1 assassin fireballing and poisoning a level 9 gorgon, there's no way a monk would be able to beat that enemy's regen.

Human Monk: 16.7
(mage enemies only) Human Berserker: 14.4
(physical enemies only) Gorgon: 12.4
(physical enemies only) Human Paladin: 11.3
Human Assassin: 10.9
(undead enemies only) Human Priest: 10.4
(mage enemies) Gorgon: 8.9
Human Sorceror: 6.4
(mage enemies) Human Paladin: 6
Human Transmuter: 6
(Human Warlord is right around here somewhere; hard class to nail down for regen fighting, because of wasted HP from CYDSTEPP).
Human Fighter: 5.6 (Assumes that the fighter gains an extra level over other classes)
Dwarf Rogue: 5.3
Human Tinker: 4.78
(physical enemies) Human Berserker: 4.2
Human Vanilla: 2.9
Non-Humman Vanilla: 1.1
Half-Dragon: -1.6 (Remember: I'm assuming no useful spell pickups beyond fireballs, and it can't use fireballs)
Vampire: -6.0 (Ah, the class with negative regen; Vamps are not very good at this strategy).

Repeatable burst damage.  This is like the first table--how much damage can you deal without exploration.  Except this time without any potions, and without any one-time effects like Fighter's protection from killing blow.  (But using stuff like First Strike).  

High level vampire spamming fireballs: 556   (intermixed with attacks on low level enemies to keep mana costs low)
Elf Transmuter: 340
(mage enemies only) Dwarf Berserker: 339
Human Warlord: 306
(undead enemies only) Human Priest: 296
(physical enemies only) Human Paladin: 277
Dwarf Rogue: 269
Elf Sorceror: 268
Elf Assassin: 255 (Assumes you can get a surround for first strike)
Elf Thief: 228
Elf Tinker: 225 (I assumed +10% defence, Fine Sword, Pendant of Health, Pendant of Mana)
Vampire using physical attacks only: 221
Elf Fighter: 221 (Assumes the fighter gains an extra level)
(mage enemies) Paladin: 208
Human Monk: 208
Elf Wizard: 207
Elf Priest: 198
Elf Bloodmage: 197
Dwarf Berserker: 195
Half-Dragon: 194
Elf Crusader: 192
(physical enemies only) Gorgon: 161
Vanilla no-race: 144
(magic enemies) Gorgon: 115


Next, this is more of a subjective list, but...consistency.  Like...Warlord is very consistent because it always starts with CYDSTEPP and it's great at using it.  Many classes are inconsistent because they need to pick up a spell like fireball before they can use half their resources.  Some classes are randomly awesome too, like Transmuter if it gets Binlor.  And...just as a general counterbalance to the classes that were screwed by this "you only find fireballs and no other useful glyphs" rule.

+++++++Inconsistency: Transmuter (Can't be blocked in ever.  Can just randomly break the game in a variety of ways.  Binlor.  Earthmother.  BLUDTOPOWA.  The store item "Stone Heart" which happens to double their signature spell).
++Inconsistency: Warlord, Paladin, Assassin, Sorceror (Start with very functional glyphs right out of the gate)
++-Inconsistency: Dragon (Mostly screwed by the rules I made for this table.  If you get a good spell for it, like the healing glyph, suddenly on most of these lists Half-Dragon goes from botom five to top ten.  Also, Half-Dragon can do Binlor and can't get locked in.  But...still has lots of trouble against magic-resist bosses like Gharbad and Iron Man).
+-Inconsistency: Monk (What they do is regen at double-speed, and you don't need to find glyphs for that.  But glyphs help, and finding early attack bonuses matters.  On the flip side, Monks can randomly break the game by buying a +defence item and/or grabbing Dracul's +defence boon).
+Inconsistency: Wizard (Gets a handy map to the glyphs.  Also, can sometimes do ridiculous things with low-mana-cost glyphs).
-Inconsistency: Berserker (Needs to find glyphs.  But...on the other hand, not actually as good at using glyphs, so doesn't need it as badly as other classes.  Also, inconsistently awesome if it finds CYDSTEPP, as it gains a rather mana-efficient spell)
--+Inconsistency: Gorgon (it kills things a lot faster if it can find an attack spell to spam before it re-poisons the enemy.  Buuut it always has poison).
--+Inconsistency: Fighter (Gets a map, and has a number of tools that make being stuck early unlikely.  Really needs to find glyphs, though).
--Inconsistency: Thief, Priest, Crusader, Tinker, Bloodmage (All depend on glyphs)
---+Inconsistency: Rogue (Dodge!!!  Finding the early HP buffs is critically important; without them you can never safely fight an enemy above your level unless it's just with First Strike.  That said, on the subject of "randomly awesome", death protection and healing are both nice spells on a Rogue--more mana-efficient than fireballs).
-------Inconsistency: Vampire (Half the time they die early; doesn't even matter too much whether the dungeon is easy or hard).

I'll also pause and make a brief note about multi-attribute dependency.  It exists; Priests, for instance, want to be Human for their regen fighting, Elf for their burst fighting, and Halfling for their boss fighting.  By comparison, Monks pretty much always want to be human.  Not really worth making a whole list over, though.

So...how does this add up?  Should I just take the average of all of these?  Well...no.  All that actually matters is killing the boss.  Being very powerful and consistent early will get you at best two extra levels from constant exp slingshots.  Two extra levels is like...35% more burst against the boss, and 4.5 more damage per tile in regen fights.  These are nice, but not enough to make, say, a level 10 Wizard better than a level 8 Vampire.

First things first, we need to aggregate the first two tables; you're going to pull out all the damage you can against the boss, which means both using all your potions, and using regen tricks if you have them.  Let's assume 50 tiles explored in the boss fight (1/8 of the map kept in reserve)...

(undead only) Halfling Priest: 1946
(mage only) Human Berserker: 1548
Human Monk: 1374
Vampire spamming fireballs: 1316
(physical only) Human Paladin: 1287
(physical only, poisonable) Gorgon: 1263
(poisonable) Human Assassin: 1249
Halfling Thief: 1245
Human Transmuter: 1111
Human Sorceror: 976
Halfling Priest: 946
Human Warlord: 908
Human Fighter: 889
(mage, poisonable) Gorgon: 885
(mage) Human Paladin: 840
Dwarf Rogue: 838
Human Tinker: 769
Human Crusader: 722
Human Berserker: 691
Elf Bloodmage: 645
Human Wizard: 613
Vanilla no-race: 542
Half-Dragon: 504 (Poor Half-Dragon--this does go up to 1134 if it gets the healing glyph!)
physical attacks only Vampire: 445

Alright, taking those basic numbers, and fudging some classes up and down by up to 30% depending on how easily they exp slingshot, and their consistency, I get something like...


1. Monk
2. Paladin
3. Assassin
4. Transmuter
5. Sorceror
6. Gorgon
7. Thief
8. Priest
9. Warlord
10. Vampire
11. Rogue
12. Fighter
13. Berserker
14. Bloodmage
15. Wizard
16. Tinker
17. Crusader
18. Dragon

EDIT: set more classes' listed race to human in the combined boss-killing list as I realized "oh wait, human better".  Warlord, for instance--human is better than Elf even on one-time burst damage and certainly for regen fighting.

[metroid composite]

Ok, significant refinement.  Got in a number of fine details such as...

Roundoff error for potions and especially mana potions (assuming no special shops or anything--just all the health/mana pickups for the class which you will almost always have when you start pumping potions).

Unused resources.  I assumed about 2 unused mana on average (1 unused mana on average for Paladin, and 0 unused mana on average for Tinker).  I assumed about 30 unused HP--32 to be specific (scaled if the character has defences; so 15 unused HP for Monk).  This is especially critical for the repeatable burst table.

These are big enough that I will make a new post for them; partially because the comparison is interesting to me.

TABLE 1: Boss-Kill-Burst (do no regeneration, but unload on the boss with all potions and one-time effects).

(undead only) Halfling Priest: 1544
Vampire slinging fireballs: 1307 (Assumes low-level enemies to keep mana-costs down)
Halfling Thief: 1052
(others) Halfling Priest: 857
Elf Transmuter: 852
(mage only) Dwarf Berserker: 833
Elf Assassin: 726 (Assumes an extra mid-battle level-up)
(physical only) Elf Paladin: 681
Elf Warlord: 657
Elf Sorceror: 644
Elf Fighter: 589 (Assumes an extra level from Fighter)
(physical only) Gorgon: 589 (HP of enemy you can kill using Death Gaze)
Elf Crusader: 584
Elf Bloodmage: 556
Elf Tinker: 543
Dwarf Rogue: 515
(mages) Elf Paladin: 505
Elf Wizard: 502
Human Monk: 501
Half-Dragon: 468
Dwarf Berserker: 461
physical-only Vampire: 413
(mages) Gorgon: 391
Vanilla no-race: 335

Damage per tile explored; these numbers haven't really changed too much

Human Monk: 16.7
(mages only) Human Berserker: 14.4
(physical only) Gorgon: 12.4
(physical only) Human Paladin: 11.3
Human Assassin: 10.9
(undead only) Human Priest: 10.4
(mages) Gorgon: 8.9
Human Sorceror: 6.4
Human Transumter: 6.0
(mages) Human Paladin: 6.0
Human Fighter: 5.56
Dwarf Rogue: 5.3
Human Tinker: 4.8
Human Warlord: 4.7 ( This one is tough to place, as you'll usually end up wasting some resources when you try to regen with CYDSTEPP).
Human Berserker: 4.2
Human Thief: 3.8
Human Bloodmage: 3.3
Human Wizard: 3.3
Human Crusader: 2.9
Human Priest: 2.9
Vanilla no-race: 1.11
Half-Dragon: -1.6
Vampire: -6.0

Next up we have the repeatable burst table; this table has been changed a decent amount by my recalculations--in particular, one-time burst effects (like first strike) now should play a more important role.

Vampire spamming Fireballs: 547
Elf Transmuter: 317
(mage only) Dwarf Berserker: 297
Human Warlord: 257
(physical only) Elf Paladin: 246
Elf Sorceror: 227
(undead only) Human Priest: 224
Elf Assassin: 221
Dwarf Rogue: 218
Elf Thief: 192
Elf Tinker: 188
physical-only Vampire: 188
Elf Fighter: 183
(mages) Elf Paladin: 179
Elf Wizard: 176
Human Monk: 175
Elf Priest: 164
Elf Bloodmage: 163
Elf Crusader: 162
Dragon: 160
(others) Dwarf Berserker: 153
(physical only) Gorgon: 136
vanilla no-race: 110
(mage only) Gorgon: 90

Finally, the table that combines the first two tables together (by assuming 50 tiles of regen fighting and all other resources spent on smashing the boss)

(undead only) Halfling Priest: 1889
(mage only) Human Berserker: 1490
Human Monk: 1334
Vampire slinging fireballs: 1307
(physical only) Human Paladin: 1233
(physical only) Gorgon: 1211
Elf Assassin: 1203
Halfling Thief: 1130
Human Transmuter: 1063
Human Sorceror: 916
Halfling Priest: 912
Human Warlord: 859
(mages) Gorgon: 835
Human Fighter: 834
(mages) Human Paladin: 791
Dwarf Rogue: 781
Human Tinkerer: 717
Human Crusader: 674
Human Berserker: 636
Elf Bloodmage: 612
Human Wizard: 566
Half-Dragon: 468
Vanilla no-race: 391

And again, taking this list and arbitrarily adjusting a few things up and down by up to 30% because of consistency and how much they're likely to level up we get....

Top:

Transmuter
Assassin
Paladin
Monk

High:

Sorceror
Gorgon
Warlord
Thief

Mid:

Vampire
Priest
Rogue

Low-Bottom:

Fighter
Berserker
Bloodmage
Tinker
Crusader
Wizard
Half-Dragon

Not a hugely changed list, as you might expect when all I'm adding in is allowances for roundoff in various places.  In fact, at least half of the movement came from me picking slightly different "fudge for level adjustment" factors.

[TigerKnee]

The new list seems fairly accurate to what I think to, though it's kind of strange Wizard and Berserker are so low. Wizard because its class abilities seems like it should be good and Berserker... well, I beat most of the e3 demo dungeons with it. Granted, the rules have changed quite a bit on that version but still.

[metroid composite]

Wizard just...doesn't have stats.  -1 glyph cost is cool, but largely counteracted by their -25% attack power for their overall output.  And that's...pretty much it for stats.  So...that's basically a vanilla with glyph sight.

I do think there might be a flaw in this method in that it might be too skewed towards regenerators in that the top seven are there significantly on the back of regen (and two of those, Warlord and Transmuter, don't even strike me as being inherently regen focused).  Maybe the game is just balanced that way.  Then again, maybe I should do a third pass where I enter all the boss stats.  I've been assuming a boss with a physical attack no mana burn, no defences, no poison, no high attack power, no immunity to poison, and no death gaze.   Such a boss doesn't exit.  (Matron of Flame is the closest thing?)

Berserker, though, is roughly where it should be.  I've had trouble winning with Berserker.  I've seen forum posts elsewhere along the lines of "why can't I win with Berserker?"  Bear in mind that it's significantly buffed in the E3 version--if Wizard is any indication, then -1 glyph cost is worth roughly +25% attack power.  The E3 version also seriously lacks a mage race.  (As these charts show, +2 conversion Elves are good but not dominant.  +1 conversion Elves just suck).  Berserker cares about this not at all.  Oh, and there's no Halfling in the E3 version, so that hurts Priest, and to some extent Thief.  So...Berserker buffs should put it ahead of Fighter, and possibly Rogue, and Priest nerfs probably drop that class below Berserker too.  And most other classes are gone from the E3 version; Monk and Sorceror and probably Thief are still better physical classes than Berserker, but it might be around third to fourth best class in that version.

[TigerKnee]

Tried to get a bunch more Boss Hive wins. All I need is Wizard and Blood Mage now... so that being said...

Bloodmage Analysis:

I hate the Bloodmage.

I believe the design philosophy for the classes were that the tier 1 classes were supposed to be simple to pilot but average in power levels, while the later ones are more powerful but harder to use. This generally sort of works. Monk is better than Priest once you figure out that his abilities mean he can regenerate around 4 times as fast, although it breaks down for some, seeing as how Thief is really good (not top, but better than a lot of classes) while Sorcerer is honestly extremely simple and yet powerful too.

The Bloodmage manages to be the opposite of the Sorcerer. It's horrible and hard to use effectively and the strange thing is that I know classes had a huge overhaul in one version so I'm curious as to why it still terrible. I'm going to try analyzing it, but mostly with "concepts" rather than hard numbers (I've never been good at those)

Starts with Blood to Power Glyph: I'm curious as to why the developer believes this glyph is apparently on the same level as Halpmeh, Cydstepp and Poison to be locked along with them as a Tier 3 class. For one thing, it's not standalone. You need to get Fireball or Halpmeh or it's basically useless.

Let's see, it's great on Sorcerer, who can turn the extra mana into super efficient Halpmehs or Fireballs. Wizard works too for the same reason, although less efficient. It's great for Transmuters because... well, they don't regenerate health anyway. Maybe if I push a little I could say it helps Rogues with Fireball regen strategies to get an enemy to first strike range if they can't engage normally for some reason (you didn't pick Dwarf)...

But Bloodmage? He doesn't have anything to help the glyph at all! His other abilities are honestly kind of independent (they semi synergize with each other but not this one). I mean, a Paladin at least comes with physical resistance to facilitate regen strategies with Halpmeh.

Sanguine: The big problem with this ability is not forgetting about it. Normally, an enemy is blocking a corridor, I kill it and then I usually immediately click on the spot it was in to continue, using up the bloodstain. Not that you have a choice most of the time anyway, unless you want to use EndIsWall to carve out paths in the dungeon which I'm not sure is worth the regen tiles.

This ends up with me having maybe only 2 health potions worth of stains at the end of the dungeon. Is this good? I dunno, I could play a Thief, it'll be much easier on me. Would be much better with much more "open" maps though. If only they made it so that stepping on blood with full health wouldn't use it up...

Power Hungry: This ability does weird things to race selections, and I'm honestly not sure if I count it as a ability where you come out on top overall due to potion wastage. Hand-to-hand/Diamond body at least lets you be roughly even (except vs Poison/Mana Burn and Nagas) and rapidly grants you an advantage once you get Attack power-ups but this one... shrug, how does it work mathematically anyway? It seems to really hurt strategies which combine both magic and physicals since drinking a pot means dedicating yourself to tossing fireballs.

Oh yes, there's also the whole "forgetting about this ability" part. Seems to be quite the trend with Bloodmage, being able to screw yourself over. You start chugging down your mana potions, realize you don't have enough health potions to cover and go "FUDGE!"

Come to think of it, I should consider this ability for just taking out high level wraiths to exp slingshot. Is it worth spending a potion to take out a high level wraith?

Bloodmage Race selection:
Elf: This is basically the best one. You're a caster class... kind of (not that your abilities help with it), more mana means more fireballs and you want the most bang out of your Power Hungry potion use.

Gnome: This is interesting. Normally Gnome wins with Pactmaker while Elf wins without. On the other hand, you could very well end up with too many mana potions and not enough health potions to use them! Mana potion shops become a lot less useful because of that. Because of that, I would honestly go Elf for both consistency and because Bloodmage really needs more early killing power.

Human: This seems counterproductive in a sense. If you drink a potion or use BludToPowa, you're basically trading physicals for whatever damage your fireballs does. Does Halpmeh heal the extra damage from Power Hungry? I'm not sure if that glyph helps you gain an advantage overall.

Halfling: Mmm, nah. More health potions does ease power-hungry but it doesn't synergize with blood stains and Bloodmage isn't great with physicals.

Dwarf: This is kind of interesting too. Like Halfling, more health does ease power-hungry too AND it does synergy with blood stains. Still, Dwarf is weak for the most part and since you start with BludToPowa, one of the advantage of dwarves (you can start regen fights with enemies that would kill other races in one hit) is lost since you can just replace that with pure fireball regeneration.

Goblin: Shrug.

Orc: Nope. Don't use this. Inferior human.

[metroid composite]

Yeah, I rounded up the last of the boss hive classes, but I'm not sure I posted about it (lost once with Tinker; so...I think that means my net losses on that dungeon are Tinker x1, Thief x1, Changeling x3, EDIT: oh right: Vampire x1, Rogue xbazillions).


Bloodmage...eh.  I mean, yeah, I can point to my first-pass spreadsheet calculation and say it's not great.

But it never actually seemed that weak to me.  Bloodmage can consistently deal about 670 fireball damage which is enough to just flat out kill...basically every boss except Iron Man, and Super Meat Man without ever taking a single attack from the boss (obviously you do take damage from the mana potions).

I'll agree that most of the bloodstains are wasted because they block corridors, but yeah, about 2 health potions (4 health potions if you're pretty careful) sounds about right.  Which, to be fair, is significant.  Halfling is a passable race even when most of what it does is offer 5 health potions.

BLUDTOPOWA is a good glyph.  Let me provide a number of use examples....  For instance, when you're using CYDSTEPP, you basically need to regen an extra 10 mana between fights--BLUDTOPOWA does this.  Similarly, when you're using Elf (as you mentioned, probably the best race for Bloodmage) you need more mana regen tiles than health regen tiles, so BLUDTOPOWA helps.  And of course, the absolute unholy trinity is if you get fireballs, BLUDTOPOWA, and poison--not only can you kill an enemy of any level, but you can do so reasonably quickly.  BLUDTOPOWA also lets you regen fight strictly with MP based abilities, which is sometimes very useful (it's about the only way to get extra damage against Wraith, and it was pretty much the basis for my high level Gauntlet runs).  BLUDTOPOWA is also good if you plan to worship Binlor and get Heroics.  (Which is to say, BLUDTOPOWA makes spamming the wall destruction glyph a lot more viable).  And...this is specific to two dungeons, but whenever you're up against vampires, you often want to regen your mana first, and only gain your HP at the last minute, reducing the chances of "damnit, vampire; that's a setback to my regen "

how does it work mathematically anyway? It seems to really hurt strategies which combine both magic and physicals since drinking a pot means dedicating yourself to tossing fireballs.

Yeah, you don't combine magic and physical with bloodmage.  You pick the one that's better against the boss and do that.  Which...is actually decently strong--most bosses are built around being anti-physical or anti-magical.

For doing a physical bloodmage, it helps if you have the healing glyph.  I'll use level 10 as an example because the numbers are nice and round (and because it doesn't make a difference to the ratios), and again, obviously assuming Elf.

Mana Potions heal 23 MP, and deal 60 damage.  HALPMEH heals 30 damage.  So...once you heal away that HP damage, Mana potions effectively restore 17 MP, which is still quite a bit better than vanilla.  (Other classes going Elf with 6 glyphs like Bloodmage heal 9 MP.  Other classes with 5 glyphs going Elf heal 8 MP.  Non-Elves heal 5 MP).


And...I dunno about the top tier classes being just better.  When I didn't know what CYDSTEPP did, Warlord seemed like the worst class ever; I seriously needed multiple tries to beat a Normal dungeon (and yeah, I'm more skilled now than I was, but still).  Assassin...well poison is ludicrously powerful, but the rest of their abilities are...decent.  They'd be a midcarder without poison.  Paladin is knda bonkers, though.  "Unlike Monk and Berserker and Rogue which have a big downside for their powerful defence ability, let's just give Paladin 25% defence for free!"

[metroid composite]

Bannings Ho!

MtG banned (in Type 2) Stoneforge Mystic and Jace the Mind Sculptor.

Turn 4 two card combo is still intact (but it wasn't able to beat that deck with any consistency).

[SnowFire]

According to Flores, Exarch-Twin is hurt badly by the loss of Jace TMS as well, so it's not an obvious best deck ( http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/148 ).   Valakut sounds like it's the default "deck to beat," but it's going to have the giant bullseye on it, and there ARE some ways to slow it down, even if they're not great.  (Stupid Primeval Titan fetching the lands right away.)

Also, super-slow response, but in general I agree with Grefter that minor "flavor" bonuses in SC2 would be newbie traps ("Why did my unit with +2 vs. Biological not hose Zerg like expected?!) and with MC that big bonuses vs. odd types leads to unsatisfying gameplay (a hypothetical big +Psionic bonus that randomly snipes Queens and Archons if you micro it, say), so the best thing is to keep it to just Armored / Light with occasional nods to Massive.  Also, Grefter, I wouldn't worry too much about what MC brought up - Hellions *do* counter lings and VRs do slay Roaches unstoppably.  It's just the difference between a tactical advantage and a strategic one  - sometimes even though the VRs would win the fight, if the Protoss player isn't ready, Roaches will still go burn down his expansion Nexus before the VRs can finish the job.  That's fine.

[Yoshiken]

Having discussed the MtG bans with some friends from local MtG group, they've pretty much agreed with me on one thing, at least: JtMS wouldn't've been that bad, except Mystic had to go. Mystic's the one that really centralised the meta, since it's a turn 2 card that always has an effect if it hits play - even if it's auto-killed, the sword comes down next turn and that's pretty much gg against some decks.
Jace wasn't that bad, but they couldn't boot Mystic for overcentralisation or for being overpowering when the bigger culprit was still around.

And after a quick discussion with a friend yesterday, we've established that this is nothing but good news for variety in the meta, at least: Anthem Goblins, Machine Red, Splinter Twin, Evil Twin, Mono-Black Vampires, Red/Black Vamps, WW Quest, Valakut, Eldrazi Ramp... A lot of those decks had trouble with CawBlade, but all of them are viable now.

[Grefter]

From my understanding Jace isn't that bad in the same way that he is played in an overwhelming number of decks, even off colour ones just because he is that good.

Last time that happened to my knowledge was fucking Jitte which isn't even as bad as Jace because it was an artifact (that was played in control decks and even burn decks...).  So yeah.  Jace may be manageable, but fuck that shit.  I thought Jitte should be straight up banned.  Jace just sounds even more offensive to me personally.

Would be far from the first time WotC have printed two stupidly OP cards at the same time.  SO yeah, glad they stripped out two big offenders in one sweep.

[SnowFire]

The elephant in the room is that Jace is Mythic Rare.  When *everybody* is playing the same card, and said card is Mythic, the price shoots up quite amazingly.   Normally something Wizards is happy about, but not to this extent.

I really hated the introduction of Mythics, on that note.  When I played senior year of college, it was Odyssey - Onslaught standard, and that was the era of complaining how "everybody was netdecking."  Of course part of this was the fact that everybody had access to at least cut-rate versions of competitive decks, and thus the metagame was way more awesome and less cost-controlled than modern formats -  U/G Madness was a rareless deck, Goblins just needed the rare Goblin Piledriver (and later Siege-Gang Commander, I suppose), R/G beatdown was rareless I think, and even Mono-Black Control mostly just needed Mutilates and some weird rares that weren't 4 ofs (Undead Gladiator, Skeletal Scrying, etc.).  Astral Slide / Beasts / Wake / weird stuff would need more, but it was a good mix, I thought.  Nowadays, while the fact that there are fewer crap rares is appreciated, it seems like commons have a tough time standing up to modern rares and Mythics.

[Yoshiken]

Nowadays, while the fact that there are fewer crap rares is appreciated, it seems like commons have a tough time standing up to modern rares and Mythics.

Commons, probably - there's only one major one from New Phyrexia I can think of, and that's Gitaxian Probe. There are a few uncommons that really stand out as being quite amazing, though - Mental Misstep, Despise, Beast Within and Dispatch, to name a few.

And Gref, Jace was used in a number of decks, yes, but if anything, that's worse than Jitte to me, in that it limits the strength of the card. The only reason I can see it being used in those decks is because it could both control the field and the card-draw (Brainstorm for free is sickeningly good, and probably the main thing that made it broken, and bouncing a creature made it too reliable against aggro.) However, Jace was too slow to compete against a lot of decks (it was always the sideboard out against mono-Red or WW Quest, for example) whereas Mystic was turn 2, get relevant Sword and a creature and then turn 4, put sword into play at the end of their turn and attach it and start smashing. That is, on average, the same turn Jace comes into play.
Oh, and if the Swords aren't going to be useful here? Not to worry! We'll just find Batterskull and have a 4/4 Lifelink Vigilance guy out and attacking on turn 4. Mystic got killed before turn 3? Not to worry, we still have a sword to play on turn 3 and then equip on turn 4.
Like I said, Mystic was the much bigger problem here. Jace is an amazing utility card, but can't do shit on his own. Mystic was amazing utility and can do stuff on her own, thanks to the ridiculous power of Swords. It just makes more sense to get rid of one card than 3, and so Mystic goes - but they can't feasibly support a Mystic ban without getting rid of the primary candidate for over-centralisation, and that is JtMS.

As it goes, new Jace is pretty shitty, so it seems like the era of Jace has passed for good?

[metroid composite]

Let's be clear here: Jace 2.0 is heavily used in every format including Extended, Legacy, and Vintage, and has been run in every kind of deck (including primarily Alara decks that otherwise ran nothing but creatures).  Hell, it has a tier 1 Vintage deck named after the card.  It's the best blue card they've printed in a very long time.  And there's really no individual card that beats it right now.  Entire strategies can work together to beat it (weenie swarms), but these can be beaten too (wrath).

As for Jace 3.0 spelling the end for Jace...I'm not sure.  It's not Jace 2.0, no, but it's decent.  That's a good +1, especially since the rumors predict a graveyard block (flashback, threshold).  The -7 can win games in any combo deck.  The +0 is a 5-turn clock (sometimes 4 turn clock).  I don't expect dominance from it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it saw play.

[metroid composite]

FFT

So...I enjoy going back and looking at vanilla FFT's class imbalance and theorizing about it.  Everyone knows it's imbalanced, but there's never a total agreement on how it's imbalanced.  I'm going to use a new approach here; namely, I'm going to ban the most centralizing class in the metagame, evaluate the new metagame, and then ban whatever class has become the new most centralizing class.

First, let's loosely split the game into four sections:

Earlygame (about 200 JP to play with; Chapter 1)
Midgame (about 600 JP to play with; early-mid Chapter 2)
Lategame (about 1800 JP to play with; early-mid Chapter 3)
Endgame (abbout 5400 JP to play with; End of Chapter 4 for store unlocks; maybe a little poaching; maybe some brave-faith modifying)

The JP numbers are sort-of ballparks (lots of things to account for, like job levels, overshooting JP targets, initial starting JP in classes).  I have a wiki analysis of this kind of stuff somehwere, but I'm mostly going to fudge this a lot.

______________________________________

So anyway, in Vanilla, the balance is something like...

Earlygame: Wizard (Bolt), Chemist (Potion Phoenix Down), Knight (stats, Weapon Guard), Time Mage (haste), Squire (Move+1, GJPU)
Midgame: Summon Magic
Lategame: Math Skill
Endgame: Math Skill

Well, Calculator completely dominates both Lategame and Endgame, so they seem like they should be the first to go.

Ban list
1. Calculator

______________________________________

Right, so let's evaluate the fresh, post-ban metagame.

Earlygame: Wizard (Bolt), Chemist (Potion Phoenix Down), Knight (stats, Weapon Guard), Time Mage (haste), Squire (Move+1, GJPU)
Midgame: Summon Magic
Lategame: Summon Magic
Endgame: Summon Magic, Draw Out, Time Magic

Yeah, it's clear here what's centralizing; why go for Draw Out or Time Magic when Summon is arguably going to be better even in the late game?

Ban list
1. Calculator
2. Summoner

______________________________________

FFT post-banning #2

Earlygame: Wizard (Bolt), Chemist (Potion Phoenix Down), Knight (stats, Weapon Guard), Time Mage (haste), Squire (Move+1, GJPU)

Midgame: Chemist (Auto-Potion, and kinda guns), Time Mage (Teleport--although it's a stretch to fit into the 600 JP slot), Wizard (Magic Attack Up, stats), Priest (Holy), Lancer (Chapter 2 Lancer equips), and a lot of the earlygame stuff.

Lategame: Time Mage (Meteor, Short Charge--a slight stretch JP-wise for this category, but job levels help), Ninja (stats).  (And a few other pretty good tier 2 options, like Lancer and Dancer and Monk), and several midgame options get better because they can be combined (why not get Teleport and Auto-Potion and Magic Attack Up?)

Endgame: Samurai (All of the sudden gets Kikuichimoji, Kiyomori, Muramasa, and spare JP to spend on things like Teleport and MAU).  Time Mage (Quick is a ridiculous spell with faith modification.  Full party MP switch shenanigans are doable.  Short Charge Meteor is still really good.  Everyone wants Teleport).  And behind these but still noteworthy...Lancer (Jump gains some ludicrous equips from poaches etc) Oracle (all of the sudden they're Batman--they always have a plan).  Most other strategies don't keep up so well.  However, RSM stuff like Wizard (stats, MAU) and Chemist (Auto-Potion) are still really important.

OK, let me go over the ones that I don't feel are too centralizing and do this by process of elimination.

Chemist: Phoenix Down, on its own, is a top-5 skillset.  But among well-optimized setups other stuff does get used.  Auto-Potion is fantastic, but it has competition (like racing to a power-setup instead of making youself awesome in the midgame) and by the endgame it starts to have competition anyway (MP Switch shenanigans, Samurai probably just grab Blade Grasp, etc) so it's not crazy for any one character never to learn it.

Samurai: Endgame Draw Out is ridiculous, pretty good argument for best, but it has competition.  But...I don't feel it's strong at all in even the lategame slot.  1800 JP gets you, what, an unlocked Samurai class and like...Heaven's Cloud, but probably not enough for both Heaven's Cloud and Teleport?  Certainly it's not crazy to go a class with more power earlier in the game and skip Samurai.

Time Mage: For all that it'd be weird to have an endgame character that used nothing from Time Mage, it's not really super centralizing because every setup uses something different.  Quick strategies are different from haste strategies are different from Teleport Draw Out strategies are different from Short Charge Meteor strategies are different from MP switch strategies.

Squire: Makes a bunch of non-lategame abilities cry.  But unlike other centralizing issues, I don't know if banning GJPU and M+1 will really add...that much metagame variety, because a lot of the competition these crowd out are just so bad as to not be probably not worth the JP in the first place.

Wizard: Kinda just the auto go-to carrier class.  And MAU is just the auto go-to for...some setups (notably Draw Out, midgame Black Magic smash).  And Black Magic makes other early-mid game setups cry.  ("Oh look, you can deal 36 damage with Wave Fist?  Wouldn't you rather deal twice the damage with AoE instead?")

Yeah, of these, Wizard stands out more than the others of "yes, obviously you use this class".  Ban it!

Ban list:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard

______________________________________

Now, this ban list seriously scrambles everything.  Mages now can't deal damage until the midgame.  Demi is now the only early AoE, and it's awful early on.  Archers are suddenly cool earlygame because they have range (and even Throw Stone is worth a look).  In the earlygame, suddenly Haste is now a complete monster.  Normally it's not, because MP is a premium--why are you wasting that Bolt MP, and because you want to keep your CT lined up with the enemies so that you can drop Bolts on them.  Now, none of those restrictions apply, and if you're running a party without Haste then that must be a weird setup (like a mass 40-faith party).

Midgame...Priests rise in value for Holy (now practically the only way to take advantage of "Chapter 2 mage equips rock face".  Well...other than mage physicals hurting as much as Knight physicals).  Monk and Geomancer start being cool just for the range which is now a premium.  Haste is still bonkers and almost mandatory for any serious party.  But mostly, the gamebreaking stuff is the same (Teleport, Auto-Potion, Lancer equips).

The lategame doesn't change a whole lot.  Short Charge Meteor is still good; Ninja is still good.  Lancer, Dancer, and Monk don't change much.  What drops in value is setups that rush to Teleport and Auto Potion, because they don't get to deal big damage through Wizard.  They can still pick up a Mithral Gun, though, so they're actually fine.

In the endgame, not a whole lot changes, but the best setup now pretty much becomes Time Mage with Draw Out and Short Charge.  TM gives you game-best MA.  Short Charge Quick self for near infinite movement, which rules when combined with Draw Out.  And i guess you can always do a faith raised Short Charged Meteor.  The one caveat is that you might want revival.  Time Mage with item, and Priest with Draw Out are two viable alternatives.  And there's Ninja/Lancer with item if you have a Ninja/Lancer lying around that you never re-trained.


So...banning Wizard makes two classes rise above the others as suddenly very centralizing.  Chemist, because all of the sudden in the earlygame, midgame, and often also lategame...what are your secondary skillsets?  Chances are it's something like four characters with Item, one character with Time Magic.  Seriously, what else are you going to use?  Most skillsets need a good 1000+ JP investment to really compete with that level of power.  The other class that seems centralizing is Time Mage because...Haste becomes so good, suddenly Short Charge becomes the "auto-get" support for several classes, and all of the sudden Time Mage has the highest MA, so it gets some of the spotlight Wizard had.

Thing is, though, with Wizard and Summoner gone, Time Mage is suddenly a lot less attractive; you can't just save straight up for Meteor and Short Charge and expect to still be effective for the party in the mean time; you don't automatically have good damage just by virtue of being a mage.  And...even Haste isn't an auto-go because "40 faith party" is actually a strategy worth seriously considering.  Yeah, Teleport is still centralizing, but so is Auto-Potion.  Given a metagame without Wizard/Summoner support, I think Chemist becomes the #4.

Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist

______________________________________

So what does the metagame look like now?

Notably we haven't done much to one of the classic "big bad" setups.  Ninjas are kinda like Summoners in that you can get near maximum output from them very quickly (Concentrate and Move+2 are in their unlock path)...but they don't get a whole lot better after that.  They're sort-of a measuring stick against which all other setups need to compare themselves...but I'm of the opinion that several do.

in lategame: Lancers can deal almost Ninja damage from 8 range while avoiding damage and being in generally tankier classes.
in endgame: Time Mages do all kinds of crazy stuff.
in endgame: Draw Out becomes very, very good.
in lategame: Dance is quite powerful; it arguably has an expiration date, but it's a reasonable stepping stone on the way towards Time Magic or Draw Out or really anywhere you want to go.  Get a couple dances, then switch to the class of choice, and whenever you can't be productive with that class, just Nameless Dance.

The other thing to note is that very little is inexpensive anymore.  Time Mage and Ninja are probably two classes with targets on their head right now, but both of these classes were using Item pretty heavily pre-ban (because hey, it's very good and it doesn't take work to get).  They're both now scrambling for skillsets they don't really want to spend the time to get--I mean, what does Ninja do; master Punch Art?  Master Jump?  Get Dance?  These are all big detours Ninja would rather avoid since chilling in Ninja is awesome.  Similarly for Time Mage...do you get Draw Out/White Magic/Dance/Yin Yang Magic/Talk Skill first?  And what about reaction abilities?  We're talking about two low-HP classes that gain a lot from Auto-Potion being ridiculously accessible.

The physical side of the job tree probably remains more attractive earlygame, which is bad news for Teleport dominance.  Especially the part where Ninja is big, as it's going to favour Move+2.  And, while, yes, almost every team wants Haste, that's only one secondary slot, not five, so it's not centralizing in the sense of squeezing other skills out of the metagame.

You know, I'm not really sold on either of these right now; Time Mage seems to be hurting from the downfall of the magic side of the job tree.  Ninja actually has decent competition in classes like Lancer (a skillset I don't normally take seriously, because "use a Summoner", but with Summoner gone Lancers are now noteworthy).

But you know who is centralizing?  Squire.  Especially now that a lot of the low-JP stuff is banned and you need to earn 1000+ JP if you want a real skillset.  Especially now that Magic Attack Up isn't your auto endgame plan--where you might theoretically want different supports for different fights--Defence Up for this one; Equip Gun for that one.  With GJPU there's a tendency to get only two supports: "This is my GJPU support" and "This is my kicking ass support".

Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire

______________________________________

This is going to have...a rather interesting impact on the metagame.  I'm not sure what abilities will rise to the top as earlygame supports now--Equip Change is not an option due to the Chemist ban.  Nor is Equip Axe due to the Squire ban (which actually would be solid for some classes in Chapter 1).  Equip Shield, Secret Hunt, and Martial Arts are inexpensive pickups that can give a small boost to several classes, so they're considerations.  It's also possible supports will just be ignored until the 400 JP level (DU, MDU, Concentrate, Attack Up).

But the JP impact will be more significant.  First of all let's look at non-spillover JP.  GJPU gains you 50% more JP, so dividing all the JP values by 1.5 gives us...

Earlygame: 130 JP
Midgame: 400 JP
Lategame: 1200 JP
Endgame: 3600 JP

But that ignores roundoff, and spillover JP is not affected by GJPU, so it's probably more realistic to divide JP by 1.3 or so.

Earlygame: 150 JP
Midgame: 450 JP
Lategame: 1350 JP
Endgame: 4150 JP

So using these, the new metagame is something like...

Earlygame: Knight, Archer, Priest--these are the only classes available to you, and they're all solid.

Midgame: Time Mage for Haste and Slow is great (but non-centralizing).  You can have like...a Monk with Wave Fist, but I'm honestly more impressed by Mediator with Romanda Gun.  You can just barely unlock Lancer and learn nothing in the class, but that's still enough to replace Knight and stand out for having stats.

Lategame: Move+2 Concentrate Ninja.  Most of the other stuff formerly in this category really does cost 1800+ JP.  You can't get to Dancer in time anymore; you have to cut some Punch Art; you can get Level Jump 8 for Lancer but no significant vertical jump.  You certainly can't get both Short Charge and Meteor.  You can get Teleport, but what are you getting Teleport for?  Teleport Geomancer?

Endgame: Draw Out Time Mage is still probably dominant, although kind-of tight on JP now.  Might have to skip, say, Meteor.  (In fact, Samurai is just tight on JP in general--I assume you want Kikuichimoji, Kiyomori, Muramasa, Murasame, one of the cheap ones like Koutetsu, and might as well stay for Blade Grasp.  That's like...3000 JP--job levels help here, making it more like 2400 JP, but unlocking Samurai is another 1250 JP or so, which means 3650 altogether; that leaves, what, 500 JP?  It's a stretch to even afford Teleport...).  An initial rush to Dancer and then using dances to get to lategame in another class (such as TM, Samurai) is a lot less impressive now--there's just not that much room for detours.

So...know who's looking really damn good right now?  Ninja; they just don't need the JP.  They seem like clearly the best in Lategame, and for Endgame they can easily augment their Lategame performance with, say, mastered Punch Art (while still having JP to spare to get like...Two Swords to make grinding in Monk more hilarious).  Ban 'Em.


Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja

______________________________________

And now...honestly I'm going to go back to the old JP values, namely

earlygame: 200 JP
midgame: 600 JP
lategame: 1800 JP
endgame: 5400 JP

The reason being is as follows: these numbers were chosen fairly carefully--600 JP is enough to unlock all of the basic classes and do something with them.  1800 JP is enough to unlock all the advanced classes and do something with them, and to get almost any one ability in the game.  5400 JP is meant to throw Mime a bone by letting them at least get unlocked at the very, very, end of the game although...wait, 5400 is still not really enough for Mime.  You know what, let's deliberately fudge these up a little and pretend I planned for Mime all along.

earlygame: 233 JP
midgame: 700 JP
lategame: 2100 JP
endgame: 6300 JP

(These actually fit a bit better with how I've been ballparking things--like Teleport being possible in midgame, and Short Charge Meteor and CT5Holy being possible in lategame; clearly these are the numbers I really meant to use).

Anyhow, earlygame and midgame have been showing themselves reasonably healthy, and the stuff that's good in these time periods doesn't tend to stay dominant (except Haste, but in a non-centralizing way).  For instance, Holy from midgame gets outclassed by Short Charge Meteor from lategame.

It's in the lategame/endgame that I'm expecting to find balance problems with the current classes.  So...we're looking for a class that completely centralizes a time period, or is very dominant in multiple time periods.  Which means the candidates are...

Time Mage (lategame, endgame, and to some degree midgame--Archer with Teleport can be dumb).
Lancer (lategame, endgame, and to some degree midgame--Chapter 2 Lancer equipment is dumb).
Dancer (lategame, and makes a good secondary for any class you want to train for endgame).
Samurai (endgame).

I'm inclined to strike Dancer and Samurai from this list.  They're really good in their respective time periods, but they certainly don't need to be your plan A.  So...Time Mage and Lancer.

midgame: I'd say Time Mage takes it.  I'd rather have a hasted Knight than a Lancer.  And...Teleport breaks some maps far more than Haste ever could.  Not that midgame matters too much--it's not really the strength of either of these classes.

Lategame: You know what's funny?  This is basically Chapter 3 Time Mage SCC vs Chapter 3 Lancer SCC--it's not like either of them can have much of a secondary without Item or Black Magic or Summon Magic available.  Lancer probably grabs Steal Heart, and Time Mage probably gets some low-level white magic.  Actually, Lancer might delay a bit and grab Move+2, which is a nice upgrade from the SCC.  There is one noteworthy difference, though--spillover JP.  One Time Mage going for Short Charge Meteor gets your entire team Teleport from spillover JP, which is pretty cool.  Lancer can do something similar with Dragon Spirit, but it's not as good, and it's not as free (not everyone will have Lancer unlocked).  Anyway, Time Mage SCC vs Lancer SCC in Chapter 3 is...actually not obvious for which is better: they both completely and utterly smash it.  Yardow threatens a reset if played wrong, probably, but...yeah.  There's an extra variable, though--which class does teamwork better in a diverse team?  And that's probably Time Mage--with teammates who can mop up after Meteor lands, teammates who can hit opponents with non-CT moves, potentially teammates who can heal MP, potentially teammates who can Pray Faith, and teammates who benefit a lot more from haste.

Endgame: Lancer spikes up a lot here.  Poached spears are a big spike in damage.  Switching to another class and wearing a Power Sleeve is a big spike in damage.  Thief Hat is a big spike in useability.  Which...all serves to even the playing field, because the Time Mage SCC smashes Chapter 4 and the Lancer SCC does not (barring high levels).  But then we get to the stuff Time Mages gain.  Permanent faith boosting, the fact that they're probably the best carrier for arguably the best skillset at this point (Draw Out).  The spare JP to add a reaction ability (when frailty was always a weak point).  Time Mages seem better here, too.

Just...midgame, lategame, endgame, all seem to favour Time Mage over Lancer.  OMGWTF ban.

Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja
7. Time Mage

______________________________________

So...what now?

Earlygame: Priest is kinda cool, being the only available healing/reviving at this point.  Knight has the stats, Archer has the range, Thief has Steal Heart.  But nothing is really mind-blowing.

Midgame: Priest has Holy, and can deal around 252 damage with it...once.  Monk has Earth Slash and can deal 48 damage with it.  Geomancer has elemental and can deal...40 damage with it.  Archer has lightning bow and can deal ~56 damage with it.  Lancer can deal 108 with a Jump, but doesn't have much range.  Mediator can deal 36 with a Romanda Gun.  Oracle has Battle Bamboo for 77 damage.  Hm...of this group, I'm most impressed by Geomancer, Lancer, and Priest.  In non-damage...thief has probably the best RSM in Move+2, which is now basically without competition.  Oracle/Mediator have some high power status in Sleep/Mimic Daravon, with Sleep probably being the more powerful of the two (75% hit rate instead of 50% hit rate).  Silence Song is also awesome.  Invitation is worth considering if you plan to poach.  But...really, nothing here stands out as especially dominant.  Probably the best is like...Oracle with Holy, where you blast one target, and then run around giving out stick beats.  Toss in Silence Song to break a couple Chapter 2 fights.

Lategame: Lancer goes up to oh, 143 at range 8, vert 7.  Holy doesn't change much; maybe like 275 now.  Geomancer's elemental doesn't improve much, but physical attack gets...to the levels of what Lancer does at range 8...yeah, nevermind.  Mediator goes up to 64 gun damage.  Monk's Earth Slash gets a big boost from Power Sleeve and Attack Up to 144.  Early Samurai stuff is like...Heaven's Cloud Oracle at 196.  In fact...huh, Blade Grasp + Koutetsu fits in under the 2100 JP cap (168 damage).  You do need to switch out of Samurai to bring your A-Game to that, of course.  Oh, I just realized, Equip Shield is totally the new Magic Attack Up--yeah, raise all the magic damage numbers (210 damage for Heaven's Cloud Oracle; 300 damage for Holy).  Nameless Dance is nasty at this point in the game, of course.

Endgame: Lancer spikes massively to 289 damage by switching to Geomancer or Monk with a poached spear and PA boosting.  Holy doesn't change much (I'm calculating 336; more like 400 after faith boosting) but notably Holy is now castable 3+ times so you can spam it.  Oracle becomes a beast due to ridiculous versatility and raised faith.  Draw Out...Muramasa Oracle is 324; Kikuichimoji Oracle is 288; Kiyomori is hax; Move+2 helps Draw Out a lot.  Two Hands Oracle can deal 544 damage with Whale Whisker.  Monk likes levels and bracers, gets a 256 Earth Slash; Monk has zero versatility, though--can't switch out equipment; can't have HP; can't have speed.  Mediator gets elemental guns with robes for ~211 damage.



It's kind-of interesting how there seems to be quite a bit of competition at several levels; not always the same classes.  I'm...really leaning towards Samurai on this one, though.  The best endgame skillset is one thing.  The support ability that allows for the highest damage in the game with no real drawback is one thing.  Unexpectedly solid lategame setup is also nifty, but what's really getting me here is Blade Grasp.  Now, I've gone on rants about how Blade Grasp isn't that special, how Auto Potion is pretty much just better and BG is overhyped.  Now ask yourself, what competition is not already banned?  Auto-Potion?  Banned.  MP-Switch?  Banned.  Critical Quick?  Banned.  Sunken State?  Banned.  Abandon?  Banned.  Hammedo?  Not banned, and situationally much better, but "usually doesn't stop enemy archers" is often a deal-breaker, not to mention that doesn't work on monsters thing.  Damage Split?  Banned.  HP Restore?  Mediocre except in boss fights where you can predict enemy zodiac, faith, and stats.  So...yes, if you ban all of Blade Grasp's competition, then suddenly it becomes very, very centralizing.

Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja
7. Time Mage
8. Samurai

______________________________________

So...what now?  The biggest shakeup is that the obvious best endgame option is gone.  Who has the best Chapter 4 now?  And how do you answer this question in the case of interesting hybrid setups, like combining Equip Gun with Jump and a stolen elemental gun?  Well...let's go for a simpler question: what class has the easiest SCC in the endgame?  And I believe the correct answer is Oracle (or Mediator with elemental guns).  Who benefits the most from multiclassing?  Lancer loves being able to use Clothes and poached/stolen items.  Priest loves to play the support role and have allies that don't run out of gas.  Dancer loves to have teammates who can blitz and generally deal with non-statusable enemies; in fact, Dance can easily go on just about any class.  Mediator has essentially no R/S/M abilities in the SCC, so that's big, and they do a whole bunch of slow long-term stuff that doesn't come out in the SCC, like breeding.  And Equip Gun is...actually probably quite good; hold on, let's analyze this....

What are the best remaining support abilities that you'd take into a tough fight?  Not counting skillset specific ones (Martial Arts, Equip Spear) there's...

Equip Shield (chibi Magic Attack Up in lategame onwards.  And there's also elemental shield shenanigans).
Equip Gun (now that there's no MAU or GJPU, very few setups wouldn't be better with a gun, and more improved than they would be by, say, Attack Up or +1 MA).
Attack Up (has its uses too, of course, like boss blitzes and Monks).
Defense Up (Almost always relevant, and pretty significant).
Magic Defense Up (More niche, but when it's good, it's very good).

Most of these cost too much to be pulled out early (in fact, a lot of them seem more endgame than lategame) but this is definitely a point for both Oracle and Mediator endgame.

Hm, Dancer's value has probably gone down a little.  Dancer/Monk and Dancer/Lancer seem sub-par because of being female.  Dancer/Oracle and Dancer/Mediator feel kind-of redundant.  Dancer/Priest seems fairly solid, but grinding to Dancer takes longer than just sitting in Priest and learning a bunch of good abilities.


Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place; though--maybe endgame has reached a happy equilibrium.  What about lategame?  Lategame is...being brutally smoked by Lancer.  Yeah, Monk and Priest are competitive on the damage, but we've got the SCC comparison for this one; it's not particularly close.  And...hey, Lancer was in the running for endgame anyway.  OMGban


Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja
7. Time Mage
8. Samurai
9. Lancer

______________________________________

With Lancer gone we get an interesting metagame shift--all of the sudden, Oracle has the best physical damage in Chapter 2.  Not really in endgame Chapter 4 which can see brave-raised Monk and silly stuff like that, but they aren't bad due to poaches.  Granted, I'd argue guns > sticks regardless.

Mediator and Oracle are funny, because they're both pretty powerful among the remaining classes, but they fill niches (and similar niches at that making neither one dominant) so they're not exactly centralizing.

Well...with Lancer gone, does the dominating of Chapter 3 get picked up by another class?  You know, I'd hazard a guess at Priest.  Their high speed isn't a penalty like it is in Chapter 2 (in fact, it lets them hit Ninjas safely even if the Ninja move-waits).  There's lots of assassination missions.  Enemy totals tend to cap out at 6ish--no Golgorand or Sluice.

And...Priests seem like a fine choice anyway.  I'm thinking the highest damage-per-character-per-turn in the current midgame is like...three priests, and two Monks with Chakra to heal MP so that the priests can Holy every turn.  Mage damage in chapter 2 is just that out-of-whack that dedicated MP-healing is actually worthwhile.  Granted, this requires finding flat terrain and moving as a group so that Chakra hits multiple targets.  (In Chapter 3 it just requires one Bard with Angel Song, and yeah, that easily wins damage-per-character-per-turn in Chapter 3, too.  Also Chapter 4.  For all that I'm inclined to take full-party combos with a grain of salt--I'm not basing this list around The Quickening or Sunken Stated Dance--that still stands out to me).  Yeah, PriestHax seems the sensible thing to cry here!


Ban-List:
1. Calculator
2. Summoner
3. Wizard
4. Chemist
5. Squire
6. Ninja
7. Time Mage
8. Samurai
9. Lancer
10. Priest

______________________________________


And...that's where I'm going to stop for tonight.  Whee, FFT analysis; easy way to eat up 12 hours of a vacation......

[TigerKnee]

I'm actually interested to see what you think of the class balance and design  in two certain "close to completed" total conversion patches for FFT.

Celdia's Class Patch:
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?board=60.0

and Eternal's Parted Ways:
http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?board=48.0

When I was beta-testing Celdia I think I actually used the "Phoenix Down on its own would be a top tier skillset" line too, which is amusing.

There's a bunch of my scattered analysis (though not many mathematical ones) throughout the forum, sometimes in Bug Reports, Discussion or Battle Logs and I'm kind of interested to know what you would think of certain changes that I did analysis on, such as Two Swords -> Two Guns, Mustadio new Elemental formula attacks in Engineer class and weapon balance.

[Grefter]

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo goooooood. <3

[metroid composite]

Looking at patches would be...a lot more work for me.  I do kinda have almost every number in FFT memorized, SCC results for various classes in my back pocket, Speed run pathways that various people used (at first people did like...Ninja, taking 9 hours, then Ramuh spam, taking 7 hours, then a solo calculator grinding out mastery in Chapter 1, taking 5 hours).  I've done other lists that I approached from the other way around: drop the least useful class, look at remaining classes, repeat (which is interesting because it's a very different list: Lancer, Samurai, and Dancer end up much lower because they can't touch Calc; Time Mage ends up a lot higher because it keeps the suport of Wizard/Summoner.  Oracle was also higher; certainly above Priest).

Basically, I have a huge mental network already tuned to FFT, and FFT only that allows me to shuffle stuff around in my head easily.  I started working through this list mentally before I decided I should write things down.  That kind of spontaneous project can't happen with a patch.