Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

[metroid composite]

My knee jerk is that you want to take SCCs as a point of reference here.  Not because they are a great data point for average plays, but the SCC rules are a pretty damn good reflection of a moment in time where FFT was a wonderful new mystery to people and your "average" player was fairly decently represented.  My knee jerk was to say 3/4 of the level "caps" of the challenge would be your target, but even that I am sure over targets it.  2/3 is a bit more in line with what I think of as "average"

The SCC level caps?  Nah, they've always been ridiculous.  2/3 of the level cap...well the chapter 1 level cap is 20, so that's 13.  I literally don't think I've ever hit 13 in Chapter 1 or seen anyone hit that.  It exists so that you can unlock Mime in Chapter 1 without going over the level cap.


Side note about SCC levels...in terms of only mage SCCs being level 15ish at Orbonne checkpoint...I'm not sure that's true.  I definitely know that my Samurai were all sub level 18 for Velius.  Pretty sure most of my Squires were sub level 18 as well (with Ramza well over 18 because lol ubersquire).  The really low-level SCCs like Time Mage are like...level 13 for Velius, and level 15-16 by Bethla Garison.  I am perfectly aware that people don't go Time Mage levels of low level.


Hmm...ok, fishing around for an FAQ that has levels...there aren't many.  Here's one I found.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/197339-final-fantasy-tactics/faqs/55901

I'll assume 3 actions, two hitting enemies, one hitting allies, one of the ones hitting enemies kills.


Gariland Magic City doesn't count because you probably recruit fresh generics after that anyway.

Mandalia Plains--level 1 enemies
Sweegy--party level enemiess
Dorter--level 3 enemies
Sand rats--level 3 enemies
Thieves' Fort--level 5 enemies
Lenalia--Level 6 enemies
Fovoham--Level 7 enemies
Zeakden--Level 8 enemies

Running this through a spreadsheet (assuming three turns per fight) I get level 4 at the end of Zeakden.  (Level 2 at the Sand Rat checkpoint).

There is a mild complication to mention here, though--you probably have five generics.  In early chapters the game only gives you room for 4, so one of them isn't gaining JP and exp.

Anyhow...chapter 2

Dorter - 10
Araguay - (party level right?)
Zirekile - 9
Zaland - 12
Bariaus - 13
Zigolis - (party level?)
Goug - 13.5
Bariaus Valley - 15
Golgorand - 15
Lionel - 15
Queklain - ?? (the FAQ maker doesn't know...I think Elfboy's got a stat topic somehwere with this info)

Anyway, I'm getting level 9 (almost 10) by the end of the chapter.  Level 7 at the meeting at lionel castle.

"Well we have all these studies of "regular" play throughs in LPs, I wonder what the data in a meta analysis shows your actual average level is."

Oh yeah, watched one of those recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ_t1u3qAYc

Clearly 99 in Chapter 2.  Looks like he level-up-downed a fair bit too, because Ramza won't normally have 50 PA as a Knight at level 99.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Queklain is Level 20.


To be clear, I think 15 for Orbonne is reasonable enough, it was 15 for Riovanes that I was questioning (beyond the lowest-level classes).


That said, no way is Time Mage 13 for Velius. Time Mage needs to hit Level 12 just to start casting Meteor, something they do in chapter 2. (Everything before Meteor involves lots of Haste and staff whacks so they actually gain large amounts of Exp early). Now, they finish battles in such a small number of actions after Meteor that they probably aren't 18 by the end of C3, that I'll grant, but they should be ~16 just based on getting one level every four battles post-Meteor (which sounds right to me).

Samurai/Squire I'm both really skeptical about and I'm certain I wasn't that low myself (despite not grinding), but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Keep in mind that if I recall your playstyle right, you tended to reset if you got in randoms so right there that's a fair bit of potential lost Exp, especially for Samurai which will absolutely backtrack for Kiyomori post-Yardow thus having 7 potential randoms (~2.3 on average? They're 1/3 chance, right?) in chapter 3.


Hmm, that makes me want to put this together...


List of potential randoms, for reference:
Chapter 1:
5 unavoidable (Mandalia, Sweegy, Mandalia, Mandalia, Mandalia)
1 if we backtrack for Silk Robe/Chain Vest
2 if, in addition to the above, we backtrack for Mithril Sword, Silver Bow, heavy equip upgrades, etc., after Miluda

Chapter 2:
4 if we backtrack for the first spear and/or the Ice Bow
3 if we backtrack for the Triangle Hat, Rainbow Staff, Power Wrist, and/or sticks instead of waiting for after Zaland
4 if, in addition to the above, we backtrack for Coral Swords before Zaland and Bariaus Hill [very unlikely]
2 if we backtrack for Green Berets and Wizard Robes before Zigolis and Goug
4 if, in addition to the above, we backtrack for katanas and balls
1 if we backtrack for Brigandine, Wizard Staff, and/or Bizen Boat
1 unavoidable (Bariaus Valley)
10 if we backtrack for Cross Helmets [extremely unlikly!]

Chapter 3:
4 if we backtrack for various new weapons at chapter start (sword, spear, bow) instead of waiting until after Goland
3 unavoidable (Zeklaus x3)
8 if we backtrack for Mithril Guns [unlikely]
2 if we backtrack for Platinum Sword and +30 heavy armour HP after Yardow
2 if, in addition to the above, we backtrack for Ninja Edge and Kiyomori

Chapter 4:
12 unavoidable (Yuguo, Grog, Finath, Bed, Finath, Dolbodar, Zirekile, Araguay, Sweegy, Mandalia, Mandalia, Sweegy)
Plus a bunch more if we do the Beowulf sidequest, don't feel like counting that up.


I think how much backtracking one does is open to player choice, though I'd typically rather not do any backtracks that involve 5+ battles at least, and a few more in there are certainly questionable too. Some obviously depend on the party contribution; the first backtrack of chapter 2 is a no-brainer if you plan on running a Lancer in the first half of the chapter, but if you aren't you will probably skip it.

[metroid composite]

That said, no way is Time Mage 13 for Velius. Time Mage needs to hit Level 12 just to start casting Meteor, something they do in chapter 2.

Hmmm...I definitely remember not having Meteor for Golgorand, although I know some people get it earlier.  I also remember being something like 16 for Bethla Garrison, but that doesn't rule out being like...14 for Velius instead of 13.



Anway, random twist I thought of inspired by MOBAs is a drafting format.  It's not necessarily a good measure of class quality (since, for example, Priest will get picked highly just for Raise, usually after the other team drafts Chemist).

The format goes something like...

Team 1 bans a class
Team 2 bans a class
Team 1 picks a class
Team 2 picks two classes
(alternate picking two classes).

And then they compete--in this case I guess compete to have the overall more powerful FFT party for beating the single player.

Since Team 1 gets the first pick after the ban phase, they'll usually look to ban the third most powerful class (probably Wizard?)

Team 2 I think is going to ban calc damn near 100% of the time.

Team 1 first picks Summoner

Team 2...with Wizard banned I think they need to grab Time Mage.  Short Charge becomes the premium support in the absence of Wizard and Calc.  And...for the other pick...Squire or Chemist.  I think Chemist actually--since Wizard and Summoner are gone as options, the only busted thing that's accessible early is Auto-Potion, and Time Mage has a better endgame than Summoner, and you want the better revival.

Team1...has to pick up Priest, or risk the other team going Pirest+Monk and just locking out revival.  For the other pick...Squire is just so good.  It's going to dictate a lot of the picks for the remainder of the draft, where Team 2 will not want to grab lategame stuff.

Team 2...Ninja's still open, and is JP-light.  Grab that.  And...Oracle operates alright on low JP.  (Also, opens up the potential of Move MP-Up and MP Switch combo).

Team 1...the strategy from here is probably to draft some stuff that the other team wants, so...like...inexpensive JP dips.  Then again...none of the JP dips are terribly high value at this point, and it's possible the other team will try to steal some lategame.  I think team 1 wants to lock in Samurai as one of their picks here.  For the other pick...I dunno, maybe Monk?  Without Gained JP Up, team 1 probably isn't investing in Lancer, but might want Martial Arts.

Team 2...doesn't necessarily need anything right now.  It's probably going to play a lot like a Time Mage SCC with Auto Potion and Phoenix Down and maybe a Ninja to haste.  Thief for Move+2 is...eh, if there's a Ninja the Ninja is probably going to get Teleport from spillover; doesn't really need Move+2.  Although what this does do is deny Move+2 to the enemy team, who will then be stuck on Move+1 unless they go for Bard.  This would also cripple their Samurai pick, since Draw Out is a lot worse with low movement.  So...probably picking up Thief...is Mediator worth-it?  Ehhh...Mediator is a pile of lategame.  Then again, it's lategame that can be used without JP, and it's also probably worthwhile to deny lategame to the other team.  On the third hand, I actually feel like what this party needs is more earlygame so...Knight?  Knight is like...double the damage of any Chapter 1 class Team 2 has picked up so far.  Weapon Guard is nice.  Equip Shield might be even better if the plan is to grind Auto Potion pretty early--remember Team 2 doesn't have Squire so the earlygame Support ability isn't locked in.  Ooh, jumping back to the Mediator pick, one thing it would do is just...deny guns.  Team 1 would never be able to use guns.  OK, I think I like Knight/Mediator here.

Team 1...probably breathes a sign of relief and takes Thief, securing a lategame movement.  And then...probably Geomancer?  Denies Attack Up to the enemy Ninja, Attack Up Monk is a thing that they can use.  They don't have teleport or Wizards so Geomancer with Draw Out might be a real consideration...although honestly it'll usually be Summoner with Draw Out.  The 4 movement for a team that is lacking teleport is probably relevant, though.

Team 2...with Attack Up and Martial Arts out of the pool, I think Archer is now a must-pick to have a support for the Ninja.  Charge works decently well with guns anyway, so the team isn't exactly crying about this.  And then it's just a question of what late-game class Team 2 wants to deny Team 1.  Lancer is the best of them, and Team 2's Ninja doesn't really have a secondary yet, so probably that.  Bard is a consideration, though, because Angel Song is pretty good in a party that's dropping Meteors.  But on the other hand, Bard does very little for the enemy team, cause they've got Half-of MP anyway.  I think Archer/Lancer here.

Team 1...picks Dancer Bard.

Team 2...picks Mime.




So...the final drafted teams ended up with...

Banned: Wizard/Calc

Team 1: Summoner, Squire, Priest, Samurai, Monk, Thief, Geomancer, Bard, Dancer

Team 2: Time Mage, Chemist, Ninja, Oracle, Knight, Mediator, Archer, Lancer, Mime

Hmm...team 1 is going to have the stronger earlygame off the back of Summoner, I think.  The lategame probably goes to team 2--although the lack of Gained JP Up slows them down from getting there.  Hasting physical classes and gun users while having Auto Potion still sounds like a pretty good plan, though.  I think Team 2 ended up a bit stronger overall.

Were there any errors in drafting...?  Hmm...Monk probably got drafted too early; that could have been...something more impactful, maybe Mediator for more Summon damage.  Lancer may have gotten drafted too late.

Anyway, just a thought experiment; might try a few more drafts with different starting bans to see how that shakes things up.

[metroid composite]

Alright, another draft...let's say Team 1 assumes this is going to be a normal draft, bans Wizard because it's the 3rd best pick, and then team 2 is like "you know what, we're gonna be weird, and not ban calculator."  Team 2 is obviously going to deny Squire to team 1 (slow down that calc as much as possible).  I think they just want to dominate the earlygame, so ban Squire, pick Chemist/Summoner.

Team 1: ban Wizard

Team 2: ban Squire

Team 1: Do they even go for Calculator at this point?  Yeah, I think they still do.  The alternative is...what, pick summoner and let the enemy team have Chemist AND Calc?  Ew.  Pick Calc.

Team 2: Chemist Summoner.  The earliest of games to ever earlygame.

Team 1: Basically locked into picking Priest here, or risk being denied revival.  And then...Time Mage; no reason to let the enemy team have Short Charge summons.

Team 2: Probably Oracle, has earlygame applications; is mathskillable.  And then...fuck it, this team's game plan is to be way better in the earlygame right?  So...I'm non-sarcastically eyeing Knight right now.  Like...the enemy team already has Teleport as an option, don't care if they get Thief.  We're getting blown out once Mathskill is a thing, so Mediator is a super irrelevant class.  Ninja...if the enemy team picks it, it would really only be to deny it to us.  Lategame...yeah, neither team has Squire, neither team is really fishing for lategame.  So...Oracle + Knight then?

Team 1: There's nothing left that this team considers relevant.  Nothing else earlygame enough to make grinding to Calc more comfortable.  Thief to make sure the enemy team never gets a movement ability at all.  And that stops any risk of the enemy team going Mediator+Thief for Chantages.  And then...so far this team has Calc, Time Mage, Priest?  Maybe Lancer, just for a class to haste and heal while grinding to calc.  Lancers have this power period in Chapter 2-3, so that's convenient.  Thief/Lancer.

Team 2: Hmm...obviously the enemy team is going to value Ninjas pretty low.  But do we even want Ninja?  Like...all the movement abilities have been cut off from us.  The plan is to be way better in the earlygame, and this plan doesn't mesh well with grinding to Ninja.  I think Mediator is a good pick here, as it denies gun usage to the enemy team.  (Also, guns are pretty good when you have no move).  BARD FOR MOVE+3?? lol jk Bards suck.  I mean...ok, fine Ninja, cause nothing else is really jumping out to me as valuable.  We have no move, so Draw Out is very mediocre.  Mediator/Ninja.

Team 1: I...actually think they pick Bard here.  Good for grinding calc.  Deny Move+3 from ever being an option.  What else can they pick to just fuck over the enemy team (bearing in mind that it'll get ignored while grinding to calc).  Geomancer is a consideration--starve them of movement...wait no, they have Ninja already, picking Geo does jack shit.  I think Samurai is still not going to do much for them; super short range.  Monk is maybe a slightly better deny, but it still cries without movement.  Oooh, actually, you know what they can use without movement?  Dance.  I actually think that might be the pick.  Bard/Dancer, let's go.

Team 2: Ok, so what's even left at this point...Archer, Samurai, Monk, Geomancer, lolmime.  Archer fits into the game plan a little bit; some Charge gunners.  Do we need any help with our lategame?  Eh, we have Summoner, Ninja, Chemist, Oracle, Mediator--as much as we've been ignoring lategame, that's plenty of power, and we're gonna lose the lategame anyway.  So...Samurai's off the table--the no move abilities kind-of just kill it.  Nobody has Gained JP Up, so setting Martial Arts while you train to Ninja is actually pretty reasonable.  I think that's a pick.  Last pick is between Geo and Archer.  Mmm...we have a lot of gunners, so Charge is actually pretty relevant.  Martial Arts fills the same Niche as Attack Up on a Ninja, whereas Charge does something different.  Geos provide +1 move, but are we actually going to use it?  The mages are probably just as happy on Summoner/Oracle most of the time, especially without Gained JP Up, they probably don't want to leave.  Any physical types can go to Ninja.  I guess it depends if we actually plan on running a Ninja at all, though.  If not, Geo does more for this party.  I think the answer is that we will, though.  Summoners without Short Charge or Magic Attack Up don't smash the game that hard, so eventually we will want Ninja.  Also...what support ability are we using on the mages?  I...think it might be Equip Shield, from spillover, which reduces the appeal of Geos some.  Probably switch between that and Defense Up once we know both.  So...ok, Monk/Archer.

Team 1: Geomancer, Samurai.

Team 2: Mime.




So...the final drafted teams...

Banned: Wizard/Squire

Team 1: Calculator, Time Mage, Priest, Thief, Lancer, Bard, Dancer, Geomancer, Samurai

Team 2: Summoner, Chemist, Oracle, Knight, Mediator, Ninja, Monk, Archer, Mime

Pretty weird draft.  Once they had Calc, Team 1 could kind-of just dedicate themselves to fucking over team 2.  Team 2 certainly did some of that back, screwing over the earlygame of team 1 as much as possible.  Team 1 is bad Chapter 1.  Like...not "they're going to reset" bad--Time Mage SCCs can clear Chapter 1 without reset.  But pretty bad.  Get Haste, and most of the party rush to Holy.  Probably send one character down the road to Lancer so that there's someone to haste come the start of Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 they're fine; lots of people with Holy; one Lancer to clean up.  Something like that.  Team 2 is still a lot stronger in Chapter 2--Auto Potion and Summon baby.

Chapter 3...the lack of Gained JP Up means Mathskill is not online until part-way through this chapter, and the party is going to get weaker while training in Calc.  Then roughly half way through the chapter the first Mathskiller comes online.  Even one Mathskiller knowing only CT and 5 makes all the difference, probably puts them slightly better in party power level.  And half way through Chapter 3 is pretty much the mid point of the game.

Chapter 4...obviously the Math Skill team sails through.  The summoner team should do ok, but not as spectacular.  There's no haste or movement buffs for Ninjas.  Summoners don't have magic attack up or short charge, so their lack of scaling is hurting a bit by this chapter.  But like...Auto Potion can still carry them just fine.

[SnowFire]

For levels: On one hand, I definitely agree that even for a 2nd or 3rd FFT playthrough, levels are going to be higher than described by MC initially.  (I certainly was the type that'd tool around attacking myself a bit toward the end of battles because why not.)  On the other hand, I suppose relative rankings are more *relevant* if you're keeping grinding low because the game is more difficult.  (Same issue as why I'd basically ignore certain uber-broken "you win" strats, 'sup Calc.)

MC: Nice idea with the MOBA-esque draft, except...  I have to think that allowing multiples of a class is going to render a lot of the draft nearly irrelevant.  e.g. in Draft 1, if playing "competitively", Team A is probably going to run something like 4x Summoners w/ White Magic, and maybe one Geomancer or Samurai for giggles.  Draft 2 Team B can also credibly run 3-5 Summoners while building up 0-2 Ninjas w/ Item or whatever.  As a comment from the peanut gallery, I'd think a draft with a Four Job Fiesta-esque requirement of "maximum of 1 person in each class" (barring the very early game for training up JP of course) would be interesting.  It still wouldn't fix the issue of "4 people running Summon as their secondary" but it'd make the lower tier picks more relevant.  I guess you could also use a "no Secondary / no imported RSM" requirement, but that'd be less fun.  There's also somehow limit doubling up on secondaries too much...  not sure how that'd be specified, but oh well.

Anyway, with my own definition for my own hypothetical draft...  this makes certain classes that have useful skills that you don't actually want to deploy after getting those skills much worse, since you're now locking yourself into running a Squire / Thief / etc. forever, including at end game.  This also indirectly makes Knight worse, since Knight would really like a Move +X ability but that'd require drafting a Bard/Thief/Squire, which are all  questionable picks.  I also think that if we're assuming just 1 ban per team, Wizard seems a little too replaceable?  They do damage, sure, but lots of classes do damage.  I'd be more interesting as Team 1 at banning out healing options if I think I'm getting Summoner, which nicely comes with Moogle & Fairy.  So I'd be inclined to ban Chemist instead (Auto-Potion is kind of Auto-Win) to try and force an early Priest pick out of Team B.  So sure, Team B grabs Wizard & Priest, Team A grabs Ninja & Time Mage, Team B grabs...  hmm, not sure, lots of options.  Monk is really not THAT bad IMHO especially as a long-term class to run that also has some backup utility for others, and also denies it to A's Ninja, and also soft-locks A out of revival, so sure, Monk & Samurai.  Team A can credibly round out their team with some combination of Oracle/Lancer/Geo/Dancer..  probably Oracle / Geo since Geo makes a good carrier class for all these fine magical secondaries Team A has.  (Oracle also has the Move-MP Up / MP-Switch combo for very lategame lulz, but that's just a bonus.)  Team B has Lancer/Dancer/Mediator to round itself out...  Team B has quite the chippy combination here, they don't really need to dive in at all assuming Monk is mostly spamming Earth Slash, and both Lancer & Mediator good damage from a distance, and Dancer doesn't even care.  Mediator is not actually wholly ridiculous here since Monk damage formula likes High Brave IIRC and hey, better proc rates on Blade Grasp or something, so maybe that.

End up with:
Banned: Calc / Chemist
Team A: Summoner, Ninja, Time Mage, Oracle, Geomancer
Team B: Wizard, Priest, Monk, Samurai, Mediator

Just my 2 cents of course.

[metroid composite]

MC: Nice idea with the MOBA-esque draft, except...  I have to think that allowing multiples of a class is going to render a lot of the draft nearly irrelevant.  e.g. in Draft 1, if playing "competitively", Team A is probably going to run something like 4x Summoners w/ White Magic, and maybe one Geomancer or Samurai for giggles.  Draft 2 Team B can also credibly run 3-5 Summoners while building up 0-2 Ninjas w/ Item or whatever.  As a comment from the peanut gallery, I'd think a draft with a Four Job Fiesta-esque requirement of "maximum of 1 person in each class" (barring the very early game for training up JP of course) would be interesting.  It still wouldn't fix the issue of "4 people running Summon as their secondary" but it'd make the lower tier picks more relevant.  I guess you could also use a "no Secondary / no imported RSM" requirement, but that'd be less fun.

If I was doing an interesting challenge playthrough, I think your method sounds like more fun and better design, yeah.

Two problems, though.

1. The game actually encourages piling a lot of characters into one class, thanks to spillover JP.
2. The way that draft format works encourages having one fantastic skillset (like Summon) and then drafting four carriers.  The way actual FFT works is much closer to wanting one fantastic carrier and four skillsets.

So like...as a measure of FFT balance, I don't think your draft format is as effective.  (But yes, it is better game design if someone actually wanted to play one of these).



I do think you're right about banning Chemist and not Wizard being the better draft strategy, though (in either draft format).  More on that in a moment....



So...while I was out of the house I went through a couple of "what if X was drafted differently" scenarios.

First scenario...what if team 1 banned Summoner instead of Wizard...?

Team 1: ban Summoner
Team 2: ban Calculator

Pretty sure Calc has to be the team 2 ban this time.  With Summon not an option, Team 2 would actually need to pick between earlygame and lategame with their first two picks, whereas Summon covers both.

Team 1: the first pick here is interesting, and I think the first pick is Chemist.  With both Summoner and Calculator gone...what are you using that Wizard MA for exactly?  Meteor?  Draw Out?  Pick: Chemist

Team 2: So...Wizard + Time Mage is actually very tempting here.  Time Mage SCC kind of murders from the moment it gets Meteor, and Wizard kind of murders everything before that time.  There's a risk of getting locked out of revival, but is the enemy team really going to pick Chemist, Monk, Priest for their first three classes?  Really?  Time Mage/Wizard.

Team 1: So like...this team is looking for synergies with Chemist.  Auto Potion covers survivability, so usually damage is what you want.  I think Priest is a good pickup; Holy deals damage, and you lock the enemy team out of good revival.  (Monk has trash revival, granted).  I also think the way the draft is going, you don't want the enemy team to have Squire.  Time Mage is a JP hog.  They actually have the perfect two classes to pair with Samurai, which is also a JP hog.  Priest/Squire.

Team 2: Alright, so...the enemy team is squeezing us out of revival.  Should we pick up Monk...?  Let's see...Revive is a 500 JP no vertical tolerance move that can miss.  Chakra...also has no vertical tolerance.  Ehh....  Especially since we won't have Gained JP Up this isn't exciting.  Alright, so the enemy team has durability, and is looking to pick up damage.  Maybe take that away from them.  Ninja.  And hmm...Oracle?  They don't have a Life Drain/Demi type spell yet!  And Oracles don't need a lot of JP, so aren't screwed by missing Squire.  Also, by far the highest MA class left, so their Holy damage will suffer.  Oracle/Ninja

Team 1: Needs damage.  They have the Gained JP Up to support Samurai, and Samurai is damage.  So....that's a good pickup.  (Also, as much as the enemy team doesn't have gained JP Up, Teleport MAU Draw Out is something we really don't want them to have, and Blade Grasp is relevant to them since they don't have Auto Potion).  And then...time to be a dick and pick Monk to deny revive?  Sure, let's be a dick!  Samurai/Monk

Team 2: You know, this team is pretty happy mostly sticking with TM/Wizard.  The enemy team's plan is Samurai you say?  And maybe Monk?  We can be a dick back about that.  Thief to deny them Move+2 and...Geomancer to deny them a 4 move class (other than Squire).  Also, Geomancer would be their highest MA class at this point, since we have Oracle/Wizard/Time Mage and Summoner is banned, so...Geo actually does fuck them out of having a good carrier.  Oh, and since they can't go Ninja, denying them Attack Up Monks is kinda relevant too.  We do get a little bit out of this besides screwing our opponent of course; Attack Up and Move+2 for the Ninjas.  Thief/Geomancer

Team 1: Um...this is actually kind-of worrisome on the damage front.  I think grab Lancer as a high damage class.  After Chapter 2 we can Equip Spear on Monk or Priest and both of those are reasonable, so I don't think we need to freak out and get Archer as a chibi-Geomancer replacement.  I think this party could really use Dance, though.  Dance is good offense, and doesn't rely on a good carrier or good movement.

Team 2: So like...not only does this team lack revival, the only form of healing so far is Oracle's Life Drain.  >_>.  I think this party should actually seriously consider Bard now.  And...this party actually really doesn't have a reaction ability for its mages.  The Ninja can use Abandon or Sunken State or whatever--no worries there.  But the mages?  Aren't using MP Switch, and given the lack of healing would much rather have a defensive reaction and not Counter Magic or Counter Flood....  Let's see...Arrow Guard is 450 JP...ew!  On a party that doesn't have Gained JP Up.  Ehh...Knight then for Weapon Guard.  What else is open...Oh, Mediator is still open.  Yeah, grab that actually.  And...ehh...screw Bard, Life Song sucks anyway.  Let's just get Weapon Guard.  Mediator/Knight

Team 1: Archer/Bard

Team 2: Mime







So the teams look like...

Team 1: Chemist, Priest, Squire, Samurai, Monk, Lancer, Dancer, Archer, Bard

Team 2: Wizard, Time Mage, Ninja, Oracle, Thief, Geomancer, Mediator, Knight

So...Team 2 definitely has the better Chapter 1.  Wizard kinda locks that.  Team 1 has the relative invincibility granted by Auto Potion and loads of revival.  But their offense is sketchy.  I actually think they go somewhat heavy on Dance, probably getting more than one Dancer.  Holy in assassination missions, of course.  Dance when defeating all enemies, cleaning up with...Jump or Draw Out or Holy.  In the lategame like Chapter 4, probably parts of Chapter 3, I think Team 1 does end up the stronger party.  Dance with Autopotion, revival (and teammates who deal damage).  Nukes that are still good enough for assassination missions.  I suspect Team 2 is better at more points in the game, though.  Also, team 2 managed to draft Mediator/Thief, so some slim (33% or less) chance of "poof chantages; now we're invincible too!"

Kind-of an amusing draft, since both parties ended up kinda gimped and lower power than a lot of previous drafts.

(Next up: I play around with banning Chemist).

[metroid composite]

So like...banning Wizard always seems to end up with the enemy team getting Chemist, and that's always a significant power point.

Banning Summoner means you can first pick Chemist, but it's easy to end up in a weird draft situation from there.

How about banning Chemist?

Team 1: ban Chemist

Team 2: ban Calculator

(This is a scenario where team 2 can realistically consider letting Team 1 have Calculator, but I'll come back to that).

Team 1: Pick Summoner

Team 2: Well...you really don't want Summoner to get paired with either Wizard or Time Mage; the synergy is pretty gross.  So...this is going to begin pretty similar to last draft.  Wizard/Time Mage

Team 1: And the reasoning is going to look pretty similar here; Squire helps summoner a lot, not having Squire hurts Time Mage a lot.  So Squire.  And Priest is premium revival now, so Priest.

Team 2: I think it's going to be Monk.  Unlike last draft, the enemy team doesn't have any massive holes in their offense that can be neutered with draft choices, so might as well get some revival.  And...get Ninja with that, cause we definitely want to use the Monk if we're picking it up this early, and it loses a lot without Ninja.  Picking Oracle doesn't really deny anything big to the enemy team this time.  We don't have Squire, so that makes Samurai pretty unappealing.  Monk/Ninja

Team 1: Mmm...well we have Summon, so Draw Out isn't that exciting.  Slight damage increase over Shiva/Ramuh in the lategame when the lack of Short Charge starts hurting?  Actually TBH that sounds worthwhile.  In fact, this party is lacking lategame right now; OK lock in Samurai.  Actually, know what else has really solid lategame?  Oracle.  It's going pretty late for its power-level; the enemy team probably wants it soon because it's functional on low JP...just a solid pick.  Oracle/Samurai

Team 2: A very similar situation where movement denial could be used to screw over a Samurai pick...but the enemy team already has Summoner, so honestly not really.  We're not that sad if the Ninjas have to use Teleport instead of Move+2.  Geomancer doesn't do too much for us right now; Ninja pairs better with Monk.  I think Mediator is a good pickup; MOAR DAMAGE.  Lancer doesn't hold a whole lot of value for either team right now.  Mmm...actually, the pick might still be Thief if we're picking up Mediator right now.  Potential for Chantage combo.  And Move+2 is still a reasonably nice pickup/deny.  Mediator/Thief

Team 1: Geomancer seems like a solid pickup here.  Has relevant use to this team for a Draw Out carrier, and just movement in general.  Geo is also potentially relevant to the enemy team through Attack up.  For the other class...Dancer as a training secondary for Samurai?  Eh...nah, Summon's just fine as a Samurai secondary.  Lancer?  Nah, don't really need it.  Knight?  Eh, sure, Weapon Guard's a small buff, but both parties want it.

Team 2: I mean...with summon, I don't think team 1 is going to get too excited over investments like dance or sing.  Without Gained JP Up, I don't think we're too excited about them either.  I guess Sing restores MP, but we're already leaning on Monk for revival.  So...Archer/Lancer?  Both are relevant for Ninjas.

Team 1: Bard/Dancer:

Team 2: Mime




Final drafts look like...

Team 1: Summoner, Priest, Squire, Oracle, Samurai, Geomancer, Knight, Dancer, Bard

Team 2: Time Mage, Wizard, Monk, Ninja, Mediator, Thief, Archer, Lancer, Mime

I think Team 1 has an edge early on.  SCC Wizards and SCC Summoners (which these are both kinda close to early on) are similar in power earlygame.  But if team 2 wants revival, it needs to run a non-mage (Monk) and train it for quite a while before it even learns revival (without the help of Gained JP Up).  Team 1 gets Raise for relatively low JP, by comparison.  Granted, Haste is nice, so that helps.  At some point, Short Charge Meteor happens, and that's a power spike that puts team 2 ahead.  Much later, Blade Grasp Draw Out Summoners will be a thing.  They won't match the damage or mobility of team 2, but they'll have Blade Grasp making them a lot tankier (not to mention, more likely to have shields, fairly likely to have Defense Up or Magic Defense Up).  I...think Team 2 might be better in the lategame though.  Yeah, team 1 is probably twice as durable, but team 2 has over double the damage, and much better mobility.

[Grefter]

Yeah a few tweaks like Snowfire suggests and drop this on LFT runs and you are in for some good war stories.  A fun thought exercise.

[SnowFire]

Thinking about it more....   Team B in my post above doesn't have particularly inspiring Movement abilities (Move-HP up is FUNNY at least), so if we're including Ubersquire hype, I can see Ubersquire > Mediator as the final pick perhaps - get Move +1 early, and use Cheer Up for the Brave modification, and have Ubersquire Ramza w/ White Magic at end game, which is pretty decent even if there's a lull in C2-C3.  Could go either way.

I should add as well that I'd assume 4JF-esque assumptions of "until you 'unlock' a class, just use the other classes normally," if you're curious for why I considered Samurai a reasonably good pick.  I wouldn't require any class to be run before you can purchase items for it (e.g. Lancers in C1, Sams in C1-C2), so Samurai being a bit of a late bloomer isn't a huge concern, he/she is just another (your best earlygame unit) for awhile.  Obviously if you do force fast Sams then grabbing Monk as well becomes super-important so they're not stuck with no weapon.

MC, as far as "justification" for this as relevant to in-game performance, I think a lot of people just plain like variety in their teams, so forcing that variety seems legit.  Same reason people usually won't run 3+ of the same class in a Fire Emblem game even when that can technically make sense.  So...  fun-adjusted balance, if you will.  And certainly closer to a MOBA where you can't play multiple copies of your first pick!  I will say that it might be reasonable to limit an ability to being used on 3 PCs max, so you have 1 Summoner + 2x people with Summon set or something to keep things somewhat sane.

Amusingly enough, League of Legends currently has the "One For All" game mode running, which is basically competitive SCCs facing each other - each team forcibly gets 5 clones of the same champion, although you'll often build each one a bit differently, of course.  Anyway, the current Worlds championship has a bit of a similar issue with Picks/Bans as FFT does.  For the most part, the balance has been great - 71 unique champions! - but one strange thing is that blue side (=1st pick) has been advantaged in win rate, because red side is forced to spend 2 bans on Gangplank & Mordekaiser:
http://lol.esportspedia.com/wiki/2015_Season_World_Championship/Statistics/Champions
The issue is that it is widely perceived that Gangplank >>> Mordekaiser >> everyone else, so attempting to trade the two off is a bad plan (they'll take Gangplank).  Heck, maybe that's helped lead to the super champion diversity, that it's too risky to ever let the OP champs play.  It does mean that blue side gets 3 bans and red side gets 1 ban + 2 obligatories, though, so blue side gets to deny more comfort picks, which is why it's advantaged.  Lulu also does weird things as she's both safe (no hard counters to her), a flex-pick (can go in any lane), soft-counters certain popular picks, and enables certain team compositions that simply wouldn't work without her, but that's a bit of a different issue.

Anyway, what's that have to do with FFT?  The problem is the same here: Calc >>>  Summoner >>> everything else (well, assuming you are a fun-hating person like Tide willing to grind up Math skill in C1.).  OTOH, we're just making teams for fun here and there isn't the MOBA issue of "I know this champion really well but not this other one."  Anyway, if expanded to 2 bans per team, it'd still lead to the odd situation of blue side banning picks #4 & #5 and collecting #3 for free, whatever that is.  So instead...  I'm just going to assume an arbitrary system ban of Calculator for being negative fun, and a system ban of Summoner for being OP, and do another imaginary 1-ban 4JF-esque draft (so 4 bans in total, but not distributed weirdly).

Team A probably wants Chemist but won't get it, so ban...  either Wizard (then take Priest) or Time Mage (then take Wizard)?  Team B bans Chemist.  Let's assume the TM ban, so Team A first-picks Wizard.  Team B grabs Priest & Ninja.  A wants to get some sort of revival so Monk + ... probably Samurai again?  Has Wizard for powerful Draw Outs lategame.  Team B...  well, draft flattens out in power from here.  Geomancer is nice & safe, and perhaps Oracle again for boss-killing?  Team A is weirdly Physical-side heavy despite having Wizard, so Dancer unlock is actually comparatively easy, and Monk + Samurai mean that Brave manipulation is nice, so.  Mediator/Ubersquire (depending on rules set), and then Lancer or Dancer...  yeah I'm going to say Dancer here mostly for the lulz, vs. bosses they can at least use Black Magic or Draw Outs better than Lancer, and they do insta-win slow randoms fights.  This leaves Lancer for Team B.

4JF-esque (5 Job Fiesta?) Draft #2, SnowFire edition:
System bans: Calc, Summoner
Normal bans: Time Mage, Chemist
Team A: Wizard, Monk, Samurai, [Mediator/Ubersquire if allowed], Dancer
Team B: Priest, Ninja, Geomancer, Oracle, Lancer
Benched: [Vanila Squire, Knight, Archer, Thief, Bard, Mime]

But this mostly confirms some kneejerk other people rankings (barring less vanilla Squire hype with this rulset), so yeah, not too different.

[Ranmilia]

Curious as to what the stipulations and goals are for these drafts.  Speed?  Number of actions?  Fewest resets?  Vanilla FFT, right? 

If speed is valued... it's probably worth noting that the current no math speedrun routes lean heavily on Time Mage/Samurai.  They also use JP Scroll to insta-learn those skillsets - but the result is very strong.

Looking through the drafts so far... Time Mage vs Summoner seems to be a very pertinent question.

[metroid composite]

so if we're including Ubersquire hype, I can see Ubersquire > Mediator

Hmm...I mean, I think in mc-pickban, just counting Ubersquire as a squire is probably fine.  In Snowfire-pickban, Squire and Ubersquire should probably be considered different classes.  Otherwise you get Move+1 and Gained JP Up on all your characters, while also getting a damn good class out of the deal, which kind-of negates a lot of the drawbacks that the system is supposed to introduce for picking Squire.

I think a lot of people just plain like variety in their teams, so forcing that variety seems legit.  Same reason people usually won't run 3+ of the same class in a Fire Emblem game even when that can technically make sense.

I've totally run all three Pegasus Knights in Fire Emblem.  And...I mean, if you actually look at the FFT GameFAQs board, you get a lot of people who run multiples of a class (frequently multiples of Knight for some reason.  The FFT board is pretty bad at FFT >_>)

Looking at a random let's play...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRXva3zkt0U&index=21&list=PL816CCC5FD8202FDD

Two summoners in this...hilariously overlevelled Chapter 2 party.  (The summoners are Male, the female Geomancer attacks with an axe, and the Lancer tries to jump on someone with 90 CT.  Awww yeah!)

Skipping forward to another point at random:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qeFYNeOPgw&index=48&list=PL816CCC5FD8202FDD

Well...Agrias and Orlandu make up almost half the party, but hey look, 2/3 characters with Jump now!  And at least two Samurai (Ramza was a Samurai in the Chapter 2 fight; admitedly a Ninja now).

I dunno, it's FFT; people tend to fixate on jobs they like.  And the mechanics encourage this, through job levels making you gain JP faster when you fixate on a job, to stat growths that fit the job but are bad for other jobs, to spillover JP that encourages other characters to dip into that job.

I agree that there is a psychological tendency for people to want "one of everything"--I experienced that the first time I played Starcraft Brood War Online, where I built one of every Terran unit, and someone walked in with 30 Dragoons and wiped me out.  Starcraft is not a game that encourages "one of everything" gameplay; it encourages maybe two or three types of units that go together, and ignoring the rest of the tech tree until maybe later in the game.  FFT is similar.




Anyway, so I did have one more draft I wanted to run through.  So I mentioned before that on banning Chemist, team 2 could think about allowing Calc through.  I think they still want to do this by banning Squire--if you don't ban Squire, Calcs will pick Squire 100%.

Team 1: Ban Chemist

Team 2: Ban Squire


Team 1: Calculator.  You really are kind-of stuck into first picking it if it doesn't get banned.

Team 2: Wizard Summoner.  Obvious pick is obvious.

Team 1: So...this is the point where the Calc team largely starts drafting stuff to screw over the non-calc team.  Definitely picking Priest here to screw their revival.  I think Monk without Gained JP Up is not that threatening.  Ninja is a thought, though that would be almost purely a denial pick, cause you're probably not unlocking it.  Time Mage...thing is Wiz/Summoner don't really want Time Mage that much.  MAU Summon is usually better than Short Charge Summon.  That said, denying Teleport is a big deal (when used well can impact a fight at near Auto-Potion levels).  And Time Mage still has a lot of synergy with Wizard and Summoner.  You're pretty cool with both having Haste and MP Switch.  So...sure, Priest/Time Mage

Team 2: Well...they didn't block Monk, and they probably will block it soon, so...Monk.  And...ok, while they'll still get to use Yin Yang Magic through Math Skill, I don't want to just hand them Oracle, let them use YYM a full chapter early, and give them like...the second best physical attacker in Chapter 2 (a chapter where they'll be struggling and looking for a haste target).  Monk/Oracle

Team 1: Let's see...they have Monk, so make that less useful by picking Ninja.  Thief to deny any movement abilities is a real thought too; denies any possibility of them getting Chapter 3 Chantages as well, guaranteeing this party will be better at that point.  Ninja/Thief

Team 2: Well...Mediator is open.  I don't think it does much, though.  Really could not give a shit if the calc team gets Chantages in Chapter 3.  (Oh noes, you're much better than us in Chapter 3...around the same time you get Math skill).  Faith modifying also doesn't do much to close the gap between the power of Mathskill and the power of Ramuh.  I think Geo is a fairly relevant pickup for Monk.  In the absense of Ninja, Attack Up Monk is fine.  (Also, no move means Geo's 4 move matters).  Hmm...Mediator for a small amount of faith modifying, and guns still sounds like a bigger deal than like...Knight for Weapon Guard.  Mediator/Geomancer

Team 1: Basically Time Mages and Priests are a bunch of supporting type characters; would like some damage dealers to haste and heal.  Knight has good stats Chapter 1.  Lancer has good stats Chapter 2.  Archers literally for their bow damage...eh...no I'm pretty skeptical about that.  Samurai might be worth denying, but the enemy team currently has no Gained JP Up, and no movement abilities so...nahhhh.  Knight/Lancer.

Team 2: Ok, what's left?  Archer, which does almost nothing for either team really.  I guess it gives Arrow Guard if you grind for it, but this team isn't using Concentrate, and the other team probably is just going to ignore their Ninja pick.  Samurai, which does a little bit for this team.  Bard which...honestly is mostly used for MP restoration, but MAU Summon is not very MP hungry.  Technically it's Move+3 though!  This team actually wants that.  And Dancer, which probably neither team would unlock.  Thinking...Bard/Samurai. 

Team 1: Archer/Dancer

Team 2: Mime




So...teams are...

Team 1: Calculator, Time Mage, Priest, Ninja, Thief, Knight, Lancer, Archer, Dancer

Team 2: Summoner, Wizard, Monk, Oracle, Mediator, Geomancer, Bard, Samurai, Mime

Team 2...Wizard/Summoner is absolutely filthy, and you kind-of don't use most of the rest of your classes much.  Probably some faith buffing.  Likely one Monk for revival and MP battery.  Maybe a lategame Move+3 on Ramza or Blade Grasp or Draw Out.  Probably Move-MP Up from Oracle, actually; no real competition for that ability this game.  I will say this team lacks a reaciton ability (outside of the relatively lategame Blade Grasp)--maybe should have picked Archer or Knight.

Team 1: Hmm...you know, this actually has all the pieces for a rather good Ninja (Ninja, Thief, Archer, Lancer, Time Mage), particularly for Ninjas to party with mathskillers (Jump best skillset for that).  Although hmm...given the lack of gained JP Up, if you have four people training as mages and one physical character, the mages are going to gain JP about twice as fast...which means calc actually comes online before Ninja gets unlocked.  I think a physical character is still good (sometone to haste/heal) but like...it'll probably be a Knight in chapter 1, and a Lancer in chapter 2/3, and I'm not sure I'd want two just because of the loss of spillover JP.

Obviously Team 2 wins the earlygame.  Even mid chapter 3, a Ramuh from team 2's MAU Wizard with faith buffing will......quite possibly out-damage CT5Holy from a Time Mage.  It won't have the global range or the team heal.  But on the other hand...speed 6 is bad for calc (clocktick 17 is not useable).  Speed 7 you get to act first turn (clocktick 15), but second turn...you either waited after acting and it's clocktick 26 (useless) or you used your move and it's clocktick 29 (useless).  Speed 8 is useless (first turn on clocktick 13).  Speed 9 is useful if you have CT4 (first turn on clocktick 12) and you can chain turns (wait on spot, get second turn on clocktick 20; also hit by CT4).  There's a lot of conditionals there; you have to reach speed 9 (Priest with Green Beret and Sprint Shoes?  H Bag isn't until mid Chapter 4) and you have to know CT4 instead of CT5.  So...I dunno, Math Skill is still better, but given that your damage is probably lower, given that Calc's second turn is probably a bust...I think Wizard/Summoner hold on to the lead for a little while (until multiple Mathskillers are operational and not training in the Calc class...so...probably past the midpoint of the game).

I think this puts team 2 ahead overall, despite letting Calc through.  Likely could do a little better by drafting a cheap reaction ability (like Knight, which also denies some earlygame to the Calc team; probably Knight/Mediator instead of Mediator/Geomancer for their 5th/6th pick?)  Although...then again, Monk might just get everyone HP Restore through JP sharing, actually, and that's better than Weapon Guard.  So...nevermind. >_>

If speed is valued... it's probably worth noting that the current no math speedrun routes lean heavily on Time Mage/Samurai.  They also use JP Scroll to insta-learn those skillsets - but the result is very strong.

Yeah...I don't count JP scroll as legal.  Some skillsets are JP scrollable.  Some are not, and this means that some jobs that aren't scrollable are just arbitrarily garbage.  (Also speedruns care about animation time, which makes Summon bad...and yeah summon isn't bad.  FYI).

But yes, if you can instant-learn all of Time Mage, it's a crazy strong class.  It's held in check significantly by JP costs.

[metroid composite]

Ok, well, the payoff of this excercise is that we get an interesting set of lists from thought experiments.  Some classes go up or down depending on scenario.  So...here's roughly the pick order across all 7 drafts.  (Note: for snow's double ban system, I counted first pick as 2nd pick, 2nd pick as 3rd pick, etc, just because there's two extra classes not in the lineup).

Naturally this is going to overinflate some redundancies.  Like...Priest and Monk get picked high because revival is rare.  So like...heavy grain of salt with those.




Ca: B, 1, B, B, B, B, 1

Su: 1, 2, 1, B, 1, B, 2

Ch: 2, 2, B, 1, B, B, B

Wi: B, B, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

Ti: 2, 3, 3, 2, 2, B, 2

Pr: 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3

Sq: 3, B, unpicked, 3, 3, 6, B

Ni: 4, 6, 3, 4, 4, 3, 5

Or: 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 4

Mo: 5, 8, 4, 5, 4, 4, 4

Sa: 5, 9, 4, 5, 5, 4, 8

Me: 6, 6, 6, 8, 6, 6, 6

Th: 7, 5, unpicked, 6, 6, unpicked, 5

Ge: 7, 9, 5, 6, 7, 5, 6

Kn: 6, 4, unpicked, 8, 7, unpicked, 7

La: 8, 5, unpicked, 7, 8, 7, 7

Da: 9, 7, unpicked, 7, 9, 6, 9

Ar: 8, 8, unpicked, 9, 8, unpicked, 9

Ba: 9, 7, unpicked, 9, 9, unpicked, 8

Mi: 10, 10, unpicked, 10, 10, unpicked, 10



Here are the interesting points:

Yep, Calc should be top.

Chemist was being underrated a bit, and should actually probably be third.  The value of one team getting Auto Potion and Phoenix Down and the other team not is pretty crazy, and generally a bigger deal than Wizard stats and Wizard's earlygame smashing.  I think I just rarely feel tempted to grind for Auto-Potion in a normal game, because I'm usually not breaking the game as hard as I possibly can.  (I'll totally go for Math Skill though >_>).  But especially for mages there aren't really alternative durability boosting reactions.  Like...the competition under 1000 JP of grinding is...Arrow Guard, and Weapon Guard, and HP Save, and Regenerator, and Caution.

I think both Laggy and I had Squire higher than we should.  But like...even picking it third, this means you first picked something, the opponent picked two classes, you third pick Squire + something...your opponent picks two classes.  Yes, Squire is a big power spike to a lot of classes, but this is a pretty awkward draft moment where you've picked two real classes, and your opponent has picked four real classes.

Samurai has a decent amount of value...unless mathskill is legal, then it drops to like 8th/9th pick.  Monk can also dip due to math skill (although got a fair number of early picks just to deny revival).

Lancer...lower than I was expecting to put it.  Yeah, the problem for me was that usually one or both parties didn't have Gained JP Up, which typically meant it wasn't highly contested.  Interesting that it's a low pick for Snowfire as well (unpicked first round, last picked when there was an extra ban phase).  I'd definitely like to run numbers on this because I feel like the damage numbers tend to be higher than people expect.

Dancer...see?  It moved up above Bard and Archer!  >_>

Geomancer a bit higher than I was expecting--consistently moderately high pick in snowfire's format (which has emphasis on carriers), but also somewhat high on mine, where drafting might make a team short on carriers, or unable to access movement abilities.

Mediator is weirdly rock solid as a 6th pick.  By both me and Snowfire.  I don't even have an explanation for this.  Guns I guess?  Guns are kinda cool, but not like suuuuuuper OP amazing cool, just kinda cool.

Sure enough revival: Priest and Monk are both drafted earlier than they would normally be valued outside a draft format.

Oracle ended up damn close to being drafted higher than Ninja, and I actually rarely ended up thinking "oh that was a mistake to take Oracle so early", more just the nature of the draft format.  Often one team wouldn't have a good movement ability...but they'd have Oracle so Move-MP Up on everyone.  Or one team would be drafted out of Magic Attack Up and Short Charge...but hey, Defense Up is pretty cool right?  Or one team would not have Demi or Lich available, but manage to pick up Oracle for Life Drain.  Or one team would be a little too lategame focused and want a strong Chapter 2 class where Oracle has like...the second best physical.  Or one team would have Math Skill, meaning Oracle was in slightly higher demand.  (In particular, Oracle became higher pick than Ninja when Mathskill was on the table, usually lower pick otherwise).  Or a team wouldn't have a particularly high MA class for an option, but Oracle can equip a Rod and do a decent Wizard impression.  Oracle is just...often 2nd or 3rd best as an option, but 2nd or 3rd best at a looot of stuff.

Time Mage up two slots...yeah, draft format is pretty good for Time Mages.  Drafted out of Summon?  Take Time Mage!  Drafted out of Magic Attack Up?  Go for Short Charge.  (Admitedly, not as good as JP scroll glitch is to Time Mage >_>)

[metroid composite]

Actually...here's a question: how do people feel about Chemist at the #2 spot over Summoner?

I don't know how Snowfire feels about his drafts, but for me, I felt like Team 1 consistently lost the draft...except for that one time when I had Team 1 first ban Summoner, first pick Chemist.  And like...that team ended up with totally nonstandard offence (Dance, Draw Out, Jump, Holy, Monk), with jank for carriers (Monk, Archer, Priest being their three best carriers).

And...it's still probably the better draft, cause the other draft was kind-of like a Time Mage/Wizard SCC cross.  (So like...Time Mage with 50% more offence).  Whereas this team was like a Chemist SCC except with triple to quadruple the damage.  But...Chemist SCC is considered easier than Time Mage SCC so.... 

Seriously, though, even just Dance+Auto Potion sounds hilariously good (for non-assassination missions, obviously...although I guess Dancers with Equip Spear, Jump, and Auto Potion were an option for that draft, and that...sounds like it would stomp basically every fight in the game).  Summoner doesn't really have that same property, where you can combine it with half the classes and be amazing.  Like...even pairing Summoner with a class that has a strong reaction ability...Summoner/Samurai still has weaknesses (even though it's clearly a pretty damn good two-class pairing).

[metroid composite]

Little bit more thinking about defensive abilities.

The problem with defensive abilities, that aren't necessarily shown in draft formats, is that you may still have a weakest link.  If three people have Blade Grasp, and two don't, those two might die, crystallize, and you might lose.  By contrast, if three people have MAU Sumon, and two don't, the enemies are still going to die.

Granted, this applies more to Blade Grasp, where enemies know their hit rate, and will avoid attacking the BG target, than to Auto Potion, where the enemies are idiots and will all happily pile on to the Auto Potion target.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It is a general truth about optimising durability in RPGs, and why it's so rarely worth it, though. Also why tank characters tend to be kinda weak in most RPGs prior to WoW/D&D4-style tanking made its way into the genre.

I feel like Summoner is better than Chemist, which probably comes down to "Summon is guaranteed to wreck fights, Auto-Potion fails 30% of the time" as well as some offence concerns. Some of the draft teams with like Chemist/(other stuff that isn't Wizard or Summoner) definitely have to be careful in C1 whereas Summoner + random scattershot of classes else can round you out into a mean team pretty easily. The worst Summoner draft team you created is probably "Summoner, Priest, Squire, Oracle, Samurai, Geomancer, Knight, Dancer, Bard" which uh is still Summoner with multiple great carrier options, Gained JP Up, revival access, Draw Out to pick up the slack late when you start feeling the lack of Short Charge. This isn't a team which struggles at all with any point in the game, compared to, say "Chemist, Priest, Squire, Samurai, Monk, Lancer, Dancer, Archer, Bard".

[AndrewRogue]

Slight tangent, but WoW (and MMO style tanking in general) is not 4th Ed tanking. MOBA tanking would be more accurate, as that embraces the idea that the tank needs to be a legitimate threat in their own right either via possessing some actual damage, or other, ancillary effects that will ruin your day if they are allowed to run wild.

MMO tanking (including WoW) is based on the idea that the tank is LITERALLY the only one who can take a hit from any respectable mob without instantly dying.

People comparing 4th Ed to MMOs didn't really play MMOs. >_>

[Dark Holy Elf]

I'm not sure what you mean about needing to be a "legitimate threat"? If you mean they have to do damage or apply other negative effects, that's certainly not the case, either in D&D 4e or the various games I'm referring to here. In some cases they just increase/max out the probability of enemies to target them (either they're run by an AI which you can directly manipulate, particularly in video games, or you make it so that enemies attempting to ignore your tank take an accuracy/damage penalty, or can't move away from your tank, etc.).

It's true that I don't play MMOs myself so I was just going on hearsay here, but I've generally seen the popularity of proactive tanking of this time credited to WoW. Could obviously be a miscredit, though. <_<

[metroid composite]

It is a general truth about optimising durability in RPGs, and why it's so rarely worth it, though. Also why tank characters tend to be kinda weak in most RPGs prior to WoW/D&D4-style tanking made its way into the genre.

Yeah, for sure.

But...on the flip side, a unit with Auto Potion is not a "tank character" per se.  You don't actually sacrifice any damage to get a whole lot of durability.  In fact, you replace the reaction slot which...honestly you may not have even been using.

Well...ok, "not sacrificing damage" is a bit of a lie.  You spend extra time training in Chemist, so you'll be a little behind on JP you could be using to increase your damage, or instead of grinding in Chemist you could have been raising your faith.  Auto potion costs money, so you might be short a weapon or a Bracer.  And certainly in a draft format, first picking Chemist means sacrificing a non-negligible amount of damage.

I guess the question is at what point is more durability worth-it?  Snowfire and I both started drafting Chemist as more valuable than Wizard (Wizard generally representing a 30% to 60% damage increase, but needing to be paired with other damage classes, the same way Chemist needs to be paired with a class that deals damage).

OK, so I think we need to think about just how much durability we get from Auto Potion.  Let's say you have exactly 250 HP, and enemies are dealing exactly 100 damage and you have exactly 70 brave.  If you fail two auto potions in a row you die.  If you fail one, you might live if the next two happen.  Pulling out a spreadsheet it's...you will live about 10.5 turns on average.  Compared to 3 turns without auto potion.  So...roughly triple the durability?

Granted, Wizard needs to be paired with other classes that deal MA damage.  Chemist has to be paired with classes that deal damage.  Summoner doesn't really need shit; they do plenty of damage, and maintain relevancy throughout the game without help.  So...that arguably makes them a higher pick, yeah.

[AndrewRogue]

Ah. Separate views of proactive tanking, basically.

I consider it kinda a two step progression.

MMO tanking was literally AI control (I have generated X threat, as long as no generates more, I will be attacked) and has existed since at least Evequest (I know it showed up in most games back then). I see 4th Ed as an evolution of that idea, where the tanks generally incentivize targeting them as opposed to literally forcing it.

But this is sidetracking real hard. Sorry. Poke me if you'd like to continue this talk >_>

[Excal]

Alternatively, set up a side topic.  No real shortage of 'em, and the conversation is interesting.

[metroid composite]

I don't mind this discussion here--I've been playing a fair bit of Heroes of the Storm recently, so I'm familiar with what Andrew is describing.  (I'm not familiar with WoW).  But yeah, a tactics tank with actual MOBA tanking properties would be things like it in Wild ARMs XF with Sentinel's ZOC Effect (reduce enemy movement) and Defender (take hits for allies) skills.  Sentinels actually are relevant tanks.





Anyway--there's one thing that bugs me about a draft/ban system and it's that similar but inferior skills get raised up more than they should.  EX: Chemist is banned or not available, now Priest becomes very important.  Summoner is banned or not available, now Time Mage is very important for Meteor.  One possible lens to handle this is category bans.

Some examples:

* ban of all revival abilities. (Phoenix Down, Raise, Raise 2, Reraise, Revive)

* ban of all 100% hit rate evade ignoring high damage MT abilities.  (Summon, Meteor, Draw Out, Earth Slash, most swordskills.  Not sure how to define "high damage", but intuitively Wiznaibus and Elemental don't count).

* ban Mathskill.

* ban of high end reaction abilities (Auto-Potion, Blade Grasp, Hammedo, Abandon, Sunken State, Damage Split).

And then just evaluate classes with various of these bans toggled on/off.  (Not sure if these are the ideal categories, but...something like these anyhow).

[DjinnAndTonic]

Been following the FFT talk, and honestly I would really like to see SnowFire/Elf/MC actually do concurrent runs of FFT based on this drafting process and have them compare times/turns used/levels or whatever metric to determine who 'wins' the most optimal FFT run. Preferably with some written progress reports or at least some screenshots or a stream.

[Grefter]

Ah. Separate views of proactive tanking, basically.

I consider it kinda a two step progression.

MMO tanking was literally AI control (I have generated X threat, as long as no generates more, I will be attacked) and has existed since at least Evequest (I know it showed up in most games back then). I see 4th Ed as an evolution of that idea, where the tanks generally incentivize targeting them as opposed to literally forcing it.

But this is sidetracking real hard. Sorry. Poke me if you'd like to continue this talk >_>

This is... not so right? (now anyway and well technically in EQ days because EQ didn't have much in the way of threat boosters and raw damage was how you built threat, but lolEQ)

WoW moved away from EQ style AI control through flat boosters after Lich King (and were trying it even during it).  These days the WoW archetype and things that follow it is very much the same way as MOBAs, Tanks do okay damage.  Not as much as a DPS, but still decent.  If your tank can't maintain a rotation they are going to be a burden. 

Also bro that same skill set that lets you be a threat in MOBAs is why tanks were PVP viable as well.  They were always in the skillset.  Stuns, snares, interrupts.  Is all there.  They are just brought way more to the forefront in competitive play against humans that all the skills work on VS raid bosses that are immune to everything but the one mechanic that the fight uses.

Add in some bonus movement skills and you have why in Cata and onwards Warriors were flag carriers in PVP.  Tank the world, charge out of the way, dump CCs like a boss and slam dunk the flag.  Add in hilarious Vengeance stacking shenanigans (long since fixed) on point defense maps where they get beat on fore a minute building up damage buffs for damage taken then cleave down groups of enemies with AoE.

I think the hardest thing for me is actually pinpointing where it originated.  WoW started getting into that kind of balance in 2008ish by my timeline, which is when 4th Ed released (lol 4th ed totes 100% rips off WoW though rite??).  MOBAs might be the inspiration there with DotA really blowing up around 2005, but most of the tools for that are present in the classic Warrior archetype of WoW (which again rips hard from EQ) AND the original DotA heroes are riffing on stuff that was present in base Warcraft 3...  so does it go back to that?  Even Warcraft 3 it felt like riffs on classic archetypes from D&D (or maybe EQ lolololol).

I can't tell if it is piles of incestuous inspiration, some parallel design principles or what was going on.

It could be as simple as two different problems having the same results in their answer.  Tanks were boring in MMOs, so we should incentivize them to be more active whether it be maintaining tanking abilities or doing damage.  "Tanking" in both tabletop gaming (and MOBAs I guess) was kind of bullshit because well the DM and other human players can just focus fire down the squishies, so they should get things that make them a more appealing target (by whatever means necessary).  The result to both problems is the same though, targets that soak damage and do stuff.

[Ranmilia]

Drafts... are fun.  Here are some opinions on drafts. 



Draft 1
Banned: Wizard/Calc
Team 1: Summoner, Squire, Priest, Samurai, Monk, Thief, Geomancer, Bard, Dancer
Team 2: Time Mage, Chemist, Ninja, Oracle, Knight, Mediator, Archer, Lancer, Mime

Well, team 1 wins this in a walkover for sure.  Yeow.  Summoner/Squire/Priest is all you need to crush the game quickly, efficiently and safely.  Summon.  Holy.  Raise if you need it and then on top of that they have options for Samurai or Geo setups, access to strong movement abilities, and all sorts of gravy options for Nelveska or what have you. 

Team 2... has no MT, except for Short Charge Meteor.  For most battles in the game, they're all in on that, and it's painful just getting there because they have no Gained JP Up and no strong earlygame offense while building Time Mage.  They have Ninja, but their Ninjas suck - Concentrate and Brave tweaks, but no Martial Arts to take advantage of the Brave, no Attack Up, no Move + (I guess they can Teleport but that doesn't buff Throw), and they didn't even pick up Sunken State/Perform abuse.  Guns, Jump or Oracle seem like better fallback options.  But Team 1's fallback options are things like Half of MP Holy, or Kiku and Earth Slash.   

Feels like Team 2 made some poor draft choices.  They're essentially on Time Mage SCC + Item and Br/Fa twinks, and all their other options are mediocre ST kills.  They have defense but subpar offense - Time Mage setups don't really want to use Move MP Up/MP Switch, and their Ninja setups sacrifice even more mobility and don't have damage.

Things I took away from thinking about this: Ninja by itself is overrated, they need help from other jobs to shine.  MT and range skills are important when thinking about how battles will ideally play out.  Offense is way more important than defense... but Wizard may not be the correct first ban.  Summoner and Time Mage are both mainstays and not splitting them feels very strong for Team 1.  I feel like *both* teams would gladly swap the opposition's first picked job with Wizard, if given the chance.  Team 2 mutters something like "at least now they have to use Samurai" and Team 1 points and laughs and goes "Now you have no MT and no movement, enjoy taking multiple rounds on every non-assassination map!"  Time Mage by itself is still very strong, because it combines a nuke and a good mage support in one job.




Draft 2: Calc not banned
Banned: Wizard/Squire
Team 1: Calculator, Time Mage, Priest, Thief, Lancer, Bard, Dancer, Geomancer, Samurai
Team 2: Summoner, Chemist, Oracle, Knight, Mediator, Ninja, Monk, Archer, Mime

With Calc in the mix, there are now three battlefield nuke classes so they're going to be split.  This makes them less important to ban, but also means Team 2 has to be very, very on point with what they plan to do.  I can already say in their shoes I would not ban Squire, I would want to first pick Squire + nuke class.  When your competition is Math, you aren't winning the long game, so getting out to a strong early lead is important.  Gained JP Up does that better than Item, IMO.  If Squire is banned, then Summon + Time at least gives you Short Charge summons to work to, that's the best thing you can be doing without Math or Wizardry.  Chemist just does not make sense to me.

As these particular picks shook out... math is math and Team 1 both having math and denying three of the big four mage classes to Team 2 feels crushing.  Team 2 managed to get Super Kung Fu Ninjas this time, but still didn't get them any movement.  It's true that Team 1 has a bad earlygame, but it's not as bad as it could be.  Not everyone in the party needs Math Skill, after all - only one or two PCs actually need to grind in that direction, and the others can go be a balanced party, Priest/TM/Geo/Lancer, whatevs.

Things taken away:  Math is hella broke.  Team 1 seems to have a significant pick advantage in all the scenarios I'm thinking through.  Picking Chemist early comes at a significant cost in offensive team power.  I feel like all of these drafts are taking it way too highly.  You don't need Auto-Potion and Phoenix Down when every fight gets one-rounded, which is honestly what should happen in a draft format with skilled players and only one ban per team.



Draft 3: Summoner banned
Banned: Summoner/Calc
Team 1: Chemist, Priest, Squire, Samurai, Monk, Lancer, Dancer, Archer, Bard
Team 2: Wizard, Time Mage, Ninja, Oracle, Thief, Geomancer, Mediator, Knight

Ok, now we're in that scenario I was thinking about!  With only one premium MT nuke class available, Team 1 obviously gets to first pick Time Mage and Team 2 will face a tough choice between two of Wizard, Chemist, Ninja, Squire and Samurai...  .... eh?  That isn't what happened, you say?  Hmm. 

So Team 2 gets the better of this one, cleanly.  Team 1 feels all over the place.  What is their plan?  Holy and weak classes until Samurai comes online?  Let's see what MC said.  Dance?  Dance + Holy?  Is... is that even better than Wizard SCC, even when fully set up?  And Team 2 has all that other stuff?  This may be less close than the Math draft.

Things taken away: Have a coherent plan.  Don't get into hatedraft wars when your own lineup is still weak.  Don't take Chemist early.  Refer to earlier comments re: you should be one rounding battles (or close enough to it).  If you aren't doing that yet, then pick something that actively helps you get there.  If you are, pick something that gets you there faster.  Despite Ninja itself being picked high, we have yet to see any team arrive in a final position where they both can and wish to use Ninja strats.



Draft 4: Chemist banned
Banned: Chemist, Calc
Team 1: Summoner, Priest, Squire, Oracle, Samurai, Geomancer, Knight, Dancer, Bard
Team 2: Time Mage, Wizard, Monk, Ninja, Mediator, Thief, Archer, Lancer, Mime

Ok, it took a ban to do it but this looks more like what I was envisioning at the outset, with an even split of the mage classes and then a fight for support.  Monk/Ninja looks like a suspect pick here.  Is Team 2 really going to actually use those physical jobs over potential picks of Oracle, Mediator and Samurai?  Revive was mentioned, but really, who's ever learning and setting that?  Oracle at least would give Move MP Switch and sticks, if you're worried about running into situations where magic is somehow bad.

That said, this looks... a lot like the first draft, but closer.  Team 1 has the Summoner/Priest/Squire combo again, and it hasn't gotten any worse.  That's still all you need to win, quickly, efficiently, safely and learned fast.  Their latergame looks a bit worse, though - they lost upgraded movement and support options, except for Ramza.  Team 2, on the other hand, looks *much* better in comparison to their draft 1 selves.  Wizard provides both the earlygame options and the lategame punch they need in order to really compete with Summon.  They can choose between Short Charge and MAUp as the situation demands, they have the faith tweaking to make things even better, and even some reasonable options for RSM slots. 

I honestly don't know who wins this.  It may be... yeah I think I'm leaning vaguely towards team 2, despite the pick I questioned.  I think Mediator is the important midtier class there, as it represents a significant and almost free increase in damage and reaction reliability for either team.  Team 2 dropped the ball by taking physicals, but then Team 1 dropped it back to them with the Oracle/Samurai pick.  Oh, also, Bard going dead last when magic is in play, that probably shouldn't happen.  Ramza is still a forced male PC, Bard is still an acceptable-ish job for a mage to be in, and Move+3 isn't that big of a dip compared to some of the stuff teams have seriously considered.

Things taken away: Magic is good.  Like really good.  Team 1 banning Chemist instead of Wizard significantly improved the quality of Team 2... both because Team 2 was able to take Wizard, and because they didn't waste an early pick on Chemist.  Squire on the other hand deserves its tier 1.5 billing.  Mediator is stronger than it seems in an open field because it improves everything, especially the best jobs, with very low JP investment and no skill slots required when it's go time. 


Draft 5: Calc allowed again

Nothing here looks really new compared to the previous draft, and I'm tired, so no in depth commentary right now.



General thoughts: Drawing conclusions from these drafts runs a danger of circular logic, where we as drafters pick a thing high or low because we already think it's good/bad and then look at the results and go "thing got drafted high/low, it must be good/bad!"  Clearly I value Chemist (and healing/revival/durability generally) much, much lower than MC does in the draft format.  I think I would not ever take Chemist over Squire or any magic class, except possibly Oracle.  I also don't think nonmagical setups are optimal or even particularly viable when strong magic is available.  Time Mage is a very strong pick to me, roughly equal to Wizard and Summoner.  My ideal composition is (strong lategame MT magic) + (strong magic support) + (strong earlygame carry). Time Mage, Summoner and Wizard each provide 2/3 of the puzzle.  TM lacks earlygame, Summoner lacks support, and Wizard lacks lategame.  If all three are legal after bans, I think Team 2 has a significant advantage.  If only one is legal, Team 1 has an advantage and Team 2 might consider going all in on physical.  If two are legal, they're probably split, and depending on which two, things can get messy.

Oh and Fullcalc is broken.  If this was a real format I'd want to say you can only Calc spells of other jobs you have drafted.  It is still probably the best job even with that.

General eyeballing job strengths in ban format:
Calc >> Summoner > Wizard > Time Mage > Squire > Priest > (Ninja and Samurai if you are moving in on them) > Mediator > Chemist > Oracle > Geomancer > Thief > Monk > Bard > Lancer > Archer > (Ninja and Samurai if you are not moving in) > Knight > Dancer > Mime

[AndrewRogue]

This is... not so right? (now anyway and well technically in EQ days because EQ didn't have much in the way of threat boosters and raw damage was how you built threat, but lolEQ)

WoW moved away from EQ style AI control through flat boosters after Lich King (and were trying it even during it).  These days the WoW archetype and things that follow it is very much the same way as MOBAs, Tanks do okay damage.  Not as much as a DPS, but still decent.  If your tank can't maintain a rotation they are going to be a burden. 

Also bro that same skill set that lets you be a threat in MOBAs is why tanks were PVP viable as well.  They were always in the skillset.  Stuns, snares, interrupts.  Is all there.  They are just brought way more to the forefront in competitive play against humans that all the skills work on VS raid bosses that are immune to everything but the one mechanic that the fight uses.

Add in some bonus movement skills and you have why in Cata and onwards Warriors were flag carriers in PVP.  Tank the world, charge out of the way, dump CCs like a boss and slam dunk the flag.  Add in hilarious Vengeance stacking shenanigans (long since fixed) on point defense maps where they get beat on fore a minute building up damage buffs for damage taken then cleave down groups of enemies with AoE.

I think the hardest thing for me is actually pinpointing where it originated.  WoW started getting into that kind of balance in 2008ish by my timeline, which is when 4th Ed released (lol 4th ed totes 100% rips off WoW though rite??).  MOBAs might be the inspiration there with DotA really blowing up around 2005, but most of the tools for that are present in the classic Warrior archetype of WoW (which again rips hard from EQ) AND the original DotA heroes are riffing on stuff that was present in base Warcraft 3...  so does it go back to that?  Even Warcraft 3 it felt like riffs on classic archetypes from D&D (or maybe EQ lolololol).

I can't tell if it is piles of incestuous inspiration, some parallel design principles or what was going on.

It could be as simple as two different problems having the same results in their answer.  Tanks were boring in MMOs, so we should incentivize them to be more active whether it be maintaining tanking abilities or doing damage.  "Tanking" in both tabletop gaming (and MOBAs I guess) was kind of bullshit because well the DM and other human players can just focus fire down the squishies, so they should get things that make them a more appealing target (by whatever means necessary).  The result to both problems is the same though, targets that soak damage and do stuff.

That's fair on both counts. I will fully admit that I was thinking PvE tanking (I never really PvPed in WoW), but thinking about things, you seem pretty obviously correct.

I kinda want to post something longer on this (specifically re: durability builds), but too sleepy right now. I'll do it later.