<Untitled IAQ Project> Round 6: Character balancing. What MvC2 ignored.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Andy wanted me to make this! Ignoring Andy makes Flareon sad, and nobody wants to see something so cute so sad. Especially since Gamefreak is doing that job for us.


Anyway, one way or another, at a certain point we do need to go through the characters and tweak them a little. Not the easiest project in the world, but the sooner we get it done, the sooner specific battle designs can take place.

Helpful links: the list of characters as well as their projected damage.

Things especially to hammer down include MP costs and the exact damage (multiplier, addition to ATK, whatever) of various damaging skills which are currently just listed as "high damage" or anything similarly vague. Also, the exact progression of when the character is expected to learn skills... a chapter estimate is what I'm looking for, here. Characters also need to be considered against each other: in the case of two similar characters X and Y, the choice between them should be at least reasonably competitive.

Hopefully this motivates me to do something about the magic damage formula!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Noemi


First big note: all of Noemi's damage is 90% what is listed in the damage post, because her Str was lowered to C- from C. Apparently I have this fact in my own notes, but it's not factored into her damage at the moment, so... yeah.



She has a pretty average stat build overall. Durability is a touch on the shaky side, perhaps; high Spirit average means she's below average in that regard. She's a bit better against physicals because the Dex will prevent multiswings, although she's initially stuck at light armour without especially amazing evade (although it's there). She's fast, though, which is always good. Not amazingly so, but good enough to get the drop on some things, no doubt.

She's very much a character who blossoms as the game goes on. More weapon options help her offence a fair deal, but that's really not the most of it, because she's pretty skill-reliant.


Ifris Libra: Weird skill to balance. Basically a controllable Magic Burst.

I'm assuming that the max MP that can be used is (2*Level + 10)%.
Damage: Damage = MP consumed * 5
Accuracy: 150

Initially this does 120 damage, which isn't especially potent. Note that Noemi's physical does over 190. By the end of the game it can be used as one hell of a nasty attack (2400), but it is subject to fire resistance, and this burns every last drop of her MP, which she needs to do anything. Feels like a nice, flexible situational move. Obviously the versatility increases greatly with level. Its hit rate is such that it should typically always connect except against magical evade whores (remember, average enemy evade is probably 30-40), since whiffing with this creates so much rage that nobody would use it if its accuracy were notably lower.


Arna Evalescere: Might as well be an initial skill. Buff that raises STR and DEX which kinda rules for any fighters in the party. Big disadvantage? Noemi's own party doesn't have too many of these for quite a while! This is yet another skill that gets better as time goes on for that reason alone.

Onto the effect itself. 25% to STR/DEX, then 35%, then 50%, then vanishes. Check out what it does to Noemi herself, as an example:

432 damage with knife, base.
First turn Arna is in effect: 630, but very close to 720
Second turn: 778
Third turn: 972

(actually, all these numbers should be 90% of this, but whatever)

Overall this can lead to a lot of offensive benefit in any battle that goes on three turns. To be fair, folks who are only swinging once anyway won't see as much benefit (e.g. hammer users, most ranged weapons). Still, if cast on 3 PCs, it can easily see a net benefit of 3000 damage if the battle goes on long enough for all of them to attack 3 times, which if you remember the damage formula, is a hell of a lot for one turn. On the whole, I think I'd be happier if the buff did not get more potent as the turns go on; a 3-turn effect which raises both STR and DEX is already rather potent (about 1.5-1.8x physical damage GT rules). So I'm proposing it does just that.

MP cost: 35

Noemi's skill costs are balanced around her 10% MP regen and competent physical. 35 is enough to make it not a no-brainer to use, but low enough that it can still be used fairly often, and doesn't require a serious investment in a boss battle.


Phoenicis Cruor: Presumably a fairly early skill, given an event assumes it may be learned by Noemi 2. Full revival is cool, except it's not cool because it's only 75%, caps the target's HP there, and this only compounds if the person is revived again!

First of all, I'd like to add the same disclaimer Kasia's skill has: its hit rate is based on the max HP of the target. Initially 100%, but you don't want to keep using it. This avoids a situation such as "yes I know this person has taken so much max HP penalty that I'm just reviving him/her to a trivial amount, but that's okay since at least I'm reviving!". Basically, having to repeatedly revive someone with DISSONANCE seems like it should be of questionable effectiveness.

Second of all, MP cost. Higher than Kasia's because Noemi regens more. Perhaps 64 MP.

Nothing else to say about it, really! Straightforward enough.


Minerva Cortis: Aurel's skill. Oddly enough it lets her cover better than Aurel himself can, which is perhaps a bit strange. Of course, it's possibly balanced in practice by the fact that Noemi's stats alone make her way worse at the job.

As a move its main use is for Noemi to dex-tank against enemies who hit way too many times. Both Erastus and Kasia, who are often around Noemi, have bad Dex stats and risk being raped by such enemies, while Noemi's is high and avoids this. Otherwise, it isn't easy to see why Noemi would guard such attacks, but situationally, you never know. More importantly, though, it lets her counter a bunch, and since Noemi's physical is fairly potent (though, less so if not at full MP, see later) this is cool enough. Free damage is free damage. Feels more Mirek's style but hey. Might make sense to be learned only after seeing Mirek, too, as Noemi puts her own spin on things.

Ruling: The move is only effective against ST attacks. Feels too potent against anything else, and a bit nonsensical.

Negating one attack is also handy at worst. Can't overlook that part of it. RAR BOSS CHARGES UBER PHYSICAL ATTACK, Minerva Cortis, lulz.

Probably needs a fairly substantial cost too, given the length of its effect if not as high as the previous. Maybe 51 MP.


Callida Leanae: Noemi's hidden bitchslap move. Adding her respectable Int onto her Strength means 2.37x damage for one attack (though less if Arna has been used), and it has no real downside. It's almost certainly too good as is, since it can be used every battle, if only once. This is ignoring the fact that it cancels charged enemy attacks, which may or may not be common.

The obvious solution is just to nerf it. It's should be an excellent damage skill, since the other mains have one, and hey, it's inherited from the damage queen herself, but a recharge time would put a damper on it and would prevent the "use this use this USE THIS" tagline it currently has. I'm going to suggest a full 1-turn recharge time, which means this potent damage is definitely more of a finisher. And that's good, because it avoids the situation where you use it early in the battle to take advantage of her passive Draco Eruptus, then use other things.

When will this one be learned? I dunno. Could reasonably be very late, once Isolde and Noemi have had time to hang out. Probably should be. Post-timeskip most likely?


Draco Eruptus: The passive of the same name (by the way this is confusing <_<) is more important to Noemi overall, but the Mirek-learned active also deserves some note. Consuming all MP is quite a blow, considering what Noemi gives up, but she also regains it pretty quickly so it's okay, and it's a good way to get past a tough random.

The targetting says "6-hex cone" which I can't envision. I can see 4 or 8 easily enough! Going with the 8 hexes, which basically means everything within a 120 degree arc for range 2 (3 adjacent hexes, then the 5 behind them).

The damage is described as moderate.I'm thinking fixed at 1 swing, but that one swing is dealt at 2x ATK, meaning it overcomes defence well.

The overall damage is similar to her average physical (though does better at overcoming both Dex and Def, so it's reliable), and is a bit more effective with a heavier weapon (which makes sense to me, and gives those more of a niche for her). It doesn't have the same raw damage as Libra, but it's still quite painful and deals with swarms well. Kinda funny that she has TWO Magic Burst type moves but they do very different things, so it's fine. Note that since this move will always have the backing of MP Focus, its damage hovers around 923 GT with a greatsword (80% hit) to 583 GT with a knife.

Draco is very important to Noemi, though moreso for the passive than the active. I have it pencilled in as a good move to learn late in the pre-timeskip arc of the game, as a fake final skill. Maybe during "the attack", not sure.


Lupus Baubari: It has to be a fairly late gain, since it is Yiu-learned. Anyway, what a strange skill. Silence + Lock State eh. I'm assuming it doesn't ignore immunity though it could be read either way. It's a neat, versatile little skill which has three uses: owning enemy spellcasters, owning enemy buff strategies, and to protect one's own PCs from status and debuffs.

MP cost: 77. Not your everyday spell, and by now she's regaining MP so easily...
Accuracy: 130. Fairly accurate. Treated as ITE when used on an ally, I'd imagine, since they want to be hit by it.

If the target immunes silence, I'm imagining the entire move fails. Mechanically, the move will need to apply a second status, maybe something as simple as "quieted state", to make it clear that the status has been locked.

How does this interact with existing statuses? I imagine they persist. How does this interact with Dispel? That I'm really not sure about. Figure I'll throw this one out for design help.


Strix Bravere: It's been described as a late skill, which is making me unconformtable a bit since a lot of stuff Noemi is getting late and she seems to be getting little between her Chapter 1-2 revival and her late skills from Mirek. Well, we have a couple options here: either move one of Mirek's or Isolde's earlier, or make this one earlier. Initially I was thinking this one, but in hindsight, the healing here is so good that it should probably be gained around when Kasia leaves to soften the blow of that some.

Anyway, physical attack with MP cost, drains to some degree (75% of damage dealt). Typically speaking, Noemi's damage is such that this is only about 20% healing, but keep in mind her ways to raise this: her passive at full MP (though this only works once, presumably) which makes it ~33%, and Arna (as well as any other buffs) which again gets it up to that range. It's not amazing whoamg broken draining or anything but it's pretty nice. Probably needs a hit rate penalty, but not a large one... honestly, even 10% works. So we'll run with that.

MP cost: 40. Fine with this being used fairly often, since it's giving up +5% MP regen as well.


Whew, that took longer than I thought. Combo skills and the passives I'll look at later. And this is only one character. Anyway, I know it's a lot to read, but anyone who could run through my thoughts, agree/disagree, etc., would be appreciated. Especially looking at advice on when skills should be picked up, and the mechanics of Lupus.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Noemi

First of all, this was a fun read. Far more in-depth than I was expecting, but it definitely inspired me to think on all this. Not sure I'd be able to lay another character's move list out quite as well as you have. You have a much clearer image of everyone's numerical stats/growth.

I'll go through each skill and comment though!

Ifris Libra: Weird skill to balance. Basically a controllable Magic Burst.

I'm assuming that the max MP that can be used is (2*Level + 10)%.
Damage: Damage = MP consumed * 5
Accuracy: 150

Initially this does 120 damage, which isn't especially potent. Note that Noemi's physical does over 190. By the end of the game it can be used as one hell of a nasty attack (2400), but it is subject to fire resistance, and this burns every last drop of her MP, which she needs to do anything. Feels like a nice, flexible situational move. Obviously the versatility increases greatly with level. Its hit rate is such that it should typically always connect except against magical evade whores (remember, average enemy evade is probably 30-40), since whiffing with this creates so much rage that nobody would use it if its accuracy were notably lower.

You balanced its growth far better than I had been thinking. I'm 100% behind the (2*Level+10)% usage. The accuracy is a good point, too!

Arna Evalescere: Might as well be an initial skill. Buff that raises STR and DEX which kinda rules for any fighters in the party. Big disadvantage? Noemi's own party doesn't have too many of these for quite a while! This is yet another skill that gets better as time goes on for that reason alone.

Onto the effect itself. 25% to STR/DEX, then 35%, then 50%, then vanishes. Check out what it does to Noemi herself, as an example:

432 damage with knife, base.
First turn Arna is in effect: 630, but very close to 720
Second turn: 778
Third turn: 972

(actually, all these numbers should be 90% of this, but whatever)

Overall this can lead to a lot of offensive benefit in any battle that goes on three turns. To be fair, folks who are only swinging once anyway won't see as much benefit (e.g. hammer users, most ranged weapons). Still, if cast on 3 PCs, it can easily see a net benefit of 3000 damage if the battle goes on long enough for all of them to attack 3 times, which if you remember the damage formula, is a hell of a lot for one turn. On the whole, I think I'd be happier if the buff did not get more potent as the turns go on; a 3-turn effect which raises both STR and DEX is already rather potent (about 1.5-1.8x physical damage GT rules). So I'm proposing it does just that.

MP cost: 35

Noemi's skill costs are balanced around her 10% MP regen and competent physical. 35 is enough to make it not a no-brainer to use, but low enough that it can still be used fairly often, and doesn't require a serious investment in a boss battle.

Yeah, practically an initially skill. To address the lack of skills learned from Noemi chapter 2-7, it's possible that she could pick up Ifris Libra later if she goes through battles -not- assigned to learning anyone's particular skill (thus, she's 'self-teaching').

Since it's supposed to be a -very- Resonance-y effect, I really want to keep the slow increase in effectiveness. To compensate, maybe it only increases STR or DEX?

Phoenicis Cruor: Presumably a fairly early skill, given an event assumes it may be learned by Noemi 2. Full revival is cool, except it's not cool because it's only 75%, caps the target's HP there, and this only compounds if the person is revived again!

First of all, I'd like to add the same disclaimer Kasia's skill has: its hit rate is based on the max HP of the target. Initially 100%, but you don't want to keep using it. This avoids a situation such as "yes I know this person has taken so much max HP penalty that I'm just reviving him/her to a trivial amount, but that's okay since at least I'm reviving!". Basically, having to repeatedly revive someone with DISSONANCE seems like it should be of questionable effectiveness.

Second of all, MP cost. Higher than Kasia's because Noemi regens more. Perhaps 64 MP.

Nothing else to say about it, really! Straightforward enough.

Yes, this looks right. Mirrors Kasia well, but not exactly the same.

Minerva Cortis: Aurel's skill. Oddly enough it lets her cover better than Aurel himself can, which is perhaps a bit strange. Of course, it's possibly balanced in practice by the fact that Noemi's stats alone make her way worse at the job.

As a move its main use is for Noemi to dex-tank against enemies who hit way too many times. Both Erastus and Kasia, who are often around Noemi, have bad Dex stats and risk being raped by such enemies, while Noemi's is high and avoids this. Otherwise, it isn't easy to see why Noemi would guard such attacks, but situationally, you never know. More importantly, though, it lets her counter a bunch, and since Noemi's physical is fairly potent (though, less so if not at full MP, see later) this is cool enough. Free damage is free damage. Feels more Mirek's style but hey. Might make sense to be learned only after seeing Mirek, too, as Noemi puts her own spin on things.

Ruling: The move is only effective against ST attacks. Feels too potent against anything else, and a bit nonsensical.

Negating one attack is also handy at worst. Can't overlook that part of it. RAR BOSS CHARGES UBER PHYSICAL ATTACK, Minerva Cortis, lulz.

Probably needs a fairly substantial cost too, given the length of its effect if not as high as the previous. Maybe 51 MP.

Only working on ST damage works. This one is learned before midgame by necessity... or not at all if the player never studies Aurel (this also closes Noemi off from Medium Armor~). Still, we should have a cutscene that 'recommends' that Noemi study Aurel early on (Chapter 4/5 ish?).

Callida Leanae: Noemi's hidden bitchslap move. Adding her respectable Int onto her Strength means 2.37x damage for one attack (though less if Arna has been used), and it has no real downside. It's almost certainly too good as is, since it can be used every battle, if only once. This is ignoring the fact that it cancels charged enemy attacks, which may or may not be common.

The obvious solution is just to nerf it. It should be an excellent damage skill, since the other mains have one, and hey, it's inherited from the damage queen herself, but a recharge time would put a damper on it and would prevent the "use this use this USE THIS" tagline it currently has. I'm going to suggest a full 1-turn recharge time, which means this potent damage is definitely more of a finisher. And that's good, because it avoids the situation where you use it early in the battle to take advantage of her passive Draco Eruptus, then use other things.

When will this one be learned? I dunno. Could reasonably be very late, once Isolde and Noemi have had time to hang out. Probably should be. Post-timeskip most likely?

Post timeskip is fine for timing.

Not sure what you mean by recharge here. The Cooldown on it was supposed to be fairly long anyway? If by recharge you mean 'Noemi's not doing -anything- for 1 turn'... that -does- balance it, though I'm not quite sure how to implement it.

Draco Eruptus: The passive of the same name (by the way this is confusing <_<) is more important to Noemi overall, but the Mirek-learned active also deserves some note. Consuming all MP is quite a blow, considering what Noemi gives up, but she also regains it pretty quickly so it's okay, and it's a good way to get past a tough random.

The targetting says "6-hex cone" which I can't envision. I can see 4 or 8 easily enough! Going with the 8 hexes, which basically means everything within a 120 degree arc for range 2 (3 adjacent hexes, then the 5 behind them).

I described it poorly with 'conical'... just balance it around 4-hexes.

The damage is described as moderate.I'm thinking fixed at 1 swing, but that one swing is dealt at 2x ATK, meaning it overcomes defence well.

The overall damage is similar to her average physical (though does better at overcoming both Dex and Def, so it's reliable), and is a bit more effective with a heavier weapon (which makes sense to me, and gives those more of a niche for her). It doesn't have the same raw damage as Libra, but it's still quite painful and deals with swarms well. Kinda funny that she has TWO Magic Burst type moves but they do very different things, so it's fine. Note that since this move will always have the backing of MP Focus, its damage hovers around 923 GT with a greatsword (80% hit) to 583 GT with a knife.

Noemi is big on Magic Bursting~ Besides, one is magical, one is physical+GT. She's going for a mixed magic/melee build (without being the unusual hybrid that Isolde is). The 1xSwing/2xATK thing is a good suggestion.

Draco is very important to Noemi, though moreso for the passive than the active. I have it pencilled in as a good move to learn late in the pre-timeskip arc of the game, as a fake final skill. Maybe during "the attack", not sure.

I was definitely thinking just before midgame for this, and if she hasn't learned it by the climatic battle, I was thinking of having Mirek's skill be auto-learned when he leaves during the midgame climax.

Lupus Baubari: It has to be a fairly late gain, since it is Yiu-learned. Anyway, what a strange skill. Silence + Lock State eh. I'm assuming it doesn't ignore immunity though it could be read either way. It's a neat, versatile little skill which has three uses: owning enemy spellcasters, owning enemy buff strategies, and to protect one's own PCs from status and debuffs.

MP cost: 77. Not your everyday spell, and by now she's regaining MP so easily...
Accuracy: 130. Fairly accurate. Treated as ITE when used on an ally, I'd imagine, since they want to be hit by it.

If the target immunes silence, I'm imagining the entire move fails. Mechanically, the move will need to apply a second status, maybe something as simple as "quieted state", to make it clear that the status has been locked.

How does this interact with existing statuses? I imagine they persist. How does this interact with Dispel? That I'm really not sure about. Figure I'll throw this one out for design help.

Yes, my intent was for existing status to persist. And that Dispel would remove it (both the Silence -and- the Status Lock). Figured it wouldn't take long to learn, but it relies on Yiu being available, so it's a little passed midgame.

Strix Bravere: It's been described as a late skill, which is making me unconformtable a bit since a lot of stuff Noemi is getting late and she seems to be getting little between her Chapter 1-2 revival and her late skills from Mirek. Well, we have a couple options here: either move one of Mirek's or Isolde's earlier, or make this one earlier. Initially I was thinking this one, but in hindsight, the healing here is so good that it should probably be gained around when Kasia leaves to soften the blow of that some.

Anyway, physical attack with MP cost, drains to some degree (75% of damage dealt). Typically speaking, Noemi's damage is such that this is only about 20% healing, but keep in mind her ways to raise this: her passive at full MP (though this only works once, presumably) which makes it ~33%, and Arna (as well as any other buffs) which again gets it up to that range. It's not amazing whoamg broken draining or anything but it's pretty nice. Probably needs a hit rate penalty, but not a large one... honestly, even 10% works. So we'll run with that.

MP cost: 40. Fine with this being used fairly often, since it's giving up +5% MP regen as well.

Fucking forum ate half my post... And at the important part, too. Anyway, this skill is Noemi's only healing option, and it heals all units in a Hex, so it's another good reason to gather units in one Hex. Would make an interesting defensive combo with Minerva Cortis.

As for timing, I figured that later would work better, since Erastus is around for a long time, but it can be earlier if we want.

My current proposal for timing looks like this:
Noemi P: Ifris Libra, Arna Evalescere
Noemi 1-2: Phoenecis Cruor
Noemi 2-4: Minerva Cortis
Noemi 4?-8: Iridus Falx (Shao's passive)
Noemi 6-9: Strix Bravere
Noemi 7-9: Draco Eruptus
Noemi 10-Endgame: Lupus Baubari
Noemi 11-Endgame: Callida Leanae
Noemi 5~Endgame: Fusion skills

Keep in mind that Noemi starts the game with Ifris Libra and Arna Evalescere, the two skills needed for her first Fusion skill - Arna Libra. So that can also be used to break up the earlygame lack-of-skills, I suppose?

Whew, that took longer than I thought. Combo skills and the passives I'll look at later. And this is only one character. Anyway, I know it's a lot to read, but anyone who could run through my thoughts, agree/disagree, etc., would be appreciated. Especially looking at advice on when skills should be picked up, and the mechanics of Lupus.

It's understandable that it might take a long while for the first character. After all, you have to get a feel for when everything is happening -and- get used to the numbers. This Noemi writeup is like a template. The rest of the cast should be easier now that you have a rough outline.

I know -I- have a much better understanding of game balance after seeing this. Thanks.

[074]

Isolde

Level 3 always assumes L3 Dissonant Edge is in effect

Greatsword ATK - 523/598 at 95 hit
Hammer ATK- 654/747 at 90 hit

Blasting Wave Lv1 - 2-turn cooldown(usable once per three turns), but reflectable, ST, Range 2, and Isolde can't move when using it.  All in all it seems as if it might be worthy of some power, especially since it's her only pure magic option until Magna Phalanx.  Magic has the problem of not scaling up well across levels (while weapons help physicals stay good across the span, magic has no such help for the most part, barring equipment twinking.)  Of course, Isolde has the benefits of upgrading, so her stuff doesn't stay outdated so much.  250 power. (383 damage at Level 1, would scale up to 417 were it not for upgrading).  Accuracy 120.  Not much stronger than a hammer attack early on.  Dual Earth/Weapon element.
Blasting Wave Lv2 - Increases in range enough to hit anywhere on the field, but keeps all the other benefits.  And drawbacks.  Power is 2x210 (L0: 654, L50: 722)
Blasting Wave Lv3 - Is now Hex-target.  Best pure magic offense Isolde will get until Magna Phalanx, which is full-field.  Power is 2x275 (L0:836, L50: 904)

Steel Force - 504 Greatsword/630 hammer.  Adds Delay (may change this to Cancel)
Shock Blade Lv1 - 739 Greatsword/924 hammer, plus above.
Shock Blade Lv2 - As above, plus following MP damage: 492 Greatsword/ 616 Hammer
Shock Blade Lv3 - 833 HP/555 MP Greatsword/1041 HP/694 MP Hammer.  Adds Delay, Backfire status.

Barrier Crush Lv1 - 504 Greatsword/630 Hammer.  Reduces target defense by 25%
Barrier Crush Lv2 - As above, but reduces target's magic defense by 25% as well.
Barrier Crush Lv3 - 598 Greatsword/747 Hammer, reduces target defense and magic defense by 30%.  Dispels boosts to DEF, MDEF, VIT, and SPR, in addition to invincibility, reflect, and status-locking.

Arc Cleaver - 504 Greatsword/630 Hammer to a hex.  Weapon element
Havoc Sweep Lv1 - 470 Greatsword/588 Hammer to a 3-hex arc.  Hits MDEF (uses INT instead of STR for damage, SPR instead of VIT, but otherwise uses ATK and ACC normally).
Havoc Sweep Lv2 - Same, only hitting all adjacent hexes
Havoc Sweep Lv3 - Same as Lv2, but now with the following attack: Radial AoE, 3x90 power (L0: 468.  L50: 579); Ice/Weapon element

Storm Blade Lv1 - 504 Greatsword/630 Hammer to a target, plus a magic attack to the hex.  Magic attack: 1x255 (Lv0: 390.  Lv50: 424), Ice/Weapon element.
Storm Blade Lv2 - Same, but magic attack has increased in power, and also targets the hex behind the initial one.  Magic attack: 1x370 (Lv0: 551.  Lv50: 585), Ice/Weapon element
Storm Blade Lv3 - 598 Greatsword/747 Hammer to a target, even stronger magic attack, targeting the initial hex and the two in a line behind it.  Magic attack: 1x500 (Lv0: 733.  Lv50: 767), Ice/Weapon element

Blade of Calamity: Testing current damage formula (2*(ATK*(1+X)-DEF)*((STR+INT)/VIT), where X is (level-1)/10.0).  Damage is purely non-elemental.
Lv1 - 974 Greatsword/1218 Hammer, 0.5 turn recovery
Lv2 - 1141 Greatsword/1409 Hammer, 0.625 turn recovery
Lv3 - 1434 Greatsword/1755 Hammer, 0.75 turn recovery

Executioner's Curse Lv1 - 504 Greatsword/630 Hammer to a target, plus adds Bleeding status
Executioner's Curse Lv2 - As above, but also adds Misfortune
Executioner's Curse Lv3 - 598 Greatsword/747 Hammer to a target, both statii added to all targets in the hex

Oversurge Lv1 - +75% STR and INT (+135 STR, +126 INT), lose 15% mHP per turn.  Self only.  All for three turns.
Oversurge Lv2 - +100% STR and INT (+180 STR, +168 INT), lose 20% mHP per turn.  Restriction as above
Oversurge Lv3 - +125% STR and INT (+225 STR, +210 INT), lose 25% mHP per turn.  Restriction as above

Magna Phalanx - Undetermined Earth-element magic attack.  Always hits all non-Isolde units on field, ignores Reflect.  It's as much threat to her allies as it is to her enemies, so she can't just simply throw it out every battle (Barring crazy things like a solo run for her).  Power 4x300 (L0: 1812.  L50: 1948)

EDIT
Moves have been changed to share cooldown gauges.  Isolde has five such groupings in particular.

1: Shock Blade/Blade of Calamity
2: Blasting Wave/Havoc Sweep/Storm Blade
3: Executioner's Curse/Barrier Crush
4: Oversurge
5: Magna Phalanx

As a corollary, Oversurge's cooldown gauge is empty at the start of each battle.  As a result, Isolde must wait until her fourth turn to be able to use Oversurge for the first time in a battle.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I'm curious what ShockBlade damage looks like with Oversurge 3.

Also, to keep with Isolde's theme of 'blurring the line between magic and physical', maybe you could give Blasting Wave one of the Physical elemental-typings (or have it use whatever Isolde's current weapon's typing is, to give her more reasons to use different weapons).

Otherwise, this looks pretty solid. Clearly we need a magic formula?

Oh, and I'm curious why Magic Counter's activation rate is so low. I guess it's an acceptable hit since Isolde's pretty brutal as is, I just thought that was one of her big niches (and her main method of actually -using- magic).

[074]

Shockblade 3 with Oversurge 3 is...uh, nuts.  Making me think that Oversurge needs a cooldown time closer to that of Magna Phalanx, the more I think about it.  As for Magic Counter...25% is a rather high rate, I thought.  It's not 80% or something, but when the highest weapon counter rate is 35% (Gloves), I have a hard time seeing 25% as particularly low.  Others might disagree with me on the subject, but that's what this thread is for, really.

[AndrewRogue]

On Noemi:

Generally agree with everything that NEB says. Per chat discussion, if Arna is going to be Resonant, it should probably be formed more as 1-2-1-0, rather than 1-2-3-0 (which is more indicative of a Dissonant buff to me). If it were to be 1-2-3-0, it should probably be 1-2-3-Penalty.

On the issue of her gaining skills late, suggested this to NEB, but simply have her learn weaker versions of some of her skills and then have them get upgraded later. Simply set a flag that has her Learn ability indicate when she can learn from someone and, once they become available again, have it pop a dialogue message or something ("Noemi has more to learn from Isolde"). Should allow her moves to spread out decently well. Or we just remember that she gains a couple weapons and an armor type or so as well and slot those in.

On Isolde:

The percentages debatably look a little high, but that all comes down to how much we want buffs/debuffs to matter, which I think will come when we see the cast on the whole. Also, does Oversurge have a cooldown?

[074]

Oversurge does have a cooldown.  4 turns.  Might want to bump it up to 6 turns, though.

[AndrewRogue]

Possibly? It probably wouldn't hurt to wait until we have healing numbers available since if the damage was really a preventative, it wouldn't be a bad deal to be spammable.

Does Barrier Crush end up literally boosting all damage by 50% more?

On the counter thing... eh, I don't think its a big deal. Presuming magic attacks are somewhat common (they should be!), its still a good trick unless we want to tone her other stuff done or make the damage pretty minor.

[074]

RE: Barrier Crush.  Not...really.  It only does that -if- DEF/MDEF are exactly half of ATK/MATK respectively.  The functional effect of DEF/MDEF reduction is greater upon those who have higher defense values, and less upon those who have lower.

Example!

Mook A has 200 DEF, being the plate-covered pain in the ass he is.  Mook B has 80.  Assume average VIT, average STR, and the use of an endgame Spear (240 ATK).  Assume equal DEX (and thus only one attack)

Pre-reduction damage:
Mook A: 2*(240-200)*60/60 = 80
Mook B: 2*(240-80)*60/60 = 320

Now, each of the poor bastards gets hit with a 50% DEF reduction.  This leads to Mook A going to 100 DEF, while Mook B goes down to 40 DEF.  Each of them gets speared again.

Post-reduction damage

Mook A: 2*(240-100)*60/60 = 280
Mook B: 2*(240-40)*60/60 = 400

Note that this is only on one swing.  DEF tends to get destroyed by single high-damage attacks, though, but is highly effective against multi-swing tactics.  Now, assuming before and after, Mook A also got attacked by someone with A- DEX and a Light Sword, but same STR. (endgame ATK 216, total DEX 174*1.2 =208.  208/120 = 1.74--two extra swings.  But let's bump it up to three to further illustrate the example and make things look flashier).  Mook B would be screwed either way, so we're ignoring him.

Pre-reduction:
5*(216-200)*60/60 = 80
Post-reduction:
5*(216-100)*60/60 = 580

[EDIT]: This is what a full crit-chain would look like for a light-weapon user, on that note.  Barring luck, however, that's never guaranteed.  First-hit crit: 232.  Subsequent crits: 116.  Long story short, crithax is another means by which light weapon users can bypass the higher defense ratings (Also, it's notable that a defense rating of 200+ is easily considered extreme, given that it makes Spears and Guardian Blades--'average' level attack--nearly tink at endgame.  300+ is the realm of those that could be considered mostly physical-immune.  Of course, I digress.)

...okay, so I want to use lower percentages or revise it in some manner.  Given the party Isolde's with for a large portion of the game, Barrier Crush would be LETHAL.  Barrier Crush leading into a blitz rushdown with Katarine, Ilona, and likely Shao at some point, would result in, uh...yeah.  I don't think I need to say it anymore.

Mind, if it hit VIT/SPR instead, it'd be a flat doubling.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Erastus

.. and the magic formula

Stats

Erastus has two problem stats, Speed and Dex. He's a little slow on the draw (85% average or so), but nothing too bad considering the power he wields. Dex makes him vulnerable to multiswings, though unless enemies also have high Atk they'll struggle with his armour. Just be warned that a particular powerful fighter (I'm picturing some of the guardian commanders here, for instance) will carve him in two. This is just FINE because his magical durability rules face, and even his physical is decent against folks with one swing or low attack. He even has a competent physical, if forced into it. Nothing amazing, but solid enough, similar to the likes of Noemi. Only stat build complaint is that with his horrid dex, the man has basically no use for lighter axes/maces ever, but I'm fine with him having them stylistically, and uh you never know, dex buffing exists! No listed MP regen, so going with 5% (16).


Passives

Efficient Conversion: Y'know, I'm not quite sure I understand the flavour for why Erastus starts with uber MP but it doesn't grow, but instead the costs decrease. Someone should fill me in. Anyway, mechanically it's fine. Basic proposal for how it works:

Each level Erastus gains, his MP costs decrease by 5, or 20% of his current cost, rounded up, whichever is a smaller decrease. Spells bottom out at a cost of 1 MP. Basically, this means spells decrease by 5, until the hit a cost of 20 MP, after which: 20 -> 16 -> 12 -> 9 -> 7 -> 5 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1.

Some spells are super-expensive, so at high MP costs, there's a different pattern. If spells have a cost above 100, they decrease by 10. If above 200, by 20.

Extinguished: Wouldn't make this a passive, just note that this is how summons work in general. If anything, having them persist after death would be a passive.

Whistle while you work: Simple enough: allows attacks, defends, and moves while singing. Jin should start with this, incidentally. Erastus probably should get it around Level 20 or so.


Songs

On song mechanics... one mechanic I like is to weaken their effect whenever the character is hit, by a % equal to current HP lost. Stealing this from Jin as a general effect. For Erastus, though, this isn't a big deal, because it will be automatically refreshed to full effect on his next turn.


Song of Discord: Should affect all hexes around Erastus, to be consistent with Jin. Pretty potent, half magic damage is very sexy. Should paint a bullseye on Erastus himself for enemy mages, but given his mdur, this is a price he's willing to pay. Might need to be less than a 50% reduction. ... actually, never mind, just noticed it also takes a bit out of dissonant healing. And since he's normally in the party with Kasia... heh, interesting enough balance decision. Fine with it as is for now, may revisit when I have a better sense of how good buffs are.


All offensive songs check MEva.

Song of Sorrow: Hmm, makes debuffs last longer. Well, it depends how good those are in general. Going to suggest this one has a targetting of radius 2 around Erastus, but that it's fine otherwise. Timing-wise, it introduces some issues. Does it just need to hit enemies once? Hm. Inclined to make it a status (sorrowful) and have it end instantly when the song does. Basically, if a negative effect lasts "X time", then it persists after X time if the enemy is under this status, and lasts until the song ends. The enemy needs to be hit by the song, however (although presumably only once).

Accuracy: 110


Song of Fear: Yikes. Enemies now fail at dodging, AND have bad accuracy? Crazy. Assuming this is physical only in both cases, but still. Definitely radius 1 only.

Accuracy: 100


Song of False Hope: Oh look, infinite duration stat bust to ALL STATS (I'm assuming this means core stats, but still). Nasty. Still, they can move out of the range, to keep it sane, but it makes a nice little protective bubble. Ignoring the 75% thing and making that part of the spell's accuracy. Remains to be seen how good enemy AI is to get out of this, of course. It affects more stats than Fear, but it doesn't inflict them instantly, so this is probably balanced. Same radius.

Accuracy: 100


Song of Despair: Our first run-in with the magic formula! See below. Power = 100. Range 1. 191 -> 234 damage. Erastus drains MP equal to 10% of the damage dealt. Can add up to quite a bit against multiple targets, not so great against bosses.

Accuracy: 110



Spells, and the damage formula for them

Scorch

HT damage. Range 2. Has a small added effect. All of these cry out for it being less than high-end physical damage. Still should be pretty competent, I kneejerk. So, heere goes:

Damage = (Spell Power + Int - MDef) * Int / Spi

Yes, I set K=1. It seems like it works, and is certainly the most elegant. Erastus base Int = 89. Sooo,

Spell Power = 150
Accuracy = 120
MP cost = 50. Hits 1 at Level 15.

Damage rises from 266 (Level 0, comparable to Shao physical) to 309 (Level 50, better than mage physicals but worse than fighters' and Erastus' own). Spells don't improve in damage as much as physicals do, note. This is intentional. It is always HT.

To make the spell keep up a little more, the hit rate of Scorch should be (Erastus Int)/4 %, so rises from 22% to 45%, roughly. Not that he hits endgame.

Scorch (the hex status) damage has a spell power of 30, and is sustained whenever characters start their turn or enter the hex. Probably around a ~5 turn duration. Damage = 88 to 131.


Drain Touch: Yay draining. Range 1 of course.

Spell Power = 130
Accuracy = 130
MP cost = 60. Hits 1 at Level 17.

Damage rises from 236 to 279. Basically a draining version of his physical, initially a bit better but eventually notably worse. 26% -> 15%, although Int buffing would improve it.


Emberstorm: Mm, scorch. Being able to inflict it on a large area is kinda cool, although it does mess with where the PCs can move, too. Anyawy, the spell hits one hex hard, and a few others more lightly.

Spell Power = 200 / 100
Accuracy = 100
MP cost = 120. Hits 1 at Level 27.

Damage rises from 340 (ow) to 383. Splash damage from 191 to 234. Also adds 100% scorch, which is ensured minimum damage as listed above. Basically, this is a terrific crowd control spell, even with accuracy that could be better. The MP cost is initially prohibitive (2 castings! Though it's 3 by Level 2), but comes down quickly enough.


Flame Wall: Powerful little effect, theoretically. I assume it has to target unoccupied hexes. Pick a starting hex, move the cursor wherever you want, maximum length based on level. Probably 1 + Level/10, so it's up to 5 (can make a full wall across field centre) by lateagme.

Lasts about 2 turns, then inflicts Scorch for about 5, since Erastus loves that so.

MP cost = 700. First castable at Level 19. Twice at Level 29. Thrice at Level 35. By Level 40, it costs 75, which is starting to get kinda manageable!


Immolation: Emberstorm that trades scorch for pain. Hey, lategame is comign along, and Erastus' damage is starting to look not so great! I mean, by this point, Emberstorm is below the better basic physicals for damage, though it is GT. Immolation comes along and is all "lol other people's damage". No, really. You get the feeling you don't want this guy as your enemy. "Medium damage"? Hahaha.

Spell Power = 180. 3 hits to central hex, 2 hits to surrounding hexes.
Accuracy = 120
MP cost = 800. First castable at Level 24. Twice at Level 34. Thrice at Level 40, when it costs 100 MP.

Damage rises from 930 to 1059, half that to the surrounding folks. Not much to say here, this is AoE pain extreme, and the game seriously does not like when he's able to cast it with any regularity... He leaves before it would become truly broken.


Rain of Fire: Ongoing damage to a certain area. I assume the damage kicks in when the spell is cast, and again at the start of subsequent turns Erastus gets. Given how this spell is more affordable, I'm happy with fixing it to three turns. The third such hit inflicts Scorched, we know what that does by now.

Spell Power = 200, two hits
Accuracy = Ignores Evade. Won't do this often, but eh. Ultimate spell of the most plot-badass PC, and gives it a niche.
MP cost = 900. Not castable twice until Level 39.

Damage rises from 680 to 767. Dealt three times, Scorch to anyone still there.

Main drawback to this spell is "What's keeping the enemy there?" I suppose we do have a few ways of lowering move and such, but generally speaking, enemies will get out, which makes this spell not so uber. Still, it's solid enough even if it only hits once, and makes life miserable for the enemies general. It's never an inexpeensive option, so this seems fine.


Summary of the above: Generally decent crowd control. Initially it's expensive, but by midgame he's spamming it... and before that can get old, the big moves start coming out to play. Initially they cost a hell of a lot, and even by the end they aren't cheap, but they have a serious effect on battles. Oh, and the man hates fire resistance. Like little else. Honestly, we can so easily balance him just by how much fire resistance we make.


Summons

First of all, 2 max. Apparently we have 6 as a cap, and since we can have up to 4 PCs, yeah, 2 summons on the field max. Not sure how he'll interact with Xun, thinking the cap is still there. Mumbo jumbo can't have too many summons at once. Summons don't have equipment, thinking of just pretending they have average (i.e. equivalent to a C stat, x2 for weapon) Attack, Def, and MDef. 1 DexMod. I'm also assuming all summons null fire, idly. Also, the initial summoning is range 1. I'm assuming that, like Erastus, their MP stats do not increase with level.

Ash Elemental

Gained at Level 5, then gets an extra charge every 2 levels, to a max of 20 at Level 43.

Kinda frail, same speed as Erastus.

See above for Scorch. This version is going to be fixed at 25 MP (80 max). Extrapolated endgame damages are 144 with a physical, 150 with Scorch. Not exactly impressive, but it's free burning.

Flame Lasher

Gained at Level 12, then an extra charge every 3 levels, maxing at 10 at Level 39.

Fairly fast (over a third faster than Erastus). Again, frail, even moreso than Ash. 312 damage with a physical, which I assume is range 4 given that it's an archer. Fire Thorn has Atk*0.8, but hits two random targets in a hex, and is fire elemental. Focusses. 187 damage per hit. Has enough MP to use this 4 times (cost 50 out of 200 MP).

Notably better than Ash Elemental, although does less damage against hexes of 3 or more. Otherwise, faster and generally more offence, certainly less walled by fire res.

Cinder Wolf

Gained at Level 26, then an extra charge every 2 levels, maxing at 8 at Level 40.

Slightly faster than Flame Lasher, and can kinda take hits almost! Still a little on the fragile side, but now is at least competing with PCs. Offence is competent, and the first thing about Erastus which is dex-reliant! 384 damage with a 3-swing physical against average. Its passive is nice, as any attempts to kill it heal Erastus. So... arguably quite durable indeed in practice. Hard to use this often until late, though.

Agni Titan

One per field. I'm saying screw that passive, this puppy is going to be 1 charge, period. Boss-killer, obviously. Slow (just below Erastus), averagish durability.

Desert Touch is sexy, yay random scorch. Although, he'd have to get enemies to enter that hex after him. Not too big a deal, but cute. Possibly a disadvantage even, since he can scorch allies!

672 damage physical. Ouch. Immolation Rage is 3 hits at 200 power. Due to bad Int it actually gets worse as the game goes on! IT's late anyway. At Level 50, 334 damage. At Level 40, when the physical is only 605, it does 340. Still, since it's GT, this is fine. 260 MP, each of these costs 75 MP, so three uses.


Overall on the summons, they are VERY potent against bosses overall, especially late. Initially weak on offence, but they get better, and a fifth PC is a fifth PC and can always do things like claim hexes and so on. There would be various ways to keep them under the control, the biggest being a turn limit. I could even think of a cute way to do this involving them spending MP each turn, so they lose MP faster if they use specials, and they vanish at 0 MP (also means MP killing them = much love). I'll run that idea past people (i.e. what I'm doing now) and if the reaction is good, I'll balance 'em around that. General comments on how good they appear to be would be very much appreciated.


Annnd that's it! Overall, Erastus is a potent character, with some nice offence, some nice support abilities, and summons. He pretty much always has something useful to do, and very much lives up to his reputation of a legendary war hero. Speed and dex keep him from being broken, as do the MP costs and charges on his best stuff. Comments please!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wow, another awesome analysis post. You're too good to us, NEB, these are such fun reads.

Flavour reasoning for Efficient Conversion: Erastus is supposed to know all of his spells already, and he's supposed to have already reached his peak, so the MP isn't supposed to change. The spells come down in cost because he's slowly regaining his Flow Sense of Sight, making the spells themselves easier to do, not really increasing his own supply of magical fortitude. Also, it's what Gorth designed IIRC?

The balancing on the costs in general is excellent.

Extinguished: I added this in because Xun's Summons -do- persist after he dies for 3 turns. (It's also listed as a Passive, I just figured I'd cover my bases. We can remove this and just add it to the Summoning description.)

Songs: I would prefer it if his Songs could effect himself as well, and we can balance from there. Due to Whistle while you work, he can actually -use- the effects of some of his Songs with his basic physical.

Song of Sorrow: I think this is the only skill he has that he can't benefit from on his own? Unless it affects Scorched hexes too?

Song of Fear/False Hope: It's notable that he can Move while these Songs are in effect, bringing the AoE with him, I would assume. This makes him rather difficult to avoid. Might need to nerf the actual effects of both skills from 50%/25% to 35%/15% or so?

Spells: Particularly happy with all balancing done here. Immolation is more nuts than I was expecting. Rain of Fire is cool damage potential, especially since Erastus can compound this spell with one of his Songs or Flame Wall, trapping enemies in the scary RoF hexes.

In general, it should be noted that this is Erastus' big gimmick - trapping his enemies.

Summons: Yeah, good call on nerfing the number of charges. I guess they're mostly boss or emergency allies against tough randoms.

Cinder Wolf: For The Master's description says "50% of all damage dealt BY Cinder Wolf is absorbed by Erastus as HP". I think you misread it as all damage dealt TO Cinder Wolf heals Erastus.

Overall on the summons, they are VERY potent against bosses overall, especially late. Initially weak on offence, but they get better, and a fifth PC is a fifth PC and can always do things like claim hexes and so on. There would be various ways to keep them under the control, the biggest being a turn limit. I could even think of a cute way to do this involving them spending MP each turn, so they lose MP faster if they use specials, and they vanish at 0 MP (also means MP killing them = much love). I'll run that idea past people (i.e. what I'm doing now) and if the reaction is good, I'll balance 'em around that. General comments on how good they appear to be would be very much appreciated.

Yes. So very yes. When I was trying to turn Gorth's design into something official, I kept looking for some kind of method of nerfing the summons, and this is very elegant.

An aside: A lot of Enemy 'randoms' should get HT MP-Draining as a standard. This would seriously discourage bunching up in one hex too much. It notably balances Isolde and Fahim a bit, too.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cinder Wolf: For The Master's description says "50% of all damage dealt BY Cinder Wolf is absorbed by Erastus as HP". I think you misread it as all damage dealt TO Cinder Wolf heals Erastus.

I sure did! And yeah, Cinder Wolf makes more sense that way. Not sure if that's too good or not.

I would prefer it if his Songs could effect himself as well

His only defensive song is Discord. I really like it better as targetting allies only, but talking to Tal it turns out that Jin was ALSO designed to be able to self-target with his songs. Personally I think y'all are lame for that, but if that's what you want, okay. Just note that Discord will need a serious nerf if it self-targets (it might need one anyway). lol halving all magic damage to the party at no cost. No. <.<

Fear/False Hope: I chose to make them a little iffy on accuracy instead (100 misses often enough, since most enemies have something like 25 MEva). I suppose they could be made more accurate and their effect lowered, if you prefer, but I kinda like attacks that affect more enemies having lower accuracy in general.

Immolation is more nuts than I was expecting.

It might be a little too good, even with that cost. I'm not sure. The thing is that it's more of a random basher (the ST damage is nothing special for the cost) and super-expensive for one. I figured I'd err on the high side and simply hide behind "well there's always fire resistance" if there's a fight we're worried about it trivialising tooo much.

In general, it should be noted that this is Erastus' big gimmick - trapping his enemies.

Is it? Flame Wall is good at trapping things, but not so much for Erastus himself, since it takes one of his turns and it doesn't last that long. The various negative effects do encourage enemies to go to other places, but are hardly foolproof. I guess it is a general theme I hadn't noticed, but it wasn't my kneejerk for how he'd overall be played. Does become more of a factor very late.

[Talaysen]

Overall on the summons, they are VERY potent against bosses overall, especially late. Initially weak on offence, but they get better, and a fifth PC is a fifth PC and can always do things like claim hexes and so on. There would be various ways to keep them under the control, the biggest being a turn limit. I could even think of a cute way to do this involving them spending MP each turn, so they lose MP faster if they use specials, and they vanish at 0 MP (also means MP killing them = much love). I'll run that idea past people (i.e. what I'm doing now) and if the reaction is good, I'll balance 'em around that. General comments on how good they appear to be would be very much appreciated.

That works.  You can also do it by HP (have them lose HP each turn).  Then even enemies that don't have MP damage can force them out of battle.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You'd need to make them immune to healing then, but that's fine, really.

[Talaysen]

That or they just lose the same amount of max HP from upkeep too.  I think just making them immune to healing would be better anyway.

Hmm, that's pretty much how FFXIII does it, thinking about it.

[074]

Hm.  Only issue I have with the magic formula is that it utterly -BLOWS- at scaling up with time.  Mind, it compensates by hitting a different defense/evasion type, and going down in cost as you level up (proportionally speaking, of course)

INT/SPR ratio isn't the problem, since that's not unlike STR/VIT.  It's that with scaling MDEF, you're getting very little change in magic damage as your level goes up.

If that's what you intended, though, then don't mind me.  Seems like there might need to be some benefit for the people who depend on variety over power, though, since otherwise those types will end up being outpaced by the physical powerhouses.

...unless I'm missing something.

[DjinnAndTonic]

If we want Magic damages to keep up with Physical damages (though I'm not sure if it's such a bad tradeoff to have Magic be better earlier and slightly worse late)... then we could just have enemy MDEF increase more slowly.

Also, we could have more spells that increase their spell power in various ways. Or we could make INT-boosting equipment more common in the lategame.

I think the formula itself is a fine start, let's just balance around it?

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's an inevitable consequence of the formula, really. Physical characters get better weapons, mages... don't. So yeah, mages need to keep getting better spells to compete, or for their old ones to upgrade. Flipside, their spells get more affordable as time went on. This worked pretty well with Erastus, I think.

[Talaysen]

Spells never get more affordable than basic physicals.

The thing I'm worried about is someone with an earlygame damage spell that's going to be completely worthless at endgame (or too powerful earlygame is the other extreme).  Erastus doesn't really have this problem, but someone else might.  I don't have all the characters' spells memorized so it may not be a problem.

That said, the simplest solution is to just have spells upgrade in spell power (or in other ways) later on if needed.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Very few PCs have just straight damage spells. Most magic is designed to have secondary effects that should allow them to continue to have a use outside of damage? I think only Fahim has straight-up damage spells like this, and he's the one who gets the INT-boosting weapon.

Rafael might have some problem with this though, since he gets more powerful spells as he gets more Sigils, making the older combinations generally inferior (except for costing less HP, and a few are MT instead of ST or something).

Faulheit, Katarine, Selena, and Xun's pets are the only other ones who Magic Damage formula off the top of my head. Well, the Item-users (Eirwen, Claire, Yiu) do, too, but they might need to run off of a different formula (Bring back the K!).

Selena joins late enough that her spell growth shouldn't be a problem. Xun's pets and Katarine's charges are limited enough that I think we can err on the side of overpowerful earlier, but more average damage at endgame. Faulheit's spells are the only other one that might merit some careful balancing, but even -those- have secondary effects if we want to lean more towards him being a low-damage mage at endgame.

[Talaysen]

Faulheit, Katarine, Selena, and Xun's pets are the only other ones who Magic Damage formula off the top of my head. Well, the Item-users (Eirwen, Claire, Yiu) do, too, but they might need to run off of a different formula (Bring back the K!).

K was just an undetermined constant.  It hasn't gone anywhere, it's just been determined.

[074]

Faulheit has stuff that functionally unlocks as his MP goes higher (though I'm not sure now given that his regenerating MP deal was taken away.  He might just unlock them when they're at a certain MP:cost ratio), though his lower-end stuff either has Delay/Cancel effects (Pressure Shot/Pressure Bomb.  Pressure Shot might be upgraded to Cancel.) or works off of his weapon power (Vacuum Shot).  Still half-tempted to give him one more Lightning spell, but not sure.

Hrm.  Guess I should try and lay out a baseline idea of when he gets stuff, but thinking:

Start: Pressure Shot, Pressure Bomb
-Turbulence
-Vacuum Shot
-Chained Thunder
-Vortex Shot
-Tempest
-Storm Fall
-Gale Fang

...okay, so the last two might be interchangeable, pending.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Yiu summary (not really much balancing to do with him, he's 90% status)

Okay, so Yiu is gotten at what I believe is the 50% mark of the game? I did calculations based on Level 0 (to keep with Noemi and Erastus), but I kept in mind that his damage is going to start between these figures and NEB's initial assessment values (that used L50 numbers I believe?).

Yiu's build is all about Team Synergy and gathering everyone in the same Hex, so he may not work well with some PCs (like Faulheit who should never ever move, so he can't travel around the field with the rest of a Yiu team), but certainly can work well with other PCs who have Hex-ally-boosting abilities (Noemi's DEX-tanking Cover-like skill, Minerva Cortis, and her drain-Hex-Healing move come to mind).

Physicals to average at Level 0:
Knives: 216 w/ 5 swings
Dagger: 165 w/ 4 swings
Axe: 189 w/ 2 swings
Mace: 216 w/ 2 swings
Katar: 165 w/ 4 swings
Glove: 168 w/ 6 swings

I'm presuming these roughly double at level 50?

Passive
*Comradery: Yiu's Strength and Defense are boosted 10% for every ally in his Hex, but his Speed is lowered 10% for each, as well (he gets a little distracted talking to them).

A little less Speed for a bit more Smash and Tanking value. It works out really well if Yiu -moves into- a Hex without another ally on his turn, because the STR boost kicks in for that turn, but the Speed drop doesn't affect his current turn.

The Speed drop affects Yiu's upcoming turn regardless of whether any Allies move in or out of the Hex between his turns. Similarly, the DEF boost is set based on when Yiu entered the Hex, and it doesn't refresh until Yiu's next turn.

For example, on Yiu's turn, he enters a Hex with 2 allies and attacks a nearby enemy with his physical. The physical's STR is boosted by 20%, and Yiu now has a 20% boost to DEF (not VIT as currently written, but this might need to be changed for symmetry?) that lasts until his next turn. He has also taken a 20% hit to SPD until his next turn.

Even if both allies move out of his Hex before his next turn, his SPD doesn't suddenly get faster and his DEF doesn't drop (nor his STR, in the case of Countering).


*Encouragement: Any allies in the same Hex as Yiu restore 10% mHP every turn.

This effect occurs on the allies' turns. I'm not sure if it should effect Yiu himself or not? (Self-Encouragement? Perhaps he can get an accessories that allows it?)

Actually, screw the 10% mHP thing. This effect should be directly based on his INT (he has an A after all, he may as well -use- it).

How does the Healing formula work again?

Damage = (Spell Power + Int - MDef) * Int / Spi

Do I just ignore MDef and Spi?

(P + 89 - 0) * 89/1
=(P+89)*89

Yeah, that won't work... maybe set MDEF and Spi to average based on Yiu's level?

(P+89-60)*89/60
=(P+29)*1.483~

Hmm... it could work, but that means that an INT debuff could actually negate Yiu's ability to heal... Seems wrong. We need a healing formula~


Active
*Appropriation: Collects money from any target. -Any- target. 80% accuracy. 3-turn cooldown period. Can occasionally steal Item components from certain enemies.

We haven't really discussed Money values yet, but I'm leaning towards this stealing 1/3 to 1/2 of an opponent's assigned MoneyDrop value. This wouldn't take away from the amount of money of a unit drops at the end of the battle, so there is a net gain to using this skill.

Side note: To avoid the cliche of Wildlife running around with Gold coins, we can simply make a note in the endbattle text like 'Gathered 90 Gold worth of raw materials from Angry Rabbit', implying that we simply skinned the beast and stored its meat and we'll of course be selling it in the next town. Even Disquieted Abominations' bodies can be useful if sold to enthusiastic researcher-mages.


*Coin Launcher: Select an amount of money to deal that amount of ITD damage. 60% accuracy. Cannot launch more than the hard cap of coins, (tentatively) 10% of max Money. If the coins miss, then the targets in the Hex are affected by Disoriented status. Target's Movement is randomized (picking up coins, of course), Physical and Magical Accuracy is halved. Persists for 1-2 turns.

Ah, the debated skill. Since people don't like Money-based skills breaking the game, Yiu's money skill is more about the status than the damage, though it -can- be useful as ITD damage. The reason I felt this skill was good for Yiu is that it reflects his reliance on materials to use abilities rather than magic. Even if he runs out of items, he can at least fall back on the money-resourced skill. If actual Coins as weapons still bother you, we can make them into Gold Arrows or something that has inherent monetary value, but is actually weaponized, the result still being that it takes directly from your coinpurse in the mechanics.

I'm setting the damage cap at 400, which is half of Level 0 average HP, slightly above-average damage at midgame, and definitely below-average at endgame.

For cost, I'm leaning 2 Gold = 1 point of Damage, so the cap is 800 gold, which seems like it should be a noteworthy chunk, but won't completely bankrupt the player if he wants to use it against those high-DEF, low-HP randoms, even if he misses and gets the status instead.


*Noise Trap: A Quieting-based invention. Throws a net/seal that stops the Flow in a targeted Hex and all adjacent Hexes. 100% Silence + can affect allies who move into affected area. Not immunable. OPB.

Straightforward, really. It's localized Silent Lake, which is pretty balanced considering that it keeps his teammates (who are often gathered in the same Hex as him) from using Dissonant or Resonant spells. OPB to keep it from being too broken in a Yiu+Guardians team.

NOTE: The intent is to also disable any Dissonant or Resonant Passive effects that units may have if they enter the Noise Trap area, so this can be very nasty.

Cost: 1 item of 15 carrying limit.


*Frost Bomb: An icy explosion that causes Freeze status 75% of the time. Affects all targets in a Hex, causes knockback that forces targets one Hex back from Yiu's location. Freeze status lasts 2 turns, during which the afflicted cannot act. If an afflicted is attacked physically while Frozen, their health is reduced to 0. Resonance.

Turn-1 short-term disabling status. But if someone else can get a hit on the afflicted before the duration wears off, it's 100% turn-2 ID. Knocks the opponent away from Yiu, so its allies may get a chance to move in to protect them. Also runs into Ice-resistance/immunity. And due to the magical component (Yiu himself doesn't use the magic, but the equipment has some Resonance infused into it for strengthening purposes), he can't use this under Noise Trap. Along with the item limit, that -should- balance this skill.

Cost: 1 of 15 item limit


*Torture Powder: A nasty combination of Itching Powder and Gunpowder. 100% ST Fragile status. If the afflicted takes any actions, the powder explodes, reducing their HP to 0. There may be some self-target moves that can remove this.

I'm considering making Itching Powder and Gunpowder into items that anyone can use, but they have nigh-useless effects (like 20% paralysis or 45-power Fire damage), just so that the components aren't entirely useless.

Anyway, this is awesome ID variant, since it's 100% disabling status and doesn't wear off. Basically, enemy allies would have to heal it to keep it from being 100% ID. It's also non-magical, so he can use it under Noise Trap for extra evil. Flipside? I guess a lot more enemies could immune it than Freeze? I can't imagine Golems caring about itching powder, after all.

Cost: 1 of 15 item limit


*Smokescreen: Full-field smokescreen! Using this allows every ally to swap out for any available party member. After the smoke clears, whoever are in the party are now granted a 2-turn 50% Evasion boost. Newly-swapped in party members start from 0 charge time. Party members that did not switch out retain their previous charge times. OPB. Resonance.

This alone might secure Yiu's slot in any party, since it allows him to access Party members not on the field or support slots, but -any- potential party member at the time. (And it's the only move in the game that allows it.) OPB and doesn't work under Noise Trap, though.

Cost: 1 of 15 item limit (I would consider a lower limit here)

Chemical War: Full MT Poison-type damage. Good for clearing large numbers of randoms. Requires all living party members to be in the same Hex as Yiu (he needs someone to help him activate the device). OPB. Dissonance.

Poison-type damage just means that things that immune Poison are immune to this skill (one method of keeping it from being that useful against Bosses). Alternately, I would make it Ice or Water element so that Yiu has a least a little bit of an elemental theme (Noemi's Fire, Isolde's only element is Earth, Mirek is... Iunno wind?). Ice would make sense seeing as Yiu is the poster child of 'we come from a much colder land'.

I really want this skill to be used for Randoms more than Bosses. So, it definitely does not focus against a ST. Since it is one of our few full-MT skills, I think I'd like to give it a bonus to damage based on the number of targets it hits, so you definitely want to use it to clear large numbers of randoms rather than trying to save it for a singular boss.

Proposed formula:

(SpellPower + INT - MDEF) * INT/SPI * Number of Targets/2

This ensures that he always wants to use it against at least 2 targets. Double damage at 4, 5x damage against a whole enemy team of 10 (I think that's our max enemy count?). This kind of damage boost means that even if Yiu isn't in your active party, he's worth Switching In, Gathering all your allies in one Hex, and wasting 1 of a 15-limit item to clear the whole field of 10 randoms.

SpellPower: 200

Level 0, one target: 170 (worse than his physical)
Level 0, ten targets: 1698 to each target (thank god he's not around at Level 0)
Level 50, one target: 191 (not much change)
Level 50, ten targets: 1914 to each target (still ridiculous)

Adding Ice element makes it more resistable if this seems too powerful, even with the limitations already in place like needing all allies in the same hex.



Assessment: Anyway, Yiu is a very utility character, but he's basically useless in a boss fight outside of Noise Trap, and bosses should be smart enough to not walk into that. Great for random clearing and has a competent physical and 2 flavors of ID. Very much a synergy player and needs people to gather in his hex to be his most effective.

[074]

Notes for later:

Lv0 Faulheit MP:140
Lv50 Faulheit MP:280
Lv0 Faulheit INT:74
Lv50 Faulheit INT:149
INT/SPR multiplier: 1.23

Faulheit:(because I was asked to.)

Stats

Faulheit's stats, at first glance, look like crap.  His HP and DEX are subpar, his STR is crappy, and his INT isn't impressive for a mage, nevermind that he's slow.  In fact, the only two good stats of his are his Accuracy (top-tier alongside the Guardians) and Spirit (Second only to Erastus himself).  However, that accuracy is put to good use in tandem with crossbows.  Furthermore, he benefits from not only not needing to move around the battlefield, but actually benefitting from not moving.  In addition, his MP regenerates, offsetting the at-first seemingly high costs, and his abilities have both range and area-of-effect to their advantage.

Skills - Passive

Lackadaisical: Increases damage by 25% if Faulheit has not moved on his turn.  This is familiar to us already.

Suggested: Equivalent Effort: Faulheit regenerates 40% MP a turn.  Necessitated by the rest of his stuff.

Skills - Active

Pressure Shot: Faulheit's basic attack spell.  Single-target, wind damage, plus a Cancel effect.  The way I'm seeing wind spells in general, they're bad against high MDEF, with this being no exception.  As such, suggesting the following power: 3x40 (Lv0: 198, 247 without moving.  Lv50: 255, 318 without moving).  Accuracy...thinking 125 or 130 here.

Pressure Bomb: Pressure Shot's bigger brother, and your first taste of real AoE in Isolde's path aside from Erastus' Emberstorm.  Damage is consistent throughout the AoE, and adds a Delay effect to all targets.  Power: 4x25 (Lv0: 192, 240 without moving.  Lv50: 268, 335 without moving).  Accuracy is in the 120-125 range, likely.

Turbulence:  Okay, yeah, this was going to be learned later, but then I figured that a 50% pEVA boost would be silly to make cost over 140 MP.

Vacuum Shot: Not to be confused with Pressure Shot, this one is pure physical, and can arguably get nasty.  Thinking it adds INT to his ATK(making him able to penetrate defense awesomely).  Single-target, weapon-elemental.  (Crossbow damage, since I'm lazy and don't want to do the others right now: L0: 278, 348 when not moving.  L50: 563, 704 when not moving).  Standard weapon ACC

Chained Thunder: And here's Faulheit's first taste of something full-field.  Somewhat.  It has the chance to hit all enemies on the field, though the chances of that diminish with the number of enemies that exist on the field.  It's also his first non-Wind spell, and thus deserves some special mention.  Hits the first target, then jumps to other enemies randomly.  If it 'jumps' to someone who's already been hit, the chaining stops.  Thinking this should have better penetration than his wind-based magic.  Power:2x165 (Lv0:440, 550 when not moving.  Lv50: 480, 600 when not moving).  Accuracy...130-135 or so

Vortex Shot: The other physical ability of Faulheit's, this hits a full linear path regardless of weapon.  Multitarget physicals are a very weird thing here, especially when they hit out this far.  Regardless, he's got it.  Adds 2/3 of INT to ATK here.  (Crossbow: Lv0: 229, 286 while not moving. Lv50: 537, 671 when not moving).  Weapon accuracy, as usual.

Tempest: Full-field ahoy!  In addition to hitting all enemies on the field, it repositions all mobile units randomly--a double-edged sword, mind, but useful if someone is surrounded.  Being one of his Wind-based spells, of course this isn't going to be good at breaking through MDEF, but given that it cares little for SPR and shreds anyone with bad MDEF to begin with, it's rather irrelevant by comparison.  Power: 6x50(468 at Lv0, 585 while not moving; 588 at Lv50, 735 while not moving).  Accuracy in the 120-125 range, possibly.

Storm Fall: And here's the ABM Launcher clone.  Randomly strikes hexes not occupied by allies, 24 bolts in total.  Ignores reflect, thinking accuracy is going to be high (150) due to the already unpredictable nature of the attack here.  Each bolt hits for power 2x145 (Lv0: 392, 490 when not moving.  Lv50: 432, 540 when not moving.)  Damage potential is high, but extremely finicky given the randomness.

Gale Fang: Original 'final skill' for Faulheit, this one has the rare distinction of being a wind-based spell that actually has defense penetration.  Against the primary target, anyway.  Two-stage attack, the secondary isn't reflectable.  First hit is power 1x300 (Lv0: 387, 483 when not moving.  Lv50: 408, 510 when not moving) and ST.  The secondary is power 5x50 in a radius not unlike Pressure Bomb's, centered on the primary target. (L0: 390, 487 when not moving; L50: 490, 612 when not moving.)