Season 61 Week 4: Listen to the Melody and Mallow out, Dahna; Pikachu your match

[Taishyr]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga)
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7)

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4)
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF)

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2)
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3)

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG)
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3)

[Taishyr]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga)
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7) - No major respect for Sephy tilts this easily.

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4) - I'll leave this to the WA peeps.
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF) - Chie -badly- wants Auto-Suku here. Too bad I don't allow it~

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2) - haha
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3) - Gutcheck, but this really doesn't seem like Virginia's match.

Light:

Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3) - uh

[superaielman]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga)- Takes an Overdrive, smashes.
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7)- Lamington could win this, but he would need every judgement call (Lack of seph durability respect, fly stopping Judgment) to pull it off.

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4)
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF)- Evasion.

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2)- Runs Blanca out of SP easily enough.
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3)- Kneejerk Virginia sucks in Middle vote.

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG)- 2HKOs. Mallow shouldn't be able to break out of that.
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike:

Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7): Quite a slaughter if you ask me. Fly reduces Lamington to ARMAGEDDON (which is 3HKO damage at Level 50, and I'm often told I'm underlevelled in Disagaea), Seph hits the right defence, he has Wall and Lamington has no way to dispel it, Seph is much faster, etc.

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4): Actually not especially sure. Probably Clarissa? She needs to get two turns with her Rob Turn chain, then needs to make at least two Sacrifices hit. Granted, the first lowers Arnaud to such puny HP that it's okay if Clarissa does hit-miss-hit or something like that, but she'd need the turns for that. Hm.

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2): Can probably stall Blanca for long enough.
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3): This half of Middle is just pathetic. Blanca is the only decent dueller and he's gettng spoiled. Speaking of spoiling, magic against Virginia.

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG): Mm, the Meteorstrike itemcast is quite slow, so even if it 2HKOs it may not be enough here. Of course, I allow SP, Dahna offence fails, easy match.
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3): No real comments here.

[OblivionKnight]

Dahna doesn't have the Meteor Strike item-cast (Alfina!) - she has the status stuff instead

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

In that case, not really seeing how Dahna 2HKOs. Burnstrike does a bit under 46% to average, and Mallow is above average magic durability. Granted, Dahna can still win if she can draw out the battle long enough to use Dancing Cards... maybe. She'd need to use an ATK-weapon for that, and I dunno how much her magic suffers if she does that.

[Magic Fanatic]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga)
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7) -  Good Sephy speed respect, at least!  Just...  Not much on other fronts.

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4)
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF)

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2) - I'm gonna test what SH2 actually DOES besides the much-toted "Random Action" variable.  The only thing I've seen reported is that "SH character going berserk = lose", but...  I've heard reports that going Berserk could be otherwise helpful.  I'll look for my data and run a few tests later.
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3) - High PDEF on Blastoise.  Ginny is decent, but has trouble causing damage at all here.

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG)
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3) - Uh...  Hell if I know.  They both 2HKO each other, and Pikachu goes first?  Beats me.

[OblivionKnight]

Decent hit - Heal drops to 600 HP, Tremor to about 700, Burnstrike to 1100 or so?  This is recollection, but 84 MAG loss from the weapon alone and a relative drop due to the 3% MAG skill bonus means she loses somewhere close to 100 MAG, putting her a bit below Alfina's MAG (230-ish or so).  A status may be helpful there (silence, sleep, or confusion...silence probably more effective than the others).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mallow blocks both silence and sleep. Confuse could work, but screwing over her offence makes me kinda skeptical. If she stops putting pressure on Mallow, Mallow just kills her. In particular, just going for that status (which is 50%, IIRC?) gives Mallow two opening shots at her, and he 3HKOs her, so unless the confuse totally locks Mallow down for the rest of the battle (and it won't), that's a good way to lose.

Magic: Berserk -does- raise physical damage a good deal, and there's certainly a chance of using physicals under it, though I dunno how good it is. That said, WW has quite a lot of anti-physical buffing, even if you're me and ban Ruse; she can get to perfect evade with five castings of Invis2, and there' very little Blanca can do to stop that due to has bad offence at first. Now, if Berserk lets him unleash some double-damage Comets or something like that (which would definitely surprise me), then he might be able to pull a win.

For Pikachu to 2HKO Melody, you have to see Melody as less than 0.93 mdur, assuming you see the barrier cutting 15% PCHP off of damage (which is arbitrary, but works for me). She is the frailest prophet, but Pika's hitting her wrong defence, so I wouldn't see that happening myself, but WA3 boss HP is a devil to peg down. Gen4 can hit the right defence with Volt Tackle, but this is suicide, a single recoil is enough to kill Pikachu when combined with one shot of poison and one shot of Eliminate Scanner (go Pika HP!). Also the kill point is like 30 points higher in that game.

[Magic Fanatic]

For Pikachu to 2HKO Melody, you have to see Melody as less than 0.93 mdur, assuming you see the barrier cutting 15% PCHP off of damage (which is arbitrary, but works for me). She is the frailest prophet, but Pika's hitting her wrong defence, so I wouldn't see that happening myself, but WA3 boss HP is a devil to peg down. Gen4 can hit the right defence with Volt Tackle, but this is suicide, a single recoil is enough to kill Pikachu when combined with one shot of poison and one shot of Eliminate Scanner (go Pika HP!). Also the kill point is like 30 points higher in that game.

It...  Actually reduces incoming damage by 15%?  I thought it just acted like one of Jude's default armors somewhat - Melody's barrier just completely nullifying damage under 300, specifically...  In a game where, at that point, I'm willing to think that even Ginny physicals can break that.

[dude789]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga)
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7)

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4)
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF) Between evasion and High Counter (which is hilariously effective if it activates) Chie gets the two turns she needs.

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2)
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3): Withdraw is bad news for Virginia.

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG)
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3)

[Dark Holy Elf]

It...  Actually reduces incoming damage by 15%?  I thought it just acted like one of Jude's default armors somewhat - Melody's barrier just completely nullifying damage under 300, specifically...  In a game where, at that point, I'm willing to think that even Ginny physicals can break that.

It reduces all incoming damage by 350 per hit (after all other calculations), which is quite a bit better than how Jude's armour works (more akin to BoF5 bosses' absolute defence, if you're familiar with that), and a large part of why she's considered a good Light (even though she'll likely lose next week!).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga) - TimeLord vs. HP.

Heavy:

Clarissa Arwin (WA:XF) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (WA4) - Eh. Weird little match, but I'm kneejerking for the better Heavy when in doubt - and Clarissa's got pretty solid odds of manhandling the fight anyway.
Chie Satonaka (P4) vs Levin Brenton (WA:XF) - Miori Shirt = Levin has roughly 0% hit rate with Cancel Strike. Then he gets to meet the Hand of God.

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2) - Pathetic, pathetic. Fail less against healers, Blanca.
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia Maxwell (WA3) - Fail less against magic, Ginny.

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG) - Yeah, status hype is sorta no here.
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody Vilente (WA3) - Dear god no. Pikachu doesn't 2HKO average, he shouldn't 2HKO Melody either, and he gets 2HKOed by freaking Eliminate Scanner before even factoring in poizn.

[Magic Fanatic]

Magic: Berserk -does- raise physical damage a good deal, and there's certainly a chance of using physicals under it, though I dunno how good it is. That said, WW has quite a lot of anti-physical buffing, even if you're me and ban Ruse; she can get to perfect evade with five castings of Invis2, and there' very little Blanca can do to stop that due to has bad offence at first. Now, if Berserk lets him unleash some double-damage Comets or something like that (which would definitely surprise me), then he might be able to pull a win.

He...  Didn't seem to want to use Red Comet often, but Berserk seemed to put out a constant 50% damage increase to enemies, after everything else was said and done.  Even so, it looked like he had about a 1/3 chance to waste his turn peeing on an enemy or ally, inflicting 1 SP damage to allies, or 1 damage to enemies (because SP damage = HP damage, I suppose).  

I say "to enemies", because if he attacked allies, the damage seemed to be greatly reduced (like, down to 20 from about 230 on enemies).

Anywho, backpedaling a bit...  Can Blanca threaten a 2HKO with Physical -> Red Comet, especially since he's faster?

It...  Actually reduces incoming damage by 15%?  I thought it just acted like one of Jude's default armors somewhat - Melody's barrier just completely nullifying damage under 300, specifically...  In a game where, at that point, I'm willing to think that even Ginny physicals can break that.

It reduces all incoming damage by 350 per hit (after all other calculations), which is quite a bit better than how Jude's armour works (more akin to BoF5 bosses' absolute defence, if you're familiar with that), and a large part of why she's considered a good Light (even though she'll likely lose next week!).

If it flat-out reduces damage over nullifying it if it's under X amount, then...  Yeah, Melody's game, set, and match.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Magic: Berserk -does- raise physical damage a good deal, and there's certainly a chance of using physicals under it, though I dunno how good it is. That said, WW has quite a lot of anti-physical buffing, even if you're me and ban Ruse; she can get to perfect evade with five castings of Invis2, and there' very little Blanca can do to stop that due to has bad offence at first. Now, if Berserk lets him unleash some double-damage Comets or something like that (which would definitely surprise me), then he might be able to pull a win.

He...  Didn't seem to want to use Red Comet often, but Berserk seemed to put out a constant 50% damage increase to enemies, after everything else was said and done.  Even so, it looked like he had about a 1/3 chance to waste his turn peeing on an enemy or ally, inflicting 1 SP damage to allies, or 1 damage to enemies (because SP damage = HP damage, I suppose). 

I say "to enemies", because if he attacked allies, the damage seemed to be greatly reduced (like, down to 20 from about 230 on enemies).

Anywho, backpedaling a bit...  Can Blanca threaten a 2HKO with Physical -> Red Comet, especially since he's faster?

Pretty much impossible. Red Comet deals -less- damage than Blanca's physical (...) and has a huge recharge rate. Under Berserk, Blanca -may- 2HKO WW, but he needs 18 turns to reach that and he 3HKOs her at best with his physical before that (4HKOing with Red Comet -before- Wall), which means she just gets all the time in the world to stack Wall and Ruse 2 together until he can no longer even hit her - and his odds of using a physical are as good as the odds of him trying to use items or dancing naked in the wind. The way I see it, he'd need to OHKO with his physical/Red Comet to have a chance to extract victory here, and White Wizard is no Raja.

[Rozalia]

Godlike:

Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7) - Easy win.

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4) - Clarissa has to use rop turn against someone is around the same speed. I'm not going to number crunch this so I'll just say Arnaud is good enough to win this.
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF) - Not all that sure.

Middle:

Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3) - Fucking Blastoise. No respect found.

Light:
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody Vilente - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH FAIL.

[OblivionKnight]

Godlike:

Emelious (G3) vs TimeLord (Saga) - TimeLord needs to die - need to finish the SaGa stuff!
Lamington (Dis) vs Sephiroth (FF7) - Thanks god I have played and allow the FF7 form - KH form and others would die here badly. 

Heavy:
Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4) - Arnaud >>>>> all
Chie (P4) vs Levin (WA:XF) - POWER CHARGE HAND OF GOD SMITES YOU BITCHES!!!  fsteak for the win

Middle:

White Wizard (FF1) vs Blanca (SH2) - Remake power, I suppose
Blastoise (PKMN) vs Virginia (WA3) - Even allowing Virginia anything for Mystic ;-:

Light:

Dahna (G3) vs Mallow (SMRPG) - Since I've gone to allowing anything storebought...
Pikachu (PKMN) vs Melody (WA3) - Blocks 350 damage, Pikachu deals what, less than 200?  Easy!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4) - Clarissa has to use rop turn against someone is around the same speed. I'm not going to number crunch this so I'll just say Arnaud is good enough to win this.

Clarissa is 12% faster than Arnaud.

[SnowFire]

Clarissa (WA:XF) vs Arnaud (WA4)

Still, it's a good match since Clarissa positively *explodes* if Arnaud reflects Sacrifice back into her, and Arnaud has the right kind of durability for ITD Sacrifice - good HP.  I don't think Sacrifice + Howling Shot is a KO here, so Clarissa has to either aggressively use Rob Turn a lot to try and get Sacrifice ->2 Howling Shots, or has to do Rob Turn-> 2 Sacrifices.  The Howling Shot hype strikes me as the worst option - that's using Rob Turn more, Howling Shot can miss, arguably they're both in hex games where there's no guarantee Howling Shot will even line up on turn 1, etc.  So Clarissa needs Rob Turn->Sac -> Sac, which will do the trick.  However she has to have that opening Rob Turn work (75% chance), and neither of those two Sacrifices to be Reflected into her face (25% of that each time).  So .75*.75*.75 = 42% chance of Clarissa victory.

I know that most people don't consider this, but if you assume semi-randomized turn init (which WA4 has, at least, and I believe XF has on at least some maps?), then any time where Arnaud lucks out and goes first is basically a sure loss for Clarissa, as Slow Down'd Clarissa has no choice but to Rob Turn like crazy and her luck will not hold out 'till she gets that double.  If Arnaud goes first say 20% of the time, he's winning almost all of those matches, which would drag Clarissa's odds down even further.

It's a good match, but I'm not a fan of characters who get by spamming 70-80% accuracy stuff in the DL and having it work every time, so definitely don't feel too bad about voting Arnaud here.

On Levin vs. Chie:
No Persona 4, but I would like to point out that for those who allow Miori Shirts but also allow Defend commands, Levin's got a solid strategy in Blast->Defend->Blast.  I assume Chie has to do something on her Power Charge turn or lose it, natch, and Blast is sorta-ITE.  (Prevent can mess with its hit rate, but not much else, and other spells have lesser hit rates, though if you see magic evasion as entirely the defender's system, then Levin is out of luck here.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Uh, XF doesn't have a Defend command. Even if you allow them in general I really hope you don't allow them for games that don't have them.

Blast is in no way ITE. XF has exactly two forms of magic evasion - the Magic Blocker skill, and Prevent. Both hit Blast. ITE would be something like Charlton's Black Corrosion, which ignores both of these despite still hitting RES.

XF doesn't have random initiative. WA4 does, but only for true random encounters - no fixed encounter has them, and I'd certainly see a DL duel as "fixed". So yeah, no respect for arguments saying Clarissa doesn't go first. Granted, I still need to numbercrunch and figure out how that one goes anyway.

[OblivionKnight]

The other thing is that Power Charge is lost if she uses a physical attack.  All she does is use Bufula (!!!) instead to wear down Levin instead.  The damage isn't great, but she keeps the Power Charge to blast him when she wants (Levin eventually has to do something or...uh...die from Bufula spamming!), and switching out for Sleipnir's Greaves means she still has awesome evasion even after the Sukukaja wears off (and is more accurate).


Also, not like it matters, but...Snow, Red Comet deals more damage than Blanca's regular attack (300 to 240 or so).  It's still below average!  But better than his normal attack sequence!

[SnowFire]

XF doesn't have a Defend command?!  I...  what.  Weird.  I thought I remembered using it at one point.  Never mind then.

Couldn't tell about XF having random initiative or not, but sure, sounds reasonable that it doesn't.  I *know* WA4 had semi-randomized starting init for random battles, but huh, you're saying it's always fixed for boss battles? I believe you, but that's pretty obscure, I'm not going to feel any shame about not knowing that.  (For what it's worth, when one side does have randomized init, I do normally attempt to work that in a bit myself - matters when two people are nearby in speed, and it's a close match when one side goes first, and a blowout if the other goes first.).  Anyway, this simplifies the math greatly - unless there's a better plan for Clarissa than Rob Turn-> 2x Sacrifice, she's got that 42% chance to win exactly.  Good match but definitely a weighted coinflip.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The other thing is that Power Charge is lost if she uses a physical attack.  All she does is use Bufula (!!!) instead to wear down Levin instead.  The damage isn't great, but she keeps the Power Charge to blast him when she wants (Levin eventually has to do something or...uh...die from Bufula spamming!), and switching out for Sleipnir's Greaves means she still has awesome evasion even after the Sukukaja wears off (and is more accurate).


Also, not like it matters, but...Snow, Red Comet deals more damage than Blanca's regular attack (300 to 240 or so).  It's still below average!  But better than his normal attack sequence!

Okay, maybe I misread Dhyer's topic there, then.

[OblivionKnight]

...right, 2 topics. 

He might be taking recharge into account?  Alternatively...mmm...maybe doesn't have the last Wolf Bout?  There are reasons it might be lower, but those would be the ones I'd think of first.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Without last Wolf Bout, Blanca doesn't even -have- Red Comet. It's also worth noting that, even so, Red Comet's recharge is pretty bad, so it's a bad choice to try to heal-lock with -anyway-, and I'm suspecting the physical chain being -worse- than Red Comet doesn't make Blanca's argument any better, since it's likely Blanca's 7HKOing WW with RC after Wall, and failing hardcore at damaging WW once a couple Ruse2s are up.