New Nyarlathotep's Dungeon Topic, Updated 10/1/14 with new rules

[Dhyerwolf]

Right. For all that I kind of laugh at the hit rates of most BoF 2 status in game, Songstress should make those work.

About when would floor 1 end in terms of FF 5 bosses?

I know that SO 3 endgame is about L60, but I seem to remember an EXP spike midgame, so Peppita is probably up to L8?

[Clear Tranquil]

Well stat topic/OK takes the characters as L65 for final boss. It's weird though because depends on how much you factor in Triple EXP bonus/SO3's bonus bar thing, but yeah that sounds about right.

She learns Magic Hook (HP/MP damage, chaos/confuse) at L5, her Charge also does MP damage, can't remember off hand which is better. She doesn't get the freeze skill till L10 iirc.

@ dude Yeah Dancing fans of doom~

[Nephrite]

I'd generally agree with NEB and say Floor 1 would be Liquid Flame, or maybe a little before.

[ThePiggyman]

Alright, time for a new team, why not. I've done gimmicky teams the last couple of times, I figure I'd just try a straight up overkill-damage one this time.

Zerase (4.5) w/ Body Charge
Crowley (2.0)
Garnet (2.0)
Red XIII (2.0)
Robo (0.5)

Ph34r teh MT.

EDIT: I hope you guys aren't getting tired of seeing Red XIII in the dungeon, by the way, but he really is an ideal pick for so many teams, I find.

[Pyro]

Zerase with Body Charge is quite powerful/fast but she kind of wants MP restoration to go with her, since the L4 charge can only be blown once the first few floors and twice the latter part (with maybe 3 at F7?)

So how is this for a team idea?
Souji (Firefly), Aika, Amarant, Yukiko, Seifer: I wanted to go for a defensive build without being overly gimmicky. Seifer also provides some MT limit nonsense with cover from Delta Shield + Firefly Souji. Seemed like a good fit. The team's raw offense isn't that powerful but I think this would work well enough? Thoughts?

[ThePiggyman]

Zerase with Body Charge is quite powerful/fast but she kind of wants MP restoration to go with her, since the L4 charge can only be blown once the first few floors and twice the latter part (with maybe 3 at F7?)

So how is this for a team idea?
Souji (Firefly), Aika, Amarant, Yukiko, Seifer: I wanted to go for a defensive build without being overly gimmicky. Seifer also provides some MT limit nonsense with cover from Delta Shield + Firefly Souji. Seemed like a good fit. The team's raw offense isn't that powerful but I think this would work well enough? Thoughts?

Oh, hrm. I just realized that only Zerase's L4 charge is actually MT. In that case, my team doesn't have quite as much MT as I thought it did. I think I'll rework my team a bit.

As for your team, is there any specific reason for Amarant? When I think of reasons for Amarant, it's mostly his MP healing and his strong early damage. It's worth noting that he cannot learn Revive in any way until Disc 3.

[Nephrite]

Why not Body Charge Magus?

[ThePiggyman]

New team:

Miakis (4.0)
Crowley (2.0)
Garnet (2.0)
Zalmo (2.5) w/ Neo Speed
FF1 Monk (0.5)

Replaced Zerase with Miakis, who I can optimize for strong MT damage. Also decided to ditch Red for ZALMO. Less damage, but much more healing. And with Neo Speed? Oh man, MUCH MORE HEALING. I think I'll confirm this as my team. =)

[SnowFire]

For the record, Neph, please put my team on hold for a bit while I think on it.  I mostly disagree with dude - the early floors are usually easier, and stalling them out with healing is a more winning strategy than the later floors, but after all the analysis of F1, holy crap does my team have issues on F1.  Garnet & Purim are notably much, much worse on F1 than on F2/F3, with Purim really wanting a judgement call to give her Undine for the final fight despite it being borderline at best.  Otherwise my team might BARELY edge out Augus before his 2nd turn - SSL & the fact that Augus is tankier vs. magic not really helping here - only to die to getting swept by Joker's MT damage.  Ow.

[Clear Tranquil]

Proposed guide thingy for Meru -

F2 - Rainbow Breath
F3 - Hammer Spin, Diamond Dust
F4 - Cool Boogie
F5 - Cat's Cradle, Blue Sea Dragon
F7 - Perky Step

[Dhyerwolf]

It sounded like Meru wasn't really supposed to gain new techs/spells until at least when she would join (hence Neph explicitly noting that Rainbow Breath would not be available for several floors).

[Dark Holy Elf]

In general I pretty strongly disagree with "patching" characters in the dungeon so that they gain abilities before they do in-game. In Meru's case I'm okay with squinting and saying she starts with her dragoon and/or Freezing Ring (which at least reflects her in-game ability to do high damage with items, without actually allowing said items) but her getting MT healing before ~F4 is a blatant contradiction to how she is in-game (unless you want to say dungeon Meru has items of course... I'm certainly more relatively okay with that). I wouldn't see Shana getting her MT healing spell on F2, and Shana unquestionably gets hers before Meru does in-game.

(blah blah blah I don't actually vote so feel free to ignore this, but hey)

[Pyro]

Vote and make a team, NEB. GIVE IN!

[Dark Holy Elf]

I've voted on dungeon matches before; they tended to take me like an hour each so I had to stop. <_< I love the concept though!

[Pyro]

Put a timer on it and it will be like playing speed. chess. And making teams is lots of fun!

No one has rolled a Violent Burst Law team in a while...

[Dhyerwolf]

You can at least make a team though!

[Dhyerwolf]

And for fun, analysis of my team members from the last run

Cecilia (3.5)- Certainly the MVP. For all that it constantly felt like the spell or item that would help her trivialize a floor was generally gotten the next floor, she was great. Early revival, healing, defensive buffs, at some point can mystic Lock State. Lots of cool stuff. That said, it is absolutely necessary that she have a speed boosting sealstone. While that alone makes me ponder whether the 3.5 is deserved, she works quite well.

Alys (3)- Solid. MT buffs, some MT damage paired with speed? Yes! Add in the dungeon might of Moonshade!!! (not really joking though) and she ends up definitely being worth it.

Terra (2.5)- Good, but I think that she would shine better on a non-Cecilia team. I thought there might be a floor or 2 where she would get the speed sealstone, but it ended up that there was never a really good reason to take it off Cecilia. Doesn't pick up the support spells at that great a clip, but still brings the durable smash with solid MT back up. I would say for the point cost, she was probably the least impressive member of my team (not to say she's overpriced though).

Jean (1)- Was always kind of nebulous in what she could really do, but certainly worth the point. For all that her status AoE and damage is pretty unmapped, as is the general LEBC evolution in terms of damage curves, she is still cheap, fast and does passable damage and a chance of status at least.

Ronfar (1)- Solid healer for a 1. Not too slow, gains his options at a decent rate (albeit not so amazing to not be a 1). Worked well enough.

[Clear Tranquil]

Well if Meru had items she wouldn't be a 0.5~

Due to how broke LoD items are, and they don't have the same restrictions/limitations in the dungeon, since 32~ is usually more than enough.

F3 sounds about right to me for L3 spells in general assuming LoD is the same for proportioning things the way is as done for games in general, but Sharanda would still only be able to use it twice (30 MP x 2, 60 MP cap), and she'd still have to attack to get SP for using it from that first fight on the floor. Or she could use her ST healing spell six times (10 x 6, 60 MP cap) Well at least both of them revive and are about full healing. On the other hand Rainbow Breath is a L2 but Meru is still only able to use it twice when she gets it (20 MP per cast, 40 MP cap)  and still also has to attack in that first fight for the SPs. I have mostly been using the Sharanda rules/Piggyman's list as a guideline as to where in the dungeon LoD places are supposed to be.

Floor 1 - Healing Potion (ST, 50% healing), Angel's Prayer (ST, 50% revival), Body Purifier (ST, heals physical status), Mind Purifier (ST, heals mental status), Burnout (ST Fire item), Spark Net (ST Thunder item), Spear Frost (ST Water item), Meteor Fall (MT Earth item), Dancing Ray (MT Light item)
Floor 2 - Sun Rhapsody (ST, full MP healing), Dark Mist (ST Darkness item), Fatal Blizzard (MT Water item), Spinning Gale (ST Wind item), Gushing Magma (MT Fire item), Thunderbolt (MT Thunder item)
Floor 3 - Healing Breeze (MT, 50% healing), Pellet (ST Earth item), Trans Light (ST Light item), Black Rain (MT Darkness item), Rave Twister (MT Wind item)
Floor 4 - Healing Fog (ST, 100% healing), Depetrifier (ST Petrify healing),
Floor 5 - Panic Bell (ST, Confusion), Stunning Hammer (ST, Paralysis), Poison Needle (ST, Poison), Midnight Terror (ST, Fear)

Dancing Rays are not storebought until Volcano Villude and Thunderbolt till Hellena 2 but if Sharanda is not supposed to get/have those things/F2 isn't end of disc one then let me know.

Unless there is indeed supposed to be some sort of blanket restriction on Meru gaining anything fair enough.

Actually looking at that list again and thinking of in terms of additions not spells then yeah Hammer Spin definitely isn't F2 *fixxes* oh I didn't even have Hammer Spin there, thought I did >_> ~

[SnowFire]

I, on the other hand, have no particular problem with assuming "time of join" on a character is slightly later than it is in-game, because otherwise some characters are really hard to price fairly, but Dungeon diversity is good, and F1-F3 are much tougher than they used to be.  So Chris w/ True Water Rune, Meru w/ Dragoon, Kurando w/ Tsukiyomi, etc. are all fine by me...  although I'd probably assume that Meru is frozen at time-of-getting Dragoon for the early floors.  A certain amount of "punish characters for slow starts" is fine, seeing characters grow is part of the appeal of the Dungeon, but not when it gets too harsh / swingy.  (And Marcus or even Athos will not be enough to guarantee early passes any more.)

That said, I'd be fine with a slight hack if needed (e.g. FF6 Celes, who gets Espers way sooner than she "should," and she needs to), except I don't really think Meru needs the hack?  She's a 0.5 pick.  If she got solid MT healing on F2, she seriously puts a lot of other 0.5 healers in trouble.  Furthermore, for me at least, LoD characters translate well to the Dungeon in that for fights other than Fight 1 / fights after a full reset, they can usually stall and stock up 5 turns of dragoon meter.  So Meru is actually a lot tankier than she looks in 4 battles out of 5 because she can Dragoon transform on her speedy first turn 1.  So I'd be fine with letting the rest of her skillset come at in-game times rather than sped-up times.

[Clear Tranquil]

Ehh ... she can't really do that without having the dragoon levels to do so. They need to have more than DLV1 to remain in dragoon form otherwise they just use the spell or attack then revert. So if Meru is frozen till F4 then she just busts a Freezing Ring then reverts then has to get in the attacks again for enough SP to transform for her final shot of Freezing Ring. Well the MT healing is 50%+status cure, it's not full and she can only use it twice, maybe that is still too good for 0.5 but I don't know. Feels like there are better 0.5s in general, like with better resources 'n stuff~

[Dhyerwolf]

The healing will be F4 unless it's artificially sped up. Early Meru...well, is still pretty bad. Adding in a Dragoon Spirit really gives her the ability to use a few shots of magic...every 5 turns. I would say she needs to be sped up, but she's also a 0.5. I guess just giving her the Dragoon Spirit early without Spirit levels is limiting (can't transform for multiple turns, limited MP). So...if she was sped up, I guess speeding up Dragoon levels is okay.

BUT

Don't speed up her additions. So that means that realistically, even on floor 2, she's going to need to attack 5 times to build up a Dragoon level. If she wants to use any for defensive advantage, she'll need to attack 10 times. Floor 3 that might fall to 3 times for a Dragoon level. Floor 4 will finally be when she starts getting SP.

Or alternately, you can do frozen at time of receipt, in which case her SP gains are better, but she can only transform for a turn until floor 4. I guess this one has the advantage of not allowing stalling to build attacks. Either would probably be fine.

[SnowFire]

In fairness, it is already a time-honored implicit Dungeon strategy to stall on 1 remaining sucky or non-fatal statused character, and then let characters heal up / build gauges / etc. as long as it isn't too insanely abusive.  So even if Meru never attains Dragoon status fast in the first fight, if there's a stalling opportunity, she can grind up 5 turns of Dragoon as long as someone else can legally target the enemy with some healing.

[Clear Tranquil]

Yeah, but either way she's not going to be able to spend five turns in Dragoon regardless till the second half of the dungeon. Since dragoon turns are tied to when extra DLVs/new spells are gained/dragoon spirit levels up, well the d spirit level ups since no new spells are gained at DLV4 but characters gain an extra dragoon turn anyway. On the latter floors Meru will have Cool Boogie which is her SP addition which gives 200 SP per use when maxed and then her SP weapon (double SP) so with her Pretty Hammer/Cool Boogie combo she gains 400 SP a turn. In game you can combine that with the War God Sash for 500 SP a turn. I digress, but yeah with the Pretty Hammer/Cool Boogie Meru won't really need to worry about stalling strategies then I don't think.

Unless SnowFire means, which I think, either that or I'm confused, that Meru uses the first fight to collect SP towards gaining new dragoon levels/spells, though either way LoD characters don't earn new spells/levels until after battle has ended.

@ Dhyer

Yeah, my assumption was she wouldn't be getting any new additions or anything early on. Initial addition stuck at L1 for a while? Guess I could live with that.

By time of receipt do you mean she still starts at DLV1 with only the spell she starts with and is locked to this, but also has the additions/addition levels she has when she gains the dragoon spirit in game? Which if you've been using her for everything including all the bosses until then is Double Smack and Hammer Spin. So she starts taking 2/3 turns to get a turn to transform, use Freezing Ring, transform, attack another 2/3 turns after that to do it again, then still has her D Addtion to fall back on after that, but is locked to not gaining anything new until F4.

[Glen Veil]

Due to peer pressure from super, a crappy team I came up with in about 5 minutes:

Souji(4) + Ginny(3.5)(Life) + Jack(2) + Tear(1) + Meru(.5)

[Magic Fanatic]

Ness, Geno, FFT Monk, Emily (MT), Toadstool

Let's see how fast I crash and burn.