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

[SnowFire]

I think Monkey's team is hilarious.  Re other suggestions...   the thing to remember with Raquel is that she has solid draining that becomes a guaranteed full heal off Body Charge.  Toss in Geno Boost and Raquel literally solos enemy teams that can't emit a ton of magic damage a turn.  Draining is better than Ness healing - Ness gets heallocked by merely damage equivalent to half his HP, while Raquel's draining means she pretty much needs to be KOed before she takes another turn.

Unfortunately, it's pretty much a guaranteed loss on the current Floor 5 options, aka the big gimmick floors, no matter what enemies are on them.  Turnheal is "hope Nina solos w/ Geno reviving her" and Ceaseheal presumably turns off Nall, so they're both kind of non-starters.  I'd talk to Neph and be sure there's some kind of alternate F5 ready since your team is pretty neat.  Also, Raquel's status protection is Floor 6, and even after that Bad Breath type attacks from, say, Cloud of Darkness can tie her up with endless status.  But whatever, it's a funny team at least, so I say go for it.  Although...  if Yuna gets dropped to 3.0, she might be a better pick than Nina.  Not initiative, but close enough, and she's a lot harder to gank than Nina.

Re Glen's team: I don't know Yosuke that well, but don't forget that Red + a healer (Yosuke in this case) + Nall is still a pretty strong combination except against a storm of MT damage, and even that will tend to at least give Red a turn.  Yosuke can also help with the Magic Zone blitz - I believe he was picked as an upgrade over Eiko who could be fast + do damage + emergency healing / support.  That said...  another option is to switch Deis/Bleu to Zerase, then upgrade Yosuke straight into Garnet.  Garnet is above average speed, can also help with the blitz with her summons, has excellent MT healing, and gets random status options + elemental resist hax.  Zerase has way more resource problems than Deis and I'm still a bit skeptical, but she was getting hyped by Jo'ou and the like earlier, so might be worth a shot.  Also, not sure I see too much Sharanda items antihype...  you can carry 32 items IIRC.  It's reasonable to say that 10 of these are healing items.  That should be enough to get through floors just fine - if things become a stall, something has gone horribly wrong anyway for Glen's team.  Pretty sure that MT healing is among the item options.

[Monkeyfinger]

I think I really need a haster for this team. A reliable one, who will rarely or never die before getting a turn.

Options are Citan and Rikku.

Citan is cheaper and can do damage, but Rikku has some awesome healing (including a full MP restoration mix at floor 1) and non-haste buffs. Super mighty guard is soooo tempting, and so is hazardous shell for fucking bullshit like the persona 4 team which raped me last time around. Citan has half healing, so self-sustain on the body changer becomes more important. Is it worth it to take a weaker fighter for what Rikku brings, though? Hrm

Raquel / Emily / Ness / Ryu1 (body change) (4.5)
Citan (3)
Geno (3)
Nall

Kurando / KOS-MOS / Zemeckus / Claude / Chie (body change) (3)
Rikku (4)
Geno (3)
Nall

which looks better?

(i'm pretty confident the raquel team could beat ceaseheal, fwiw. None of those guys can really touch raquel, even the boss. Like, hasted citan can effectively heal raquel even with 5% healing, so they have to go for the supports instead, and even then raquel just tramples Berle in a duel. He FEARS moonlight/intrude, you know. It's even easier with nina1 or rikku cuz they can status people then sit there healing for like 5 turns)

[074]

Citan's not a good haster, in all reality.  Not for the fact that his haste spell is bad, or not MTable, or anything of the sort, no.  He's even got solid MTable buffs of varied sorts, on top of having good durability, amazing speed, and second-gamebest offense behind Yamikei's cheezemult.

...just that Senkei, the Haste spell in question, isn't gained until F6 at the earliest.  You're not getting the benefits of that until that late.

So really, Rikku unless you can find someone else to hastecheeze with.

[dude789]

Alys does a lot of the same stuff as Geno (buffing, accurate ID) and I think she gets Saner to help out with speed, so you could use her instead of Geno and keep Nina. She lacks the damage and her buffing isn't as good as Geno, but I think she helps with Raquel/Emily SMASH a bit better.

I don't know, early on he's competing with Paula when she's at her best for damage.

The reason that competition exists is because Paula's damage is cheaper, but ST (or row-targetting).  They float about the same damage level for a while, honestly.  Ness also gets what amounts to ST full healing whenever the newest level pops up.  Paralysis and Hypnosis Alpha are both early, at that.

Raw numbers?  Yeah, Paula's damage is better.  When you factor in how elemental resistance is handled, however...

Ness's PSI Rockin' is non-elemental, so it's not affected at all.  Paula's PSI Fire and Freeze ARE elemental, and as such...  Have great base power, but run HARD into resistance.  For example?

PSI Rockin Alpha deals 50 damage on base to, say...  A Mighty Bear.  This isn't reduced.  Paula casts Freeze Alpha, which deals a rather astounding 180 damage on base, but...  The Mighty Bear is only "weak" to Freeze, so its damage gets cut to 75% (135).  Also keep in mind that Ness keeps a rather handy level advantage above everyone else for quite some time, inflating his damage. 

Rockin also destroys shields, so it has an argument for acting as Dispel against Shell or Reflect.

I know Paula's spells get reduced, but with the numbers you posted, Freeze Alpha is still notably better damage than Ness's options at that time. The gap between the two is pretty large at midgame because Paula will usually have a PSI Freeze a level above Ness's best PSI Rocking. She gets them really fast.   

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I think I really need a haster for this team. A reliable one, who will rarely or never die before getting a turn.

Options are Citan and Rikku.

Citan is cheaper and can do damage, but Rikku has some awesome healing (including a full MP restoration mix at floor 1) and non-haste buffs. Super mighty guard is soooo tempting, and so is hazardous shell for fucking bullshit like the persona 4 team which raped me last time around. Citan has half healing, so self-sustain on the body changer becomes more important. Is it worth it to take a weaker fighter for what Rikku brings, though? Hrm

Raquel / Emily / Ness / Ryu1 (body change) (4.5)
Citan (3)
Geno (3)
Nall

Kurando / KOS-MOS / Zemeckus / Claude / Chie (body change) (3)
Rikku (4)
Geno (3)
Nall

which looks better?

(i'm pretty confident the raquel team could beat ceaseheal, fwiw. None of those guys can really touch raquel, even the boss. Like, hasted citan can effectively heal raquel even with 5% healing, so they have to go for the supports instead, and even then raquel just tramples Berle in a duel. He FEARS moonlight/intrude, you know. It's even easier with nina1 or rikku cuz they can status people then sit there healing for like 5 turns)

One point that's interesting there is that KOS-MOS is quite likely a really cool choice for Body Charge (I'm not sure I'd consider spending 4.5 on a single PC -ever-). She now always 2HKOs off both durabilities, gets the ability to do so with MT at floor 4-5, dodges a lot, is really hard to kill through concrete damage and is actually fast. The debuffs are also cool and very early, and lategame, S-CHAIN is pretty toodles too. The whoring+slugging package is worth a 3.0, and leaves you with a more flexible set to play with.

[Nephrite]

How effective are her status moves, anyway? There's no real indication of what "Dex Down" or "Vit Down" does.

[Dhyerwolf]

By the time she gets in, I may have actually tested them!

But yeah, KOS-MOS is a good choice (Don't think her base evade is really anything though, and Body Charge doesn't up evade as far I know). She be better late if S-Chain and X-Buster could both be turn consistent spammable options! Alys is also a solid non-Geno choice too since she gets at least a number of the buffing competents, if separately.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

How effective are her status moves, anyway? There's no real indication of what "Dex Down" or "Vit Down" does.

Halve damage and 1.5x damage for Attack/Defense down. Dex Down makes your accuracy really fail, as S-CHAIN demonstrates (it's also cool because it nukes both physical and magical accuracy). Also, her evade at base is actually second-best in XS1. Roughly 30% from my recollection? Not bad when coupled up with the game-best Def/MDef+second-best HP scores.

EDIT: I didn't realize BC didn't boost evade stats, though, so your assessment is entirely fair. Was assuming she got a beefy evade boost too.

[Monkeyfinger]

Finalized submission:

Rikku (4)
Virginia (3.5)
KOS-MOS (Body change) (3)
Nall (0.5)

[ThePiggyman]

Ohai, it's been awhile since I've been here. Yoshi and Glen told me Neph's been bugging people to make teams, and I love the Dungeon, so I figured, why not. Here's what I put together.

Ramza (3.5)
Amarant (2.0)
Chie (2.0)
Chris (2.5)
Bow (1.0)
Vantage Effect Sealstone

So, this started with the funny idea of using Amarant w/ Vantage Effect, since Amarant can have both Counter and Magic Counter at once. Then I kinda piled onto that. Ramza probably has a Counter ability throughout every job I'll be switching into, and I can have him as an effective-ish healer, too. Chris has Silent Lake in case the magic gets out hand (and speedy healing if needed), and I think she can counter, too, given the correct Bujutsu skills and all, but I'll let the others be the judge of that one. Bow can buff and heal, which is always mucho handy, and word around town, he can counter, too (but with that damage, I think that's an added benefit more than anything, lol). Lastly, and most importantly, I haven't actually played Persona 4, so I'd like someone to verify this/give me more information on this: Chie has a physical counter that also counters MT physicals and annuls the initial attack? Now, if this is true, that + Silent Lake sounds, well, lethal. I would love for someone to clear this up for me.

Either way, the general mantra of the team is counter-to-kill, since I actually can't do all that much damage myself, lol

Thoughts?

[Dhyerwolf]

A lot of those counters are either rare or not legal. I don't think Amarant's would be considered legal (Used by too many people), if Chris has Counter, the rate isn't great, Chie's is called Counter but it's just damage reflection (So nothing is gained from the seal stone).

Also, SL is not early and barring making Ramza a healer, there's very little revival.

[ThePiggyman]

A lot of those counters are either rare or not legal. I don't think Amarant's would be considered legal (Used by too many people), if Chris has Counter, the rate isn't great, Chie's is called Counter but it's just damage reflection (So nothing is gained from the seal stone).

Also, SL is not early and barring making Ramza a healer, there's very little revival.

Amarant's physical counter, I can understand. However, only two characters (him and Vivi) can use Magic Counter. Also, Vantage Effect makes the rate of Counters 100%, so Chris' counter rate would occur regardless of percentage.

I did plan on making Ramza a Chemist from F1, which would make him a healer as well. Following up on F2, I would go towards being a Monk w/ Items, and Hamedo stuff up.

As for Chie, I'm not quite sure what you mean by damage reflection. Is it simply making the enemy attack themselves, in a sense? That wouldn't count as a counter?

[dude789]

Yeah Chie's counter skill is a bit unusual. In P4 there's a skill called Tetrakarn that reflects the enemies damage back at them, just like Reflect with magic in the FF series. Counter basically gives Chie a chance (30% I think) to activate Tetrakarn when she is hit with a physical attack. It's hitting the enemy with their own attack instead of with an attack based off of Chie's attack which is why there's an argument for it to not work with Vantage.

[SnowFire]

ThePiggyman: Amusing, thinking about Vantage recently myself.  Have you played Wild Arms 4?  If so, I'd highly recommend sneaking Raquel into a Vantage team.  She has Hi-Counter as a reminder, which is +50% damage, which is a ZOMGWTF one-hit KO to a huge amount of stuff.  It *probably* works on MT attacks too.  (Tide claimed that the only attack that hits multiple hexes in the game, Boss Kresnik's circular Volley, can be countered by Jude...)  Raquel also has some soloing ability off Dragon Edge, so the "save Raquel for last" problem can be mildly solved with Raquel solo + Nall in case of emergency.

Another person who might be worth considering in a Vantage team is Fang, if you've played FF13.  Her counters aren't great damage, but more importantly she can draw attacks to herself with Sentinel and tank 'em like a champ.  This is more helpful if you have squishy healers you want to protect.  (If you don't use a Firefly-esque Fang, I'd recommend tanky healers like Rand or Yuna to deter the healer beatdown.  Well, Yuna's functionally tanky off her evade.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Er, there are lots of multi-hex attacks in WA4 (offhand, the final's Punishing Ray, ABM Launcher, Claymore, and Prismatic Ray... and that's just one boss!), and I've never yet seen one countered by the PCs' counterattack. Then again, I'm not sure I've ever seen boss Kresnik's Circular Volley, so it could be that that is some sort of weird exception!

Actually I thought WA4 counter only worked on a subset of physical attacks (usually ones with unflashy animations, although sometimes enemies have more than one such), which feels quite limiting to me in the dungeon, unless Vantage lets the person counter things they couldn't normally.

[ThePiggyman]

Thanks for the input everyone. I'll probably be scratching Chie off. It was a cool idea, but it does seem finicky, which is never a good thing in a Dungeon battle, I presume. Raquel can smash things pretty amazingly, but her counters seem a little up-in-the-air, too, which the whole hex thing. The lolslow speed wouldn't even bother me if we knew exactly how her counters operated, but it seems like something that will divide people. Although I am being told by people that Raquel can just solo some battles with her physical durability and offense. I think it's time to go back to the drawing board. ^^;

[Nephrite]

Use Fire Emblem people! (and get into some sort of debate as to whether they can counter or not)

[ThePiggyman]

Alright, so I just threw something new together.

Athos (3.5)
Amarant (2.0)
Sharanda (2.0)
Worker 8 (2.0)
Ditto (0.5)
Nall (1.0)
Vantage Effect Sealstone

Even if Athos doesn't get actual long-lasting tomes 'til Floor 3, he's still Athos. I would say he's a perfect recipient for the Vantage Effect. Amarant, despite not having Counter because of legality claims, I would still grant him Return Magic, since only two people (himself and Vivi) can have it. With that, Amarant can fling back any MT magic at an opponent before it even hits the team. Sharanda can dish out effective damage with items (MT, too!). Psyche Bomb X later on (if I get there) will be pretty sexy. I've been told that Sharanda, along with the items displayed here (http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dungeon_Stuff#Sharanda) also has access to healing items? With those, I can make sure my next team member, Worker 8, can be healed and revived as well. Worker 8 now has 100% counters to physical attacks, and since magic isn't gonna hurt him, it's gonna be even tougher to take him down, unless you've got MT physicals. Aaaaand, last, but not least, Ditto. Oh, sure, Ditto might blow, but he can become magic immune by becoming Worker 8, or he can take Athos' stats in the earlier levels and make it so he just evades the heck out of everything. Athos only has 5 uses of his lower level spells like Purge/Bolting and stuff, so Ditto isn't exactly hindered by that anyways.

And obviously, this team's revival isn't all too good, so Nall to the rescue!

I feel better about this team than the first one I threw together, but input and critiques are always welcome. 

[Tide]

Er, there are lots of multi-hex attacks in WA4 (offhand, the final's Punishing Ray, ABM Launcher, Claymore, and Prismatic Ray... and that's just one boss!), and I've never yet seen one countered by the PCs' counterattack. Then again, I'm not sure I've ever seen boss Kresnik's Circular Volley, so it could be that that is some sort of weird exception!

Actually I thought WA4 counter only worked on a subset of physical attacks (usually ones with unflashy animations, although sometimes enemies have more than one such), which feels quite limiting to me in the dungeon, unless Vantage lets the person counter things they couldn't normally.

I was asked for multi-HEX target physical attacks used by the enemies. Which if I recall is actually really limited. All of the multi-hex target attacks named for the final sans possibly Punishing Ray (although I'm fairly certain on this too) are all magical. You could argue that they don't trigger Magic Blocker/Reflect so theoretically there is no counter, but I don't really buy it. For the record, Tal couldn't really think of one either IIRC. There are lots of Multi-HEX target magic spells from enemies, but for physical ones, Circular Volley is seriously the only one I could think of.

[Grefter]

I was asked to make a team by a man I respect who threatened to cry his manly manly tears if I did not.  So I am here to catch manly tears and save them for a better time.

Cidoflas Orlandu (4), Rikku (4), Nina 4 (3).  Status Symbol Law.

Figure it cuts out some of the bullshit.  Slow start, but whatever.

[Nephrite]

I was asked to make a team by a man I respect who threatened to cry his manly manly tears if I did not.  So I am here to catch manly tears and save them for a better time.

Cidoflas Orlandu (4), Rikku (4), Nina 4 (3).  Status Symbol Law.

Figure it cuts out some of the bullshit.  Slow start, but whatever.

This is a True American.

[Dunefar]

See what Grefter said, only I haven't decided on a team yet. Any suggestions, people?

[Nephrite]

Most people start with either a theme ("Lots of Healing") or a character they really like. I would suggest starting at either of those ideas.

[ThePiggyman]

Try looking at the Sealstone list. It might make a fun idea pop out at you. That's how I put my team together, at least.

[Dunefar]

TimeLord, Geddoe, Tidus, Aeris, Mint(ToP), Life Stealstone on Aeris.

No particular gimmick, just threw 'em together. Let me know if this is good.