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

[Nephrite]

Whimsicott has been added at 2.5.

[dude789]

You might want to change up the description a bit because it's kind of misleading. Whimsicott doesn't actually have any healing besides Leech Seed and some terrible parasitic damage. It also might be a good idea to mention that his damage is really bad in his cons list.

[Nephrite]

But Prankster affects other people's healing, right?

[dude789]

It only effects Whimsicott's attacks. If it affected everyone that would probably make Whimsicott a 3.5 or 4.0 pick.

[Nephrite]

Oh, I see. I'll fix that in that case.

[Yoshiken]

You might want to change up the description a bit because it's kind of misleading. Whimsicott doesn't actually have any healing besides Leech Seed and some terrible parasitic damage. It also might be a good idea to mention that his damage is really bad in his cons list.

Whimsicott actually has some decent damage/parasitic healing, thanks to the Giga Drain buff in Gen5. It's below average, definitely, but not by much.
But yeah, on the whole, Whimsicott is kinda like Songstress, only trading lategame ridiculous for earlier buffs, and entirely ST in exchange for.. well, being cheaper and actually having some damage.

[dude789]

So with the team down here's the breakdown on how each member performed.

Cecilia: Ceci's kinda of hard to place in the dungeon because she has everything...except the things that the dungeon values most like damage. The speed is a huge issue throughout which really highlights how important above average speed is. Ceci in general isn't that slow, but in the fights where it mattered, it felt that she was being outsped more often than not. Her healing is worse than it seems and it seems that for a good while the only thing she has is status and some pretty good anti magic stuff.

Ramza: Ramza is pretty great. Auto Potion is groat throughout and he has a couple of options that give him good damage. His biggest problem is that most of these setups make him frail and he lacks reliable MT unless you make some big time investments in Calculator or something. Ditto turned into him the most by far and as a result makes him a clear choice for MVP.

Kyra: Kyra's is really effective at a 2.0. She's versatile without being overpowering and has a couple fantastic PS4 buffs and debuffs. Resources never felt like an issue either. She also really highlighted just how much of a difference being above average speed makes to being just below. It felt like Kyra didn't get out sped nearly as often as Ceci despite a relatively minor speed difference. 

Worker 8: If it weren't for Firefly, Worker 8 probably wouldn't be worth it at all. He was usually too slow to do anything aside from take hits. Magic immunity is of course pretty great though and immunity to most elements was a hilarious bonus for the VP boss fight. As a stand alone pick, it doesn't feel like he contributes much aside from maybe finishing off a fight against pure magic users.

Ditto: It felt like the Worker 8/ Firefly combo probably helped Ditto the most as it does a good job of countering his biggest disadvantage of not being productive till the second round.

Final thoughts: So my goal was to see if a defensive team could be successful and overall it's hard to say. The team made it to floor seven which can be considered decently successful, but it felt like for a fair amount of time that was due to the Worker 8/Firefly combo carrying the team on it's back. Despite being designed as a defensive team, it still felt like for most of the time the best strategy was to blitz as well as they could on the Firefly turn rather than buff up and slowly overwhelm. As a result, it feels like I could have had more success if I had sacrificed dropped Ceci and maybe Kyra for some characters with more offensive potential. I do have another idea for a defensive team that'd I'd like to try based more on sheer durability than buffing and if that doesn't work I'll just go back to blitz teams.   

[Nephrite]

Do you think Worker needs to go down in price? I could see 1.5 working for him due to, as you've said, his actual presence doesn't do much.

[ThePiggyman]

Do you think Worker needs to go down in price? I could see 1.5 working for him due to, as you've said, his actual presence doesn't do much.

I don't know. I think he's fine at 2.0. Keep in mind, he makes some battles, and even some entire floors, easy to pass. Magic immunity is big, and his physical durability and damage are pretty good. I don't know if being pretty slow is enough reason to make him drop in price.

[SnowFire]

I think Worker can go down in price safely so long as he gets a "please don't use Firefly with me" or some kind of price hike if Firefly is on him.  7 FFT endgame speed is sloooooooooooooooooooow and being a tank helps most if you can solo then revive, which W8 can't.  Sure, Thief Hat doesn't exist until Floor 6, so he's marginally better on the earlier floors (although not TOO much, Flash Hat exists too).  But speed is still the god stat in the Dungeon, and W8 will rarely be able to exercise much offense.  Compare him with FF1 Knight or SO2 Claude at 1.5 - they're both averagey speed (maybe a tad fast for Claude since mage casting is slow) but Claude has killer damage and Knight has insane durability. W8's got Knight's durability and the magic immunity trick, but has restrictions on healing him, no RUSE cheese, and did I mention he is super-slow.  It's bad when it's not clear if Ghaleon or Worker 8 should go first since W8 is slower than the slowest member of the Lunar cast, and his poor speed can result in getting doubled when Ghaleon's can't.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Even Flash Hat is obtained at the 70-72% mark of the game which is either floor 5 or 6 depending on how you interpret things, I'd think. Before that he's only competing with the Green Beret which even many hat-users may not be using (since boosts to MA, MP, PA, and HP are all concerns). Still yeah, he's certainly always slow.

[dude789]

I think it's safe for Worker 8 to go down. As Snowfire mentions, FF1 Knight is a fare comparison and Knight beats Worker in most cases aside from the magic and elemental immunity.

[ThePiggyman]

I personally think 1.5 is too cheap for Worker 8. His durability means he doesn't care how slow he is; all he's doing is dishing out damage anyways. He doesn't have healing, or buffs, or anything which would make good speed a necessity. Anyone that takes Worker 8 also takes someone w/ Item healing anyways. We've had other characters that were priced higher for their team potential rather than their individual potential.

And, not to mention the magic AND elemental immunity, Worker 8 is also immune to status effects (except Confusion, apparently, but even then, it would need to be applied physically).

There's just so few ways to actually take down Worker 8. Literally the only option is powerful non-elemental physical damage, which is admittedly not rare, but it also runs into a 70% chance of counters. FF1 Knight is one hell of a tank, too, but there's more ways to get around his tankiness; namely, status. Even if the rest of the team is dead by floor 4, Worker 8 is one of the few characters who can actually solo a battle and win the floor for his team.

But that's just my two cents. If we decide to put Worker 8 down to 1.5, that'll just give me more incentive to use him again. =P

[dude789]

So Defensive Team Take 2 Durability Edition:

Zalmo (3.0)
Citan (2.5)
Cecil (2.0)
Snow (2.0)
Knight (1.5)
Status Symbol Law

Whereas the last team was meant to be difficult to kill after they had buffed, this team is designed to start out difficult to kill and get even more difficult as the fight wears on. The basic idea originated when I wanted to try out a Zalmo team and figured that he would work best with characters with big HP scores who he could revive back to full indefinitely while wearing down other teams. Zalmo of course brings the consistent and largely infinite healing backed up by 3x PCHP. I think that a lot of fights will have trouble taking out just one member of the team and with Zalmo's slightly below average speed he can revive whoever was taken out back to full or just spread 80% MTish healing around from his 3-4 PCHP after MP Switch.

Citan brings a bit more healing off of blistering speed and the option to haste up the team as well to help overwhelm enemy healing teams. His high early stats will help the team get a foothold early on and lategame he still has solid damage.

Cecil is the one pick that I'm a bit uncertain on. Lategame his damage and speed aren't too great but they're better early and if nothing else he brings a little extra emergency healing as well as Protect and Shell which are both pretty good.

FF13 characters are a neat combo with SSL because with the role bonuses they can help to mitigate SSL's effects. Aside from that, Snow brings Sentinel which shuts down ST damage and can really help to reign in MT damage with his Fringeward passive. Having good damage in Commando doesn't hurt either.

The Knight doesn't take damage and has good physical damage to back that up. Citan + Knight physical is enough to OHKO average and aside from Zalmo or Sentinel Snow he could very well be the hardest to take out.

Really I'm not sure if the team needs Status Symbol Law because most of the characters have pretty good status resists, but I figure it's better to be safe than sorry especially with Snow mitigating the effects somewhat. Overall, most of the team (Zalmo being the big exception) has good damage but it's almost all ST and physical. The extreme lack of magic damage is my biggest concern for the team because Snow is the only one who has any. At least it's infinite and Ruin is non-elemental. Most of them have pretty good elemental resist options as well which could save a fight or two, but we'll see how this goes and if it's possible to make a really successful defensive/stall team.

Any thoughts on how the team will do or how could be improved?

[ThePiggyman]

It looks like a pretty interesting team. I think the first thing that leaps out at me is that you only have one reviver before Cecil learns Raise (he learns it at level 40, so no sooner than Floor 5, I'd say). Your team is definitely hard to take down, but Zalmo's healing is mostly (all?) ST, so the team might have trouble keeping up with MT magic. Granted, between the characters you've got, I think most of them have some way of reducing elemental damage, so that helps. Also, I think Status Symbol Law is actually a pretty good choice of Sealstone for a potential stall team like yours, because status tends to be one thing that even strong teams can get muffled with (ohai Yang and Edward!), and SSL guarantees you don't have to deal with it. Your team is so durable they can handle the 10% drop.

Personally, I would aim for another reviver. Eiko isn't exactly durable, but Eiko's Carbuncle grants not only MT Reflect, but also MT Protect (although, equipped with the right jewel, it can also grant Haste and Vanish). She also brings good MT magic damage and MT healing to the table, and FF9 equips give her a bevy of elemental resists, as we know. Cecil's damage is okay, but it's not great, his revival is late, and I don't think you need Cover when you've already got someone like Snow. He's pretty strong in the early floors, but you've got Citan to help you through those. Cecil just feels sort of expendable. I would replace Cecil w/ Eiko, and that also gives you an extra 0.5 of wiggle room, if there's anything else you thing you could improve/change.


On another note, does anyone think Miakis might be pricy for a 4.0? She's definitely got great versatility, but she's limited by Suikoden charges, like most Suikoden characters, and some of the really sexy runes and combos only start showing up on Floor 5~. I don't think she's a gamebreaker the way some of the other 4.0s are, but I can't recall seeing Miakis in the Dungeon, so I might not be giving her as much credit as she deserves, but I think she might be better as a 3.5. She feels overshadowed by other 4.0s, but I don't think she overshadows the 3.5s.

Thoughts?

[dude789]

In LFT Cure 3 hits a larger range than it does in FFT so it's not true MT healing, but it should be able to hit around three or four members of the team at once. Zalmo is probably the most durable person on the team so the lack of revival is a bit less worrying especially with Snow around to force enemies to attack him.

As for Cecil, I'm not so sure about Eiko since with her durability she'd practically have a big sign asking to kill her off first. I am considering Stocke though, he has earlier and better revival and similar durability to Cecil but lacks the buffs and his healing is a bit worse. He does also have some magic damage and with the teams ability to stall, he can store up a bunch of turns to break fights open. Do you think that could work better?

As for Miakis, Suikoden 5 isn't that widely played and I think the reason she hasn't been used often is that you need a pretty good idea of S5 mechanics to get the full potential out of her.   

[superaielman]

I am using Miakis on my next team. Which is: Miakis, Nall, Cristo, Brey, Solo, Angelo. I'm not sure how she'll work,but she does provide some offensive spark to an otherwise super defensive team


Edit: Neph, do you think an All Divide Sealstone would be viable? Halves damage to everyone in the field.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I would totes support a Sealstone that cuts back on the rocket tag aspect of the Dungeon myself.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Changed both my teams, so ignore my last team post.

Team "NelisXBernadette OTP or Priest is the Best 0.5 ever"

Rika (4.0), Nelis (2.5), Eileen (2.5), Bernadette (1.5), Priest (0.5) [Elemental Penetration]
Modus operandi: Rika does her Rika things while Nelis and Eileen try to kill everything with MT with no worries about being elementally walled ever. Magical walls completely own my ass and MP woes will probably come to play, but what can you do. Also, Nelis and Bernadette together in a team aw yeah. I also use way too many girls on my teams and way too much MT.

Team "March of the Supervillainesses"

Shania (3.5), Mei-ling (2.5), Hildagarde Valentine (3.0), Eiko (1.5) Mint (0.5) [Body Charge Sealstone on Hilda]

No real rhyme or reason other than having girls and Mei-ling (alternatively, call it team "Mei-ling's Koorong Prostitution Ring" and wince). EDIT: Body Charge Hilda+Shania! Oh yes, combo shenanigans. I guess Entrance on Mei-Ling also isn't bad... also, check it out, everybody in the team heals and revives! ... eventually.

[dude789]

Hmm after thinking on it for a bit, I'm gonna change up my team slightly.

Zalmo 3.0
Lenneth 3.0
Citan 2.5
Snow 2.0
Rena .5
Status Symbol Law

Lenneth's buffs and damage looked too good to pass up and she starts with the ones that are most relevant to the team. Throwing out a bunch of Might Reinforces at the start of a fight can quickly make the teams damage overwhelming. She's still durable with good hp and really high defense. I'm not that familiar with VP2 so I don't know just how much of an impact defense makes, but the stat topic has her at 329 to a 188 average so it should at least be worth something. She also starts with revival and her healing that still lets her do something else in the turn. I lose a bit of speed, but Citan has haste to remedy that somewhat. So any thoughts on whether this is a good change?

Edit: Swapped Rand for Rena.

[ThePiggyman]

I've never played Xenogears, so I don't know when Citan gets his Haste spell, but the Dungeon List makes it sound like he doesn't get it at least for a little while, and your team (Citan excluded) is pretty slow without the Haste. Very tanky team, there's no doubt about that, especially considering you're status immune. Having more than one reviver is also good. I like to think that three revivers is ideal in teams without Nall, but I guess that shouldn't be a huge deal with your revivers being tanky and status immune. Beware the strong MT magic!


Also, Jo'ou, that is an impressive amount of women. Not one, but TWO all-female teams? I dig it. What I find a little worrisome, though, is that Team "NelisXBernadette OTP or Priest is the Best 0.5 ever" has two revivers that are both pretty limited in the actual amount of revival they can manage (Priest is held back by FFT MP, which is inevitably going to be low for the first 2-3 floors, and Bernadette's revival is attached to her level 4 spell, which she only has 3 of at endgame). However, the team's speed and MT are certainly impressive. =P

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

VP2 defense is utterly worthless. Don't think the team needs to be -so- defensive either, since you have Snow as is. Status Symbol Law completely sucks as well on a team with your level of statusblocking. Most of the time, I feel the fights where you need to block a lot of status end up being fights that overwhelm you through other means -anyway-. I've yet to see a team where Status Law doesn't end up doing more harm than good on average except maybe Dhyer's old Nina1/Cielo effort. Also, Rand is completely terrible in the dungeon if you don't have early speed boosting (Senkei is floor 6, mang). Honestly, you probably want a PS4 buffer in the middle there (Rika being the obvious choice, Alys being an acceptable substitute).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also, Jo'ou, that is an impressive amount of women. Not one, but TWO all-female teams? I dig it. What I find a little worrisome, though, is that Team "NelisXBernadette OTP or Priest is the Best 0.5 ever" has two revivers that are both pretty limited in the actual amount of revival they can manage (Priest is held back by FFT MP, which is inevitably going to be low for the first 2-3 floors, and Bernadette's revival is attached to her level 4 spell, which she only has 3 of at endgame). However, the team's speed and MT are certainly impressive. =P

Yeah, the team just -wasn't- made for huge slogs and I know the issues there. Status healing may also be a problem, since Rika has none. I'm mostly relying on the godliness of PS4 buffs+Copper Flesh to stay alive. Saner and Deban to cover the pdur woes, Copper Flesh for cheese, then rocks fall and stoves burn, everybody dies. I'm hoping I don't -need- to revive much to begin with in this effort. The team is going to bite it hard floor 7 and onwards, since that's when you start wanting attrition power really bad. I wanted to have someone with MP healing, but that probably means I'd have to give up Bern, and eh to that.

[dude789]

Swapped Rand for Rena. Rena will probably get more turns than Rand and will be able to do better things with those turns. She's a bit frail, but that might persuade other teams to attack her from attacking Lenneth, Citan and Snow who are the core of my offense.

Also, question for Neph, how should we determine turn order when there's a bunch of average characters on both sides?

For example say the team I've designed now (Zalmo, Snow, Lenneth, Citan, Rena SSL sealstone) were to go up against last fight of floor 7 (Ashera, Chaos, Gilbert). As it is now, this fight's kind of a clusterfuck with Rena and to a lesser extent Ashera both having an argument for losing tiebreaks and Gilbert's speed just being a mess to interpret all around as it ranges from slightly above to below average depending on where you take the level average. Here turn order really influences the result.

Any order like Citan > Ashera > Chaos > Gilbert > Snow > Lenneth> Rena > Zalmo where the enemy team all goes first obviously results in a bad loss, but any order like Citan > Snow > Chaos > Rena > Ashera > Lenneth > Gilbert > Zalmo where Snow and Lenneth both go before Gilbert and Rena splits Ashera and Chaos's turns result in an easy win (Rena heals up Ashera or Chaos's damage before the other attacks and Snow, Citan, and Lenneth kill Gilbert before he gets a turn). Any other order is a bit more difficult to interpret but these where the most extreme cases.

So is there a consistent way we should call this like tie breaking in favor for the team or the dungeon or should we just leave it up to everyone as a judgement call? 

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Tiebreaking average speed characters is always a judgment call as it stands. You can use factors like threat range (movement+attack range), in-game initiative, the effectiveness of turn speed in the case of average speed characters from a game where there is a stat governing turn order/amount of turns gotten, but it's never really simple. Soooo yeah.