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

[Dhyerwolf]

Another chime in for "shorter floors, but harder fights." Especially with potentially more durable bosses (or fights setup in a way to increase enemy durability) since that may help remove at least some rocket tag aspects.

I will say that I do like general quirk floors, although I suppose in the last dungeon incarnation they all came in a row (3-5) so there is just a stretch of dungeon of "how well do you exploit this quirk." Although I do generally like what was done with the ST/MT floors (any option is usable, but ST or MT becomes that much better). I do think that quirks work to shake up the general format since ~6-7 floors (generally probably about the average) of non-quirk gets repetitive.

I also like seeing how well a team or strategy gels together more than winning. On overpoweredness, the overpower combos were all essentially based on turn shifting (or speed shifts) so pricing those higher will also get rid of some of it. If the combo exists, people are going to try to find a way to take advantage of it.

[Yoshiken]

I personally enjoy the Dungeon because I like Team Battles. I like seeing big parties fighting each other and trying to figure out what strategies would work best.

I personally would be more likely to vote if each floor had fewer fights, though. The resources aspect is important, but I feel like the sheer number of enemy duellers I have to look up every time I try to vote is staggering.

Thematically, I like seeing enemy fights that have some sort of interesting synergy, or big groups from the same series crossing over. I also like the unique mechanics floors like reverse heal and MT/ST since they force looking at teams in a different way.

I find myself less and less concerned with the "Improve over time" aspect of the dungeon. Trying to remember what duelists are like 2/3rds of the way through their game is far more work now that there's such a ridiculous number of games I have to keep track of.

Still a really fun tournament in general, and building a team is always my favorite part.

This, so many times over.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hmm... I like Pyro's idea of making the "Default" of the Dungeon to heal between fights. Maybe not Full-Heals, though. Maybe just restore everyone's HP to full between fights.

This keeps MP a limited resource to avoid high-cost damage moves becoming overpowered since they can be used every fight, but it prevents the constant need for Stall-Healing between every endgame fight.

I would also not suggest defaulting to Between-fight Revival. This preserves the current emphasis on resources and makes Stall-Healing/Buffing a viable strategy, but not a necessary one.

Streamlines the whole experience a bit.

[Dhyerwolf]

You'd really have to strongly up separate fight difficulty to compensate. Attrition is how general dungeon tends to get a lot of it's kills.
It also adds in a layer of having to remember what healing spells can and can't be used between fights. The other balance is that certain enemy status should also then carry over between fights too. This isn't to say I'm against it, just that it's a shift that would need balancing factors.

[DjinnAndTonic]

You'd really have to strongly up separate fight difficulty to compensate. Attrition is how general dungeon tends to get a lot of it's kills.
It also adds in a layer of having to remember what healing spells can and can't be used between fights. The other balance is that certain enemy status should also then carry over between fights too. This isn't to say I'm against it, just that it's a shift that would need balancing factors.

I wasn't suggesting anything so complicated as that.

Leave things basically as they are, but just auto-refill all living PCs' HP between battles as a system function. This gets rid of the need to stall-heal at the end of -every- battle.

[Talaysen]

You'd really have to strongly up separate fight difficulty to compensate. Attrition is how general dungeon tends to get a lot of it's kills.
It also adds in a layer of having to remember what healing spells can and can't be used between fights. The other balance is that certain enemy status should also then carry over between fights too. This isn't to say I'm against it, just that it's a shift that would need balancing factors.

I wasn't suggesting anything so complicated as that.

Leave things basically as they are, but just auto-refill all living PCs' HP between battles as a system function. This gets rid of the need to stall-heal at the end of -every- battle.

Well what Pyro suggested WAS what Dhyer said.

[Nephrite]

Thank you for the responses. From my perspective, if I make fewer fights (let's say four instead of five) I would have to increase the fight strength, which might end up just including more things, which means you have to end up... well, looking up more things.

Perhaps I can just make it so each fight on each floor is from a set game, so that there aren't 20 different games potentially represented on any given floor.

I'll see if I can remove a fight from some of the earlier floors and maybe slightly tweak them to compensate for that difference and see where that goes.

[Dhyerwolf]

There are alts to fights with a lot of people, and that's finding some way to up durability of some fights (Enemies on a certain floor could all start with certain buffs). Or use of bosses with PCs or passable heal bots with some speed.

[dude789]

So Team Exploding Cat got about as far as I expected so I'll break down how I felt that each of the characters performed.

Rika: Obvious MVP. Her biggest faults are the lack of revival and lowish damage, but her skillset just has so much synergy with almost any team that it makes up with it. Even then, Deban and Saner can help reduce the need for revival and ID covers for the damage in a number of fights. One of the few characters who works really well with Nall.

Elincia: Kind of around, didn't really feel like a detriment or asset either way. She worked decently with the team, but I think you'd really have to work to get the most out of her. She would probably have a lot of synergy boosting up some iffy status rates though.

Mew: Mew's sort of odd. Exploding on things with Saner's help was pretty cool and Light Screen was really awesome. The status vulnerability sucks though, and some of his buffs are too self focused. Really wishes he had some status options of his own and one or two more skill slots.

Yukiko: Worked surprising well with Rika. Rika can make up for her healing slump in the middle and she can provide very good revival and a bit more of a damage punch that when combined with Rika's MT physical move only needs a bit more MT punch to get up to the 2.5 threshold. I'm not sure how much she needs Elemental Advance, but she's great with it.

Nall: Worked well with Rika, but I suspect he would be kind of mediocre if you didn't splurge on a character like Rika or Nina 1 to help him out.

I've got an idea for a team that could be a real winner, but I'm gonna hold off on posting it a bit. 

[Yoshiken]

I'm torn between two options at the moment. One is to try and mimic my recent Pokemon VGC team and run a Whimsicott that sets up Tailwind and then attempts to spam Helping Hand if it survives past that. (With Nall so that Tailwind can go up instantly each turn, barring initiative)
The other option is to run Mew instead and go for a slow team of threats, try to tank until F4 and then use Mew w/Trick Room.

I figure the first option is better because double speed is absolutely insane and there are practically no threats in the Dungeon that are both slow enough to abuse TR and durable enough to survive the first round.

[Nephrite]

Is Trick Room the speed reversing skill? I'm sure you could find some people who fit that bill... Raquel comes to mind, but I don't know about others.

[superaielman]

 Emily (3.0), Kevin (1.5), Orlandu (4.0), MonkFF1 (1.0), Knight (1.5)

Fuck things like 'skillsets', 'revival', and 'winning'.

[dude789]

New Team!

Mei-Ling(2.5), Feena(2.5), Aika (2.5), White Rose (2.0),  FFT Monk (1.5) Vantage Sealstone

Main idea behind this team is abusing Delta Shield and Light Sword Deflect with Vantage which covers almost everything except for MT physicals. Even then, the enemy team still has to get past speedy PC HP level MT magic damage from 2x Megawindblast and whatever Feena can produce. Monk and Mei Ling provide some good physical damage as a back up and towards the endgame Feena can bail the team out with Time Gate if necessary and Monk can restore her MP for the next fight. I suppose the biggest concern is durability, but even then, Delta Shield and Deflect should be hard to break with this much healing.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

[ThePiggyman]

New Team!

Mei-Ling(2.5), Feena(2.5), Aika (2.5), White Rose (2.0),  FFT Monk (1.5) Vantage Sealstone

Main idea behind this team is abusing Delta Shield and Light Sword Deflect with Vantage which covers almost everything except for MT physicals. Even then, the enemy team still has to get past speedy PC HP level MT magic damage from 2x Megawindblast and whatever Feena can produce. Monk and Mei Ling provide some good physical damage as a back up and towards the endgame Feena can bail the team out with Time Gate if necessary and Monk can restore her MP for the next fight. I suppose the biggest concern is durability, but even then, Delta Shield and Deflect should be hard to break with this much healing.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Vantage teams are fun, and Aika is a solid choice for one. I don't know the SaGa ladies, but do either have revival? If not, my only concern is that FFT Monk is your only reviver for awhile (Feena doesn't get it for awhile, I think.) The mid-floors could be dicey.

[dude789]

New Team!

Mei-Ling(2.5), Feena(2.5), Aika (2.5), White Rose (2.0),  FFT Monk (1.5) Vantage Sealstone

Main idea behind this team is abusing Delta Shield and Light Sword Deflect with Vantage which covers almost everything except for MT physicals. Even then, the enemy team still has to get past speedy PC HP level MT magic damage from 2x Megawindblast and whatever Feena can produce. Monk and Mei Ling provide some good physical damage as a back up and towards the endgame Feena can bail the team out with Time Gate if necessary and Monk can restore her MP for the next fight. I suppose the biggest concern is durability, but even then, Delta Shield and Deflect should be hard to break with this much healing.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Vantage teams are fun, and Aika is a solid choice for one. I don't know the SaGa ladies, but do either have revival? If not, my only concern is that FFT Monk is your only reviver for awhile (Feena doesn't get it for awhile, I think.) The mid-floors could be dicey.

They do, Starlight Heal is the usual weird Saga Frontier healing/revival combo. I admit, I was encouraged when I saw your team and most people agreed that Delta Shield was Floor 2 for your team. It'll help the team get to floor 3 or 4 which is about when Mei Ling and White Rose will get Megawindblast/Light Sword.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I can't wait for your team to break the Dungeon and get Aika banned or increased another full point~ ^_^

[Dhyerwolf]

At least Delta Shield and casting Lightsword conflict. But yeah, nasty combo.

[superaielman]

There are types of status (Galaxy stop) that get through that setup. It's also seriously low on damage. It's a neat setup, but not dungeon breaking.

[dude789]

At least Delta Shield and casting Lightsword conflict. But yeah, nasty combo.

I think Light Sword is also an initiative skill so depending on speed views they could get both up at once. Unfortunately, I think Aika outspeeds both White Rose and Mei Ling (although White Rose may be faster early.)

[SnowFire]

At least Delta Shield and casting Lightsword conflict. But yeah, nasty combo.

Why would they?  You can stack Delta Shield & Justice Shield in-game (and Aika is faster than Enrique).

[ThePiggyman]

At least Delta Shield and casting Lightsword conflict. But yeah, nasty combo.

Why would they?  You can stack Delta Shield & Justice Shield in-game (and Aika is faster than Enrique).

Well, Justice Shield and Aura of Denial aren't really magic. If Lightsword is magic, there's an argument to be made that it would be stopped by Delta Shield.

[Dark Holy Elf]

As a self-only buff I'd have a hard time seeing LightSword get stopped by something designed to prevent incoming attacks. Especially since, as noted, you'd have to argue that LightSword is going second without any evidence that it would do so (except apparently that SoA buffs resolve in speed order?).

[SnowFire]

Piggyman has a point, actually, Justice Shield is a tech, not magic...  and Saga has both techs and magic, and Light Sword Deflect is apparently "Light Magic."  So there is a reasonable argument that Delta Shield stops it.

The order of initiative in Skies doesn't really matter, everything that has initiative is defensive in nature (Fina's healing, everyone else's counterstances + shields), it could go in alphabetical order for all that it matters.

[ThePiggyman]

As a self-only buff I'd have a hard time seeing LightSword get stopped by something designed to prevent incoming attacks. Especially since, as noted, you'd have to argue that LightSword is going second without any evidence that it would do so (except apparently that SoA buffs resolve in speed order?).

Delta Shield stops all magic, though, regardless whether it's offensive or defensive in nature. Increm and Sacres are both stopped by it. Whether you consider Lightsword magic or not is another question, and I can't really provide input on that, having not played SaGa, but if it is magic, I think the only way you could consider it not being blocked is if you consider it going first.

Also, you could tiebreak which one ought to go first based on which initiative is more "powerful" in-game. Skies of Arcadia initiative beats absolutely everything (I'm pretty sure). If there's any move that goes before Lightsword in SaGa Frontier, that might mean it loses in a tiebreak.

[dude789]

I don't think anyone is arguing that Delta Shield prevents Light Sword's deflect bonus from working, just that if Aika uses Delta Shield than White Rose or Mei Ling can't cast the spell in the first place. If the team needs both skills up, they have to make it through a turn without Delta Shield while White Rose and/or Mei-Ling set up Light Sword. So it really only matters on the first turn or so.