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

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh. Right, forgot there was a FFT Monk for a minute, derp.

But both his healing and revival are really awful from the get-go (probably 40% HP healing at its best, and it can target one person besides him at most [the negative vertical tolerance and inability to target it on others doom its claims to MT right there], and the revival has accuracy issues, even moreso early on). Not to mention FFT Monk also can't take advantage of most FFT equipment, which is a selling point for FFT PCs in the dungeon, and his offense isn't very impressive. 

[dude789]

I know it's bad but like I said earlier Toadstool is expensive for what she does unless your team has no other healing or you are trying to build a defensive team like Sage's. I think that Toadstool is a bit overkill especially since he wants to have another .5 healer especially when there are other characters who can heal and fix other problems that the team has (like Jerin or Kyra).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, but he needs a dedicated healer instead of someone who can't properly do the job. Crappy healing in the dungeon just doesn't cut it, and Monk sorta sucks at everything he tries to do for relevant dungeon purposes.

[Glen Veil]

In light of Tidus resource woes, changing team to something like

Ryu2 + Rune + Jane + Eiko + Raja(Speed?)

for now.  Will probably change it around some but that's a decent foundation I guess.

[Magic Fanatic]

Yeah, but he needs a dedicated healer instead of someone who can't properly do the job. Crappy healing in the dungeon just doesn't cut it, and Monk sorta sucks at everything he tries to do for relevant dungeon purposes.

As far as I figure, since I only need her healing (and the revival would come off Monk and that .5 until...  What, floor 3?) every turn, Monk makes that near-infinite thanks to Chakra, and if I don't pick a healer for that .5, I need someone who can REALLY accentuate my offense there.

...But still, it is tempting to switch out Toadstool for Ness.  He has TONS of durability, decent healing, a nice skillset, and (depending on interpretation) if is going to be knocked out by damage in a turn where he has at least 50% of his HP left, something of a Last Word or Final Attack ability (obviously this wouldn't kick in if he was ID'd or Petrified).

...But still, I'm hesitant.  Toadstool has crazy-accurate status if I really need it, and is a healing goddess.  It's hard to beat that.

[superaielman]

Aeris. Lufia 2 IP's meant to be something used pretty often ala G3 SP, not conserved. I don't love Aeris in a VBL team but you get much more value there.

I'm really not seeing how frail healer-types are getting off multiple IPs OR Limits in the Dungeon. Generally, if a healer is the target of an enemy team (needs to take damage to get Limit), the healer is DEAD before they move and have to be revived. And I'm pretty sure Limits are lost upon death. (Actually, not sure about IPs, though... hmm...)

I'm curious about how Tia's IPs are available in the Dungeon to see if her tricks would be better than Aeris' one shot of Status (or one shot of Great Gospel). Tia gets more non-IP options than the Restore materia, too. Though Aeris still might be better in the long run thanks to FF7 equips?

IPs are lost upon death. What Aeris's limits do is limit what teasm can do with MT damage spam. It's an instant turn when you get a limit, that makes it very useful defensively. If you go with the later ones, you can get full HP/MP healing or invincibility, which is neat. Tia's IPs just tend to be sapped very fast from 100% for any of the really useful ones. Violent burst doesn't really help her a ton in that regard, but she still fits the team. Aeris has better durability, Tia has better speed, MT healing, and revival. Aeris has those nasty limits backing her up though and better status blockers. It's a tough call to make.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Tia also has better offense (I'm assuming she gets storebought magic here?), and Lufia 2 magic isn't shabby as long as you have a magic stat and the proper level spells to back it up. She's like a faster Eiko with IPs in a sense if I'm reading her right. The awful survivability (-definitely- sub-Eiko >_>) is what keeps her in check as a 1.5.

[superaielman]

Tia's a 1.0. With good reason, she never ever breaks .7 PC HP and has really bad defense to boot.

Tia's offense is decent, but she hates that she lacks Selan's really good INT or Zap. IIRC she's near the bottom of the totem poll on damage at endgame but I'd have to check.

Edit: First four-five floors: Dekar>Lexis>>Guy>Maxim>Selan>Artea>Tia is my rough kneejerk. Floor 7 is Lexis>Selan=Dekar>Artea=Guy>Tia>Maxim. The high level spells throw off things off some here.  Aftergame balances things back towards Dekar, since his STR growth isn't great from level 30ish when he leaves to like level 60ish.

Tia's never going to dominate damage, but it is respectable for a 1.0. She has elemental choice as well which helps some too.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh, right. That sounds right, yeah. And then, there's the fact her durability just -keeps getting worse-...

[Clear Tranquil]

Pulse of Life revives~

Edit - How effective is Seal Evil in dungeon?

Aerith has no offence outside of it so ... yeah (powered up Princess Guard hype!? *shot*)

[superaielman]

Oh, right. That sounds right, yeah. And then, there's the fact her durability just -keeps getting worse-...

Oh. Right, dungeon is scaling against all seven PC's.  This is her HP scaled against the full cast when she leaves.

HP:

1. Dekar, 332
2. Guy, 289
3. Maxim, 183
4. Artea, 175
5. Lexis, 151
6. Selan, 123
7. Tia, 114

Full cast average: 195. Tia: 58% PC HP. She's probably taking an extra 20% from physicals as well. This is constant, as her HP growth blows. She'll never break half average against physicals in the dungeon at any point.  In game aside: Guy/Dekar's HP is really damn good. Shame L2 doesn't make you use them, they're both excellent tanks.


HP:

1. Dekar, 332
2. Guy, 289
3. Maxim, 183
4. Artea, 175
5. Lexis, 151
6. Selan, 123
7. Tia, 114

Full cast average: 195. Tia: 58% PC HP.

L23



I'm yanking L57 (Endgamish) stats from Heavyarms's FAQ. It isn't perfect as it doesn't factor in the stuff from the shrine and ignores AC improved stat growth, but it's good enough to give a rough idea of Tia's relative durability/HP.

HP:

1.

Dekar, 603
Guy, 528
Maxim, 451
Artea, 426
Lexis, 392
Selan, 356
Tia, 260

Average HP: 431. Tia's HP is .6 PC HP. Fail. That's before physical defense as well.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Tia really, really begs for something like an Eileen to stop her from getting OHKOed all day. But, like with Eileen+Raja, it's a pretty abusive combo if you get it going.

[SnowFire]

Right, then.  Let's try this.  Shame, I had a whole nice writeup ready for another team, but I think this might work better...  I'm a sucker for using 3.5-4.0s that haven't been used yet / much.  Last time was DQ8 Jessica, and I was going to try Shania, but instead I'm falling back to Deis1, shatterer of the early floors, who I don't think has been used either.

Deis1 / Bleu (3.5) (Zerase, 3.0?)
Feena (2.5)
Red XIII (2.5)
Strago (Speed?) (1.5)
Raja (1.0) (Ricardo, 1.5?)

Aqua will be raked.  Anyway Deis / Feena / Strago (??) all have stupidly great speed, especially early, and Red's speed is decent.  Deis does 80% PCHP MT damage with Comet off great speed endgame, and breaks the curve just as badly in earlier floors (though sadly generally with an element attached).  (Though...  as a sanity check... nobody scales BoF1 against Karn's fused forms, right, since they're illegal and all?)  Red, well, he's a backup reviver for Raja who's dangerous to attack and he also blows stuff up, especially on the midfloors.  And Feena just blows stuff up off good speed in general.  So between the four of them, most fights, especially those against PCs who aren't crazy elemental spoilers, should hopefully be over.  Meanwhile, Raja is the only 1.0 MP restorer, and the team does have some MP issues (especially in Floor 8+ if I want to abuse Time Gate), so congratulations.  I suppose I'll need to go play PSIV, now.

Main weakness I see is that the main source of physical damage is Feena's techs, but those run out quickly.  Granted Red becomes a beater late with the Limited Moon, but until then status-immune magic-tanks are the biggest problem I see, closely followed by the annoying "null ALL elements" types.

EDIT: And thanks to chat, I now know that Raja's Ataraxia runs out really fast!  Guess I needed to play PS4 sooner.  Back to the drawing board.  Suppose as a quick fix for now, Zerase is basically Bleu with less durability, less MP, and hitting only one element...  though it's a weird and almost NE element.  And Ricardo's MP generation keeps going for a long while after Feena statuses out the last enemy.)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Tia really, really begs for something like an Eileen to stop her from getting OHKOed all day. But, like with Eileen+Raja, it's a pretty abusive combo if you get it going.

This is why I'm wondering why anyone is hyping Tia as surviving any damage long enough to -get- an IP. I think VBL ensures that she can use an IP at least -once-.

But I don't know what IPs she gets. Does anything in her IP skillset make her worth using over Aeris? (all other factors aside)

Also, note that Cloud w/ Cover is the primary method of keeping Tia OR Aeris alive here...

[Tide]

Pet team idea tentatively. I have idea two, trying to take advantage of elemental advance as well with Edgar, but speed issues. Current team idea:

Citan (3.0)
Geddoe (3.0)
Garnet (2.0)
Lilka (2.0)
Ziggy (1.0)

E-advance sealstone.

The idea: Basically have a standalone team that can go through at least floor 1-2 of the dungeon without too much trouble. Then around floor 3, when Garnet picks up Ramuh and Citan gets his elemental shields...

Citan start playing heck with it by adding weaknesses, shielding against elements, and having healing as a back up. Physicals exist if he needs to

Geddoe can adjust his speed and has crowd control, two things that I like. Latter helps fix some of Citan's problems. Can also start the pain with Lightning

Garnet starts off with healing and elemental blocking. Gets summons later and other support spells. Speed is above average which is good. Summons being MT and having different elements help in case Lightning is blocked

Lilka is similar. Decently fast, different variety of spells to keep the team running.

Ziggy has some lightning ether based techs and some fire based techs which allows revolving of elements. Also decently tanky, gets damage if he gets going.

Some problems:
- Seems a little mage heavy. Then again, expected. Not sure how well the team will fair against magic tanks of doom.
- Anytime a character in the chain needs to heal, that's a 25% decrease in damage at least.
- The speed gap between Ziggy and the other 4 is pretty noticable since Citan >> Geddoe >/ Lilka > Garnet >> Ziggy. This makes it easy for enemies to enter the chain and break it apart
- Neither Garnet or Lilka are terribly durable. Having them function as revivers is kinda bad
- Garnet has no status blocking. For someone so entrenched in the team, this is also bad.

[Clear Tranquil]

Anytime a character in the chain needs to heal, that's a 25% decrease in damage at least.

Non elemental attacks, healing, buffs, etc do not break the chain IIRC! At least that's what Neph said!

Only if your healing, etc is elemental and of a different one that you're abusing I'd imagine.

[Magic Fanatic]

Blue (Speed?) - 4.0
Toadstool - 3.0
Arnaud - 2.0
FFT Monk - 1.5
Rand - 0.5

The idea for Blue is Realm (Forced) -> Arcane -> Light -> (Floor 4) -> (Floor 5) -> Time -> Else.

The general idea is that Blue is getting the drop on EVERYTHING on turn 1, thanks to Speed? being on him (which he'll eventually give to Rand once he gets Overdrive - to which point, I'll need nothing else).  Start of turn ID?  There.  Defensive buffing?  Sure.  Revival?  He can pick it up in a pinch on floor 3 - I do also want Tower to be available early, for WTF damage IF and only IF I really need it.

Toadstool is healing extraordinaire.  At floor 2, (that is when Rose Town is, right?) Wake Up Pins will be available, making her immune to Sleep and Silence.  Later on (Floor...  4ish?), I'll be able to trade that in for elemental damage halving.  It's a nice package to have, overall.

Arnaud is there for his incredible (if ST) buff and debuffs.  Sure, the magic damage is nice and all, but it's something to consider if a target's speed is on par with Blue.

FFT Monk serves four functions: Earlygame physical damage.  Somewhat respectable revival (it hits 3 out of 4 times right out of the gate, I wanna say?).  MP healing (I'd rather ignore the HP-healing part of that, since it's so bad).  Decent status healing that can't be silenced.  To bolster this, he also gets Hamedo at some point, as well as Limit Range full healing.  All he has for status defense are clothes and an accessory, but them's the brakes.  Still useful, though.

Rand is my secondary healer/reviver/physicaler.  If he's not healing, he's putting the pain on something with his fists.  He has magic damage, but it looks generally unimpressive to me.  It's still there, though.



Assumed floor 1 path:
Palmer and Mist Dragon - Blue's casting PsychoArmor, Toadstool is defending, Monk doesn't need to worry about Toadstool at all, so beat on Palmer some, and once he's down, beat on Mist Dragon until it Mists up.  Monk takes the turns of "don't attack me, stupid" to restore everyone else's MP.  Next.
Steelix, Shuckle and FF1 Knight - Blue IDs FF1 Knight, and the other two fail so much on damage and speed for words. No resource problems at all yet.
Marle, Alice and FFT Priest - Okay, this...  Might get tricky.  Blue and his massive speed IDs Marle (thanks Implosion!), Arnaud Slows Alice down, while Monk, Toadstool, and Rand beat up FFT Priest.  Team takes an Advent to the face (or face having whoever she revives...  Be completely useless, as the revived will be Slow Downed and killed off again in short order)...  Toadstool heals, and the fight kinda ends there.
Rampage Drive - Rampage Drive against mostly mages.  Yeah.
Lich (FF1) - Don't think Lich can stand up to the combined offense here.

Other points of interest:

FFT fights on the Floor 3 MT?  Meet Tower.  If that wasn't enough the first time, meet it again.  And again.  I've got time to spare.  Arguments opposed?  Monk's Chakra and other limitess amounts of healing at this point.  Thank you, have a nice evening, floor 3.

[Clear Tranquil]

Magic - Blue (4.0), Eiko (1.5), Peppita (1.5), Alex/Cecil, (2.5) or Ephraim, Juan/Kevin (1.5) or  Riddel/White Wizard/Red Mage/Blanca/Raja team w/th Speed Sealstone! *shot* or a 3.0 physical blitzer (Chaz!? Emily!?) MT offence (Rune!?) + Raja! *doubleshot*

Edit - Whoops I meant Rune for MT offence not Raja >_>

Seriously though you didn't address the issues that dude pointed about physical/MT offense, getting more bang for your buck than Arnaud/Toadstool, etc (Eiko + Peppita > Toadstool - you have Toadstool's healing/revival w/th magic offence, status + buffing as bonus! Haste or MT Haste (Carbuncle) mimics Arnaud's Slow Down for addressing speed issues only you're getting faster instead of getting faster + Power Dance is MT Hyper - That's just an example of how you could fit more in) If you really think you'll have fun with the team even if it trainwrecks + explodes horribly early dungeon/you are just experimenting then follow your heart but if you're at all serious about this please, please, please try to take more people's advice into account. People are only trying to save you the frustration now.

[dude789]

Magic your offense is even worse than your last team, and lack of offense is the main reason that that team failed. The Knight/Shuckle/ Steelix fight is troublesome because none of them can be IDed. The Knight smacks Toadstool to put some pressure on her. Arnaud has to cast Slow Down on the Knight this turn. Shuckle Encores him. Steelix screeches Toadstool. Rand has to heal toadstool. Next turn Arnaud has to use slow down again to no effect. The Knight smashes Toadstool and you have no way to revive her. That's game.  Vermillion Sand can inflict blind, but the knight  can heal it. All the Knigh has to do is survive 1 Vermillion Sand, 2 monk physicals, 2 toadstool physicals, and maybe one Rand physical. He does this easily. Rand and the Monk are both below average damage. Toadstool doesn't even register on the curve right now and the Knight has significantly above average HP, Defense and magic defence. Also KOing Steelix won't work either because Shuckle can use Helping Hand on the Knight for a similar effect. Your team is loosing Toadstool on this fight and they don't make it past the floor without her. 

[Bardiche]

To tack on to what dude said, even assuming you pass Floor 1, I can only see trouble on Floor 2.

The boss floor walls your ID, so that hype isn't flying. Additionally, Nimufu/Augus means Nimufu puts at least the Monk and Rand to sleep, and Augus smashes Blue and Toadstool. Arnaud does NOT save this fight by his lonesome, since the next turn just means Augus is smashing FFT Monk and Rand with Nimufu-improved offense. That's game.

If you go the PC floor, you're heavily debilitated that Blue is the only one with some shade of damage. The first fight already is troublesome: if you drop anyone but White Wizard, she's reviving. If you drop White Wizard, you're left to last against Black Wizard, Knight and Archer's offense. This trend continues for the rest of the floor.

If you make it to Floor 3, you'll already have struggled a lot, and the Floor 4 floors are really fierce from what I gather. Please reconsider.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not to mention that he gets none of the statusblockers this early (WA4 statusblockers are floor 7, FFT statusblockers start showing up at some shade of floor 4, etc.), and Toadstool only gets her MT status by floor 3-4. Toadstool's revival is floor 5, her offense until lategame is impossibly terrible... it goes on. Not to mention Rand is almost as much of a waste of 0.5 points as Onix.

[Magic Fanatic]

The Knight/Shuckle/ Steelix fight is troublesome because none of them can be IDed.

I didn't know they had anything resembling status resistance.  Through what do they do this with?

The Knight smashes Toadstool and you have no way to revive her. That's game. 

This is assuming that you don't allow FFT Monk's Revive this early.

The boss floor walls your ID, so that hype isn't flying. Additionally, Nimufu/Augus means Nimufu puts at least the Monk and Rand to sleep, and Augus smashes Blue and Toadstool. Arnaud does NOT save this fight by his lonesome, since the next turn just means Augus is smashing FFT Monk and Rand with Nimufu-improved offense. That's game.

Blue throws up Arcane: Shield, and I mostly fly on the idea that Toadstool has a Wake-Up Pin by now (they are storebought in Rose Town).

Not to mention that he gets none of the statusblockers this early (WA4 statusblockers are floor 7, FFT statusblockers start showing up at some shade of floor 4, etc.), and Toadstool only gets her MT status by floor 3-4. Toadstool's revival is floor 5, her offense until lategame is impossibly terrible... it goes on. Not to mention Rand is almost as much of a waste of 0.5 points as Onix.

Toadstool's revival is more like floor 3 or 4 - I mean, it is only level 13.

...But fine, scrap the team again.  It's no use going for a possibly viable strategy if everyone else sees it as failing, since the dungeon relies ENTIRELY on votes.  Back to the drawing board for me~.

[Taishyr]

Monk's Revive is too expensive to be non-late floor 1, yeah.  500 JP isn't coming ingame until... past Zeklaus at best, which is fight 3 for me. I could easily see it as the start of floor 2.

[dude789]

The Knight has equipment that nulls it. Steelix and Shuckle both have Sturdy as an ability which prevents ID attacks from working.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not to mention that he gets none of the statusblockers this early (WA4 statusblockers are floor 7, FFT statusblockers start showing up at some shade of floor 4, etc.), and Toadstool only gets her MT status by floor 3-4. Toadstool's revival is floor 5, her offense until lategame is impossibly terrible... it goes on. Not to mention Rand is almost as much of a waste of 0.5 points as Onix.

Toadstool's revival is more like floor 3 or 4 - I mean, it is only level 13.

And Yaridovich is around L10-12, which I'd honestly see as the cutting point for L4.