Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 76

[Nephrite]

"Ah, some new blood. Let's see where this takes us..."


Link to the Dungeon Wiki!

----------------
**Full Heals reset limit and other types of gauges when teams pass through them.

Team Jo'ou | Zerase (Resourceless), Alys, White Rose, Billy, FFT Priest
[Floor 2b: Magical Mystery]
Team Jo'ou vs. FFT Wizard, FF1 Black Wizard and Vivi
Team Jo'ou vs. Nina1, Nina2 and Nina3
Team Jo'ou vs. Lemina, Mia, Jessica and Luna
Team Jo'ou vs. Sarah (S3), Cleo and Bernadette
Team Jo'ou vs. PC Magus and Nergal

Team dude | Cecilia, Ramza, Worker 8 (Firefly), Kyra, Ditto
[Ramza: Ninja, Item, Attack UP, Blade Grasp]
Floor 6b: Overachievers
Team dude vs. Myria 1 and Zog
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Cloud of Darkness and Xande
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Sephiroth and Jenova-Birth
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Loki and Surt
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Ashera and Sephiran

Team Piggyman | Athos, Ramza, Worker 8, Adray, Moulder, Nall (Vantage Sealstone)
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
[Ramza: Chemist] [Athos: Eclipse, Heal Staff]
Team Piggyman vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo
Team Piggyman vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Piggyman vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Piggyman vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX)
Team Piggyman vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain

Team Tide | Ramza/Cecilia/Citan(Body Charge)/RAP MASTER SEIFER/Raynie
[Ramza: Chemist]
Team Tide vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo
Team Tide vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Tide vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Tide vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX)
Team Tide vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain

Resourceless - One character's spells and abilities are now free but you may not use the same ability more than once a fight. This does not apply to moves that drain all resources.

Firefly - The first offensive skill of each enemy will be redirected at the bearer of this sealstone. Multitarget attacks will focus on the bearer only. (E.g. MT Attack would hit 5 times in a 5 person party.))

Vantage - Counterattack abilities activate BEFORE being attacked. Also increases the chance of any counter attack activation skill to 100%. This only affects allies.

Body Charge - Increases the health, damage and effective speed of a character by 1.3x and decreases damage to them to .7x, but increases the cost of the character by 1.5x (rounded to nearest half point, .5s are 1.0s).

[Tide]

That's right, I am totally using SEIFER, bitches. Also just for clarification, I am using ACF Cecilia.

Team Tide | Ramza/Cecilia/Citan(Body Charge)/RAP MASTER SEIFER/Raynie
[Ramza: Chemist]
Team Tide vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo - Yep
Team Tide vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1) - The enemies can try ganging up on Cecilia (as she has FIRE and can hit weakness on BRONZOG), but Ramza can item monkey phoenix downs until there's only one of them left.
Team Tide vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius - Just for fun, RAP MASTER SEIFER spoils Lucius evade. Aw yeah.
Team Tide vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX) - lol 
Team Tide vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain - Actually, I think BC Citan solos the floor >_>.

[SnowFire]

Tide passes.  BC Citan doesn't solo the final boss but the rest of the team can carry there.

Piggyman passes.  That's not a lot of MT on the team (unless Ramza goes Summoner later or something), but Moulder / Ramza healing makes it hard for floor 1 to get anywhere against the team.  (Losing Floor 1 requires both suspect healing AND poor offense pretty much.)

Team Dude...  okay Ninja Ramza with Attack UP actually has damage since Two Swords is innate to Ninjas, which is good since it fixes dude's offensive woes which made the last floor worth analyzing at all.

Team dude vs. Myria 1 and Zog
lulz, look elsewhere for damage respect for these losers.
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Cloud of Darkness and Xande
Ramza & Kyra team up to hit something.  Probably Xande, actually, as he can double physical Worker 8 for a bunch but only has PCish HP. Cod attack & Physical tentacle can't kill Worker 8 of the Defence UP.  This is Bad.  Think the team can handle it from here since Ceci / W8 get turns now.

Team dude vs. Sephiroth and Jenova-Birth
Seph flies turn 1 and no way team dude can magic / ranged him out before turn 2....  except that Supernova is still going to be eaten entirely by Worker 8.  So Seph does Fly->(whatever, eaten by W8)->Supernova off good speed.  So uh dude kills Jenova Birth turn 1, then he'll have an extra round to kill Sephiroth, except Cecilia's damage is terribad if she's using Parasol, and W8 has maybe Dispose to qualify as a Sephy-hitter, and Ninja Throw damage, and Kyra's techs.  And dude still needs to bother to kill Jenova Birth though that shouldn't take too long with Ninja Ramza.  So something like 2 Ramza Throws (R2&R3), 2 Kyra techs (R1&R2), 2 Ceci spells, 1 Dispose-if-they-work (W8 speed is mega awful now that Thief Hats exist).  That...  that is like ~1.7 PCHP or so, which may not be enough to kill Sephiroth for me, so Supernova quite possibly resolves.  That said, as long as confused characters don't wipe the rest of the team on the spot, whoever lives may just blitz through it, and maybe Ditto sneaks out a Shadow Flare or something if he doesn't get Stop'd by Jenova Birth's 1 round.

*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Loki and Surt
Ramza smacks one, although 2x hits vs. good defense means his damage isn't as great as usual.  Kyra tosses in some damage but still not enough to kill one.  Loki *explodes* W8 with Extension Force with 5x damage since it'd hit everyone by default.  Surt Heals whoever got hit by Ramza.  Ceci...  does something.  (Can't revive W8.)  Round 2, Ramza can keep the beatdown going...  I guess Ditto maybe turned into Ramza, and now Ditto will also attack?  That should be enough to probably kill Surt, sure, if Kyra also tosses in her damage.  Good thing too since if team dude can't kill Loki or Surt on round 2, they MT explode the hell out of the party.  Ditto saves the day.  (Firefly: The only way to survive this fight with a slow team basically.)  (Alternatively: Knowing Heal won't be enough, Surt kills Ditto.  But then Ramza & Kyra finish the KO on him round 2 anyway.)

*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Ashera and Sephiran
Ninja Ramza probably OHKOs Sephiran.  Well, 2HKOs over 2 hits, but as noted last week, FFT double hits only trigger one reaction, so Sephy can't counter Ramza.  Ashera blows the hell out of W8 (she apparently has MT based off physical).  After that, though, beating Ashera is about spamming MT healing every round.  And Cecilia hasn't really needed the Parasol yet, so guess she leaves it at home for a normal Tome.  So long as Ditto!Cecilia isn't slain by Ashera damage the two can team up to heal every round...  well let's see.  Ditto has .79 PCHP.  Ashera does .83 PCHP MT Physical damage.  Physical defense isn't Cecilia's strong suit.  Okay so never mind, Ditto dies horribly to that strategy.  Okay, so Ditto become Ashera herself to get good defenses and maybe blitz...  except he can't, Ashera isn't targetable until all the auras go down, and they're not yet.  And the team does not really have powerful MT to break the auras, and can't afford to heal people injured by the counter (although maybe the counter doesn't fire?  Impossible to tell, no PC MT to throw at 'em). 

So Ashera is going to do: Smash W8 R1, .83 PCHP unblockable unevadable ungraspable physical damage to all, then do it again round 3 which will overwhelm Cecilia's MT healing.  The team doesn't really have good MT to chew through the auras' regen even if counters are ignored.  So...  tentative fail at the moment, actually.  Weird, I don't really respect Ashera but dude seems to be missing both powerful MT to off the Auras or reliable MT full healing, either of which makes the fight winnable.

Edit: Hmm, Cecilia has
Shield- DFP Up 50%
in her spell list.  How good is this in WA1?  I know in other WA games the defense stat is basically irrelevant, but if Cecilia casts this in Ditto!Cecilia round 1, then it's possible it'll survive Ashera's MT, which would allow Ceci / Ditto!Cecilia to maintain MT healing for 5 turns while Ramza slowly works down the Auras.  Which...  still might not be enough (8 Auras to kill!) but it'd help a lot.

--
Also belated comment to dude from Floor 5: I don't throw out doubles, but your team with Samurai Ramza didn't really have any speedsters on it, and I don't massively punish slow turn-based speed, so it's not until round 4/5 that Samurai Ramza can think about doubling Ghaleon to me.

[dude789]

Just a quick response to Snowfire. Kyra has a better defense buff than Ceci. Warla literally doubles her physical durability. Anti Magic from Ceci and Warla from Kyra shuts down a lot of these fights.

Edit: Also the .833 physical figure is for her ST damage. Ashera's MT physical damage is .65 and gets worse the farther away a character is from Ashera. Ceci should be able to keep up with that fairly easily.

[Nephrite]

Would Nihil cancel the effects of Attack Up on Ramza? And further food for thought: Two Swords?

Also, what exactly does Anti-Magic Zone do again? It's a field effect, that much I know was mentioned.

[dude789]

Definate No for Nihil stopping Two Swords, the closest thing FE has to Two Swords are the brave weapons and it doesn't shut down those. It might shut down Attack Up, but that's more debatable. Anti Magic shuts down all offensive magic for both sides any damaging magic attack does 0 damage.

Snowfire's analysis works for most of the fights will expand a bit on those if necessary. Warla should help a lot in the last fight, but there's still some things to look at. I have a bit more Sephiran respect so I don't see Ramza with the OHKO so Ramza doesn't do anything the first turn to avoid a counter. Ditto turns into Ceci and both Ditto and Ceci stay away from Ashera. Kyra Warla's the team giving everyone pretty great durability to physicals (after Warla Kyra goes from 1.08 to .41 durability).  Ashera blows up worker 8 and Sephiran attacks someone. Ceci Hypers Ramza making his damage extremely dangerous. I don't think Ramza can kill Sephiran unbuffed by himself, but Hypered Ramza and a Kyra attack if necessary definitely do it. Ashera can kill whoever Sephiran attacked but can't do much else. Ceci or Ditto Ceci revive them and Kyra Debans again and Ashera can't kill anyone in a single attack after that. The two Ceci's stack more and more Shields and Protects and Quicks on everyone until Ashera is getting run laps around her and hitting for almost nothing. Ramza and Kyra work on killing the auras and then eventually finish off Ashera.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well, Brave weapons are weapons, not skills (Nihil only stops skills, never special weapon properties e.g. poison weapons), and Two Swords is more of a skill, so I could see it Nihil working. I'm not really sure there. Same with Attack Up.

EDIT: Nihil does not affect the "Crit+X" skills which are passives on various classes such as Swordmaster. This suggests that Nihil either (a) doesn't affect permanent passive skills which only add stats, or (b) doesn't affect permenent passive skills which are class features. The former interpretation suggests that it doesn't shut down Attack Up, the latter that it doesn't shut down Ninja's innate Two Swords. You could also view both as true.

For myself... I lean towards saying that Mantle should protect against offensive twinking to some degree since it is extremely effective at doing so in-game. However, I see less reason to penalise an innate skill such as Two Swords against it, which seems the reasonable analog of the innate offensive boosts some FE classes have. As such I think I'd see Mantle stopping Attack Up, but not Two Swords, in this case, but there is room for debate there.

[SnowFire]

Ah, misread the stat topic.  Okay dude passes then, I was wondering why the MT damage figure seemed so horrifically high (because it wasn't, dur).  Kyra's Defense buff being MT helps a bunch too.  I think Cecilia can keep things basically afloat then even if Attack Up is turned off and even if Ramza has bad luck on hitting Auras.  Well..  there's Silence hype, but if Ditto becomes Cecilia for safety, Ashera needs to nail "both" Cecilias at once, which isn't likely to happen, and Cecilia can even use Lock State if she's direly paranoid turn 1.

dude, don't know if this is a stat topic error, but don't see Quick listed in Cecilia's spell list (thinking of Lilka?), and even if it did exist, not going to hype an ST speed buffer in a turn-based game TOO much.  Don't think it matters anyway though.

I think Nihil has a decent argument for killing Attack UP FWIW, but since Ninjas naturally equip two weapons, I wouldn't see that being turned off any more than Nihil turning off the ability to use SS Weapons or the like.

[dude789]

That's odd that it's not in the stat topic. She does have a ST speed buff, but I checked and I was wrong that she has a MT one. As for Silence. Ramza can always save the day with Echo Screens!

[Random Consonant]

I think Nihil has a decent argument for killing Attack UP FWIW, but since Ninjas naturally equip two weapons, I wouldn't see that being turned off any more than Nihil turning off the ability to use SS Weapons or the like.

Nihil neither stops bonuses like the various stat tides/ward or stat gains from equipped/held items so as far as I'm concerned it has no such argument for shutting off Attack Up, considering the skill is trash that does nothing to non-activated boosts, and the Fortune side of Mantle only effects criticals so I have to laugh at Mantle doing anything to a permament offense boost that doesn't rely on criticals or glorified megacriticals like FE10's mastery skills.  Honestly, the best I'd see it doing to FFT is shutting off reaction abilities or on-hit itemcasting

[ThePiggyman]

My team is actually a little anemic on offense at the moment. Athos has Eclipse, which is probably 100% accurate thanks to his level advantage right now, so those will help against the defense-heavy fight. Otherwise, Athos stats means he's not getting hurt by much. At all. So Athos, Moulder and Ramza just keep everyone fully healed while Worker 8 (and Adray, I guess) individually destroys the enemies. Anyone who tries to physically attack Worker 8 is getting a counter to the face first, too, so that's even less incentive to attack him. Ramza can keep him healed regardless. Worker 8 manhandles Queklain. My team passes.

Team Tide passes with a lot more ease than my floor, haha.

Team Jo'ou is a mage team showdown, but I think his team has the better mages. Nergal's a fun addition to the last fight. But Zerase's best spell is MT, so Nergal won't be countering. Pass for Jo'ou.

I'll say dude passes. The Ashera fight is long and tedious, and I let the MT damage do full damage (especially to Ramza, since he actually has to be beside Ashera to attack her) but the defense buffing certainly helps. I'm not going to hype the Silence too much. I think dude's team can actually keep up with Ashera, but they'll have to monitor Ramza, who's getting the Aura damage.

[Random Consonant]

Eclipse on Athos won't have 100% hit rate, but frankly it's close enough due to how FE7 hit works so it doesn't really matter.

Both floor 1 teams pass, at any rate.  Need to go look at dude's team.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Team Jo'ou | Zerase (Resourceless), Alys, White Rose, Billy, FFT Priest
[Floor 2b: Magical Mystery]
Team Jo'ou vs. FFT Wizard, FF1 Black Wizard and Vivi - Guess what, Zerase gets her first L4 charge on floor 2. First fight involves her dropping meteors while the rest of the party counts the holes on the ground.
Team Jo'ou vs. Nina1, Nina2 and Nina3 - WARNING WARNING, Nina1 initiative reflect hype! Too bad it's ST-only and will only reflect back to the caster, who luls at magic forever anyway. And nobody who can escape the first turn of meteors will make any lasting damage to the team.
Team Jo'ou vs. Lemina, Mia, Jessica and Luna - Back to counting holes on the ground while magical rocks kill the world.
Team Jo'ou vs. Sarah (S3), Cleo and Bernadette - Neat fight, this. I suspect that, -this- early, Zerase's L4 scrapes the OHKO on Cleo (Cleo is faster than Zerase, I think, but MT full healing galore, Billy has its), OHKOs Sarah... but Bernadette mdur is a thing of -legends-. Factoring in the magic resist mechanics from S5 (which she should trigger 200% of the time with that insane mag score of hers), I think she clocks in at over 4x PC HP against magic, which is seven kinds of nuts. So, she starts reviving people. And this fight has a lot of 2HKO MT flying around. FORTUNATELY, Bern is sluggish and the revival is three shots and ST. So, Alys opens with Saner. Even if you see it only kicking in from turn two onwards, this gives the whole party a 3-2 over Bernadette. Cleo Explosions, Zerase meteors, Billy heals, Priest/WR chip Bernie, Bernie revives Cleo, then Alys casts Shift on herself while Zerase/Pr/WR alternate killing Cleo and chipping Bern and Billy heals. Zerase should be able to kill Cleo again with help before Bern gets a second turn, then Alys/Billy finish Bern off.
Team Jo'ou vs. PC Magus and Nergal - Meteors make Nergal explode, Magus dies to whatever else. Welp.

Team dude | Cecilia, Ramza, Worker 8 (Firefly), Kyra, Ditto
[Ramza: Ninja, Item, Attack UP, Blade Grasp]
Floor 6b: Overachievers
Team dude vs. Myria 1 and Zog - Firefly saves dude's ass here. Gives him time to put up the buffing game and go to town. Ditto badly needs to copy Cecilia, though, because they -are- going to need tons of MT healing.
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Cloud of Darkness and Xande - Back to Firefly saving some ass. It eats -MT-? Holy fuck.
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Sephiroth and Jenova-Birth - And more. Doesn't help that Jenova BIRTH is horrible.
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Loki and Surt - Jesus shit, Loki and Surt fail hardcore against Firefly Worker. Doesn't he immune all non-Thunder elements?
*Full Heal*
Team dude vs. Ashera and Sephiran - This I'll have to look upon.

Team Piggyman | Athos, Ramza, Worker 8, Adray, Moulder, Nall (Vantage Sealstone)
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
[Ramza: Chemist] [Athos: Eclipse, Heal Staff]
Team Piggyman vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo
Team Piggyman vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Piggyman vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Piggyman vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX)
Team Piggyman vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain - In spite of Athos only having ECLIPSE, sure. It's weird that Piggy is banking all his offense on ADRAY and WORKER 8 this early, though.

Team Tide | Ramza/Cecilia/Citan(Body Charge)/RAP MASTER SEIFER/Raynie
[Ramza: Chemist]
Team Tide vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo
Team Tide vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Tide vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Tide vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX)
Team Tide vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain - More :floor1:. Body Charge Citan is bound to do -horrible- things here. Holy fuck, 1.7x average speed healer/slugger?

[Random Consonant]

W8 immunes all elements except lightning (against which he is weak to) and water (which he is neutral to), not that failing to immune water helps Loki/Surt any.

[SnowFire]

Oh yeah, missed that Extension Force was Fire elemental.  Well then, that makes things easier since now W8 gets a turn before they can unleash proper MT offense on round 2, and more importantly since Worker isn't dead from Loki, Surt's MT is cancelled if he uses Heal, so yeah, dude wins more cleanly now.  (Best strat now is something like Surt Might Reinforces Loki, and Loki somehow survives Ramza / W8 / Ramza/ Ditto!Ramza damage, then Might Reinforce Extension Force wipes the non-Worker part of the team, then Loki survives W8 beats.  Yeah no.).

[ThePiggyman]

Team Piggyman | Athos, Ramza, Worker 8, Adray, Moulder, Nall (Vantage Sealstone)
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
[Ramza: Chemist] [Athos: Eclipse, Heal Staff]
Team Piggyman vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Guido and Gorudo
Team Piggyman vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Piggyman vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Piggyman vs. Mist Dragon, Whelk, Wingraptor (FF5), Garland (FF1) and Sinspawn Ammes (FFX)
Team Piggyman vs. Laggy Fantasy Tactics Queklain - In spite of Athos only having ECLIPSE, sure. It's weird that Piggy is banking all his offense on ADRAY and WORKER 8 this early, though.

Haha, I have to be honest, if this team goes anywhere, it will be entirely thanks to VANTAGE hype. It's certainly not a very good team all by itself; almost entirely ST (both damage AND healing), not much status to play with, and damage that isn't very impressive until Athos picks up actual damage tomes, and Moulder promotes (which, even then, will not be that great, haha), but this is mostly to see what a Vantage team can do. =P

[dude789]

Final votes is that everyone passes. Hey Piggy, what's your eventual plan for ramza? FFT reaction abilities give you quite a bit to work with the vantage sealstone and he could do some neat things with say counter magic as a black mage or something.

[ThePiggyman]

Final votes is that everyone passes. Hey Piggy, what's your eventual plan for ramza? FFT reaction abilities give you quite a bit to work with the vantage sealstone and he could do some neat things with say counter magic as a black mage or something.

Counter Magic is exactly what I had planned, actually, haha. I'm thinking of going Summoner w/ Items and Counter Magic. The support skills will be modified as needed along the way, depending on if I need a bit more durability (Equip Armor or something) or going for the pure ball lightning (Magic AttackUp).

[Dark Holy Elf]

As a reminder, Counter Magic depletes your MP to use the spell (and you don't get a choice about using said counter) and fails if you lack the MP to cast the spell. It doesn't trigger against any magical attacks that lack MP costs, in case you were wondering. It also doesn't work on Fire/Ice/Bolt 4 or any summon magic, which would be a good argument for it not triggering against MT attacks (although it does work against Meteor). Good for you if you can get it to work (Ramza does have MP restoration options which helps), but be warned that it's an extremely problematic reaction ability.

It feels to me like most of the strongest FFT reactions either don't benefit from Vantage (MP Switch, Abandon, Blade Grasp, Hamedo) or actively suffer from it should you force Vantage to affect them (Auto-Potion, HP Restore, Damage Split in some cases). Counter and Dragon Spirit benefit... mostly by being upgraded into Hamedo and a Blade Grasp variant respectively. Counter Magic, to its credit, is one of the few that actively benefits.

EDIT: On second thought, toss Auto-Potion and friends into the "not affected" camp. While you lose the initial heal after the first attack, you gain that healing anyway right before you'd take the second, so it's moot for most cases.

[ThePiggyman]

As a reminder, Counter Magic depletes your MP to use the spell (and you don't get a choice about using said counter) and fails if you lack the MP to cast the spell. It doesn't trigger against any magical attacks that lack MP costs, in case you were wondering. It also doesn't work on Fire/Ice/Bolt 4 or any summon magic, which would be a good argument for it not triggering against MT attacks (although it does work against Meteor). Good for you if you can get it to work (Ramza does have MP restoration options which helps), but be warned that it's an extremely problematic reaction ability.

It feels to me like most of the strongest FFT reactions either don't benefit from Vantage (MP Switch, Abandon, Blade Grasp, Hamedo) or actively suffer from it should you force Vantage to affect them (Auto-Potion, HP Restore, Damage Split in some cases). Counter and Dragon Spirit benefit... mostly by being upgraded into Hamedo and a Blade Grasp variant respectively. Counter Magic, to its credit, is one of the few that actively benefits.

EDIT: On second thought, toss Auto-Potion and friends into the "not affected" camp. While you lose the initial heal after the first attack, you gain that healing anyway right before you'd take the second, so it's moot for most cases.

Indeed, the MP consumption could be awkward, but I'm hoping Ethers will help. Summoners also have the Half MP Support Ability, in case it really does become a big problem.

Also want to point out that, aside from Meteor, Hashmalum's spells (Melt, Quake, Tornado) which have the same 4v3 range as level 4 spells, can also be countered w/ Counter Magic. There's actually a list of spells that can be countered. I got this from the FFT Battle Mechanics Guide, in case anyone was wondering.

- All Black Magic except Fire 4, Ice 4, and Bolt 4
- Holy, Dark Holy
- Yin-Yang Magic except Pray Faith and Doubt Faith
- Slow, Slow 2, Don't Move, Quick, Stop, Demi, Demi 2, Meteor
- Bio, Bio 2, Bio 3
- Melt, Tornado, Quake
- Attacks from the Blaze Gun, Glacier Gun, and Blast Gun

Counter Magic cannot counter Calculated spells, nor can it counter spells which have already been Reflected.  Similarly, a spell cast by Counter Magic cannot be Reflected.

[dude789]

I don't think MP costs would be as problematic as they are in game because FFT magic is really expensive relative to most games. For example, with the way I calculate the way the MP cost would transition over, Deis 1's BoltX would cost 10 FFT MP.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh, good point on Melt/Quake/Tornado (Bio3 also has a large radius). Still, it seems like the large majority of large-area attack spells in FFT (summon magic, Fire/Ice/Bolt 4, Ultima/All-Ultima) don't trigger Counter Magic, so yeah, I wouldn't see other games' MT spells doing it either. (Flipside, I'd ignore the fact that there are a bunch of smaller-radius spells CM doesn't affect, such as Ultima and Zalera's Ja Magic.)

[hinode]

Sorta off-topic, but since Quick is on the Counter Magic, would people here see it working on XF's Turn Shift as well? That seems like it'd have some real comedy potential in the dungeon, maybe more depending on Turn Shift's MP cost.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

... I can only endorse an initiative that allows for such insanity.

EDIT: Turn Shift costs 32 MP, which is affordable but not trivial (game-best MP is in the house of the 400s in XF at endgame? Granted, IIRC, the scale starts somewhat high, but).

[dude789]

Marco from RH has a Quick like skill as well and his only costs 3 mp. I suppose it is limited by Ramza's brave and Marco's speed though.