Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 85

[Dark Holy Elf]

I doubt it's anywhere near OHKO damage ever, as it itself is still in a (3-PC) average. The absolute best it ever is 2x average, I'd think... probably not even that.

[dude789]

Well, do keep in mind that Fry -is- OHKO-level damage for a couple floors. It could be worse.

At floor 2, Bo has Fry and Ryu has Bolt Dragon which matches Fry's damage. Nina brings the average down, but not by nearly enough. Deis 1 is pretty mediocre for those 2 floors before her crazy leveling comes in to play.

Edit: Misremembered Thunder Drake's damage. It's 130 not 80. So Deis 1's damage is very mediocre for floor 2/3.

[SnowFire]

To the extent that Ryu1's dragons go in the averages, they go in a 3-turn damage average anyway, so cut that figure by a third for the transformation turn.

[dude789]

To the extent that Ryu1's dragons go in the averages, they go in a 3-turn damage average anyway, so cut that figure by a third for the transformation turn.

I'm hesitant to use a 3 turn average when it comes to dragon forms and the like because unlike situations where characters only have enough resources for a few big attacks, dragon forms are only slowed down on the first turn unless Ryu wants to do some transform/untransform strategy for hp restoration. Even then it's still raises the average. 260 vs. the 240 from Fry.

[Dark Holy Elf]

They can't attack turn 1 and that's the most important turn in the dungeon or a duel. I do agree with the three-turn average personally. Though of course yes, that makes Fry notably less impressive once it shows up.

Also, idly: having dragons on floor 2 seems weird to me. There's a lot of game before they show up - check the BoF1 boss stat topic and you'll note eleven bosses before you obtain them, over a quarter of the total. Seems a pretty clear thing to start considering on floor 3. Granted, moot for the comments that started this, since the stretch of "Deis damage isn't that great" is probably about as long as suggested, just starts (and ends) later.

[dude789]

They can't attack turn 1 and that's the most important turn in the dungeon or a duel. I do agree with the three-turn average personally. Though of course yes, that makes Fry notably less impressive once it shows up.

Also, idly: having dragons on floor 2 seems weird to me. There's a lot of game before they show up - check the BoF1 boss stat topic and you'll note eleven bosses before you obtain them, over a quarter of the total. Seems a pretty clear thing to start considering on floor 3. Granted, moot for the comments that started this, since the stretch of "Deis damage isn't that great" is probably about as long as suggested, just starts (and ends) later.

It's a judgement call. BoF is very boss heavy early on and a lot of those dungeons have more than one (Wizard's tower has 3). I think I see floor one ending around when you get Bo and floor two ends around the start of the Auria stuff maybe? Other problems with Deis is that looking at the stat topic, it looks like she starts with both below average speed and HP. Using Meeple's boss notes, the average speed and hp drop between the boss the two bosses where she joins.

Edit: Found a youtube video and she starts with 120 hp to a 170 average. That's pretty bad.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The earlygame has some pretty long boss-less sections of navigating the map, Winlan Cave, etc... I don't think boss density drops off, and there are certainly several multi-boss dungeons later on (Wisdon, Lab, and the Obelisk). For another way of measuring the game... one guide lists the dragon shrine as 33 of 109 in a walkthrough, another after 4 of 15. If there are dragons on floor 2 it's only a tiny fraction, and for me that's enough of a shift in the game to assign it to a floor break, and 2/7 of the game is a much better fit than 1/7.

Agreed that Deis is frail upon joining (which I'd peg as F4). And honestly she doesn't really come into her all-around goodness until F6 looking at Meeple's notes... she's still lowering the HP average as of Cort and running a 110 damage spell as her best, it's not until Mothro that she's flinging BoltX and presumably has good HP. There's not too much game left after Mothro... certainly less than precedes the first dragon forms, so yeah, we're looking at around two floors here.

[SnowFire]

I agree with DHE FWIW, there is a lot of BoF1 before Ryu gets a dragon.  Also I definitely squint at ignoring Ryu's transform turn in the damage averages - I could see perhaps a 4 or 5 turn average which would downplay it more, but skipping it is weird.  I'd squint more but BoF1 is already a game where the damage average is a bit lower than it "should" be since in-game Ryu / Bleu have to compete against soul-devouring MegaKarn, not duel Karn + lategame scrubs.

I'd also be tempted to take Deis at join time and scale her against that party, which means Karn's meh damage is in the average as well.  Karn & Nina drag the average down, Ryu1 only gets his dragons on floor3 and they're still not THAT broken yet and have their damage cut by a third...  she's still pretty darn awesome.

[dude789]

I'd also be tempted to take Deis at join time and scale her against that party, which means Karn's meh damage is in the average as well.  Karn & Nina drag the average down, Ryu1 only gets his dragons on floor3 and they're still not THAT broken yet and have their damage cut by a third...  she's still pretty darn awesome.

When you get her, physicals are starting to catch up to the early spells Ox and Karn cancel each other out pretty much and probably keep the damage average in that 70-80 area. If you compare her to the party when she joins than she's slow and gets 2HKOed by average. Her damage might be above average, but not by much and it's like that until floor 4 or 5. Thinking on it, I'd probably be alright with her dropping a half point because I didn't realize her start was so bad.

[Clear Tranquil]

First of congrats to Tide for getting this far. It's been a fun team to watch =)

I'm willing to buy the analysis for the first four fights. The last ... well I'm going to assume we call in all our favours to the RNG gods and they listen With the blessing of the RNG god all goes exactly right for the team every single round with bonuses (and RNG is against the enemies) Cecelia Status Lock, Raynie MP regen and Citan speed speed speed with Haste Haste Haste for everybody saves the day Surely it's not impossible.

Everyone vs Dungeon~

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Night Gown and Ragu4 sed no. =(

[Clear Tranquil]

=(

They aren't afraid of the power of ... Lalala the Watchers sing!?~

I would be *nodnod* ~

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

When you're 600% average speed and nearly OHKO both durabilities off that durability and evade, you don't fear anything short of Blue.

[Magic Fanatic]

Team Tide vs. The Dungeon

If Tide doesn't see himself even possibly winning this...  Who am I to argue?  Besides, I don't know these bosses well enough to even guess on an alternative strategy.

Team superaielman vs. The Dungeon

Jo'ou's arguments seem solid enough to me.

Team Snow vs. The Dungeon
Team Magic vs. The Dungeon

It's Floor freaking 1.  You have to TRY to lose here.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

* Jo'ou Ranbu actually bothers to run some by-the-head numbers to see how Tide fares against Ragu4.

* Jo'ou Ranbu realizes Ragu somehow instadoubles BC Citan and pretty much OHKOs both revivers no questions asked.

Yeah, that's -so- not happening.

[SnowFire]

Jo'ou: Well, no, because Tide has 2 initiative rounds to buff while Ragu spams his move command.  Unless you're interpreting this as "Ragu skips 2 turns" which probably isn't enough to stop the pasta.  But if Ragu were to wait for unhasted Raynie to get 2 turns before going berserk, then the team is pretty well all hasted by then.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oooh right, there's that grace period. Granted, hasting them means... uh... Ragu "only" quadra/triple-turns non-Citan people (Ceci doesn't even have Slow Down? Eeeew) and Citan can't even -hit- him while they trigger counters right and left. How the heck is he supposed to plow through that?

EDIT: I'd also consider those turns FFX-initiative style, which helps them in general. But still, that's just um. Ragu's got a lot of durability (may well be something like over 5x PC HP after defenses? Off Tide's numbers, he's 3.7x PC HP off the health score alone under my scaling, though an arbitrary average 10k higher leads to something like 2.7x PC HP) and Tide has issues making the damage stick there, none of his buffs are remotely good enough to fend off that level of pressure.

[SnowFire]

Very, very, very slowly.  If Team Tide plays pure defense, then 700% Speed Citan can counter every Ragu hit with his own healing, which is...  not that great and might not stave off a 2HKO through Ragu attack Cecilia -> Citan heal -> Ragu attack Cecilia when nobody else gets turns.  But okay, let's assume Ramza somehow keeps FFT Protect up constantly on everyone despite its miss chance so Citan can keep up.  When not casting Protect, Ramza needs to be spamming Hi-Ethers in Citan's direction, and Citan needs to recast his Hastes aggressively.  I think it's plausible that Tide might stay afloat.  Of course attacking into counters occasionally makes this scary.  This is why I say non-sarcastically that Ramza running out of Hi-ethers is a threat.

[dude789]

Very, very, very slowly.  If Team Tide plays pure defense, then 700% Speed Citan can counter every Ragu hit with his own healing, which is...  not that great and might not stave off a 2HKO through Ragu attack Cecilia -> Citan heal -> Ragu attack Cecilia when nobody else gets turns.  But okay, let's assume Ramza somehow keeps FFT Protect up constantly on everyone despite its miss chance so Citan can keep up.  When not casting Protect, Ramza needs to be spamming Hi-Ethers in Citan's direction, and Citan needs to recast his Hastes aggressively.  I think it's plausible that Tide might stay afloat.  Of course attacking into counters occasionally makes this scary.  This is why I say non-sarcastically that Ramza running out of Hi-ethers is a threat.

Ramza doesn't have Hi-Ethers. Tide has Ramza set with Time and White Magic.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Iunno. This honestly ignores Ragu 2HKOs her through Shell -and- Protect and insta-triples her (Ceci HP: it be junk and defensive ACF stats be junk, and I'm totally taking aftergame Cecilia against Zed in the averages, which does her no favors). Dorothy revival is slow -and- can miss in this setup, since he's not even equipped with Item. That's really bad.

EDIT: Actually, since your analysis also relied on Hi-Ethers, doesn't this kinda make the attrition fighting even harder? Now the only MP restoration source the party has is... Raynie Mana Regen. Taking five turns to regenerate as much as a couple Hi-Ethers while fending off Ragu smash, that's not gonna work.

[Glen Veil]

Tide definitely has his work cut out for him, for one ACF Ragu has absolutely insane durability before buffs/fragile come into play. (Jacks Laser Silhouette flat out tinks on him unbuffed as an example), half the fight comes down to praying he doesn't spam dispel to often because when he does it literally means you have to spend 2-3 rounds rebuffing before you can even continue to touch him again.  Considering the other half of the fight is mostly making sure you always keep Anti Magic Zone up to prevent random free quinta turn Paradigm Pollutions from flat out wiping the party, the fight is a lot more gruesome then the stat topic makes it appear.  ACF Ragu may very well be able to just spam Dispel and rely on his durability to last long enough that he eventually gets a quad or quinta turn of mt death spammage.

Ragu 4 has been covered enough

XF Ragu, is not only durable and fast, but actually regains life if he chooses to spam his ohko physical, which also has a 33% chance to crit for double, if it does crit, also gives him a free turn, which coupled with Accelerate, means there is a very good chance for him to flat out get a massive free turn streak of death.

[Dhyerwolf]

Oooh right, there's that grace period. Granted, hasting them means... uh... Ragu "only" quadra/triple-turns non-Citan people (Ceci doesn't even have Slow Down? Eeeew) and Citan can't even -hit- him while they trigger counters right and left. How the heck is he supposed to plow through that?

EDIT: I'd also consider those turns FFX-initiative style, which helps them in general. But still, that's just um. Ragu's got a lot of durability (may well be something like over 5x PC HP after defenses? Off Tide's numbers, he's 3.7x PC HP off the health score alone under my scaling, though an arbitrary average 10k higher leads to something like 2.7x PC HP) and Tide has issues making the damage stick there, none of his buffs are remotely good enough to fend off that level of pressure.

And that durability is scaling HP down, which isn't really necessary against full casts!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And that durability is scaling HP down, which isn't really necessary against full casts!

In practice, it kinda is. A pretty considerable deal of the fights with bosses in the Dungeon starts getting inviable pretty fast as soon as floor 3 without HP scaling. I know bosses being unscaled used to be an enforced-ish thing in the early Dungeon, but yeah.

[Dhyerwolf]

Well, makes it murderous here. Most of the other solo bosses tend to be really bad scaled down though (I always forget for those F3 bosses! But since on average they can be taken down with a round of attacks without scaling, they have issues).

[SnowFire]

Yeah there's just too big a respect gap for unscaled vs. scaled, and characters in the Dungeon are their DL forms by default.  Stuff from previous floors like FF4DS Rubicante + support....   unscaled, he can be blitzed (though it's not easy, he's got ~1.5 PCHP or so but is below average speed) to avoid his super-inferno of doom.  With unscaled HP, blitzing just isn't an option.  The Floor 1 bosses become roadblocks for teams with meh offense too, actually, Lich can go on a HOLD spree more often.

Also on second thought I may have undersold Raynie's MP regen.  I forget, does it work based on max MP and trigger every turn of the target?  If so, as long as Raynie occasionally makes her own MP regenerate, that can keep Citan burning EP left & right to attempt to keep Ragu4 under control.  Not that it really matters for reasons already noted.