Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 97

[Clear Tranquil]

I see no discussion on Team MICHAEL yet! This cannot beeee!~

Anyway Mesa gets access to Gift magic this floor right? Soul Rune sounds good. Yulie does the Yulies with Turn Shifts + Protect, Marco has some ST stuffs including an ST Speed debuff I think, also does the Marcos with more Turn Shift shenanigans, Raynie ... hmmm I think she gets some buffs/debuffs but I'm not sure if she has access to them yet, same for Marco's MT Mana Break buffs (can't remember where scrolls/etc come in) ~

Offensively though I think Raynie should at least have access to G Fire level wise by now though which is neat.

[Dark Holy Elf]

SoulRune is the most difficult rune magic spell to learn, and mystics are the worst PCs at learning magic. Still, magic in general is easier to learn than almost anything else in Saga Frontier (doesn't need specific monsters like mec programs, monster skills, or mystic absorbs, and the formula is more merciful than the one for sparking sword/fist techs). Chances are Mesarthim will pick up SoulRune either during battle rank 6 or 7... which is roughly 100-160 battles into the game. I'd be inclined to call it F5 just because I kneejerk against the idea of mages having their skillset utterly static for everything but the first three floors... but honestly just looking at the raw numbers it possibly should be F4 objectively (battles 107-143 is F4 if you take the stat topic assumption of 250 battles per game as the stat topic does).

It's worth noting SoulRune is the third hardest spell in the game to learn (second hardest anyone cares about since nobody cares about Fool), just a point behind Tower. So if it's not F5, almost nothing is from that skillset. Which, again, isn't unreasonable, just throwing it out as a data point.

[Dhyerwolf]

Looking at Djinn's, are there any other initiative moves in ACF besides Follow Me! and Accelarator. Just noting that Follow Me! goes after that, so if there aren't any others, then it would seem that it takes second place (and then Samurai would go and ID Jane and suddenly that fight looks very potentially messy).

[Pyro]

FDraw has a charge time regardless of the initiative, so Djinn's fine in that regard.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Looking at Djinn's, are there any other initiative moves in ACF besides Follow Me! and Accelarator. Just noting that Follow Me! goes after that, so if there aren't any others, then it would seem that it takes second place (and then Samurai would go and ID Jane and suddenly that fight looks very potentially messy).

From what I know, Accelerator is the only initiative that goes before Follow Me! in-game. However, I'm not certain which other moves have initiative in-game. -Regardless-, I'd give FF5's initiative priority over TB initiative anyway, although it's worth noting that Samurai's ID is typically turn two (find the 16 MEvade number too low, but 32 too high, so I just average 'em both~. It's pretty solid turn two even so)

[Talaysen]

Looking at Djinn's, are there any other initiative moves in ACF besides Follow Me! and Accelarator. Just noting that Follow Me! goes after that, so if there aren't any others, then it would seem that it takes second place (and then Samurai would go and ID Jane and suddenly that fight looks very potentially messy).

Cecilia has an initiative skill that goes after Follow Me.  I forget which one it was though.

[SnowFire]

Candle's Flame or the like IIRC.

[Pyro]

Samurai can go first and use ID, but it has a 1 turn charge time and Samurai is slow to start. Also FF5 Initiative isn't quite like FFX CTB initiative... it just looks at the guy who WOULD go first and gives you a turn before them, which makes double-turning off of it harder. It's still pretty awesome as it beats out Ambushes and the like (so better than most or all TB initiative) but it only lets Samurai put out the damage off his initiative, not his ID.

[SnowFire]

Team Pyro passes, dat MT'd Trans-Turn.

Random belated comments:
* Aside from Ryu2 with Speed?, a non-Sealstone way to beat the old Water version of the floor is probably just Jessica blowing Magic Burst, which she should have by Floor 7.  Counter enemy hax with your own hax!  (That said...   wow.  Even if you have a character or two with solid elemental nulling, you still have to worry about Celes's status-game, and Celes isn't easy to take down quickly.)
* Elf's comments on FF5 Chemist are interesting (it sounds like I'd flat disallow such drops by default) but should probably go to the brainstorming topic.  It's not really fair to Pyro if the explicit character guidelines in the wiki allow these Chemist mixes on Floor 3; if there exist "mixes allowed if time spent in Thief" then that needed to be declared *before* the team got in so that Pyro could plan around it.
* Came up in NyarlieDungeon chat, but the stat topic on Lenus1 just says that she hits her limit phase on Dragoon transformation (so presumably even if you use physicals as a Dragoon, not linked to Dragoon magic necessarily).  So uh she limits faster if transformy characters like Ryu1 or Yuri transform?  Definitely would not allow her to limit on any magic.  Anyway, that said, assuming a team can control their MT damage Lenus usually picks Lenus2 for this fight anyway, whose best damage IS Water, appropriately enough.  (Super-low MT 3HKO on the nose.)

Team Djinn | Lenneth, Ivan, Jane, Sacred Slayer (Life), Marco
[Ivan: Gust, Zephyr, Breeze, Smog, Squall, Flash and Hail | Wind Mage] Ivan's Djinni
Floor 7a: The Elemental Ties that Bind
Team Djinn vs. Sasarai, Samurai (FF5), Hellion, Golem (Pokemon) and Scarmiglione-Z (FF4DS)
Pyro's writeup works, but it should be noted that Ivan MUST nail his 2 statuses here lest GP Rain + Explosion murderize everything.  (And Lenneth needs to take down Sasarai of course but think she can handle that just fine.)

Team Djinn vs. Barbariccia, Crono, Zalbard (ShF2), Tiamat (FF1) and Kanji
Follow Me takes out enough key players.

Team Djinn vs. Kary, Cameela (ShF2), Yukiko, Ho-oh and Alen (S1)
It seems bad if Ivan's status misses Yukiko here as it sets up things like Sunny Day -> MT Fire blasts (For all that apparently Yukiko's super-evade doesn't apply to strictly status attacks).  That said if it does hit, the fight is probably in hand, Kary can't do enough MT damage herself fast enough (Hold is probably a bad idea).

Team Djinn vs. Ice Queen Avril, Virgil, Lenus and Geshp (ShF2)
HUGE split based off whether IQA's fast CTB or turn-based initiative is seen as "faster" here.  Seems borderline.  If Jane is faster think Djinn wins, kill IQA + Geshp, then take control against 2 limit bosses.  (If Djinn can't kill both there might be problems but suspect he can with 3xLenneth beats + Ivan damage.)  If IQA is faster...  yeah, 4D Pocket Jane, Geshp damage incoming, Lenus2's MT 3HKO suddenly is scarier after Geshp has softened everyone up, and Virgil has some bad MT to toss in as well.  Djinn can sort of deal with it but it involves playing defensive which might let Geshp / IQA get a second turn, which would be Very Bad.  I believe the entire fight hinges on this.

Team Djinn vs. Profound Darkness, Orgulla (XS2) and Lamington
Follow Me-> Kill Lamington.  Orgulla can prep a OHKO but Jane screws with that plan by spamming Sucker afterward.  PD1 & Orgulla being forced back to magic to deal with Jane (who just gets revived by Marco when Orgulla kills her) probably don't tax Djinn's resources so badly, so Orgulla eventually dies, then Lenneth gets to go solo PD.

Leaning "pass" on Team Djinn, in close calls like Fight 4 I'd normally be inclined to err on the side of the player over the dungeon, the only asterisk being that Ivan seems to be required to hit 3 statuses in the earlier fights, making me feel some of the generosity may have been used up.  What's IQA's effective speed exactly, anyway?  Does WA5 use that funky quadratic Response thing that WA4 does where I can't just compare her RES with the party average?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'd be shocked if Djinn couldn't 2HKO Geshp's ass, for whatever is worth (heck, I think a OHKO isn't even farfetched with F7 Lenneth). ShF2 boss durability is pretty poor and his best damage dealer now is at her height -and- Geshp defense isn't very good either. He resists the big three elements, but outside that, yeah.

[Pyro]

If I thought I needed Thief to access Chemists' Mixes I probably would have changed a few things up, yes (probably would have used Thief F1 to get it out of the way ASAP). Beyond that while a cute idea (for Ramza in some form or another, too!) I don't see any reason to enforce it before it is stated as a rule at this time.

On a side note, WA5 speed is linear, which puts IQA speed at like 145%. This should lose to CTB initiative for most folks I think, even myself who is usually hard on TB speed.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Notably on the Fire themed fight, I grabbed an Ice damage Djinni for Ivan so he could get a One More on Yukiko, and knock some more damage off the others

[SnowFire]

200% speed is where CTB speed incontrovertibly wins (in turn-based terms, the user got a free round on you before you could even input an action), and there are respect-based arguments for seeing fast CTBness beating TB initiative in the 150-200% average range....  but yeah, 145% speed isn't good enough.  Djinn passses.

Also I'm not a Geshp expert but something lost in the hype but came up in chat earlier - Geshp's turns aren't sequential.  No ShF2 so unsure how much respect he should get, but if it's 1 fast turn and 1 slow turn on his double-act, that makes him even less a threat to Team Djinn (for all that he will be sure to kill him anyway on the Follow Me turn).

FWIW, this is another case where the Jane antihype shows up as not really being true - the last fight is a fight you'd think Jane wouldn't matter for since Follow Me isn't very helpful.  Yet she quite likely wins it easily for Djinn by Sucker spam which alone would make Jane an excellent pick anyway.  Orgulla isn't throwing OHKOs at Lenneth, which would probably turn off Heroism bonus and massively tax Marco & Ivan's resources; she's throwing OHKOs at Jane and feeling silly, or else just harassing everyone with MT physicals and POIZN (which gets owned by Cure Condition).  Yeah Jane is probably a solid 3.0 as far as I'm concerned.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also I'm not a Geshp expert but something lost in the hype but came up in chat earlier - Geshp's turns aren't sequential.  No ShF2 so unsure how much respect he should get, but if it's 1 fast turn and 1 slow turn on his double-act, that makes him even less a threat to Team Djinn (for all that he will be sure to kill him anyway on the Follow Me turn).

Indeed, they aren't sequential. It's just that he -isn't really far from OHKOing things- with a single turn. Also, ShF speed is FTB, so your respect for it past turn one uh whatever works.

FWIW, this is another case where the Jane antihype shows up as not really being true - the last fight is a fight you'd think Jane wouldn't matter for since Follow Me isn't very helpful.  Yet she quite likely wins it easily for Djinn by Sucker spam which alone would make Jane an excellent pick anyway.  Orgulla isn't throwing OHKOs at Lenneth, which would probably turn off Heroism bonus and massively tax Marco & Ivan's resources; she's throwing OHKOs at Jane and feeling silly, or else just harassing everyone with MT physicals and POIZN (which gets owned by Cure Condition).  Yeah Jane is probably a solid 3.0 as far as I'm concerned.

Thus, when Sucker is empirically proved to be awesome, I'll wholesomely support the rating change. Until then, I'll stick with my seven-year-old experience where it missed half the people it targetted on random fights and never gave a damn about it again, only bothering to think of it in purely theoretical terms instead of giving it the benefit of doubt. I know I even entertained Sucker being good on Magic's run, but that honestly got him more or less nowhere -anyway-, and if my team gets in, I intend to entirely disconsider it in any analysis I do.

[Dhyerwolf]

Even if Sucker was awesome, what's to stop Orgulla from spending her time buffing speed and healing? Not to say that this is loss (haven't done any analysis), but buff up herself and PD->both unleash a flurry of MT?

[Pyro]

PD doesn't have MT offense till form 2, so she is NOT being touched till the other two are dead.

I guess you could argue Orgulla/Lamington intentially attack PD to push her into form 2, but that's just silly.

[Dhyerwolf]

Right. Of course, form 1 PD may just be OHKOing Jane anyways, freeing up Orgulla a bit.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Shadowbreath does about 98% to average eyeballing the numbers (Shadowbreath is 344 power, taking that against 270 HP/80 MDef), Jane has about 98% magic durability. <_< Jane probably just barely survives on the back of the fact that 80 MDef may be slightly low for in-game, since the Guardian equips do push up mdef a little. Obviously dies to Shadowbreath + some super-fast chippy MT damage from Orgulla's green-eyed form though.

Belated, to Pyro: are you sure Samurai's ID move has a charge time? Neither the stat topic nor the BMG mention one, but I've never used it myself (haha setting a lategame-only command just for an inferior version of Odin). Also, a reminder is in order that the move probably isn't turn 1 against any given target, for most people? 85% base hit rate gets probably becomes something more like 60%, assuming you take the average of the last two dungeons' enemies, or closer to 50% if you just go by the last dungeon.

[SnowFire]

Thus, when Sucker is empirically proved to be awesome

But...  it was, that's the whole point.  As noted I don't even own WA:ACF.  MagicFanatic *tested* Sucker and got like a 100% hit rate.  There are lots of moves that everybody assumes suck but then somebody actually tests them and it turns out they're hax.  Look at BoF2 Jean where everyone assumed his instant death had like a 20% hit rate when it was actually an 85% hit rate or whatever (just no one cares in game because no one uses him).  Now if someone wants to test Sucker again and say that it actually sucks and MF tested on the wrong enemy or something, or all bosses immune it, or whatever, then great, I'll believe them and adjust my opinion.  But as is?  I'm using MF's claims (maybe mildly modified down to be a mere 90% hit rate) so that Jane's got reliable MT provoke that is fast, and Jane's solid evade makes it even haxier.

If PD1 can crank out near-OHKOs on Jane herself, then hmmm.  Sure, let's say Orgulla goes her fast haste form that can throw around MT chippy damage.  I'm not sure it matters, though.  Even though Orgulla is getting constant triples, Marco's revival is pretty solid, giving 70% HP back or so - sure, PD can OHKO it again, but Orgulla probably can't risk going to Manes form lest the response be revive -> Heal.  Even if the turn order lines up right to have PD kill Jane and get a single kill on Lenneth off from Manes-Orgulla, Ivan & Marco can probably patch things back together again, and Resurrection is only 7 MP.  Seems...  interesting, there are definitely ways for things to fall apart since Djinn's MT healing is meh and fast-Orgulla (Eryu was it?) can sort of exploit that, but still leaning pass.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Not a lot of time to post arguments right now, but I want to put my vote in before I forget. Analysis later. All teams pass.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Thus, when Sucker is empirically proved to be awesome

But...  it was, that's the whole point.  As noted I don't even own WA:ACF.  MagicFanatic *tested* Sucker and got like a 100% hit rate.

I'll be honest and say I -have- my second thoughts regarding taking Magic's word blankly because there's been a fairly long history with him making straight-up false claims on former teams, moves or mechanics before, especially when it came down to his teams, and his claim on Sucker downright doesn't line up with my (admittedly limited) experience with the move. This is also compounded by the fact that it's kinda easy to screw up on ACF's formula calculus (I did that before with Jane's "I'll Show You!", for instance) and sometimes SI makes a few mistakes on his mechanics mumbo-jumbo (although it's more probable that I just mess up the formulae in general). Your mileage may vary on this, but I hope you understand -why- I'm so skeptical about hyping the move considering this context.

EDIT: Okay! After fumbling through SI's FAQ for enemy stats, one thing jumped to me immediately: level ranges (level being one of the big determinants on Sucker accuracy according to the formula) among enemies per area in ACF are actually pretty vast (and not -necessarily- attached to bosses, although it often is the case, but Malduke - the endgame dungeon - in particular has some really badass randoms).  To give you an idea, Malduke enemies range from level 45 (probably the level you should start the dungeon at, roughly. Dhyer's ACF topic takes its figures at L53 or so, but I'm of the opinion that L50 for the stat topic is a bit more accurate) to 70, and, before the endgame stretch, there is only one instance in the game where you get to fight randoms with Jane (Volcannon Trap), her presence being otherwise limited to some loser boss in the early game and Alhazad 1 (also worth noting bosses are a few levels higher than your party typically, 4-6 levels range). I'd have to closely check the numbers on VT randoms to see how they pan out (those numbers probably would only apply to F3, but still), but suddenly -why- Sucker worked poorly in my experience starts making a lot more sense.

[Tide]

I can run some tests later if people are really interested. I'm going to second Snow regarding the BMG possibly being off; this has been the case with Accelerator'd Strike Buddy for certain. The formula suggests that the attack shouldn't have focus properties, but it clearly does it you use it against more than one enemy.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I can run some tests later if people are really interested. I'm going to second Snow regarding the BMG possibly being off; this has been the case with Accelerator'd Strike Buddy for certain. The formula suggests that the attack shouldn't have focus properties, but it clearly does it you use it against more than one enemy.

Please do. I'd have to do a full ACF replay just for the sake of making those tests, and I'm not sure any other people who can test it out and are interested in the Dungeon have either the game or a save in the appropriate frame for tests.

EDIT: Also, checking out if bosses have a tendency to immune it would be nice too. Bosses tend to be where Sucker seems to matter most.

[SnowFire]

Going back to Team Djinn...  actually, I think Djinn will now lose a sufficiently long match.  Orgulla Quick's up both herself and PD1 for a +25% Haste boost (but a REAL boost, e.g. more turns and all, it's a solid effect).  With the constant rain of Jane deaths coming in, along with having to fix up Orgulla's chippy damage while she gains boost off her constant triples, and PD1 now having some notable speed hype thanks to Haste, eventually they can sneak a Lenneth death in and really back-foot Team Djinn.  Ivan might be able to fix things up, but I don't know Ivan well-enough to be sure, but with the speed boosts that I don't think Djinn has any way to deal with, I'm not even sure solid emergency Ivan defense can save the day.  As noted in the other thread, constant killing of Jane also knocks her Sucker odds down to a "mere" 70% thanks to ruining her luck.

THAT SAID.  The above analysis is predicated on Orgulla having infinite HP and just seeing if it was possible for them to break through Djinn's healing/revival wall at all.  Orgulla is a supertank but her HP is in fact finite - 4 PCHP or so.  So she's ~6HKOed by Lenneth, possibly more like 4-5HKOed thanks to the Heroism boost from killing Lamington and Ivan damage.  And Sacred Slayer shouldn't be entirely drained by this fight so SS is throwing Turn Shifts onto Lenneth like crazy.  Sacred Slayer means Lenneth gets like 3-4 actions on "turn 2" which positively keeps up with Eryu mode Orgulla.  So yeah, Orgulla should just die before things can really go to crap; Jane & Marco just have to buy a little bit of time for Ivan, Lenneth, & Sacred Slayer to go to town.  So pass vote stands.

[Nephrite]

Was Orgulla's Medica spammable?