Nyarlathotep's Dungeon: Week 102

[Nephrite]

"Ah... how unfortunate... so many defeats... but perhaps I shall see you again? In the meantime, I offer a bold welcome to the newcomers! Hahahahaha!!"


Link to the Dungeon Wiki!

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**Full Heals reset limit and other types of gauges when teams pass through them.
**Characters that join after the start are locked into the relative stats they have at that time until they would officially join.

Team Pyro | Bartz, Hilda, Eiko, Jean, Marco (Body Charge)
[Bartz: (Mime) !Summon !Mix !Time (Red Mage) (Chemist) (Ninja) (Monk)]
*Jean has been granted White Dragon Protect.
Floor 8: Maze of Trials
Team Pyro vs. Mascot Yuna (FFX-2)
Team Pyro vs. Cloud of Darkness (DS), Zeromus (DS) and Chaos
Team Pyro vs. Boss Timelord, Belial (No 4D Pocket), Ultimecia and FF5 Time Mage
*Full Heal
Team Pyro vs. Jenna Angel (When defeated, CT is set to 0 and is replaced with Isolde, then again with Xorn, then again with Profound Darkness)
Team Pyro vs. Fou-lu (When defeated, CT is set to 0 and is replaced with Persephone (WA5), then then with Orphan, then Zophar)

Team Andy | Raquel (Speed?), Nei, Marle, Mint, Priest
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team Andy vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Snowe(S4), Gorudo and Boss Catiua (TOPSP)
Team Andy vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Andy vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Andy vs. Slash and Flea
Team Andy vs. Augus (BoF2) and Shadow Yosuke

Team Dune | Tir, Orlandu, Maxim, BoF3 Nina and FFT Priest (SSL)
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team Dune vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Snowe(S4), Gorudo and Boss Catiua (TOPSP)
Team Dune vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Dune vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Dune vs. Slash and Flea
Team Dune vs. Augus (BoF2) and Shadow Yosuke

Team Super | Ted, Zerase, Chemist (MT), Ninja, Tia
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team Super vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Snowe(S4), Gorudo and Boss Catiua (TOPSP)
Team Super vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Team Super vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
Team Super vs. Slash and Flea
Team Super vs. Augus (BoF2) and Shadow Yosuke

Speed? - The effective speed of one character is set to 120% (1.2x) average speed. This number may be further increased by Haste effects.

Status Symbol Law - Team is fully status, debuff and ID immune, but has damage done to them increased by 1.1x and damage done by them decreased to .9x.

Multitarget - One person on the team's actions all become Multitargetted. However, the damage of regular attacks, the healing of all spells that restore HP or MP, the status rates of status spells or attacks and the effect of buffs or debuffs (rounded down to the nearest half point in the case of Pokemon) is reduced by 33%. (Deadly Fingertips has a 67% chance of inflicting ID for example) Moves that were originally MT are not affected by this. This sealstone may be moved. In the case of revival, this affects the amount of HP restored, not the chance of revival occuring. Moves that have two types of effects (healing + buffing) are both decreased.

[Pyro]

Think I should have Samurai in there after F6 where it was a bonus class after winning.

As a reminder Bartz has MP helaing in no short supply. I'd also argue that Turtle Shells and Dragon Fangs should be available (aftergame and all that jazz). Though not Dark Matters (at least not yet).

so Bartz has 115% speed, Marco is at 130%, Jean is ~+1.5 stdevs, Eiko is average, and Hilda is slightly below average speed. A Hastega off Marco speed can let Eiko and Hilda beat average though. Bartz has an MT OHKO in Bahamutx2 and ST overkill in Meteox2, Eiko does ~2HKO damage, Hilda and Jean add some damage, and Marco doubles up on Bartz damage. Everyone but Jean has revival. with Bartz having double and Eiko full MT revive. For buffing... Hastega is MT speed doubling, Mix grants a bunch of buffs including undispellable Heavy status, ID immunity, and Elemental immunity to the big 3. Eiko Carbuncle is MT half damage shell+protect, Hilda has a bunch of solid buffs and Entrance, and Jean has WDP to cancel enemy magic once. Bartz brings an MT speed halving spell that works on most bosses, and Reset still exists to make my status rates high and enemy status chances low. Marco should have status immunity and MT status healing.

Team Pyro | Bartz, Hilda, Eiko, Jean, Marco (Body Charge)
[Bartz: (Mime) !Summon !Mix !Time (Red Mage) (Chemist) (Ninja) (Monk)]
*Jean has been granted White Dragon Protect.
Floor 8: Maze of Trials
Team Pyro vs. Mascot Yuna (FFX-2): Yuna is very ST oriented, and magic/pseudomagic. Hastega gives me the speed (read, damage) to overcome her shell game, and White Dragon Protect makes sure that she isn't tossing around status/OHKOs. Also Bartz has a defense-halving mix.

 Team Pyro vs. Cloud of Darkness (DS), Zeromus (DS) and Chaos: Jean thwacks CoD, Marco Trans-Turns to Bartz, who Hastegas and Bahamuts. Zeromus counters Bahamut with an MT 1/6th average MP drain. On Bartz's natural turn he Quicks/Double-Syldras (might not have the MP for Bahamut again after 2xQuick/Hastega/Bahamut/Osmose hit). Eiko can toss in a Madeen and Hilda can help polish off CoD. Chaos should fall to Bahamut+ Syldra*2+Madeen. Zeromus is tankier and isn't being targeted by Hilda/Jean so he should survive. Only now he's against a double-speed team and Bartz/Marco can restore resources before the next fight via Mix (and trans-turn into Mix).
Edit: Editted to account for DS Zeromus.

Team Pyro  vs. Boss Timelord, Belial (No 4D Pocket), Ultimecia and FF5 Time Mage: Belial can't kill Bartz or Marco (maybe close, but survival roll at best for Belial and Reset still exists). KO Time Mage fast with Petrify or just let him die to an MT damage blitz that only Ultimecia should survive (Bahamutx3 + Madeen+Hilda and Jean ganging up on Boss TL?. Belial could KO Eiko to make it a little more sane but if that is the case then Bahamutx4 (with Jean whacking Boss TL) probably does the job just as well. The end result is still everyone dead but Ultimecia.
*Full Heal
 Team Pyro vs. Jenna Angel (When defeated, CT is set to 0 and is replaced with Isolde, then again with Xorn, then again with Profound Darkness): Hastega and WDP are awesome here. I don't know if Jenna's debuff can go through WDP, nor Bhariva (which.. looked physical but wasn't?). If status is a major worry then Marco can be granted Heavy status via the Dragon Kiss Mix (and he has Status immuning accessories anyway) and whore out the MT status healing. Jenna can't stop the team via orb nonsense as it has non-elemental damage (and Holy damage), which I think gets around her orbs outright. The team goes into the fights with Isolde, Xorn, and PD with Hastega. The blitzing is kinda utterly nuts between Bartz's Meteo/Quick and Marco and Hilda buffs, with Mix to restore resources.  Buffs not resetting REALLY plays to this team's advantage. Even if enemy's get turns, it's only one and WDP seals off anything truly nasty they may do. Jean can cast it again and again because of MP restoration. Mix handles any MP worries.

Team Pyro vs. Fou-lu (When defeated, CT is set to 0 and is replaced with Persephone (WA5), then then with Orphan, then Zophar): Same story as before. Fou-Lu can try to stop the Hastega shenanigans with Sanctuary but it is a losing battle. When he is defeated the team goes into the fight with Persephone with Hastega and the worst she can do is ST OHKO, if she can even get a turn. Orphan has a lot of HP but... again the team is coming in at full double-speed and can very easily replace that buff if it is cancelled. Also Bartz can grant ID immunity if that is a problem, which it should not be due to WDP. Zophar could be quite nasty but again, double speed beats out his nasty stuff for turn 1 speed and WDP seals most (all?) of his actions unless you give him hands. In which case it seals 2/3rds of his actions or something, along with the Haste still existing and damage blitzing.

I think my team passes.

[dude789]

Dune and Super pass. Abstain on Pyro. As for Andy, that second fight is extremely problematic as Bronzong and Knight alone can handle like 6 or 7 or so Raquel hits between them and the second best offense on the team is Nei physicals. Any two consecutive turns is probably enough to kill Marle or Priest and without any revival they're gone for the rest of the floor. Also problematic is that Bronzong can status Raquel giving the Dungeon team more time to beat down on the healers. They might get past that fight, but at least one of the healers is probably dead and Priest will probably be out of mp. So Team Andy fails.

[Dhyerwolf]

Didn't Speed? get altered to be 130% base speed round 1 and then 90% of the character's speed afterwards?

[Nephrite]

I ultimately decided to just leave it as is. I will be reducing Body Charge's speed bonus, though.

[Pyro]

Super Passes. MT Chemist kind of makes the floor his *****. More seriously, good mix of damage types and plentiful healing with lots of speed. Just solid all around.

[superaielman]

I pass. Ted and Zerase are going to turf the first few floors.  Dune passes, Tir turfs fights. Abstain Andy and Pyro for now.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Super and Pyro pass.

Abstain on Dune and Andy.

[Dunefar]

Dune, Super and Andy pass. Dunno about Pyro, so no vote.

[Pyro]

Dune passes. I think the raw power of Orlandu papers over any worries about only 1 frailish reviver.

[SnowFire]

Sure, super and dune pass.  Team Andy...  well normally healing = lol F1, but Andy's unusual terrible offense makes this worthy of analysis.

Team Andy | Raquel (Speed?), Nei, Marle, Mint, Priest
[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team Andy vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Snowe(S4), Gorudo and Boss Catiua (TOPSP)
lol
Team Andy vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)
Okay, Raquel's offense is awesome enough that she 2HKOs most of these folks, although it's probably more like a 3-4HKO vs. Bronzong thanks to resisting Normal.  Everyone else is massively worthless for chipping in to speed this up.  The real question is: Does Nei join with an L3 charge?  (I think not, she joins in C2 Thomas usually, and Thomas's recrutis are a tad underlevel.)  If not, this means she's stuck with a weak Slow effect off Song of Serenity.  Next up: Is Marle's Provoke F1?  This...  is reaaally borderline.  Checking in chat, it's learned in the middle of the first 2300 AD arc...  forest->the first 600 AD section + prison escape are comparatively short, especially in terms of battles, so it's reasonable to stick some of 2300 AD on F1, but if so, Marle learns Provoke very much toward the tail end of F1...  that said I am inclined to be a bit generous about the "size" of F1 since a lot of characters are potentially majorly screwed over by F1, so.  I think without Provoke Team Andy is in major, major trouble here since when nobody dies, the 4 of these have pretty decent damage, and Gyro Ball off Bronzong is going to *maim* Speed? Raquel.  Anyway, Marle having Provoke forces Bronzong to open with Safeguard before it can start spamming its own Confuse Ray, and she'll be able to nail Kwanda or something to reduce the damage oncoming to levels Mint can handle, and Nei will slow the opposing team, and this should give Raquel enough time to clean out FFT Knight such that he can only get one Break attempt off.  If Marle didn't have Provoke Andy probably loses here.

Team Andy vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius
OHKOs.

Team Andy vs. Slash and Flea
Flea is 3HKOd by F1 Raquel and is the only threat from Confusion spamming, but eh, status healing + sanity taps.

Team Andy vs. Augus (BoF2) and Shadow Yosuke
SY has .30 PCHP damage on turn 2.  Augus has 2 shots of .89 PCHP.  If the Dungeon could have forced Priest to have blown MP before to not have enough left to cast Raise once (quite possible, FF1 Priest MP), then the Dungeon actually has this fight - just kill Raquel on turn 2, mock the lack of revival or offense.  However, think they need to kill Priest first (and get someone else, probably Nei, for free in the deal), which gives Raquel more time.  Raquel 5HKOs Augus, and with her speed + Nei's crappy Slow -> I can buy a 5:4 for Raquel to get in her damage before turn 4 rolls around and Augus flattens her.  Close, though.

Andy passes.

Pyro: How are you hyping X-Magic here?  Is Bartz's setup wrong?  I don't see X-Magic on the list of set abilities... 
Bartz: (Mime) !Summon !Mix !Time

[Pyro]

Quick and Mimic serves alto allow for double-spelling . (Time + X-mag would be 5 spells, or 3 + 1 mix). Wanted Summon more than the crazy ST for this floor.

Don't forget Augus can buff as his second action Then on his next turn both physicals come off at double power...

[SnowFire]

Oh so that was just Quick hype.  Right.

Re Augus: That was the assumption in my analysis, yes.  Augus certainly does not have two shots of .89 PCHP unbuffed!

[Pyro]

Right you are. Misread what you had there. Sorry bout that.

Editted my team's fight vs. the FF1/3/4 finals to account for DS Zeromus instead of original (counters Summons with MT Osmose instead of Flare)

[Dhyerwolf]

Team Andy | Raquel (Speed?), Nei, Marle, Mint, Priest

So I guess a question is how much is reasonable for Priest to have? Cure/Shell/Protect? Would she have 180 JP Spells (Cure 2, Raise)? For leniency, I'm going to say those 5 spells (But if I'm wrong, let me know as I'm basing this off very vague memories).

Marle is 86% speed. We'll see first two spells (although I realize this is questionable...although if she needs a spell she might gain at the end of floor 1 at fight 2, that's a bit questionable)

Mint has a healing spell. It's probably not even that great of a one too...

[Floor 1: Starting off Again (Beginning of the game)]
Team Andy vs. Hrist (VP1), Evil Gaia, Big Joe, Snowe(S4), Gorudo and Boss Catiua (TOPSP)- Kill Evil Gaia. They waste some MP to heal
Team Andy vs. Bronzog, Galleon, FFT Knight and Kwanda Rossman (S1)- I think that Galleon and Kwanda are 3HKOed (awesome defense. Raquel probably has about 70% damage? Everyone else's damage totaled in early WA 4 is a tad better than her physical?), Knight has evasion (so she does 2HKO, but will need an extra attempt). So moving the needed number of turns out a little. The enemies may start picking off Andy's support. Marle ties up Bronzong, but the other three probably go at pretty similar times speedwise. Say Priest has Protect and uses on to save someone (I guess Marle to keep Confuse up?). Then they get Priest,. Since Raquel needs 3 turns to get someone, they may get Mint too (although with Confuse only really 2 are attacking, so that helps). Whether or not Marle has the relevant spell now is a big question.
Team Andy vs. Blissey, Axem Green, Augst and Lucius- Eliminate Axem Green. Use a bit more MP to heal up damage. Leave Augst for last. Blissey will get to buff a bit!!!
Team Andy vs. Slash and Flea- So Flea gets to Confuse Raquel. Um...this may lead to Slash being able to pick everyone else off unless you see Andy's team attacking Raquel. I see Marle can do that in game at least. Flea is like 2 PC HP so she does get to repeat the strategy.
Team Andy vs. Augus (BoF2) and Shadow Yosuke- Augus has 2.5 PC HP, Yosuke has like 6. So their strategy will be to wipe healers and then Yosuke will magic Raquel to death. I...just see problems here. Marle needing a questionable spell, it missing 20% of the time, needing to get Raquel out of confuse, a lot of resource use on healers. They get here and Augus kills the healers and Raquel falls to Wind magic.

[Pyro]

Dhyer's take works for me I think. Team Andy fails this week.

[SnowFire]

Chatted on Team Andy some more in IRC, and...

Dhyer: Re Marle, in general I'm fine with using stat topic values at endgame all the time, but in Chrono Trigger it's unusually easy to check the speed stat for the time, and Marle is notably faster on F1 than she becomes on F7.  Marle's speed is unchanged, but Robo has -3 Speed (no Ribbon), Crono has -3 Speed (no Swallow), Lucca has -3 Speed (no Taban Suit), and Magus / Ayla don't exist.  So the speed spread is something like 6/6/8/11/13, and Marle is more like "barely below average speed."

Anyway, assuming Provoke is allowed, this means that Marle should be able to confuse a fighter in battle 2 to me and then for Priest to throw up Protect on itself before the entire enemy team has acted - before Bronzong at worst who's a total slug.  So Priest can't be KO'd on turn 1, and with Mint healing for T2, I think Team Andy can stabilize.

For Battle 4, FFT Priest indisputably has the ability to attack Raquel and knock her out of confusion (works in FFT, certainly!), so a Flea confusion strategy on Raquel doesn't really work - Raquel gets first strike on Flea (10 CT Speed isn't beating out Speed?), and FFT Priest or whoever taps solve the rest.  If Flea confuses Priest first, then Raquel, well, first off they might tap each other out, and second of all this happens after Raquel has already hit Flea twice - at that point Nei damage can finish the job.  (Slash's 6HKO scares no one and is dealt with via Mint.)

Battle 5 is all about "can Priest thereaten a Raise" and with my interps at least, Priest can (only had to spend MP on a single Protect in Fight 2), so Turn 2 is spent killing Priest, and I think August should be dead by the time turn 4 rolls around.

[dude789]

Mint's early healing is really, really bad. It's probably struggling to keep up with one of the fighter's damage let alone all three of them, and if Priest uses protect on herself then Marle is left open to physicals from the enemy team. Either way I don't see how Team Andy stops someone from going down in that fight. 

Edit: And if Marle get's a turn off she has to Provoke Bronzong so he doesn't status Raquel thus delaying the fight further.
Edit2: Looking over Bronzong's moveset, Marle has to shut him down immediately. Bronzong learns Heal Block which shuts down any healing move the team uses for 5 turns.

[Dhyerwolf]

86% is the Robo/Marle/Lucca average (It will help her speed if Robo is floor 1. It will not help her Pdur. Hard to imagine. Isn't Frog first?). Mint is generally speed as average speed, so Knight/Kwanda/Galleon are going after her and the healing doesn't matter. They can get Priest this way.

[Dark Holy Elf]

CT durability curves are much tighter early on due to defences being further from max. Frog joins very early but then leaves for a while, ymmv for what to do with him in averages during that time.

[SnowFire]

Frog is first and I certainly would include him in the averages (he'll be back shortly and basically the same, it feels more like some enforced party choice).  I'm including most of the 2300 AD arc on F1 hence Robo as well, but I suppose it's reasonable to see just the first dungeon in 2300 AD as F1 which might get Marle Provoke anyway but not have Robo to compete with.  (or to see none of 2300 AD as F1, and then Team Andy is screwed anyway.)

I don't personally feel inclined to let Bronzong use Heal Block (doesn't seem to be in the running for even the top 6 abilities it wants overall) but I know that most voters give Pokemon full moveset choice, and Marle probably wants to Provoke Bronzong anyway.

How bad is Mint's early healing, exactly?  It doesn't NEED to be very good, at worst Priest spends a single Cure in battle 2 if Mint's healing is like .30 PCHP.  But just that amount is enough to keep up with Slash...  although that said, if FFT Priest has to do (B2)Protect-Cure - (B5)Protect - (Threaten Raise if Augus kills Raquel)....  that's 28 MP.  Which...  actually might not be F1.  Okay so I guess Mint's healing does need to be enough such that Priest isn't just KO'd round 2 through Protect & Mint Healing.  So how bad?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

At floor 1, ToPo Mint's First Aid clocks in at roughly 30-40% PC HP at best, going down to like 20% and progressively lower at floor 2. She -does- get Heal before floor 3, at least, improving the ST considerably enough. If we're talking ToPr, First Aid is always 30% mHP.

[dude789]

Snowfire are you letting Protect hit both Marle and Priest at once? Becuase if not than the fighter's just focus on whoever wasn't protected. Given their bad durability Marle and Priest aren't going to survive 3 hits without Protect even with Mint repairing some of the damage between hits.

[SnowFire]

Yes, I let Protect get Priest + one ally of its choice.  I suppose the bruisers could theoretically try and kill Nei or Mint?!  Not sure...

...also, Song of Serenity, aside from its weak Slow effect, has an accuracy debuff of unknown effectiveness allegedly.  Unknown since nobody actually uses Song of Serenity and all.  Could possibly help Team Andy out...

...but yeah, leaning toward switching to a fail vote after all, since it seems Priest's horrible MP might be too taxed by the terrible burden of having to cast Cure in Battle 2.  Call it an abstain for now, maybe there's some haxy way out of that, but eh.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The Skill hit is just 20%, but Skill is a potent stat in S3 (the base mattering more than even the Accuracy skill). Problem is I'm not sure 20% is so good early on, with the lower end stats across the board and all.

Also, NO LOVE FOR PIKOHAN AND ITS NEAR-PERFECT ACCURACY ON FLOOR 1!?!?!?!?!?!!!!??