What Games are you playing 2015?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Man, a FFRK stat topic would be a complete trainwreck. So many shaky assumptions to make.

[Fenrir]

The big problem is that the game is constantly changing.
But we have weirder stat topics

[Grefter]

I used that skill roll out on Yangus and Angello.  Scythes is gonna be bad, they are pretty much Axes with no crit or defence down skills, terrible steal hit rates and less item availability.  You end up trying to ID randoms because you aren't using his MP on anything else and it will never hit.  Bow Angello is a slow burner but once he gets MP draining the game is pretty much super easy mode.  Efficient applications of focus and MP restoration means he pretty much will keep you alive through everything, once you get Seraph's Arrow or the Attack boost 10 points later I would swap to Staves instead for bigger MP pools.

[Fenrir]

Actually why don't you have a fisticuff only team?

[Grefter]

I went Fisticuffs on Jessica after Staves and it sadly wasn't worth it since she won't get the 200 points to cap them both off and both are good for all 100 skill points (unless you don't want Kazing and then well +100 MP for staves is pretty great, but you can drop that if you are going to BARE HANDS 24/7 you  could stop at 70 points for MP Recovery and be good, 30 skill points might be enough to get Magic Burst at end game, but probably better swapped to Whips).  I highly recommend focusing her on Staves instead of dipping into Whips early just to see how effective Caduceus really is.  Early game Whips is solid for the attack boost, but free Mid Heals is fucking dumb as shit.  oh no jessica will do no damage with staff beats whatever shall she do.  The answer is fully heal someone every round.

[DjinnAndTonic]

DQ8: I am considering switching Yangus to fisticuffs, but Scythes Are So Cool Man. (Seriously, I'll switch him over once I get something out of the points I've invested in Scythes and never look back unless the game hands me a Really Cool Scythe for stats.)
Jessica already has Twin Dragon Lash, so technically I'm done with Whip levels and already on my way to Caduceus~

re: FFRK stat topic
At this point, the game is so well-documented, you could easily just make a Google Docs spreadsheet that you update alongside the game. I'd just assume max levels/honings/full weapon selection/full ability selection/unique Record Materia for legality purposes.
If you take the Japanese version of the game as it is now, then all of the non-core PCs can get to at least level 65, so you could assume that as the baseline if you wanted it to have fewer updates. (The level cap is now 80 for a select few characters in the Japanese version, but that's so far off as to be useless for Global players.)
...I may have considered making one already. >.>;;

[Fenrir]

Full hones would be weird as you'd have everybody throwing quick hits all the time. And Garnet spamming Odin.
I think r5 for <4 stars skills, R2 for 4 stars skills, R0 for five stars skills would be reasonable?

Level 50 might be enough, and it would mean Warrior / Knight at full power

Every weapon, maxed, sounds pretty crazy if you're not a millionaire, I'd probably just give everybody average 5 star equipment or something. Like, golden swords/spears and stuff. But it's not my stat topic. It's... Yours?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Biggest advice I can give for DQ8 is that you should certainly build one of swords or spears for Guv since the damage push from those skills against bosses is huge, and not having them is a recipe for trouble against some of the long boss fights that come later in the game. Same goes for Angelo + at least one of swords/bows, and Jessica + whips, but fewer people make those mistakes.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Full hones would be weird as you'd have everybody throwing quick hits all the time. And Garnet spamming Odin.
I think r5 for <4 stars skills, R2 for 4 stars skills, R0 for five stars skills would be reasonable?

Level 50 might be enough, and it would mean Warrior / Knight at full power

I'd vehemently disagree with capping off at L50 exactly because it'd inflate people who suck because they don't get Memory Crystals. They've been a huge part of the metagame since they were introduced and the current meta has most main parties already capped in at L65. L65 cap I might even agree with, since so few people have MC2s out in JP, but capping off at L50 doesn't even allow the PCs to grab Record Materias, and all characters who break level caps get at least one associated with them.

That said, I wouldn't even -allow- 5* abilities if taken at global, since pretty much zero people have been able to -craft- a single ability in that list as of now. Their orbs aren't even farmable, for chrissakes. For weaponry, I'd allow L20 5* uniques (due to character uniqueness clause, even if getting -any- of them is a complete crapshoot) or a generic 5* weapon in case they don't have SB equips + generic 5* armor of their type for the sake of streamlining. But this is theorycraft for a stat topic that will hopefully never see the light of day (the very allowance of skills is a bit of a legality issue, since not much of it is -actually- unique, and a lot of it is unique simply by current default. Allowing all abilities within the given skillsets is an idea, but also flies in the face of how the DL handled most skillsets of this ilk).

[Grefter]

So when do you start?  We want to see a damage average that involves L50 Dragoon doing less damage than 65 Black Mage who is locked in to physicals only for uniqueness reqs.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Holy shit, not allowing skills would make all mage classes spam FRONT-ROW DAGGER PHYSICALS.

[Sierra]

You can pretty safely drop boomerangs for Guv. I'm pretty sure I maxed that for him or near enough and results were not spectacular.

[Fenrir]

Come on guys.

Don't listen to their lies Djinn. Boomerangs rule. Don't bring a sword to a boomerangfight.

Also Snow, "vehemently"?
Give warrior a break. He's already gameworst everything despite being the rarest character in the game (!)
I thought stat topics had transcended DL rules and became their own perfect things. By that I mean: abilities should be allowed.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In practice, I'm inclined to agree with allowing abilities because yeah, not having half the cast working in ways that they never, ever, EVER would is good.

About Warrior, however: I have absolutely no sympathy for a PC that ranks at the bottom of the chart even among cores.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Full hones would be weird as you'd have everybody throwing quick hits all the time. And Garnet spamming Odin.
I think r5 for <4 stars skills, R2 for 4 stars skills, R0 for five stars skills would be reasonable?

Level 50 might be enough, and it would mean Warrior / Knight at full power

I'd vehemently disagree with capping off at L50 exactly because it'd inflate people who suck because they don't get Memory Crystals. They've been a huge part of the metagame since they were introduced and the current meta has most main parties already capped in at L65. L65 cap I might even agree with, since so few people have MC2s out in JP, but capping off at L50 doesn't even allow the PCs to grab Record Materias, and all characters who break level caps get at least one associated with them.

That said, I wouldn't even -allow- 5* abilities if taken at global, since pretty much zero people have been able to -craft- a single ability in that list as of now. Their orbs aren't even farmable, for chrissakes. For weaponry, I'd allow L20 5* uniques (due to character uniqueness clause, even if getting -any- of them is a complete crapshoot) or a generic 5* weapon in case they don't have SB equips + generic 5* armor of their type for the sake of streamlining. But this is theorycraft for a stat topic that will hopefully never see the light of day (the very allowance of skills is a bit of a legality issue, since not much of it is -actually- unique, and a lot of it is unique simply by current default. Allowing all abilities within the given skillsets is an idea, but also flies in the face of how the DL handled most skillsets of this ilk).

Ah, good point about hones on the 5-star skills. Since those aren't farmable, the rank they can be honed to can actually be counted. For all other skills, I'd just assumed max honing.

As for weapons/armor... if you allow full choice, I'm pretty sure it works out to about the same as what Snow listed. Almost all characters want their Soul Break weapon/armor over everything. Though I suppose there's a few instances where they want one of the generic Soul Breaks, and that's probably not the best idea. Also, Lv20 for 5* equips is certainly reasonable, though that information is less readily available, and simply allowing max level would make the stat topic easier (and it would even out if given to all characters).

Any view that wouldn't allow Record Materia (and those are the most unique part of the game) doesn't sound like a good way to show off the game. Gotta have my Brainwashed Kain.
You -could- just take all characters at Lvl50, but assume they have broken the level cap so they can use their RMs. Though that doesn't really reflect how the game is going recently.

Here's the spreadsheet I've been looking at to consider all of this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p6iMuCSWr_2QLQVxnhYjz5og6oOx0CfgCCNb_z4JCPY/

It even has a damage calculator...

[Fenrir]

Hmm hmmm!

Giving black mages two R5 -ja spells doesn't reflect the current game either. Combat dudes also have this advantage over other classes that their break skills are pretty powerful and cheap to hone. Which is why no one cares about monk skills, jump, etc.

Lvl 50 for everybody just means less painful updating each time another character gets its crystal, rms would obviously be considered. 65 is probably better.

[jsh357]

You can pretty safely drop boomerangs for Guv. I'm pretty sure I maxed that for him or near enough and results were not spectacular.

My advice would be to use Boomerangs but not invest in them.  They are incredibly helpful, multitarget free attacks, but you gain little from getting their skills compared to Sword/Spears/Courage.  Zap (learned either naturally or from Courage, I forget) suffices as a 'paid' multitarget attack over the Boomerang skills.

I personally don't think Swords are worth it on Hero, but it's been a long time since I played the game and I may be forgetting some advantage of them.  It's easy to find some ahead of the curve Spears early on and Thunder Thrust is your go-to Metal killer lategame.  Swords are all right on Angelo (I like Bows a little more) and wasted on Jessica.

[hinode]

For DQ8 there's a really elaborate guide on what to invest skill points in pinned on the Gamefaqs board for the PS2 version. I'm not sure just how good the various suggestions are, but there's more thought put into them than just "put everything into one skill tree until you max it on, then move on to another" at least. There's also a bunch of paths for each PC so it's not just dictating a single option and calling it the best.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Shovel Knight - Played the first few stages. The game is good fun, lots of interesting bosses, but the stage design feels weaker than the better Megamans. We'll see how it goes overall though.

Deemo - I've been playing this a bit during downtime. It's a fun little rhythm game with nice music and simple gameplay. Good for wasting time on a bus.

Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor - I'm about three hours into this, on the second day. It shows enemy weaknesses on the status screen, which is excellent and makes me happy, especially in a portable game where I don't always want to memorize all of the weaknesses and resists. The plot is pretty weak but the setting is nice. The blend of RPG and SRPG works decently because the game is fast-paced and doesn't have too many enemies.

[Scar]

About the ffrk Stat topic...

Both Cecil's would benefit the most from character specific weapons and armor ya?

Sure dkcecil doesn't have a lot if options skill wise but hI'm and his pal....ly get a sword and armor/shield where everyone else only has a weapon or something.

[Sierra]

My advice would be to use Boomerangs but not invest in them.  They are incredibly helpful, multitarget free attacks, but you gain little from getting their skills compared to Sword/Spears/Courage.  Zap (learned either naturally or from Courage, I forget) suffices as a 'paid' multitarget attack over the Boomerang skills.

Yeah, pretty much this. MT is always great for randoms...but you don't tend to need a lot of skill investment to beat up randoms anyway.

[Captain K]

Sephiroth smash puny FF7 event.

Dude's hitting 9700+ on his normals, non-crit.

I can predict I will get destroyed on the mage side though because I still have 0 mage weapons.  Selphie solo run.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hmm hmmm!

Giving black mages two R5 -ja spells doesn't reflect the current game either. Combat dudes also have this advantage over other classes that their break skills are pretty powerful and cheap to hone. Which is why no one cares about monk skills, jump, etc.

Lvl 50 for everybody just means less painful updating each time another character gets its crystal, rms would obviously be considered. 65 is probably better.

Disagree. If you pay money/can grind without limit, you can easily have R5 ja spells on your Black Mages. Also, at this point in the Japanese version, all characters get released alongside their Record Crystal to get them to 65. Just some of the old ones don't have it yet (like 3 out of 80 or so?). It just seems like the way to cut down on updating it.

As for equips. Snows suggestin makes sense. Give them their unique SB equips and fill in their other slots with generic five star stuff. Not sure if I'd hand out five star accessories though. Maybe just give them generic Atk or int boosters.

[SnowFire]

Also, I love the Gogo fight. I had already spoiled myself on it long long ago around the first time I gave up on FF5, but it's something you could easily figure out without an FAQ and you betcha you'd feel pretty clever finding out on your own.

Story from college: I'm playing FF5 emulated.  I yell "Hey Gogo, look at this!"  Then I attack Lenna.  I get a crit.  She dies.  Then Gogo gets mad.  We double over laughing for like 3 minutes.

Maybe you had to be there.

Stat topic nonsense: Well as Fenrir already said, making a stat topic of any constantly changing game is really hard.  However, a lower level cap rather than a higher one would presumably make things *more* stable, not less.  It still won't include new characters, but it won't have the temporary swing from which characters can break the level cap or not, which seems very much like an artifact of a particular snapshot.  Except for maybe Core characters who probably will never be allowed to break level cap or be good, but details.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The big problem is that the game is constantly changing.
But we have weirder stat topics

Just imagine trying to stat out WoW.