Shift Tournament 2: Week 4- Aeris vs Mint: The slappiest of slapfights.

[superaielman]

Uryu>Yulana
Elc>Orlogue
Heat 2, Orphan 1
Airy>Sephiroth


Hugo>Arc
Claude 3, WF 2
Riou>Hilda
Tana 3, Sharon 2 (Tiebreak)

Pamela>Et
Lilka>Heinkel
Adachi 3, Rose 2 (Tiebreak)
Cordelia>Delita

Vivi>Jeane
Palom>Bart
Pepperoni>Nanaki
Michiah>Sophia

Mojo>Kelvena
Maribelle>Allen
Mint>Kosanji
Aeris>Authur


Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2)
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD)

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8)


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2)
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13)

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4)
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13)


Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7)

[superaielman]

Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2)- I lean Uryu here, but will wait for arguments.
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD)- MT kaboom.

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)- Claude likely OHKOs Hugo, but good luck getting through his evasion to do that. WoS makes it very  unlikely Claude gets the turns for that.
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8)


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2)- Leaning Lilka, I don't recall Pamela having a ton of scary status.
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13)- Kaboom. We've seen this beofre I think.

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4)- Status.
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13)


Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)- Maribelle's hitting a weakness!!!!!!!!!! no
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7)- I would vote for Mint here... probably. God. This fucking fight.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Godlike:

Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD): Again, you don't need MT to deal with Heat, although it's very helpful. What you need is the ability to act twice between his turns, something Orphan was bad at at Airy is worse. She might double eventually and Heat does output mediocre damage if he needs to use Regenerate every turn but he shouldn't be worse than killing in 8-10 turns, and while I'm prepared to accept the stat topic may undersell Airy's speed some it's not enough to make her 110% or whatever.

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2): Resisting ID is either something Claude can't do or something he takes a damage hit to do, depending on what I allow (I don't remember SO2 well enough to say how I feel there). "Claude with a damage hit" can't OHKO Hugo even if he lands all his hits, and he's vulnerable to Wind of Sleep regardless. Feels like a bad matchup.
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8): So Tana has this thing where she can dodge Forgiver Sign and Riou only has one. On the other hand Riou is faster. On the other hand he can't do very much with the extra turns he gets before he dies, oh ho he can trigger melee counters or use pitiful magic damage or enjoy getting heal-locked? Yeah no.


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2): uhhhh later

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4): Vivi matches up so badly here that even I think Palom wins.
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13): Micaiah's luck helps, but I don't think it quite lets her avoid a OHKO (after -13 to his crit rate I still have Pepperoni doing 62.4% using the default no-GP average).

Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13): Actually Maribelle isn't hitting a weakness...

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2) - We,, let's start with the good! Which is I -think- Elc's faster first turn even under my harsh assumptions on AtL2 SDs, so this fight isn't a complete laugher. The bad, though: the only non-fire, non-Divide damage Elc has is Extract, which is amazingly terrible. This is a problem when your opposition has Barrier Change and it doesn't even take a turn. It doesn't stop there, either: Uryu has tons of mdef, which makes Divide uh honestly kinda suck (though might end up being his main offense in the fight until Uryu hits low HP, since Divide runs against cHP). Invincible does get him pretty far in the fight, but I'm pretty sure Elc runs out of MP before Uryu dies, at which point the house pet just makes him explode with ten billion gates and offensive status whoring, since Elc crowd control also has issues (for starters, he doesn't OHKO the gates).
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD) - I see no reason to disagree with NEB here.

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2) - Wind of Sleep => physicals. Claude really doesn't like the evade.
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8) - Forgiver Sign is evadable in-game, from my memory. Yeah, Tana has this.

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2) - If you see Pamela's status magic ramming against Reflect, she -loses-. Period. This said, uhhhh. Lilka 2HKOs Pamela (she almost gets 2HKOed by average magical damage and Lilka's Saber nearly 2HKOs average) to start. IF you allow Lilka to Mystic Full Libra, she also gets status immunity, if I remember correctly, which is very bad times for Pamela as well (she can't even dispel it, since the HP damage gets her killed by Lilka's next turn even at low FP, methinks?). Pamela's real shot lies in landing Seal first turn and then manipulating HP for No Bullying! for the KO, but I think the average of assumptions doesn't really favor her. Certainly won't begrudge people voting the other way, though.
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13) - Cordelia doubles and that's game. Adachi's anti-physical game is -not- good enough to handle OHKO-level smash.

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4) - Palom smash.

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13) - Maribelle doesn't even have holy damage...
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsborough (FF7) - Mint can't really keep Aeris from spamming the full healing L3 forever and ever. This is so sad.

[Random Consonant]

Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2) - sure

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2) - sure
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8) - Unless Forgiver Sign bypassed magic evade sure.


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2) - While I certainly don't see Pamela ramming into Reflect, I do allow Mystic Full Libra so yeah she probably has this. e: oh right Full Libra just cures status, probably not good enough but I'd have to check stuff.
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13) - Well I haven't seen this match before at all.

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4) - Yep.
Pepperoni (MK2) vs Michiah (FE13) - As tempting as the fuck off forever Goto interp is...

Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)  - Light doesn't really exist in FE13, no.
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7) - Ways Mint can avoid a horrible limit here:

[SnowFire]

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)  - dat evade
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8) - dat evade part II

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4) - dat better status hit rate

Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13) - dat...  wait what.  How good was CC Curse?  For all that Stamina 11 means that Mojo wins the speed tiebreak, I suppose.  I guess everyone's hyping Mojo as having a 2HKO here?  (Since no way is he failing to be 4HKOed by Valk Mari...)

[Random Consonant]

Considering Valk Maribelle's princely 0.49 pdur, Mojo isn't far off from an OHKO.

[SnowFire]

Checking the stat topic more closely, I see that Mojo's specials are physical damage, so okay yeah.  (I thought they were magic.)

[Nephrite]

Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2)
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD)

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8) - Not exactly sure what "magic evade" existed in S2... Also Riou just casts something else the first turn and then Forgiver Signs after that, I don't really see an issue here?
 

Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2)
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13)

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4)
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13)


Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7) - POW HAMMER

[Dark Holy Elf]

Not exactly sure what "magic evade" existed in S2... Also Riou just casts something else the first turn and then Forgiver Signs after that, I don't really see an issue here?

S2 and S3 both had magic repel (in S2 the L2 water spell grants it) which is pretty comprehensive in what magic it covers. I don't recall if S2 enemies had it (S3 enemies certainly did), but the games are mechanically consistent enough that there's little doubt in my mind that Magic Repel would stop Forgiver Sign, since it stops the highest-level spells of other true runes so no random "true runes are ITE" hype from me. Maybe if it were MT, or maybe if Tana's evade didn't apply to literally every non-status spell in her own game, including legendary ones.

The strategy you outlined doesn't actually work, because Shining Light hitting or missing doesn't matter at all. The battle hinges entirely on the one shot of Forgiver Sign hitting, so if you see that as sub-50% chance, Riou is screwed. He doesn't get to "know" in advance which of his turns will hit and which will miss and choose appropriately.

[Pyro]

Yeahb ut doesn't Riou haveachance of snagging a win even if forgiver Sign misses? His own evade/counter, battle Oath crits and so on and so forth. That could swing ittoh i swi n if Tana's evade to FS is not that high...

[Dark Holy Elf]

Agreed, he doesn't need much else to go his way. However, S2 physicals aren't very good, and trigger counters here to boot. The best-case scenario is that she only 3HKOs him (it's a two-rounding to those of us who saw Tana beating Cecilia, and that makes the fight very easy), but even then, what's Riou going to do? Forgiver Sign (miss), then he'll need to heal immediately after because otherwise Tana kills him with turn 1 attack + turn 2 counter + turn 2 attack. He never actually gets a safe opening to attack here, so he not only needs a bunch of luck hitting Tana thereafter (and probably getting berserk), but he'll need some luck in evading her and her not criticalling.

[Pyro]

Heal and attack with Berserk and hope for a crit. If he does not get berserk hope his own evade/counter and normal crit is enough. Depends on what exactly thenum bers are, but I'd guess he can do it if Tana's evade is like 'only' 55%?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Tana's evade is listed as 61% in your topic, so I was going by that. With that, Riou needs a strategy with a 19% chance of success even assuming Forgiver Sign misses.

Riou has 24 crit (Tana's luck cuts it to 16) and is relying on two chances of 40% Berserk (64% chance at least one hits). Assuming his own accuracy against her rises by SKL/2 then he has ~46 accuracy, so 0.64*0.46*0.16 = 4.7%, which isn't good enough. There are other ways he can win; as you note he can rely on his own evade, although the odds of that are surely poor (especially since Tana can probably switch to more accurate weapons without losing her threat to 3HKO? That's for you to figure out, I'm not going to try to parse your views on FE damage) and is probably offset by the fact that other things can go Tana's way as well (criticals/pierce).

Like yeah if you see Forgiver Sign having 49 accuracy here or something I'd agree, but it does have to be pretty close to that.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2)
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD)

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8)


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2)
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13)

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4)
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13)


Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7)

[Pyro]

Lilka does not have a way to cast status lock that I know of. Mystic Full Libra is mt status healing.

So she wins by reflect or 2Hkoing Pamela before she lands a status or Condition Green seeing play or seeing Lilka with enough damage to preclude status from seeing play (no Full clip or something)

I guess one could see MK silenceas not snatching away Mystic, and so giving Lilka waystoh e al from it, but I think MK silence was awfully inclusive. I don't know how MK1 status rates were figured either.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh, I see. In that case, I may end up changing my vote. Silence utterly wrecks Lilka and I don't think I see Reflect as > her status magic, at the very least.

[Dhyerwolf]

Godlike:

Uryu (MK2) vs Elc (AtL2)- Decent run for Elc in a better Godlike!
Heat (DDS2)  vs Airy (BD)

High Heavy:

Hugo (S3) vs Claude Kenni (SO2)
Riou (S2) vs Tana (FE8)- A bit torn on the accuracy stacking from one moment to the next here. I normally let chances like that stack, but this would feel kind of egregious here.


Low Heavy:

Pamela Ibis (MK1) vs Lilka Eleniak (WA2)- Depends on if Reflect was very, very comprehensive?
Tohru Adachi (Pers4) vs Cordelia (FE13)- Unless the ID wasn't really turn 1. I guess turn 2 would suffice, since Cordelia needs 3 turns with my AS scaling.

Middle:

Vivi Ornitier (FF9) vs Palom (FF4)
Pepperoni (MK2)  vs Michiah (FE13)- Yeah, Pepperoni can do like 67% PC HP in physical damage, which Micaiah really, really doesn't like. Hell, given her anemic damage, even if he didn't OHKO...he would eventually counter her and then finish her off.


Division of Snow:

Mojo (CC) vs Maribelle (FE13)
Mint Adenade (ToP) vs Aeris Gainsbourgh (FF7)

[Pyro]

Lilka's reflect got all of the PC spells that she, Tim, and Marivel could use and a few enemy only things. It did not get some boss status moves like gate of isolde (I think)

For Elc vs. Uryu, normally Barrier changes are random? Not sure I would let Uryu be intelligent about it unless he was in-game. Same for Fou Lu.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Considering barrier change has practically zero recharge and in-game, he usually shifts to the element that's being used most often, not really sure it matters.

[Dhyerwolf]

Unlike Fou Lu, who I will definitely never give any credit to on that because it's so completely random, IIRC.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The most famous elemental shifters being Magus and Fou-Lu, two very popular characters, probably helped cement the view that they get to choose. But it's hardly just that; choosing an element to block doesn't seem that different to me than letting them bosses choose their attacks in general. (Also to Fou-Lu's credit, there's no visual cue as to what he's blocking... if he could actually resist fire it would be quite annoying in-game!)

[Dhyerwolf]

Fou Lu's changes always seemed like they were horribly random and didn't end up serving his benefit. If it at all seemed like it was intelligently used, I might feel differently (Bosses getting perfect AI on what moves they choose normally is more than enough for me, to the point that I give some bosses DL restrictions).

[Dark Holy Elf]

I agree that they don't serve his benefit, but that's mostly because chances are you will be using fire and fire/wind as your source of elemental damage in that fight, and he can't resist fire. So at best you will sometimes see Gigaflare reduced by 37.5%, which just isn't that big a deal. I agree that it's technically random (actually, it's a fixed pattern, IIRC, but the game gives you no clue as to this so it might as well be random) but the same can be said for most elemental barriers of this type (possibly not Uryu's?) so take that as you will.

I do find it reasonable to treat elemental barriers as an AI thing because it isn't too big a departure from similar stances on letting bosses choose attacks + it makes matches easier to analyse, but I respect saying differently.

[Pyro]

I think Elc can use a fairly strong Light elemental axe (Gruga has no use for it). That would help conserve MP.

But Divide is useless here if Uryu's mdef is that good. It would be nice to know if those stats were normal or hard.