RPGDL 2019 Season 1 Finals

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)

[Dhyerwolf]

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)- Chip until double (which granted, might just be useful) and rush works since Alternis is physical above

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)- Probably

[Tide]

Heavy
Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4) - So HEY, a match where POIZN is relevant. Arnaud goes first, but doesn't really have too many things he can do here. Physicals are out cause Lulu's too evasive. Assuming you don't give Lulu access to the Sleep blocker, Arnaud's best bet is to Slow Lulu, then cast Sleep, then blitz down with Hi-Blast or Hyper'd physicals (I think FFX Sleep kills evade as well). Problem is, Lulu will always get one turn since Slow Down shouldn't let Arnaud insta-double. But for the sake of argument, let's assume it does. So Arnaud casts Slow Down, then Sleep (which on average fails on turn 1). Now Lulu gets a turn and she dual casts Bio into Demi. There are other options, but Demi is MT and won't get Magic Blocker'd where as ST damage spells might. This puts Arnaud into 3HKO range and Poisons him.

Arnaud gets a triple turn at this point probably but he will die to Poison before being able to do anything else relevant. Examining his options he can either a) Sleep, then go for the damage kill as mentioned. Sleep takes a turn, then if he goes Hi-Blast route, Lulu probably eats 4 hits. So Arnaud dies after 2 casts of Hi-Blasts which no matter how bad you see Lulu's HP isn't going to kill b) Sleep, then Hyper, then physical blitz. Same issues here - he loses two turns from the set up, then dies to Poison after one Paracelsus Dirk hit. As with Hi-Blast damage, there's no way Lulu dies to one Paracelsus Dirk hit, even under Hyper.

What if Arnaud just goes for straight damage after Slow Down? This could work except Lulu also self heals for a measely 2 MP. So if Arnaud does Slow Down, then immediately tries blitzing, Lulu does Poison, then casts something on herself to full heal. Since Arnaud at best 4HKOs with magic and Lulu isn't asleep here, he will again die to poison before he can overwhelm her on turns.

Poison blocker obviously exists for Arnaud, but he's stuck equipping the death blocker here since otherwise Lu just Dual Casts Death and wins. If you allow dual blockers, the stat hit Arnaud takes is probably way too much and Lulu can just outslug without much issue. Unfortunately for Arnaud, I only give him one blocker, so he's SOL.


Middle
White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) - WM has too many options to shut down physical fighters. Blink + Protect creates problems for Pepperoni to really do much.

Light
Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V) - This is kind of interesting because Logg puts Rinoa directly into Limit Range here. His best strategy is probably to do a physical, Breath of Ice, then wait for Icy POIZN to drain Rinoa to about 36-33% HP, then go for the hit right after the poison tick so she can't limit him. He has healing to stall for a bit, so this isn't completely out of the picture. Will wait for further analysis before voting.

I'll set up the team matches later. Super's got pools.

[Random Consonant]

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4) - Yeah probably.  Arnaud needs to block poison and death and there's a good chance that the level hit leaves him too weak to win anyways.

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V) - Probably.

[superaielman]

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)- I don't think Piastol can avoid a Minus Strike.

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)- Strong response of Pepperoni struggling vs competent healers.

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)- Has enough chipping I'd think.

H/G: Jessica, Ryu4, Lamington, Lambda, Lulu, Arnaud
M/H: Lon Qu, Margulis, Auron, Marle, White Mage (FF5), Pepperoni
L/M: Boswer, Ryudo, Cid, Liu, Rinoa, Logg

Jessica, Ryu4, Lamington, Lambda, Lulu, Arnaud


Ryu4 smashes and Jessica goes down. Guh. Maybe Lamington down? Possible Lambda goes as well.


Lon Qu, Margulis, Auron, Marle, White Mage (FF5), Pepperoni


Kneejerk is that neither middle goes up.


Boswer, Ryudo, Cid, Liu, Rinoa, Logg


Don't know Liu. Think both lights stay down.

[SnowFire]

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)
I suspect the answer to this is the same as Alternis vs. Xorn, and the issue Elf brought up - can AI Alternis use Minus Strike on the same turn he hits 50% HP?  Barely matters for the C4 fight, of course, since it's so hard to twink your offense to blow through his HP that fast, but comes up in Godlike against crazy damaging and fast bosses. 

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)
While Lulu is pretty crappy in Godlike, she definitely belongs there IMO!  Ah well, good for a sanity check, and Arnaud does make it interesting - if he could block Poison & Death without a 12 level hit, he stands a reasonable shot at setting things up, but might lose even through that.

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)

S5 characters aren't that great at damage control with the crit rate & damage variance in the game, and Logg is undamaging by default.  He COULD win if he gets lucky and does perfect chipping, and Rinoa could get unlucky on Limit fishing, but suspect this is hers.


H/G: Jessica, Ryu4, Lamington, Lambda, Lulu, Arnaud
Not so sure Jessica goes down - Sleep gives her at least some game vs. Lulu, but it's a duration check to see if Jess can build to a tension'd killing Twin Dragon Lash while Lulu takes a nap.  Sleepward is out because then Lulu would just get Magic Bursted if she gives up Fire Eater.  In the same way, unless Arnaud gets a lucky Magic Blocker, not sure what his strat is vs. Jessica.  Ryu & Lambda are both pretty safe, although I guess I can see hyping up Arnaud as beating Lambda if you disrespect his accuracy?!  Probably not.

M/H: Lon Qu, Margulis, Auron, Marle, White Mage (FF5), Pepperoni
Lon'qu annihilates everybody.  Margulis...  might actually resolve Acala Seal vs. Marle??  It just takes her forever even with Haste to smash through even 20% of Margulis's HP.  White Mage might have the offense to beat Margulis, though, actually.  Marle beats Auron & WM off status I would imagine.  Auron is in trouble and probably loses to WM even through Zombie Strike, so WM up, Auron down?  Granted, bad field for Auron.

L/M: Bowser, Ryudo, Cid, Liu, Rinoa, Logg
Liu should outslug everybody here, I think, super.  Maybe Rinoa up if Bowser fails it up enough.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4): Tide's analysis works for me. Needing to block both death and poison is too much, and it gets worse if Lulu is allowed sleep res.

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy): Protect and Image both seem really bad for Pepperoni. Or Berserk, since MK2 basic physicals are pretty bad.

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V): If you do a naive, "assume S5 characters just do their average damage", then Logg actually 3HKOs while avoiding the limit range. (Rinoa 3HKOs him first, but one shot of healing is all he needs there; I doubt Rinoa 5-4's) But that's... arguably unfair here, yeah. The reality is that Logg has a 4HKO with a ~30% chance of a crit or double, so he 3HKOs in practice sure but he actually does so in intervals of 27% to Rinoa, so there's a good chance she gets a turn at 20% health if she just waits for it. Not... a perfect chance of course, but good; Logg has about a 9% chance to get 2x twice in a row, and a 15% chance to get two 1x then one 2x, so Rinoa has a ~75% chance to get a turn in desperation. And a limit is nearly certain in that range against someone with Logg's speed (12 shots are ~97% chance). So I agree with Snowfire. Logg might be able to improve his chances by dropping his weapon power but yeaaah not letting him do that. Good final!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4) - Yeah, Tide's analysis is good. I wouldn't be shocked if Lulu actually just straight-out OHKOed Arnaud with two blockers, the stat hit is very steep in this case.

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy) - Way too many ways White Mage can win this fight.

Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V) - Burping Elfboy. Nice Light season overall!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Alternis Dim - assuming that Minus Strike can be used immediately at the HP threshhold.

Lulu - If Tide is voting against Arnaud, it must be true.

White Mage - Blink, sure.

Rinoa - I'm a lot more lenient with FF8 Limits than most, so almost certainly she wins a close match like this.

Good season, I really had a lot of fun with the discussion about matches this time around.

[Pyro]

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia): Minus Strike.

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy): Protect and Image.

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)

[Cmdr_King]

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default) vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V) vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V)- *skims* Okay yeah that makes sense.

[Magic Fanatic]

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X) vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4) - Other people have mathed it out better than I could.


Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII) vs Logg (Suikoden V) - This works.

[Cmdr_King]

Alrighty, let's count this up for posterity and such.

Godlike

Alternis Dim (Bravely Default)- iiii vs Piastol (Skies of Arcadia)- i

Heavy

Lulu (Final Fantasy X)- iiiiiiiiiii vs Arnaud G. Vasquez (Wild ARMs 4)

Middle

White Mage (Final Fantasy V)- iiiiiiiii vs Pepperoni (Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy)

Light

Rinoa Heartlilly (Final Fantasy VIII)- iiiiiiiii vs Logg (Suikoden V)- i