Season 42-2: Icy overkill within

[Pyro]

Arc Eda Ricolne (AtLC) vs. Selan (Lufia 2) - I don't see Selan as that much faster than Arc, plus I assume Arc would be a slighter higher level than most AtL2 PCs from the save transer levels. (other games with save transfer get this boost too. S3 Futch is awesome for me.) Arc has no trouble finishing off Selan.

Don't really agree with giving the AtL1 cast higher levels. Any advantage they may have (which probably doesn't even compare to the advantage they enjoy in AtL2 without data transfer), is a moot point by endgame, which is about 40-60 levels above where they start. The only reason they would have higher levels at the final dungeon is due to being used more. Not to mention that transferring data usually has a fair number of the original cast being nearly level 1 too...

[SnowFire]

Guess I'm just surprised that I'm the only one here that doesn't allow Ray spam and/or doesn't allow Seymour to choose his shifting.  (I don't personally, based on how I see boss AI, but since that also means I don't let FA spam Ray he wins regardless.  I think if I allowed Ray spam I'd have to allow Seymour to shift to what he wants since both clearly skip a set in stone procedure.)

Just for what it's worth, I certainly don't let False Athena spam Ray as well, and checking the stat topic, it's her only really good damage (which squares with my recollection of that fight not really being a big deal, and I was going through Lunar 2 running from a lot of enemies).  If a boss has one ability that'd be broken in half spammed every turn, but only uses it rarely, my assumption is because they can't for some reason, not that the boss is a moron.  So no Chaos Shield every turn for Ghaleon, BoltX every turn for Jade, etc.  So yeah, Seymour gets the nod from me.

[Meeplelard]

BoltX from Jade would not be broken in game at all, is the thing.

Yes, it OHKOs most PCs...except:
A. Equipment like EarthRB and EvilRb exists, which lets you survive it (EvilRB halves it, both Deis and Nina aren't 2x overkilled by it, EarthRB absorbs it)
B. Nina has spells to get around it in a pinch like Wall and Dispel
C. Its Single Target, in a game with plenty of revival.

Is this being picky? Yes, but a single target OHKO move that gets spammed isn't really that broken unless the game is really picky on revival, or the game is like WA4 and bosses have batshit insane speed.

(I'll grant that in the DL, BoltX is pretty psychotic, but that's an aside.  Some people translate better than others, this isn't new)

[SnowFire]

Let me rephrase: if a boss has one ability that's considerably better than others, but only uses it very rarely or in a specific cycle, I'm not normally inclined to allow it.  The brokenness of the ability shouldn't matter.  The same thing would apply for, say, a boss that does .5 PCHP damage very rarely, and .2 PCHP damage much more commonly.  Spamming .5 PCHP damage is hardly broken, but it isn't how the boss fight works in game and allowing that wouldn't reflect the true easiness of the fight.  On the other hand, some bosses will use their big damage all the time (say, Zeromus, who uses Big Bang pretty frequently), and I have less problem with letting them use it as much as they like in the DL even if that ability is awesome.

I will grant that Jade is an edge case since he theoretically can spam BoltX if he gets lucky (If it's a flat 20% chance as theorized, it will occasionally happen), and can see why others would allow that.  Something on a firm cycle like Chaos or False Althena, though...  if Chaos could cast Cure4 every other turn he would, and same with FA's big damage every turn.  The fact that they don't implies that they can't.  (Okay, actually it implies that the game designers are not sadists, but "in character" that's the best reason.)

Heck, I'm more kneejerking Seymour here, but if Seymour doesn't get the drop on FA on turn 3 (not sure which one is faster), then I can certainly see him dying to 2 Rays + something.  So it is a close match anyway; BoltX/Ray every other turn is still pretty impressive.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ray is definitely much faster than Seymour.

For the rest of your points, I see them, and they have some merit (nitpick: Zeromus' Big Bang is pretty DL-worthless because of the charge turn; he wants to spam Flare, which is indeed a moderate rarity a la Ray). I don't agree with specifically punishing scripted bosses (like Lunar) compared to low random chances (like BoF1 and FF) but otherwise, yeah.

Do you just force a boss to not use a move twice consecutively? (assuming they have more than one move, and assuming they have other moves that are actually worth using, e.g. if a boss had a status move and a damage move I'd recommend against forcing the status move to be used when fighting another boss). Seems like it could work pretty nicely.

FA's staff throw is actually pretty damn respectable damage (solid 2HKO) just fails against Seymour due to physical defence. Definitely didn't find her nearly as easy as Seymour, but I'd really caution against voting on bosses based on difficulty anyway.

Important Edit: Actually, FA has a THIRD strong attack, 5-Orb Attack, which isn't listed as either physical or magical in the stat topic. Like Staff Throw it solidly 2HKOs (over 75% to average). If it's magical (or better yet, ITD), then FA has a strong fallback move against Seymour and should win easily even under a no-spam AI view.

[Dhyerwolf]

Zhuzhen Liu (SH1) vs. Alfred Schoredinger (WA3) - Because I played WA3 so underleveled, perhaps my WA3 boss respect is far too high? I can see Alfred as OHKOing this match to victory. Is he really as bad as the stat topic says?

I'm not sure it's at all possible for you to be underlevelled enough for Alfred to OHKO 80% PC HP. The stat topic may not be 100% accurate, but Alfred has notably less damage than Shady, who does something like 4HKOs at the start at the battle with no Gold Mediums, I think.

[BaconForTheSoul]

I really like Chapin's view of how he holds bosses to their AI. It really seems like it would even things out between bosses and PCs in Godlike. However, it makes the already floundering bosses in Middle and Light a LOT worse. Still not sure how I want to look at this, but all the possible interps I can see have FA winning in this case.

It really isn't that bad.  If a boss randomly uses moves then I give them 100% AI.  However, moves that are set every 5 turns or are 1/32 chance aren't spammable for me.  Also, I agree that FA has other good damage outside of ray, but Ray eats 50% reduction, the rest eats 80%.  (I think 5 orbs is physical, if not she miiiight finish Seymour with that.)

FF1 Chaos is a fun case in this matter.  He has like 10(?) moves that he cycles through.  I'd force him to use 5 of them differently, but after 5 hits he can go back to first one if he chooses.  So yeah, I don't see Cure4 as OPB, but Chaos living enough turns to use it twice is ehh...

This is semi new for me, but it allows bosses to have their AI and throw out huge damage, but it also keeps them from being too stupid.  Also... makes duels more interesting, forcing certain bosses to do more than "Spam Shadow Flare or Ray."