Wild ARMs 5 Ranking Discussion (VERY LIKELY SPOILERS)

[OblivionKnight]

Hey, FE9 Ranking topic is here!  This one didn't come over, and it's becoming something we'll have to go over fairly soon anyway, so...hey, why not!

Also, doing a replay myself, so...it's fresh!

http://rpgdl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10118

That's the old topic.  Any thoughts on bosses, ranks, etc.  I know there was plenty of talk about split on Volsung and Avril, and even Greg to an extent. 

Discussion is fuuuuuuun.  Will weigh in myself in a bit.

[Meeplelard]

The discussion on Greg isn't so much "should we rank him" but rather "Should we allow him that Sword Rune" given he comes with it, and its pretty clearly intended for him, but he doesn't have it initially equipped.

Unless that's what you meant by "to some extent", in which case, this post is mostly just a clarifier!

[OblivionKnight]

Yes, that's what I meant.

Votesplit mostly - the Sword Medium...makes a huge difference in his ranking.  Much like the boss form of Avril does if you allow it.  Granted, two different jumps there!  But still >_>

Mostly to hash this all out - the game's...got a decent chance coming up, so...

Anyway, my own thoughts on what's good to rank...

Dean, Rebecca, Avril, Greg, Carol, Chuck, Nightburn, Persephone, Fereydoon, Kartikeya, Elvis, Volsung.

Avril...would not allow her boss form.  Not at all.  If you leave the dungeon, you can clearly see her, not part of the party, unconscious on the bed.  Hell, you can even use Avril against herself.  It's clearly a mental projection in that fight - hell, in my dreams I can beat up 1000 ninjas, but hell if I can touch even a ninja with leprosy in real life!  If people really were in for having the Ice Queen form ranked (another Belial!), then I'd not...totally object to ranking Avril and Ice Queen Avril - it strikes me much like the Id/Fei thing, really - I think that's the best parallel here.  As for Greg...I'd allow the Sword Rune, I think, but definitely not take it against the others for average purposes (i.e., naked Greg averages for everyone but Greg).  Subject to change, of course.  I'm all for ranking Volsung, I think - too plot important not to, and...eh, I'll test more this replay, but he's never chained the Turn Shift (though, apparently others have seen it, so...).

Not too much to hash out, but I figure most of the big games coming up for ranking season deserve some attention of some sort. 

Oh, and Avril can have her Mountain Medium!  Gamebest DEF hype is a go!!!!

[Meeplelard]

If anything, I'd argue the Mountain Medium belongs to Dean.

Logic? Medium was in a dungeon where they needed Dean's name to enter.  Also complements his stat build and such, not so much the case with Avril, so has some gameplay back up as well.

Allowing Avril the Mountain Medium is no better than allowing her all Mediums, given the logic behind allowing them to her is all the same <_<

[Dark Holy Elf]

I've seen Double Action chained. Sadly I am entirely confident in this.

DNR Volsung, that mechanic is fucking stupid. That said, I can't see any remotely consistent interp within my own views that lets him do anything but chain infinite turns together, so I will vote on him as an amazing Godlike if he's ranked. Depression is inevitable. ;_;

I'd actually be fine with ranking two Avrils. It... would avoid the split pretty nicely, I think? Rank one Avril and the votesplit is inevitable; ranking zero is significantly more offensive than not ranking Volsung (Avril has both more plot and more fans). Still, this is a weird option, so I'd like to hear others weigh in on it.

Another reason for it: I don't have to decide how I vote on Avril! This would be nice, I'll admit.

Otherwise, the other five PCs and other five bosses are all no-brainer ranks. For Greg, think I allow him Sword Medium but not its stat boosts? Same with Carol/Chuck I guess.

[OblivionKnight]

The theory behind Avril and the Mountain Medium is that it's implied to be handed directly to her in the plot scene ("hey girl i know this is yours, take it and enjoy").  Dean...I suppose it could be argued plot-wise he could get the Sword Rune?  I forget how that scene went - I think Avril might have said something about safe-keeping it?

Random question - are there enough blank mediums to copy 5 more of each original medium?  I want to say yes, but I am not sure - just need 30 more >_>  That would solve some problems with mediums.

[Hunter Sopko]

I would initially agree with OK's assessment on Avril. If she had more than one fight, I'd say she could be ranked on Fei/Id grounds, but it's just not there. There isn't enough to set them apart. This isn't something that would rile me either way though.

Allowing the mediums but not the stat-gains is kinda... dumb. You take everything associated with the medium or you don't take the medium at all. Greg, Carol and Chuck would get their respective mediums... torn on Mountain for Avril. Same deal as Virginia's Fire Medium claim.

[Talaysen]

Random question - are there enough blank mediums to copy 5 more of each original medium?  I want to say yes, but I am not sure - just need 30 more >_>  That would solve some problems with mediums.

I had something like 35 blank mediums after everything was said and done, so yes.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I would initially agree with OK's assessment on Avril. If she had more than one fight, I'd say she could be ranked on Fei/Id grounds, but it's just not there. There isn't enough to set them apart. This isn't something that would rile me either way though.

If there isn't enough to set them apart, how can you agree with OK's assessment? OK's point is that they are fully different people, you use one to fight the other, blah blah blah.

Baaasically, if you think the Avrils are too much the same person to rank separately (which is reasonable), then I don't get disallowing IQA, unless you always vote on the last form, or only vote on PC in PC/boss cases, etc. Which are reasonable stances but not at all what you are saying.

[Talaysen]

Yeah, I think I'm in the rank all PCs + IQA (seperately) + Sentinels + Nightburn.  DNR Volsung.

Also, I want to point out that Greg's damage is only that high if you allow him to move to a leypoint on turn 1.  If not, the damage average drops.

[Mad Fnorder]

In my random opinion, I think this game is a pretty bad rank. Medium Homogeneity doesn't help making any sort of sense of the averages, and with mediums the PCs are boring as snot. The bosses are all the same sort of high heavy Sluggers with a limit-like 1HKO you can deal with easily in-game (Hi, Tales of the Abyss!) the fact that there's a bunch of potential DRAMATIC votesplits based on some of these issues just makes me think that perhaps it should be skipped.

[Rozalia]

Just give all the PCs a medium each. We'd have to agree on which people get what but some are clearcut enough. As for Volsung I'd allow him to use it but not chaining it. It gives him the edge in that he will get more turns but doesn't make him be a "Gets a turn....Wins" fighters.

For the Avrils I'd rank them seperatly due to the plot reasons. They are clearly very different.

Also rank HATRED! He has a battleform, it may be somewhat using Volsung's body but I don't see a problem as there are cases of that already anyway. Then again Evil Jessica isn't ranked and I can see the cases against ranking him, but it is the final boss so I think he should be ranked.

[Dunefar]

In my random opinion, I think this game is a pretty bad rank. Medium Homogeneity doesn't help making any sort of sense of the averages, and with mediums the PCs are boring as snot. The bosses are all the same sort of high heavy Sluggers with a limit-like 1HKO you can deal with easily in-game (Hi, Tales of the Abyss!) the fact that there's a bunch of potential DRAMATIC votesplits based on some of these issues just makes me think that perhaps it should be skipped.

I pretty much agree with this sentiment. If it gets decent playership I'd still rank it, though. PCs and a few bosses strike me as fine. I'll leave which ones to people that care a little more about the game. Though...Ranking both Avril and Ice Queen Avril strikes me as inane and probably divisive.  It would be like ranking PC and boss Ghaleon separately. It's something that should be left to Avril interps, not ripped out entirely.

It's not a great duelling cast. Three painful lights(Two if you give Avril her Ice Queen form) and three okay PCs with mediums. I'm not inclined to give Rebecca or Dean a medium, so meh.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have several issues with your argument, Fnorder.

with mediums the PCs are boring as snot.

Offhand, I'd call Carol with the Luck Medium the most interesting PC dueller we are likely to rank in the near future. Of course, the fact that two of the other games most likely to be ranked soon are FE9 and Disgaea 2 plays a role here, but still! Yeah, I don't get this complain at all. The rest are indeed fairly dull but if we didn't rank "fairly dull" casts the DL would be a lot smaller.

If you ban all the mediums, then yeah, they're boring. But if you ban SP, Yuki/Ulf are boring, and if you ban Soul Crushes, all VP fighters are boring, etc. There will always be minority views which make people boring. If at least a decent number of DL voters find any interest there, then we're good.

The bosses are all the same sort of high heavy Sluggers with a limit-like 1HKO you can deal with easily in-game (Hi, Tales of the Abyss!)

We ranked TotA bosses, didn't we? <_< I'd even say, despite my hate of TotA, that they turned out to be pretty good ranks - the game can draw to support them and they seem reasonably popular, given their combined seven wins in Heavy. WA5's have the perk of including a few Godlikes, and we like new Godlikes.

Beyond that, well, Nightburn and IQA are different, lacking those limits. The other four have them, but there's a fair bit of variety even within them - the elemental weaknesses (Elvis has a lot, the others at least vary 'em up), the fallback damage of different elements and buffs (Persephone has Quicken) and even the limits are very different from each other, unlike in TotA (EXCEPT ARIETTA LOL), varying from Elvis', which is actually based on his HP, to Karti's borderline OHKO physical, to Persephone's overkill. Not to mention their varying stats; in particular speed governs how easily they can get off their super moves in a fairly neat way. Also, they're all extremely well-documented in the stat topic, so that's not an issue.

the fact that there's a bunch of potential DRAMATIC votesplits

This is what we're trying to deal with here. And honestly, I'm pretty confident that the main two (Avril and Volsung) will be resolved one way or another. There's been far worse votesplits - as I alluded to earlier, even G3 may well have a worse one with Yuki/Ulf. I'm not saying I like the fact that these votesplits exist, but at least it feels like we're working around 'em.

Also: At least they're not Lezard.


Overall... well, mostly, I think WA5 has the potential to be one of the best draws and overall most acceptable DL ranks in the near future. It's from a series proven to have great success here, and has already picked up quite a few players, with the promise of more if it gets ranked since it's still easily available. As such, I don't think a couple minor concerns over dullness and votesplit should be enough to shoot it down.

[superaielman]

Overall... well, mostly, I think WA5 has the potential to be one of the best draws and overall most acceptable DL ranks in the near future. It's from a series proven to have great success here, and has already picked up quite a few players, with the promise of more if it gets ranked since it's still easily available.

It's NR numbers were pretty bad last season. It's mostly there as a DL game, has some potential but it isn't hugely popular or attracts fans the way some of our other games up for ranking do, the cast.. well, see above. The lukewarm at best response to the game's been a rather unpleasant surprise, I was expecting it to be one of the last good ranks we had on tap for a while.

EDIT to Sopko: Id only had one fight in XG, didn't he? Sounds sorta like IQA there.

[Mad Fnorder]

I meant to write "without" mediums there, I guess that was a kind of embarrassing typo. With arbitrary medium assignment some of them are kind of interesting, but the bigger issue is deciding who gets who and communicating that so there's some consistency in voting. Saying Sword Medium works better on Dean is like saying Cloud's Thunder Materia works better on Aeris, in terms of arbitraryness.

As for the TotA comparison, I don't disagree with what you said, but I don't think the differences are that dramatic. Just because TotA draws doesn't mean that the bosses aren't very similar with what element you need to block to avoid their MA being the key point of difference. The tower one on one duel fight forms felt extremely similar to each other in the same sort of way I don't think ranking multiple similar characters because they're there and valid is good long term.

That being said, Nightburn is probably a fine rank, for all that I barely remember what he had aside from damage. IQA is a kind of a lame rank, for all that I'd support it in an attempt to stave off the Avril votesplit.

I can't comment on Yuki and Ulf, having not played G3. Lezard's insane votesplit makes me dislike seeing a character I'm a fan of get in the DL, which is pretty terrible.

Maybe I'm being a conservative- Yes, new rankings are the lifeblood of the DL, and if we stop ranking we'll see more and more repeats until our entire discussions can be copy pasted. I guess I'd still rather not rank a number of fighters that feel like they'll have dramatically more variance than the usual spread of interpretations. I freely admit to being very strict on fighters with votesplit/valid form issues, seeing as I've wanted Freya and Alma booted for the longest time. 

[Dhyerwolf]

I allow the Mediums but throw out the stat boosts since it really punishes the PCs that don't get them by making them slow and with below average durability when they really didn't feel that way in game. At best, I could I have two averages, but I guess pigeonholing characters into a certain skillset makes more sense to me than pigeonholing them into a stat breakdown.

Bosses! I noticed that someone called the bosses Heavy. One of their advantages is that I really don't think they are. The damage ensures that, since there HP isn't completely horrid (Maybe 1.5 PC HP to me...Maybe less, but not lower than PC HP). I guess Elvis may not be. Also, the variety of elemental weaknesses they bring is definetely a plus in terms of uniqueness.

IQA- Feels like a representation of the power that Avril had before she had amnesia. She shows hints of this power in plot scenes, and I felt like this was the in-battle manifestation. Also has the advantage of trading a bland Light for a Godlike! I think ranking separately does have its advantages though, because if there is still a split, she's likely going to hit Middle, where basically all her matches will be decided by what form one goes by. Granted, ranking both is also certainly strange to me as I allow both forms. Note that I do allow the Mountain Medium on the PC form for all that it gives her next to nothing (A little anti-physical ness and 5% Regen, I think? Yeah).

Rankings! These are kind of tentative because I haven't thought them out too much, but they are useful for also getting a better idea of where you would rank people. If anyone has thoughts or disagreements or things I may have forgotten, please bring them up, as I think sorting this stuff out early is definetely a good way of doing things.

Dean- 2.85. I guess. Being all around average except a little below in damage is pretty solid for a Light.
Rebecca- 2.9. Faster Dean.
Avril- 5 for the boss! PC form...Okay, ShutOut on her own Hex is effective status immunity, I believe? Blocker+Retaliation...no clue on the rates! I never used Mountain, but likely decentish when added together. I'm just going to assume 33% for the sake of ranking right now. Okay, 33% physical resistance is effectively isn't horrid, otherwise mostly average+a little slow. 3.2 is my gut.
Greg- 3.1? He barely scrapes a 2HKO to me, while the elemental randomness does hurt my head a tad, he's generally not being walled! He hates that he sucks in basically the one stat WA 5 has a spread in, that being MP. That's what hurts him, since his damage is good, he can use Hyper for status immunity, and...5% Regen!!
Carol- 3.5. Wishes I respected the speed! 25% Draining is solid as average damage, using Fragile for status immunity, and the 100 FP limit for better damage, and MP charge all are helpful things. Obvious flaw is that a fast status whore or a passably competent slugger is just going to take her out.
Chuck- 3.. Yes, in Middle! I'm assuming that his damage is 2x strong at low HP. I don't know, feels to me like that+status immunity is solid enough for Middle.
Nightburn- Well, definetely 3HKOs! Just...no respect for his HP. I don't know where I see it...but I had someone pumping about 3k every then about, so my respect just isn't there. Probably a High Light to me.
Persephone- Well, I don't let her thing fully focus, and consider +500 HP. 4.6. Hard to OHKO in Heavy barring massive Water/Ice damage, which is pretty rare. Quite bad in Godlike to me, but she's there.
Elvis- 4.5. I don't know here. Fast Fire/Earth/Wind seems like they might beat him in Heavy...with basically describes Pokemon. Most questionable to me (Minus Volsung)
Kartikeya- 4.5. Guess he's borderline too. Misses the OHKO, only 115% speed. Could I be overrating him? I guess he and Elvis really should be in Proving Grounds when I run it again.
Fereydoon- 4.75. He's like 140% Speed and can auto-kill some durable PCs that he might not be able to otherwise!

[Cmdr_King]

I hadn't considered splitting Avril before, but it makes a certain sense.  Like Dhyer said, I took IQA as fairly representative of her at the height of her power, but the impression I got from the scene is that she'd burned through that power for various reasons and couldn't really access it anymore, or at the least couldn't do so without giving in to that persona entirely, either way meaning it wouldn't be a DL option for her.  But the comparisons to Id are... really quite apt, surprised I didn't make the connection before (Then again, maybe I wouldn't have thought to rank Id separately either if it hadn't been so at the RPGP.)  It's worth consideration at the least.

Otherwise.  The bosses seem to hover in this range between Godlike and heavy, so despite their basic similarities I'd be all for ranking them, more Godlikes tends to be good policy.  DNR Volsung for Bluelikeness of course.  PCs... Carol and Chuck get the full benefit of their Mediums from me, Greg I haven't decided on.  Granted, this mostly just makes Carol a cool spoilertastic middle and doesn't affect the rest of the cast too much except within Light since they're kinda FFVIII PCs basically.  Oh well, happens.

[OblivionKnight]

Random things as I progress through the replay:

There are 33 blank mediums and 6 originals.  There's enough to make 1 of each medium for each PC (6 PCs, 5 mediums of each needed, so 30 total).  So arguably, skillsets, I guess, for all that it makes averages and the like look boring as hell.  I definitely don't think I'd follow this, but hey, it be there.

Apparently, though I've never seen Volsung do Double Action chains, Kartikeya can (in the duel form).  I saw him chain them.  So...eh...honestly, I think it's too damn rare, but....

Rebecca's Continuous Shot seems to be around ~20% or so.  Seems higher earlier, but tones down later.  I wonder if there's something that governs it.  Also could be using skills more often than her attack later, or something, which makes it seem lower.

I...suggested ranking two Avrils!  Heh.  Didn't realize people would like the idea >_>  I...don't like it much myself (since they were the same person), but as I said, it's like an Id/Fei thing, and that already makes my head hurt.  If we ranked 1 Avril (which I would be more in favour of), I wouldn't allow the IQA form.  IQA and Avril are the same person, or were, BUT the Avril we know as Avril is not Avril as the IQA.  IQA is all a mental projection in-game - that's all it is.  Yes, it might be what her powers were at one point, but...why doesn't she use them now?  Pure gameplay reasons?  Ok, that makes sense, but...that feels like it's jumping too far on to the tangent of plot power, which I know people aren't generally fond of here.  Granted, if we rank two, I'm not going to heavily complain, but...oy, headache.  It's Fei/Id, and I wouldn't have ranked both of them if I had my choice (just Fei), so that's where I stand on Avril.  But if we ranked both, I...as I said, I wouldn't be too far against it.  Hell, I might just allow IQA as an Avril form anyway to simplify this >_>  Headache!  DNR Avril!  >_>

Blocker skills all seem to hover around the 25-35% area.  It's what I've noticed against bosses and on the PC end.  33% seems like the magic number.

Elvis' Variant Attack works as expected (increased power as HP lowers).

Rankings!

Dean - Light.  I am happy with this.  Sucks.
Rebecca - Light!  Maybe more if I scale her to SHOVEL DEAN (2x avarage damage!) as a temp appearance >_>  But yeah, she at least has speed.
Avril - DNR.  >_>  Ok, barring that...PC form is a High Light with Mountain Medium, might make a crappy Middle, definite Light without the medium. 
Greg - Middle.  Yay damage and durability!  And otherwise not hugely different.  Sword Medium allowed, obviously.
Carol - Middle.  Speed and draining.  Works.  And the status immunity stuff.
Chuck - Middle.  He has the best special ability, good speed, status immunity...he's actually good in most regards, all things considered. 

Nightburn - Heavy.  Bleh.  A bit unimpressive, but still a good fighter.  The gravity damage is a nice trick, at least.  Not amazing in any area, but bosses are cool. 
Ice Queen Avril - Godlike.  Hey, it's Belial!  Without the shield, with less speed and generally less power, but more durability. 

All the Sentinels I take at the same levels and the like, since you can fight them all in whatever order you want (I went Gene Simmons - Fereydoon - Persephone - Elvis, personally).  Helps them all a bit.

Persephone - Godlike.  Hey, overkill damage (that she's never used on me ever!  but I know it's there) and otherwise good overall.  More durable than WA4 bosses helps them a bit.
Fereydoon - Godlike.  Hey, ID with damage and many of the same things Persephone had.  Just different elements.
Elvis - Godlike.  Hey, elemental weaknesses suck, buuuuuuuuut his damage is consistently the bestest of both magic and physicals, and he has a limit effect, so...good enough.
Kartikeya - Godlike.  Duel form can theoretically infinite chain, but...no one votes on that, mostly.  Otherwise, same as the rest.

Volsung - Godlike.  I really don't think we'll have too many issues with this double action thing (not everyone has seen it, and I don't think many people will realize it chains infinitely overall).  Feels wrong not to rank him, considering who he is and what he does.  He's otherwise good like the rest, so...not much else to say. 

[Niu]

On the big issues, yes to DNR Volsung but no to ranking separate Avrils.

[Sierra]

Rank: All six PCs, Nightburn, all four Sentinels. No to dual-ranking Avril (I personally will throw out the boss form in the DL, assuming we just rank the one Avril). I can't bring myself to give a damn about Volsung despite him being the main villain, so...yeah, not fighting the DNR push here.

Will edit in actual rankings for fun when I'm less lazy.

[Talaysen]

Just want to say that DNRing Avril is by far the worst choice we can make here.  She's perfectly rankable no matter how you view her and quite important to the plot and game as a whole.

[Mad Fnorder]

Just to play Devil's advocate re:Avril- she's a potential Lezard level votesplit (random light/low Middle/Godlike depending on No Medium/mountain/IQA) who isn't all that interesting a dueller in her more appropriate forms. Not ranking her to avoid that headache might not be a bad thing.

[Twilkitri]

Wouldn't ranking Avril as two seperate duellers have the potential to be problematic with regards to her fighting herself/with herself in a postseason team battle? Granted that I know nothing about the game whatsoever this might not be as unwanted as it would first appear though.

[OblivionKnight]

I'm fairly obviously joking about DNRing Avril.  >_>  I'm a huge proponent of plot importance for ranking characters, which is why I'm all for ranking Volsung as well (and was for Blue, Riki, Lute, etc.).  Votesplit issues have been talked about in the past for some characters as being enough to make them unrankable (such as Ryu5), and with her, it is a big difference.  I'm all for ranking her, just there will be some type of votesplit on her.  It might actually be best to rank her as one entity, and let people do as they please (like we do with Hrist, since she is the same person, just with different forms...although this is different forms in the same game...brain!). 

Still, two Avrils is an option, as I mentioned earlier, so it's not like it's all completely screwed.