Arena battle videos and discussion

[Celdia]

spoiler: @SSM

No, just the Nameless Dance and that was added as an afterthought. My original plan consisted of no Primary skills which is what I've modified the team for now.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

spoiler: JUMP AND GEO FTW v Co-Ed Rat Pack

Very little Jump or Geo going on, but still, ouch.  That rat pack got sent packing.  Needs moar Reraise or something.

spoiler: Standstill v B Team

That wasn't much of a Standstill, CT5Holy.  I think a better name is "Pew Pew Pew."

spoiler: A Team v Season 5

...Slaughterfest.  Wow.  A Team looks kinda scary, from a DERPY perspective.  Fucking Scholars, man.

spoiler: I Kin Hurt You! v Chemists are Better at Dancing v1

...Firstly, Chemists aren't better at Dancing, Wiz.  Monks have every perk over Dancers Chemists have besides MP and more, especially with the kind of Phoenix Down-free build you were using.  Still prefer actual Dancers to both, but just saying.  As for the match itself, Wiz's tanky team needs more tankiness.  If it weren't for Vigilanti's horrible MP management combined with well-timed Stops off Nameless Dance, I don't see how Wiz could've won this.  Even the second game where Wiz breaks the Muramasa on turn 1, Vigilanti's output is more than high enough to rock Wiz's shit for a while.  I honestly thought Vigilanti was going to be going home with the 2-1 because of that despite his poor MP management, not a 1-2 upset.  Vigilanti, I do recommend making that Wizard a Singing Wizard with Angel Song and giving your team infinite MP.  It'd be far more effective than Hi-Ether in the long run, and you'd could've possibly won this match with ease if you had Angel Song > Hi-Ether, I think.

[Malroth]

Black magic using Bard has more MA and HP than Male Wizard but otherwise I agree with raven with your team needing sing.

[formerdeathcorps]

spoiler: A Team vs. S5

For some reason, my scholars on my A Team didn't use quickening even though on Turn 1, they were out of range for attacks from my S5 team.  Similarly, with CT costs, Draw Out is almost never used (even though in Round 3, Aesil probably could have used Kiku).  Mind you, both teams are a shadow of what they should be...the A team has no mad science (and thus is at half its tanking power) while the S5 team has no procs off geomancy or flails.  Regardless, it's good to see my S5 team back and winning.

[Vigilanti]

just changed my team again, thanks raven for the suggestion

[Wiz]

spoiler

@Raven: I crippled his HP to nothing, and yes, Chemists are better than monks/dancers; Don't argue with fact. Compared to Dancers, they have higher MP, HP, and a point of Speed. Monks, lol, have fun using those ~70 HP Heals from Chakra. Not to mention that Polka Polka reduces Chakras effectiveness whereas X-Potion is a fixed amount. Also forgot to note that that their healing is lower in range, you cannot possibly claim that I won by luck alone considering that one match (which you've seen in action only once on camera).

I've wiped the floor w/ "Y U SO Derp" after crushing all their weapons, armor, and accessories so many times in testing I can't even remember the number. Idc how much defense you have, a pitiful 135/Dancer 144/Chemist health (after gear's broken) isn't going to save you from status procs plus a fixed amount of damage from climhazzard. I tested it and Version 2 for like at the very least 1.5 days (36 hours) so I know what I"m talking about.

I'd argue that it was closer than expected because the Hidden Knife didn't give out +1 SPD as well as Green Beret's + 1 Move and Jump in the vid (in testing it did because I made those two changes and will submit an updated .ppf of 132 soon).

[RavenOfRazgriz]

lol, okay bro.  You found one of the 3 ways to beat Y U SO DERP, that only exists because Auto Potion's busted-ness doesn't allow me to run the setup I want to run.  Well done.

You did win that match because 1. Vigilanti's MP restoration sucked and 2. because Stop kicked in right when you needed it to, not because your team had inevitability.  He was more than capable of beating you in raw power v defense, which is demonstrated in all 3 matches.  His team is (was) just flawed, so it wasn't applying as much pressure as it could've, and Stop kicked in when you needed it to.  There's nothing wrong with that, I was just commenting your team needs more defense if you're trying to maintain inevitability.  I love how you get incredibly defensive as shit then try to quote being able to beat a wall that isn't even optimized through a combination of bugs and laziness with another wall like it proves I'm wrong in my observation on a match between a wall and a sledgehammer.  Hope that e-peen's nice and hard now, bro.

/thumbsup.

[Barren]

Last 2 videos for Arena 1.32 before I do videos on 1.33

Malroth (VooDoo) vs Pierce (FireWater)

DomieV (Song and Dance and Punch) vs Angelus (The Norm Team)

[The Damned]

(1.33 is out already? Damn it. I wanted to comment in that thread after I came back from my walk. Oh well....)

As ever, thanks for the videos Barren.

However, if I may ask one thing--and this isn't to put you on the spot or because it makes me personally uncomfortable--of you, then would you to dial down on using "rape" so casually/often in your videos? FDC's absurd dps aside, the amount of times you said in that one video between his two teams alone was quite...a lot. I've noticed you do it a lot in general and thus I'm pretty sure it isn't intentional, much less malicious since you're a nicer person than I am, which is why I've never really said anything about it. I'm not exactly asking you stop saying it all anyway--censorship is bullshit in most instances; similarly, there's no need for a formal apology or anything (to me, at least).

That said, I can easily imagine that it might make some people who (would) otherwise enjoy your videos (really) uncomfortable, so I'm just throwing it out there for consideration. (I apologize if this is a bit too public of a request; I just felt it would be [slightly] better than PM'ing you since, again, it doesn't personally bother me and I'm not sure if anyone else is actually made uncomfortable by it.)

If it makes you feel any better, Shuriken didn't proc because something unrelated that got applied in 1.32 broke it, not because your luck is terrible.  Already fixed for 1.33, though.

It never makes me feel better!

*flips a table*

...I mean, good to know.

[formerdeathcorps]

I hardly call my dps absurd either.  If my rivals include teams like Wiz, Raven, or Mando, I'd call it necessary.

[Barren]

Well for the purposes of that word being controversial Damned I will tone it down like you asked so yea I'll use the word "rape" less often or even stop saying it all together...yes that word tends to be said in a non-literal sense but i can see where it can be a bit too much

I apologize to those who don't like hearing the word rape in advance considering there are I'm sure people out there who hate that word. So yes Damned, I'll fulfill your request of dialing it down for you and everyone else

[Wiz]

spoiler: Voodoo vs FireWater

Wow, those witch hunts made quite a bit of a difference as well as that Martial Arts Dancer who packed quite a wallop with those wave fists :O

spoiler: Song and Dance and Punch vs The Norm Team

1 Damage from elemental? That's quite a bug. Other than that though, the MA damage from The Norm Team was just too little even with MA Save

spoiler

Just to paraphrase...

lol, okay bro.  You found one of the 3 ways to beat Y U SO DERP, that only exists because Auto Potion's busted-ness doesn't allow me to run the setup I want to run.  Well done.

GL relying on those 40% chances of AP pulling off, nice try at making me look bad. And technically it'd be two of the four ways by your standards because of the replacing of the ninja with the mime meaning no weapons breaking meaning your dancers would only live a tad bit longer.

You did win that match because 1. Vigilanti's MP restoration sucked and 2. because Stop kicked in right when you needed it to, not because your team had inevitability.  He was more than capable of beating you in raw power v defense, which is demonstrated in all 3 matches.  His team is (was) just flawed, so it wasn't applying as much pressure as it could've, and Stop kicked in when you needed it to.  There's nothing wrong with that, I was just commenting your team needs more defense if you're trying to maintain inevitability.

Nothing wrong with that assessment? Pretty unfair to say I only won because of those two reasons. First one's the only one that's valid but won't matter now that Angel Song was nerfed big time. Second reason doesn't apply at all in Round 2 because they ran out of MP (Monk also losing Muramasa) before the Stop procs went off. Round 3 follows suit with the archer taking the high ground picking off their gear resulting them in having to heal up constantly after simply one arrow shot meaning stop's not a primary reason why I won this round too.

In terms of beating me in Raw Damage vs Defense, no not really, breaks reduced the effectiveness of his spells as well as the 35 SP vs 39 Team Speed (Should've been 40) advantage I had over him. The maps themselves also made a difference in terms of winning and losing. Round 1 was a small map where my units stuck together in a group quite a bit of the time. Round 2 they were more spread out and once the Vigilanti's units expended all their MP, it was over. Round 3 as mentioned before, the archer went on top to do his job and there was a choke point on the side of the building where the monk and ninja were preventing his enemy lines from moving forward and targeting everyone all at once.

For the inevitability comment, I reduced my tankiness magically so I could also destroy people's gear as a trade off. Sacrificed a little bit of health for more of a variety (Demi 2 heal that occured in round three onto my thief, Lightning Absorption for my Archer, etc...) in the team build.

I could go into much more depth about this, but it's good enough of an explanation imo.

I love how you get incredibly defensive as shit then try to quote being able to beat a wall that isn't even optimized through a combination of bugs and laziness with another wall like it proves I'm wrong in my observation on a match between a wall and a sledgehammer.  Hope that e-peen's nice and hard now, bro.

And I love your cockiness and pompous attitude. Despite the ad hominems, it doesn't mean anything to me and only shows your immaturity. No matter...I wasn't being defensive, I simply pointed out a fact which I guess you don't like about how good my team was by being able to take yours down and threw out excuses as to why you chose not to improve it. Go test it out if you don't believe me (Now that 133's out, it'll be different somewhat I'm willing to bet). But yeah, saying that I made that claim to prove that you didn't know what you were talking about is flat out wrong. I could go on for ages about this discussion as I mentioned in the sentence above your latest quote, but am not going to because the examples here should be a good enough reason to tell you where I'm coming from.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

spoiler: Rape!

Just be happy I'm not doing these videos, then.  This ass ain't got no class.

spoiler: VooDoo v FireWater

Gotta love that alcohol.  Witch Hunt is quite good, though the bug with it present in 1.32 sadly wasn't fixed to an extent far greater than I realized.  Oh well.

spoiler: Song and Dance and Punch v The Norm Team

I think that Map broke the Bard's AI.  Wow.  He was doing some crazy shit, and the colors/shapes made even watching it wonky because of the depth perception.  Goddamn, part of me never wants to see that map again because it's just confusing to watch.

spoiler: Sparing Everyone Else Some Pain

1. Learn what Ad Hominem means before using it.

2. You're worried about me making "excuses" when I've basically dominated every recorded match where my team was accurate despite having one or more completely non-functional abilities when your own comment on yourself v Vigilanti implies you were ready to blame your "handicap" of two "malfunctional" tems that still had relevant effects (Green Beret still blocked Don't Move / Don't Act, Hidden Knife still gave the Transparent if not the +1 Speed)?  OK.

3. Any team using Gear Break beats Y U SO DERP in 1.32.  I was kind of hoping that'd been common sense, but I guess not. It's called matchups, you can't cover everything 100% of the time, and if you think so, you're an idiot.  In 1.33+, you better also do a fuckton of damage, or you're still not winning.  And I did test vs. your team using 1.33 (subbed the Chemist's now-useless H Bag out for Main Gauche if you're curious, it looked like you'd run either that or P Bag and Main Gauche seemed both more likely and more detrimental to my team specifically), it was a two-hour game (single) where Chemists are Better at Dancing v1 broke or stole every item I had and I still won by blowing your units to shit then punching them until they died because your damage output barely breaks 50-70 per unit even at full power, so they couldn't break my 40% Auto Potions and the lack of Stop.  Did other half-hour spot-test games, they seemed to all go roughly the same way but I wasn't going to sit through tons of two-hour games.  I had better things to do then watch the same boring fight that unfolds basically the same way over and over again.  I can tell you that other methods of beating it involve sums of Two Swords Scholars/Two Hands Oracles, utilizing the Undead Status, and/or using hard-to-suppress physical fighters that hit extremely hard, similar to what Mando's Facial Reconstruction team uses.  Just saying, I actually do know all of my own weaknesses.  I can also tell you that they're all mostly shored-up for in 1.33, because FFMaster stopped allowing me to troll all the elemental absorb teams people were using with that mediocre H Bag (and fixed Auto Potion!).

4. Yes, you did bring it up to try and make yourself look better.  You replied to my assessment of a match between you and someone else with "I CAN BEAT Y U SO DERP STFU" and now are trying to say you didn't.  That's exactly what you did, bro, because whether you win or lose to Y U SO DERP was, is, and always will be irrelevant to the current discussion, which at least started at you v Vigilanti until you pulled it into a thousand different tangents for no particular reason that I for some reason replied to instead of ignoring like I would have were I a reasonably smart human being instead of an idiot on the level of my team's namesake.

5. You just said you won the second round because of his poor MP management.  Just saying.  Also, notice your units were still dying fairly handily after the Muramasa broke until his MP ran dry.  Breaking it helped, but he had plenty of damage /without/ it had he actually been using a good means of maintaining MP to keep his pressure coming at you.  Angel Song is still resolving 2-3 times per unit round, so it's still close to party-wide infinite MP since it'll heal every ally unit on the board for 35-45+ MP minimum by the time the Angel Song unit sees its next CT, but that's neither here nor there.

6. Beating /my/ team doesn't mean anything.  Beating /my/ team /and/ a large chunk of the rest of the metagame means something.  I honestly /don't give a shit/ if I lose to you in the end, because I don't want to beat you specifically.  I want to beat the largest number of opponents possible within the metagame.  That's kind of how competition works.  Most teams aren't you, so if I lose to you, I frankly don't care because it's only a minor freckle.  I've demonstrated my ability to beat a large chunk of the metagame, and my slowrolling from wanting to just troll Eternal and then the metagame to slowly giving a shit is showing I'm beating larger chunks of it as I go.  /That's/ what I care about, and that's what /you/ should care about too.  Unless every team is me, beating me won't mean much because I don't have very many factors present on pretty much any other team you could be up against.  Same is true with you, very few teams use gear breaking, so I don't care as much about it, and I can easily just buy Maintenance over Unyielding and slap Mimic Daravon back on if the metagame shifts, and the inclusion of Auto Potion has lessened the threat of gear breaking from defense-based teams by quite a bit.

7.  Yes, I said, and will continue to say you /only/ won for two reasons.  Note I never called my team /bad/.  I noted you only one /this particular matchup/ for those reasons.  Go back to the above.  Everyone has matchups they're weaker in, you do what you can and you toss the dice at the end of the day.  The dice shown favorably on you today in a matchup you didn't seem as strong as you could've been in.  If you can't accept the fact you'll need to get lucky to win sometimes, then you're not going to get far in a lot of things.  You noted it yourself, you intentionally made yourself weaker in this matchup to shore up other things, and the result of that is needing to toss the dice some more to win the weaker matchups.  You tossed them, you won, I said that's what happened.  Them's the facts, accept 'em, move on with 'em.  Like I've said every post now, there's /nothing wrong with that/, because sometimes that's the only way you can win, because again, you'll never win all the matches against everyone all of the time.

Now excuse me, I have better things to do, such as sleep.  My head's killing me.

[Michiru]

*pats ravens back* wow dude wow~

[formerdeathcorps]

Checked my ASM for dancer again.  I accidentally made songs PA dependent instead.

Instead, try:
BATTLE.BIN
Offset: 0x1223B8
2517060C
Offset: 0x122414
8117060C

[Barren]

FFT ARENA 1.33 Vigilanti (I Kin Hurt You!) vs Wiz (Chemists are better at Dancing V1)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Barren (Big Assault) vs Wiz (Chemists are better at Dancing V2)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Celdia (Co-Ed Rat Pack) vs formerdeathcorps (Heroes)

FFT ARENA 1.33 RavenOfRazgriz (Playground Pioneers) vs formerdeathcorps (Season 5)

FFT ARENA 1.33 RavenOfRazgriz (Y U SO DERP) vs formerdeathcorps (B Team)

FFT ARENA 1.33 SoySauceMaster (Big-Screen Greasers) vs formerdeathcorps (A Team)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Vigilanti (Get on Status!) vs Angelus (The Norm Team)

FFT ARENA 1.33 SoySauceMaster (JUMP AND GEO FTW) vs Barren (Phantasy Star)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Barren (Deep Dungeon) vs formerdeathcorps (Rivals)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Mando (Facial Reconstruction) vs formerdeathcorps (Ordo de Veras Vita)

FFT ARENA 1.33 Dol (Hobbes) vs Malroth (VooDoo)

FFT ARENA 1.33 DomieV (Song and Dance and Punch) vs Malroth (First Strike)

FFT ARENA 1.33 The Damned (Crash Man will BEEP you all) vs Pierce (The Weekenders)

FFT ARENA 1.33 The Damned (Four Kings of Shadaloo) vs Dol (Sticks)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

spoiler: I Kin Hurt You! v Chemists are Better at Dancing v1

Barren, I hate to tell you, but Wiz's teams weren't updated for 1.33, and a big change on H Bag (Half: All Elements -> Inital: Slow and Speed +1) means his Chemist was not at full potential in either match.  However, I don't think the H Bag was much relevant to this match because the Chemist is just a Dancebot and H Bag in their first round fight was irrelevant anyway.  Even if you can't call this match "legitimate" for the above reason, the sheer speed in which it ended should at least demonstrate what I was talking about before with Vigilanti's team having more than enough offense and Wiz's team not being magically tanky enough to endure it.

spoiler: Big Assault v Chemists are Better at Dancing v2

Same as before, H Bag on Chemist thing.  I'll leave the music choice at "interesting," heh. :p  I think this version is far weaker than Wiz's other version.  That Mime ended up being a huge liability, and is probably pointless without being able to get Nameless Dance Stops faster and more consistently.  Game 2 he got a bunch of Slow procs, though, which helped his team actually do what it needs to for sandbagging and get tons of turns while the enemy doesn't.  Let him actually show his defensive prowess some, and the Mime got to be more relevant than in the first game, but you still had too much power for him to really have time to gear break or otherwise do anything since you just had overwhelming offense.

spoiler: Co-Ed Rat Pack v Heroes

Ouch.  Way too much damage, no way to come back.  Not much else to say.

spoiler: Playground Pioneers v Season 5

I saw this matchup and my heart sank because I was expecting to get trollrolled, especially after the small map in G1.  Having a slightly larger map (I don't think there would've been much of a difference between a mediumish sized map and Cemetary given how close everything stayed together once they collided) better demonstrated what these guys could do, though I was surprised when FDC's Samurai began using my Reflect Mail against me.  Smart girl, that one.  G3 I'd say I had map advantage going in due to all the holes in the floor, but it ended up oddly with FDC's team being the one taking advantage of the terrain, since he could still get to his units well enough to revive them, was bottlenecking my less mobile Paladins, and had plenty of ranged damage between his units.  Once the Samurai loop started, I was expecting to lose, but my high resiliency and Jump pulled out somehow, partly with Defender giving me some well-timed evades.  I think the Paladin still had its Reraise anyway, but even a temporary drop would've set my tempo back enough that FDC might've come back.

spoiler: Y U SO DERP v B Team

You sounded so bored by the end of this match, lol.  I think this was the team FDC said would give me issues, so I was again going in at least expecting a long match... then a massacre when I saw the video time.  His Slow Dances scared me when they started going off, since if my Chemists got cut down too far he had the offense to get over them.... and the entire first map being nothing but Carve Model tiles from the looks of it only doubled my fear since that gave him a way to come back even in the mid-game where his units are all ruined down.  Witch Hunt is thankfully a great answer to Song/Dance and cut Slow Dance out of the equation quickly, and Polka Polka quickly wore down his heavy offense.   Those Petrifies were still scary, though.  If both Chemists got Petrified it'd been an unlikely win.  Theoretically possible, but reliant on his Dancers AI being retarded and moving into Secret Fist range.  Gladly Petrify didn't proc more than I could handle, and G1 was mine.  G2 I had map advantage, because the uneven terrain left Revive mostly useless.  I don't think it mattered because he couldn't break the Chemists in time and there were no Carve Model tiles that I know of to give him a mid-game win option, but it did at least help me end that match much faster than I might've otherwise.

spoiler: Big-Screen Greases v A Team

I think the only reason this video wasn't filled with Barren screaming "RAPE" at the top of his lungs was due to The Damned.  That party pooper.  SoySauceMaster's idea of spamming Nameless Song is interesting, but its inconsistent and he could've gone with something better instead of Paladins I think.  I would've used bulky Chemists, myself, and run Battle Song > Magic Song since the only thing Magic Song will buff is Life Song/Angel Song.  A lot more base MP and access to revival that way on the Singers, and Battle Song would help end games much faster.

spoiler: Get on Status! v The Norm Team

SO MUCH GODDAMN CHARM.  Very fun to watch.

spoiler: JUMP AND GEO FTW v Phantasy Star

These checkerboard maps always confuse me with their weird terrain that ruins my depth perception.  Quick games through heavy aggro, though, wow.  SoySauceMaster's team demonstrates why I went with Jumping Paladins for Playground Pioneers, though - Lancers have too much Speed to Jump effectively unless you boost them to 10, but I prefer going second to going first while Jumping.

[Barren]

Yea I now realize that Wiz's team wasn't updated :/ but hey, I'll grant him a rematch when he updates his teams against my team and vigilanti's team before I do anything else

[Celdia]

spoiler

I can't say I expected much better than I got from that last team but it was fun to watch, if short. For the record, I just tested my new team against FDC's Heroes on the same maps and it went just as quick except I won 2-0. ^_^ I can't wait to see how Diamonds and Guns fares in the next set. GG FDC. I hate Grand Cross.

[Vigilanti]

spoiler: Me vs Wiz

Yea, I kinda figured that his team wasn't updated for 1.33 yet. but hey, it was fun to watch nonetheless...hopefully we'll duke it out again when you update your team

spoiler: Me vs Angelus

That was a great match Angelus! Your squire is strong as hell! My thief did great too GG Angelus, your team is good