Final Fantasy Hacktics

FFT Arena Netherworld Match 76 - iamBQB vs AeroGP

What do people think about lowering Balance's MP cost from 24 to 12?  This will allow for semi-sustainable use by armour classes - the ones with the HP pools to actually use the skill effectively.  Seeing Time Knights, Time Lancers, and so on using Haste, Slow, and Balance would be neat, for what that's worth.  Balance is a lousy skill for mages no matter its MP cost, so the skill currently stinks.

Here's another minor proposal: lower Sunken State's JP cost from 200 to 100.  Players are probably going to go on ignoring it with Hidden Knives and now Concentrate around, but... yeah, it sure isn't worth 200 JP.  Doesn't Transparent expire when being hit, too?

Quote from: RavenOfRangriz*Knives*

Has the Platina Dagger been removed?

Epee works, too.  I'm sure it's been used without the accents in RPGs before.  Rapier would be the next closest thing.

Side and back evasion are 46% and 51%, respectively.  Units are rarely hit from the back.  Either way, the hit chance is still low, giving the unit the opportunity to weather quite a few stiff breezes.  The build is no more susceptible to Ninjutsu than any other.  Ninjutsu has that 30% M-EV going against it, too.  Faith doesn't need to be at 40, either.

10 turns transpire quickly.  On most maps, the thief will get around 2 before engagement, and even if the thief's evasion fails him and he hits the floor afterward, he's not going to stay down.  Toss a Raise spell his way and he's good to play his hand with the RNG once more.  Every attack he dodges takes pressure off his other team members, giving them room to support him or mount offense of their own.

Asura's damage is fine.  Its wielder is, as you said, a sluggish Samurai.  The samurai also needs to equip a Bracer to achieve the same damage, giving up that pivotal 45/30 A-EV and leaving the Samurai exposed to all manner of offense.  On top of that, Asura is Fire elemental, making Black Costumes and White Robes a simple counter.  This is a build you can prepare for in multiple ways, so I am comfortable with it.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on June 09, 2012, 02:19:25 pmYou bring Nether skills because they still do very good damage (1 XA less) to those units, while hitting many units you are normally completely impotent against, such as Innocent Ninjitsu users. 40/40 tanks, etc.

I don't think there is an "et cetera" here.  Flash Hat at 40/40 tanks are the only ones.  If you want to keep the Nether tier as a niche tier, then we should indeed lower the JP cost of its spells to 100 so players don't ignore it.  I simply want to see the tier being used.

I'm throwing together an alpha version of my next team builder and am coming across some interesting gear combinations.  Here's one:

====================
Thief
Free secondary
Abandon
Two Hands
War Path

Lionheart

Twist Headband
Power Sleeve
Feather Mantle
====================

Hit modifiers
P: 38%
M: 70%

Damage (target brave: [40,70])
At 70 Brave: [259,363]
At 100 Brave (ie. after 10 turns): [334,467])

Are we comfortable with this kind of stuff?  The thief is going to be a physical-damage magnet with 100 Brave and low (284) HP, yet is going to be dodging attacks left and right with its high P-EV.  (Look to my S5 Wizard to see how stupid the AI is about this.)  30% M-EV and low faith is going to shut down any mage who dares to get around this high P-EV with magic long enough to 1HKO it, its 40 Brave be damned.

The problem here is War Path.  It takes a setup that is perfectly fine on its own and blows it out of proportion.  Pointing out how players give up the passive HP regen of Move-HP UP in exchange falls flat for me.  I don't have a problem with Move-HP UP.  It gives what I can take away: HP.  I can't take away Brave, though, and if I don't have either a Stone Gun or Concentrate to get around that P-EV, it's going to permanently count against me.  Given how delicious 0 MP, 0 CT, neutral-element 1HKOs on a 4 Move, 10 SP unit is going to be, I'll be damned if I enter a tournament without either.

In summary, I don't think the repercussions of War Path have been carefully thought out.  If it's not the 1HKOs that's going to break things, it's going to be the AI baiting, for which Concentrate or Guns are the only counters.  This takes me back to my long-term petition for the implementation of Brave-based status magic, which will allow players to punish high Brave in ways other than damage, just as they can high Faith.

Now for some less controversial proposals:

1. Rename Tactician Blade as Scout's Blade.  Makes sense, given how the Tactician Blade has more to do with mobility than tactics.

2. Rename Parry Edge as Épée.  En garde!  I deflect your feeble lunge and riposte for 20 points!

Gaignun here with a few more numbers to bore everyone with.

I foresee Black Magic's Nether tier being underwhelming.  In comparison to the "new" tier 1 spells, Nether spells cost +50 JP, +50% MP (except Bolt; did you mean 25 MP for Nether Bolt, Raven?) and do not have a status proc.  For this price, the tier gets to use its targets' low Brave against them, which, as Raven pointed out, maximises its damage against a wider variety of units.  I would like to argue that this feature is not worth the price.  Bear with me here.

With +1 Y, Fire, Ice, and Bolt will always deal more damage if the target has more than 56, 58, and 59 Faith, respectively.  These are pretty standard Faith values for teams that rely on magic for healing.  (Well, more like ~50-55 faith, but whatever.)  In other words, Fire, Ice, and Bolt are generally good investments in spite of whatever Brave value the targets may have.  Bear in mind that Nether spells break even at these Faith values in terms of damage alone.  The two spell types do not break even on all fronts: Nether spells are still more expensive to learn and cast and cannot inflict status ailments.  At progressively lower Faith values, the Nether spells begin to make up for this cost.  In their most favourable case (40 Brave 40 Faith), Nether Fire, Ice, and Bolt deal +22.5%, +24.4%, and +26.0% damage, respectively (around +1.4-2.1 HP damage per XA).  I believe its added cost is worth it at only this extreme - this makes the Nether tier pretty niche.  Start adding either Brave or Faith, and players will begin choosing Tier 1 over Nether.  Add in the facts that 40 Br/Fa targets are relatively rare as of late, that Brave and Faith can only increase in battle, and that Tier 1 can at least inflict a status ailment if all else fails, and it becomes easy to see how Tier 1 is the better investment.

My message here is that these added costs make the Nether tier too weak in its own right.  Indeed, its damage is maximised against a wider variety of units, but this damage still tends to be the smaller of the two.  Its cost spoils its utility.  Here are three suggestions for making the two tiers more competitive:

1. Remove its Y penalty.  In this case, one may claim that the Nether tier's damage is not only maximised, but also higher on a wider variety of units than Tier 1. The cost of this added utility is higher MP and JP costs and lack of a status proc.  This seems fair.  Its wide applicability should not be overstated, however.   Tier 1 still has its status procs and cheaper MP cost, making it the better choice at equal damage (eg. against the quintessential 40 Br/70 Fa mage,) and it becomes absolutely better the moment targets raise their Faith beyond 70.

2. Drop its CT from 3 to 2, which would lure players toward it for speed of casting, if not for niche team counters.

3. Drop its JP cost from 150 to 100.  This is the weakest of the three suggestions.  The Nether tier will still have its niche application, but players will at least have an easier time adding it "on the side" lest they encounter derpy 40 Br/40 Fa teams.

My vote is for suggestion #1.

Moving on, Ultima can use a buff, can't it?  If we're going to entice players to put Basic Skill on an MA-based unit, we need to do it with more than Faith-independent damage.  For that there's already Draw Out.  Boosting its power might not be the best way about it.  Would removing its Charge Time or slashing its MP cost in half upset anyone?

Quote from: Reks on June 02, 2012, 03:17:13 pm
Right. It made sense in my head before, plus it would have given more of a use to Shield Break. But i'm just being unhelpful. Hrm......

New suggestions are never unhelpful!

I'm also going to go with a "no" for the protect/shell shields.  Protect trumps P-EV 9 times out of 10, and it's going to get even better when Concentrate enters the scene.  A protect shield will overshadow the rest.  Likewise for the shell shield.

Quote from: Barren on June 01, 2012, 02:52:53 pmJust one question about Punch Art Gaignun: Are you saying that you don't necessarily need Martial Arts to do better Punch Art damage where Spin Fist is PA*11 or something like that?

Well, Martial Arts will still give you better damage.  Its damage bonus will simply become linear, leading to a weaker need for it.

Here are a few more proposals:

1. Reduce the JP cost of Critical Quick from 350 to 300.  It's overpriced to begin with.  Speed Save is getting a mild buff, so this skill should be made more attractive to keep in step.

2. Reduce Demi's MP cost from 20 to 12.  Tier 2 Wizard spells routinely do more than 33% HP damage, cost half as much JP, cost less MP, and have an easier time going through M-EV.  At 33% damage, mages are going to keep on keeping their distance from Demi, but low-MA jobs that typically don't have huge MP pools might come forward.

3. Change Demi 2's MP cost from 40 to 24, damage from 66% to 50%, and Y value from 65 to 75.  The current Demi 2 is way too expensive for its low hit rate.  The lower MP cost and higher Y value intend to make Demi 2 usable, as well as give players another sorely-needed reason to consider equipping a mantle (which we are incidentally buffing) instead of Setiemson by default.  Damage is reduced in compensation.

Proposals 2 and 3 here, in concert with the proposal for Lich on the previous page, are designed to transfer power from Setiemson's auto-shell to mantles' and shields' M-EV. 

4. Increase Asura's Q value from 6 to 7.  This makes it worth the 200 JP price tag it shares with Koutetsu and Heaven's Cloud.

5. Make Punch Art's damage formulae linear.  This removes the requirement to stack PA to to deal appreciable damage.  Stated another way, this allows we designers to make Punch Art more accessible without having to worry about damage being pushed too high at the extreme.  This is best visualised in the form of a plot:


Spin Fist's formula is 11*PA.  Wave Fist's is 13*PA.  The current and proposed curves are equal at 22 PA in both cases.  The Q values could even be lower.

The maximum attainable effective PA in the next patch will be 29.  This puts Wave Fist well into into 1HKO territory.  This will only be exacerbated with Warpath.  By making the formulae linear, we clip off this high-PA region, where only Monks reside, and buff the low-PA region, where everyone else resides, and viola: Spin Fist, Repeating Fist, Wave Fist, and Earth Slash become useful to more than one class.  Not only will making the formulae linear help us avoid 1HKO shenanigans, but also place less of an emphasis on stacking PA to begin with.  You calculus buffs out there should readily know that the dependent variable is present in the first derivative of a quadratic formula.  Here that means that your damage bonus gets higher for every additional PA you stack.  On the other hand, the first derivative of a linear formula is constant, so there is no such incentive to stack PA.  Hence, players will find it easier to equip items other than Bracers and so on when making DPS Punch Art units.  (Most will probably move on to Cherche, but that says more about Cherche than the linear formulae.)

I'm with dacheat and Raven on this one.  Old-fashioned monsters need to be made stupid powerful in order to make up for their lack of versatility.  The only monster I truly felt threatened by in the past was that red Cockatrice, and that was only because it had AI-breaking Hamedo as a reaction ability.

I'm not entirely opposed to their idea, however.  Until we (and by "we" I mean whoever's able to edit FFT's code) can work out solutions for customising monsters, we just need to create scenarios for using them, like by forcing every entrant of a tournament to use one monster in his/her team.

Quote from: The DamnedI can't agree with Salamander if Oil boosts Holy or Dark...

In comparison to "Fire 2", Salamander would offer +1 AoE at the cost of +8 MP, +2 CT, and +50 JP.  Oil aside, I think this is a fair price.

Quote from: The Damned4. 108 Gems blocking Oil: I'd be fine with this, but wouldn't that mean it would block four statuses in addition to also Strengthening All elements? While I don't exactly have a problem with that and while its blocking of Blood Suck needs to go die in a fire (or a running body of water), I just want to be sure.

That's right.  Oil immunity would replace the idle Blood Suck immunity.  Strengthening all elements is fine and all, but under the current trend to power up all accessories, it's a pricey use of an accessory slot.  Players are already using weapons, shields, and armor to strengthen elements whenever possible.  Now that we are buffing mantles and keeping perfumes around, I predict that players will go on doing this.  The Oil immunity is a tiny, but significant buff.

Alternatively, we can "reinvent" Defense Ring and Diamond Armlet to something like:

Coral Ring: Absorb: Water, Immune: Poison, Oil, Frog
Gaia Ring: Absorb: Earth, Immune: Berserk, Sleep, Dead

The Coral Ring becomes an imperfect "anti-wizard" accessory, and the Gaia Ring inherits the Defense Ring's role as the "anti-mediator" accessory.  (I changed Death Sentence immunity to Death immunity above, since Death immunity implies Death Sentence immunity; it makes the accessory a little more useful.)  Both accessories have absorption on the side so that teams can do something else with them when they're not up against the relevant job.  We might want to find Diamond Armlet's now-homeless Slow immunity a new piece of equipment in this case.

Quote from: Eternal248Chronos Tear: Could probably stand to gain Cancel: Slow as well.

I agree: Cancel: Stop and Cancel: Slow go well together as Time Magic counters.  I share The Damned's hesitation on this one, though.  In my case, I frown upon giving people reason to set Chronos Tear's JP cost higher than 100. I want people to be drawn to Chronos Tear for its ability to cure Stop and Stop alone.  Given how Haste is still around, players might not be willing to spend extra JP to cure an ailment they already can with a routine buff.  It's like an ISP insisting on bundling cable with internet for a customer who watches TV online.  It doesn't matter how much money you'll save on bundled cable; you're only interested in internet.  The fact that you are paying any money at all for a service you don't need makes the deal less attractive.

Anyway, if we can keep Chronos Tear's JP cost at 100, then I don't mind if it also cures Slow.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz*Wizard changes*

We should probably reassign spell names while we're eliminating tiers.  Do people prefer the "-a -aga" nomenclature of FF8+ to the "-2 -3" nomenclature before it?  This could be our opportunity to to switch over.  Otherwise, seeing that we have only two real tiers, "back" tier excluded, we could go with something unique like "Water" for tier 1 and "High Water" for tier 2.  Then commentators with humour as dry as mine could crack jokes like "this unit won't die come hell or high water."

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizPoison Y is lowered, but I only lowered it to 90 here after noticing it still takes M-EV.

Don't Move takes M-EV, too.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz*Summoner changes*

You probably forgot to mention this, but the CT>4 summons are going to need some buffs to make up for the M-EV nerf.  How's this?

Change: Salamander (Dmg_F * MA * 8, Fire elemental, 20% +Oil, 20 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Leviathan (Dmg_F * MA * 8, Water elemental, 20% Dispel, 20 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Titan (Dmg_F * MA * 10, Earth elemental, 25 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Cyclops (Dmg_F * MA * 10, Holy elemental, 20% +Blind, 35 MP, 5 CT)

Salamander and Leviathan get 20% procs that mirror Black Magic (because I'm feeling unoriginal) and a damage boost so that they aren't laughably bad, Titan gets a damage boost so that Quake doesn't trump it, and Cyclops gets its CT reduced to keep par with the new Titan.  (I don't think +20% Blind is worth both 10 extra MP and 1 extra CT.)

Quote from: The Damneddo we still want Defense Ring to Block Berserk (instead of Silence) if Reflect Ring is blocking Berserk now?

I'd rather add resistance to Oil over Silence, since nothing blocks Oil at present.  What do people think about giving Defense Ring immunity to Oil, Sleep, and Dead? (See the edit below.)

Also, I'd prefer to rename Defense Ring and Defense Armlet to something that elicits the concept of their newly nulled elements.  Coral Ring is on the drawing board.  Do we have any others?

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizOil:
Dispel by all elements (except holy/dark?)
Weak to all elements (except holy/dark?)

I know we didn't (and most likely never will) conclude our discussion about Holy/Dark.  You raised good points before.  It seems we are arguing for different things, though.  Let me attempt to summarise our stances.  You wish to include Holy/Dark to give more power to the player.  Your explanation was clear.  I wish to exclude Holy/Dark, however, to give more power to the designer.  I tried to do this by showing how accessible the Holy skill would become for 1HKOs.  Black Magic will become able to 1HKO, as well, but only if the Black Magic wielder has high MA in general.  This is fine.  On the other hand, even the tankiest of White Magic users (res bots, status bots, and so on) will be able to 1HKO with Holy.

I guess what this boils down to is that I want the White Magic skill set, which is already useful and widely used, to be incompatible with the Oil buff.  If you want to 1HKO with Oil, you need to be built as a DPS machine; support tanks are excluded.  By giving skill sets access to only elements we exclude from Oil, we designers can make this exclusion possible.  The same thing applies to Demi 2 pending a buff.  White Magic DPS machines will still be able to 1HKO with Holy in spite of the buff.  I don't have a problem with that, especially since Holy is now taking M-EV.  That Holy/Dark elemental weapons also lose out on Oil synergies is an unfortunate casualty, but a casualty I'm willing to accept.  I don't have much more to say about this, so if you, and possibly others, are still unconvinced, then go ahead and let Oil apply to all elements.

EDIT: On second thought, would anyone mind adding an additional Absorb: Earth to Defense Ring and simply scrapping Berserk immunity in exchange?  "Gaia Ring" would be a fitting name for this accessory.  At two elements apiece, this Gaia Ring would be comparable to the current Magic Ring.  Furthermore, Gaia Ring's Earth, like Magic Ring's Holy, is one of the elements the "big three" clothes (Black Costume, Santa Outfit, and Rubber Costume) do not absorb.  Oil immunity could shift to 108 Gems in this case.  That 108 Gems also has Undead immunity, which subsequently makes stocking Holy Water unnecessary for its wearers, is harmonious to design.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizRe: Wiznaibus - I'd rather further lower the %rate of Poison on Wiznaibus to 10% or 15% than remove Mime.  The entire point of this upgrade to Wiznaibus is to buff Miming teams.

I can get behind that.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizRe: Water 2 proc - Faith would be /interesting/, but Fire 2 already procs Oil, which does the same thing by doubling damage to every Element in the Wizard's skillset.

That is true.  Faith would be better than Oil in most cases, as well, as it isn't dispelled on hit.  The most benign universal ailment next to Oil, Slow, and Don't Move that comes to mind is Poison, but that's beginning to push it.  Is CT5Holy's suggestion about adding a chance of dispell to damage formulae possible?

EDIT: Question answered above.

Quote from: The Damned...if the Water spells really do end up all ignoring Reflect, then I'm really not sure they "need" anything.

The way I see it, each element group gets one "tradeoff," for lack of a better word, in addition to a status proc.  Fire trades damage for increased AoE, Ice JP affordability for MP cost, and Lightning MP cost for damage.  I am of the impression that the piercing of reflect would count towards water's tradeoff rather than its status proc, given that this feature will apply to all water spells.

Are we rolling with reflect-piercing as the feature now, anyway?  Reduced CT was also mentioned, which I think would make Water more useful in general, since the majority of units are not going to have a reflect status to pierce.  This also won't overshadow Dispel Magic's role in getting past Reflect.

Quote from: CT5HolyCherche and Setiemson were indeed +1 PA/MA, Initial: Protect/Shell at one point, and yeah, they weren't used.

I vaguely remembered that when I was typing my previous post, but was not sure enough to act on it.  The perfumes can stay in this case.  However, until there is some way to punish high Fury in spite of Protect, like Yin Yang Magic punishes high Faith in spite of Shell, I will remain wary about Warpath.

Quote from: The DamnedTEAR INTO PIECES!

You can recite Star Ocean 2 quotes, too?  I think I found my new best friend.

Quote from: FanaticKill quickening.

I agree with you here.  SP is the touchiest of stats.  Locking units into rigid SP tiers and balancing equipment and abilities accordingly is the easiest way to go.  That way you don't have to worry about the possibility of letting 20 SP chemists throw around items like candy.

Mind if I bring the discussion back to poison for a bit?  I took a few minutes to collate the changes related to poison that were proposed:

QuoteAdd: Wretched Blade (Weapon Element, PA * WP, 6 MP, +Poison, 1 AoE, Vert 1, NoSelf, 250 JP)
Change: Hawkseye (+Proc: Poison/Oil)
Change: Poison (AoE +1, Vert +1)
Change: Wiznaibus (+25% Poison, still damages HP.)
Poison Bow (+2 WP)

I'm glad to see how poison is being put to greater use.  However, I am wary about how these changes will meld with poison lasting beyond death.  The point of making poison persist is to encourage people to cure it before the poisoned unit dies, right?  I foresee two skills in the above list that will make pushing players toward poison management feel more like pushing them off of a cliff:

Wretched blade: An AoE, weapon elemental physical attack that inflicts poison 100% of the time.  This is grand cross without the self-heal.  The AI loves to use Grand Cross; it will love this, too.  Teams fully equipped to cure poison have enough trouble cleansing the 100% poison from Kiyomori.  That this has potential to deal heavy damage in addition to 100% poison (remember that it takes the weapon's element, so it can be boosted by element strengthening and oil) will only compound this difficulty.  Thus, I am led to believe that Wretched Blade is too powerful to apply the new version of poison.

My proposal: Remove +Poison.  Alternatively, have it add poison at low (20-33%) probability.

Wiznaibus: 25% chance of inflicting every opposing unit with poison.  This amounts to:

68% chance of inflicting at least one unit with poison;
26% chance of inflicting at least two units with poison.

If Wiznaibus is mimed (as it often is), the odds become 90% and 44%, respectively.  Bear in mind that Wiznaibus targets the entire field, so this skill has the highest likelihood of inflicting poison on units spread far apart.  This means that one turn will be need to be devoted to cleanse each unit of poison.  And since Wiznaibus targets the entire field, dancers can effortlessly continue poisoning units, thereby putting the opposing team in a laborious status-healing loop.

My proposal: Remove Wiznaibus' ability to be mimed.  I have nothing against buffing Wiznaibus.  Dancers need it.  On the other hand, I do not like full-map AoE skills on principle because their boundary between "useless" and "broken" is razor thin.  The skills need to be kept weak because the opposing team has no way of avoiding their effects, yet if they're kept too weak, nobody uses them.  That's why I am treading lightly with changes to Wiznaibus.

My proposal will give the opposing team a chance to manage the poison.  Forcing your opponent to cleanse poison once every 6 clock ticks will put your opponent's healers under mild stress.  Forcing your opponent to cleanse it twice will put them under great stress.  However, the odds are low enough to avoid breaking your opponent's management capabilities.  (And by "breaking" I mean making poison management impossible.)  90% and 44% odds, however, won't.   Teams without poison healing are going to get punished all the same, so the "+Poison" buff is still going to work.

Poison: Will have 2 AoE and 3 vert with the change.  I am less worried about this than Wretched Blade and Wiznaibus because it (a) doesn't deal immediate damage and (b) isn't full-map, persisting AoE.  With that being said, the Poison spell's current Y value is so high (115!) that it hits just about every target.  Its Y value was set this high to entice people to use it.  Nobody did.  Now, with 2 AoE and an accompanying Poison buff, the spell stands to have this value lowered.  75, the same value for Time Magic's Don't Move, seems fair.  Black Magic is being taken in good directions with "back" spells, water spells, status infliction, and the removal of Venetian Shields.  We don't need to add to this with a wildly functional Poison spell.  Let's lower its Y value, then raise it later if need be.

On the subject of Wizards, does anyone have a thematic status effect that the tier 1 water spell can inflict?  +20% faith would make for a nice, albeit inefficient, way to topple 40 Faith units.

Finally, what do people think of changing Cherche and Setiemson?  I think that they are too useful at the moment.  Sure, accessories are meant to be useful, but no accessory is useful against roughly half of every attack in the game apart from these two.  Pair these accessories with their complementary (Magic) Defense UP and you have yourself an ultimate defense against HP damage.  I fear that this perma-defense will become worse with Warpath, behind which players can comfortably boost their Fury to 100.  (Holy march won't be as bad, as units using it must expose themselves to either status effects by equipping Setiemson or magic damage by equipping a mantle.)  The perfumes steal the thunder of the Protect and Shell spells, as well.  I say we demote "Always: Protect/Shell" to "Init: Protect/Shell" in exchange for some minor buffs, like +1 PA/MA.  When you consider that Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlet give identical stat boosts with a humble +15% EV, these changes don't seem so egregious.

Quote from: Barren on May 18, 2012, 10:44:31 amFFT Arena Season One A.I. Tournament Match 34 Wiz vs Shadowstrike

What song did you begin playing at 6:20, Barren?

Wall of text incoming.  I'm going to be up until 6 AM tonight making up for the time I lost putting this together.  I'm borrowing The Damned's bolding technique, as it makes arguments much easier to follow

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizThough, between Black Magic buffs, M-EV buffs, etc., losing Reflectable on Flare can probably wait until we see whether the other changes are enough to put them on even ground first.

This is a good idea.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizAn important thing to remember is that a mage with Holy March is one without Move-MP UP, and a warrior with Warpath is one without Move +1 or Move-HP UP, which are currently key skills for them to the point they're more likely to go without a Reaction than a Movement.

Yes, Move-XP UP and Move +1 are better.  These skills are also more expensive.  You currently have Holy March and Warpath at 300 JP.  If +2 Brave/Faith seems too low for 300 JP, then by all means make the JP cost lower.  Then they can serve as sorely needed mid-range movement abilities while not stepping on Brave/Faith UP's toes.  Players might even be able to equip both reaction and movement abilities when they otherwise would have to choose one or the other.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizThose are two really big distinctions that make Stop far less threatening than Petrify while leaving it threatening enough to make Geomancy desirable.

Yes, Stop is the lesser of two evils.  What bugs me about Stop is that there is currently only one way to cure it, and it's on an inferior skill set.  If we go ahead with The Damned's "Chronos Tear" (which I think is an excellent suggestion, by the way), then I won't mind putting Stop back on Hell Ivy.

On a related note,

Quote from: The DamnedAs much as I hate strengthening Chemist (or Priest or Monk), it seems one of those classes needs to be able to cancel Stop and Chemist is least obnoxious...

While it looks bad on paper, I think giving the item skill set yet another means of healing status is fine.  People rarely learn every status healing anyway, and 150 JP for a status with a short CT is rather steep.  Even if the cost was set to 100 JP (the same cost for curing the more debilitating Petrify), people will probably still choose to wait out Stop rather than bother curing it.  But choice is the important action we're providing here.  Currently, all teams without Basic Skill must wait out Stop whether they'd like to or not.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizSo you're going to take a skill that's already really fast, have a second unit dedicated to spreading Oil, then have the first unit use Short Charged Holy casts at 2x damage in the hopes for a OHKO that at min MA may not still oneshot bulky units? This seems... no better than just using an MA Stacked Holy and having a second unit that supports via other methods.  You give people multiple methods of trying to use Holy instead of just one, potentially a method of making use of Dia, etc., and really the only Dark skill of note is Kotetsu which is seeing a nerf.  There's Meiton but Fuuton and Suiton are already boosted by Oil so it's basically irrelevant.  I just see no reason to not let people experiment with every element considering trying to double the rare Holy or Dark skills that already see use is basically superfluous and Oil is not something that is easy to inflict.

Very few units are bulky enough to live through a 2x damage Holy.  If Holy is modified by oil, a 12 MA 70-faith mage with Holy strengthening (we're talking a Priest with only a Golden Hairpin and a Magic Ring here) will deal 378 damage with a short-charged Holy to a 40-faith target.  That same mage will deal 236 damage to multiple 40-faith targets with a short-charged Cyclops.  Damage goes to 528 and 330, respectively, at 70 faith.  I don't want to force people to stick to 40 faith (or Setiemson, which I'd like to remove along with Cherche, but that's an argument for a different post) to survive teams that will exploit these oil-nuke combinations.  I want to push people away from extremes and introduce them to the middle, which is currently better described as No Man's Land.  Giving people more reason to stick to low faith to avoid 1HKOs doesn't hurt just Holy and Cyclops; it hurts all magic.

I must argue that Holy-oil is better than MA-stacked Holy and a second support.  A unit with short-charge Holy is useful for other things, such as short-charge Raise - or short-charge anything really; Short Charge is an amazing support skill - and the unit spreading oil will be doing its own damage as it spreads it.  For example, fire does AoE damage, and Greased Bolt deals HP damage and poisons (... past death, as it now seems - 1HKO and resurrection denial at the cost of two turns.  Yikes!)  The short-charge mage, in addition to having the reliability Short Charge confers, doesn't need to sacrifice all defense for the sake of MA, either, allowing for synchronisation with other healing/resistance strategies.

Holy and Dark skills are not as rare as you chalk them up to be.  17 units know Holy in S1 (or up to 17 of 46 teams - I'm too lazy to count how many teams have two units with Holy).  9 units know Koutetsu and 2 know Bio 3.  (Yeah, they're not a majority, but they're still more popular than any other element.  Wind comes third with 9 units knowing Tornado, Heaven's Cloud, and Silf taken together.  I'm too lazy to count magic guns, but even if I wasn't, I doubt I'd find that Fire, Ice, and Lightning surpass Holy and Dark by usage, either.) The nerf to Koutetsu is small.  Golden Hairpin will keep Holy and Dark elements popular.  Dia will see more use with white magic users, who are a dime a dozen, and I hope Demi will see more use with buffs.  As for the difficulty of applying oil, that applies to all elements; the other six elements are at the same disadvantage.  Following this line of thought, I wouldn't mind making oil easier to apply and heal.  The weakness modifier might have to be dropped from 2x to 1.5x in this case, though.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizAs for Black Costume prevalence - it's been like that even when Dark was a terrible Element.  The main issue has always been that Water (Rubber Costume) and Wind (Santa Costume) are just worse, and the Fire/Dark combo covers both a lot of AoE skills and that pointless Weak: Dark that's on [P] Bag still.  It also has synergy with Undead teams, which back then were also popular despite Dark being kinda shit and them still being Weak to Holy.  Black Costume did compete with Rubber Costume somewhat if only because Lightning was as good as both Fire and Dark combined, but now that Dark and Fire have gotten better, Rubber Costume's fallen to the wayside, especially with Wizard currently being shit.  Basically, Black Costume has always been amazing and basically the best of the "Absorbs two Elements" clothing even before Dark and Fire were even half as good as they are now, and it's going to take making the other Elements (Wind and Water mostly) not suck to fix that, not adding random exceptions to Oil that just stifle creativity.  The issue is finding space to actually make Wind and Water not suck, since they both contain very few moves, and most of them are smart-targeted meaning you can't build any kind of Absorb team with them...

This is all symptomatic of a bigger problem: not giving people enough reasons to shift away from Fire and Dark.  Wizards will improve with these new proposals (which is saying very little, really; simply giving them a fancy name like "Death Man" will be an improvement - doubly so because it would be ironic).  As for space for wind and water skills, it can be made by pruning redundant ones.  For example, do we really need four tiers of Black Magic spells?  Consolidating Black Magic to three tiers will make space for one new element; consolidating to two tiers will make space for three.  Water could surely use representation here.  Then that one skill set that didn't have a unique job can find one in water healing. Wind and Earth can use representation, too, although I think I think they're doing well enough already with representation in Lore.  Then there's Draw Out's Heaven's Cloud, which sees little use right now due to the superiority of the Koutetsu-Golden Hairpin combination.

Anyway, exempting Dark from oil is going to shift people away from Dark.  We seem to be of the same mind on this need for a shift.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizThe primary users of Salty Rage for Berserking are Stone Gunners, and Berserk Stone Gunners are currently overshadowed by the imbalanced Kagesougi Gunner who does the same damage without needing to be Berserked.

It was a gimmick then, too.  Stone gunners were still sacrificing adaptability to do a single thing.  There aren't many ways to build a berserk gunner: Attack UP, a movement ability of choice, a Stone Gun, and that's about it.  Maybe add a few skills on the side to make use of the surplus JP when the gunner fails his job by dying.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizThe main thing against this is that Absorbing Water won't help a Water Absorb team see use.  There are very few Water skills - Suiton, Leviathan, Water Ball, Grand Cross + Whale Whisker, and... are there even any others?

Not really, but we can add them with a little adventurous spirit.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgrizDemi 2 still sucks.  It's sucked for a long time, bro.  Nothing's come along to change that - in fact, I think over time it's only grown to suck more.  If Oil doubling Demi 2 makes it actually worth acknowledging, more power to Demi 2.

So let's change it.  If we want to add more power to Demi 2, let's make it useable in all cases, either by reducing the cast time, lowering the MP cost, increasing the accuracy (at the expense of lowering the damage from 66% to 50%, as The Damned suggested), or all three.  This way, we make another skill useable while avoiding the multi-target instant-death oil-Demi2 combination at the same time.  Again, this comes back to keeping on Holy and Dark skills that would be broken with oil.

Ninja edit, because The Damned posted while I idled on my own post for several hours:

Quote from: The DamnedInitial Berserk + Stone Gun: It's always...annoyed me that Berserk works with Guns (and Crossbows). It just doesn't make sense and, frankly, I'm not all that much more convinced that Initial Berserk needs to stay around just for one weapon.

They shoot the bullets harder when they're angry.  Either that or they curve them to hit more organs at once.  Haven't you seen that movie "Wanted"?  The protagonist shot guns better when he was angry.  Hard rock played in the background, too.  I don't know how he pulled that one off, though.

I'm late on this, but I thought I'd add my input to other listed changes:

QuoteVenetian Shield => Glitter Shield (5/5 +1 SPD)

I'm with The Damned on this: can we use a name other than Glitter Shield?  This is what I think of when I read the word "Glitter":



No offense to the name's creator or anything.

QuoteCrystal Shield (Change to 20/20, Neutral: All Elements.)

So it covers... only Light Robe's and P-Bag's Dark weakness, I think?  Too bad it won't do anything for Fire, Ice, Gold, and Mythril Shield's weaknesses, which is unfortunate, as I believe these weaknesses are what are preventing their adoption.   Crystal Shield will remain specialty shield.

QuoteDefense Ring (+8/8)

I think Defense Ring is going to need a little more to entice people.  +8 evasion is like garnishing shit with parsley (excuse my language); it still smells bad.  Maybe give it "Absorb: Earth" instead of EV to round out accessories' absorption of "secondary elements."  This is just a thought.

QuoteAdd: Wild Blow (Weapon Elemental/Range, RN{XA / 2...XA * 3 / 2} * WP, unevadable, 5 MP, 100 JP)

I'm with Raven on this one: increase the MP cost to keep the AI from spamming this.  Either that or let it be evadeable.  Otherwise, consider units with Wild Blow as units that can have both Attack UP and Concentrate equipped at the same time with an occasional Berserk-like damage boost.  That's pretty broken.

QuoteAntidote - Cancel: Poison and Blind, 100 JP.
Echo Grass - Cancel: Silence and Berserk - 100 JP.

Sound proposals, and a freed item slot besides.  The status infliction of Kiyomori will be manageable this way, and people will have an accessible means of healing berserks they don't want.

Quote[Personal addition - Remove Reflectable from Flare to give it an advantage over Holy.]

If you're looking for an advantage of Flare over Holy, you got it by making Holy evadeable and buffing mantles.  Having Flare pierce reflect is a slap in the face to reflect.  I say we keep Dispel Magic as the reflect counter.  If Flare isn't useful enough, I suggest we lower its MP or CT instead.

QuoteAdd: Warpath (+3 Fury at end of the turn if moved, 300 JP)
Add: Holy March (+3 Faith at end of the turn if moved, 300 JP)

I mentioned this before, but these proposals shadow Faith UP and Brave UP.  If these movement abilities must be kept, then please lower the increments to +2.

QuoteSummoner
Change: All spells CT > 4 take M-EV.

Some summons, particularly Salamander and Leviathan, are going to be dramatically underwhelming with this change.  We'll need to buff these summons' damage or give them a status proc to compensate.

QuoteChange Hell Ivy to +Stop
Change Carve Model to +Don't Move

We are trading one evil for another with this one.  Hell Ivy is just as common as Carve Model, and double-panel Stop can be just as game-ending as double-panel Petrify (and just as bitter if it's off of Counter Flood).  Can Hell Ivy remain as +Slow?

QuoteOil:
Dispel by all elements (except holy/dark?)
Weak to all elements (except holy/dark?)

[Personal addition - I see no reason to exempt Holy and Dark.  There are very few Holy skills or weapons in Arena, and while Dark is prevalent, it is also the most easily countered through Black Costume being the best of the Elem Absorb items, among other things.  Koutetsu was also weakened, as was Meiton, so there's no real reason to exempt either element, personally.]

There is one holy skill worth mentioning: Holy.  Letting oil boost Holy will let low-MA short-charge mages 1HKO anything without magic resistance.  This falls into my grand scheme of reserving Holy and Dark for powerful skills that would otherwise be broken with oil modifiers.  As for the prevalence of Black Costumes, that's a problem with failing to entice people away from Dark absorption.  By exempting dark from oil, we pull people away from dark and toward six others.  We give players a choice this way: give a permanent, mild boost to Holy/Dark damage with a Golden Hairpin or go for a temporary, large boost to the six others with oil.

To close, let me echo two of The Damned's proposals that aren't present, since I thought they were inspiring:

Quote from: The DamnedTurn 108 Gems into Coral Ring... [L]et it Absorb: Water and Block: Oil, Poison and Frog

Quote from: The DamnedLet Salty Rage Strengthen All Elements Alongside Other "Fun" Things

"Init: Berserk" is a gimmick tactic (case in point: zero salty rages are being used in S1), so I'm all for letting Salty Rage inherit 108 Gem's purpose and turning 108 Gems into some sorely-needed water-based equipment.  That this "Coral Ring" also blocks Frog and Oil are thematic perks.

Esuna has a charge time.  Relying on it to restore Poison on units revived without Raise will be a crapshoot.  Relying on it to restore one's own poison will be impossible.  0 CT skills are the only reliable salvation.

I understand where you're coming from about resurrection loops.  I always thought AoE was the answer to breaking them, though.  What I'm saying is, a team that can't break an opponent's resurrection loop is a team that's too reliant on single-target attacks.

As for pushing people away from Raise, what other form of resurrection are people being pushed to?  The way I see it, all forms are becoming worse or staying bad.  Dying will become more costly, so either stacking pure offense for one-hit kills (eg. FDC's S1 team) or stacking pure defense to avoid dying (eg. Wiz's S1 team) will be the go-to strategies.  Aren't these strategies viable enough already?  Maybe I'm alone on this, but I find the battle where teams go back and forth with offense and defense to be the most exciting.

25% poison sounds delicious.  We'd need to make the status more difficult to inflict and give it a short CT (say ~4-5 turns at 8 SP for certain death without healing).  Esuna and Regen will be equally attractive.  I think we could make it work.

While I appreciate the buff to poison, having it persist is going to make Raise and 0 CT healing even more popular.  I understand that you want poison to deny Phoenix Down's use, but I think there are already means of doing so.  These means include guns, geomancy, and concentrated physicals (if Concentrate comes back).  Adding poison as another mean is all fine and well, but it will add too much collateral damage.  Fantactic raises a good point: wish and reraise will also suffer.   Relying on healing with CT (ie. any "X Magic") is going to be a lot less effective, too.  This means that the few people who haven't already run to 0 CT healing - namely items, Murasame, and Punch Art - which are effective in their own right, are going to do so.

If we're going to buff poison, I propose we strengthen the one feature that makes it unique: using your opponent's max HP against him/herself.  Currently, it is negated by Move-HP UP.  Having it deal ~20% damage per turn would change that.  It would be like in Final Fantasy X.  Poison in that game was scary.

Are you running your emulator at around 200 FPS?  Higher FPS is one way of cutting down on length.