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FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

Started by FFMaster, July 13, 2010, 07:56:57 pm

The Damned

May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm #480 Last Edit: May 17, 2012, 12:42:54 am by The Damned
(I feel slightly less idiotic about suggesting Coral Ring and Salty Rage now.)

Similarly, I'm glad that this isn't just a back and forth between Raven and I given what a long-winded bastard I can be among other things.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on May 15, 2012, 09:23:41 pmNOW WITH FILLED IN REASONS.


First and foremost, spoilers won't open if they have apostrophes in the titles, Raven. Even though it's probably the most minor thing since we all already know what formerdeathcorps said and it's only an issue with his versions of Shields, I figured I'd let you know. I think there are some other pieces of punctuation that cause the same problem, but I don't remember and it's not important right now.

Secondly, I'll do yet another list to comment on the clarified stuff. However, it will mostly be the added stuff since I don't want to repeat myself where I don't think it's necessary:

1. Pain Knife being only a "sort of joke": Oh, thank Hera, especially if Hidden Knife and Concentrate are both going to be around.

2. Koutetsu Knife becoming more usable: While Heaven's Cloud becoming usable due to 50% Slow is obvious, I'm still really not seeing how +1 PA is going to help Kotetsu Knife (that much). Please enlighten me/us. Similarly, though somewhat unfair to point this out, this also still does nothing to solve half of the other Katana being crappy at present.

3. All Longbows get an additional +1 WP: I can agree with this.

4. All Books getting condensed WP: I can also agree with this.

5. Jaded Defense Armlets: Yeah, both either need to Null or need to Absorb. I'd rather they both Absorb, especially since I don't have a problem with making Rubber Shoes Absorb Lightning, but that might just be me.

6. Wild Blow costs more MP: Since this is what I was originally saying and you pretty much agreed when you clarified it, I of course still agree with this. I think 15 MP is fine actually, if only because I kinda think that's the same amount of MP that Alacrity/Focus should actually cost. That said, 20 MP might be necessary, but I'd personally rather try 15 MP first, at least until I do (or someone else does) average MP calculations.

7. Preferred Chemist Version in light of Hell Ivy: Well, personally, the most preferred Chemist is a dead one, but that might just be me.... As for what the [New Item] "should be" despite me being somewhat uncomfortable that canceling Poison & Blind and Silence & Berserk, I have one idea that instantly came to mind:

Chronos Tear - Cancels Stop - 150 JP - (Uses Eye Drop animation).

If some of you are so adamant about letting something as ubiquitous as Hell Ivy potentially cause something as devastating as Stop, then as much as I would like for Heal to see more use, it still needs to not be the only source of canceling Stop. As 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, even if it's not multi-target while Hell Ivy is--just like how the normal Stop of Time Mages that no one ever uses is.

Of course, I don't think that Hell Ivy should be causing Stop in the first place and it's not exactly like Chemist needs another ability. The only viable things left for it to cure are Slow, which it shouldn't be doing, and Charm, which might be fine but only if Esuna and Stigma Magic lose it even though the Chemist would likely self-target that cure instead of using something else now. So, preferably, Chemists shouldn't get anything else IMO, but if they "have to" and this Hell Ivy change goes through....

8. Prepare's Name: Personally, I think "Iron Will" is a good name that should still see use and it's not too confusing even with the shift.

9. Warpath and Holy March: I was thinking about this a while before Gaignun mentioned it, but I didn't feel confident enough to suggest it. However, I agree with Gaignun that they should both become +2, if only for the sake of Brave Up and Faith Up, respectively.

10. Dia going to Priest unchanged: I'm still going to have to say "Oh Hades no" here big time for Priest getting Dia from Paladin, especially wholesale. Call me "nerf-happy" or whatever, but there is no way that Priest needs something as almost half as strong as Holy yet a fifth as cheap, instant AND with the ability to Blind. Yeah. That is...well, let's just say something needs to change here if Priest is getting Dia at all. Big time.

11. Raise 2 becoming more expensive: Yeah, that bullshit should have been 300 JP yesterday, so I can agree with that.

12. Esuna becoming less expensive: I can also agree with this, if only for the sake of normalizing everything to be divisible by 50. I'm not sure it should go all the way down to 200, though, since it's pretty damn good, so 250 JP seems a bit more "fair". It's not terribly important though and I can see why you want to make it that cheap in light of Stigma Magic, but I'd personally rather make Stigma Magic cost more JP....

13. Holy becoming avoidable: I...actually don't agree with this, at least if "you" are so insistent on Priest getting Dia. Holy then becomes inferior to Dia since that's also evadable, but costs a hell of a lot less and is instant and can cause Blind, so you can miss with it a hell of a lot more with a hell of a lot less risk. [/hell of a lot]

14. Flare ignoring Reflect: Yeah...no. If this ignores Reflect, then it needs to become evadable like Holy is being proposed to be. Considering that everything else Wizard/Black Magic(k) has is already evadable, this is a poor option. So, then it would need to lose some power...this even though it's already weaker than Strengthened Holy, which is now technically weaker than Strengthened Dia. So...yeah.

15. Time Magic(k): Sure, I can agree with all of these. I feel slightly better about Embargo's Immobilize being AoE 2 now as well.

16. Accidental Summoner Agreement: Let it be known that I'm an idiot--like that was ever in doubt--and that I only agreed to the CT > 4 thing because I was misreading as CT < 4. Why should the longer spells be less reliable ones when there's literally the opposite case for all other magic(k)? I guess I could understand Leviathan and Salamander getting that treatment due to their sheer AoE even though they're currently still mediocre as hell and with this change become even worse, especially in Salamander's case where it has to "compete" with the still unavoidable Ifrit. So I actually don't agree with this at all. Please reverse it or do...something at least try to do something to make Leviathan and Salamander worth using if they're going to become avoidable.

17. Odin & Lich: That said, I suppose I need to restate that I did read these properly (even though formerdeathcorps failed to mention Lich was becoming non-elemental). As such, I will restate that I still agree with these changes, especially with the chance of Dead being "Standard".

18. Life Song & Wiznaibus: I forgot to ask this last time: These two are still 100% and unavoidable, correct? Because that might be kinda problematic with the Poison that Wiznaibus is now adding.... Of course, that Dancer shouldn't become even weaker than Bard like it already is, so....

19. Holy & Dark benefiting from Oil: Yeah, no. Besides what Gaignun pointed out with Holy (the spell), it would also apply to Dia and Demi 2 at the very least. Dia, as it is now, becomes an instant 75% Holy with the chance to Blind for 6 MP. Demi 2 becomes multi-target instant death even if taking my suggestion to make it do 50% HP.

Furthermore, Holy & Dark are already two of the most used elements, whose only real competition at present is Fire. Ice and, to an even lesser degree, Lightning see middling use while the other three elements hardly see any; we already saw my Water rant.  Holy & Dark don't need help. Perhaps they can come to benefit from Oil eventually, especially if weakness is lowered to x1.5 from its current x2. However, as it stands now, they should probably sit this boost out.

20. Poison becoming finite again: Yes, this needs to happen, at least if Poison is persisting beyond death.


I'm not really what side of the Poison "debate" I fall just yet outside of the above, though I personally don't mind Phoenix Down and Reraise status getting screwed over. Wish, much like Fighter, is an unfortunate casualty.

Next, I'll respond to posts by people who aren't Raven.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 15, 2012, 10:54:32 pm
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.


I rather agree with all of this, though at the same time I realize that the "back and forth" thing can easily slip into the rather pointless sandbagging battles that Raven and whoever else supports this are trying to avoid with this change to Poison. Due to the subtlety at which this often occurs, I'm not sure that there even is a compromise on this unfortunately.

We can all agree that Poison in FFX was/is damn dangerous, though.

Quote from: Fantactic1316 on May 15, 2012, 11:37:08 pm
Eh, personally I don't think a unit should be able to negate my Light Robe unless they're packing Armor Break. Poison takes away Regen, with no hope of having it re-cast, and if it persists past death then the problem just gets even worse. But that's just me, I guess.


Yeah, that really needs to be addressed. Kinda thought that Regen would reassert itself, but if it really doesn't, then the AI probably thinks that it still has Regen status on, which makes it not re-apply the status to get rid of Poison. Sigh....

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amSo 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.


It also covers Cursed Ring's weakness to Fire, but, yeah, that's about it since pretty much all other equipment that's weak to anything is a shield, which is what Crystal Shield is currently taking up. I hadn't thought about that all until you pointed out, so good eye/mind.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amI 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.


I rather agree that +8/+8 in terms of P-EV and M-EV is dubious at best. However, I'm not sure how much I agree with Absorb Earth, especially with Feather Boots around. Of course, Null is different Absorb and I definitely wouldn't be opposed to it, especially if it's in combination with Defense Ring blocking Silence instead pf Berserk and maybe even with evasion as well (since Defense Ring is otherwise that outclassed).

Quote from: Fanatic on May 16, 2012, 01:00:29 pm
Something I've been wondering...

I understand the AI reserves priest spells Protect and Shell for when the unit needs healing. I would like to see that buffed. Has anyone ever played with the idea of making the spell protect, in addition to adding protect, also cure darkness (which is usually inflicted by PA based attacks)? Similarly, shell could be used to also cure a status ailment commonly inflicted by MA based attacks (don't act comes to mind, archer class aside).

Is this even doable? Would the AI be more willing to use those spells then?


It's doable by making Protect cancel Blind and Shell cancel Don't Act or making Protect and Shell cure a bit of damage, though the latter would necessitate making/slightly tweaking formulas that currently don't 100% add status when they heal (unless they're canceling something).

Priest hardly needs more of a buff, though, and the AI has proven that it will use Protect and Shell, just that it will, as you said, a) reserve it for when the unit needs healing and b) when it can't heal said unit. Usually.


Finally, it would be nice to have FFMaster (or PX) comment on this when he has the time considering he's ultimately the boss of these changes. However, I'm guessing he's busy on top of being in a different timezone and on a completely different continent than most of us, so....

(Also, since I'm already behind today--thanks Firefox--and need to leave to soon, I'll proofread this later like the lazy bastard I am. Sorry.)

Bold EDIT: Well, barring that utterly visible, manually-induced fuck-up that led half of the post being bold as has happened a dozen times before. I really need to learn from mistakes.

Timid EDIT: Now that this has been properly proof-read, it actually wasn't as horrible as I was expecting/as it usually is.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

Fantactic1316

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm
Yeah, that really needs to be addressed. Kinda thought that Regen would reassert itself, but if it really doesn't, then the AI probably thinks that it still has Regen status on, which makes it not re-apply the status to get rid of Poison. Sigh....


It's not that the AI thinks it still has Regen, it's that Regen still can't be cast, even though they've got Poison now. Watch my recent match with Wiz. At about 4:30 my Light Robe Priest gets Kiyomori'd, then my Archer uses Masamune on her and she stays Poisoned, gaining Haste, but not Regen.
"D'you know in 900 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't important before."
-The Doctor-

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amI'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":


Blame FDC for all the bad names.  :p

Glitter Shield is a terrible name, agreed.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amSo 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.


You missed the most important one and I think a couple other random ones, but yeah.  It is still a bit of a specialty shield, but it's one that's actually usable unlike the current one.  Niche items are still important as long as they're usable, which was the main point of this change - turn a useless Shield into a better one that addresses a few niches that need a boost instead of being in a niche that no one cares about.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amI 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.


I'd be fine with that, the 8/8 is something I also think is shit but was FDC's random idea.  Earth Absorb would sit fine with me, there.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amIf 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.


Reflect is still amazing either way, though, and Holy will still be usually preferrable for lower cost, CT, etc.  The reason we're shying away from buffing the CT/MP on Holy or reducing it on Flare is to keep them as distinct skills - they're both nukes, but Flare is the non-Element guaranteed nuke, whereas Holy is the more powerful but riskier one.  (There's also a reason basically no one uses Flare right now - it's inferior to Holy in every way while located in an inferior skillset.  Though, 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.)

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amI 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.


The thing with Brave UP and Faith UP is though, they cost less JP (200 v 300 on the Movements) and give more Brave and Faith than they do (5 v 3).  The main issue with Brave UP and Faith UP has been that they're mostly useful on things like Song or Lore teams that trigger them a lot (as far as Faith UP goes, Brave UP is triggered by Countergrasp and just kinda fucked either way) - and really, these Movements don't impede those teams, as they're going to want their Movements to be things like Move-MP UP, etc.  An 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.  While these are more generally usable, they're in a more contested skill slot, meaning the opportunity cost offsets them quite a bit.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amSome 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.


Works for me.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amWe 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).


You can recover from a Stop, you can't recover from a Petrify (usually).  When discussing it, we decided that +Slow on Hell Ivy clearly isn't cutting it as a powerful common proc, and +Petrify on Carve Model is basically just pissing people off, hence the reverse.  There are two big points about Stop - one, it wears off, so if your units don't get focused out fast they will get back in the fight, unlike Petrified ones, and if they do get focused out, they at least draw fire for a time, again unlike Petrified units, allowing your non-Stopped units to do things without taking too much hate.  The second point is simply that a Stopped unit has to be KOed - meaning skills like Raise, Phoenix Down, etc. work to bring them back into the fight and any reasonable team can at least get their units back up once they're killed, unlike with Petrify where it's like "welp, I don't have anti-Petrify, that unit's out of the fight for good."   Those are two really big distinctions that make Stop far less threatening than Petrify while leaving it threatening enough to make Geomancy desirable. 

(Another thing to note about Hell Ivy is that it doesn't have maps like the Arena map which are nothing but Hell Ivy tiles to my knowledge, another issue Carve Model had - it wasn't just common, but there were more than just a couple maps that were both literally NOTHING BUT Carve Model and reasonably flat.  While Hell Ivy is common, those situations with it aren't.)

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amThere 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.


So 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.

As 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 H 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...

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 am"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


Counter-point: Kagesougi Gunners.  The 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.  If you look to Arena exhibition matches before Kagesougi Gunning became a thing, Berserkers were actually used.  They weren't uber awesome every team common, but they were used in a respectable enough number of teams.  Then, Kagesougi Gunning with 17 WP Blaze Guns appeared and did just as much or more damage without needing to be Berserked.  Ergo, I can't credit the lack of Berserkers in S1 as a reason to do in Salty Rage, since pre-Kagesougi Gunner evidence contradicts.

Quote from: Gaignun on May 16, 2012, 01:21:32 amand turning 108 Gems into some sorely-needed water-based equipment.  That this "Coral Ring" also blocks Frog and Oil are thematic perks.


The 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?  My point being that the majority of them don't even hit your party are thoroughly unreliable.  Unless Water is heavily fleshed out, making an Absorb Water accessory only makes these already borderline skills worse, not better, since they're now counterable by your enemy but you can't really do anything yourself.

Quote from: Fanatic on May 16, 2012, 01:00:29 pmIs this even doable? Would the AI be more willing to use those spells then?


You cannot Cancel: and Add: Statuses with the same skill.  A simpler method of making the AI use these skills "better" is to switch them over to Raise's formula and heal 1% HP.  Why this hasn't been done already is beyond me, and I push for it every time I can remember.  But it just... hasn't happened. :|

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm2. Koutetsu Knife becoming more usable: While Heaven's Cloud becoming usable due to 50% Slow is obvious, I'm still really not seeing how +1 PA is going to help Kotetsu Knife (that much). Please enlighten me/us. Similarly, though somewhat unfair to point this out, this also still does nothing to solve half of the other Katana being crappy at present.


Kotetsu Knife is a DPS weapon.  +1 PA is moar DPS.  The main issue with the "bad" Katana though, personally, is that Katana are just sloppily designed with random Yes 2S, No 2S, yes 2H, no 2H thrown around when the entire point of the Samurai class is its innate Two Hands.  If it were just me calling the shots, I'd nuke and re-up the shit from start to make it all compatible with Samurai's innate Two Hands and make them all better and more consistent to use.  However, the drawbacks of collaboration...

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmJaded Defense Armlets: Yeah, both either need to Null or need to Absorb. I'd rather they both Absorb, especially since I don't have a problem with making Rubber Shoes Absorb Lightning, but that might just be me.


The main issue with this is that it makes the respective Absorb Shields that much less useful, to me.  I'm not too bothered either way, though, I happen to like Absorb teams, as my notes on FFT: Redesign probably have hinted at many times.



Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmChronos Tear - Cancels Stop - 150 JP - (Uses Eye Drop animation).


Works for me.  But note, they don't "have to" gain anything, I even noted that the slot could go unused in my post.  It is just there, the merging covers an issue currently in Arena (Berserk has no means of being coped with when used as a debuff sans Death) and saves space while making two terrible Chemist abilities better.  The saved space doesn't actually need to be used right away, if at all, it is just there should it ever be needed.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm10. Dia going to Priest unchanged: I'm still going to have to say "Oh Hades no" here big time for Priest getting Dia from Paladin, especially wholesale. Call me "nerf-happy" or whatever, but there is no way that Priest needs something as almost half as strong as Holy yet a fifth as cheap, instant AND with the ability to Blind. Yeah. That...something needs to change here if Priest is getting Dia at all. Big time.


Actually, it's only about a third as strong.  (Holy has a Y of 16, Dia has a Y of 6.)  In fact, most Staff attacks should do about the same damage as a Dia in a Priest's hands, unless stacked for Magic Attack UP, due to how low the Y is.  Dia really is far weaker than you credit it.  Though in your favor, I will say Dia could probably use a JP cost boost to about 200 or 250 if it is moved directly to Priest.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmEsuna becoming less expensive: I can also agree with this, if only for the sake of normalizing everything to be divisible by 50. I'm not sure it should go all the way down to 200, though, since it's pretty damn good, so 250 JP seems a bit more "fair". It's not terribly important though and I can see why you want to make it that cheap in light of Stigma Magic, but I'd personally rather make Stigma Magic cost more JP....


It's less about Stigma Magic, and more about making using Esuna to heal your status-laden unit actually attractive instead of just waiting for it to die and casting Raise 2 on it.  Like this, it costs as much (JP-wise) to Esuna your Blinded Poisoned Silenced unit as it used to in order to just let it die and Raise 2 it at full power.  So you can either keep the Raise 2 dump-and-revive tactic at more cost, or use Esuna at the cost of old Raise 2.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmHoly becoming avoidable: I...actually don't agree with this, at least if "you" are so insistent on Priest getting Dia. Holy then becomes inferior to Dia since that's also evadable, but costs a hell of a lot less and is instant and can cause Blind, so you can miss with it a hell of a lot more with a hell of a lot less risk.


See: Dia.  You're clearly mismatching quality here.  If you see a unit doing 210 with Holy (eg), they're only going to do maybe 80 with a Dia.  A stacked unit that does 350 with a Holy does maybe 125 with a Dia.  Even if you miss a Holy, you're going to kill them with Holy before you do with Dia almost every time. 

ITT: Numbers.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmAccidental Summoner Agreement: Let it be known that I'm an idiot--like that was ever in doubt--and that I only agreed to the CT > 4 thing because I was misreading as CT < 4. Why should the longer spells be less reliable ones when there's literally the opposite case for all other magic(k)? I guess I could understand Leviathan and Salamander getting that treatment due to their sheer AoE even though they're currently still mediocre as hell and with this change become even worse, especially in Salamander's case where it has to "compete" with the still unavoidable Ifrit. So I actually don't agree with this at all. Please reverse it or do...something at least try to do something to make Leviathan and Salamander worth using if they're going to become avoidable.


Bold loses meaning when you use it so much.

It's intentionally reversed from Black Magic - you get guaranteed AoE chip damage from Summon Magic and guaranteed singular high damage from Black Magic.  The high-end Summons are evadable to offset their damage + AoE, because otherwise the majority of viable magic is still ignoring M-EV and making the stat worthless.  It also adds better distinction between Summoner and Wizard, something that was honestly lacking as far as their DPS went beyond "Wizard does a bit more damage but Summoner is unevadable, hits more dudes, and accesses far more than just DPS all in one skillset."  This way, Summoner and Wizard have a bit more contrast.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm18. Life Song & Wiznaibus: I forgot to ask this last time: These two are still 100% and unavoidable, correct?


Correct.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmbecomes an instant 75% Holy with the chance to Blind for 6 MP. Demi 2 becomes multi-target instant death even if taking my suggestion to make it do 50% HP.


1. Demi 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.
2. It's more like a 60% Holy.
3. It's a two-part combo, where I could just use Holy as one part and kill you while saving a turn on my unit that would be casting Oil.  Having to commit two turns to doing 60% of a Holy?  lol.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmFurthermore, Holy & Dark are already two of the most used elements, whose only real competition at present is Fire. Ice and, to an even lesser degree, Lightning see middling use while the other three elements hardly see any; we already saw my Water rant.  Holy & Dark don't need help. Perhaps they can come to benefit from Oil eventually, especially if weakness is lowered to x1.5 from its current x2. However, as it stands now, they should probably sit this boost out.


Holy "Element" doesn't see use.  Let's not kid ourselves.  The Holy skill sees use, and is basically the only Holy Element skill that sees use.  There's a reason Chameleon Robe and Magic Ring suck despite absorbing what's supposedly one of the most common Elements.  As for Dark, yeah, it's awesome now because Kotetsu is good and Meiton is a Ninjitsu, but you can get more use out of just having two Meiton or Kotetsu users than an Oil user and a Kotetsu or Meiton user, since those Skills are good enough to not really need doubling from an outside source - which is why the damage boost is 2x to begin with, if I'm devoting two turns to a combo, I better get two turns worth of damage out of it, or it's not worth doing.  The only real advantage to a status like Oil is that your opponent only gets to dodge or React once.

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pm20. Poison becoming finite again: Yes, this needs to happen, at least if Poison is persisting beyond death.

I'm not really what side of the Poison "debate" I fall just yet outside of the above, though I personally don't mind Phoenix Down and Reraise status getting screwed over. Wish, much like Fighter, is an unfortunate causality.


My most preferred method of buffing Poison, honestly, is to make them both also heal/damage 1/8th MP, but people apparently didn't like actually making Light Robe usable on mages and making Poison actually crippling in a manner that isn't MAKE IT DO LEET UBER DAMAGE.  Again, the flaws of working with other people...

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmIt's doable by making Protect cancel Blind and Shell cancel Don't Act or making Protect and Shell cure a bit of damage, though the latter would necessitate making/slightly tweaking formulas that currently don't 100% add status when they heal (unless they're canceling something).


Yeah, the only way to make the Cancel/Add work would be to make ALL sources of those Statuses do it by making it something the status does innately.  And like I mentioned before, you don't need to tweak anything, just use the Raise formula.  Pretty sure that covers everything except for Draw Out, but the only buffs Draw Out dishes out anymore are Haste/Regen, so...

Quote from: The Damned on May 16, 2012, 02:19:20 pmFinally, it would be nice to have FFMaster (or PX) comment on this when he has the time considering he's ultimately the boss of these changes. However, I'm guessing he's busy on top of being in a different timezone and on a completely different continent than most of us, so....


You know he rarely posts on these things.  :p

dacheat

I feel like Overwhelm and Unyielding could use a small tweak. Unyielding moreso than Overwhelm I guess. Basically my point is that if a tank unit runs Unyielding they'll be targeted less frequently by the AI since the AI will be doing less damage to them (at least I'm pretty sure that's how the AI works). Obviously this is counterintuitive to the purpose of a tanking unit so I propose that it adds 20% HP instead of 20% damage/healing reduction so that they'll be targeted more frequently by the AI.

CT5Holy

Except the AI doesn't like targeting high HP units either. =P
Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney

dacheat

Quote from: CT5Holy on May 16, 2012, 06:12:48 pm
Except the AI doesn't like targeting high HP units either. =P


I was under the impression that they targeted the unit that they could do the most damage to. Do they target based on how much they can do as a percentage of the unit's total health?

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: dacheat on May 16, 2012, 06:43:56 pm
I was under the impression that they targeted the unit that they could do the most damage to. Do they target based on how much they can do as a percentage of the unit's total health?


This is correct.  The units that go ignored are those with the highest effective total HP when that unit attempts to target enemies.  I even mention this in my Arena AI Battling Guide 2.0 that the AI will focus out the unit with the lowest effective CurHP first.

Tl;dr that change won't actually do anything to AI priorities.

The Damned

May 17, 2012, 12:01:58 am #487 Last Edit: May 17, 2012, 12:09:12 am by The Damned
(Yeah, I know that I can overuse bold at times. I'm going to try not to for once. Let's all look forward to my miserable failure.)

Yeah...I'm not even going to bother quoting this time, especially since I'm just going to be replying to Raven only again. I'll also be trying to keep this short for once. (Ha!)

That said, I'll be proof-reading this post thoroughly for once, so keeping it shorter will make that task easier, especially since I've yet to do it for my last one, what with just having gotten home:

1. Names: Meh. They're rather difficult to think up; you should see some of my horrible ones. I was more just confused, at least in the case of Glitter Shield, as to why he made up a completely new name when there's at least a couple of shields that still had usable names or when Venetian Shield could still be used (unless he really hate Venice or Italy).

2. Nuking Hiroshima Katana: Yeah...I can agree with that, though at present it's relatively unimportant. It is pretty much the same reason that Hidden Knife currently screws over most Ninja Whatever and even there most of those swords are compatible with Ninja's innate Two Swords, so Sasuke Knife and the already changing Spell Edge are the only crappy ones; of course, that's not counting Short Edge either due to the upcoming change in Oil.

3. Chronos Tear & Hell Ivy: Yeah, I'm rather aware that Chemists don't "need" anything else, which is why I noted that. Trust me, I probably hate Chemists more than anyone here. That said, if Hell Ivy is keeping Stop (and you make a sensible argument for it, even if I'm still a bit uneasy), then something besides Heal should probably get rid of it like I said as much I would like to see Basic Skill used more. Still wouldn't mind all of Elemental/Geomancy becoming elemental though....

4. Dia "only" being 33% of Holy: Hunh. Really? I thought it was 3/8 for the same reason you pointed out, hence being "almost half", but I didn't do the math for that, so my bad if you're correct. But, yeah, it seems like it at least needs increased JP cost if nothing else. Even when "only" being a third, it does a good damn bit of damage and magic classes went out of their way to use it when it in something as crappy for them as Paladin's Skill Set. Now that it's in something excellent like White Magic(k)...yeah.

5. Summons with CT > 4 being subject to M-EV: Heh. "Chip damage". I guess I'll agree then, if only because you admit that Leviathan and Salamander need to become more powerful as compensation. Still think that Salamander should become something else, but meh.

6. Wiznaibus with Poison at 100%: Yeah...Poison definitely needs to become finite then. Otherwise we'll get two Mimes, two Dancer spam even worse than last time.

7. Wind: Eh... I don't think Wind is that crappy or, at least, it's not nearly as crappy as Water even if that's not saying much. For one, it already has a hell of lot more abilities than Water has, even though a lot of it is also Geomancy: {Silf, Kamaitachi, Sand Storm, Gusty Wind, Heaven's Cloud, Fuuton, Tornado}. While 3 of the 7 are again subject to terrain's whimsy (unless something triggers off of Float constantly, in which case Water is even more screwed) and 1 is smart-targeting, Wind actually has AoE to absorb beyond Grand Cross unlike Water. [/breaking bold agreement]

As for why people aren't using it...hell if I know. With Magic Ring's use utterly eclipsed by Reflect Ring at present, Tornado finally being theoretically usable now partly because of that and Wind having more weapons than Water does for Grand Cross (even if more of them are of...dubious quality), it seems like it should be at least possible to make a competent Wind-absorb team, especially one that no longer is defeated just because it didn't have Steal Accessory. It's just a lot easier to make other teams--Kagesougi, tanky stuff, various boost-related stuff, etc.--at present still since having only one magic(k)al all targeting AoE and only one physical all targeting AoE (that you makes you pretty much have to carry Slow immunity) is probably still not "enough". Still a lot more than Water has though.

8. Water: Yeah, I agree that Coral Ring would make things worse if we keep only the same four Water-element skills. Hence why I was asking for FFMaster (or PX) to convert more things to Water or create more abilities for Water, dummy. :p

Regardless, we do still need something else to Absorb Water, so....

9. Heart! Er...Holy, Dark & Oil: Sort of forgetting Dia there when it comes to Holy element, even as much as I'm perhaps overestimating it; I've similarly talked about why Magic Ring isn't seeing use "even" with its Holy absorb--Chameleon Robe is...less straight-forward, though it's strictly inferior to at least four other robes at present. At present, it doesn't help that Grand Cross is no longer best with Excalibur, but with a freaking Gun.

As for Holy & Dark benefiting from Oil, I still can't entirely buy your argument given that almost every instance of adding Oil goes hand-in-hand with damage. So it's not like you're giving up your turn to try to Unction your opponent to cause All Oil and nothing else should you miss. When it's on things like Hawkeye (sure damage with CT), Fire 2 (multi-target with presumably good damage) and a few other things, you have to keep in mind that adding Oil to the opponent (in ARENA) is already coming alongside damage; hell, I think the only thing that's proposed to add Oil that doesn't do damage is Nameless Dance. I might hesitantly agree with Holy & Dark elements benefiting from Oil if not for that; I have to otherwise agree that all it will do is make Black Costume even more popular, even if that piece of equipment will probably always be the most popular of the absorbing ones.

10. FFMaster & PX: Yeah, I know. I figure it's worth a shot, however low. As with most things, I hold no hope.

11. Raise formula for adding status: Hmmm...it works 100% of the time? I could have sworn that it didn't, but it's been so long since I've been able to test things.... Regardless, wouldn't that kinda screw over Cursed Ring/Undead users despite what you were saying earlier? (I still don't see most of the buffs you were saying at there when it comes to Undead.) Or would the AI be "stupid" enough to damage its ally for 1% "just" to add Protect or Shell?


I feel like there was one more thing I wanted to comment on, but meh.

Meh EDIT: Oh, I remembered the last thing I wanted to mention:

12. Initial 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. I suppose with Longbows and Crossbows becoming better may be it might have more combinations to use, but when its merit will always remain "hit things really hard, repeatedly and without variation", you can understand how people might be...skeptical of it to put it mildly.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

Pierce

Let me start by saying that my suggestions-to-come may have already been mentioned. I tried to skim through the text replies above, but I simply can't make time to read the mutliple essays. I tried, I really did, and I skimmed it so I may have got some of the basics of what you propose, but that's it.

Anyways...

I'm not a fan of Dia going to Priest. Despite the fact that it's not a heavy damage attack, Priests shouldn't really have that much offence going for them anyway in my opinion. At the moment there are people running Bard/Priest as primary/secondary because Holy is strong enough that this still leaves them with a powerful offensive unit that can revive, heal, cure status, and add defensive status. I'm sure Holy is seeing a nerf, but realistically shouldn't people be inclined to give priests an offensive secondary? At the moment, that's not necessary because unless your enemy is absorbing Holy, your priest is plenty offensive even with a blank secondary.

I also don't like Poison persisting through death. Raise/Raise2 are the better methods of reviving as is. They're exceptionally common, and they should be, Raise2 essentially brings a unit back as if it was never hurt. If Poison persists through death, Wish, Revive, and Phoenix Down will all feel the pain big. Yes PD is really common, and it can be annoying to watch PD-loops, but that's why you throw in an AoE attack once in a while. It's not like it needs to be a powerful AoE, the unit comes back with less than 20HP.

I would argue that Frog should be removed from BioII, but that might fall on deaf ears. Frog's a pretty annoying status. I see it's been changed to remove on death, but I'm still sort of meh on it sticking with BioII.


Idea for a new skill, feel free to shoot it down. It deals 50% damage to the user, and heals 50% damage to the enemy BUT it is undead reversible. Meaning an undead user would heal 50% damage and deal 50% damage. Maybe it's a bit OP, but Cursed Ring blows chunks right now, it could use a boost. If this idea gets dismissed, can Cursed Ring at least see some sort of boost? Maybe Reflect or Innocent, to cancel out the very realistic chance that said undead unit gets OHKO'd from Raise2.
Ignorance itself is a crime! - Miluda

Gaignun

May 17, 2012, 01:46:29 am #489 Last Edit: May 17, 2012, 05:14:03 am by Gaignun
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.

FFMaster

Yes, I am still alive.

I've skimmed through most of the posts and here is some shit.

@Damned: I was there discussing most of the proposed changes for the next version. There are still a few things I disagree with, of course. Summon Magic becoming evadable, for example. However, some of the additions/changes that are proposed and would like to see it in action, whether it will be good or not. I would like if auto-potion becomes 70 for a version or 2, just to see how it goes, but it's not likely going to happen I think.

@Bad names for new items/abilities: I'll make new names, or steal names from other games as usual. Or I can butcher another language like a professional game designer.... (looks at Ninjitsu)
Some proposed names:
Prepare(the Protect/Shell thingy) ---> Guardian Angel
Glitter Shield: Shield of Harmony(if it fits)
Sinkhole: Mind Lapse(or something to that effect)

And I guess it's time to start fixing up names for all the other items as well, to fit their effects. Butcher your favourite language or ruin your favourite tv/anime/movie/comic series today! I'm not fussed where the names are from, just minimise FFTA usage, we have enough of that in Arena. Any names for abilities which currently suck will also be replaced.

@19% shit: Will all become 20%. I don't care that vanilla has it at 19%, increasing the procs by 1% won't fuck up the balance.

@Water not existing: I'll replace Natural selection(piece of shit Lore never used) with a water one. Unless people really object to that?

Monsters coming soon.

Prepare for some map range revives or whatever broken shit I come up with in a few months time.


EDIT: As an alternative to the Geomancer buff, I suggested giving them 5 Move, making them unique in that aspect. It's not a great idea, but it's better to run it through a few people I think.

Also, I need to know now. Do you guys prefer big infrequent version changes or more frequent minor changes? The only reason I've stuck to larger changes is because less patch releases and hence less downloading for others.
  • Modding version: Other/Unknown
☢ CAUTION CAUTION ☢ CAUTION CAUTION ☢

Eternal

Prepare -> Phalanx
Glitter Shield -> Divine Shield
Sinkhole -> Flux

Random thoughts:

-If one Bio spell is Dark Elemental, they should all be.

-Replace Fire 4/Ice 4/Bolt 4 with Water/Water 2/Water 3. Their gimmick can be low CT.

-As far as a Water Lore, that should be fine. Call it Maelstrom or something.

-Paladins are generally meant to draw attacks, right? Why not give them a skill that inflicts Don't Move around themselves so they can draw non-ranged attacks?

-Tonberrian can proc Shock.
-Broadsword can add 1 PA and 1 Move.
-Lionheart can add 2 PA.
-Ultima Weapon can proc Ultima.
-Gladius can proc Kamatachi.
-Nagrarok can be Add: Frog.
-Buster Sword can proc Braver.
-Oak Staff can add 1 MA and 1 Move.
-Yoichi Bow can be one-handed.
-Perseus Bow can be Add: Slow.
-Javelin II at 30% EVD.
-Cypress Rod can have high WP, but only 1 Range.
-Battle Bamboo can inflict Don't Act.
-Musk Pole can proc Bio.

-Since Black Magic is different now, maybe it's time for the Magic Guns to be totally booted. If that happens, I have a few replacement ideas:
1) A healing gun (because it's an amazing concept)
2) A Leg/Arm Aim procing Gun.
3) A gun with large Range.

The Poison inflicting Paladin skill FDC mentioned earlier can be called "Blightbane".
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

CT5Holy

Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: Gaignun on May 17, 2012, 01:46:29 amPOAST.


@Holy March / Warpath: I still don't see how these step on Faith UP or Brave UP at ALL.  You didn't do anything to actually refute anything I said or provide a counter-example, just suggested lowering the JP to compensate for the lower gain.  Those UPs belong to niche teams and those niche teams get far larger, faster Brave/Faith boosts from them, so again, not seeing where the issue lies.

@Choice: That's pretty much the idea, yeah.  There's only 20 classes, so it's really less about how often each class appears and more how different/similar its skillset is each time it does appear.

@Holy: So... you'd rather have a Short Charge Holy user and be locked into a Dancer/Archer than a Holy user that can outright just spit out that much damage and have 3 other units not be locked down due to your Holy user's build, and also be more susceptible to having your combos broken because you rely on multiple units and turns to kill things?  Can't say I agree there.  Those numbers are right but that's the result of a two-man combo - if two guys working together can't output 350~ damage for a DPS combo, it's probably not a good DPS combo considering you can get that kind of damage out of one unit with stacks.   As for Short Charge, you overrate it in Arena - it's definitely good, yes, but "amazing in general" is far from what I would call it here, this isn't 1.3 AI where SPD gets super high, Haste is a 50% SPD boost, and CTs are longer.  Going without Short Charge is far from a "risk."  I do think I've only used it once myself, and find it to be kinda "ehhh" unless you want it for a mostly dedicated healer, where it's more an insurance policy than anything.  OilHoly just lets your healer have DPS if you support them from somewhere else but leaves your strategy more easily disassembled due to having more moving parts and turn dumps.

As for your counts - again, that's the Holy skill, not the Holy element itself.  If you exempt the entire Element because it has one skill that isn't garbage or easily blocked, other things such as Dia, the Silver Bow, etc. suffer needlessly.  Same with Dark and Kotetsu.  Fire/Ice/Lightning see low use because it's a dumb idea to use them aside from Kagesougi Gunning (where Fire will see a huge upswing in representation) when you can run said Kagesougi Gunning + Venetian Shield to block all 3.  While Tournament usage results are relevant, it's important to not forget the other changes also being proposed and why some things aren't being used - in this case, the main source of Fire/Ice/Lightning aside from Magic Guns (Wizard) gets buffs (though Kagesougi aside I'd call the changes to Magic Guns a buff too) from several different directions and the Venetian Shield disappears, which will result in another upswing from those Elements, since none of them are bad or suffer from low representation themselves, and Holy becoming Evadable combined with Mantles, while not guaranteed, has a moderate likelihood of reducing the number of Holy users.  Kotetsu's nerf isn't large, true, but that's just the upswing/downswing of Dark - get a powerful skill with a huge AoE, but a lot of times half the other team just absorbs it, because again Black Costume.

And I should note here, that I do not thing all Elements should be equally valid or that Black Costume, Rubber Costume, or Santa Outfit should be equally valid as options.  Part of what makes the Risk/Reward of Element setups is that lack of parity - you can pick a "good" Element such as Dark or Fire, which are easier to make teams with but ultimately will be blocked and force you to go to "Plan B" more often, whereas a "mediocre" Element (Earth, Wind) still has enough options to be at least somewhat valid as an option, but are harder to actually make teams with - while this makes them "weaker", it gives them the advantage of being less common, meaning they won't often fight opponents who can cancel or absorb their key skills, unlike Kotetsu where it isn't uncommon to fight two units with Black Costumes or something.  That is the Risk/Reward and metagame calling that makes competitive gaming tick, and I see no real need to pull people too far from Dark or whatever.  I only want options to exist and exist with just enough validity to be feasible.  Hence, seeing no reason to pull people away from Dark arbitrarily - it does not fit with my modus operandi of making a competitive PVP game.  Parity is the opposite of what is needed.  Not to say things like Water don't need something (I did say I wanted them at least somewhat feasible), but I have no want nor see a need to even attempt to make all 8 elements have any form of equality.

(This ramble is why my Wizards have always used Ice 4 over Bolt 4 - Ice is less likely to be blocked, a bit faster, and much cheaper MP-wise, it did a bit less damage but had almost 0 chance of being blocked.  Sadly, that's all irrelevant now with Venetian Shield making basically the entire Wizard skillset kinda useless.)

@Wizard, you could go from X 2 Back / X 2 / X 3 / X 4 to X 2 Back / X 2 / X 3 and add Water to it, I suppose.  (Though doing this would require Fire 4 actually mimic Fire 2 and Fire 3 in range instead of being useless.) Going to 3 tiers also lets the Y values be a bit less compressed.  I'm not outright opposed, but it needs to be done correctly because Wizard already has a bit of a delicate balance going between its 3 spells.  Going lowest CT / highest MP cost or something would work, maybe, then just have it mirror Ice otherwise, which is similar (in the way Ice and Water "should" be, for those who care about that) but one is quick and costly, while the other is slower and cheaper.

@Stone Gunners: Yup.  They are.  They're niche units.  Like Cursed Ring units.  Other good Berserkers included dual Scorpion Tail Ninjas (which can nearly oneshot a Y U SO DERP Chemist if both shots hit - quite a feat of DPS!) and Bizen Boat / Masamune Samurai.  The point I was getting at was that they were actually good, at least to a respectable enough degree.

@Demi 2: I think you missed the point of what I said, Gaignun.  I was more lambasting the fact he was so worried about Demi 2 + Oil when Demi 2 kind of sucks... and I'll be honest, Oil + any respectable high-end attack of ANY Element should be a oneshot or at least a huge chunk of that unit's HP.  Another reason I see no reason to exempt Holy here - Short Charge Holy does the same as a Short Charge Bolt 4 with 12 MA and an Element boost.  When you consider that most units with respectable Element builds will be doing more damage than that with weaker skills... yeah, Oil is basically always a one-shot unless you're carrying 350 HP+ v Min-MA Spells.  So still, seeing nothing wrong with doubling Holy/Dark here.  They're not doing anything that anyone else isn't, and them being doubled isn't going to detract much from the value of the others being doubled - being able to oneshot someone with far weaker/cheaper skills than Holy while being able to spread Oil from your innate skillset (in Wizard's case) is going to close the quality gap a lot whether Holy can do it too or not - simply because Holy already can do it.  All allowing Holy to do it as well does is open up more potential team options, something that is never bad in a PVP game.

Quote from: FFMaster on May 17, 2012, 08:26:18 amPOAST


@Auto Potion: I'm still not sure why this even comes up.  (Well, I know, sup The Damned and your irrational hatred of Chemists, Monks, and Priests.  :v)  There really is no reason to touch it, especially with us again looking to push up the low-end damage of weaker weapons, skills etc.

@Monsters: I'll be dead honest.  I see no reason to include monsters in Arena.  They're a 100% pre-packaged unit that will never see variance, even moreso than how Gaignun called Berserkers "gimmicks."  They're the ultimate in linear gimmick units and literally anything they could add to the game could be added better via a class, item, skill, etc. being added instead.  Even with gimmick human items with Salty Rage or Cursed Ring, you still get control to add variance to your units on at least some level.  Monsters you get absolutely nothing, and you have to make what few skills (3-4) that they can do so ridiculously strong to compete they just ruin everything.  Yeah, they're "cool", but that doesn't change the fact they're overly linear wastes of space that could be better suited to adding more things for human units.

@Changes: Big and infrequent.

Quote from: Eternal248 on May 17, 2012, 09:13:22 am-Since Black Magic is different now, maybe it's time for the Magic Guns to be totally booted. If that happens, I have a few replacement ideas:
1) A healing gun (because it's an amazing concept)
2) A Leg/Arm Aim procing Gun.
3) A gun with large Range.


3) is the Romanda Gun.  A Healing Gun is about as amazing as the other Healing weapons - not that amazing.  The current Magic Guns actually let you make Element Absorb teams where they can double as both healing and damaging weapons, and if you read the most recent changes to fix Kagesougi Gunning, they only got better at that. 

Quote from: Eternal248 on May 17, 2012, 09:13:22 amThe Poison inflicting Paladin skill FDC mentioned earlier can be called "Blightbane".


You take your fucking War of the Lions gibberish and get your fucking ass out of here right fucking now before I fucking murder your fucking ass.  Fucker.  :V

Shade

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on May 17, 2012, 01:20:00 pm
You take your fucking War of the Lions gibberish and get your fucking ass out of here right fucking now before I fucking murder your fucking ass.  Fucker.  :V


^^
I'll be taking that.

Anyway...

@Dia
The thing with Dia is that, it would be good if it were like unfury, but currently it's faith. And when you are build for DPS, you are building damage against melee units most of the time, since none of the mages can have armors without equip armor and tanky melee units tend to have 40 faith and 40 fury. So of course you are going to take unfaith skills instead of Dia.

@Monsters
Well at this point it would be pointless to add them, since we really don't have space for them in ARENA. I can still remember the suggestions somewhat, almost all of them for some reason tried to make them jack of all trades. None of them really would have worked expect for FFM's own demon monster that had black hole and white hole. And that I could have used in ARENA, but anyway not enough space, moving on.

@Holy and Raise 2
Both of them should cost just more mp, so there would not be as much spam of them.  Also reason why I would use Holy instead of Flare is that Holy simply has better DPS/CT ratio, nothing more.

@Carbungle
This skill is the best way to get MP back compared to anything else. I mean wow did you really have to make 2 AOE or have it only cost 5 mp? AI isn't stupid about mp, if it has this skill it will heal it's mp back instead of casting damage, so it can keep casting spell without having running out of mp. So question. Why 5mp? why not like 15 or more? AI would still used it well. It would not make much harder to AI. Also the 2 AOE, just what? Anything that is going to carry this spell is going to have 10 MA atleast so it's 60 to 120 mp to 1 to 4 people. This is a lot for a team that has Holy or Raise 2. I would be fine if it was AOE of like 1.

@Demi's
I would like them a lot more if they had bigger AOE and before you ask "Why Shade? I mean there is already Lich.", reason is simple, Lich doesn't fit in summoner skillset, everything else has/had 100% hits (even if magic evasion were to come to skills, it would still be heck of a lower chance to hit). So I would actually say that let the Lich be dark elemental summon for summon skillset and increase demi AOE to 3 and Demi 2 AOE to 2. This would power up time mage skillset that doesn't see much use currently after haste debuffs.
Upupupu...

Zetsubou

The Damned

(Ultimately, I'm not opposed to letting Chronos Tear be a "mere" 100 JP.)

Ugh. This is going to take a lot of quoting, so I'll just put the redone Katana that I was thinking about last night first before summoning up another Demon Wall of text to ram into everyone's eye-sockets and Telega their time away:

I figure I might as well as post up the original alongside this just to help everyone see how much I probably screwed them up even worse:

These are the current Katana:

1. Asura Knife: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; Element: Fire; Strengthen: Fire; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

2. Kotetsu Knife: WP: 12; W-EV: 15%; Element: Dark; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: No.

3. Bizen Boat: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; 100% Silence; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

4. Murasame: WP: 11; W-EV: 15%; +1 MA, Restores HP; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

5. Heaven's Cloud: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; Element: Wind; +1 PA; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

6. Kiyomori: WP: 14; W-EV: 15%; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: No.

7. Muramasa: WP: 12; W-EV: 15%; 100% Faith; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: No.

8. Kikuichimoji: WP: 13; W-EV: 15%; Element: Earth; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: No.

9. Masamune: WP: 10; W-EV: 15%; Initial: Haste; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

10. Chirijiraden: WP: 11; W-EV: 15%; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: Yes.


These are my proposals that are largely off the top of my head, which is part of the reason they are probably even worse given I didn't do the math and I'm not nearly as competent about ARENA, much less "DPS", as a lot of other people are. Still, I feel Katana needed some changes, so I'll put in bold what's changed and try to give reasoning.

By and large, though, as the conservation between Raven and I hinted at, the biggest change is making it so that most Katana can be used with Two Hands automatically. May have to drop their WP a bit more because of that, but I feel that it needs to be done if Ninja-Whatever mostly get to be used with Two Swords but half of current Katana don't get to be used with Two Hands; I did this even as much as still don't like Two Hands or Two Swords essentially doubling attack power, especially innately:


1. Asura: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; Element: Fire; Strengthen: Dark; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

IIRC, it's been said from the very beginning that Asura shouldn't strengthen itself/its own element, and that I rather agreed with that sentiment; it's "just" Asura now since it's not a "Knife". Rods can get away with it because Wizards/mages are physically squishy, even if I was less than thrilled about Rods becoming MA and getting decent WP, but I digress. Due to Black Costume's popularity not going anywhere, it seems both fitting and "fair" to let this Strengthen: Dark instead.


2. Kotetsu: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; Element: Dark; Strengthen: Fire; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

For much the same reason as the above, this becomes the Dark mirror of Asura, meaning its WP gets lowered in exchange for being able to be used with Two Hands, it strengthens Fire and "Knife" gets excised from its name.


3. Bizen Boat: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; 100% Silence; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

Yep, this is unchanged. I was originally going to up its WP to 10, but considering Muramasa took a hit and its one of only four non-elemental Katana that does damage and can be Two-Handed on top of the only one to have a 100% proc...yeah. No need for change even as commonly as Silence is blocked.


4. Murasame: WP: 12; W-EV: 15%; Restores HP, Block: Berserk; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No. 

Upped its WP a bit more, partly due to the loss of +1 MA, but also just because I felt that it needed to do more in a single blow than what Murasame could potentially group heal (only) two people. I was tempted to up its WP beyond 12, but I'm somewhat cautious of opening up Kagesougi to more shenanigans if it's already getting buffed. Block: Berserk is both because the new changes seem to pushing for more things to have it and because Murasame doesn't benefit from Berserk at all unlike most weapons. It getting Block: Berserk would "replace" Defense Ring potentially losing it for Block: Silence as well as not taking up anymore of the (probably nonexistent) Item Attribute space that may remain since it can share with Dracula Mantle. Similarly, unlike Healing Staff, which is also seeing a boost, Katana users are not nearly as commonly going to block Berserk as Stave/Staff users are.


5. Heaven's Cloud: WP: 9; W-EV: 15%; Element: Wind; 50% Slow; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

Rather unfortunately agree with Raven that this may be needed since Wind element is of dubious strength as it is even if it's not as bad as Water. That's the only change too since like the other elemental Katana it can be strengthened.


6. Kiyomori: WP: 11; W-EV: 15%; +1 MA; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

The Katana that was previously "just there" the most is...still just there the most. I figured that it needed to be Two-Handed, that its WP should thus drop and that it should probably end up the strongest of the Two-Handed non-elemental Katana due to what Masamune has. However, beyond that...well, I figured that at least one Katana should strength all Draw Outs and I didn't want to go with +2 MA since that seemed a bit much in addition to its attack power between its WP and Two-Handed aspects.


7. Muramasa: WP: 10; W-EV: 15%; 33% Faith; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

Usual story of dropping WP to let it have Two Hands. It was originally going to be equal to Bizen Boat in WP, but given that I also figured that the Faith proc needed to be dropped--there's no way it should be anything more than 50% at most--and how Bizen Boat has a 100% chance to inflict Silence, it seemed like it need at least a bit more.


8. Kikuichimoji: WP: 10; W-EV: 15%; Element: Earth; 33% Quake; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

Much like the above beyond the usual WP-lowering to give it Two Hands, this is a bit above the elemental Katana because Earth is arguably the second worst element after Water; being the only element that can avoided by a Movement and a status doesn't exactly help one's chances of being used, even if I don't think anything should happen to either Float. For the same reason, it's also more straightforward, especially when Earth Clothes exists to both Strengthen and Absorb it all at once. Quake allows Samurai's MA to see some use besides Draw Out, but shouldn't be too doing too much damage, especially given Samurai's tendency to not use Faith that much, and is still subject to M-EV; not exactly like there was much else for me to choose from on that front, especially when Geomancy's only Earth-element ability is now the one that Petrifies. It also will allow me to yell "QUAKE! WITH! FEAR!" every time it triggers ala Ronin Warriors.


9. Masamune: WP: 8; W-EV: 15%; Initial: Haste; 50% Dispel Magic; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.

As much as I would just have liked to say "this should proc Comet" semi-jokingly again as I did for philsov's ASM'd before he scrapped it, I'd rather not let "proc" something that's guaranteed to do 100 damage and that isn't avoidable. The reason for the WP being so low is that, on top of the initial Haste, I suppose I viewed as more of a "sweeper" set-up by getting rid of any buffs the unit had rather than aiming to cave the unit's face in off the bat; it's only 50% because Gold Staff and Chaos Blade don't seem much use as it is and this needs to not trump units with Yin-Yang Magic(k) using Dispel Magic either. However, given how low its WP is (even if 8 when used with Two-Hands shouldn't be too terrible), Comet might be appropriate after all. Of course, if want to make this something else that doesn't bother calling up anything, then we could give it +1 Sp and give Sprint Shoes initial Haste to combine them.... [/semi-joking]


10. Chirijiraden: WP: 14; W-EV: 15%; Strengthen: Earth, Wind, Water; Two Hands: No; Two Swords: No.

The last of the Katana can no longer be used with Two Swords and still can't be used with Two Hands. Instead it gets a WP boost unlike most of the other Katana and gets to shared Item Attribute space with Giant Axe without overshadowing it (I would like to think). It may be better to just allow this +1 MA or even +2 MA, but that seems kinda "messy" (at least in the +2 MA instance) partly because, like all Katana, this can still be used with Equip Shield rather easily and it wouldn't suffer for it unlike the other Katana. I would also rather try to push for just Heaven's Cloud and Kikuichimoji (the abilities) seeing more usage than push all of Draw Out into seeing more usage when the only one that doesn't see all that much usage is Muramasa (the ability) and even that sees a decent amount.



Ugh. Actually, due to how much my computer (or rather Firefox) still seems to be acting up and how long it took me to type that, I'll reply to everything else in my next reply.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

RavenOfRazgriz

The Damned is actually going somewhere with the Katana, so I'll take those off his hands.


Asura Knife - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Fire Element, Strengthen: Fire.
Kotetsu Knife - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Dark Element, Strengthen: Dark.
Bizen Boat - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 100% Add: Silence on Hit.
Murasame - 12 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Immune: Berserk, Heals HP on Hit.
Heaven's Cloud - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Wind Element, 50% Add: Slow on Hit.
Kiyomori - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, MA +2.
Muramasa - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 100% Add: Faith on Hit.
Kikuichimoji - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Earth Element, 33% Cast: Quake on Hit.
Masamune - 8 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Initial: Haste, 50% Cast: Dispel Magic on Hit.
Chirijiraden - 11 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Strengthen: Earth, Wind, Water.

Differences - Asura and Kotetsu are self-strengthening since their main role is to boost their related Draw Outs, and they gain a WP each.  Kotetsu has the power of old Asura and Asura is a bit more powerful at 10 WP, offsetting the fact that the Kotetsu Draw Out is stronger than the Asura one.  They're Elemental almost as an afterthought of the sake of Element Absorb teams who might want their Samurai PA-flavored, so Self-Boost isn't an issue.  Muramasa maintains 100% Faith because that has still never been an issue ever and is interesting and different, though the WP is lowered to 9 to mirror Bizen Boat due to this.  Kiyomori is +2 MA instead of +1 MA because a Strengthen: Element on even a male Samurai with +3 MA from other gear (not unreasonable if it's meant to be a male with decent MA) will gain an additional 3 MA from Element Strengthen, beating out the Kiyomori anyway, but at the expense of only some Draw Outs being boosted.  This makes Kiyomori great for otherwise low-MA setups to get an MA booster, though I lowered its WP to 10 so that it is equal to or weaker than all the Element-Boosting Katana in terms of Attack DPS to offset this.  I went with The Damned's idea for Masamune since it gives Masamune even more of a unique niche and many Katana can perform DPS now, though I modified Chirijiraden to work with Two Hands.  The reason being, no one is going to bother with an Equip Shield Samurai - it defeats the entire purpose of even having your Samurai, so the weapon will see no use.  It still keeps a respectable-for-Katana 11 WP and the Giant Axe effect, though, making it a great option for boosting Kikuichimoji and Heaven's Cloud.  The other relevant change here is that these Katana are also all compatible with Two Swords as well - there's no reason for them not to be, and this opens up the option of the Equip Heavy Blade Ninja to being a "thing", among other things, and the more noise for viable setups that can be thrown at the wall, the better.

CT5Holy

I like those proposed Katana changes.

Also, something mentioned on chat, but Speed Save could probably see a buff. Aero suggested +25 CT, others said +30. I was thinking +40, but that might be a bit much.
Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney


CT5Holy

I think +30 would be fine. Hardly anyone uses Speed Save right now, and I don't think it'll see a lot of use at +25, either.

Balance JP down to 250?

The swords could use revamping/buffs. They are also very underused. At the very least +1 WP on the non-Platinum Swords, but I think they should also be all (or at least most) 2H/2S-able. Granted, doing that would mean a revamp. I'll try to toss out some ideas... (note: numbers will likely need to be tweaked. Again, these are just ideas, and I'm bad at stuff at like this)

Blood Sword 11 WP, no 2H/2S, absorbs HP
Ancient Sword 9 WP, yes 2H/2S, 25% Petrify proc (actually, maybe 25% Don't Act proc would be better here? cause with 2S that's ~40% chance of Petrify)
Sleep Sword 9 WP, yes 2H/2S, 25% Sleep proc
Rune Blade 10 WP, yes 2H/2S, +2 MA
Platinum Sword 12 WP, yes 2H/2S
Diamond Sword 8 WP, yes 2H/2S, 50% Extra Attack
Coral Sword 8 WP, Water Element, yes 2H/2S, 50% Poison proc or 25% Suiton proc (actually, Suiton proc would make more sense on the flails. Except I think it's a bad idea either way since that could lead to a looooooot of damage. Thoughts?)
Ice Brand 10 WP, Ice Element, yes 2H/2S, 25% Ice 3 proc
Winner of the 1st FFT 1.3 AI Tourney