☢ ☢ ☢ FFT 1.3 AI Tournament Season 5 ☢ ☢ ☢ [FINISHED] Post-Discussion

[Fanatic]

Congrats to the winner!

As to Kiku debate: The only counter is HP. Most rules don't let you equip your entire team with MDU or damage split, both of which (if used for the whole team) would end the threat. Shell is cast by AI unreliably. You cannot evade Kiku, nor can you block it with elemental defenses... both of which you can do against Earth Slash. Countermagic is no counter, as you invariably hurt your own team as much as the other.

But kiku is not Cid. My proposal is if anyone ever does another tournament like this, limit units with draw out to a movement range of 3. With MAU they can OHKO weaker units, but at least they won't cross the map and do it on the first turn. Part of what makes these moves so deadly is the AI is capable of choosing many spaces from which to use drawout. Limit those spaces by limiting movement, and the ability will keep all of its damage output while becoming less OP.

[formerdeathcorps]

We probably won't have another tournament like this because we're going to use FFT Arena for S6.

As for countering Kiku with HP, at neutral compat, yes, that is true (especially on top of X-Potion/Cure3/Murasame + Regen/Move-HP UP), but at Good/Best compat (as Pierce and Lijj found out), their tanking just wasn't enough to stop maximal damage Kiku.
Strangely, why are we still discussing the kiku issue?  Not only are we not going to use 1.3 in the near future for a FFH tournament, it can be reasonably argued that the winning team did so on his fast resurrection power.  If kiku is "broken", then MA mage + murasame is probably just as broken, if not more so.

[formerdeathcorps]

Sorry for the double post, but here's a tidbit from me:

spoiler: Tourney Results

1) Gaignun

2) AeroGP
3) Aquilae

4) Derevish
5/6) Odal/fdc

7/8) OhGodBears!/ThrowAway
9-12) Squidgy/Mando/Barren/Pierce

spoiler: My Tests and Impressions

1) Gaignun

2) AeroGP
3) Aquilae

4) Mando
5-6) Derevish/fdc
7) Odal

8-9) ThrowAway/Barren
10-11) Squidgy/OhGodBears!
12-13) Lijj/Wiz

14) Pierce

The separators in the above comments are markers of tier.  Higher tier teams have a high chance of sweeping lower tier teams.  However, that being said, FFT is not Advance Wars; much of S5 is rock/paper/scissors, so the above should be taken as generalities (average set of 3 maps, expected value occurrences rather than crazy luck, facing a general enemy squad rather than a specific counter squad [like me vs. pokeytax]).

[Wiz]

So, I've been busy doing some other stuff, so that's why there's a delay to these responses...anyways...

~~

I hate to be that guy but...

spoiler: Championship Match

I find it odd that AeroGP's summoner didn't use Kiku once; especially after seeing round 2 where Gaignun's wizard advances and does Kiku right off the bat but when the summoner gets to move she does nothing (even though she's in Kiku range of the ninja). Did she actually have Kiku enabled or am I missing something? Anyway, I don't think it would've made a huge difference to be honest. AeroGP's damage wasn't on par and what clinched it was the lancer going on sandbagging duty when he had the most power.

Big gratulations to Gaignun also, I rooted for that guy ever since I saw him being 2v4 against Odal, yet still coming back and winning.

spoiler: Response to krilz

Yes, she did have Kiku because I double checked it and marked off Kiku for both teams at the same time. As to why the summoner did nothing, I can't say for sure, but will guess that the Summoner chose to ignore the Wizard because Ace the Ninja had the capability to OHKO her.

Strangely, why are we still discussing the kiku issue?

Because I've yet to respond to your statements, which assert that this ability isn't OP, when overwhelming evidence and results suggest otherwise.

spoiler: Response to fdc

There are no practical means of combating Kiku

Damage split at 70% brave isn't practical?  To be honest, anything past the 60% mark in terms of occurrence is effective enough for me.
The practicality of compats depends on your setup.  If you did the "standard" best/neutral compat team, then compats are noticeably less a factor than if you ran a setup like mine (all around good compat team with two different genders at one sign), because in my case, against no team can I have completely neutral compats.  It's riskier, but it certainly contributed heavily to wins over OGB, Kaz, and Barren and exacerbated my loss against AeroGP.

As I mentioned to you on chat, you left out the rest of that sentence,which says this...

other than: hoping on the reaction abilities HP Restore, Speed Save, and Damage Split; minimizing the damage output via the Shell status and MagicDefend UP; and arguably bad/worst compat in which the latter two weren't very prevalent with the exception of Gaignun's Wizard who had MDU to reduce DO Damage by a third.

You are thinking of avoiding or lessening Kiku damage.  How about actually killing the Kiku user?  There's mostly three types of kiku users:
1) Male Samurai (where Kiku was added as an afterthought)
2) Non-MA optimized units (mostly female samurai or mages who optimized HP/evasion)
3) MA optimized units (wizards, summoners, and MA optimized female samurai)

Killing the user is MUCH easier said than done as demonstrated in this tournament.

1. Or as a means of anti-sandbagging from a safe distance closer to their party @ 100% accuracy
2. Samurais like Aquilaes and mine still did a deadly amount of damage as you concurred that 2 units on average get hit by Kiku totaling 312 (12 * 13) to 336 (12 * 14).
3. That's exactly the Problem, you "start" out doing that much damage unlike throw, which at neutral compat and 11 speed does 143 damage with a 13 WP weapon.

G) Aquilae's female samurai is essentially a better version of Wiz's, but his squad against strong opposition really only had 2 healers at close range because that priestess couldn't herself up (Gaignun partially solved this problem by having a fast raise2 user).  This + his lower starting speed means he's at a disadvantage against a faster team's synchronized blitz.

I have to disagree that it's "better" overall. In terms of offense, he wins in that department with a more powerful Kiku + 252 damage neutral compat Melee Swing, which although is a great alternative to attack someone up close, it's still subject to evasion which seemed too risky for me. I on the other hand had a Samurai that was more versatile at staying alive w/  a P Bag + Speed Save + Flame Shield (Absorb fire; Halve ice) + Magic Ring (Absorb earth, water, wind ) for doubled absorption from a 234 HP Good Compat Water Ball and some Geomancy + Evasion. And if she is targeted w/ Speed Save after triggering 3 applications of it, she has a total of 11 speed and brings my team average's speed up to 11 (44 in total) which is pretty damn fast.

Lijj + Aero's DO users (their concepts i.e.)

v
v

spoiler: Headache

Summoner
Female
70
40
W.E. Zodiac you prefer
Draw Out
MP Switch
Defense UP
Move+2/3

Wizard Rod

Flash Hat
Wizard Robe
Magic Gauntlet

Fairy
Asura, Murasame, Heaven's Cloud/Muramasa, Kikuichimonji

^
^

201 HP, ~140 to 150 MP (Really 340-350 HP due to MP Switch, 19 MA, 9 SPD with Defense UP makes her an incredibly tough bitch to take down physically and magically because if you can't shave off all the MP in one turn, she more realistically has 400 HP because MP Switch takes in excess damage too.

^, that idea you and I concocted fdc is too good of a unit in that she can hang back and attack because of her move and 228 (456 for 2x targets) neutral compat Kikus. An idea that should be implemented for next tournament is that all units should have neutral compat so instances like me losing to Gaignun's Good Compat 270 and OGB's 312 damage Kiku's don't occur (270 * 2 = 540 damage).

We banned throw item + concentrate x2, but if we want to keep the mechanics roughly the same from S4 (while also remembering that people can now tank better due to the removal of JP caps), we need another decently powerful form of 100% damage.  Hence, I don't see how you find this to be an issue.

If you don't see how 300-400 damage spreading out amongst 2 units is unquestionably more effective than a melee unit going in doing something of that same power to a 270 HP Unit (30-130 excess and uneeded), idk what to tell you. It's basically 2+ attacks in one turn w/o any serious repercussions, other than what I listed before (HP Restore, Damage Split, etc...).

And no you don't. 1x ability (a) to become very evasive, 1x ability (b) to guarantee a physical hit in w.e. the form may be and negates things such as (a). That's perfectly fair; 1 for 1. You're saying 2 for 1 is reasonable when c (Kiku)'s a much better means at dealing damage, which is absurd. As a continuation of this...

As for 1x of all abilities = only 1 evasive unit, your own squad invalidates this, Wiz.

Wrong, I"ll post it again...

Remember that specifically only 1x of any ability's allowed...1 in total to become incredibly evasive (abandon), and 2+ that guarantee hits

That says only 1 ability (abandon) allows for a large amount of evasion, not that it's the only thing allows evasion in general (like shields, mantles. C-EV), and has nothing to do with my units having evasion themselves. Sure, my Lancer and Samurai had a good amount of evasion, but it wasn't great to the degree that Dissy had a 60% chance of dodging from the back too. Those two are not the same in terms of evasiveness to my love Dissy <3

To be honest, Kiku never was THAT dangerous except on best compat + constricted map.  I can only think of two examples (OGB vs. Lijj and Derevish vs. ODal).  At neutral compat, any physical unit optimized for damage does more, even with concentrate (over ATKUP/Two Hands/Two Swords).  Those physicals also have more HP.

As for the average 2x hit, yes, this is true, but virtually every hit except the first few is usually used in an anti-sandbagging manner.  This means the damage from kiku is really dealing 1x + anti-sandbagging past the first 2-3 uses.  That's essentially fire2/3 without CT or MP.  It's strong, but not really lethal except on repeated use (but if you're repeatedly anti-sandbagging someone, they've already lost the initiative and likely the match).

That part in bold signifies exactly why it's undoubtedly better than throw or any other form of 100% accuracy.

Example @ 9:00

Regardless if I won that round, the fact that Kiku went right through both of them dealing out 500+ damage even after the Ninja got decently healed up is BS. My sandbag power's not the problem, it's this move and the damage it does. Keep in mind, that I got eliminated from both brackets by Good Compat Kikus + a terrible tiebreaker map for both matches of all probabilities.

"Fire 2/3 w/o CT or MP (I'd argue 3/4)" that's pretty significant, it means no charge time and as seen by my Time Mage, she still got midcharged even with 12 SPD + Short Charge Casting spells of that same Caliber (Cure 3).

Side Note: Player two has a large disadvantage in Doguola Pass Map #86 because generally support units are typically in back (3rd and/or 4th unit), not in front to be shielded from enemy fire, meaning that this map should be reworked coordinate-wise for next season. Almost forgot, haste 1 dependent teams have flat terrain for player 1 mean quad hastes for 8 MP can go off as opposed to 32.

I realize you're saying that Kiku isn't exclusively the deal-breaker for a lot of top tier teams and that there's more to it such as the team layout, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a valuable and optimal, yet OP resource as an addition to your team, which should grab everyone's  (only 28/64 used it but still).

Yes, the odds were against non-kiku using teams, but Barren and zxpr0jk did pretty well against teams even with Kiku.

You're correct in saying that for zxpr0jk's case, but not Barren. He fought 2 DO teams (Aquilaes and lost 0-2, then yours 1-2 where he won the first round due to height restrictions from the VALKYRIES Map separating your offensive units far enough away being resurrected by the party.)

Let's count how many times my samurai used Diminish not to KO a unit (or even chain KO a unit on top of demi) at neutral compat (since diminish + bad compat still does more damage than kiku).  Pretty much, every time that happened, she couldn't use Kiku because of height restrictions.  It's not even half the maps, but it's somewhere between 20-25% of all maps (on top of my samurai having float).  Now, of course, this is only usually the first or second hit where this is true, but it's still a disadvantage.  In a tight battle, every advantage counts.

It's still a small number of maps, and even though it's a con it's got the advantage of going through walls which balances out the discrepancy between it and throw but nowhere near in terms of damage.

Last point...

If Kiku was truly OP, then such squads shouldn't have lost to anyone except amongst themselves and Kiku should have been instrumental to every victory.

As Aquilae's chart indicates, 6/8 teams in the Winner's Bracket Quarter-Finals had Kiku then it turned to 4/4 for the semi's whilst the Loser's Bracket was 3/4 in the round prior to the Quarter-Finals, which had the same thing (then 2/2 in the semifinals).

I can only assume you agree with me that Kiku's OP now since you set that criteria where the results were essentially met with the exception of Barren, Pierce, and Odal. Otherwise, you'd only be backpedaling without a leg to stand on.

I'm not budging, feel free to agree to disagree.

spoiler: My Response to Barren

to me i agree a little of what formerdeathcorps said because if say you have a team that is designed to tank a lot of hits especially draw out then you wont have to worry about how much damage it really does...especially if you decide to place magic defend up and dragon spirit/damage split on a fairly mobile but high hp tank that is designed to take hits while having a throwing thief to use water ball to heal (assuming your tank had flame shiled + magic ring)

Two problems with this supposed tank.

1. Draw Out like Heaven's Cloud + Muramasa give out status effects which are just as deadly (slow makes your 8 SPD Tank now a 4 SPD one or Confuse/DS will trigger with neither being good in any case besides an Angel Ring which is unlikely).
2. They're subject to 55+ percent chances (excluding Weapon Break) of getting their gear broken neutral compat from a Concentrated Ninja, which is the perfect counter and shuts teams like this down. 330 Permanent HP Loss from Crystal Helm + Mail is no something easy to come back from.

Earth Slash is just the same as kiku,,,

In terms of how it functions yes, but it's not as close as being effective compared to Kiku and there are ways around avoiding being hit by it entirely (Float + Earth abosrbing gear).

[formerdeathcorps]

Here's a more point by point breakdown of the above list, this time arranged in order of strategies.  Offense is simply how much damage (factored in is both CT and the # of attackers in the squad) + striking range + AoE + unevadable + how well you can break gear.  Defense is tanking + evasion + resurrection.  Speed is base speed (high speed variance in a team reduces this score) + speed save availability + haste availability (not just having haste/speed save but how often it procs).  Status is the availability of status effects (frog, charm, Don't Act, Slow).  Synchronization is how well the squad fights as a team + how well the above factors actually affect your squad's performance (this is the hardest to assign points to).  I'll grade each of the following on an 100 point scale.

Note, the following is mostly based on my observations of S5 and my own tests.  As thus, personal bias is unfortunately inevitable.  Feel free to submit your own lists.

spoiler: Offense

1) AeroGP (100)
2) Aquilae (94)
3) Derevish (85)
4) fdc (80)
5) PX (78)

spoiler: Defense

1) Odal (100)
2) Mando (85)
3) Gaignun (82)
4) AeroGP (70)
5) Aquilae (65)

spoiler: Speed

1) Gaignun (100)
2) ThrowAway (92)
3) Wiz (90)
4) Derevish (88)
5) Melacthon (85)

spoiler: Status

1) ThrowAway (100)
2) Barren (90)
3) fdc (85)
4) Melacthon (78)
5) Philsov (75)

spoiler: Sync

1) Gaignun (100)
2) Mando (92)
3) Odal (90)
...Past this, it gets too unclear for me to decide.

From personal extrapolation, it seems an effectiveness quotient can be determined:
(Offense + 5/4 * Defense + 3/4 * Status) * Speed^{2/3} * Sync^{1/3} / 100
If your squad is super tanky and evasive, Sync (defensive synchronization) can be swapped with Speed.  This really only applies for Odal (and maybe Mando), though.

spoiler: Top Scores

1) Gaignun = (50 + 5/4 * 82 + 3/4 * 20) * 1 = 168
2) AeroGP = (100 + 5/4 * 70 + 3/4 * 8) * (75)^(2/3) * 70^(1/3) / 100 = 141
3) Aquilae = (94 + 5/4 * 65 + 3/4 * 20) * (70)^(2/3) * 75^(1/3) / 100 = 136
4) Derevish = (85 + 5/4 * 50 + 3/4 * 12) * (88)^(2/3) * 65^(1/3) / 100 = 125
5) fdc = (80 + 5/4 * 55 + 3/4 * 85) * 60% = 128
6) Odal = (50 + 5/4 * 100 + 3/4 * 30) * (33)^(1/3) * 90^(2/3) / 100 = 128

[The Damned]

(Ugh. I had wanted to do this at a time where I wasn't up all damn night, but considering I still haven't gone to sleep and there isn't going to be any more tournaments in 1.3., I'll just skip to the end here. Apologies. Perhaps I'll answer it in-depth later when/if I feel I have more coherence.)

For the record, the only reason that I seemed to perhaps be singling out Kikuichimonji is because I felt that it was the most apparent problem of anything that plagued S5, especially since we had to go out of the way to (narrowly) allow it back in "just to see what would happen".

That combined with me not wanting to get into it or any other issue at length while the tournament was on-going so as to not seem ungrateful to the commentators/organizers is why you didn't see me say anything about the other problems that seemed obvious: disallowing Thief Hat while keeping Spell Edge around (or keeping Spell Edge around in general--such a stupid weapon), pretty much everything else related to Ninja (damn class), allowing MP Switch--I don't see why you're saying "simply provides an extra 100-140 HP" like it didn't prevent a Wizard from getting OHKO multiple times since it comes from a completely separate pool--and so on.

In short, what I'm arguing here is mutually exclusive path.  We can ideally have neither, or we can have both (which is sub-optimal for balance), but it is EVEN worse for balance to have one and not the other.

Damned, essentially, I'm making these "lesser evil arguments" to show that you shouldn't be singling out Kiku as OP when there are far more powerful and decisive tactics in the game and taking/blunting them all from FFT would actually make the AI tournaments less fun, not more.

I see. Well, I suppose we agree about the first paragraph and could argue about how much we could excise before the second took effect.

Well, obviously, I'm for having neither. Always have been, but people tend to want to hold on to Abandon since, like you said, we'd probably end up getting rid of a lot of things trying to "balance" 1.3 for tournaments. Hell, even here, where we "allowed" more than usual, we ended up banning Mime because of Monster Skill of all things (unfortunately necessary, I guess) and basically virtually banned Dancer since it's not like anyone else was going to use with Nameless Dance gone--the latter even though Mimes were gone, its Frog is notoriously unreliable & backfires more than any other Frog-causing ability in the game because of its Persevering nature, other teams got to use mass Frog abilities through Planar Magic and 108 Gems & Chemists with access to Maiden's Kiss were readily available.

Trust me. If we had voted to get rid of Abandon or if anyone [else] had agreed that it was a problem before S5 started, then you should believe that I would have voted that Abandon should have died (in a fire) before we allowed Kiku in. Draw Out is already absurdly good without it compared to any magic that isn't Summon Magic and (arguably) White Magic; maybe Yin-Yang Magic in this instance too since S5 only allowed one single piece of equipment that could actually guard against Don't Act. Draw Out with Kiku is just overkill.

Meh. Oh well. There's a reason that we're trying to go ARENA after all, so I'm not going to harp on what "could have been" with S5 or 1.3. since both are already said and done.

[Barren]

So for those who wanted kiku allowed in this tournament....are you happy with the results?

[Odal]

Yes.

Though I am for banning it in the future.  I'd rather something be proven to be imbalanced than us being not sure and then making the mistake of adding it in the future.  But to have the attitude that it somehow ruined the tournament is just sad.  It's for fun, and while it might've been more fun if we did it right the first time, there's no way of knowing what would've happened anyways, so there's no use arguing about what could've been.  Best to just learn from it and move on.

[Gaignun]

spoiler

Thanks for the accolades, everyone.

If there wasn't Kiku, people would find another skill to complain about.  It is because players exploit the most effective skills that they win.  In this case, the most effective skill was a no-brainer.  I voted against Kiku, knowing full well of its destructive potential, then designed a team to prove it (along with two others: ninja and haste).  I'm surprised more players didn't do the same.

[Dome]

Shouldn't this be closed and opened in the "FFT:Arena" section?
I mean, next tournament will be played on arena, isn't it?

[Wiz]

No, not really Dome. This is post-discussion of S5, which falls under the 1.3 forum

If you meant in terms of talking about S6, then yeah I'd agree.

And yes, S6+ will be using Arena as the designated AI Tourney patch.

[Dome]

Yeah, I think you are right
But why discussing about rules and possible banning for next tournaments if Arena is different from 1.3?

[Wiz]

No one's discussing about rules/bans other than commenting on Kiku in this 1.3 setting.

Kiku (and DO more specifically)'s noticeably weaker even with MAU meaning it's more balanced out in Arena already.

But yeah, as I said before, discussion for S6 should take place in Arena.

And since I don't have much more to say here other than you have to be dedicated/committed to run these type of tournaments, I'm signing off.

Talk to y'all about S6 (whenever that may be, hopefully in the near future) over in the Arena forum.