Arena battle videos and discussion

[CT5Holy]

spoiler: Vipers Zealots

XD

[doriantoki]

spoiler: IASD vs. YUSD

Not really much I can say that hasn't already been covered.  Status/disabling teams = long matches.  Slow Dance wasn't as debilitating as I thought it would be, especially for as long as the match lasted.

spoiler: Gorgon Gaze vs. Even Worse

Gorgon has no access to healing?  The thieves and Oracles sat on their turns, just taking the damage with no way to heal.  Is the clincher.  Access to some healing, and Wiznaibus' effectiveness is dramatically reduced

spoiler: Model Citizens vs. Diamonds and Guns

I'm conflicted whether I want the Chemists to spend turns casting Protect and Haste now.  Notice that the Blast Gun did respectable damage, and the buffs mostly missed.  I guess I could change the team order, so the Chemists go last?  But their speed is already so high.  Diamonds and Guns weren't doing terribly high damage with their attacks, which prompted MA and PA Save, especially helpful in the second battle.  Death Sentence a big factor, but I am curious to see how it would've played out without it!

spoiler: I Hate Zalmo vs. Mostly Holy People

Kudos on the Innocent strategy.  All around a devastating team.

spoiler: A Team vs. Get on Status

Scary damage on A Team with regular attacks, wow.  Good team all around, though those Squires could have stayed on the offensive instead of spending a turn with Life Song, since it didn't heal for all that much.  Charm was the clincher, I'd say?  GoS though, Raise 2 Move-MP Up, nice combination.

.

spoiler: Beta Angelus vs. Annoying

Angelus on constant heal duty.  Long range archers effective when kept from harm, and doing decent damage.  Good match.

[formerdeathcorps]

Expect to see the next series of Round 1 matches from me this weekend as I update to 133 Beta v6

Team Rare Skills (Dol) vs. Y U SO DERP (Raven)
COME AT ME, BRO! (AeroGP) vs. Heresy (fdc)
Break Arts (Eternal) vs. Vampire Hunters (doriantoki)
Living Undead (Eternal) vs. Holy Heretic (PX)
Blitz (Eternal) vs. First Strike (Malroth)
Blood (fdc) vs. Models (doriantoki)
B Team (fdc) vs. Spiral of Dreams (TrueLight)

The other two ETernal teams will not be tested since the faced off against new teams from Raven and Celdia.  I'm going to use Barren's and Wiz's results in the tournament.

[formerdeathcorps]

These are the match-ups for the second round.  Any further entries into the tournament will not be allowed (since that would require redoing Round 1).  I will, however, grant requests to test modified teams or withdraw teams (as long as teams are withdrawn in pairs).

Firewater (Pierce) vs. Standstill (CT5Holy)
Even Worse than Before (Celdia) vs. Team Heartbreak (Dol)
Iron Will (CT5Holy) vs. Ordo de Veras Vitae (fdc)
Heresy (fdc) vs. Playground Pioneers (Raven)
S5 (fdc) vs. Team Stick (Dol)
Y U SO DERP (Raven) vs. Harem (Raven)
Blanket (CT5Holy) vs. Big Assault (Barren)
STFU (fdc) vs. The Forgotten (TrueLight)
HolyHeretics (PX) vs. Vampire Hunters (doriantoki)
B Team (fdc) vs. Get on Status (Vigilanti)
1st Mime (Squidgy) vs. Blitz (Eternal)
Blood (fdc) vs. I KIN HURT YOU (Vigilanti)
Holy Stones (CT5Holy) vs. Team Ladies (Dol)
Raiders (fdc) vs. Diamond and Guns (Celdia)
Facial Reconstruction (Mando) vs. Heroes (fdc)
A Team (fdc) vs. Spirals of Dream (TrueLight)
Requisition (fdc) vs. Model Citizens (doriantoki)
Norm (Angelus) vs. Rage on a Stick (CT5Holy)
Faithless Cowards (Squidgy) vs. Weapons of Mass Destruction (TrueLight)
First Strike (Malroth) vs. Two Swords Proc Funsies (CT5Holy)
Phantasy Star (Barren) vs. Rivals (fdc)
Do Not Disturb (CT5Holy) vs. DD (Barren)
Team Rare Skills (Dol) vs. Living Undead (Eternal)
Team I Hate Zalmo (Dol) vs. Song and Dance (DomieV)
DNAngel (TrueLight) vs. I AM SO DERP (Celdia)
Break Arts (Eternal) vs. Vanilla (TrueLight)
Gorgon (Eternal) vs. Dark Secret Love (Squidgy)
Zealots (Eternal) vs. Night Warriors (AeroGP)

[Pierce]

Is float buggy? In my match vs SoySauceMaster hosted by fdc, my Paladin is floating, yet he hits himself with Grand Cross and his weapon is earth elemental (Kikuichimonji). Not sure if this is a bug or what, not a big deal though.

Also, thanks to all the hosts of the recent Arena matches. A lot of videos have been pumped out in the last week or so, and I feel like you guys don't get enough thanks for all the work you do. So special thanks to Barren, Wiz, and FDC, you guys do an awesome job.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Is float buggy? In my match vs SoySauceMaster hosted by fdc, my Paladin is floating, yet he hits himself with Grand Cross and his weapon is earth elemental (Kikuichimonji). Not sure if this is a bug or what, not a big deal though.

Float actually doesn't block all forms of Earth damage.  Pretty sure any Earth skill with Weapon Strike bypasses Float.  Either that or it's a Formula deal and 2D is included, one of the two.

I only know of it on a cursory level, but checking for Weapon Strike is the lazy and effective way to check so that's probably it.  Then again, Squaresoft.

[Barren]

I don't think that platinum sword and ancient sword are able to be dual wielded :/

[formerdeathcorps]

I don't think that platinum sword and ancient sword are able to be dual wielded :/

So I'll have to record that one again when dorian changes his team.

[Barren]

So I'll have to record that one again when dorian changes his team.

most likely yea, i already sent him a message about his team

[RavenOfRazgriz]

spoiler: Team Rare Skills v Y U SO DERP

...Exactly as predicted.  This is why anti-Dead gear really isn't as worthwhile as one might think as the one and ultimate answer to the power of DERP.

Alternate Reaction:  OH MY GOD STAB THE BITCH ALREADY SHE CAN'T EVEN HURT YOU FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STAB HER.

spoiler: Blitz vs First Strike

Hey look Eternal beat somebody, holy shit.

spoiler: B Team vs Spiral of Dreams

Ouch, a landslide game 3 after the first two were so close.  Carve Model Petrify puts in a bit of work to speed things up even more, but DPS was definitely on FDC's side anyway in this one.

[doriantoki]

spoiler: Team Rare Skills vs. YUSD

Has the potential for match to last eternity.  If Rare had non-MP based healing, even a singular X-Potion, this may have gone on for near eternity, especially with dance continuing to go on after MP has run out.  Does the AI not realize this?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

The Dance not being replenished was my Polka Polka Dancer.  Polka Polka was irrelevant to this matchup anyway and I guess the AI realized this, as I've seen the Polka Polka Dancer replenish her MP at other times.  (The AI does this with Witch Hunt too, being really good at knowing which matchups to ignore it and go right for Slow Dance.)  If he had more healing, I would've just Speed Broke him to 1 per unit and stabbed him to death then.  My lowest damage was 44, and my Chemists would've got 18 turns to the turn of any 1 of his units, and 18x44=792.  The lowest I've seen my Knives do ever is about 22-24, and 22x18 is still 396, plenty to eventually tear his units down.

His lack of non-MP healing just made the match end faster, similarly to how a lack of no anti-Dead just makes a match end faster.  There's very few ways to force a proper Draw with my team because Slow Dance is an inevitability.  If you can't win properly, don't even bother wearing defense, because it won't help, it'll just make things take longer.

[doriantoki]

If he had more healing, I would've just Speed Broke him to 1 per unit and stabbed him to death then.

30 hours later maybe.  Don't get me wrong, in a way I think the lack of healing/MP healing was for the better, so that we didn't end up with a 3 hour match.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

30 hours later maybe.  Don't get me wrong, in a way I think the lack of healing/MP healing was for the better, so that we didn't end up with a 3 hour match.

Two tops.  My longest test game has been two hours, and even if he were running Chakra/Item instead of magic, he had less healing/defense than the team I spent 2 hours fighting.

And honestly, Y U SO DERP is win first, everything else second.  If it takes me two hours to win, I honestly don't care.  It's their fault for being unable to do anything then blocking my win condition in a bad form of "I'm pretending I can beat DERP." 

In Dol's case, I'm pretty sure his anti-Dead was actually meant to guard Sleep and Petrify since those were the guards his anti-Dead items came bundled with, with Dead as an afterthought sortof.  I'm just saying if you actively equip that shit and you can't actually win... you're just extending the inevitable, and that doesn't bother me any because I still win, and other people win easier because your equipment is worthless vs them too.  I just prefer to win the games I'm going to win expediently through Death Sentence when I can, because it's courteous.

[doriantoki]

Curious to see how Undead + Consecration would do on that strategy (unless you have Undead protection, haven't looked at the team in depth).  Hey fdc can you hold out on the rematch for a bit?  I want to rework Vampire Hunters further.  If you've already recorded it, don't worry about.  Or if it can't wait, it's fine.  Otherwise, there are some changes I wanted to make.  Team's been edited ...

[formerdeathcorps]

That rematch is the only thing that's holding me up from doing Round 2 (which I want to do before anyone else makes a new team/revives an old team/does anything else that could mess up my roster), but of course, I have to give Eternal a fair shot at testing against the correct team.  Thus, I will test as soon as you're ready.

[CT5Holy]

Holy Stones wins
Iron Will loses
Two Swords loses
Rage on a Stick wins
Do Not Disturb loses
Standstill loses
Blanket wins

[RavenOfRazgriz]

/Cackles maniacally/

spoiler: Y U SO DERP v Vipers Harem Ending

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

DERP FUCK YOU POWER v DERP FUCK YOU WALL.

Win.

70:30 on the Vipers winning.

spoiler: Heresy v Playground Pioneers

I think I'll take this for the same reason I took vs Barren.  The Monks will walk into Jump Range and half my units are immune to nearly their entire offense.  If Dragon Spirit doesn't trigger, I'll possibly lose a Paladin to a chain-gank Suiton since Venetian Shield won't halve it and it's unevadable because idk ninjas, but I'm pretty sure I can still win out.  It'll be a close shave, though.  It's really just riding out that first turn's offense without anyone dropping that looks like it'll be key.

[doriantoki]

Hopefully the final revision of Vampire Hunters.  Should be paying more attention when editing teams.  Sloppy.  So for teams from the first round, are revisions allowed for those teams in the second round?  How does that work?

spoiler: Living Undead vs. Holy Heretic

Raise 2 and near 100% petrify save the day.  Innate Undead, maybe not the best idea?

spoiler: Blood vs. Model Citizens

Wow, pretty mismatched.  Bizen Boat = actually a bad idea, that means Bards are spending no time singing, more time throwing HUMUNGOUS damage around.  Bait Mediator = horrible, against essentially 4 offensive beasts, especially once MP is eliminated on the Bards.  Only craptacular Phoenix Down for rez = too much time sandbagging.  Chemists largely useless, when Bards can one shot all members of the team.  Definitely a bad team on my part.

[formerdeathcorps]

So for teams from the first round, are revisions allowed for those teams in the second round?

Considering it's only natural to do so, the answer is yes.  However, your history will stay, and thus, for the purposes of ranking strategies and teams, it's probably best if you don't radically overhaul the team (i.e. turn a team of mages relying on status effects into a physical combat brigade).