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Desperation Facts: What works and what doesn't (for now)

Started by dw6561, August 11, 2016, 09:04:57 pm

dw6561

For 140a, the Desperation support skill DOES NOT WORK with these weapons:

Romanda Gun
Mythril Gun
Healing Gun
Stone Gun
Blaze Gun
Glacier Gun
Blast Gun
Bloody Strings
Healing Staff
Murasame
Blood Sword

I did this because I was weary of absorb weapons being stupidly powerful, and it wouldn't really be practical for healing weapons. Magic Guns shoot their respective spells, so it wouldn't really make any sense there.

Regular guns not being affected is an oversight, but if you guys think it's not OP, I can rewrite the WP*WP formula to be affected by Desperation for 140b.

Also: If we decide not to have this, can we have another column in the master guide for weapons labeled "Desperation"? There's enough weapons to where it could be confusing to explain to first timers.
  • Modding version: PSX
This is FF Tactics. All the Tactics you can ever have, all in one byte.

silentkaster

My two cents on these weapons and whether Desperation should work on them.

Spell Guns- With the recent WP boost to these guys, I don't like the idea of an unevadable magic shot that can be boosted and faith increased.

Regular Guns- Given that the purpose of these units (Mediators and Chemists) generally don't involve their weapons, I'd be okay with it. Yes, an 8 range double damage shot is pretty potent, but often Chemists will heal themselves instead or this will put Mediators out of range of doing their job. Archers can equip them too, but in many cases, it's better to use other weapons with that class. It's a long shot to build an archer with a Romanda gun with the express intention that he'll go into Critical and become a sniper. While with Stone Gun, the range is shorter so the unit will shoot and then move back most of the time, giving one shot at most assuming the unit doesn't get healed or killed in the downtime.

Blood Sword/Bloody Strings- I'm probably honestly okay with these two as well. The AI, to my knowledge, isn't aware that an absorb weapon will heal them. So you'd only have to worry about this on a Berserker unit, and Bloody Strings doesn't play well with Berserk. Blood Sword does, but Cursed Ring units are obviously a big problem. Also, you're sacrificing a weapon, support and accessory to get the off chance that when you're in critical, it will heal you to close to full? Most of the time, the unit's whacks won't hurt that much. (On a Squire that's all PA with Salty Rage, 135 damage + Berserk damage on a 65/65 unit) so boosting that to double doesn't seem that unreasonable, especially with no way around evasion, but just my thoughts.

Healing weapons- I figure eh, why not. I don't see any reason not to. But could care less either way.
You've stepped in puddles less shallow than me.

Andrew

Desperation is mostly there for berserkers to have fun with, IMO, and I don't see an issue with berserkers OR non-berserkers one-shotting things with this Support.  It's only activated when in Critical, and sure, it's double damage, but it's only with Attack, so there wouldn't be too many situations where it'd be all that useful.

Critical units don't stay in Critical for very long: they either get healed, or get killed.  Having extra range may make it more enticing, but a ranged unit making good use of Desperation is most-likely going to be separated from the rest of its team during the short amount of time Desperation would be activated.

If ranged+Desperation was truly broken, we would have been seeing longbow units all over the place taking advantage of it.  I understand that longbows aren't inherently unavoidable, but they arc.  Besides, it's a Support skill, which is arguably the most important RSM slot.

Desperation is the type of skill that you may need to build around/for in order to maximize its effectiveness, and the amount of times it'd actually be useful in a battle is right up there with Meatbone Slash.

I'm completely fine with Desperation affecting all weapons.
  • Modding version: PSX

Gaignun

Wait, Magic Guns got reverted back to higher WP in 1.40? Oh dear.

Andrew

Spell guns received +1 WP in 1.40a. The changelogs can be viewed in the download thread.
  • Modding version: PSX

silentkaster

Actually, Andrew, you made a good argument for all weapons being affected so I'm okay with it.

Spell Guns would have to sacrifice Magic Attack UP or overwhelm (or some other useful support) in order to get the "maybe" chance that Desperation would work. So I'm okay with it.
You've stepped in puddles less shallow than me.