FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[silentkaster]

Joining in the Quickening Fray...I believe the discussion belongs in this thread though.

spoiler: Quickening Thoughts

I think everyone uses the ability since speed is such a monster stat in this game. Whether it's undead, not undead, a tanky item bot, a PA stacked Monk, or something else, Speed stat is huge.

But, I think The Damned's major complaint about the ability (or at least one of them) is that it is one of three abilities that affect speed, the other two being just...so underpowered and difficult to use. Take Cheer Song for instance...it becomes iffy to use with 11 Speed or Higher, and it becomes near impossible to use with 16 Speed or higher (though I'd imagine at that point the match would be, in most cases, pretty much decided, since Cheer Song hits 33% of the time, and that would average on an 8 speed unit 24 uses of Cheer Song at 10CT each...yikes.) However, Cheer Song's low accuracy combined with its flaws that the AI can't seem to cope with at high speeds make it an ability that most overlook. Slow Dance has even lower accuracy, the same CT, and both of these abilities usually need to dedicate one unit to using them while the other three try to hold off the enemy's assault to buy time.

However, Quickening can be used multiple times on a Map, in some cases before the units even reach each other, is instant, and has 100% accuracy. It's often combined with Cursed Ring units since even when they die, they get back up and Quickening obviously helps that happen sooner.

I think that Quickening got a de-buff definitely since Cursed Ring now only revives 50% of the time when it becomes that unit's turn, had a JP increase, and now that Flash Hat does not provide Initial Innocent, but it is still an ability that is highly used and there are ways around all of these de-buffs.

If we're not willing to delete Quickening, my idea would be to lower the accuracy if possible. A CT would be interesting, as it removes evade from the unit temporarily and does further de-buff, but the end result is still the same for the most part. However, having the ability only work 50% of the time (while still costing MP) would be I think an appropriate de-buff. Hell, you could even give Quickening Range like the ability "Yell" has but if it has only 50% accuracy (maybe we could do 45% + MA or something to make it somewhat vary) it's gonna be on par with the other two abilities since those hit all targets for lower accuracy, but Quickening would only hit 1 target with somewhat better accuracy.

If none of this is acceptable, then my final suggestion is to put Quickening in a skill set that would make it difficult to use bare. Steal Heart and Steal Accessory are great to have with Quickening, as Charm and Stealing Accessories could really affect a team and hurt them. However, putting Quickening in say, the Lore skillset or Black Magic skill set would definitely make sure that a player MUST choose these skillsets in order to use Quickening. I do not believe that Quickening will work with other abilities in these skillsets (though I haven't done thorough testing, I've done some and it doesn't seem to work well with them), so a player will be forced to get Quickening only from these skillsets and will essentially be less versatile.

Those are just my thoughts though :)

[The Damned]

(I think the team rates are a bit "backward" given how difficult it is to make effective units from only one job, even in teams where everyone's Primary Job is the exact same. That, I can understand what you're getting at given, among other things, it's really difficult to get used to the 250 JP cost to open things. I'm not sure how to improve things though. Sorry. [/late reply...at Shintroy's last post before silentkaster apparently posted an hour ago while I was typing this])

Speaking of improving things, I figure I'd put down my suggestions to overhaul Song and Dance from the changes I made while making a potential "backup" 1.39 version of Arena before FFMaster returned. Whether or not you're of the mind they're affected detrimentally by Quickening, in my opinion, they're both in dire need of help, especially the latter, which basically sees no use now with the arguably necessary change to Oil status meaning Nameless Dance is completely toothless, especially with Slow 2 as powerful as it is still; Stop's buff and Stall now existing don't do it any favors either. Even Song doesn't really have much variation in its between very few classes being able to make good use of Life Song, Cheer Song being counterproductive after a point, Nameless Song being even worse than Nameless Dance and Last Song not working with Mimes. So it's mainly used on stat-buff bots with Angel Song as backup.

Speaking of Mimes, among the changes I made/was going to make was having nothing map-wide be able to Mimicked, which includes of course all of Song and Dance as well as half of Lore. I'm not sure if that would be necessary provided any of these seem like good ideas in the first place worthy of inclusion. Regardless, I'm just giving context for some of things, especially since I'm sure people will think what I suggested for half of Dance is at least somewhat overpowered--it may well be so.

Without further ado, anything in bold is something changed from the current state of affairs, with the exception of most names:


BARD:
Song (rather than Sing)

Angel Song: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 5 (rather than 4, though in 1.38, I think it was actually still 6 accidentally); MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 100, MP Heal: MA + Y, Y = 13; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: 25% Cancel: Silence & Berserk; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Life Song: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 5 (rather than 4, though in 1.38, I think it was actually still 6 accidentally); MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 100, HP Heal: MA + Y, Y = 23; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: 25% Random Add: Reraise or Regen; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Cheer Song: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 6; MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 66, +0 Speed; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: 100% Random Add: Haste or Float; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Battle Song*: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 8; MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 66, +1 PA; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Magic Song*: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 8; MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 66, +1 MA; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Nameless Song: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 8; MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 100; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: 100% Random Add: Defending, Protect, Shell or Reflect; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Last Song: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 10; MP: 5; Formula 1C Hit_(X)%, X = 40**, Add: Quick (CT +128); EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Allies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.

****

DANCER:
Dance

Witch Hunt**: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 6; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 100, MP Damage = PA + Y, Y = 8; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: 20% Random Add: Silence or Berserk; Counter: -; 200 JP.

With Knives (instead of the "Engrish" that is "Wiznaibus")**: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 6; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 100, HP Damage = PA + Y, Y = 13; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: 20% Random Add: Undead or Poison; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Slow Dance: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 6; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 50, -0 Speed; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: 100% Random Add: Slow or Immobilize (Don't Move); Counter: -; 200 JP.

Polka Polka: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 8; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 50, -1 PA; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Disilllusion: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT:  8; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 50, -1 MA; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Nameless Dance: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 8; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 75; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: 100% Random Add: Blind (Darkness), Oil or Disable (Don't Act)***; Counter: -; 200 JP.

Last Dance: Range: 0; AoE: 255; Vert: 255; CT: 10; MP: 5; Formula 1D Hit_(X)%, X = 40**, CT to 00; EV?: -; Rfl: No; Special: All Enemies; Status: -; Counter: -; 200 JP.


So...yeah, feedback, comments, flames, insults, whatever. Please give it.

I mean, does anyone else have any ideas about what we can to make Dance and, to a much lesser degree, (all of) Song actually worth using?

spoiler: *

*Battle Song and Magic Song weren't changed despite my early objections about a year ago that they didn't need to be buffed from 50% to 66%, especially in light of the lack of change to the already much-harder-to-use Polka Polka and Disillusion having hit rates still less than 50%. I still don't think they should be that high, at especially Mime with around, but I was and still would be willing let them stay there as long as Polka Polka and Disillusion saw some improvement.

spoiler: **

**I'd be willing to up the percentage or power of all of the abilities at least somewhat marginally if Mime died or at least if they weren't able to be Mimicked. I mean, I initially agreed with CT5Holy that Last Song and Last Dance should probably go back up to 50%...before figuring that Last Dance would probably become really obnoxious with Mimes if that was the case. As it is, since Mimes can't mimic Quick stuff or at least Last Song, that could probably go up to 50% if Mimes stuck around--it would just be unfair to Dance given Song is already a much better skill-set than it.

Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I'll admit that I buffed Witch Hunt and With Knives chance to add status slightly from 15% to 20%. I also greatly weakened Angel Song's chance to heal status since it was originally 100% despite the fact that most Silence vulnerable units block Silence anyway. It was mostly that high just because of Berserk, which I had wanted and still rather want to make finite anyway, especially now that Salty Rage is back to being Always: Berserk as it "should" be.

spoiler: ***

***Yes, the new Nameless Dance would have a chance to add Disable/Don't Act. No, there really isn't a better option without stepping on something other Dance ability or generally being overpowered even though there are literally twice as many negative statuses as there are positive ones. Sleep and Stop would step on Last Dance, which already sees no use and Sleep currently lasts too damn long. Everything else, such as Death Sentence, Frog, Charm and the KO status, would simply be worse/more powerful.

Also, given this was before Oil got nerfed to no longer add Weak: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Wind and Earth, it's probably fine of it add Disable. ...Probably. Taking away Disable isn't really an option either given that the new Nameless Dance would become even more toothless than current version of it even if it simultaneously became more reliable ironically. I mean, just Random Add: Blind or Oil might work, but I really doubt it.

[silentkaster]

Damned,

Here are my thoughts on your ideas by item.

Angel Song- Interesting idea to cancel Silence & Berserk, but meh...I don't think the AI would take advantage of that personally. I don't think it would be much of a buff, so I would propose making Angel Song 0 MP to use instead. Therefore, a singer can use it at 0 MP which is a good counter to say Bizen Boat or, to a lesser degree, Magic Ruin and Spell Absorb.

Life Song- I agree fully.

Cheer Song- The AI loves to use Haste and I'm afraid it may never stop singing this song if Haste were added. Also, I personally feel the Earth element has been nerfed with this newest patch to a great degree, and this would nerf it even more. I have a unique idea though...66% Random Add: Transparent, OR +1 Speed OR Faith (therefore, spell casters, and melee users would benefit no matter what, though not necessarily every time.)

Battle Song: No Changes, I think it's fine.

Magic Song: See Above.

Nameless Song: I think Haste belongs here, along with Reflect, Protect and Shell. Also, Random 25% (when it hits) remove all Negative Status.

Last Song: I think is fine.

Dance:

Witch Hunt: I think 20% add Berserk is a bit much. Silence is fine (since most mages carry an item to combat that anyway) and maybe put Innocent as the other random proc.

Wiznaibus: I think Poison should be Don't Move instead. Also, undead is a bit extreme in my opinion. Perhaps Slow would also be another Random Buff it could add.

Polka Polka: No changes

Disillusion: No changes

Nameless Dance: I don't think I like DA being one of the procs. I always thought Poison should be here, along with Silence, Blind, Oil, Remove all Positive Buffs, Undead and/or Death Sentence.

Last Dance: I think it's fine.

[Shintroy]

Songs

Life - Heals HP. 50% Cancel Blind
Angel - Heals MP. 50% Cancel Silence
Cheer - Same 25%, but gives +1 Speed OR Haste
Battle and Magic I agree with you Damned. Compatibility buffs songs enough at 50%
Nameless - 33-40% Add Protect, Shell, Regen, Reflect, or cancel negative effects
Last - Fine as is due to the chance of mine not being able to mimic it if they receive the quick effect.

Dances

Wiz - HP Damage. 50% Add Blind
Witch Hunt - MP Damage. 50% Add Silence
Slow Dance - 25% Add Stop or -1 Speed
MA and PA Dances - See Songs
Nameless - 33-40% Add Poison, Slow, Oil, Don't Move, or Cancel Positive Effects
Last Dance - 20% 00 CT. 1 CT faster than Last Song. Mimes will always mimic this unlike last song.

I was thinking the PA and MA abilities could instead do the 50%  thing I have going on with the SP abilities.
Battle Song 33% Add 1 PA or Heals Blind and Don't Move
Magic Song could cancel silence and berserk.
Dances would do the opposite of course

Not a fan of the above though. Bard AI probably wouldn't use these, and it woukdnt be worth using without a mime. The AI has problems with using accumulate, so I don't think  it would be a good idea to change them.

Adding undead to a dance is a terrible idea. There are only two ways to get rid of the status. Players could make zombie teams easier since they could bypass ability priority easily. Getting an oracle to use zombie takes a coupe of turns at least. Unless you only give the oracle zombie, and its bit easy to mimic since they'd have to space it perfectly with the mime unlike a dance.

Is it even possible to out cancel positive/negative status effects in a song/dance? It's the best way to avoid having don't move and don't act in a nameless. silentkaster is definitely onto something. there aren't enough buffs to balance out negative effects so it would definitely be an improvement from current performance abilities.

I think with my SP performance abilities we could lower the CT to 8-9.

[The Damned]

(I thank you both for the comments, though I see that you didn't comment on Slow Dance, silentkaster.)

For the record, no, it's currently not possible to both add and cancel statuses during the same action unfortunately. It may be one of those relatively few "will never be possible" things. The closest you can do currently is add a status that happens to cancels other statuses, which is why part of why I tried to make opposing Dances had pair up with the statuses that opposing Songs could cause. While I'm less certain about it, I'm not sure you can add stats and status at the same time as well.

Of course, this parity isn't neccessarily equal even then given the understandable problems with using Zombie to oppose Reraise for example. Ironically, using the "actual" oppositional status to Reraise, Death Sentence, is both worse and weaker given the way that Wiznaibus works, i.e. inflicting damage that would just set off Dragon Spirit with the current way Death Sentence works.

Still, there may be some merit to changing a Song or maybe even a Dance to just cancel status even though I'm not personally a fan of that option, especially with Dance already being way too passive and far more opponent-dependent than basically every other skill set.

Damned,

Here are my thoughts on your ideas by item.

Angel Song- Interesting idea to cancel Silence & Berserk, but meh...I don't think the AI would take advantage of that personally. *snip*

I'll comment on these in order via spoiler given my responses here are far lengthier than the ones to Shintroy:

spoiler

1. Angel Song - I disagree that Angel Song should become 0 MP since it's already one of the few Songs generally worth using and since MP-damaging abilities, sans Bizen Boat, are already really weak. Song is already immune to Silence; it doesn't need another thing it gets to do for free. As for Silence & Berserk, that's mostly there just because of the current just suggested changes to Witch Hunt. It's not meant to be something that A.I. actively takes advantage of, especially since like 95% of mages block Silence anyway. I also figured have another


2. Cheer Song - I'd be fine with not using Float even though nothing else causes it and even though I don't really agree that Earth say much of a nerf with this new patch. The only relevant Earth-related things that changed are Magic Ring now absorbing it, the nerf to Flash Hat & Thief Hat, the change to Chirijiraden the katana that I've said I disagree with and Oil got severely weakened to no longer add: Weak, which really affects the already weak Bad Luck and Nameless Dance abilities than it affects Earth or any other element. Of these, I'm guessing it's Magic Ring you're talking about, but, meh, most of those units don't cancel Oil, otherwise they'd be using Diamond Armlet and similarly most of those units don't Float.

That said, Float is mostly there due to the fact that I've thought it and Don't Move opposed each other even though "officially" they don't. Also because of the fact that nothing can cause that status save for Mad Science, which frankly is more of a threat to Earth than this version of Cheer Song would be.

On top of that, the thing is that there really isn't a better status to use ith the dearth of positive statuses. Transparent is a status that makes computer act extremely wonky if it's not a  permanent status. The A.I. will often just completely forego acting to try to perserve Transparent, which is why as much I've complained about Hidden Knife over the years, giving it "Initial: Transparent" was never an option to me.

I guess Cheer Song could Add: Faith, but that seems rather overpowering as well as conflicting with Magic Song and, as I said above, I'm not exactly sure that you can even add a stat and/or a status at the same time or even have that option on the same move.

For the record, I'm entirely fine with the A.I. "obsessing" over Cheer Song given that the A.I. obsesses over Songs anyway, given that the A.I. obsesses over Haste status anyway and given it would mean that A.I. would be consistent with Sing for once without Cheer Song becoming outright useless after its user hits 13 Speed. So long as it's not inferior to Quickening anymore if Quickening isn't going to die in a fire while still being fair, then I'm fine with that since it's not like you have to use it.


3. Nameless Song - That said, given your reasoning for arguing against Haste above, I'm not sure why you want it here, especially when the A.I. tends to "obsess" over Nameless Song due to Reraise. Sure, it's only after someone on the team gets damaged, but it's effectively the same time of obsession given it will often conflict with Life Song on the same unit.

As already pointed out, being able to cancel status like that is unfortunately (currently) impossible.


4. Witch Hunt - I'll agree that Berserk might be a bit much, especially if it stays infinite in duration (which I think it shouldn't). I debated Innocent, however, and figured it would be even worse really given at least some mages can do good or even great damage with physical damages while Berserk. Meanwhile, only the Nether spells, Wall, Comet and Carbunkle escape being rendered effectively useless by Innocent with there also being no real way to cancel or block Innocent; this is the problem I have with both the new Atheist Bow and, with regards to Faith, the unnecessary switch (in my eyes) between Spell Edge and Muramasa the katana.


5. Wiznaibus - Poison is the only way Wiznaibus generally gets to actually do damage against any unit with Auto Potion, especially if we're not letting it get Undead. Not letting it get Undead is fine since I agree that's probably extreme. Giving it Don't Move as well as Poison may be a way to go. I don't think it should get Slow though, mostly because of Slow Dance but also partly because I was trying to personally avoid status overlap between Dances. Of course, given that I gave Slow Dance a chance to add Don't Move....


6. Nameless Dance - I can understand not liking Don't Act on Nameless. You realize that Death Sentence is even worse though, right? I mean, even with Nameless Dance's notorious unreliability, it harkens back to the "auto-win" Nameless Dance that still caused Frog early in Arena before Nameless Dance got nerfed (into the ground).

Songs

Life - Heals HP. 50% Cancel Blind
Angel - Heals MP. 50% Cancel Silence
Cheer - Same 25%, but gives +1 Speed OR Haste
Battle and Magic I agree with you Damned. Compatibility buffs songs enough at 50%
Nameless - 33-40% Add Protect, Shell, Regen, Reflect, or cancel negative effects
Last - Fine as is due to the chance of mine not being able to mimic it if they receive the quick effect.

Dances

Wiz - HP Damage. 50% Add Blind
Witch Hunt - MP Damage. 50% Add Silence
Slow Dance - 25% Add Stop or -1 Speed
MA and PA Dances - See Songs
Nameless - 33-40% Add Poison, Slow, Oil, Don't Move, or Cancel Positive Effects
Last Dance - 20% 00 CT. 1 CT faster than Last Song. Mimes will always mimic this unlike last song.

Much shorter responses here than to silentkaster, though I guess I'll them in a spoiler too just to save space:

spoiler

1. Life - Might be good, if only for Grand Cross teams that don't want to use Angel Ring.

2. Angel - Would be fine.

3. Cheer - This may not be possible at all; I don't think it is. Otherwise, I might be fine with it.

4. Nameless Song - As said above, you can't cancel negative status effects while adding positive ones unless they're oppositional. That or unless you add a positive status to game specifically meant to cancel negative status ala Astra/Veil.

5. "With Knives" - It this doesn't really address the actual problem with Wiznaibus, but it would at least keep it from getting screwed over as easily from PA Save, which I guess would be an improvement over Poison given Masamune, Nurse, Esuna and Stigma Magic are pretty damn common.

6. Witch Hunt - Unfortunately I'm not sure just Silence would help much, but it would definitely be an improvement.

7. Slow Dance - This is both likely impossible and would probably obviate Last Dance even if it did work.

8. Nameless Dance - See Nameless Song, only invert the situation with adding in a new status that would instead be a negative status meant specifically to cancel positive status.

9. Last Dance - I'm really not sure why you would want to lessen its chance to hit so much, especially since Mimes aren't 100% reliable and you shouldn't have to use them on every time with Dance to try to shore up Dance's utter weakness. That said, you may be on to something with making Last Dance faster.

Not a fan of the above though. Bard AI probably wouldn't use these, and it woukdnt be worth using without a mime. The AI has problems with using accumulate, so I don't think it would be a good idea to change them.

Huh? The A.I. uses Accumulate and Alacrity/Focus fine. It just won't do it can generally do damage or negative status or think it needs to heal/revive. It's the same with Battle Song and Magic Song, which is part of the reason why I don't think they should be so high and part of the reason you never want to give your unit with Sing too much Move or a weapon with a lot of range.

Adding undead to a dance is a terrible idea. *snip*

Yeah. Probably. Unfortunately, there's not much better options given that Death Sentence, Frog, Petrify, Charm, Sleep and even Stop would probably be worse, to say nothing of the obvious problems of using KO or Crystal (or, if they were still around, Treasure, Blood Suck or Confusion).


****


So that we all don't end up just talking past each other, I'll end this post by doing what I probably should have done initially: talking about what I feel the problems are with the current versions of Song and Dance:


SONG
Life Song: As I outright said in the last post, this generally has the main issue of only being usable on high MA units and, thus, when it comes to males, generally only on Bards. I guess Samurai and Geomancer and maybe Squires could also make decent use of it as far as classes  that males might actually be go given that males tend to forego being mages given they're inferior to females at that in most instances.

Angel Song: This is currently fine.

Cheer Song: Oh, where do we start? It's currently vastly inferior to Quickening and about every other more reliable way to add speed, whether it's Haste (2), Masamune (the ability), Speed Save or even, arguably, Critical Quick and Last Song. It's hit rate is abysmal despite this and its also one of the longer Songs. On top of that, it basically makes the user useless if they happen to hit 13 Speed since then they'll keep Singing and canceling it with no resolution since the A.I. is dumb like that. Joy.

Battle Song: This is currently fine. Actually, it's more than fine since I still don't understand why it was buffed to 66% given it's one of the few Songs the A.I. will use "intelligently", especially when it's able to be Mimicked, but meh. I'm currently through with trying to get it changed back to 50% or at least not be as high.

Magic Song: See above.

Nameless Song: This is currently way too unreliable, even more so than Nameless Dance, which is saying a lot. The current set-up either has a unit getting a chance at second life, becoming less susceptible to physical damage, becoming less susceptible to magical damage or becoming sporadically immune to various magic and the -tons. Despite it's general defensive nature, that's...not exactly cohesive in focus, especially since it's chance to hit any of those is rather low, effectively 12.5% for each. Also interferes with Life Song due to the reactive-only way the A.I. unfortunately uses all of those statuses. On top of all that, it's basically inferior to anything Chivalry or White Magic can do, exclusivity of adding Reflect aside.

Last Song: This is mostly fine now that its hit rate has been increased again, though I'd actually be fine with it going back to 50% now that I've been reminded that Quick can't really be Mimicked. In fact, since Shintroy has made me think about it, I could also see this maybe going down to 8 CT even given that Last Song is somewhat inferior to just adding Haste on even an 8 Speed unit.


DANCE
Witch Hunt: Most MP-damaging attacks frankly suck, by no fault of FFMaster but rather their very (weak) nature, and Witch Hunt is no exception. With its only effect being low if repetitive MP damaging, Witch Hunt paradoxically only tends to affect units that already have low MP anyway rather than the mages its presumably "supposed" to target. Due to the nature of MP being finite and not automatically restored, most mages have ways to restore their already sizeable MP, where its MP Restore, Move-MP Up, Carbunkle or (Hi-)Ether. All of these, sans regular Ether, readily outpace Witch Hunt. On top of that, now that Witch Hunt uses MP, it triggers Absorb MP and that unit restores 30 in reaction to it, which is completely defeatist.

With Knives: Outside its Engrish name, the chief problems with "Wiznaibus" is mostly, as with Comet, it getting readily beaten by Auto-Potion & the Save reactions while at the same time being too rapid to be substantially buffed in damage, especially since it can be Mimicked. So, much like the paradox of Witch Hunt, it only tends to affect already low HP units, even with the Poison attached to it, especially since Poison was (and still is, even with Cure becoming instant) more of a threat to squishy mages than Silence is arguably.  Aside from the small nerf to Auto Potion, this is very much the case still and will continue to be unless you make Witch Hunt or (something) capable of shutting off reactions; annoyingly, my idea to have Death Sentence block Reactions wouldn't really benefit With Knives.

Slow Dance: Like Cheer Song, this is basically invalidated by Quickening. Unlike Cheer Song, if Quickening wasn't around, then even in its current form with its abysmal hit rate, this would doubtless be readily abused since permanently stripping away Speed is egregiously overpowered given how (unfortunately) all-important Speed is as a stat. Really, the only reason it wouldn't be abused if Quickening did die in a fire (like it should) would be because people didn't want rounds to regularly end up being about 20~ minutes or so. It doubtless needs to eradicated in its current form and just overhauled given it currently violently vacillates between being completely useless and vastly overpowered.

Polka Polka: Given how difficult it is to use this and Disillussion due to their effectiveness being completely dependent on what type of team that user ends up facing, there's absolutely no reason they should be so much less likely to hit than Battle Song and Magic Song. This especially due to the fact that Battle Song and Magic Song are much easier to use and build around.

Disillusion: See above.

Nameless Dance: This is rather unreliable much like Nameless Song, though unlike Nameless Song the A.I. will at least actively use this. This has only gotten more toothless with the necessary depowering of Oil, which basically makes it nigh worthless despite being able to add Slow. After all, Grand Cross and Kagesougi are much more reliably about adding Blind, Hawk's Eye is better if you want Oil and most mages block Silence anyway--even if they didn't, as with Nameless Song, it's only about a 12.5% chance of any status hitting. So it really needs to be threatening again without going back to stupidity of vanilla's Nameless Dance "hey, if I get Frog, I win" that early Arena Nameless Dance had.

Last Dance: This...seems like it "should" be useable in theory, especially with Mimes around and its accuracy being buffed. The problem is, of course, in part Quickening as well as the fact that Haste on any unit with more than 8 Speed makes it CT drain rather difficult to make useful. It should probably just be made faster in CT, like CT 9 or even 8. I still don't think it should be allowed to be Mimicked though, even if it has to "stand out" from the rest of Dance in that aspect. (For the record, I still don't agree with all of Song and Dance being able to be Mimicked, but meh.)


[I'll proofread this better later.]

[silentkaster]

Damned, sorry I forgot Slow Dance. I think Slow Dance should do the opposite. Add Innocent OR -1 speed OR Add Stop. with its low hit rate, I think that's fine.

I can't give a proper response now as I am on mobile and not even my usual phone. I took my laptop in..defective hard drive apparently. Two to three week wait. Hopefully can do videos again when it is back.

I do have a question. Is Battle Axe proccing correctly? Seems to be more often that 25% but could be wrong.

[Shintroy]

Cheer/Last Song - x% add Haste or Quick
SP /Last Dance - x% add Slow or 00 CT

If it were possible to do the above we could rid the game of permanent CT stacking. We also would only need one speed related ability on each class as well. 8 CT for Song and 9 CT seems fair. I don't know how to calculate WP and CT, but I'd like to see the new songs usable for units 10 speed and lower mainly.

Quickening - Add 20-25 CT. 0-1 Cast time

Don't really see it being abused. Mime could at most gain 40-50 CT from it being on two units. Could probably even increase Cursed ring to 66% chance of reviving since quickening will no longer be a staple ability for supporting pseudo immortal units.

Silentkaster's Slow Dance
I don't think the the stop status sshould be included in any dances since there isn't a buff that could counter it, and since its already been buffed enough. There never needs to be a mimicable map-wide stop proc.

The Damned's Wiz/Witch Hunt

For Wiz/Knives It's completely okay auto potion, regen, and move HP up counter it. It's an anti sandbag ability. Mainly used to counter phoenix down or wish revival and does it pretty well as it is now. It could probably use 5-15 more damage though. Maybe just enough to take out a unit bought back by revive. I agree on it ignoring reactions too, but only if the damage isn't buffed.

Witch Hunt

You have to look at the entire picture for this dance. It barely dents most casters, but hurts melee units with low MP pools like ninja, paladin, and other physical jobs. If it also bypassed reactions like you mentioned it would be a better ability. Actually now that I think about it, back when I first got into arena with wanting a weapon thst dealt MP damage everyone pointed out AI using MP damaging abilities in certain situations unlike Wiz/With. Even if it were to ignore reactions, it couldnt deal a high amount of damage since it would cripple more than half the job list PA + 8 -18 base MP damage seems fair if it ignores reactions.
------
Man its hard to balance these if they're mimicable actually. Witch hunt would have to do 20 base damage for a dancer.  I'd leave these abilities as they are now the more I think about them. Should just focus on last, cheer, and nameless.

There's no way to put chaos blade/gold staff effect in nameless dance? Also I still want Gastrophetes to have cancel positive since its 2h forced.

[The Damned]

(Looks like Malroth is finally back. Good. Now we can drag him into this discussion since I'm pretty sure he still thinks Dance is at least still rather weak.)

I'll answer these in reverse order:


1. Nameless Dance becoming Dispelga: No, you totally can easily make Nameless Dance into "Cancel: Positive Status", just like you can make Nameless Song into "Cancel: Negative Status". It's just that if you do that, then you can't make Nameless Dance also add any (negative) statuses at all as well, just like you couldn't make a Nameless Song that cancel negative status have a chance of also adding any positive statuses at all as well. If they could, then I would maybe be for it, but as it stands, I'd say that's not the way to go, if only because it makes Dance even more reactive than it already unfortunately is. This while also stepping on the toes of the newly buffed Dispel Magic that's also still a bit difficult to use and the aforementioned Chaos Blade & Gold Staff, which still aren't seeing much use as it is despite being strong weapons. It would only become even worse if Gastrophetes became Cancel: Positive Status and if we break up Refute like I still think we should.

2. Map-Wide Mimics: Yeah, they're a problem for balance. Welcome to the reason for my kvetching about it so much.

3. Witch Hunt and possible MP-damage-only weapon: I guess the way Witch Hunt "works" would be fine if we just made it so that least it didn't set off Absorb MP. The way would work besides that as far as choice targets go, however, it just seems a bit counterintuitive and still would.

As far an MP-damaging weapon goes, I guess that would have less of an issue in the reaction department...outside of completely useless against units that didn't care about MP; well, that and Dragon Spirit and Counter aside. It would need some type of devastating proc in like Soul Saber's ability to instantly kill in addition to MP damage to be worth creating/using in my opinion, which currently isn't possible I don't think.

4. With Knives: Yeah, changing how reactions react to it here would very useful, a lot more than changing how they react to Witch Hunt in my opinion. Of course, if that happened and With Knives could still be Mimicked, then it would likely just become overpowered (again).

5. Quickening becoming Add 20-25 CT: I'd theoretically be fine with that, at least compared to current Quickening, though I suppose that's damning it through faint praise. It just seems like it would step on the toes of Speed Save a bit (or vice-versa) and it's difficult to tell how well or not the A.I. would actually use it. As I said above (I think), I'd rather not have a skill be dependent on being on the same team as a Mime to actually be useful.

6. Combining Cheer Song & Last Song and Slow Dance & Last Dance: I'll admit that I can't say I like that idea even if I can see why you might want to do that. As I said before, I'm not even sure either chance would even currently be possible also. I'd just rather Cheer Song and Slow Dance be overhauled completely by this point, but perhaps that's just me. If people support your suggestions, then I won't stand against them even if these particular changes are not for me.

Damned, sorry I forgot Slow Dance. I think Slow Dance should do the opposite. Add Innocent OR -1 speed OR Add Stop. with its low hit rate, I think that's fine.

I can't give a proper response now as I am on mobile and not even my usual phone. I took my laptop in..defective hard drive apparently. Two to three week wait. Hopefully can do videos again when it is back.

I do have a question. Is Battle Axe proccing correctly? Seems to be more often that 25% but could be wrong.

It's fine. No need to apologize. No need to hurry either. This thread rarely moves with any celerity and that was a long post besides.

As for Battle Axe, it's rather difficult to tell when weapon procs are acting up unless they just don't seem to be going off. It doesn't seem like it, but it could be.

Regardless of whether hit rate is what it's supposed to be or not, Decapitate's level of power/damage still really needs to be nerfed. This even with the improvement to Slasher and the indirect improvement to Giant Axe with Chirijiraden the katana's change.

[Malroth]

Yeah I'm back,  Here's my take on things

Martial Arts: Cheap MP costs for everything but chakra, still slightly too good and not enough incentive to take off the 
chakra bands yet

Quickening:   as a cheap spammable instant cast skill it definately needs to go but I would not be opposed to it becoming an Interuptable charged skill with a casting time around 8 ticks so that units above 12 speed would no longer be able to cast it.

Bad Luck: It was fairly weak even when it added Dead or Stop,  now i can't even see a use for it at all.

Lifesong:  Slightly weak,  I'd either Bump the formula to Dmg_F(MA*3)  or speed up the charge time to 4 ticks but not both
Angel Song: Loose the MP cost otherwise fine to me
Battle song/Magic song: Currently Much Much stronger than they need to be, CT goes to 10 and accuracy drops to Hit_F(MA+25)
Nameless Song: Change to a faith/Magic attack based formula and throw Haste and Defending on the list of addable statuses so the AI will use it proactively,  Yes this means Nameless song will become a full time job.
Last song: Unsure,  still getting used to the new mechanics

Wizanabus:   Much weaker than where it needs to be,  My Ideal Solution would be to change it to DMG_Fury(PA*3) subject to Protect/Defense up/evasion as well as Overwhelm/Attack-up to simply allow a sufficiently PA stacked unit to attempt to overwhelm a purely Auto Potion based defense
but speeding up the charge time to 4 and making it unable to trigger reactions would also be a workable solution.

Witch Hunt: I actually like its current level of power,  I've seen a PA stacked Witch Hunter keep a Robe of lords Summoner trapped in a Carbuncle Loop which was really nice. I've read a couple of intresting Ideas regarding making this a MP leaching skill which I Like but don't see as 100% necessary. Dropping cost to 0 would work well with this idea and prevent MP absorb triggering.

Disillusion/PolkaPolka Change to Hit_Fury(PA+35) and up the CT and MP costs,  Encourages its use on High Risk High Reward teams rather than simply adding Stall to tanky setups.

Nameless Dance:  Currently too weak to concider using, to give it some actual stopping power  I'd throw Don't Move and Charm on its list of things to add and convert the formula to a Fury/PA based one and run a bunch of tests.

Last Dance: Looks Somewhat Promising but requires more research in its current form

Cheer Song/Slow Dance:  I love these skills, but currently they're simultaneously horribly overpowered and underpowered at the same time, I don't have any ideas on how they could be fixed without ruining them.

Spears:  Elemental properties on the spears with the elemental procs would be nice so Lightning crossing Lancers can be a thing.

Murasame:  Stealth Nerf NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Masamune:  Who can use this? anybody except a Equip heavy blade Ninja with a bag in their off hand and a full speed setup will go slower for equipping this. Maybe upping its WP to 12 would be worth the cost to a dedicated build but 8 WP on a -2 speed weapon?

108Gems:  Was the only caster accessory that prevented Poison, something needs to fill that niche.

Scholars: Can afford to loose a point of MA or 2
Time Mages: Need their Support ability back,  Speed+1 as a movement ability would  also be very nice

[silentkaster]

I agree that poison needs an accessory to block it. I am on mobile, but I did not see an accessory to block it at all. A mantle would probably be a good choice. Maybe one of the staves, also. To my knowledge, only an armor wearing unit can block poison.

Also, idk about nameless causing charm. I would probably vote for berserk over charm. Yeah, it is a permanent status but it is often useful to a team and is often blocked by mages. Silence is a bit underpowered since almost every Mage for the most part blocks it and that may force some decisions.

Masamune is a trap weapon. No unit can truly benefit from this without having quickening. An equip heavy blade thief only breaks even and every other unit needs at least a speed boosting item to get back to even (note: which by just equipping the speed boosting item they'd be as fast as they were and can still benefit from haste.) perhaps -1 speed is fine but 2 just makes Masamune a mostly disposable item. Or perhaps Always: Regen might balance it out.

Scholars I think just need to have Tornado and Quake reworked.

I would comment more but laptop is still out and typing on mobile.

[Malroth]

Yeah the CT on Tornado/Quake is pretty borked,   should be at least a 6 with that kind of power behind it.
EDIT:

As for Silence being under powered, I completely Disagree,  its essentially a petrify that works only on mages who don't take an equipment tax, Its very threat serves to bottleneck casters into lower damage, lower HP  builds than they otherwise could be running.  Berserk is even worse since its uncurable outside of Refute and only blocked by 2 accessories. 

I Liked Charm and Don't Move for Nameless dance because they can put enemies in intresting "spend a turn curing myself or loose several turns of work" decisions without irrevocably destroying the enemy team with a single status proc like Berserk/Frog/Death sentence would.  I concidered Innocent and Sleep but decided against them because of how double edged Innocent can be and how badly a PA stacked Dancer could take advantage of random Sleep Procs.

[Shintroy]

Squire, Chemist, Paladin, Monk, Samurai, Priest, and Mediator already have instant answers to poison with either anti status or regen abilities.

Currently Archer, Samurai, and Ninja have a viable way(s) to add poison. Scorpion Tail, and Poison Rod are barely worth mentioning since they're barely(never) used.

Poison is threatening sure, but there aren't enough units using it for there to need an immuniy to it on non-armored units. Just use the new Cure on your casters if you're having problems with poison. That or one of the many other instant abilities commonly used like Masamune.

Charm is an extremely powerful status. Too powerful to add to nameless dance like stop, petrify, sleep, don't act, undead, and any other multi turn status. Mime has to be considered when discussing dance and song balancing.

I thought quake and tornado were too OP in 138 when I first tried arena. At 2 CT without short charge on a base 12 MA unit? Ridiculous. 4-5 CT is a sound nerf. 6 is overkill.


What did FFMaster say he'd balance in 140? I only remember spears. There needs to be more 2Hands spears imo. Jump doesn't benefit from 2H and I like having a choice between Jump Lancer and poke Lancer.

[silentkaster]

Well, in reference to silence, the reason I believe it is underpowered isn't because of the status itself. It is because of the ways to work around silence. Firstly, the only true ways to inflict silence are with Bizen Boat the weapon or Silence Song (yes many other things proc silence but not guaranteed). Second, currently five items negate silence all of which are very good items in their own right. Thirdly, silence can be self healed with echo grass, heal, stigma magic, and can be healed from teammates with refute and Esuna. Finally, depending on secondaries, it may be not so bad (example, A mediator with steal secondary could still use steal heart). Compare this to petrify, which has only two items (since Chakra Band won't be fixed until 1.40 per FFMaster), can't be self healed, and the team must be able to heal petrify (unit can't die and be revived to remove it, petrify must be healed.) berserk is in the middle of these two. Five items negate it but not necessarily all are helpful and really does require an equipment tax. It can only be removed with refute or the unit dying and being revived. However, the AI isn't necessarily the best at using berserk either, as it uses it sometimes on units that might be physical powerhouses. So, I do think silence is underpowered not because of the status itself, but how easy it is to deal with in its current form.

Shintroy, problem is that not all casters are white magic users and can't instantly cure themselves. It creates a worse version of a revival loop since the unit will just die anyway. This isn't saying that's a bad or unfair advantage, it is saying that there are 0 ways to negate poison without equipping armor. Even the poison rod being Immune: Poison might help. With 0 accessories to do it, a caster doesn't even have the option of blocking it without Equip Armor support. It would be nice if it were at least an option, even if it isn't a great one. Adding it back to 108 gems would be fair in my opinion.

[Shintroy]

Robe of Lords, Gold Armor, Defense Ring, Magic Ring to protect against silence.
Kagesougi, silence song, and the weapon Bizen Boat to actually inflict silence.

Silence as a status effect is neither under or overpowered since it only effects about half the jobs in arena. Even then, these jobs usually equip something to protect against the skill.

Spellcasting can be interrupted by Sinkhole, Throw Stone and other status effects that are objectively worse than silence like charm and berserk too. I'm not seeing any reason to go into adding more ways to add silence when there are already many ways to prevent casters from using spells. I actually don't know why silence was even brought up.

spoiler

Back when I first started paying arena I had a team called FFXI that was a so called anti caster team. It had a chaos blade grand cross paladin with no protection against darkness, a ninja with mage mashers, a Bizen boat samurai, and a support monk. I didn't know about sinkhole and throw stone, or how the AI worked, but I did eventually realize silence isn't a status effect to rely on to combat against casters.

I'm rambling so ill end  it here. There are more than enough skills for the AI to use in place of silence to not need more ways to add silence. Damage Dealing casters like Scholar and Summoner usually die to poison since they're usually not paired with talk, draw out, or white magic. This is probably why I use Draw out units instead of casters for damage lol. Too afraid of getting stuck in a poison loop and playing it safe with Masamune.

True. I've been too busy making sure all my units lately could survive Bizen boat without wasting more than one turn to realize there was no poison immune accessory.

I'd vote on Defense Ring getting a poison immunity and losing the sleep or silence immunity. This would make the ring balanced more than it is now because it would make non armored units extremely weak to charm.

[The Damned]

(IIRC, FFMaster said that he would be chiefly balancing Spears and, for some reason, Swords in 140/1.40. Presumably part of balancing Spears means finally giving Lancers access to Robes back, but I've no idea.

I think he might have mentioned off-hand that Scholar was finally getting a nerf stat-wise too. Shrug.)

Hmmm...interesting suggestions Malroth, even if I'll admit that I find quite a few of them "out there".

That said, I suppose making Witch Hunt cost 0 MP makes the most "sense" and is the easiest solution as to not having Absorb MP screw it over horribly. If Angel Song "needs" to become 0 MP as an exercise in parity-based balance, then so it be. I'd rather that happen even though I think Angel Song is easily the third best Song already just so that Witch Hunt doesn't continue to shoot itself in the foot so horribly.

Of course, then it starts to be arguable that Carbuncle/Carbunkle "should" be 0 MP as well given that every other source of MP restoration, including Chakra, would now cost 0 MP. Too bad this would kind of defeat the purpose of MP damage in the first place, at least when every source of MP damage save for Bizen Boat does relatively low MP damage, even Magic Ruin.

Shrug. 0 MP Witch Hunt is still the best solution; I'm just not sure if 0 MP Angel Song is necessary.

As for everything else....

Yeah I'm back,  Here's my take on things

*snip*

I'll refrain from commenting on any of the Songs & Dances aside from the above Witch Hunt & Angel Song and then Nameless Dance. I still need to think on them despite the possible "solutions" I gave earlier.

I'll also refrain from commenting on Scholars and 108 Gems given that respectively I did so already and will be doing so when responding to silentkaster & Shintroy:

spoiler: This looks longer than I thought it would, so...

Martial Arts...?: I'm going to assume you mean "Punch Arts" even as much sense as it would make for "Martial Arts" to be the skill-set name, though that's not FFMaster's fault or anything obviously. I don't think that Revive and probably Secret Fist need an MP cost and I actually think that Chakra needs an MP cost itself given it restores both HP & MP, even on the Undead, and will always hit the user, making it difficult to run out of MP anyway. As far as your other point goes, yeah, there's still very little reason to anything Headband but Chakra Band, which is saying a lot when Chakra Band is currently missing its Petrify immunity.

Bad Luck: Yeah, Bad Luck/Tough Luck is even worse now than it was before than was, which is saying...a lot. It's definitely even more toothless than the current form of Nameless Dance, which is also saying a lot. I can sort of see what FFMaster was aiming for, but, among other things, I really, really don't see how this is 4 CT when Quake, Tornado and bunch of other heavy damage spells are naturally faster and when Bad Luck is still so unreliable. That's also vulnerable to both Counter Magic and Counter Flood is also just slap in the face; at most I think it should be vulnerable to Counter Magic. I still need to think of a solution now that Oil has changed though.

Spears: I'm pretty sure that we're already getting spears that are as elemental as their breaths beyond just Holy Spear/Holy Lance/Longinus in 1.40/140, so wish granted. I'd like to think they'd be better than the current Holy Spear, though, after they become elemental since the current Holy Spear is still kind of...meh, even with the shield changes, at least as far as the Holy Breath proc goes.

Murasame...?: I'm going to assume you're talking about Muramasa the katana since neither Murasame has changed at all. Yeah, the current version of Muramasa the katana is now flat-out inferior to Kiyomori the katana when it was perfectly fine before while Ninja and Thief got a new, unnecessary toy to play with it. I personally think they should go back, but my kvetching about all that can wait for another, Katana-and-Samurai-based post.

Masamune the katana: Paladins can use this pretty well and way better than Samurai can since Paladins can innately equip Zephyr Shield and thus can get back the two points of Speed by wearing just Sprint Shoes. This as opposed to being forced to wear both Genji Armor and Sprint Shoes like Samurai...who already have access to a (still at slightly overpowered) source of instant, constant Haste anyway. Other than that...yeah, it's a trap weapon between everything silentkaster said, the fact that no other class besides the above two can innately equip Katana anyway and the fact that you need to also use Immune: Slow equipment with it; otherwise you get destroyed by Slow between the -2 Speed and the fact the Always: Haste prevents you from re-adding Haste since you still, technically, have it despite it being canceled. Fun. Ironically, of the three new Katanas, this is only one I somewhat like even if I'm still not sure if it's actually worth in its current form or even if it would be worth it with a probably necessary WP boost.

Time Mage getting a Support back: Agreed. I'm fine with Speed +1 going to Ninja if it exists at all though, if only because Float so rarely gets used as it is.

Nameless Dance: I guess even just giving Nameless Dance Don't Move over Silence would be a vast improvement even if I'd rather just change Slow Dance into "Random: Slow or Don't Move" for reasons I already specified. Giving Nameless Dance the ability to add Charm, however, would only end in (angry) tears and be worse than allowing it to cause Don't Act in my opinion. This even if, yes, Charm is oddly probably the  least worst option immediately after Don't Act oddly enough, if only because Berserk is still infinite. Sleep might have been a better option, especially given that Sleep would block subsequent Nameless Dances (or Dances in general) I think...if it wasn't for the fact that Sleep's 60 CT currently makes it literally a fate worse than Death. This even before the fact that Dancer is the second strongest physical class in the game (going by pure PA).

Tornado & Quake: 6 CT seems a bit prohibitive given that the map-wide Lores are already that slow, but, yeah, I've basically been nagging about this for the past couple of years because their immense power versus their immense speed always seemed ridiculous, even before Scholar's Wizard+ stats. 5 CT seems like the best between becoming the same speed as both Bio 3 and the current form of Titan, which is way outclassed by Quake currently for various reasons that aren't entirely Quake's fault.

I agree that poison needs an accessory to block it. I am on mobile, but I did not see an accessory to block it at all. A mantle would probably be a good choice. Maybe one of the staves, also. To my knowledge, only an armor wearing unit can block poison.

*snip*

...Oh gods, you're right. No accessory blocks Poison anymore. I'm not sure how I failed to notice this. It's probably because I so rarely used 108 Gems even when it was "over-buffed" due to it not blocking Silence and perhaps due to the new instant Cure being made specifically to prevent dying from Poison for mages (with White Magic); it's probably just me being inattentive like usual as well. Yeah, currently the only units that can block Poison at all are the ones that have access to Heavy Armor.

As for Masamune the katana, I somewhat agree, even if I think that Masamune the ability should still see something of a nerf...somehow. I don't think Always: Regen would break anything, though I'm not sure it would really help either. A WP boost would most likely help though.

Squire, Chemist, Paladin, Monk, Samurai, Priest, and Mediator already have instant answers to poison with either anti status or regen abilities. *snip*

Meh. Just because a bunch of classes cancel Poison doesn't mean there shouldn't be an accessory that can block it, especially when the previous form of 108 Gems wasn't exactly overpowered anyway. I'd also (still) argue that Masamune the ability could afford to lose Regen anyway and if we're worried about too many things  curing Poison for some reason even after that, then Heal could possibly lose the ability to cancel Poison too, though seems unnecessary.

As for that Poison-weapon-adding issue, that has less to do with a lot of things adding Poison and more do with both of those weapons primarily being stuck on squishy mages. If you gave Paladin the ability to use Flails, then Scorpion Tail would likely see a decent amount more use. Not that Scorpion Tail wasn't already seeing a decent amount of use last version, but that's fallen by the wayside between the (necessary) nerf to Hidden Knife and the (unnecessary) huge buff that Spell Edge got by stealing from Muramasa the katana. Now the Ninja flavor of the month/version is basically Spell Edge + Short Edge, which doesn't exactly leave much room for diversity.

Meanwhile, the only class that can use Poison Rod that isn't squishy or a mage is Squire, who can definitely use it well, but literally has the most equipment choice of any class. So between Poison Rod having to compete with a bunch of other (better) weapons, including the fact that Squire can also equip Poison Bow, and there still being relatively little incentive to use Equip Magegear, Poison Rod not being used isn't surprising.

Otherwise, agreed with everything else.


I don't really have anything to say about the last two posts and not just because they were apparently created while I was typing this out. I will say, however, that I think giving Immune: Poison to Defense Ring is instead of it having Immune: Sleep would be a good idea, though only if Sleep's CT gets the nerf it needs. Otherwise, losing Immune: Silence for Immune: Poison seems ideal.

[silentkaster]

Shintroy, Aegis Shield also blocks silence (in addition to adding a point of MA and a boat load of magic evade. Even a small physical evade as a bonus.)  Also, Wizards and  Dancers have worthwhile poison adding abilities.

If you want a clear example of how badly a Mage can be affected by poison, Otabo recorded a video of a 1.38 team. It was my team Taboo Topics vs. a Team by Reinoe I believe. His team, particularly Round 3, was stuck in a huge sandbag loop due to poison being inflicted by wiznaibus even though two of my units were dead and two of mine were in critical (granted they were all immortal but still a good example.)

But I think the bags which need an overhaul anyway (particularly C Bag) could be used to block a few statuses instead.

[Shintroy]

My favorite Shield in the history of FF is the Aegis Shield, and I completely overlooked it preventing silence (again). Shame on me.

I'm well aware of how crippling poison is for casters silentkaster. It's actually one of the main reasons I haven't made a pure offensive caster team. I just didn't notice we lost a poison immune accessory from 138 to 139. It sucks because I'd like to make a black mage, summoner, or scholar unit and not have to pair them up with basic skill or white magic. (I'll edit this post after I go watchyour match.)

I recommended defense ring in my previous post for getting an immunity to poison at the cost of losing one of its current immunities. What else could get a poison immunity without being OP? 108 makes sense for me since its an element mastery weapon. Poison is considered an element or type of damage in some final fantasy games so it makes sense for 108 to get poison immunity back. Doesn't seem OP either. We would be able to use Light Robe and P Bag again without worrying too much about Kiyomori and Hawk's Eye too much.

Masamune - 10 WP, -2 SP, Always Haste

Changed to either
Masamune - 11 WP, +1 PA
or
Masamune - 9-11 WP, 2 Range

The +PA Katana would fit in well with the current katanas without overshadowing almost any either. With the current weapon formula of katana, and innate two hands it wouldn't be overpowered in the slightest. Ninja Knife and Lionheart would also still be better choices for jobs that equip them by default. Ninja Knife is superior to dual wield, and lionheart is superior to 2 Hand. PA+ Masamune wouuld either be a novelty weapon for other classes or a go to weapon for Samurai. A solid southern cross weapon for samurai.

Jot5 Sephiroth's Masamune. Wouldn't take away from Equip Polearm Samurai because of it not adding speed or holy element. The WP would have to be just enough to compete with 2Hand javelin with Attack UP so it doesn't take away from the already neglected spears. Pole Samurai outclass this weapon too. A lot to think about with a 2 range katana. Maybe 5-10 more W-EV than other katana.

-

I think bags are misunderstood and sometimes overlooked. (i think I already pointed this out, but ill go again.)
-Bags make great alternate weapons for units you don't want to use melee attacks. Using a P or C bag over a Rune Blade, Lionheart, Wiz Rod/Staff, ect. isn't done enough. For 139, on units other tHan monks, H Bag is the only bag players use over alternate speed adding weapons.
- Bags are great for anti charm and sleep. Bags don't hit hard, and for high MA or PA units thst don't melee, its a plus.
-All Classes can use them. This is a huge plus for players making unorthodox units. White Mage Ninjas could use C Bag. Female Samurai are known to use C Bag over Kiyomori since its far less likely to be used to anti sandbag a critical unit. AI with a kiyo equipped sometimes go for a non-100% hit over their overkill draw out.

I don't have other points to make about bags, but I think that's enough for bags to be left alone. P Bag could use some immunities though. It's currently not worth using on almost anything other than a high health, maybe armored, support unit. Not sure what status effects it could get in addition to poison without making it OP. Darkness seems fine since it helps out Kiyomori users, and a blinded p bag user not being a threat to begin with.

mobile makes these hard to read since formatting posts is too risky.
almost deleted my entire team.submission post several times because the edit post button is so close to remove post.

How much addition damage does "strengthen" element give? Weakness too.

spoiler: Silentkaster vs Reinoe 138 Poison

That match was a great reminder to how much better 139 is over 138.
I'm in agreement with needing a poison immunity P bag or accessory, but this match doesn't really show how bad poison affects mages, at least not now if they had a poison immune accessory.

If 139 Cure had been in the picture, Reinoe's team would've been able to close out the match easier P Blade and cheer song aside. Man that match just refreshed my appreciation of 139 changes.

Good stuff though. that was an entertaining match. I definitely still get salty over some 138 builds. lol.

[The Damned]

(I agree about 108 Gems, though I'll note my thoughts on it below along with everything else 1.39/139 has done.

For the record, Strengthen is still "only" a 125% boost and Weak is still a 200% boost as far as I know, the latter being why Oil was making Air Knife so horribly broken in 1.38/138.)

Ugh. I can't believe that it's almost 2015. How disgusting.

As such, I might as well do this now before I either forget or my Internet goes off. "This" being my overly long review of the massive changes that 1.39/139 brought to Arena. I'm putting this in spoilers for a reason. For the record, all of the (implicit) "you"s are technically addressed to FFMaster, but it's not like I expect him to have time to read this (any soon).

spoiler: The Good

1. Oil no Longer Adds Elemental Weakness: This is overall mostly a good thing as it no longer makes Oil basically an instant-death status while not undermining its ability to get past Absorption, Nullification or Halving of non-Holy, non-Dark elements. Unfortunately, while the weakening of Oil was merited, this same nerf makes Nameless Dance and especially the new Bad Luck rather toothless. I'll talk more on the latter later; the former has basically  already been explained with the talk about Dance in the past page.

2. More Item Attribute Space: This is always good. It's a shame that we didn't get as much Item Attribute space as we got Inflict Status space, though I suppose I should just be grateful that we didn't end up with as little Inflict Status space as we did Item Attribute space. Regardless, even with the noted risks for the version of extend hack, good job with getting it working at all.

3. Changes to the Previously Two-Handed Knives: I was a bit surprised to see that you made these no longer usable with Two Hands even with all the BS that was Cursed Ring Air Knife Thieves. Mind you, I was pleasantly surprised given that I figured these would remain Two Hands since you could have potentially balanced things, however precariously, while keeping it, at least in theory. Well, so long as Air Knife lost its random, accidental Sleep proc, which it's currently kept. I'm still not quite sure about that, in part due to the new Kaiser Shield, but meh, it's probably fine since it lost Two Hands.

4. Hidden Knife Being Weakened: "Finally" is all I can say if we're going to be stuck with an auto-Concentrate weapon that's innate to a class with Innate: Two Swords that made it the fastest class in the game. No way should it have had evasion, much less have boosted Speed. Thank you. (Now if only Kagesougi lost Don't Act and took more MP....)

5. Phoenix Blade v2.0: While this new Phoenix Blade is probably at least slightly overpowered--too much evasion, for one--and we didn't really need a better, slightly stronger version of the already great Icebrand, that this is not the old Always: Reraise Phoenix Blade is already the best news possible. Thank you for changing that.

6. Tactician's Blade W-EV Increased to 20: Good to see this weapon get a boost since it was already decent before, but it really did need more evasion if you were having units essentially rush in with it.

7. Parry Edge's Conversion into Mystic Blade: Of course, Parry Edge dying helped enable the above and it just goes to show how mediocre at best Parry Edge was even before noticing how it was also holding back other things like the above and also arguably Slasher. Mystic Blade, for the most part, seems like a decent enough weapon. I'm just not sure if it can out-do Lionheart or Rune Blade though, even on Geomancer; it doesn't seem it will be able to, to be honest, which is a shame. I guess this is part of why you said you were (re-re-re-)balancing Swords in 1.40 though, so....

8. Coral Sword: Although it's yet another weapon that no one has really used currently, it's good to at least see that it's previously nigh-useless proc is no longer holding it back. Now it actually has some power.

9. Buffs to Knight Swords as a Whole: I'm glad to see these buffed despite Paladin easily being one of the better, more used classes already and also still not really thinking that Excalibur needed a buff. Then again, it's difficult to tell given I've been the only person to use Excalibur (or Chaos Blade) and my one team that uses them both got curb-stomped in a horrible match-up where it didn't get to do anything, so shrug. As it is, the changes to Defender, Save the Queen and Ragnarok seem both balanced and for the better, so that's what important since those are the Knight Swords people are actually using.

10. Slasher v2.0: Nice to see Slasher is finally worth using even if Battle Axe's proc is still laughably broken. As laughable as people found the Two Swords idea that someone randomly suggested, I figured it would work and it looks like it has, so that's good.

11. Rainbow Staff got +2 WP and Immune: Oil: Positive changes all around, though it arguably steps on Gold Staff a bit by being more powerful than it, especially when mages that use Rainbow Staff will most likely use it either for the Neutral: All Elements or Immune: Oil aspects rather than its WP. Mind you, I don't think that Gold Staff needs the most WP of Staves; it probably shouldn't have that, really, given its proc is 100%.

Shrug. All I know is that it still says Rainbow Staff is All Elements in the Master Guide even though it isn't and hasn't been for over a year. Please change that in 1.40/140.

12. Stone Gun and the Spellguns are now 4 Range, Forced Two Hands: Thank you for this. It's rather telling that the Spellguns, despite having the same level of power, are actually balanced now that their range got reduced by a third and users don't get a free buff from Shields (named Kaiser Plate) on top of all that power. Black Magic is actually currently kind of useful now and I can make mages that don't automatically need Projectile Guard just to not die. Hurray. I'm not entirely sure Stone Gun needed the exact same restrictions, but I can see why you would do that, so meh.

13. Silencer got +2 WP: In theory, this is a buff. In practice, no one is using it still unfortunately. Only reason I'm not putting it under "The Middling" with all the other buffed yet ignored weapons is because there's really not anything more you could do to improve this before it became unreasonably overpowered. Even changing it to 100% Add: Silence won't really do much due to 99% of mages blocking Silence.

14. RLamia Harp got +2 MA in Exchange for Kosing 33% Add: Stop: I approve of this since now it means RLamia Harp and Madlemgen actually differ, which is good. Now if only RLamia Harp got its name fixed from vanilla's Engrish like happened with Oberlisk.... *eye twitch*

15. Sticks' Formula Changed to Max[PA/MA]*WP: An excellent change. Pity you haven't made this particular hack public as of yet. *cough*

16. Shields' Changes: While Kaiser Plate's particular changes still make me scratch my head since I'm still not sure about why that particular elemental combination--the Dark part is throwing me--was chosen, I generally agree that these are likely for the better. This even if Platina Shield making Demi 2 instant-death is hilarious. At the very least, the changes to Diamond Shield and Platina Shield help give Small Mantle and Vanish Mantle more worth than they previously had.

17. Helms' Changes: The change to Mythril Helm is good--it's just a shame that mages can't equip Helms normally. The change to Cross Helm and Grand Helm are pretty great, even if no one (else) is really using the latter (yet). The Platina Helm change might have gotten a somewhat lukewarm reception despite no longer overlapping with Mythril Helm if it wasn't for the introduction of Stall and the over-buffing of Stop; we'll talk about those two skills later though. (Also thank you for fixing that "Immunel" typo Mythril Helm had in the Master Guide. It was maddening to me.)

18. Hats' Changes: I agree with all of these as well, especially the nerfs to Golden Hairpin, Flash Hat and Thief Hat. The latter two were especially obnoxious in how overpowered they were and how much they both gave mages the finger oh so casually while also powering up Cursed Ring, which really didn't need the help.

19. Heavy Armor's Changes: I generally agree with the changes to both Genji Armor and Maximillian, even if no one (else) has been using the latter (yet).

20. Clothes' Changes: I generally agree with the slight buffs to all of these as well.

21. Silk Robe's MP Increased to 40: Hunh. I had forgotten this gave only 25 MP, partly because it's so rarely used. I was going to say that I'm more conflicted about this given that it thus has the same MP as the also rarely used Linen Robe and slightly less rarely used Wizard Robe, but then I was reminded that Linen Robe already has almost as much HP as Silk Robe in addition to +1 MA, so this is probably a good thing. Probably.

22. Accessories' Changes sans 108 Gems: These are all very much for the better, especially the necessary weakening of Cursed Ring, which basically was literally on half of all teams in Arena 1.38 after a certain point. So glad that's begun to taper off at least somewhat with this much need change. While Talk Skill is actually stronger than it was before, the  change and overall weakening of Defense Ring rather was needed, if only to enable Water to an element actually worth using for offense.

23. Squire's Changes: I agree with all of these. It's nice to see that Yell and Wish no longer suck and to be able to know that Alacrity Focus is actually going off. Now if only we could make Ultima worth using again....

24. Chemist's Changes: I agree with the slight buff to X-Potion and the slight nerf to Auto-Potion. Despite being 10 HP in different directions, they've both changed quite a bit.

25. Paladin's Reraise Weakened: I am so glad this is no longer instant even if it's still really fast. Thank you for that.

26. Archer's Changes: I agree with these for the most part, especially the more "normalized" formula that Cover Fire has now. The only thing I don't agree with is Hawk's Eye being CT 1 now even with the weakening of Oil and the increase to 12 MP. Then again, I'm not sure it actually is 1 CT since it's still listed as 3 CT in the Master Guide....

27. Monk's Changes: I agree with these and am glad that we didn't go with Raven's changes, at least when it came to switching around elemental aspects, despite my initial agreement with them.

28. Priest's Changes: I agree with these, though Regen could honestly probably go down to 50 JP since no  one's really using it still. Wall being instant is a lot less problematic than I figured it might be and it's nice to see people actually using it now.

29. Wizard's Changes: See above, though replace "Regen" with "Poison" if we insist on Priest and Wizard keeping those respective spells instead of giving them to Time Mage or something. Flare could also maybe stand to become 6 CT, if only because Holy is still kind of quick for its power, relatively speaking.

30. Demi's AoE Increased to 2, X Reduced to 80: This is one of only two changes to Time Mage I can find myself whole-heartedly liking, which is ironic given how much I kvetched about Time Mage needing improvement. Careful what you wish for I suppose.

31. Critical Quick JP Reduced to 200: Good to see this no longer be so expensive. The same thing probably needs to happen to Chrono Trigger given how many more reliable sources of Haste there are and given how even the balanced version of Speed Save is basically a (much) better version of it.

32. Summoner's Changes: While I'm not sure that Moogle needed to be increased to 3, I generally agree with these changes.

33. Mediator's Changes: Aside from the facts that I think I've helped you inadvertedly helped you create a monster by suggesting Stall, that I think Refute would still be better off if it was split in half and that Mimic Daravon & Sleep the status likely need a nerf, these changes are good. Even if no one is using Move -1, it definitely fits on Mediator way better than it did on Paladin.

34. Counter Flood's JP Reduced to 200: I would put this under "The Middling" if it wasn't for the fact Counter Flood does tend to usually do relatively abysmal damage, so it not costing 250 JP is ultimately a good thing.

35. Ignore Height's JP Reduced to 150: Given it's basically an inferior version of Fly and Teleport in most instances, it's good to see this get its cost halved. Jump +2 could maybe reduced to 50 JP from 100 JP, but I'm not sure that's actually necessary since Jump +2 will occasionally give units some additional horizontal movement unlike Ignore Height. (It would be really nice if Lancers got Robes back in 1.40/140 though. Hint hint.)

36. Bard & Dancer's Changes: Grouping these together since you kind of have to talk about Bard and Dancer together. People are finally using Last Song, Last Dance and Faith Up, so these changes are obviously for the better. Of course given the Song & Dance talk I brought up that we're still having, Last Song and arguably Last Dance might still be better off being buffed even more (so long as Last Dance can't be Mimicked since Last Song effectively can't be Mimicked anyway). Shrug. Baby (dance) steps.

spoiler: The Bad

1. Mage Masher's Proc Rate Reduced to 25%: Not really sure why Mage Masher's proc got reduced even with as good as Bizen Boat the ability can be given most of the classes with access to Knives have piss-poor MA. Mage Masher just probably needs to change completely really given it's always been the worst Knife. Even if something has to be, it's easily the worst Knife by far. Still not exactly huge concern or even issue, but it's definitely there.

2. Spell Edge's Stealing Muramasa's Everything: I try not to explicitly question your decisions for things despite and given how much I nag you and generally kvetch about various (every)things, especially since you're generally doing all this stuff alone and free of charge. That said, as insolent as it seems, I really do have to question what made you think it would be a good idea giving two of the fastest classes, who already generally hit harder than they "should", innate access to a weapon that 100% adds Faith, especially when one of those classes already had innate access to an auto-Concentrate weapon and Two Swords. I just...what.

Please, please switch these back. Otherwise we're going to be stuck with Short Edge + Spell Edge until the end of days, especially since nothing really has Immune: Faith (or Immune: Innocent) that's readily available.

3. Katana changes: I'll be blunt here as well, partly because it's directly related to the above: I don't like any of these changes, especially since Katana already suck(ed) for male Samurai, who generally are already middling at best as it is. It was a bit of damning faint praise when I said that I like the change to Masamune the katana better since that katana is still a kind of bad, trap-like weapon in its current state that's best used by Paladins anyway. At the very least it needs something else, like Immune: Slow or Always: Regen or something to make up for the severe speed drop that necessitates either defending against Slow or becoming auto-useless when you're inevitably hit by Slow (2).

As for the other two, Chirijiraden the katana might not be so bad if it was Always: Berserk, though I'm not sure if that would "break" it or not admittedly. This even if that would still mean that the best thing male Samurai could do is be suicidal. As it is now, despite the damage potential behind it, the only thing that's good about it to me really is that gives the was-always-good Giant Axe more room to shine now that Chirijiraden isn't essentially a non-elemental version of it (which I was fine with).

The new Muramasa just sucks though. I can totally see what you were going for, but between female Samurai not really ever physically attacking, male Samurai having weaker MA & MP, Samurai generally not having much MP in general, the Spell Absorb being "only" a 50% chance, Kiyomori the katana still having that +2 MA and Muramasa's old proc being overpowered as hell on Spell Edge due to Thief and Ninja...yeah. This needs to change back please.

4. Wizard Staff got +1 WP: Hunh. Didn't really notice this until now, partly because of no one really using Wizard Staff anymore due to how good Healing Staff is now. Despite that, I'm putting this under "The Bad" because I still think Wizard Staff could change into something more useful than a carbon copy of Wizard Rod that's it now basically a better version of for some reason. It doesn't help that Wizard Staff is among the Staves that out-damage Gold Staff. Meh. I still think this would be fine as the Dark mirror to White Staff, but that may just be me.

5. Mythril Bow's Conversion into Atheist Bow: I'm not exactly sad to see Mythril Bow leave, even if it seems like it became a part of all the elemental bows sans Silver Bow, but Atheist Bow seems even worse...in theory. This if only because Innocent does what Silence can't: it actually cripple mages. Granted, Wizards, Priests, Time Mages and Summoner can still do something if they get hit with Innocent, but between Innocent obviating most of their options while still leaving them open, meaning the A.I. will still try to use them, unlike Silence and Innocent not being blocked by anything that mages can actually wear...yeah. Granted, this hasn't been nearly as problematic as I was expecting due to you having the foresight to make this have the least range of any Longbow. I just think that, as I was saying a year ago, at the very least that Immune: Innocent (still) needs to exist on at least one accessory, especially if this stays around.

6. 108 Gems Lost All Its Immunities: Given this was nowhere near as powerful as the two other accessories to get nerfed--Defense Ring and Cursed Ring--going into 1.39, I really don't see why this lost its immunities. Given Oil was weakened, I could see it losing that, sure. Similarly, I could even see it losing Frog just because Chantange already has a lot of competition with Angel Ring currently being the only accessory Grand Cross users can wear so as to avoid inflicting Blind on themselves. That and Defense Ring still blocking Sleep, which Defense Ring needs to do, especially if Sleep status is still so unfair. Losing both Poison and Undead as well seems a bit...much though, especially since the loss of the former means that now no accessory has Immune: Poison. Even with the change to Cure, that's rather...bad, especially since 108 Gems is one of the more mage-friendly accessories.

I think the best solution would be to give 108 Gems back Immune: Poison & Immune: Undead as well as to give it Immune: Faith & Immune: Innocent. That seems like it would kill two birds with one stone, though that may just be me.

7. Haste & Slow the spells' Changes vs. Haste 2 & Slow 2's Changes (or Lack Thereof): While the slight increase to Haste and Slow's accuracy--gods, their X's used to be 60?--is appreciated as well as the general reduction in JP costs for Time Mage overall, it really isn't enough to stop Haste and Slow from being obviated by Haste 2 and Slow 2 respectively. This especially since Slow 2 is still rather...overly accurate. Honestly, the "best" solution to this is probably just to switch the Level 1 and Level 2 spells' accuracies with each other, even if the Level 2 spells might then need their Xs pushed to 75. Shrug.

8. Stop the spell's Changes: I still don't understand why this was so heavily buffed when it wasn't that weak in the first place. It was just over-expensive JP-wise. If it remains as accurate as it is now (and it really does seem higher than X = 70), then it probably needs to slowed down to CT 5 given how overly powerful Short Charge + Stop is seeming. Shrug.

9. Bad Luck's Changes: Time for more bluntness: This is somehow even worse than it already was now and it was already pretty bad. At least before it could be a serious threat sometimes with its ability to maybe instantly kill or Stop or Slow despite its slow CT and frankly exorbitant MP cost (for the class it's in and its nonexistent range). Now it doesn't even have that save for Stop, which is done way better and more reliably by Stop the spell and the new Stall, and Oil got weakened, which is added more reliably by Spell Edge now. Even if Oil's weakening affected Nameless Dance too, Oil's weakening affected Bad Luck more even more than Nameless Dance since at least Nameless Dance a) hits all enemy units, b) can be done from anywhere on the map, c) doesn't trigger Reactions and d) costs less MP.

Steal already had and still has so few abilities worth using as it is and all of the ones it has currently are only worth using because they're frankly either borderline overpowered (Steal Heart, Steal Accessory), which is fine, or actually overpowered (Quickening, Spellbreaker), which...isn't. Everything else is much pretty trash and Bad Luck is now king of that junk pile, even over Magic Ruin.

The "original" suggested plans for 1.39 were making it have a chance of adding multiple statuses via Separate rather than the (unclear) Random Add it currently has and making the statuses that it caused choose from among Blind, Silence, Stop, Immobilize (Don't Move), Disable (Don't Act) and Doom. This while also no longer being countered by Counter Flood since it would already still have enough potential issues with its 1 range, CT 3 and MP 6. Well all that and possibly changing its name to Tough Luck. I'd like to think that would still work.

At the very least, it would be a much better alternative than the current Bad Luck, which is completely obviated by Stop the spell, Stall and various weapons including the newly changing Spell Edge when it comes to adding one probably not crippling status after waiting longer than literally half of the damaging spells that exist. Pleasefix Bad Luck/Tough Luck in 1.40/140.

10. Quickening's General Continued Existence: I've kvetched about Quickening enough that I really don't--well, shouldn't--have to say anything else here outside of again saying that increasing the JP to 300 doesn't change much and it will forever be broken, at least if it remaining instant; I've already stated that I doubt giving it CT would work either, though it would at least be better. Really, Quickening was weakened far more by Cursed Ring's nerf, which only weakened it a tad, than it was by the JP cost increase. It's basically still obnoxiously overpowered and undermines a bunch of things, including Phoenix Blade's only current drawback. So...yeah. Something has got to give otherwise Steal might as well only have four active abilities.

11. Scholar's Lack of Changes: I'll break my "vow" to not talk specifically focus on something that didn't change, but given that both Quake and Tornado were already thought by many to be problematic...yeah. I feel bad for harping on this particular point since I think you did say already that you were planning on making some adjustments to Scholar in 1.40/140, but yeah.... Please change at least those two things. (I also think, beyond the Wizard+ stats issue, that Bio 2 really shouldn't be able to potentially add AoE Frog.)

spoiler: And The Middling

1. Dual Cutters got +1 WP: I'm still not really sure this is necessary, but thus far it doesn't seem to be breaking anything or even making much of an impact. Shrug.

2. Short Edge got 100% Add: Oil: I'm...not sure how I feel about this either still, even with Oil itself being weakened. I'd probably fine with it if it wasn't for the change to Spell Edge, honestly.

3. Ninja Edge got Minor Buffs While Losing 1 WP: I'm not sure losing 1 WP was really merited given  Ninja Knife's still superior strength, Kagesougi's ability to inflict Don't Move (among other things) and the 50% chance of Don't Move both not being guaranteed & on a close-range squishy unit. It's rather difficult to tell how much the boost to W-EV and its proc even help given that no one is using it because the current go-to equipment for Ninja is either Short Edge + Spell Edge or some (Repel) Knife + Hidden Knife if Ninjato are being used at all.

4. Shieldrender's WP Reduced to 7: It's difficult to tell whether this was "merited" or not given that it's one of those (many) weapons no one is using for various reasons. I still wouldn't be surprised if this and Bow Gun have to be completely changed ultimately despite finally knowing that they're both technically working.

5. Lionheart's W-EV Increased to 10: For the record, I'd place this under "The Bad" if anyone was really using this since I don't agree with it. As it is, I haven't seen enough evidence one way or the other given I think only a couple of people have used it oddly. Might just be due to how powerful Phoenix Blade v2.0 is though. Well that and other factors like how Dancers have all but disappeared in Arena going into 1.39/139 when they were generally the primary users of this sword.

6. Thunder Rod & Ice Rod got +1 WP: Hard to tell how significant a change this is between Rod users usually being squishy, non-melee units and no one really using these anyway. Shrug.

7. White Staff got +1 WP and Holy Element: See above except replace "Rod users" with "Staff users" and "these" with "this".

8. Healing Staff got +1 Speed: This is among the numerous things that I'm not sure about how to ultimately feel still. I kind of think it may be doing too much currently between the boost to Speed, having so much WP, making it so that mages generally won't stupidly melee a unit they shouldn't (often at the worst possible time) and boosting both Dia and Holy. It may just be the weird, unresolved Speed situation of both Time Mage and Priest though along with Holy still being a little too fast for its power, especially comparative to Flare. Regardless, to me, right now the 1.39 Healing Staff feels like the new version of Golden Hairpin really.

9. Gold Staff's W-EV Increased to 20: As I figured, this buff isn't "enough" unfortunately, as evidenced by people trying to use Healing Staff or Rainbow Staff as the melee Staves of the group. I think this just needs +1 Move so that Staff user can just get in range to actually hit with the Staff. Shrug.

10. Longbow Changes sans Atheist Bow: I've not come to a conclusion about these yet either despite people generally using all of these save for Ultimus Bow and despite getting my ass kicked by them and despite somewhat agreeing that Silver Bow, Ice Bow, Lightning Bow and Windslash Bow might be slightly over-buffed. Shrug.

11. Choice Band v2.0: This is an interesting change. It's a damn shame that it's still not really worth using compared to Chakra Band still blocking too many serious negative statuses, even with Chakra Band not blocking Petrify as it apparently still should. This could probably stand to be Immune: Slow at least, at least given Slow 2. Shrug.

12. Equip Armor & Equip Heavy Blade got Lower JP Costs: Honestly hadn't noticed these until now despite Equip Armor's JP drop being by a whole 100 JP. Hunh. Still difficult to tell whether it's "enough" despite at least one person actually using Equip Armor given no one has ever really used Equip Clothing as of yet and that would be the "best" thing to compare this one to, even with Equip Clothing's continued lack of access to "Headbands". Shrug.

As for Equip Heavy Blade, it could probably stand to get access to Flails though and I'm not just saying that because I think Flails would "work" on Paladins, even if one of them should maybe change. That's for later though.

13. Comet and Sinkhole's Buffs: I'm still not really sure either of these were "needed" per say, especially the former in light of the weakening of Auto Potion. Shrug. I'm not exactly up in arms about them though.

14. Speed Ruin's X Increased to 100: I'd put this under "The Good"...if Quickening's existence didn't still basically completely obviate it, buffed or not. It's at least the most usable Ruin currently, but that's really not saying much.

15. Samurai's Changes: The change to Asura's damage would be good...if male Samurai were worth using otherwise and if they could come close to getting the most damage about of it, but...they aren't and they can't respectively. I have suggestions about these that can wait until another, Samurai-focused post though that will likely be coming soon anyway.

16. Ninja's Changes: It's nice to see Tsumazuku working now that the A.I. knows to actually use it. It's just a shame that it's both not very good at what it's supposed to do and inferior to both the-still-overpowered Kagesougi and even just regularly attacking with Ninja. Maybe if there's some way to at least make sure that Reraise is canceled even upon a lethal hit--would changing the Order work?--I could see if being useful enough to stay around, but if not....

As for Houkouton's change, it's difficult to tell how much the vastly different formula has done for it given that no one is using it still.

17. Mime's Vast Overhaul: For the most part, I do think this would qualify as "The Good" even with the ever-increasing issues that seem to be cropping up with them on top of that fact that no one on FFH--myself included--still has looked into why Mimes aren't 100% Miming things despite that being the case since vanilla. The only reasons I'm putting this here are because I think Mime's stats were overly nerfed out of a well-intentioned abundance of caution, making a lot of RSMs flat-out worthless on them and making them...really awkward to put on most teams beyond the usual Song, Dance or Lore spam, which is just more of the same. On top of that, I still think it would likely be ultimately better to just replace them with Blue Mage if possible, especially if you're still ultimately planning to try to put monsters into Arena since Blue Mages can act as "test cases" for monsters despite also being competition.

I'll probably do that Samurai post tomorrow or...something. Shrug. [/shrug]

[Shintroy]

Good read The Damned. I'll input next week hopefully. Getting a laptop adapter in the mail, hoping this laptop is even usable.

Going back on spears for 140 and spears now.. I was looking to make a Golden Sun team if my Final Fantasy Teams keep losing and came across the 3 "elemental" spears. Did FFMaster forget to note the spears' element or are they all supposed to be non-elemental?

Current 3 Proc Spears - 12 WP, +1 SP with a dragon breath proc
Suggestion 1 for 140 - 12 WP, +1 SP, Elements Fire, Lightning, and Ice with no proc
Suggestion 2 for 140 - 11, 12, 13 WP +1 SP. Same strengths of the elemental guns with Fire being the strongest.
No 2H/2S for any spears. I figure these are okay since they don't make katana and swords obsolete while making Lancer and spear much more versatile.

Would would definitely enjoy having elemental spears. Would probably be OP, but I think it could be balanced. Maybe if Landers lost robe access? Black Robe + Elemental Spear would become a staple combo, and jumps having leave a lot of free equipment slots to further boost big damage. For other classes equipping spears they'll have more options besides +2 SP Javelin.

How good were spears in past builds? Any history on spears being OP?

If I get that laptop my posts will become much easier to read. Can't stand formatting on the phone. Copy and paste crashes the browser, and there's always a chance deleting entire posts when formating.

[The Damned]

(Oh gods, I am so behind on watching videos. Ugh.)

Spears in Arena have always been rather...middling at best IIRC. They've never been overpowered aside of arguably Javelin, which is less "overpowered" than it is the only spear besides maybe Obelisk and possibly Holy Spear that's currently usable. Looking back through the changelog, the last time that Spears changed despite their rather glaring mediocrity was version 134, which should tell you a lot.

As for the three spears with elemental breath that aren't Holy Spear, no, FFMaster didn't forget to note them being elemental. They unfortunately aren't, which means they're "supposed" to be non-elemental, which hasn't done them any good. As such, I figure that's what most likely to change going into 140 since he specifically said he was going to focus on Spears and Swords, so we'll probably see them becoming the same element as their breaths. I doubt that will be overpowered even if Lancers get Robes back (like they should) given that Lancers have crap MA and Oil doesn't add Weakness anymore. I could definitely be wrong about that though, even with Jump being non-elemental regardless of the weapon used.

At the very least, Holy Spear's proc also still needs to change since we've known for a while that procs can only generate one hit regardless of the ability used, just like they can't generate status from a damaging (physical?) ability. I'm not sure what's going to happen to the other Spears though. Shrug.


P.S. Yeah, posting from a phone seems horrible. I don't understand how people do it and I say this noting how long-winded I can be isn't a factor into that befuddlement.