FFT Arena: Questionnaire Time Again! (For 131)

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Making Mimes Undead would be pretty bad if the current Cursed Ring situation is any indication. Similarly, making Life Song actually damage the Undead when it's already one of only two healing skills that doesn't--the other being Chakra--seems rather unfair/unnecessary.

Besides, I thought the "Undead Reverse" toggle only affected AI Behavior rather than the actual skill itself.

Both of those are easily fixed by ASM I know FFMaster is more than capable of, and it was more of an offhanded thought than a serious suggestion.  Outside of fixing useless formula, I prefer the path of least resistance.  Alternatively, we can just put Life Song and Angel Song on a 50% Hit Rate, putting them in parity with the other songs because they already play far more often than them.  I think this is probably the best solution, personally, since it keeps everything consistent with how Songs work.  (Wiznaibus and Witch Hunt should also see this change for the sake of parity since spamming Mimes with Wiznaibus can also be a quick way to wear down teams, but they should no longer trigger any Reactions in that case.  I just like making their accuracy all 50% over hacking them to do odd things like accept MP or Evasion, it keeps the skills more in-line with each other, and could possibly even allow their base to be buffed pending testing.)

That's perhaps good for Songs, but it seems like a pretty horrible idea for Dances. Didn't you recently run into a problem in your own patch with regards to Fury and it getting to really low values, making dealing damage impossible? You think that Polka Polka is bad now? Matches would likely end up stalemating (or being extremely boring) if there was a -Brave/-Fury Dance, which wouldn't even affect all physical attacks, so it would probably just end up detrimental to the team actually using it, which is...bad.

Note your last line - it doesn't affect all Physical or Magical attacks.  I removed it from Redesign because at least one of them DID affect literally everything.  Hell, if you look at Mediator, they can drop Fury/Faith in increments of 25... and when you consider a perservering Dance would likely drop them in increments of 4 with 50% Accuracy... it's far less of an issue.  The thing just becomes that you can't expect to drop their Fury and win via Fury based attacks... or drop their Faith and do the same, meaning you either use unaffected skills such as Elemental yourself or only use one while running high in the other.  If Arena intends to keep skills that aren't affected by Fury or Faith, or skills like Ninjas which use UnFaith or UnFury, then there's no reason not to tap the design space those kinds of things open up by exploring the above.

Also, you want boring, go look at the team I just submitted.  I MADE boring.

Similarly, the -Faith Dance would be even more worthless than Witch Hunt, which is saying something considering no one has yet to use it, given the only thing that would exploit the lower-Faith would be, what, Ninjutsu? Given there are only 3 low-Faith "punishing" attacks and they're all elemental, it doesn't exactly seem like that Dance would ever get used either.

Notice that there are Flare-based teams.  -Faith kills them, and it also kills other things such as Summon and White Magic.  -MP isn't useful often because most teams can restore MP.  Under this schema, without an appropriately learned Bard or Mediator, you can't restore Faith, so that 4% to damage is lost forever.  That seems pretty decent, considering everything, if only because you can expand the strategy beyond a Flare-hoser by using the Ninja skillset in some manner.

[The Damned]

(So, FFMaster, when had you intended for 131 Beta to be out anyway?)

I'm still thinking about those 3 Poles for the record. It's just that the last two days have been rather...bad.

Both of those are easily fixed by ASM I know FFMaster is more than capable of, and it was more of an offhanded thought than a serious suggestion. Outside of fixing useless formula, I prefer the path of least resistance.

"Fixed" as in...do damage to Undead instead of heal them? Or...?

I'm curious, since I often agree with your ideas, provided you couldn't just completely kill it, I feel I must ask this: What would you do to fix Cursed Ring?

Alternatively, we can just put Life Song and Angel Song on a 50% Hit Rate, putting them in parity with the other songs because they already play far more often than them.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with making Bard (and Dancer, for the sake of "parity") so very unreliable when a mere additional CT seems like it would solve at least half of the problem.

I guess I'd be for if you could make Wiznaibus/With Knives ignore reactions, but Song and Dance formulas are rather...fickle as to what they accept.

Note your last line - it doesn't affect all Physical or Magical attacks.  I removed it from Redesign because at least one of them DID affect literally everything.  Hell, if you look at Mediator, they can drop Fury/Faith in increments of 25...

Which is why I said in that wall of changes that Mediator's Threaten and Solution should drop to a decrease of 20 at best.

...and when you consider a perservering Dance would likely drop them in increments of 4 with 50% Accuracy... it's far less of an issue.

Oh, only increments of 4? You didn't specify the amount, so I wasn't sure. I was thinking you suggesting like -10 or something. To be truthful, -4 seems...underwhelming.

The thing just becomes that you can't expect to drop their Fury and win via Fury based attacks... or drop their Faith and do the same, meaning you either use unaffected skills such as Elemental yourself or only use one while running high in the other.  If Arena intends to keep skills that aren't affected by Fury or Faith, or skills like Ninjas which use UnFaith or UnFury, then there's no reason not to tap the design space those kinds of things open up by exploring the above.

I'm aware of that. The thing is, though, that tapping that design space pretty much pushes classes and skill sets that are already are stronger than most. It seems rather unnecessary to add a mass -Faith ability when magic is still arguably struggling besides Flare, Titan & Bahamut and the Raise spells.

Maybe after the floor of 50 Faith is installed, but I'd rather not do both things at once even if I end up being convinced we should do the Fury & Faith Song & Dance at all.

Also, you want boring, go look at the team I just submitted.  I MADE boring.

And? Provided that it's even effective doesn't mean that another situation would be any less boring.

Notice that there are Flare-based teams.  -Faith kills them, and it also kills other things such as Summon and White Magic.  -MP isn't useful often because most teams can restore MP.  Under this schema, without an appropriately learned Bard or Mediator, you can't restore Faith, so that 4% to damage is lost forever.  That seems pretty decent, considering everything, if only because you can expand the strategy beyond a Flare-hoser by using the Ninja skillset in some manner.

I'd rather not make new move solely to be a hoser for things that will likely be getting nerfed already anyway, especially when it also screws over far more things that aren't as abused.

[FFMaster]

(The plan is for it to be out about a week after fdc releases his formula stuff, since it will make the patch cleaner to edit/etc, not to mention the new formulas it is advertising. I'm expecting at least 10 bugs on release though, so expect versions b,c,d,etc.)

Just to put my foot down, don't judge magic based on Flare. Everyone agrees it is too powerful, just pretend it doesn't exist and judge the rest of magic from there.

Here are some random ideas flying through my head right now(some from IRC for those who aren't actively there):

- A mage(thinking Oracle right now) has all his/her spells as Unfaith. On IRC, Eternal objected to this, but didn't say why or I missed his argument.
- Monks lose Martial Arts innate. New fist formula becomes PA*10. Overall, a nerf to Monk fist damage.
- Most weapons across the board gain WP, except the ones with already high WP. Pretty minor in most cases. Basically, everything under about 10-11 WP will go up by about 1-2, depending on how it has been used, etc.
- Armors with Immune: Statii will be condensed down and buffed. Vanilla Armors will gain more HP.
- More equipment with bad effects (similar to Cursed Ring, but well, we'll see how it goes)
- More equipment with Initial/Permanent statii

The last 3 will depend on how much space I can gather while removing/adding equipment. I may as well start naming equipment properly as well over the course. Shields will most likely be untouched, as will most accessories, so feel free to suggest names.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

"Fixed" as in...do damage to Undead instead of heal them? Or...?

Yup.

I'm curious, since I often agree with your ideas, provided you couldn't just completely kill it, I feel I must ask this: What would you do to fix Cursed Ring?

"Fix"?  I was unaware an Item that had multiple weaknesses built in and characters who have abilities specifically designed to hose Cursed Ring was an issue unsolvable by adaptation.  Unless by "fix" you mean "it sucks, help."

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with making Bard (and Dancer, for the sake of "parity") so very unreliable when a mere additional CT seems like it would solve at least half of the problem.

Making the skills too slow makes them not worth as much outside of Miming where you're getting triple the effect.  Making them as inconsistent as every other Dance and Song ability allows them to keep both Speed and Power (meaning you do get some heals still), but Miming it is just far less effective because you're rolling the dice even more and getting less for it.  Though honestly, I've had thoughts on Mime after a while that I think need addressing that may make "fixing" these issues unnecessary.

Oh, only increments of 4? You didn't specify the amount, so I wasn't sure. I was thinking you suggesting like -10 or something. To be truthful, -4 seems...underwhelming.

4-6 Fury/Faith is equal to about 3-4% damage, or just under a PA or MA point in most cases.  It's underwhelming for Faith, maybe, but that's because Faith lacks a constant giving it a damage floor.

I'm aware of that. The thing is, though, that tapping that design space pretty much pushes classes and skill sets that are already are stronger than most. It seems rather unnecessary to add a mass -Faith ability when magic is still arguably struggling besides Flare, Titan & Bahamut and the Raise spells.

I'll come out and say it - that sounds far more like most Faith-based magics need to be made better, not that the non-Faith ones need to be weaker/discouraged, considering that most non-Faith magic skills don't do high end damage (160 or so for Elemental, etc.)... they just ignore a huge decrement against 40 Faith users, meaning they're harder to tank, which is again why they exist as an out to someone trying to wall out behind 40 Faith, just as outs should exist for walling behind 40 Fury, etc.  ...This is also again why Faith needs a constant value the way Fury does, so 40 Faith is far less damning to your damage total.

And? Provided that it's even effective doesn't mean that another situation would be any less boring.

I'm just pointing out that I can already stack hilarious amounts of defense under the current Arena rules, probably better than you can with Fury/Faith flooring moves.  Hell, even now, I can just Mime -PA and -MA and floor your entire team if I wanted, your argument is basically saying "that's boring" while ignoring the fact I can already do it better than if I had -Fury/Faith because currently I can do it without suffering any loss to my damage totals. 

I'd rather not make new move solely to be a hoser for things that will likely be getting nerfed already anyway, especially when it also screws over far more things that aren't as abused.

Again (similar to a conversation I had with FFMaster about equipment on IRC) - it looks / sounds like the majority of the unused stuff kind of sucks, not the other way around.

(The plan is for it to be out about a week after fdc releases his formula stuff, since it will make the patch cleaner to edit/etc, not to mention the new formulas it is advertising. I'm expecting at least 10 bugs on release though, so expect versions b,c,d,etc.)

You sure it'll be done that soon?  I haven't spoken to him on it in a while myself, honestly, outside of random thoughts.

Just to put my foot down, don't judge magic based on Flare. Everyone agrees it is too powerful, just pretend it doesn't exist and judge the rest of magic from there.

Like I said to The Damned - then it sounds like most magic sucks outside of Raise, Fairy, and some piecemeal Summons.  Then again, currently "most magic" is things like Wizard's remaining skillset being elemental mirrors of the same skill over and over again, etc. - so if one sucks, they all suck.

- A mage(thinking Oracle right now) has all his/her spells as Unfaith. On IRC, Eternal objected to this, but didn't say why or I missed his argument.

This is a good idea, and this is the best magic-using class to do it with, personally.  It punishes low Faith without stepping on Ninja's toes, and makes Status a bit stronger.

Monks lose Martial Arts innate. New fist formula becomes PA*10. Overall, a nerf to Monk fist damage.
- Most weapons across the board gain WP, except the ones with already high WP. Pretty minor in most cases. Basically, everything under about 10-11 WP will go up by about 1-2, depending on how it has been used, etc.

This works since it's in tandem, else I'm still for PA*8 instead.

- More equipment with bad effects (similar to Cursed Ring, but well, we'll see how it goes)

More Auto: Undead items specifically would actually be kinda cool, though they'd probably all need to be Accessories so you can't stack them all up while only suffering a single drawback.  Though, just be careful on which negative status you use.

Re - Mime:

I've been thinking about it, and Mime as a class is seriously flawed.  I know it draws a lot of its innates and such from Vanilla and 1.3, but look at it:

-Innate Immune: All Negative Status.  Teams based on Negative Status literally cannot execute their strategies vs. teams that utilize Mimes (mostly Bard/Dancer teams).  They're forced to basically brute-strength through the Mimes then Status on the leftovers... which are usually so far less threatening up-front than Mimes are that it's trivial to just overpower them as well.  Basically, Mimes > Status Teams.

-Innate Concentrate.  Teams based on evasion can't evade Mimes.  Again, the entire team concept gets hosed before it begins just because the opponent is using Mimes and Mimes are stacked unless the Evasion Team can overpower the Mimes... at which point they win again, because the rest of the riffraff is usually too irrelevant for their Evasion to even make a difference unless said riffraff also got fairly stacked off Battle Songs.

-High Base HP (about as much as an HP-spec Clothes-wearer), Innate: Unyielding, 30 C-EV.  So we've established that most teams not set to win via Power or hard-tanking (DEFUP + 40 Fu/Fa, etc) are hosed by Mime innates... but Mimes are also fairly defensive in themselves, having respectable HP and a damage buffer.  To teams not MEANT to overpower things (Evasion Teams, Status Teams), that's a lot of shit to be forced to power through, especially when you consider most Mimes are climbing up in power via Battle Song and/or being constantly healed for almost 100 HP every few CT through Mimed Life Songs.  Even hard-defense teams are probably going to get worn down many times, because Battle Song is guaranteed to eventually overpower most defenses, and fairly quickly when combined with the old Fist formula, innate Martial Arts, etc., and they likely don't have the damage output to easily overpower Mimes themselves due to defensive setups.  The 30 C-EV is mostly just a kick in the face, but it does give them some nice extra survival potential on top of this.

-Innate: Counter Flood.  Mimes are immune to all status, immune to all evasion, moderately difficult to kill... and yet they have an innate Reaction that can counter almost any offensive act against them and inflict statuses of their own onto other people.  So basically, Mimes can utilize status while being immune to it entirely in retort, grind people down with a non-Fury/Faith Reaction that ignores evasion while their primary attacks also ignore evasion while still having evasion themselves, etc.  This... is very, very wrong, and I hope this is clear why without delving deeper.

-Innate: Martial Arts.  Not as huge as the others, but mostly mentioning because on 1.30 Arena, they have this and PA*Fu/100*PA*(FU+35)/100 with 70 Fury for their Fist formula... and this is the main reason Battle Song Mime is so powerful.  Those PA points just stack the damage up far faster than anything else, and this innate ensures that Mime's getting a boost to some great abilities (Punch Art skills and Primary Fists) on top of all the advantages listed above.

Tl;dr - Mime is fucking rigged, likely on the basis of it being a "niche" class the AI has a hard time using, and this is going to seriously fuck the metagame if it isn't already. 

Personally, what needs to happen here is:

-Fist Formula change
-Loss of Innate: Martial Arts

FFMaster verified doing this at PA*10, though if Mime keeps innate Martial Arts, they may as well have PA*15, which I'm against, but without double-factor PA it's still far more controlled and does at least give a bit of distinction to Mime outside of the obvious.  However, I'm saying the second because I want to recommend something else instead.

-Loss of Innate: Concentrate
-Loss of (most) Status Immunity

Should be obvious why, but this is to remove the bias against Status and Evasion teams these guys are rocking.  Counter Flood gives them a weapon vs Evasion teams, even if it is Reactionary, and the Mime's primary niche of the receiver of Battle Song means that Counter Floods will gain strength over times, as will normal hits that break evasion.  As for Status Immunity, maybe leave it immune to Frog, Chicken, Petrify, Stop to compensate for its lack of equippable gear, but otherwise there's no reason to hose teams that try to status their foes down with a blacket "screw you, broski."

-Gain of Innate: Overwhelm.
-Potential gain of 1-2 PA/MA points.

This is obviously to compensate for a loss of Martial Arts.  However, this is meant to "compensate" in a way that doesn't bias Mimes to the Battle Song strategy.  (All things considered, they're incredibly heavily biased into that use and that use alone, given their innates.)  This hopefully gives Mimes a bit more flexibility by making them better at other things besides punching people in the face.  I'm wary of saying adding Attack UP and Magic Attack UP innate because of the high multipliers, since Mime takes a lot of "free" actions, so Overwhelm seems "just right."

-Gain of Innate: Awareness.

Since Mimes can't use gear and lost innate Concentrate, allowing their 30 C-EV to apply on all sides only seems natural.  I'm trying to not make them heavily biased derpdederp damage dealers and strategy hosers, not awful unusable units.

So, the "final" Mime under my idea would look like:

-Innate: Overwhelm
-Innate: Unyielding
-Innate: Counter Flood
-Innate: Awareness
-Immune: Frog, Chicken, Petrify, Stop

Combine this with the Fist formula change that keeps getting mentioned (PA*10*[Fu+35/100] post-Fury), and I think this remedies not only the Battle Song problem, but most problems that result from Mimes.  Tl;dr - I propose the above changes to Mime, while making no changes to Bard or Dancer whatsoever.  Their skills shouldn't need to suffer for Mime's sake if it can be helped, and the above changes do tons to fix the problem by going to the source.  I recommend doing this for Arena 1.31, then seeing how Bard/Dancer/Mime teams and other Mime teams play out before considering how to change Bard and Dancer, if any change is at all needed.

[The Damned]

(Yeah, I was under the impression that FDC's formula project was still a way off. If not, then great. If so, then, uh.... It's probably best to try to get this done or at least started before summer is over for most people.)

Okay, before I get to anything else, since this is looking like it's going to be another quite long post, I need to get this out of the way first.

So, last night, before making a new team, I decided to chart out the Item Attributes for ARENA (as far as I could tell) given that I was both curious and I needed a starting point if I'm going to come up with feasible ideas for those 3 Poles and perhaps other things.

Interestingly enough, it seems like you should still have three free Item Attribute spaces, FFMaster. I'm not sure if that's correct or not, but that's why I'm asking you to look over this. Obviously, they're not going to be in the same order that you have them in, but I put the Items that they relate to next to them in order to try to ease confusion. Similarly, I went straight down the Item list as it's in the Master Guide thread:

spoiler: ARENA Item Attributes

1: +1 Move - Platina Dagger, Main Gauche, Assassin Dagger, Air Knife

2: +1 MA, +1 Move - Orichalcum, Red Shoes

3: +1 Speed - Hidden Knife, Sasuke Knife, Mythril Bow, Javelin, Secret Clothes, Sprint Shoes

4: +1 PA - Ninja Knife, Heaven's Cloud, FSBag, Barbuta, Carabini Mail, Power Wrist

5: +1 MA - Spell Edge, Murasame, C Bag, Circlet, Platina Armor, Linen Robe, Genji Gauntlet

6: Strengthen: Earth - Iga Knife

7: Strengthen: Wind - Koga Knife

8: +2 MA - Rune Blade, Wizard Rod, Wizard Staff, Mythril Gun, Ice Bow, Lightning Bow, Mythril Spear, Ivory Rod, Holy Miter, Wizard Outfit, Wizard Robe, Magic Gauntlet

9: Initial: Defend, Immune: Don't Act - Defender

10: Initial: Protect - Save the Queen

11: Initial: Shell - Ragnarok

12: Absorb: Holy, Strengthen: Holy - Excalibur, Diamond Helmet

13: Cancel: Protect, Shell & Haste on hit - Chaos Blade

14: Strengthen: Fire - Asura Knife, Flame Rod, Flame Whip

15: Strengthen: Earth, Wind & Water - Giant Axe

16: Strengthen: Lightning - Thunder Rod, Scorpion Tail

17: Strengthen: Ice - Ice Rod

18: Strengthen: Holy - Healing Staff

19: Absorb: Lightning; Strengthen: Lightning - Mace of Zeus

20: Strengthen: Water - Flail

21: Initial: Petrify - Stone Gun

22: +2 PA - Obelisk, Twist Headband, Power Sleeve, Bracer

23: Always: Regen; Weak: All - P Bag

24: Half: All Elements - H Bag

25: Always: Defend, Protect - Persia

26: Always: Defend, Shell - Cashmere

27: Always: Defend, Reflect - Ryozan Silk

28: Absorb: Earth; Weak: Lightning - Mythril Shield

29: Absorb: Lightning; Weak: Earth - Gold Shield

30: Absorb: Ice; Weak: Fire - Ice Shield

31: Absorb: Fire; Weak: Ice - Flame Shield

32: +1 MA; Immune: Silence - Aegis Shield, Golden Hairpin

33: Immune: Earth & Holy - Diamond Shield, Small Mantle

34: Immune: Wind & Water - Platina Shield, Vanish Mantle

35: Immune: Stop & Slow - Crystal Shield, Mythril Helmet

36: +1 PA; Immune: Dead - Genji Shield

37: Strengthen: Fire, Ice & Lightning - Kaiser Plate, Black Robe

38: Half: Fire, Ice & Lightning - Venetian Shield, White Robe

39: Immune: Frog, Chicken & Sleep - Gold Helmet

40: Absorb: Wind, Strengthen: Wind - Diamond Helmet

41: Immune: Don't Act - Crystal Helmet, Dracula Mantle

42: Immune: Don't Move - Genji Helmet, Wizard Mantle

43: Immune: Don't Move & Don't Act - Green Beret, Defense Armlet

44: +1 MA, +1 Speed - Flash Hat

45: +1 Speed; Immune: Charm - Thief Hat

46: Absorb: Wind, Earth, Water & Holy - Cachusha

47: Immune: Dead, Conf, Sil, Chkn, Psn, Slw, DM & DS - Barette

48: Immune: Undd, Ptry, Drkness, Frg, Stop, Chrm & DA - Ribbon

49: Immune: Petrify & Dead - Gold Armor

50: Immune: Berserk, Darkness & Poison - Diamond Armor

51: Immune: Undead - Crystal Armor

52: Immune: Sleep - Genji Armor

53: Always: Reflect - Reflect Mail, Reflect Ring

54: Absorb: Ice; Immune: Sleep - Santa Outfit

55: Absorb: Earth, Strengthen: Earth - Earth Clothes

56: Absorb: Fire; Immune: Stop - Black Costume

57: Absorb: Lightning; Immune: Don't Move - Rubber Costume

58: Absorb: Holy; Immune: Dead - Chameleon Robe

59: Always: Regen; Weak: Dark - Light Robe

60: +1 PA, +1 Move - Battle Boots

61: +1 Move, +1 Jump - Germinas Boots

62: +1 Move; Immune: Lightning, Don't Move - Rubber Shoes

63: +1 Move: Always: Float - Feather Boots

64: Always: Don't Move, Protect & Shell - Iron Boots

65: Immune: Berserk, Sleep & Death Sentence - Defense Ring

66: +1 MA; Absorb: Wind, Holy; Immune: Silence - Magic Ring

67: +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 Speed; Always: Undead; Absorb: Dark; Weak: Fire & Holy - Cursed Ring

68: Initial: Reraise; Immune: Blind & Dead - Angel Ring

69: Immune: Stop, Petrify & Chicken - Jade Armlet

70: Immune: Psn, Frog, Und & BldSck; Strengthen: All - 108 Gems

71: Immune: Charm & Confusion; Half: Dark - N-Kai Armlet

72: Absorb: Water - Leather Mantle

73: Absorb: Wind - Feather Mantle

74: Initial: Reraise; Immune: Sleep & Frog - Chantage

75: +1 PA; Initial: Protect - Cherche

76: +1 MA; Initial: Shell - Setiemson

77: Always: Berserk & Slow - Salty Rage

78: ????

79: ????

80: ????

The numbers are in decimal, obviously, and anything that isn't listed would be under 00 for "nothing". I used "Immune" rather than "Cancel" because that's what I'm using for Embargo given that "Cancel" is horribly ambiguous when it's also used for removing status.

Here are some random ideas flying through my head right now(some from IRC for those who aren't actively there):

- A mage(thinking Oracle right now) has all his/her spells as Unfaith. On IRC, Eternal objected to this, but didn't say why or I missed his argument.
- Monks lose Martial Arts innate. New fist formula becomes PA*10. Overall, a nerf to Monk fist damage.
- Most weapons across the board gain WP, except the ones with already high WP. Pretty minor in most cases. Basically, everything under about 10-11 WP will go up by about 1-2, depending on how it has been used, etc.
- Armors with Immune: Statii will be condensed down and buffed. Vanilla Armors will gain more HP.
- More equipment with bad effects (similar to Cursed Ring, but well, we'll see how it goes)
- More equipment with Initial/Permanent statii

The last 3 will depend on how much space I can gather while removing/adding equipment. I may as well start naming equipment properly as well over the course. Shields will most likely be untouched, as will most accessories, so feel free to suggest names.

1. Unfaithful Oracles: I'm...mixed about this. On the one hand, it would certainly help Yin-Yang Magic see use. On the other hand, I think what units it would see use on would be part of the reason that Eternal probably objected. It's (another) change that would favor physical, low-Faith classes over magical classes since most magical classes rather like their Faith to be high and thus would have end having even less of a use for Yin-Yang Magic than they currently do if they have to lower their Faith for it be effective.

...Wait. When you say "Unfaith", do you mean "more effective if both the caster and the target has low Faith" like Malak's Un-Truth and Suiton, Raiton & Katon? Or "Unfaith" as in "more effective if the caster has high Faith and the target has low Faith"? Because it just occurred to me you could mean either and, even though you probably mean the former, I'd have a lot more support if it's the latter. Otherwise, I'd rather just raise the Faith floor to 50, even though I know that means you'll probably have to completely overhaul Faith-based magic.

2. Overhauling the Art of Punches: Sounds good. As Raven talks about later, I'd argue Mimes also need to lose Martial Arts and that Martial Arts as a whole just needs to die & not even be an allowed option for RSMs.

3. WP Raising: Sounds good in most instances. There might be some exceptions, but I'll need to look over the list yet again, which is not something I feel like doing right now.

4. Vanilla Armor & Chocolate Armor: Explain "condensed", because I think that's kinda the opposite of what a few people were getting at.

5. Cursed Equipment: I can't say that I like this idea at all, especially if you're using Cursed Ring as the chief example. Given that only other examples of equipment with a strong negative are Salty Rage and P Bag, which I don't think anyone has used since they got those changes, I don't see why you would want to do this.

6. Temporary Permanence: This, on the other hand, I'm surprisingly more ambivalent too, especially if the negative status classes get buffed to be actually worth using.


Now we move on to That's So Raven.

Yup.

You know, if we hadn't talked so much, this mathematical answer would have confused me.

"Fix"?  I was unaware an Item that had multiple weaknesses built in and characters who have abilities specifically designed to hose Cursed Ring was an issue unsolvable by adaptation.  Unless by "fix" you mean "it sucks, help."

"It sucks, help."

Making the skills too slow makes them not worth as much outside of Miming where you're getting triple the effect.  Making them as inconsistent as every other Dance and Song ability allows them to keep both Speed and Power (meaning you do get some heals still), but Miming it is just far less effective because you're rolling the dice even more and getting less for it.  Though honestly, I've had thoughts on Mime after a while that I think need addressing that may make "fixing" these issues unnecessary.

True enough. It's just that 50% seems a bit ...low. Perhaps 66%? Even 75%?

4-6 Fury/Faith is equal to about 3-4% damage, or just under a PA or MA point in most cases.  It's underwhelming for Faith, maybe, but that's because Faith lacks a constant giving it a damage floor.

Yeah, that's kinda of what I was trying to get at.

I'll come out and say it - that sounds far more like most Faith-based magics need to be made better,

*snip*

Also what I was trying to get at, since I've said it multiple times. (Not that I blame you for missing most of those instances given that you haven't really been interested in ARENA before now AFAIK.)

I'm just pointing out that I can already stack hilarious amounts of defense under the current Arena rules, probably better than you can with Fury/Faith flooring moves.  Hell, even now, I can just Mime -PA and -MA and floor your entire team if I wanted, your argument is basically saying "that's boring" while ignoring the fact I can already do it better than if I had -Fury/Faith because currently I can do it without suffering any loss to my damage totals.

My argument wasn't only "that's boring". It was primarily "-Fury and -Faith Dances might lead to stalemates, which are bad and boring."

As for your team, meh. Like I said, we'll see how effective it actually ends up being in practice than on paper. I can't really say more about it until then, especially given how the AI acts up at times. (Oh, hey, Barren put a video of your team.)

Re - Mime:

*snip*

Tl;dr - Mime is fucking rigged, likely on the basis of it being a "niche" class the AI has a hard time using, and this is going to seriously fuck the metagame if it isn't already. 

*snip*

So, the "final" Mime under my idea would look like:

-Innate: Overwhelm
-Innate: Unyielding
-Innate: Counter Flood
-Innate: Awareness
-Immune: Frog, Chicken, Petrify, Stop

Combine this with the Fist formula change that keeps getting mentioned (PA*10*[Fu+35/100] post-Fury), and I think this remedies not only the Battle Song problem, but most problems that result from Mimes.  Tl;dr - I propose the above changes to Mime, while making no changes to Bard or Dancer whatsoever.  Their skills shouldn't need to suffer for Mime's sake if it can be helped, and the above changes do tons to fix the problem by going to the source.  I recommend doing this for Arena 1.31, then seeing how Bard/Dancer/Mime teams and other Mime teams play out before considering how to change Bard and Dancer, if any change is at all needed.

I agree with pretty much all of this, especially given that people can't seem to agree what to do with Bard and Dancer without weakening their skills into oblivion (IMO), except having both Innate Overwhelm and Innate Unyielding.

It seems like a waste of space using two Innates just to have them do and take 4% less damage than they would normally do without both at the same time. Might as well get rid of both of them, if that's the case.

Speaking of getting rid of, I'd actually be all for getting rid of Counter Flood too and just giving them Counter & Counter Magic as I proposed from the beginning, even as often as Counter Magic might backfire horribly. Innate Unyielding (by itself) would somewhat mitigate that, though, and the only other thing of use I can see them getting that no one else is Innate Move-HP Up, which is a bit...much probably. It helps that when they Mime, they don't even expend MP, so....

[RavenOfRazgriz]

"It sucks, help."

I'm unsure it actually needs help, zxpr0jk has a cool Undead team going.  A bit niche maybe, but still seemingly pretty cool.

It seems like a waste of space using two Innates just to have them do and take 4% less damage than they would normally do without both at the same time. Might as well get rid of both of them, if that's the case.

"This unit is healed for 20% less / takes 20% less damage."
"This unit gives 20% more healing / gives 20% more damage."

They don't multiply to each other - they affect entirely different things.  Unless their descriptions are 100% inaccurate, that is, so having both actually has a point.

Speaking of getting rid of, I'd actually be all for getting rid of Counter Flood too and just giving them Counter & Counter Magic as I proposed from the beginning, even as often as Counter Magic might backfire horribly. Innate Unyielding (by itself) would somewhat mitigate that, though, and the only other thing of use I can see them getting that no one else is Innate Move-HP Up, which is a bit...much probably. It helps that when they Mime, they don't even expend MP, so....

Counter and Counter Magic give them high-power Reactions, whereas Counter Flood is pretty weak, considering their PA and MA is nothing to write home about.  (No gear boosts, remember.)  It's also unaffected by Fury/Faith, so it does give the Mime some sort of pseudo-hosing, but not unfairly so because it's Reactionary.

[Malroth]

I would SO abuse counter magic mimes

[The Damned]

(Damn it. I promised myself I'd start working on other things this week.)

I'd honestly like to see someone abuse Counter Magic Mimes and it actually be effective without them ending up dead after more than 1 abuse without healing.

I'm unsure it actually needs help, zxpr0jk has a cool Undead team going.  A bit niche maybe, but still seemingly pretty cool.

Horrible jealousy that zxpr0jk apparently has the Devil's own luck considering he hit with Death more than once aside, zxpr0jk is function almost completely independent of Undead status. In fact, pretty much all it's done is way him down. His team would likely be better off if he just switched to Bracers or Sprint Shoes or even Power Wrists, especially since his Paladins don't need MA.

So, yeah, even on team that's won the most with Cursed Ring, it's more that it's been winning in spite of it because Wizards hit so damn hard now than it is because he's using the Undead status or Dark absorption in any particular way. I'm pretty sure all Death-healing attempts have failed and it's not like he's using Grand Cross with Koutetsu.

"This unit is healed for 20% less / takes 20% less damage."
"This unit gives 20% more healing / gives 20% more damage."

They don't multiply to each other - they affect entirely different things.  Unless their descriptions are 100% inaccurate, that is, so having both actually has a point.

I think their descriptions might be off, though maybe I'm just misremembering it or getting confused by something because I know a few descriptions for RSMs are a bit...vague/off. IIRC, Overwhelm is supposed to make you take 20% more damage as well.

Counter and Counter Magic give them high-power Reactions, whereas Counter Flood is pretty weak, considering their PA and MA is nothing to write home about.  (No gear boosts, remember.)  It's also unaffected by Fury/Faith, so it does give the Mime some sort of pseudo-hosing, but not unfairly so because it's Reactionary.

Meh. I guess. I suppose it can stay because Elemental is doubtless getting weakened and there's a decent chance that I'm wrong about Unyielding + Overwhelm.

*shrugs apathetically*

[CT5Holy]

Overwhelm does not make the unit take more damage.

[The Damned]

(Hunh. Wonder why I had thought for the past couple of months then.)

Thanks, CT5Holy. So, it would appear that I am wrong. Gee, what a new and novel experience.

I agree with completely agree with Raven's suggestions for Mimes, then. For now....

[Wiz]

After rereading my post, I realized just how big of an effect sleep deprivation can have on your thinking XD

@Raven

Item Availability: My apologies for saying that you advocated for just F/I/L absorption. I knew what it is that you were trying to say, it's just I wasn't sure if you meant the former too considering that you want the player to be forced to reach "X" effect. This lies in the fact that you can equip 2x of any piece of gear, and unless you wanted to throw the arbitrary restiction of "1x piece of gear at Max" on, I don't see how about this problem can be solved atm.

Martial Arts + Punch Art: Sure, I'd be alright with Martial Arts being thrown out the window provided Punch Art as a whole got buffed. The only thing I'm afraid is that Punch Art will mostly become more effective with other units besides the monk kind of like the Squire being dominant over Geomancers as of now in 130. If the PA was boosted to just two points for monks, totaling 15, then they'll be throwing around 30 damage shurikens (x4) or 120 in total making them essentially like miniature versions of throw thieves in S3-S5 provided they've got a decent speed (10+)

Metagame: I realize that there's always going to be ways of exploiting w.e. abilities, character properties, item properties, etc. but that doesn't change the fact (excluding Martial Arts for 131) these five things (Elemental, Draw Out, Perservering Mimes, Stat Boost, Rogue) are a necessity to combat otherwise you get roflstomped on by the opposing team, which has one or more of those. If you mean Arena's moving a positive direction in the sense that we (the viewers/analyzers) are seeing what's too good, and underrated, then I couldn't agree more.

Sing/Dance: Yeah, the Dance ideas for Polka Polka/Disillusion aren't the greatest. As long as mimes can't mimic ANY songs/dance whatsoever, I'm fine where they currently are (with the proposal of changing Cheer Song/Slow Dance being the exception of course).

Ninja Sword (@Damned as well): If Iga/Koga don't get a boost, then the Asura Knife shouldn't either since it follows under the same rule (Keep in mind, it uses "PA * WP * (5/4)", which without question makes better when it comes to DPS compared to Iga/Koga despite having one less WP). From what I've seen, there haven't been any (almost none...I could be wrong) teams running around using these two weapons to great effect, so I see no reason for it to not have a boost. If you think it'd be OP w/ a boost, then prove that it's useful (as in not OP), and just maybe you'll convince me otherwise. I've already fulfilled displaying my burden of proof (referring to Arena vids), now it's your turn. When it comes to a thief using one of them, the Sasuke Knife's better due to the higher WP and the + 1 SP bonus (leading to a higher damage output even with the element bonus), which greatly trumps an initial higher dps as a match goes on...for the ninja of course. Idk about you guys, but I'd prefer having 340+ HP 11 SP over 340+ HP 9 SP any day considering that the sword smacks are absorb-able where the damage can be nullified provided a sold hit then absorbed hit take place, which can easily happen with nearly any piece of gear out there.

@fdc

Geomancy

If anything, there needs to exist magical and physical means of damaging someone without considering evasion or fury to check the squads that try using evasion or low fury/faith walling.

Provided that user gets punished as well for "turtling" via 40 Fa (Squidgy's Squire from "Faithless Cowards" for example). I should have been clearer when I threw out making it faith-based as a suggestion, but I was hoping that it could become faith-dependent such that it'd use the fury hack formula where it uses "Fa" instead of Fury as its variable (although I doubt it's possible to edit it as it currently is).

Accumulate: Ehh, I guess it could stay as is considering the AI doesn't use it unless they're out of range to attack meaning they'll get at most 5 uses out of it. When it comes to reducing its hit percentage, I'd prefer to wait and see if it solely plays out as big enough factor in winning/losing a match.

Wish: It'd still be weaker than PD due to the vertical, which makes quite a bit of a difference on elevated terrain. And yeah Damned, perhaps a 5% recovery would be better instead of 10, otherwise it'd become too similar to PD.

Shuriken: It uses PA in its fomula, it kinda makes sense it uses P-Ev instead of M-Ev. Also, as you'll see from my Non-OP speed-oriented teams after I get done posting this, not having P-Ev turns this (with 10 SP Dancers) into a an almost guaranteed 1x 24 Damage attack from 6 panels away at a 6.25% chance of hitting poison for each of the 4 hits (I'm fairly sure it's higher than that based on my experience XP).

Steal Heart: Why's it preposterous to say that choosing Serpentarius with your thief would negate compat? It does (For bad/worst), and so what if the compat affects your team? Not every team relies on good/best compat heals in some form of magic especially since those same units could get charmed and really bite you in the ass. I've kind of abandoned mages altogether because I believe speed and turtling trumps all (provided you make the match progress long enough ^_^). But yeah, picking Serpentarius is perfectly reasonable...if people don't want to take risk, they shouldn't be forced to.

@Damned

Summon Magic:

You realize Salamander is AoE 3, right?

>_<, missed that detail. It's a shame Shiva and Ramuh don't have those equivalents at all *sigh* When it comes to Zodiac, perhaps 4 AOE would be better instead of 5, I don't know what else to do with it atm.

Geomancy: I prefer that to happen as well actually. As I've stated in the past, I'm biased for turtling and think it's too good atm.

Bags: What'd you think if they gave out Inital: Protect and Initial: Shell then assuming they lasted for two full turns (Act and Move)?

Bows: Hmm, the Ultimus Bow's description's outdated and actually doesn't have 1 SPD. Ugh, it's so annoying to see items in the list that aren't part of the actual hack or arent suppose to be there (Yoichi, Perseus, Javelin II). But yeah, they're fine as is.

DO: Actually, DO can be subjected to CT, testing confirms this. I'll let it slide for 131. If I clearly see DO wiping the floor in 131, I'll bring this up again. As a sidenote, I'm an advocate of a faith-based fury-like DO skillset (like geomancy) that way the damage varies but not so much that it'd make it utterly useless to speedy turtles like moi (Oh the irony XD).

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Item Availability: My apologies for saying that you advocated for just F/I/L absorption. I knew what it is that you were trying to say, it's just I wasn't sure if you meant the former too considering that you want the player to be forced to reach "X" effect. This lies in the fact that you can equip 2x of any piece of gear, and unless you wanted to throw the arbitrary restiction of "1x piece of gear at Max" on, I don't see how about this problem can be solved atm.

I... don't see how this has anything to do with what I was saying.

I was saying "The player should not have 3+ different means of accessing [eg] Water absorption.  They should have 1-2 [a primary Item and an Accessory of some sort], and if they want Water absorption, work around the units that can access it easily, give up their Accessory, or give up their Support for an Equip X."  Basically, outside of the Accessory slot, gear pools SHOULD be biased in certain directions, and the best gains SHOULD come from breaking that bias via either creative use of the Accessory slot or use of an Equip X skill.  Basically, encouraging people to break molds for high yields, not making every effect easily accessible for every unit.  If you want something, it should cost you something, and with the right finess it should be well worth that cost.  Having effects redundantly splashed around kills this factor of unit creation, since if I want something [eg, a Water Absorb team], the gear makes this easy, and the only thing holding me back is whether Water abilities are worthwhile to use on my units or not.  My team is "easy" to make.

The only thing I'm afraid is that Punch Art will mostly become more effective with other units besides the monk kind of like the Squire being dominant over Geomancers as of now in 130.

That's more the result of Squire as a whole being better than Geomancer as a class unless you need Elemental + a non-Basic Skill skillset for some reason.  Like you said, if you give Monk a few PA points (2-3ish) to compensate for the loss of Martial Arts, things will be fine.  The Shuriken thing sounds more nifty than anything, all things considered.

If you mean Arena's moving a positive direction in the sense that we (the viewers/analyzers) are seeing what's too good, and underrated, then I couldn't agree more.

It's moving in a positive direction because you have more than one or two dominant strategies.  If these strategies are handled properly (not killed, but weakened enough to allow others in), things will continue to move in a positive direction.

As for Draw Out and Elemental - they do serve a crucial role in the metagame, because they allow teams based on MA an answer to enemies rocking 40 Fa, especially in .30 where the Fury/Faith mechanics are so horribly imbalanced compared to each other.  I also think a prime reason they're prevalent is something I said to The Damned earlier - Faith Magic in general sucks.  Flare is good, Raise 1/2 is good, maybe a tier of Cure is good, and Summon has a few good entries... but the majority of Black Magic is shit (not only shit, but shit composed of nothing but mirrored skills, so if one is shit, all are shit), the majority of White Magic is shit, most of the unused Summons are unused because they're shit, Yin-Yang Magic isn't used because Mime teams shit on Status (and Evasion, see my proposed Mime/Song/Dance a few posts up) and because Talk Skill overlaps it in the few areas that are most important (Don't Act, Sleep).  Etc.

I honestly feel this isn't a case of "Draw Out / Elemental / Flare is too good", but a case of "everything else sucks ass, and the Faith mechanic itself sucks ass compared to the Fury mechanic."  Sure, you can weaken Draw Out / Elemental / Flare some... but if everything else is still shit, only bad people are going to use it.  Fix the Faith mechanic to properly mirror Fury and/or make the other skills and skillsets that use Faith better and less loaded with overlap, don't handhold us into only using shitty skills we'll probably ignore anyway by making the few good things not as good.

Ninja Sword (@Damned as well): If Iga/Koga don't get a boost, then the Asura Knife shouldn't either since it follows under the same rule (Keep in mind, it uses "PA * WP * (5/4)", which without question makes better when it comes to DPS compared to Iga/Koga despite having one less WP).

You are correct, Asura Knife should NOT have that property.  If it needs to be stronger, it should be Fire Element with more WP, or if it's meant to BOOST Fire, be Boost: Fire with more WP.  Not have less WP then boost itself to what's likely the highest end of Katana damage because it comes bundled with its own micro-Martial Arts at no cost.  If Iga Knife and Koga Knife suck, give them the WP needed to no longer suck.  If all Ninja Blades suck, give them a new formula (PA*WP) so that they no longer suck.  As FFMaster mentioned, MOST Arena Weapons go unused.  And in a discussion I had with him and Squidgy about the Fist Formula (I wanted PA*8, because PA*10 is better than most Weapons in Arena currently in terms of damage), we came to the conclusion that almost every weapon in Arena is useless and that the game may as well only have something like 5 weapons.

...This means you make the weapons more relevant by actually making them do respectable damage in terms of formula and WP, not make poor design choices that are basically screaming "PLEASE use this weapon instead of that really good one you're always using... I'll be your best friend if you do!" by giving them a free multiplier.  It's like  giving something innate Magic Attack UP - you could instead just give it the 3 more MA directly.  In this case, it's 2-3 WP, but you get the idea.  (Yes, by proposing Innate: Overwhelm on Mime I basically did this same thing, and no, I would not be opposed to just buffing their PA and MA by 2-3 then giving them a different, actually relevant Innate instead.  I made my idea quickly because it was off the top of my head so I made an error I don't usually make.)

Provided that user gets punished as well for "turtling" via 40 Fa (Squidgy's Squire from "Faithless Cowards" for example). I should have been clearer when I threw out making it faith-based as a suggestion, but I was hoping that it could become faith-dependent such that it'd use the fury hack formula where it uses "Fa" instead of Fury as its variable (although I doubt it's possible to edit it as it currently is).

Basically, you want Geomancy to work the way I'm saying the entire Faith mechanic should be working.  Though really, you're only getting "punished" for turtling like that when you both try to use the same thing you're turtling from, and actually care about the decreased offensive output. 

Bows: Hmm, the Ultimus Bow's description's outdated and actually doesn't have 1 SPD. Ugh, it's so annoying to see items in the list that aren't part of the actual hack or arent suppose to be there (Yoichi, Perseus, Javelin II).

What's more annoying is to make an entire team around Mediator's Death Sentence then realize someone forgot to include it in the memory card generator then have to bullshit a win condition that's basically impossible to execute on the spot then lose to Derpy Hooves.

DO: Actually, DO can be subjected to CT, testing confirms this.

If memory serves, the Arena Draw Outs are "fake", ie, not using the actual Draw Out formula, and can be subject to anything.  If not, they should be, because there's no relevance to breaking Katanas in Arena, so the limitations of Draw Out in normal FFT shouldn't be relevant.

[FFMaster]

Yes, they are all "Fake" as you call it. If people wanted, I could make them all use the Work formula, which would be funny to say the least.

[formerdeathcorps]

Provided that user gets punished as well for "turtling" via 40 Fa (Squidgy's Squire from "Faithless Cowards" for example). I should have been clearer when I threw out making it faith-based as a suggestion, but I was hoping that it could become faith-dependent such that it'd use the fury hack formula where it uses "Fa" instead of Fury as its variable (although I doubt it's possible to edit it as it currently is).

I personally find that objectionable because I fundamentally don't think tanking should be so strong it blocks all types of damage equally well.  Just like how repeating fist and dash ignore your 40 fury, so should certain magics (like geomancy or draw out) ignore your 40 faith.  This is why I suggested only caster faith, if you were to use faith.  Then the risk of high damage geomancy (higher vulnerability to enemy damage magic) is only true when the other team has offensive magic.  If the caster has low faith, his geomancy damage should then take a hit as well.

[The Damned]

(So, I'm going assume that Item Attribute list I typed out was correct, FFMaster. I'll try to have a proposal for some equipment changes by Monday's end.)

Ugh. My eyes are tired as always, but, also as ever, I am not sleepy enough to actually be able to go sleep. I'll make this short for once, though, since I have bunch of other things to do before Sunday.

Ninja Sword (@Damned as well): If Iga/Koga don't get a boost, then the Asura Knife shouldn't either since it follows under the same rule (Keep in mind, it uses "PA * WP * (5/4)", which without question makes better when it comes to DPS compared to Iga/Koga despite having one less WP). *snip*

You have a point, with regards to Sasuke Knife for Thieves and Asura Knife for Thieves. I don't think anyone's been used Iga and Koga (as a pair) outside of the very beginning, though I'd imagine they'll at least see some use if Martial Arts dies, Two Swords' JP get lowered and Magic Ring loses its Wind (and Holy) absorption. They probably don't see much use a)people like Speed and b)with Faith-based magic still being questionable, the skills worth note that they boost (for Ninja) are Earth Slash & Kikuichimonji and Heaven's Cloud and we all know that Ninja have no honor, so....

I still say they're fine, though, which is actually all I was saying when I agreed with Raven; I don't think they'd be OP with what you were proposing--I just don't think it's necessary (yet).

As for Asura Knife, you make a good point. I hadn't thought it much (just because I almost never use Katana since I almost never use Samurai), but, yeah, it should likely lose its Fire element property and retain Strengthen: Fire. That or gain Strengthen: Dark and then have Kotetsu have Strengthen: Fire for parity's sake.

@Damned

Summon Magic:
>_<, missed that detail. It's a shame Shiva and Ramuh don't have those equivalents at all *sigh* When it comes to Zodiac, perhaps 4 AOE would be better instead of 5, I don't know what else to do with it atm.

Agreed. I'd be all for changing Salamander to something else and making Leviathan the only AoE 3 attack so that Water elemental actually has SOME advantage over other elements (at this point).

(Hmm...I think I just realized what to do for Leviathan in Embargo. Stealing this....)

As for Zodiac, nah. AoE 4 is still too large, especially how stupid the AI is with walking into active, easily avoidable, already-Charging AoEs as it is. AoE 3 should be the max for anything, really, and I just realized that should maybe be exclusive to Leviathan unless Water gets something else to make it worth using (on the Faith-side/AoE side).

I'm really not sure what to do with it. Not that we need to do anything with it, especially given that the animation probably takes slightly longer than all the other ones. However, I'd still like to try to do something before just getting rid of it. Meh. Maybe I'll get an idea beyond "make a Holy AoE 2" summon later.

Geomancy: I prefer that to happen as well actually. As I've stated in the past, I'm biased for turtling and think it's too good atm.

I see.

Bags: What'd you think if they gave out Inital: Protect and Initial: Shell then assuming they lasted for two full turns (Act and Move)?

I guess I'd be fine with that, though it steps on Cherche and Setiemson's toes since everyone can equip Bags now, especially if we let them use the same two Item Attribute spaces to save space (which I'd actually prefer). They might need to take a WP hit for it, but Bags are already rather crappy weapons when used by anyone who isn't a Monk/has Martial Arts, so maybe it's a tradeoff that would work.

*shrugs*

Bows: Hmm, the Ultimus Bow's description's outdated and actually doesn't have 1 SPD. Ugh, it's so annoying to see items in the list that aren't part of the actual hack or arent suppose to be there (Yoichi, Perseus, Javelin II). But yeah, they're fine as is.

What? Ultimus Bow isn't supposed to have +1 Speed. The Mythril Bow is. I may be misreading what you're saying, but yeah.

DO: Actually, DO can be subjected to CT, testing confirms this. I'll let it slide for 131. If I clearly see DO wiping the floor in 131, I'll bring this up again. As a sidenote, I'm an advocate of a faith-based fury-like DO skillset (like geomancy) that way the damage varies but not so much that it'd make it utterly useless to speedy turtles like moi (Oh the irony XD).

Ah, I was unaware they were "fake", though I guess that explains why "Broken" has never appeared in match now that I think about it.

I don't think tying everything to Fury or Faith is necessary, but I'd be willing to at least listen to a detailed proposal provided it didn't seem to screw over anyone or anything horribly.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Posting a minor update to my proposed Mime fix to address the error I mentioned in my reply to Wiz. (Innate: Overwhelm instead of just more PA and MA.)

-Stats: +3 PA, +3 MA
-Innate: Unyielding
-Innate: Distribute
-Innate: Counter Flood
-Innate: Awareness
-Immune: Frog, Chicken, Petrify, Stop

Chose Distribute for the fourth Innate because I feel it could be pretty interesting with healing based strategies.  I realize this would technically strengthen the Life Song strategy, but this strengthens other kinds of healing strategies as well and talking with FFMaster today, he seems to want to weaken Life Song's constant value for healing anyway (and buff Wiznaibus' base damage), so I feel it's an overall gain.  Again, going for a setup that encourages the largest amount of varied uses for Mimes while also simply peeling away the parts of the old Battle Song derp strategy that made it abusive.  (Removing Overwhelm for a +3 PA/MA boost also technically weakens the Battle Song strategy, because the boosts to PA now no longer have a final 20% boost to carry them further, which is another reason I don't feel bad about innate Distribute buffing Life Song users that very tiny bit.)

[FFMaster]

A incomplete changelog:

Changelog

GENERAL
- Fury now correctly damages at (Brave+35)%. Before, it was still at 40.
- Darkness hack changed to halve accuracy(basically the same thing with less bugs)


JOBS

- Squire MAM down to 105
- Chemist MPM up to 75, SPM up to 120
- Paladin PAM down to 75, loses Equip: Swords
- Monk loses Equip: Poles, gains Equip: Spears
- Mediator HPM up to 80
- Samurai HPM up to 75, PAM down to 110, gains Innate: Two Hands
- Mime loses Innate: Martial Arts, Unyielding and gains Innate: Move-HP Up

ABILITIES

Basic Skill
- Accumulate now 3 CT, 10 MP and 200 JP
- Throw Stone damage reduced to PA*6
- Wish healing increased to 5%
- Equip Clothes JP reduced to 150
- Defend JP reduced to 0

Item
- Auto Potion increased to 80 healing on trigger

Chivalry
- Dia range reduced to 5
- Magicward loses Add: Reflect, gains Add: Regen

Snipe
- Hawk's Eye CT reduced to 3
- Projectile Guard JP reduced to 300
- Equip Ranged JP reduced to 300

Punch Art
- HP Restore JP increased to 500
- Martial Arts JP reduced to 0

White Magic
- Holy is now 4 CT, 30 MP and reflectable

Black Magic
- All Fire spells gain 1 AoE and Fire 1/2/3/4 lose 2/4/6/12 Y respectively
- All Bolt spells except Bolt 4 gain 3 Y and cost 5 MP more
- Bolt 4 loses 5 Y
- All Ice spells cost half MP and cost 100 JP more
- Ice 4 loses 8 Y
- Frog hit rate increased to F(MA*2+145)%
- Death hit rate increased to F(MA*2+100)%
- Flare MP cost increased to 50 and Y reduced to 40
- Counter Magic JP reduced to 300

Time Mage
- Don't Move hit rate increased to F(MA*2+200)%
- Balance CT reduced to 2, hit rate increased to F(MA*2+200)%

Summon Magic
- Titan vertical increased to 3, damage decreased to F(MA*20)
- Carbunkle AoE increased to 3
- Silf hit rate increased to F(MA*2+140)%
- Odin hit rate increased to F(MA*2+60)%
- Zodiac AoE increased to 3, damage decreased to F(MA*20)
- MP Restore JP increased to 550

Steal
- Quickening CT increased to 4, MP increased to 15
- Steal Heart hit rate increased to MA*2+40%, JP increased to 150, requires opposite gender
- Steal Accessory hit rate increased to Sp+70%

Talk Skill
- All Talk skills hit rate increased by 10%

Yin Yang Magic
- Silence Song CT reduced to 1, JP cost reduced to 100
- Blind Rage JP reduced to 200
- Petrify hit rate increased to F(MA*2+200)%, JP reduced to 200
- Beguile JP reduced to 100
- Dispel Magic JP reduced to 200
- Sleep CT reduced to 4, hit rate increased to F(MA*2+165)%, JP reduced to 150
- Move MP Up gain reduced by 1/2

Elemental
- All Elementals reduced to (PA+1)/2*MA damage

Jump
- Vertical Jump X now increases in increments of 50, starting with Vertical Jump 2 at 100 JP
- Dragon Spirit JP cost reduced to 300
- Equip Polearm JP Cost reduced to 250

Draw Out
- All Draw Outs now have a CT of 3
- Asura damage reduced to MA*6, how hits enemies only
- Kotetsu AoE now 3
- Bizen Boat MP damage increased to MA*9
- Muramasa damage increased to MA*9, AoE decreased to 1, loses Add: Confusion
- Two Hands JP cost reduced to 500

Ninjitsu
- Haku Korosu damage increased to 100%, and now also activates on Darkness
- Katon, Raiton and Suiton Y increased to 28, MP reduced to 7
- Sunken State JP reduced to 200
- Abandon JP reduced to 250
- Two Swords JP cost reduced to 500

Lore
- Tornado/Quake JP reduced to 250
- Equip Magegear JP reduced to 150


ITEMS

Weapon Formula changes!
- Fists now deal PA*9 damage
- Axes now deal [PA/2....PA+PA/2] damage
- Rods deal MA*WP damage
- Bags deal [PA/2....PA+PA/2] damage
- Cloths deal PA*WP damage

[RavenOfRazgriz]

There's a few things I question:

-Paladins losing Swords?  I know people were calling for them to lose Katanas, but Swords?  Odd choice.  I see you took my suggestion on Monks with Spears though, that should make things interesting.  Have you considered giving them Hats as well?  Without Martial Arts innate or quadratic Fist Formulas going around, I think giving them Hats would be a good idea to ensure the class wasn't debuffed too heavily.

-Mimes keeping Immune: All bad Status and Concentrate.  I don't see why the opponent running Mimes should outright invalidate or otherwise put a huge damper on any non-huge-damage based strategy.  Mimes need to be valid, yes - but "buffing" them at least personally shouldn't be "invalidate multiple strategies outright via innates", especially when those strategies (stuff like Status and evasion based teams) are things that most people want more of to be able to come into the metagame.  The loss of Unyielding for Move-HP UP and loss of Martial Arts and the old Fist formula combined with no PA/MA boost makes being forced to aggro over them much easier, I suppose, but even then, it's a team not meant to do damage being forced to fight through piles of Life Songs and do huge damage while probably being unable to get to the Singers to status/kill them unless they move up.  Maybe it's worth testing with just the huge reduction to Fist damage, but I still can't say I like this factor, and the problem rests entirely on Mime's stacked innates, not the Songs/Dances... since if I can hit a Mime with Don't Act (eg), stopping a Song based team with something other than pure grawr becomes far easier.  The Song/Dance strategies are only so good (imo) because Mimes invalidate most of the countermeasures through their innates.  Like I said though, I guess testing this is still fine, but if it still proves to be an issue, the eyes should stay focused on Mime, not Bard and Dancer. 

-Accumulate getting a CT and MP cost.  Just, why?  Battle Song's still equal to or better than instant costless Accumulate for Miming, and the change to the Fist Formula and loss of Martial Arts makes Mimed Accumulates far less threatening.  It also doesn't provide a huge boost to Geomancy, so it can't be related to the Geomancer/Squire issue.  There's absolutely no reason for this considering you've at least started addressing the issue of Mime - and honestly, no other class should ever have their moves suffer just because of Mime unless that move is problematic regardless.  Quickening already had some issues. Accumulate?  Can't say I've seen it.

-Martial Arts costing 0 JP.  Sure, Monks lose it innate, so stacking Two Swords or Attack UP with it is impossible... but why is anyone who wants to shit 250 JP into the Monk class getting a 1.5x multiplier for free?  I know that this is a "popular" solution to Monk, making Martial Arts no longer innate and cost 0 JP in most patches, but it's still dumb.  There's no reason you shouldn't pay for your 1.5x damage boost like everyone else who wants a damage boost or decrement.  Monks shouldn't be given special treatment in this regard.  Two Swords and Two Hands are double damage, but only with the Attack command, and yet they still cost 250 JP for class then 500+ JP for skill... why a 1.5x skill that technically affects more things than those two do doesn't cost at least 250 JP itself makes no sense to me.

-MP Restore got it's MP INCREASED?  I assume you removed the need for Critical status from it?  Else that makes no goddamn sense.  If you did, you should rename HP Restore to Critical HP or something so people can tell one requires Critical and one does not.

-I assume Mediator's Death Sentence will exist this time? :p

Everything else looks cool.  The lack of lolTwoSwordsMartialArtsMonks makes that and Two Hands going down in cost fine by me, and nothing else looks all that questionable.

[Dol]

A couple things that I see on first glance:

A incomplete changelog:

Changelog

JOBS I'm at work and cant really play with the BMG and formulas.  Can you post in (  ) what effect these have at 35?
(I'm pretty sure he meant Paladins lose Katanas, not Swords.  Probably just a typo.)

ABILITIES

Chivalry
- Dia range reduced to 5 I still think this needs a CT for how good it is on a magic user

Summon Magic
- Silf hit rate increased to F(MA*2+140)% I dont get this one.  Silf was already really good.

Steal
- Steal Heart hit rate increased to MA*2+40%, JP increased to 150, requires opposite gender.  Still feels high.  A 50% chance to change a fight to 3v5 at neutral compat is still pretty game changing.

Yin Yang Magic

- Beguile JP reduced to 100 ?

Elemental
- All Elementals reduced to (PA+1)/2*MA damage Do you plan on keeping this at 100% accuracy?

Draw Out
- Kotetsu AoE now 3.  I think it needs to lose 100% Blind if the AoE is that large.

Ninjitsu
- Haku Korosu damage increased to 100%, and now also activates on Darkness With the buff to Oracle Sleep and Mediator abilities, I think this is an overbuff.  Darkness is on a lot of good things (Cyclops, Dia, Night Killer, Koutetsu, Grand Cross).  If you tell me you can instadie if you get hit with Blind now, thats not really necessary.  Having the 100% death if you get slept is a neat addition though.

- Katon, Raiton and Suiton Y increased to 28, MP reduced to 7 These already felt pretty balanced.  I dont know if this will make much difference in the big scheme of things though

-MP Restore got it's MP INCREASED?  Thats JP, not MP

[CT5Holy]

Accumulate with CT + AI = problems. IIRC Accumulate targets panel, so the AI will charge Accumulate, then move out of its effect.
Petrify accuracy up a lot! Dunno if that's intentional or not. But since Petrify is fairly easily countered, I guess it's ok.
I don't think MP Restore JP needs to go up just yet. It isn't appearing very often as a mage's reaction ability.

Everything else looks fine.