Arena battle videos and discussion

[DomieV]

That's why I avoided using Iron Boots with my Song and Dance Team, so that way they can help out with the resurrection and damage capabilities like my White Magic Bard and my Martial Arts Dancer

[zxpr0jk]

Some stuff...

Some stuff...

Yea, I saw her team in the mem generator and plugged your team in to see who would win. She won 5 of 6 rounds, but it was always pretty close. I'd have to agree that the iron boots really held her back. Dancers have considerable PA and should move about near the end of a match to close it out, imo. I've created a Dancing Team and tried to incorporate the most valuable assets from both versions. Not requiring people to face it, but I'd like to see more tests of Dancing Teams either to provide evidence of necessary nerfs, or expose weaknesses. As it stands, I feel the opposition has to either 1) KO the Mimes during the second turn, or 2) Get a lucky RNG within 5 turns. Every round, it will get harder for them to come back.

I was under the impression the purpose of arena was to test the ruleset for imbalances and collect data before the next tournament. That's how I've been treating it anyway. Not to say I don't enjoy the battles.

[Barren]

Well that's why We were having a discussion about season 6....still not sure when it'll happen, maybe when the next update comes put with the fixed spreadsheet because somehow Death Sentence from the Mediator skill tree is Missing >_<

Raven in particular would love to see it fixed

[The Damned]

(With regards to the PM, it wasn't a problem. I only hope it actually helps given my record.)

Ah, damn. I only realized like four hours ago I should have called my new team "Gravity Squeeze". Damn inability to resist puns. Oh, well.

Anyway, thanks as ever, Barren. It's nice to know that Ancient Sword isn't working as it should. I'm trying to think of what other pieces of equipment haven't been used yet so that we can "check" them (with our faces).

I think I'll skip the Wiznaibus discussion for now, especially since I saw the following about five hours ago but was watching & doing several other things so I couldn't get around to it.

Don't overvalue Carve Model just because I got a 1/125 occurrence happen in my match.  A properly built esuna/stigma magic team (as long as they aren't split up) should counter that strategy, which essentially amounts to a 19% chance of at least breaking their initiative.  Aquilae lost more on the fact my squad could attack after his had moved (so I had first strike + nice AoE targets).

There seems to be a group of you all who want to remove anything that could decisively shift the advantage of a match to another team.  I personally think that if no such tactics exist in S6, it would not be worth entering; the game would become too deterministic.

Whoa whoa whoa, Izlude. Please come back down to Earth and stop jumping to conclusions, especially since you're putting words in my mouth that I never even got close to saying.

All I said that was "Carve Model is probably still the greatest source of hax that actually gets used". Not "Carve Model is OP and needs to nerfed even further than the rest of Elemental already needs to be" or "Carve Model is broken and needs to be lose its ability to Petrify completely."

Additionally, I wasn't even coming close to saying that you won solely because of it--that would be pretty hypocritical of me given that I've benefited the most from luck with it of anyone ever; besides, at least half of my teams have at least one unit that's immune to Petrify and I'm still using Petrifying Carve Model in Embargo, so, yeah. Those Petrifies in the second round of latest match just sped up your probable victory a lot.

All I was saying getting at, really (since I know that "luck" is necessary factor of almost all games), was of all the lucky skills, is that Carve Model greatly speeds up the matches because a)it actually gets used unlike Odin or Death or Lava Ball and b)Petrify counts as a KO unlike Frog, where another unit still always has to finish off the inevitability doomed unit and which can even be reversed by the same status. Also, in my case, it, more than any other skill, can result in units that would otherwise die or have no probable chance of winning manage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

I'm really not sure how you got "I want it removed" from that one sentence, especially since I thought you "knew" me well enough at this point (as much as anyone can know anyone over the Internet) to know that I'd just say what I was getting at (how muddled it might be). I guess I was wrong, though I really don't why I had that impression in the first place since I'm usually better than allowing myself to hold naive delusions (and I mean this in general, not just with regards to our "relationship").

For the record, the only thing I could possibly want to happen to Carve Model individually is maybe it becoming Earth elemental (as Hell Ivy; Pitfall can become Dark or something) and/or that Petrify chance becoming Separate Petrify instead of All Petrify so it's even less likely to happen, but still possible. Otherwise, I don't really care.

(And to clarify, I'm not mad at the misunderstanding or anything. I'm just really mystified at how you came to the conclusion you did).

Anyway....

Yeah, I really haven't seen Iron Boots used effectively. There have been a few teams here and there that have had it worked (Pokeytax had a decent team iirc) but not in a way I would really consider them. Matches can too easily become 2 vs. 4.

Agreed. Even if Slow Dancing Paladins made half of us want to slit our wrists.

[Eternal]

I wouldn't mind most of the Elemental skillset being Earth elemental. It gives Earth some much needed love and may make Float a bit more useful in the process.

[The Damned]

(When you say "most", I'm going to assume you mean "most of the ones that still don't have an Element"--because making most of Elemental Earth element would probably be bad--even though there's only 3 Elementals that don't have an element.)

Yeah, I'd be all for that as well, though I'm somewhat wary since it might actually screw over Earth (absorb) more between Float, Elemental likely to be getting M-EV and the AI being stupid about not checking statuses when it tries to heal people. There's going to be a decent amount of Slow and Petrify going around if we make Hell Ivy and Carve Model Earth element, though it's not like there aren't ways to get around it and it's not as bad as "hey, let me cure your Sleep with this fatal Jump" that the AI loves to indulge in for some reason.

For the record, I don't think this is as necessary Elemental needing to be weakened (slightly) overall and to become magically evadable. I just think it makes "sense" for a skill set called Elemental to have all of its skills actually use some type of Element.

[zxpr0jk]

I've added two teams. One is Wiz spam+summon magic, the other is a more traditional spread of physical, magic, and status offense.

[Barren]

Barren (Big Assualt) vs zxpr0jk (Torros)

The Damned (Gravity, Well) vs LightningHax (Rawr)

Squidgy (My First Mime) vs Wiz (Sexy Turtles A)

[Malroth]

Squidgy (my first mine) vs Wiz (sexy turtles) was painful,  both teams had almost no damage and rediculious amounts of healing

[formerdeathcorps]

Barren, you sound like Gaignun in your match Damned vs. LightningHAx.

Anyhow, on a more serious note, the match Barren vs. zxpr0jk shows that FFM must have somehow removed the blind ASM from the latest version of arena because his lancer had 70% hit vs. the enemy mime from the front (essentially implying that blind had no effect at all).

[Barren]

Well I do like Gaignun's tone and style so I thought I give it a try and see if I can do it too

Besides that, I figured that blind could hurt one of my attackers but after you pointed out the blind asm i guess not so much

[FFMaster]

Seems that there is a bug with my Darkness hack. It's working fine... except when they have no accessory. Which means I should probably use one of the other darkness hacks, which would be better anyway.

[Barren]

You did also catch that Ancient Sword doesn't trigger petrify like the description says right?

[Wiz]

Squidgy (my first mine) vs Wiz (sexy turtles) was painful,  both teams had almost no damage and rediculious amounts of healing

Responded on YT, but also wanted to note that I happened to cross this fluke where "once Dancer would sing while the other attacked" through experimentation and thought I'd use it to my advantage (although there were times when it was useless to dance XD).

I'm pleased with the results considering that I was dealt a fair amount despite all the defensive buffs thrown onto them via Cover Fire and all 3 rounds were 10+ minutes long

Also surprised with the results due to the fact that I had a +6 SPD advantage in team total XP

[Barren]

Shade (1337 Magic) vs Angelus (Angelic) V2

Mando (Blinding Light) vs zxpr0jk (Typical)

Dol (Rage over Salth) vs LightningHax (Boom! I'm back, dummy!)

Aquilae (Shish Kebab) vs DomieV (Diversity)

[Barren]

If anyone wants to help me post FFT Arena videos of any matches you want or requested to do, feel free to do so cause I could use the help

I'm not quitting or anything like that, it just would be nice to get help I know I mentioned it before

I do want to say Thank you everyone for your patience and support on your teams being show cased on my vids and I appreciate the feedback as well

I love posting videos for FFT Arena, its a fun tourney hack and so many teams to try out too and I'll continue to post videos whenever I can

Once again, Thank you everyone who watching these matches and commented on these matches

[Wiz]

NP. I'll post some tomorrow

But first, I need to enter ALL the new teams into the spreadsheet XD

*Stares @ CT5Holy*

[Barren]

Thanks Wiz, I really appreciate it

[DomieV]

Wiz just letting you know I remodeled my Song and Dance team so I took out one Mime and replaced it with a Lancer, check it out

[zxpr0jk]

Just got back into town. Was at a funeral. Forgive me for watching my matches first.

I was under the impression Martial Arts only provided bonuses if you were Unarmed. Was that changed or was it not like that in vanilla? And I have no idea how Grand Cross works apparently. How does it calculate damage? What does it do? I'm going strictly by the Master's Guide which is so incomplete, I had no idea it healed.

spoiler: TypicalvBlindingLight

This whole match confused the hell out of me. Simply for AI choices. Didn't know a charmed unit would actually cast esuna on itself. I'd have to say those 85% beguiles were insane. This has made me look at the Oracle tree to see just how it works in this Patch.

What was causing my Lancer and Archer to Guard versus Grand Cross over and over? Just lucky misses?

I don't know anyone else's opinion on it, but I'm not a fan of Break hit chance being modified by WP. Means stronger weapons will have a greater chance of breaking items, but the AI will often choose the damage over the hit chance. So using a weaker gun does inferior damage and also has inferior chance to hit. The reason I liked my S5 thief so much was because she would deal damage that couldn't be healed.

I'm also considering eliminating Black Magic entirely. I hate them dying while charging when they could do more damage with a draw out. And the wizard should not have Flare if she does. Only basic Black Magic, and high-end Bolt and Ice.

spoiler: TorrosvBigAssault

Despite what commentators may think on Youtube, that fight went exactly as I would have expected despite the losses. A mime went down early, and that crippled the damage output of the team. Speed Save didn't counter it(it also did as would be expected). The archer didn't have any regen skills so when he got his turn, his only option was attack, and even in critical, his ranged attacks were possible so the computer took them. So putting Speed Save on a unit that can heal itself would have lost it. Instead of spending a turn using Steal Heart, he would have healed and eaten another wave of wiznaibus. Steal Hearts did some considerable delays in Round 1 as well as a misused Revive onto the enemy bard. If the Charms hadn't hit so much, I think I would have had it.

No reason to be confused by Summon Magic on the Dancer. She's not doing 200damage hits, but Summon Magic only hits Enemy/Ally, and all the clops damage obviously added up. Moogle heals as well. HP Restore is easily my favorite Reaction though. On a unit that uses little/no mana, It's a fresh unit.

This matchup, I think could go either way over and over, but relies on Barren's procs for him to pull out a victory. I want Torros to keep seeing enemies though because I'm firmly of the belief that they will win versus more teams than it will lose to. The only two things on Barren's Team that edged him out were an Archer with Speed Save and no defensive actions, and Murasame on a moderately fast unit.

Keep them coming. I won't be changing any of the teams for a little bit though. I'm going to have an unofficial minimum matches with them before I make changes. Good stuff though, learned a lot.

PS. Celdia's team also had iron boots, which I consider a handicap more than anything else as it quickly became 2v4 each time. After I get enough info with this team, I'll run trials with the other dances. I've got everything setup so I can do local tests. I want considerably more data with almost every class and item before the next tournament begins.