Monster Talk and Finger Guard (Possible Suggestions?)

[LastingDawn]

In the original game these two skills were among the Most Useless, but Mercenaries does give the basic premise of the skills a chance... so to speak...

Finger Guard - Guards Against Formula 2A Explicitly

Monster Talk - Allows the use of Formula 2A on the Monster Gender Explicitly.

Now this allows us a few interesting possibilities... a few monsters that won't be equipping anything will be staying the Monster Gender, this allows for skills that could be used against them.


So does anyone have suggestions for a new role for Monster Talk and Finger Guard to play?

[Vanya]

Are you considering a custom formula to replace formula 2A as well?
That would greatly increase the potential of this set up.

[LastingDawn]

Well... actually it would I guess, but that sounds like a ton of work...  it would increase it's effectiveness that is certain, but to what formula would it be made into?

[Vanya]

That is where we need some really out of the box thinking.
What, other than speechcraft, would have a support ability to extend it to monsters and a reaction ability to block it in particular.

Do you have a medic job? Maybe it could be a healing/status skillset. Surgery? Then the support skill to extend it to monsters could be Monster Anatomy? The reaction to block it could be something related to "white coat syndrome". That would make the reaction a disadvantage, though.

[LastingDawn]

Well that's the thing, I don't want it to guard against One Certain class, or enable vs. One Certain Class, that was it's problem in Vanilla it was next to worthless, It's the 2A formula, which is (outside of it's base) MA + X%, and a lot of formulas in Mercenaries are using MA + X% for their status, thus "Finger Guard" would therefore protect units from whatever 2A formulas would cast status, which is something relatively unique in and of itself. "Monster Talk" would allow the use of this specific formula on the Monster Gender.

[Vanya]

Well, you can just change the formulas used by the talk skills, but that would render Monster Talk and Finger Guard completely useless.
If you want Monster Talk and Finger Guard to continue to have a useful purpose you'd have to hack them so they don't rely on formula 2A. But even then you'd have to make them into something new. So there really won't any way around some ASM work AFAICT.

[LastingDawn]

Ah no... I don't think I'm being clear...

Outside of the designated Talk Skills, the game assigns the 2A formula a normal MA + X% (Status), (Guarding against skill status through a reaction is unique enough, to me) While the 2A formula doesn't work on Monster Gender without the Monster Talk support enabled.

[Zaen]

You could make them into magic that could add dual/tri status effects. Like poison + slow, or positive like shell + float, and crazier, float + slow + regen. I don't know. They can be either more costly than singular statuses and slightly slower, or slightly faster with lower success rate. Thus, if you want to use these on monsters, which I assume will be used quite often, then you have a support allowing this.

Just a thought.

[Skip Sandwich]

how about something like the following? Mental based status 'spells' that ignore target faith, but only target humans by default, and can be blocked by a specific reaction (aiming for it to be as useful as Arrow Guard, so the skills should have fairly nasty potential to mess up your team)

Witchery/Telepathy/Psychic
Charm Person - befuddles a human target into confusing friend and foe - inflict charm at MA + 60% chance, blocked by Iron Will reaction

Mass Charm - as Charm Person, but affects an area of 1

Confuse - confuses target human - inflict confuse at MA + 70% chance, blocked by Iron Will reaction

Confuse 2 - as Muddle, but affects an area of 1

Hold Person - paralyzes opponent humans - inflict don't act and don't move at MA + 50% chance, blocked by Iron Will reaction, area 1

Mass Hold Person - as Hold Person, but has an area of 2

Sleep - hypnotize target humans, causing them to fall asleep - inflict sleep at MA + 70% chance, blocked by Iron Will reaction, area 1

Mass Sleep - as sleep, but has an area of 2

:EDIT: I wonder, if we gave the new demi-human monsters no set gender, instead of monster gender, would formula 2A work on them without needing Monster Talk?

[Vanya]

I like that, skip. There is a Psychic job in FFX-2.
Not to mention that it would actually make sense for a psychic to have special training to affect the minds of monsters.
Also, it would make perfect sense that you'd need special training to be able to defend against mental attacks.

[Skip Sandwich]

glad you like the idea Vanya, since "telepath/enchanter" was pretty much the first thing that popped into my head when I was thinking of things that a human would be able to inflict on other humans easilly, but not so much on other creature types.

[dwib]

It's the 2A formula, which is (outside of it's base) MA + X%, and a lot of formulas in Mercenaries are using MA + X% for their status, thus "Finger Guard" would therefore protect units from whatever 2A formulas would cast status, which is something relatively unique in and of itself. "Monster Talk" would allow the use of this specific formula on the Monster Gender.

how many skills use MA + X% in mercenaries so far? and what are they?
if we knew which abilities used the formula we could come up with which skills fit a general category to be changed to formula 2A so they will be blocked by the finger guard replacement

I am hoping the skills set to 2A will be from a large variety of different job classes so it isn't useless again!!

I feel like I am the only one understanding what you are talking about here LD haha

[LastingDawn]

Dwib has the right idea, I'm afraid I'm running out of skill slots so fully new skill isn't really too much of a possibility, also which job would these go to? I can't exactly have another job class.


Golden Hand (Player) Cancels Charging
Trancer Anima (Player) Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Tear Away (Player) Cancels: Buffs
Stasis Chamber (Weapon/Class) Wall, Sleep
Moogle (Player) Confuse, Charm
Shiva (Player) Cancels: Most Status Ailments
Ifrit (Player) Inflicts Berserk
Blissful Ignorance (Player) Inflicts Innocence
Tactic: Ruin Thought (Class) Inflicts Addle
Atkascha Advent (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Gambit *Success* (Player) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Hessian Anima (Player) Inflicts Chicken
Galaxy Stop (Class) Inflicts Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Spirit Shriek (Class) Cancels Charging
Ephemeral Embrace (Class) Causes Charm and Dark Matter
Sever Belief (Class) Causes Innocent
Blackout Bolt (Player) Causes Darkness
Vital Sense (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Roar (Player) Inflicts Slow
Steal Heart (Player) Inflicts Charm

Hmm... is that really enough?

[Skip Sandwich]

so what, finger guard becomes...ribbon? something to protect against negative status techniques? I guess that would make monsters innately resistant to most status abilities then, which is sort of a power boost for them as well

[boomkick]

Why not just make the ability be able to give them increased evasion to those chosen abilities.

[dwib]

Here are a few quick ideas

Option 1

Trancer Anima (Player) Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Moogle (Player) Confuse, Charm
Atkascha Advent (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Gambit *Success* (Player) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Galaxy Stop (Class) Inflicts Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Ephemeral Embrace (Class) Causes Charm and Dark Matter
Vital Sense (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments

Having these skills have formula 2A would relate to the figure of speech "having your cake and eating it too." Finger guard would therefore prevent skills that cause more than 1 negative status ailment.

Option 2

Golden Hand (Player) Cancels Charging
Tear Away (Player) Cancels: Buffs
Shiva (Player) Cancels: Most Status Ailments
Spirit Shriek (Class) Cancels Charging

Doesn't work for many abilities unless you add more into the 2A formula from other skills that use similar formulas, but this could be called Consistency or Linearize as it would prevent cancellation in a negative or positive way.

Option 3

Trancer Anima (Player) Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Moogle (Player) Confuse, Charm
Ifrit (Player) Inflicts Berserk
Blissful Ignorance (Player) Inflicts Innocence
Tactic: Ruin Thought (Class) Inflicts Addle
Atkascha Advent (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Gambit *Success* (Player) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Hessian Anima (Player) Inflicts Chicken
Galaxy Stop (Class) Inflicts Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Ephemeral Embrace (Class) Causes Charm and Dark Matter
Sever Belief (Class) Causes Innocent
Blackout Bolt (Player) Causes Darkness
Vital Sense (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Roar (Player) Inflicts Slow
Steal Heart (Player) Inflicts Charm

These are all status abilities, so the reaction ability could be called "Benevolence" as it would stop the malicious intents of status only skills.
Monster talk could then be renamed "animal abuse" haha...

[LastingDawn]

Here are a few quick ideas

Option 1

Trancer Anima (Player) Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Moogle (Player) Confuse, Charm
Atkascha Advent (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Gambit *Success* (Player) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Galaxy Stop (Class) Inflicts Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Ephemeral Embrace (Class) Causes Charm and Dark Matter
Vital Sense (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments

Having these skills have formula 2A would relate to the figure of speech "having your cake and eating it too." Finger guard would therefore prevent skills that cause more than 1 negative status ailment.

While it sounds good the majority of these protect against Special Classes abilitie, and the only Player ones it protects against is Dragon Gambit *Success* and Secret Skill, Trancer Anima.

Option 2

Golden Hand (Player) Cancels Charging
Tear Away (Player) Cancels: Buffs
Shiva (Player) Cancels: Most Status Ailments
Spirit Shriek (Class) Cancels Charging

Doesn't work for many abilities unless you add more into the 2A formula from other skills that use similar formulas, but this could be called Consistency or Linearize as it would prevent cancellation in a negative or positive way.

Unfortunately I've changed mostly everything that did cause negative status ailments and these are the answers I came up with.  4 skills, though of normal classes, isn't too fitting.

Option 3

Trancer Anima (Player) Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Moogle (Player) Confuse, Charm
Ifrit (Player) Inflicts Berserk
Blissful Ignorance (Player) Inflicts Innocence
Tactic: Ruin Thought (Class) Inflicts Addle
Atkascha Advent (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Gambit *Success* (Player) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Hessian Anima (Player) Inflicts Chicken
Galaxy Stop (Class) Inflicts Stop, Don't Move, Don't Act
Ephemeral Embrace (Class) Causes Charm and Dark Matter
Sever Belief (Class) Causes Innocent
Blackout Bolt (Player) Causes Darkness
Vital Sense (Class) Inflicts Bad Status Ailments
Dragon Roar (Player) Inflicts Slow
Steal Heart (Player) Inflicts Charm

These are all status abilities, so the reaction ability could be called "Benevolence" as it would stop the malicious intents of status only skills.
Monster talk could then be renamed "animal abuse" haha...

I like this last one, but as for ability name... would something more akin to "Nullify" be proper? It Nullifies status only abilities that rely on Magic, which fits in perfectly with the Inquisitor's playstyle.