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Leftover ability slots - new generic class or perk performers/monsters?

Started by philsov, January 05, 2011, 07:09:27 pm

Phaseshifter(?) or Monstars!?

Merge bard/dancer, introduce new class?
8 (88.9%)
Give more stuff to performers (and leftovers to monsters)
1 (11.1%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2011, 07:09:27 pm

The Damned

True. However, in this instance, given that philsov himself basically said that all monsters would essentially just get individualized Attacks if he used those slots on them, there's nothing made easier with this one slot. Monsters just at once become more different from other monsters yet less different from each other.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

The Damned

And by "a couple of hours", I of course meant six hours in between having to do/think of something else, getting distracted by various things and not having played the game or looked at formulas in forever; I didn't bother looking at formulas while thinking up this.

Anyway, given that's technically been a week since the last post, I suppose I'll double post a bit as much as it annoys me. At present, I present a possible PA-based female class opposite Bard. It doesn't use all 14 open slots, but you never said the new class would have to really:

Berserker

Now, now. Hear me out. Berserker wouldn't just be "have unit automatically start Berserked", but it would try to take advantage of Berserk, especially since the only item that you have that blocks Berserk is Ribbon, which grants no HP or MP now. So, technically, you could capture the core of a Berserker by giving them an ability the computer would use like Regen and/or Haste coupled with Berserk to further survivability while Berserked. You could similarly do other things to increase that survivability.

However, I'll stop talking and just post what I thought up with even if I find it mediocre at best:


Name: Berserker

(Crappy, Non-serious) Overview: The strongest of the physical classes, it uses the natural rage of a woman scorned to destroy all.

Innates: Martial Arts, Any Ground, Defense Up?

Equipment: Axes, Hat, Clothes, Acc.

Abilities:
Savagery:
Berserk: Adds Berserk, Regen and Haste to self or heals a significant bit to self and adds Berserk & Regen to self. (I can't remember if the latter is possible as a guaranteed thing.)

Takedown: Deals more damage to opponent at increased risk to self/recoil.

Cripple: Close-range attack that attempts to add Don't Act and/or Don't Move to target.

Move Obstacle: 100% Knockback attack, basically a much stronger version of the missing Dash.

Ground Shaker: Mimic Titan for humans, basically, especially since your Blue Mage doesn't have it. Hell, you could probably just straight up give them Mimic Titan with the monster changes.

Howl: PA-based self-AOE that attempts to add Slow to enemies.

Frenzy: Perserving physical attack. Would need to be weaker than the regular attack so not to outclass it.

Eject: Only distance ability. A direct PA-based Dispel Magic-ability. Should probably take at least a bit of MP given that Dispel Magic hardly gets used as it is.



You could probably give them Squire's Cleave or something too.

Besides that, I sort of had an idea for another bow class, but it'd be kind of weird posting that (even if I could think of something that I thought was decent at the moment) given that, frankly, I don't much like your current skillset for Archer. So....
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

philsov

indeed.  So bow-y ideas are still welcome for the archer class itself.

Anyways, good idea.  A female fighter seemed like a good notion, but I didn't know if I wanted to go assassin-like or berserker-like.  Innate Def Up might be a bit much, but all in all I like the skillset.  Eject is a bit redundant under the current scheme, but I can introduce a "heartbreaker" type ability which inflicts a negative status onto the opposite sex, and a persevering attack is sweet.  Plus with Geomancer and Lancer as prereqs... I can see it fitting.  No need to shuffle the tree around :D
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

philsov

aaaaand, poll made absolutely pointless.

Monsters given new stuff (3 family abilities + 1 species-specific + attack command) AND we've got a new class on our hands.  And all I had to do was horribly gut Beowulf's skillset. Beowulf is now a Red Mage. 
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Dokurider

Quote from: philsov on January 18, 2011, 03:00:31 pm
aaaaand, poll made absolutely pointless.

Monsters given new stuff (3 family abilities + 1 species-specific + attack command) AND we've got a new class on our hands.  And all I had to do was horribly gut Beowulf's skillset. Beowulf is now a Red Mage.  


Good, maybe that way, they won't put the oracle out of a job when he comes around.

RavenOfRazgriz

So Beowulf sounds like he's a mediocre unit that has abilities he could already learn from other skillsets sloppily tossed into one spot in an unfocused manner that can only really be justified because Square did it first, unless his abilities are still custom or he has innate Non-Charge or something actually defining.

philsov

it's not unfocused!  But yeah, pretty much.  Moves are not unique since those slots are better used elsewhere -- he just samples from each of the mage classes (minus blue mage)

Innate noncharge is OP, was planning on innate short charge + move MP up.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

Eternal

If you wanted to pseudo emulate Doublecast, give 'em Innate: Short Charge and Half of MP.
  • Modding version: PSX & WotL
"You, no less human than we? Ha! Now there's a beastly thought. You've been less than we from the moment your baseborn father fell upon your mother in whatever gutter saw you sired! You've been chattel since you came into the world drenched in common blood!"
  • Discord username: eternal248#1817

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: philsov on January 18, 2011, 07:24:35 pm
it's not unfocused!  But yeah, pretty much.  Moves are not unique since those slots are better used elsewhere -- he just samples from each of the mage classes (minus blue mage)

Innate noncharge is OP, was planning on innate short charge + move MP up.


Non-Charge isn't OP if you properly modify his stats.

-Move-MP UP, +Half of MP.

If all he has is a bunch of rehashed trash, at least make it Short Charged high tier Spells that he can get off at a lower price to justify him as a late game unique character.  His class needs to have something really unique about it to justify a rehashed skillset or it's meh, especially considering his low Br and iirc sub-70 Fa.  Orlandu suffers from the rehash problem as well sort of, but he rehashes already defined sets and if you amalgamate his vanilla equipment spread somewhat combined with ARH he has the definition of being able to use those skills with a wider range of blades in his main class than their original carriers alongside his 80 Br... which is still probably less defined than one might like, but better than a sloppily done Red Mage Beowulf whose basically a Knight with a slapdash of various magic sets for a primary and more MP.

philsov

QuoteNon-Charge isn't OP if you properly modify his stats.


It's not so much his stats as it is his spellbook.  Absolutely pummel his MA so he can't insta-Meteor everything into oblivion, while keeping it high enough that the other higher-levels still do respectable damage?  That spread's too wide and I'm not going to reduce Meteor for Beo's sake, which is well-balanced with its current charge time and MP cost.  Throwing half MP into the mix makes a hypothetical non-charge meteor spammer even harder to reign in. 

And holy crap, thesaurus much?  Since all Beowulf is a rehashed mediocre special with a sloppily organized and unfocused skillset consisting of slapdash trash, then I'll just delete his punk ass.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: philsov on January 18, 2011, 09:33:21 pm
It's not so much his stats as it is his spellbook.  Absolutely pummel his MA so he can't insta-Meteor everything into oblivion, while keeping it high enough that the other higher-levels still do respectable damage?  That spread's too wide and I'm not going to reduce Meteor for Beo's sake, which is well-balanced with its current charge time and MP cost.  Throwing half MP into the mix makes a hypothetical non-charge meteor spammer even harder to reign in.


Obviously you don't go for both Half of MP and Non-Charge.  Either Short Charge + Half of MP to make him highly economical as a melee caster to make up for his skillset not being something actually special or Non-Charge and some tinkering on his stat pool to make him weak but able to pad his approach to hack and slash with anything he wants at 0 risk.  I don't know offhand what your Y for Meteor is but if the Y to MP is really that troublesome with Non-Charge even at low-medium MA then go the Short Charge and Half of MP route.

Quote from: philsov on January 18, 2011, 09:33:21 pmAnd holy crap, thesaurus much?  Since all Beowulf is a rehashed mediocre special with a sloppily organized and unfocused skillset consisting of slapdash trash, then I'll just delete his punk ass.


Nope, that's my natural vocabulary.  I can pull some real bullshit if I grab my thesaurus like you wouldn't believe.

If you need his skillslots this badly and can't get a defined placement for him (Red Mage works if done well, but it really does need to be done well for it to not be a rehash of other classes that swings a sword around), then yes, delete his punk ass.  Trim the fat.  Good design is minimalistic.  If you can't find a proper role for something that isn't redundant or doesn't make something redundant, kill it.  Goes for weapons, generic jobs, special jobs, etc.  There is no point to allowing something sloppy or redundant to exist when you can make something not sloppy with that space or remove redundancy and clutter entirely.  Beowulf was already a bit sloppy in that he was an Oracle with a sword, making him a Red Mage doesn't do a lot to fix that and does plenty to easily cause you to make it worse if you're not very careful with what you do.  If you can't get a cool Red Mage or Templar setup working that lets you look at it and go "this character deserves to exist", delete it.  No one should hold it against you if you do, since knowing when to cut something can often be the hardest part of design.

The Damned

I take umbrage that you need a dictionary or a thesaurus to be properly wordy.

Anyway, with regards to Beowulf, yeah, I'd agree with Raven and say to just cut him if you don't think you have good ideas for him. Of course, this is partially going with the thought at present (read: last that I worked on it), I was most likely going to get rid of Beowulf myself or, rather, replace him. With regards to that, you can't really just "cut" Beowulf.

What I mean is that, unlike most other "special characters" (read: everyone but Mustadio, Beowulf and Worker 8), Beowulf's appearance and guest Colliery sequence is large trigger for getting quite a few of other/final special characters (Reis, Worker 8, Cloud and, technically, Byblos). You'd have to replace him with something/someone and him being out of the kind of affects Reis, who I was going to remove as well but I'm sure if you want to do that.

I'd have to see more of what you took from him and what you replaced it with to be able to say anything. I would say a similar thing about what you gave to monsters.

Quote from: philsov on January 16, 2011, 02:48:22 pm
indeed.  So bow-y ideas are still welcome for the archer class itself.

Anyways, good idea.  A female fighter seemed like a good notion, but I didn't know if I wanted to go assassin-like or berserker-like.  Innate Def Up might be a bit much, but all in all I like the skillset.  Eject is a bit redundant under the current scheme, but I can introduce a "heartbreaker" type ability which inflicts a negative status onto the opposite sex, and a persevering attack is sweet.  Plus with Geomancer and Lancer as prereqs... I can see it fitting.  No need to shuffle the tree around :D


I'm glad you liked, even if I'm admittedly surprised you liked it.

I'll try to think of Archer skills some time in the next couple of days.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

RavenOfRazgriz

Quote from: The Damned on January 18, 2011, 11:38:21 pmWith regards to that, you can't really just "cut" Beowulf.


Give him a generic Swordskill set, leave him as a Guest until after Nevleska, make him leave and Reis join, edit like 3 lines of dialog to make it work.  You can then move his Sprite and stuff around and use his place to add a new Special Character if you want or just leave that party slot empty so people can actually keep Boco if he's made Special as well.

Not that hard really.

Quote from: The Damned on January 18, 2011, 11:38:21 pm
I take umbrage that you need a dictionary or a thesaurus to be properly wordy.


Also, nope.  You'd be surprised what kinds of effects simple things like having involved discussions with people and reading a book can do for your vocabulary.

The Damned

I meant that I take umbrage with the idea that one needs a dictionary or a thesaurus to be properly wordy. Damn omission. My apologies.

Also, I guess the Guest thing works, but that's less cutting and more just making him intentionally generic.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

philsov

QuoteNo one should hold it against you if you do, since knowing when to cut something can often be the hardest part of design.


Cut?  Me?  Pfffft. 

Variety is awesome.  If I wanted to trim the fat I'd remove at least 3 weapon classes, consolidate the monsters to 1 species instead of 3, and outright remove ~50% of the special characters.  But the space is there and while certainly everything won't be unique everything should at least be worthwhile.  A character with the better part of each magical skillset and innate short charge is free to take in... literally any secondary and excel as a unit on the field.  Think of him as a mage-y version of Ramza. 

I was being facetious when I talked about cutting Beo.  His ability slots are best employed elsewhere and I still want him to linger around.  The only option, then, is to give him already existing abilities and innates as compensation.  If someone wants to keep Boco around instead of Beowulf then when Beo asks to join up the player can choose not to take him in.  I'm not going to preempt someone else's choice in their game. 

Cutting may be clean and efficient but its results are also boring and reduce replay value.  It's a classic "why" versus "why not" situation.  <3
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

The Damned

...What does Boco had to do with Beowulf?

Also, I'm still wondering what you did end up giving Beowulf and monsters specifically if you have the time to relay such information?

(I still haven't thought up replacement Archery skills, but I think that I can probably think of some by tomorrow.)
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

philsov

Quote..What does Boco had to do with Beowulf?


character slots, I think.  If you hold onto Rad/Alicia/Lavian, you can't have all special characters AND Boco.  Someone somewhere has got to get cut.  Speaking of which, Boco will probably be made into a quasi special character (replacing the undead oracle, lulz)... probably something to the tune of yellow chocobo skillset with either boosted stats or a cool innate or something.  Haven't really put much thought into the guy minus some backburner stuff.

As for what I've given Beowulf, no clue atm.  I'm currently busy implementing the new abilities and haven't given it much thought aside from "sampler platter of magic schools."  Mind, he's more likely to be a (classic) sage than a red mage in terms of spell selection now that I think about it, because he specifically comes in late-game and giving him crap like Fire2 just won't cut it.  Of course, JP rears its ugly head...

Cure 3
Protect 2
Shell 2
Raise
Fire 3
Ice 3
Lit 3
Virus
Spell Absorb
Life Drain
Paralyze
Sleep
Haste 2
Slow 2
Demi 2

Virus is a new wizard spell and is the strength of elemental 2 but has a poison proc to it.  Summon Magic cut from the batch because it'd be too redundant with the black magic floating around and the non-damaging summons don't quite fit in this skillset either.


A bit on the strong side, but downgrading to the ranks below makes him too feeble imo.
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.

RavenOfRazgriz

Innate: Short Charge, Half of MP, Gained JP UP.

Low-mid-level PA and MA, higher end HP and MP, Knight's gear selection.  The stat spread and innate Gained JP UP self-correct most of your qualms in regards to power levels and JP, innates allow him to rather competently use his set without needing blaster MA, gear spread keeps him multifunctional in that Red Mage-y sort of way if you really want to go there.  That set works in the Orlandu sense I suppose - he samples the best skills of each class, for the most part, so even without a defined role he's still worth something.  He can fill every role with that sense so one could almost argue "too good", but that's what you get when sampling the best 4 skills from 4 different sets and his comparative benchmarks are again going to be characters like Reis, Orlandu, and Meliadoul instead of Generic Male Knight and Mustadio, lol.

As for cutting - yes, cut the extra weapons that suck, make them into good weapons of other types.  That adds value by actually having more gear worth buying (or more gear that's likely to trip a player up if you're into that) instead of novel trash no one's going to buy unless buffed to hell or formula modded.  Monster classes, the only real reason not to unless you throw tons of skill slots at them is because there's not enough options to replace with something more varied.  50% of Special Characters?  Unless you're counting enemy Specials, which you quite shouldn't, only Rafa/Malak (story justified), Orlandu, Beowulf, and Reis (sort of story justified?) do much conflicting - and let's be honest, the last three mostly suffer from lazy design.  I'm just more surprised you took the chunk solely out of Beowulf - he had a huge set worth cleaving into for various reasons, but so do a lot of generic mage classes and other odd jobs.  Lots of fat all over the place to trim and use elsewhere.  It's just too bad the Item, Throw, and Jump skillslots can't easily be converted into generic slots, since they also have lots of fatty bits that could be potentially trimmed.  (You can't tell me Jump doesn't take an excessive number of skillslots with a straight face, can you?)

As for why vs why not - excess noise.  Low quality bits without exception detract from the experience.  A game that can give you one incredibly satisfying playthrough with its quantity amount is great and will generate its own replay value for just the experience itself - one that has the quantity for repeated playthroughs but not the quality to make you actually do it isn't going to be as good, regardless of how much is there.  The original game was good because expectations weren't ridiculously high and it delivered a lot of great content - and what wasn't great was still satisfying to use and easily drowned out by all the stuff that was.  Making a mod, the expectations above the base game exist and you need new ways to generate replayability, since anyone playing the mod has likely already played through the game twice or more if they care about replayability at all, which is why "cut the fat" becomes a far better policy - no one's saying remove content and leave it removed.  You can, but it's obviously better to replace the cut fat with nice lean bits of meat when you can find ways to do so.

Fuck, now I'm hungry. 

The Damned

Beowulf looks fine.  (And everything that Raven said that thankfully I don't have to repeat.)

Anyway, so I was looking at your Archer skill set again and between seeing how equally crappy my old one was and your explanation of Execute in the monster thread, it's perhaps not as bad as I thought it was. Still, I feel there's room for improvement (even if you don't want to just jack Mustadio's skillset).

Let's look at your list:

??? - Weapon range attack inflicting stop
Leg Up - Self only, inflicts float at 100%.
Execute - Deals 21% HP damage to a unit in the critical status. Instant.
Poison Volley - Inflicts Poison to an AoE.
Oil Bomb - Inflict Oil to a single target
Fire Arrow - Fire-elemental weapon strike onto a single target, with an additional 25% for more fire magic funsies.
Aim - Deals WP*SP damage, unevadeable. Has synergy with two-swords.
Impact - Deals WP*PA damage and inflicts silence
Salve - Cleanses target various negative status, and heals for 20% health upon success.


Fire Arrow and Aim completely look fine--though, given what Skip Sandwich said in the Arena thread about Hawk's Eye, I have to ask if Aim is instant or not; I believe you said yes.

I also remember that AI will definitely use Poison Volley (whore, in Poison Volley's case), Execute (though I still say it should be more close-ranged; it is weapon ranged? I forget) and Salve (though I still say that it should cure less status effects...though I can't remember what it cures now).

This leaves ??? (why isn't Blue Mage getting this? Haha, I kid), Leg Up, Oil Bomb and Impact. Is Impact the same damage as a regular attack just with a Silence proc? If yes, then that's bad. Outside of that, I don't think the AI ever used Leg Up or Oil Bomb and the ??? seems a bit out of place (and potentially might outdo Time Mage's ability to Stop, though I suppose that will still multi-target in your patch, correct?), though I can understand why it's there.

So, let's say that Impact is fine, though maybe it would be better to have Impact cause Stop (or Slow) than just ???. That leaves Leg Up and Oil Bomb.

Well, Oil Bomb should really get combined with Poison Volley (and I'm pretty sure you still have the room Status assignment in status assignment) to cause Separate Oil and Poison (since the AI hates Random [whatever]).

After that, I think that you can either replace it by "stealing" FFMaster's/Arena's Cover Fire ability or using the nifty ARH (which I still haven't even attempted to use) to be able to now emulate FFTA's Sonic Boom ability (and restricting it to Longbows, Crossbows and maybe a few other weapons like Guns); I'm so glad that I realized we can do that now.

Leg Up...as I said all those months ago, I like the idea and get why it's there, but the AI seems like it's never going to use it unless it's Float packaged with Haste or Regen or something, which seems a bit much for something that's not supposed to be a spell-casting class. Too bad the AI won't use Float and is stupid about Invisibility/Transparent.

So let's nix that and replace with it, say, "Mindblow", basically a weapon-ranged Mind Ruin. It's not terribly original and it assumes that ??? merges with Impact, which leaves you with yet another slot, but I honestly can't think of much else that that computer might actually use.

Meh. I'll try to think of something other things since I'll be up all night.
"Sorrow cannot be abolished. It is meaningless to try." - FFX's Yunalesca

"Good and evil are relative, but being a dick cannot be allowed." - Oglaf's Thaumaturge in "The Abyss"

"Well, see, the real magic isn't believing in yourself. The real magic is manipulating people by telling them to believe in themselves. The more you believe, the less you check facts."  - Oglaf's Vanka in "Conviction"

philsov

Quoteyes, cut the extra weapons that suck, make them into good weapons of other types.


I've yet to overcome the graphical glitches that result in doing so.  The animation just looks horrible every time a re-classed weapon attacks.

QuoteIt's just too bad the Item, Throw, and Jump skillslots can't easily be converted into generic slots,


Oh, indeed -_-.  Regarding specials, I can't very well dig into Orly's repertoire because there's nothing to dig into, Reis's breaths (well, two of them) are getting double-used with the dragon family, and Worker 8/Musty/Meliadoul are all gaining skill(s) because lawd they needed some.   So... it falls onto Dear Beo.   Rafafalak losing one or two each was a possibility, but as of now all needs are satisfied.

I really don't think there's much fat in the mage skillsets in general (anymore) -- one needs to cope with various CTRs and MP costs and obvious scaling issues.  So far the rank-4 spells have all been removed because they were too large of an AoE and got replaced with 0 CTR single target abilities.  Black Magic's differing elements got tweaked a la Dome (but not to his extremes, guns are still fine, don't worry :)) to be slightly different from each other in terms of damage, CTR, and MP cost, while Summon Magic got twisted to include linear and 3-way attacks and half of the damaging ones that still have the standard 2 AoE lack smart targetting.  All that's left fat-wise is stuff like protect AND protect 2 but differences in CTR, vert tol/AoE, and MP cost should still make them both cute little snowflakes.  Least, I hope so.

Granted, there's some redundancy among the generics (5 of them can revive.  Revive differently/uniquely, mind, but revive nonetheless). 

~

Regarding potential Archery changes...

Yes, Aim is instant.  The only one that's charged and weapon-range is Impact, which may yet see some tweaks. 

Impact is the same damage if one is using a crossbow -- if the archer has a longbow it's increased damage since PA > Sp at every interval.  And it's not just a proc... it's 100% infliction (which is why it's not stop or slow, 100% on those is a mite overshadowing to time magic). 

Salve covers 6 or 7 different statii -- basically a little less than half of what Esuna covers, while also notably curing Undead and Blood Suck (Squire Heal covers the other half of Esuna) because previously only Item cured Undead/BS and I don't want that function being present on one and only one skillset.

I don't agree that Poison and Oil should be merged for the sake of the AI or the player.  Poison volley (bomb?) by itself is powerful enough and doesn't need anything else to be either worthwhile or effective.  Oil Bomb is quite similar, since it allows for a 1-2 combo with Fire Arrow.  It's a shame that the AI doesn't take advantage of this, and in order to increase incentive to do so it may take in a Stop or Don't Move effect (both of these are in the time mage school only atm), but merging oil with the poison is just too nasty.

Cover Fire I'm not too fond of because of scaling issues.  It works great for arena because there is no leveling up and PA/HP growth.  But in this case I can make it do respectable damage early on and then be worthless at mid-late game, or stupid powerful early on and then normal in mid-late.  In fact, I'm not really sure I like the idea of giving them AoE damage in general, but we'll see. 

Leg Up... just won't be used by the AI.  It's not a huge loss, it's a minor self buff that someone would use only at the very start of the fight, and even then it's still arguably weaker than accumulate or Br/Fa boosting or any manner of white/time buff.  But it's in the Archer skillset and if the Archer has nothing else to do, by all means perk up the longbow range.  I'm pretty sure the AI would rather Leg Up than just flat out not act, but I'll double check. 

If the ??? ability gets merged with oil bomb, then under the current count that's 8 which is quite alright by me.  I don't want to dip below that.  If Leg Up were to go, I don't think Mindblow is the answer because they already have an anti-caster ability, and should they get a PA-breaking ability I'd want it to be distinct from Power Ruin -- weapon range (ie, longer) and -2 PA (ie, weaker) is a start, for example, but I fear -2 PA would be even less worthwhile than self-float, and probably see the same level of usage by the AI (never). 
Just another rebel plotting rebellion.