Final Fantasy Hacktics

Quote from: Shade on May 02, 2012, 10:26:23 am
Also what is up with holy these days, it seems everyone uses holy instead flare these days.

More often than not, Holy is all you'll need to get the job done against level 35 units. Holy is strengthened by the Golden Hairpin, which also gives 1MA and 70/50. Flare costs more MP at a longer charge time. And Holy is part of a skillset that includes raising, curing, and status healing.

Masamune features pretty heavily at 32, compared to 5 Haste and 0 Haste 2. Also a moderate amount of Armor Break, and quite a bit of Steal Heart/Beguile. Only 3 Zombies to 13 Holy Waters. You guys can pick at the rest of it yourselves.

I'll kill you all, blow your brains out through Uranus, liquefy your souls to pour on my morning cereal, and banish your physical bodies into a dark oblivion!!!

Either that...or the exact opposite of that. I forget which. 

Sorry Wiz, but twin Chemists are scarier than your team. You'll probably do well in the Netherworld though. 

Quote from: Dome on May 01, 2012, 02:42:26 pm
Which accessory/piece of equipment gives immunity to silence?

Reflect Ring is a good choice for mage types. It gives 1MA, Intial: Reflect, and Cancel: Silence.

Also, Barette, Gold Armor, Robe of Lords, Magic Ring, and Aegis Shield.

Veterans right from the start. fattyzilla in the beginning and then, if I get to Round 2, Wiz. I remember fattyzilla's name from as far back as S2, so I'm concerned that their might be some design elements that I'm not grasping on paper. I kind of want to run tests, but I also kind of want to just watch it happen when it happens.

On paper though, I think I can take my first match. Four armored units could cause a bit of trouble. Although I see one Paladin that's a walking target at 70/70 with a Cross Helmet and a Light Robe, notably with innate Regen and Move-HP Up to balance it. I'm seeing quite a bit of tanking, but not a great deal of offense. The Poison Bows could draw some of my units off-task for status healing. It looks like it's going to be a lengthy match and my team is usually at their best in long matches. Cheer Song, Battle Song, and PA/MA Save could be troublesome. I worry most about Cheer Song. I don't see MA Save doing much for the Bard and Paladin, as the strength of their skills isn't MA-based. The PA Save armored Crossbow units will surely cause the most trouble. Add Cheer Song and Battle Song to that, and you've got my team in a bit of trouble. Ultimately though, everyone's got mid-to-high Faith, making them easy prey for my Short Charged Holy and Blast Gun. The Bard will probably use Steal Heart more often than his songs, which could cause trouble, but is RNG dependent and up against Esuna and Stigma Magic. A long match tends to favor me with all four equipment breaks at 8 range, MP Healing, and a PA Save Lancer. The greatest threats to me are PA Save on the other side, and the success rate of Steal Heart, though with all Serpentarius, it's surely a 53% chance every time. For the most part, it will come down to the RNG (as always), but I'm optimistic about my chances in Round 1.

Wiz's team looks a bit more dangerous. They're very solid (reminiscent of Raven's Y U SO DERP, in some ways). With H Bag, Move-HP Up, Setiemson, Defense Up, Brigandine and 40/40 Fury/Faith all working in beautiful Harmony, plus Thief Hat for Speed. Insult and Kiyomori could do a bit of damage if the AI makes good use of them. For the Thieves, Auto-Potion, Unyielding, Black Costume, and 40/40 make a great combo. The Golden Hairpin is an interesting choice. I suppose they need the MP for Quickening, though it will be interesting to see if the AI priorities allow them to spam it or not; I've seen it go both ways. Them being the support units though, I don't think Quickening will see very heavy use, which makes the golden Hairpin unnecessarily squishy. Hidden Knife, Quickening, and an innate 10 speed compliment each other nicely. Hidden Knife also deals concentrated damage, so my evasion is neutralized. I'm not seeing a great deal of offensive power here. Although with 40/40, innate Shell/Defense Up, Unyielding, innate Regen, and Auto-Potion, they won't be taking much damage either. If they blind my Lancer and Berserk my mages, I'll be in trouble. Ultimately, if I make it to Round 2, I think it's going to be a long back and forth match.

Oh, I'm an arrogant bastard, aren't I? Perhaps I over-estimate my team's abilities.

At any rate, I'm super excited. Even if I get my ass kicked in 30 seconds, it'll still be a fun time.

I was gonna offer the Germonik Scriptures, Alma, All 13 Holy Stones, the dead body of Thunder God Cid, and Balmafula's tongue, but goats sounds a lot easier.

Now, where did I put my sacrificial dagger? ...

To who's God must I pay tribute in order to avoid a potential match against Y U SO DERP?

Quote from: Eternal248 on April 29, 2012, 10:38:29 pm
I don't like the thought of determining based on old tournaments. This is season one of something totally new- a clean slate. The only fair way is to generate a totally random bracket. Whoever gets byes- get byes, whoever doesn't- doesn't. Should this happen again in Season Two, we can use Season One's results to determine byes.

Sounds fair enough to me. Most of FFT is down to RNG anyway.

I like the Round Robin idea.

Also, I'm very excited to finally be participating in one of these. I've been watching the videos on Youtube for years, but never really kept a close enough watch on Hacktics to catch a chance to join in on the fun.

Best of luck to everyone! =D

Quote from: Barren on April 28, 2012, 09:58:25 am
is it me or does the cross bow gives 1 PA but doesn't say so in the description?

It's not just you.

One more suggestion: I think it would be neat if Odin became more like Silf. More specifically, like Lava Ball. Low-ish damage, but with a flat 20% chance of adding Dead.

So is that 11:59 PST tonight? Or tomorrow tonight?

Quote from: CT5Holy on April 27, 2012, 12:35:00 am
Always: Slow would make it unusable. End of story.

Yeah, Slow is a bit severe.

I guess I was just thinking it should be slightly easier to use, but still with something to balance the power. Just me, I suppose.

Quote from: CT5Holy on April 27, 2012, 12:35:00 am
And obviously the teams would cure the Initial: Petrify. Why else would someone use it?

I was thinking of running a dual-sex Charm offensive and tricking the enemy into curing Petrify. Too convoluted? =P

Couple of suggestions, wondering how others feel.

Haste 2 and Slow 2 should go back to affecting enemies/allies. As is they get high success rate (even from high Faith caster to low Faith target), a large AoE, and can never hinder your own team/help your enemies, so casters can fire it off indiscriminately. Meanwhile Samurais get the exact opposite (which is a good thing, but I think it should apply to the Time Magic as well).

How would people feel about the Stone Gun losing Initial: Petrify and gaining Always: Slow? Currently it doesn't get used very often and when it does, the teams come prepared to heal it, so they only waste the opening round and get a pretty hefty bit of power. I think Always: Slow would encourage more use and also balance out the power a bit. With Always: Slow, it could possibly even stand to gain one or two WP. Or maybe Always: Slow, Protect. Something more like the Iron Boots. It could even be Always: Don't Move, but get a range buff. Just a few potential suggestions. Any thoughts?

Lastly, Faith Up has some weird triggers. Just recently, I saw a unit get missed by an Esuna spell she happened to be standing next to, and then counter with Faith Up. Just an observation, not really sure what to suggest for that one.

In my defense, I didn't say no one could beat it. No build is invincible. I didn't say invincible, I said OP. If you design a team specifically for the purpose of beating one other team, of course you will win. And I still think that the diversity of the skillset and the power of the skill are actually just fine. I only object to the range.

In my opinion, a team with an optimized Holy mage will roll over more builds than it should. There are plenty of balanced builds, which should be able to stand their ground against an optimized magic team and win roughly 50% of the time, if the RNG favors them, but the range puts them at a distinct disadvantage. It's hard for most builds to hold their ground against a unit that can consistently reach and OHKO nearly any non-tank unit, even after Raise 2. This effectively nullifies two units, one dead and one sandbagging, leaving two units to take on the other three enemy units. There are other optimized units that can achieve the same effect, but those units at least have to step into moderate range and expose themselves to potential AoE or other damage.

It's not that optimized mage teams are unbeatable, but that they have an advantage over too many builds. And if you design a team specifically to cut paper, then you will be smashed by rock. A balanced team can't compete against Holy at 6 range. Most balanced builds probably wouldn't have enough power to win even if Holy were at 5, but they could at least make a fight of it. So much of FFT is subject to the RNG in one way or another. And when an ability is not subjected to RNG, it is limited in some other way. Holy has a very liberal amount of power. There are weights on the other side of the scale, but not enough to balance it. I don't think losing one panel of range would make Holy underpowered in any way, but rather balanced.

I'm still failing to see why Holy needs 6 range when it can frak you up with 5.

Kudos on the victory though. That was a very thorough demonstration of how to beat an optimized Magic team and how to turn their Faith against them. Well-played.

Quote from: dacheat on April 23, 2012, 09:15:26 pm
I was just throwing out numbers haha. I didn't think super hard about it. Maybe change the formula from MA*16 to MA*13?

I think the formula's actually okay, personally.

It is just one offensive spell with one element. Pit Holy against a team with two Small Mantles and two Chameleon Robes and you're screwed. Although, that build would be pretty rare, at best.

Quote from: AeroGP on April 23, 2012, 09:34:25 pm
Holy is great, but you're both overrating how powerful it is in the current metagame.

Quote from: dacheat on April 23, 2012, 09:15:26 pm
None of these abilities by themselves are OP, but together in one skillset they're OP IMO. Name one other skillset that is as effective offensively and defensively when compared to White Magic.

Whereas I think Holy is OP by itself, but only because of the range. My challenge would be: Name one other skill or class that can deal over 300 damage at 100% accuracy from 6 panels away.

The Stone Gun (6 range, 100% accuracy) deals ~200 to units with ~55 Fury. The Magic Guns (again, 6 range, 100% accuracy) deal ~150 from a 70 Faith unit to a 100 Faith (Faith Rod) unit with a Tier 1 spell, which fires most often. Tier 4 Black Magic does comparable damage, but at only 5 Range. Flare does higher damage, at the same range, though with greater MP and CT values.

I'm of the opinion that *if* Holy and Flare get to be 6 range, then their MP cost should go up by at least 10, their JP cost by at least 50, and their CT by 1. If it's going to be high damage *and* 100% accuracy *and* 6 range, there should at least be some attempt to deter people from spamming it. Another suggestion could be to subject Holy/Flare/Tier 4 to Magic Evasion (though I'm sure everyone hates that idea). Currently, M-Ev gear doesn't do very much except against low Tier magic and Draw Outs.

As for a skill set with similar variety, Punch Art would come in at a distant second. It can heal, revive, remove status, and deal damage, both single panel and AoE from up to 5 range, and that damage can be increased by an optimized PA set. Although, in everything but AoE damage, Punch Art is far outclassed by White Magic. There could be a case for charge time and MP cost, but those are currently negligible to an optimized mage.

Perhaps if MA gear didn't give as much MP. Look at something like the Golden Hairpin, which gives 1MA *and* strengthens Holy and Dark *and* has the most MP out of all the Hats. If you had to make a choice between high damage or spamming, that might make things slightly more balanced.

There are lots of things that could make mages less OP. Though I think the easiest thing would be to put the range of Holy and Flare at 5. Hell, I'd even support a range buff support skill that would boost range from 5 all the way to 8, because then they'd have to choose between high range or MAtkUp.

And to anyone who thinks that White Magic isn't currently OP or is easy enough to get around, run your team against teams like "Team Rellia", "Welcome to my Mind", and "Holy Stones" and let me know how it goes. I'd bet money that such well-designed mages could be every bit as threatening with only 5 range.

My assertion all along has been that a well-designed mage with competent teammates is perfectly capable of kicking your ass with 5 range, so why does it have 6?

Quote from: dacheat on April 23, 2012, 06:44:34 pm
I think that Holy should get a slight debuff so that it still does 100-150 damage on a well built mage, but not much more than that.

Sounds a bit severe to me. Most of the MA boosting gear has the lowest HP increases and has no positive status effects attached. An optimized offensive mage really does have to give up certain strategic advantages to raise their damage output. Although I remain, as ever, an advocate for dropping Holy's range to 5.

Quote from: CT5Holy on April 23, 2012, 06:49:32 pm
I actually wouldn't mind seeing Geomancy range back to 5 again. It's hardly used nowadays, and the only way to get decent damage is to fully optimize for it.

Geomancy should not be subject to magic evasion, since one of it's saving graces is that it's 100% hit.

I'd take 5 range evade-able Geomancy over 4 range concentrated Geomancy.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 23, 2012, 07:20:42 pm
The White Magic set isn't OP because you can't use all those spells at once.

Maybe not, but you can still put a lot onto one unit. It's easy to have an optimized MAtkUp Holy Priest with Cure 2, Raise, and Esuna. The MA setup makes both Holy can Cure more effective, she can raise, and she can heal status too.

Good points though about ways to defend against such a mage or to turn the high Faith against them. And as previously mentioned, the MA gear leaves them squishy and susceptible to status. However, that only counts if you have a unit that can reach the Priest with that 6 range advantage.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 23, 2012, 07:20:42 pm
I know that a good majority of the metagamers on here would object to my suggestion of returning to vanilla's procs (i.e. stop on hell ivy, don't act on kamaitachi, sleep on demon fire, etc.).

You've got my vote.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on April 23, 2012, 07:20:42 pm
Overwhelm boosts spells and physicals.  This is extremely useful if you have draw out and an MA dependent weapon.  Then you get to boost everything by 20%.  This includes things like Murasame and Transfusion (which aren't boostable any other way).

That makes some sense, but skills like Murasame can be boosted by straight MA and MAtkUp support. (Though I'm not sure what the formula is for Transfusion.) For Draw Outs, MAtkUp is effectively the same thing as Overwhelm. Does a Samurai need a boost to both two-handed death and 2 range AoE at the same time? The AI would probably have trouble picking between them anyway. And if you need to raise both stats, you could always use MAtkUp for skill and PA on the gear for a unit that's balanced in both areas.

I still think Overwhelm is redundant, and I'm still not really seeing a drawback to it. I'd like it better if it worked like Fury/Faith, meaning you give more damage but you also take more damage. Even if it were something like "Increases physical/magical damage dealt by 20%, but increases physical/magical damage received by 10%". That could be the trade-off for getting to boost both stats at once.

That's my two cents.

Quote from: TrueLight on April 23, 2012, 06:17:52 pm
The damage formula for elemental is actually based on PA and Ma (mostly PA). Your Geo needs a balanced of the two to do decent damage. Something on the line of Rune Blade/Aegis Shield/Twist Headband (Golden Hairpin)/ Power Sleeve/Diamond Armlet + Magic Attack Up will greatly improve the damage. The range of Elemental if fine. 100 percent accuracy and a chance to cause status is very good and giving it more range will just make it OP.

Okay, so I can power up my Geo with gear. But an Oracle can inflict status at a higher rate from longer range. A Priest with Holy and MA gear can do ungodly damage (far more than even a well-equipped Geomancer) at 100% accuracy and outranges the Geo by 2 panels. A Wizard could conceivably attack from an effective 7 range with AoE, while a Geo can only hope for an effective 5 at best, assuming that the target happens to be on level ground. I maintain that Geos can't really effectively compete against their counterparts.

ETA: I wouldn't object to Geomancy becoming subject to Magic Evasion.

Quote from: TrueLight on April 23, 2012, 06:17:52 pm
Your Monk is an idiot.

Fair enough. Guess I'll have to think about limiting his choices.

Me again, back for more whining. You guys sick of me yet?

Geomancers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but they seem to have had nerfs to both their damage output *and* their range. (It's the *and* that bothers me most.) My 14 MA Geo only does ~50 damage to most units. I'd actually be okay with that if she had 5 range. As is she only has 4, and she's expected to compete against 5-6 range priests/wizards, and 5 range oracles. I think Geos have had one nerf too many.

Unyielding/Overwhelm. I don't like them. Well, not so much I don't like them as I think they're redundant. We already have supports skills like Attack Up, Magic Attack Up, Defense Up, and Magic Defend Up. We also have Fury, Faith, and Compatibility for increasing/decreasing the damage you give and receive. At least Unyielding is balanced by lower healing, but Overwhelm doesn't seem to have any drawback to it at all. You just get to raise your unit's effective stats...and we already have skills for that.

Lastly, does Silence stop Chakra and Revive or is my Monk just an idiot?