FFT Arena Single Class Challenge AI Tournament

[Barren]

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - formerdeathcorps vs CT5Holy

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - RavenOfRazgriz vs NinjaWeazel

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - Malroth vs Otabo

[Avalanche]

spoiler: wizards vs Monkl

I didnt expect the Wizards to win so easy. In contrary i thought Monks will win that. Seems like i underestimated the Power of Magic

spoiler: Lancer vs Priest

Here my first guess was that lancers should win that easy, especialy with Jump which is a goos way to evade spellls like holy, but after all that was not easy

spoiler: archer vs Geomancer

Since i tested my own Geomancer Team against this archer-team i know that it is very, very hard to win against them. So no suprise there

[Malroth]

Raven really could have benefited from either putting Biezen Bolt on his draw Out lancer or having a Dancing Lancer with Witch Hunt and Slow dance

[TrueLight]

spoiler: FDC vs CT5Holy

Well that was short. Monks never got in range to do lethal damage and those Wizards poured on the AOE. Flare/Holy are quite deadly.

spoiler: Raven vs NinjaWeazel

Not bad for someone completely new to Arena. Priests just didn't have enough DPS and MP was scarce. 

spoiler: Malroth vs Otabo

Range vs Range battle. Lots of damage from Cover Fire and magic guns still hurt as usual.

[Malroth]

spoiler: "me vs Otabo"

Well his AOE capability was much greater than mine but He tended to use Draw-Out and Summons for healing so the fact that I outspeed him by a significant margin (10 speed + haste 2 vs 8 speed and masamune)  let me damage him just enough to get his units to bunch up for those cover fires. 

[CT5Holy]

spoiler: me vs fdc

Holy crap fdc you weren't kidding when you said my wizards would destroy you. Yikes.
Did not see that coming.

Will get to other matches soon, and thank you so much Barren for all the videos!

[The Damned]

(Ugh. NinjaWeazel's team is making me want to make a certain type of Priest team. I really shouldn't though....)

And so Round 1 comes to a close already. Thanks for everything Barren, including being so speedy about this, especially given the length of one of those last matches....

It's interesting having to change my expectations for certain matches and teams after I get a look at both how they fight and, by actually examining the first post rather than just glancing at it, what they're using. Which reminds me of something else I was meaning to do...:

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - formerdeathcorps vs CT5Holy

Not only did I not realize what the names of the Monks were until they fought, but I didn't realize that they had no M-EV between them, which is what won CT5Holy the round so quickly even if Flare is unavoidable; Flare once again shows why it basically obviates Death. This is a bit ironic considering I was telling formerdeathcorps about a week or two ago in the Balance thread that not as many people use M-EV as it seemed he was implying at the time.

(As an aside, I'm a bit mystified as to why two of his Monks have 55 Faith instead of being 40 Faith across the board given his complete lack of spells. Maybe he just got paranoid about Ninjutsu? If that's the case, then it's another case of irony as he's literally the only person using the UnFaith-tons in the entire tournament. Even if he wasn't, I'm not sure it would be worth it, especially everyone wants to take as little damage from spellguns as they reasonably can without hampering themselves.

I suppose on More I can understand it due to him having HP Restore, but at the very least, it seems quite unnecessary for Aquinas to have 55 Faith, but I'm heavily digressing.)

Like Avalanche, I kind of expected Monks to win, if only because they hit so damn hard and I just got done ranting about Wizards are basically inferior Scholars; they still are, mind you, but that doesn't mean they're completely unusable, even as a 4-of.

Not really much to say about the actual "match", especially that second round where the AI just lined and grouped up like an idiot just as Barren was narrating that they shouldn't do that; I wonder if this means "commentator's curse" applies to AI. The Monks might have been able to even win or, at least, take someone else down that round and possibly not die so quickly as one of the Wizards barely survived that 246 Cover Fire hit by 2 HP. Then again, that might have been the maximum damage off of that, so....

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - RavenOfRazgriz vs NinjaWeazel

I expected Raven to win this, really. I just expected him to do more damage and be able to win it (a lot) more quickly, especially given that NinjaWeazel doesn't have as much revival as Pride's Priests.

To be frank (and probably sound like an asshole), NinjaWeazel's team is easily the weakest in Block D. This is to be expected since he's new-ish, but he really just can't deal enough damage to people to take them down without having to rely too heavily on 20% Oil, especially if his opponent has M-EV. In addition to that, everyone on his team is way too overburdened in terms of active abilities, especially when they pretty much no real means of restoring MP; Lucia is the most horribly affected by this. So basically he ends up trying to whittle people down when he has no offensive staying power sans Kiyomori...even though probably literally at least half of all teams can cure Poison in some way.

NinjaWeazel's team would benefit immensely just from being more selective about skills: e.g. Lucia getting only one of Raise or Raise 2 and Protect 2 or Shell 2, Bastian losing Southern Cross so he'll heal himself with Grand Cross or losing Black Costume & Grand Cross and getting some actual MP via a Robe, Bocephus either losing Move-MP Up & Magic Defend UP and getting Martial Arts or losing Punch Art entirely, etc.

Still, not so terribly bad as to get beaten by four Mimes on his first (?) outing and the Chivalrous Male Priest is...interesting. It also "helped" that the teams were effectively fighting 3v3 for quite a while due to the AI's stupid obsession with Masamune and Kiyomori extending things out; I'm starting to see those two animations when I close my eyes. That and Raven not covering the Undead Lancer's Fire weakness (not that he needs to), so the Priests were able to kill said Lancer at least temporarily despite their overall lack of damage.

Speaking of which, if nothing else, I have to "give props" to NinjaWeazel for using Consecration, though he kind of bought all of Chivalry anyway, so I'm not sure that was conscious decision. Still, I think that's the first time it's seen use or, at least, has seen success. So congrats.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 1 Block D - Malroth vs Otabo

Despite being the closest match since both of these teams are equally strong but not all that overpowering (despite Malroth having spellguns), there's not much to say here really. The second round being lost was kind of inevitable both with the map chosen--again, Goug Machine City is horrible for gunners (and crossbows and those who use Throwing Knives)--and the buff to Hell Ivy kicking in. I'm still not really comfortable with that thing causing Stop, but if other people are fine with it....

Regardless, it was nice to see a longbow user get to take good advantage of the range increase due to height, even if Otabo's team has already lost the round by that point.

Aside from Angelus vs. AeroGP, I look forward to Round 2. Thanks again, Barren.

[Dokurider]

spoiler: CT5Holy vs FDC

This was a simple timing issue. All the monks went first, and all the wizards went second and nuked the whole team. That's pretty much it.

spoiler: Raven vs NinjaWeazel

Honestly, there was little doubt Raven would win this, nor was there any surprise from me that this was going to be anything but quick. NinjaWeazel unfortunately had made some seriously bad choices in designing this team. Just because Priests have a decent PA, doesn't mean it's actually any good, or that one should use it.

spoiler: Malroth vs Otabo

I think one of the biggest flaws in Otabo's team was no Raise 2. Fairy and Wish just simply weren't cutting it. Otherwise, I think Otabo could have won this.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Why does ANYONE every expect any team I make to "win quickly" and/or "do a lot of damage"?  Don't you like, all know by now that's the exact opposite of everything every team I've ever made has ever done?

Geez, lol.

GGz Mr. Weazel.

[Barren]

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Taichii vs DomieV

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Vigilanti vs Jumza

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Celdia vs VireBlaze

[Taichii]

spoiler: Me vs. DomieV

ow man XD domie just wrecked havoc on my team hahahaha... they out tanked my sandbagging skillz Orz

[Malroth]

spoiler: "Taichii vs Domie V"

Yeah Super tanks were super tanky no surprise there,  I'd run Them vs Several scholar teams and without break or sing support its not possible for Lore skills to overcome their evasion/HP enough to put down their Rezzer and as long as he has MP his team can continuously 1 shot any Scholar build Via Balance

spoiler: "Vigalanti vs Jumza"

[balance rant]
All dance skills are currently useless.  There exists no situation in which a dancer using any dance will provide them with a preferable tactical position than where they would be if they passed their turn and saved 40CT toward their next turn to do something with their secondary or attacked . Its a Good thing Dancers have great skills otherwise we'd be in the same boat as Vanilla Mediators
[/balance rant]
Glass Cannon Summoners outranged and out AOE'd Glass Cannon Dancers, Witch Hunt Bought the Dancers a couple turns but Nameless dance was Useless dance like always.

spoiler: "Celdia vs Vireblaze"

60% instant death >>>> team with no hard rez. Plus if you're running melee without Battleboots and teleport/fly you can pretty much gaurantee your opponents are going to attempt to hit you at least 2 or 3 times before you reach a good target.  Nedless to say I was not surprised at the outcome.

[TrueLight]

spoiler: Taichii vs DomieV

Paladins weathered the early storm and eventually got in range.

spoiler: Vigilanti vs Jumza

Dancers rushed forward and got greeted by some powerful magic. Dancers got lucky that round 2 was on a small map and Earth Slash got abused. Unfortunately, their luck ran out in round 3.

spoiler: Celdia vs VireBlaze

Not enough DPS from the Samurais and the Squires had multiple ways of doing damage.

[The Damned]

(Well, that was quicker than I expected.)

Damn, I had wanted to get a couple of things up before Round 2 started. I suppose that's what I get for being so damn slow about everything.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Taichii vs DomieV

At the beginning, even with the unnecessary charge forward by the Scholars, Taichii looked like he was going to win, at least until the first fatal Balance happened. As with most of the other teams that fought him, I'd argue that Taichii ultimately lost because he couldn't get around the M-EV after people on his side started dropping, as evidenced by how many times that Cyclops alone ended up getting guarded. That redirect with Bio 2 in the second round didn't exactly help either, especially since that Scholar (probably) wouldn't have died from the Ice Brand Paladin even if Ice 2 had gone off.

Speaking of Ice Brand Paladin, I'm still unimpressed by that change from Chaos Blade, but at least it didn't screw over DomieV this time.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Vigilanti vs Jumza

And thus Jumza's perfect streak is tarnished, though not so easily. He probably could have won if the Don't Moved Dancer had Slow Dance or even Last Dance instead of Nameless Dance since the only thing really helps him from that the most consistently only the occasional Oil; well, that and if that Dancer had some means of offense beyond Talk Skill only to delay the inevitable instead of possibly actually allowing her to fight back.

He would have of course won quickly easily if those two Summoners didn't have Absorb MP, but considering that using Absorb MP is increasingly common on mages for reasons that have very little to do with Witch Hunt...yeah.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block A - Celdia vs VireBlaze

I can't say I'm surprised, if only because of VireBlaze's aforementioned lack of AoE, the crossbow Samurai having way too little Brave, lack of revival and lack of distance attacking. Admittedly, I was a bit surprised by the amount of damage the Koutetsu Knife Samurai's could hit for when they aren't almost utterly walled by Dark Absorption and Celdia getting so "lucky" with Death even if 56% odds are good for the thing.

Otherwise, things went as expected and missing Revive twice in a row only sped things up.

Thanks Barren.

[Barren]

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - Eternal vs reinoe

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - Dokurider vs Reks

FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - The Damned vs Toshiko

[Angel]

spoiler: Me vs The Damned

Holy crap, I am surprised at that one. My AI was totally derping out in round 3, but still managed to win. Way surprised. GG

[Malroth]

Eternal vs Reione

spoiler

A brutal 1 sided slaughter it almost seemed Eternal's team was specifically made to destroy Reione's. Magic attack UP + elemental Stregnthen + Pilgrimage = tons and tons of pain for anyone not stacking on the magic defense.   I'm starting to think that the things really need to be subject to Magic Evade

Dokurider Vs Reks

spoiler

A fast team with status recovery and self resurection beat a slow team with no status recovery or resurection at all,  i'm sure nobody is surprised at the outcome

[The Damned]

(Well, that went exactly as planned and due to having...issues with Youtube, I'll comment there later.)

I'd say something melodramatic like "And thus began the inevitable downfall of Faith-based magick", but that gives too much of an implication that most Faith-based magick had a high place to fall from in the first place.

Thanks for the videos regardless, Barren.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - Eternal vs reinoe

Yeah...I don't think anyone expect reinoe's Oracle team to beat Eternal's team due to the fact that spellguns are overpowered even against non-mages. Against mages, the only way to not, at the very most, be 2HKO'd by those damn things is either to wear White Robe, have Projectile Guard or have Magic Defend Up AND Shell on. Otherwise, you die. Painfully. Repeatedly.

That said, commenting on the actual "match", it says something that I am surprised to see the Sleep spell actually used--even knowing that reinoe's team had it already--and see it hit. ...So, of course, the AI chose to target a unit that already had Zodiac locked on to it. Hurray. A spell that's already obviated by Mimic Daravon gets undermined even further....

Other than that, not really much to say since it was basically a sandbag-fest on reinoe's side since he had no choice what with getting shot in the face at 100% accuracy. I suppose it's nice to see that Short Edge's Oil actually works, even if Eternal has been getting unlucky with it thus far.

*expects to get to Oil'd by every single Short Edge hit*

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - Dokurider vs Reks

Yeah...basically, Reks got screwed over by evasion and Charm, especially in the second round where him not being able to seal the deal fast enough ended up losing him that round and the match. Having no statuses of his own sans Silf and getting stuck Singing at the wrong times, especially with the AI's stupidity towards Nameless Song, only added to that.

spoiler: FFT Arena SCC AI Tournament Round 2 Block B - The Damned vs Toshiko

Honestly, I expected losing this as a possibility despite Toshiko's team being a "joke" team and female Ninja being "weaker" in terms of attack.

Time Mage's shitty HP + being a faster mage + being even faster than usual since I can't go the opposite route + even mage AI being stupid about charging forward into known movement range of enemies = getting mid-charged a lot by a team of full of a job that's slightly faster than average, making Countdown quite a bit less useful + running into M-EV + getting put sleep by fucking Mimic Daravon yet again = loss.

So...yeah. Not surprised at all, though I expected it might be possible to have beaten Toshiko since she's not even abusing Kagesougi.

Regardless, GG.

My next round match should be...interesting. At the very least, it seems like it will be more even than getting shot repeatedly by Eternal's team.

[reinoe]

Well nothing happened that I didn't expect.  Did you know I forgot to put Murasame on my Draw Out Oracle?  Yeah, if it wasn't obvious in the beginning, my team could stand many many revisions.

EDIT: Oh and yeah, one of the Oracles was wearing White Robe, but the damage from the Spell Guns was so massive that Barren didn't really notice.

[TrueLight]

spoiler: Eternal vs Reinoe

Massive damage from the magic guns and the Oracles couldn't recover.

spoiler: Dokurider vs Reks

Thieves did their thing and the Bards just couldn't inflict enough damage.

spoiler: Toshiko vs Damned

Time Mages inflicted enough statuses/damage to win round one. Round two/three were much different as the Ninjas got in range and the Time Mages couldn't withstand the onslaught.