FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Malroth]

Suggestions for the next big version.

1)  Add "Don't Move" to the list of statuses Nameless dance can Inflict,  right now it isn't even valid as an annoyance

2)  Add a support ability to allow non Monks to equip monk only headbands or add them to "equip clothing".

3)  More weapon evasion on scarves

4)  New skill for Basic skill   Target self,  heal 1/5HP Add Berserk.

[Dokurider]

Multi hit specials don't work for procs. Holy Bracelet will only proc once.

[reinoe]

I was looking at the Master Guide and I was wondering: what's the difference between Null: water and Immune: water?  Another question I have is: do guns always hit at 100% regardless of shields or mantles?

[Barren]

Null and immune are the same in terms of definition. FFM probably left it there by accident. But I'm sure he wouldn't panic over that as long as people get that it means this or that blocks a certain element or two.

As far as guns, unless you have projectile guard then guns will always hit. Not even abandon can save you from guns. That's why we have projectile guard

[CT5Holy]

Pilgrimage works properly. There just isn't a cue for the +2 Faith. If you look at units with Pilgrimage, their Faith does indeed increase.

[Barren]

Pilgrimage works properly. There just isn't a cue for the +2 Faith. If you look at units with Pilgrimage, their Faith does indeed increase.

Sometimes you just have to pause the videos to see for yourself or notice the damage increasing from the magical guns. It is working as CT5Holy pointed out, just gotta look closely

[FFMaster]

Thanks for the heads up Doku. I'll have to decide what to do for Holy Lance next version then.

Malroth: 1, 2 and 3 sounds fine to me. Not sure about 4, I think the AI will not use it. The AI sees berserk as a bad status after all.

[AeroGP]

If you really want self-berserk, add 1.3 Scream minus the innocent proc. The AI <3s haste.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Can we just add Cloths to Equip Polearm and Harps to Equip Magegear while we're at it?

Equip Clothing generally sucks but Headbands gives them an actual option to make the skill worth buying.  Equip Magegear sucks but Harps are awesome and makes the skill worth buying.  Equip Polearm is already kind of good but its the best place to fit Cloths and it finishes up the things that can't be Equip X'd well enough.

Pretty sure the AI won't use a Self-Berserk no matter what you do.  Also, if Self-Berserk inflicts any other Status (required to get them to use it most likely), Immune: Berserk gear allows you to bypass and simply use it as a low-cost buff move.  Which... may or not be fine, but is kind of silly considering Squire already has access to Yell for self-buffing.  There's not much point to it, really.  (Though, we could give Berserk units Evasion back at this point.  They still kind of suck and are properly balanced since their high DPS is no longer 100% unique to them.)

Don't see much of a need for giving Nameless Dance Don't Move (the times I've wanted to use it, it did its job well), you just can't sit there with Nameless Dance and expect it to hand you the game the way Wiz used to like to let it.  You have to actively apply pressure to the opponent, not try to wall out until they're Status-Crippled.  All adding Don't Move does is give me a lower chance of inflicting the actually good Status that Nameless Dance offers (Darkness, Silence, and Slow), all of which are more crippling than Don't Move.  Straight up hard-nerf.  The only way this could possibly make the skill "better" is if it ends up fucking the opponent's AI the way Stop infliction used to.

Better suggestion: Use my old idea from a long time ago that Eternal stole from me for Parted Ways and have Oil seal Reactions.  This is far more useful than Don't Move because it makes Oil a useful status to any team even if they don't use Elemental weapons and limits the opponent's ability to fight back in a way not offered by the other three Statuses and without reducing the chances of inflicting them.  It also makes Oil itself slightly less shitty by giving it a bit of utility to compliment its damage boosting capability.

[Malroth]

Darkness and Silence are supposed to be the good results from nameless dance????

[RavenOfRazgriz]

...Darkness in Arena is an incredibly strong status and Silence is good against any team that uses magic for even a lynchpin healer role, so kind of.

Unless you think disabling units entirely and essentially doubling your HP are bad things.  In which case you're a derp.

[Malroth]

Yeah but every caster in existance carries silence immunity and Darkness immunity is almost as common for the melee combatants not to mention both statuses are completely worthless applied to the wrong archetype.

[Barren]

Just did a recording and something seems to be wrong with Projectile Guard. It reads 100% hit with a blast gun  even though the evasion rate should be 60-30% chance of hitting. I'll upload the video either tonight and tomorrow

[The Damned]

(I was still under the impression that Projectile Guard wasn't supposed to or just couldn't block the Spellguns since they're, you know, magick. Of course, if Projectile Guard is supposed to do that, then it's been "broken" for a lot longer than 138 since I'm pretty sure I got shot in the face every damn time I had Projectile Guard against those things.)

Hmm...I would have sworn that I posted in here in response to Malroth's suggestions..., but then I remembered that I didn't want to post when I was probably going to eat up an hour doing some huge ass post that could wait. Well, screw that. I don't exactly have to suggest some of my changes while answer something, even if the "Headbands" should be part of "Equip Clothes" is relevant.

Suggestions for the next big version.

1)  Add "Don't Move" to the list of statuses Nameless dance can Inflict,  right now it isn't even valid as an annoyance

2)  Add a support ability to allow non Monks to equip monk only headbands or add them to "equip clothing".

3)  More weapon evasion on scarves

4)  New skill for Basic skill   Target self,  heal 1/5HP Add Berserk.

1. As Raven already said, adding Don't Move would ultimately have the effect of making Nameless Dance worse and more annoying than actually better. Sure, Don't Move & Poison could eventually destroy the few teams that rely (almost) entirely on up-close damage to do anything. With the addition of another status, however, you have less of a chance of hitting both and hitting the, according to you, "useless" statuses of Darkness, Silence and, if you're not using an element that isn't Holy or Dark, Oil than that. Nameless Dance really doesn't need more statuses since "Separate [ Anything]" tends to suck as it is.

If mages almost always having something to Block Silence is a problem, then bring another unit with Steal Accessory or Armor Break (or both). You can't really complain about not taking advantage of Darkness (outside of your Dancing unit) when pretty much the only teams that block Darkness are the ones using Grand Cross and incidentally the increasingly fewer that use Angel Ring. As Oil, yeah, it should probably prevent Reactions since it still disappates on elemental hit and now properly disappates on death.

(That said, having Oil do that would make Hawk's Eye even stronger and I'm already rather wary of that thing.)


2. All the Equip X skills are taken up already, though I suppose FFMaster could probably take one of the unused Supports like Secret Hunt and change into one. Anyway, just assuming that we have eight Equip Xs "only" to work with still, then I'm actually kind of wary of letting Equip Clothing get Headbands/Ribbons, at least as they are now. Even with an increase in JP cost, allowing Equip Clothing to get that would kinda obviate Equip Armor's role given how both Helmets and Armor in ARENA are concerned with status protection. Giving that to Equip Clothing would meant having status protection and elemental "protection"/absorption so easily on the same unit, which doesn't seem like it would be for "the best". This is especially true when it furthers screws over Robes (unless someone wants an absurd MP boost I suppose between Robe of Lords and +80 MP "Headband) and then still has to compete with being in the same set as Concentrate. I'd actually feel "better" about putting Headbands into the already expensive Equip Armor since then everything in it would still prevent statuses, even if perhaps too much due to Ribbon and Cachusha having so many just by themselves; still, that seems "better" than adding more elemental absorption into the mix when Shields & Accessories already cover that. That or adding Headbands into Equip Shield since Headbands are essentially just shields against status.

Of course, as I said above, I'd rather change Headbands first before I really comment on any of this and some of the changes I'd suggest would be to drop the HP and shuffle the statuses in terms of numbers.

(As for Equip Magegear getting Harps and Equip Polearms getting Cloths, I'm still ambivalent. Besides vaguely recalling that FFMaster himself was still hesitant about it, I still think Harps need some type of overhaul so the ones that aren't Bloody Strings are worth using and Equip Polearms is already decent even if Poles likely need a boost still.)


3. I can get behind this, though I can't really see them getting more than 20% W-EV. They probably shouldn't have more than 15% though, especially if they become able to be equipped by classes other than Dancers.


4. The AI won't use it as the others as have said since even though Berserk is supposed to be a neutral status, the AI supposed won't use it because it considers it solely a negative status for some reason. (It's probably because of the loss of control.)


There are at least half a dozen things I wanted to talk about as well, but they can wait at least another week.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Yeah but every caster in existance carries silence immunity and Darkness immunity is almost as common for the melee combatants not to mention both statuses are completely worthless applied to the wrong archetype.

You know, that's the theory, except if you actually play the game you can see that's not what happens because people don't understand how powerful Darkness is and a lot of casters forego Silence for better builds simply because Silence is a very uncommon status... due to the fact everyone goes "Oh every mage protects from Silence so I won't run it."  Your mindset makes Silence uncommon and in turn makes the protection not worth running in turn making Silence very powerful.  Darkness protection isn't commonly obtainable on things physical units want to run unless they're Knights or Samurai, either.  Proof is in my very own goddamn Nameless Dance team having an incredibly high win rate.  :U

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The Damned, that wouldn't make Equip Clothing better than Equip Armor.  You can equip a Ribbon now and block a ton of status... but good job losing 70 HP and your Support skill.  Equip Armor gives you both status protection and higher HP values compared to typical clothing, making it a beneficial choice.  It's like a pseudo Unyielding that also prevents status for bulky units that don't care about PA or MA as much.  Equip Clothing with Headbands is nothing like that even with Headbands because even the 80/80 Headband is inferior to Helmets for HP.  Equip Clothing also has the big issue of not being as valuable on armored units as they can all use Robes already (the main thing you'd want from Equip Clothing) and the cloth units already have Hats and Clothing so all they can maybe gain is Robes.  The ONLY class that gains a noticeable boost to equipment options as it is with Equip Clothing, ironically, is Monks, as they can normally only use Headbands and Clothing, so they gain Robes and Hats... not that they need either of those, so even this ends up being moot anyway.  Headbands give a clear and definitive boon that is powerful and that every non-Monk can make use of and very much does not obviate Equip Armor if you stop going RIBBON OHHHH and realize HP exists as a stat.

[The Damned]

(I'm tempted to do an Ode to Ribbon now, partly because I still don't understand the name change to Headbands.)

No, I'm remembering HP, otherwise I wouldn't feel like the Headbands need less of it. I suppose I'm just hesitant about it with regards to Equip Clothing because I haven't had the way that I want to change it Headbands yet.

Aside from that, I suppose it's also a question of Equip Clothing where should go if it gets the Headbands, especially since I agree with you that Monks benefit the most from it. With Equip Clothing have to "compete" with Concentrate in Squire now, maybe moving it to Monk or some other class if it gets Headbands wouldn't be too bad.

Shrug. I'll try and think more about this during the next week.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Moving Equip Clothing to Monks once it gets Headbands... is actually a good idea.  Monk doesn't have much in utility R/S/M other than HP Restore and maybe Warpath.  This gives it a utility Support and makes the semi-derpy Equip Clothing Monk a tad more viable by making it cost 250 JP less to make.

You did something right for a change.  Good yob.

[The Damned]

(The irony.)

Sigh. I suppose I should just make suggestions off the top of my head more often since thinking about things has been what's been holding up Embargo forever too....

You did something right for a change.  Good yob.

Yay! Now I'm 3 for 300 with those Katana suggestions and Chronos Tear!

Oh, speaking of Chronos Tear, AeroGP informed me more than a week ago that apparently it's possessive in the worksheet/memory card thing when it shouldn't be. I'm not sure what that's about.

[Otabo]

(I was still under the impression that Projectile Guard wasn't supposed to or just couldn't block the Spellguns since they're, you know, magick. Of course, if Projectile Guard is supposed to do that, then it's been "broken" for a lot longer than 138 since I'm pretty sure I got shot in the face every damn time I had Projectile Guard against those things.)

According to the latest match I put up, Projectile Guard is working as normal; it was blocking arrows and normal gun shots, but not magic spell gun shots. I think it's fine.

[reinoe]

I'm not sure if it's working or not.  On one hand there looks to be the video presented by Otabo where the Oracle was dodging arrows and guns left and right.  Further observe Otabo's recent video at 4:46.  If you pause and observe the non-magic gun is showing a hit rate of 100% but it misses.  Picture below...




However on the opposite end of the spectrum  there have been instances of units with very high evasion getting hit with 100% on the magic gun.  The unit in question had Escutcheon, Leather Mantle, and Projectile Guard.





It looks like something is going on with Projectile Guard, but I'm not certain what it is.