FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Dokurider]

While you're changing the proc on the Holy Spear, what about Spear/Mythril Spear/Partisan procs? They do nothing for their native class and just get in the way when fighting absorption teams.

Spear = 50% Execute
Mythril Spear = 50% Bad Luck
Partisan = No proc
Holy Spear = 33% Spellbreaker

[FFMaster]

My plan currently is to allow Martial Arts users to be able to equip Headbands. And I have a potential rework for Holy Spear. As for the other spear procs, I'm not too sure myself. I'd prefer to keep them the same proc, but make the weapon have their respective element.

[The Damned]

(I'm still going to hold off on my main "suggestion" post until the weekend, but since we're talking about this....)

Yeah, I'd concur that just making the three Breath proc spears the same elements as their procs would seemingly be the most sensible and best solution at present. As I mentioned in Monk thread, Fire and Lightning are currently the least likely element types to be used with Grand Cross; I think that Lightning has literally never been used with Grand Cross. Additionally, Lancer tends to never get used for anything but Jump--not that this is "bad"--due to how odd its weapons are and I honestly can't remember one ever using Grand Cross despite having good PA. That would solve both those problems really.

If you do make the three spears elemental, then you might have to lower the WP and/or Breath procs a bit in power just because Strengthening them would actually be worth it now, especially since then they could be used as "healing shivs" like other elemental weapons. I'm not sure if it's necessary though, at least in terms of the Breath procs. Lancers do to have crappy MA after all.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

My plan currently is to allow Martial Arts users to be able to equip Headbands.

I am unsure how I feel about this at present.  :v

[Malroth]

Would really benefit ninjas and archers acting as a simultaneous offense and defense boost if taken,  would be somewhat good for casters since it can be taken just for the headband purposes.

[reinoe]

I have a noob question.  Functionally what is the difference between having Concentrate and having Transparency?  It seems to me that both allow someone to hit at 100% with physical attacks.

[Eternal]

There is none, IIRC. Transparency changes enemy AI a bit though, unless FFM magicked that away.

[FFMaster]

Transparency also makes you lose evasion.

[Dokurider]

Transparency is effected by Blind.

[reinoe]

Thanks for the fast responses.  Very interesting to know about Blind and how Transparancy causes a person to lose their evasion.  I'll make sure none of my units have Hidden Knife with Abandon.

[The Damned]

(It's still not entirely clear what you actually "fixed" with regards to Projectile Guard, FFMaster. That we "need" to know, but it help us look for it if something is still amiss.)

Okay, so let's see if I can do this in a reasonable amount of time considering that, like always, I'm already behind when it comes to pretty much everything.

What follows is a Formal List of Suggestions™ for ver. 139 (or ver.138e):

spoiler: First Item - Equip Clothes for Monk

1. Equip Clothes goes from Squire to Monk - Regardless of whether Headbands go to Equip Clothes or Martial Arts or whatever, Equip Clothes should go to Monk. Not only will it give them another viable Support within their job, unlike Squire where it's redundant even before Concentrate now comes in, but it would help to lessen the incoming "stress" of becoming rather reliant upon MP for half of their skills.

And while we're talking about Squire RSMs, you might as well just kill off Defend going into ver. 139 unless you've thought of a solution.

(I also still have no definitive opinion on Martial Arts potentially getting Headbands "instead" now, even if that would arguably help availability more than putting it on Equip Clothes.)

spoiler: Second Item - Three Elemental Spears

2. Non-Holy Lances with Elemental Breaths become that Element - As suggested above on this page, Spear, Mythril Spear and Partisan should become the same element as the Breath/"Bracelet" that they're supposed to proc so that they can see some actual use; I seriously don't think they've been used since the overhaul that weakened Breaths by neccesity. This means that Spear becomes Fire element, Mythril Spear becomes Ice element and Partisan becomes Lightning element. Since this change would automatically make them Grand Cross friendly and capable of being Strengthened elementally, I would additionally suggest that you drop their WP to 10 so that they don't automatically obviate Obelisk, especially since that's the same WP that Holy Lance has. If you want to drop their WP down further to 9 since you seem to want Holy Lance to be the strongest of the elemental ones, then that's fine with me; you said that you had something in mind for Holy Lance as it is, so I'm not going to suggest anything for that presently.

(If you want to make them new names that correspond, then you can just go with [Colour] Fang for them. Those are kinda generic, but they're still [slightly] less generic than the current names from vanilla and it would make it easy to remember what element is what, i.e. Blue Fang for Ice element.)

spoiler: Third Item - Balancing Ribbon Usefulness

3. Balance Headbands' Usefulness - Besides the slightly increased HP that Focus Band and Choice Band currently have over Chakra Band, they are still a lot less useful than it. This is especially true of Focus Band and its MP currently going to waste. While the proposed changes to Monk in the other thread will change that at least somewhat for the better, those changes won't "fix" it. This lack of mitigation, though in part due to Headbands' current lack of availability--itself another issue--among classes, is primarily due to Ribbon...I mean, Chakra Band, still hogging almost all of most useful status immunities.

I know that part of this is due to annoyingly small amount of space we all have to deal with for Item Attributes. However, given my last suggestion dealt with this in a way that I think was fine and was totally uncommented upon, I'll put it forth again (for the third time). This will be what is probably a more than slight modification since I'm going off of memory here even before I deliberately alter the Barette and Ribbon more:


Cachusha [Focus Band]: HP: 65; MP: 60; Immune: Undead, Charm, Innocent, Faith.

Barette [Choice Band]: HP: 55; MP: 40; Immune: Dead, Frog, Poison, Berserk, Death Sentence.

Ribbon [Chakra Band]: HP: 45; MP: 20; Immune: Petrify, Silence, Blind, Slow, Sleep, Don't Move.


While the HP & MP amounts can vary for all of them and the status combinations for the last two can vary, this seems a lot more "fair" and likely to allow the other two to see more use than the current situation. Cachusha [Focus Band] gets to share Crystal Armor's Item Attribute, which is good both because the other two already have their own Item Attributes and because something, anything, else seems like it really needs to be able to block both Innocent and Faith; those two don't necessarily have to be blocked together mind you.

Beyond Cachusha's sharing, Barette got moved around to have fewer but more "serious" statuses, with the blocking of Berserk and Frog now complimenting each other since Frogs don't get the boost from Berserk damage anyway. It lost Silence primarily because I thought it unfair for a Headband to get both immunity to Silence and Berserk alongside MP since then it would almost obviate Defense Ring; this is especially true since Barrette also already has Dead and Death Sentence immunity. This is why I declined my original thought to give it immunity to Sleep when it still blocked Silence and then when I moved Berserk to it. Barette retains Poison because it felt appropriate given that Poison lingers after Dead now and Barrette has always blocked it and both Dead and Death Sentence as well anyway.

Ribbon, on the other hand, was more a mater of subtracting its always bloated BS. It lost immunity to Undead & Charm to Cachusha. It lost immunity to Stop and Don't Act because I don't think that it should be blocking either of those. It "shouldn't" block Stop because that already gets very little use as it is and now Stop can be dispelled by an additional method via Chronos Tear. It "shouldn't" block Don't Act because it already blocks something as serious as Petrify and people that block Status should be vulnerable to something serious. It lost Berserk primarily because it gained Sleep. This was both to somewhat "make up" for losing Don't Act and Frog and, as stated above, both Berserk & Sleep on the same thing as Silence would have felt like it was obviating Defense Ring. It blocking Slow and Don't Move are similarly to "make up" for no longer blocking Stop.

I will reiterate my opinion that I feel it's fine that none of the Headbands/Ribbons block Oil. I don't think any of them should despite Oil's (increasing) power.

(I will also reiterate my question of why they even got renamed to Headbands in the first place when that's thoroughly confusing even if the new names "should" be more straightforward. Seriously, what was the decision that led to that?)

spoiler: Fourth Item - Crystal Shield & Salty Rage

4. Crystal Shield & Salty Rage - It perhaps seems somewhat odd to group these together, but I'll explain why I am: Crystal Shield is the shield that does almost nothing while Salty Rage is the accessory that does almost nothing. At present, Salty Rage is still the only accessory to literally do nothing after you die. You go down or get your Berserk dispelled by a well-intentioned ally and you might as well have equipped nothing as your accessory. This is rather...noticeable considering the other Perfumes were changed to Always: Protect and Always: Shelled to prevent this and all other Accessories with Initial: Status have some type of other aspect to them.

Now, I'm not saying to go back to making Salty Rage "Always: Berserk". That might help somewhat, but not really, especially since you'd ultimately be giving up that character permanently as opposed to temporarily. Similarly, I recognize that, as with Ribbons/Headbands above, you're working with only limited Item Attribute space that you've already all used. So whatever you do to Salty Rage has to be done to Genji Helmet as well...which already now totally obviates it since at least that gives HP after Berserk is lost at the "cost" of being a lot less accessible than Salty Rage.

So, initially, I was thinking that the "solution" would be to give Salty Rage some minor evasion since that's really all that you can give it without also giving something to Genji Helm. This isn't to say that Genji Helm getting something else would be the end of the world though, just that it's already better than Salty Rage. Also, I say only "minor" because I realize that Salty Rage isn't a mantle and also it shouldn't obviate Power Wrist (or Bracer).

However, I then realized that Crystal Shield was in a similar, if less dire, predicament: its special property of elemental neutrality is currently next to useless. With Light Robe & P Bag no longer being innately weak to Dark and with Crystal Shield (and Rainbow Staff) not blocking Oil (more on this in another Item) as was suggested, the only thing that "Neutral: All Elements" actually does is make Cursed Ring users not weak to Fire. So it's basically a glorified Black Costume...except it doesn't absorb anything and it "only" gives you some decent evasion instead of 100 HP. Um...yay?

Assuming we want to actually get the most out of "Neutral: All Elements", it can't be a Shield really since other shields are now the only thing besides Cursed Ring that are actually "weak" to anything.

All of that is why the idea to potentially swap special properties came up. While "Neutral: All Elements (with Block: Oil)" becoming an accessory is all fine and dandy, "Initial: Berserk (with Block: Blind?)" becoming a shield is quite a bit more suspect. Even if being a shield gives it the benefit of evasion that was asked for in accessory form (and more evasion than that), it kinda screws over Two Swords, Two Hands and any weapon that can't be used with a shield, i.e. Longbows. It also makes Initial: Berserk, which already (still) has issues, even less desireable by making its accessibility less universal.

So...this is less killing two birds with one stone and more stating that "Neutral: All Elements & Initial: Berserk equipment still need something more. Maybe they can help each other out?"

(Regardless, Rainbow Staff still says in the Master Guide it's All elements when it no longer should be. I need to make a list of the errors in the Master Guide I still noticed, but I'll wait to do that until I look through ARENA 138d more closely...two weeks from now.)

spoiler: Fifth Item - Oil Blocks Reactions

5. Oil Blocks Reactions - As suggested (again) by Raven, the Oil status blocking Reactions as well seems like would be good since it would give an actual use for teams that are using either Holy or Dark or no elemental abilities.

Of course, saying that, if this occurs, I would additionally recommend making it so that Oil either dissipates naturally (beyond hit or Dead) or gets canceled (or blocked) by other statuses or, at the very least, lowering the amount of damage from weaknesses. Otherwise, it seems like it could be a bit too much, especially since the spellgun damage on CT5Holy's Ele Break team seems all kinds of absurd. I say this even as I admit I've always been...wary of the special guns.

(Related to the above conditional recommendation: Please make Hawk's Eye cost slightly more MP & CT since causing Oil & Poison would become an even bigger deal with this around. That or make it do slightly less damage. Maybe even both.

Also, under Absorb: Elements, please make it clear whether or not Oil overrides Absorption or not. Right now that issue is extremely vague and basically unanswered.)

spoiler: Sixth Item - Equip Magegear gets to Equip Harps

6. Equip Magegear includes Harps - I'm personally still quite ambivalent to this, especially since I still see a problem with Harps or, rather, with Bloody Strings. However, people have been clamoring for this for a while and there doesn't seem to be much reason not to aside from the aforementioned offending weapon, so why not. This even though Equip Magegear will then likely be used only for Bloody Strings, which rather defeats the point of including anything besides Harps in it; hence my hesitance.

(I'll try to include some reasonable changes among Harps in my next suggestion list. Well, reasonable changes beyond asking that you please change Ramia Harp to Lamia Harp already. [/nag])

spoiler: Seventh Item - Equip Polearms gets to Equip Cloths

7. Equip Polearms includes Cloths - I'm also rather ambivalent to this, though I lean more towards a "positive" apathy than with the above change. That's because while Cloths could potentially be obnoxious if they were Always like there were long ago, their Initial versions are all easily dispelled, even if only by Dead. Then they all become essentially the same weapon. This, when combined with the fact that Polearms is already decent, but could still see a boost since Poles are rather...lackluster now that they aren't Two Handed death machines, is why I "support" this.

(As with Harps above, I'll try to include suggested changes for Poles in my next suggestion list. Even with lack of Item Attribute space, there should be something...else that can be done to better them aside from just making them all Two Hand-compatible again; that is a terrible idea in my opinion.)



...And that of course went WAY too long, especially this still isn't all I wanted to do, but I'll have to think on the other stuff since most of it was equipment stuff; pretty much everything else was stuff I'd notice that I of course didn't write down, like most of the above list.

Also doesn't help that I'm rather immensely pissed about a couple of unrelated things that I don't want to take out on you guys, so I'll just end it here for now after two additional comments.

Would really benefit ninjas and archers acting as a simultaneous offense and defense boost if taken,  would be somewhat good for casters since it can be taken just for the headband purposes.

"Ironically", it benefiting Ninja so conspicuously is part of the reason that I'm rather undecided about it. The whole innate Two Swords thing with Martial Arts was something we were trying to avoid, even if Ninja have less PA now. Giving them incentive with status protection that, currently, has an--in my opinion--overblown amount of HP doesn't exactly sit well.

I'm not really seeing how it benefits Archers especially, though, and it benefiting spellcasters more than other supports is certainly arguable even before my proposed changes.

Transparency also makes you lose evasion.

...I don't recall this ever being noted. Good to know.

I still think that Hidden Knife is "problematic" regardless, at least when it comes to Sasuke Knife.

[Dokurider]

Swapping Salty Rage and Crystal Shield actually sounds like a good idea.

Also Bow Guns are not working supposedly, and neither has Focus.

[CT5Holy]

Is Last Song really only 34% chance to hit now? If so, when and why was this change made?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

The Damned, I am about to beat you with a fish.  Lrn2brevity.

Making Crystal Shield give Berserk is a bad idea because that means only Shield users can be Berserkers.  Berserkers are already a dying breed and that only makes them worse because their most common Support skills are Two Swords or Two Hands, and most Shield-bearers can already access Berserk through Genji Helmet, which will almost always be the better choice except for in really niche situations like using Crystal Shield + Barbuta instead of Genji Shield + Genji Helm.  You'd make the attribute of Crystal Shield slightly more useful at the cost of more or less killing off Berserkers outside of a small subset forever.  You're right in that Crystal Shield would be better as an Accessory - but you'd do a lot more damage than good by swapping it with Salty Rage, as the times even Shield-users would prefer an All-Neutral vs. an Absorb Accessory would be minor anyway now that either Cancel or Absorb exists for every Element as Accessories already.




Also, Focus Band being useless, what the fuck are you smoking?  It gives excellent HP to a class that has excellent HP and innate healing to help them tank even more All The Things.  Not to say Headbands couldn't use a rework since Monk's new iteration really will require them all to give some form of MP and the status distribution does look dumb... but Focus Band does offer serious perks over the others, especially on particular units, and your lack of acknowledging that just made you look really dumb.  80/80 is huge when you consider these things called Secondary skillsets.  Not acknowledging how important the Secondary skillset is makes you look dumb, since quite a few utilize MP, both in terms of MA-lite ones like Yin-Yang and Time Magic and more Physical ones like Chivalry, Ninjitsu, Sing/Dance, etc., all of which aren't unreasonable Monk Secondaries depending on your team.  Then again, 90% of people forget how important the Secondary skillset can actually be, so I really shouldn't be surprised...

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@CT5Holy, it's not documented in any Arena changelog and it's been that way as long as I can remember.  If it was ever different, it was probably slightly adjusted to account for Mimes, but I doubt that.  I remember when The Big Mime Debacle happened and people wanted to rape Song/Dance 5 ways to Sunday or otherwise de-Mime it, and I ended up convincing FFMaster to make Mimes less stupidly OP instead.  I know it wasn't changed then and I can't remember a time it wasn't 34%, so...

[CT5Holy]

It's always been 50% from what I remember, haha. So something happened along the way.

I think it should be 50% because it isn't used that often to begin with, you have to build around it, and it doesn't work well with Mimes because landing two Quicks on the same unit is redundant. Not to mention Last Song hitting the singer also doesn't usually do much. It's a bit too low at 34% to be effective IMO.

[The Damned]

(Wait, Alacrity--can we rename that Focus please?--still isn't working?

*looks at Plastic Knight makeover*

...Fuck.)

Oh, yeah, I forgot about Bow Gun supposedly not working. Did anyone ever check to see if Shieldrender is working if that one isn't?

The Damned, I am about to beat you with a fish.  Lrn2brevity.

What type of fish? I'm going to need you to write a 1000-word essay describing it before I can consent or not.

Making Crystal Shield give Berserk is a bad idea because that means only Shield users can be Berserkers.  Berserkers are already a dying breed and that only makes them worse because their most common Support skills are Two Swords or Two Hands.... *hypocritical snip*

Uh, which is why I noted that. I only lumped them together in the first place because the notion came up when I realized both Crystal Shield and Salty Rage still have problems, even when subtracting my ineptitude in team-building from the latter. I quickly dismissed the idea that Salty Rage would work better as a shield for what you said and other reasons, though I suppose I can't blame your eyes for glazing over. (Well, I can given the way that I broke it up, but I won't.)

Still, we ultimately agree that Crystal Shield would work better as an accessory, which is half of the battle really. Improving Salty Rage is, as always, one of the more difficult tasks.

Also, Focus Band being useless, what the fuck are you smoking?  It gives excellent HP to a class that has excellent HP and innate healing to help them tank even more All The Things. *snip*

You're putting words in my mouth now. I've never said that Focus Band was "useless" to my recollection. I've always maintained that I think it's outclassed, especially since the MP part of it is largely useless on the only class that can use it at present given the way that people currently build Monks, i.e. not with MA-light magick and pretty much always with Chakra. It's not entirely useless, mind you, as you point out. I even admitted that if "we" kept the 80 MP aspect, it would be a lot more useful just for new Monks. Still, if "we" are going just by it having slightly more HP than Focus Band (since, again, most people aren't really using it for anything involving MP save maybe Ninjutsu or Sing), then Barrette (Choice Band) has the exact same amount and status immunities, so...yeah. I'm not "forgetting" anything because I never said it was useless in the first place.

Calm down please; there's really not a less condescending way to say that.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I glaze over because WERDS.  I make long posts on a consistent basis and you even got me Tl;dr'ing.  It's an amazing feat really.  Not sure whether you should be proud or disturbed by it though, probably both.

[The Damned]

(I'll go with "barely disturbed due to being apathetic and used to it" because pride is for the arrogant and the accomplished and I am neither.)

Anyway, since Raven mentioned it above, I just realized how little use Time Magic has been getting lately. I can't say I'm really surprised even with the positive changes given in large part to Masamune, which I'm beginning to lean towards still being overpowered/needing some type of change. I'm not sure that's entirely part of it, but it seems rather...telling that there's literally only one Time Mage on all of the (non-retired) teams; Time Magic isn't much better, only appear about half a dozen teams a best.

Now, I'm not entirely attributing this to Draw Out, though that certainly doesn't help. I'm just  point out the "weirdness" as something to think about since, despite it getting a lot of new things, Time Mage still seems to have virtually no appeal. Some class has to be last, of course, but such a sharp disconnect seems off, especially since I'm not sure what else can be done to improve Time Magic itself that it didn't get going into 138.

It's always been 50% from what I remember, haha. So something happened along the way.

I think it should be 50% because it isn't used that often to begin with, you have to build around it, and it doesn't work well with Mimes because landing two Quicks on the same unit is redundant. Not to mention Last Song hitting the singer also doesn't usually do much. It's a bit too low at 34% to be effective IMO.

I actually concur with this: Last Song should probably be 50% because, even if Quick works, there is a good chance that will be backfire depending on when it hits due to how the AI acts.

At the same time, I kinda have to ask for a compromise: Can Battle Song & Magic Song go back 50%? I really don't see why they need to be 66%, even if it makes sense that Polka Polka and Disillusion are of course lower.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

...Why are we lowering Battle Song and Magic Song, exactly?