FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[CT5Holy]

I'm not sure if this is still correct, but something people noticed with Nameless Dance a while back was that the AI never bothered to cure any of the statuses inflicted because the AI believed the statuses would just get reapplied by the dance. If this is still the case, then your Wiznaibus would simply poison everyone on the enemy team very effectively, without generating the wasted turns that you intend.

[The Damned]

(Huzzah! My Internet has stopped getting screwed over.)

You are correct, CT5Holy. That issue is something that still applies to the AI, meaning that they most likely wouldn't try to dispel Poison unless it was part of something else like Nurse or Life Song or maybe Masamune.

As for just making Wiznaibus a mini-Nameless Dance as Dokurider suggested, I'm for that since I concur that Wiznaibus is never going to outdo Lore without becoming busted itself, especially since Scholars/Druids are going to be able to equip Shields now; well that and Lore being subject to Short Charge, Oil & Absorb strategies while Wiznaibus isn't. That said, I don't think Poison itself would be enough, especially given all the Regen and the fact that so many things block Poison or even heal it besides Regen.

Since we're talking about this, I actually have two suggestions with regards to bettering Dance (directly):


1. Wiznaibus dies and "becomes" Dirty Dance: Add All or Nothing Poison & Oil at 50%.

2. Nameless Dance loses Add: Random Oil and gains Add: Random Immobilize; its chance to add status remains the same at 50%.


I think these changes would be beneficial for several reasons:


1. As pointed out by both CT5Holy and Dokurider, having Wiznaibus's replacement not do damage means it doesn't auto-lose to half of the Reactions that exist even when it's actually doing its damn job. Doing no damage means it sets off nothing. That's the most beneficial aspect on top of still "working" with Mime (whenever they decide to work).


2. Hawk's Eye needs to lose Add: Poison (or Add: Oil) anyway, so having it get replaced in terms of its status by something that doesn't automatically do 100+ damage (at 100% chances except with Projectile Guard) allows the strategy to still exist. Add: Poison & Oil still existing, but existing in a less overpowering form would definitely help keep and make the metagame more diverse beyond the current "have Projectile Guard or Cursed Ring or die from getting shot in the face" one we have. (For the record, I'd still be fine with Hawk's Eye doing damage & adding Oil at 100%, it just needs to not add Poison on top of that and needs to probably cost 10 MP, especially with the MP increase in clothes.)


3. Adding more than Poison means it isn't auto trumped by the aforementioned Nurse or Regenerator...or Auto Potion (still) or Move-HP Up or the new instant Cure...or the many items that outright block Poison. This while at the same time making it so that it's not such a bizarre combination (like say, Oil &, I don't know, Stop) that you have to go out of your way to block it without being so common that one single chemist item or spell gets rids of it (like with Kiyomori, though that's necessary since Kiymori is 100%). Dirty Dance would still be blocked by 108 Gems and Platina Helmet, which are items that already on the rise in use anyway, so it would still be "fair".


4. As for Nameless Dance losing Oil and gaining Immobilize, that decision was made for three reasons. The first reason is that I'm still of the opinion that, as with Bad Luck, every status that Nameless Dance can add needs to be able to stand on its own due to the nature of its randomness. As many people have lamented time and time again, Oil doesn't and buffing it even further to make it stand on its own would probably break it given the absurd amounts of damage that it allows for now; part of the problem with that is that, aside from Nameless Dance, every other instance of Oil is literally on something that's already potentially very damaging anyway (Fire, Salamander, Hawk's Eye, etc.). So moving Oil to Dirty Dance solves that "problem".

The second reason is that Immobilize/Don't Move is easily the weakest of the current negative abilities or, at least, definitely the one sees the most use. Yet it stands on its own as seen with the still kinda-dubious buff to Time Mage's Don't Move and much maligned Leg Aim, the AI is willing to use Don't Move and Don't Move would greatly benefit all Dances while also being something that's easy enough to block and to cure and not as devastating as Stop (or Disable/Don't Act).

The third and final reason is that adding Don't Move to Nameless Dance wouldn't screw over Last Dance given CT 00 may be similar to Don't Move, but is different enough that it should be able to survive (especially given the same JP cost...and Last Dance [& Last Song] going up to 40%).


While we're on this and ways to directly or indirectly make Dance as a whole more usable, I'm still of the opinion that Battle Song and Magic Song never needed the boost from 50% to 66%. While yes they should both be better than their respective Dances, the Songs already being way easier to build around and a lot more difficult to counter makes them being a whooping 26% more likely to hit than the Dances rather unnecessary; this especially when the Songs can still be Mimic'd and can't be shut up nearly as easily as Dance given that any team with a Bard almost always has Angel Song.

Shrug. It might just be me since I brought this up months ago and everyone else said nothing except for Raven, who disagreed, though that seemed to more about reminding me that the quadratic damage was fixed. So meh.

As for Life Song and Nameless Song probably merging, that I'm actually against. Both are fine as it is. They just "override" each others priorities' given that the AI won't use either until at least one of its allies are or itself is hurt. The only buff I'd be behind for Life Song would be making it (and Dirty Dance...and Witch Hunt & Angel Song) all CT 5 rather than CT 6 (and CT 4); okay, you could maybe buff Witch Hunt slightly more because of Absorb MP, but I'm pretty ambivalent about that.

As for Nameless Song, I think it would be fine to buff that by giving it the ability to add Haste in addition to the other statuses (though maybe Reraise or Reflect should go), especially since Nameless Dance can add Slow.

That's it though. Allowing Life Song the ability to heal and buff more things than health is just asking for trouble to me, especially when Song is already "better" than Dance currently or at least far easier to use.


P.S. Yes, I am still aware that among other things, I still owe Unction "research". I'll post that on Saturday...probably.

P.P.S. I am no longer of the opinion that Death needs to be (heavily) buffed. It's just...really swing-y and some people are (way) more lucky with it than others, like Vigilanti or Celdia. Proof of this when I finally post up my videos around...midnight tonight (so in like five or so hours).

P.P.P.S. Damn it. I really need to proofread much better.

[Gaignun]

Making Dance like Lore surely would make the AI less stupid about cleansing status ailments.  There's nothing like going into battle with Eye Drops and Esuna only to witness your AI refuse to cleanse Blind because an enemy dancer won't stop dancing.  I support the motion to make Dance like Lore.

On the subject of Blind, I think it is time we give Blind (and, by extension, Silence) a CT.   The AI refuses to cleanse Blind even at the best of times since its decision-making process is insensitive to hit rates.  If Orochimaru Fang is implemented (12 WP Ninjatou that inflicts Blind at 50%), then melee builds without Angel Rings are going to be nonviable in a tournament setting.

[CT5Holy]

To clarify, you mean make Dances like Lore in that Dances do not persist?

I'm pretty sure Life Song and Nameless Song are not ok in their current form seeing how no one uses either of them (literally for Nameless Song).

[Gaignun]

Yeah, so that a dancer would not be performing Nameless Dance when the opposing party gets its next turn, allowing the opposing party to cleanse ailments.

[The Damned]

(I'm not sure how I feel about Songs & Dances not persisting ultimately, though I'm not immediately it against, especially since the AI is dumb about re-starting Songs & Dances when it doesn't have to [and shouldn't] switch and it would solve some problems beyond that.)

People use Life Song; just not very many. That's nitpicking perhaps, but certainly more people use Life Song than Nameless Song, which, again, conflicts with it, or Cheer Song, which suffers both from the above "re-Singing" problem & Quickening's entire existence. By Hades, I wouldn't even be surprised if people used Life Song more than Last Song, especially with Last Song (& Last Dance) having lowered chances to go off now. And really there's little reason to want to use Life Song anyway when Battle Song & Magic Song are even more braindead now and you both want your Bard to keep Singing that at almost all costs and both of them feed into forms of healing with Chakra & various magicks respectively even before absorb.

Life Song is just not helped by being slow as it is at CT 6 just because people were annoyed when it and Wiznaibus were CT 4 and easy to "spam" with Mimes. The problem was way more with Wiznaibus at the time (and even then it still lost to half of the reactions), but Life Song got dragged down anyway due to parity. Like Witch Hunt, I could see perhaps upping its output a bit more and maybe making the chance for Regen (a bit) higher, but it really doesn't need the chance to add any other statuses IMO. It just needs more speed or a more of a chance to add Regen if it's going to have to compete with Cure 3, Cure 4, Moogle, Murasame & Masamune (and Regen) and be slower than all of them (presently). Besides, adding more statuses to Life Song would just make it even less reliable unless you're going to suggest making its ability to add status around the 50+% range and even then that's unreliable because a) it's still random and b) it's still not 100% since that would likely be "broken".

As for Nameless Song, all you seriously have to do is add Haste to it and the AI (and by extension, players/creators) will start using it. Either Haste or Defending will have the AI use the damn thing proactively even and I really don't see a problem with Haste if, again, Nameless Dance is already potentially adding Slow (and Haste is being thrown around almost everywhere at 100% anyway via Masamune [or Yell]); Defending is "meh", partly because it still outright doubles evasion, which "bothers" me--otherwise I'd suggest maybe "fixing" Life Song by turning into a miniature, mass Nurse.

Speaking of Nameless Song & Nameless Dance, I'll partly amend my suggestion above: Nameless Song & Nameless Dance should probably have their chances to hit increased to 66%. The Nameless Arts should be the only Song & Dance abilities with 66% though. Everything else should either be 100% (Witch Hunt, Life Song, Angel Song) or equal to or lower than 50%.

[reinoe]

I just noticed something about Nameless Song...it adds Reflect, but isn't reflect a neutral status?  Imagine how someone with White Magic Healing feels about getting reflect cast on their allies?  I'm having trouble thinking of anything that can replace reflect besides Haste though.

[TrueLight]

I just noticed something about Nameless Song...it adds Reflect, but isn't reflect a neutral status?  Imagine how someone with White Magic Healing feels about getting reflect cast on their allies?  I'm having trouble thinking of anything that can replace reflect besides Haste though.

We could go back to the good old days when it added Reraise, although that might create a problem. The only other "positive" status I can really think of is Transparent and that would be quite interesting. Float would also be another option, but that would really mess up some Earth-based teams.

[The Damned]

(Uh, Nameless Song already adds Reraise still. It's just not being used for that between Life Song conflict, general AI conflict, the various Initial: Reraise items being good, Dragon Spirit and the really dumb, instant 100% Reraise that Paladin has access to at present.)

Nameless Song adding Reflect is fine. Honestly, if you're trying to use White Magic with Nameless Song when you know in advance that it has a chance of adding Reflect and you don't have any way around that, then it's really your own damn fault as a team-builder. As dumb as the AI can be at times, that wouldn't be a mistake of its own making for once.

All Nameless Song needs is the chance to add Haste and to up its hit chance to 66%. It  may need to lose Reflect (or Reraise) because of how valuable Haste can be, but not because of White Magick.

[Gaignun]

How straightforward is it to make Transparent cancel the affected unit's P-EV and M-EV?  If Transparent cancels all evasion, then I would be a little more comfortable with letting Hidden Knife stick around.  We could also create new skills that apply Transparent offensively to help take down units that stack EV.

[The Damned]

(It probably would be rather straightforward to make Transparent shut off the affected unit's P-EV and M-EV unless there's something I'm not sure of that's hardcoded...which is possible since I suck a coding.)

Either way, Hidden Knife still needs to lose Speed +1 if it's keeping Always: Transparent. That or lose Always: Transparent if it's keeping Speed +1. Losing all evasion formally doesn't really matter all that much if you're still able to murder everything to with Kagesougi but aren't as dumb as the Berserk AI is.

[reinoe]

Inspired by CT5HOLY's comments that "we need ideas, even if they're bad" during the 1hr 5 minute video he made.  Here are my thoughts on Wiznaibus.

There's no way to "fix" wiznaibus if we're judging by the metric of it getting made useless by saves, HP RESTORE, and Autopotion. It's unfortunate that Wiznaibus just happens to get negated by several very good reactions.  I often look at old battle arena matches.  Wiznaibus spam+mime teams used to be pervasive.  But it's not that Wiznaibus got significantly weaker, the metagame simply shifted.  Adding poison is a nice for sandbagging but otherwise can anything really be done?

One way to judge if Wiznaibus is "broken" is by having a team that spams Wiznaibus fight against a team that does not use one of those reactions.

Avalanche's "Circulus Terastris"(the only team in Arena that's using Wiznaibus) vs SoySauceMaster's "Smiles and Frowns".

P.S. I was looking at old Balance discussions and there was genuine concern about poison being OP if it lasted beyond death but it turned out not to be a big deal.

[CT5Holy]

reinoe: A huge change happened to Wiznaibus: it went from 4 CT to 6 CT. That meant Wiznaibus only went off twice per turn instead of 3 times per turn on an 8 speed unit, like Dancers. That's a lot less damage being put out.
Also, that's not a good way to judge an ability, since those reactions will be used, especially Auto Potion. I suppose we could see how it's used in a favorable scenario, but it's just unrealistic.

On a side note, I think Cursed Ring should lose +1 Speed and/or lose Null: Holy. As people have said, high Speed + Cursed Ring is good because you get your turns faster -> you get up quicker. I don't think the +1PA and MA is nearly as consequential as the +1 Speed. The guarantee that your unit will come back from Cursed Ring is really nice, especially since they can be easily dropped courtesy of Raise 2/Murasame/Items/etc.

Otabo: no, that vid hardly counts as conclusive evidence. Your team was not being pressured at all, so it could leisurely build up Speed. Your team was never at any point in danger of dying. I am fairly certain that a team with a solid offense can punch through Twisted Fate, because as I mentioned in the vid, I think your team takes too long to set up.

Phoenix Blade is interesting, and I don't think we've seen anyone use it well enough yet to warrant its removal/demonstrate it's truly overpowered. So far we've seen that it can be an effective tool, and those are good to have in a game.

[The Damned]

(Nice to have more people on the Quickening & Phoenix Blade hate trains considering how much I've been speaking out about those two things.

I still want to know what people think about Cursed Ring probably "needing" to lose +1 Sp though it now guarantees resurrection on the fourth turn for some weird, probably Item-based reason. [Oh, heh. It would seem that CT5Holy at least chimed in about while I've been typing this up off and on considering how distracted I got by Youtube and typing up something else.])

spoiler: Somewhat Carried Away Anti-Poison After Death Rant

I'd argue that Poison lasting past death is a big deal, but it's just like the least of the "big deals" currently existing at present between Kagesougi, Spellguns, Phoenix Blade, Hidden Knife, Quickening and various other things that "should" be "fixed" one way or the other. It helps that it's only a "big deal" to mages, that Wizard's Poison sees no use, that very few teams make effective use of Kiyomori--the one usable non-damaging Poison attack--as it is, that Masamune is nigh ubiquitous and that, for some reason, quite a few people still thought Hawk's Eye was bad until a few months ago. The increase in Cursed Ring & 108 Gems use and Phoenix Blade not really giving a crap about Poison ultimately doesn't really help it stand out either.

The problem with Poison lasting past death to me is, still, that aside from nipping Phoenix Down's usage a bit, it lasting past death seems do (way) more harm than good. I say this in the sense that it just makes already good techniques like Raise 2, Chakra, Stigma Magic, Masamune and Murasame all the more prevalent while screwing over already underused abilities like Wish, the lesser Cures, Moogle and, to a degree, Life Song. Of the underused techniques that have benefited from Poison, the only one that really has seen a big boost is Antidote and that's far more because it got upgraded to also cure Darkness/Blind than anything else. People still aren't really using Regen (the spell), mostly because of Masamune's stupidity & Nurse, and people still aren't really using Heal; the same goes for P Bag and, to a lesser degree, Light Robe despite them losing their weaknesses to dark, partly because they (necessarily) get screwed by Poison hard.

It doesn't really help mages either that both Hawk's Eye and Kagesougi both cause Poison & do hell of a lot of damage on top of it. If you can live through the initial assault without being on death's door, then you can get a turn and probably cure yourself of Poison before you die at least. If you're a squishier unit, like say every mage (save arguably Oracle), then you're basically screwed if you got Poisoned before dropping. Now the already heavily damaging units can just ignore you since you're doomed to die even if revived before you can do anything since it's not like most mages have Item or Punch Art or Basic Skill or Chivalry as secondaries. Even if they're using Draw Out, then the AI will probably have the unit Masamune themselves instead of Murasame if it has both, meaning they'll probably just die again after they gain back a pittance of HP, especially since mages tend not to [be able to] carry Move-HP Up.

That's part of the reason why I think both Hawk's Eye and Kagesougi need to lose Poison, but considering I couldn't even really get much consensus on Kagesougi losing Don't Act when I initially proposed, I didn't bother saying anything. (Seriously, Ninja already had/has an attack that caused Poison anyway in Shuriken, which really needs its Poison proc rate increased to a base 20% and a slight MP decrease as it is most likely. The only person who has even really used it in 1.38 is Ahong.)

Furthermore, Poison after death only seems like it's not a "big deal" because it's really not doing its job when you think about it. Or, rather, it can't do that job that was supposedly envisioned of it to universally keep units down or whatever because all of the classes with the most HP (sans Mime) have an innate way of countering it. Monks get Stigma Magic, Chakra, the sole access to headbands and, if counting Reactions, HP Restore. All of the armored classes also get non-Accessory Poison protection in both (Platina) Helmet and (Diamond) Armor on top of having their own, frequently used ways to get around Poison: Paladins get Nurse & the easily absorbed Grand Cross; Samurai get Masamune & Murasame; Lancers get Jump. Meanwhile, mages only get access to P Bag & Light Robe outside of accessories, none of which block Silence or even Berserk, which are both items that make being Poisoned worse. Whoops.

Yeah, some classes (read: multiple classes) are naturally going to need to have a way get around something or else that thing dominates the metagame. *cough*Spellguns*cough*Hidden Knife*cough*

The thing is there are also naturally going to be problems when all of those "some classes" are classes that have high HP and tend to not die are the ones with a solution to the "something" that is specifically a status upgraded to worsen your chances of recovering after death. With equal opportunity for protection or recovery without dipping into sub-par skill sets for most of their set-ups, mages end up being the ones to suffer since they can almost never do anything to survive after they get revived, instead having to rely on eating up two of their teams actions just to get KO'd again anyway cause they were likely still in kill range if not brought back by Raise 2.

So in addition to Cursed Ring giving Poison the finger and Phoenix Blade effectively doing the same, you have all of the highest HP, non-squishy classes basically shrugging off Poison even if they manage to die. Meanwhile, mages just get another weakness if they're unfortunate enough to survive and get Poisoned before being dropped.

Is Poison lasting past death overpowered? No, probably not. Is it a big deal or at least a big inequity? Definitely, especially since the only mages meant to be a "glass cannon" are Wizard & Summoner (and I guess maybe Scholar since its uber-Wizard)...and even Priest arguably does that better between Holy stupidity and having the only instant ability of all mages in Dia.

Will the proposal to make Cure instant fix this at least somewhat? Definitely. Will that proposal alone solve the problem? Definitely not, especially when it's just going to make the already powerful White Magick even stronger (even before the fact that Wall also "needs" to be fixed, at least compared to Iron Will).

That said, I'm not sure what the hell to do to "fix" that issue outside of the aforementioned fixes to Hawk's Eye & Kagesougi, which is a problem because I do think it's a "big deal" while also thinking it would be nice to see Poison (the spell) & Poison Bow actually see some use. Similarly, given my proposed fix to Wiznaibus would see more Poison flying around...yeah.

Actually, I did have a thought as soon as I saw that you had posted, reinoe: Perhaps make it so that Reflect Ring also blocks Poison. This in addition to continuing to Block: Berserk since Dispel is getting a boost, meaning it will make it see ever increasing use and I feel like the Accessory slot should constantly being doing something unless its stolen--my issue with Salty Rage. As such, +1 MA and Block: Berserk is pretty damn underwhelming with a Dispelled initial Reflect, especially if Berserk is made to take a CT.

(I also probably wouldn't mind Diamond Armor losing block: Poison and getting a bit more HP, but I already know I'm not going to have support there, so....)

TL;DR: Poison lasting after death is a big deal. It's just there are a lot of "bigger deals" and it's primarily a big deal only to mages (and Mimes), who get another, rather unnecessary weakness.


P.S. I still say "Dirty Dance" is the way to go for replacing Wiznaibus, and not just because I thought it up.

P.P.S. I still say "Phoenix Blade" isn't actually interesting. It's different compared to every other weapon. But "interesting" is..."pushing it" considering we all know what's going to happen when a Phoenix Blade user dies, especially if two of them are on a team.

P.P.P.S. It would seem that in addition to still somewhat abusing bold and quotation marks (and eyes), I'm now abusing post-script. Joy.

[reinoe]

spoiler

reinoe: A huge change happened to Wiznaibus: it went from 4 CT to 6 CT. That meant Wiznaibus only went off twice per turn instead of 3 times per turn on an 8 speed unit, like Dancers. That's a lot less damage being put out.
Also, that's not a good way to judge an ability, since those reactions will be used, especially Auto Potion. I suppose we could see how it's used in a favorable scenario, but it's just unrealistic.

spoiler

Does the CT change in the grand scheme of things really matter then?  If the biggest complaint about Wiznaibus is that it's completely negated by some of the most powerful reactions, in the game then shouldn't it go back to being CT4?  The problem of course is that this could backfire and make HP RESTORE, AUTOPOTION, and the various saves even more pervasive.  But that just would prove what I said in the beginning.  It could be that there simply is no "rescuing" wiznaibus.  Either it's set to CT 4, goes off three times and is overpowered or it's set to CT 6 and goes off twice and is underpowered.

[Reks]

From what I can tell, it'd be better to change what absolutely needs changing first, then see how things like Wiznaibus fare.

Trying to change too much at once won't go too well.

[The Damned]

(Pretty sure we passed the "trying to change too much at once" barrier with 1.39 a while ago.)

Like mid-way through the equipment stuff and especially after FFMaster came back and announced "oh, hey, Scholars are dying and Mimes will be able to use RSMs".

Just saying.

Might as well go for broke, really, since 1.39a is going to be hilariously busted as it is regardless. Like the Rainbow Edition of ARENA.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Correction, CT5Holy.  The big change that made Wiznaibus actually worth a damn is that FFMaster actually went and fixed Auto Potion, because he moved shit around on the ISO without testing it and made it so Auto Potion literally did nothing for many versions of Arena.  Considering that Auto Potion is the most prevalent "Wiznaibus Screwer" of them all and the one that gets the largest number of opportunities to trigger and perform that Wiznaibus Screw, it's had far more of an influence than the CT change ever could have.

Though funnily enough, skimming the other posts makes me want to at least leave you all with a thought:  People are saying so many things are "a problem" (Quickening, Phoenix Blade, Cursed Ring, Kagesougi, Hawk's Eye, Magic Guns, Hidden Knife, etc. etc. etc.), has it ever occurred to you that what you have isn't a big laundry list of problems, but rather, a metagame?  I really recommend sitting and stewing on that thought for a bit, because the list of "problems" seems like it's getting so large it's beginning to reek of "nerf everything that's good because it's good and I don't like it being good."  I'm pretty sure Arena already went through that phase once, then I walked in with Y U SO DERP and basically showed why all those nerfs that piled up over time were a goddamn terrible idea to do.

[Dokurider]

I'm not sure if this is still correct, but something people noticed with Nameless Dance a while back was that the AI never bothered to cure any of the statuses inflicted because the AI believed the statuses would just get reapplied by the dance. If this is still the case, then your Wiznaibus would simply poison everyone on the enemy team very effectively, without generating the wasted turns that you intend.

Well, it's sounds pretty decent either way. As for not curing Nameless Dance's statuses: Silence and Darkness, I've noticed, are lower on curing priority than say, Poison. The AI will often leave Silence and Darkness on for absurd stretches of time, even if it's noticeably screwing them over and are otherwise perfectly capable of curing it. In fact, I'm convinced that Blind and Silence are dead last on the list when it comes to getting cured. They will definitely cure Oil if it's a threat and negate Slow if they can, though. So I'm pretty sure the AI will react to Wiznaibus' poison like always.

Adding Oil in the mix is okayish with me.

Magic Guns

I've been thinking about this for a while now, but now that you mention it...

The main reason people (myself included) have come to condemn Magic Guns was the SCC tournament, which was strife with low HP units that didn't have the regular protections that would usually check or counter. For instance, most mage teams could never survive against a Magic Gun team, except ironically Wizards because they could just spec Nether Magic and gain some survivability but the resident Wizard team ended up not doing that.

Maybe Magic Guns aren't so bad? I think making people think twice about tacking on Raise 2 is a good thing and really hammers the lesson home about making yourself unnecessarily vulnerable to Magic. I think the question depends on what counters Magic Guns other than more Magic Guns? Is Magic Gun and Pilgrimage too much for most teams to handle without explicitly blocking against it? Is it too damaging against 40 Faith units? Is it overcentralizing Arena?

Oil doesn't need anything else.

If Oil was to be made it's own spell, it would have trouble standing as a debilitating status, even when used in a AoE fashion. Yeah it makes big numbers, but more often than not, it's overkill and it only does what just attacking them would already do.

[Gaignun]

The current version of magic guns is like Yun in Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition: you can dabble with other characters, but you pick Yun by default if you are serious about winning.  This makes the meta-game too simple: you're either Yun or anti-Yun.

From here, I think it is best if we nerf the big offenders (e.g. magic guns, quickening, hidden knife), and buff many other things (e.g. time magick, ninjutsu, low-tier equipment) so that there is more than one big contender in the meta-game.  In my opinion, the ratio of viable to nonviable equipment and skills in Arena is currently around 1:3.  I would like to make that ratio 3:1.  This is why most of my posts call for buffs.