Final Fantasy Hacktics

Unit stats are at Level 35 and growths:
HP: 5
MP: 5
Speed: 100
PA: 50
MA: 50

Generic Monster Raw Stats
HP - 3986762
MP - 928404
SP - 109494
PA - 150156
MA - 150156


Abilities:

This is the Monster Ability Brainstorming thread, yes?  And the priority is R/S/M abilities?  And we are only using third tier monsters?

/Spanish Inquisition

copy-pasta from the other monster thread

Skeleton
Always: Undead
Absorb: Dark
Weak: Holy, Fire
Half: Ice, Wind
Immune: Don't Act, Don't Move, Death Sentence, Poison, Regen, Sleep
Reaction: HP Restore
Support: Defend UP
Move: Move Underwater

Knife Hand: deals basic physical damage and may inflict Don't Act

Burial: deals 40% of target hp damage, range 4, area 4, linear attack, dark element

Coffin Nail: deals PA/2 * PA damage, range 2, area 1v3, dark element, may inflict Don't Move

Lurk: self heal 25% hp and add Defending (death formula)


Ghost
Always: Undead
Initial: Transparent
Weak: Holy, Fire
Half: Ice
Cancel: Earth
Immune: Don't Act, Don't Move, Death Sentence, Poison, Regen, Sleep
Reaction: Sunken State
Support: Defend UP
Move: Teleport, Float

Throw Spirit: deals PA/2 * MA damage, range 4

Possession: give a single ally an extra turn, cannot target self, range 3

Scare: inflict Don't Move, Silence or Sleep, range 4, area 0

Malevolence: sacrifice self to deal shock damage + 100% Charm, range 4, area 0

Drain Touch: steal 50% of target MP, range 1v3



:EDIT: instead of sunken state, other reaction choices are Blade Grasp or MP Switch to represent it's ethereal nature, I'd say MP Switch might be the better choice, since it blocks punch art as well as reduces the potential damage from Malevolence. Also replaced confusion status with Silence status in the Scare ability.

General note/ideas
All monsters need some sort of special effect tied to their 'basic attack', such as enhanced range or status infliction. In my examples above, the skeleton inflicts Don't Act and the Ghost has a ranged magical attack instead of a standard melee attack.
Monsters need innate status resistance, aside from the undead units above, I imagine most would have immunity to only 1 or 2 status effects each.

For now... people can suggest whatever ideas they want. I really have no ideas at this point in time.

Use this format:
Monster Name
Stats(don't worry about multipliers, I can number crunch those myself)
Elemental attributes
status immunities
Reaction
Support(more than 1 possible)
Movement(more than 1 possible)
Abilities(these need a detailed description) - don't worry about restricting yourself to 4 moves. They will have a proper skillset and a normal melee attack.



Personally, I dislike this, since it is limiting the options for monsters, and hence they won't be used as much, since all they can really change is Brave/Faith/Zodiac. But this is the easiest way to implement them, and it won't be too hard to change to another system if this system doesn't work.

If you don't like someone's idea, don't hesitate to point it out. But make sure you at least give a reason for it.

I want say... 5 monsters with fairly complete skillsets before I release the next version, and then we can test it out.

Mindflare
High MA, Medium HP,(very high mp(if monsters do use mp at this tourney)) Weak PA, move 4, jump 3, speed 8
weak thunder, absorb water
don't act, don't move, confuse, charm, silence, berserk
counter magic
MA up
move on water
Mindflare(range 3, no aoe, inflicts only one status on random(DA,DM,confuse,charm,berserk),evadable(mp?)), Leviathan(from summoner),brain touch(range 1, no aoe, inflicts 100% confuse) Water(Element water(duh), range 4, aoe 1, formula and damage same as fire 2)

Might be little too strong.

Vampire
250 HP, 150 MP, 9 SP, 15 PA, 12 MA
Weak Light, Absorb Dark
Frog, Confuse, Blind, Charm
Regenerator
MAU
Fly, Float, Move HP+, Move MP+
Blood Suck(33% Max HP Drain, 100% hit, No status, 0 vert, single target, 1 range, 0 MP)
Blood Lance(4 Range, 4 Vert, 25 MP, MA*10 Damage, M-EV, Dark Element)
More to come

Sigh. This thread just serves to mind me how lazy I am and how I still haven't worked on anything (or even played the game) in four months.

As such, I'll do my best when it comes to ideas. Right now, I'm going to make a post off the top of my head. Well, that and my previous work in FFTPatcher.

*opens FFTPatcher and loads "Embargo" for the first time in four months*

So, if five usable monsters are what you desire, I would say that it would probably be best think about niches that need to fill both role-wise and elementally as well as the current problems, such as the previous elemental absorption oversight (that was inherently in the game) and the continued problem with Confusion, Death Sentence and Blood Suck statuses.

The niche can wait a bit, as I think that's more applicable for when we get more monsters (and it's not like we have to use all of them).

*looks at Uribos*

Before I suggest anything, though, I guess I'll do critiques first:

Quote from: "Skip Sandwich"copy-pasta from the other monster thread

Skeleton
*snip*

Ghost
*snip*

:EDIT: instead of sunken state, other reaction choices are Blade Grasp or MP Switch to represent it's ethereal nature, I'd say MP Switch might be the better choice, since it blocks punch art as well as reduces the potential damage from Malevolence. Also replaced confusion status with Silence status in the Scare ability.

General note/ideas
All monsters need some sort of special effect tied to their 'basic attack', such as enhanced range or status infliction. In my examples above, the skeleton inflicts Don't Act and the Ghost has a ranged magical attack instead of a standard melee attack.
Monsters need innate status resistance, aside from the undead units above, I imagine most would have immunity to only 1 or 2 status effects each.

I agree with both the sentiments that special monsters should perhaps have a special effect tied to their basic attack (though it's perhaps unnecessary for the ones with stronger PA) as wekk as the fact that there should be some innate status immunities. I think that a lot of monsters could stand to have immunities to more than 2 statuses, especially dependent on their elemental affinities and stat distributions.

However, I do not think that any monsters should be immune to Don't Act (I'm forced to make an exception later because of, well, you'll see), especially since there's a Chemist item to get rid of Don't Act now and a lot, if not most, of the humans on teams thus far have been decidedly vulnerable to Don't Act. If it proves necessary for some monsters, then sure, but otherwise I'd rather not start off with it.

That said, I have already stated how I liked your designs and how they were similar to my own, so there's not much more to say right now that won't get said again below anyway.

Quote from: "Shade"Mindflare
High MA, Medium HP,(very high mp(if monsters do use mp at this tourney)) Weak PA, move 4, jump 3, speed 8
weak thunder, absorb water
don't act, don't move, confuse, charm, silence, berserk
counter magic
MA up
move on water
Mindflare(range 3, no aoe, inflicts only one status on random(DA,DM,confuse,charm,berserk),evadable(mp?)), Leviathan(from summoner),brain touch(range 1, no aoe, inflicts 100% confuse) Water(Element water(duh), range 4, aoe 1, formula and damage same as fire 2)

Might be little too strong.

As said above, I don't think that Mindflayers need immunity to Don't Act.

Also, I don't believe that a way to make monster spend MP has yet to be found, so giving them MP is pretty pointless as long their total is enough to cast whatever spell you would give them.

Speaking of which, I would prefer if it tried not to give monsters human spells since we have ability space still what with us having all the space that Zodiac monsters and special characters would normally use, for one thing.

I do like the store of (obvious) design of Mindflayers as mages--their robes certainly help with that image--that deal damage, but yours seems pretty damn strong, between innately high MA (high MA for a monster is pretty absurd compared to humans), innate Magic Attack Up on top of that and then giving them the ability to self heal instantly while doing damage with "Water". Their Counter Magic would be pretty ridiculous as well for the aforementioned reasons and it's not like magical teams need to get weakened any further at present; Leviathan's been weakened enough that it probably wouldn't be instant death to most things it touched, though it would probably still easily 2HKO.

Besides, there's no reason to waste a monster's (Innate) Support Slot with Attack Up or Magic Attack Up.

Besides that, Mindflare and Brain Touch causing Confusion is...iffy considering how bad the AI still is at dealing with that ability in addition to it not wearing off. Mindflare also having that range is questionable.

So, yeah, it seems a "little" strong, but at least seems on the right track.

****

Okay, so with that address, next we come to possible choices.

Personally, I'd think best, if, starting off, we avoided the monsters that already saw use in the last AI tournament. This means that we are avoiding at three monster classes off the top of my head:

• Bombs
• Minotaurs
• Dragons
• Uribos

I forget if anything else was used, though we pretty much need one of the Undead classes as well as the Mindflayer (since it already absorbs Water); I'm going to go with Skip's Ghost other than his Skeleton because his Ghost already has five abilities and I kind of hate HP Restore. We can also cut out other classes from consideration IMO:

• Chocobos - Like Dragons, they are the most varied between the three different types, which is problematic if we're trying to make amalgams of things.
• Goblins - Will take a bit of doing to differ from Monks since that's basically what they are. (Well, lesser Monks with innate Ice weaknesses and innate Talk Skill immunity, yay!)
• Hydras - Are also rather tricky to balance and I'm sure it doesn't help that many people think that they are the most OP of monsters. So we'll just skip that unpleasantness for now.

So, with those exceptions accounted for and the two aforementioned monsters--Ghosts and Mindflayers--already chosen, that would leave three more monsters.  I would choose Marlboros (Morbols), Treants (Woodmen) and Cockatrices (Juravis).

I'm going to "fudge" the elemental absorptions a bit--not that I was going to directly copy what I was doing for monsters--so that we hit all elements besides Fire and Ice; this is going to assume that the Archaic Demon will still be around to absorb Darkness when start testing.

Let's start with Ghosts. Since I'm "borrowing" these from Skip, I'm going to bold my changes:


I was going to say that you could just give Ghosts innate Float status since the only thing Float Movement does differently is allowing stopping over lava panels and we barely fight at Volcano as is. However, Ghosts might prove sturdy enough, so making them more obnoxiously defensive isn't exactly necessary...right now.

Let's move on to Mindflayers next since Shade already did that, even if I only agree with half of what he wrote. Regardless, I'm similarly going to bold my changes:


And single-han...tentacle-ly, Mind Flayers double the amount of Water elementals we have. Anyway, I obviously feel they should focus on mental and Water-based attacks. Concentrate support may be odd, but they're sure as hell not getting Magic Attack Up (not that they should need it) and I believe I justified in my version by thinking that Mind Flayer's eyes are probably largely vestigial; giving them Innate Darkness like I did is not really needed.

Also, my delay in and lack of testing has me uncertain about how monsters with Counter Magic react, especially since I tried to desperately avoid using anything magical on 1.3 Ahriman unless I certain it would kill them. So they "need" Move-MP-Up over Finger Guard.

So, now we finally get to three I proposed. I suppose I'll go one by one. I'll start with Marlboros, who I picture as being some tanks who care about status:


So, yeah, Marlboros are meant to be tanks focus on Poisoning and out-lasting their prey. They might be too sturdy already, but they need resistance to their own bad breath and Regenerator just seems kind of "fair" since most of the other tanks whore Regen as it is. Not much else to say here, really, though they could maybe stand to lose Don't Act immunity and from Sour Mouth/Bad Breath.

Let's move on to Woodmen--I don't understand why they're "men", I call them "Woodfolk" personally:


Yeah, Woodfolk are basically the White Mages of the monster group as they were before and I feel that's fine as long as they can move this time around. I'm not really sure about their RSMs. Counter Flood could be obnoxious with high enough MA, but Regenerator is something that Marlboros have; maybe Damage Split? But that seems best saved for Hydras.... Similarly, they perhaps don't need both Defend UP and Magic Defend UP. Hell, I was tempted to not give them any Support in favor of three Movements (Any Ground, Walk on Water and Move-HP Up).

Shrug.

This is already getting rather long, so let's finish this off with Cockatrices:


Eh, Cockatrices are all over the place, but that's largely because, besides Shine Lover, none of this is really from my version of the Cockatrice (at present).

Besides, I've typing this for a while and haven't thought out most of these as much I feel I could. These are all just first drafts, so feel free to rip them apart and shit.

(Man, I kind of wish that I hated on Earth elemental less, but it's not like it ever really gets used outside of Earth Slash anyway....)

TL;DR: Absorption of elements:

• Archaic Demons = Dark.
• Ghosts = Wind.
• Mindflayers = Water.
• Marlboros = Earth.
• Treants = Holy.
• Cockatrices = Lightning.

A few things

QuoteAlso, I don't believe that a way to make monster spend MP has yet to be found, so giving them MP is pretty pointless as long their total is enough to cast whatever spell you would give them.

1) All monsters will be Ultima Demon style, and so they will use MP and not be limited to 4 moves.

2) The 3 tiers of monsters thing from vanilla/1.3 will be scrapped. All monsters will get the 8 different palettes. This way, if people use the same monster, it won't be so confusing.

3) The above also means their regular attack will be like a humans. So no statii, unless you want it as an ability.

Was it decided that absorb, is halved?

lol concentrate on mind flayer.

Btw, just so you guys know, we don't have to stick to traditional FFT monsters.

QuoteWas it decided that absorb, is halved?

Yes.

Very well. I will try to think of more worthy movesets and/or monsters with those things in mind, FFMaster.

Anyway, since it came up, would allowing Blood Suck status be so bad if monsters being let back/added? They're all innately immune to Blood Suck anyway and it's not like equipment can't be made resistant to it.

Quote from: "FFMaster"1) All monsters will be Ultima Demon style, and so they will use MP and not be limited to 4 moves.

2) The 3 tiers of monsters thing from vanilla/1.3 will be scrapped. All monsters will get the 8 different palettes. This way, if people use the same monster, it won't be so confusing.

3) The above also means their regular attack will be like a humans. So no statii, unless you want it as an ability.

1) I see. I think I now recall you mentioning this a month or so ago.

2) Yes, I figured.

3) Are you sure how that will work for the monsters who didn't have a "normal" attack to begin with like Ghosts, Woodmen and Hydras? Otherwise, noted.

Quote from: "Shade"Was it decided that absorb, is halved?

lol concentrate on mind flayer.

Yes, Concentrate on a Mind Flayer is pretty "lulz", but it makes "sense". Additionally, MA UP and ATK UP are wastes of spaces on monsters.

All 3 you mentioned have working attack animations.

I did a few changes, but most of it is similar to what The Damned has said.

Goblin
HP 400 MP 25 SP 8 PA 15 MA 10
Null Earth, Half Fire, Weak Ice
Immune Conf, Dk, Chrm
PA Save
Magic Def. UP
Move HP-Up
Magic Hammer (50% MP damage), Goblin Punch, Revive, Weapon Break

I would rather we stick to the 6 monsters first. I want to expand/theorycraft their skillsets a bit more.

I was thinking of giving Ghosts a large AoE Demi spell. Something like 33% HP, Dark Element, 4 Range, 2 AoE.

EDIT: I need skillset names for the monsters as well.

Here we go, take a look. A few changes here and there, so take a close look at everything.

(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/TheDarkv1.png)
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/Frightenv1.png)
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/Thaumaturgyv1.png)
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/Putrificationv1.png)
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/NaturesBoonv1.png)
(http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj174/FF255Master/FFT%20Arena/AerialArtsv1.png)

Those are actually some pretty good looking skillsets. I might actually consider using one when I make a team sometime soon...

I really like the spread on the monsters so far, makes them very unique and, most importantly, challenges human units for a spot on a team. Very good work on those.

awww... you got rid of possession? I thought that was a really cool ability in concept, having the ghost briefly possess the body of a teammate to use their skills. Was there some sort of problem in testing or did you just not like that particular flavor?

They probably just didn't use it. I can't remember the AI ever using Quick-like abilities (or, at least, ones that individually target). Then again, I'm guessing that you probably tested Possession too, Skip, so I might well be wrong.

Anyway, I was just coming back to suggest that Ghosts should probably have some Wind-based attack. And, hey, there's Ominous Wind. (Too bad we can't have it potentially give the Ghost stat-boosts, heh.)

I'm really liking most of the other changes as well as the skill set names. In fact, I've very problems with any of these:

• Archaic Demon - I quite like Black Hole and White Hole, especially since the former reminds me of the Space Magic "Vortex" from Saga Frontier and the latter just makes sense. I don't think that Giga Flare should be Dark, though. It just seems like it should be Fire. Then again, Flare isn't Fire, but Black Mages get Fire-based attacks other than Flare. It's not like it's huge deal either way. I just think that Archaic Demons should have some flexibility over its distance attack given that its only other damaging attack is based on its HP.
• Ghost - Hmm...this is the one you've changed the most, and yet I'm fine with it. I'd probably fine it weird that the Ghosts "special" attack is purely PA-based now, but considering it's supposed to more a pest than a damage-dealer and it can snipe people better than most other monsters, I'm fine with Ectoplasm (again, nice name) being "weak". Chilling Touch seems like it should cost some MP since we all know how screw CT 00 abilities can be. Besides that, the only other thing I would say is that Malice probably should have another name since it heals--maybe name it "Spite", though that's only slightly different.
• Mindflayer - Not sure how I feel about Brain being a distant attack, but we'll see how that goes. I like Replenish over Aqualung. Nothing critical to say about these changes, really.
• Marlboro - This is perhaps one that I have the most problem with, if only because of Bad Breath, which is why everyone is weary of them. Bad Breath cannot have Petrify or Frog, especially if it's Separate status as it should be. It's just going to make Bad Breath kind of stupid, even if it costs MP. I would say to get rid of Petrify and Frog and make it cost 3 or 4 MP. If you think that it should stay 5 MP, then add Zombie over Petrify and Frog IMO. That said, the other changes are fair. Goo probably never should have Poisoned in addition to Don't Move due to wanting it to hit multiple people. Is there a reason that Blow Away isn't Wind, though? It doesn't need to be. I'm just wondering why it was changed since it doesn't seem like it would be broken as Wind, especially since Ghosts aren't immune to Slow.
• Treant - I'm completely fine with these.
• Cockatrice - I'm also completely fine with these.

Good job. It looks like these might be good for testing already, though I'm of course curious if anyone else has opponents on these.

From my tests, the AI never used Possession. Marlboro wasn't actually very scary, with only 3 move. A single Esuna usually fixed things up.

White Hole/Black Hole are going to lose the Haste bit though.

Eh, I'm fine with 4 move for Marlboros then if it's that or Petrify and/or Frog on Bad Breath.

Good call on the Haste thing. Stupid status priority....

at this point all we need is two more monsters, one each for fire and ice respectively, and we'll have the entire elemental gamut covered. Any interest in bombs and behemoths?

Eh, I think for phase 2 of monster testing, though two would be fine. As it stands right now, though, it seems like it'd be easier to test fewer monsters, especially ones that aren't competing for Elemental space with human equipment and aren't competing for niche-space with monster move-set that have yet to be set in stone.

That said, I'm more supportive of Behemoths as Ice than I am of Bombs as Fire. As obvious as the latter seems, they showed in most recent AI tournament that they're dumber with Self-Destruct than I thought they were. I'd perhaps rather have Dragons or Hydras or even Minotaurs represent Fire for a while. We also probably "need" want of them newer monsters to be weak to Earth and Bombs obviously can't be, so there's that too.

That's just me though, of course.

Bombs not having Fire element sounds... weird... its been an iconic part of them since FF1.

As for Ice element... not too many fit. I could make Apandas or Goblins Ice element I guess?

Well, some Bombs in the FF series have had an Ice element. Maybe have two seperate Bombs- one Fire, one Ice.

a couple of facts about Throw Spirit

1) It's always used PA and Brave only
2) Ectoplasm is it's WOTL name

Bull Demon
serving the roles of fire-element representative and physical beatstick, both of which are currently missing from the monster line-up

Absorb: Fire
Half: Thunder
Weak: Water
Reaction: Counter
Movement: Ignore Height, Cannot Enter Water

Abilities - Monklike
Vulcan Wave Fist: range 3, area 1v1, basic physical attack, shake off effect

Fire Spin: range 0, area 2v1, deals PA/2 * PA fire element damage to all in range

Sacred Flame: Cleanse negative status and heal 25% hp, range 4, area 0, fire element, cancel: poison/blind/silence/don't act/don't move

???: something utilizing the choco meteor effect

Suplex: climbhazzard attack, dmg(TarMaxHP - TarCurHP), range 1v3

Ice Gigas [Behemoth]
Ice element concept as well as magic-tank

Absorb: Ice
Half: Wind, Water
Weak: Thunder

Reaction: Meatbone Slash
Support: Magic Defend UP
Movement: Cannot Enter Water, Move-HP UP

Abilities

Sudden Cry: range 1v0, basic physical attack, may inflict instant death

Ice Breath: range 2, area 2, linear attack, deals PA/2 * MA ice damage and may inflict silence

Stasis: range 4, area 0, inflict Stop/Slow/Don't Act/Don't Move

Hibernate: self inflict sleep, 100% HP heal

Brain Freeze: deals 50% MP damage, range 3v3, area 0

Quote from: "FFMaster"Bombs not having Fire element sounds... weird... its been an iconic part of them since FF1.

As for Ice element... not too many fit. I could make Apandas or Goblins Ice element I guess?

Oh, I didn't mean to have Bombs be an element other than Fire. I just meant that for initial monster picks, using Bombs is kind of tricky between Self-Destruct and all their existent innate immunities.

If we're only going to have eight monsters in all of Arena (which I thought weren't), then, yeah, I guess Bombs should maybe the "Fire type" by default, even if Self-Destruct with their AI is still dicey.

Behemoths as the Ice type seem quite fine though. They even look shaggy and fat enough for it to make "sense".

Quote from: "Skip Sandwich"Bull Demon
serving the roles of fire-element representative and physical beatstick, both of which are currently missing from the monster line-up

Absorb: Fire
Half: Thunder
Weak: Water
Reaction: Counter
Movement: Ignore Height, Cannot Enter Water

Abilities - Monklike
Vulcan Wave Fist: range 3, area 1v1, basic physical attack, shake off effect

Fire Spin: range 0, area 2v1, deals PA/2 * PA fire element damage to all in range

Sacred Flame: Cleanse negative status and heal 25% hp, range 4, area 0, fire element, cancel: poison/blind/silence/don't act/don't move

???: something utilizing the choco meteor effect

Suplex: climbhazzard attack, dmg(TarMaxHP - TarCurHP), range 1v3

"Physical beatstick"? Er...Cockatrice is supposed to be there already. Not that we can't have two, with one being more sturdy. However, it's not like been completely neglected.

It seems weird that some holding an axe would be resistant to Lightning, but I guess given that lightning is heat-related, it makes some "sense.

I'm guessing "Monklike" is supposed to be a description of its abilities rather than the move-set name? Even if that's the case, Goblins are actually more "Monklike", which is a bad thing anyway since why would one use a non-flexible Monk character when Monks are still available and can do more?

As for the move set itself, I'm not feeling the "physical beatstick"-y-ness of it, I'm sorry to say.

Quote from: "Skip Sandwich"Ice Gigas [Behemoth]
Ice element concept as well as magic-tank

Absorb: Ice
Half: Wind, Water
Weak: Thunder

Reaction: Meatbone Slash
Support: Magic Defend UP
Movement: Cannot Enter Water, Move-HP UP

Abilities

Sudden Cry: range 1v0, basic physical attack, may inflict instant death

Ice Breath: range 2, area 2, linear attack, deals PA/2 * MA ice damage and may inflict silence

Stasis: range 4, area 0, inflict Stop/Slow/Don't Act/Don't Move

Hibernate: self inflict sleep, 100% HP heal

Brain Freeze: deals 50% MP damage, range 3v3, area 0

I can understand wanting to make a magic tank, but I'd say that I held off because I honestly feel that (faith-reliant) magic is still weaker than physical alternatives.

Even without that feeling, this thing is entirely too tanky IMO between the necessary Ice absorption, two-resistances, Magic Defend UP, Move-HP-UP and 100% HP full-heal? Yeah, that things gonna take forever to die, especially since pretty much no one uses Lightning attacks currently. In addition to that, having a potential sudden death attack and distant paralytic attack to give even more time to heal just seems kind of...broken to be blunt about it.

****

Okay, I guess we're going to do this since FFMaster didn't seem to object to possibly adding two more monsters to make sure there's a monster for every element. If we're going to do this, I think that Skip Sandwich has the correct basic ideas (again) in that one of them likely needs to be a "fighter" and the other needs to be a "tank". Hell, we could probably split the defenses pretty easily since Fire and Ice absorption set-ups work, exist and have been used already. (It could be similar to how relatively "sparse" the Dark-absorbing Ultima Demon is.)

Behemoths are pretty much fine for the Ice type, but we have three very different yet usable monster for the Fire type: Bombs, Dragons and Minotaurs. I would say that what the Behemoth is should dependent on which one of the three is chosen since, for instance, Bombs are far more likely to be (magic) tanks than either Dragons or Minotaurs would be.

As such, given that I just that I'm weary of the magic-tank niche right now and that Skip Sandwich has already purposed his vision of a beatstick Minotaur and a magic-tank Behemoth, I will purpose slightly tank-y, "average" versions of a Dragon (Fire-type) and a Behemoth (Ice-type).


Yeah, Dragons are kind of over the place. It doesn't really help that this is all of the top of my head and I want them to be "middling" without being as average as Goblins or Chocobos or Uribos would likely be (if we're going to use them). They're "kind of tank-y", but other than that, they need work.

I'm going to try to do Behemoths/Ice Gigases anyway:


...Yeah, those names and abilities need work, but that's all I have off the top of my head. I figure that we don't really have a monster yet that can do "cover" fire and it hardly needs to be ungodly strong since it's such a fat-ass and should be difficult enough to take down.

I'll try to think up more fitting things and perhaps come up with magic tank versions of Bombs and Behemoths as well as more physically oriented Minotaurs and Behemoths just to start more discussion since we're apparently doing this.

(I'll look through this post for typos later. In the mean time, you'll have to forgive me.)

P.S. The description I give to things aren't the descriptions that I would want put in-game or anything. They are/were just there to help me think.

just piping up again, regarding bombs. Bombs to me have always been the Gambler of monster classes, so they're a perfect opportunity to include gambler type skills in Arena.


Bomb
Absorb: Fire
Half: Wind, Ice
Cancel: Earth
Weak: Water

Reaction: Critical Quick
Support: Overwhelm
Movement: Float

Skillset - Kamikaze

Bite - basic physical attack, may inflict Oil status, range 1v3

Living Flame - Throws fire about randomly, range 0, area 2v5, hits 4 times, deals MA/2 * MA fire element damage, Flame attack effect, direct attack (should achieve a better then expected hit rate via hitting units by targeting panels directly behind them), does not target self or allies (but could still hit allies via indirect targeting, this needs testing, however)

Shrapnel - Sacrifice health to deal non-elemental damage, range 3, area 0, unevadable, deals PA * 12 damage, take 1/3 backlash damage, small bomb effect

Self Destruct - classic skill, range 0, area 2v1, shock damage + Oil/Blind/Silence status

Meltdown - self-destruct variant, focuses blast in a single direction to gain greater range and pierce through protective magic, range 5, area 5v1, linear attack, shock damage + cancel Protect/Shell/Reflect/Haste/Regen/Reraise

...That's pretty ingenious, Skip, which is saying something considering I usually agree with you as it is.

(I may "borrow" that.)

since I love undead so much, here is another potential Ice monster in the Revenant (Skeleton)

Revenant
Always: Undead
Immune: Dead, Blind, Poison, Regen, Sleep, Don't Move, Death Sentence
Absorb: Dark, Ice
Half: Thunder, Water
Weak: Holy, Fire

Reaction: Meatbone Slash
Support: Two Swords
Movement: Any Ground, Move Underwater

Skillset - Cold Terror

Knife Hand - basic physical attack, may cancel Haste, range 1v3

Heartbreaker - Spell inflicts 75% hp damage to a unit afflicted with Charm, Dark/Ice element, range 4 area 0

Frozen Soul - deals PA+8/2 * MA ice-element damage to a single target at range, range 4, area 0

Icy Glare - lowers the brave of multiple units by 10 points each, range 3, area 1v0

5th move - ???