FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Eternal]

I move to have TIGER's middle wall edited/removed. With it currently how it is, it takes forever for melee units to get into adequate range and gives ranged units a very heavy advantage. Further, it seems like battles themselves take longer to get going in that map.

[Dokurider]

It also doesn't help that Player 2 starts at a height advantage

[reinoe]

Further, it seems like battles themselves take longer to get going in that map.

That wall is the only thing that gives elemental spam or Song/Dance teams any ghost of a chance on the map.  Also Teleport/Fly.  But I do think that the height should be balanced out.

[The Damned]

(...Well, that online essay turned out to be long....)

Before I go for a walk, I figure I'll talk about the two or three things I've been thinking of ...One of which I've now forgotten after slogging through another 20,000 words. Ugh..., if only this was the work I was supposed to be doing.

Let's see if I remember what the hell it was...:


1. Masamune: In thinking about it more and more, aside from Time Magic(k)'s current weakness, I think the reason that it still seems overpowered is because of Regen. If Masamune was just Linear 1 Haste at 100%, then it would still be powerful and worth use without being as (seemingly) obnoxious. Because, really, why does the one thing that guarantees Haste 100% on multiple units come with built-in healing, especially on a class that already has arguably the best healing? There really doesn't seem to be a reason for it, especially when more turns means more healing via Regen, which now lasts a really long time and past death.

So having Masamune become Linear 1 Haste at 100% seems like it would be for the best even if it still screws Yell since then at least Slow 2 would be at worst a zero sum game against Masamune rather than a steady, eventual loss because of Regen on top of things. Additionally, Masamune adding Regen seems even more egregious when P Bag, Light Robe and Regen the spell just got buffed and are all seeing relatively little use despite the first one being able to be equipped by anyone who isn't a Mime. So...yeah, can "we" try nixing the Regen aspect of Masamune so people have to actually pick between that or healing or paying more (ability-wise or equipment-wise [or reaction-wise]) for both? Or "we" could try making it so that it only targets the user with Haste & Regen...even though I think that's actually weaker than what I'm proposing and gets rid of what's strongest about Masamune: 100% multi-unit Haste.

(And in doing so, "we" make it so that Poison as a strategy is actually usable, the Regen equips and spell actually have more than novel worth, that the Slow spells don't fight an utterly losing game and so that Haste spells aren't still utterly curb-stomped by its MP-less competition. Again, not sure how to "save" Yell, but Squire's Basic Skill tends to be one of the more difficult sets to balance.)


2. Song vs. Dance: Oh, right. I forgot this because it just came up a few hours ago when watching Barren's lastest video of Reks vs. Ahong: Would it be wildly inappropriate to suggest Song/Sing being subject to Silence? I suppose Dance could be made subject as well if only to be "fair" since I currently feel like Song is a (lot) better than Dance, if only due to how unstoppable the buffs are should they get going and the AI being smarter about Songs in general. It both makes "sense" and is something the AI already tries to do anyway (despite the fact that it should know that Song, for some reason, has never been subject to Silence). While not nearly as important as the Masamune suggestion, I just figured I'd throw that out there before I forget.


3. 500+ JP: Speaking of which, while I'm not convinced that the JP limit should (ever) be lifted like some people are, I've been thinking about this as well lately: How about making it so that people no longer have to "pay" to open their Primary and Secondary classes? Right now, that would save every unit 500 JP and thus maybe be a bit much, which is why I'm not terribly "serious" about this. If it was adopted however, then there would be nothing stopping you from upping the cost of opening classes from 250 to...whatever.

Shrug.

Well, if turning Crystal Shield into a accessory is confirmed, then what if we had a Kaiser Plate-esqe shield that boosted Wind, Water, and Earth?

I'm really...lukewarm to that idea, more because of the fact that the weapons that boost Wind, Water and Earth still don't see that much use than it being an outright "bad" idea. It's just a sort of "meh" idea though, but, hell, it's better than what I've got presently.

The only other thing I could can think of would be a "Block: Blind" shield given Grand Cross, but I'm not sure how much that might upset the balance of things.

As for an accessory, what if we had one that blocked both Charm and Blind? As a maker of hyped up Melee units, I find myself having to choose between blind and charm protection. I'd be nice if I could block both.

This one I definitely can't get behind though. While there probably should be another accessory that Blocks: Charm and another one that Blocks: Blind, I don't think they should be on the same accessory. I say this especially considering that, outside of revival, "hyped up Melee units" still tend to be (quite) a bit better than "hyped up Mage units" overall. As with the above, though, I currently don't have an alternative.

Speaking of statuses that need more protection from things, I think the new accessory (or one of the previous, still weaker ones) needs to protect against Innocent (and Faith, not that anyone has used Muramasa in a while) considering that nothing does aside from an Armor. Even if it doesn't straight out disable Faith-based magick like it used to do in vanilla, it being only blocked by Armor currently (and soon, possibly, a Ribbon/Headband/Hair Adornment) has long stuck out to me.

...Of course, I say that still being unsure of what exactly "we" are planning to do with Headbands' availability for the next version, Equip [Whatever] and "Martial Arts! (Now with Limited Edition Headband!)" plans included in this uncertainty.

[formerdeathcorps]

Power Wrist is not worthless.  Not everyone, Raven, believes in maximizing evasion to the point of having no power (or maximizing power without evasion).  I've ran at least a few units with ATKUP + power wrist and abandon (or 2S thieves/ninjas with platina daggers and power wrist just to get the right amount of PA for the (PA + SP)/2 stat while keeping evasion).  As a good dual purpose item, I think it should stay.  Now that M-EV is more important and we have MA * WP (unevadeable) off thief, I think genji gauntlet should stay too.

There is actually a good case for making Salty Rage permanently berserk now given that berserk units can react.  I'm thinking that salty rage + phoenix blade would then be viable on a high SPD thief since the biggest problem with phoenix blade users isn't merely that they are slow, but that reraise revives them in critical (in which they will waste turns healing or running rather than fighting).  There's no need to grant it a residual effect (such as null: blind) since the whole point of such a unit is early game dominance (with a possible late-game switchback if you run re-raise and an intelligent secondary), but I wouldn't really object either.

The rest of this post is addressed to The Damned.

Masasmune is NOT broken unless you have two units running it.  Since masamune only affects two people, if you depend on one masamune unit to haste 4 people, it will take 3 turns and by the time that happens (for the average team with units less than 10 SPD), at least one of your hasted units is dead/needs refreshing, so your unit is stuck on masamune duty indefinitely.  Now, if you want to run two units with masamune, you're free to do that, but you mess up your offensive variety at your own peril.
Slow spells fighting an utterly losing game?  Back when masamune was target AoE, I tested it against Slow2 and nameless dance.  Nameless and Slow2 teams beat my single masamune teams, winning on most maps except the small ones where you could always haste 4 units.  You needed 2 masamuners or haste2 to counter it.  If anything, the new masamune will fail utterly against slow because you'll eat up the masamune unit's AI priority into removing slow every single turn, with an even less likely chance to haste someone else (compared to before).

Dance > Song:
Witch Hunt > Angel Song (0 MP = incapacitation for a lot of units without Absorb MP or Move-MP Up with 150+ maxMP; Angel Song will not be used in a Move-MP UP kind of way, but only used to reload, meaning you'll still waste turns)
Wiznaibus > Life Song (A fully spec'd life song team can last only if you don't kill its mimes, but a non-fully spec'd life song team is pretty weak; a fully spec'd wiznaibus team can only be stopped by auto potion, speed save, or critical quick, but even a partially spec'd wiznaibus team can still snipe PD units or be used to accumulate damage for climhazzard procs)
Slow Dance > Cheer Song (Y U SO DERP proved the use of slow dance.  No one uses cheer song because once your SPD > 10, you will get a turn before Cheer Song finishes, giving the AI a chance to switch songs before finishing the cast.)
Polka Polka / Disillusion > Battle/Magic Song (Y U SO DERP beat a lot of teams that used these tactics.)
Nameless Dance > Nameless Song (Nameless Dance adds Slow.  Nameless Song cannot add haste for AI reasons.  Otherwise, Oil is effectively equal to Protect/Shell.  Running reflect pretty much blocks out using cure1/2/3 on your team, so only re-raise is solid (since very few people run undead).  Meanwhile, darkness and silence can incapacitate a large swath of units, much more so than reflect and reraise can counter.)
Last Song > Last Dance (Last Dance is only good if you use Jump.  Last Song is lethally applied as long as you have a team with 10+ SPD except for the singer.)

We do not need to create elemental neutralizers that also cancel oil (which was created to counter elemental halve/neutrality) because a game should minimize the number of anti-counters (like Yu-Gi-Oh's counter traps).  Such specializations become ever more niche and create an arms race for even bigger trump cards (which makes coding more and more complicated).

Damned, transparent ignores the evade of the defender, not the attacker.  That being said, blind overrides transparent (as it should).
Nerfing bloody strings is obvious as drain HP in FFT is actually equivalent to a weapon that averages to be around 1.5x its normal WP.
Poles honestly are fine as is.  The 2H poles are powerful (as Dol proved a while back with Sticks), but the only pole that is bland is the 14 WP one.
Ninjato are kind of flat by comparison because of how much we boosted swords (which weren't even weak before), but again, I see nothing really off with it unless you all want Sasuke Knife at +2 SP.
Honestly, Damned, innocent is fine the way it is.  It's really only reliably inflicted from one source, and usually used to charge up ninjitsu (because you can't reliably target mages with a stick).  Honestly, a mediator would rather use berserk (on the majority of the enemy squad) followed by kiyomori rather than innocent on possibly only half the enemy squad.  Mages are squishier in general, but start with high ninjitsu evasion (high faith), if not outright ninjitsu blocking (reflect).  They don't need anti-innocent.  Knights, who are supposed to tank, have more need to stop means of boosting damage.

Honestly, most of the anti-status gear are fine as is now that they are tied to elemental absorb/null.  If anything, the Defense Ring may be too strong for mages with 40 fury (in blocking most of the anti-mage status effects as well as nether water).  Can we swap it with the jade armlet (null ice)?

[The Damned]

(I might as well answer this before I go for a walk.)

Yay! A post addressed mostly to me! I now feel special!

Masasmune is NOT broken unless you have two units running it. *snip*

I never said it was "broken" IIRC. I've just been saying it's overpowered. Repeatedly.

As you know, broken is stuff that you can't beat without being extremely specialized, like when Hunting Bow was 100% Don't Move, or that just isn't working, like Shieldrender & Bowgun.

That said, if you replace "broken" with "overpowered" in that sentence, then is Masamune *really* any better? Should "we" just leave as it is?

It would be better to argue why it needs to add Regen at all present if we're going to talk about it unless people have other solutions, including leaving it is and why that should be.(This, of course, includes talking about why it should keep adding Regen.)

Slow spells fighting an utterly losing game?  Back when masamune was target AoE, I tested it against Slow2 and nameless dance.  Nameless and Slow2 teams beat my single masamune teams, winning on most maps except the small ones where you could always haste 4 units.  You needed 2 masamuners or haste2 to counter it.  If anything, the new masamune will fail utterly against slow because you'll eat up the masamune unit's AI priority into removing slow every single turn, with an even less likely chance to haste someone else (compared to before).

There are at least four issues with this paragraph alone between its seeming assumptions and ambiguities:

spoiler: Counter Arguments about Zero Sum Slow Game

1. Are we talking about a team that has both Slow 2 AND Nameless Dance? Just teams that have two users of each or both only at the maximum? Both?

2. Did the targets of Slow 2 in question have high Faith or low Faith?

3. I'm not sure why you're talking like having two Masamune users isn't that common, especially when Draw Out is still one of the better skill-sets "variety-wise".

4. You also seem to be arguing like Slow 2 is a) guaranteed to hit everyone it targets, b) guaranteed to be used against more than one unit all the time despite almost all units who have it only having it and not Slow and c) will be on a unit that always has the MP necessary versus a skillset that doesn't use MP for Masamune and that has the MP-damaging, unavoidable Bizen Boat.

You must excuse me if I remain skeptical.

Dance > Song: *snip*

This is obviously arguable. Also, for the record, I'm not sure if you're talking about how Y U SO DERP performed before Dancer's accuracy got slight nerfs or after as well, especially since I wasn't around for when Dancer's chances were lowered months ago:

spoiler: Counter Arguments for Dance > Song

1. Witch Hunt only trumps Angel Song if the MP goes below 5 before Angel Song can go off since otherwise Angel Song tends to restore more. Additionally, the Dancer will almost always run out of MP for one reason or another whereas Angel Song loops into self infinitely. Bards tend to use Move-MP Up far more often than Dancers use it, even if Dancers admittedly use Punch Art (and thus Chakra) at lot more than Bards. Still, Chakra takes an Act(ion), which means the Dancer isn't Dancing Witch Hunt (or any other Dance), while a Bard doesn't have to stop Singing even if they hit 0 somehow if they have Move-MP Up since they recover at least 6 MP even with no MP providing equipment.

2. Yeah, Wiznaibus has an edge over Life Song...even if it can and does tend to horrifically backfire with some regularity against anything that isn't a form of Counter, Awareness, Abandon, Projectile Guard or Distribute. This occurs even with Mimes, who can make the backfiring even worse and with not being as potent any more with the increase in CT. So while it's still arguably better, it's definitely riskier than full-map healing that now comes with potential Regen.

3. Yeah, Cheer Song has the potential to backfire, which is why I initially wasn't using it, and Last Song tends to be better. Good thing I never said that Slow Dance was inferior to Cheer Song.

4. Thing is, even though Polka Polka and Disillusion DO have merit, they have two issues that Battle Song and Magic Song don't suffer from even before taking into account the Songs having (much) higher accuracy now. The Songs can be built around from the get-go while with the Dances you generally have either use one unit with Polka and one with Disillusion to be sure you'll affect an enemy. Even then, there's a decent chance that one of those Dances will just be a waste of time depending on the team. For this reason, the Songs tended to beat the Dances even before the Songs became more accurate and the Dances became less so just because the Songs were much easier to benefit from, plan around and, additionally, to Mime. The Dances, meanwhile, if not used in tandem by two different units, generally have to be on the same team with a Protect (2) or Shell (2) user for Disillusion or Polka Polka respectively to singularly really worth it. So...yeah. They're worth using because, again, I never said Dance was worthless, but the Songs are still clearly better to me overall even if certain teams can make great use of the Dances.

5. Again, never said Nameless Dance was worse than Nameless Song. Hell, quite the opposite considering I supported Raven vouching for Nameless Dance when Malroth said that Nameless Dance still needed improvement about a month ago. Meanwhile, I even more recently expressed exasperation that Nameless Song seems to still only be on the same level of priority as Life Song and other healing, which makes it a lot more difficult to use than Life Song considering the longer CT.

For the record, all your argument does is convince me that Dance should also be affected by Silence at this point alongside Song/Sing, which I'm fine with.

We do not need to create elemental neutralizers that also cancel oil (which was created to counter elemental halve/neutrality) because a game should minimize the number of anti-counters (like Yu-Gi-Oh's counter traps).  Such specializations become ever more niche and create an arms race for even bigger trump cards (which makes coding more and more complicated).

Perhaps.

The problem with Oil at present, though, is that it never wears off unless you either die or have Holy Water or almost miraculously survive the ensuing elemental hit. When combined with the fact that it's x2 damage weakness to six elements and that FFMaster's variation of your hack makes it so that it weakness carries over to basic weapon attacks...yeah. Something has to give.

If that something is element weakness being reduced to 1.5x damage, then I'd be fine with Power Wrist and Magic Gauntlet staying around since I've used too. That would make the elemental shields more readily usable as well with having to worry about instant murder if you don't guard your loins weakness. At present though, I can't really think of anything else that would work besides an accessory with that "niche" and that accessory is probably less controversial than the above proposal change to weakness.

[Insert Transparent, Bloody Strings, Poles & Iron Fan, Ninjato & Sasuke Knife and Innocent stuff here.]

I already answered about Transparent in the Video thread, so I'll just say that I agree about Bloody Strings and Poles & Iron Fan, though in the case of Iron Fan, it's not like bland is necessarily "bad"--not that you were saying that (I think). Similarly, all I'll say about Sasuke Knife is that +2 SP won't really improve it, at least not for Ninja who can just use two Hidden Knife and get the same effect plus pseudo-Concentrate.

Also, I'm fine with Innocent now that I realize it doesn't utterly neuter Faith-based magick anymore. I still think that it and Faith could maybe blocked by an Accessory though. (Not really sure you're talking about with the rest of the stuff in that Innocent paragraph.)

Honestly, most of the anti-status gear are fine as is now that they are tied to elemental absorb/null.  If anything, the Defense Ring may be too strong for mages with 40 fury (in blocking most of the anti-mage status effects as well as nether water).  Can we swap it with the jade armlet (null ice)?

What is this "it" "we" would be swapping? Or rather, what part of "it" are "we" swapping?

P.S. I'll think about your Salty Rage thing now that Item Attributes might be freed up, but Phoenix Blade *really* doesn't need any buffs.

P.P.S. Now that this is all answered, I feel empty again. Hurray!

[formerdeathcorps]

It would be better to argue why it needs to add Regen at all present if we're going to talk about it unless people have other solutions, including leaving it is and why that should be.(This, of course, includes talking about why it should keep adding Regen.)

Masamune without regen < Haste (which is nearly impossible to midcharge and MP deprivation is a non-issue outside of long battles without MP regeneration or active MP destruction, so the MP and CT costs are effectively trivial).  To keep it competitive with haste and to keep the game varied, +Regen is the right course of action.  This is also why Wish getting 3 range to match PD is a good idea.

Are we talking about a team that has both Slow 2 AND Nameless Dance

No, just ONE user of Nameless Dance on one team and ONE user of Slow2 on the other.

Did the targets of Slow 2 in question have high Faith or low Faith?

I tested it against both and honestly, if 4 people were marked by the spell, at least two were usually affected at the lowest Faith bracket.

3. I'm not sure why you're talking like having two Masamune users isn't that common, especially when Draw Out is still one of the better skill-sets "variety-wise".

Uses of Masamune:
1. On a Draw OUt user
a. Not a physical damage unit (probably some generic mage)
b. Kind of is a physical damage unit (probably a bard with a harp and overwhelm)
c. Is a physical damage unit (probably female samurai with sticks)
2. On a stall unit
3. On a physical striker

The only case where 2x masamune is maximized is 1c where you have both powerful chiri damage, haste, and physical strikes.  Here, you can strike against M and P-EV.
As Barren proved, 1b is also pretty strong but if you want your magic damage to match max power chiri, you need to pump all your effort into boosting MA and elemental boost, meaning you probably won't have a damaging weapon like a harp.  If you do attempt to mimic 1c with a blood harp and some draw outs on the side, you'll likely get competitive inhibition between overwhelm + blood harp and murasame + overwhelm.
1a is tidally locked into a defense that M-EV can block.

In other words, only 1c is something that's not easily blocked by just M-EV.  Thus, it's pretty stupid to double up on model 1b/1a in a squad because it will be easy to counter, either elementally or by evasion.  And honestly, if we're talking about those samurais, masamune is the least of your worries.

Usually, stall units will run kiyomori with masamune and murasame/bizen boat.  Having two units with kiyomori is usually overkill because half of your entire party is nearly worthless on the offense while poison/blinding the enemy twice as fast isn't really a virtue if your stall team is sturdy enough (since you only need one unit that the enemy cannot kill slowly spreading poison).  Thus, unless you want an offense like Wiz's S6 team, you probably want only one stall unit with kiyomori, and thus, only one with draw out.

A physical unit doesn't have the MA reserves to use any of the other draw outs.  It may be possible that they may not even have the MA to be able to bizen boat someone effectively.  They are wasting their secondary slot by learning masamune when a time mage secondary can cover haste with spell interruption, % of HP darkness damage, constant damage, and slow, all of things prioritized by the AI if your physical attacker hasn't the range to compete with spells.  (Of course, some people may not want 70 faith, so masamune has its place, but your argument of being completely stronger than time mage is easily disproved.)  The only partial exception to this is when you are running a unit that starts with 11/12+ speed and no MP reserves, but even then, one has an equal case for item (not to mention snipe, talk skill, steal, or a more damaging secondary).

In other words, Damned, although double masamune exists, double draw out is hardly the a do or die strategy in the new metagame partly because the prevalence of more M-EV and because masamune is a poor substitute for time magic on most non-MA spec'd teams.  Furthermore, the above strategies are pretty close to mutually incompatible: a stall unit doesn't function well unless the entire team is built around stalling so a stall draw out user + a 1c samurai probably won't exist on the same team, a fast physical unit with masamune alongside a 1c female risks squad separation on large maps as well as the inability to boost them both with songs, etc.  Pretty much, the only teams where I think double draw out is effective are those that use 1c/1b, which have a lot more things "overpowered" about them than masamune.

a) guaranteed to hit everyone it targets
b) guaranteed to be used against more than one unit all the time despite almost all units who have it only having it and not Slow
c) will be on a unit that always has the MP necessary versus a skillset that doesn't use MP for Masamune and that has the MP-damaging, unavoidable Bizen Boat.

Already answered a) above.
b) is usually true on all but the largest maps because the AI will use slow2 to preferentially remove haste.  Usually, that is the masamune user, who's next to his comrades that he just boosted.  Even on larger maps, the large AoE usually ensnares the enemy because most teams are built to have units fight together (rather than split up from each other).  Squads that don't will have an edge against a slow2 squad, of course, but fail against general opposition.
As for nameless dance, slow is much less likely to land, but when you consider that blind, silence, and oil are the other options, I think I really don't care what lands, as long as something does.
c) This is simply a question of team management.  Your Slow2 user needs a means of MP Restoration (but this is fundamental since any team that has important spells needs MP healing, preferably on the units that use MP).  You want your Slow2 user to move after all the hasted enemy units so slow2 will land.  Since bizen boat is most often used to interrupt charges, the chances your slow2 user was preemptively hit isn't very high (unless you have a ton of other mages charging or a ton of other MP users or units so sturdy that the draw out user may as well use bizen boat).  Given these conditions don't occur, your Slow2 will land on a hasted unit with masamune.  The best part is that since his CT meter is only at around 20-50, he'll be slowed for much too long before he can get another turn, (which he'll waste on masamune to hit at most one other person) giving your other units plenty of time to destroy him or the people around him that you also slowed.  Damned, you overlooked THIS as why Slow2 is strong against masamune; it can give your entire team a free turn to beat up on them.

I'm not sure if you're talking about how Y U SO DERP performed before Dancer's accuracy got slight nerfs or after as well, especially since I wasn't around for when Dancer's chances were lowered months ago:

After, obviously.  Y U SO DERP continued to dominate until Absorb Used MP became Auto-Ether, reactions were changed away from simply fury% activation, and blaze gun's WP was boosted to 17 to allow 441 damage.  Incidentally, Absorb Used MP change was the biggest killer because it made witch hunt vulnerable the way wiznaibus was.  This in itself should give credence to why witch hunt > angel song; pretty much, unless you run an all physical squad or openly try to block it and then build your team around it, you will suffer at least one incapacitation on your squad.

Bards tend to use Move-MP Up far more often than Dancers use it

Looping indefinitely isn't a strength because dancers don't need to use witch hunt indefinitely.  After the enemy has been incapacitated or enters the strike range of the dancer's secondary, you can do other things.  Even if you don't completely take out someone's MP on a small map, the pressure of fighting at half MP can easily stop the enemy if you can take hits.

Otherwise, your objections are mostly sound.  Honestly, silence blocking both song and dance is only fair, but I know Eternal will resist anything resembling turning silence into addle.

it never wears off unless you either die or have Holy Water or almost miraculously survive the ensuing elemental hit. When combined with the fact that it's x2 damage weakness to six elements and that FFMaster's variation of your hack makes it so that it weakness carries over to basic weapon attacks...

Oil comes from
Short Edge (25%)
Hawkeye (100%)
Geomancy, Summon, and Black Magic (20%)

Honestly, if the latter hits you, that's just the fault of the map or bad luck, nothing more.
Hawkeye is usually substandard damage except on teams that boost their speed, meaning the enemy suspends their heavy damage for a turn (to pummel you next turn if they can manage their CT synchronization) or they aren't fighting at full power to begin with (which would be an archer's kagesougi off a bow).  Short Edge requires ninjas (which aren't very strong offensively) or thieves (which are even worse).  The lethal chain damage is 50% oil + elemental weapon, but honestly, this is no different than climhazzard at 50%.  If you get the 50%, you have a lucky KO.  If you don't, you've dealt far less damage than a better built attacker would have.

Of course, if the initial strike isn't chained, you can have oil persist on your units, disrupting your carefully built elemental defenses, but honestly, how is this any different than silence or blind (both of which persist until death)?  AT least, such oiled units will function as distractions since they will be KO'd in fairly short order (and if you do survive, at least oil goes away).  The process is slower on a blinded or silenced unit but is really no less painful.  If you have the time to heal, tanks can sometimes survive an oiled shot (while armor for knights and accessories for regular units can both block it).  All oil does now is force people to rely less on white robes and thief hats, which dominated the last season.

Sasuke blade users are mostly thieves, often with EQ Armor, as Wiz used.  In their case, +2 SP is a good way to counterbalance the hidden knife and two swords.  Furthermore, if I want two ninjas with +2 SP from weapons, I wouldn't be able to use 4 hidden knives.
As for my defense ring proposal, I'm saying that defense ring should null ice (because absorb water is now too strong) while jade armlet should absorb water.

[Eternal]

...I'd be perfectly fine with Silence becoming Addle.

[The Damned]

(Before I forget while typing up this massive reply: FFMaster, is Charging "supposed" to be nullifying M-EV now as well?)

...I see....

*takes off gloves*

Well, at least Raven can't blame me solely for the long length of this reply. Spoiler abuse, hoooooooooooo!

spoiler: Masamune without Regen < Haste spells?

Masamune without regen < Haste (which is nearly impossible to midcharge and MP deprivation is a non-issue outside of long battles without MP regeneration or active MP destruction, so the MP and CT costs are effectively trivial).  To keep it competitive with haste and to keep the game varied, +Regen is the right course of action.

I think you're discounting the key advantage that Masamune has over the Haste spells, even if Masamune only added Haste and not Haste & Regen: Masamune is guaranteed to hit. Being 100% counts for a lot. Hell, being 100% still sees Yell getting some use even though by both our standards it's still overall inferior to Masamune and Haste & Haste 2.

To be honest, the 100% aspect is what really bothers me about Masamune. I'd probably be more or less fine with it adding Haste & Regen if just weren't so damn..."braindead" I guess is the closest word to describe it. If it went by MA+X% or something where you were actually "punished" for having lower MA, even as little as that a difference of a few stat points tend to mean on status spells, especially ones that aren't avoidable, then I'd feel at least a bit better about it really. Especially since, as you point out, it would quickly become detrimental to run two of it "just because" even without having to go up against Slow 2 or Nameless Dance or both.

Additionally, Regen lasting past death now and for quite a while along doesn't "help". Neither does Masamune being actually instant instead of pseudo-instant like Haste; this important to note because of how common Speed ties are and, "ironically", because of Time Mage's proposed 139 improvements, lowering its Speed to 8 will mean that it will speed tie a lot more.

You have a point about MP though since most units worth their salt that have Haste or Haste 2 in the first place have some method of recovering (a lot) of MP relatively easily. It could still be an issue if the unit that was otherwise hasting had to do manually restore MP themselves however. Still, that's more with Haste 2 than Haste since you only need have to at least 120 MP to be able to cast infinite Hastes via Move-MP Up.

That said, given you basically admitted last post that Masamune is at least a tad overpowered if you double up on it, you never answered the question I asked: If you feel that way, then are you fine with Masamune staying as it is solely for the sake of "variety"?

spoiler: If Wishes Were Horses

This is also why Wish getting 3 range to match PD is a good idea.

Well, good to see we agree there.

I'm not sure if Wish "should" be improved beyond that (all at once) to be more likely to hit as well or restore just enough HP so as not get the unit auto-killed by Poison as well.

However, both those things seem unnecessary at present and the improved range should probably be enough to make it worth using (for its 200 JP cost) or, at the very least, not suicidal to use. Besides, Poison's actually surprisingly "bad" at present, though part that is due to how ubiquituous Masamune has been, which is another part of the reason the Regen aspect has been irking me.

spoiler: Slow 2: Masamune Boogaloo

No, just ONE user of Nameless Dance on one team and ONE user of Slow2 on the other.

Ah, I see.

I tested it against both and honestly, if 4 people were marked by the spell, at least two were usually affected at the lowest Faith bracket.

That makes sense seeing how accurate it can be when combined with high Faith and high MA (mages), especially if they get Good or even Best compatibility.

Of course, getting it to constantly target, much less hit, more than 2 people in the first place and matter is the tricky part.

spoiler: Uses of Masamune Merit a Sub-Section

Uses of Masamune:
1. On a Draw OUt user
a. Not a physical damage unit (probably some generic mage)
b. Kind of is a physical damage unit (probably a bard with a harp and overwhelm)
c. Is a physical damage unit (probably female samurai with sticks)
2. On a stall unit
3. On a physical striker

Hmmm...I see. That's an interesting take on things.

The only case where 2x masamune is maximized is 1c where you have both powerful chiri damage, haste, and physical strikes.  Here, you can strike against M and P-EV.

As Barren proved, 1b is also pretty strong but if you want your magic damage to match max power chiri, you need to pump all your effort into boosting MA and elemental boost, meaning you probably won't have a damaging weapon like a harp.  If you do attempt to mimic 1c with a blood harp and some draw outs on the side, you'll likely get competitive inhibition between overwhelm + blood harp and murasame + overwhelm.
1a is tidally locked into a defense that M-EV can block.

To be honest, I'm not sure what the difference between 1b and 1c are with the way you describe it, especially considering that Bards have more MA than female Samurai to begin with. Additionally, Bards are only one of two classes that can boost MA, so...yeah, a bit confused there.

I understand what you mean about 1a, but I'll comment on that in a bit.

In other words, only 1c is something that's not easily blocked by just M-EV.  Thus, it's pretty stupid to double up on model 1b/1a in a squad because it will be easy to counter, either elementally or by evasion.  And honestly, if we're talking about those samurais, masamune is the least of your worries.

I could see 1a being "stupid" in the sense that it was on a squad where no unit has the ability to get around M-EV despite all of squad's (relevant) attacks being subject to M-EV. Similarly, Masamune just generally doesn't benefit mages, at least not as heavily as physical units between AI movement behavior & easy speed ties causing mages to get mid-charged as it is and their "squishiness" making Regen less effective.

That said, even with 1a's "stupidity", it seems like you're at least somewhat overestimating how common M-EV is, especially on units that don't have access to shields; arguably even on units that have shields. Aside from aforementioned shields, M-EV is only on about...eight accessories, half of which sucked until very recently. Even then, all of those are seeing at best moderate use save for maybe Wizard Mantle (and that's partly because of Block: Don't Act). It's a lot more likely for people to use Setiemson than an accessory with M-EV still really, though people are increasingly using Mantles (and most other accessories, sans Jade Armlet and a few others), which is a good thing. So I won't deny that M-EV is an issue that must be overcome if you're going to have your team be magickally-based, but it's not really as common as you seem to be implying, especially since charging (and performing?) anything seems to negate it (now?).

See my comment about 1b above.

Usually, stall units will run kiyomori with masamune and murasame/bizen boat.  Having two units with kiyomori is usually overkill because half of your entire party is nearly worthless on the offense while poison/blinding the enemy twice as fast isn't really a virtue if your stall team is sturdy enough (since you only need one unit that the enemy cannot kill slowly spreading poison).  Thus, unless you want an offense like Wiz's S6 team, you probably want only one stall unit with kiyomori, and thus, only one with draw out.

Yes, we can both agree that Kiyomori, especially as a two-of, has been rather ineffectual on any team that wasn't /isn't Wiz's...though that's only fought recently once so far; I'll try to remedy that soon enough while Barren & Otabo record other things.

That said, unless you're talking specifically about stall teams that use Kiyomori for some reason (despite the fact that Kiyomori is currently rather weak for various reasons), I think you're narrowing down the stall teams that can use Masamune well a lot. For example, DomieV's "Famous Knights" team that a few people are gushing over is undoubtedly a stall team and it doesn't use Kiyomori but can use Masamune (all too) well. At the very least, you seem to be discounting some of the more devestating weapon procs that are likely to concur the longer you stall things, such as Battle Axe or Ancient Sword or even some of the mage weapons like Necronomicon.

Additionally, Warpath and Pilgrimage have made stalling rather...interesting in both fighting it and using it, even if Brave UP and Faith UP already technically did what they did respectively. Only you now don't have to give up your reaction and subsequently get hit to increase your Brave or Faith. Given that Warpath tends to backfire less and that Masamune is better on physical units than magickal ones anyway, at least where actual CT-using mages are concerned, Pilgrimage isn't really relevant for this however.

But...yeah. As I'm sure you know, there's more to stalling than just Kiyomori or, subsequently, the Poison status, even with Masamune having Regen at present. This especially because, "ironically", Masamune having Regen is part of the reason that Poison isn't very effective at stalling presently.

A physical unit doesn't have the MA reserves to use any of the other draw outs.  It may be possible that they may not even have the MA to be able to bizen boat someone effectively.  They are wasting their secondary slot by learning masamune when a time mage secondary can cover haste with spell interruption, % of HP darkness damage, constant damage, and slow, all of things prioritized by the AI if your physical attacker hasn't the range to compete with spells.  (Of course, some people may not want 70 faith, so masamune has its place, but your argument of being completely stronger than time mage is easily disproved.)

Er...what? I never said that Masamune was completely stronger than all of Time Magick. The most I've ever said is that a combination of this:

1. Time Mage and Time Magick have numerous problems, which everyone agrees with.

2. Masamune isn't helping since it's better than the Haste spells due to surety & not caring about Faith and the Slow spells since they have to worry about MP, M-EV and again Faith.

3. Masamune being on the already good skill-set of Draw Out isn't exactly helping Time Magick see use a secondary due to aforementioned problems either. (Outside of Masamune, specifically doesn't really help that Draw Out also has more consistent forms of mage denial & Dark damage and has damage + potential Slow, even if Wind-elemental, as well as arguably the best healing technique in all of ARENA.)


That's it. I've never said that Masamune alone obviates Time Magick as a whole, which seems to be what you're saying I said.

As for physical units not having enough for Bizen Boat or any of the other Draw Outs to be really useful and thus "naturally" preferring Time Magick, that also seems to gloss over a couple of things. Namely, it doesn't touch on the fact that Time Magick would take MP on physical units who otherwise probably have crappy MP, especially with the dearth of equipment that gives MP presently. The second thing is that if Masamune is all they need from Draw Out, then it's not really a "waste", is it? Especially if they used up their JP on other things to be a better physical fighter than some Time Mage-hybrid?

The only partial exception to this is when you are running a unit that starts with 11/12+ speed and no MP reserves, but even then, one has an equal case for item (not to mention snipe, talk skill, steal, or a more damaging secondary).

True. Of course, I'd argue that it's not the only exception, much less "only partial exception", as I just did above.

In other words, Damned, although double masamune exists, double draw out is hardly the a do or die strategy in the new metagame partly because the prevalence of more M-EV and because masamune is a poor substitute for time magic on most non-MA spec'd teams.  Furthermore, the above strategies are pretty close to mutually incompatible: a stall unit doesn't function well unless the entire team is built around stalling so a stall draw out user + a 1c samurai probably won't exist on the same team, a fast physical unit with masamune alongside a 1c female risks squad separation on large maps as well as the inability to boost them both with songs, etc.  Pretty much, the only teams where I think double draw out is effective are those that use 1c/1b, which have a lot more things "overpowered" about them than masamune.

So noted.

Also, I must ask this question with regards to the statement I put in bold: such as?

Already answered a) above.
b) is usually true on all but the largest maps because the AI will use slow2 to preferentially remove haste.  Usually, that is the masamune user, who's next to his comrades that he just boosted.  Even on larger maps, the large AoE usually ensnares the enemy because most teams are built to have units fight together (rather than split up from each other).  Squads that don't will have an edge against a slow2 squad, of course, but fail against general opposition.

While it's true that most squads need to stay within about 4-6 spaces of each other to not die horribly, I think you're rather overestimating just how often Slow 2 hits can target everyone on a team at the same time. Targeting just two units with Slow 2 is good if hits both obviously, but its advantage is short-lived much of the time since Masamune assuredly undoes it even if it manages to hit both characters. It generally needs to hit three or all four characters in my eyes to really be "worth it" since then at least you're not trading one for one with the now-Hasted (again) target now getting Regen (again) and potentially screwing you up mid-charge now because you Slowed him/her for a brief bit and screwed with "speed sync". That and you spent 22 MP versus 0 MP.

So yeah, I'll agree that Slow 2 can be an answer, it just too often isn't. (This for various reasons aren't necessarily Slow 2's or even Masamune's "faults", but more the type of respectively classes they tend to be found on.)

As for nameless dance, slow is much less likely to land, but when you consider that blind, silence, and oil are the other options, I think I really don't care what lands, as long as something does.

I concur...which is why I find it odd that you don't mention Nameless Dance later when talking about Oil, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

c) This is simply a question of team management.  Your Slow2 user needs a means of MP Restoration (but this is fundamental since any team that has important spells needs MP healing, preferably on the units that use MP).  You want your Slow2 user to move after all the hasted enemy units so slow2 will land.  Since bizen boat is most often used to interrupt charges, the chances your slow2 user was preemptively hit isn't very high (unless you have a ton of other mages charging or a ton of other MP users or units so sturdy that the draw out user may as well use bizen boat).  Given these conditions don't occur, your Slow2 will land on a hasted unit with masamune.  The best part is that since his CT meter is only at around 20-50, he'll be slowed for much too long before he can get another turn, (which he'll waste on masamune to hit at most one other person) giving your other units plenty of time to destroy him or the people around him that you also slowed.  Damned, you overlooked THIS as why Slow2 is strong against masamune; it can give your entire team a free turn to beat up on them.

See above. I'm not entirely discounting that. I'm just discounting that Slow 2, as much as the AI will indeed use it, will always be able to target, much less hit, 3 units or more so as to be "worth" it.

Additionally, given that you brought it up so much with regards to Draw Out, I'm surprised you've acknowledged nothing about Slow 2 also being subject to M-EV in addition to having to worry about Faith and MP. On top of that, even if Slow 2 is the answer, there's really nothing stopping Masamune users from just blocking Slow if they feel they have to, especially since quite a few of them innately use Helms & Armor already and there are two Helms that block Slow. That the one accessory that blocks Slow got buffed to both absorb Earth & Block Oil helps a bit as well.

spoiler: Dance Dance Clarification

After, obviously.  Y U SO DERP continued to dominate until Absorb Used MP became Auto-Ether, reactions were changed away from simply fury% activation, and blaze gun's WP was boosted to 17 to allow 441 damage.  Incidentally, Absorb Used MP change was the biggest killer because it made witch hunt vulnerable the way wiznaibus was.  This in itself should give credence to why witch hunt > angel song; pretty much, unless you run an all physical squad or openly try to block it and then build your team around it, you will suffer at least one incapacitation on your squad.

I see.

I'm not really sure why you're acting like Absorb MP is such horrible thing for mages to have as a reaction though. It's arguably one of their best reactions to have considering all the things it triggers off of and how, aside from Counter Flood on the few mages with decent PA and sometimes the prone-to-backfire Counter Magick, mages don't really benefit from "active" counters. It's hardly as narrow as Projectile Guard or Finger Guard or Distribute or even Counter/Meatbone Slash with distance weapons, at least now that it's "Auto-Ether" as you put it. That Absorb MP is also in the same skill set as both Defense UP and Move-MP UP helps its "cred" as more than just "anti-Witch-Hunt tech" a lot as well.

Looping indefinitely isn't a strength because dancers don't need to use witch hunt indefinitely.  After the enemy has been incapacitated or enters the strike range of the dancer's secondary, you can do other things.  Even if you don't completely take out someone's MP on a small map, the pressure of fighting at half MP can easily stop the enemy if you can take hits.

Okay, I'll grant you that, especially since Dancers can be built to hit disgustingly hard.

Otherwise, your objections are mostly sound.

Thanks. Don't let Raven see you say that, though.

Quick! Hide it in layered spoilers in text the same color as the forum background!

Honestly, silence blocking both song and dance is only fair, but I know Eternal will resist anything resembling turning silence into addle.

I see. Well, nice to know how at least a couple of people feel about it one way or the other considering no one's said anything about it (or several other things) still so far.

spoiler: Time to Oil Up

Oil comes from
Short Edge (25%)
Hawkeye (100%)
Geomancy, Summon, and Black Magic (20%)

I'm not really sure how you forgot Nameless Dance (roughly 12% or 13%), especially if you counted Short Edge which no one has any business using at present and were using Nameless Dance as evidence against Masamune earlier. Then again, your post is pretty long, so it happens.

But, yeah, the list might as well eschew Short Edge and Bad Luck, just because no one uses them (for good reason).

With that addressed, let's move on.

Honestly, if the latter hits you, that's just the fault of the map or bad luck, nothing more.

I'm not sure what to make of the wording of this. I guess it's just a difference in our perception of how common M-EV is ultimately, unless you're specifically talking about Demon Fire, which case, yes, it's literally down to the map (even if Demon Fire is one of the more common Elemental abilities).

Hawkeye is usually substandard damage except on teams that boost their speed, meaning the enemy suspends their heavy damage for a turn (to pummel you next turn if they can manage their CT synchronization) or they aren't fighting at full power to begin with (which would be an archer's kagesougi off a bow).

The thing is though, even with "substandard damage" (despite Archers having access to some of the highest WP weapons innately and above average speed), substandard damage is all they need. Considering that Hawk's Eye/Hawkeye is guaranteed to hit, is guaranteed to add Poison and Oil and that teams that try for Oil can easily hit Oiled/Oily units for 300+ damage, all Hawk's Eye needs to do is knock a bit of HP anyway for the kill. This unless you're a really tanky unit and pretty much no one uses the highest HP gear at present, especially on the armor side. On top of that, it's easier to cure Poison and because the AI prioritizes curing Poison over Oil, the Oil kill is almost guaranteed to happen since nothing except for Refute gets rid of both Poison & Oil (not even death now).

Short Edge requires ninjas (which aren't very strong offensively) or thieves (which are even worse).  The lethal chain damage is 50% oil + elemental weapon, but honestly, this is no different than climhazzard at 50%.  If you get the 50%, you have a lucky KO.  If you don't, you've dealt far less damage than a better built attacker would have.

See above. Short Edge isn't worth talking about unless we're talking about how to improve it.

So noted though.

Of course, if the initial strike isn't chained, you can have oil persist on your units, disrupting your carefully built elemental defenses, but honestly, how is this any different than silence or blind (both of which persist until death)?  AT least, such oiled units will function as distractions since they will be KO'd in fairly short order (and if you do survive, at least oil goes away).  The process is slower on a blinded or silenced unit but is really no less painful.  If you have the time to heal, tanks can sometimes survive an oiled shot (while armor for knights and accessories for regular units can both block it).  All oil does now is force people to rely less on white robes and thief hats, which dominated the last season.

Blind & Silence are different from Oil for quite a few reasons, though your point about Blind & Silence being more "painful" if allowed to persist is valid:


1. Blind & Silence are way easier to block against than Oil, especially Silence; really, if you get hit by Silence and don't have a way to heal it, you deserve to suffer considering how easy it is to avoid. Hell, Concentrate and (Spell) guns "block" Blind since it's basically irrelevant against them.

2. Blind & Silence don't affect units all equally like Oil does, which only really doesn't "affect" tanks since they tend to be the only type of units that can survive it. Blind is closer to Oil than Silence is, if only because the AI mages tend to be stupid about trying to attack the enemy at times unless they're holding a Healing Staff or an elemental weapon the enemy absorbs (or a Murasame for some reason). Silence is honestly nothing like Oil, right down to the "lingering pain" since, as you note, Oiled units tend to get murdered within a turn. It only affects Faith-based mages and doesn't even affect all things that use MP that are otherwise spell-like such as Song/Sing, Dance and what is now Paladin's Reraise.

3. Blind & Silence are, again, easier to heal. Both are simultaneously cured by Esuna & Stigma Magic (and Refute). Outside of Refute, which basically affects & cures everything that isn't Crystal, Dead or Jumping, no active skill other than Holy Water affects Oil. And people tend to not have Holy Water anyway unless they're dumping about 800+ JP into Chemist since other status cures and actual HP restoration tend to be more important.

4. Blind & Silence tend not to come with as much damage as Oil does, Grand Cross aside. Everything relevant that causes Oil save for Nameless Dance can do a crapload of damage on top of adding Oil, which makes it easier to do a crapload of damage. When it comes to relevant sources of damage that cause either Blind or Silence, aside from Grand Cross and, quite randomly, Kagesougi, there isn't anything else that actually sees use. Bizen Boat, Silencer and Night Killer might qualify if they were used, but no one really uses those, probably due in part to how easy it is to block Blind & Silence.


I'm not saying Oil should be murdered or anything or even that it needs be cured healed by something new, though that would be nice. I just fail to see how giving it a couple of more sources of being blocking, such as on Rainbow Staff and another universal accessory, is overly niche and so bad.

At the very least, you're fine if Rainbow Staff got Block: Oil right? Or is that too "niche" too?

Sasuke blade users are mostly thieves, often with EQ Armor, as Wiz used.  In their case, +2 SP is a good way to counterbalance the hidden knife and two swords.  Furthermore, if I want two ninjas with +2 SP from weapons, I wouldn't be able to use 4 hidden knives.

True, I suppose, especially about the weapon limit aspect. Sasuke Blade/Knife being usable by Thieves only is still...decent rather than it seeing next to no use at all, so giving it +2 SP might actually be enough.

As for my defense ring proposal, I'm saying that defense ring should null ice (because absorb water is now too strong) while jade armlet should absorb water.

Oh...I understand now. I can get behind that, actually, especially since aside from Rubber Shoes (& technically Feather Boots) and maybe the mantles, the null elemental accessories haven't really been seeing use still. (And it's not like it's named Coral Ring like I wanted anyway. [/pouts])

Hasty EDIT: Whoops. I forgot the Haste & Slow spells redone MP values among other things. Fixed. This obviously how well my all-Time Mage team will do.

[CT5Holy]

For the record, Short Edge actually procs Oil at 50%. Gaignun asked about this a while back and got a clarification from FFM.

[FFMaster]

Yeah, Short Edge is accidentally 50% and hasn't been fixed yet.

[CT5Holy]

Why not leave it at 50%?

[formerdeathcorps]

Please leave Short Edge at 50%!  That would be like another platina dagger, just with elemental weapons.

Also, can we please boost the evasion on power wrist and genji gauntlet to 25%?

[Dokurider]

Thirded.

[The Damned]

(FFMaster, if you have the time, can you clarify whether you meant this post about Transparent to be talking about both the attacker and defender's evasion or just the defender's evasion?

Similarly, can you reiterate whether or not Concentrate is affected by Blind?)

So Short Edge actually adds Oil at 50% and not 25%? Oh, then accident or not, that makes it actually useful and usable and should probably stay.

Admittedly, due to my reservations about Oil, I'd probably more comfortable if it were only 33%, especially since it's in the same weapon class as Hidden Knife. That said, I admit that addition of merely +8% probably wouldn't really help it see more. On top of that, in giving a little more thought, I realized that if a Ninja with Hidden Knife chose Short Edge, then he'll basically have to give up using Kagesougi if he wants to inflict Oil for his team. So I'm fine with that trade (for now).

*makes a note of this for complaint thread*

Also, can we please boost the evasion on power wrist and genji gauntlet to 25%?

An increase to 25% seems a bit much. Maybe an increase to 20% instead?

I guess I am not that comfortable with things that increase power being equip in evasion to things meant to dodge, especially when Elf Mantle has no additional effect and even with "only" 20%, Genji Gauntlet & Aegis Shield give you about 50% M-EV and +2 MA.

[formerdeathcorps]

My blind hack was meant to override concentrate.  You don't have to ask FFM on this.

[The Damned]

(Oh, so Blind does override Concentrate as it's supposed to. I could have sworn that FFMaster said the opposite and that it hasn't worked a few times back. Good to know though. It would also explain why "Blind by the Light"'s Angela used Stigma Magic on herself a couple of months ago despite having Concentrate...; I thought it was just the AI being dumb again.)

Good, I don't have to double post a brief suggestion for Thief of all things since all the Thief usage in recent videos has had me thinking about it and it's a class that no one has talked about when it comes to possible changes & improvements. This is probably because for the most part its abilities is fine, as much as I still feel Quickening needs to die in a fire ultimately. The same goes for its weapon choice, especially if Sasuke Knife adds +2 SP instead of +1, and its stats more or less. It also helps that people are figuring out how to get the AI to actually use Heretic on itself, that I've shown Spellbreaker is worth using and that Steal Accessory ignoring evasion now helped it tremendously. This even if the AI seems to be really dumb about Ruins now, though perhaps just my crappy luck.

Anyway, I've only three things to suggest with regards to Thief at present:


1. Quickening gets raised to 20 MP: Now, this isn't (just) out of spite, but something I realized is probably necessary given how Quickening can be abused so readily even now when every little equipment adds MP. If Hats and Clothes are going to add more MP now, then Quickening doesn't need to be even more abusive. That raising it from 15 MP to 20 MP also has the added benefit of making it less readily abused with Ether, even the weakest of Chakras, Absorb MP and Move-MP Up helps.

2. Thief's MP goes up by +1 for both sexes: Of course, with Quickening now costing 5 more MP, Male Thieves still need to be able to use it at least once even if Female Thieves still can without changes. As I've said before, there's no reason having a skill be in a skill set that the Primary class can't make good use of with its basic stats.

3. Bad Luck's MP gets reduced from 9 to 6 and its Dead proc gets replaced by Frog or Death Sentence: This is easily the suggestion I'm the least "sure" of. This even though I think we can all agree that Bad Luck--can we rename this Jinx?--is frankly nigh unusable right now. Lowering its MP would, again, enable Thieves to use it more in the first place, even if thrice isn't much more than twice. Losing Dead is compensation for it becoming cheaper MP-wise, especially since its unavoidable even if it is random. (Actually, I can never remember due to how its written in the Master Guide. Is it Random? Or Separate? Because it really needs to be Random, especially it has CT that long.) Death Sentence is a pseudo-replacement for Dead as is Frog and both, consciously, have the chance of backfiring, though that's lessened due to all the things that Bad Luck/Jinx can add.

Alternately, keep it 9 MP, but reduce its CT to 3 and have Frog or Death Sentence replace Oil.

Actually, that's another thing really that responding to formerdeathcorps's longer post reminded me of: Bad Luck/Jinx shouldn't really even be capable of adding Oil as it is. It's too random to add a status that a team must be built around to benefit from and I no longer support Raven's tentative proposal to maybe have Oil block Reactions since Oil is strong enough as it is to me, especially with Spellguns around. Everything that Bad Luck/Jinx is able to be inflict thus needs to be able to stand alone, which Oil can't/doesn't.


That's "it" really. Thief's other stats seem more than fine otherwise, especially since they are still the fastest class that can actually have a Secondary and wear equipment. It's also been made extremely obvious by Dokurider's "Chrono Storm" team that Air Knife needs to not be compatible with Two Hands, so no need to go into that.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

My blind hack was meant to override concentrate.  You don't have to ask FFM on this.

I'm pretty sure he's not USING your Blind hack, FDC.

He made his own, after all.  I know he had to dick around with whatever one he was using because it was not working at ALL for a while.  (As in, Blind literally did nothing.)

[FFMaster]

Nope, I'm using fdc's one.

[Malroth]

The Dance of Song and Silence
I like the Idea put forth of Silence Blocking Sing and Dance. IF Dancers get the capability of equipping robes so that they natively have a piece of equipment that can stop it.
That being said I'm not convinced that Dance as an action skill is currently usable. Besides Witch Hunt every Dance is massively underpowered (wizanabus), worthlessly inaccurate,( slow dance),  or has a high probability of being completely pointless even if it does hit (polka polka, Disillusion, nameless dance, Last Dance)

The Invincible Masamune
Yeah this thing is way too powerful,  when 1 action from 1 class finds its way onto 1 out of every 3 units you know you have a problem.   I'd recommend ditching the 100% accuracy and instead have 2 separate 50+ma% chances for each status similar to how the Byblos demon's skill.

Luck and Thieves and  Magic
Theives could use some more MP and some more MA  since for some strange reason 1/3 of their abilities are keyed off a stat in which they have the lowest in the game.  Quickening however could definately stand an increased MP cost as well as an increased JP cost  while Speed ruin and Magic ruin are very over priced and still probably wouldn't see much use even at 100 JP.