Final Fantasy Hacktics

(Meh. Delayed responses are fine. Yours at least had an excuse. My delayed response was just due to sloth as per usual.)

Given how much you had to read through, no one could blame you for taking a while either really. I mean, I had to look back just to see what you were replying to in some cases:






















My apologies for my own delayed response given how much of that is me just saying "good to know" or something like it, but thanks for taking the time to reply like always.

(I'll answer these in order to best of my knowledge.)

Forced Two Hand weapons get no added weapon boost despite needing Two Hands. That's part of the point of forcing them in most cases and hence why Knight Swords have such massive WP and yet don't easily hit for 400+ damage most of the time.

Yes. That's why a female Samurai or Bard using Whale Whisker with Two Hands is (still) so very dangerous.

This one, I'm not sure about. I don't think Blood Sword drain does since Kagesougi isn't technically normal attack. Then again, it does use a weapon strike and I'm pretty sure that Blood Sword's HP Drain works off Jump, though Jump is atypical so.... Shrug. Someone else will have to answer this one or you could just try it out in the meantime.

Mad Science doesn't add Reflect, actually, or rather it shouldn't be if it is; I don't think it is, but I'll admit I can't remember back to the last fight with Otabo's "Man Mode Strats" team. The only actual way currently to get Reflect is through Nameless Song, which is extremely unreliable, though that's not too surprising since I'd readily argue both Song and Dance have needed to just be overhauled for a while.

As for Reflect Ring and Mirror Mail/Reflect Mail becoming Always: Reflect, I could see that possibly working without being too overpowered since basically ever mage except Oracle has would have a way to get around that. "We" could easily change a spell or two in Yin-Yang Magic besides Dispel Magic to get around Reflect if that was the case--I'd personally vote for Spell Absorb & Life Drain since they've historically gotten around Reflect and see so little use.

That said, I'm ultimately undecided to that presently.

(I'll comment on the match silentkaster just posted later despite having watched it shortly after it got posted. Still, thanks for that silentkaster.)

So it would seem that my victory over reinoe in the match that Mammonmas and Knife Nutz had was indeed fraudulent. Well, that figures, to the point where I can't say I'm actually surprised. If someone could rerun that match, then I'd appreciate it, especially if it was on the same two maps. (It doesn't have to be, however, as I say those both give advantage to my team.)

Quote from: FFMaster on November 14, 2014, 07:37:53 am
A few clarifications on Mimes since this is the most active thread and will be seen the most.

- Mimes cannot equip Bags

Profound sadness, especially since I already feel like Mimes are currently a bit too weak even if I can understand the caution.

Still, it's good that to have it confirmed. I've already edited the Mime-post I put in the Team Balance thread.

Quote from: FFMaster on November 14, 2014, 07:37:53 am
- A few people are confused when the Mime refuses to Mimic something. From what I have seen, this is probably because of height differences. For example, the 1 panel Chakra has a height tolerance of 0. If a Mime tries to Mimic it but the panel in front is not the same height as the Mime, nothing will happen. If there are any other issues, please feel free to point them out.

That's not the type of failure we're talking about or, at least, that I'm talking about; I'm not sure whom else you're addressing it though. We've been over this before, but I don't expect you to remember since that was already at least a year ago if not more. Mimes outright fail to do something that should be valid, such as Sing or Dance or use Chakra on perfectly even ground. It just...happens sometime for reasons that surprisingly no one has yet to look into given it's been happening since vanilla; it's just a lot easier to notice in ARENA.

Quote from: FFMaster on November 14, 2014, 07:37:53 am
- Mimes can equip weapons, as long as they have the required secondary. Same with Shields. For example, a Defender wielding Mime with Awareness and Equip Heavy Blade, similar to the old Thief builds except this time, they have some armor to go with it.

I've similarly edited the post in the Team Balance thread to make language clearer that this is the case, though I'm not sure who actually had this thought.

Quote from: FFMaster on November 14, 2014, 07:37:53 amI've been overall annoyed at the problems with Mime. I can't believe I didn't test them charging a spell at all. I was tempted to give them non-charge, but that would be stupid. I'll try to fix the charging bugs, but I highly doubt that it will be possible for someone of my level.

Meh. Don't beat yourself up too much. The charging thing was weird to overlook, but there were definitely going to be some issues with the new Mime regardless of what you changed with Mime given, again, how little anyone has looked into it for some reason. "Someone of your level" is still way above most of us and most of the other people on the website, so...yeah.

Still, this is part of why I was skeptical about the idea. If I was a (more) petty person, then I'd say "I told you so". I'll instead say (that and) if worse comes to worst, then we could always just replace Mimes with Blue Mages--since I'm decently sure Mime's spot on the job wheel can be excised...somehow--as a way to try to test out monsters in ARENA.

Shrug.


P.S. While clearing up the Bag issues with regards to Mime is greatly appreciated, if you could clear up the "Is Chakra Band still supposed to be Immune: Petrify since it actually isn't in-game" issue, then I'm sure I'm not the only person who would appreciate that. Thanks.

(I figure someone might as well do this and it might as well be the person who is still the wariest of Mime's worth, hence the Mime avatar and accompanying cynical text.)

I'm not exactly sure if this should go here since I vaguely remember another information thread that I don't feel like looking for right now. Regardless, comprehension information about Mime needs to go somewhere and this is stickied, so I'm just putting it here for now.

It will doubtless have to change once FFMaster answers the lingering question of whether Mimes can actually equip Bags or not. (Bagged EDIT: As of November 14th, 2014, it has been confirmed that they cannot equip Bags.)





With the release of the latest version of ARENA, 1.39/139, no class has changed more than Mime. In previous versions of ARENA, Mime was the class with the most HP, PA, MA and class-evasion in the game and 4 Move & Jump. Mime also had many innate characteristics with three innate RSMs of Concentrate, Counter Flood & Move-HP Up and innate immunities to Dead, Undead, Petrify & Berserk, far more than any other class had. They were given all this as compensation for also their inability to use any equipment, Secondaries, Reactions and Movements and general any inability to do anything except for a basic punch and the unique ability to Mimic most actions.*

(For those yet uninitiated to Mimes and Mimic, Mimic allows Mime to make a copy--not necessarily exact given it goes off Mime's own stats--of an ally's attack immediately after that ally ends its turn.)

As of the newest version of ARENA, this has all changed. Mime is now able to use all Secondaries, Reactions and Movements like most other classes.** Similarly, Mimes now generally have the most varied armor options in that they're able to equip all forms of head armor and body armor and accessories. This means they are the only other class besides Monk, which now has the least equipment options of any class, to be able to equip Headbands. This while still getting to keep their primary Mimic ability, which still remains exclusive to Mimes.

Of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows--it never is in life--as logic demands that this radical change be balanced out by some type of equally radical--perhaps even mondo--sacrifice. As such, the new Mime no longer has any of the innates it once had and has greatly diminished stats, now being in a five-way tie with the classes of Wizard, Time Mage, Ninja and Scholar for second lowest HP overall; only Summoner has less HP. Mimes have at least kept their massive evasion, which they'll need, and 4 Move & Jump, but they also cannot equip any weapons except for perhaps Bags and can definitely not equip any Shields unless they use appropriate Equip Supports.***

On top of that, there are some far subtler aspects of this change, some good and some bad, which is what most of this "article" will be about:


1. Good News: Mimes cannot Mimic Mimes: This has always been the case since vanilla, but before Mimes' only possible actions were to either punch something, Mimic something or die to something. As such, it was perhaps easy to miss that Mimes didn't Mimic other Mimes' basic attacks even though Mimic allows Mimes to Mimic any other class's basic attack. With Mimes now capable of having Secondaries, it becomes a lot more necessary to state this fact: Mimes will not Mimic other allied Mimes because otherwise it would cause an infinite loop, even if there was only one Mime on a team. That drastically changing Mimes is still compatible with something that would otherwise break the game if it wasn't already kept in check is indeed good news.

2. Good News: Mimes are now usable on Absorb: Element teams without having them sacrifice themselves: Before the newest version of ARENA, if one wanted to use a Mime on an elemental absorption team, one basically had to be resigned to the fact that said Mime was most likely going accidentally kill itself Mimicking its allies. This was a large part of the reason why Mimes were relegated to merely being back-up Singers and Dancers despite Lore's map-wide spells being Mimic-OK and female Mime having the largest MA in the game: they would inevitably kill themselves, often even if great steps were taken to try to prevent that. With access to all armors and the concurrent improvements to many accessories, however, the new Mime can now quite easily avoid this fate and in fact become a more useful team player on elemental absorption teams. If nothing else, they can now be on the same team as a Grand Cross user and Mimic Grand Cross without being forced to both damage and 100% Blind themselves if the appropriate equipment is used.

3. Good News: Mimes have equipment continuity with themselves while Mimicking: This is basically a concise way of relaying what FFMaster explained about a month ago already. As such, any errors are my own: Any equipment, including weapons, a Mime has equipped will continue to be counted towards its Mimickry of an ability, even if that ability is a weapon strike or weapon strike-related move with a different, Mimic'd weapon. This is arguably a bit of bad news in a way as well (as I could argue for any of these if I wanted, really) given the example of Mace of Zeus that FFMaster uses in the link. There's also the fact it means that when a Mime Mimics any weapon that Strengthens its own element and thus itself, that weapon will always be weaker for the Mime unless the Mime already has something to Strengthen that element.

4. Good News: Mimes can now become Immune: Silence: This is mostly important for Mimicking magic rather than casting magic of their own for reasons I'll get into just below, though Silence and MP do of course still affect Mime in that regard. To briefly clarify though, Silence was something that even the old ARENA Mime was vulnerable to even though Silence prevented them from Mimicking any of the Faith-based magic skill sets and Talk Skill if it afflicted a Mime. This was another reason why old Mimes were mostly relegated to being Mimic-Song-bots given that, for some weird reason, Song/Sing is still not vulnerable to Silence just like it wasn't in vanilla.

5. Bad News: Given Mimes still Mimic pretty much everything*, many Secondaries are actually somewhat useless on them: Despite the fact it's a rather simple step of logic, this seems to be rather key mistake that a decent amount people keep making as of late, so it needs to be pointed out. Similarly, as such, I'll "credit" formerdeathcorps for being the first person to point this out about the new Mime in this post.

To put it simply, Mimes are bad with any ability that has a CT since they will Mimic anything and everything an ally does if they can* and that interrupts & cancels Charging (and presumably) Performing. As such, while not necessarily automatically useless on a Mime, especially since they can equip Short Charge now, the following abilities and skill sets should be probably avoided on Mimes:


1. Basic Skill's "Ultima".
2. Chivalry's "Reraise".
3. Snipe's "Hawk's Eye".
4. All of White Magic excepting "Cure", "Wall" & "Dia".
5. All of Black Magic.
6. All of Time Magic.
7. All of Summon Magic.
8. Steal's "Bad Luck".
9. All of Yin Yang Magic.
10. All of Lore.
11. All of Song/Sing.
12. All of Dance.


At the end of the day, this leaves only Item, Punch Art, Talk Skill, Elemental, Jump, Draw Out & Ninjutsu/Ninjutsu skill sets completely unaffected.****

While it's not entirely impossible for a Mime to get away with being able to quicker skills, such as "Reraise" (CT 1) or "Comet" (CT 1) or "Dispel Magic" (CT 2), especially if they have Short Charge, it's still unreliable at best and a very bad idea at worst.  This is quite significant aspect for several reasons and is in no way FFMaster's fault given it's rather logical that Mimes would function this way even in their vanilla settings--it merely never came up there. Some of the significant ramifications include that the Mimicking unit gets stuck in Charging status if interrupted and that this rends a Mime rather incapable of using magic as a (reliable) revival tool.

6. Bad News: Quick "status" still makes Mimes miss Mimics: Also first reported by formerdeathcorps, I'll merely report this issue verbatim: "Last Song will be mimicked ONLY IF no other action was mimicked after last song was cast.  In other words, if last song causes any unit (including the mime) to get a turn and make an action, the mime will "forget" to mimic last song." Given that Quick is a rather weird condition--not even an actual status, really--in general, it would not be surprising if giving a Mime or possibly even anyone else on a Mime's team the Time Mage Reaction "Critical Quick" also causes a Mime to forego Mimic. No one has yet to test this to my knowledge, however, so it remains to be seen. ...Actually, now that I think about it, I think my Mammonmas team did have Critical Quick go off; I'll have to go back check that match....

7. Good News? Bad News? Ugly News?: Quickening is supposedly even more capricious on teams with Mimes: Again, I'll quote formerdeathcorps verbatim: "If your mime has MP dependent skills, you [sic] entire team will not use quickening unless the entire enemy party is asleep or charmed or death sentenced." I've seen evidence to the contrary though, so it's difficult to say how much this actually applies. Regardless, I personally wouldn't count this as "bad news" anyways since I still think Quickening needs to die in a fire, but we're degressing.

(EDIT as of 12/14/2014:) 8. Bad News: If a Mime has a weapon equipped and an ally makes a melee attack, then the Mime's weapon will disappear for the rest of the round.: There's not much more to say that than, unfortunately, except that it's not all that apparent how consistent this is and if it applies to all weapons, including ranged ones. As such, I'll offer two example matches: FFT Arena 1.39C - Shintroy (My Me II) vs. Andante49 (Small Ball) and FFT Arena 1.39c - reinoe (Fire Team) vs Andante49 (Small Ball). Both of Andante49's opponent's Mimes have their weapons disappear. (Worse News EDIT: As of December 16th, 2014 and the match Andante49 (Try Outs) vs reinoe (Samurai Seven 3), it is now seemingly confirmed that use of any physical attack that makes use of weapon, normal attack or special ability, will get rid of an ally Mime's weapon.)

(EDIT as of 03/29/2015:) 9. Good News? Bad News? Ugly News?: Mimes Still Don't Use MP When Actively Using MP-Needing Abilities: Despite the fact that Mimes will be interrupted while using slow-actions, which pretty much all use MP, any other MP-using abilities appear to not deplete MP from a Mime even if a Mime actively uses them. That said, there appear to be two restrictions, which seem to analogous to the two restrictions for MP use that vanilla monsters face: Mimes can only use an ability with MP so long as it does not surpass their total MP and despite not using MP, they cannot use any MP-using abilities on their own if their MP is at 0.

10. Good News: Mimes Can Now Still Mimiced While Berserk: While the weird revival thing is still uncertain, it would seem that Berserk no longer makes Mimes unable to Mimic. If I had to wager a guess to why this is, it's probably because FFMaster toggled Berserk to allow Berserk units to react now. I'm not entirely sure though if that's what caused it to changed. Regardless, that has changed.

11. Good News: Jump still works as a Mimic ability: As Team One's fights in the current mini-game that TrueLight is generously recording show, Jump still works fine as an ability that can be Mimicked: FFT Arena 1.39C [Minigame] - Team One vs. Team Two.

12. Good News: Two Swords will actually Mimic with Mimes: Similarly, said mini-games show that Two Swords on a Mime work both for punches and for weapon-replicable strikes, though it's (thankfullY) probably limited to weapons that actually work with Two Swords naturally: FFT Arena 1.39C [Minigame] - Team One vs. Team Three.

(Presumably, one could extrapolate that the same thing would apply to Two Hands, though that doesn't work for bare-handed strikes. Still, at least Two Hands shouldn't actually be completely useless on a Mime if true.)


So, all things considered, the majority of this is "good news", though the Secondary aspect covered under "bad news" is quite extreme important unfortunately. It's arguably the most important aspect of the new Mime really just because of how much it limits Secondaries that a Mime can actually use effectively. Still, the new Mimes, for all its issues, at least has the potential to be something else than a back-up Bard or back-up Dancer and that's always good.









(****P.S. Typing all of this reminds me that someone should probably test to see what happens if you give the new Mime Jump Secondary and then have something that it can Mimic happen. It needs to be known if that either breaks the game or if Jump status ignores even attempts to Mimic. I'd do it, but I can't.)

(Mysterious Mime Mysteries EDIT: Two interesting and unsolved mysteries with regards to Mimes capabilities have popped up:

Malroth (Slightly Derp) vs Shintroy (Buff PA) - Extremely weird Necromonicon sharing by Mimes on different teams: http://youtu.be/7lxbkphFpxw.

TrueLight (Crossroads) vs Shintroy (Triple Breath, Squared) - Some weird Reraise animation goes off in the first round after one of the Berserk mimes gets back up and presumably does...nothing. What: http://youtu.be/F0FisO-ggjE.

Whether these are ever solved, much less any soon, is itself also a mystery.)

(Sigh. Looks like I'll have to wait until tomorrow night to potentially try to hookup my Internet to my laptop and probably disconnect it in the process. Damn delays.)

Speaking of delays, I got way delayed from posting this by getting distracted from catching on Poccola's videos  among other things and then succumb to sleep about five hours ago after still lamenting what little Item Attribute space there is.

Anyway, belated thanks to TrueLight, CT5Holy and silentkaster; thanks also for the mini-tutorial, TrueLight. This is among the things that I should get out of the way before I potentially disconnect myself.
















Also, I was going to answer the Mime thing an in the appropriate spoiler since I still can't put it on Youtube on the appropriate match from this computer, but Reks already answered it, so meh.

(I know that feeling reinoe. I need to kick my similar addiction to putting a unit with Song on my teams even when it doesn't actually help.)

Apologies for the delayed response, silentkaster. I see. That type of job must be rather annoying at times, though there are doubtless even worse jobs, even time-consumption-wise too. Still, you've my sympathies in that regad.

Thanks for the videos.






Yeah, I'm not sure about the bag thing either. I keep forgetting to directly ask FFMaster about it, though perhaps that's because subconsciously expect him to disappear into the Australian aether again.

And, yes, "The $ea$on of $$" is supposed to "The Season of Money". If it's going to screw up like that in-game though, since now that I think about it I don't think the $ appears on the name-screen, then I'll just change it to "Indian-Giver" or something.

Quote from: Barren on November 06, 2014, 06:54:00 am
Thanks silentkaster for doing the videos while I step down for a while. I figured I would take a break for doing arena matches for the time being. Just been busy and stressed with school and work. Especially work for Black Friday coming up.

You poor bastard. You also have my sympathies.

Given you're taking a break, I suppose I should really try to see if I can get things recording again on my end. Besides just sloth, I've been hesitant to try since I figure knowing my luck I'll accidentally disconnect my (overpriced) Internet for a while.

So if I disappear for weeks to months on end again, that's probably why. Still, might as well give that a try this weekend I guess.

(Basically.)

I think current Chaos Blade is still fine though. I think next change around be should be slightly weakening the new fiery Phoenix Blade and Ice Brand so that Grand Cross & Southern Cross is likely less attractive. That said, despite disagreeing with Dokurider about it earlier, I am reminded of something I wanted to say: Despite the fact that I think it's already decent enough, in light of all the other accessory buffs that I mostly agree with, I think N-Kai Armlet/Nu-Khai Armlet wouldn't be overpowered if it gained Immune: Blind in addition to what it already has.

That might just be me though.

Anyway, I'm not sure if you saw it yet or just answered silentkaster in PMs, FFMaster, but apparently Chakra Band isn't blocking Petrify like it's supposed. Unless you changed you that without putting it in the notes, which I'd personally be fine with being the case, omission aside. Still, it would be good to be certain either way.

(Oh, so Bow Gun does work now? Good to know.)

Ugh. Finally finished voting.

Unfortunately, I am still not ready for how horrible tomorrow's/tonight's results will no doubt be. Go 'Murica.

Quote from: CT5Holy on November 04, 2014, 03:47:14 pm
Damned: I suppose my issue is with this statement:
which I think is wrong, since Quickening + Phoenix Blade = do nothing.

Noted. Even there I'm not saying that Quickening + Phoenix Blade = winning combination though, just that Quickening literally undermines old Phoenix Blade's sole "balancing" detriment, i.e. Always: Slow. Sure, the unit is still Slowed, can't be Hasted and needs to use Quickening twice as much as a normal unit does for half of the efficiency. However, getting back up to just a normal speed of 8 (from 16) is kind of a big deal and rather doable when you never permanently die or stay dead for more than one turn unless everyone else on your team has already been KO'd. Similarly, it's not like Phoenix Blade users didn't regularly have either Steal or Time Magic as their secondary, which respectively either brought them up to their opponent's level of speed (eventually) or quickly brought their opponents down to their level of speed easily.

I'll grant that this particular problem is the sole one from old Phoenix Blade that's become worse on the new Phoenix Blade, where only one Quickening is needed to get back to normal speed, but yeah...that's what I was getting at. Again, it had nothing to do with winning and everything to do with highlighting how tedious trying to record Phoenix Blade matches were.

Feel free to still disagree, especially since it's not like I'm trying to convince you given the old Phoenix Blade is already dead for good reasons.

(It's good to see both of you back.)

That said, CT5Holy, I said literally nothing about Phoenix Blade with regards to winning, much less having a high win-rate. So I'll readily agree that it didn't have a high win-rate, otherwise people would have been using it way more like they were with Cursed Ring, which was basically nigh-ubiquitous last revision. I was merely pointing why matches with Phoenix Blade took so damn long, especially since even in the likely event that team with Phoenix Blade lost, it still took way too damn long for them to lose an obviously lost match. After all, the A.I. has the annoying, unfortunate tendency to go after Critical units even if they have Always: Reraise.

I've said before that I don't think Phoenix Blade was actually a good weapon. It was just obnoxious and made the already selectively intelligent A.I. even dumber, basically being like another piece of armor rather than a weapon in most cases.

So, again, I'm glad it's gone and it has nothing do with it having a high win-rate since, you know, it didn't have that.

(I'm pretty sure that Berserk still is just a flat 150% to weapon attack damage regardless of what type of weapon you're using that would thus take place before Brave/Fury calculation.)

Alas, FFMaster would have to answer that if you want a definitive answer.

Anyway, though I don't have much else to say for now given Tuesday still has yet to pass us by, I'll just briefly comment on the Phoenix Blade argument I was intentionally staying out of even though it's already a done issue.

Yeah, I'm obviously using this as an excuse to procrastinate about something else.

Quote from: reinoe on October 26, 2014, 08:48:58 pm
Another legitimate complaint is that it extended matches beyond reason.  We all enjoy the videos put up but I'm sure recording a match with a Phoenix Blade user was an eye rolling experience.  While game mechanics should comprise of 90% of what is or isn't balanced, I think taking into account the time strain put on recorders was something taken into account.  Granted that's something FFMaster can speak on, but I wouldn't be surprised if recorder strain was a factor.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on October 26, 2014, 09:14:03 pmLike I said, the main problem was that Phoenix Blade either was awsome or awful.  There was no middle ground.

Both of these things are ultimately what was wrong with Phoenix Blade, especially since the issue only got exponentially worse the more Phoenix Blades you added to a match. Matches with only one Phoenix Blade didn't drag significantly, as we saw with Celdia's team in the last tournament, though they did of course still drag a bit if Always: Reraise got a chance to kick in. However, just like with Masamune or Quickening or old Cursed Ring & Flash Hat, it's not like you should expect most people to only use one those pieces of equipment.

Matches with just two Phoenix Blade users, though, regularly dragged out to a repetitive 20-30 minutes and that's just if they were on the same side. If they were on opposing teams, then it was way too easy to end up having matches that literally would just not end, especially when combined with how overpowered Cursed Ring's guaranteed immediate resurrection was in 1.38 ARENA. We all know how many people were using Cursed Rings in that version as well.

Both those things combined with Quickening undermining Phoenix Blade's sole weakness beyond Weapon Break and the A.I.'s weirdly inconsistent inability to pay much attention to a unit when a Phoenix Blade unit would get back up is what made that "weapon" an item that I'm glad is gone.

(It's fine. Actually, I'm not sure why you're even apologizing.)

Real life is generally more important anything you do on the Internet, especially for strangers, and work is kinda necessary to support yourself unless you have an inheritance or won some type of lottery or other contest. Getting roped into more hours than you were supposed to work is also an issue, so just don't burn yourself out already like I was telling CT5Holy, though that counts about work too. Out of curiosity, what type of job do you do where you'd be stuck there for 12+ hours? (Note: You don't have to answer this.)

Regardless, I can wait beyond Wednesday. I'm personally in no hurry, especially since reinoe will probably kick my team's ass unless it's the Fire-Absorb one.

Thanks for the update though. Stay safe.

(Hmmm...I kind of feel like [more of] a monster for suggesting Stall to replace Persuade after seeing how much it's been screwing up people. Of course, I could just choose to share the blame with Eternal if I wanted to....)

Thanks for the videos, Silentkaster. You did fine, especially for your first time. Trust me, a bunch of people started off far less smoothly, myself included.

Also, thanks for the offer. Yeah, I took my teams down, though they weren't supposed to be down this long. I just fell asleep at like 5:00 A.M. and didn't get around to adding anything back yet since I'm terrible at trying to decide how to fix things. I think I've decided now though, which is why they're back up.







For the record, silentkaster, I'm pretty sure Chakra Band is still supposed to be preventing Petrify unless FFMaster just forgot to mention it, which is possible. Also, for the record, you should probably double check my JP totals since I tend to forget to add 250 JP just for opening classes beyond the first two.

(So apparently "Chantage" means "blackmail" in French. Hunh.)

Thanks for the matches, TrueLight, even if mine was rather a foregone conclusion just due to Anahita. Thanks for the other match, Otabo, though I would need to watch it and all the matches on page 175 again if I was going to comment on them.








I still need to see if I can get recording again, though realistically, even if I stop being so damn lazy about that, I probably won't know until after Tuesday due to still needing to do absentee voting. So many damn measures to research. Ugh.

In the meantime, if I may ask a favor, then I would quite appreciate a match against reinoe so long as it's not our two Fire-absorb teams fighting. Thanks regardless.

(The -tons are actually PA-based, Shintroy, which is part of the only reason I lasted as long as I did given I didn't have as much range.)

Thanks for the videos, Barren. For the record, I know about Nurse making the A.I....questionable. It was just either that and chance him only getting off Balance once before fleeing for the rest of match since he has no healing otherwise or begrudingly giving him Nurse so he had Regen and at least some self-healing, which would benefit the Mime too. It's not exactly the best set-up, but at least keeps him in the game.

Speaking of which, this reminds me: my Monk on Church of the Atheists didn't have all three -tons because they're unfortunately still functionally the same and I only had JP enough for two; so I chose Meiton since my Archers can absorb that and Suiton since that's the least likely to be absorbed with the change to Defense Ring.














GG Otabo.

P.S. It would seem that we discovered a glitch with Defending status. I wonder if that's a Mime-only glitch though; it wouldn't surprise me if it was. Regardless, it seems reminiscent of the old Oil glitch actually....

(I need to restart my computer before I check on up the latest videos, but I'll preemptively say "Thanks, Barren".)

In the meantime, I forgot that I made a commentary for the five matches that were on page 176. So I'll post that now:

Quote from: Reks on October 27, 2014, 11:39:53 pm
*is somewhat waiting for Damned's eventual essay post*

...But I already did the essay that CT5Holy "wanted". It's in my last post on this same page...or on the last page since this post is apparently the start of the next one; of course it would be.

Anyway, as for your question, Andante49 already answered it for the most part, but I can confirm that Jump is still non-elemental, which is part of the reason why I'm surprised that Dokurider's I Die to Demi 2 the Lancer never tried to jump on Barren's Thief during the few times he wasn't dead during their fight. Maybe it's changed (accidentally), but I doubt it; said Thief was probably too fast and the A.I. probably was more interested in healing itself with Grand Cross given that the Lancer's Jump is only Range 2, which is the same as the Spear and Grand Cross. Still, there's no reason not to try it out.

On that note, someone should probably still test to see if Ancient Sword's Petrify proc is higher than it is supposed to be. I'd test it, but...yeah; can't.

(Thanks for the video, CT5Holy.)

Also, challenge accepted on that essay about Magic Ruin.

You shouldn't have tempted me.



And though this should likely go in the Balance thread, since CT5Holy suggested it so nicely, here's six--technically only five--paragraphs on Magic Ruin if you really have time to kill:



I expect an A on my paper, Professor CT5Holy.

================================

More seriously, though, as far as commentary goes, you're mostly fine. I think your main problem isn't that you're boring, but rather that you're pretty clearly doing stream-of-consciousness commentary. Granted, that's what commentary usually is unless you're dubbing over the video at a later date, as I've done in text, or somehow clairvoyant. Still, it gets rather...obvious when you run out of things to say and try to fill the void even when you're not pointing it out with uncomfortable self-deprecation.

I'm not saying you can't talk if you want to talk. Just don't feel like you have to. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm glad that people are still just taking their free time to rather constantly recording videos whether there's commentary or not. You could always take a talk break in some videos and just play music over the match like TrueLight or myself tend to do. Don't feel like you're somehow contractually obligated to entertain us and thus that things are somehow boring if you're not saying something or being "funny", which is an utterly subjective thing anyway; latter is something I both loathe and don't understand about some of the more popular "Let's Play" people with their egregiously exaggerated reactions to everything.

Shrug.

(I still need to check up with the backlog, but I might as well comment on the three latest videos. Thanks, TrueLight and CT5Holy, especially since now I want to watch Nightmare Before Christmas again due to the former.)

No, Leif1991. Cursed Ring is actually balanced now that in you're not guaranteed to get back up 100%. You have a 50% chance of getting back up or nothing happening every turn after you hit 0 due to the  Immune: Crystal that Cursed Ring still has, which it needs since it frankly was horrible when you weren't guaranteed to get the unit back. The problem before was that FFMaster accidentally overcompensated by making the revival 100% at 0, which when combined with Quickening made Cursed Ring so overpowering and "over-centralizing" in the previous version.

You'll get back up...eventually. It may just take a while. Theoretically, you could never get back up, but I'm probably the only person whose luck is bad enough for that to ever happen to (repeatedly).

Quote from: Reks on October 24, 2014, 12:37:22 am
Huzzah, you DID catch it!

I still need to play that game, though. I only read about that. *snip*

Oh, so it is a reference to Paper Mario. Good to know I guessed correctly. I haven't played anything from that series either. Actually, I tend not to have actually played a lot of the things I reference unfortunately, such as Blazblue or Shovel Knight or Skullgirls. The only exceptions in recent memory have been the Kingdom Hearts-themed teams even though I've long since grown disenchanted with that series and the FFT:A team that never got to fight even though I never liked that series to begin with either.

As for the other references, I just thought you avoided the Red Queen reference because silentkaster's "Protect the Queen" is arguably already a reference to her. Interesting to know about the Poe unit though.

(*checks out Rek's newest team*)

Hmmm...maybe I should make an Edgar Allan Poe-themed team since I don't think anyone else, even RavenofRazgriz, has ever made one surprisingly. Still, I already have one other team in mind and I hadn't wanted to make than four (so quickly).

That said, I actually quite dislike Romeo & Juliet, though that's perhaps not surprising. Stupid teenagers. Stupid love. Stupid everything. [/angst]

I'm more of a MacBeth guy and I think that might be the only other Shakespeare play I've actually read besides the above. Hunh.

Speaking of references, I'll admit that I did kind of expect your Underwhere team to a reference to Paper Mario if it's actually be a reference to anything, which apparently it is. Shrug.

*goes off to catch-up on all the videos for 139, backwards, starting with page 176*

(...Hunh. I must have confused Divas with one of your other all-female teams then, Otabo. My apologies. Shows how I was even more out of it than usual.)

As it is, I've edited that last post and tried to proofread this one as well as one mere read-through can do.

Regardless, thanks for the videos as always, Otabo and CT5Holy. I really need to see if I can get Camtasia and my Internet working on this new laptop so I start doing videos again. That would at least make feel semi-productive and give me something to do around here other than destroy people's eyesight. Speaking of which....













All that said, it was only when silentkaster fought formerdeathcorps that I finally noticed how silentkaster's Thief is actually using Thief's innate Flee rather effectively since the Thief has no choice but to run off and Sing rather than healing himself out of Critical and then moving less far away. Quite an interesting set-up there.

That said, I've also finally noticed how lucky said Thief has been getting with Ancient Sword. As such, I'm beginning to wonder if its proc rate is accidentally bigger than it's supposed to be (now). It wouldn't be the first time it happened after all and it would be rather...worrying this time given how powerful Petrify can be (when it comes with damage).

(Belated 365 Survival Day, Barren. As a lazy e-gift to you, since it is an unusual word, I will impart to you this knowledge: Since English is a totally sensible scavenger from other languages with such obvious linguistic cues in its alphabet for unusual words, the "cra" in "Macrame" is pronounced "kruh" rather than "kraw": "MAC-ruh-may".

...Sometimes I wonder what would be weirder about certain English words: if they were spelled how they were pronounced or if they were pronounced how they were spelled.)

That said, thanks for doing videos like always and I legitimately hope you've enjoyed this week so far. I'll comment on my match with silentkaster next time, though belated GG to him; I'll probably do it tomorrow or if/whenever I wake up next given how long I've been up.

In the meanwhile, I'll comment on the eight other matches currently posted after Barren's latest Pokemon video to get those out of the way since I need to catch up in general. I probably should watch Otabo vs. Anima Zero again because I can't really much in detail that happened from three days ago--damn crappy memory.



















Fret not, Dol. Most of us have had slumps at one time or another. Not that you can't take time off, especially in frustration at the feeling of (the A.I.'s) ineptitude. Gods know I have.

Still, try not to beat yourself up too much about it.

Quote from: Fenire on October 22, 2014, 03:07:06 am
That is what I thought. This means that with the ability to equip mimes with abilities in 1.39c one could make and all mime team. Challenge accepted!

And now you're trying to give me a run for my masochistic money as well. [/yes, everything is about me]

As bad an idea as this seems in concept, oddly it does basically solve every problem that formerdeathcorps found--okay, maybe not the weird Quickening thing; it's impossible to tell about that one without testing it. So, ironically, it's maybe the most sound idea for using the current version of Mime as more than one unit on team. Hunh.

I still think they should have innate access to Shields or something, but that's something to bring up in Balance thread, so I'll wait until later to talk about that issue and others.



P.S. I'm currently verging on being up 23~ hours, so my proofreading skills are probably (even) worse than usual. I'll go over this again when either I've undergone the illusion of resting or finished sleeping, whichever comes first.

Coherence EDIT: With that now done, I can only say that I'm surprised I didn't make more typos.