FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Apologies for lack of re-summarizing everything lately, in the middle of a move.  Gearing up for a 3 day Greyhound bus ride in a couple days.  Fun.  :U

Gaignun, what you just summarized is more or less the point of Nether tier - it fills a role.  It pierces enemy 40/40 Tanks (something only Ninjitsu does currently) with ease, while often still being good against enemy Mages because it operates of UnBrave and not UnFaith.  The point is not to do more damage for more MP costs the way normal tiered magic does - you pay more MP for more utility, without having to leave your primary offensive skillset.  Yes, it does less damage than an equivalent Tier 2 against an enemy 40/70 Wizard from your own 40/70 Wizard than your own Fire 2.  That's not why you bring Nether skills.  You bring Nether skills because they still do very good damage (1 XA less) to those units, while hitting many units you are normally completely impotent against, such as Innocent Ninjitsu users. 40/40 tanks, etc.

You're comparing Nether Fire to Fire 2 (etc) in a situation where Fire 2 is better by design and saying Nether Fire is underwhelming without looking at many of the fairly common situations where Nether Fire is vastly superior.  Yes, against high-Faith targets, the non-Nether skills are meant to do superior damage so that you're required to bring one of each to maximize DPS, or can choose to do slightly lower DPS against enemy Wizards/etc and rely solely on Nether tiers to save more JP for other things while maintaining a wider offensive range and notably, only need to themselves run 40 Faith and win a Wizard v Wizard encounter where the enemy has no Nether skills with ease.

You're vastly underselling the utility here and expecting skills you can slap on and be one-and-done from what I'm reading, and my reply is that that's not the point of these skills.

However, lowering the JP cost to match the low-tier magic is fine to me, I did probably over-nerf with the JP penalty, but a skill that will still hit for good damage and basically undoes the entire weakness of the Wizard against everything that's not 70/40 cannot be undersold, and honestly cannot be made "equal" to a mainstream spell.  Nether spells bring a lot to the table and you're too busy talking about how they're (very intentionally) inferior to non-Nether skills in raw numbers to consider how they affect the class mechanically or the kinds of units they suddenly make Wizards go from shitty to really good against.

...Jesus Christ, all this bolding makes me feel like The Damned.  I need a bath. :V

[Celdia]

That's not enough bold for that, Raven.

spoiler: Bad Joke - Do not take personally

Apologies for lack of re-summarizing everything lately, in the middle of a move.  Gearing up for a 3 day Greyhound bus ride in a couple days.  Fun.  :U

Gaignun, what you just summarized is more or less the point of Nether tier - it fills a role.  It pierces enemy 40/40 Tanks (something only Ninjitsu does currently) with ease, while often still being good against enemy Mages because it operates of UnBrave and not UnFaith.  The point is not to do more damage for more MP costs the way normal tiered magic does - you pay more MP for more utility, without having to leave your primary offensive skillset.  Yes, it does less damage than an equivalent Tier 2 against an enemy 40/70 Wizard from your own 40/70 Wizard than your own Fire 2.  That's not why you bring Nether skills.  You bring Nether skills because they still do very good damage (1 XA less) to those units, while hitting many units you are normally completely impotent against, such as Innocent Ninjitsu users. 40/40 tanks, etc.

You're comparing Nether Fire to Fire 2 (etc) in a situation where Fire 2 is better by design and saying Nether Fire is underwhelming without looking at many of the fairly common situations where Nether Fire is vastly superior.  Yes, against high-Faith targets, the non-Nether skills are meant to do superior damage so that you're required to bring one of each to maximize DPS, or can choose to do slightly lower DPS against enemy Wizards/etc and rely solely on Nether tiers to save more JP for other things while maintaining a wider offensive range and notably, only need to themselves run 40 Faith and win a Wizard v Wizard encounter where the enemy has no Nether skills with ease.

You're vastly underselling the utility here and expecting skills you can slap on and be one-and-done from what I'm reading, and my reply is that that's not the point of these skills.

However, lowering the JP cost to match the low-tier magic is fine to me, I did probably over-nerf with the JP penalty, but a skill that will still hit for good damage and basically undoes the entire weakness of the Wizard against everything that's not 70/40 cannot be undersold, and honestly cannot be made "equal" to a mainstream spell.  Nether spells bring a lot to the table and you're too busy talking about how they're (very intentionally) inferior to non-Nether skills in raw numbers to consider how they affect the class mechanically or the kinds of units they suddenly make Wizards go from shitty to really good against.

...Jesus Christ, all this bolding makes me feel like The Damned.  I need a bath. :V

THAT'S enough bold. :P

[Dokurider]

Me? I just put things I want emphasized in -dashes- nowadays.

[Gaignun]

You bring Nether skills because they still do very good damage (1 XA less) to those units, while hitting many units you are normally completely impotent against, such as Innocent Ninjitsu users. 40/40 tanks, etc.

I don't think there is an "et cetera" here.  Flash Hat at 40/40 tanks are the only ones.  If you want to keep the Nether tier as a niche tier, then we should indeed lower the JP cost of its spells to 100 so players don't ignore it.  I simply want to see the tier being used.

I'm throwing together an alpha version of my next team builder and am coming across some interesting gear combinations.  Here's one:

====================
Thief
Free secondary
Abandon
Two Hands
War Path

Lionheart

Twist Headband
Power Sleeve
Feather Mantle
====================

Hit modifiers
P: 38%
M: 70%

Damage (target brave: [40,70])
At 70 Brave: [259,363]
At 100 Brave (ie. after 10 turns): [334,467])

Are we comfortable with this kind of stuff?  The thief is going to be a physical-damage magnet with 100 Brave and low (284) HP, yet is going to be dodging attacks left and right with its high P-EV.  (Look to my S5 Wizard to see how stupid the AI is about this.)  30% M-EV and low faith is going to shut down any mage who dares to get around this high P-EV with magic long enough to 1HKO it, its 40 Brave be damned.

The problem here is War Path.  It takes a setup that is perfectly fine on its own and blows it out of proportion.  Pointing out how players give up the passive HP regen of Move-HP UP in exchange falls flat for me.  I don't have a problem with Move-HP UP.  It gives what I can take away: HP.  I can't take away Brave, though, and if I don't have either a Stone Gun or Concentrate to get around that P-EV, it's going to permanently count against me.  Given how delicious 0 MP, 0 CT, neutral-element 1HKOs on a 4 Move, 10 SP unit is going to be, I'll be damned if I enter a tournament without either.

In summary, I don't think the repercussions of War Path have been carefully thought out.  If it's not the 1HKOs that's going to break things, it's going to be the AI baiting, for which Concentrate or Guns are the only counters.  This takes me back to my long-term petition for the implementation of Brave-based status magic, which will allow players to punish high Brave in ways other than damage, just as they can high Faith.

Now for some less controversial proposals:

1. Rename Tactician Blade as Scout's Blade.  Makes sense, given how the Tactician Blade has more to do with mobility than tactics.

2. Rename Parry Edge as Épée.  En garde!  I deflect your feeble lunge and riposte for 20 points!

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Scout's Blade works and I'm indifferent, Épée wouldn't work because I'm pretty sure the correct characters don't exist in FFT.  (Specifically, those fancy Es, so you'd just have Epee.)

I didn't reply to it before, but I'm also all for Ultima being reduced to 3 CT and 20 MP cost.  For the most part it's still an inferior Chirijiraden with range but it should at least be good enough to use, which is really what a lot of the Squire class is - stuff that's not quite the best but passably usable and highly varied.

Also your evasion math there is a bit flawed.  It only accounts for frontal attacks, when the majority of physical attacks against a unit (especially with high move) will be from the side, where only the Feather Mantle can take effect, where you get hit about 50-60% of the time for what's likely a guaranteed oneshot when at maximum power.  This setup also still falls to Ninjitsu or many other common tactics in the same way many other paper units fall.  It also has the big problem of needing to last 10 turns without getting blown to shit before even hitting  peak power, meaning you're at risk of simply getting fragged faster by an aggro enemy team that hits hard from the very start.  It's a DPS evasion bot, something Samurais have already been able to do with more evasion and more HP for a long time now.  The 10 SPD is the only potentially worrying aspect, but I can pull a huge chunk of damage from the very start of the fight by just using an Attack UP Samurai with Asura Knife.  (11 *1.25 * 1.34 * 2 * 10, or 320 pre-Fury if you use a Feather Mantle which will give more evasion, or if you just wanna go big or go home, 13*1.25*1.34*2*10 for 400 pre-Fury with a Bracer.  The obvious difference here is that a Samurai is slow as fucking dirt but can take a hit while your Thief is faster but will die to a stiff breeze.)  Yeah, Warpath / Holy March put the match on a timer one way or another - either the user will win with big damage over time or will fold and die.  The damage jump you're getting though could also be simulated through a mere few uses of Accumulate though given the amount of multipliers stacked around, though my Samurai counter-example would gain from that far more far more quickly.

Tl;dr it's a unit that hits hard but dies to a stiff breeze, Arena has tons of those.  I could always dock another WP off Lionheart without hurting much, though.  My point is there's already big 1-range damage setups that aren't really used much (even before this update!), so I'm not seeing what's so special on one that gets bigger on a timer.  Warpath / Holy March could be reduced to +2 to increase the length of the timer to 15 turns, I guess, though that still feels highly underwhelming.

[Gaignun]

Epee works, too.  I'm sure it's been used without the accents in RPGs before.  Rapier would be the next closest thing.

Side and back evasion are 46% and 51%, respectively.  Units are rarely hit from the back.  Either way, the hit chance is still low, giving the unit the opportunity to weather quite a few stiff breezes.  The build is no more susceptible to Ninjutsu than any other.  Ninjutsu has that 30% M-EV going against it, too.  Faith doesn't need to be at 40, either.

10 turns transpire quickly.  On most maps, the thief will get around 2 before engagement, and even if the thief's evasion fails him and he hits the floor afterward, he's not going to stay down.  Toss a Raise spell his way and he's good to play his hand with the RNG once more.  Every attack he dodges takes pressure off his other team members, giving them room to support him or mount offense of their own.

Asura's damage is fine.  Its wielder is, as you said, a sluggish Samurai.  The samurai also needs to equip a Bracer to achieve the same damage, giving up that pivotal 45/30 A-EV and leaving the Samurai exposed to all manner of offense.  On top of that, Asura is Fire elemental, making Black Costumes and White Robes a simple counter.  This is a build you can prepare for in multiple ways, so I am comfortable with it.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I have some time, so let's see if I can catch everyone's shit in this one.  I'm busy so I might've missed something, but I think I covered everything adequately.  I shotgunned a couple things to get everything to fit but I think it works well and covers everything that's been brought up so far.

spoiler: Knives

Throwing Knife - 10 WP, 50% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 3 Range, +1 Move, 33% Add: Death Sentence on Hit.
Dual Cutters - 7 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, 50% Cast: Doubleshot on Hit.
Repel Knife - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, 50% All or Nothing Add: Don't Act and Haste on Hit.
Mage Masher - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, 50% Cast Bizen Boat on Hit.
Platina Dagger - 4 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, 50% Cast Climhazzard on Hit.
Main Gauche - 10 WP, 40% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +1 Move.
Orichalcum - 12 WP, 15% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +1 Move, +1 MA
Katar - 12 WP, 15% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +1 Move, +1 PA
Air Knife - 13 WP, 15% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Wind Element, +1 Move, 25% Add: Sleep on Hit.

Only change here is that Main Gauche, Orichalcum, Katar, and Air Knife can be used with Two Hands.  This lets you be a bit derpy with them, but helps Katar quite a bit if you want a Knife that just kind of goes RAWR on something's face.  It's like a mini-Lionheart with a lower boost and weaker formula.  While this really doesn't boost anything other than the Katar and maybe Air Knife any, it's an explorable option that opens up more setups, which is good in my book.  Pain Knife also switched with what I consider to be a far cooler concept item.

spoiler: Ninjato

Spell Edge - 11 WP, 5% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 MA, 50% Cast: Spell Absorb on Hit.

spoiler: Swords

Phoenix Blade - 16 WP, 25% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, Always: Reraise, Slow. Immune: Dead, Undead, Haste, Death Sentence.
Tactician Blade - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, +1 Jump.
Parry Edge - 9 WP, 20% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands.
Moonlight - 9 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 33/50% Cast: Blade Beam on Hit.
Blood Sword - 10 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Absorb HP on Hit.
Coral Sword - 9 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Strengthen: Water, 33% Cast: Water Ball on Hit.
Ancient Sword - 9 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 20% Add: Petrify on Hit.
Sleep Sword - 9 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 20% Add: Sleep on Hit.
Platinum Sword - 12 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands.
Shieldrender - 8 WP, 5% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 50% Cast Shield Break on Hit.
Ice Brand - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 20% Cast Ice 3 on Hit.
Rune Blade - 10 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, MA +2.
Lionheart - 10 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, PA +2.
Ultima Weapon - 10 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 33% Ultima.

Lionheart WP reduced by 1.

spoiler: Knight Swords

Defender - 16 WP, 40% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, Immune: Don't Act.
Save the Queen - 15 WP, 25% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, Initial: Protect.
Excalibur - 13 WP, 20% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, Holy Element, Strengthen: Holy.
Ragnarok - 15 WP, 25% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, Initial: Shell.
Chaos Blade - 17 WP, 20% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 100% Cancel: Protect, Shell, Haste. Reflect, Reraise on Hit.

spoiler: Katana

Asura Knife - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Fire Element, Strengthen: Fire.
Kotetsu Knife - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Dark Element, Strengthen: Dark.
Bizen Boat - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 100% Add: Silence on Hit.
Murasame - 12 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Immune: Berserk, Heals HP on Hit.
Heaven's Cloud - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Wind Element, 50% Add: Slow on Hit.
Kiyomori - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, MA +2.
Muramasa - 9 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 100% Add: Faith on Hit.
Kikuichimoji - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Earth Element, 33% Cast: Quake on Hit.
Masamune - 8 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Initial: Haste, 50% Cast: Dispel Magic on Hit.
Chirijiraden - 11 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Strengthen: Earth, Wind, Water.

spoiler: Staves

Healing Staff - 11 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Strengthen: Holy, Heals HP on Hit.
Rainbow Staff - 10 WP, 10% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Weak/Half: All Elements.

spoiler: Guns

Blaze Gun - 13 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 6 Range, Cast Fire 3 as Attack.
Glacier Gun - 12 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 6 Range, Cast Ice 3 as Attack.
Blast Gun 11 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 6 Range, Cast Bolt 3 as Attack.

spoiler: Crossbows

Bow Gun - 8 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 4 Range, 50% Cast: Armor Break on Hit.
Silencer - 10 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 4 Range, 50% Add: Silence on Hit. (Replaces Cross Bow.)
Poison Bow - 12 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 4 Range, 50% Add: Poison on Hit.

spoiler: Longbows

Longbow - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 8 Range.
Silver Bow - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 5 Range, Holy Element, 20% Cast: Holy on Hit.
Ice Bow - 13 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 5 Range, Ice Element, +2 MA, 25% Add: Stop on Hit.
Lightning Bow - 13 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 5 Range, Lightning Element, +2 MA, 25% Add: Don't Act on Hit.
Windslash Bow - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 5 Range, Wind Element, 20% Cast: Hurricane on Hit. (Hurricane's Hit Rate should become 100%, unlike the low hit rate it has naturally.)
Ultimus Bow - 16 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, Forced Two Hands, 5 Range, +1 PA.

spoiler: Books

Battle Dict - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 3 Range, 33% Add: Undead on Hit.
Monster Dict - 15 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 3 Range, 33% Cast: Magic Ruin on Hit.
Papyrus Plate - 12 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 3 Range, 33% Cast: Flare on Hit.
Madlemgen - 13 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, 3 Range, 33% Add: Stop on Hit.

spoiler: Bags

C Bag - 5 WP, 0% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +2 MA.
FS Bag - 5 WP, 0% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +2 PA.
P Bag - 5 WP, 0% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Always: Regen.
H Bag - 5 WP, 0% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, +1 SPD.

And a quick and dirty way to make Bags better.  Most anything worth using that boosts MA in the Weapon slot boosts it by 2 MA, so C Bag sees an upgrade. FS Bag sees an upgrade to match, considering it does almost no Attack damage itself.  H Bag (and in turn, Light Robe) lose the mostly pointless Weak: Dark debuff they have, to remove centralization around Dark and because neither item is good enough to need said debuff.  In addition, Bags become compatible with Two Hands and Two Swords.  While almost all the noteworthiness here goes to Two Swords combos (I can think of a few off the top of my head), the Two Hands compatibility is done for the sake of completeness, and the sake of allowing Samurai with purses to hit a bit harder.  Lol.  It's a quick and dirty fix, yes, but highly effective.

spoiler: Shields

Ice Shield - 20% P-EV, 15% M-EV, Absorb: Ice, Weak: Fire.
Flame Shield - 15% P-EV, 20% M-EV, Absorb: Fire, Weak: Ice.
Diamond Shield - 5% P-EV, 25% M-EV, Cancel: Earth, Holy.
Platina Shield - 25% P-EV, 5% M-EV, Cancel: Wind, Water.
Crystal Shield - 20% P-EV, 20% M-EV, Half/Weak: All Elements, +128 Jump. (+128 Jump makes the unit a Stepping Stone.)
Genji Shield - 10% P-EV, 5% M-EV, Immune: Dead, +1 PA.
Swift Plate - 5% P-EV, 5% M-EV, +1 SPD. (Replaces Venetian Shield.)

Added a minor buff to the already niche Crystal Shield because it's always been a cool concept to me and I was on a whim.

spoiler: Helmets

Gold Helmet - +110 HP, +0 MP, Immune: Frog, Don't Move, Sleep.
Genji Helmet - +120 HP, +0 MP, Initial: Berserk.

spoiler: Robes

Light Robe - +75 HP, +50 MP, Always: Regen.

The follow-through of the H Bag edit.

spoiler: Rings

Reflect Ring - +1 MA, Immune: Berserk, Initial: Reflect.
Defense Ring - Cancel: Dead, Berserk, Silence, Sleep, Death Sentence, Absorb: Water.
Cursed Ring - +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 SPD, Always: Undead, Absorb: Dark, Cancel: Holy, Weak: Fire, Immune: Crystal, Treasure.

Guess who made The Damned's day and shotgunned Water Absorb in somewhere to replace that useless 8/8 from before?

spoiler: Armlets

Diamond Armlet - +1 PA, +1 MA, Immune: Slow, Oil, Absorb: Earth.
Jade Armlet - Immune: Stop, Petrify, Cancel: Ice.
108 Gems - Immune: Undead, Oil, Frog, Poison, Strengthen: All Elements.
N-Kai Armlet - Immune: Charm, Undead, Absorb: Dark.
Defense Armlet - Immune: Don't Move, Don't Act, Cancel: Fire.

spoiler: Mantles

Small Mantle - 10% P-EV, 20% M-EV, Cancel: Earth, Holy.
Wizard Mantle - 15% P-EV, 25% M-EV, Immune: Don't Act.
Leather Mantle - 20% P-EV, 30% M-EV.
Elf Mantle - 25% P-EV, 25% M-EV.
Feather Mantle - 30% P-EV, 20% M-EV.
Dracula Mantle 25% P-EV, 15% M-EV, Immune: Berserk.
Vanish Mantle 20% P-EV, 10% M-EV, Cancel: Wind, Water.

spoiler: Squire

Remove: Cheer Up
Change: Bullrush (Change to Null: Haste)
Change: Ultima (20 MP, 3 CT, 300 JP)
Add: Alacrity (10 MP, +1 MA, Self, 200 JP)
Add: Wild Blow (Weapon Elemental/Range, RN{XA / 2...XA * 3 / 2} * WP, unevadable, 20 MP, 100 JP)
Add: Caution (From Thief)
Add: Concentrate (400 JP).

spoiler: Chemist

Antidote - Cancel: Poison and Blind, 100 JP.
Echo Grass - Cancel: Silence and Berserk - 100 JP.
Chronos Tear - Cancel: Stop - 100 JP.

Reduced Chronos Tear to 100 JP, left off the ability to remove Slow to make Slow a bit better as a status.

spoiler: Paladin

Remove: Dia
Remove: Iron Will
Remove: Magic Ward
Change: Nurse (Add: Regen on top of current effects.)
Change: Transfusion (Remove MP Cost)
Add: Iron Will (Add: Protect/Shell, 6 MP, Self, 200 JP)
Add: Reraise (Add: Reraise, 3 Range, 3 Vert, 16 MP, 200 JP)
Add: Southern Cross (Weapon Element, PA * WP, 6 MP, 1 AoE, Vert 1, NoSelf, 250 JP)

spoiler: Archer

Remove: Greased Bolt
Change: Hawkseye (+Proc: Poison/Oil)
Change: Execute (Change damage to 40% of maxHP)
Change: Cover Fire (Change damage to (PA * 2 + 60) * RNG{1..3})
Change: Speed Save (+25 CT.)

spoiler: Monk

Change: Spin Fist (Fury*PA*9)
Change: Repeating Fist (Fury*PA*11)
Change: Wave Fist (Fury*PA*10)
Change: Earth Slash (Fury*PA*9)
Change: Secret Fist (Change Y to 65)
Add: Warpath (+2 Fury at end of the turn if moved, 300 JP)

Reduced Warpath to +2 Fury for now, erring a bit on the side of caution despite disagreeing with Gaignun because this update does allow a lot more physical DPS builds to be possible.  Other stuff is what Gaignun mentioned on wanting to make the damage on Punch Art more linear, something I'm not against but don't see much need for.  These Ys are based on the Fist Y of 9.  Making the formula linear reduces the high-end damage while boosting the low-end damage, obviously, making Punch Art more generally applicable.  I don't see this as a problem, but making it have a linear damage formula essentially makes it magic via the PA stat and makes me wonder if it should accept small MP costs to make up for the heightened utility.  (Though I'll be honest - I'm more for not touching Punch Art at all this update and leaving it for the next one since it poses no direct and immediate concern and isn't too OP or UP.)

spoiler: Priest

Remove: Reraise
Add: Dia (See old Paladin, JP cost up to 250.)
Add: Holy March (+2 Faith at end of the turn if moved, 300 JP)
Esuna, 200 JP.
Regen, 50 JP.
Protect, 50 JP. +1 Vert.
Shell, 50 JP. +1 Vert.
Raise 2, 300 JP.
Holy (Gains: Evadable)

Holy March mirrors Warpath

spoiler: Wizard

(+15 MAM) [Effective +1 MA]
Remove: Fire1
Remove: Ice1
Remove: Bolt1
Remove: Fire4
Remove: Ice4
Remove: Bolt4
Add: Nether Fire (Replace (Fa + 35)% with (145 - Fury)% - MP cost 18, Y is 7, rest is as Fire 2, except no Proc.)
Add: Nether Ice (Replace (Fa + 35)% with (145 - Fury)% - MP cost is 9, Y is 8, rest is as Ice 2, except no Proc.)
Add: Nether Bolt (Replace (Fa + 35)% with (145 - Fury)% - MP cost is 23, Y is 9, rest is as Bolt 2, except no Proc.)
Add: Nether Water (Replace (Fa + 35)% with (145 - Fury)% - MP cost is 21, Y is 8, rest is as Water 2, except no Proc.)
Change: Fire 2 (+20% Oil)
Change: Ice 2 (+20% Slow)
Change: Bolt 2 (+20% Don't Move)
Add: Water 2 (Same as Ice 2, except MP cost is 15, cannot be Reflected, 20% Cancel all Positive Status, Water Element.)
Add: Water 3 (Same as Ice 3, except MP cost is 27, cannot be Reflected, Water Element.)
[All Tiered Magic accepts M-EV, all Tiered Magic sans Water is Reflectable.]
Change: Poison (Y becomes 90, AoE +1, Vert +1)

Uniformed JP Costs for Tiered Magic:
[X] 2 Back, 100 JP.
[X] 2, 100 JP.
[X] 3, 150 JP.

Nether skills JP cost down.

spoiler: Time Mage

Change: Haste (Vert +1)
Change: Slow (Vert +1)
Change: Don't Move (AoE +1, Vert +2)
Change: Demi (12 MP, Y=90)
Change: Demi 2 (24 MP, Y=75, Dmg=50%, CT=4)
Haste, 100 JP.
Slow, 100 JP.
Critical Quick, 300 JP.

Follow through on all of Gaignun's proposed Time Mage buffs, in addition to reducing Demi 2's CT from a ridiculous 6 to a more reasonable 4.  Demi 1 also sees a slight accuracy boost from what Gaignun proposed, since both skills are subject to M-EV.

spoiler: Summoner

Change: All spells CT > 4 take M-EV.
Change: Salamander (Dmg_F * MA * 8, Fire elemental, 20% +Oil, 20 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Leviathan (Dmg_F * MA * 8, Water elemental, 20% Cancel all Positive Status, 20 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Titan (Dmg_F * MA * 10, Earth elemental, 25 MP, 5 CT)
Change: Odin (Dmg_F * MA * 9, Darkness elemental, 20% +Dead, 35 MP, 6 CT)
Change: Lich (Change Y = 65, remove Darkness elemental.)
Change: Cyclops (Dmg_F * MA * 10, Holy elemental, 20% +Blind, 35 MP, 5 CT)

spoiler: Thief

Change: Spellbreaker (+5 MP, MA * WP, 50% RemoveAll: Re-Raise, Haste, Regen, Protect, Shell)

spoiler: Oracle

Blind, 100 JP.

spoiler: Geomancer

(+20 MPM, +10 PAM, +10 MAM, +1 Jump)  (Effective +~20 MP, +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 Jump)
Change Hell Ivy to +Stop
Change Carve Model to +Don't Move
Change Local Quake to +Petrify
Change Quicksand to +Zombie
Change Pitfall to +Slow
Change Gusty Wind to +Sleep
Change Kamaitachi to +Don't Act
Change Demon Fire to +Oil
Change Blizzard to +All or Nothing (simultaneous) Silence and Blind
Change Sandstorm to +Berserk

spoiler: Samurai

Change: Asura (Y=7)
Change: Koutetsu (+1 Range, -1 AoE, NoSelf)
Change: Masamune (+1 Range Linear, -1 Vert, Self)

Asura Y +1.

spoiler: Ninja

Remove: Doku no Kyoukai
Change: -ton (Now subject to M-EV)
Change: Tsumazuku (+5 MP, SP * WP, -25 CT, No other effects)
Change: Kagesougi (Change 100% blind to High% Random Add: Blind, Silence, Poison, Don't Move, Don't Act)

spoiler: Scholar

Maelstrom - F_MA*4 DMG, 6 CT, 255 Vert/Area, 15 MP, Water Element, 200 JP.  (Replaces Natural Selection.)
Bio 2, 200 JP.

spoiler: Bard

Change: Life Song (+15% Regen, still heals HP.)
Change: Nameless Song (Change hit rate 40%, CT = 4, RandomAdd: Reraise, Protect, Shell)

spoiler: Dancer

Change: Wiznaibus (+15% Poison, still damages HP.)
Change: Nameless Dance (Change to RandomAdd: Darkness, Silence, Slow, Oil)

spoiler: Status

Oil:
Dispel by all elements (except holy/dark?)
Weak to all elements (except holy/dark?)

Dead:
Cancel: Oil, Frog
No Longer Cancels: Regen, Poison.

Poison:
CT becomes 96.

Still too lazy to remember what those old Gauntlets were, at worst there's room for 2 new accessories I guess!  I just think we'll be lacking the Attribute space...

[Gaignun]

What do people think about lowering Balance's MP cost from 24 to 12?  This will allow for semi-sustainable use by armour classes - the ones with the HP pools to actually use the skill effectively.  Seeing Time Knights, Time Lancers, and so on using Haste, Slow, and Balance would be neat, for what that's worth.  Balance is a lousy skill for mages no matter its MP cost, so the skill currently stinks.

Here's another minor proposal: lower Sunken State's JP cost from 200 to 100.  Players are probably going to go on ignoring it with Hidden Knives and now Concentrate around, but... yeah, it sure isn't worth 200 JP.  Doesn't Transparent expire when being hit, too?

*Knives*

Has the Platina Dagger been removed?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

I forgot Platina Dagger, I'll edit it in later.  It is unchanged.

I'd be cool with Balance being reduced to 12-16 MP.  It is a niche skill regardless of the cost, and a lower cost helps the niche use it better.

As for Sunken State, funny thing - it's slated to be replaced with a skill that grants Haste on hit as an alternative to Speed Save (Speed Save being better on units that are intended to take a lot of hits, this new skill on units intended to not be attacked as often, competing for a similar niche), but we never decided the JP cost or where to fucking put it. While it's easy enough to say the JP cost would be high end (400-500 range most likely), it still needs a home.  Sunken State is being trashed because the AI is retarded with non-permanent Transparent.

[Barren]

One comment about the defense ring. Isn't canceling dead the same as canceling death sentence?

Edit: never mind, Raven already explained that the purpose to block both dead and death sentence is to prevent death sentence fail loops

[Fanatic]

Sorry, don't mean to interrupt, but I would like to share a few opinions of mine with you all.

spoiler: Poison and Phoenix Down

I believe that PD is taking a huge hit with this planned revision. As things stand currently, PD is requires two moves to actually heal a character: the application of PD, and a second move to cure critical. The only builds I've seen use PD effectively are speed builds and builds that have a move that both heals self/allies and damages enemies. This is in contrast to Raise and Raise 2, which only require one application.

There is already a huge complication to PD revival teams, namely being the necessity of synching CT to avoid a wasted action (due to the enemy just re-killing the newly arisen unit). With poison lasting beyond death, a new complication arises - units getting a turn after being revived while poisoned, but having no instant healing ability (i.e., priests). Such a unit will die again, while probably doing nothing (as per critical A.I. behavior).

My understanding is that this is the desired result, as a means of preventing revive loops and speeding up matches. But in my opinion, this will substantially decrease the use of PD as a revival tool. Item users will now have to use THREE actions on a poisoned, dead unit - an action to revive, and action to heal, and an action to cure poison. I suspect that in response to his, many team designers will forego using PD entirely, and instead rely more on revive, raise, raise 2, and reraise, all of which only require TWO actions.

Further, I see this change as entirely unnecessary. Poison RIGHT NOW does two things - it potentially turns 2HKOs into 1HKOs, and it makes the A.I. waste a turn removing it. Due to the AWESOME nature of Masamune, a vast majority of teams are rocking this ability and curing poison with regen while simultaneously adding a second, enormously beneficial status effect. If you removed the regen status from Masamune, poison would instantly become more vicious because it would require a move that serves no other purpose other than to remove a status effect. Alternatively, more people might use abilities that induce regen, like the White Magic ability of the same name. Either way, the threat of poison would grow even as lesser used abilities likewise increase.

spoiler: Haste

Even decreasing the range of Masamune, I'm probably going to favor it over haste because 1) it is 100%, 2) it is instant, and 3) it also adds regen. The upgrade to poison will make me even MORE inclined to use it, because unlike the Time Mage spell, the Samurai ability also removes poison. If you find nerfing Masamune unacceptable, I would suggest that in lieu of removing regen from Masamune, you strengthen the spell Haste so that it can compete. My suggestion would be to raise the constant to the max value so that it hits even on 40 faith units. Thus, Time Mages will still need higher faith to take advantage of debuffs, but users looking to spam haste can still rock a low faith Time Mage... which is sort of like those who use Samurai with just Masamune.

spoiler: Slow

A final idea of mine is to REALLY buff Time Magic by making give the same treatment to slow as haste (namely making the constant so high the effect is near always at 100%). Slow, of course, would also have to be subject to M-Evasion. This way, 40 faith units can still get slowed 100% of the time so long as they aren't also using evasion gear.

spoiler: Warpath

You all did an excellent job on Arena. MA and PA shifts, even when close to 4 or 5 points, are generally difficult to pull off and even then do not completely lead to domination. On the other hand, shifts of Speed, Brave, and Faith can dramatically change the outcome of matches... and you've gone and made them 100%! Quickening is bad enough, but at least it requires an action and MP. A free 100% increase in Brave is just plain overpowering and will quickly become abused. Don't do it, for the love of god.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

@Poison: "Wasting a turn" really isn't a use of Poison as much as it is a use of any status the AI on the enemy team can cure, so that's essentially a null-argument.  If a negative status can be cured by the AI, it can cause the enemy AI to waste a turn, because the AI loves curing most of its negative statuses away.  If anything, the argument goes the other way around - units that can inflict Poison end up wasting turns because the AI is over-zealous with Poisoning everything in sight.  As for turning 2HKOs into 1HKOs... any team that would use Poison for that purpose is better served by a second DPS unit instead of a Poison-dedicated unit, as seen by the fact that no one has ever even considered using Poison in this way, and there's no advantage to trying to do so with current Poison.  So both your points here are completely null.  Yeah, this shits on Phoenix Down, again that's the point - a DPS team like you described can now consider Poison as a viable option because unlike a second DPS unit, it can suppress Phoenix Down / Wish loops that used to plague Arena terribly in addition to helping create OHKO opportunities, giving an actual advantage to going POISON ALL DA THINGS just adding more HULK SMASH to your team.  If the Phoenix Down'd unit gets its HP restored, it also does not need to cure Poison because Poison no longer kills them.  It adds an actual threat to the Phoenix Down / Wish user - similar to how badly aligned CTs and MP costs inhibit Raise and Raise 2 users.  Note that in earlier versions of Arena, Masamune used to randomly cycle between Haste and Regen the way it does in 1.3 and no one used it because it sucked.  Units also dealt far less damage so the near-infinite DOT of current Poison was actually able to do relevant chunks of damage to walling units.  Guess what?  People still didn't use Poison, so your posit on it becoming a lot more vicious can be disproven just by looking at Arena's history.

@Haste/Slow: I wouldn't be opposed to raising their Y values at least some, though I'd need to go pen through what they are now and do the math first.  Making them 100% is a bit much considering much weaker buffs aren't 100% at 70 Faith v 40 Faith and making them all 100% at 70 v 40 basically throws out the entire Faith mechanic for anything that's not offensive purposing, but some buff status could probably use higher Y values.

@Warpath: A maxed out Warpath (now 15 turns to make happen) roughly the bonus equipping Attack UP does, and essentially gives all units that attack you that Attack UP bonus as well.  The only thing noteworthy here is that it can be stacked with Attack UP, Two Hands, or Two Swords - if you want to wait 15 turns and turn yourself into paper mache in the process.  Using this also means you don't get Move +1 or Move-HP UP remember, which depending on the kind of offensive unit you're making can be big blows.  You can replace Move +1 with some boots, but then you're missing out on Bracer (meaning lower DPS) or a Mantle (making you even more paper), and bulky units using Warpath over Move +1 essentially give up their bulk.  There's some nifty things you can do like Gaignun's Thief, but... that's taking Jobs that had no real DPS options and giving them a unique and potentially useful DPS option.  I see nothing wrong here.  (Do note I addressed his concern by realizing the Sword involved was slightly OP and weakening the WP and by increasing the time it takes for Warpath to even work.)  Note that Faith Up strategies also currently suck - and you can build Faith up to 100 in a very small amount of time with a proper Faith Up team.  (As in, a good Faith Up team can hit 100 Faith in about 3 turns tops, and those teams DO get to use all the skills they want in the process such as Move-MP UP.)  There is an over-reaction occurring here.

[CT5Holy]

How often does Poison finish off a unit? Rarely. Teams usually have healing and/or status removal to take care of Poison in a reasonable amount of time.

Now, I didn't think about the scenario where a unit gets Poisoned and then dies to something else as I was typing the above line, but now that I am thinking about it... isn't that also rather rare? Kiyomori, Shuriken, maybe Poison Proc Crossbow. Shuriken's the most relevant since it can kill and add poison in one action, as well as soften up a target for a follow-up. Poison Proc Crossbow could do the same thing, except no one uses it, so whatever. Kiyomori's starting to see use, but it's more for adding Blind than Poison. Oh, there's also Scorpion Tail, which I completely forgot about until I edited this post cause no one's using it all of a sudden. That one's relevant. Should be very relevant, in fact. Oh my. Hmm.

Masamune is being nerfed, Fanatic - in the new version it can only hit the user and one other unit.

[Fanatic]

Where to begin?

@poison:
If I understand your position, and I will be simplifying, the reason behind the change is that before, poison sucked, and after, it will still suck, but at least now we can disrupt PD/Wish loops.

My thought is, if you are seeing a ton of PD/Wish loops, you've got bigger issues. What that suggests to me is that you have a game that favors the use of high damage single target attacks over weaker, AoE attacks, since the latter should be effective in stopping those loops. That is supposed to be the biggest virtue of large AoE attacks. I can think of several reason why AoE might not be effective at stopping those loops, but with the Black Magic update, I think you'll be addressing the biggest one.

I think we can agree that there are two major factors in evaluating the worth of a status effect: 1) the affect of the effect, and 2) how easily the effect is removed. Poison ranks very low right now because 1) there is very little use for inflicting such a tiny amount of damage, given that other actions can inflict far more and 2) poison can be removed by just about every class under the sun. Seriously, Squires, Paladins, and Samurai can cure it. I agree with you that as things stand, the only reason you would use poison was if you wanted to show off some bizarre team design and not because it is a powerful debuff.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I think that by making death not cure poison, you and I agree that poison needs less curing. If you limit what can remove a particular status effect, you increase the power of that ability. But my problem is that the death extention makes poison more powerful by giving it an extremely limited use that is designed as  band-aid for a greater problem. And from comments from CT5Holy, even that might not work.

The more I think about it, if you want to really buff poison, you need to go further. My own suggestion of just taking Samurai of the cure list might not be enough.

No, how about only allowing 4 things to cure poison: Mediator's Refute, Paladin's Regen, Priest's Regen, and death. Prevent Squires, Chemists, Monks, and Samurai from being able to cure poison, and you definitely increase the strength of this status effect, and as an infinite status effect difficult for low faith units to get rid of, it starts looking like a more viable option against low faith tank teams.

@Masamune
As for Masamune - Yes, I can see what randomly giving haste or regen would suck. The same reason teams aren't spamming nameless song: we want predictability in our status buffs. It is too hard to plan out team tactics otherwise. That is why I didn't suggest random regen or haste, I suggested dropping regen completely. The more random an ability, the less people will use it.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

My point about old Masamune and everything else was that skills that healed Poison in older iterations of Arena weren't commonly used (hell, even Esuna was kinda rare), and the expected damage per unit was lower, meaning the ability of Poison to change damage thresholds was more valuable, and it still was not used.  Basically, older metagames have de-facto been the situation you are suggesting to create but better and Poison still sucked.  Yeah, this overlaps with the role of AoE some, and that's the point - competitive gaming often has lots of overlapping factors, forcing you to sort through the noise to pick and choose which options are best for your particular situation.  This change both makes Poison into a tool one could theoretically make use of and creates more competitive noise, an all-in-all positive change. 

Your posit is wrong too - the change is not about Poison needing less curing, it's about creating a unique situation in Poison's interaction with other statuses and the gamestate in general.  It has absolutely nothing to do with how easy or difficult Poison is to heal.  If anything, it is the ease of Poison being healed that makes giving it this new interaction more than reasonable - you can heal it from many sources from all sides of the tree, so you're not pressured to go far from your comfort zone if you feel Poison threatens your particular team.

[Quman]

Why are we even trying to balance Masamune? It was pretty much designed to be broken in vanilla, but it was "balanced" because it required the player to obtain a very rare and difficult to get piece of equipment and then risk breaking it. Those "balancing factors" aren't present in this hack, so what we're left with is a broken skill that doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Draw Outs anyway.

The Samurai move set seems complete enough without haste and regen, so why not just drop Masamune and leave haste to the Squire and Time Mage, where it actually fits in with the rest of the moves? Will the Samurai move set really be incomplete without this move?

[CT5Holy]

Hmm, this is something to keep in mind. Personally, I like what Masamune does, and keep in mind that in the next version, it can only hit 2 units max - it'll still be useful, just not ridiculously powerful. I'd like to see how this new Masamune plays out before we decide to scrap it. I think the nerf will make it fair and reasonable.

If Masamune still ends up being too strong, however, then it should be scrapped/changed to do something else (preferably changed to do something else, IMO).

[Quman]

I wouldn't suggest scrapping the ability if it actually felt like the sort of ability you might give the Samurai if you were building its move set from the ground up, but as it stands Masamune seems like an out of place ability that's being grandfathered in. I'm not concerned so much with balance as I am with letting the classes that specialize in this sort of thing actually feel special.

But regarding balance, I feel I should point out that even after Masamune is nerfed, the Samurai is still capable of accomplishing in one turn something that would take the support-focused Squire four actions to imitate. For the exact same JP cost.

I would also also like to point out that the Squire's haste ability has both a CT and MP cost, and doesn't add regen like Masamune. Yell's only advantage over Masamune is that it can reach 2 panels further. Again, we're comparing the more offense-oriented Samurai to a support-focused Squire, and the Squire is getting absolutely obliterated at his own game.

Granted, a female Squire with Ultima would be doing almost as much damage as a male Samurai with his stronger draw outs, but again the Squire trades range for both a (fairly high) CT and MP cost, and the damage is only comparable if the squire is built to have high MA and the Samurai isn't.

[The Damned]

(Yeah, as annoying as Masamune has been, I'd rather test out the linear version first before weakening it further or outright dismantling it.

Also, Squire's losing the ability to add Regen anyway; I've also personally never liked Yell, so....)

Hunh. Been almost a month since I've been around, but thankfully this thread hasn't missed much. Belated apologies to you, CT5Holy; I think were talking about the same thing and I just didn't see that for some reason.

Anyway, before I multi-quote a bit, I just want to comment that while I'm still rather iffy on the change to Poison, I actually am completely fine with Warpath & Holy March now that they only +2 Brave & Faith respectively.

Here are a few more proposals:

1. Reduce the JP cost of Critical Quick from 350 to 300.

2. Reduce Demi's MP cost from 20 to 12.

3. Change Demi 2's MP cost from 40 to 24, damage from 66% to 50%, and Y value from 65 to 75.

4. Increase Asura's Q value from 6 to 7.

5. Make Punch Art's damage formulae linear. 

I concur with all of these proposals. Hell, Critical Quick might need to go even lower to 250 JP.

Apologies for lack of re-summarizing everything lately, in the middle of a move.  Gearing up for a 3 day Greyhound bus ride in a couple days.  Fun.  :U

*snip*

...Jesus Christ, all this bolding makes me feel like The Damned.  I need a bath. :V

No matter how many baths you've taken since this and will take, you'll never be able to get clean between that and having to take Greyhound.

THAT'S enough bold.

That's still not enough.

What do people think about lowering Balance's MP cost from 24 to 12?  This will allow for semi-sustainable use by armour classes - the ones with the HP pools to actually use the skill effectively.  Seeing Time Knights, Time Lancers, and so on using Haste, Slow, and Balance would be neat, for what that's worth.  Balance is a lousy skill for mages no matter its MP cost, so the skill currently stinks.

I'd be fine with lowering Balance's MP, even as wary as I am of "Shock" techniques.

That said, since I am wary of Shock techniques, I'd go with the upper limit of what Raven suggested, which is to say 16 MP. That said, I readily admit that 16>x>11 MP might be fine.

As for Sunken State, funny thing - it's slated to be replaced with a skill that grants Haste on hit as an alternative to Speed Save (Speed Save being better on units that are intended to take a lot of hits, this new skill on units intended to not be attacked as often, competing for a similar niche), but we never decided the JP cost or where to fucking put it. While it's easy enough to say the JP cost would be high end (400-500 range most likely), it still needs a home.  Sunken State is being trashed because the AI is retarded with non-permanent Transparent.

Yeah, Sunken State probably does need to die.

As for its "home", why not have it go to Time Mage given that Time Mage is the original Haste-adder? It might be a bit much given Time Mage is also the same class with Short Charge and the only movement in the game/patch that still outright ignores an element.

Still, it would give Time Mage a useful, more reliable Reaction that doesn't require it to be actively knocked into Critical without being KO'd. This is already an iffy type of reaction to have on high-HP unit, much less lower-HP ones, especially with DSP going up. Critical Quick's problems are further even more depending on when it activates since mages often don't have instant actions, so they get a "Quick" turn only to try to charge something and retreat and then die mid-charge anyway. Additionally, I could easily give you a name for it if it goes to Time Mage.

The only other classes that would really fit would be Ninja and maybe Bard/Dancer, IMO; Bard & Dancer already have enough RSMs, though.

If it goes to Ninja, then it could probably have slightly less of JP cost than if it went to Time Mage.

[Quman]

Like I said, game balance isn't my primary concern, so I'm approaching this from a different angle than you are. The linear version of Masamune might make it somewhat more balanced, but it also makes Masamune even more out of place in the Samurai's move set. Not that I'm pushing you to abandon the idea before you've tried it, but I think I should say my piece now so I don't forget to speak later.

If you end up not liking the linear version of Masamune, my suggestion is to replace Masamune with Zanmato, which would inflict instant death. Zanmato already exists in FFT as a treasure item, so it seems like an appropriate addition.

If you want to keep Masamune around though, it's probably best to revert it to the way it was in past games where it wasn't designed to be broken. In FFII, FFIV, FFV, and maybe a couple of others, Masamune's effect when used as an item was to cast the haste spell. Regen was an addition made in FFT, presumably because group haste alone wasn't good enough to justify the risk of breaking a rare weapon.