Arena battle videos and discussion

[pokeytax]

When the formula was (1..PA)*WP, the damage spread was a liability, but with the (PA+1..PA*2) formula it's more of a plus, as you can spike up and one-shot things like a decapitation proc. So 10 WP is probably about right.  It's less of a concern without Salty Rage, though.

[Barren]

Arena League II

I was using the posted set of memory cards, so changes made after that didn't take affect.

Code Select Expand

Western Division

FIGHT! ALKAISER!    5-2
Femme Fatale        5-2
Team Ip             5-2
Counter-Terrorists  4-2-1
Ominous Sky         3-4
Another Boring Team 2-5
Electrifying        2-5
Gotwald             1-5-1

FIGHT! ALKAISER!
One superhero and some assorted backup.  Reasonably good Mime synergy with summons and Cover Fire.
Femme Fatale
Beastly Geomancy with plenty of support.
Team Ip
One superhero and some assorted backup.  Relied on charms and healing as support, rather than anyone but Ip Man killing people.
Counter-Terrorists
Still quite effective, but less able to deal with the higher level of offense this time around.
Ominous Sky
Lacked the damage output of the top teams and a bit flimsy.
Another Boring Team
Nerfed down to no longer be an unstoppable juggernaut.
Electrifying
Not enough lightning absorption/immunity or offensive punch.
Gotwald
Minimal offense outside of Lore.  Eventually provoked too many Speed Saves and HP Restores.

Code Select Expand

Eastern Division

Bloody's Angels     5-2
Xtreme Sandbagging  4-3
Mass Destruction    4-3
Secret Hunt         4-3
Salty Spice         3-4
Earth Warriors      3-4
Warriors of Might   3-4
Flames of Passion   2-5

Bloody's Angels
A balanced team with pretty fierce offense.  King of the weaker division IMO.
Xtreme Sandbagging
Not a lot of offense, but haste and plenty of, yes, sandbagging.
Mass Destruction
Absolutely annihilated a few teams with an opening salvo, but fairly vulnerable to status magic.
Secret Hunt
A failure conceptually, but pulled through thanks to a hero Squire with Yin-Yang and double Abandon.
Salty Spice
No rez or healing besides HP Restore - kinda frightening it won three matches!  Berserk is monstrous.
Earth Warriors
Like Gotwald's team, not enough offense outside Lore.
Warriors of Might
Female berserkers not a good choice.  Again, no rez or healing.
Flames of Passion
Pulled out two wins pretty much solely on the strength of Nameless Dance. Not much offense.

Code Select Expand

FIGHT! ALKAISER!   \_____
Secret Hunt        /     \_____
Femme Fatale       \_____/     \
Mass Destruction   /            \
                                 \_____
                                 /
Team Ip            \_____       /
Xtreme Sandbagging /     \_____/                          
Counter-Terrorists \_____/
Bloody's Angels    /

Good
Badasses (Ip Man, Alkaiser, Bloody and GoGoGo all dropped some bodies, a well-supported PA-based hero unit was effective)
Yin-Yang Magic (Paralyze a terrific spell against high-Faith units)
Nameless Dance (8 ticks for 2 status ailments is 3 status ailments a turn - should have been here last week, Otabo used it to great effect)
Salty Rage (neither of the berserker teams did well, but Salty Rage one-shot KOs are very strong)
Two Hands Poles (Ivory Rod is a great equip)
revival/Haste (fundamentals still apply)
Bio 2 (25% proc rate? definitely a better way to inflict Frog than casting Frog)

Bad
Wiznaibus (Lore's downsides with little upside)
Sing (hard to balance this with map size and Mimic, I know!)

Ugly
Lore (situationally effective, but is hard countered by Save/HP Restore - removing persevere probably a good idea)
Masamune (if you're hurt enough to need healing, may as well just Murasame)
My Spreadsheeting (I'll do better next time guys)

if you want me to Pokeytax, i can call your 8 division matches you have posted. i have time today to put up some matches for you

[pokeytax]

Go for it if you want! But don't spend a bunch of time on it unless it's fun for you, I will have the new cards up soon if you'd rather do other teams.

[Barren]

i don't mind at all. ill get started this afternoon.

[Barren]

FFT Arena Division Quarter Final Match 1 Skip Sandwhich vs Pokeytax

spoiler: Round 1:z3b2g4is

spoiler: Round 2:z3b2g4is

spoiler: Round 3:z3b2g4is

[Zaen]

Wow, Grand Cross. One of my favourite effect files. It's nice getting to see it once in a while.

Very nice set of matches.

[pokeytax]

It could be used a lot better than I used it - I wasn't quite sure how it worked, though.  It's weapon damage formula, non-elemental, hits self subject to front evasion?  I assumed non-elemental because otherwise someone would have been spamming it with absorb by now.

[Skip Sandwich]

spoiler

GG pokeytax! I may have lost, but at least I finally got to see Grand Cross in action! With every match my team has been in, I am struck with just how close to the source character Alkaiser's performance and behavior is, it is perhaps by favorite thing about this team. The only thing i'd change in an update would be Doll, she really had a much lower damage output then I was expecting, even with a max MA setup plus element boosting.

Working on my next team now, expect to see it soon!

[pokeytax]

GG Skip, I love Mimes so your team is an easy A.

spoiler

Summon Magic is wimpy indeed, you really have to crank MA to get any damage out of it.  I really like your design with summons/Cover Fire mimicry instead of just song & dance spam, even a couple stray Wave Fists in there... if my genius Squire didn't blind Alkaiser, or if he'd had a functional Repeating Fist, you probably would have won.

[Barren]

FFT Arena Division Quarter Final Match 2 SecondAdvent vs CT5Holy

spoiler: Round 1:2euwp207

spoiler: Round 2:2euwp207

spoiler: Round 3:2euwp207

[pokeytax]

New patch!

I will make new cards Wednesday with any fresh teams and then I'm away for the holiday.  Barren, maybe you should run your own new tourney on the new patch?  Even if you just ran best-of-one with eight teams that are new and/or tough, it would probably tell us more than finishing out playoffs, sad to say - that's life with a responsive dev cycle.

[Barren]

i'll do what i can, ill be busy during the holiday myself. but i can do is add the teams who you listed as the teams with the least amount of wins as a separate tournament. that probably will happen after i'm done with the best-of-eight.

[pokeytax]

Yeah, do whatever you want goes without saying, I'm not your boss!

In other news, Stone Gun is worse than gigacharms, I already reequipped my team with Romanda Guns:

spoiler: Stone Gun in action:1y31gia7

Skip puts up a good fight, but you can see that they are too powerful, even on a small map.  Either change them to Range 3 or WP 10, maybe?

[Barren]

Well nonetheless, have a very happy thanksgiving Pokeytax

[Barren]

FFT Arena Division Quarter Final Match 3 Barren vs DomieV

spoiler: Round 1:269vhl11

spoiler: Round 2:269vhl11

spoiler: Round 3:269vhl11

[Skip Sandwich]

@pokeytax RE: Stone Guns
i'm pretty sure what you saw there was an example of good compat + 70-70 fury + attack UP, in other words, the worst case secenario.

Maybe instead of or in addition to Initial: Petrify, they could have Always: Slow and Immune: Haste, they should probably be forced 2-hands as well

[The Damned]

So I was gone for two (or was it three) weeks, but I finally caught up. Geez, that "watched pot never boils" analogy sure loves to bite people in the ass with its relative truth.

Hey, pokeytax, if you've the time over the upcoming holiday, I edited my team a bit already because I realized how idiotic it was for Zero be completely neutered by Absorb Fire.

I've my own suggestions with regards to Stone Gun, but I'll put it the Item thread.

download the mp3 here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TROMFTT4


:EDIT: fun fact, this team is based off of the team I used to clear Red's scenario in SaGa Frontier, the only one missing from my lineup is Rabbit, the little mech with the SATELLITE LASER CANNON

Alkaiser wields Punch Arts with an effective PA of 27, making him even more buff then Bussard

I always train Fuse as a gunner in SaGa Frontier, so that's what he appears as here

Doll is there for AoE and anti-sandbaggery

Cotton is the adorable little monster girl and team mascot

Ah, yeah. Nice to see some Saga Frontier love. I still need to finish that game, Red's being one of three scenarios I still need to finish; the others being Blue's and Aselius's (?).

I wasn't even aware this song existed but it and video are pretty awesome. I was all sadface last night because the song didn't seem to work after I downloaded, so I deleted; I got it to work by just changing the name after the idea to occurred to me a few minutes ago. Apparently VLC just freaks out at kanji or something. It does sound a little bit static-y in the middle though; not sure what's that about.

Regardless, thanks.

Hope you guys like my commentary

It's...interesting, but ultimately helpful (or at least not obnoxious). You commentating is like a combination of RavenofRazgriz's voice and Voldemort's snacking habits in addition to some...interesting pronunciation of things.

Still, much thanks to you, pokeytax and Gotwald for running so many matches and posting videos of them.

[pokeytax]

Critical Quick, at least, is bugged to check every hit instead of just hits in Critical, like the new MP Restore.

I am already away from a computer that can handle the editing, but the spreadsheet's there with every team already for anyone who doesn't want to input them. I think Jump is non-elemental rather than weapon-elemental, though, for no good reason.

[FFMaster]

I messed it up yeah. typo in the code.

Uploaded the quick fix.
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=5625

It was 1 number lol

[The Damned]

Oh, the Critical Quick thing was a mistake? Ignore my comment on in the abilities thread then.

*breathes sigh of relief*

Critical Quick, at least, is bugged to check every hit instead of just hits in Critical, like the new MP Restore.

I am already away from a computer that can handle the editing, but the spreadsheet's there with every team already for anyone who doesn't want to input them. I think Jump is non-elemental rather than weapon-elemental, though, for no good reason.

*facepalms*

Ugh, it shows how long it'd been since I've played (any) game. Still, he needed a quick non-elemental attack, so it's all good (until it comes back to still bite me in the ass).