FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Herp Swords Derp.

spoiler: Swords

Tri-Edge - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Fire, Ice, Lightning Element, 33% Separately Add: Oil, Slow, Don't Move on Hit.
Tactician Blade - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, +1 Jump.
Parry Edge - 9 WP, 25% 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, 15% 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 - 12 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, PA +2.
Ultima Weapon - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 33% Ultima.

The idea here is to keep Swords as a grab-bag of random shit, stealing and morphing a few of the ideas I liked from both CT5Holy and Eternal and adding a bunch of my own to fill all the unused Sword slots in Arena.  I've kept a mix - some blades with high WP and No Two Swords or Two Hands, many weapons with both Two Swords and Two Hands to promote Two Swords, and still others with No Two Swords but Yes Two Hands to promote Two Hands use.  I'll do specific reasonings on-request for these since a lot is here and I have shit to be doing, so :v.

[The Damned]

(Ugh. I made a Delita-mistake with "seem" in the last post. Whatever.)

Well, I'm suddenly semi-glad that I waited (read: fell back asleep when someone didn't get back to calling me) to post this huge thing. Now I can answer (life, the universe and) everything all at once rather than needing to have posted again a mere two hours afterwards.

With regards to the latest two developments, I'll get those out of the way first:

1. Katana 3.1: Ah thanks for your input Raven. Outside of Muramasa being 100% Faith still, which is literally not a change, and being slightly wary of the self-boost & MA +2, which I all understand, I rather like those, my initial input aside; it does make me feel less stupid about it though. That said, even Muramasa can still be dropped later if need be; it probably shouldn't go below 50%, though. As such, I also agree with the changes; I just would like to think it isn't making innate Two Swords more potentially obnoxious. Regardless, Lord Anubis will be pleased.

2. Speed Save: Yeah, as much as I loathe to admit it, it needed a boost even before Tsumazuku's proposed change. It needs to at least boost by +25, though +30 is kinda pushing it, especially with Lore around. I'm going to think about this more, but for now I'd rather err on the side of caution as I usually do and just say that +25 CT be enough, especially since Tsumazuku isn't going to be universally used even if actually sees use now.


Now onward to the other posts:

They shoot the bullets harder when they're angry.  Either that or they curve them to hit more organs at once.  Haven't you seen that movie "Wanted"?  The protagonist shot guns better when he was angry.  Hard rock played in the background, too.  I don't know how he pulled that one off, though.

Sorry. As much as I like James McAvoy at times, I like good movies better.

Yes, I am still alive.

I've skimmed through most of the posts and here is some shit.

@Damned: I was there discussing most of the proposed changes for the next version. There are still a few things I disagree with, of course. Summon Magic becoming evadable, for example. However, some of the additions/changes that are proposed and would like to see it in action, whether it will be good or not. I would like if auto-potion becomes 70 for a version or 2, just to see how it goes, but it's not likely going to happen I think.

*snip*

Yes, I figured you were still alive. Doesn't mean you aren't legitimately busy, though, especially since I have no idea what the hell Australia's "schedule" in general, much less this time of year and much less your schedule.


1. Auto-Potion going to 70: I personally wouldn't mind it myself, but I at least concur with Raven that it's a really minor issue. It should probably wait until next version, if only because the sheer amount of changes being proposed for this version are the most yet I think.


2. "Bad" Names: Meh, names are fine by and large and the poorer ones can always be worked on.


3. 19% = 20%: More than fine with that, especially since it makes things less confusing for newer people.


4. Water's Nonexistence: I don't think anyone will object to that, especially since I don't think Natural Selection has been used more than literally half a dozen times since ARENA started more than a year ago; it's certainly better choice than screwing over Earth Dragon as I had proposed long ago. The name "Maelstrom" as Eternal suggested is fine, though that's normally only related to Behemoths and does something entirely different. As you brought up potentially trying to implement monsters, I still suggest "Big Wave", as underwhelming as it might be, or even "Tidal Wave" since all of the summons are named after themselves (and it's not like most people currently use Leviathan); other Water-element names can be found here, though of course feel free to make up names rather than feeling like you're bound to history.


5. Geomancers Getting Move 5: Doesn't seem necessary and it would step on Mime's toes a bit. Also seems like it make them get themselves killed more easily and I always figured that Geomancers should be distance units since they get what's essentially free, if conditional, magic(k). Not sure how other people feel about this though, since no one else commented (in this thread at least).


6. Patch Style Change: Large, infrequent patches are best. You have a life, things need to be allowed to work themselves out and I don't think anyone wants you to become one of the many game companies that rapidly patches things (and makes them worse just because people visibly bitch) before that can happen.

Prepare -> Phalanx
Glitter Shield -> Divine Shield
Sinkhole -> Flux

*cut*

I still think "Iron Will" should just be used for Prepare and one of the unused Shield names should be used for Glitter Shield, but these are fine too I suppose. I like "Flux", but I'm not why it's necessary; that said, now that I think about it, I've yet to see Sinkhole's animation, so maybe it is better. (Or it just fits better with Time Magic[k], especially since Sinkhole tends to be Terrain/Geomancy-related.)


Now for my random thoughts with regards to your random thoughts:

1. Bio's Elemental Properties: I concur that they all be Elemental if one of them is, hence why Geomancy still bugs the hell out of me, but that's a different issue. However, they need not be the same element, which is why I was pushing for at least one of them to potentially become Water or even Earth just because they're some of the less represented elements. That said, with Raven's point about elemental parity (which I was never pushing for...in ARENA at least) and the fact that Natural Selection is becoming Water now and your own Tier 4 suggestion, I think that all Bio spells should just become non-elemental for now.

We need at least a few non-elemental, faith-based spells that are a) quick and b) don't do fixed damage or are based on other conditions. At least a couple of people have used Bio 1 to great effect because of its non-elemental nature and I'd hate for yet something else to be absorbed/blocked by the ever-popular Black Costume.

That said, I've never really liked Bio 2 adding Frog. Can "we" just give that Oil or give it Poison and give Bio 1 Oil? Even if Frog will wear off now, multi-target changes to add Frog just seem like trouble, especially when they're not subject to terrain's whimsy. It's not a huge deal, but I figure I might as well admit that while talking about it.


2. Water Becoming Part of Black Magic at Tier 4's Expense: I can agree with this, as can other people apparently. However, I think the other gimmick should follow the flow of your Water element in Parted Ways and thus that these spells should be exempt to Reflect. Given that Tier 4 dying means that everything else that Wizard becomes subject to Reflect (unless the Back spells suddenly aren't), then it seems like Wizard would still need abilities that get past Reflect and it's not like these spells have to be horribly damaging or anything. So....


3. Paladins Purposely Immobilizing Themselves: I vaguely recall someone telling me that the AI won't use a negative statuses on itself even if they're packaged with other benefits. However, I can't remember who that was and I've yet to test it myself. That said, it could potentially be interesting, though knowing the AI, it would probably just lead to trouble....


4. Weapon Suggestions: Most sound decent enough. However, where is the room for Tonberrian, Lionheart, Ultima Weapon and Gladius coming from?


5. Possible New Guns: I'd rather not kill off Magic Guns entirely before we get to test them with their new fixes. Besides what Raven pointed out about the Option C gun being Romanda Gun, Option A Gun (Opera Gun?) would obviate the already barely used Healing Staff & Murasame as much as I also like the idea and Option B Gun is just bad news. You remember what a pain in the ass Spell Edge was when it was still like its vanilla self, right? You really want to give the potential to cause Disable/Don't Act to an otherwise unavoidable weapon? Immobilize/Don't Move won't be much better due to the sheer range on the thing, even if it were "only" 4, since then it would completely screw over Hunting (cross)Bow.


6. Blightbane: ...I kinda agree with Raven's eloquent rebuttal here. That said, it's at least a start name-wise, so thanks.

*prune*

@Auto Potion: I'm still not sure why this even comes up.  (Well, I know, sup The Damned and your irrational hatred of Chemists, Monks, and Priests.  :v)  There really is no reason to touch it, especially with us again looking to push up the low-end damage of weaker weapons, skills etc.

@Monsters: I'll be dead honest.  I see no reason to include monsters in Arena.  They're a 100% pre-packaged unit that will never see variance, even moreso than how Gaignun called Berserkers "gimmicks."  They're the ultimate in linear gimmick units and literally anything they could add to the game could be added better via a class, item, skill, etc. being added instead.  Even with gimmick human items with Salty Rage or Cursed Ring, you still get control to add variance to your units on at least some level.  Monsters you get absolutely nothing, and you have to make what few skills (3-4) that they can do so ridiculously strong to compete they just ruin everything.  Yeah, they're "cool", but that doesn't change the fact they're overly linear wastes of space that could be better suited to adding more things for human units.

*prune*

Hmmm...oddly I thought I had more to say about your post, but it's only two rather minor things; I'm not sure how I feel about the Holy March & Warpath thing, though I'd totally be done for dropping the JP if they became only +2.

Oh well. It at least spares your eyes a bit:


1. My Irrational Hatred: A slight correction, dear sir. It is Raise 2 I loathe, not Priests themselves, religiosity of the name aside.


2. Monsters Being Gimmicks: While you have a point about that and while monsters aren't exactly a priority, I have to disagree quite a bit with your other issues:

  a. There's more than enough space unused to in ARENA to give them more than a mere 3-4 skills. "We" would just have to make sure that human classes all require 1 Level of Squire rather than 0. Thought I suppose it wouldn't to be to try screw around with giving monsters' (human) Secondaries given the validity of your linearity comment.

  b. Given the amount of people that have wanted monsters (and Mimes) to get around their inability to use equipment. Most of the people that have expressed this are either working on other aspects of their own patches or just other miscellaneous things in general, so it's possible that having only to take care of aspect of it for an otherwise functioning, basically communal (at this point) patch might "encourage" them.

  c. Similarly, people have been trying to get the AI to learn to mount monsters (read: Chocobos), so it serves the same point there as a sort of testing ground.

  d. In a far less important but still semi-valid point, some monsters can also be used as stepping stones, which is something humans can't be used for at all. Not much, but still something, especially on some of the more cluttered/clustered maps.

  e. It would give something for Monster Talk to rather than be mockingly there, gathering dust. Similarly, it would make primary Mediators more valuable rather than just having Talk Skill be used more as a secondary only.

  f. Similarly would give Steal Heart a bit of boost, though it's arguable whether that's a good thing or not.


Admittedly, some people just want to use monsters and while that's not exactly a good enough reason, we also shouldn't outright dismiss them as you seem to be doing.

That said, I also wouldn't mind perhaps focusing on adding more human classes before that. First, however, we need to make sure that ones we have now are equally usable rather than somewhat conspicuously lopsided, if not as egregious as vanilla or 1.3.

Hell, I'd probably be the first person behind adding a usable Blue Mage class if people really wanted to "use" monsters.

@Dia
The thing with Dia is that, it would be good if it were like unfury, but currently it's faith. And when you are build for DPS, you are building damage against melee units most of the time, since none of the mages can have armors without equip armor and tanky melee units tend to have 40 faith and 40 fury. So of course you are going to take unfaith skills instead of Dia.

*castrate*

I can't recall if I've ever directly replied to Shade before, at least via quote. First time for almost everything I suppose:


1. Dia: Dia is already good. In fact, I'd argue it's too good for how little it costs, even if it's not outright broken and it's on the "wrong" set, though that's probably what keeps its overpowered aspect from being as apparent. That said, despite disagreeing with you most of your reasoning, I concur that it would perhaps be better as going off of Unfury. Not that Priests need to become better at attacking, though.


2. Monsters and Space: Not exactly sure what monster drafts you're remembering/mentioning, but as I did with Raven, I'm calling bullshit on the space thing. Considering we "only" have 20 classes at now, one of which, Mime, doesn't even have skills at all, we have tons of space left. Even counting the like half-a-dozen skills that are weapon procs only, ARENA has left over space from all Special characters & units, all Lucavi and all monsters. That easily has to be 150+ spaces, which means that "at worst" we could "only" give 16 monsters 9 skills if we really, really wanted to.

Yeah, we're totally strapped for space right now.


3. Holy & Raise 2 needing To take more MP: Agreed.


4. Carbunkle needing to take more MP: Kinda agreed, if only because I haven't seen it used more than twice. Admittedly, I'm terribly behind on matches. So perhaps 5 MP does seem a bit cheap. Then again, it does have to compete with Angel Song, which costs 5 MP as well and hits the entire map.


5. Demi spells getting buffed Giving Demi 1 AoE 3? Hell no. Same with giving Demi 2, even if it were lowered to 50%, AoE 2. Time Magic might not be used much for damage, but it's not supposed to be; even then, though, it's already being used half of the time for damage since after Haste it sees use, "if only" because of Slow (2), Comet and Sinkhole. Guess what. Two of those do damage, even if one of them is conditional and the other is fixed; Balance is also somewhat used, but it's infrequent since it's inaccurate (which it should be) and depends on higher HP units, which tend to have lower MA & MP and vice versa.

Both Demis see seldom use more a) Dark is absorbed so often as to often not be worth it unless you're absorbing it yourself and b) Demi 2 is rather inaccurate at present due to its sheer power. Still, they're used more than Lich because they can be absorbed and Dark-absorption really doesn't need a boost. Besides, Immobilize/Don't Move is getting strengthened definitely at least and while Stop is getting a bit of an indirect nerf due to Geomancy, it's still dangerous.

So Time Magic still has more things than "just" Haste (2), especially when (more than) half of one's skill set being used semi-regularly is more than a few other classes can claim at present.


I'll leave the sword talk for later since my computer decided to be utterly slow.

That said, I don't agree with CT5Holy's versions being mostly compatible with Two Swords. We hardly need Ninja to become the best all melee weapons that use PA sans Axes and Knightswords; same with Two Hands and Samurai, though in that case it would be Knives rather than Axes that would be exempt alongside Knightswords.

As for Raven's, at this point the ones that stand out as the most objectionable are Two Hands-compatible Blood Sword and Lionheart's PA +2 and superior WP when it can also be used with Two Hands.

Still, I'll talk about those in a separate post.

[Eternal]

@Paladins: It wouldn't affect themselves.

@Demi: I think it'd be interesting if Demi had a chance to proc Slow or Immobilize. </two_cents>

[TrueLight]

Probability a bad idea, but it seems that Wizards need something...that can't be reflected. How about bringing back Meteor? Most of the Wizard skillset (with the exception of Flare) can be reduced with Venetian Shield/White Robe. Giving them this skill would allow some more diversity and an overall, better unit. Also, the AOE and damage would be somewhat moderate in order to maintain some balance. This skill would be a quick spell that does decent damage and a great anti-sandbag tool, while at the same time, ignoring any element absorption.

As for a water skill, how about something like Tidal Wave. This spell would be rather quick and deal damaage around a level 2 spell. We could replace something like Poison since not many people seem fond of it, but that's just me.  Perhaps more people will be using some water absorption teams. For animation, we could use the Leviathan spell animation without the Leviathan. 

[RavenOfRazgriz]

That said, I don't agree with CT5Holy's versions being mostly compatible with Two Swords. We hardly need Ninja to become the best all melee weapons that use PA sans Axes and Knightswords; same with Two Hands and Samurai, though in that case it would be Knives rather than Axes that would be exempt alongside Knightswords.

As for Raven's, at this point the ones that stand out as the most objectionable are Two Hands-compatible Blood Sword and Lionheart's PA +2 and superior WP when it can also be used with Two Hands.

Reply to other shit later, busy right now, but;

Any Sword-bearing class (Squire, Geomancer especially with its proposed stat edits, etc.) will do more damage with Two Swords than a Ninja will using Equip Light Blade and the same Swords because Ninja has inferior PA.  An Equip Light Blade Ninja won't be used for its DPS alone.  A Ninjato-bearing Ninja (or a Climhazzard + offhand weapon bearing) Ninja with Attack UP also does more DPS with Attack UP than a Sword-bearing Ninja with Equip Light Blade does.  All this does is make Equip X skills on Ninjas somewhat appealing, resulting in a larger number of potential Ninja setups and adding more options to the game.  Mine focused more on having some that worked with Two Hands both for promoting the Two Hands skill and for promoting Equip Light Blade Samurai, on top of the Katana edits promoting basic melee Samurai.  (In fact, the Tactician Blade I whipped up is actually meant to primarily allow Geomancers to hit 5 Move and 5 Jump, coinciding with FFMaster's idea for buffing Geomancer.  So you get the buffed bases and the option for more Move range, in the same way that many Spears have SPD boosts to both promote Equip Spear and allow you a large range of options with your Lancers.)

Blood Sword - Note 0 W-EV.  You want to Two Hands it, you get some OK damage, but you get no evasion unless you give up power to run a Mantle, meaning it's a very all-in strategy.

Lionheart - It could probably go to 11 WP, but the main idea is to be stronger than a Two Swords Platinum Sword to again promote the Two Hands option over the Two Swords one, and to make another valid one-hand + Shield option alongside Ice Brand and Tactician Blade.


@TrueLight, I recommend following the conversation a bit more, Venetian Shield is going to hell, Wizard is getting some Water spells that will either be non-Reflectable or have Short CT in trade for a high MP cost along with an extra point of base MA.  Meteor's not really needed.

[The Damned]

(Ugh. I missed a colon and some other stuff after all that proof-reading? Arrgh.... Let's see if I can avoid fucking up for once this time.)

Before I forget again, I should ask something: Are "we" going to let all Black Magic spells be subject to M-EV with Tier 4 spells probably dying and becoming (un-Reflectable) Water? Or are we just going to let Tier 3 spells ignore M-EV while being still subject to Reflect now that they're the "strongest"?

(Let it be known I support the latter.)

Now, as to let all quotes aspects of this post be about Swords, I'll just answer Eternal here:

1. Immobilizing Paladins: Oh. I can completely get behind that, then. I'd honestly rather that than "Blightbane", actually, but I'm fine with giving the Poison technique a chance and Time Mage's Don't Move is most likely getting a boost anyway.


2. Demi having the chance to Slow or Immobilize: It would make sense, though giving it the chance to Slow might make the AI over-prioritize it and giving it the chance to add Immobilize would somewhat step on Don't Move's toes. That said, given Don't Move's AoE would now trump both Demi spells', maybe Immobilize would be doable; after all, it's priority isn't nearly as high for the AI as Slow. Then again, the same lackluster priority might just mean that AI never uses Don't Move if Demi ends up having a chance to cause Immobilize; I'm not sure.


And now for Swords. I'll do CT5Holy's first because they are both fewer in number and more problematic to me.

...Actually, I'll answer Raven's last post first since I need to clarify what I meant about not wanting almost everything PA & melee-based to be compatible with (innate) Two Swords:

Reply to other shit later, busy right now, but;

Any Sword-bearing class (Squire, Geomancer especially with its proposed stat edits, etc.) will do more damage with Two Swords than a Ninja will using Equip Light Blade and the same Swords because Ninja has inferior PA.  An Equip Light Blade Ninja won't be used for its DPS alone.  A Ninjato-bearing Ninja (or a Climhazzard + offhand weapon bearing) Ninja with Attack UP also does more DPS with Attack UP than a Sword-bearing Ninja with Equip Light Blade does.  All this does is make Equip X skills on Ninjas somewhat appealing, resulting in a larger number of potential Ninja setups and adding more options to the game.  Mine focused more on having some that worked with Two Hands both for promoting the Two Hands skill and for promoting Equip Light Blade Samurai, on top of the Katana edits promoting basic melee Samurai.  (In fact, the Tactician Blade I whipped up is actually meant to primarily allow Geomancers to hit 5 Move and 5 Jump, coinciding with FFMaster's idea for buffing Geomancer.  So you get the buffed bases and the option for more Move range, in the same way that many Spears have SPD boosts to both promote Equip Spear and allow you a large range of options with your Lancers.)

Blood Sword - Note 0 W-EV.  You want to Two Hands it, you get some OK damage, but you get no evasion unless you give up power to run a Mantle, meaning it's a very all-in strategy.

Lionheart - It could probably go to 11 WP, but the main idea is to be stronger than a Two Swords Platinum Sword to again promote the Two Hands option over the Two Swords one, and to make another valid one-hand + Shield option alongside Ice Brand and Tactician Blade.

I should probably try to do a post just for TL;DR changes since more people keep falling behind and I'm the least busy of everyone. I'll do it later, though, if I decide it's even necessary at all; it might not be since FFMaster has kept up despite being busy and he's the most important.

However, let me digress from my possible elitism to actually reply to you:

1. Ninja's Not Being the Physically Strongest: I wasn't talking about Ninja flipping out and killing everyone through sheer power. I was talking about Ninja being the best because they have surety of hitting due to Hidden Knife. Yes, I shall concede that Ninja need to use Equip Light Blade to even equip Swords, but they still get Concentrate in addition to having innate Two Swords while the classes that you use as examples have to spring for Two Swords without getting Concentrate. As little PA as Ninja need have due to innate Two Swords, quite a few weapons don't really depend on power as much due to what they cause, so as long as they hit, which is what Hidden Knife allows. While I will no longer "rally" for that to lose more than its +1 Sp (for now), I'm still taking it into account as far as potential problems go given how commonly it is used.

That said, yes, I would agree Swords are better off as hodgepodge, which is part of the reason I disagree with CT5Holy's designs, but more on that in a bit.


2. Blood Sword: For now I'll just say that yes, I noticed the 0 W-EV%. I still have problems with it. I'll get into that below.


3. Lionheart: I was less worried about the WP and more the fact of the PA boost in relation to Two Hands. I'll get to that below as well.


However, first we'll do CT5Holy's stuff:

The swords could use revamping/buffs. They are also very underused. At the very least +1 WP on the non-Platinum Swords, but I think they should also be all (or at least most) 2H/2S-able. Granted, doing that would mean a revamp. I'll try to toss out some ideas... (note: numbers will likely need to be tweaked. Again, these are just ideas, and I'm bad at stuff at like this)

Blood Sword 11 WP, no 2H/2S, absorbs HP
Ancient Sword 9 WP, yes 2H/2S, 25% Petrify proc (actually, maybe 25% Don't Act proc would be better here? cause with 2S that's ~40% chance of Petrify)
Sleep Sword 9 WP, yes 2H/2S, 25% Sleep proc
Rune Blade 10 WP, yes 2H/2S, +2 MA
Platinum Sword 12 WP, yes 2H/2S
Diamond Sword 8 WP, yes 2H/2S, 50% Extra Attack
Coral Sword 8 WP, Water Element, yes 2H/2S, 50% Poison proc or 25% Suiton proc (actually, Suiton proc would make more sense on the flails. Except I think it's a bad idea either way since that could lead to a looooooot of damage. Thoughts?)
Ice Brand 10 WP, Ice Element, yes 2H/2S, 25% Ice 3 proc

Yeah, most Swords could probably stand +1 WP even though, as mediocre as they tend to be, they're so ubiquitous that they still see use unlike other, weaker categories of weapons have yet to be touched (much).

Still, I'll reply to the ideas here since I might as well explain why I don't want Two Hands and Two Swords on most Swords:


1. Blood Sword: Seems reasonable even though Blood Sword is already the most usable Sword outside of maybe Rune Blade.


2. Ancient Sword: While perhaps that might be true, a bigger problem is that Ancient Sword probably shouldn't be causing Petrify at all. Two Swords certainly doesn't help, even if having dual Swords is debatable versus just having Hidden Knife and an Ancient Sword in the off-hand so as to not potentially waste damage just in case the victim gets cured of Petrify. Regardless, I'd be "willing" to accept it as a Two Hands sword, but the Petrify aspect probably needs to die.

I also don't want Don't Act coming back on any weapon, especially since Swords are more widespread than Ninja Swords; Spell Edge already proved how fucking obnoxious that could be on a weapon with much more limited distribution and squishier units. This goes double if Concentrate is coming back.


3. Sleep Sword: Not really much to say here since the only difference is +1 WP, so I'll just say how I've long found it amusing how Sleep Sword is probably the worst weapon to use with Two Swords, at least two of them, and yet it's one of the few swords that can be so used. Two Hands seems quite superior for this weapon, yet ironically due to the sheer power it already potentially has/sets it up should Sleep go off, that too seems like overkill; at least Two Hands Sleep Sword is probably worth it though.


4. Rune Blade: Similarly, Two Hands would be good for this sword. However, Two Swords seems problematic on this for differing reasons than Sleep Sword: +4 MA seems really good--perhaps too good--on non-squishier units, even if it's already possible with Wizard Rod and Wizard Staff. However, I'm not "exactly" for those either and, again, almost no mage is going to use Two Swords over something like Magic Attack UP or Short Charge or even Half of MP.  If this was able to be used with Two Swords, then it seems almost necessary for it to only add +1 MA, which makes it worse over all, especially with the plans for the new Kiyomori.


5. Platinum Sword: Meh. I literally have nothing else to say about this.


6. Diamond Sword: Way too similar to Dual Cutters, which already don't see use. We don't need something potentially upstaging them again, especially since they're only getting slightly improved, even if they aren't exactly the same.


7. Coral Sword: 33% Poison would probably be best, especially if you're adamant about most swords being able to be used with Two Swords; I'm going to have agree that Suiton would probably be "bad". I actually like this Coral Sword the second best of your ideas...too bad I like Raven's Coral Sword idea better.


8. Ice Brand: I think the change to Ice Brand is most appropriate. I'm hesitant of Two Swords, but even here and even with Ice 3, it seems to matter little since Ninja have piss-poor MA; it might be problematic on Squires and Geomancers, though.


Not bad for a first draft, but I concur with Raven that Swords should be hodgepodge in their approaches, partly because of their distribution:

Herp Swords Derp.

spoiler: Swords

Tri-Edge - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, Yes Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, Fire, Ice, Lightning Element, 33% Separately Add: Oil, Slow, Don't Move on Hit.
Tactician Blade - 14 WP, 10% W-EV, No Two Swords, No Two Hands, +1 Move, +1 Jump.
Parry Edge - 9 WP, 25% 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, 15% 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 - 12 WP, 0% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, PA +2.
Ultima Weapon - 10 WP, 15% W-EV, No Two Swords, Yes Two Hands, 33% Ultima.

The idea here is to keep Swords as a grab-bag of random shit, stealing and morphing a few of the ideas I liked from both CT5Holy and Eternal and adding a bunch of my own to fill all the unused Sword slots in Arena.  I've kept a mix - some blades with high WP and No Two Swords or Two Hands, many weapons with both Two Swords and Two Hands to promote Two Swords, and still others with No Two Swords but Yes Two Hands to promote Two Hands use.  I'll do specific reasonings on-request for these since a lot is here and I have shit to be doing, so :v.

I'll try to be thorough in my reasons for bringing up Blood Sword and Lionheart specifically above. Don't blame me if I half-ass everything else, though, especially with the way that this computer is still acting:


1. Tri-Edge: Certainly an interesting idea, even if being part Fire is doubtless going to screw it over due to Black Costume's popularity. Speaking of screwing over, while I understand what you're going for with Separate, Random would be better and cause it to occur more often, especially at 33%; otherwise, the proc would be more akin to 8.25%--33/4--unless procs are exempting from the quartering that Separate unfortunately does. As faux compensation for that, perhaps lower the WP to 9 to further the theme of threes? Otherwise, I do like this a bit, I'm just...dubious about it because of the Fire aspect, but it's not like everyone wears those all the time. Alternately, increase its WP to 12 and drop being able to be used with Two Swords, partly because I do realize that they can be absorbed by the two other pieces of Absorb Clothing that aren't Earth Clothes.


2. Tactician Blade: For the record since you mentioned it earlier, I'm fine with this. I just don't think Geomancer should have Move 5 for reasons I already stated. This, though, is fine.


3. Parry Edge: I'm also fine with this I guess, even as annoying as 25% W-EV on such commonly available weapon might be with good WP; at least Main Gauche's WP is piss-poor and most jobs that get it can't use it with a Shield automatically. So this being able to be used with Two Swords kinda bugs me. I'd be up for getting rid of that while still allowing it to be used with Two Hands and potentially upping its W-EV to 30% as recompense, though Two Swords isn't exactly the end of the world on this thing.


4. Moonlight: Blade Beam does what exactly? The same thing as Balance only it's not avoidable or affected by MA or Faith, correct? Yeah...I don't know how I feel about that considering how I feel about (current) "Shock"-based techniques in general, 0 W-EV% aside. That said, I suppose the 0 W-EV% does kinda make up for it, even if it's not forced Two Hands. I'd say only 33% chance though if it can be Two Handed, but again that's me erring on the side of caution, especially with the ever-increasing amount of changes.


5. Blood Sword: Okay, so here's my problem with thing being able to be used with Two Hands despite the 0% W-EV: all drain techniques currently heal 100% of the damage they inflict. Considering that Blood Sword already does decent damage & is already the best sword and that AI can't see reactions & has been seen repeatedly to stupidly, physically attack with flimsy mages that have MP left, this thing seems like it would get really ugly, really quickly with something as simple as Counter & Two Hands; by "best" here, I mean the one most worth using if one had to use a Sword to physically attack, even though Rune Blade is probably the most diverse for other things due to +2 MA. If it wasn't for that, if the drain was between 30-50% percent, then I could completely get behind it having Two Hands. At present though, I'm sorry but I have to say no; "having" to use a mantle isn't exactly selling on that.


6. Coral Sword: If it wasn't for Frog probably dispelling on death now, then I might still have oppose this despite Frog being so unlikely to occur. That said, I really like this now, so...yeah. Good job.


7. Ancient Sword: Meh. The Petrify aspect probably just needs to die. I'll try to think of something that's less like a "You're better off dead 20% of the time". I'm tempted to say just give it Stop, but that's not much better.


8. Sleep Sword: What I said to CT5Holy kind applies here, though I'm not sure how I feel about the lowered chance to Sleep.


9. Platinum Sword: Still utterly apathetic to this, though I'll say in that in the case of your swords, it's decidedly inferior to Lionheart on the Two Hands front, so it being able to be used with Two Hands is pointless.


10. Shieldrender: I rather like this. Not much more to say besides that.


11. Ice Brand: I'm not really sure about whether I like this version better or CT5Holy's to be honest. I'll need to think on it more.


12. Rune Blade: Again, see what I said to CT5Holy.


13. Lionheart: My problem with this is lesser than Blood Sword, I suppose, but still something I'd rather avoid: Wouldn't using this with Two Hands essentially mean this gave +4 PA? That seems a bit...much, especially since it's only two slots being used as opposed to having to use other +PA gear, though of course you could still use that, upping it even more.... But, yeah, I don't think a mere WP drop will help deter that.


14. Ultima Weapon: I guess this is fine. It's been forever since Ultima's been used, though, so I'm not exactly sure how often it "should" trigger.


I'll try to think of something to turn Ancient Sword into--I think I have an idea already. However, I otherwise have little interest in Swords, at least presently.

[Celdia]

spoiler: Ignore Me I Never Post Here

I see "Tri-Edge" and all I can think of is that game company Tri-Ace. How about "Delta Edge" as a nod to all the Delta Attack/etc skills found in the various games?

[Gaignun]

Mind if I bring the discussion back to poison for a bit?  I took a few minutes to collate the changes related to poison that were proposed:

Add: Wretched Blade (Weapon Element, PA * WP, 6 MP, +Poison, 1 AoE, Vert 1, NoSelf, 250 JP)
Change: Hawkseye (+Proc: Poison/Oil)
Change: Poison (AoE +1, Vert +1)
Change: Wiznaibus (+25% Poison, still damages HP.)
Poison Bow (+2 WP)

I'm glad to see how poison is being put to greater use.  However, I am wary about how these changes will meld with poison lasting beyond death.  The point of making poison persist is to encourage people to cure it before the poisoned unit dies, right?  I foresee two skills in the above list that will make pushing players toward poison management feel more like pushing them off of a cliff:

Wretched blade: An AoE, weapon elemental physical attack that inflicts poison 100% of the time.  This is grand cross without the self-heal.  The AI loves to use Grand Cross; it will love this, too.  Teams fully equipped to cure poison have enough trouble cleansing the 100% poison from Kiyomori.  That this has potential to deal heavy damage in addition to 100% poison (remember that it takes the weapon's element, so it can be boosted by element strengthening and oil) will only compound this difficulty.  Thus, I am led to believe that Wretched Blade is too powerful to apply the new version of poison.

My proposal: Remove +Poison.  Alternatively, have it add poison at low (20-33%) probability.

Wiznaibus: 25% chance of inflicting every opposing unit with poison.  This amounts to:

68% chance of inflicting at least one unit with poison;
26% chance of inflicting at least two units with poison.

If Wiznaibus is mimed (as it often is), the odds become 90% and 44%, respectively.  Bear in mind that Wiznaibus targets the entire field, so this skill has the highest likelihood of inflicting poison on units spread far apart.  This means that one turn will be need to be devoted to cleanse each unit of poison.  And since Wiznaibus targets the entire field, dancers can effortlessly continue poisoning units, thereby putting the opposing team in a laborious status-healing loop.

My proposal: Remove Wiznaibus' ability to be mimed.  I have nothing against buffing Wiznaibus.  Dancers need it.  On the other hand, I do not like full-map AoE skills on principle because their boundary between "useless" and "broken" is razor thin.  The skills need to be kept weak because the opposing team has no way of avoiding their effects, yet if they're kept too weak, nobody uses them.  That's why I am treading lightly with changes to Wiznaibus.

My proposal will give the opposing team a chance to manage the poison.  Forcing your opponent to cleanse poison once every 6 clock ticks will put your opponent's healers under mild stress.  Forcing your opponent to cleanse it twice will put them under great stress.  However, the odds are low enough to avoid breaking your opponent's management capabilities.  (And by "breaking" I mean making poison management impossible.)  90% and 44% odds, however, won't.   Teams without poison healing are going to get punished all the same, so the "+Poison" buff is still going to work.

Poison: Will have 2 AoE and 3 vert with the change.  I am less worried about this than Wretched Blade and Wiznaibus because it (a) doesn't deal immediate damage and (b) isn't full-map, persisting AoE.  With that being said, the Poison spell's current Y value is so high (115!) that it hits just about every target.  Its Y value was set this high to entice people to use it.  Nobody did.  Now, with 2 AoE and an accompanying Poison buff, the spell stands to have this value lowered.  75, the same value for Time Magic's Don't Move, seems fair.  Black Magic is being taken in good directions with "back" spells, water spells, status infliction, and the removal of Venetian Shields.  We don't need to add to this with a wildly functional Poison spell.  Let's lower its Y value, then raise it later if need be.

On the subject of Wizards, does anyone have a thematic status effect that the tier 1 water spell can inflict?  +20% faith would make for a nice, albeit inefficient, way to topple 40 Faith units.

Finally, what do people think of changing Cherche and Setiemson?  I think that they are too useful at the moment.  Sure, accessories are meant to be useful, but no accessory is useful against roughly half of every attack in the game apart from these two.  Pair these accessories with their complementary (Magic) Defense UP and you have yourself an ultimate defense against HP damage.  I fear that this perma-defense will become worse with Warpath, behind which players can comfortably boost their Fury to 100.  (Holy march won't be as bad, as units using it must expose themselves to either status effects by equipping Setiemson or magic damage by equipping a mantle.)  The perfumes steal the thunder of the Protect and Shell spells, as well.  I say we demote "Always: Protect/Shell" to "Init: Protect/Shell" in exchange for some minor buffs, like +1 PA/MA.  When you consider that Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlet give identical stat boosts with a humble +15% EV, these changes don't seem so egregious.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Deal with replying to The Damned after I get back from my doctor's appointment.

@Gaignun:

Re: Wretched Blade - I've always felt the Poison proc on this skill was pointless as it's already a great DPS move, as you've pointed out.  I wouldn't be against removing Poison from it at all.  The person who pushed for having Poison on it was FDC, and it's always felt both non-fitting and rather pointless to be putting Poison on a high-DPS move to me anyway.  It also doesn't fit the Paladin flavor much at all.

Re: Wiznaibus - I'd rather further lower the %rate of Poison on Wiznaibus to 10% or 15% than remove Mime.  The entire point of this upgrade to Wiznaibus is to buff Miming teams.  I've mentioned this in replies to The Damned, but those get so long I don't begrudge people forgetting things: When we thinktank changes, usually it follows thought lines of "Mimes are cool, how can we make Mimes have more stuff to do?", "Undead are cool, how can we throw people more toys for Undead teams?", etc.  This again started as one of FDC's changes, though he originally wanted 50%.  I talked him down to 25%, but I'd also be more comfortable with 15% myself on both Wiznaibus and Life Song's procs - 15% v the whole field for a purely bonus effect is still nice, even without Miming, and it buffs the skills in a way other than just outright cranking their Ys.

Re: Poison - I'd be fine with lowering the Y value to 75-80 for the reason you mentioned.  It's still a good base value with the "new" Faith system, and Wizards do have the highest base MA for pulling their spells off.  Your rates to hit should still be good and the area is wide.  Like you said, it can be buffed a bit more if needed, but more powerful Poison Status + vastly superior range should more than offset the Y dip for now.

Re: Water 2 proc - Faith would be /interesting/, but Fire 2 already procs Oil, which does the same thing by doubling damage to every Element in the Wizard's skillset.  The only difference is that Water 2 would buff Poison, Death, and Flare as well - but it's still basically using the same design space.  I'm not sure what proc Water really /could/ have honestly without breaking the theme of having X 2 procs each being different and effective against basically any unit to at least some degree, but Faith doesn't fit for me because Oil already does it.

Re: Cherche and Setiemson - I need to disagree here for a couple reasons.  They were already Initial: Protect/Shell at one point (and I THINK even had the +1 PA / +1 MA, but my memory may escape me) and literally no one used them, from long before I started playing Arena at 1.31-1.32ish to now.  This is the first time I've seen those items even used, and they don't seem to be common to the point of metagame-warping.  The combo just gives people a stronger alternative to Unyielding at the cost of your Accessory slot, which usually means losing Initial: Reraise and being forced to go without it at all unless you waste your Reaction on Dragon Spirit or something.  This is also the reason many Accessories are being buffed - Accessories are generally meant to be great, but in Arena, the ones that aren't great suck HARD, which is why things like the Mantle buff are occurring.  We also know Power Wrist and Genji Gauntlet suck ass, and there were items that we'd devised in our IRC chat to replace them, but FDC didn't add them to his list and I currently don't remember them.  I'll try to remember them and add them to the list next time I compile a change list.  As for Cherche and Setiemson though, like I said, this is the first time anyone's really even bothered to use them since the change from Initial: to Always: was either 1.36 or 1.37, and before I took a hiatus from FFH a month or two ago no one used them and the version number was still the same.  Let's buff the other Accessories first and not freak out because the thing that was just buffed is actually getting used.

Speaking of, I should do another change list soon so all this new shit can be shoved in and kept track of alongside everything else.

[Fantactic1316]

I'd like Wiznaibus/Poison at 19-20%. It might actually make Wiznaibus a properly useful offensive skill for once.

[The Damned]

(Heh, you have a doctor's appointment as well? Mine is later in the day, so I probably won't be here when you reply unless you're back already.)

I'm still not sure how I feel about Ice Brand, admittedly.

However, I believe that I've decided on a potentially decent Ancient Sword replacement/re-tooling...even if it's semi-whoring myself out since it's basically the design I have for Embargo's Ancient Sword at present:


Ancient Sword: 9 WP; 15% W-EV; Element: Earth; 33% Immobilize; Two Hands: Yes; Two Swords: No.


Basically, it allows the user to stay in the opponent's face should the infliction go off while getting rid of that pesky Petrify aspect. Similarly, it simultaneously both has superior qualities to Ninja Edge with its evade and potentially greater power yet also has inferior qualities, such as lower initial WP and being unable to be used with Two Swords, to avoid outright obviating Ninja Edge. Additionally, its elemental quality gives Paladins another source of Earth-based Grand Cross without stepping on any of the other Earth element weapons; Earth element also gives it the same double-edge with regards to Ninja Edge as it is potentially a boon in terms of Strengthen, but also possibly allows it to be absorbed and, in the case of Grand Cross, avoided. The 33% chance is to be more likely than a single Ninja Edge (especially since it can be used with Hidden Knife) at causing Don't Move, but lower than two of them used together.

Please discuss.

spoiler: Ignore Me I Never Post Here

I see "Tri-Edge" and all I can think of is that game company Tri-Ace. How about "Delta Edge" as a nod to all the Delta Attack/etc skills found in the various games?

spoiler: Ignore Me I Post Here All The Time

You got something against barrels?

TEAR INTO PIECES!

Seriously, Delta-Edge has potential, though I do rather like Tri-Edge, partly because of the Tri-Ace thing. Still, I had never realized how often Delta Attack has shown up until now.

Mind if I bring the discussion back to poison for a bit?  I took a few minutes to collate the changes related to poison that were proposed:

I'm glad to see how poison is being put to greater use.  However, I am wary about how these changes will meld with poison lasting beyond death.  The point of making poison persist is to encourage people to cure it before the poisoned unit dies, right?  I foresee two skills in the above list that will make pushing players toward poison management feel more like pushing them off of a cliff:

*amputate*

Yeah, the buffs for Poison-related abilities do seem a bit overzealous at present, but that's only natural with all the other changes happening. Being "natural" doesn't necessarily excuse it though:


1. "Blightbane": *dodges objects thrown by Raven*

Yeah, I haven't exactly liked this from the beginning on a mechanical or "flavorful" level. ARENA's Paladins, just like my own, do rather need another physical attack at present though. So do we just give them a close-range, possibly Holy-element AoE attack that doesn't hit the self and makes up for them losing Dia? Or do we give them something different that also makes use of status, though something more along the lines of Immobilize or something else that doesn't last beyond the grave?


2. Wiznaibus & Mime: Dancers are already worse than Bards, at least when it comes to the skills that are actually (usable) in Dance at present. I'd rather not screw them out of being able to have Wiznaibus be Mimicked as well.

That said, yeah, Wiznaibus definitely needs less of a chance of Poison, at least if it's still not going to be physically evadable and possibly even if it was. As such, I agree with Raven that it's chance to Poison should probably be between 10%-15%. I don't have time at present to be doing the math for how that statistically improves (read: lowers) things, though.

Of course, there's the still the separate question of whether the opposing AI would even attempt to remove Poison while Wiznaibus is being Danced no matter how low the Poison chance is if (old) Nameless Dance is any indication....


3. Wizard's Poison: What Raven said. Y becoming 75 is more than fair considering the AoE boost and how Poison is a lot deadlier than Don't Move in most instances.


4. Water 2 Causing 20% Faith: As "interesting" as it would be, it would undermine the whole point of trying to use the Back abilities/spells, even if not entirely, on top of it semi-competing with Oil as Raven pointed out. Unfortunately, there aren't really any negative statuses left that are temporary, though I suppose if you wanted to "punish" low-Faith units, which tend to have higher Brave/Fury/Whatever, then Sleep might be plausible. Too bad that lasts way too long at present and would thus likely end up as being overpowered.

As much it "breaks" the theme and parity, if the Water spells really do end up all ignoring Reflect, then I'm really not sure they "need" anything.


5. Cherche & Setiemson: What Raven said with regards to this I also agree with since, yes, they literally weren't used more than a dozen times before the change to this version; IIRC, Cherche added +1 PA and Setiemson added +1 MA when they were Initial: Protect and Initial: Shell, respectively. As such, giving them +1 PA & +1 MA wouldn't exactly make people want to use them if you changed them back to Initial, especially when Diamond Armlet sees no use despite not getting screwed over by Dispel Magic; I'd point out Cursed Ring, but that has other issues that have nothing to do with the stat boosts.

They're currently seeing so much use partly because at least half of the other accessories are rather...unusable or, at least, not really worth it at present when compared to them or Angel Ring or Chantage or Reflect Ring or maybe Dracula Mantle and a few others. So let's boost the other things first and then, perhaps if they're still as obnoxious next version, then think about how or if to "nerf" them; it's arguable that they'll still be fine since, really, it's not like many people were using Magic Defend UP or Defend UP before this either when/while Unyielding was around.

[CT5Holy]

Cherche and Setiemson were indeed +1 PA/MA, Initial: Protect/Shell at one point, and yeah, they weren't used.

Agree with getting rid of Poison from Wretched Blade. I think it should be weapon element to give it more opportunities for use, as opposed to just Holy element.

What if we gave Water a 20-25% chance of dispelling positive status? Is that possible?

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Before I forget again, I should ask something: Are "we" going to let all Black Magic spells be subject to M-EV with Tier 4 spells probably dying and becoming (un-Reflectable) Water? Or are we just going to let Tier 3 spells ignore M-EV while being still subject to Reflect now that they're the "strongest"?

I had a long reply to this but it went into the aether.  Basically no because that shits on the entire design direction of this update.  You want no M-EV, use Flare.

1. Ninja's Not Being the Physically Strongest: I wasn't talking about Ninja flipping out and killing everyone through sheer power. I was talking about Ninja being the best because they have surety of hitting due to Hidden Knife. Yes, I shall concede that Ninja need to use Equip Light Blade to even equip Swords, but they still get Concentrate in addition to having innate Two Swords while the classes that you use as examples have to spring for Two Swords without getting Concentrate. As little PA as Ninja need have due to innate Two Swords, quite a few weapons don't really depend on power as much due to what they cause, so as long as they hit, which is what Hidden Knife allows. While I will no longer "rally" for that to lose more than its +1 Sp (for now), I'm still taking it into account as far as potential problems go given how commonly it is used.

Hidden Knife has no real WP and a shitty DMG formula, and you give up your Support to Equip Light Blade and a single Sword so your DPS is in the shitter even if Ninja DID have respectable PA if that's your setup.  If you're looking for a proc combo, your best bet is still the Platina Dagger for Climhazzard since it effectively doubles your DPS, and does better ally combos, and allows you to use a more relevant Support skill related to erm, basically any role your Ninja wants to be doing.

1. Tri-Edge: Certainly an interesting idea, even if being part Fire is doubtless going to screw it over due to Black Costume's popularity. Speaking of screwing over, while I understand what you're going for with Separate, Random would be better and cause it to occur more often, especially at 33%; otherwise, the proc would be more akin to 8.25%--33/4--unless procs are exempting from the quartering that Separate unfortunately does. As faux compensation for that, perhaps lower the WP to 9 to further the theme of threes? Otherwise, I do like this a bit, I'm just...dubious about it because of the Fire aspect, but it's not like everyone wears those all the time. Alternately, increase its WP to 12 and drop being able to be used with Two Swords, partly because I do realize that they can be absorbed by the two other pieces of Absorb Clothing that aren't Earth Clothes.

It is an odd weapon, indeed, and yes, the Separate %hit rate could probably be boosted to 50% or so.  It was mostly a concept weapon, but I do admit being blocked by everything that's not Earth Clothes is going to basically make it worthless.  I will think up something else because I don't think this design can be saved without being maimed beyond all recognition anyway.

3. Parry Edge: I'm also fine with this I guess, even as annoying as 25% W-EV on such commonly available weapon might be with good WP; at least Main Gauche's WP is piss-poor and most jobs that get it can't use it with a Shield automatically. So this being able to be used with Two Swords kinda bugs me. I'd be up for getting rid of that while still allowing it to be used with Two Hands and potentially upping its W-EV to 30% as recompense, though Two Swords isn't exactly the end of the world on this thing.

Not gonna lie, a main point of this Sword was to overcome the Two Swords evasion weakness at the cost of WP on Sword-bearing classes at the cost of WP, and give Shield-bearers a Defender-like option to go with.  (The main difference is a Shield-bearer gets M-EV, a Two Swords bearer does not, and we're pushing to make M-EV more relevant after all.)  It might need to lose 1 WP, but otherwise, that's the idea.

4. Moonlight: Blade Beam does what exactly? The same thing as Balance only it's not avoidable or affected by MA or Faith, correct? Yeah...I don't know how I feel about that considering how I feel about (current) "Shock"-based techniques in general, 0 W-EV% aside. That said, I suppose the 0 W-EV% does kinda make up for it, even if it's not forced Two Hands. I'd say only 33% chance though if it can be Two Handed, but again that's me erring on the side of caution, especially with the ever-increasing amount of changes.

Yes, Blade Beam is an unavoidable Shock!  This is again like Blood Sword in that it's meant to be an all-or-nothing weapon if you Two Hands it, or a perked weapon with a small drawback if you one-hand it.  It is stronger than Platina Dagger DPS wise and can be used with Two Hands, but cannot be Two Swords for the double Platina Dagger combo, hence why I still went with 50%.  It's a strong proc - but so is the Climhazzard proc, and unlike Climhazzard, you only get one shot here.  This just makes up for it by being slightly better as a weapon when you don't proc.

5. Blood Sword: Okay, so here's my problem with thing being able to be used with Two Hands despite the 0% W-EV: all drain techniques currently heal 100% of the damage they inflict. Considering that Blood Sword already does decent damage & is already the best sword and that AI can't see reactions & has been seen repeatedly to stupidly, physically attack with flimsy mages that have MP left, this thing seems like it would get really ugly, really quickly with something as simple as Counter & Two Hands; by "best" here, I mean the one most worth using if one had to use a Sword to physically attack, even though Rune Blade is probably the most diverse for other things due to +2 MA. If it wasn't for that, if the drain was between 30-50% percent, then I could completely get behind it having Two Hands. At present though, I'm sorry but I have to say no; "having" to use a mantle isn't exactly selling on that.

1. Periods exist, use them.  I don't care if that sentence is grammatically correct, Jesus Christ.

2. You vastly undersell the AI with you "mages going in for melee while they can still cast" shtick, given that almost never happens in Arena due to the spells actually having manageable CTs.  The only time the AI really does that is when they can't cast before the turn resolves and they can't get outside the target's Move range, or if they can get the kill without spending MP, though sometimes they'll go for the Spell to kill anyway.  There's a huge reason Counter Blood Sword with Attack UP huge PA stacks doesn't already magically cripple mages and other "stupid AI that can't see Reactions" the way you describe - because the AI is far smarter than you seem to want to say it is, even if it can't see Counter.  As for it being "the best Sword", yeah, it's "the best" out of a bunch of terrible weapons that no one uses for the sake of their melee attack anyway.  At the behest of offending every person to ever read this thread and not regretting it at all, I must say that being the best retard in a giant mountain of retards doesn't make you great - at the end of the day, you're still a retard.  And that's basically Blood Sword's position.  It's "the best Sword" insomuch as "every other Sword sucks at DPS horribly other than maybe Ice Brand and at least this one gives some HP back.", and most Blood Sword users really don't hit very hard at all.  Even in FDC's team "Blood", the high-DPS Blood Sword Paladins didn't do an encouragingly large amount of DPS - that mostly came from the Bards that could swing out more than their own Max HP in Blood Harp damage, while the Paladins struggled to do even half that with a damage-boosting Support equipped to them.  (Not sure which had Overwhelm and which had Attack UP, though.)  As such, I really need to say that your concern in this case has shaky foundations.

7. Ancient Sword: Meh. The Petrify aspect probably just needs to die. I'll try to think of something that's less like a "You're better off dead 20% of the time". I'm tempted to say just give it Stop, but that's not much better.

There's nothing wrong with a weapon that has a powerful proc, bro.  See: Climhazzard, etc., which are often far more damning far more consistently than an Ancient Sword would be.  If every proc weapon were just boring shit like Slow, some really weak DPS move, etc., we'd just end up with either people ignoring them all and maxing DPS or people having 20+ minute slugfests with a bunch of gear that sucks.  Guess what, Arena went through both of those phases already, they both sucked.  Yeah, you get this odd thing called "lucky" when you Petrify someone with an Ancient Sword, but that's the entire point of a proc - sometimes you get lucky and shit goes your way, sometimes you don't, and that's the risk v reward.  You just seem to be outright against any powerful proc (Stop, Frog, Petrify, etc.) on basically any semi-common skill or weapon.  I'm not trying to be condescending or make fun of your nerfnerfnerf for once - actually go look at your post history, you've spoken out against almost every instance of adding Stop or Petrify to anything so far and seem to be striving to making them even less common than they already are, when they're really not all that common from non-dedicated moves to begin with.  (Though oddly, you seem to have no qualms with Sleep even though you're almost more guaranteed a kill from that than Stop.  Huh.)

8. Sleep Sword: What I said to CT5Holy kind applies here, though I'm not sure how I feel about the lowered chance to Sleep.

Sleep proc could probably be kept at 25%.  I forget why I lowered it.

9. Platinum Sword: Still utterly apathetic to this, though I'll say in that in the case of your swords, it's decidedly inferior to Lionheart on the Two Hands front, so it being able to be used with Two Hands is pointless.

It's pointless unless you're bad.  I am fully open to allowing people to be bad.

11. Ice Brand: I'm not really sure about whether I like this version better or CT5Holy's to be honest. I'll need to think on it more.

My main idea here was to keep Ice Brand Grand Cross a thing, since very few weapons I had were sitting in the no-Two Swords, no-Two Hands tier without being at least semi-gimmicky, and Ice Brand Grand Cross is one of the few instances where Swords can be shown as something other than suckage.  It basically fills the roles of "generic high DPS beater with no gimmick" and "Grand Cross love Sword" at the same time.

12. Rune Blade: Again, see what I said to CT5Holy.

If a mage wants +4 MA, they use dual Wizard Staff and get far better DPS than this.  Or you use two mages each with one Wizard Staff and one Gold Staff / Rainbow Staff.  Or if they're a Sage as they probably are, they spam Wizard Staff and Wizard Rod together because Sages have an OP gear pool.  The thing is, mages can do what you describe, and their damage formula is MA*WP, so they get a direct DPS boost from it, unlike dual Rune Blades.  Dual Rune Blades is a strictly inferior Dual Platinum Swords that allows the holder to use skills like Draw Out, Talk Skill, or Geomancy with at least a shred of competence, great for Geomancers (hey that class no one uses), or anything subbing the above skillsets.  It really doesn't make anything that already is good any better, and only opens new options up for people if they choose to pursue them.

13. Lionheart: My problem with this is lesser than Blood Sword, I suppose, but still something I'd rather avoid: Wouldn't using this with Two Hands essentially mean this gave +4 PA? That seems a bit...much, especially since it's only two slots being used as opposed to having to use other +PA gear, though of course you could still use that, upping it even more.... But, yeah, I don't think a mere WP drop will help deter that.

It's +4 PA insomuch as PA is doubled, but a WP drop will deter that horribly.  There's a reason the best DPS comes from having the PA and WP values be as close together as possible.  9*3 is only 27, but 6*6 is 36, after all.  Losing 1 WP will result in more of a damage drop than somehow making Lionheart only add 1.5 PA would, so it does similar to what you want (reigning it in a bit) without making it not do what I want it to do (be a good +PA stick that's usable without Two Hands).  While it probably could get away with only being +1 PA and still be usable to some level, with the vast increase in quality seen by every Sword here, a 12 WP +1 PA Sword that's only usable with Two Hands is pretty underwhelming in the long run.  It's also worth noting that the boost is only "doubled" for Attack calculation, and in many cases, you will want the 2 PA from Lionheart to do things other than Attack.

14. Ultima Weapon: I guess this is fine. It's been forever since Ultima's been used, though, so I'm not exactly sure how often it "should" trigger.

It's MA*9, making it close to a Doubleshot that goes off your MA score instead of your PA score.  Originally I was going to go all the way with the Doubleshot parody and make it 50%, but Ultima Weapon has 10 WP (v 7/8 on Dual Cutters and Bow Gun), has a better damage formula than Dual Cutters, and can be used with Two Hands.  Obviously Two Hands won't buff the proc damage, but it will still hurt like a bitch.




GODDAMNIT THE DAMNED STOP DOING THAT WHILE I AM TRYING TO POST.  CT5HOLY, YOU TOO.  I'LL REPLY TO YOUR SHITS LATER, CHRIST.

[The Damned]

(Hmmm....I have about an hour left now before I have to go the doctor given that I couldn't do what I was trying to do, so I guess I can respond to Raven yet again, right?)

In my defense, my latest post doesn't really have anything that you really need address sans maybe Ancient Sword, and even that's not really important; for the record, didn't someone else already explain why Petrify is so bad as proc? (Also, didn't I say that I was comfortable with letting Ancient Sword cause Stop?)

1. Periods exist, use them.  I don't care if that sentence is grammatically correct, Jesus Christ.

Never! Grammatical atheism forever!

Alternately, "Problem? You mad?"

Cherche and Setiemson were indeed +1 PA/MA, Initial: Protect/Shell at one point, and yeah, they weren't used.

Agree with getting rid of Poison from Wretched Blade. I think it should be weapon element to give it more opportunities for use, as opposed to just Holy element.

What if we gave Water a 20-25% chance of dispelling positive status? Is that possible?

I don't think I'll even use a numerical list this time; time to whore multi-quotes:

Oh okay, good to know I'm not insane...well, not insane with regards to previous perfumes and that's good enough, right?

Well, I'd be all for "Wretched Blade"/"Blightbane" becoming generic, elemental-weapon damage, but then wouldn't it become basically inferior to Grand Cross?

Yeah, that should be easily doable given that all we have to do is give it the same ISC as Dispel Magic; why did you think we wouldn't able to do it?


Okay. I'll stop trolling Raven by not using periods (often).

I had a long reply to this but it went into the aether.  Basically no because that shits on the entire design direction of this update.  You want no M-EV, use Flare.

Oh, okay. I'm fine with that. I just want to have it be cleared up and be sure given how much formerdeathcorps apparently left out of his original post.

Hidden Knife has no real WP and a shitty DMG formula, and you give up your Support to Equip Light Blade and a single Sword so your DPS is in the shitter even if Ninja DID have respectable PA if that's your setup.  If you're looking for a proc combo, your best bet is still the Platina Dagger for Climhazzard since it effectively doubles your DPS, and does better ally combos, and allows you to use a more relevant Support skill related to erm, basically any role your Ninja wants to be doing.

Oh, I agree with this, though I'd argue that says more about Platina Dagger being at least somewhat overpowered than anything else. Still, I don't want to Platina Dagger to be nerfed (or at least, I don't think it's nearly as pressing a concern that it needs to be addressed before literally hundreds of other things), so meh. I'll agree to disagree.

[Tri-Edge] is an odd weapon, indeed, and yes, the Separate %hit rate could probably be boosted to 50% or so.  It was mostly a concept weapon, but I do admit being blocked by everything that's not Earth Clothes is going to basically make it worthless.  I will think up something else because I don't think this design can be saved without being maimed beyond all recognition anyway.

Very well.

Not gonna lie, a main point of [Parry Edge] was to overcome the Two Swords evasion weakness at the cost of WP on Sword-bearing classes at the cost of WP, and give Shield-bearers a Defender-like option to go with.  (The main difference is a Shield-bearer gets M-EV, a Two Swords bearer does not, and we're pushing to make M-EV more relevant after all.)  It might need to lose 1 WP, but otherwise, that's the idea.

Ah, I see. I'm fine with that, then. Not sure it even "needs" to lose 1 WP, but you'd know better than I would at this point, if I'm only because I'm too lazy to do the math for this while doing the math for other things.

Yes, Blade Beam is an unavoidable Shock!  [Moonlight] is again like Blood Sword in that it's meant to be an all-or-nothing weapon if you Two Hands it, or a perked weapon with a small drawback if you one-hand it.  It is stronger than Platina Dagger DPS wise and can be used with Two Hands, but cannot be Two Swords for the double Platina Dagger combo, hence why I still went with 50%.  It's a strong proc - but so is the Climhazzard proc, and unlike Climhazzard, you only get one shot here.  This just makes up for it by being slightly better as a weapon when you don't proc.

Meh, I guess. I just really don't like Shock-esque abilities, at least as they are now. Then again, given it's the AI, they'll see a lot less abuse than they would in human hands, so I suppose I'm more or less okay with that this dislike.

2. You vastly undersell the AI with you "mages going in for melee while they can still cast" shtick, given that almost never happens in Arena due to the spells actually having manageable CTs.  The only time the AI really does that is when they can't cast before the turn resolves and they can't get outside the target's Move range, or if they can get the kill without spending MP, though sometimes they'll go for the Spell to kill anyway.  There's a huge reason Counter Blood Sword with Attack UP huge PA stacks doesn't already magically cripple mages and other "stupid AI that can't see Reactions" the way you describe - because the AI is far smarter than you seem to want to say it is, even if it can't see Counter.

I suppose I should have said that was a minor thing issue, but I felt that sentence was already long enough; I'm not sure if that counts as "irony" or anything.

But, yeah, I know the AI isn't that dumb. I'm just saying it's potential problem, though admittedly minor compared to the issue you didn't (directly) answer: Drain attacks fully healing the HP damage they inflict. Bringing up Bloody Strings just reminds me how much they still manage to make Ramia Harp/Lamia Harp and Fairy Harp pointless despite their buffs.

As for it being "the best Sword", yeah, it's "the best" out of a bunch of terrible weapons that no one uses for the sake of their melee attack anyway.  At the behest of offending every person to ever read this thread and not regretting it at all, I must say that being the best retard in a giant mountain of retards doesn't make you great - at the end of the day, you're still a retard.  And that's basically Blood Sword's position.  It's "the best Sword" insomuch as "every other Sword sucks at DPS horribly other than maybe Ice Brand and at least this one gives some HP back.", and most Blood Sword users really don't hit very hard at all.  Even in FDC's team "Blood", the high-DPS Blood Sword Paladins didn't do an encouragingly large amount of DPS - that mostly came from the Bards that could swing out more than their own Max HP in Blood Harp damage, while the Paladins struggled to do even half that with a damage-boosting Support equipped to them.  (Not sure which had Overwhelm and which had Attack UP, though.)  As such, I really need to say that your concern in this case has shaky foundations.

See above. I know that Blood Sword is basically king of a crap category and it does less damage to Bloody Strings, which has superior range and often damage. That doesn't make me feel anymore comfortable being used with Two Hands while it drains as much as it deals.

There's nothing wrong with a weapon that has a powerful proc, bro.  See: Climhazzard, etc., which are often far more damning far more consistently than an Ancient Sword would be.  If every proc weapon were just boring shit like Slow, some really weak DPS move, etc., we'd just end up with either people ignoring them all and maxing DPS or people having 20+ minute slugfests with a bunch of gear that sucks.  Guess what, Arena went through both of those phases already, they both sucked.  Yeah, you get this odd thing called "lucky" when you Petrify someone with an Ancient Sword, but that's the entire point of a proc - sometimes you get lucky and shit goes your way, sometimes you don't, and that's the risk v reward.  You just seem to be outright against any powerful proc (Stop, Frog, Petrify, etc.) on basically any semi-common skill or weapon.  I'm not trying to be condescending or make fun of your nerfnerfnerf for once - actually go look at your post history, you've spoken out against almost every instance of adding Stop or Petrify to anything so far and seem to be striving to making them even less common than they already are, when they're really not all that common from non-dedicated moves to begin with.  (Though oddly, you seem to have no qualms with Sleep even though you're almost more guaranteed a kill from that than Stop.  Huh.)

Sigh. I don't exactly want to make my posts even longer, but if you're asking for clarification on my positions, then very well:

1. With regards to Petrify: I'm actually only against Petrify of all four negative statuses you proposed because, as someone pointed out earlier, it's often worse than Dead. Either you can heal or you can't and if you can't, then that unit is just gone. Poof. Bye. They might as well have been hit with something that Adds Crystal.

While I'm not going to go as far as saying we need to get rid of Oracle's Petrify, that at least a) can be reflected, b) can be evaded, c) isn't on a counter (like how Ancient Sword or old Carve Model can be), d) goes off Faith, which means it has trouble against low-faith units, and e) is capable of being stopped by Silence or Berserk. The two whole other instances of Petrify, including Ancient Sword, do damage in addition to Petrifying, meaning its "deader than dead" bonus is just a "neat" little bonus. That just...seems wrong.

Alternately, Petrify also has the problem of meanings pretty much jack-shit if you can cure like Esuna and Stigma Magic does. It basically just becomes a worse version of Stop in that case.

If Petrify itself were less...bipolar about how effective it was, then I would be a lot less "do not want" about it being applicable via things.


2. Petrify vs. Frog: With Frog being dispelled on death, I'm no longer nearly as opposed to it as I was. My comment on Coral Sword was more about how if it still wasn't able to be dispelled on death, then I'd be more against--probably would still allow it--because a Critical Frog that starts to flee probably isn't getting cured of Frog. Ever.

I'm just against multi-target Frog, and even that's kinda relaxed on things do relatively mediocre damage like Water Ball, which unlike Bio 2 can be absorbed. My comment about Bio 2 was more about how it pretty much trumps Bio 3 as it is now, though part of that has to do with Bio 3 being Dark element.

Also, Frog being curable at least lets damage be done to it the mean time unlike Petrify and it's less "this unit is gone now" with Dead dispelling it whereas Petrify still is.


3. Petrify versus Stop: Actually, as I said above, after you explained Stop better two pages back with regards to Hell Ivy and I remembered how little it lasts, I've become completely fine with it. I wouldn't at all object to Stop being on Ancient Sword over Petrify or Don't Move; it just never comes to mind for me.


4. Petrify vs. Sleep: That's probably because a) you have to build teams to take advantage of Sleep otherwise that extra damage is wasted since it doesn't trigger off magick and b) all weapons that proc Sleep are shitty. Granted, Ancient Sword isn't stellar right now, but Two Swords with Sleep Swords has the chance to backfire where as two Ancient Swords don't, so there's that as well.

I'd like Sleep to last a bit less and I've said before that Mimic Daravon kinda bugs me, but you say I ask for nerfs too much, so that's why I've said nothing about either of those.

Does that explain my caution a bit more reasonably?

Sleep proc could probably be kept at 25%.  I forget why I lowered it.

Shrug. I can't tell you.

Regardless, as I just said above, I'm fine with that.

It's pointless unless you're bad.  I am fully open to allowing people to be bad.

Heh. Fair enough.

My main idea here was to keep Ice Brand Grand Cross a thing, since very few weapons I had were sitting in the no-Two Swords, no-Two Hands tier without being at least semi-gimmicky, and Ice Brand Grand Cross is one of the few instances where Swords can be shown as something other than suckage.  It basically fills the roles of "generic high DPS beater with no gimmick" and "Grand Cross love Sword" at the same time.

I see. I still need time to think on it more, but this makes a bit more sense now.

If a mage wants +4 MA, they use dual Wizard Staff and get far better DPS than this.  Or you use two mages each with one Wizard Staff and one Gold Staff / Rainbow Staff.  Or if they're a Sage as they probably are, they spam Wizard Staff and Wizard Rod together because Sages have an OP gear pool.  The thing is, mages can do what you describe, and their damage formula is MA*WP, so they get a direct DPS boost from it, unlike dual Rune Blades.  Dual Rune Blades is a strictly inferior Dual Platinum Swords that allows the holder to use skills like Draw Out, Talk Skill, or Geomancy with at least a shred of competence, great for Geomancers (hey that class no one uses), or anything subbing the above skillsets.  It really doesn't make anything that already is good any better, and only opens new options up for people if they choose to pursue them.

What I said to CT5Holy already addressed all of this.

It's +4 PA insomuch as PA is doubled, but a WP drop will deter that horribly.  There's a reason the best DPS comes from having the PA and WP values be as close together as possible.  9*3 is only 27, but 6*6 is 36, after all.  Losing 1 WP will result in more of a damage drop than somehow making Lionheart only add 1.5 PA would, so it does similar to what you want (reigning it in a bit) without making it not do what I want it to do (be a good +PA stick that's usable without Two Hands).  While it probably could get away with only being +1 PA and still be usable to some level, with the vast increase in quality seen by every Sword here, a 12 WP +1 PA Sword that's only usable with Two Hands is pretty underwhelming in the long run.  It's also worth noting that the boost is only "doubled" for Attack calculation, and in many cases, you will want the 2 PA from Lionheart to do things other than Attack.

Hmm...I see. Still not comfortable, but much like Parry Edge, I can support this now.

It's MA*9, making it close to a Doubleshot that goes off your MA score instead of your PA score.  Originally I was going to go all the way with the Doubleshot parody and make it 50%, but Ultima Weapon has 10 WP (v 7/8 on Dual Cutters and Bow Gun), has a better damage formula than Dual Cutters, and can be used with Two Hands.  Obviously Two Hands won't buff the proc damage, but it will still hurt like a bitch.

Right. I'm fine with that. I just meant I honestly didn't remember.


Sorry for the laconic replies towards the end there, but I'm probably going to be late for my appointment now, so I can't proofread this either. Back in a couple of hours.




GODDAMNIT THE DAMNED STOP DOING THAT WHILE I AM TRYING TO POST.  CT5HOLY, YOU TOO.  I'LL REPLY TO YOUR SHITS LATER, CHRIST.
[/quote]

[RavenOfRazgriz]

eah, I haven't exactly liked this from the beginning on a mechanical or "flavorful" level. ARENA's Paladins, just like my own, do rather need another physical attack at present though. So do we just give them a close-range, possibly Holy-element AoE attack that doesn't hit the self and makes up for them losing Dia? Or do we give them something different that also makes use of status, though something more along the lines of Immobilize or something else that doesn't last beyond the grave?

The point of Wretched Blade is that it's a Grand Cross that doesn't hit yourself.  This is actually amazing.  The best weapons you can really Grand Cross with are Excalibur, Blaze Gun (post-nerf), Ice Brand, and maybe 1-2 others I missed, because you hit yourself and are forced to run a Blind-blocking Absorption setup.  The fact it doesn't hit yourself means you lose out on your heal, but you can in turn use any weapon to attack with, including the incredibly high WP Chaos Blade.  It also costs less MP, giving you more uses.  Basically, Wretched Blade is a completely different move by changing the one most defining aspect of Grand Cross and leaving basically everything else the same.  That one change makes them completely different moves - one strong, generic, and adaptable, and the other incredibly strong, but linear and requiring specific setups to work.  They fill very different roles despite being almost the exact same skill.  This also helps Absorption teams on some levels since you could use Wretched Blade to AoE heal allies without healing self but gaining more setup flexibility in the process.  (Again, the Poison proc was something FDC insisted on to no end and is basically irrelevant to the move.)

What if we gave Water a 20-25% chance of dispelling positive status? Is that possible?

Both possible and a good idea.  It's more niche but since Water also penetrates Reflect this isn't as big a deal.  It gets the weakest procs in terms of reliability but arguably one of the best Element perks.

didn't someone else already explain why Petrify is so bad as proc?

I did.  Doesn't mean I'm gonna remove all instances of it everywhere forever.  The main reason I rallied against anti-Petrify on Carve Model is that many maps are both very flat (allowing AoE hits) and almost 100% Carve Model (making the "Double Petrify OOOOO!") super-duper common.  Ancient Sword is nothing like Carve Model in terms of being able to slap a bitch with Petrify, lacking the AoE and the range.

Meh, I guess. I just really don't like Shock-esque abilities, at least as they are now. Then again, given it's the AI, they'll see a lot less abuse than they would in human hands, so I suppose I'm more or less okay with that this dislike.

The AI doesn't see the proc on the weapon at all, so yes, they use it far worse than a human would.  It's like a Reaction, the AI doesn't even know it's there.  It's why procs tend to be useful against all units instead of things like Blind or Silence, with some highly dedicated exceptions like Bizen Boat.

But, yeah, I know the AI isn't that dumb. I'm just saying it's potential problem, though admittedly minor compared to the issue you didn't (directly) answer: Drain attacks fully healing the HP damage they inflict. Bringing up Bloody Strings just reminds me how much they still manage to make Ramia Harp/Lamia Harp and Fairy Harp pointless despite their buffs.

And I'm saying a Two Swords Blood Sword with no W-EV is still inferior to an Attack UP Bloody Strings, and neither are breaking the game as they are in Arena with 100% Absorption.  A team like FDC's Blood would eat bad teams alive simply because those bad teams suck and don't field damage while Blood does, but at this point in Arena, teams have gotten good enough that a good team will usually win, and FDC's Blood team is basically your problem with this change taken to its logical extreme.  Other Blood Sword users in the AI Tournament (from what I've noticed so far, at least, feel free to try and correct me and I'll examine things again) were both very uncommon, and the few that were used proved to be ineffectual at best.  Exhibition matches collaborate this, with very few Blood Sword users, and very few of those ones outside of FDC's Blood team being all that noteworthy.  Yeah, it's strong, but basically being 100% hit by everything in Arena v any team that can field decent DPS is going to make that HP Absorb mean nothing really fast.  The AI also doesn't know it can heal by using Attack on an enemy, so you can't really use the "Critical unit goes to full HP" argument because a Critical HP Unit with a Blood Sword will almost always run away instead of attacking.

The two whole other instances of Petrify, including Ancient Sword, do damage in addition to Petrifying, meaning its "deader than dead" bonus is just a "neat" little bonus. That just...seems wrong.

Alternately, Petrify also has the problem of meanings pretty much jack-shit if you can cure like Esuna and Stigma Magic does. It basically just becomes a worse version of Stop in that case.

Yeah, Petrify is high-risk, high-reward as far as KO statuses go.  That by itself is fine.  There needs to be high-risk, high-reward things in a game to entice players.  Which is what makes Ancient Sword and Local Quake, Ancient Sword takes your weapon slot and does inferior melee damage for the chance of a high-risk, high-reward KO your opponent might just laugh at, Local Quake does the same via Geomancy which is far cheaper but much more inconsistent to access.  Once upon a time, FDC wanted to remove Iron Boots, and I had to explain the same concept to him - high-risk, high-reward items are important because they help bad players learn better quality perception by trying them and failing to grasp how to use them, and because they reward players who do understand the intricacies of how to utilize their risk/reward and when with many victories.  In good hands, they ensure the metagame doesn't get stale by constantly throwing wild cards at the game, and in bad hands they become good learning tools for overcoming the newbie hump and helping them better understand item quality, both of which are highly important in a PVP game.  This is another reason I'm against "hand-holding" things like making the Platinum Sword not compatible with Two Hands despite the only reason to not make it so being that Lionheart is better with Two Hands - it doesn't help the newbie player learn, it just ferries them to the right answers without helping them learn why those answers are right, which in turn leaves us with a lesser quality of Arena players in general.

but Two Swords with Sleep Swords has the chance to backfire where as two Ancient Swords don't, so there's that as well.

"Backfire"?  You keep Sleep Sword in the top hand and a different Sword in the offhand, so you can Sleep and make the second swing at 3/2 damage.  You can do this with a second Sleep Sword too, you can proc Sleep on the already sleeping target, getting 3/2 on your second hit and re-Sleeping them.  It's not really a backfire when many times this is intentional and the superior way to use Two Swords with 1 or more Sleep Swords.  Not to say knocking the target unconscious and leaving them there is bad, but to call the other outcome a backfire is pretty much wrong.

[The Damned]

(Okay, I'm back. You may commence booing.)

Too lazy to quote things right now. You want me to do that composite list, Raven?

In the meantime, I'll give laconic answers since I have a headache right now:


1. "Wretched Blade": Oh, right. In my haste, I was thinking of it from a purely elemental standpoint including self-absorption, but yeah, being able to use "Not-Grand Cross" with non-elemental weapons or with users that don't have to block Blind and/or absorb their own element would make it quite different. ("We" aren't letting it Blind like Grand Cross, right?)

I suppose it just needs a name now then. Unfortunately, all I can think of to suggest at present is "Southern Cross" since Celdia mentioned Tri-Ace earlier. Blame her and Celine.


2. Allowing Petrify as proc: Meh. I can't say I like it, but it's not like I'm final word on anything. The only things I'm really adamant about is Water getting more representation & absorption so as to not be complete shit, Carve Model not having Petrify, Hidden Knife losing -1 Sp and a few other things. Everything else I'm either like "this is fine (even if I may actually be apathetic to it)" or "I object (because of these possibly erroneous reasons)."

If other people are fine with Ancient Sword causing Petrify while being able to be used with Two Swords or Two Hands, then fine.


3. Blood Sword: Meh, I suppose. I know about the AI's Critical behavior, which is why I didn't bring it up since I know it won't attack unless it's right next to a unit already. Still don't like it, but as you say, it currently only goes so far. I still say that's more of a problem with Bloody Strings being slightly overpowered, but, again, "meh".


4. Double Sleep Sword "Backfiring": Oh, I was just being an idiot and for some reason thinking that Sleep would be applied before the damage that woke them up, especially since no one has ever used double Sleep Sword despite the fact I think it's been around since initial ARENA. Ignore me in this instance.


Now I remember that I still haven't thought about what to do with Sasuke Knife, even as low-priority as it is, or the three Harps, of which only Bloody Strings is currently worth using and raising WP further for the other two isn't really an option.

Poles and Bags also perhaps need some addressing, but other than that, I think every equipment category has been hit besides Spears and Cloths, which are both already more than fine/usable.

[Fanatic]

Humble request: Kill quickening. Kill it dead. Then stake it through its small dark heart, stuff holy vanilla waffers in its mouth, and then decapitate it, burn the remains, and throw them into the sun.

I... dislike... that particularly ability.

[Gaignun]

Re: Wiznaibus - I'd rather further lower the %rate of Poison on Wiznaibus to 10% or 15% than remove Mime.  The entire point of this upgrade to Wiznaibus is to buff Miming teams.

I can get behind that.

Re: Water 2 proc - Faith would be /interesting/, but Fire 2 already procs Oil, which does the same thing by doubling damage to every Element in the Wizard's skillset.

That is true.  Faith would be better than Oil in most cases, as well, as it isn't dispelled on hit.  The most benign universal ailment next to Oil, Slow, and Don't Move that comes to mind is Poison, but that's beginning to push it.  Is CT5Holy's suggestion about adding a chance of dispell to damage formulae possible?

EDIT: Question answered above.

...if the Water spells really do end up all ignoring Reflect, then I'm really not sure they "need" anything.

The way I see it, each element group gets one "tradeoff," for lack of a better word, in addition to a status proc.  Fire trades damage for increased AoE, Ice JP affordability for MP cost, and Lightning MP cost for damage.  I am of the impression that the piercing of reflect would count towards water's tradeoff rather than its status proc, given that this feature will apply to all water spells.

Are we rolling with reflect-piercing as the feature now, anyway?  Reduced CT was also mentioned, which I think would make Water more useful in general, since the majority of units are not going to have a reflect status to pierce.  This also won't overshadow Dispel Magic's role in getting past Reflect.

Cherche and Setiemson were indeed +1 PA/MA, Initial: Protect/Shell at one point, and yeah, they weren't used.

I vaguely remembered that when I was typing my previous post, but was not sure enough to act on it.  The perfumes can stay in this case.  However, until there is some way to punish high Fury in spite of Protect, like Yin Yang Magic punishes high Faith in spite of Shell, I will remain wary about Warpath.

TEAR INTO PIECES!

You can recite Star Ocean 2 quotes, too?  I think I found my new best friend.

Kill quickening.

I agree with you here.  SP is the touchiest of stats.  Locking units into rigid SP tiers and balancing equipment and abilities accordingly is the easiest way to go.  That way you don't have to worry about the possibility of letting 20 SP chemists throw around items like candy.

[The Damned]

(Oh, fuck. I accidentally de-audio'd my computer while cleaning it up. Maybe some other things as well.... Anyway, this is going to delay things a bit slightly....)

I'd wait for Raven to respond to the composite list question normally, but in this instance I'm just going to assume "responsibility" for it given that I'm not doing anything else.

That said, since it was brought up the monster thread now, I figure I might as well ask it the more appropriate thread:

Make Undead immune to Crystal? Yay? Nay? Tropay?

Humble request: Kill quickening. Kill it dead. Then stake it through its small dark heart, stuff holy vanilla waffers in its mouth, and then decapitate it, burn the remains, and throw them into the sun.

I... dislike... that particularly ability.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Too bad I tried to get Quickening murdered as soon as it appeared months ago and it never took. Maybe other people will have more luck.

The way I see it, each element group gets one "tradeoff," for lack of a better word, in addition to a status proc.  Fire trades damage for increased AoE, Ice JP affordability for MP cost, and Lightning MP cost for damage.  I am of the impression that the piercing of reflect would count towards water's tradeoff rather than its status proc, given that this feature will apply to all water spells.

Are we rolling with reflect-piercing as the feature now, anyway?  Reduced CT was also mentioned, which I think would make Water more useful in general, since the majority of units are not going to have a reflect status to pierce.  This also won't overshadow Dispel Magic's role in getting past Reflect.

Yeah, people seem to be going for the Water spells Wizard is pretty much guaranteed to get at this point to bypass Reflect, if only because nothing else Black Magic has now does and people don't want Flare getting past Reflect. Of course, every time I say people, I mean "you (Gaignun), Raven, CT5Holy, Eternal and myself alongside a few posts by FFMaster and a few other assorted people". I don't know what, say, everyone that's currently participating in the AI tournament thinks about it, but they all have had the chance to say something (and continue to have a chance) and have said nothing about anything, so...shrug.

But, yeah, I guess that would be Water's "tradeoff" or special quality, independent of the easily implemented Dispel aspect of it. While I agree that Dispel Magic might be "overshadowed" by this, especially if Water 2 has a 20% chance to get rid of positive status, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Dispel Magic will still get rid of things other than Reflect at pretty much 100% unless the target has Innocent on. Similarly, Water ignoring Reflect (but not M-EV) will just be giving an option to get past Reflect, which literally every other mage has; very few of these Reflect-ignoring spells are direct damage, yes, but Black Magic pretty much doesn't do anything besides damage except Poison and Frog.

Alternately, I'd be willing to let Water's "schtick" be lowered CT and just have all the Tier 3 spells ignore Reflect but still be subject to M-EV. Double shrug.

You can recite Star Ocean 2 quotes, too?  I think I found my new best friend.

Been forever since I played the game (and didn't beat it), but quoting Claude is easy. Hardly remember much else.

His voice and whoring Earth...Ripper(?) was all I could do to try to forget Precis's voice.

*shudder*

[Reks]

*dodges any and all attacks made that aren't heavy criticism*

Now then. I'll leave the decision making to those who know what they're doing. But.... I'll suggest a few ideas, see how they get taken. Or see if they get ignored, like I normally am.

Petrify:
Well, as a proc Petrify is devastating. Sure, it can be cured with a quick Stigma Magic/Soft, but it takes a turn to recover from it and if there's nobody to remove it, that unit is gone. So I'm curius to see what would be thought about borrowing from TO and making Petrify temporary, but still last a good while. I know it would then cut into Stop's usefullness, but when Stopped a unit can still be targeted, unlike Petrify.


Undead:
I agree with Eternal here. It would be made far more useful if an undead unit was guaranteed to get back up rather than having a chance to crystalize. Sure, they're easy to put down with a Raise 2 and such, but when the AI kills one and runs past them, with the undead rising back behind them and whacking at the exposed weaker units... Yeah. Still, undead needs that buff, otherwise it takes a specialized setup to avoid a Raise 2/Fire instakill.