FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Elmdork]

I'm working on an absorb team, and the only element I'm really interested in doing is lightning... but my options are SO limited. The only classes that do lightning damage are wizard, summoner and scholar. Geomancer has 3 wind element abilities and no lightning.. go figure.

Items aren't quite as bad, but we desperately need a lightning weapon for physical units. Fire has like 5 weapons and a bajillion abilities.. can't we spread that out a bit?

I suggest giving geomancer 1 lightning elemental, and a physical class such as paladin with something along the lines of "lightning stab". we also need a thundah katana, because. Just because. Making the air knife lightning will entice people to actually use it, yeah I get it's an air knife, but ff master's options on the subject seem limited as well. I understand this will offset the delicate balance between elemental stuff.. but is fire (and dark) SUPPOSED to be the most likely element to be used? Why can't they all be equal?

@WkW: wow, thanks for putting that together. I've had a lightning absorb idea on the back burner since 1.38, but I have to admit I was a little discouraged when I saw your lightning absorb team (which I love) has like half the items I plan on using. I'll have to make due with what we got (it doesn't make a difference if I build it or not?/bonjovireference) it's just a bit unfortunate that scholar/wizard is almost required, and as much a I'd like to put "equip ranged" on someone, more often than not you're better off putting "attack up" or something like that on an archer.

[Kurosabes]

I've made some tables for better comparison.

Code Select Expand

Elemental Abilities, by accessibility (139c)

Element     Jobs (# of abilities)               Target type
Fire        Wz(3),Su(2),Ge(2),Sm(1)             AoE(8)
Ice         Wz(3),Su(1),Ge(1),Sc(1)             AoE(5),Map(1)
Lightning   Wz(3),Su(1),Sc(1)                   AoE(4),Map(1)
Water       Wz(3),Su(1),Ge(2),Nj(1),Sc(1)       Single(1),AoE(6),Map(1)
Wind        Mk(1),Su(1),Ge(3),Sm(1),Nj(1),Sc(1) Single(2),AoE(5),Map(1)
Earth       Mk(1),Su(1),Ge(1),Sm(1),Sc(1)       Single(1),AoE(3),Linear(2)
Dark        Wz(1),Tm(2),Su(1),Sm(1),Nj(1),Sc(2) Single(2),AoE(5),Map(1)
Holy        Pr(2),Su(1)                         Single(2),AoE(1)


spoiler: List of Elemental Abilities (139c)

Fire
Fire, Nether Fire, Fire 2, Ifrit, Salamander, Demon Fire, Lava Ball, Asura
Ice
Ice, Nether Ice, Ice 2, Shiva, Blizzard, Rime Bolt
Lightning
Bolt, Nether Bolt, Bolt 2, Ramuh, Thunder Flare
Water
Water, Nether Water, Water 2, Leviathan, Water Ball, Quicksand, Suiton, Maelstrom
Wind
Wave Fist, Silf, Kamaitachi, Sand Storm, Gusty Wind, Heaven's Cloud, Fuuton, Tornado
Earth
Earth Slash, Titan, Local Quake, Kikuichimoji, Earth Dragon, Quake
Dark
Death, Demi, Demi 2, Odin, Koutetsu, Meiton, Shadow Shade, Bio 3
Holy
Dia, Holy, Cyclops

Code Select Expand


Elemental Weapons, by type (139c)

Element     Formula Type                      Distance
Fire        PA(2), MA(1), Faith(1)            Melee(3), Ranged(1)
Ice         PA(1), MA(1), PA/SP(1), Faith(1)  Melee(2), Ranged(2)
Lightning   MA(2), PA/SP(1), Faith(1)         Melee(2), Ranged(2)
Water       PA(1), MA(1), WP(1)               Melee(3)
Wind        PA(1), PA/SP(3), WP(1)            Melee(4), Ranged(1)
Earth       PA(2), PA/SP(1)                   Melee(3)
Dark        PA(1), WP(1)                      Melee(2)
Holy        PA(2), MA(1), PA/SP(1)            Melee(3), Ranged(1)


spoiler: List of Elemental Weapons (139c)

Fire
Phoenix Blade, Asura Knife, Flame Rod, Blaze Gun
Ice
Ice Brand, Ice Rod, Glacier Gun, Ice Bow
Lightning
Thunder Rod, Mace of Zeus, Blast Gun, Lightning Bow
Water
Coral Sword, Aspergillum, Whale Whisker
Wind
Air Knife, Iga Knife, Heaven's Cloud, Spiked Fuuton, Windslash Bow
Earth
Koga Knife, Kikuichimonji, Giant Axe
Dark
Koutestsu, Sadists whip
Holy
Excalibur, White Staff, Silver Bow, Holy Lance
All (not in table)
Rainbow Staff

The idea of having Lightning on Elemental could work but I think 'Enemy Only' should be removed too. Not like friendly fire happens often with that anyway. If that's really an issue, Shields could get a status immunity to whatever they absorb (e.g. Mythril Shield gets Immune: Petrify to cancel the Petrify procs from Local Quake). As for weapons, well the Dragon Breath proc spears could actually have their respective elements. Maybe something like the Ninja Edge could be Lightning elemental too.

[Shintroy]

There are no elementals that look lightning based. Besides Geomancy is supposed to be mainly earth/water/wind elemental. Cool list by the way. Will steal.

[The Damned]

(Yes, kudos on compiling the list White Knight Wiegraf, though Rainbow Staff isn't All-elemental still. It hasn't been for years. FFMaster just keeps forgetting to change it.)

You could easily replace Sinkhole('s animation) with a Lightning-based Geomancy if you wanted to. Like a "Bolt from the Blue" or something...even though that's already what, well, Bolt | Thunder is.

That said, I wouldn't do that, personally because I don't think that it's worth it to change Geomancer's skill set back to non-discriminating, especially just for the sake of elemental absorption. Even if it was non-discriminating and every Elemental was, well, actually elemental, trying to use Geomancer skill set to add elemental absorption is both at once unreliable and heavily skewed in Earth's favor when Earth, as easy as it can be to avoid, doesn't need any more help than it already has; Earth probably still won't need help even after-slash-if Quake and Earth Slash get the nerf they deserve.

That said, Lightning absorption for physical units should pick by next version since the three currently semi-unusable Breath-proc Spears should be becoming the elements of their respective Breaths and Lancers should finally be getting access back to Robes, meaning they'll all be boosted by Black Robe. Of course, everything that's final is up to FFMaster, but there's really no reason to do at least for that Lancers since right now they're not even the best users of Jump, especially with Quickening still unfortunately around, and most of the Spears aren't worth using outside of Javelin and maybe Obelisk.

*stops there before he goes off on a tangent about the horrible skill that is Quickening again*

As for (absolute) equality, that's difficult if not impossible to do in general. Even with all the free space, you'd have to use up a lot of space on what's likely to end up relatively stale and same-y abilities that probably still wouldn't be actually equal due to their interaction with the various differing equipment, unless you want to go out of your way to make a lot of those the same too.

Still, it would be nice to have another Immune: Blind accessory and another physical weapon for both Lightning and Dark and perhaps Holy. That maybe an AoE Holy magickal skill that can actually be absorbed since Holy is literally the only element lacking that now, which is tad unfair even if Holy the spell and Silver Bow could stand be weakened just a tad (then again, so could Phoenix Blade, Lightning Bow and Ice Bow arguably).

Shrug.

In the meanwhile, despite the "struggle" of it, Lightning Grand Cross users aren't as horribly off as Holy and especially Dark Grand Cross Users overall at least. No reason to not try to make a Lightning absorb team just to see what it's current limitations are, Rouroni Elmdor.

I was editing one of my teams just now, and figured there is no reason to choose Wizard as primary if you have a Lore/Black Magic unit. *snip*

Yeah, it's been that way for a while unfortunately....

That said, I agree with Otabo on this despite his (unfortunately understandable) distaste for mages. The problem is less "Scholars have equivalent stats to Wizards" by itself and more "Scholars have Wizard+ stats and have some of the quickest yet simultaneously most damaging spells in the game and have unavoidable map-wide elemental damage & recovery and potentially even preemptive revival through Mad Science." Not that you can't get away with using Wizard primary, but it's usually only that way if you're using a Fire, Ice, Lightning or Water absorb team and even then, Scholar can literally hit all of those elements except for Fire, so....

I think best case scenario, at least off the top of my head and not looking at stats beyond the ones you posted, would be to give Wizard +1 MA--so that it's equal to Bard--and at least +10 MP, even if this perhaps makes it more likely that the Tier 1 and Nether spells (need to) see a slight power drop; that might not even be necessary though. Meanwhile, besides fixing at least Quake, Tornado and--to a lesser degree--Bio 2, Scholar's stats could perhaps stay the same, though I wouldn't mind perhaps getting more HP and PA in exchange for less MP and maybe taking away its C-EV. With more HP, you could also maybe drop the MA, but then things start to get even more dubious....

Shrug. I'm also not sure what you would do help Summoner though despite acknowledging more and more that it does indeed have some noticeable issues....

Undead blocks Regen/Poison:
I suppose that way could work. Based on another game, they also have immunity to 'Mind' spells as they are 'mindless' I guess. I think Berserk, Confusion, Charm and Sleep are the FFT equivalents. However that might make Undead more of a good status. And how would the AI handle this I wonder...

The A.I. would still perceive it as a negative status regardless of how many things it blocked if that's what you mean by "handle". Outside of explicitly changing the A.I. or the status in question, the best way to manipulate A.I. with regards to status I've found is changing the interactions between statuses with regards to cancellation of statuses. Having statuses become blocked by other statuses will just cause the A.I. to not use the status that's blocked, of course, which wouldn't really do much for its behavior since despite some of the A.I.'s other shortcomings it tends not waste time on actual 00% actions; virtual 00% actions in the form of non-productive, cyclic actions on the other hand.... Meanwhile, having status cancel each other will at the very least generally make the A.I. more proactive with regards to using "counter" statuses on to cancel the particular status in question, with some exceptions, providing that the statuses in opposition are negative and positive rather than positive and positive or negative and negative.

That said, yes, those statuses would be the most equivalent to mental ones. I can't get behind making the Undead automatically Immune to any of them though, especially Charm; Confusion doesn't even exist anymore on top of that. Immune: Poison for Undead should be enough even if they became Immune: Regen, especially since Cursed Ring users would still be able to get Regen from P Bag or Light Robe I just realized. Hmmm...that's probably still worth making them Immune over, especially since it still helps reign in Masamune the ability's BS. Speaking of which....

Masamune (ability):
Separate: Haste, Regen instead of Add: Haste, Regen. You're still guaranteed one of the two if my knowledge is right about 'Separate'.

You're not guaranteed status on Separate abilities, partly because Separate's default coding quarters accuracy and the occurrence infliction on everything, even the 100% formulas. I imagine that's part of the reason that nothing in Arena uses Separate.

That said, I wouldn't mind Masamune being nerfed. It's just a question of how given that when it was Random: Haste or Regen it sucked due to the A.I.'s obsession with Haste and currently it's overpowering with both guaranteed at 100%. Yet there are unfortunately very few alternatives due to the dearth of other positive status and the fact that making it not 100% would likely not solve very much.

So this too has been annoying conundrum for a while.

I really think Regen (and Poison) being made instant would be a good change, especially if it does stay in White Magic.

*snip*

Also, I agree with Regen/Poison being made smart targeted.

I can agree with all of that. The two most primary reasons I was saying to move Regen and Poison to Time Mage were because a) Time Mage has no conventional healing for Regen to compete with unlike White Mage and b) Poison isn't good even on a "status" Wizard-slash-Black-Magic-user currently. Seriously, even alongside Frog and Death, it just gets in the way since you generally don't want Frogs to die now that they change back to humans--which needed to happen--upon death and Death is, well, Death, meaning that even with Poison, the A.I. is likely going to focus on using Death over Poison anyway. Even with Poison as back-up to those, it's currently too crappy to use compared to all the Regen everywhere and would only get in the way.

Making both of them Instant (on top of smart-targeting) would at least cover the latter two aspects and would make it so that Regen the spell is no longer so easily usurped by Nurse and Masamune (...and Light Robe and P Bag and Regenerator) given it could at least potentially hit your entire team with Regen in one-go. You could probably even go further make them both ignore Reflect and maybe boost up Regen the spell's accuracy, though perhaps these last two things could wait to see if making them Instant with smart-targeting alone makes them worth using. After all, there's no need to overly buff them off the bat as happened with Stop in this version.

Shrug. [/shrug]

[Elmdork]

Probably not the first to say "Phoenix blade op" but yeah... Phoenix blade op. Man, I missed a lot. Simply removing slow for -1 SPD and making raise initial is a buff and a half. I mean it used to give you -4 SPD  and people used it anyway (always reraise was good, but so is 16 friggin WP) I suggest giving it immune: haste (if possible) if the WP isn't going down anytime soon. How is it not thief essential yet, or did ya'll miss that?

Also, why can quickening not be 100% chance?  I get it's redundant enough already, but its also really overpowered and easy to abuse. Mp is not all that hard to come by, and this would force people to make more careful design choices. Not sure if it would make some other abilities' priorities higher, but it was just a passing idea. I'm talking like 50%+speed or base 60%-75% like a dance. If it doesn't move down on the list of priorities then forget I mentioned anything. Would ultimately be beneficial to all if it were used like accumulate; preemptively.

@damned: holy vendetta, batman. Well I asked for it, but I agree, quickening doesn't do much for the actual fun of the game and its abuse can be downright obnoxious. I wouldn't mind if it was scrapped, but I wouldn't mind a nerf if it worked either. If it worked.

[The Damned]

(Always: Reraise was honestly the bigger-slash-biggest issue with the old Phoenix Blade; the really high 16 WP was incidental, though it didn't help issues with it obviously.)

If anything, then Phoenix Blade v2.0, while infinitely less obnoxious, is stronger than it was before overall since now it's elemental and can thus be boosted by elemental enhancing things. FFMaster at least preemptively prevented it from being outright broken in that regard, however, by both weakening Oil to no longer add Weak: Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, Earth & Wind and changing Kaiser Plate to no longer Strengthen: Fire. Similarly, pretty much everyone concurred that -1 Speed is not nearly enough of a weakness, especially with Initial: Reraise on it--which is fine--and Quickening unfortunately still around--which is not fine.

With that as a segue, I've always said that Quickening was a dumb idea from the very beginning, even to FFMaster's face. Sure, it's FFMaster's game and what he ultimately wants goes, but it was extremely easy to tell that it was going to end up dominating the game and lo and behold, that's all it's done once Dokurider figured out how to manipulate the A.I. into using it. Part of the reason I just left for a year was because back towards the mid-to-end-life of 1.38, literally at least half of all teams just had two Quickening users with Cursed Ring. Such fun there.

Even with Cursed Ring's weakened revival, that's still a pretty dominating strategy because Quickening is that broken since it boosts the unfortunately most vital stat in the game after perhaps HP: Speed. Quickening breaks a bunch of things because of that: Knife & Ninja Knife & Longbow damage, Steal Heart, Item secondary, Jump, Cursed Ring, Masamune the ability & Regen and Haste statuses in general, Move-HP Up & Move-MP Up, Phoenix Blade v2.0, etc.

As it is, even with the sporadic activity of this thread, it's pretty telling that there was conspicuous silence on the last page after I asked what good does-slash-would keeping Quickening around actually do for the game, especially since I'm open to listening about why it should stay around if argument is something that just says "it's not broken" and leaves it at that. Just nerfing its accuracy or giving it (lengthy) CT wouldn't change anything really unless you nerfed it so low or made that CT so high that it wasn't worth using, in which case it becomes just a waste of space like how Persuade used to be or how Bad Luck and pretty much all of Dance still is.

Quickening just needs to die. It might have been fine if Speed wasn't the sole factor to determining how quickly people get turns, but since Speed is...yeah. Honestly, if Quickening stays around into next version (which, again, is up to FFMaster's discretion ultimately), then I'm probably just going to stop participating in Arena outside of maybe recording videos for people if I can.

(To be fair to Quickening, I also think that Cheer Song and Slow Dance need to die because of Speed unfortunately being all-important even if both of those are currently worthless compared to Quickening. The skill set Dance as a whole needs an overhaul, really, since it's easily the worst skill set in all of Arena. Gods, it's so bad.)

[silentkaster]

My thoughts are and still are that having an Always: Reraise item should also be Always: Poison, Immune: Regen. This would pretty much eliminate song and dance users, and basically force the Phoenix Blade user who got up to instantly heal. Not even Move-HP UP would be terribly useful and it would perhaps make the team more prone to sandbag loops. Perhaps with a speed reduction also? I'm not even a big fan of bringing an Always: Reraise item back to Arena but if it has to be there, then I think that would be an acceptable balance.

As far as Quickening goes, it's probably simply there due to Accumulate and Focus being abilities which also raise the PA and MA respectively. While I do use the ability, and while I use it on a lot of teams, I don't think that abolishing it would hurt, either. I would even go as far to say that Speed is generally the most important stat, more so than HP. So not being able to alter it easily would be fine with me. I don't agree with Slow Dance and Cheer Song being abolished though. These abilities are quirky and interesting. I think they'd see a lot more use if Quickening did die since the abilities themselves would actually mean something (not to mention that Cheer Song basically has a cap on the user...which currently can only be slightly extended by equipping 2 Masamune weapons.) However, in the absence of Quickening, I think these skills could use some more evaluation before being put to bed.

If Quickening is meant to stay around another version, I'd at least like to propose it move to a skillset that would make it difficult to use. For example, Time Magic or Black Magic. Specifically, a unit would have to want Quickening and nothing else from the skillset. While I realize this isn't the "best" option, and there would still be people who created strong units with Quickening, at the very least we won't have a ton of Charming Undead quickening users running around (unless they specifically have gone with that set up.) After all, Quickening is innate to the fastest class in the game so moving it would actually be of some benefit and make it harder to access. Of course, I don't really "like" this idea that much, but if Quickening has to stay, I feel it would be at least an acceptable compromise.

[The Damned]

(For the record, I'm completely in favor of there never again being an Always: Reraise piece of equipment--Cursed Ring is more than enough. We tried it. It was horrible, especially for people recording. So it is gone now. There. Done.

Making it have Always: Poison would just drag out matches with it even more since then the A.I. would spend even more time healing after it got up than usual since Reraise, as somewhat problematic as it is, always brings you back in Critical anyway.)

spoiler: Not Sure How This Got So Long Again

I guess I'd be...reluctantly fine with Cheer Song and Slow Dance getting to stick around another version so long as it means that Quickening dies in the (stellar) fire it's deserved to die in ever since it was conceived. It's just that it seems rather obvious that without Quickening around to rein it in, Slow Dance becomes the new broken ability since even with its abysmal hit rate, losing just one point of Speed is actually pretty damn crippling. That Raven's sadistic Slow Dance team basically steamrolled every non-Quickening team before Quickening started to show up on literally every other team wasn't just due to how dumb Phoenix Blade v1.0 was.

The fact that Slow Dance hits every enemy on the map regardless of distance or condition, can be mimicked and only costs 5 MP makes that even more apparent. There's no real reason to try it out in my opinion, especially when Dance needs to be completely overhauled anyway and especially since Slow Dance becoming feasible would mean that Last Dance, one of the few Dances (barely) actually worth using would become obsolete.

Honestly, Quickening is the only reason that Slow Dance isn't dominating the metagame right now since a 100% chance of +1 Speed obviously trumps a 25% chance of -1 Speed. Without Quickening to hold Slow Dance back, things would get...ugly, quickly. Quickening is still a broken idea with the simple way Speed currently works, but at least it only affects the user, Mimic aside. If Slow Dance started to be used though, matches would regularly become stall fests that last at least 30+ mins since you have to build defensively to maximize Slow Dance's potential, which people will do just like how they use Quickening now. Not that I'm against defensive teams (obviously), but it just seems clearly lose-lose to keep it around, especially as far as recording matches is concerned.

On the other hand, I suppose eliminating Cheer Song partly because of its parity to Slow Dance is a tad unfair given Cheer Song isn't actually broken (or even all that good in most instances). Granted, it could turn out to be overpowering with Mimic perhaps, but given that the A.I. is (un)fortunately really dumb about restarting Songs and Dances when it shouldn't, the user will generally never finish another Cheer Song once they hit 13 Speed or higher anyway. So Cheer Song is technically "fine" if "suspicious".

Still, I ultimately think the best general practice for any type of balance, at least while Speed is the overly simple and all-powerful stat it unfortunately is, would be to have there be no permanent Speed-affecting abilities. I could arguably go even further and argue that there shouldn't be any stat-affecting abilities at all, but a) Xifanie's stat limiting hack (that I still have yet to see anyone use for some reason) exists to cap that if it ever becomes a legitimate problem and b) the A.I. is pretty dumb about lowering the appropriate stat even when given only that ability, otherwise Power Ruin, Magic Ruin, Polka Polka and Disillusion would be as overpowering as they "should" be rather than never used. Even as potentially powerful as Accumulate, Focus, Battle Song and Magic Song can be, those still aren't outright having you take double and triple turns just because you used them a few times, which is really one of the chief problems with permanent Speed alteration.

So to me, Cheer Song becoming a Haste-adding ability and Slow Dance becoming a Slow-adding ability seems for the best since a) they're both automatically still useful in these forms without becoming automatically overpowering, b) they break Time Magic's monopoly on party-wide Haste and Slow abilities and c) Nameless Dance at least gets a boost even if it doesn't change further (though it should) since without Slow it ironically becomes more reliable in what it would cause; of course, Random Add: Blind, Silence or Oil is still kind of crappy, so...yeah, that problem would still need to change.

TL;DR: Slow Dance without Quickening to "balance" (read: overpower) it would become a just-as-bad-if-not-worse problem; Cheer Song is largely just a casualty to Quickening and Slow Dance thus needing to die. Making Slow Dance and Cheer Song Add: Slow and Add: Haste respectively seems like the best solution honestly.

Meanwhile, Quickening just needs to die due to the way that Speed works currently. [/umpteenth time]

[CT5Holy]

Raven's team (Y U SO DERP) was from a completely different era than old Phoenix Blade. Neither of those existed at the same time. Raven's team was so effective because damage was complete garbage in Arena back then (largely because you were as loud as ever and love nerfbatting everything). As overall damage increased / games got more dynamic, Y U SO DERP's performance fell. It could no longer count on one Polka Polka/Disillusion user to reduce damage, especially with AI stupidity rotating dances / using the wrong dance. The enemy team also losing the occasional Speed point did not cripple the enemy team either, as good teams were still able to apply pressure and ultimately drive Y U SO DERP to a loss. You are exaggerating how much of an impact losing one point of Speed has. Is it bad for that team? Obviously yes. "Damn crippling?" No. At 2 Speed points, on a slow character, sure. But not one. Especially not with Slow Dance, which is 1. slow, and 2. not very reliable. Enemy team losing speed is good if you can reliably control the team with 3 characters against the enemy team's 4. I think that's pretty darn hard to do. I guess you can try it with Mimes, which could work, but they're also in a weird spot cause of meh stats.

Slow Dance and Last Dance fulfill different roles / you build differently according to the dance. Slow Dance is much better suited for the grindy, defensive team. Last Dance is better for a more tempo-y/aggro-y strategy. Slow Dance doesn't make sense for an aggressive strategy cause you're not going to feel the random speed point the enemy team loses, and you're also down a character delivering the beatdown. Last Dance isn't great for a defensive team because it doesn't reliably slow them down, and it's not a permanent change to make your life easier. They do not obsolete each other or make each other redundant in any way.

Also, people put Quickening on both defensive units and offensive units. Defensive units are probably built to be tankier, sure. But offensive units being built tanky? I guess if you count Cursed Ring (you're the one assuming Quickening + Cursed Ring is default setup) as being tanky, which I can see given that they get up faster with more speed and etc. Thieves or Ninjas and tanky don't really match in my mind, though. Also, with these offensive Quickening users, you typically see one, maybe two uses of Quickening, and that's it. Hard to say how much impact those speed points have, especially since it's early, so after the initial Quickening, the rate at which the unit gets it turns is basically constant. 3-4+ Quickenings from offensive unit usually involves Crystals, and if that team is in a winning position, basically irrelevant (cause it's win-more). If that team is losing, then it gets interesting, cause if they win then you can probably say that Quickening played a major factor.

~2 uses of Quickening only gets double turns 1. occasionally, over time, when CT lines up, 2. from units already built to be fast via Speed boosting gear, and 3. only relative to slower units. The fast units (which most teams have) will still be going toe-to-toe in terms of rate of turns.

If Arena does indeed turn into a heavy Slow Dance meta (which I doubt), the only real stall-fests that could emerge are Slow Dance vs Slow Dance. Slow Dance vs not-Slow Dance is interesting because it's unclear which team will prevail (unless one team is clearly inferior). The difference is when the round ends relative to the climax - if aggro wins, it's soon. If Slow Dance wins, it takes a while. Slow Dance vs Slow Dance is the only stall-fest because both teams are going to somehow try to control each other, but then both sides are also getting slower, and it's unclear how they'd win unless it's through Death Sentence... which is probably blocked by at least one unit on each side. =/

Nameless Dance is a perfectly usable dance. Slow? Unconditionally strong. Blind? Conditionally strong, but holy shit it's a problem when it lands on the right unit. Same for Silence, though most people (except me, probably) guard against Silence on relevant units. Oil is the weakest of the four statuses Nameless can inflict, but is still conditionally strong. Even if your team can't take advantage of Oil (though you should try if you're using Nameless Dance), it can randomly disrupt enemy ele-absorb synergies.

[The Damned]

I'll answer these in reverse and I'll try to be brief (for me) since my arms still heard due to my "let's carry 50 pounds of dirt" idiocy yesterday. I'll probably fail though, so spoilers here too:

spoiler: Re: Nameless Dance

Sure, it's "usable", especially where Dance sucking is concerned since even with all of its problems, it's still more usable than at least Polka Polka, Disillusion and Wiznaibus without Mimes backing it up. No, the problem with Nameless Dance right now is threefold: it's hideously unreliable, none of its statuses have any type of synergy and Oil's (necessary) weakening didn't do it any favors. As much as we've all derided Nameless Song for being "crappy", it's at least consistent in the sense that it will most likely actively help your team regards of what positive status.

Meanwhile, Nameless Dance rarely helps unless you get lucky enough for the 12.5% chance of Slow to hit two or more units, which Slow 2 currently does way reliably even on 40 Faith units. Blind doesn't matter against non-physical attackers and half of the physical attackers that exist tend to be Immune: Blind between the popularity of Grand Cross and Chakra Band. Silence, meanwhile, is basically blocked by every single class it actually would matter against save for Mediators, so it might as well not be on there. And Oil has no purpose except hampering the opponent's elemental absorption--unless it's Holy or Dark--and potentially bolstering your own...if it hits. Even if it does, Oil gets used in a single use, meaning you're forced to "rely" on a 12.5% chance of reapplying it every time you actually need it.

That said, it's pretty telling that even weakened, Oil is still pretty much only reason why I've even bothered using Nameless Dance now despite that since Nameless Dance's sole saving grace is that it's only non-elemental multi-target applier of Oil status. If the A.I. still intentionally cast Fire or Salamander on the enemy in an attempt to cause Oil on them at least some of the time, then I personally would never use Nameless Dance at all since basically you have to hope for a 12.5% of getting what would actually be relevant to help your team (provided your target isn't likely immune or capable of getting cured of it). Only Bad Luck, which we all agree is horrible, is worse about that.

spoiler: Re: Slow Dance

Yeah, the Slow Dance vs. Slow Dance thing is what I fear the most, especially for people recording. That said, I am actually willing to keep Slow Dance and Cheer Song for another version so long as Quickening dies--I was just explaining why I don't expect it to end well if they do get to stay. I will readily admit that the "-1 Speed is damn crippling" was perhaps hyperbole to a degree, but even just -1 Speed of difference is at least significant, especially with the amount of Haste and Slow flying around.

spoiler: Re: Quickening

Uh...when did I said anything about "tankiness" with regards to Quickening? I honestly don't recall doing that; I'll do so at the end of this now, but only because that's what Wiz's team is and thus the best way to describe it. Also, are you really trying to tell me that Cursed Ring + Quickening isn't the most commonly used Quickening set-up? Really? Because I'd honestly be fascinated to hear what you think it is, especially given how the latter half of 1.38 ended up and how even with the nerf to Cursed Ring, that's still a pretty common problem.

Also, I think your underestimating just how quickly units get double turns with even just 1 or 2 Quickenings, especially since it's on the class that already has the fastest speed. You also tend to assume that 1 or 2 Quickenings is all the A.I. ever gets off even though it's usually more than that, which is the chief problem: Quickening is clearly a run-away effect, especially with Cursed Ring and Reraise around to mitigate the sole potential downside of "you Crystallize quickly if you die".

spoiler: Re: Last Dance

I suppose. My chief problem with Last Dance is still just how easy it is for to not matter most of the time given its CT is 10. So basically any unit with 10 Speed or more, which is an extremely easy benchmark to hit, tends to not really care much about being hit about it unless they were already losing. Shrug. It just seems like a huge win-more at best right now and without Quickening around, I've explained why I think Slow Dance would overtake it and make essentially obsolete.

spoiler: Re: Y U SO Derp

I'm aware of why Raven's team was so good and I wasn't trying to attribute it solely to Slow Dance. I was merely stating that Slow Dance was a factor even though Quickening did exist, which was meant to imply that a Slow Dance without Quickening to "balance" it would be even stronger even without Phoenix Blade v1.0 around. I mean, it's not like you can't still build pretty tanky units if you wanted to even if damage has generally gotten "better", for lack of a better word. Otherwise Wiz's tanky Quickening team wouldn't have still worked just last version.

Also, for the record, if Mimes are going to stick around, then as much as I have come to dislike them, I'll agree that they need some type of stat-boost, though it may be dependent upon certain things like no longer being able to Mimic everything. Not like they do that consistently anyway....

[CT5Holy]

Quickening + Cursed Ring is only prevalent on Thieves. Otherwise there's a pretty good mix! Quickening Monks and Quickening Itembots are also really popular, and those don't use Cursed Ring.

If Slow Dance started to be used though, matches would regularly become stall fests that last at least 30+ mins since you have to build defensively to maximize Slow Dance's potential, which people will do just like how they use Quickening now. (italics mine)

I will admit that I haven't been watching videos, but my experience with Quickening is that AI gets its one or two uses off, then it's action time and they only use it again when in critical to run away, basically.
Perhaps I am indeed underestimating double-turn frequency, but again, keep in mind that fast units on enemy teams can keep up, so overall number of actions on both sides will be about equal.

I understand that it's unreliable. But 1. nothing time (in battle) can't fix, and 2. I think Blind immunity is less common than you think it is. Cursed Ring Quickening Thieves? Not immune to blind. Grand Cross? Only 13 units in the last page of team submissions (maybe a few more - I opened 90+% of team spoilers). Chakra Band? Ok, there were 30 units, but Monks have Repeating Fist anyway. Also, not all the Monks were smashy-smashy Monks.

[The Damned]

Hmmm...I see.

As far as Quickening goes, this is an issue which I've long resigned myself on as far as the fact that you and I will likely never see eye-to-eye on it, which is more than fine, especially since it's ultimately not up to either of us anyway. As such, I'm not going force you to waste your free time catching up on videos that you'll inevitably interpret differently--again, not a bad thing--even if I could, especially since you've been recording videos unlike I have lately. So I'll just say that I continue to disagree with you about Quickening, but now I at least understand better how you're interpreting it now, so thanks for the responses.

As for Nameless Dance, the Blind factor does indeed affect Cursed Quickening Thieves, but good luck a) getting that to hit in the first place, b) getting it to stick considering how common Cancel: Blind is (even if, yes, the A.I. kind of stupid about healing Blind) and c) reapplying Blind after said Thieves inevitably get back up since Blind wears on death (as it should). I'm not saying that Blind can't ever be useful, just like I wouldn't say Silence outright can't ever be useful even though I'd readily argue that Silence is the least useful status in all of Arena (which is "fine" given all the other issues mages have). I'm merely saying that Nameless Dance can easily be improved without having to go back to its easy mode vanilla version that could Add: Frog among other things.

Let me go about this another way: Do you honestly think that Nameless Dance is at all coherent as it is now? My chief issue with it, beyond the utter unreliability, is that it's currently too much of a hodgepodge move, which is the same problem that Bad Luck has, only worse (especially now that it can't instantly kill). The only universally threatening aspect of it is Slow and it's literally the worst way to add Slow in the entire game. Maybe if it was Separate then the abysmally low hit rate would be acceptable, but a 50% chance to miss even before a mere 12.5% chance to get the status you want? Gross.

I just want Dance to be usable, is all. Right now, save for Witch Hunt and maybe Wiznaibus and Last Dance with Mimes, it really isn't. While there will unfortunately be no real saving Polka Polka and Disillusion as far as the A.I. is concerned, Nameless Dance seems like it could be saved while Slow Dance will automatically get a (huge) buff once Quickening dies. I'm just trying to see how other people think it could be improved since I obviously have my own ideas on the matter.

[Elmdork]

Does short charge work on dance? Its something I've been meaning to try, basically increasing the effectiveness by 100%, 200% with mime. If this is indeed possible, it could make up the entire reason why ffmaster is reluctant to buff them, though it would be difficult to make pa buffing worth it and keep short charge manageable. The miming alone is becoming a little unmanageable, but I don't understand the hatred towards dancers, other than what bard offers class-wise is simply better. You can have any one of those abilities on a nasty bloodsword otabo dancer and make that work VERY well. I am also seeing success with one of my new teams using nameless dance alone, but the witch hunt works too. They work with a distance to reliability as a little strategy within the main strategy, on large maps you WILL get something nasty and at least waste turns curing it, if you have the mana. Not that I'm against buffing dancers, but I would do so with extreme caution. I will break it.

[Barren]

Short charge does not affect Song or Dance. The reason I think it is that song and dance are performances whereas spells are casting. Yea its weird considering they cost MP but Maybe if Short Charge wa buffed to the point where it does shorten the time needed to song and dance that would in theory make it more useful. But again that's whenever FFM comes back from the grave since he hasn't been around

[The Damned]

Yeah, Short Charge doesn't work on anything that uses the "Persevere" function you can toggle on and off in FFTPatcher that causes "Performing" status in the first place. It's been like that since vanilla and, in my opinion, it really shouldn't change, at least so long as Mimes can mimic Songs and Dances. Even if Mimes could no longer mimic that or other map-wide abilities like Lore, I'd be...reluctant to back that.

*snip*
The miming alone is becoming a little unmanageable, but I don't understand the hatred towards dancers, other than what bard offers class-wise is simply better. *snip*

You misunderstand. No one, including myself, is "hating on" Dancers. We're--well, I'm--"hating on" Dance, their skill set. Dancer is great. They are one of the most threatening physical units in the game and largely make physical abilities worth having on female units even though their PA doesn't exceed a male Monk's. Even with Cloths being "meh" and generally not used, Dancers have generally good equipment that allows for a lot of usable variation, i.e. using Blood Sword with Two Hands and Salty Rage. This even though their skill set is horrible.

Dance on the other hand, as I've been explaining above, "blows" for lack of a better, succinct word. It's literally the worst skill set in the game. Outside of Witch Hunt, which gets outright beaten by Absorb MP and MP Restore and generally can't keep up with Half of MP or Move MP-Up, Dance generally can't do anything without Mimes backing it up, which both hampers Mimes and Dance's usability. Nameless Dance is usable...if you're really lucky, including being lucky to the point of not fighting one of the many teams that blocks Blind or Silence or have access to Haste to counteract Slow. At present, Nameless Dance's only real use is screwing over non-Dark, non-Holy elemental absorb teams that don't block Oil from a possibly safe distance, which is useful. It's just really unreliable at that, especially compared to Spell Edge and Hawk's Eye 100% Add: Oil infliction rates, especially since Spell Edge tends to come with auto-Two Swords and Hawk's Eye tends to come with far range; I'm not even counting the further competition from Fire the spell and Salamander recently increased 50% Oil since the A.I. won't use that intentionally if the enemy absorbs Fire-elemental.

Meanwhile, as said above, Slow Dance and Last Dance are currently also "usable". It's just that Slow Dance flat out loses to Quickening, which is freaking everywhere unless you're masochistic enough like myself to not use it on principle or just can't fit it on your team (or tire of using it since it adds literally nothing to the game [but problems]). Last Dance is fine...so long as your enemy doesn't break the really easy barrier of an effective 10 Speed, which means Quickening undermines that one too.

Wiznaibus, Polka Polka and Disillusion are among the worst skills in the game currently though, even if the latter two are more just because the A.I. is (un)fortunately too stupid to use stat-drops correctly. This is basically the same reason that Power Ruin and Mind Ruin are "bad" even though they would be absolutely overpowered in the hands of a player. The fact that Battle Song and Magic Song's accuracy got needlessly buffed while Polka Polka and Disillusion's accuracy was simultaneously nerfed two or three versions back only adds insult to injury, especially since the Song are much easier to build around even before Mimes are added to a team.

As for Wiznaibus, it's generally just crap unless you have two Mimes backing it up and either another Dancer or a Lore user and even then it still loses to Auto-Potion, Damage Split, all Save reactions and a bunch of other things unless your opponent gets really, really unlucky or maybe if you're on a really, really long map like Zeklaus. Even with that, it still generally loses out to quad Lore teams.

So when your "best" skills are an MP-damaging ability that tends to lose to units that actually want to use MP and two of the most unreliable skills in the game that have somewhat ubiquitous counters, yeah, Dance is bad as it currently is. Dancer, however, is still quite good class oddly. So, yeah, I'm not hating on Dancer; Dance, meanwhile, totally deserves the hate I've been giving it for several versions since the only buff it's gotten recently was the slight boost to Last Dance that CT5Holy asked for and which I reluctantly backed--I would have backed it harder if not for Mimes.

(For the record, I'd count Bad Luck as the absolute worst skill in the game currently. Holy Hades that thing is atrocious; I'm not sure why it got nerfed since it was barely usable in 1.38 and literally every other Steal ability was more deserving of being weakened or removed.

Tsumazuku, even though the A.I. actually uses it now, is a close second though given that it's vastly inferior to Kagesougi and utterly self-defeating when it is used most of the time as Reraise doesn't get removed before death if the target dies.)

[silentkaster]

Since I have a few minutes to sit down and respond, I firstly want to talk about Dance. First, I would never want to see Dance affected by Short Charge. Two CT Witch Hunts? Five CT Slow/Last Dances? No thank you. About the only thing it might do is make the ability "Cheer Song" worth using and like The Damned, I too am wary about even that skill in general.

However, I do have to say that I don't think Dance is the least useful skillset, even in its current form. Dance is simply much more situational based on the opponent you're facing. In contrast, Song is based on how you build your team. For example, "Battle Song" is generally placed on a team where at least two or more units benefit from the additional PA they are gaining. It would be a highly questionable move, for instance, to have Battle Song on a team with four mages, none of whom have a weapon or secondary skillset based on PA. So Song can build around your team without caring who the opponent is.

However, Dance is heavily dependent on the opponent. Against that same mage team, Polka Polka would be pretty much worthless. However, Disillusion could be very relevant.

There are some ways you could do it though. A team that uses mostly high Brave units and mostly low Faith units would benefit, in general, more from Polka Polka than Disillusion simply because they'd be more apt to take damage from physical attacks. Still though, units like two handed staff wielders and or High Brave Harp users, to name a couple, wouldn't be hampered by that. So, these skills are certainly situational, and perhaps, would be more effective being placed on two units on the same team (one on each unit.)

That being said, Witch Hunt, Wiznaibus, Last Dance and Slow Dance are much less situational.

You are exaggerating how much of an impact losing one point of Speed has. Is it bad for that team? Obviously yes. "Damn crippling?" No. At 2 Speed points, on a slow character, sure. But not one. Especially not with Slow Dance, which is 1. slow, and 2. not very reliable. Enemy team losing speed is good if you can reliably control the team with 3 characters against the enemy team's 4. I think that's pretty darn hard to do.

It depends on the unit that lost the point of speed, which you did say. However, an 8 speed unit losing one point of speed also means that Haste, an ability that I am guessing at least 75% of teams carry in some form, only brings the unit back up to 8 speed. Perhaps a strong attack mage or a Raise 2 user might not suffer too badly, but an item bot or even a unit that uses a concentrated Battle Axe would severely be effected (Yes, this does raise the question of why you would make these units 8 speed in the first place, but I digress...)

Another point is that it sounds like you are assuming that the Slow Dance user is doing only that...using Slow Dance. While this is probably the most common strategy seen with that skill, it's not the only one. Even I had it on a Dancer recently (I changed the team drastically and got rid of the Dancer but still) but her main purpose was to Southern Cross with Katar, not use Slow Dance. She simply had it on her in case she went into critical (although she had Move-HP UP it could potentially take her two turns to come back in the fight) or on large maps where she could possibly get in a couple dances. So it may not necessarily be a "3 on 4" match up. It may simply be a back up skill, or the Slow Dance user could be a support unit, or something else.

Dance on the other hand, as I've been explaining above, "blows" for lack of a better, succinct word. It's literally the worst skill set in the game. Outside of Witch Hunt, which gets outright beaten by Absorb MP and MP Restore and generally can't keep up with Half of MP or Move MP-UP

Well, Move-MP UP is okay, but it doesn't always work. Even a Dancer with just base PA does 17 MP damage every 4 ticks. Let's take a White Magic Paladin with Cross Helmet and Diamond Armor (Not terribly uncommon). While Move-MP UP would normally be enough to sustain his/her most likely skills of Raise and Esuna, (I'll even say Raise 2 could would generally be covered by this combo, though more risky), against Witch Hunt, Move-MP UP would never be enough against a Dancer using just witch hunt. If the Dancer did other things besides just Witch Hunt, then maybe the Paladin would eventually recover. But the AI loves to use Witch Hunt, even above many other dances (perhaps possibly except Wiznaibus), so every time the Paladin would get some MP back, the dancer would switch back (again, unless she was already in the action doing other things where Witch Hunt was a lower priority for the AI.)

Against very high MP mages, Witch Hunt may seem pretty futile, but even still, continued use of it will still effect them eventually. This is especially the case if paired with a Mime or an additional Witch Hunt user. It also heavily hurts those lower MP units using skills like Quickening or Song. Half of MP is usually used on units that either can't recover MP or have low MP to begin with, and Witch Hunt definitely affects units like that.

In fact, Absorb MP is the only sure-fire counter to Witch Hunt. Even a Max-MP Summoner with 10 Speed (which just sounds like an atrocious idea) would slowly lose over time to continued Witch Hunts (assuming the Witch Hunt user did not run out of MP, and assuming a Dancer's base PA.) MP Restore does not trigger on Witch Hunt (Or at least I haven't seen it do so), and Absorb MP is not guaranteed either. I would hate to see Witch Hunt in play, actually, without Absorb MP. Also, most MP dependent users only use Absorb MP in situations where due to JP restrictions or other members of the team using the Movement ability simply can't use Move-MP UP. Absorb MP has its own problem in the fact that it relies on having skills that use MP hit the Absorb MP user. So while it counters Witch Hunt, it still has its own issues, and we've all seen the Absorb MP/MP Restore mages run out of MP in battle and the consequences of that.

Another benefit of Witch Hunt is that it can prevent skills like Carbunkle and Angel Song from restoring MP due to the fact that those skills cost MP themselves. Paired with a Mime, it can also waste enemy turns since the AI sometimes won't realize the Mime will mimic With Hunt and therefore, deplete the MP they were going to use for their skill.

Wiznaibus is harder to place, but can be useful against the right team. Again, this is dependent on the team that you're facing. Auto Potion is a super hard counter to Wiznaibus (in fact, Wiznaibus helps these units more often than not), but only two units can use this reaction on a team so it may still hurt the other units.

Finally, Last Dance resetting enemy CT counts can more randomly be useful depending on how CT lines up. I think it's much better than Last Song (which can't be reliably mimicked). While you can build your own CT around the Last Song user to create a potential double turn pretty quick in the match, it requires a specific build and all units to be a certain speed while the Last Song user should be at 10 speed or below (so that he won't interrupt himself.) However, Last Dance can actually capitalize for a slower team by allowing a slower team to double turn a faster one, potentially. Generally, slower teams have more power behind them, so a double turn can be huge.

If Nameless Dance sticks around, I would like to see Don't Move, Charm, and possibly Don't Act added to it. I know...very strong statuses and it would really be very strong. However, with Chakra Band sticking around, Charm and Don't Act wouldn't even affect those units. Also, and this is more of a personal, selfish reason, I'm just sick of seeing every Mage out there with Silence protection. Silence is such a joke since nearly every mage protects against it in Arena, and there are so many GOOD ways to do so. I'd like to see the "Immune: Silence" items get nerfed, and Defense Ring have Immune: Silence removed (while adding in a different immunity)...or at the very least the Elemental Absorbs removed. At least by adding these to Nameless Dance, there would be a reason for a mage to use something like N-Kai Armlet or Wizard Mantle regularly. I know...this is kind of extreme what I'm suggesting but seriously...Silence protection is just so prevalent and easily accessible in Arena and it has made that status almost obsolete in my opinion.

[Kurosabes]

There was a suggestion to extend Silence status to war cries, sword releases and stuff that normally uses quotes (Yell, Southern Cross, Earth Slash as examples). I won't go indepth but I think it's a nice idea.

Anyway, quick Dance suggestions. Similar suggestions for Sing but the other way around.

Witch Hunt:
0 MP cost

Slow Dance:
Random: Don't Move, Slow. Lower the CT a bit.

Polka Polka:
-1 PA/MA. If it can be random, -1 SP could be added. At 50% hit rate I think it would be fair and wouldn't land too often.

Disillusion:
Add: Cursed. Prevents some/all positive status, and cancels them in the process. (I saw that status idea somewhere else but it was completely coincidental.)

Nameless Dance:
Loses Slow since Slow Dance gets it. Maybe replaced with Don't Act

Last Dance:
Mimic disabled

It might just be me, but I'd like to see some non-map abilities on Bards and Dancers. Like a spell but it keeps following a target around and loop.

I have this bad habit of trying to make my posts as nice as possible before posting them but never actually making it to the "final product", so I end up barely posting anything.

[Shintroy]

Changing an ability just to counter another isn't balancing so I don't agree with the Witch Hunt or Last Dance suggestions. Especially the "mimic disabled" nerf.

Slow and Last Dance I'm still all for balancing it with Last/cheer Song.
The CT based debuffs are Slow, Stop and CT00 while there are only two CT based buffs, Haste and Quick(CT100). You can't really balance these without also thinking about quickening. If it's not in the next patch, then there's no need to have any SP altering from performances either.

I still go to my first suggestion from last year on making a single speed based song where you have a chance at either Slow, 00CT, and for Sing, Quick or Haste. If adding in CT +/- 25 33, or 50 at the most, then that could also be added.

Pretty sure adding Don't Act, Petrify or Stop to Nameless Dance would be broken. If it's possible to add a Dispel Magic effect to it would be a great addition to the current debuffs it has. This way it has a way to counter Nameless song without adding Death Sentence or anything extremely debilitating. 

-MA/PA performances are fine as they are now. No one uses them but that's not a reason to change them.

Genji Shield, Gold Armor are so far the only things actually wrong with 139 right?

I'll add I don't think quickening needs to be removed. The AI can't even use it if they have other MP using abilities. If it is removed I'd like more SP boosting equipment and Mime getting 9 base SP.

[Barren]

You are missing angel ring since that is also immune to dead but not death sentence

[Shintroy]

Angel Ring isn't immune to DS? The master guide says it is. I've never seen any teams using angel ring cause DS problems.

Also Quake and Tornado need to be nerfed to 4-5 CT. If not a nerf to CT, change the MA multiplier because 9 is absurd. 4 CT and MAx8 would be perfect.