Arena battle videos and discussion

[The Damned]

(*realizes he could have just done something before and palms his face*

Figures.)

Thanks for the video as always, Barren. It was a bit odd to hear you play Kingdom Hearts music though, which is ironic considering how many my teams are themed around that series at present. Still, your music choice has been great for the most part and it's not like a huge deal. Just thought it was amusing.

spoiler: Severe Weather Alert vs. All Kind Range Combat

Yeah...the TIGER battle was pretty much a foregone conclusion as soon as Ahong's horrifically powerful Archer got in range. As nice as it is see Longbows finally getting some (more) use, TIGER probably does need to change or just be "ignored". This even though it was also nice to see Ahong's Chemist and Priest stay the hell back on that map rather than charge forward.

Then again, the same thing kinda happened at Lesalia, though not as one-sidedly since Reks's both of Reks' Archers could shoot back.

Nothing much else to say about this battle outside of the fact that it was nice to see someone finally use Chaos Blade and use it with Southern Cross. I think there's been only one other unit to use Chaos Blade relatively "recently" and I can't remember if that unit had Southern Cross as well; if it did, then it was as effective as this Paladin.

spoiler: Nanten Thieves vs. Bard & Dancer

Well, I've already just commented on this team of Reks and there's really nothing else to say about them aside from the fact that Chemist's Breaks were surprisingly accurate this time around.

As for Ahong's team, damn they hit sickening hard as well, which is kind of disgusting since that Bard has Short Charge--which indeed has no effect on Song (or Dance)--instead of Magick Attack Up or even "just" Overwhelm. The Dancer was even worse though. 232 damage from Shuriken? Seriously?

I'm not exactly sure why she has Nameless Dance though. Literally any other Dance would be better for Ahong's team if he has to have her Dancing at all. Additionally, I'm convinced that her Dancing is what got her slaughtered, especially in the third round, considering the range on Shuriken.

Otherwise, despite Reks's team's sheer power, Ahong's team managed to stick around longer than I thought it would. He might even have won if Silence Song actually affected Song, but then again, I'm not sure if Reks's Chemist has/had Echo Herbs and I'm too lazy to check right now.

spoiler: Late to the Party vs. Order of the Rose

*thinks about the nicest way to phrase this*

This...really dragged. Unnecessarily. I seriously don't know what the hell that Samurai's AI was doing, especially after everyone was Hasted. Thankfully, the Mime was so ineffectual that Order of the Rose essentially only having three active units for much of both fights enabled them to win.

I really don't think there's anything else positive I can say here aside from these four things: from the set of the Paladin being novel, that it was nice to see Balance not totally suck (even if it was still rather lousy what with hitting only half of the time) and be lethal, that it was nice to see a unit get to 100 Brave via Warpath and it's nice to see Life Drain and Time Magic get more use.

Those last 25~ minutes were really cyclic though. You have my thanks again, Barren.

Masamune is one of those wierd ones that, if it was as it used to be, it's too powerful. And if it becomes only self-targeting, it'd be kinda weak, but that in turn would make Haste and such a bit more desired. So to be honest, there's no fair solution since no matter what, someone is gonna bitch about it. *snip*

Oh, definitely. Someone will always "bitch" about something...just because something inevitably on top. It's not like those complaints still can't be legitimate though depending how "on top" something is.

However, this isn't the thread to talk about this, so I'll just finish this thought on what I think might be a "solution" to Masamune in the Balance Thread...after I do something else before I forget.

[Otabo]

FFT Arena 1.38d Avalanche (MeDeum) vs. Dokurider (Rebalancing Arena)

FFT Arena 1.38d The Damned (Flurry of the Dancing Flame) vs. Vigilanti (Sobriety)

[Avalanche]

Thanks for the Match Otobo

I didnt thought about FS Bag, thanks for the hint. Maybe one could add it in the Master Guide under "Equippable Items"

I noticed, that the Mime didn´t mimik certain actions, is there a pattern for this behaivior?

[Otabo]

Thanks for the Match Otobo

I didnt thought about FS Bag, thanks for the hint. Maybe one could add it in the Master Guide under "Equippable Items"

I noticed, that the Mime didn´t mimik certain actions, is there a pattern for this behaivior?

Mimes just act weird like that sometimes, I suppose. I've noticed it at times, too.

[Dokurider]

spoiler

Whoops, forgot to swap my Masamune and Muramasa. Add my Priest not staying back and getting charmed, Paladin overprioritizing Stop and Comet over anything else and that really ended disastrously for me.

Good job, Damned. Those Wizard were Getting Shit Done®. Meanwhile that Paladin proving himself useless. Perhaps your Paladin could use Move + 1 over Maintenance? Also instead of Platina Helmet boosting your non-existent MA, you could go Barbuta or Cross Helmet.

[Vigilanti]

(Has been a long time since I was on FFH in any sort of capacity so here goes...)

spoiler

Damn, Damned really burned me to death lol. GG, I got to do a better job with this team

[reinoe]

Wow, I know I haven't been in the community for a long time but the first Vigilante vs TheDamned match was the most intense match I've seen yet.  That match had some real back and forth.  I thought Vigilante had it in the bag when I saw T.D.'s Knight get seperated and then killed.  Unfortunately because wind doesn't have as much synergy with Fire, Vigilanti wasn't able to keep up the pressure.  But thanks to the massive power of dual wizard AOE, TD was able to slowly eek out a victory.  Interestingly this may prove that TD's Paladin is literally useless because TD was able to come back from a 3v4 handicap without the Paladin.

Also I loved how the match was Wind vs Fire.

[The Damned]

(Thanks, Otabo.)

Yeah, Axel was rather...useless. Hmmm...how to fix that within JP limits when I can't use Equip Shield or Black Costume anymore? Especially given that I know as soon I lose Maintenance, I'm going to get crap broken or stolen or both.

spoiler: Avalanche (MeDeum) vs. Dokurider (Rebalancing Arena)

One of those matches were Charm just destroyed everything ultimately. I'm surprised that the Priest had such good compat. with the female Scholar that she was able to hit her with a 93% Frog even though neither of them had Faith status. Hmmmm....

Other than that, as I said on Youtube, a novel effort on Dokurider's part and it's nice to see Muramasa used, even if the method used was...counterproductive as Otabo pointed out. This is especially true since the Ninja kept blundering into the range of his attack allies without protection. Not really much to say otherwise considering Avalanche's team isn't really that different from the many of the other Battle Song teams aside from seeing Yell get some use.

spoiler: Myself (Flurry of the Dancing Flames) vs. Vigilanti (Sobriety)

Well, as stated before, Axel was completely useless. Not sure how to fix that most effectively, especially considering the given the paucity of Fire-elemental weapons. Hell, Finger Guard ended up getting more use in both rounds and that thing almost never has worth.

Aside from that, I got...rather lucky that none of Viglanti's team could restore MP. Otherwise the Priest might have killed me and allowed Viglanti to win that first round since the Samurai hit me the most out of all of his units and the Priest's Holy was pretty speedy. Damn Heaven's Cloud and my tendency to get Slowed by it even when absorbing it as has happened multiple teams in "Gone with the Wind". As reinoe has pointed out, Wind still has problems, even if they're lesser now that Magic Ring has actual competition on more defensive Wizards.

Speaking of Talk Skill (pun not intended), I'm rather surprised that Red Nocturne+ didn't even attempt to use Persuade once considering that CT00 usually out-prioritizes Sleep and that's what I was expecting her to use, even if that would have been worse than the Mimic Daravon that won me the first round. It was also great to see her use Refute to get rid of Oil since I was wondering if that would work at all. So, good to have those things confirmed....

Aside from that, Nameless Dance, as much as it got missed or guarded, is probably what ultimately saved me saved me on top of the Chemist grabbing the crystal instead of the Priest. So as frustrating as it is to have the thing constantly miss, it still has its uses (some times).

I probably also won because of the Counter Magic(k) backfire that was I expecting when Reks fought AeroGP's team, which is funny because it not working there is part of the reason I made this team. Between that healing my units any time it went off and hitting the Squire once in the second round, the second round ended up going a lot quicker.

Good game, Viglanti.

spoiler

Whoops, forgot to swap my Masamune and Muramasa. Add my Priest not staying back and getting charmed, Paladin overprioritizing Stop and Comet over anything else and that really ended disastrously for me.

Good job, Damned. Those Wizard were Getting Shit Done®. Meanwhile that Paladin proving himself useless. Perhaps your Paladin could use Move + 1 over Maintenance? Also instead of Platina Helmet boosting your non-existent MA, you could go Barbuta or Cross Helmet.

Circlet is the helmet that gives +1 MA. Platina Helmet is there to block Oil and, to a lesser extent, Slow. That said, yeah, Axel needs a change. I think I know what I can him to as well now that I think about it....

As for your team, oh, so you meant to reverse Masamune and Muramasa. That makes far more sense, even if it's still kind of dubious given that Muramasa isn't guaranteed to hit. Then again, neither if Masamune or the Dispel Magic proc, so....

[Otabo]

FFT Arena 1.38d Reks (Magical Melodies) vs. DomieV (Famous Knights)

[Dokurider]

spoiler

That Oracle really needed to use more statuses. That Chameleon Robe on her was useless because Golden Hairpin already boosts holy and Cyclops can't be used for Absorbing. An M-Ev team? Who woulda thunk?

[Otabo]

spoiler

That Oracle really needed to use more statuses. That Chameleon Robe on her was useless because Golden Hairpin already boosts holy and Cyclops can't be used for Absorbing. An M-Ev team? Who woulda thunk?

spoiler

100% agreed. This is a good example of why offensive summon magic + status isn't good on oracles. IMHO, either run one or the other, but not both; if it has access to both, AI will go for damage most of the time. This was one of those matches where status was greatly needed. It could have easily went the other way if only she had done Sleep or Paralyzes when she had the chance to, and there were plenty of chances for her to slow down those paladins.

[Malroth]

I think Domie V's paladin team is the strongest team currently in existance, i'm going to run a couple tests vs my Sabre Dance team but i'm not sure i'd be able to overcome their recovery power

[DomieV]

spoiler: me vs Reks

Wow I got to say that ended better than I thought. I figured the AoE from Reks' team was going to destroy me. Balance and constant sandbagging really helped a lot. I was hoping that one of my axe wielding paladins would get a decap proc and he did :D which was sweet! GG Reks, I enjoyed our match together. I wonder if Sinkhole was ever needed at all since George didn't use it once? hmmmmmm

[Barren]

Definitely looking at your team DomieV I would have figured that you were just anti-physical but you were also anti-magical as well. I was really impressed with your outing

[Reks]

Yeah.... That happened, didn't it? GG DomieV. You beat the odds. Rather, you made the odds and beat me with them. Whichever way you want that.

And I'll mess with the Oracle later. It never occured to me that she'd focus on using Summons over status when I remade the team, since I think I had a similar setup before and the inverse was true.... Well, it'll be changed, maybe to Time Magic. Stay tuned!

[The Damned]

(Warning: What ended up being huge blocks of text now barely contained by spoilers.)

Thanks as always, Otabo.

Heh, I feel like an idiot for missing DomieV's post in the team thread thrice while waiting for the match to load, hence my confusion on as to where the team came from. I had forgotten that he updated recently and so is on the second page now.

Still, it's a good team. I could see it being one of the stronger teams. One of the strongest right now though? No, I rather doubt that. I see a few potential weaknesses since all teams have them (unless what they're using is currently utterly broken), especially with the AI in charge. I also don't think it helped that Reks's team had a lot more notable weaknesses even before the AI decided to dumb with his units.

spoiler: Magical Melodies is Out of Tune

I'd rather quickly argue that Bard and the Samurai are worse units than the Oracle. The Bard kept not Singing and jumping into the fray despite being the only unit with resurrection that Reks had. This was made even worse by his allies generally killing him at least half as much as DomieV's Paladins did.

Hell, he went down so early and first in the first round because the Samurai decided it would be totally fine to Tornado the hell out of him for some reason. He seems like needs Float or Move -1 or something other than Fly if he's not going to absorb any element his teammates throw around. Similarly as busted as Bloody Strings can be presently, he also needs less incentive to attack if he's going to remain the only unit with resurrection and not absorb any of attacks that his "allies" are throwing at him. (It would probably also mean that he wouldn't accidentally try to attack through the floor at 00% as I forgot the AI some times tries to do with some distance weapons in maps where tiles "overlap". There really has to be to be someway to fix that.)

So he'd probably be better off with at least a Sword or even a Knife (despite the fact it would add to his Move), even if neither of those would benefit directly from the Magic Song he was barely singing. Still, an Ice Brand or even Ultima Sword (which no one has used at all yet) would benefit potentially from that Song if they proc'd. Also doesn't help that Cure 2 is rather...redundant between everyone else on the team being able to heal herself and having access to Life Song.

Getting back to the Samurai, she has significant issues as well. Even with Linen Robe, she's only able to get off three of Quake or Tornado or a combination thereof before she can't cast anything else at all. As horrifically damaging as those could potentially be with Chirijiraden, the fight against DomieV showed that it doesn't mean very much if they're all subject M-EV and/or the enemy can sand-bag enough for her to end up running on fumes so easily. DomieV's team fit both aspects, hence the lose. At the very least, Absorb MP seems like it would make far more sense on her than on the Scholar, who already has Move-MP Up, especially since it seems like the Samurai has...450 JP left (?) with her current set-up.

I'd argue potentially just getting rid of Lore entirely for her considering that her insistence on charging it rather than using her other, instant skill set also made her worse than the Oracle. Lore contributed further to losing the first round so quickly even after she helped kill the Bard since she insisted on charging, at least twice in a row, up Tornado in an area where she just got mid-charged twice; it was probably because she thought she could heal herself with it given Magic Ring.

(This even though the AI should have known it wouldn't go off in time due to it being able to see CT. I still don't understand why AI gets futile about some things, but not others, especially since the "not others" part seem to be really dumb instances compared it just futilely not taking chances that might otherwise give them advantage even in Critical. However, I'm digressing on something that's already gotten to lengthy, especially since no one asked for it....)

Speaking of the Scholar, she's probably the most competent unit on the team and even then she has a least a couple of issues not counting her "brilliant" move of killing off everyone on Reks' team at least once outside of the Samurai in the second round alone. As said above, Absorb MP on her seems extremely redundant. This is especially when I think one of the potential weakness of DomieV's teams is (going to be) the spell Water, which she would otherwise have access to the JP she used for that. At the very least, she would conveniently not murder the Bard if she's casting it and it's not like Reks' teams are using any buffs unlike DomieV's team. Additionally, given she's not Two-Handing that Ivory Rod, even if she's not using Water, Prismatic Rod still seems like it would be better for boosting Tornado and Quake (and healing herself). Otherwise yeah, best unit on the team...when she's not accidentally murdering everyone else and herself.

But, yeah, the Oracle wasn't the worst unit on that team considering she was at least doing damage and didn't quickly become nigh useless like the Samurai did or utterly not do her job, as the Bard was too happy to do by showing off his Wuxia training instead. She could also use some improvements though, even if it's just getting Fairy over Odin or Cyclops. I must admit however that I am not sure why she had Chameleon Robe, even as nice to see that get more use. That over say Robe of Lords (given she's nigh useless if Silenced) or one of the Robes that boost MA or even Light Robe seems...odd. I'm guessing Counter Magic paranoia? (This even though she never once used Odin, which might have gotten you the win in at least one round, given she had Cyclops against units that didn't absorb or negate Holy. Given she used that enough time that it's Blind aspect went off thrice, if that was replaced with Dead....)

Carbunkle also ended up being redundant since the only person who ran out of MP was, again, the Samurai. I'm also not sure why the Oracle has Red Shoes on over, say, Magic Gauntlet (or even "just" Genji Gauntlet since that has good M-EV), but whatever.

Regardless, easily the biggest weakness of the Magical Melodies team is that every source of magickal offense it had was subject to M-EV. Please use Silf or...something at least if you're going to have Summon Magic.

That said, "meh". It's not like Reks is incompetent or that I give good advice, so feel free to ignore all of that.

As for the actual match itself:

spoiler: Reks (Magical Melodies) vs. DomieV (Famous Knights)

I can't really say much about the first round that I didn't say above. Reks lost literally as soon as the Bard went down and as soon as the critical Paladin subsequently blocked Tornado instead of dying to it. It was that simple given the amounts of buffs, healing and "sand-bag" power that DomieV's Paladins had versus a team that had no more resurrection and, in the case of the Samurai, utterly finite MP.

The second round was a lot more interesting, even with the Bard acting really dumb, the Scholar murdering everyone accidentally and the Oracle only trying to Paralyze after her team had already lost (because the Bard had died again). As I said on Youtube, it was nice to see Balance finally used to make a difference for once rather than only work once if it even hit and then utterly negated by subsequent resurrection. This even if the only way to make it work seems to have it on Paladins--I don't think a Samurai has ever used Balance and I know a Lancer or unit with Equip Armor hasn't. The almost equally necessary Regen also makes it so it's constantly weaker than AI thinks it is. Ironically, that arguably "balances" it even more considering it should be an utterly broken technique if the AI abused even half as well as player could.

Speaking of "balance", this was the first match that reminded how uncomfortable I am/was with Reraise being promoted to 100% on hit guaranteed for relatively little MP a while ago. Wall, I could understand, especially since it has to compete with Iron Will. And yet Wall's MP is more than Reraise, which I guess is understandable in a way...despite being subject to Silence and not instant unlike Reraise....

I'm not really sure how I ultimately feel about it though, especially in light of those changes to Reraise and Death Sentence's relation that never ended up happening. It's the same way that I still feel uneasy about Phoenix Sword, especially with Quickening still around, but beyond that....

Still, I don't want to out and out say it's "broken" or even "overpowered" just yet, especially now that more people are finally realize how to make the best use of Reraise to get the AI to use it at all. My disliking of Reraise as a status and as a whole also makes me acutely aware of my bias towards it. Similarly, it's not like it doesn't have answers. It getting more prominent just encourages use of more unused things like Zombie, Spellbreaker, Dispel Magic, the new Masamune weapon and Water & Leviathan. So it will be...interesting to see how abused it can be and if it can be used even better than DomieV's team is right now.

Aside from that, DomieV's team is also slightly more "proof" that Masamune probably needs to lose its Regen aspect and that the actual Haste spells could probably use a bit of a slight buffs. Admittedly, I'm still rather surprised that Arthur hit with his Time Magic(k) more often that not, Balance included, so may not on that latter part.

All that said, while I still have my own reservations about DomieV's team as a whole considering all the flaws I saw in Reks's team, I do consider it well constructed overall. I think it would be rather interesting to see how DomieV's team fared against a team that was even more set-up oriented than Reks's tried to be.

[reinoe]

That was certainly a fun match to watch.  I think my favorite thing was watching Reks' teammates kill each other off, including their only raiser.  The A.I. is completely unpredictable.  I've never been a fan of bloody strings, (or any of the harps/books) because of the A.I.'s sheer stupidity.  Justified in round two when the bard missed twice on impossible shots.

But DomieV has certainly made a strong team with no obvious weaknesses.

Postscript:
Reks' team has also given me inspiration to take another crack at my wind elemental team, the currently defunct "Windswept".  DomieV has inspired me to create an All-Samurai team.

[Dokurider]

Pfft, Famous Knights? Strongest? Yeah right. There are plenty of teams that could crush them.

[Malroth]

I ran them against every team in the mem card generator they diddn't loose a single one

[Barren]

I ran them against every team in the mem card generator they diddn't loose a single one

perhaps I'll run a show case series of that team at some point and see how well they really do