FFT Arena: Balance Discussion Thread

[Skip Sandwich]

If monks get Attack UP innate, then ALL of their abilities get powered up, if they get Two Swords, only their regular attack command gets powered up, so it really depends on which kind of carrier is a preferable state for the monk; Equipment/Attack (via Equip X supports with innate Two Swords), or PA Ability (via secondary skillsets and innate Attack UP)
:EDIT: because of monk's lack of headgear, Attack UP support would probably lead to the least significant change in strategy and setups. Also, a quick question, I know that the new ninja jutsu use a PA-based revision of the untruth formula, but is damage from that formula improved via Attack UP or Magic Attack UP?
:EDIT2: Would it be too much to ask to give Asura a non-standard targeting configuration? For example giving it the standard black magic range or making it a 3-way attack, just to spice up Draw Out and take advantage of the fact asura's effect supports such changes.

[The Damned]

As seen in the battle topic thread, Ultima needs another nerf. It either needs to be single-target or have its MA halved if it's going to continue ignoring Faith.

Ultima 2 just needs to cease to exist entirely. It was never necessary to begin with IMO.

[Skip Sandwich]

Ultima competes directly with Bahamut for non-elemental ranged AoE damage, so if it continues to ignore faith, it's spell power needs to be based around that

Bahamut@28MA (female scholar + rune blade/holy miter/wizard outfit/magic gauntlet + Magic Attack UP)

40 faith to 55 faith = 147 damage

55 faith to 55 faith = 203 damage

70 faith to 55 faith = 258 damage

Ultima@28MA (same unit)

28 * 5 = 140

28 * 7 = 196

28 * 9 = 252

with the data above, we can see that Ultima should probably be set to MA * 7 damage, comparable to the average expected damage from bahamut at 55 faith

[logus]

you should have calculated 70 to 40 and 70 70, since those are the cases in 95% of the time:

70 to 40 =  188,16

70 to 70 = 329,28

Bahamut one-shots most 70 faith units. You either need mdef up or armor to survive that with caster classes.

I still don't think ultima needs another nerf. It's still a double edged skill, as the ai does not consider haste/speed save in the calculations and will usually end up doing ultima at both teams. And those scholars will be pretty fragile. But don't take my word for it: test it. My old lancers team vs. pride shows that for speed save, I've seen it for haste (maybe my elemental team shows that against pride's ultima team as well for haste, I forgot), but you can always check it out for yourself. The last team I posted should have an easy time against any ultima teams, I think.

And even then, if you are still not convinced, I'd sugest changing ultima to use faith instead of nerfing it's Q even more. Cause by nerfing it's Q, chiri would be just better than ultima, due to being instant and having good AoE. And I really, really don't want to see ANOTHER nerf to DO, which would make it plain useless. Murasame is half-useless. You either go full MA or you can't heal yourself properly.

ps: I love damned's idea of dropping ultima2. I don't see the point in making the AI even more suicidal with a bigger AoE.

[Kaz]

I still don't think ultima needs another nerf. It's still a double edged skill, as the ai does not consider haste/speed save in the calculations and will usually end up doing ultima at both teams. And those scholars will be pretty fragile.

I agree for the above reason. this could also encourage more use of faster units

[CT5Holy]

Removing Ultima 2 would be best. Far less likely to catch and massacre a whole team this way. Ultima should keep its current AoE. Then redirects are still possible (and deadly).

[Shade]

just remove ultima 2 and make ultima 1 reflectable

[Skip Sandwich]

I kind of want a Comet spell for time mages, dealing non-elemental damage to random panels in an area, something like one of these targeting schemes

A: range 4, area 1v3, hits 1-3 times, no random fire flag (hits entire area with each proc, like 1.3 Meteorain)

B: range 4, area 1v3, hits 1-6 times, random fire flag (up to twice as many hits as A, but each proc only targets a single random panel)

C: range 4, area 2v3, hits 6 times, random fire flag (always procs 6 times, but covers a larger area, so a bit more of a gamble)

EDIT: really like the new change to MA + X% ability formulas, it in particular makes a team concept i've been kicking around much more potent, so you may see that being thrown out there soon.

[PX_Timefordeath]

Can we change
Equip Sword -> Equip Knight/Sword
Equip Crossbow -> Equip Cross/Bow

Also, Time Mages are rather capped on skills, so in order to add more, we gotta take a few out.

[Skip Sandwich]

well, we could add Comet to scholar instead, but they hardly need it on top of the Bio line and Tornado/Quake, I suppose Balance could shift to Scholar instead, since they seem like a good place to stick 'gimmick' spells like that. Besides, for a time mage, a better fitting gimmick damage formula would be TarMaxHP - TarCurHP, and be called something like "Recall Injury" or "Recursion". I agree with you on changing the equip X abilities, but i'd rather go with something like the following

Equip Sword -> Equip Sword/Knife/Ninja Sword (one-handed/light blades)
Equip Axe -> Equip Axe/Knightsword/Katana (heavy blades)
Equip Spear -> Equip Spear/Pole/Flail
Equip Bow -> Equip Bow/Crossbow/Gun (Equip Ranged)
Equip Gun -> Equip Rod/Staff/Book/Robe (Equip Spell)

Equip Armor -> Unchanged
Equip Knife -> Equip Clothes/Hats
Equip Shield -> Unchanged

[PX_Timefordeath]

Hey, that'd be awesome. And 0 ASM required. I like that.

[philsov]

Equip Sword -> Equip Sword/Knife/Ninja Sword (one-handed/light blades)
Equip Axe -> Equip Axe/Knightsword/Katana (heavy blades)
Equip Spear -> Equip Spear/Pole/Flail
Equip Bow -> Equip Bow/Crossbow/Gun (Equip Ranged)
Equip Gun -> Equip Rod/Staff/Book/Robe (Equip Spell)

Equip Armor -> Unchanged
Equip Knife -> Equip Clothes/Hats
Equip Shield -> Unchanged

That scheme works out very well!

Only kink is that robes are on a bad table to be used with the rest of the magey weapons, except sticks.  And sticks are a better fit with spears and flails anyways.  

I'd also like to see Harps added onto Ranged, and wish I could see Carpets somewhere in the mix (teehee), but there's no solid place for them.  =\

For others:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4207

[Skip Sandwich]

forgot that bit about robes, got the rest of them right from memory though, so yay me! what about this as a fix?

Equip Armor -> Equip Shield/Helmet/Armor

Equip Knife -> Equip Clothes/Hats

Equip Shield -> Equip Ribbon/Robe

The only potential problem here is that it makes Equip Armor even better then it already is, the alternative would be to bundle robes with clothes and hats, and leave equip shield alone.

[Skip Sandwich]

Skip Sandwich (Posts: 881)    
    * Private message
    * [Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:13 pm]


What if blood suck status no longer counted as Unable to fight? Then it would basically become a more potent version of confuse, but the AI will still attack the afflicted, and if an entire team gets infected, then they can keep fighting on (though the match might possibly devolve into a massive 8-way blood orgy)
   
   
philsov (Posts: 3623)    
    * [Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:15 pm]

....and we could also probably edit the blood suck ability to not inflict blood suck 100% of the time to avoid becoming a zombie swarm.
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Skip Sandwich (Posts: 881)    
    * [Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:18 pm]

We could even make the human version of blood suck not inflict status at all, so only vampires could infect people (at a 25% chance or less), and not infected humans
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philsov (Posts: 3623)    
    * [Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:19 pm]

which in turn turns blood suck into a combination berserk/confusion that's easily cleansable. This seems fine

Okay, so given the above, I propose we replace the confusion status with an edited blood suck

Blood Suck (elmdor) -> Blood Suck - drains 30% hp from target, range 1v3, area 0, no status, unevadable

Confusion Song -> Blood Kiss - turns target undead unit into a vampire, range 4, area 0, Undead_Hit(Sp + 70%), CT 4, MP 20

Esuna - as before, but also clears Blood Suck status

Stigma Magic - as before but also clears blood suck status

[FFMaster]

If we can remove the Unable to Fight bit, then yeah, that would be great. But I have no idea where to begin with that...

[Skip Sandwich]

what about the KO flag under status effects in the patcher? is that just for show or would that do it?

[FFMaster]

Well, removing the KO flag worked... but well, this problem popped up.


Another stalemate. Blood sucked units don't attack each other. We can minimise the chance of it happening though.

[Skip Sandwich]

well, in my proposal above, the Blood Suck ability itself would be unable to transfer the status, so that would reduce the posibility of blood orgies like above. As for attacking each other while blood sucked, perhaps by messing with the AI flags of the blood suck ability, we can change that.

[SilvasRuin]

Wouldn't Blood Suck backfire against Blood Sucked people since they are undead?  I don't see how you could get them to attack each other without breaking the AI rather badly, and it doesn't seem like all that great an idea either.

Of course, if it doesn't backfire when used against Undead, then that wouldn't be a problem.

[Shade]

Blood sucked isn't being undead. So blood suck takes damage right like your guy normally would.