Arena battle videos and discussion

[Barren]

spoiler: me vs shadowdragon

Thanks for the match Otabo. That was fun to watch. Round 1 was mostly my team kicking ass and kept the pressure on ShadowDragon's team which has more sandbagging than me. I think the problem with his team is like Otabo was saying, they were so focused on the ninja's damage that when he goes down their offensive is pretty much gone. So I think that if the thief were like a two handed lionheart or something then I think he would had a better shot at beating me. Maybe having a better defense too would be nice but its your call. GG ShadowDragon. I do like the potential of your team, just needs more seasoning

Shintroy you can try cam studio if you can free recording software. I use tech smith camtasia studio which is expensive but for me it gets the job done better than cam studio since the setups aren't terribly complicated at all. There are others if you google it

[Elmdork]

Aaaah, so many videos! Great job, guys. I'll have to edit as I watch them all.

@ barren: d..did I hear an aerosmith joke? Moar plz

spoiler: V. Reks

I'm so sorry too! Which is something you should never say after your matches. I pulled them in so many directions the original concept is barely present and they preform "meh" at best across any category. 1.38 port unsuccessful, and all it took was the muramasa change. Actually the meta changed too, now everybody's smarter and never leave home without a chakra band monk (petrify was actually effective at one point). So, I'm scrapping the team for now. I was thinking to myself "even if I win this, I don't like any of what I see" which is the only reason you'll ever see me scrap one. Also, I found out relatively late how badly oil got nerfed. I mean, I "knew" but not like this. Luckily my previous concepts use oil as more of an absorb disruption than an actual means of doing damage. I do have an idea on the back burner, so the cold spot on my submissions post will probably encourage me to get on that.

GG reks! Don't apologize, you needed every bit of tankyness and evasion you could get to come out on top, and what a comeback! Barren didn't seem all too pleased, but he picked the matchup XD

spoiler: Shintroy v. Joorum

I can't tell who's meaner--barren for making the matchup or shintroy for building the team. Well, I suppose if vikings coddled their youngin's they'd all die in battle, so I expect joorum to make a fine warrior soon enough.

On another note: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHQASHAAHHSBCIYGLFJFFNFKO
*wipes tears from eye

Oh yeah, that's the good stuff.

spoiler: silentkaster v. Shadowdragon

GRRRRRRRAND CRRRROSSU!

That is all.

spoiler: barren v.  Shadowdrangon

Cpt. Boomerang is the best unit ever. He would rather die a low damage offensive unit than be reduced to a simple "support" unit. Definitely got a bit of personality.

Too squishy shadowdragon! I know I'm a bit nuts for tank units but nobody's saying go all plate. Let's just put it this way: I took off item on my thieves for draw out and I lose sleep over it. That ninja would give me nightmares! Great damage build, but you really, REALLY need disruption if you ever hope to see him do things. Is steal heart on the thief a big deal? That would do you wonders when it works out. It's even more necessary for them to have a good disruption plan because the ninja is missing out on a bunch of evasion without swords. The pieces are all there, just needs tweaking.

spoiler: WkW v. Anima zero

Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor.

[Anima Zero]

Thanks for the video silentkaster!

spoiler: Me vs White Knight Wiegraf

Yeah, definitely a bad matchup for me since WKW's team more or less nullified my team's main gimmick.  Not surprised I lost this one really.  Still, they still did much better than I was expecting with their non-earth based capabilities.  Good match there WKW!

[Otabo]

The Easter Bunny told me to record this interesting matchup.

FFT Arena 1.39c - RedWorld (The Clean Up Squad) vs. Shadowdragon (The Celts)

[Elmdork]

Nice matchup otabo. I really wanted to see what that wizard would do.

spoiler: redworld v. Shadowdragon

Wow. I am always pleased to see another designer with conformity issues, but damn. I was surprised to see the wizard actually changed dances based on situation. Figured she'd just spam nameless dance or last dance, but she used magic too! I recommend giving the mime a reflect ring or something to mitigate backfire. Definitely entertaining, but perhaps not in the way you were expecting. I loves me some oddities and "the clean up squad" is certainly no exception.

Better luck next time, shadowdragon. That thief works out great when things are going your way, but that's two games now he got hit once and went to the corner to cry about it. Though jump on a thief is certainly effective, you should consider giving him move HP up, perhaps at the cost of some jump distance and lose the reaction entirely. A scholar would work well with him, allowing him to heal and keep the build the way you have it.

spoiler: shintroy v. Silentkaster

That was hawt. Like watching two turtles trying to mate (ironically) nothing wrong with a drawn out game so long as stuff happens, and stuff indeed happened. Otabo was onto something regarding the squire. Half way through the matches, she got left in the dust, but it only seems bad in this game because of the ridiculous ct of every other unit on the field.

Round 3 was actually pretty exciting (especially compared to round 1, spent whittling each other down to toothpicks) in and around when that petrify happened. Otabo was already at max surprise halfway through those shenanigans, I could only laugh. And laugh I did.

Is it too late to revive the games of note thread? Most people probably get bored of watching quickening go off a billion times, but i pay more attention to the CT and turn frequency and there's a bit to learn here. Just having the squire around is a great way to visualize the speed increase across the teams. Will have to watch again later.(sorry, damned. I know I shouldn't encourage them)

spoiler: Derpstock 2015

And so, the teams had a sexy party until the end of time. A new constellation was born in the form of a defending mime and many retards were born under it.

You KNOW I'm always down for a sexy party.. but WHYYYY BARRENNNN?! WHYYY SILENTKASTERRR?! WHYYYY MALROTHHHHH?!!!

spoiler: v. Fdquinn

Yaaay! I honestly thought I'd never see that staff whack. Onigiri (not a typo, onigiri is a ball of rice, eat sushi barren, u can thank me later) did a good job. I hate most the tutorial maps, but I have a special hate for that one. Still, some teams benefit from it and it does deserve to be used.

GG fdquinn! The archer could stand to lose yin yang magic, or any ranged "attack" other than bow shots. I like throw item on them, punch art is alright, just some way of healing/revival won't overload his priorities. When you're on top, he'll shoot, when u need heals, he'll chuck a potion, works for me. Don't have any experience with "equip ranged" chemists, but I don't think she's behaving properly. Might take a match or two to figure out what's up with that, but worst case scenario, you can main gauche/magic defend up to keep a reliably tank healer. Good luck on the next one!

New team: Nanashi's sushi bar, I would like to request a match with Anima's dark fire, as they are the (unintentional, i swear) bizarro twins of each other. I'm not really a fan of absorb teams as a whole, but they're not bad either. In any case, these teams are nearly equal in every way and should offer a close match.

Also shintroy and I discussed a battle between buff PA and no foolin'. We're talking a 4 mime match, so I won't shed any tears if nobody wants to run that, but I think it could be fun to watch.

[Otabo]

Let's see some thief on thief action...

FFT Arena 1.39c - Silentkaster (Thieves Guild) vs. Shintroy (With Haste)

[silentkaster]

Thanks for the videos, Otabo!

spoiler: My Match

This team did lose a match in 1.38 (somewhat ironically, against Dokurider's SCC Thief team) but has not lost a match in 1.39 yet. This was a big test for them since their speed didn't mean nearly as much here as it usually does on other teams. I keep going back and forth on the item bot thief between Defense Ring and Cherche, simply because it's hard to decide whether or not status is more important to defend against, or just physical hits. Him going down is usually huge (though admittedly, didn't matter as much in Round 3 due to some lucky procs going off) to the team and hurts everyone. I also hate to rely on evasion since it can be so situational, but so far it's served her well. Good team Shintroy...thought I was gonna have to post a loss there when I saw how close it came in Round 3 but a lucky petrify (and the mime strangely going for a low damage punch instead of releasing the female thief from petrify...) sealed it up. Could have really gone either way though, especially if that Mime had in fact been an item bot instead of Rambo. GG.

[Shintroy]

spoiler: With Haste vs silentkaster (Thieves Guild)

Thief vs Thief
Never been a fan of dittos in any game, but that aside I thought this would be a quick match when announced.

Round 1 - Surprisingly one sided. The squire didn't get to do much. silentkaster's status advantage really shined. The petrify proc was definitely the biggest threat to my team.

Round 2 - Had control in this round. Was it just due to teleport? I don't know. The team did a good job of cornering silentkaster's team, even with the cursed units reviving. It really came down to RNG though

Round 3 - Why did the mime decide to melee over getting rid of petrify? RIP After that.

GG. Great match up wise. It was like watching a bomberman match with all the chain reactions. At least The Damned got to see quickening AND slow 2 lose a match.

Thanks for the match Otabo. Lady Luck incarnate was literally not on my side.
Haven't seen Fast get 16 speed in quite some time.
--------------------------

spoiler: Redworld vs Shadowdragon

Awkward Wizard vs Awkward Paladin
100% up to the AI. Shadowdragon has the advantage since his team has more damage potential, but the match can go either way since half of both teams are subpar.

Round 1 - 50 HP Masamune. Shadowdragon was in control for the most part. The map really helped the thief pick off units. 50 HP Masamune btw

Round 2 - Excited round. Lots of clutch plays from Redworld. Weapon, break, 50 HP Murasames, critical thief. It was Shadow's game to lose at first, but his team isn't built do make comebacks outside of maybe insult.

Round 3 - Wow. I thought the map would favor Shadow, but I guess 50 HP Murasame thinks otherwise.

GG. So much to be said. I like the idea of talk skill physical damage dealers, but Shadow's set up wasn't quite there to take the win. 50 HP Murasame really mattered in this match. Dancing Wizard? Man..... at least the mime was there to make winning a possibility. Redworld's teams just surprise me every time.

Won't be able to record matches by the way. This 1.6ghz single core processor laptop with 1 GBs of ram can't handle it. RIP to the dream. I'm b uying a new comp in the summer though. Looking forward to that.

spoiler: silentkaster vs Malroth

Match Theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEcZtunL3yg

spoiler: Powers Combined vs Shadowdragon (The Celts)

Mime Boosting vs Physical Team
My team's pretty amazing once everyone starts doing their job. Even though Shadow's paladin is still awkward his team should still be able to compete with my team at the start of the round.

Round 1 - No stat boosts this round aside from quickening at the start. Managed to take the win due to RNG not being so bad and the Squire landing a couple of Asuras.

Round 2 - This map and geomancy does not work. Plus shadow had the high ground from the start of the round so I was behind on turns before the match even started. No stat boosts here at all.

Round 3 - If there was ever a time where RNG lost me a match it's this round right here. 78 or 79% Raise 2s isn't exactly to brag about, but come on. Missing 3x in a row? RIP.

GG to you though Shadow. If that paladin had nurse this would've been over much sooner. Probably would've lost it 0-2.

Would definitely still like another match with Powers Combined. Thanks for the quick match silentkaster.

[The Damned]

(@ Barren: Would you mind sending me your parameters for your settings on ePSXe when you have the time? I want to check something. Regardless, thanks.)

I have to check on Otabo's latest video and the ones I have to re-watch, but I'll wait to do that until after I get back from my walk. In the meanwhile, thanks to Otabo, TrueLight, Barren and silentkaster for recording videos as usual.

As it is, I'm just thankful I typed up most of my (for once relatively brief) comments on most of the most recent videos since I just destroyed my arms carrying 2 ft of dirt like an idiot. Fun. Never do that unless you have actual upper body strength, people, and even then those bags are pretty damn cumbersome without a car or cart.

spoiler: myself (Someday, A Wave) vs. Rouroni Elmdor (Intergalactic Real Estate Agency)

Damn, I got destroyed. Even before Quickening overkill giving me literally no chance of winning, between my general bad luck, Rouroni Elmdor's team being well constructed & hitting absurdly hard off the bat and HP Restore being the bane of my existence, I was basically doomed. Only thing that was annoying really was it took so long for me to lose given how obvious it was. I'll have to wait until "Someday, A Wave" fights a team that doesn't auto-steamroll it decide if Nameless Dance is indeed too toothless to keep.

That said, as much as I actually don't like DBZ, the music used and the name of the team are actually pretty genius. Kudos, TrueLight and Rouroni Elmdor respectively.

spoiler: ShadowDragon15 (Anbu Black Ops) vs. myself (Pilgrimage of Repentance)

Now, given how much I actively dislike Naruto, I'd probably have committed seppuku if I lost this one. As it is, I only really won because ShadowDragon15's team doesn't have the skills it could have and frankly "should" have due to how (unfortunately) good they are. Even ignoring Quickening (since it's a broken POS), Steal Heart alone on the Thief likely would have spelled my end, especially since Lulu was doing her "wonderful" "let's get ourselves killed with obvious redirects" thing that Black Mages do way too often; that's at least one thing Summoners don't have to worry about (Otabo). Meanwhile, Itachi would probably benefit greatly from Shuriken at least.

Anyway, I swear it's like Black Mages got even dumber going into this version of Arena somehow. As it is, though, Concentrate on Wakka and Itachi being the almost sole damage dealer on top of not getting nearly as unlucky (with Talk Skill) as I usually do are what allowed me to win. Still, Lulu probably needs some type of suicide-prevention overhaul.

(Speaking of which, silentkaster, the reason that Lulu doesn't have Haste and/or Slow is because a) Haste 1 and Slow 1 are currently horrible skills and b) the A.I. obsesses way too much over those statuses, especially if you only have one unit on your team that can Haste. Reks's match with Rouroni right after this that shows just annoyingly the A.I. will obsess over that compared to other things. Well that and Lulu couldn't naturally gain access to Haste (or Slow?) in FFX and this team is still kind of themed, so there's that too.

That said, I can't really remember why I gave Yuna Dragon Spirit after Projectile Guard was no longer necessary given the needed spellgun nerfs going into this version. I think it was Aeon related. Shrug.)

spoiler: Reks (Till Death Do Us Part) vs Rouroni Elmdor (Order of Steel Basilisk)

"Romeo, oh Romeo. Where art thy damage, Romeo?" Alternately, "Romeo, oh Romeo. Why did not thou use Zombie earlier, Romeo?"

Besides that, there were a bunch of weird things in general in this lengthy match between usual A.I. stupidity--the above and Juliet not using Throw Stone nearly enough--and generally weird glitches--a Charmed Oracle still going for Petrify on an enemy at least twice and Aspergillum not immediately using up the Oil of Short Edge despite clearly still benefiting from it; I'm guessing the last one is either tied to the weapon being in the left hand or within Two Swords itself. Still, something to point out to FFMaster whenever he gets back I guess since he already knows about Oil getting in the way of status.

Oh well, nice to see Beguile used (so much) considering it basically has almost never seen use ever since it replaced Confusion Song way back when.

spoiler: ShadowDragon15 (The Celts) vs silentkaster (Double Crossers)

Such an even match that it ultimately came down to that singular Obelisk miss by the Thief on the Dancer in the third round. That said, ShadowDragon15 could have probably prevented there from being a third round at all if his Thief just had some way to healing himself since his Fleeing to the other side of the map caused ShadowDragon15's team to fall apart in the first round when ShadowDragon15's team was otherwise winning that slugfest up until that point. Shame, that.

spoiler: Shintroy (Bad Breath IV.1) vs Joorum (The Police)

Nothing to say about this match beyond that it's just another example of how Stop, Spellbreaker, Mimic Daravon *and* Kagesougi are at least slightly overpowered. In the case of Kagesougi and arguably Mimic Daravon it's especially annoying since it would be so easy to fix too. Sigh. Maybe next version.

I also wasn't aware that Houkouton could crit or, at least, knockback. Weird. At least even one-sided matches can be informative.

spoiler: Barren (Suicide Squad) vs. Shadowdragon15 (Anbu Black Ops Squad)

Kind of fitting that St. Itachi died for our sins that many times back to back, but...yeah, there's really not much else to say about this that wasn't already said in the video. Anbu mostly got screwed over by focusing on the futility of trying to keep Itachi up, which makes "sense" given he's their best--really, only--damage dealing and does good damage. He could just never get close enough unlike against my team. I do find the Thief's actions with regards to not healing him rather...disquieting though. The A.I. is usually all over healing Critical units even when it should probably heal units more than it already does, but then the A.I. just decided "nope" in round one when it would have actually helped ironically. Hunh.

spoiler: White Knight Wiegraf (Limited Storms) vs. Anima Zero (Seraphic Earth)

Gee, that last round went by extremely fast. I don't think it was the most swift round we've ever had, but it was rather close. That said, I suppose it's not too surprising given that White Knight Wiegraf's team was something of hard-counter to Anima Zero's team. Otherwise this match would have been one-sided the other way since there's no way that White Knight Wiegraf's team wouldn't have gotten destroyed by Quake and Earth Slash, Gold Armor-stupidity with regards to Death Sentence aside.

spoiler: RedWorld (The Clean Up Squad) vs. Shadowdragon (The Celts)

Not to be mean, but wow, I'm really surprised that RedWorld's team won this given how much of a liability both the Wizard with Dance and Mime were for her and given how much damage that "The Celts" can put out, especially since the Thief was doing quite a bit of damage this time even while in Flee mode. ShadowDragon seemed to largely just get really unlucky, especially in the second round with all of the HP Restore and Dragon Spirit--loathe those reactions--constantly going off; Silver Bow was also going off a lot for RedWorld, much to my jealousy. I can't really pin-point why else he lost this outside of perhaps not having AoE like she did, though even that wasn't much of a factor for the most part given all the backfiring that happened. Hmmm....

Also, I was under the impression that Reraise was still blocked by Silence. I guess FFMaster fixed that in 1.39, which makes sense since he probably noticed it was still vulnerable to Silence as late as last version while giving Reraise the CT it desperately needed in this version.

Belated good game to Rouroni Elmdor and ShadowDragon15.

[Barren]

FFT Arena's Derpiest Match

FFT Arena 1.39c - fdquinn11 (Laundry) vs Rouroni Elmdor (Nanashi's Sushi Bar)

[ShadowDragon15]

Well gg guys. I'm racking up the losses. What a great way to realize all that I've missed in half a year than for nothing to go my way? Don't mind me, I'm really just ranting to myself. I've got my teams fixed as of the 7th, so hopefully I can get some more trials and call these teams finished. I removed that Thief from ABOU and put in a scholar, and changed equips to give some dark absorb, but... The team is not dark element dependent. So now, hopefully ABOU has more damage production, and even better still sandbagging, because I switched an Item Thief with a white magic Scholar. We'll see. GG

[silentkaster]

spoiler: Derpiest Match

Loved the Derpiness of both teams. Two teams using Slow Dance? That was awesome. I think eventually, perhaps years later, I probably would have won just due to charming everyone and double turning them (I had a way to deal with their Slow Dances but they couldn't counter mine for the most part.) But it might have literally taken hours. GG Malroth.

spoiler: FDQuinn11 vs Rouroni Elmdor

FDQuinn11 is my niece. I kidnapped them both for the Easter weekend for church and decided to make FFT Arena teams. Since my sister (RedWorld) made one, my niece wanted to make one too. I think Leg Aim was supposed to be deleted to make room for Weapon Break, but she must have kept it in there by mistake. When I see her (I believe this weekend) I'll tell her to change it.

[silentkaster]

FFT Arena 1.39C- Shintroy (Powers Combined III) vs. ShadowDragon15 (The Celts)

[Kurosabes]

Last tournament had JP caps removed. I propose for the next tournament to have no Brave and Faith caps.


By the way, I'm getting broken images on some of the weapon types in the Master Guide. Anyone else having that problem?

[Barren]

Do you mean brave/faith being above 70 and below 40 or no cap to adding up between brave and faith? (Like 240 brave/faith altogether). Because we've always used the latter in that case. You can always submit a team with 70 brave/faith across the board. Even 40 across the board is fine. it's been that way for almost 5 years since arena existed. if you are talking about units starting at 100 brave/faith then that defeats the purpose of warpath/pilgrimage since those boost brave/faith anyways.

I do think that if we were to have a tourney of some kind we should temporarily ban anything that is immune to dead only because death sentence is rigged against those types of equips. what I mean is that the AI can go for secret fist for example and if the unit is immune to dead then that unit has 2 turns to be ignored and that can potentially screw someone's strategy over. now normally that means death sentence is more powerful in that regard but there is dragon spirit, the reraise spell and refute to counter that. You just got to bring those counters with you. with that said I will eventually start a poll and see what everyone wants

[Kurosabes]

I meant the individual caps. 40/70 feels restraining (to me), but I understand why the rule is there. Loosening the caps would be fine too. In my patch I use 25/75. What the boundaries would be is up for everyone to decide.

[Shintroy]

That breaks a lot of mechanics like Unfury, Reaction %, Berserk damage. 40/70 is perfect since there's multiple ways to raise brave and lower/raise faith. Everyone would just run max damage or max % sets ups and vice versa.

One of my favorite teams outside of my own is actually an Unfury team by Andante called "Old Gimmickry" and wouldn't exist if it weren't for br/fa limiting.

I'm also having image loading problems in the master guide. I thought it was just my laptop being old and all.

[Barren]

You're not the only one Shintroy, something is wrong with the pic of the master guide. FFM needs to fix it soon.

[Anima Zero]

To be honest, some of pictures have been blinking in and out of existence on the master guide for the past couple of days.  Only today does it seem to be more prominent.

Bringing it back to Arena videos...I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing my Darkfire team in action.  I'd try to drum up a new team, but I haven't been able to come up with a half decent one lately.

[Barren]

I should be able to do some matches for next week.  I know so far Rouroni Elmdor, Anima Zero and Shintroy all requested matches (or in Anima'a case accepting Rouroni's challange) so if anyone has any more requests like usual PM me.