FFT Arena: Questionnaire Time Again! (For 131)

FFMaster · July 28, 2011, 03:47:44 am

Had a bit of spare time so it appears a little earlier.

For the upcoming version 131, I want to see if people disagree with the direction this patch is going. I know a few changes have been gladly welcomed, while others have been met with a lot of hate. Plenty of people have discussed about different balancing concepts, and it all gets muddled up. So here is a place to tell me exactly what you want. I have a list of questions you can answer. If there are too many questions for you, then just answer as many as you want. So here goes:

1) Overall, what do you think of the general direction of balance? Would you change/add/remove any core mechanics in Arena?

2) What do you think of the number of equipment options available? Are there too many or too little?

3) What do you think of the number of skills available? Are there too many or too little?

4) List the classes/skillsets which you think are too powerful/weak, explain why and what you would do to remedy the situation.

5) List the equipment which you think are too powerful/weak, explain why and what you would do to remedy the situation.

6) Anything else that needs to be mentioned that doesn't fit here.

Malroth · July 28, 2011, 04:15:09 am

1) I would add some more disadvantages for Low faith units, Ideas I've had are reduced Haste/protect/shell duration, Magic that deals more damage at lower Target faith, and reduced chance for reaction triggering.

2) I like the number of equipment options avalible, Some tweaking of Poles, Staves and Knives might help things but The equipment is varied enough to be fun

3) I like the number of skills, i think that some jobs might benefit from 1 or 2 additional skills but I don't think large scale cuts are necessary

4) Too Powerful: Paladins; Enough HP to tank 3 Flares when running Min faith, enough Patk to 1shot any unit not wearing heavy armour, average speed and movement self healing, status buffing, Physical AOE that can be self healing when properly equipped. Tons of weapon options including unique access to the most powerful weapon class in the game. How I'd fix: I'd make their abilities Faith based and their speed to 7 and their CEV to 0, the game needs a tanky hard hitting melee class, but it needs to have some drawbacks instead of being a universal trump card.

WAY Too Powerful: Monks Stupidly high Patk and a Patk squared based damage formula allows them to 1shot any unit if they're running Atk up or 2swords. 9 Speed on the highest Base HP unit, Free Ribbons. How I'd fix:Lower their speed to 7 Disallow 2swords punching, Lower the bonus from Martial arts to be only slightly better than ATK up, Halve the damage formula for Spin fist, Earth slash, and Wave fist but not Repeating fist.

Slightly Too Powerful: Wizards; Reason, Flare, What I'd do Increase its MP cost to 60 so that it couldn't be spammed as easily.

Too weak: Chemists and Mediators: Reason Archers. Right now there are 3 classes whose main feature is the ability to quickly do ranged physical damage However Archers Have Better HP, Better Speed, Better Reaction abilites, Better Movement, and better Evasion than either chemists or mediators. Archers Also have better status affliction than mediators and are better users of Item than chemists due to their better speed and easy access to speed save.
How I'd change them. I'd raise chemists speed to 1 higher than archers so that they're starting off as better Item based healers, and for Mediators I'd raise their base HP to be on par with Geomancers and Lancers and give them Innate Unyielding So that there's a clear seperation on weither you want a fast gunner, a tanky gunner or an evasive shield wearing one who can bypass enemy immunities by breaking their stuff.

5) Too weak: Daggers +1 movement isn't bad on a weapon but its kinda useless when the best one you can dual weild has a 4WP
How I'd fix Let them all be dual weildable.

Too Weak: Some Poles, There's no reason to deliberately equip the weaker weapons as they are, I suggest either deleting the substandard versions or reworking them into weapons with various status adds

Dol · July 28, 2011, 02:29:48 pm

1) Balance. Balance is progressing smoothly. As the beta continues, I think anything thats truly useless or broken will be snuffed out. With the increase in teams and videos lately (thanks again casters, I know that setting up & recording matches is a pain!), you'll get plenty of info.

2) Equips. Total number of equips are fine. Some are kinda useless, but thats addressed in #5.

3) Skills. Again, number of skills seems fine.

4.1) Class stats balance. This is the base job stats that need tweaking in my opinion.

Squire. Squires are too good at at too many things to feel balanced. Innate 4 Move, high HP, MP, PA, MA. I'd drop their move down to 3, drop their HP down about 20ish comparable to Thief, MP down 20ish, PA down 1, MA down 2 on male & 1 on female.

Chemist. Not enough HP, way too much MP. Really, more MP than Wizard? I'd bump up their HP by 15-20, lower their MP by 40, lower MA by 2, lower PA by 1 on males.

Paladin. Almost too good to leave off a team. Female Paladins are worthless compared to males. Lower PA by 1 on male, maybe lower the HP by 10?

Monk. Don't see a lot of monks running around as a base class. Maybe lower the male PA by 1 to bring it in line with the other changes I've recommended.

Time Mage. Feels a bit more glass cannony than I'd like. I dont think they really need to have the same HP as Wizard. I'd bump their HP by 10 to be halfway between Wizards & Priests.

Summoner. 10 HP less than Wizard is painful. They could use another 10 HP too.

Samurai. Feel pretty weak as far as a base class goes. Maybe 10 or 15 more HP. I still think you will find Draw Out used as a secondary a lot more often than you'll see a Samurai running around. I'd agree with the innate Two Hands for some variety.

Mediator. Needs a little love. Maybe 20 more HP and 1 MA. I'd be in favor of increasing their C-EV by 5 too.

Ninja. Is a bit too much of a glass cannon without the cannon part. I think they should either have the really low HP pool or the low PA, but both seems overkill. Either give them another point of PA or raise their HP by 20ish.

Archer, Priest, Wizard, Thief, Oracle, Geomancer, Lancer, Scholar, Bard, Dancer, Mime. Feels fine to me.

4.2) Skillset balance. I'll take this set by set. This is my viewpoint of skillsets as the secondary ability set.

Basic Skill. One of the most well-rounded sets out there. I think Throw Stone is too strong as it is now. 150 damage from range with no charge time or cost is a bit much. I'd change TS to P-Ev and lower the PA ratio to ~5ish.

Item. Less powerful than 1.3 and pretty balanced overall. Hi-Ether might be a little too good for the MP pools we are seeing. I'd drop it down to 60 MP. Holy Water is much too expensive for how often you're going to be hit with those statuses and the fact that its the only way to remove Zombie. I'd be fine dropping it down to 70 like Antidote. Auto Potion feels kinda bleh. Dont know how to make it much better. Maybe heal for 70?

Chivalry. Dia is a bit too strong of a anti-sandbag. 6 range, no charge time, up to 200 damage, adds blind, low enough MP cost that Move-MP up will regain it all back. I think it needs a CT of 3, bump up the MP cost to 20ish, and make it 200 JP. Magic Ward adding Reflect makes me shy away from ever using it, given that Esuna is reflectable now. (then again, I value White Magic skillset very very highly). I'd almost prefer it to add Shell and Regen to make it just like Iron Will.

Snipe. Seal Evil is a bit more expensive than it should be given the lack of undead units we see and how many ways there are to remove Petrify. I'd lower the JP to 150 or 100. Hawk's Eye's CT is much too high, but you already knew that one. Execute should be 100% to hit if I'm interpreting the Master Guide right. All it does is instakill a critical unit right? Projectile Guard seems to be a bit more expensive than I would be willing to spend given how it might do absolutely nothing for you depending on your opponent.

Punch Art. Seems to be pretty good. Repeating Fist and Wave Fist are still a bit too powerful. Maybe change the formula to ((PA+1)/2)*PA or the (PA/2)*PA? I'd also be in favor of raising the JP cost of Martial Arts to 200 or 250.

White Magic. About where it should be. Protect 2 and Shell 2 are harder to work into a build with the JP restrictions. I'd lower them to 250. Regenerator is also a bit overpriced given that units generally are able to take 2 hits or so before they die. I'd lower it to 300.

Black Magic. Flare needs either a JP increase or MP increase (or both). Counter Magic is ridiculously expensive. Given how many elemental absorption teams there are out there and the potential for Draw Out teamkilling, would you really want to risk running it? 400 JP sounds a bit more tempting, but I dont think I'll ever really want it.

Time Magic. Not a whole lot to change on TM. I'd be ok with raising the MP cost and hit % of Stop. Float (movement) also could go down to 300 JP, but I dont really care if you leave them both where they are now.

Summon Magic. Titan probably should be scaled back a little bit. Same damage formula as Cyclops and Zodiac, but is able to be boosted. Carbunkle is a cool concept, but the JP cap makes it hard to fit into a build. I'd lower it to 150 or 200.

Steal. Bad Luck feels like the CT is a little too long. I'd definately swap out Oil for Poison, or simply remove Oil completely. Nothing is worse than charging that whole time and getting nothing but Oil. I'd like a CT added to Quickening. A lower % to hit on Steal Heart would be nice too. ~50% on neutral compat to both sexes seems a bit much.

Talk Skill. I think they need a % to hit bump across the board (which was already discussed). Death Sentence costing 400 JP seems a bit much (although I'm biased against DS. 3 free turns before you die isnt always the worst thing in the world). Finger Guard should be free since you have to be a Mediator or spend the 250 JP to unlock their skills anyways.

Yin Yang Magic. Sleep is pretty crappy compared to Paralyze. Longer CT, higher MP, lower % to hit, higher JP. You can take that as a criticism of either spell depending on how you want to roll with it. Most of my teams lately are designed to be immune to DA given how good it is.

Geomancy. Needs the damage scaled back across the board. I'd also be in favor of having it be M-Ev (see #6).

Lancer. 900 JP for Vertical 8? The focus is mainly on Level Jumps and then taking whatever Vertical you can afford after completing the rest of your build.

Draw Out. Actually feels pretty balanced as a secondary skillset. Kiyomori is pretty useless, but I dont know what I would do to make it better.

Ninjitsu. I'd be in favor of Shuriken being changed to P-Ev. Two Swords is pretty expensive as well, but I'm ok if you want to leave it as is. I haven't seen some of the other skills used yet, so I'll reserve judgement till I see them in action.

Lore. Tornado and Quake seem to be slightly too weak. I'd boost the damage to (MA*22)ish.

Sing/Dance. Brave Up and Faith Up probably could stand to be cheaper. Around 300 JP would make them a bit better alternative to PA/MA save than they are now.

5) Items

Weapons

Knives. Are a bit weak across the board. I'd be fine with them all being 2 swordable.

Ninja Knives. Short Edge should be 50% Add: Oil for what you have to sacrifice to use them. Spell Edge adding MA is kinda odd, but I can go with it.

Swords. Blood Sword should probably have a lower WP based on how awesome it is in the right hands.

Axes I cant see any reason to ever use a Giant Axe or Slasher. I'm trying out a team with a Battle Axe, we will see if it needs to be included as well.

Crossbows Giving up a shield for 2 more WP makes the Gastrifitis kinda bleh, especially since there isnt a proc on it any more. I could see boosting it to 15 or 16 WP.

Rods Dragon Rods feel pretty weak unless you get a Bahamut proc. I'd be ok with boosting their WP to 10 or 12 (and removing the ability for Squires to wield Rods).

Bows. Mythril Bow either needs to go to 10 WP or Ultimus Bow needs to go up to 13. No real reason to take the Ultimus now.

Books. No reason to ever take Monster Dictionary over Papyrus Plate. Id suggest moving Bio 3 to MD and putting something like Balance or Life Drain on the Madlemgen.

Sticks. Cypress Rod, Battle Bamboo, Musk Rod all need something. I wouldnt mind seeing a Stick that added Faith on hit kinda like the way Gokuu Rod adds Innocent now.

Knight Swords, Katanas, Staves, Flails, Guns, Harps, Spears, Cloths, Bags feel fine.

Shields

All feel fine, which is pretty hard to do for an entire category.

Armor

Helmets, Hats, Ribbons, Armor, Clothes all feel fine. Impressive.

Robes. Its pretty hard to justify the Silk Robe over the Linen Robe. Maybe adding 5-10 more MP or 5 more HP.

With how prevalent Move-MP Up is, the Robe of Lords needs a bit of lovin. I'm thinking it could be an alternative to the Wizard Robe. 45 HP, 40 MP, Always: Shell. Something to give your caster some protection to balance out their high Faith.

I wouldnt mind seeing the Light Robe equivalent to the P-Bag. Always: Regen, Weak to All.

Accessories

Salty Rage needs something. If I'm giving up my reaction and 2 skillsets, I want something better than permaslow. I wonder if it would be usable with Always: Berserk, Cancel: All other statuses. Dunno, but it definitely needs something.

6) Misc I think M-Ev needs some help. When you look at the matches now, most of the MA based attacks you see arent evadable. Flare, Holy, Summons, Black 4, Life Drain are all 100%. The only thing M-Ev is really guarding against now is Draw Out and Yin Yang. Its good, just not really even remotely prioritized. P-Ev is good because most of the time you are going to face at least 1 physical attacker. I'd really like to see Geomancy M-Ev. I'd also recommend boosting the M-Ev %s on gear. Abandon boosts your evasion by 50%, so best case scenerio right now is something like 60% M-Ev.

*Edit* Was waiting for my 2 bard/mime teams to be tested rather than theorycrafting. Mimes not being able to mimic any songs or dances would be for the best IMO.

Thats all for me right now I guess (and after reviewing it, its plenty long).

Shade · July 29, 2011, 06:27:02 am

1) Don't know what is everyone else talking about, but for somereason people don't like low faith units even if they get beaten up by mages of doom(a reallly kick ass team), but yeah it's going in fine dirrection.

2) Well I can say that the more equipment is always better, but there really isn't need for it.

3) Personally I think I count whole jump skillset as one skills, and it's only skillset that feels like it's really empty, otherwise good.

4.1)

Squire. I'd suggest them getting little stats nerf, but getting more equipment weapon wise.

Paladin. It's used too much currently, so I suggest that samurai and knight change their hp's, so knight won't be so tanky and samurai will be more tanky.

Chemist. I am with doll with this one.

Samurai. Yeah the change of hp's with knight.

Mediator. I am with Dol here.

4.2)

Chivalry. It has basicly two skill that are usable at all, Dia is good with MA UP setup with mages and Grand Cross is only good when you absorb it and you are immune to blind.

Snipe. There should be just Arm/leg aims and breaks, it basicly doesn't need anything else.

Punch Art. It's hard to use it's healing abilities(now even harder after chakra is one panel target), I think all healing abilities just should get huge buff and melee abilities huge nerf.

White Magic. Just turn protect/shell and protect/shell 2 to wall and wall 2, and regenerator like dol said lower it's jp.

Black magic. Flare should keep it's old range(now it's high damage sniping ability) And I agree with Dol that counter magic is way too expensive.

Time Magic. Same as Dol.

Summon Magic. Cyclops and zodiac should be more special, since I can't see any reason to use them, how about making zodiac weaker damage wise and ct maller so it would be good replacement for ifrit/shiva/ramuh, and remove that use blind status from cyclops, and give him little more damage and ct. Also don't do anything Titan, it's good the way it's since there is so many ways to counter earth element at the moment and I agree on Dol's suggestion on carbungle.

Skipping Steal.

Talk skill. I once again agree you know who.

Ying Yang Magic. Sleep magic should be copy of paralyze so single target spell.

Geomancy. I don't see what's wrong with it, expect that it isn't faith based or fury and it's should be faith.

Jump. It just needs new abilites.

Draw Out. Again not being affected by fury or faith sucks.

Don't know much about ninjutsu so I am skipping it.

Lore. It's normal damage spell needs a boost, mainly change bio spells status procs to something else and quake/tornado just stronger overall.

Well I hate sing and dance so I don't want to say anything about it.

5)

Knifes. You should do something about them... And I don't know what.(Perhaps just remove them and make them new weapons other weapon classes)

Crossbows 100% stats is so bad idea, my god it's cheap, it's the most cheapest thing after faith rod. That's like magic stasis sword have 100% stop and damage in 1.3, it's just OP!

Pretty much all Items are well as far as I can see.

6) Make almost every spell magic evadable(inculding elemenal and draw out).

Squidgy · July 29, 2011, 07:09:25 pm

I play Wall of Text, UU1, Creature - Wall, Defender, When Wall of Text comes into play, all players skip their next 14 turns. 0/0

Seems okay. JP Mechanic needs a big look into, as does moving a few RSMs (Speed Save on the job with free +1 jump. HP Restore on the best skillset. Attack UP on a job which doesn't attack). Either cost revamps, or a simpler system. Having numerous 0 JP abilities per set would be a good start, and mostly lowering ability costs, compared to RSM. Maybe simplify it to 50-300 costs, and 50 per job unlocked, with a cap of 800. I think JP should mainly be used to deter using high-end supports (Speed Save, Damage Split, HP Restore, Equip Armor, Move-HP/MP Up) all on the same unit, and it does that... mostly, but certain skillsets cost way too much, and a few (Bard/Dancer, Steal Heart) cost way too little. More caster-friendly reactions, since they usually have 40 Br, able to proc based on Br*2? Or tweak Brave to range from 50-70 with the same ~30% less damage effect. Current Faith differences seem too high (and Flare too powerful since it bridges the gap), Magic being 75% more effective on 70 Fa than 40 Fa is way too big a gap. 50 base Faith puts it exactly in line with the Fury mod.

Depends which job. I'm against innates on really good jobs (Martial Arts). Also against innate 2S/2H because they're such a phys boost... rather make ninjas/samurai pick their preference, and the Katana/Ninja Swords nudge people towards using 2S/2H.

Lots have really restricted options it seems, but that's probably because I love Squire and Paladin, who can equip damn near anything. I have a few issues with equipment options. It'd be nice if the "weaker" jobs could have more equipment variety, and strong ones less, like Monk is now (except not having a head equip isn't much of a disability with Ribbons, and why Poles? They have no MA...) Shields are in a good place, worth Equip Shield, but some 2H options, or options which require using a non-Shield job, feel lacking. Shields for casters? ...Oracles/Sages?

I haven't got around to using half of them, but that's mostly 'cause I judge it too weak at a glance, or to hard to work into. Chemist has lotsa fluff. Archer has a few too many things to do, and everyone gravitates to Arm Aim and breaks. Monk is a swiss-army knife, and all skills are great. The mages have so many spells... sooo many spells. Black Magic is very one-dimensional, and outside of Flare, Summon brings tons more versatility along with no-ally (but bad for absorb teams). I avoid single-target spells since the AI prefers them over splash most the time and doesn't think of "zoning" enemy units away. Priest has a lot of fluff spells it seems... Wizard has too many spells which do the same thing; probably don't need 4 ranks of each spell. Time Magic really is about Haste/Slow in my view, and all the other stuff gets in the way. Summoner is okay, a few too many similar damage spells. Thief has tons of skills, but I only see Quickening and Steal Heart. Mediator's lacking in utility, feels like a non-Faith Oracle, but the Br/Fa altering is a good thing, the AI just goes crazy with Blackmail when I tried it though. Oracle has some horridly-used-by-AI spells: Berserk, Pray/Doubt Faith, could use something extra, more variety. I'm scared of Jump (Sleeping ally = dead ally). Draw Out seems weak (which is good), but lots of skills are too similar, so it feels bloated. Ninja... I haven't really tried since they require so much MP. I tried Doku out, and it got blocked 70% of the time, when the formula is 70+Sp% hit. Too many All-magics which are same power for Sage, and Mad Science feels out of place, as do Tornado and Quake... and Bio... but I like the spells, honest! Dance/Sing seem too simple.

Already ranted on stats, so let's do skills.
Dash/Repeating should use a PA*X formula, or something even gimpier.
X-Potion could use a boost, Ether doesn't really have a place with average mp costs (heal HP & MP?). Too many separate status cleansers... Regen Antidote? Transparent Eye Drop? Echo Grass... Faith? And probably combine Maiden Kiss/Soft, since you never see a petrified Frog.
Archer/Paladin MP costs get in the way easily, but Transfusion is worth 10 (or more). Grand Cross probably shouldn't hit self, as that forces it to be ele-absorb gimmick. Anti-Undead... not a fan.
Why Leg Aim when Hunting Bow is 100%, or just why do it ever? Greased Bolt... Oil takes so long to set up, and is nullified by the enemy wearing Fire Absorb. Merge Greased and Leg Aim. Execute, idk? Speed Save is OP.
Make lower rank spells higher range. Like... Haste 2 is range 3, Haste is range 5.
Turn one of the Cures into an Esuna "1", which is single target and far range. Make Reraise into MBarrier, insane cost and all. Give Regen a heal component, since the AI only uses it under 50%. Holy needs a niche, maybe ignore Faith, Unfaith, can raise Dead units, -all status, 0 CT?
Ditch a rank of Bolt/Ice/Fire to make room for some Dark element Bios and Tornado/Quake? Knock Flare back to 5 range, or even 4. I like mages having a place, but OHKO Flare/rank4bots shouldn't be it--should be variety in damage options. Also it was brought up forever ago that Sage Bio 2 is more suited for Frogging than Frog. Don't really care for Poison/Frog/Death... shrug.
Maybe an area 1 group of damage Summons with boosted damage (Ifrit, Odin, Zodiac) and the range tweak suggestion. I'd love an Esuna summon... either not curing Petrify/Frog/Berserk, or only curing Petrify/Frog/Berserk.
Thief set isn't getting much love 'cause Quickening outshines it, and JP costs. I'm leaning towards Quickening = self +Haste/Quick, unless the AI goes mad with Quick. Bad Luck always says 25%, and gets guarded... doesn't need a CT, just a flat out Ahriman Look of Devil would be cool, even the range considering Steal Heart, which needs an actual JP cost. Ruins feel out of place due to MP cost, except maybe Magic Ruin... Oracle or Sage Ruins fit more?
Mediator should lose Blackmail, as the AI loves it more than Mimic Daravon, but shouldn't. Range boost sounds good, and stat boost too... Speed based formula? Straight MA doesn't make sense to me. Persuade is terrible, spend a turn to rarely cancel on average half a turn... maybe 1v3 area Cancel Charging? Oh, and make Finger Guard block Steal Heart if possible.
Pray/Doubt Faith AI is crazy, tie in another stat to try and get them smart. PrayFaith + Shell? Doubt Faith + Berserk... + Blind? Paralyze/Sleep are so similar, DA is hard to cure, Sleep lasts longer... I'd say just axe Sleep really, and let Mediator do it, or make Sleep "Paralyze 2" and do both? Berserk/Beguile/Petrify are very similar... Beguile should be like a rank 1 spell, Petrify is fine, Doubt Faith with Berserk.
Earth Element on Pitfall/Ivy/Carve, little nerf of course. No Frog/Sleep/Petrify procs... Slow/DS/DM/DA/Oil/Poison.
Samurai... MP costs possible? Varying Drawout sizes, triple direction one, charge times? It's really bland right now.
Ninja Haku Korosu isn't practical, Sleep is worse than death usually. What about, requires Sleep, WP*PA, adds Sleep. Is that possible? Kagesougi seems only good for Magical Gun abuse, I'd say scrap it. What's with Doku no Kyoukai's hit?
Make All-targets have ranks for Scholar, like Rime and Shadow MA*11, but 10 CT. Bio/Tornado/Quake seem too Wizard, and Mad Science not mad enough. All-target Charm/Poison/Reraise? Or another Mad spell, All-Faith/Innocent 50/50 (maybe OP)? Switch Tornado/Quake/Bios with Poison/Frog/Death.
Bard/Dancer: could some songs/dances become ranged? Battle/Magic in a Samurai area being 100% hit, or a target unit? Current PA/MA/Speed performs are too random, and only the PA one is effective for insane scaling Martial Arts. Clone Nameless Song/Dance for Cheer/Slow, and make them only do Haste/Slow, while Nameless does the other stuff at 100% (Oil instead of Stop, Transparent instead of Reraise). Double the effect of Wiznaibus at twice the CT. Angel Song is OP, but that's fine with me. Witch Hunt probably also, if anyone ever uses it.

General views: Weapons being elemental shouldn't be seen as such a boon due to halfs/absorbs, and equip slots required to strengthen which could otherwise be used for a more practical +PA. MP isn't worth that much HP, except for Cross Helmet. Little tweaks to 2H/2S.

These should be the 100% proc weapons. I know they have high W-Ev to make up for the sucking, but it doesn't sense outside of the Gauche... down to 10%? Make Platina 10 WP. Allow 2S for all. Orichal 100% cast Natural Selection, Platina add Darkness 100%, Air add Slow 100% (OP?).
Ninja Swords should be same W-Ev as daggers, but more focused on damage than status. 2Swords seems too inaccessible to me, so I've only used Sasuke Knife. Keep Sasuke low W-Ev, or even 0. I'd say make Short Edge fire-based, and Hidden Knife Init: Transparent for flavor/encouraging mixing up hands? Iga/Koga are fine, I think, since they provide each other's Strengthen. Spell Edge +MA for who? Maybe if it had cast... Bio 2 also, or +2 MA, or both.
Blood Sword, so so good... can it get a debuff? -PA, -Speed, -MA, Always: Undead? Coral too weak, 10 WP. Sleep seems eclipsed by Ancient... Make Diamond Sword 11 WP, but only 2H. Ice Brand cast Rime Bolt at 50%? Rune Blade to +1 MA.
Defender 14 WP... has too much goodies. Save the Queen and Ragnarok don't get used 'cause nobody's thinking defense when building a Paladin with a Knight Sword. Don't think Chaos needs 0 WEv with its stats... maybe if it had +PA.
Koutetsu to 11 WP, allow 2H. Bizen Boat 2H. Kiyomori's stats are only useful if you Equip Shield, but don't focus on MA... will it ever happen? Muramasa 10 WP and 2H. Kikuichi... +1 Move katana? 8 WP and 5 W-Ev.
Axe's so bad for 2H. Can use Rune Blade + Aegis/Genji for +3 stats. Battle Axe 9 WP +3 PA, 15 W-Ev. Giant Axe 9 WP +1 MA, Strengthen Earth/Air/Water/Fire. Slasher +1 PA, Crit chance (just like the name better for crits).
Rods, Staves, Poles, and Books need to be stat buff items mostly, since casters rarely attack. A caster wep with no Str: Ele or +MA, or other perk is useless.
Ele Rods 7 WP. Poison Rod 8 WP, +1 MA or Strengthen Dark, Wizard Rod 0 WEv, 5 WP. Dragon Rod 11+ WP (and no Bahamut proc?).
Esuna Staff, don't see anyone giving up 2 MA so they can safely whack people out of sleep... but Wizard Staff is 2 WP? Raise Wizard to 7 WP, 0 WEv. Rainbow hasn't been tested, but has no chance of doing damage with all the absorb clothes, maybe Strengthen all to give it an upside, and less WP if too good. Gold Staff... 10 WP, 20 WEv, no Dispel. Right, Esuna Staff, make it Immune: DA/Sleep/Stop/Frog. Zeus Staff... null Lightning instead, way too many absorbs flying around.
Flail/Flame Whip/Morning Star 9 WP?
Stone Gun... -1 Speed instead of Init: Petrify, or lower damage, Forced 2H, 25% Add: Petrify. 4 Range for ele guns. Mythril Gun +1 Speed, 6 WP.
2S/2H work for crossbows. 25% procs. Night Killer 9 WP 2H, and Poison Bow 8 WP 2H/2S 25% Poison. Give Night Killer W-Ev?
Bows... I tried them once and didn't like it. Dunno really...
Books: the proc setup is kinda silly. Battle Dictionary, +2 PA allow 2H2S. Monster Dictionary, +1 PA/MA allow 2H. Papyrus Plate, +2 MA. Madlemgem, 8 WP, 50% Bio 3.
Javelin/Spear 2S? Mythril Spear MA... Maybe +3 or +4, since only Lancers can use. Dragon Whisker 13 WP.
Dunno 'bout sticks... no innate shield equip to make 2H's drawback matter.
FS Bag for Monks, no reason not to equip it. -1 Jump?
P Bag too terrible. -2 PA/MA instead?
H Bag too good imo, but nobody else seems to use it.

Diamond/Platina Shield are too low evade for 2 side-element nulls, 20/15 Ev. Crystal also rather low when Stop's so uncommon... 20/20 Ev.

Give Robes the Armor treatment (of just being better than clothes for the most part).

Barbuta 100 HP, Mythril Helm add Cancel Charm 120 HP, Cross Helmet 30 MP, Circlet 100 HP, Genji Helmet 135 HP, Grand Helmet 145 HP, Immune: Protect/Shell.
Golden Hairpin 30 MP 0 MA, Flash Hat 70 HP 10 MP, +1 PA/MA
Diamond Armor Absorb Holy 130 HP, Gold Armor Absorb Air 125 HP, Platina Armor 110 HP, Carabini Mail 110 HP, Crystal Mail Half Earth/Dark/Lightning, Reflect Mail Init: Innocent, Maximillian Absorb Dark 165 Immune: Haste.
Santa Outfit 90 HP, Black Costume 90 HP, Rubber Costume 90 HP.
Linen Robe 90 HP, Silk Robe 120/40 HP/MP, Wizard Robe 60/50 HP, Chameleon Robe 90/80 HP/MP, White Robe 90/60 HP/MP, Black Robe 75/75 HP/MP, Light Robe 75/60 HP/MP, Robe of Lords 120/80 HP Immune: Haste/Regen/Reraise/Protect/Shell.

Accessories... stat null ones still seem weak, maybe throw Half/Nulls on them?
Rubber Boots: Absorb Lightning.
Iron Boots Always: Slow instead of Don't Move.

EDIT: Tweaked Geo skill suggestions
EDIT: Lil' Finger Guard thing. Spear/Book tweak. Added Staves.
EDIT: Oh, maybe no robes on Squire if they get the "better" treatment.

CT5Holy · July 29, 2011, 08:42:57 pm

1. Balance seems like it's headed in the right direction.
2. The number of equips is good, but some of the equips quality-wise is meh.
5. The main problem with the current set of equipment are some of the weapons, most notably, Axes, Knives, Staves. Making all knives Two Swordable would be a good start. Hmm, Eternal mentioned using Melly's skills. 25% to proc Hellcry Punch/Shellbust Stab/etc on either Knives or Axes would be good. Knives that proc Swordskill should definitely not be Two Swordable. Blargh, 25% feels too high. Could it be closer to 15%? I think it'd be reasonable at 15%. Alternatively, 25% to proc Steal Weapon/Helmet/etc. That'd be about 10-15% to remove a piece of equipment. And for the record, 100% Slow on hit would be OP.
A one-handed Axe would likely see some use. So, keep Battle Axe as is, make Giant Axe strengthen all elements, and have Slasher be a one-handed axe? WP values for Axes could go up to compensate for rando-damage, as well.
White Staff, Rainbow Staff, Gold Staff need reworking. Well, maybe not Rainbow - it's fairly interesting, but not sure how much use it is, especially since we've never seen one. But definitely White and Gold Staff - these rely on the AI whacking someone with a staff, and then hoping that it'll trigger something. Rainbow is too easily hosed by the abundant elemental absorb equips out there. Granted, that could make it an interesting healing tool, but that is likely it. Poles are better for MA-based melee damage, anyway. At the very least, make it 100% Esuna, Cancel Positive Status on hit (for White and Gold, respectively), but I'd like to see something new. Don't have ideas for them right now.
Speaking of Poles, there's those three weird low WP poles lying around. I don't think we need to change them to make them competitive with other Poles - we have enough options for Poles as is. Of course, if there's a super interesting idea, I would like to see it, but Poles are not a high priority.
Bags! H Bag (halve all elements) is the only bag worth using right now.
Monster Dict: Choco Meteor + Human MA = meh. Due to lack of ideas, Dol's suggestion seems solid.
I was thinking if we've maybe slapped on too many status immunities to the heavy armor. We're making the tanky, high HP units even harder to deal with by giving them immunities to the most commonly used negative statuses. (mainly Don't Act and Sleep)

3. Current number of skills is good.
4. Varying AoEs would be nice for Draw Out, possibly Summon and/or Black Magic as well.
Hmm, make Ruins AoE, but only remove -2 PA/MA? Speed Ruin could probably stay single target. Magic Ruin could also get AoE. Spellbreaker would be nice if it also did some damage.
Persuade - either change what it does or hit% way up. It only delays an action, whereas Don't Act/Sleep delays multiple actions, and are simply more devastating (no evasion, no reactions, etc).
Squidgy's suggestions for Pray/Doubt Faith, Blind Rage seem good. Yin-Yang in general is a bit weak due to weapons with 100% add status and the ease of gaining immunity to status through equipment.
Kagesougi, Haku Korosu are very meh. Haku Korosu is too unlikely to be used, and Kagesougi's Blind on hit doesn't feel too useful. I'd rather get Shuriken/Ele-ton or simply spend my JP elsewhere.

6. I don't see Cancel: Charging being too useful because most mages have Short Charge. Mages also remain squishy, so killing them cancels their action and forces another enemy to spend a turn reviving the freshly killed mage. (this applies to Reflect, obviously)

The Damned · July 30, 2011, 05:14:28 am

("Well, I had expected this to be up by Friday, when I might have actually started in on stats. However, given this is up now and I'm still behind--curse you, Excel--on what I was doing with abilities, I might as well get this over with and destroy all your eyes now," he said...12 hours ago.)

I'd say I'll try to make this as short and as painless as possible, but I'm not in the habit of lying and, given that I'm not a politician, I don't exactly need the practice. However, I am a merciful being, at least comparative to the utter, uncaring construct that is the rest of this universal existence.

*places cyanide pill on the table*

Feel to take that before this is over.

I will say here before I begin that I'll be trying to put things in order of importance when it comes to numerated lists within categories. Also, like Dol, since I am nothing if not original, I will be making use of spoiler lists as well or else this would be even more unreadable.

I'll also probably be mentioning 1.3 a lot. It's not to snipe (mostly), but rather because this patch is supposed to overtake 1.3. "tournament"-wise. So the comparisons seem pretty inevitable. I just felt that I should mention that ahead of time:

Balance: It's going as smoothly as it can go given how much you've been changing and how much you've been doing basically by yourself. So let me again say congrats on that first and foremost.

As for "core" mechanics, I'm still somewhat uncomfortable that there is no Brave and Faith restrictions like the other tournaments, but given that it's mostly been okay without them sans Faith-based magic, which just got buffed, I wouldn't say to change that just yet outside of raising the floor of Faith to 50 or something. Similarly, I'm still wary of Fury. If anything, it seems like the "floor" for base damage needs to be lowered Brave-wise, but people still seem to die all the same without it being as much as an OHKO-fest as 1.3 is for the most part, so that too can remain for now.

Equips: This seems like a rather pointless and vague question considering you have a question specifically about which Items are too strong or too weak, but I figure I might as well answer.

So, "Yes. It does much better job at making most equipment usable than 1.3 ever did." Perhaps that's unfair given how much the equipment in 1.3 was still like its vanilla counterparts, but it's true never the less, especially since some of the more stupid weapons have been done away with like Don't Act-inflicting Spell Edge and Death Sentence-inflicting Assassin Dagger.

Skills: As above, this feels like a somewhat pointless and vague question, especially given that in this instance, you have not one but two different categories dedicated to answering this question. That said, like the above, I might as well give answer.

So, "Yes, unlike 1.3, skills are generally viable enough for all classes except one or maybe two, which I'll talk about below. Unlike equipment, it's a lot more fair to compare skills in 1.3 to skills here since 1.3 skills are far less like vanilla than 1.3 equipment."

Class and Skillset: Oh, boy. It begins:
- Paladin: It's funny how even after all the nerfs these have guys have taken--even that horrible Jump 2 that got reversed but is still on the stat chart--and all buffs (relatively) that other classes have gotten, they're still arguably top dog. Perhaps because of this, there's not really much more you could do to nerf them before you crippled them into worthlessness (again) and then someone else takes top spot anyway. I'd say they need three changes:
  
  1. HP: They have the most HP of all three classes that can innately equip Heavy Armor. I'd say that they could stand to lose 10 HP (but probably not more than that), though I'd probably say that just because they can innately Equip Armor anyway.
  
  2. PA: They have almost as much PA as Monks, which they don't really need. They can stand to lose a PA point, especially if you can make it so that either the female Paladin doesn't lose that PA or the female Paladin actually gains a PA point. I'm not sure the latter is possible, though, so female Paladins are likely to remain good only for Dance like on pokeytax's Slow Dance team (that everyone bitched about).
  
  3. Weapons: There's really no good reason that Paladins can equip Katana innately, especially given Samurai's...lackluster equipment options. Paladins, IMO, need to lose the ability to equip Katana. Maybe they can gain the ability to equip Flails to "compensate", but more than anything (when talking about equipment), I think they need to lose the ability innately use Katana.
  
  I honestly don't think that Paladin could lose much more before it just starts to become crappy.
- Thief: Ah, this class is similarly still problematic even though, unlike 1.3, it doesn't have that pesky Innate Concentrate. Like Paladin, I'd say they need at least three changes stat-wise:
  
  1. vs. Ninja: Thief is presently a lot better than Ninja at using Ninjutsu than Ninja are given how much better its stats are than Ninja. The only advantages Ninja has over Thief are more MP & more MA, which are pretty much moot given both of their skill-sets & how Ninja has only 5 more MP, and innate Two Swords, which is surprisingly not that huge of an advantage given how well you've balanced equipment, including getting rid of the stupidity that was Don't Act Spell Edge. This needs to change, which is primarily the reason for these changes before we start talking about skills in the section below.
  
  2. The Fastest Thing Alive: I never thought I'd say this, but there's really no reason that Ninja isn't the fastest class or, rather, that Thief is the fastest class, especially when Thief currently has Quickening. I'd argue that Ninja and Thief should trade speeds, but I'd be equally fine if Thief just dropped to 9 without Ninja going up to 10.
  
  3. HP: It seems really odd that Thief would have so much HP for both the fastest class and physical class with the most distance advantage (between Steal Heart and the Ruins, though more Steal Heart) this side of Archer. They can probably stand to lose at least 10 HP if not more, especially since they have Innate Flee now.
  
  4. PA: They probably need to lose a point of PA, if only on the male side.
  
  They could maybe switch Jump stats with Ninja as well, but that's hardly vital. My complaints about their skill set will likely be much longer unfortunately.
- Squire: Never thought that I'd complain about this class, but like Thief, it pretty much obviates another class when it comes using its Primary better in most cases without really having to sacrifice anything, in this case Geomancer:
  
  1. Move: There's really no reason that they should have 4 Move, though arguably it's a bad thing a lot of the time. Still, I'd lessen their Move to 3.
  
  2. Gender Inequality: Males need to lose a point of PA and females need to lose a point of MA. I'm tempted to say two points of MA, but then Ultima gets screwed even more and no one has even really bothered using it after its needed nerf when it was blowing up everything four or five updates ago.
  
  3. HP: I'd drop their HP by 10. The only way I'd drop their HP down by 20 (or more) was if they could suddenly Equip Armor innately (in which case they'd likely need other stats nerfs).
  
  4. MP: I want to say that this "deserves" a drop as well, but I think it's fine where it is, if only because Ultima already has a lot going against it with the other changes. In fact, with the MA drop, I'd even go as far to say to maybe switch it and Chemist's MP values, but that seems perhaps much as well. So I'd say to leave this as it is right now, actually.
  
  I feel like I should point out something about Squire's equipment, but that's more with the equipment itself than Squire's access to it (for the most part), so it can wait.
- Mediator: Heh, almost forgot about these poor bastards, probably because no one has used them in a while. Unlike the three above classes, these guys need a lot of change because they're easily the weakest class. They need significant buffs:
  
  1. MA: It's pretty damn sad that Chemist, of all classes, can use their primary skill set of Talk Skill better than Mediators can; I'm really not sure why Chemist has that much MP and MA in the first place, but we'll get to that. Anyway, I'd argue that Mediators need at least 2 more MA, maybe even 3. 2 seems like a more reasonable suggestion at present, though.
  
  2. Better Innate: Currently, Mediator is the ONLY class with an Innate that's completely useless. Monster Talk has absolutely no value at present considering monsters are still not around (yet) and so a class with what might otherwise be a useful (if still likely mediocre) Innate ends up basically having nothing even though it's weaker than every other class. As such, people have been suggesting Magic Defend Up Innate, which I can somewhat see. For Embargo, I've currently been toying around with the idea of them having Defend Up Innate, so I'd be fine with that as well. They obviously shouldn't have both, though, and them having Unyielding Innate would just step on Mime's already tender toes. Additionally, you can't give them a reaction innately and there's really not a Movement that would really help them unless you wanted to be bold and give them innate Move-HP Up, which is..."controversial", but I doubt it would make them OP. Regardless, they need a better innate then what they currently have, even if Monster Talk might be useful eventually.
  
  3. HP: Even with one of the above innates, Mediators will still need more of it. +10 HP should be enough.
  
  I'm tempted to say that they should maybe get Poles when it comes to equipment, but enough people have those currently. They could maybe get Robes, though? I mean, they're basically a magical class as it is....
- Monk: I'd actually say you've done a pretty good job of reigning them in stat-wise. That said, I think they could maybe stand to lose a PA point if Paladins are losing one. Not really as huge a deal as what's actually still a problematic about them. Other than that, the Jump of 4 is still a bit odd, but I suppose it's "sensible", especially given the low (read: necessarily non-existent) Vertical tolerance of their abilities still. So, again, it's of low importance. However, they should probably lose a point of Speed considering how hard they still (can) hit. I'm only bringing them up "this soon" as a contrast to....
- Mime: Mimes honestly seem like they need (slightly) more HP. Most the time, they're still getting 2HKO or even OHKO'd despite Unyielding by teams that can do serious damage, even though they have no way of ever getting M-EV or more physical evasion (sans Innate Awareness, which is probably not worth it). They'll likely need some type of boost anyway since people are (rightfully) asking for Elemental (and thus Counter Flood) be nerfed. Female Mimes seem like they need (a lot) more HP given how even teams that use magic-Miming tend to use male Mimes just because of the rather marked HP gap being much larger than any other male/female class HP gap. I suppose males Mimes because they benefit more from innate Martial Arts.
- Ninja: As said above, they're very much outclassed by Thief, though that has more to do with Thief being "overpowered" than Ninja being "underpowered" at present. I say they need slightly more HP (no more than 10) and maybe should become the fastest/only class with 10 Speed. However, if they gained Speed, then they might need to take a PA-drop due to innate Two Swords, even though not all Ninja Blades/Swords/Turtles/whatever can even be used with Two Swords any more (as it should be, IMO). But, yeah, they need "something" compared to Thief.
- Samurai: Speaking of Eastern classes that I never though I'd advocate for, Samurai really has pitifully low HP for an Heavy Armor class, especially with all the (necessary) nerfs that Draw Out has taken. They could stand to have at least 10 more HP I'd say. I'd also argue that their C-EV should become 10 because they're also the only Heavy Armor class that can't equip Shields. That said, I can't say I really agree with giving them "back" Two Hands innately like some others are suggesting, especially given the PA hit they'd have to take.
- Geomancer: While rather inferior to Squire using their own skill set at present, I don't think they need much in the way of buffs if Squire gets nerfed. They could perhaps get the 4 move that people are clamoring for Squire to lose, but only if Elemental gets its range reduced by one.
- Chemist: Outside of its HP, for some reason it seems like it and Mediator have reversed stats. I'm not really sure why it has so much MP or MA considering it doesn't use either for its own class and it seems like it should be at 9 Speed instead of Mediator, especially since "Item Bots" pretty much always use Speed Save at present anyway. Honestly, just switching Mediator's and Chemist's current stats outside of HP would probably solve at least half of what I talked about under Mediator above.
- Lancers: It's still quite the odd class. It's not overpowered outside of maybe the ease of 2-range, Two Hands-destruction, but that still requires quite a bit of sacrifice. However, it might need a slight nerfs to HP and PA with all the other suggestions I'm offering up for other classes. That said, to compensate, perhaps allow it to wear Robes? It's the only armored class that can't and it's not like it'd break anything, especially with as horrible MA as Lancer has.
- Priest: It seems like it could stand to lose an MA point, though if that's the case, then it should probably trade MP values with Wizard. Not much else is "wrong" about its values, though.
- Wizard: See above. Nothing really wrong with Wizard stat-wise.
- Time Mage: It doesn't really need anything, but I could maybe see it getting slightly more C-EV since it fits with the whole "speed" motif. Not really necessary, though.
- Summoner: It could maybe use more HP, but I don't necessarily agree with that as Summon Magic is now. It could maybe use slightly less MA, though I'd rather lessen Summon Magic than the Summoner.
- Oracle: I'm not really sure. I've always liked Oracle, so I feel like anything I say here is especially biased, but I feel like they could use a bit more MA (at the expense of someone else like Scholar or Time Mage or Priest or even Summoner). Then again, they're already devastating enough with Poles. Then again, Scholars also gets Poles innately and have two more MA currently, so....
- Scholar: The females could stand to lose one MA. The males could stand to have one more if it's possible to do both at the same time. Otherwise, the females should take precedence and then stat-wise the class would be fine. Other than that, perhaps lose the ability to equip Poles and gain the ability to equip Shields?
- Archer: Like Oracle, I feel like anything positive I say here might be utter bias, so I'll just say that I think they're fine, stat-wise. They could maybe use more MA, but female Archers have 6 MA already, so, eh.
- Bard & Dancer: These are completely fine. It's nice to see that they're (physically) credible threats unlike 1.3, even if they still have better things to do, as it should be.
Sadly, that was probably the shorter part of the two:
Yo dawg, I heard you like reading, so I put spoilers in your spoilers so you can read while you read.

...Anyway, to help save what little space I'll probably have left, I'll just say here that all Equip X abilities sans Equip Shield and Equip Armor should probably lose 50-100 JP.
- Mimic, Song & Dance: Might as well put these three skill sets together and get this albatross out of the way since these three classes greatly benefit from each other.
  
  1. Mimes: Despite having no actual skill of their own, they probably need to not be able to Mimic the stat-boosting songs and, arguably, any stat-boosting abilities. I say this even with that "stat-boost limitation" hack supposedly floating around. I don't think they need any other "restrictions" on their Mimic ability at present, though.
  
  2. Life Song: Should maybe become 5 CT, but that's iffy.
  
  3. Angel Song: Should maybe become 5 CT, but that's mostly to be symmetric to Life Song. Might want it to restore less MP, though, especially given the it restores as almost as much MP as Flare takes.
  
  4. Cheer Song, Battle Song & Magic Song: Need to not be subject to Mimic.
  
  5. Wiznaibus: It should probably becomes 5 CT given how its unevadeable and most of what makes it "backfire", i.e. stat-boosting reactions, needs to be fixed anyway. Also, can we just call it "With Knives" already? The Engrish being maintained on this name bugs me, especially when things like "Oberisk" were fixed--to "Obelisk"--forever ago.
  
  6. Witch Hunt: The only reason I can see this becoming 5 CT is purely symmetry since, frankly, it sucks. I don't think anyone has ever used it, especially given how one Angel Song is equal to about two of these and how usable Bards & MP Restore actually are now.
  
  7. Slow Dance, Polka Polka & Disillusion: Need to not be subject to Mimic.
  
  8. Last Dance: Might need to be not subject to Mimic, but given that it's already only 34%, it's difficult to tell. Maybe leave it alone for now.
  
  9. Brave Up & Faith Up: Could at least take a 50 JP reduction, if not 100 JP reduction.
  
  Sadly, Lancer couldn't make it to this party (yet).
- Steal: Thief arguably has the most problematic individual skillset...despite the fact that it's only because of one skill, maybe two skills, that is/are the problem.
  
  1. Quickening: Needs to die in the strongest of fires. Giving it CT like some people suggest will not ultimately help and giving it more MP would arguably make the AI less dumb about using it; while that would normally be good, given that it's mostly AI stupidity that muzzles this broken thing.... So, yeah, it just needs to die.
  
  2. Steal Heart: As much as I appreciate you not being as heterosexist as vanilla or 1.3 were, the fact that Steal Heart works on both genders now makes it OP IMO. At the very least, it completely screws over Oracle's Beguile, which unlike Steal Heart, relies on Faith, takes MP, takes CT, is evadable, is subject to Reflect AND Counter Magic & Counter Flood. So, yeah. Steal Heart either needs to go back to affecting only the opposite sex or needs to get some heavy debuffs to its current form, like being subject to Counter Flood and costing MP or having CT. Hell, arguably, the heterosexual version of it could use some of those same restrictions.
  
  3. Bad Luck: As someone said, it probably needs to lose Oil for Poison. Personally, I'd also like to see it lose Dead for...something else.
  
  4. Spellbreaker: There's really no reason this should be subject to Counter Flood, of all things. Counter Magic, yes. Counter Flood, no.
  
  5. Steal Accessory: Similarly, there's no reason this should be subject to Counter Flood still. I also still argue that it shouldn't be subject to evade, though of course the X value would have to be lowered at least to 45 or even 40. Still, considering how much JP it costs, that's the least you could do.
  
  Funny how only two things make this class really obnoxious while two of its other skills are so underpowered as to be never worth using.
  
  I'm tempted to say that the Ruins shouldn't be subject to Counter Flood, but that's a bit much. I'm also tempted to say that Heretic should cost more MP, but literally no one has ever used it at all. I'm trying to remedy that with the new Strider, who I hope will get to do something other than Katon idiotically and then die.
- Lore: Like Steal, it manages to be problematic only due to a few skills in its skill set, while the others are rather...underwhelming.
  
  1. Natural Selection, Rime Bolt, Earth Dragon, Thunder Flare & Shadow Shade: These need to be subject to M-EV. That way people who choose to (ab)use them with whatever would have to choose between either having M-EV or always getting hit by Lore to activate and/or absorb whatever. Should that happen, I would say that these could go back to being just 5 CT.
  
  2. Tornado & Quake: These both still need a boost. They, at the very least, need a JP drop of at least 50 and to not be evadable. It's pretty absurd Quake costs more than twice the JP of Titan despite the fact that Quake does less damage, costs more MP & can be evaded (even before Float). They probably both need a power boost, though I'm not sure that would help Tornado given how prevalent Wind absorb is due to Magic Ring....
  
  I feel something should be done with the Bio spells, but I'm not sure what, especially since unlike Mad Science and Tornado & Quake, people actually use the Bio spells somewhat; I think only two people have used Mad Science, one of them being me. Bio 3 could maybe stand to lose 50 JP, though, since Undead status is hardly as crippling as Frog (usually).
- Elemental: Ah, Geomancy. Still such a SOB. Elemental would probably be "fixed" if it was subject to M-EV and if the Y value of 4 was lowered to 1. Perhaps making it so that all of Elemental actually have an element would be useful, but that doesn't really solve much (and, in fact, would probably make the AI even more stupid with Elemental); so I can endorse that, at least until we see how the other changes affect it. It could also probably stand a decrease in range, especially since Counter Flood gives free Elemental actions anyway regardless of the range.
- Punch Art: Ah, Punch Art. Still such a SOB. As someone pointed out recently, the problem with Punch Art is still how utterly quadratic all its formulas are. So even without the stupidity that was pre-nerf Martial Arts, it still naturally benefits from PA-raising more than any other class. While that should maybe still be the case ultimately, it needs to be scaled back...somehow.
  
  1. Earth Slash: Even before the quadratic weakening, I'd argue that Earth Slash's JP needs to be slightly cheaper given how easy it is to absorb or cancel Earth in ARENA.
  
  2. Secret Fist: Could similarly probably use slightly less JP. Death Sentence is pretty crappy, really, and Monks have middling MA. That it could be used on mage classes means that said classes would have to get close, which usually leads to them getting brutally murdered, so that seems fine.
  
  3. Stigma Magic: I'd argue that this needs to go up to 150 JP since it still cures the exact same thing as Esuna and Esuna usually ends up only targeting one unit in ARENA/tournaments anyway.
  
  4. Revive: I never thought I'd argue for it this, but it seems like its Y value could stand to go up a bit, even if it that meant you'd have to make it cost MP. I'd argue that all revival techniques should be costing MP, though.
  
  5. HP Restore: I'd argue this should go up at least 50 JP just because of how horribly it undermines efforts even more than Raise 2 if it goes off. It's such a difficult ability to balance, really, given it's necessary that it remain Critical-only and I guess it should stick around; admittedly, I've always hated this thing, though.
  
  I just want to take this particular time to say thanks for making the changes to Chakra and Stigma Magic that I asked for pre-130. I feel it's already helped balance them, especially with regards to Chakra.
- Draw Out: Ah, Draw Out. Still such yadda yadda.
  
  1. Murasame: This is still too strong, IMO. Its Y value needs to be lowered to 7 or, at least, 9. Perhaps compromise at a Y value of 8?
  
  2. Kiyomori: This could stand to become the Draw Out with the cheapest JP, though 150 JP is probably more appropriate than 100 JP. I'm still unsure how much that would help, though.
  
  3. Two Hands: This could honestly probably be lowered to 500 JP and still be fine. It shouldn't be less than that, though, at least as long it remains a straight 2x multiplier, which is why I'm hesitant to give it to Samurai innately.
  
  The Y values for all Draw Out might need to still lessened slightly, but between the fact that it's already been lessened, much of it can be absorbed AND it's magically evadable, it's already much better than it was in 1.3.
- Summon Magic: While Summoner is a class close to my heart, it's always been kinda of problematic. First and foremost, let me say this: Summon Magic "needs" to still ignore M-EV because, really, some type of attack magic does. Otherwise, Paladin (and any class that can equip a Shield innately) already become a lot more powerful than they already are:
  
  1. Normalize the JP: Is there really any reason that Moogle & the elemental trio have their such odd values from vanilla even though they've been buffed and aren't tiered? Please bring them all up by 20.
  
  2. Titan: There's no reason why it should do so much damage and be both so cheap in both terms of MP & CT. It needs to be scaled down to level of Shiva, Ifrit & Ramuh at least, which themselves might need scaling back.
  
  3. Carbunkle: On the other hand, needs to cost less JP-wise, even if that would cause a decrease in it elsewhere. Literally no one has ever used it.
  
  4. Bahamut, Cyclops & Zodiac: Bahamut pretty much obviates the latter two as it is now and Cyclops obviates Zodiac in most cases given how little height differences, especially in the targeting itself, usually matter given the relative flatness of most FFT maps. Bahamut just needs to be weakened and/or cost more (JP). Zodiac could maybe become Holy or become AoE 3 (though then it would need to cost more JP) like Salamander and Leviathan are. Cyclops would I guess be fine if those two are changed since Blind is different, if underwhelming and unreliable. I'm really not sure how to balance these given the set as a whole.
  
  The set as a whole seems like, with Elemental, Punch Art & Draw Out, it might overall need slightly less power. However, given that literally almost half of it hasn't really ever been used, it's difficult to say. I'm still not comfortable with Odin's general existence, but, eh; I'm still the only person to ever be hit by it as well, so....
- White Magic: Yes, I'd actually say this is more problematic than Wizard Flaring everything to death at the moment, though it's more its revival skills than anything else....
  
  1. Raise & Raise 2: These need to cost more MP. It's pretty absurd that these can easily hit at 100% and restore so much HP for so little a cost, especially from such a distance now. The latest match against Red World shows how easily abusive it is with Move-MP Up. And the fact they both screw over Undead so easily just seems like additional evidence that they need to cost more than they do.
  
  2. Cure, Cure 2, Cure 3 & Cure 4: These also arguably need to cost more MP and/or JP given how cheap yet powerful they are. They're not nearly as bad as the Raise spells are, though.
  
  3. Protect 2, Shell 2 & Wall: I'd argue these could cost slightly less JP given how stupid the AI is about using them. I'm unsure. However, I could see Protect 2 and Shell 2 getting a decrease in JP before Wall at least.
  
  4. Esuna: I'm torn between Stigma Magic being arguably still much better than it & asking for it to be slightly cheaper (in JP) because of that and arguing that it heals too many damn statuses, especially with Remedy dead and Yin-Yang Magic & Talk Skill so weak, which would necessitate an increase in cost. Yeah. Something here needs to be changed. I'm just not sure what, though I'll go into that under Miscellany I guess.
  
  Should the Raise and Cure spells have their costs boosted, then I'd say that Fairy and Moogle would also need boosted costs.
- Black Magic: Might as well get these guys as out of the way if I just finished with Priest.
  
  1. Flare: What? You thought I was going to do some Solar Flare reference because of how abusive this spell has become? Nah. Too obvious. Anyway, this needs less power so it isn't as "herp derp OHKO" as it's been throughout all of 130 Beta so far, even on heavy armor classes. However, it should still be stronger than strengthened Holy despite my complaint about that earlier.
  
  2. Poison: This needs to cost less JP, especially if you allow Kiyomori to have less JP considering that unlike Kiyomori Poison both depends on Faith & can be evaded.
  
  3. Death: I still say this is nigh-useless, especially Flare is now a 100% accurate version of it. However, given that zxpr0jk has managed to actually hit people with it, unlike me, I'm not sure if should die just yet.... It probably should, though.
  
  4. Counter Magic: For something so ridiculously easy to have backfire outside and even because of absorption strategies (which is pretty the only thing it would be used for), it is absurdly expensive. I'd lower it to 400 JP, 450 JP max.
  
  The fourth level spells and Flare should continue to ignore magical evasion; the same with Frog.
- Talk Skill: And now we start to get to the skill sets that are prioritized for weakness rather than power.
  
  1. Push to Talk: As Dol pointed out, pretty much all of Talk Skill probably could stand to use (slightly) larger Y values outside of maybe Mimic Daravon and maybe Persuade, even if Mediator's MA is increased as it should be. Upping Persuade would probably fine, though.
  
  2. Threaten & Solution: I'd actually argue that these should be reduced to only subtract 20, rather than 25, Brave and Faith respectively. 25 is a bit much, even if the AI tends not to use them (intelligently).
  
  3. Death Sentence: This probably needs its JP decreased between how the AI ignores Death Sentenced units and how easy it is for most teams to "sandbag".
  
  4. Finger Guard: It should be at most 50 JP. I can't agree that it should be free considering that seems like it would screw over Mediator even more than Mediator already is. However, Finger Guard is certainly not worth 100 JP, at least right now.
  
  As someone who likes status (that isn't named Haste or Slow) more than most, it's rather disappointing that the two classes with the weakest skill sets in ARENA are the status-based ones even with all the improvements that ARENA has made overall. So that brings us to....
- Yin-Yang Magic: Poor Oracle. Ignored in vanilla. Ignored in 1.3. Still stuck only bashing people's face in with Poles and using only Paralyze even in ARENA. It has massive problems even before more usable equipment with status immunity comes into play:
  
  1. Paralyze: This is arguably an overpowered spell despite the fact it's pretty much the only reason to use Oracle right now since if you want to a physical mage, then female Scholars trump Oracle's only other strong suit. It obviates Mediator's Blackmail even with the low-Faith problems and basically acts like Time Mage's Stop...if Time Mage's Stop ever got used more than rarely & actually could hit things. At the very least, its JP needs to double to 200 JP and its rate of hit probably needs to lower at least slightly. I'd even argue that it should become single-target only given how devastating Don't Act is, but that might be a much, especially if Mediator's Blackmail gets better.
  
  2. Counter Flood and You: As with Spellbreaker and a few other things, there's really no reason that almost of all Yin-Yang Magic, of which only one spell does damage, should trigger Counter Flood. Life Drain? Of course. The more debilitating spells like Paralyze, Sleep and Petrify? Probably. The things that are nigh useless like Blind, Blind Rage, Silence Song and Dispel Magic? Uh...no.
  
  3. Silence Song: There's no way in hell this deserves to cost 170 JP considering how a) easy it is guard against Silence, b) cheap Echo Grass & other solutions are, c) it can be reflected and d) at least of couple other skills cause Silence alongside other statuses yet barely cost more like Doku no Kyoukai & Bad Luck; that Nameless Dance causes Silence among other things from anywhere on the map for 100 JP is just an extra kick to the groin. It needs to cost 100 JP tops and not trigger Counter Flood and then it might see some use. Might. Given how pretty much any class that's vulnerable to Silence wears something to negate it....
  
  4. Dispel Magic: This should be 200 JP tops. Arguably even 100 JP tops. That Y value needs to be above 200 at least, especially given the MP it costs, which should also probably be halved. At the very least, there's no way in hell that this should be triggering Counter Flood since at most it's a 1 for 1 spell that just resets positive status...if it hits.
  
  5. Blind: I tempted to say to up this to 1.3 standards where it has less Y value but it hits an AoE of 2. However, that goes back to screwing over Cyclops and outside of triggering Counter Flood, I think it's relatively fine. Still might want to give it slightly less of a Y value, though, given the lack of Concentrate.
  
  6. Spell Absorb: This needs to not trigger Counter Flood. Otherwise, it's fine. Maybe make it magically evadable, but eh. This could also potentially just make it absorb less MP instead.
  
  7. Life Drain: I'm not seeing why this, however, isn't subject to magical evade considering it's damage and healing all in one. (And yet next to one ever uses it for some reason.) It could potentially make it cost less JP if you made it absorb less HP, i.e. 25% considering the change to Demi.
  
  8. Doubt Faith & Pray Faith: The AI seems pretty stupid about these. I could see dropping to 150 JP or even 100 JP just because of that, though 150 JP is probably "safer".
  
  9. Zombie: This is relatively fine considering that nothing really heals it outside of Holy Water, it's permanent and Counter Flood will inevitably see a nerf. So, I could see this staying as it is I guess, at least if nothing else ends up curing it.
  
  10. Blind Rage: It needs to be slightly more likely to hit, cost less JP and maybe not be subject to Counter Flood given how easily it backfires.
  
  11. Petrify: Same argument for Petrify as for Blind Rage except that it should stay subject to Counter Flood even if it's rather easily healed. Might want to make it quicker CT-wise because of that.
  
  12. Beguile: Even before the comparisons to Steal Heart, this neds to be quicker in CT, cost less MP, be slightly more likely to hit and not trigger Counter Flood. It could maybe take a slight JP dip by 50, but it probably should not take more than that.
  
  13. Absorb Used MP: Maybe make it 150 JP rather than 200 JP, especially since MP Restore is quite (ab)usable now? People have been using it somewhat effectively, so it's not exactly in dire straits.
  
  I'm not sure what to say about Sleep. On the one hand, it has to compete with the instant speed of Mimic Daravon, Faith-values and being damn slow for something that's rather easily cured half of the time. On the other hand, its AoE plus new range is more than decent with the overall magic boost, Sleep lasts forever if not disturbed and the AI is rather...stupid about how it wakes up the Sleeping at times. Something probably needs to happen to it, but I'm not sure what; it should remain vulnerable to Counter Flood, though.
- Jump: Vertical Jumps need a sharp decline in JP cost. No reason to not just let them progress by 50, which means that Vertical Jump 8 would end up as 350 JP instead of the 900 JP abomination it is now. I've argued before that Ignore Height could stand to cost slightly less and I still somewhat believe that, but I say to leave it is for now.
- Item: As ever, it's a pain in the ass considering how "weak" yet game-changing it is. If it depended on at least some type of stat, it would be at lot easier to deal with.
  
  1. Throw Item: I'd argue that its range needs to decrease to 3, but you know how much I hate Item, so this is admittedly really biased on my part.
  
  2. Hi-Ether: This probably does need to be lowered to 60 MP, especially considering how much damage Flare does now and the extra range of things and how easy it is to gain back MP already.
  
  3. Holy Water: It should probably only be 100 JP even if not another Zombie-curing ability should arise.
  
  4. Auto-Potion: It probably needs an increase in power to be worth that much JP. Alternately, you could probably just lower the JP, though it would still probably need a (lower) increase in power.
  
  5. Maintenance: I'd still argue that this should be 50 JP tops given how defeatist is and given that the equipment break abilities still do damage to a Maintenance user. Alternately, it would probably need a JP increase if you used Xifanie's hack that allowed it ignore/preserve stat-stuff.
  
  Ugh, I feel dirty advocating for Chemist.
- Chivalry: It's rather telling that I feel Paladin's skill set is quite weak, but the class itself remains such a problem.
  
  1. Consecration: I can see why this skill exists thematically, but it's pretty unfair/pointless. I'll talk about that under Items when I get to Cursed Ring, though.
  
  2. Dia: This needs less range, to do less damage and maybe cost more JP, but otherwise I'm not to sure. It might just need to die considering how useless it is to Paladins yet utterly abusable by pretty much any mage class.
  
  3. Grand Cross: Grand Cross is fine, IMO. It could maybe use less Vertical, but considering that it basically limits usable equipment and abilities unless you want to keep smacking yourself in the face and/or deal with Blindness for the rest of match, I feel it's relatively well-balanced, especially compared to some other absorb plans.
  
  4. Transfusion: This should arguably cost less JP or MP (as in 8), but otherwise, I'm unsure since it tends to restore a lot when people do use it and it only targets allies (as maybe it should considering the cost).[/bold abuse]
  
  I'm tempted to argue that Nurse should only be 8 MP, but 33% HP plus Defending is also a lot. Maybe if it was 25% HP, but then arguably 8 would be too much. Meh. Paladins hardly need the help, so you could probably leave that alone.
- Snipe: Considering you've said multiple times how you're already fixing Hawk's Eye, I won't talk about that at all here.
  
  1. Speed Save: Like Quickening, it needs to die in a fire. Unlike Quickening, it can maybe be saved if that +CT version of it has been hacked already instead. I certainly mind it dying for a while if that's not done yet/until that's done, though....
  
  2. Projectile Guard: This could stand to lose at least 50 JP. Maybe 100 JP, but that seems a bit too inexpensive.
  
  3. Greased Bolt: Greased Lightning should also cost less JP considering how inaccurate it is, how easily Oil can backfire and how much the AI loves to whore it despite that, maybe because they think it makes them cool.
  
  I'll talk about Seal Evil around Cursed Ring's area.
- Basic Skill: I'm...really not sure about this skill set. I always think it's sub-par and then someone, like CT5Holy, ends up using something abusive about it.
  
  1. Throw Stone: Probably needs its Y value lowered and to become physically evadable.
  
  2. Dash: Dash will probably need to become not quadratic if Punch Art does. It surprisingly hasn't been problematic otherwise, though.
  
  3. Cheer Up: Cheer Up probably needs to be more accurate than it is now, especially with the MA-hit that Squires are likely to take.
  
  4. Wish: Speaking of accuracy, there's NO reason this should have less than an always 100% hit rate considering how little it restores and considering it has no range. I know that it shouldn't (come close) to rivaling Monk's Revive, but geez, this thing sucks. I'd say it's surprising the people use it, but considering how desperate people are for any type of revival....
  
  5. Accumulate: This should probably cost MP, but though not as much as 10 MP. Also, it should maybe not be subject to Mimic.
  
  I'm really not sure what to do with Ultima, especially with the MA-hit they'll be taking. I'll probably talk about it under the Miscellany section.
- Time Magic & Ninjutsu: The two skill sets that I'd say are completely fine more or less. However, I'm less sure about Time Magic than Ninjutsu given the no one has used the new Demis and the new Lich yet; Stop could also possibly use a slightly buff. As for Ninja, the only issue at present is that Two Swords could probably stand to be cheaper and Kagesougi could maybe be slightly stronger given it has to compete with Grand Cross.

I'm...gonna split this up considering it's 20 pages in WORD.

Resigned EDIT (07/30/2011 - 2:21 A.M.): I should probably put spaces in between some of this...which defeats the point of manually doing a list. Sigh.

Eye Drop EDIT (07/30/2011 - 2:45 A.M.): There. After 25 minutes, that's (probably) more readable. Not that this is saying much. I just need to fix the second half now and not make as many manual screw-ups....

Limited EDITion (07/30/2011 - 5:33 P.M.): Now that I'm far more awake than I was after typing this (which isn't saying much, perhaps), I've fixed most if not all typos--mostly omissions as per usual--and added some clarifications while getting rid of some redundancies. Now to do it for the second half...again.

The Damned · July 30, 2011, 05:16:47 am

(That I have to double post this.... -_-)

5. Items: Oh, dear Zomalla. We're finally here. These should be much quicker, especially given that there's that new individual weapon proc spreadsheet or whatever:

1. Knives: I'd actually say they're fine or, at least untested and better than Staves. They just need more WP.

2. Ninja Blades: They are pretty much fine outside of Short Edge, whose Oil proc should probably be 50+%.

3. Swords: They are largely fine:

1. Blood Sword: Needs to have less WP. Probably shouldn't drip below 8 WP.

2. Sleep Sword: I'm not sure why it can be Two-Sworded, but I guess its otherwise fine.

3. Platinum Sword & Ice Brand: Either Ice Brand needs its WP lowered to 12 or Platinum Sword needs its WP increased to 15. The former is preferable to me given the Ice 2 proc and the fact that Platinum Sword could still be used with a Shield.

Coral Sword seems a bit weird, but I think that's more because it's pretty much impossible to build a Water absorb team, at least if you want healing AoE (or any form of elemental healing that isn't a physical attack since literally the only Water technique that can target allies is Suiton).

4. Knight Swords: These too are fine, though I'd argue that Chaos Blade should at least have some W-EV. Next to no one has used it and I doubt anything under 10% would break the thing; 5% W-EV is probably best for now, though.

5. Katana: Bizen Boat should be raised to at least 12 WP. Otherwise, these are fine.

6. Axes: All need at least a WP boost, especially Giant Axe. The Battle Axe's Critical Hit proc would need to be lessened though. How much damage is that Critical Hit supposed to inflict anyway?

7. Rods: They could probably all use more WP, especially since Two Swords doesn't really matter to any of these outside of Wizard Rod and maybe Dragon Rod. It doesn't really help that Two Swords is so expensive right now either, though I'd imagine that would help pretty much every other weapon that can be dual-wielded before it helped Rods.

8. Staves: These still kind of suck, really; not that I blame you--they're really difficult to make useful, especially in terms of the AI. At least, Mace of Zeus is usable this time around though. They could also use WP boosts (outside of maybe Rainbow Staff) and the AI is too stupid to use White Staff & Gold Staff as they should be used; I guess you could buff their proc rate up to 100% since that's what I'm doing for Embargo, but my Staves are PA-based (currently) and I've hardly tested them with the AI, so.... But, yeah, Staves need some type of work since they tie with Axes as the worst weapon class right now.

9. Flails: Flails are largely fine, though that's mostly because they can't be evaded. Scorpion Tail seems like it needs something more, though....

10. Guns: I'm still surprised next to no one has been using the Spell Guns (effectively), but, eh, I can see why. I wouldn't change them (yet), though. If anything was to change about Guns, then I'd lower Stone Gun's WP down to 11, though that might be bit too close to Romanda Gun. So maybe lower Romanda Gun's power and give it some type of buff ala Mythril Gun? That or keep Stone Gun as 12 WP and force it to be Two Hands so it can't be used with a shield.

11. Crossbows: I can only laugh at people calling Hunting Bow "cheap". Gods, even in a non-fighting game setting people throw that damn word around too often. When Concentrate was around, yes, it was "cheap" because it was unavoidable. As it is now, it's "only" obnoxious, but it's still manageable. That said, it would be a lot more fair if wasn't 100% Don't Move. More like 50%? Maybe even 75%? But not 100%. Still, I suppose if you want to make keep as 100% [Insert Negative Status here], it can be 100% Oil as I said in the other thread, though that rather screws over Short Edge, even with the increase I just asked under Ninja Blades. Other than that, I agree that Gastraphetes needs at least a bit more WP. Not sure about how to make it better otherwise or if anything else needs a change--to me, Night Killer and Poison Bow are fine.

12. Longbows: They are actually usable now unlike 1.3. Good job. I wouldn't change anything about them at present.

13. Instruments: See above, except that Bloody Strings was actually usable in 1.3 and Fairy Strings should maybe have its Charm percentage upped to 34%.

14. Books: They probably should all be 11 WP, especially given how underwhelming the Zombie spell is (unless you made it the Zombie status and 100%, in which case...) and how you made Madlemegen proc Bio 3, which can inflict Zombie. Papyrus Plate continues to be the only really usable Book, especially since Flare is so damn powerful compared to the other procs. It needs a different proc or significantly less WP; I'd prefer the former even I'm not sure "what" it should be, though I'd be rather fine with Dol's suggestion of Balance.

15. Polearms: Spears are fine.

16. Poles: I'll get back to you with ideas for the first three Poles that are still unchanged. Otherwise, Poles are fine.

17. Bags: As much as I dislike "second sets of armor", these are fine. I'd maybe argue that C Bag and FS Bag be given +2 MA and +2 PA, respectively, but given they can be used with shields, they probably shouldn't change.

18. Cloths: As much as I dislike "second sets of armor", I actually like Cloths now. They're viable threats and give people a reason to actually use Dancer as a Primary rather than only use Dance Secondary for "lol, Nameless Dance".

19. Shields: They are surprisingly well-balanced, which is damn hard to do. Escutcheon II could maybe use a bit of a P-EV boost, but otherwise, it's fine and maybe shouldn't change.

20. Helms: These too are well-balanced. I'd argue that Grand Helm(et) could perhaps use 5 more HP, though.

21. Hats: These are well-balanced. Black Hood is just kinda "there", but considering how much HP it has over others and that pretty much any innately Hat-wearing class can't equip Helms, it's probably fine.

22. Hair Adornments: These are fine.

23. (Heavy) Armor: Likewise, fine.

24. Clothes: I'd argue that the stat-boosting Clothes could maybe use 5 more HP, but otherwise, fine; I was going to ask for maybe 10, but that's probably too much considering.

25. Robes: Okay, so we finally get to the only part of armor that's really "troubled":

1. Linen Robe: This could maybe stand to lose some MP.

2. Silk Robe: This could stand to gain at least 5 MP since even with that HP, it's still lesser than other "plain" armors.

3. Wizard Robe: This is rather suicidal at present. Perhaps it should remain that way, but it honestly seems like it could stand to gain at least 5 HP while losing some MP.

4. Light Robe: I think this needs less MP. It could maybe gain more HP, though if that was the case, then I'd say that it could perhaps gain Weak: All instead of Weak: Dark.

5. Robe of Lords: It seems like it can gain more HP. I'm not sure what if anything else it "should" get considering I don't think anyone's used it at all and I'm pretty sure you still don't have any Item Attribute space left, so....

Chameleon Robe, White Robe & Black Robe are comparatively fine.

26. Shoes: They are fine, I suppose, though Germinas Boots & maybe Battle Boots & Red Shoes seem like they could have their Item Attribute space put to better use for other types of items.... Sprint Shoes similarly seems like something of a waste of space, but I've at least seen people use those (I think) and that Item Attribute is shared, so....

27. Armguards: They are fine.

28. Rings: Oh, Rings. Such troublesome bling...:

1. Magic Ring: Magic Ring, yes, Magic Ring, is arguably the most powerful ring at present. Even when it "only" boosted MA by 1 and blocked Silence & Berserk, it was quite used. Now, even though it's lost Berserk immunity, it's actually more usable because it single-handedly shuts down two elements via absorption and it's not like anyone ever uses Berserk status between both Talk Skill & Yin-Yang Magic sucking; hell, I'd argue that it single-handedly makes Wind-offense almost not viable due to how common it is (and Tornado still kinda blowing). I think it returning to its original form might actually be for the best, but I'm not that sure. If it not that, then maybe only halving Wind & Holy rather than absorption?

2. Angel Ring: The reason that this isn't the top ring anymore is pretty much because Chantage exists and because Sleep & Frog are much more debilitating than Blind and much more common than instant Death. I'm not even sure if I'm comfortable with having both Reraise options around, but given that Angel Ring is at least still useful because of Grand Cross, it can stick around for now. I'm just not sure if we'll "need" both ultimately, though so far, it surprisingly hasn't hurt anything since other accessories are actually usable unlike 1.3.

3. Reflect Ring: Has, surprisingly, seen next to no use. It's probably because the Faith-based magic that's able to be reflected has been kinda meh and no one wants to Reflect away Raise (2) if they're not Undead...in which case they likely can't wear Reflect Ring. Perhaps it's also because Reflect Mail is around if anyone wants to use Always: Reflect, especially since Equip Armor is pretty bitching anyway. Perhaps give it some M-EV as well? Not really sure what else you could do to make it viable, especially given that I know you used up all the Item Attribute spaces.

4. Defense Ring: Just kind of there. I guess it could be used to give the finger (guard) to Mediator...except no one uses them at present, so....

5. Cursed Ring: Oh, boy. There's so much to say here. First and foremost, I'll cut to the chase: Cursed Ring itself isn't bad purely from a stats point of view--it's that the environment is extremely biased against Undead just like it always has been since vanilla. In fact, literally the only differences between vanilla's prejudice against the Undead and ARENA's are both Item-related, with X-Potion being weakened and Phoenix Down no longer working on Undead at all (IIRC). Too bad even the former is off-set by the new Hi-Potion, which can easily do MORE damage than the 150 HP that vanilla X-Potions took off Undead.

Even getting Item out of the way means that Undead still have to deal with the literally unavoidable threats of curative White Magic and Murasame, the former of which can instantly kill them with rather unfair regularity and the latter of which doesn't take Faith into account (and is necessarily unavoidable) and can't be reflected. Even getting those out of the way see Undead potentially instantly getting killed by the new Consecration and the old Seal Evil, though at least Seal Evil can be cured--if Consecration hits, you better pray to the RNG that your already handicapped unit gets its ass back up since you can't sandbag into oblivion like the "breathers" can.

So, what to do to fix this within the current parameters of ARENA and the FFT system? I actually feel it's rather simple given that Cursed Ring has its own Item Attribute and so it will be the only item to experience the change: +1 PA, +1 MA, +1 Spd; Always: Undead, Innocent; Absorb: Dark; Weak: Fire, Holy; Immune: Dead, Petrify, Regen & Haste.

The "Always: Innocent" part is perhaps a bit excessive, but the only real alternative there is "Always: Reflect", which rather steps on Reflect Ring's (and Reflect Mail's) under-performing toes (and doesn't block Cure 4, which people would just switch to). Besides, Innocent makes them "weak" to Ninjutsu, which is rather increasingly popular and unable to use any magic, though pretty much all Cursed Ring users are Paladins now and it wouldn't affect Elemental or Draw Out and it would make their Ninjutsu really powerful....

It's ugly-looking and perhaps not "the" (actual) solution, but I feel like it's a start that's better than what Cursed Ring is now unless you can magically make all Curative spells avoidable only by the Undead--you'd have to give Cursed Ring some type of M-EV as well--and killed both Consecration & Seal Evil, the latter (Seal Evil) of which I don't agree is necessary. Actually, I guess you could probably negate the need for Always: Innocent if you just killed Raise 2, which I'd personally be all for.

And thus did Cursed Ring's true curse come to light: further fueling my long-windedness.

29. Armlets: For items you've barely even touched, they're still completely fine, which is why I always nagged people to use N-Kai Armlet in the 1.3 tournaments after people started complaining about the pigs. Jade Armlet's new "Immune: Chicken" that it kept after Snipe's change over is useless, though, at least while Mediator isn't being used; I guess it can stay, though.

30. Mantles: These are well-balanced and part of the reason why I feel like Magic Ring shouldn't absorb Wind (or Holy).

31. Perfumes: These are well-balanced...except for Salty Rage. That's been overkilled into utter uselessness for quite a while with the Always: Slow. I don't know why I didn't see this earlier, but why not just make it "Always: Berserk; Immune: Haste"? Perhaps you could give it some immunity to some other things, including Slow, like Dol suggested, but I don't think making it immune to literally everything else is the answer--Yin-Yang Magic hardly needs to become weaker.

6. Miscellany: I'll try to make this section mercifully short (comparatively):

1. With regards to Malroth's proposals: I can only agree with the need for more lower-faith "punishment" (maybe), Chemist & Mediator being too weak (though I'm still against Innate Unyielding for a class that can actually change its equipment) and Daggers being too weak. I agree about the first three Poles being just "there", but like I said, I'll try to think of something "later". Of his (?) proposals, what I'm most against is dropping any class to 7 Speed. That would be almost as bad as the 2 Jump idea that made Paladin go from best to worst single-handedly.

2. With regards to Dol's suggestions: I mostly agree with his (?), so it's easier to say that what I don't agree with here. I can't say that I particularly agree with dropping down male Squire's MA by an entire 2 points or that Bad Luck needs a lower CT or making Shuriken subject to P-EV, but that's pretty much it. We more or less agree on everything else.

3. With regards to Shade's offerings: Well, skipping the parts where we both agree with Dol, I can't say that I agree with much to be honest. He perhaps has a point about making Sleep single-targeting even though that's not really what Dol was talking about and perhaps about how to handle the Bahamut, Cyclops & Zodiac problem. However, besides that...I think we disagree on almost everything else, actually.

4. Lol, I've been typing for so long that Squidgy & CT5Holy posted before me...nine hours ago: I'll go over their proposals thoroughly later considering I'll have to proofread this and probably split this up now, which will take at least another hour between distraction. However, from what I see of CT5Holy's post thus far, I agree with most of it, and of Squidgy's thus far, I only really agree with the "50 Faith needs to be the new Faith floor & Flare needs to be weakened" so far.

5. Low-Faith "Punishment vs. Raising the Faith Floor: I keep seeing this offered up more and more as a solution to the 40 Faith abuse problem. ...But I never see anyone suggesting which jobs, exactly, should have these magical new abilities. Given that pretty much all Faith-based classes are dependent on high Faith, that rules them out automatically. This leaves physical classes, half of which have atrocious MA, and the already "overpowered" Squire, Samurai &, by association, Geomancer class, which aren't exactly lacking in use, and the underpowered Mediator, which isn't exactly a damage-based class.

Similarly, even with Pride's new formula, anti-faith abilities would still not take the user's faith into the equation, so, if anything, it would just lead to more 40 Faith units and less magic users (since why use those if you can kill 40 Faith units even better now with your anti-Faith "magic").

Please just raise the Faith floor to 50.

6. Ultima: I was going to talk about Ultima here...before I realized how pointless it becoming anti-Faith magic is, at least if it's going to be tried to used a solution to that problem instead of just a unique technique.

7. Speaking of Pride: As long as we're speaking of his ASMs, you may want to consider using his Weakness as 150% instead of as 200% hack. It would make so that being weak to an element didn't mean that you necessarily get OHKO'd by it just because you didn't want to use another piece of armor to have to shore up that weakness (because, really, right now almost everyone does). It would simultaneously further weaken the BS that is "Absorb Weakness" strategies, which tend to allow absurd recovery of damage, though in ARENA that's generally been less a problem than 1.3, probably largely due to Throw being dead.

8. Absorb: Dark: There needs to be an Item besides Cursed Ring that absorbs Dark element IMO.

9. Water abilities: There needs to be at least a one AoE ability that can hit allies. It would probably best to change Scholar's Earth Dragon into some type of "Big Wave" Water Lore or something. I always felt Earth Dragon was redundant with Quake around, even if Quake was quite underwhelming.

10. A reduction to Esuna & Stigma Magic's abilities: Finally, I'd argue there needs to be another status healing ability. Esuna & Stigma Magic heal too damn much right now and only one ability, Holy Water, heals Zombie at present. I figure you could kill two birds with one stone, though you'd perhaps have to give it Paladin....

Hmm...I feel like I'm forgetting something that's import--.

*hands crumble into dust*

"...Yeah, I think I'm done (for now)," he typed with his face.

Finally EDIT (07/30/2011 - 3:00 A.M.): And with that gone over and re-spaced, I think I've spent more than 12 hours just typing this up and re-checking everything, even counting for distractions. I'll read CT5Holy and Squidgy's proposals properly once I get some rest. Or my eyes stop bleeding. Which ever comes first.

No Finality EDIT (07/30/2011 - 6:01 P.M.): I still need to read over CT5Holy and Squidgy's proposals, but most if not all typos in this post should be gone now. Hurray.

RavenOfRazgriz · July 30, 2011, 05:26:29 pm

I figured I'd post and give you some opinions from someone whose looking from the outside in and isn't heavily invested in this project, because those are incredibly important to design. (I've looked over all of the design notes pretty thoroughly and toyed with the patch some, of course, but not enough to call myself "invested" in the patch.)

Core mechanics:

I know you're having a lot of trouble with Fury and Faith. Looking over everything, I see several reasons for this.

1. Lack of parity. This is twofold. Firstly, while most of all physical attacks are governed by Fury, NOT all magical attacks are governed by Faith. Things such as Talk Skill, Draw Out, Geomancy, etc. are all unaffected by Faith, meaning your potential magical output suffers far less with low Faith than your potential physical output does with low Fury. Secondly, Fury has a +40 modifier to both CFu and TFu, yet Faith does not have its own +40 modifier. This radically affects how much Fury/Faith dictate the respective damage / to-hits on their respective formula. Personally, for Fury/Faith to be balanced properly, both these issues need to be addressed, so that the two mechanics have more relative worth to each other. (Honestly, many things people have / have had problems with such as Draw Out, Geomancy, etc. would likely be complained about far less if you had the option to run low Faith and weaken them, and high Faith would be more imperative if more skills required it to make them work well.)

2. The modifier itself. I'd lower it to +30, so that 70 Br (and Fa if you take my above suggestion) isn't getting a +10% to damage innately.

3. Fist Formula (if you've not changed it already) should become either PA*X or (PA+YY)/2*PA. I'm pretty sure the first hack exists already in FDC's thread somewhere, and I know the second exists in Prideful's thread somewhere, as he originally made it for me. Removing the second instance of Brave from the formula and drastically reducing the power boost gained from a simple +2-3 PA will fix many Fist-related issues.

I think everything else should be okay.

Equipment options:

Between Shields, the various sorts of Helmets/Hats/Armors/Clothes/Robes, and Accessories, I think a big issue is how "easy" it is to get things. Specifically, how "easy" it is to Absorb/Cancel various Elements and Status. It's very easy to get whatever defense you need vs any particular strategy if it relies on any certain Elements or Status - and yes, I'm saying this is a bad thing. Counters to the metagame are important, as are "color hosers" to borrow a term from Magic: the Gathering that's somewhat applicable, but when I not only can easily counter things, but have a huge number of ways to do so, things become stale, and finding ways to counter strategies in these veins becomes incredibly easy. This, personally, is very bad. I also feel some Equipment is very "bloated" - affecting too many elemental properties needlessly or cancelling too many status for a single item. I'd iron these two things out, myself, even if the end result is less Equipment overall. It's better to have 15 quality somethings than 20 mediocre somethings.

Skill options

My main comment here is that fluff needs to be cut. Things such as the Wizard's 4 tiers of spells, the Priest's equally bloated spellbook, etc. that only existed in Vanilla to allow for scaling don't need to exist here. Even if you want to argue something as silly as a Healing vs CT/MP spectrum, many of these classes would be just as effective with half or less of their skillsets. Echoing some previous sentiments in this thread, there also seems to be (personally) unacceptable levels of one-dimensionality (Wizard most notably) and skillset overlap. (Mediator and Oracle comes to mind - while Oracle has a larger spellbook and Mediator has Br/Fa modification, the places they do overlap [Sleep/Berserk/Don't Act] are some of the most powerful aspects of both skillsets, easily nullifying much of the distinction each set has because they both share in the one thing the majority of players will likely want.) While giving you specific ideas for how to remedy this is beyond me currently (hell, even in my own patch I ended up killing Mediator entirely because I couldn't solve this issue), things like this are also pretty big and should be remedied, because distinction is a large part of making skillsets and classes useful.

Related: I'm going to give a suggestion to "fix" Monk few people likely thought of. Remove Martial Arts from the game, buff Monk's base PA and the Y values on its skills. Why? In Vanilla FFT, Martial Arts innate mostly exists to allow the Monk to cancel out the *Br on its Fist formula and keep up with the damage curve - it's not until cross-class pollination and level 40ish that you see huge damage bonuses from Monks, after all. By removing this 1.5x from the stack, you greatly reduce the influence of a positive Fury modifier to what it is with most other classes, stop huge silliness with Attack Up, etc. Less multipliers on the stack is always, always, always a positive thing when possible. You don't need things that existed in Vanilla for the sake of scaling (Steal skills, Martial Arts, tiered magic, etc.), and honestly all those things seem like they're holding you back to some capacity. Crunch some numbers then kill them off, it'll be much worth it in the long run.

Like I said, some balance thoughts from someone taking a look from the outside in on a number of the problems you seem to be facing, since this perspective is always pretty valuable to have.

Wiz · August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Dammit, I lost progress on this! gotta start typing up again, oh well...

I've been meaning to do this for like the last 4.5 days so here it goes.

Unlike The Damned, my info will be consolidated in spoilers properly the first time and actually be organized

Note: If I don't mention a certain ability/stat/item of any kind, I think it's balanced and doesn't need to be changed.

The meta-game's not balanced due to exploitations like "Martial Arts + AU" Monks, Elemental, Draw Out, Sing/Dance + Miming, "X Save" abuse"

The number of items are fine. Having a larger pool of items (in particular elemental aborption-based ones) increases variety and creativity, which makes party synergy more prevalent (absorption of Earth/Holy/Dark + the standard three) and less stale (absorption of just F/I/L) contrary to Raven's ideas.

Fine once again, with the exception of the previous things I mentioned ("Martial Arts + AU" Monks, Elemental, Draw Out, Sing/Dance + Miming, "X Save" abuse"), which I'll address in the spoiler directly below this one.

They're better than geomancers at everything which is a problem. -10 HP, -1 PA, -1MA for males and females would do the trick I think

They're better at using talk skill than mediators with a +2MA superiority over them and they function the same way with guns. Also relatively slow making a lancer + throw item a better user especially when factoring in the health pool. -2 MA and + 1 SPD should do the trick

Females should get some lovins +1PA since 3's quite a disparity between M/F. Also, perhaps they can use more MP since some of their skills depend on Mana? +6 MP for Males (3 castings of Iron Will) +11 MP for Females (3 Castings of Grand Cross).

No objections other than -4 MP from both Males and Females. They rely on their speed moreso than MP, which seems excessive compared to Paladins.

-2 PA for males and -1 PA for females off the bat. Why? Multiplicative factors from "Marial Arts" and it's 150% (1.5x) boost is outright nonsense, which I'll get to later. Knights also in the past had always had an edge over and should stay that way imo.

+1 SPD. Why? In vanilla, they had that edge and provides more of an incentive to think about whether people want a priest with more HP and MP, but less power OR more power with less HP/MP for a Time Mage. Balance.

No objections

Increase C-Ev up by 5 so they have in total 10. Why? Least amount of health compared to all other mages.

Decrease C-Ev by 5 so they have 15. Why? Ninja's are the ones that are dodgy.

+2 MA and +10 HP for Male and Females.Why? Boosts Talk Skills Health's the equivalent of Mages, which is a no-no for a unnecessary for a non-MP user.

+1 SPD. Why? Status gets cancelled out too much so you need a decent "Melee" fighter who's not ludicrously slow. Essentially, a better hybrid which is what this unit is.

+1 PA and MA and -20 HP for M/F. Why? As indicated before, Squires are better than these fellas in every stat and keeping the health as is is the same amount of Lancer which seems wrong to me. Basically, you pick Geomancer, you get: More of a punch but less health compared to a squire which gets: Less of a punch but more health.

No Objections

+40 HP and +5 C-Ev. Why? C'mon, a melee fighter with the same health as a TM? Don't be ridiculous. And dodging would be nice since historically were dodgy with things like "Blade Grasp" >_>

+20 HP, +1 PA, +1 SPD, +1 Jump, and +5 C-Ev. Why? They're inferior to Thieves in all those categories and it's fairly noticeable.

No Objections

+10 HP for Female Mime. Why? Too little HP imo.

Accumulate -> Add 2 CT. Why? Becomes too easy to abuse w/ mimicking
Throw Stone -> Change Multiplier to 5 and make it P-Ev, not M-Ev. Why? It's a physical attack and shouldn't do more damage than Magical spells
Wish -> Make it hit at 100% for a 10% heal. Why? Competes more fairly w/ PD even though it's weaker due to height tolerance.

Hi-Ether -> Change 70 for a 60 MP Heal Instead. Why? Excessive and puts Ether in the dust too much.
Auto Potion -> Change from 50 to a 100 HP Heal and reduce JP cost to 300. Why? Useless atm.
Equip Clothes -> When changing in the formation screen, this ability doesn't actually work. Fix this bug please >_>

Dia -> Decrease range by 1, change multiplier value from 14 to 12, and increase MP cost from 10 to 15. Why? Too good of a sniping tool atm.

Speed Save -> Change it to +20 CT OR scrap it entirely. Why? Speed's too abusive w/ things such as lore. My Speedsters Team also shows why clearly. If +20 CT, change it to 300 JP since 600 seems excessive
Projectile Guard -> Reduce JP Cost to 200. Why? Ranged attackers are not always and very often not present.

Martial Arts -> Reduce its effectiveness from a 1.5x (150%) bonus to PA attacks to a 1.25x (125%) one. Why? Multiplies PA too damn well and ridding of it seems excessive/too much of a penalty to Monks (i.e. no innate "Martial Arts" for Monks). Raise JP cost up to 300 as well. The formula for the reduction's here, so no ASM work required :D

Flare -> Increase its MP cost from 45 to 60. Why? Superior to Holy and every way and for 5 extra MP seems OP.

Salamander -> Scrap it. Why? It's the same MP cost as Ifirit and is weaker for more JP according to the Ability chart here 0.o To be a tad weaker for 1 vert is not worth it making it too similar to Ifirit.
Zodiac -> (At the top of my head) Reduce Vert to 3, Reduce Y Value to 20, Increase AOE to 5, Increase MP to 55, Increase JP to 500. Why? Balance between that, Cyclops, and Bahamut.

Quickening -> Let it Burn! Why? Speed Accumulation's too damn good
Steal Heart -> No Gay Love! Why? Female Units are no good choice then other than for compat reasons which can easily be negated by Serpentarius.

Black Mail -> Raise Percentage to 35% (10% Increase). Why? 45% [(10 MA * 2 Constant) + 25%)] is too low for DA.
Persuade ->10 % Increase to Formula. Why? See "Black Mail"
Death Sentence -> 10% Increase to Formula. Why? See " "
Insult -> Ditto

Petrify -> Reduce CT to 5. Why? Too useless compared to Summon Magic.
Sleep -> Ditto

Formula -> Reduce range to 4 from 5, and make it faith dependent and reduce its Y value from 4 to 2. Why? Most people are going to optimize Geomancy and there's really no reason not to and it punishes those defensive units that run 40 Fa and get away with constant damage.
Attack UP -> Reduce from 4/3 Physical Attack increase to 5/4. Why? Stacking w/ Martial Arts is too damn good as well as melee units in general with a PA Setup.

Hoz Jump Costs -> Make them 150 JP increments (Lvl 2 = 150, Lvl 3 = 300, Lvl 4 = 450, Lvl 5 = 600) Why? Jump's mostly dependent on this, not the other way around
Vertical Jump Costs -> Make them 50 JP increments (Lvl 2 = 50, Lvl 3 = 100, Lvl 4 = 150...) Why? Most maps have a relatively flat surface meaning this shouldn't be the most important fact for "sniping" with spear/weapon in hand

Formula -> Make it Faith Dependent. Why? Same Reason as Geomancy, no need for 40 Fa Wizards running around using this.
Every Attack DO except Chiri-> Make CT = 2 (Same as Haste). Why? No MP Cost incurred other than M-Ev, which isn't easy to build up with.
Chirijiriaden -> Make CT = 3. Why? Most Powerful DO.

Shuriken -> Make it P-Ev. Why? Why not!? Magic Attacks are not common to block to begin with.
Two Swords -> Reduce JP Cost to 600. Why? To make it more usable and worthwhile. Too taxing as it is now at 700.

Bio 3 -> Reduce MP Cost to 18. Why? Bio 1 and 2 go up by multiples of 6. Doesn't make sense to put this handicap on it.
Damage Split -> Reduce JP Cost to 500. Why? 600 is too costly for a reaction ability especially since most people don't open up lore unless they're using a scholar.

MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH "Stat" STACKING, don't get this confused with "Status"!!!
Angel and Life Song -> Make so they're not mimickable. Why? Otherwise you get 400+ HP Heals at 3:16 - 3:40 which is outright bullshit. Even Dol, who made that team agrees with me on this one.
Cheer Song -> Make it so that it gives out a haste bonus. Why? Permanent Speed trumps Haste considering it already got nerfed to have a 5/4x speed increase instead of a 4/3 one.
Battle Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Protect bonus. Why? In that same video at 13:16, you'll see mimes do 999 Damage which is a problem.
Magic Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Shell bonus. Why? Same potential, but with DO/Geomancy users.
Nameless Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Reraise bonus. Why? Too many buffs stacked on top of it, and even so the AI rarely uses it for some reason.

MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH "Stat" STACKING, don't get this confused with "Status"!!!
Witch Hunt and Wiznaibus -> Like Angel/Life Song, they don't need to be mimicked. Why? Ditto, and it's so annoying to watch it being spammed.
Slow Dance -> Just the opposite of Cheer Song, decrease speed with the slow status, not -1 SPD. Why? Ditto (Abusive with mimicking).
Polka Polka -> Make it inflict the Berserk Status. Why? Ditto
Disillusion -> Make it inflict the Confuse Status. Why? Ditto
Nameless Dance -> Make it inflict Death Sentence. Why? Too Many negative buffs out there and too random to counter otherwise.

Escutcheon II -> Increase P-Ev and M-Ev to 30. Why? If the idea's it's got the best evasion, it needs more. Currently Aegis Shield Beats it in M-Ev.
Aegis Shield -> Reduce M-Ev to 25. Why? Cancel: Silence and +1 MA make it good enough.

FS Bag -> Give it Always: Protect. Why? Plenty of other gear out there which also give out +1 PA making this useless otherwise.
C Bag -> Give it Always: Shell. Why? Viable option between this and the Wizard Rod then.

"Oberisk" (Not Obelisk) -> Give it +1 Move. Why? Dragon Whisker's currently better in damage even with the +2 PA from this weapon. The mentality is snipe from a further distance for less damage or be forced to snipe from a closer distance for more damage. Again, balance.

Papyrus Plate -> Change Flare Proc to Holy. Why? Damage from Flare's too much coupled with this.
Monster Dictionary -> Change Choco Meteor to Dark Whisper. Why? C'mon motherfucker, Papyrus Plate needs competition with this + Madlmegen which could proc of statii of some sort!

These Bitches need MAJOR lovins.
Gold Staff -> Add Cancel: Silence to it. Why? Staff whacks are just not enough.
Rainbow Staff-> Add Initial: Haste (Last for 2 turns such as Act and Move). Why? Ditto
White Staff -> Add Initial Faith (Last for 2 full turns such as Act and Move). Why? Ditto

Poison Rod -> Cancel: Poison and Stop. Why? Why not!? Just cancelling poison is too shitty :O

Make all Axes one-handed. Why? They all have relatively low weapon power.

Koga and Iga Knives -> Switch the strengthening between the two around. Why? To boost the weapon and it's kind of assholish to force the player to use both in order to get only one of the boosts.

Ultimus Bow. Reduce its Range by 1 so it's 4 in total. Why? The Mythril Bow's a POS (Piece of Shit) then.

Synopsis: FUCK Stat boosting. I'd personally get rid of all the varieties on the "Heavy Armor" side since tanks pretty much become all the more powerful, which is completely unnecessary. To me, if you build an offensive unit. It should forego speed, not also have access to it and vice versa. May seem like a penalty in requesting that Martial Arts and Attack UP be toned down (I am biased for defense), so to remedy the problem, how about raise the Br and Fa level to 45 just to see how it plays out?

Side Notes: Monks don't need poles although I see the reasoning behind it (melee attack from a distance), but still overwritten by Wave Fist (As in Priority).

Paladins as expressed by others DON'T need access to Katanas. Leave that to Samurais.

Thieves DON'T need access to swords. Speedy units with blood sword I don't think so.

That's about it for now, I do believe I'll come up with more, but not at this moment in time :D

RavenOfRazgriz · August 02, 2011, 07:04:41 am

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

The number of items are fine. Having a larger pool of items (in particular elemental aborption-based ones) increases variety and creativity, which makes party synergy more prevalent (absorption of Earth/Holy/Dark + the standard three) and less stale (absorption of just F/I/L) contrary to Raven's ideas.

Do me a favor and don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say "Don't have Absorb: Holy", that's dumb. I said there's no reason to have 3 ways to do the same thing. IE - by themselves, Helmets/Hats/Armors/Clothing/Robes have some decent distinction going on... but all that design space is also encroached upon in Shields and Accessories. I'm not forced to reach to get a particular effect - if I don't like what I need to do to get it from source A, I get it from source B, and usually one combination is always optimal over all the others. Tl;dr: Having access to everything isn't innately bad, it's that it doesn't feel like there's "work" in getting the properties you want onto your unit, because you can get what you want from so many different angles. As a designer, forcing people to make a choice and stick to it is something you WANT to do... not give people so many angles that their choices rarely have a true drawback.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

The meta-game's not balanced due to exploitations like "Martial Arts + AU" Monks, Elemental, Draw Out, Sing/Dance + Miming, "X Save" abuse"

So you have a metagame of

1. Martial Arts + Attack UP.
2. Elemental.
3. Draw Out.
4. Perservering Mimes.
5. Stat Boost.
6. Rogue.

...That's a pretty decently varied spread if you're familiar with other competitive games. Note that most metagames for most games are actually founded on "exploitations" of some kind.

(Not to say these strategies probably shouldn't be weakened to allow room for even more, IE my aside on Martial Arts, etc. Just saying that as far as metagames go, the fact you're complaining about 5 dominating strategies + rogues shows that Arena is actually moving in a positive direction currently.)

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

-2 PA for males and -1 PA for females off the bat. Why? Multiplicative factors from "Marial Arts" and it's 150% (1.5x) boost is outright nonsense, which I'll get to later. Knights also in the past had always had an edge over and should stay that way imo.

And this is where I again just bring up the suggestion of getting rid of the nonsense boost - stacked multipliers are the leading cause of insane damage.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Martial Arts -> Reduce its effectiveness from a 1.5x (150%) bonus to PA attacks to a 1.25x (125%) one. Why? Multiplies PA too damn well and ridding of it seems excessive/too much of a penalty to Monks (i.e. no innate "Martial Arts" for Monks).

If you got rid of it then gave them more PA to compensate for the lack of their huge retarded multiplier, they'd both have more of a reason to use either their ranged weapon (Poles I think, though why Monk has access to an MA*WP weapon is beyond me, these guys should really have Spears if you want them considering the less-damaging, two-panel attack) or an "Equip X" Weapon Support. Basically, you fix the problem while opening the doors for more setups, enabling a more varied metagame. Two for one, every Wednesday.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Attack UP -> Reduce from 4/3 Physical Attack increase to 5/4. Why? Stacking w/ Martial Arts is too damn good as well as melee units in general with a PA Setup.

This is another reason to scrap Martial Arts - everyone else who needs Attack Up needs to suffer, everyone who uses Martial Arts as a non-innate needs to suffer, and anyone using Monk's PA for a non-Punch Art needs to suffer just to keep them with innate Martial Arts. For someone who wants a more varied metagame, I should not need to explain what's wrong here.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH "Stat" STACKING, don't get this confused with "Status"!!!
Battle Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Protect bonus. Why? In that same video at 13:16, you'll see mimes do 999 Damage which is a problem.
Magic Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Shell bonus. Why? Same potential, but with DO/Geomancy users.

To be fair in that Battle Song video, that team had lost years before those Mimes got anywhere near 999, and most instances of where the strategy is applied also sees the team either losing or winning long before it even hits 500 damage. Also, Mimes are using a Quadratic Fist formula still if my memory is correct, so the leap from 500 to 999 is... honestly very small. Basically, your problem here is coming from the abusing nature of the current Fist formula, allowing for every Battle Song to account for over double what it would for any non-punching unit. Addressing Battle Song is like taking out a micro problem when you're really facing a macro problem. As for Magic Song... notice how Battle Song is only an issue when Mimed and only hits those values because PA is factored twice, resulting in 1 PA meaning a huge damage increase. MA doesn't even have this issue, and PA wouldn't either if Arena stopped using an incredibly piece-of-shit Fist formula and converted over to (PA+YY)/2*PA or PA*Y. Fix the problem, don't kill the entire concept when it's merely demonstrated an overall larger problem.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Slow Dance -> Just the opposite of Cheer Song, decrease speed with the slow status, not -1 SPD. Why? Ditto (Abusive with mimicking).
Polka Polka -> Make it inflict the Berserk Status. Why? Ditto
Disillusion -> Make it inflict the Confuse Status. Why? Ditto

This on the other hand is possibly a pretty good idea because you want games to end, and being able to ruin their PA and MA down to 1 is not conducive to that. On the other hand, you won't know if your opponent uses PA or MA beforehand, often meaning you need a Dancer with each song or to have both Dancers knowing both songs... meaning you're reducing damage at only half the speed Battle Song can raise it, and the fact you can't control factors on the opponent such as Zodiac Compatibility means you can't control how well your hit rate on your half-speed reductions are. Give that, at least the PA and MA reducing dances can likely stay as they are, though the SPD reducer should probably go, as should Bard's SPD buffer.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Koga and Iga Knives -> Switch the strengthening between the two around. Why? To boost the weapon and it's kind of assholish to force the player to use both in order to get only one of the boosts.

That's... actually part of good design. The player's forced to give up something in order to get something. Having them boost themselves at no cost means they're basically (PA+SPD)/2*WP*1.25 damage instead of the (PA+SPD)/2*WP damage every other Ninja Blade weapon is restricted to. ...That's NOT balance, to quote the explanation you like to use for most of your changes. Make the player work for things and make setups actually have disadvantages. Those are the kinds of things actually conducive to positive metagames, hence why I am for removing a lot of the encroachment shared by Items - to force those disadvantages to actually matter if you want something badly enough.

Barren · August 02, 2011, 07:22:11 am

Well if you want the miming of song and dance and such to be less OP, why not have it mimed only once so that way you can spend more time thinking of a creative combo for mimes to use during battle other than SOS (Same Old Shit)

Plus it wont overwhelm the team so unfairly that they can't come back from the wiznaibus/battle song/lich/elemental spam, ect. Mimes needs to be limited to 1 IMHO

Disagree anyone?

RavenOfRazgriz · August 02, 2011, 07:44:05 am

Quote from: Barren on August 02, 2011, 07:22:11 amMimes needs to be limited to 1 IMHO

Disagree anyone?

The only problem is that taking that route slowly makes the rules needlessly complex and inconsistent. You can only have two of everything... except Mimes... then starts the slippery slope of just making rules exceptions to toss a band-aide on things instead of just fixing the issue. A rules exception should only exist when there is no other alternative. There are clearly several alternatives worth looking into currently. The main thing that doesn't seem to have much of an exception is Life Song... but a "this skill is unmimable" exception is far less questionable than actually changing the party construction rules themselves. Either that, or just make the Songs Undead Reversed and make Mimes Undead or something so that Miming a Life Song is just not a good idea... there's a nice crazy solution to several issues at once.

Barren · August 02, 2011, 07:59:41 am

But what I am saying though is with 2 mimes and say 2 bards or 2 dancers or even 2 summoners can be pretty damn powerful....too powerful in fact especially if they are on a larger map and at times a medium map...small maps i don't think they'd be a problem but with spamming life song or wiznaibus 3 to 6 times is too much to take down for almost any team unless you're team is good at procing speed save, damage split, really anything to counter mime teams

Again its FFM's call and I'm fine with whatever happens really, its only a thought anyways...though I do understand where you're coming from Raven, it can be somewhat tediously complex....but still there has to be a way to not make miming teams OP but yet not UP

Dol · August 02, 2011, 10:59:06 am

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about changing game mechanics.

However, if it is possible, can you make it where mimes cant mimic any songs or dances? The only problem anyone has had with the stat increases is when you have a mime or two mimicing the songs. Cheer Song/Slow Dance have low enough chances to hit that you cant really build a team around them as is. The other stat boosts cant really snowball out of control with one cast per round.

If its impossible to change Mimes this way, then something will need to be done about the boosts & dances. (Although I strongly disagree with Wiz's dances. One decent Berserk or Confuse dance will win you the fight in one round. No one wants that).

After rereading Raven's suggestions on Martial Arts, I've been persuaded with one caveat. Ironically, I think that Mimes would need to keep it. Boosting their PA to keep their punches from being tickles would be an issue given that they can mimic other weapon attacks that could end up being overpowered.

(work calls. I'll finish this post this afternoon)

RavenOfRazgriz · August 02, 2011, 11:42:48 am

Quote from: Barren on August 02, 2011, 07:59:41 amAgain its FFM's call and I'm fine with whatever happens really, its only a thought anyways...though I do understand where you're coming from Raven, it can be somewhat tediously complex....but still there has to be a way to not make miming teams OP but yet not UP.

The problem seems to lie in Bard and Dancer, personally. Who uses Wiznaibus without a Mime? Who would if Mimes did not exist? Same for the MP damage song, etc. Life Song is borderline usable, but even then, I don't think I've at least seen anyone use them without Mimes. In this sense, I'd call the problems the HP/MP affecting Songs/Dances themselves. Like I said, a fix to the Fist formula alone fixes the Battle Song issue in a huge way, because a single PA point would mean far less than it does now. (AKA, if Fists were PA*10, eg, a single PA point would be 10 damage. So 20 PA and 10 Fist is 200 damage But, with 20 PA, Fist damage is 20*20*.7, or 280, then adding a PA point makes it 21*21*.7, or 294 pre-Fury, pre-Martial Arts. If we apply Martial Arts, the totals become respectively 300, 420, and 441. Etc. As you can see, changing the Fist formula alone cuts damage by about a fourth, and by removing Martial Arts, you remove the quadratic aspect of Fists which allows you higher PA totals. This, in turn, would make a Battle Song Mime team scale in damage far, far slower than it does currently.)

Quote from: Dol on August 02, 2011, 10:59:06 amHowever, if it is possible, can you make it where mimes cant mimic any songs or dances?

That's a simple as a checkbox in FFTPatcher. The issue with that would be sortof what I mentioned to Barren above - making a rules exception instead of addressing the issue. It's not as drastic as banning the second Mime outright, but still not a favorable choice if you want Arena to have consistent rule setups.

Another simple alternate solution to the Songs and Dances is to outright make them adjust Fury and Faith - you get the same effect, but how drastic it can get is hard-capped by the Fury/Faith mechanic and using it now has a drawback. (Like Wiz mentioned, Tanks that are buffed to huge levels lose a large part of their tankiness in trade for power, etc.) Though this again would require a new Fist formula that removes the Brave factor somehow, or Mimes would be swinging for 1.35*PA*1.5*PA at 100 Fury, which'd still hurt like hell. (With 20 PA, that's about 800 damage even, for the curious. With the constant 10 I mentioned before, it becomes 1.35*20*1.5*10, or 400. Yep, that quadratic element and Brave element affect the formula that much!)

The only problem anyone has had with the stat increases is when you have a mime or two mimicing the songs. Cheer Song/Slow Dance have low enough chances to hit that you cant really build a team around them as is. The other stat boosts cant really snowball out of control with one cast per round.

Quote from: Dol on August 02, 2011, 10:59:06 amAfter rereading Raven's suggestions on Martial Arts, I've been persuaded with one caveat. Ironically, I think that Mimes would need to keep it. Boosting their PA to keep their punches from being tickles would be an issue given that they can mimic other weapon attacks that could end up being overpowered.

I don't think this is an issue because the AI isn't good at utilizing that aspect of the Mime, and because, assuming these changes, the Mime should STILL not be better than an Equip Weapon Monk by a huge margin, if it is at all. In fact, this boost to non-Fist Mime damage would open a new team-design dynamic that should not be a problem at all if handled correctly.

formerdeathcorps · August 02, 2011, 04:43:50 pm

Quote
Dia -> Decrease range by 1, change multiplier value from 14 to 12, and increase MP cost from 10 to 15. Why? Too good of a sniping tool atm.

To be honest, the ability to snipe away targets who were just brought up is useful and should be retained.
1) It stops fights from going too long because it gives the squad the slight advantage the ability to retain the initiative. The fact that you can block it with M-EV and does light damage (equivalent to Fire1) should prevent it from being that strong, even as a sniping tool.

Quote
Formula -> Reduce range to 4 from 5, and make it faith dependent and reduce its Y value from 4 to 2. Why? Most people are going to optimize Geomancy and there's really no reason not to and it punishes those defensive units that run 40 Fa and get away with constant damage.

In Arena, not every physical skill is subject to fury or P-EV. So why are we insisting that every magical skill be subject to faith or M-EV or CT? If anything, there needs to exist magical and physical means of damaging someone without considering evasion or fury to check the squads that try using evasion or low fury/faith walling.
You do realize that optimized geomancy does a base of 160 damage currently, right? Ignoring any changes to +Y, if you add in the standard faith multipliers, damage will be capped at around 80. Against 40 faith, the damage is 45. That's pathetic when compared to physical attacks that don't miss (like ninjitsu or repeating fist, or even dash at high PA). The real problem I see with it:
1) Squires have 4 move + 4/5 range on geomancy + better stats than geomancer. Thus, only squire can get this kind of maximized 160 damage. (Geomancers cap at 144 damage, which was the maximum in S5 as well.) In my opinion, squires should have -1 Move and geomancers should get +1 Speed to compensate for this obvious inequality.
2) Geomancy range certainly needs to be 4 or even 3. However, remvoing AoE, status, or reducing power are all too much since all of those factors are needed to ensure parity with Draw Out (which does more damage than geomancy but is subject to M-EV) or Summon (which does more damage, but requires some minor charging).
3) If you really want to use Faith in this formula, geomancy should still be an anti-40 faith tank weapon. Thus, I'd prefer to only consider caster faith, i.e...PA * MA * CasFa%. This way, a maximum damage geomancer now functions like a summoner with slightly more HP but less damage and AoE (and is highly vulnerable to magic). If you don't want 40 faith wizards spamming Draw Out like in S5, you can adjust Draw Out's Y values higher and do something like MA * Y * CasFa%.

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Accumulate -> Add 2 CT. Why? Becomes too easy to abuse w/ mimicking

Sadly, this would incur AI problems. It's the same reason why Draw Out shouldn't have a CT timer. I'd rather see (PA * 2 + 50)% so it's not consistent. Quickening should be the same way. Yell should be (PA * 2 + 65)% and only Cheer Up should be 100%.

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Wish -> Make it hit at 100% for a 10% heal. Why? Competes more fairly w/ PD even though it's weaker due to height tolerance.

I think the whole point of the squire class is to have varied but weak skills. Thus, wish << PD << fairy.

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Martial Arts -> Reduce its effectiveness from a 1.5x (150%) bonus to PA attacks to a 1.25x (125%) one. Why? Multiplies PA too damn well and ridding of it seems excessive/too much of a penalty to Monks (i.e. no innate "Martial Arts" for Monks). Raise JP cost up to 300 as well. The formula for the reduction's here, so no ASM work required

Raven is right. The biggest problem is:
1) PA * CasFury% * PA * (CasFur + 35)% * (TarFur +35)%. NOtice that this formula is quadratic in terms of PA and CasFury. That is what allows the crazy damage escalation (and why no one in their right mind would use a 40 Fury monk). Thus, I propose the following damage formulas for monk:
Fists = PA * 10 * (CasFur + 35)% * (TarFur +35)%
PUNCH ART = PA * Y
2) Remove innate martial arts and scale the existing formulas to what monk would be if he had no innate martial arts * 5/4.

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This is another reason to scrap Martial Arts - everyone else who needs Attack Up needs to suffer, everyone who uses Martial Arts as a non-innate needs to suffer, and anyone using Monk's PA for a non-Punch Art needs to suffer just to keep them with innate Martial Arts. For someone who wants a more varied metagame, I should not need to explain what's wrong here.

What if we made it so if you use a weapon, martial arts has no effect (even on moves like chakra)? Then you reasonably would have a distinction between the two. Speaking of which, keeping the multipliers at 3/2x (for Martial Arts) and 4/3x (for Attack Up) is fine. The damage is already been reduced out of the 1HKO range from 1.3; there's no need to further this process.

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Angel and Life Song -> Make so they're not mimickable. Why? Otherwise you get 400+ HP Heals at 3:16 - 3:40 which is outright bullshit. Even Dol, who made that team agrees with me on this one.
Cheer Song -> Make it so that it gives out a haste bonus. Why? Permanent Speed trumps Haste considering it already got nerfed to have a 5/4x speed increase instead of a 4/3 one.
Battle Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Protect bonus. Why? In that same video at 13:16, you'll see mimes do 999 Damage which is a problem.
Magic Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Shell bonus. Why? Same potential, but with DO/Geomancy users.
Nameless Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Reraise bonus. Why? Too many buffs stacked on top of it, and even so the AI rarely uses it for some reason.
Witch Hunt and Wiznaibus -> Like Angel/Life Song, they don't need to be mimicked. Why? Ditto, and it's so annoying to watch it being spammed.
Slow Dance -> Just the opposite of Cheer Song, decrease speed with the slow status, not -1 SPD. Why? Ditto (Abusive with mimicking).
Polka Polka -> Make it inflict the Berserk Status. Why? Ditto
Disillusion -> Make it inflict the Confuse Status. Why? Ditto
Nameless Dance -> Make it inflict Death Sentence. Why? Too Many negative buffs out there and too random to counter otherwise.

0) Not allowing mimicry of the healing/damaging songs is understandable, but I don't see exactly why that synergy needs to be removed (since that's about 50% of the reason why most people even choose having mimes). Granted, I don't have too many good ideas that don't require ASM, but if we must:
Life Song (12 MP per use [remember, this is every time life song goes off])
Angel Song (66% accuracy)
Wiznaibus (P-EV)
Witch Hunt (M-EV)
1) I see nothing wrong with +/- 1 PA/MA/SP, provided there exists a hard-coded cap on how much each team can gain/lose (this ASM exists). Doing it this way would allow mimes to retain the ability to mimic songs and dances. Changing to +Fury/Faith/Haste reduces the generality of bards/dancers (because not everything is affected by fury/faith and nor should everything, really), so that's not as good an idea, I think. Adding only protective statii is dumb for AI reasons (see below) and reduces bards only to defensive support (Arena already has enough of those).
2) Are you sure the AI isn't using nameless song or that most people don't have a team with the skill/synchronized to use it? Positive statii (except haste) are used by the AI defensively, not preemptively. Thus, protect/shell/reraise will only be added when a unit is hurt and only when the AI can't heal everyone's HP instead. Since bard can heal everyone's HP, if you have life song, nameless song will never be used. What it currently adds is fine. Not being mimicked here is a good idea, though.
3) Mass Confusing the enemy can cause matches to not end due to AI glitches. Mass berserk can backfire, unlike -1 PA. Overall, what you're asking for would constitute an unneeded nerf to dancer.
4) Nameless dance is unpredictable in landing statii and thus is hard to counter? That's precisely why it should be kept in its current formulation. Any competitive game should always have a risky strategy that's not easy to counter. This way, even a "perfect" squad can lose on a bad day and the it becomes much harder to counter everything. However, mimicking it is asking for too much.

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Shuriken -> Make it P-Ev. Why? Why not!? Magic Attacks are not common to block to begin with.

Reasoning issues aside, the reason why you even see so many M-EV skills was because of the ASM that Pride made, which was a copy of the Rafa skillset, but with PA * Y. It's fairly simple to switch to P-EV, though. Personally, however, I'm all for adding an element of unpredictability (having a skillset with attacks blocked by P and M-EV) so the enemies have to be well built to block everything.

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Steal Heart -> No Gay Love! Why? Female Units are no good choice then other than for compat reasons which can easily be negated by Serpentarius.

Agreed. If you want to charm males, you should have less HP.
The second half of your sentence, however, is ridiculous. Those compat reasons also extend into your own team (i.e. buffs/heals are more effective), but this is a debate for another place.

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Flare -> Increase its MP cost from 45 to 60. Why? Superior to Holy and every way and for 5 extra MP seems OP.

Make flare reflectable and holy not reflectable. Then increase the MP cost to 50. I don't mind a stronger and more MP efficient spell, but it should have more counters (just like how DO > geomancy in damage, but DO is evadable).

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It's not as drastic as banning the second Mime outright, but still not a favorable choice if you want Arena to have consistent rule setups.

I'd argue balance and strategic complexity comes before consistency. That's why I went with my faith idea for Draw Out and Geomancy.

Pride · August 02, 2011, 05:04:44 pm

QuoteReasoning issues aside, the reason why you even see so many M-EV skills was because of the ASM that Pride made, which was a copy of the Rafa skillset, but with PA * Y. It's fairly simple to switch to P-EV, though. Personally, however, I'm all for adding an element of unpredictability (having a skillset with attacks blocked by P and M-EV) so the enemies have to be well built to block everything.

Just here to say I didn't create the asm used for arena.

I haven't participated in this round of arena... So I don't have anything to add other then that I think Mimicing Song/Dance and Quickening both should die in a fire.

RavenOfRazgriz · August 02, 2011, 05:22:26 pm

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on August 02, 2011, 04:43:50 pm1) I see nothing wrong with +/- 1 PA/MA/SP, provided there exists a hard-coded cap on how much each team can gain/lose (this ASM exists). Doing it this way would allow mimes to retain the ability to mimic songs and dances. Changing to +Fury/Faith/Haste reduces the generality of bards/dancers (because not everything is affected by fury/faith and nor should everything, really), so that's not as good an idea, I think. Adding only protective statii is dumb for AI reasons (see below) and reduces bards only to defensive support (Arena already has enough of those).

I considered that too, but it seemed like an unnatural and intangible "cap." A Fury/Faith "cap" is more natural to Arena's mechanics, and it makes moves like Accumulate still have their place over Battle Song and Magic Song - giving the player an actual "do I want X or Y effect" choice, instead of just two ways to raise PA - a continuous option that's faster and easily Mimed, but riskier and caps, or a slower option that's also easily Mimed but has no cap and less risk. I think it'd add a nice bit of parity to Mime-based buff teams and buff teams in general.

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on August 02, 2011, 04:43:50 pmWhat if we made it so if you use a weapon, martial arts has no effect (even on moves like chakra)? Then you reasonably would have a distinction between the two.

That... has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about.

I was saying that if we reduced Martial Arts and Attack UP just to keep Martial Arts innate on Monk, a Thief (e.g.) subbing Punch Art and Martial Arts is now heavily debuffed for no reason, as is any non-Monk attacker using Attack UP. In the same vein, since his proposition makes both Attack UP and Martial Arts 1.25%, there's no reason to ever choose Martial Arts over Attack UP as a Support... basically giving Martial Arts no reason to exist unless you made it cost next to nothing so people could use it as a poor man's Attack UP. Etc. You see where this is going - basically everyone loses because people are insisting Monks keep an innate Support instead of just removing it and rebalancing PA - in which case literally nobody loses.

Aside: Your Punch Art formula should be (PA+X)*Y or something most likely. It'd make scaling the skills easier, but that's neither here nor there.

The Damned · August 03, 2011, 05:20:09 am

(Ugh. August has been off to quite the bad start.)

Oh, I'd totally be up for brutally murdering Martial Arts. I just didn't want to open that bag of worms again since I'm pretty sure I've nagged FFMaster about it before and everyone knows that I'm almost as biased against Monks as I am Chemist.

Ugh. This post is going to be a lot longer than I would like, but it's not my fault this thread literally doubled in size yesterday. I swear. You stare at something and it doesn't change and then you shift your attention and....

Anyway, this is going to be another wall of text, though multi-quote style, so it may more bearable or less bearable than before. You have been warned.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 amUnlike The Damned, my info will be consolidated in spoilers properly the first time and actually be organized

It truly pains me to realize that not only I have to do the function for decimal lists manually now, but there's no real point in using it for the things I actually want to use it for because it can't space itself.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Accumulate -> Add 2 CT. Why? Becomes too easy to abuse w/ mimicking
Throw Stone -> Change Multiplier to 5 and make it P-Ev, not M-Ev. Why? It's a physical attack and shouldn't do more damage than Magical spells
Wish -> Make it hit at 100% for a 10% heal. Why? Competes more fairly w/ PD even though it's weaker due to height tolerance.

As FDC said, giving Accumulate a CT would just screw up things for the computer, unfortunately. Otherwise, agree with this, though 10% might a bit much for 100% since Revive is only 20%. Maybe 5%?

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Hi-Ether -> Change 70 for a 60 MP Heal Instead. Why? Excessive and puts Ether in the dust too much.
Auto Potion -> Change from 50 to a 100 HP Heal and reduce JP cost to 300. Why? Useless atm.
Equip Clothes -> When changing in the formation screen, this ability doesn't actually work. Fix this bug please >_>

I wasn't aware that Equip Clothes didn't work, but literally no one has used it. I wonder if it affects any of the other Equip X abilities (that people haven't used) like Equip Magegear....

Also, Auto Potion at 100 seems a bit much given that damage usually doesn't break 200+ unless it's going to OHKO anyway. I'm not really sure what it should be, though, since 50 IS weak. Hmm....

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Speed Save -> Change it to +20 CT OR scrap it entirely. Why? Speed's too abusive w/ things such as lore. My Speedsters Team also shows why clearly. If +20 CT, change it to 300 JP since 600 seems excessive
Projectile Guard -> Reduce JP Cost to 200. Why? Ranged attackers are not always and very often not present.

20+ CT might a bit much, but then again, it is 4 v 4, so that would probably work here.

200 JP seems a bit...low considering it almost completely blocks 3 types of weapons if your Brave/Fury is high enough. Perhaps 250?

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Salamander -> Scrap it. Why? It's the same MP cost as Ifirit and is weaker for more JP according to the Ability chart here 0.o To be a tad weaker for 1 vert is not worth it making it too similar to Ifirit.
Zodiac -> (At the top of my head) Reduce Vert to 3, Reduce Y Value to 20, Increase AOE to 5, Increase MP to 55, Increase JP to 500. Why? Balance between that, Cyclops, and Bahamut.

You realize Salamander is AoE 3, right? Also, a non-elemental AoE of 5 with Y as 20 is...extremely overpowered, almost broken, for something that isn't avoidable.

Perhaps increasing the AoE is indeed the way to go though, like Shade suggested, when it comes to Zodiac. Then again, even an AoE 3 non-elemental spell might be a bit much....

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Formula -> Reduce range to 4 from 5, and make it faith dependent and reduce its Y value from 4 to 2. Why? Most people are going to optimize Geomancy and there's really no reason not to and it punishes those defensive units that run 40 Fa and get away with constant damage.
Attack UP -> Reduce from 4/3 Physical Attack increase to 5/4. Why? Stacking w/ Martial Arts is too damn good as well as melee units in general with a PA Setup.

If Attack UP were to change, then Magic Attack UP, Magic Defense UP and Defense UP would have to change as well since arguably physical classes still have the advantage (sans Flare and Raise 2) over magic.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Formula -> Make it Faith Dependent. Why? Same Reason as Geomancy, no need for 40 Fa Wizards running around using this.
Every Attack DO except Chiri-> Make CT = 2 (Same as Haste). Why? No MP Cost incurred other than M-Ev, which isn't easy to build up with.
Chirijiriaden -> Make CT = 3. Why? Most Powerful DO.

Draw Out can't take CT (or MP), unfortunately. They're...annoying like that.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 amspoiler=Ninjitsu]Shuriken -> Make it P-Ev. Why? Why not!? Magic Attacks are not common to block to begin with.
Two Swords -> Reduce JP Cost to 600. Why? To make it more usable and worthwhile. Too taxing as it is now at 700.[/spoiler]

Does Shuriken really need to be physically evadable given how little damage individual blows do? I mean, I guess I could see why since it does hit 4 times, but it seems kind of...pointless to be the one of all the Ninjutsu skills to worry about, even given its range.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Bio 3 -> Reduce MP Cost to 18. Why? Bio 1 and 2 go up by multiples of 6. Doesn't make sense to put this handicap on it.
Damage Split -> Reduce JP Cost to 500. Why? 600 is too costly for a reaction ability especially since most people don't open up lore unless they're using a scholar.

While I can perhaps agree with Bio 3's reduction, I have to vehemently be against lowering Damage Split's JP. Trust me. People do still constantly open up Scholar just to get it considering how good it still is.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH "Stat" STACKING, don't get this confused with "Status"!!!
Angel and Life Song -> Make so they're not mimickable. Why? Otherwise you get 400+ HP Heals at 3:16 - 3:40 which is outright bullshit. Even Dol, who made that team agrees with me on this one.
Cheer Song -> Make it so that it gives out a haste bonus. Why? Permanent Speed trumps Haste considering it already got nerfed to have a 5/4x speed increase instead of a 4/3 one.
Battle Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Protect bonus. Why? In that same video at 13:16, you'll see mimes do 999 Damage which is a problem.
Magic Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Shell bonus. Why? Same potential, but with DO/Geomancy users.
Nameless Song -> Make it so that it gives out a Reraise bonus. Why? Too many buffs stacked on top of it, and even so the AI rarely uses it for some reason.

MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH "Stat" STACKING, don't get this confused with "Status"!!!
Witch Hunt and Wiznaibus -> Like Angel/Life Song, they don't need to be mimicked. Why? Ditto, and it's so annoying to watch it being spammed.
Slow Dance -> Just the opposite of Cheer Song, decrease speed with the slow status, not -1 SPD. Why? Ditto (Abusive with mimicking).
Polka Polka -> Make it inflict the Berserk Status. Why? Ditto
Disillusion -> Make it inflict the Confuse Status. Why? Ditto
Nameless Dance -> Make it inflict Death Sentence. Why? Too Many negative buffs out there and too random to counter otherwise.

I can get behind Cheer Song causing Haste and Slow Dance causing, well, Slow, even if it actually works against the plan to try to make things more accountable to Faith. I can't get behind anything else, though.

To start off, Berserk and Confusion statuses would make Disillusion and Polka Polka MORE abusive with Mimes since they have unlimited duration, basically forcing every team to be immune to Berserk and/or Confusion unless they want things to be really stupid. You know how the AI acts with regards to Death Sentence and not going after whomever is afflicted even though a lot of the time that unit is still a huge problem? Confusion is usually that tenfold (unless you're using Thieves, and that class hardly needs more of an edge now) unless the AI can do 50+% of that unit's HP in damage in one strike. So...yeah.

Nameless Dance is fine. Okay, maybe change Stop into Don't Move or something, but then it becomes pretty toothless for its CT and hit rate, especially with how much Esuna and Stigma Magic cure currently. Stop's pretty much the only "dangerous" thing about Nameless Dance now that it's not Frogging or Confusing people from the across the map.

With regards to Nameless Song, I believe the AI rarely uses it because it's probably still flagged as Random or else it's all the AI would do since it just sees Haste and Regen and not that they only have a chance to occur rather than a certainty. Without the Random flag, the AI would keep spamming it like the old Masamune when ARENA first started up that randomly did Haste OR Regen, but the AI saw it as both (and would thus stupidly prioritize over EVERYTHING else, even healing).

Speaking of healing, I can get behind Life Song restoring less HP and being slightly longer than CT. Same with Angel Song and MP. I think they're fine being Mimicked, though. Same with Wiznaibus/With Knives and Witch Hunt, especially since those would be very unlikely to be used without Mimic.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

FS Bag -> Give it Always: Protect. Why? Plenty of other gear out there which also give out +1 PA making this useless otherwise.
C Bag -> Give it Always: Shell. Why? Viable option between this and the Wizard Rod then.

I can't say I agree with this, unless Bags become Forced Two Hands or something and even then....

Also, I don't think that FFMaster has any Item Attribute space left over with which to make these happen anyway.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

These Bitches need MAJOR lovins.
Gold Staff -> Add Cancel: Silence to it. Why? Staff whacks are just not enough.
Rainbow Staff-> Add Initial: Haste (Last for 2 turns such as Act and Move). Why? Ditto
White Staff -> Add Initial Faith (Last for 2 full turns such as Act and Move). Why? Ditto

I could get behind these. Unfortunately, as with Bags, I don't think FFMaster has the free Item Attribute Space for the last two; Gold Staff should be doable, though, and it does need a boost....

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Poison Rod -> Cancel: Poison and Stop. Why? Why not!? Just cancelling poison is too shitty :O

I can't say I agree with this, even if the Item Attribute space was available (unless there was a lot left available). Should Rods get an increase in WP and Two Swords/Equip Magegear see a drop, these could be pretty obnoxious given the 100% Poison.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Koga and Iga Knives -> Switch the strengthening between the two around. Why? To boost the weapon and it's kind of assholish to force the player to use both in order to get only one of the boosts.

If it's assholish, then that's Squaresoft's doing since FFMaster literally didn't change those aspects. Also, I could see your point if Ninja didn't have Two Swords innate, but since they do...yeah. Even the "sacrifice" that RavenofRazgriz talked isn't much for them given they can use both weapons freely at the same time innately.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 am

Ultimus Bow. Reduce its Range by 1 so it's 4 in total. Why? The Mythril Bow's a POS (Piece of Shit) then.

Mythril Bow is fine. 1 Speed is rather significant (or will be, once Quickening, Speed Save and Cheer Song die in a fire). I suppose I could agree with this even having said that, if not for the fact that Ultimus Bow would then become a POS because at 4-range, there would be next to no reason to use it over a Cross Bow given that you get a shield with the crossbow.

Quote from: Wiz on August 02, 2011, 05:53:41 amThieves DON'T need access to swords. Speedy units with blood sword I don't think so.

Hmmm...I guess I can agree with this; I honestly hadn't paid much attention to the fact ARENA Thieves can equip Swords innately. Although, as problematic as Thieves currently are, I think it's more a problem with Blood Sword itself and that all absorption abilities in FFT heal for the full damage they do than with Thief's Speedy Gonzalez routine--minus speed-boosting abilities, of course, since then pretty much ANY class is OP with a Blood Sword after getting enough speed.

Quote from: Barren on August 02, 2011, 07:22:11 am
Well if you want the miming of song and dance and such to be less OP, why not have it mimed only once so that way you can spend more time thinking of a creative combo for mimes to use during battle other than SOS (Same Old Shit)

Plus it wont overwhelm the team so unfairly that they can't come back from the wiznaibus/battle song/lich/elemental spam, ect. Mimes needs to be limited to 1 IMHO

Eh...it doesn't really solve the problem, at least in the case of magicians since three Summoners and 1 mime still equips 6 Summons, even if that two of those six summons have to be different. Even in the case of stat Song and Wiznaibus, it just seems like artificially dealing with the problem.

Honestly, Mimes just need to not be allowed to Mimic stat-affecting abilities, even if they lose Martial Arts and even if there's an "artificial" stat-cap via that ASM.

Life Song and Wiznaibus/With Knives being able to be Mimiced is fine (if the CT is increased and the amount they do decreased, though that in turns makes them MORE dependent on Mimes, not less). Sure, it will still be "boring", but, eh, not everything can be "exciting". Besides, it's not like you guys are doing tournament matches again. You can decline to just run teams that use Mime plus whatever Song or Dance since it DOES take up a lot of time usually and everything you're doing is from the kindness of your own heart (or whatever organ, let's say "brain" to be less cheesy). It's not exactly like those teams can sneak up on you anyway since you have to put their abilities in a spreadsheet before you can even run a match.

I'm not sure what to do about Summon stuff, though I think as a whole Summon magic probably needs to be weaker anyway.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on August 02, 2011, 07:44:05 am
The only problem is that taking that route slowly makes the rules needlessly complex and inconsistent. You can only have two of everything... except Mimes... then starts the slippery slope of just making rules exceptions to toss a band-aide on things instead of just fixing the issue. A rules exception should only exist when there is no other alternative. There are clearly several alternatives worth looking into currently. The main thing that doesn't seem to have much of an exception is Life Song... but a "this skill is unmimable" exception is far less questionable than actually changing the party construction rules themselves. Either that, or just make the Songs Undead Reversed and make Mimes Undead or something so that Miming a Life Song is just not a good idea... there's a nice crazy solution to several issues at once.

Making Mimes Undead would be pretty bad if the current Cursed Ring situation is any indication. Similarly, making Life Song actually damage the Undead when it's already one of only two healing skills that doesn't--the other being Chakra--seems rather unfair/unnecessary.

Besides, I thought the "Undead Reverse" toggle only affected AI Behavior rather than the actual skill itself.

I otherwise agree that limiting things to 1 Mime is just a band-aid that doesn't really get at the problem and only starts a slippery slope problem.

Quote from: Dol on August 02, 2011, 10:59:06 amHowever, if it is possible, can you make it where mimes cant mimic any songs or dances? The only problem anyone has had with the stat increases is when you have a mime or two mimicing the songs. Cheer Song/Slow Dance have low enough chances to hit that you cant really build a team around them as is. The other stat boosts cant really snowball out of control with one cast per round.

As Raven already pointed out, there's literally just a toggle for it in FFTPatcher. So you could make it that all Songs & Dances can be Mimicked (as is the current situation), no Songs or Dances can be Mimcked (as is your suggestion) or that certain Songs & Dances, say the stat-affecting ones, can't be Mimicked while the other ones can (as per my suggestion). It's quite flexible and, as of yet, I don't think that I've run into any problems with it changing things around and making things within the same skill set not all able to be Mimed.

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on August 02, 2011, 11:42:48 amLife Song is borderline usable, but even then, I don't think I've at least seen anyone use them without Mimes.

*raises hand*

I've used Life Song at least thrice without any Mimes, but then again, I tend to build (shitty) theme teams, so don't mind me....

Quote from: RavenOfRazgriz on August 02, 2011, 11:42:48 am
Another simple alternate solution to the Songs and Dances is to outright make them adjust Fury and Faith - you get the same effect, but how drastic it can get is hard-capped by the Fury/Faith mechanic and using it now has a drawback. (Like Wiz mentioned, Tanks that are buffed to huge levels lose a large part of their tankiness in trade for power, etc.)

That's perhaps good for Songs, but it seems like a pretty horrible idea for Dances. Didn't you recently run into a problem in your own patch with regards to Fury and it getting to really low values, making dealing damage impossible? You think that Polka Polka is bad now? Matches would likely end up stalemating (or being extremely boring) if there was a -Brave/-Fury Dance, which wouldn't even affect all physical attacks, so it would probably just end up detrimental to the team actually using it, which is...bad. [/understatement]

Similarly, the -Faith Dance would be even more worthless than Witch Hunt, which is saying something considering no one has yet to use it, given the only thing that would exploit the lower-Faith would be, what, Ninjutsu? Given there are only 3 low-Faith "punishing" attacks and they're all elemental, it doesn't exactly seem like that Dance would ever get used either.

So, if we're fine with screwing over Dancer (and Mediator) even further, then Fury/Faith Song & Dance sound like an interesting idea. Otherwise....

Quote from: formerdeathcorps on August 02, 2011, 04:43:50 pm0) Not allowing mimicry of the healing/damaging songs is understandable, but I don't see exactly why that synergy needs to be removed (since that's about 50% of the reason why most people even choose having mimes). Granted, I don't have too many good ideas that don't require ASM, but if we must:
Life Song (12 MP per use [remember, this is every time life song goes off])
Angel Song (66% accuracy)
Wiznaibus (P-EV)
Witch Hunt (M-EV)

I basically agree with everything that FDC has to say, though I just wanted to point this part out since, Life Song typo aside, I'm not sure how much I agree with it and we're focusing on Song and Dance a lot anyway. Granting evasion to Wiznaibus/With Knives and Witch Hunt seems like it hurts them a lot more than Song's suggested changes, even with the loss of certainty that Angel Song would have.

No one has used Witch Hunt when it's only 4 CT and not evadable. I can't see allowing it to be subject to magical evasion exactly helping matters. Wiznaibus/With Knives also becomes a lot worse between all the reactions that can make it backfire and how common (significant) physical evasion is. Maybe if you could make it not trigger certain reactions (like HP Restore), but I don't think we can affect Countergrasp reactions still....

Also, Life Song should probably be around 20-25 HP. Anything lower would be pathetic even with a Mime and anything higher, as it is now, would be rather abusive with one, especially with the 4 CT it has now. Making it into a guaranteed sort of Distribute seems like the way to go rather than taking a nerf-bat to its knees.

Angel Song is probably fine at 12 MP, though, if that's what you meant.

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