Balanced Masteries

[NinjaMonkey]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

[Catnip]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

The thing is, though, when they activate, it's just instant death. There's no difference; you only get to see Sol's and Flare's real effect, since all the other times the person is dead (and if they're not, you must have crowned them very early).

[Fayt Zelpher]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

The thing is, though, when they activate, it's just instant death. There's no difference; you only get to see Sol's and Flare's real effect, since all the other times the person is dead (and if they're not, you must have crowned them very early).

My whole point in this is that as it stands, the game might as well have just said: unit will auto-kill any opponent it attacks with x% probability. My goal is to keep them powerful while also allowing enemies to survive given sufficient stats and having a full or nearly full HP gauge. In addition, I wanted to leave some more powerful at the cost of a lower proc% and allow weaker skills to activate more often. In addition, I am also hoping to use them to balance the classes a bit better, in that weaker classes get better masteries, and vice versa.

[Sho Minamimoto]

Even with balanced masteries, you still would pwn face. What they should have done is included third tier enemies so that they could have higher bases and survive.

And you CAN dodge Astra hits

But you would need ZETTA high avoid for that.

[Fayt Zelpher]

Even with balanced masteries, you still would pwn face. What they should have done is included third tier enemies so that they could have higher bases and survive.

And you CAN dodge Astra hits

But you would need ZETTA high avoid for that.

When I nerfed the masteries, I also made the assumption that there were going to be some tier 3 enemies with those masteries (I was thinking about 30%, with the rest being tier 2 SP units). Also, some bosses in part 3 and Ludveck were also getting their masteries, although they wouldn't necessarily need to be tier 3 for that.

[Anouleth]

Even with balanced masteries, you still would pwn face. What they should have done is included third tier enemies so that they could have higher bases and survive.

And you CAN dodge Astra hits

But you would need ZETTA high avoid for that.

Third tier enemies do exist - every enemy in Part 3 is technically 3rd tier, with 'okay' bases and wtfh4x growths. They just have 2nd tier names and no masteries.

[Narga_Rocks]

And you CAN dodge Astra hits

But you would need ZETTA high avoid for that.

That's Astra. Everyone knows Astra can be dodged. Well, not everyone, but lots. It's like Adept and Aether. But many of the other masteries can't be dodged. Whether this is because

it calculates hit first and if you fail the hit it doesn't check for Luna, etc, so you never see them miss

or

it's because they calculate the mastery first and if it activates then it auto hits

I don't know, but when you see them activate they hit.

[Catnip]

And you CAN dodge Astra hits

But you would need ZETTA high avoid for that.

That's Astra. Everyone knows Astra can be dodged. Well, not everyone, but lots. It's like Adept and Aether. But many of the other masteries can't be dodged. Whether this is because

it calculates hit first and if you fail the hit it doesn't check for Luna, etc, so you never see them miss

or

it's because they calculate the mastery first and if it activates then it auto hits

I don't know, but when you see them activate they hit.

It may be because all other Masteries are only one strike, unlike Aether and Astra. Seeing the epic "Flare" thing, with the sage doing the flip, it would be a slap in the face for the enemy to dodge all that. However, with Aether you have another shot, and with Astra you have 4!

Edited January 6, 2010 by Catnip

[NinjaMonkey]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

The thing is, though, when they activate, it's just instant death. There's no difference; you only get to see Sol's and Flare's real effect, since all the other times the person is dead (and if they're not, you must have crowned them very early).

I dunno, on my first playthrough my Shinon Deadeyed a General and he was still alive... (and no, I didn't crown him)

[Fayt Zelpher]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

The thing is, though, when they activate, it's just instant death. There's no difference; you only get to see Sol's and Flare's real effect, since all the other times the person is dead (and if they're not, you must have crowned them very early).

I dunno, on my first playthrough my Shinon Deadeyed a General and he was still alive... (and no, I didn't crown him)

That's the other thing that IS didn't realize. Some of the masteries, like Impale and Deadeye, multiply the damage dealt by a fixed multiplier. Others (like Sol and Luna) triple the strength of the user. If this seems unclear, I'll give an example. Suppose you have a marksman with 28 strength, a 12 Mt weapon, and are fighting an enemy with 26 defense. You activate deadeye. Normally, you'd do 40 - 26, or 14 damage, but, because of the skill, you do 3x as much, or 42 damage. the enemy is weakened, but possibly alive.

Now assume the same stats for the wolf, and the same Mt fang (there are no 12 Mt fangs, but assume there are). Normally, he also does 14 damage to a 26 def enemy. Now, he activates Savage. For this attack, the users Str is tripled, to 84. Added to the 12 Mt from the weapon and subtracting the 26 def, the wolf deals 70 damage. That foe is dead unless it's a dragon or has broken HP

Edited January 7, 2010 by Randomly Predictable

[Catnip]

I think the masteries are OK as they are. The only ones that seem to activate most often are Tear and Deadeye, all the rest barely seem to activate at all (much to my dismay).

The thing is, though, when they activate, it's just instant death. There's no difference; you only get to see Sol's and Flare's real effect, since all the other times the person is dead (and if they're not, you must have crowned them very early).

I dunno, on my first playthrough my Shinon Deadeyed a General and he was still alive... (and no, I didn't crown him)

That's the other thing that IS didn't realize. Some of the masteries, like Impale and Deadeye, multiply the damage dealt by a fixed multiplier. Others (like Sol and Luna) triple the strength of the user. If this seems unclear, I'll give an example. Suppose you have a marksman with 28 strength, a 12 Mt weapon, and are fighting an enemy with 26 defense. You activate deadeye. Normally, you'd do 40 - 26, or 14 damage, but, because of the skill, you do 3x as much, or 42 damage. the enemy is weakened, but possibly alive.

Now assume the same stats for the wolf, and the same Mt fang (there are no 12 Mt fangs, but assume there are). Normally, he also does 14 damage to a 26 def enemy. Now, he activates Savage. For this attack, the users Str is tripled, to 84. Added to the 12 Mt from the weapon and subtracting the 26 def, the wolf deals 70 damage. That foe is dead unless it's a dragon or has broken HP

That's interesting, and makes a very big difference. In your balanced mysteries, the whole damage multiplier is eliminated, therefore meaning this is no longer a problem.

[Fayt Zelpher]

That's interesting, and makes a very big difference. In your balanced mysteries, the whole damage multiplier is eliminated, therefore meaning this is no longer a problem.

I wanted the masteries to give a nice effect and do some damage, not just be a x% chance of instant kill. The exceptions are impale and ire, but I've nerfed the chance of activation accordingly. Those two skills are of the (less powerful) multiply damage category already, though.

[Narga_Rocks]

That's the other thing that IS didn't realize. Some of the masteries, like Impale and Deadeye, multiply the damage dealt by a fixed multiplier. Others (like Sol and Luna) triple the strength of the user. If this seems unclear, I'll give an example. Suppose you have a marksman with 28 strength, a 12 Mt weapon, and are fighting an enemy with 26 defense. You activate deadeye. Normally, you'd do 40 - 26, or 14 damage, but, because of the skill, you do 3x as much, or 42 damage. the enemy is weakened, but possibly alive.

Now assume the same stats for the wolf, and the same Mt fang (there are no 12 Mt fangs, but assume there are). Normally, he also does 14 damage to a 26 def enemy. Now, he activates Savage. For this attack, the users Str is tripled, to 84. Added to the 12 Mt from the weapon and subtracting the 26 def, the wolf deals 70 damage. That foe is dead unless it's a dragon or has broken HP

But this is what makes Rend so hilarious. Lyre can do 0 damage to a Red Dragon without activating Rend, and OHKO the thing if she activates Rend. All it takes is 20 str and SS strike and she'll have 38 mt. On HM, some Red Dragons happen to have 38 def. Rend multiplies str by 5 and so instead of 38 mt she has 118 mt and the thing takes 80 damage and dies.

I'm tempted to raise Lyre just to see this happen, if not for the fact that I'd have to actually use Lyre. Also she could get lucky and pull more than 10x2 str by this point and she'd cause actual damage without Rend making Rend's OHKO less funny.

[Fayt Zelpher]

That's the other thing that IS didn't realize. Some of the masteries, like Impale and Deadeye, multiply the damage dealt by a fixed multiplier. Others (like Sol and Luna) triple the strength of the user. If this seems unclear, I'll give an example. Suppose you have a marksman with 28 strength, a 12 Mt weapon, and are fighting an enemy with 26 defense. You activate deadeye. Normally, you'd do 40 - 26, or 14 damage, but, because of the skill, you do 3x as much, or 42 damage. the enemy is weakened, but possibly alive.

Now assume the same stats for the wolf, and the same Mt fang (there are no 12 Mt fangs, but assume there are). Normally, he also does 14 damage to a 26 def enemy. Now, he activates Savage. For this attack, the users Str is tripled, to 84. Added to the 12 Mt from the weapon and subtracting the 26 def, the wolf deals 70 damage. That foe is dead unless it's a dragon or has broken HP

But this is what makes Rend so hilarious. Lyre can do 0 damage to a Red Dragon without activating Rend, and OHKO the thing if she activates Rend. All it takes is 20 str and SS strike and she'll have 38 mt. On HM, some Red Dragons happen to have 38 def. Rend multiplies str by 5 and so instead of 38 mt she has 118 mt and the thing takes 80 damage and dies.

I'm tempted to raise Lyre just to see this happen, if not for the fact that I'd have to actually use Lyre. Also she could get lucky and pull more than 10x2 str by this point and she'd cause actual damage without Rend making Rend's OHKO less funny.

Go ahead. Do it on EM. I can easily have 100,000 BEXP by 4-E-1 on EM, so I could just raise her exclusively on BEXP. It's not like 5 Str extra is going to change things a whole lot. Plus, she'll hit Rend that much more often as well. It'd be funny. I'm interested to see how it will go. (Of course, I think that it's still literally impossible to hurt Dheginsea with her without EM bonuses, since Mantle includes Nihil...)

[Narga_Rocks]

Go ahead. Do it on EM. I can easily have 100,000 BEXP by 4-E-1 on EM, so I could just raise her exclusively on BEXP. It's not like 5 Str extra is going to change things a whole lot. Plus, she'll hit Rend that much more often as well. It'd be funny. I'm interested to see how it will go. (Of course, I think that it's still literally impossible to hurt Dheginsea with her without EM bonuses, since Mantle includes Nihil...)

What are the stats of dragons on EM, though? It would be tough to line up the str/strike level she needs to do 0 and OHKO damage.

As for Dheginsea, she basically needs to be str blessed. She has an 18 str cap and an 18 mt weapon, so she can get to 54 mt. Also, Ena exists. But considering her level 40 str on average is 15 it would be difficult to get up to damage dealing level. Well, NM has tons of bexp and paragon would give her enough cexp to get within striking distance for bexp to get her there. Also, after capping skill and spd her str growth becomes #3 and res is a close #4, and at level 30 res is ~5 away from capping so she could theoretically get 5 str from bexp at that point and hit 16.55, or 16 anyway, so she could do all of 5 damage per hit with blood tide. It's not much, but it's >0. Not as if what she does against Dheginsea actually matters, though.

[Fayt Zelpher]

Go ahead. Do it on EM. I can easily have 100,000 BEXP by 4-E-1 on EM, so I could just raise her exclusively on BEXP. It's not like 5 Str extra is going to change things a whole lot. Plus, she'll hit Rend that much more often as well. It'd be funny. I'm interested to see how it will go. (Of course, I think that it's still literally impossible to hurt Dheginsea with her without EM bonuses, since Mantle includes Nihil...)

What are the stats of dragons on EM, though? It would be tough to line up the str/strike level she needs to do 0 and OHKO damage.

As for Dheginsea, she basically needs to be str blessed. She has an 18 str cap and an 18 mt weapon, so she can get to 54 mt. Also, Ena exists. But considering her level 40 str on average is 15 it would be difficult to get up to damage dealing level. Well, NM has tons of bexp and paragon would give her enough cexp to get within striking distance for bexp to get her there. Also, after capping skill and spd her str growth becomes #3 and res is a close #4, and at level 30 res is ~5 away from capping so she could theoretically get 5 str from bexp at that point and hit 16.55, or 16 anyway, so she could do all of 5 damage per hit with blood tide. It's not much, but it's >0. Not as if what she does against Dheginsea actually matters, though. And for some reason, I thought that female cats only had 15 str caps. I was wrong; they too get 18 Str caps. But who's taking a cat to endgame anyway?

I'm pretty sure that the red dragons are around 74/32 to 78/36. White dragons are around 72/16 to 76/18. Obviously, Nasir and Gareth are higher than this. And you're getting the EM bonuses at this point. So with 18+5 Str and S strike, I'm pretty sure you can get to the point where you can go from 0 damage to 1HKO on EM. If you don't want to take her to the tower, you can also go with the dragons in 4-5. Their levels are 14-16, so I'm guessing that the stats are around 68/30 or so. This would require 22 Str at A strike. This method has its advantages and disadvantages compared to the tower method.