Lurker > MartinFF7

If you don't watch anime and you see "Yuff" you would naturally pronounce it Yuff, not Yoof...

Kate Sith >>> Tiedus > Marsh > Youghie

I've come around on the "correct" Yuffie pronunciation but I still think of her name the wrong way sometimes...

ok won with the knives at 32 fear and ironically this time he was 1 hit away from killing me instead of vice versa, but I'll take it.

...and then went right into a practice skull run that led into a full 32 fear skull run, stopped for the night at entrance of 4th region, don't like my setup for multiple reasons (not enough health, no chain lightning, same curse on both attack and cast/gamble of starting with the Echo keepsake not paying off...) but maybe I can turn things around.

Another "fun" situation I ran into with tonight's playthroughs: out of nowhere I got offered the last of the Chaos "sin" boons for the prophecy and it is so ludicrous I can't believe they programmed this as an option. Ideally the benefit varies but for my case it was a +89% chance to get additional resources (big woop) and the sin part, "Barren", disables your arcana for eleven encounters. Couldn't believe that shit, got it in Oceanus and I think I only hit my 11th encounter like right before 3rd region guardian?? On the plus side they didn't disable your Death Defiances but yeah... if you're going to make me lose arcana I expect a better reward than double resources (which never even occurred the few times it came up in 4th region, ugh).

Also learned the "Prowess" and "Finesse" in the Chaos virtues are literally impossible to get at this point in time, based on people checking the game code. In case anybody else is trying to clear out their prophecies.

And I still haven't gotten Hermes' legendary one yet either, damn. Just that and the Hera duo boon left for me.

Lopen posted...

He played in a recent mafia game and Blade was super toxic in it with Ulti being tox Jr and he seemed pretty miserable

Could see that having pushed him into closing an account that he'd maybe been secretly considering closing for a while

"Mafia: Not Even Once"

Grimlyn posted...

Martin for years has locked me in for my Tifaroth late games

can't deny the min/maxxing game

lol, good ol' Tifaroth. Though probably bypassing that this year, at this rate...

which reminds me, I noticed TotallyNotMI missing the first two rounds (and again today) and checked his profile and saw his account was closed??? Anybody know when/why that happened, anything on discord? Damn... hope he's doing all right.

Mog OO

Chaeix auto at posts 68/76 is still open

Tifa

Layle
Cloud

Thinking how I voted "no video games for me", now 130 hours spent on Hades II.... if I only knew it was releasing!

FFDragon posted...

OKAY FINE ILL WASTE TIME AT WORK DOING IT

Work time spent on SMFFFC stats is never a waste!
-MartinFF7, 2018-present

FFDragon posted...

Two champions on that list and at least one more I could see getting there one day

SMFFFC XXXI: Edward's Revenge

Anagram posted...

All of the fear options now are for Chronos at 20 or 24. I can take him at 16 with any weapon, but 20 is giving me difficulty, and 24 might just be beyond me. I can't imagine doing it at 32.

I thought this too at the time but I dunno... practice makes perfect I guess, figuring out the combinations of your preferred playstyle, weapon aspects and vows for the run. unfortunately a fair bit of luck needed too, getting the right hammer(s) and pool of boons really makes all the difference.

I did my original 32 fear runs with the staff and yesterday I completed them with the axe. Early this evening I did 32 fear with the torches, I think I got lucky.

Staff strategy: Momus and praying you get Double Moonshot hammer, topping up HP when needed. Pretty sure in final fight I was running from one end of the area to the other, spamming omega special to get back up to 50%, lol. Poseidon special is also pretty nifty there.

Torch strategy: Hera attack and born gain, Encounters +60% since they all get hitched anyways so was able to clear rooms really well. Got lucky with some hammers and Apollo's extra hit chance.

Axe strategy: Charon, Apollo solar ring and just spamming the omega special-cast combo. Think I got the timer vow to 7 minutes for that one, just so easy to clear rooms. Getting the +50% dual curse is the tricky part there since Apollo's cast doesn't have one so you gotta have the Special + another source (Demeter cyclone or you gotta do more steps in attack/dash/sprint to get the other curse in...), I forget but I might have forgone that in the arcana.

Knives strategy was hoping to be Aspect of Pan and while I had a timer vow on the other 32 fear runs, I kept it off for them and put all the encounter and health stuff to max, so it was a grind. Got really unlucky in boons but still managed to get one hit away in the end... also was my first time using the arcana ability where you take less damage/deal more damage below 30% HP where I basically was the whole run. Last 2 regions the Moros charm was getting invoked literally every room... happened during part of final fight when boss was invincible so again, unlucky.

Overall another strategy for high-fear runs i had wanted to use but barely ever works out: jack up the "first hit +% damage" vow to max, and try to get the Heph "prime to enter every encounter with armor" ability, so the jacked-up first hit you take hits the armor rather than your health. Problem is if you go for Heph with your first boon he's inevitably offering you all the "main" boons so it never comes up as an option, then you just need to hope it does on your 2nd (or even 3rd) Heph boon and hopefully not take too much damage/lose DDs in meantime.

No idea what I'm going to do for skulls, think I gotta practice & learn Aspect of Medea which is apparently the best, though I just use Aspect of Melinoe right now. Very likely a no magic build and probably going for Zeus/priming everything.

here's a no-stats-day stat:

Day 1 saw the most activity on a Day 1 in contest history. Well I'm assuming in history, I only went back and checked the past five years/going back to 2020 with the pandemic uptick, and every day 1 saw at least a bit of H3 activity. But yesterday only had the 1 H3 save, lefty's - so close to the complete wipeout.

Not going to check on Day 2 but this also feels pretty irregularly active! Everybody hungry to save their favourite final fantasy characters.

Krjn

Leonhart4 posted...

Good work, FFVIII crew

We have now outlasted our first loss last year

General Furyk Carawonso

Ghido

andylt posted...

Auto for Ghido

for Mog OO

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Trading for ktjn auto

for Mog OO

Layle
Cloud

FFDragon posted...

Technically I don't think lefty has made cutoff rules for this year

I dont think lefty's ever made a simple, clear "here are all the timing rules" post. But maybe this can be the year!!

7pm est

MZero posted...

2 saves in a round? Keepa can't even get 2 saves in a blitzball game

https://i.imgur.com/uRu42fr.gif

Every discussion about bringing in hardboot fodder gets us one step closer to achieving the dream...

The beatings (Garik nominating) will continue until morale (10 Narshe Moogles) improves

th3l3fty posted...

the process is important

we need all 99 rounds to truly refine the winner

yes but picture a world w/ 25 rounds where bottom 2 are eliminated, then resuming business as usual top 50 w/ rule change. 20 hard boots pre-FoG, 20 soft boots FoG. Streamlining!

Harness the feeling of relief that no character you care about was eliminated today

now multiply that feeling 10x!

TEN NARSHE MOOGLES!!!

Mog OO

3307

Cindy Aurum
Sephiroth

mnk posted...

I long for the days of just saving Mog.

"Help control the moogle population, have your moogles hard or soft booted"

Layle
Cloud

oh the Mjrn talk reminded me to check my nomination list from last year

Onion Knight
Andrea
Mr. Dolphin
Angelo
Ultimecia
Amarant
Mrjn
An additional XIV character
Wiegraf
Faris
Edgar
Sabin
Yuffie
Beatrix
Braska
Yuna
Wakka
Sazh
Estinien
Clive
Cid Telamon
Torgal
Joshua
Jill
Dion

ok 15/25 so that's a passing grade but still. Overestimated the XVI and Rebirth noms, and year of pets, lol. I had had Elena on the list and dropped her previously so that was a miss but glad she's back in (until she struggles through boots again).

Congrats andy for completing the FF6 playables!!

more nomination stats:

last year: 47 users making 43 double nominations and 182 regular nominations, so 268 nominations in total across 51 characters.

this year: 51 users making 48 double nominations and 213 regular nominations so 309 nominations in total across 46 characters

so definitely a ramp up in activity, not to mention the post counts in here (even if like 2 pages were Bahamut debate, lol)

Also, 30/51 users this year using their full nominations (Fiop was late on his double otherwise it'd have been 31). 30/51 is just shy of 59%, an improvement over last year's 25/47 (~53%)

first tiebreaker is number of nominators though isn't it? though it still works out anyways because Genesis only had 7 while the others at 9 noms had 8.

....any chance we can spring up a new topic and debate some rule changes? I was thinking the other day of the discussion at contest's end last year and the streamlining a "bottom 2 eliminated" would have for the first, like... 20 or 30 rounds.

Pre-deadline stats:

of the people who've put in at least one nomination, I'm counting 43 regular nominations which can still be made from them, and 4 users who haven't used their double yet!!

last year I had a stat that, the year prior (XXIV noms) there were 22 nominations in the final 10 minutes, 13 of those in the final minute.

looking at last year... looks like 24 nominations in final 10 minutes, 12 of those in the final minute. Five of those from a user who hadn't made any nominations before then (and hasn't yet this year). Who else could be lurking in the wings...!

tbh I'm back on the train and partly the reason I burned my noms on Garik was I was seriously considering pushing her back in. I've lost any appetite for the struggle to keep niche characters alive (even if those were some of my favourite times in this contest!!)

not even sure if I'll hit 50% on my nominee prediction list from last year, will have to check it after.

A distinct lack of Andrea Rhodea once again, VI!!!

Fair enough, things are certainly ramping up more than last year... I wonder if that activity will also translate to the contest.

mnk posted...

Ummm... now trading one for Sazh.

Sazh is at 10 noms and he's at the top of the 10 nom tiebreaker position which puts him at 9th out of 25... surely that's enough?

Original Hades had a mirror aspect that increased Legendary and Duo boon chances but the arcana just has a increased Duo boon chance, right? That probably also doesnt help.

I remember repeatedly grinding for the last Chaos one in the original which funnily enough functions the same as Hermes's. Sounds the same here, just gotta keep grinding and avoid taking the two that dont fall into the Legendary pre-requisite I guess... and the usual (bringing your re-rolls, going to every Charon shop opportunity) I guess.

Actually speaking of Chaos, maybe getting "any boons are +x% rare or better" from them might also help? Every little bit... I'll probably start trying for the last Hermes boon to see how it goes for me.

ok lefty I completed my audit of the nominations and only see 1 material and 2 non-material corrections in the pastebin

Genesis: gravy double-nominated him at post 81 & didn't spot that being revoked so, this would need to be updated/Genesis would currently be at 8 noms

Ultimecia: missing the " x2" for UltimaterializerX (no change in nom count, just missing the x2 on his name in the pastebin)

Sazh: last name in the list of nominees showing as Ark, needs to say andylt instead (nominated post 361)

Drop Sonon Kusakabe
Add Yuffie Kisaragi

Roba you know swordz was trading his noms for Yuffie and she already had enough support before you did that??? with your 7 noms and Kotetsu also nominating Sonon he'd have 8 and I still think that's enough to qualify? 7 noms was the tiebreaker last year (and all but one nominee at 7 made it), though maybe we are getting more nominations in now, I'm not really keeping track. Yuffie was already at 9.

I'm not going to switch right now just in case you want to reconsider, though I also fear for Sonon if he actually makes it into the contest, lol...

I've also got updates on tables i put together last year, combined in one so ideally it's not too compressed...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/8fee343d.jpg

Really breaking the consistent range of winner percentages of past years, damn. Lots of new records there.

Frieren also breaks the streak on "older debuts beating newer debuts" in past contests, joining Brotherhood and HxH 2011 but the tally is still 8-3 for the older series. We'll see if next year's winner lowers it down to 2/3 or back up to 3/4 for older domination!

Monster post incoming so I apologize in advance for it.

Firstly, congrats to the Frieren supporters for a resounding debut victory! I knew it was a contender right from the start and also remember calling it partway through the contest, let me grab a screenshot of my post...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4688f8e5.png

(the log site doesn't like umlauts I guess, but yes I am still down badder than ever for bel, and with Frieren's victory it has locked in a place in my "to watch" anime queue! probably rocketing to the top in fact!!)

As for Kaguya, funny thing is I've never watched it and literally know nothing about it other than the Chika dance and uh, some scenes that I would've swore were from somewhere else if they weren't confirmed to be from the OVA. But I decided I wanted to support it this year, I was a massive shithead on Day 98 three years ago and it bothered me ever since. I was on the fence last year and missed my chance to support it before it was eliminated, so decided to dedicate this year to it.

Goal was to make the finals, anything less would've been a failure for me, and things were really looking pretty rough in the early going of the top 20. But it gradually picked up support and I really cannot thank the users who came onboard for the run enough. Obviously the two users who I always considered the main Kaguya supporters over the years, handsomeboy2012 and TheArkOfTurus; and later savers Inviso, Yankees, Bane and lefty.

Was terrified it'd be another third place finish so when it survived Day 48 I was just so happy and relieved, mission accomplished, was already looking forward to next year and the series I was like 99% sure on supporting then, but after this final I'm back to feeling terrible. I can't help but feel like it was a bad finals match-up and with a different opponent it could and would have gone differently, possibly even victory? So many "could go either way" users all piling up in one way this time.

Is this Kaguya's last hurrah? I don't think I have the heart to run it back or if anybody even wants to see a retry, people probably want to move on to supporting other series. I guess we'll see what happens next year. I'm just sorry it turned out so lopsidedly in the end for the fans of the show, it deserved better.

pastebin is missing post 321

Kaguya 12

Kaguya 11

Kaguya 10

Braska

It for me, thank you Koala for the extra support, let's get that

Wakka