LogFAQs > #948002200

Division 7 Round 1: Dante, Hogger, Laharl, and Ramza

Dante - 64557 [50.08%]
Hogger - 21678 [16.82%]
Laharl - 21134 [16.4%]
Ramza - 21528 [16.7%]
Total Votes - 128897

This was one of the most entertaining matches we've ever had in round 1 of a 4way contest, and you can see why in looking at the results. Dante was always going to destroy these goofs for first place. That isn't the point. How often is it do you see three characters all have a fair shot at second place and stay basically tied for 24 hours? That's what happened here, but it wasn't <i>supposed</i> to play out that way.

Did you guys know that Final Fantasy Tactics collectively only has one win in contest history? It was a random round 1 killing of Dance Dance Revolution back in 2004. That's tied with (ugh) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Ramza himself is an 0-for all the way up to when I'm writing this in 2020. His history as a contest choke artist started in this match, though he made his debut in 2003 when he got killed by Kirby. Even still, most people put Dante > Ramza in this match and thought nothing of it. Laharl is bottomfeeder trash and Hogger exists only to serve as the first elite mob people kill in World of Warcraft. Some people will claim Hogger is a meme, but he isn't. He's the Guard Scorpion of WoW and not much else.

Unfortunately for Ramza and Laharl, both were so weak and both stole enough of the miniscule non-Dante vote that Hogger was able to hang around. Ramza being weak was never supposed to happen here, but the combination of unexpected weakness and terrible draw really did him in. Laharl is one of the worst possible characters for Ramza to go up against, because both are strategy RPG leads. They're already the niche of the niche, and then they went up against each other? Oof.

When the poll first started, it was clear Ramza was doomed. He struggled to build up a lead against total fodder garbage, and these polls start at midnight. This is generally the time when Square stuff does really well. Here, Ramza struggled to get a lead of 300 before <i>Laharl</i> started coming back on him. Not only that, but Hogger was sitting there in striking distance down by 600.

Let's put this in perspective for a sec:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/1735-midgar-division-round-1-vyse-vs-laharl
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2096-20xx-division-round-1-yoshi-vs-laharl
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2887-division-7-round-1-kirby-l-block-laharl-nathan

Laharl ain't shit, and I say this as someone who loved Disgaea enough to transcript the text into a document for this site. If you're sitting here struggling against Laharl before allowing him to chop your lead away overnight, you suck. Come the morning vote, Ramza and Laharl were tied, but Laharl was never really able to do anything. These two just stayed tied for hours, and both of them ignored the snake in the grass behind them.

Hogger was sitting there about 500 votes off the pace, and come the day vote he made his move. I know a lot of people are reading this expecting me to rage out about Hogger coming back on a character from my favorite game, but it's not happening. First off, I don't like Ramza all that much. The characters in Tactics in general don't really get enough screen time to make me emotionally invested, and the plot falls apart in chapter 4 when all the political intrigue dies and everyone just turns into demons. Final Fantasy Tactics is all about the gameplay.

Secondly, and more importantly, I support rallies no matter who does them. Would I have preferred Ramza win? Sure. Am I mad about it? Nah. Hogger starting a rally with the day vote was hilarious, especially given how accessible WoW players were to rallying back then. This will seem impossible by 2020 standards, but GameFAQs actually liked WoW back then. Most of that was due to the 2006 South Park episode, but still! There was a time when Blizzard wasn't a dog shit company. So when Hogger started going off, I didn't mind it as much as one might think, outside of one particularly obnoxious user will not get the dignity of me naming him. And by the way, he was straight up lying about his rally influence. Hogger's run came from all corners of the internet.

To the point. Around 10 am, Hogger started going <i>nuts</i> in the poll, and we've all seen the rally story before. Within a few hours, he turned a 500 vote deficit to a seemingly insurmountable 800 vote lead. I say "seemingly" because we know rallyers get bored once they're winning. That happened here, which allowed Ramza to put in one last hail mary near the very end. But it was too little, too late. Ramza's effort resulted in him "only" losing by 150 votes, but if he had bothered giving a piss of effort for 24 hours it would have never come down to this at all.

People of course started freaking out and claiming Hogger was the latest possible bandwagon contest champ, which was of course impossible. Hogger had to rally to beat Ramza and Laharl. Compare that to L-Block's first result of 2007, which coincidentally also featured Laharl: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/poll/2887-division-7-round-1-kirby-l-block-laharl-nathan

It's no contest. This was destined to be a fun upset and little else. It was also destined to be the start of Ramza's choke job reputation, something he has yet to get rid of over a decade later.

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