Board 8 > ~FIGHT!~ Ms. Ellie and the Boys vs. General Bub's Spiritual Hit Squad!

(+) Yeah! (+)

And is your team filled with people who would do that? Like I'm sure Sora would be saying "C'mon guys, let's go!" You're acting as if your team will magically do the optimal strategy despite their personalities. What you're arguing is that Raiden will charge in because that's what he's like but your team is a bunch of logical robots who will do the optimal plan.
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No, but I am saying that they aren't a bunch of morons incapable of noticing "Yo dawg, the room we started in has exactly one way in. That way in has no floor and is nothing but open space overlooking a drop into glowing sludge. Perhaps we should stand here and kill anyone who tries to cross."
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KJH posted...

Lopen posted...

If memory serves Phazon goes way more aggressively at dead flesh, so Neclord and Drac probably die really really fast here.

Just to bring this up, it doesn't. The argument about that last time was a really stupid loop based around phazon self-propagating in frozen creatures resulting in their death. It wasn't anything about being dead that made it propagate more, it's just that phazon corruption leads to making enough phazon to kill yourself eventually.

Ah okay.

Updated my journal.
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Well if it doesn't affect Drac Dark Megiddo is broken as fuck on this terrain with his flight, because using it gives the enemy the choice between tanking Dark Megiddo or braving the Phazon in almost all of the rooms bar the ones the teams start in.

option one death, option 2 more death.
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I think it still affects Drac just at a normal rate

But Drac's pretty tanky so I give him good resist to it-- and Neclord as well because of the Moon Rune not being pierced by radiation.

Probably flips the match mentally for me, to be honest, if I buy the team not spawn dying, which means it should flip most people who thought it was close and thought what I remembered someone arguing was accurate.

But yeah I still think "Dark Samus irradiates her team due to standing near em asleep while they're bowled over with stomach cramps" is an angle with merit that people are brushing aside because they don't like the idea of a merc killing their team passively (keeping in mind I'd never humor this in normal situations because it's very easy for her to keep a bit of distance normally, but here it's very much not)
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A possible reason why Dark Samus might not irradiate her team is she's contained in the Phazon Suit she stole from Samus.

Though I do think the idea of her physically touching someone is kinda bad, just maybe not in a super immediate death kind of way. Though phazon is anything but consistent.
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I mean it's equally easy to say the team don't just sit next to a sleeping person either. Sick or not. If you're arguing they want to get the battle over they'll be moving away from her, so the only way that holds much merit is if you think they try to fortify their starting location, and as Phazon begets more Phazon, Damus then wakes up in a room filled with the shit from the people she accidentally kills and noone can get near her except Kefka who isn't exactly gonna be storming the place alone.
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Well the problem is they're bowled over from pain from intense cramps. Like if it was just Dark Samus being asleep, sure, but you've got everyone near her disoriented to begin with. Frankly I would only put Sora at any risk of being aced off the bat even with that aspect but that removes a valuable healer (although I think Kuja might have healing spells?)
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I thought she IS the Phazon Suit she stole from Samus. Like the whole suit, inside and out, is made of phazon.
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Dracula is indeed broken as fuck when it comes to hitting people trying to navigate this mess of a terrain. Look at all of this crap he throws (Megiddo is just the worst of it), then picture the enemy attempting to avoid it while knockback is going to send practically everyone except Kefka to their death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frvU1QaVgZU

Then again so is Kuja. Then again so is Damus. Then again so is bloody everyone, they all have hard to avoid range spam that's a nightmare in this sort of place.
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Kuja has Curaga, yes
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I think it's also pretty fair to say that Red Phazon itself is more harmful than proximity to Damus herself. So that means the other team traversing from the start has to deal with even worse, apart from Raiden and Armstrong. I give Raiden props to no sell the aoe radiation, but not being dunked in it. As for Armstrong I'm inclined to believe he can probably wade through it for a very limited time but not no sell it.
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Your argument relies on your team turtling in that room despite not knowing that my team won't do the same and it going against their personalities. You don't have Everett Branches. Your team doesn't know that's the best way to win. You really think guys like Sora and Dante won't be chomping at the bit to go and find the enemy? They should be able to get through the phazon room anyway, so it's not like they're sealed off in that room.
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My argument relies on my team having enough common sense to notice that the only way into their spawn room is the most hilariously defensible thing ever. You don't need Everett Branches, you need a functioning brain.
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And what happens if my team can survive the phazon better? Your team loses. Camping the door is a risk that they don't know will pay off. Like Lopen said earlier, as far as your team knows my team could've found a safe bunker stocked with supplies somewhere and we're turtling that. When your team is filled with guys who love a good fight, they're not going to sit and wait for a team that may never come.
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The only person that wins via camping is Damus, and it's also boring and stupid, please change tactics.
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Your team has Ripper Mode Raiden, Luca Blight and fucking Kefka. I don't think you want to play the "Who has the saner team" game
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DeathChicken posted...

Your team has Ripper Mode Raiden, Luca Blight and fucking Kefka. I don't think you want to play the "Who has the saner team" game

I mean this is fairly compelling too, Luca's the kind of guy that would throw Ryu into it just to see what it did.
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KanzarisKelshen posted...

-Mercenaries know their enemies' names and a rough description of appearance (e. g.: "Your enemy is Dr. Wily. He's an old man with a robot"). Mercenaries do not have any intrinsic ways of telling enemies apart from neutral NPCs or distinguishing between multiple enemy teams.

*Cough*

(The conventions exist for a reason, yo!)

Taking away Beatrix's ruses.....tsk tsk
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I mean this is fairly compelling too, Luca's the kind of guy that would throw Ryu into it just to see what it did.

Luca's also probably dying so it doesn't really matter. >_>
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I think the argument is lost when it's reached "Well my guy probably dies before he does something stupid"
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I'm not arguing my team won't do that. I'm arguing that your team doesn't know what my team will do. It's a pretty big risk to camp the door. Like what if there's another entrance that you can't see? What if there's a way into the roof of the cave and we can jump in and ambush from there? Dark Samus has never even been to this terrain. She doesn't know these things either. It's the perfect meta argument because we know these things, but your team doesn't. You keep arguing that your team has perfect knowledge of everything and will take the perfect actions, but that's not actually the case.
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I'm really not. I am arguing that when you start in a cavern and the only visible exit is literally a hallway with no floor suspended above toxic waste, logic dictates "Sit your ass here and shoot the first guy who pops his head up."
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When the crux of the argument boils down to the terrain over the mercs in question. That's when everybody loses. Especially when the person whose terrain it is, isn't even able to talk about the terrain, and has never fucking been there.
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It's fortunate then that the terrain is really self-explanatory on site, at least from the position my team starts in. "We are in a large cavern. One door. We appear to be flooded in by glowing toxins. 'Oh'."
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So is the door open? I don't see how your team knows my team is coming otherwise. But then, why would my team even try to cross the room instead of firing back through the room? Raiden has a built-in radar, so he knows where the other team is. I have range options too. Kekfa's magic, Revan's force powers, Turok's guns, and I think Raiden gets rockets. They have to leave the door open to know that my team is coming, but my team would have to be awfully suicidal to actually try to cross the room while they're getting fired at.
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All doors are open. I think the chamber is a little too big for a straight firefight across the gap (Samus can shoot across it, but she has lasers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMdh4Qn6TfA&t=5m30s

...but if they want to play that game, every last person on my team barring Damus and Dante can fly. You guys have one flier. Knockback is going to dunk your side in goo and kill them, my side will be fine. That's a losing proposition.
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I take it back, Dante can temporarily fly too via Devil Trigger. Slipped my mind
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Dante with gunslinger style can stay in the air for like a minute who needs devil trigger
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Lopen posted...

Dante with gunslinger style can stay in the air for like a minute who needs devil trigger

This. He can also sword art dash, double jump, wall run and all sorts of shit. He has no reason to DT.
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Nobody's going to end up in the goo, flier or no. There's no goo on your side and the platform on my side looks too big for anyone's knockback to knock them off. The doors are only big enough for one person to sit in them and fire at a time. All we need is someone to lay down enough suppressive fire to get through, and a mage like Kefka is pretty good at that. Raiden can run it fairly quickly, Revan and Armstrong can jump it, and Armstrong can carry people. Kefka wants to be in the back anyway, so it doesn't matter that he's bringing up the rear.
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I'm thinking the odds of your team actually arriving all at the same time to this location are pretty bad. Being a raving lunatic, Raiden is quite likely to get there first, and if he decides to go all Lone Wolf (as he is prone to do when he isn't thinking clearly) he's going to get mugged. As the only flier, Kefka is probably slightly faster than the rest of them, and I don't see him with the patience to wait around for his slower partners to catch up.

Odds of this actually winding up as an organized assault on the door are pretty dang bad, given who is involved.
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...but man, even putting *that* aside, the huge problem here is that my team is infinitely better equipped to handle not dying on this silly terrain in any kind of battle. Your side has Kefka who can fly. Cool. Meanwhile you have Raiden who has great agility but is melee through and though, Revan who is melee with range as backup (also being expected to shield and heal), Armstrong who is melee. The rest of the guys realistically can't even cover the platforms or survive any contact with Phazon, they're dead.

Meanwhile I have a flier in Drac, a kinda flier in Sora, a flier in Kuja, a flier in Neclord, a flier/infinite hoverer in Dante. If this comes to any kind of fight whatsoever, your guys get hideously smoked by superior air mobility on a terrain only traversable by platforms, with knockback equaling certain death.
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To say nothing of the fact that your only healer is Revan, in a build not particularly set up to give him any outstanding durability (why a Scoundrel?), versus a pair of very good healers between Sora and Kuja. Frankly, the other team is outgunned on so many fronts that I do not know why this is even as close as voting would indicate.
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Damus SOLOS

Unironically. Since I give her points for phazon damage.

And even if she doesn't, she has the better backup after tummies feel better.
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HeroicGammaRay posted...

i'd sooner see dracula turning into corrupted dracula with superpowers from the phazon than dying to it

this is totally what would happen if phazon were in a castlevania game

BEHOLD MY TRUE FORM congrats now he's shooting phazon lasers and phazon fire pillars
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Dante in a match topic and getting ignored by the majority of voters because something else solos never thought I'd see the day
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So this match is pretty close to me. Both sides are very strong and deadly and I think every relevant character gets to the fight proper untouched. Let's go over both sides then.

Mewtwo:

-Has Revan to provide protection from Phazon with Energy Resistance. It's basically infinite in duration (like five mins?) so very very good here. As a bonus it diminishes damage from Neclord, Kuja, Sora's magic and maybe Drac's.
-Also has buffs. Force Valor is a literal 'everything is better' buff for the whole party, from HP and tankiness to strength, precision and mobility. Similarly has debuffs too, Slow and Plague in particular being pretty good.
-Ripper Raiden is the best merc on the field.
-Armstrong in small spaces is a complete monster.
-Kefka's Ultima can punch clean through Neclord's resistances and will probably slay Sora immediately if it goes off.

DC:

-Has Damus, who's a beast (second or third best merc in the field) and totally unhindered by Phazon.
-Kuja is a strong counter to Armstrong and Raiden unless he dies very quickly. Flarestar is effectively a % Max HP damage spell and three casts of it will kill almost everyone.
-Drac is a very legit beefwall in a small terrain.
-Dante is there to check Raiden. Kinda matters in this situation. Third or second best merc in the field.

Overall, it's very close but I lean towards Team Raiden. The strong buff advantage, plus Armstrong being able to shove everyone out of the way, is very important. I feel like this match really hinges on whether Kuja gets stomped in this cage match or lives to cast multiple Flare Stars, and I think it's more likely that he doesn't get enough Flare Stars out in time than him getting all the ones he needs off. If he dies, his team loses the battle because they have multiple kinda squishy dudes (Sora, Dante, Neclord to an extent) who will suffer a lot from the shitloads of AoE crossfire that is gonna go down here. Very tricky match overall.
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A) This scenario relies on Revan having a nigh-exhaustible MP pool to cast shields, buffs, heals and presumably also do offensive things. He doesn't. Also as a Scoundrel build, his durability is suspect and it isn't terribly likely to live once the heavy hitters begin knocking him about, and he's frankly super dead once he hits the Phazon.

B) For Armstrong being very tanky physically, I am sporting four(!) people with sufficient magic to ignore all of that. He has no particular defense vs a Kuja, Neclord, Sora or Dracula nuking.

C) Dante is squishy. What?
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I was recently told that Arwings are brittle.


"mercs"
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I'm more wondering why Neclord is on the squish list while Revan isn't
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Also Kan declaring Sora is squishy is bizarrely funny for many reasons
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I think phazon tolerance is being considered on that list though still not sure why Neclord would be considered squishy. I figure he probably no sells phazon completely if it has no anti-undead properties. Dante makes sense though if you consider that (and why Revan isn't, cause he has an energy resist force thing)
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Having beaten KOTOR far too many times, the one thing Revan does *not* have going for him is the ability to take a physical pummeling. He does a little better if you build him as a Soldier so he at least gets HP out of the deal, but Scoundrels tend to get snapped like a twig. I think it's frankly nuts to think he lives for any length of time with the likes of Dante, Damus and Kuja blowing things up.
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Dante is pretty squishy, he abuses almost nothing but regen, but the lowest of mooks can stab a hole through him. Without regen, that's just kinda bad. Any attack that hits him could potentially dismember him or just leave whatever muscles in shreds so that he's not anywhere near top condition even if he's alive.
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so I decided to look it up

Energy Resistance provides some protection against sonic, fire, cold, and electrical attacks. Any time you get hit by such an attack, the first 15 points of damage from it is ignored, and you suffer the rest normally. If the attack would do less than 15 damage, it simply doesn't affect you. The power lasts for 120 seconds.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/516675-star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic/answers/205861-what-does-energy-resistance-do

This seems like it would be really good against ambient/background damage, except I'm not sure phazon fits in any of those categories. Also it seems not that effective against big enemy spells (because it's "15 points" rather than percentage-based like Shell).
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Huh, Energy Resistance only protects you from those elements? So it doesn't even include energy like lightsabers/beams, which is probably closer to what phazon is.
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Phazon is basically a living mutagen . That doesn't seem like it falls under Sonic/Fire/Cold/Electric at all.
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Improved Energy Resist gives immunity to poison damage which seems more relevant.
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That being said I do tend to agree it's of dubious use vs nukes

Though keep in mind 15 points is better than it seems cause the damage numbers in KotoR are low. force lightning does 10d6 at max rank, or 10-60 damage-- taking half damage from your average strength force lightning isn't too bad.
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