Board 8 > Mercenaries 5 Test Run, Week 1 Peacetime: A Little War In Brand-New Earth

(+) Yeah! (+)

Huh, you know I thought I was already a part of/had the link to the mercs discord, guess I dont

Here's an invite: https://discord.gg/eneccsyE

Hope to see you on the discord soon GANON :)

MajinZidane posted...

Bounty Amaterasu

Throwback Thursdays is tomorrow good sir

but im liking the return of this ol classic

Ugh
mewtwo to low

KanzarisKelshen posted...

literally make a brand new kirby build that is all shiny and nice and proven to be good in showmatches and nobody buys into it

smh my head

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/0/AAS3NhAAEL5o.jpg

Just saying

Kirby has infinite power and should be an 8/upkeep

I forget if it was M1 or M2 but he kinda sucked for me :\

this could not possibly be due to my own general incompetence

also, hehe suck

AriaOfBolo posted...

I forget if it was M1 or M2 but he kinda sucked for me :\

this could not possibly be due to my own general incompetence

also, hehe suck

Every kirby build before m4 was really dire so I don't think it was you

Shoutouts to only granting 'low level techniques' right in the writeup, real classy stuff

I've always thought Kirby hyperbole was somewhere in the region of between fanfiction and the average Pokedex entry. Solid 2/week merc though.

My stance on Kirby is 'he's eight inches tall and if I didn't see it happen live on screen it's not valid'

Kamek had to show receipts to convince me the upkeep hike was warranted but its hard to argue with the gameplay just being far more impressive than the superstar era

I love Kirby

Kirby isn't a 4 without the right customs

Imo.

I probably would have left him at 3 and did something to limit inhaled merc powers in low tier. Set his effective upkeep for roster slot purposes equal to the highest upkeep custom he chose -2 or something. So in low he starts taking extra slots if he brings a 6+ custom. But it's hard to be sure.

If anything his new stuff would probably get him his due 3 respect without OP merc forms but that would be it. We'll see. Shame no one test drove him.

After Forgotten Land final boss I couldn't really justify Kirby at lower than 4/week. I don't think "lol planet destroyer endless power" without plot justification, but dude in base form (as in zero copy abilities) is tanking, dodging, and dishing back stuff from a monster who turns into a psychic kaiju, has teleport spam, and throws meteors and buildings, with no Star Rod or Chariot or anything.

Like even if he were limited to only same tier, I take "two FL copy abilities Kirby" plus whoever on the enemy team he's copying to roll most teams of 3/weeks, much less beat them 1v1. His results in show matches being "he was not argued in either match to just instantly die" and being an ability magnet out of fear I think more than justifies this.

The problem is a lack of comfort in trusting voters will appreciate build-specific strength and not let their existing perception colour it. Obviously wed like to trust but especially with Kirby as a 4/week (worst TR Upkeep by far) who relies on scaling off many matches its just not worth the risk.

The one that sticks out to me in particular was the low tier showmatch

Kirby was argued to go out, get hit by a limit break and forced to fight a powerful dragoon and a dragon solo and most people seemed to think he could drag that 1v2 for 5 minutes until he died

Maybe this means Estinien is a fraud but I don't think so. I think Kirby is just in that Alucard zone of '4/week that is almost a 5' if his customs are good now. Which is weird for me because I'm not the kirby respecter on the admin team, but I can't argue with his results.

Also I will be honest and say I don't get the hesitance about 4/weeks because I find them to be strategically valuable. Yeah the 5/weeks are all silly good but that extra body is super cash money for ability war purposes. A 5/week really limits your options tactically.

Eh, mid tier I feel came down to a 6 and two 5s, and at that point you're probably better off fielding someone weaker who can neutralize the 6 with an ability than a 4 who's probably not going to get much discussion in the match topic.

I still see an issue even without snowballing.

Say your opponent purchases Jinx and you have Kirby. If Kirby copies Jinx, you suddenly have a Kirby who you barely even have to argue does the same thing, but has the benefit of Kirby's weirdly superior durability and the chance to bring in two other moves to fill other niches once Kirby very likely wins the mirror match. This is without bringing in any customization from slow-burn scaling, and applies to most 3/week characters (I think, like, Sagat and Kiryu are probably the largest outliers here, and that's almost entirely because they're physically based and their bodies are far more fit for those movesets than Kirby)

By the time you hit 4/week, you have guys whose durability can let them tangle with Kirby's reflected output a lot more uniformly. Regardless of base Kirby respect (which mine puts him pretty squarely in 4/week territory), mid tier allows for other mercs to actually out-DPS their own DPS at him. This is before the possibility of him bringing mid-tier copy abilities into low, which I feel is the right call, as letting him only bring in on-tier abilities makes the overall copy ability rather painfully slow and not worth the investment of something that can be lost (and I think he SHOULD be able to lose the abilities, creating an optimal Kirby is not fun for others to deal with).

I'm definitely up for debate on this, and if the copy ability was just "he gets a Smash Bros hat and can do the funny move" I can see the argument, but I think a fully gimped to be on-tier Kirby OR an undervalued Kirby with the potential to roll are both things that should be avoided and would make his inclusion unfun. And I feel like general respect for the guy is only trending up, casually speaking!

Maybe an unpopular opinion but perhaps Kirby is just a problematic inclusion due to his sheer variability. Not suggesting he shouldn't be included, but it's clearly his main strength as a character that makes him so difficult to create a build that everyone can be on the same page for (whilst being balanced within the tier system).

I don't think that's unfair. Kirby is just very variable in general! And in a way our other notable copy fighters (hi megaman) aren't, because his parameters are very hard to trace back to something consistent. It's certainly part of the challenge of making a build for him, and a large part of why he's one of very, very few mercs so far to not have a consistently powerful base ability. His capacity to scale in battle worth is significant enough that we were comfortable making him have a more niche ability to balance out his power budget. Time will tell if we overshot on him or upkept him correctly

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Also I will be honest and say I don't get the hesitance about 4/weeks because I find them to be strategically valuable. Yeah the 5/weeks are all silly good but that extra body is super cash money for ability war purposes. A 5/week really limits your options tactically.

when you can only afford 3 bodies for the first few weeks, the odds of needing the extra roster slot for an ability are decreased

Chaeix posted...

when you can only afford 3 bodies for the first few weeks, the odds of needing the extra roster slot for an ability are decreased

Yeah but also

*Gestures vaguely in the direction of the pile of money on fire rn*

On a related note, man, three bodies per team on day one. Remember the bad old days of starting with two mercs even when buying for min? We did a lowkey adjustment slashing like ten gp off most merc prices and I think that particular tweak succeeded wonderfully. Y'all built some lovely team cores, guys.

Somebody post the teams again and I will give you my half-baked power rankings having still not read half the builds

Having no stake in the game and being able to vomit my actual feelings is liberating

Snap reaction is Boko > Mewtwo >> Gravy > Eddv >> Aria > JC but I don't know what the builds actually are either

Ugh fine

Samus to low

I'm still learning how the economy stuff works but i feel like there is some serious 'i refuse to lose match one, all future matches be damned' going on here....

You're right. But match one is also arguably most important.

Yeah the immediate infra after adding mercs to your team, and the extra EXP are super valuable for setting up for success later

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80349575

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT