Einander fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Aug 13, 2015

Einander fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Jul 17, 2015

Now that the scene's been appropriately set, we're off to the pre-battle screen. We have two characters right now, Clarissa and Felius, both of whom start out in their unique class.



Clarissa trades lower offense and defense for speed and attack range.



Felius is more of a physical tank.

They're both event-deployed; while you can still View Map before the start, you can't change their starting placement. They're already equipped and can't change classes, so there's nothing more to do here.


(New)



When you go on, there's a tutorial I won't be covering.



The important bit, though, is that they've locked Originals (skills and magic) for this battle.



The enemies are composed of two Striders, one Secutor, and one Elementalist. Rupert begins at the start, but will run away. This is great, because he's Level 10 to our 1 and we have no Originals--it wouldn't be pretty.

The fellows in ponchos are Striders, which are archers (weak but accurate); the brown-haired one is a Secutor, the basic physical attacker (very strong, moderately tanky); and the blond in the back is an Elementalist, the main offensive mage class (fragile, weak, high magic damage). For some reason, all of them have the Secutor Equipment skill, which they've used to equip Swords instead of their usual weapons.

Despite their numerical advantage, the striders have 33 HP; they go down quickly, at which point it's two-against-two. It's a typical tutorial battle.




Clarissa moves first. Her Dandelion Shot class can use her exclusive weapon, Strahl Gewehr. That German name roughly translates to "ray gun," which is an accurate description: it's a weapon with infinite range and low attack power. It will hit the first thing in the line of fire; unfortunately, one enemy dodging doesn't give you a chance at hitting any enemies behind them.




Despite its range, it has a damage and accuracy penalty that scales with distance from the target, and the damage isn't great even point-blank, so Clarissa generally has to close in anyway. (Thankfully, the penalty seems to be a multiplier to final damage--if she's not plinking for 0 damage in melee, she probably isn't doing so at range.)



An auspicious start.




Felius moves up (in a straight line, so he doesn't block Clarissa) and waits. The closer Strider approaches, the rest of the enemy does nothing.




Clarissa's closer, so she's doing more damage--plus, she landed a critical, which adds 50% to final damage. Felius can't reach without access to his skills, so he moves up just enough to stand between Clarissa and the first Strider; this doesn't matter, though, as Clarissa then double-turns the poor schmuck and shoots him dead.




Felius moves up and kills the Strider with a 57-damage crit.



This is a bad idea. You see, if you can reach your attacker, you can counter (with low odds). Instead, Clarissa shoots from two range: essentially the same damage, no risk of getting hit in the face.



She gets a double-turn, though, and Felius moves next before the enemy, so she does move into melee. You see, if two units flank an enemy at point-blank...




...you trigger one of the major unique parts of the battle system, Formation Arts. Normal attacks have a power of 200, multiplied against attack and then subtracted against defense; a two-person Formation Art has a power of 250 instead but is otherwise treated as a normal attack. There's no effect from facing in this game, so Formation Arts are the incentive to pay attention to formation.

Felius was projected to do 38 damage and instead did 46. Not a big boost, right?



Clarissa's base damage here was 15--after Formation Arts and the critical, she did very nearly as much as Felius's normal hits with 40 less attack. The fact the Formation Arts bonus is applied before enemy defense makes quite a big difference when your attacks are weaker or the enemy is stronger. (Dandelion Shot's Extra Critical passive skill should boost critical damage still further... But it seems to have a separate skill activation chance and it didn't play along.) And you'll notice that three of her four attacks so far have been criticals, so her damage is actually surprisingly reliable!

...except that this requires Clarissa to be in melee. Between Formation Arts and the range-based damage scaling on Strahl Gewehr, the infinite-range attacker is most effective by far when she's shooting people directly in the face. If this strikes you as some sick cosmic joke, then you are correct, it is. Strahl Gewehr may grow with Clarissa's level, but this mostly just ensures that its attack will always be low relative to other physical weapons.

When I discovered this during my first playthrough, I resolved then and there that I would find a way to make Clarissa a laser beam death goddess, the kind of character who can kill half the enemy team from the other side of the map. I do not accept your bullshit mechanical restrictions on this beautiful instrument of death, XF! There are classes and there are class skills and there are equipments, and I will find a way.

That's our goal, ladies and gentlemen. The rest is details.





Particularly in this fight. The Elementalist is the sole enemy on the battlefield who can use any Originals, and that's his damage. Using a sword instead of a proper mage weapon is not doing him any favors.

Shortly after Rupert reaches the end of the battlefield...






This line is a bit odd, considering that you really can't be anywhere near the arch when this event triggers--even if Clarissa moves her maximum every turn, there's enemies in the way.

Back to the battle, or what's left of it. Clarissa gets one more critical, bringing her up to an absurd 80% critical rate. Then Felius puts him out of his misery.


(New)





Unlike many SRPGs, you don't get mid-battle experience. EXP Bonus rises with the number of kills obtained, while CP Bonus depends on your VP at the end of battle--a higher percentage of VP remaining, a higher CSP Bonus. (I'll cover VP later, when it's relevant.) Both Felius and Clarissa reach level 3, but neither reaches the CSP benchmark for the next Class Level.

Einander fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jul 15, 2015

Heavy neutrino fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jul 12, 2015