Author Topic: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F  (Read 165075 times)

RegalStar

  • Envoy of Balance
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #510 on: May 26, 2018, 12:19:39 AM »
Hm, maybe I'm thinking too literally then, as the other Aquatic Touhou bosses are Nitori (kappa), Iku (oarfish), and Suwako (frog), all of which are creatures that live in water specifically, while bridges are over water instead.

Hashihime does have a lot to do with the water under the bridge.

Also I didn't check but does Kogasa still have 32 MP recovery? If she does that needs to be addressed too.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #511 on: May 26, 2018, 12:30:36 AM »
Also I didn't check but does Kogasa still have 32 MP recovery? If she does that needs to be addressed too.

She actually still does.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #512 on: May 26, 2018, 02:08:44 AM »
I was thinking that was intentional at this point, but I'll add that as something that might be an oversight as well.

Kirin no Sora

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Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #513 on: May 26, 2018, 02:24:02 AM »
Being reading up and thought of something for Yuyuko...

Sense of Cherry Blossom
Max Lv: 2
Skill Cost: 8
While Yuyuko is on the frontline, if an enemy has a high resistance to a frontliner's attack, that attack deals (SLv * 25)% more damage to said enemy.

Would this be enough to counterbalance it for a little bit?
There is no greater joy than knowing that the Touhou invasion is unstoppable, and the legacy of Gensokyo will never fade away...

RegalStar

  • Envoy of Balance
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #514 on: May 26, 2018, 02:35:30 AM »
Being reading up and thought of something for Yuyuko...

Sense of Cherry Blossom
Max Lv: 2
Skill Cost: 8
While Yuyuko is on the frontline, if an enemy has a high resistance to a frontliner's attack, that attack deals (SLv * 25)% more damage to said enemy.

Would this be enough to counterbalance it for a little bit?

This wording is so vague that it's difficult to imagine a scenario where it doesn't apply, considering almost every character has several different elements of attack and almost every mob has resistance to something.

I wouldn't recommend actually sending over concrete stuff like this anyways. The whole thing's still his creation after all; just sending over (perceived) problematic spots is good enough.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #515 on: May 26, 2018, 02:51:56 AM »
High resistance is probably intended as blue numbers. I think Yuyuko should mainly get buffs to her damage and spell cards personally, SPI and DRK are honestly really common weaknesses, especially SPI.

But yeah, as far as what I'm actually writing up for the e-mail, when it comes to buffs, I'm trying to leave it vague. Like for Iku, I wrote "I would like to see a small improvement in Iku's firepower", and that's it. I'll leave it to 3peso to figure out how he wants to do this. Some things would be specific, like the Gambler HP sacrifice skill, but nothing more than "I want to see Gambler receive a skill that increases damage at the cost of HP", no numbers, no skill name, just a description of the purpose of the skill.

Writing all of this stuff is really hard though, since my Japanese is only as far as being able to read, I can't accurately use it for anything more than sentences consisting of a few words. Been relying a lot on machine translation and trying to write things differently to try to make sure the meaning is conveyed, but it's a time consuming process that still leads to awkward sounding sentences that need correction.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #516 on: May 26, 2018, 03:18:09 AM »
About things that might need changing, while it might be fun to completely invalidate several of the bosses with Awakened Reisen, I think SHK res in particular might need to be higher overall on the bosses. Particularly,
Spoiler:
***Winner***
and
Spoiler:
The Dragon God
can both be prevented from taking more than one or two turns, allowing even a horrendously underleved party to clear them with ease.
Spoiler:
Granted, ***Winner*** requires a bit of luck to get him to go into one of his froms that's more vulnerable to it, but still.
While I wouldn't want statuses to become useless, but, maybe increase the SHK resistance and decrease their resistance to several other statuses?
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 03:21:55 AM by Blue Wokou »

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #517 on: May 26, 2018, 03:47:17 AM »
Oh wow lmao, that definitely needs addressing. I would say just buff SHK resistance, or make it so that the ATB reduction effect is mitigated by SHK resistance even when it procs.

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #518 on: May 26, 2018, 04:31:40 AM »
About things that might need changing, while it might be fun to completely invalidate several of the bosses with Awakened Reisen, I think SHK res in particular might need to be higher overall on the bosses.
Worth considering that Reisen can also subclass Toxicologist and apply an irresistable PAR that's stronger than non-awakened Sakuya's Private Square at PAR 3600.

Is PAR super long lasting after speed levels are intense, like it was in Labyrinth 1? Postgame PAR in Laby1 lasted -forever-.

Finally getting the patch myself, maybe tomorrow I'll get started.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 04:34:35 AM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #519 on: May 26, 2018, 04:38:56 AM »
Is PAR super long lasting after speed levels are intense, like it was in Labyrinth 1? Postgame PAR in Laby1 lasted -forever-.

Nah, Postgame Par is practically useless, when it comes to bosses, at least. Might stop them for a tick or two. ATB goes up so fast, Reisen's PAR barely delays their turn. Decently useful against randoms, though, especially in conjunction with PSN.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it, I'd say PAR could use a buff, actually. Due to the speed issues that do come up, both on your own characters and on enemies, PAR needs to be probably around 10000 to actually be meaningful. It's probably the status that was the least useful, in my team based around statuses.
Another status that might need to be slightly reworked is PSN, at least against randoms. Maybe I just didn't notice in the base game content, but in plus disk, it seems like randoms lose HP way too fast to PSN. One use of gas-woven orb was getting almost any enemy it inflicted down to 1 HP. The thing is, though, the effect of PSN feels just right for bosses, so I don't know how one might go about balancing that.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 04:46:37 AM by Blue Wokou »

RegalStar

  • Envoy of Balance
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #520 on: May 26, 2018, 04:41:40 AM »
In LoT1 status lasted a certain amount of clockticks, so PAR lasts forever in postgame since everyone is super fast. LoT2 changed that so they last a certain amount of action gauge instead, which means they're tied to the victim's SPD.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #521 on: May 26, 2018, 05:01:55 AM »
Another status that might need to be slightly reworked is PSN, at least against randoms. Maybe I just didn't notice in the base game content, but in plus disk, it seems like randoms lose HP way too fast to PSN. One use of gas-woven orb was getting almost any enemy it inflicted down to 1 HP. The thing is, though, the effect of PSN feels just right for bosses, so I don't know how one might go about balancing that.

Hm, are you familiar with the finer details on how exactly PSN's damage and duration works? I must admit, I have no idea how it actually works beyond the obvious "depletes enemy HP", and would greatly benefit from an explanation. Depending on the current effectiveness of Gas-Woven Orb (damage done and duration of the effect), it may be better for me to refrain from suggesting a buff to its PSN affliction.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #522 on: May 26, 2018, 05:08:00 AM »
I don't know for sure, but it seems like damage done by PSN is based purely on the afflicted's LVL. Enemies with a lot of defense, but not much HP, drop like flies, but enemies with more HP will take it a little better. I'm guessing that most of the randoms in the expansion have HP that could be considered low for their level, so that's why it's doing so much.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #523 on: May 26, 2018, 05:25:28 AM »
That would make sense, the mob HP does seem very low for their level. Only one enemy in 30f breaks 10m HP. If PSN scales by level, then extending the duration of the effect could have horrible consequences, so I will only ask for a reduction in the delay of Gas-Woven Orb.

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #524 on: May 26, 2018, 05:55:15 AM »
I'm pretty late to the party I imagine, but the random battles on B1f are... problematic, to say the least. It's a struggle to actually kill things instead of run away. I guess it balances out as I find plus disk equips to put on my attackers though, since it's so crazily stronger than all the maingame gear? (Yeah, I never got around to playing through any of Plus Disk 'til now XD)
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

nyttyn

  • Drill baby drill!
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #525 on: May 26, 2018, 05:56:30 AM »
With regards to tenshi: With how poorly defenses scale into the post game, it feels like she kind of has absolutely no place in the game after a certain point. Her attack is weak, she doesn't have the best affinities, and her base health isn't fantastic either.

It'd be nice if her affinities were ramped way the hell up (perhaps via gaining access to some sort of TP-intensive skill), and if her base attack got a serious buff. On top of this, her debuffs are somewhat nonsensically spread out - World Creation Press does nothing against magical bosses, and Violent Motherland does nothing against magic packs (and it doesn't really make sense to use WCP against packs or motherland against single targets). It should probably be changed so both debuff both attack and magic.

Awakening wise, Courageous Sword is fine, but Keystones of Spirit makes absolutely no sense. Due to the limited selection of elements on any given physical class, it's a massive pain in the ass and difficult to plan around, and tenshi's somewhat low attack already means you have to go for a subclass with passive benefits, which locks her out of swordsmaster. This needs to be replaced outright, Tenshi is a incredibly unfitting and outright bizarre choice for such a passive - really, given her issues, you could probably just give her Sheer Force and that'd even be thematically fitting.

Skill wise, I agree that Kusanagi's Former Owner should just be unconditional. Girl of Bhava-agra also needs to be extremely defanged and the offensive perks it offers given back into tenshi's base attack or a new skill, because it cripples her as an attacker to require Iku out for a huge chunk of her damage output. Enduring Celestial should be changed in some way (perhaps to the prior-mentioned affinity boost), because it's currently worthless - against random trash packs, a 33% buff to def/mind really isn't doing anything, and against bosses - well, uh, Tenshi already has her +100% to both buff, so...this passive is entirely pointless? Maybe, idunno, make it so a percentage of her defense and mind buffs also buff her affinities. Keystone Formation is also fairly worthless because of, not only how poor defense / mind buffs already were, but how poorly both defense and mind scale as the game goes on - it's also only a 10% buff, which barely helps sustain defense buffs you already most likely aren't using or are sustaining in other ways. Ideally, this would be changed to be attack/magic buff instead, or a percentage heal to the front line if it's to remain defensive in nature.

Edit: I dunno how to change the other speedsters, but to fix aya's depressing damage at all levels in the game whilst keeping her gimmick, give her a passive - let's call it Tailwind. This hypothetical passive would cause her speed buffs to also raise her attack by XYZ - somewhere between 50% and 100% of the speed buff value, probably. This both gives her something to do when speed buffing falls off the map (namely, buffing *herself*), and fixes her serious damage woes. Given her lack of damage passives otherwise (outside of the VERY risky awakening skill she has), it could probably even just be a flat 1% of speed = 1% increased attack, additive with any attack buffs she already has, and still not be anywhere near busted.

Also probably revert the Grandson MP nerf, it's already something that scales badly as time goes on, give her MP a buff, and lower the cost of Peerless Wind God, since right now she's a stay-in attacker who can't really sustain herself. Failing that, give her some variant on Ibuki Gourd.

Also buff wind god's fan please, it's incredibly terrible for a row attack. Either make it all with a small damage buff, or just crank up the damage because it does not do anywhere near enough in random encounters to fill its intended purpose.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 06:17:32 AM by nyttyn »

Serela

  • Moon Tiara Magic
  • VIA PIZZA SLINGING
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #526 on: May 26, 2018, 06:43:22 AM »
I think Tenshi is mostly in an OK spot, but it's unfortunate that a MASSIVE hunk of her Attack stat comes from Iku. Her buff-clearing is a really nice ability to have apart from just her damage, keep in mind, and to deal with postgame def/mnd scaling she gets a big HP boost from awakening. From what I've read in-thread, at least one person has gotten wonderful results out of using her offensively in Plus, possibly even as one of their best attackers? I think they were using her for their minmax setups. Yes, she's a little gimmicky to use, but she's originally a tank and that buff-clearing ability is already quite the selling point.

Her ATK isn't even -that- much worse than most characters after plus disk's gem/boost tweaking, and her skill formulas are very solid.

Base stat increases (gems, second boost, etc) work very well with all the percentage attack boosts she can get. Also, swordmaster has a larger-than-usual base ATK increase, so I'm not sure why you think it'd be a terrible subclass choice; not everyone can just no-brainer on Transcendent, as useful as it is. Warrior isn't a bad in-between option though, giving FIR and MYS attacks with offense passives. Dragon God also works but obviously there's reasons you might not want or be capable of using it :V

Re:Passives; Keystone Formation only even activates in a tanking setup and she's useless for that in Plus, so changing it doesn't matter; it's effect is desirable before Plus content as-is and useless after no matter what. And consider that Enduring Celestial is actually a starting ATK buff after awakening- small, but 13% more atk in randoms is nice. Kusanagi's Former Owner is definitely a little weird though, you'd expect her to have a self-debuff, I guess there's Heavy but that's awkward and bad...
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 06:46:10 AM by Serela »
<mauvecow> see this is how evil works in reality, it just wears you down with bureaucracy until you don't care anymore

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #527 on: May 26, 2018, 08:44:24 AM »
Yeah that's me wrecking the game with Tenshi. I have no complaints with her offense, relying on Iku is fine. Iku herself is a superb support character, and I feel that synergy skills should be strong like that, since they rely on very specific characters. Granted, my entire party and playstyle has been designed around Iku + Tenshi, since my intent from the very beginning was "Tenshi is my favorite Touhou character, I want to build a party around her". I think Tenshi is in a great spot overall despite the bias though.

Regarding her DEF/MND, it is true that in Plus Disk, it's pretty lacking in value (Tenshi was extremely durable in the base game though). I suspect that 3peso was aware of this when he added Seven Celestial Peaches to Tenshi, and buffed it in a later patch (it was originally only 4 levels, which was really weird because the skill name was Seven). Tenshi is also blessed with excellent affinities all around, so she excels in all forms of defense, outside of MYS and DRK attacks for her weakness elements. Even so, her weakness is only 75 (so it caps at 150 at library 100, 182 with Affinity Boost), and those are good elements to be weak to because Machine God Lucifer adds 99 affinity to them. Even if this were not the case, Regalia adds so much affinity that a character's base affinity is almost irrelevant. +172 to all elements on top of a +600% HP boost is absurdly good, especially with how much easier it is to create compared to all the other top level equipment items in the game.

Regardless of all the ways to ignore this problem though, there are still sometimes cases where an attack has a low ATK/MAG modifier, but a high damage modifier, and Tenshi can still tank those easy.

Regarding the debuffs on World Creation Press and Violent Motherland, I feel that having both an ATK and MAG debuff on World Creation Press may be a little too strong, as it is already a devastating NTR attack. Similarly, Violent Motherland is a powerful attack for dealing with bosses that consist of multiple targets, and the SPD debuff is quite strong considering the damage being inflicted. That it debuffs MAG as well is another small bonus. I do see where the problem comes in with Tenshi as a tank character though. When she's in that role, there is nothing she can do to contribute in terms of support besides switching, dispelling buffs, and subclass effects. The debuffs on her spell cards grant her additional options to support with, but in the case of Violent Motherland, it is too expensive and has too much delay to be useful for the purpose of debuffing SPD. But any adjustments that can be made would have a more pronounced effect on Tenshi in her attacker role, so it is difficult to address this in a balanced and fair manner. For now, I would not say anything about it. Instead, I want to focus on getting Former Murakumo's Owner for support. If it was to activate regardless of the presence of a status condition, then that helps alleviate the need for healing. With the passive healing effect active, in situations where Tenshi would be switching a healer in, she could instead be using a debuffing attack. It would also increase the usefulness of switching with Tenshi, as it would speed up her healing ability.

Keystones of Spirit, conceptually, is likely based on how the Sword of Hisou is supposed to have the ability to change form based on a target's weaknesses. As far as how it actually plays out in gameplay, Tenshi's enormous ATK potential allows her to make excellent use of subclass spells that scale off ATK. The damage potential from striking a boss' weakness is enormous, and in many scenarios Tenshi's best offensive option is indeed using a subclass spell instead of her own spell cards, even with the presence of Murakumo's Blessing. Ignoring the 1-character subclasses, Warrior's Explosive Flame Sword, Monk's Puncturing Thrust, and Ninja's Assassination Sword are cases where the spell card is strong enough to exceed Tenshi's personal spell cards backed by Murakumo's Blessing, provided that they are fully taking advantage of the target's weakness (I.E. Divine Falchion, Satori and/or Akyuu). Due to Tenshi's high DEF, with some excellent ATK + DEF boosting equipment she can even make good use of Guardian's Shield Bash, which will actually offer similar damage output to the aforementioned spell cards. The areas that Tenshi lacks are in CLD (Samidare Slash is too weak to surpass World Creation Press or Sword of Hisou unless the target resists NTR/SPI and is not weak to anything besides CLD, no such boss exists that I can think of) and MYS, which is something that Iku luckily covers just fine. The only real problem with this is that Tenshi needs to switch subclasses frequently to make full use of Keystones of Spirit, but this is necessary for any character that is trying to target a weakness they don't hold a spell card for.

Swordmaster as a subclass is kind of bad, so it's fine if Tenshi can't use it. The only reason for her to use it is for Samidare Slash, which is regrettably bad. The only other useful spell card it offers, Explosive Flame Sword, is done better by Warrior. Swordmaster could use some buffs as it currently is.

For Enduring Celestial, I think that it's fine as it currently is because of Courageous Sword. At the start of the fight, that is a 13.2% increase to ATK. Furthermore, with the Herbalist spell Placebo Effect (which is one of the best options for maintaining high buffs on a single character, due to its low delay), after any kind of DEF/MND buff (such as from Enhancer heals or Sanae's Miracle Fruit), Tenshi has enough DEF/MND for Placebo Effect to maintain an 86% buff on her with relative ease. The overall result of this is that Enduring Celestial makes Courageous Sword easier to use, whether for mobbing or bosses. Back in the main game where DEF/MND actually mattered, Enduring Celestial also made State of Enlightenment unnecessary to use, because Keystone Formation helped to maintain a high enough DEF/MND buff as to make it unnecessary to use State of Enlightenment to make Tenshi durable enough to tank. Because of that, it made it easier for Tenshi to focus on switching instead of wasting her ATB on buffing herself, increasing her productivity as a tank.

So overall, I feel that Enduring Celestial is actually really useful to have. The main problem with it now is simply that DEF/MND are not valuable at the moment, so it doesn't demonstrate how useful it is when combined with Keystone Formation.

Some of the things that were posted did make me realize some flaws with Tenshi that may be a good idea to address.

-Because of the low effect of DEF/MND in Plus Disk, I would like to see an additional effect to Keystone Formation, such as reducing the delay on switching.
-I would like to see the delay on Freedom from Worldly Thoughts reduced, and the demerits easier to acquire.

The latter is because PAR is useful for Iku to remove (20% to herself in all stats as well as Tenshi), and I want an effect on Hina that lets her receive status effects from other frontliners, so that she can activate Two-Way Curse more easily (HVY would activate Spinning More Than Usual). Presently, only Tenshi and Remilia can afflict themselves with status effects, IIRC. I think it would be good to make it easier for the player to intentionally inflict status effects on characters to take advantage of skills that rely on a party member having one.

Speaking of Hina, this made me think of some other ideas for her.

-Regarding the skill Spinning More Than Usual, I would like to see an effect that causes Hina's ATB to become 10000 upon receiving a PAR effect. I would also like to see PSN added to the usual effect.

Initially I was thinking that I wanted Hina to have an HP recovery effect upon getting a turn when PSN'd, but I think that's overly complicated when there's already a perfectly good effect for it to be used with.

Re:Passives; Keystone Formation only even activates in a tanking setup and she's useless for that in Plus, so changing it doesn't matter; it's effect is desirable before Plus content as-is and useless after no matter what.

Wanted to address this more specifically, Tenshi's not so much useless as a tank as way, way better as an attacker. Iku is one of the best single-target buffers in the game, with low delays, high SPD, low MP costs, and even higher DEF/MND than Tenshi with Hisouten Guard, with similar levels of HP (Tenshi w/ Seven Celestial Peaches has about 5.5% more HP). Her MND is such that even with minimal investment in it, she's taking 0 damage from some of the 30f mobs that use VOI attacks. She also packs the strongest DEF debuff in the game that also comes with a decent PAR effect, as well as a strong MT DEF debuff. Iku has all of these things going for her as a support character, while Tenshi has virtually nothing useful going for her. While she can remove buffs, this is something she can do even better as an attacker, since she's spending every turn attacking that way. While she can tank, she isn't doing much besides switching, and she has no passive ability to increase the damage of the frontline. She simply does not excel in any way unique to herself as a tank. This is one reason I feel that lifting the status/debuff requirement on Murakumo's Former Owner would be a good idea, as 5% HP regeneration per turn can be fairly useful. Keystone Formation probably does need to be buffed in some way as well.

One idea I have for it is to give it a counter effect on Tenshi that reduces the damage done to the whole party. The counter would be increased by performing a switch and decreased whenever the boss damages a character. This seems excessive though, especially since Tenshi already has Keystones of Spirit counters. I'll stick to just asking for Keystone Formation to be improved.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #528 on: May 26, 2018, 10:38:19 AM »
I believe that Aya's damage is fine, she's certainly not a prime attacker, but her ATK is the same as Momiji's, its also worth noting that Proof of the Fastest is not that hard to stack a few levels of, since there's a lot of equipment with good ATK and HP that allows Aya to safely take a few hits if she doesn't manage to dodge. I do agree that Tengu's Fan is a bit on the weaker side though, increasing the MP cost to 3 and buffing its damage would be nice.

EDIT: on a different note, I wonder if certain equipment should be rebalanced, there's overall much superior choices when it comes to ATK boosting equipment when compared to MAG boosting ones (which combined with the Archmage's poor single target options make most mages very ill suited to dealing with bosses when compared to physical attackers with the same elements available). I feel that equipment with ridiculously high ATK boosts (Magic Sword "Chaos" for example) exacerbate the Nitori problem, since they allow her to get extremely high ATK much earlier than she should.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 11:09:34 AM by Libra »

Kirin no Sora

  • Wanderer of Gensokyo
  • I have returned from the nothingness once more...
Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #529 on: May 26, 2018, 11:47:38 AM »
Quick question for everyone: Is Youmu still in the "not that good" category? Because I thought of some stuff for her...

- Replace Dexterity for Piercing Attack, to make her damage output consistent.
- Reduce the Max SLv of Youmu's spells to 5 in exchange for the following...
- increase Post use gauge from increasing SLv of Present Life Slash, and maybe grant it the ability to ignore part of the enemy's def(similar to Iron Mountain Charge).
- Add a second element and a special effect that affects damage to God Slash of Karma Wind(DRK, increases damage based on enemy debuffs and ailments) and Slash Clearing the Six Senses(VOI, damage increased based on enemy buffs).
- Allow Slash of Eternity to perform guaranteed additional attacks equal to SLv(Max SLv of 5 allows for 6 attacks per casting)
- Remove the requirement of needing full HP and the cost of losing 20% HP to use Swordmaster's Spirit. Synergy of HP cost with Desperation is noted, but ultimately is not needed as a boss fight will likely put her to that level of health anyway. If anything, a skill that allows Desperation to remain active for the rest of the battle once activated would be more valuable.
- Due to all of the above, Asura's Blood becomes unnecessary for damage output, especially due to Lv5 Slash of Eternity + Piercing Attack + Swordmaster's Spirit dealing good single target damage for MP cost and delay.

What do you think of my ideas so far? I know that it's a way too specific set of things to send to the dev, but I wanted to know what you guys think of all this...
There is no greater joy than knowing that the Touhou invasion is unstoppable, and the legacy of Gensokyo will never fade away...

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #530 on: May 26, 2018, 12:47:00 PM »
Hello, since we're talking about TL2 balance in general, I'd like to speak about a concept which, IMO, underlies much of what works (and what doesn't) with TL2 characters: gimmicks.

Commonly, when we use the word "gimmick", we give it a negative connotation - of a certain strategy which could work, but doesn't. Here, I won't use it specifically in this sense. Instead, I give "gimmick" a more neutral definition of "a strategy which requires you to play, at least to some extent, differently from the most straightforward path you have." A bit vague, maybe, but I hope my examples will clarify what I have in mind.

So, what are examples of gimmicks in TL2, and specifically of gimmick characters? In general, they are characters which, in order to maximize their performance, they have to do something very specific, which goes beyond just attacking or healing. A very simple example of a character which does not work like a gimmick is Yuugi. Yuugi's plan is basically to blast the opponent with Supernatural Phenomenon and Knockout in Three Steps, and sometimes to apply status. That's about it.

Examples of gimmick chars, then? Status-dependant characters, like Parsee, Hina, or Wriggle, who require you to specifically apply a certain ailment to maximize your performance (contrast this with characters which, like Yuyuko or Rin, focus on one or more status inflictions but are not vastly "enabled" by their application). Characters which require you to stack up a certain kind of buffs before working to their best - like Futo, Tokiko or Shou. Characters which require you to perform other combat actions, like switching or concentrating - Keine, Youmu, or Kokoro spring to mind. All these characters can be defined, to a larger or minor extent, by their adoption of some kind of "unorthodox" strategy.

So, why am I talking about gimmicks, here? Because I believe that one of the main issue with gimmicks in TL2 is that not all gimmicks "feel good" (more vague terms, I know. Just bear with me for a moment). Specifically, my hypothesis (mainly borrowed from Magic the Gathering) is that a gimmick - or, really, any strategy - feels "good" if it rewards you for "playing the game". An example of this is Futo. Futo relies heavily on her plate breaking - it increases her damage done, her defenses, allows her to resurrect if killed, and grants her a vast array of status options. And how do you increase that plate count? By attacking, of course, which is what you would want to do anyway if you were using a char like Futo. Sure, it comes with some limitations (i.e. having to use specific personal spellcards to do so) - after all, it wouldn't qualify as a gimmick, otherwise - but all in all the resulting playstyle does feel like what you'd expect an attacker to play like. And, with a few exceptions, her whole skillset is devoted to streamline this playstyle - reducing the duration of status ailments on Futo, giving her a constant speed boost, and a head start on plate count so that she's not useless in random encounters. In short, while Futo does require a more specific approach than something like Yuugi, she still rewards you for "playing the game."

Kokoro, by contrast, is an example of a gimmick which, I'm afraid, does not "feel good". While concentrating is a part of the game, having to concentrate multiple times in a row - just to establish a stat boost - is not. You might think that this applies to any character which takes advantage of concentrating, like Youmu, Yuuka and all the "incantation" characters, but that's not necessarily true. Consider Reimu and Maribel, for example. Since they're both group healers, you often want to delay their action so as to act immediately after the enemy (or, in Maribel's case, immediately after Renko's Charge). And a very common way to delay your action is, well, to concentrate - it has a decent 50% delay, and gets you back MPs. So, Grand Incantation here is rewarding you for "playing the game": you would have concentrated anyway and, if anything, Grand Incantation makes you feel better about it (if you end up not needing that heal, for example, it allows you to deal extra damage and recover that "wasted action" from before). Similarly, Akyuu's support spells encourage you already to concentrate and delay to time your actions perfectly - her Super Incantation skill only rewards you for a course of action you'd have taken anyway.

Kokoro, by contrast, has nothing of this. Kokoro is an attacker - if I have her on the field, I want to attack, not to spend my time concentrating. And what's worse, when I do have to concentrate, this ends up screwing her up because it shifts her mask power to something you might not even want... forcing you to concentrate even more!

A similar case of "feels bad" gimmick, IMO, is Tokiko. Activating Reading requires you to spam very weak magical attacks, and it's very RNG based as well. Then, once you do get Reading, its best use (a superpowered Yakuza Kick) causes you to lose it again, removing all the various buffs she'd get from skills. And if you don't want to use Yakuza Kick? She's left with the aforementioned weak magical attacks... and a % based heal. Now, thankfully Tokiko has such high stats that you only have to slap a powerful subclass on her and go town. But it's quite telling when you have a character whose entire skillset is based around a gimmick which you end up not using - heck, one of her awakening skills even rewards you for NOT using Reading... as if 3peso himself was somewhat self-aware here.

In short, I think that some characters are not simply weak (heck, Tokiko is actually very strong), but they are not fun to play with - or at least not as fun as they could/should. They don't simply need a buff, they need their entire build to be reworked into something which feels more streamlined and fun to play with during battles.
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 12:51:01 PM by elminster1372 »

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #531 on: May 26, 2018, 12:52:12 PM »
I'm pretty late to the party I imagine, but the random battles on B1f are... problematic, to say the least. It's a struggle to actually kill things instead of run away. I guess it balances out as I find plus disk equips to put on my attackers though, since it's so crazily stronger than all the maingame gear? (Yeah, I never got around to playing through any of Plus Disk 'til now XD)
Yeah I had to grind for a bit using Flandre. When paired with Aya she should be pretty good at destroying everything.

20F might have better exp from the psuedo-bosses though, and is definitely lower risk.

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Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #532 on: May 26, 2018, 01:13:02 PM »
20F remains the best spot for grinding in the main game throughout the entirety of the postgame, and a bit into Plus Disk. I remember just sitting there and getting a bunch of levels by stringing like, 30+ battles that all ended in one hit from whoever I set up as my single-target damage. Plus I think like, the enemies in B1F seem designed to be tackled at least a decent way into original postgame, or even after it.
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Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #533 on: May 26, 2018, 01:15:41 PM »
20F remains the best spot for grinding in the main game throughout the entirety of the postgame, and a bit into Plus Disk. I remember just sitting there and getting a bunch of levels by stringing like, 30+ battles that all ended in one hit from whoever I set up as my single-target damage. Plus I think like, the enemies in B1F seem designed to be tackled at least a decent way into original postgame, or even after it.

That's partly true, though keep in mind that even B1F enemies can drop some equipments, such as Transforman and Destroy Decomposer, which outclass anything you can find in the pre-PD content.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #534 on: May 26, 2018, 01:27:29 PM »
The B1 monsters aren't TOO bad when you get decently established. The big danger there is that some monsters are just plain tougher than others. You have level 140's or so that should be reasonably doable as soon as you're ready to fully dive in, but they're intermixed with level 200's that will be a big problem.

I personally just yuyuko'd most encounters down until I got some equipment under my belt.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #535 on: May 26, 2018, 01:28:59 PM »
I think the gimmick where characters need to rely on other characters to do their role is another that could possibly use some reworking. I'm of the opinion that synergy type skills should be a bonus to the characters that reward you for using them together as opposed to being arguably necessary for their survivability or damage output. Renko and Maribel are a good example of it being done right as they're both good characters on their own so you are never "forced" for lack of a better term to use them together. Despite Tenshi being my favorite Nature attacker in the game, it would certainly be nice not always having to use Iku which hearkens back to a post made earlier.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #536 on: May 26, 2018, 01:44:51 PM »
Hello, since we're talking about TL2 balance in general, I'd like to speak about a concept which, IMO, underlies much of what works (and what doesn't) with TL2 characters: gimmicks.


I personally kind of like these, myself. I do undoubtedly agree that is makes some balance problems (where gimmicks don't pay out with a reward great enough to justify the effort) or pushes players into certain characters more often than others (who DOESN'T use Yuugi on their first playthrough? She's so easy to get good results out of, that she's just plain SAFE to stick with) BUT I'd hate to see every character become "equally usable" because that just goes against the identity of Labyrinth. There's no point in having 50+ playable characters if they're all basically just clones of one another with different elements, defense/HP ratios, and generally-useful passives. Picking out a weird character who needs a crazy strategy and might just end up totally useless in a couple fights to use and make work anyway is most of the fun in replaying this game, sure it'd be extremely easy to just use Meiling and mountain breaker everything to death, but it could be a lot of fun too to put her away and play around a gimmick character, and completely change the way I think about combat.

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #537 on: May 26, 2018, 01:54:50 PM »
I personally kind of like these, myself. I do undoubtedly agree that is makes some balance problems (where gimmicks don't pay out with a reward great enough to justify the effort) or pushes players into certain characters more often than others (who DOESN'T use Yuugi on their first playthrough? She's so easy to get good results out of, that she's just plain SAFE to stick with) BUT I'd hate to see every character become "equally usable" because that just goes against the identity of Labyrinth. There's no point in having 50+ playable characters if they're all basically just clones of one another with different elements, defense/HP ratios, and generally-useful passives. Picking out a weird character who needs a crazy strategy and might just end up totally useless in a couple fights to use and make work anyway is most of the fun in replaying this game, sure it'd be extremely easy to just use Meiling and mountain breaker everything to death, but it could be a lot of fun too to put her away and play around a gimmick character, and completely change the way I think about combat.

Sorry to be quite blunt but... have you actually read my post? I know it's pretty long, but nothing of what I said has anything to do with what you're seemingly answering to... I never claimed we should have no gimmick chars, nor that all chars should be equally good. What I talked about was about how some gimmicky chars are not very fun to play with (regardless of how good or bad they are), for reasons I've elaborated in my post.

I think the gimmick where characters need to rely on other characters to do their role is another that could possibly use some reworking. I'm of the opinion that synergy type skills should be a bonus to the characters that reward you for using them together as opposed to being arguably necessary for their survivability or damage output. Renko and Maribel are a good example of it being done right as they're both good characters on their own so you are never "forced" for lack of a better term to use them together. Despite Tenshi being my favorite Nature attacker in the game, it would certainly be nice not always having to use Iku which hearkens back to a post made earlier.

Also, I agree fully with this post. One of the reasons I've removed Tenshi from my party is that, for example, if
Spoiler:
***WINNER***
does that move where he shuffles around the whole team and places HEAVY on everybody so they can't switch around, and he picks Tenshi but not Iku, then Tenshi ends up being a complete deadweight. Renko and Maribel, on the other hand, can function well even when the other half isn't around - Renko can keep buffing as long as some kind of healer, such as Reimu, is on the frontline, and Maribel can keep supporting the team and buffing herself even w/o Renko on the field. Similarly, most families still work when they're "separated" because of Proof of Kinship (and Yukari's awakening is simply awesome^^)
« Last Edit: May 26, 2018, 01:58:42 PM by elminster1372 »

Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #538 on: May 26, 2018, 02:11:58 PM »
Quick question for everyone: Is Youmu still in the "not that good" category? Because I thought of some stuff for her...

- Replace Dexterity for Piercing Attack, to make her damage output consistent.
- Reduce the Max SLv of Youmu's spells to 5 in exchange for the following...
- increase Post use gauge from increasing SLv of Present Life Slash, and maybe grant it the ability to ignore part of the enemy's def(similar to Iron Mountain Charge).
- Add a second element and a special effect that affects damage to God Slash of Karma Wind(DRK, increases damage based on enemy debuffs and ailments) and Slash Clearing the Six Senses(VOI, damage increased based on enemy buffs).
- Allow Slash of Eternity to perform guaranteed additional attacks equal to SLv(Max SLv of 5 allows for 6 attacks per casting)
- Remove the requirement of needing full HP and the cost of losing 20% HP to use Swordmaster's Spirit. Synergy of HP cost with Desperation is noted, but ultimately is not needed as a boss fight will likely put her to that level of health anyway. If anything, a skill that allows Desperation to remain active for the rest of the battle once activated would be more valuable.
- Due to all of the above, Asura's Blood becomes unnecessary for damage output, especially due to Lv5 Slash of Eternity + Piercing Attack + Swordmaster's Spirit dealing good single target damage for MP cost and delay.

What do you think of my ideas so far? I know that it's a way too specific set of things to send to the dev, but I wanted to know what you guys think of all this...

 Once Youmu is awakened, she's pretty good as a very self-suficient and (relatively) easy to use nuker, you switch her to the front before a strong attack, have her Concentrate, buff her a bit and she's ready to go: just spam God's Slash of Karma Wind until out of MP then Concentrate, rinse and repeat (until you run out of TP or the enemy dies). With Calm and Serene Mind she can keep her buffs relatively high, Asura's Blood and Desperation give her a very high damage boost and Silence like Nirvana keeps her alive. I think that Gambler is the best class for her, the increased damage received is nice to reach that 1 HP easier and the EVA boost (combined with equips that also boost EVA like Slayer Robe) allows her to dodge quite often so that she can keep attacking. The only thing to keep in mind is to always make sure Youmu has Swordmaster Spirit before the enemy gets his turn (and switch her out otherwise).

My opinion is that both Present Life Slash and God's Slash of Karma Wind are fine as they are, but Slash of Eternity needs a buff (its delay is too high), Slash Clearing the Six Senses could also use a minor damage buff.

Youmu's awakening skills are fine as they are, while your suggestions would overall increase Youmu's PHY damage output, you also cripple her ablity to deal damage from other elements with her own or subclass spellcards. Still, Swordmaster's Spirit could be changed to synergize a bit better with the rest of pre-awakening Youmu's kit. Piercing Attack is not a bad idea since Youmu struggles the most during the main/postgame due to high DEF enemies.

Example of Youmu's performance (spoilers):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EnElwzSIxE&t=20m0s  (still kinda overshadowed by Nitori though)

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Re: Labyrinth of Touhou 2 - 17F
« Reply #539 on: May 26, 2018, 02:28:31 PM »
Yeah, Youmu is still kind of glum and blah until very late in the game, but at least her awakening is absolutely top-class.
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