Sienna isn't a good comparison, as she's as broken as broken gets. Say what you will about Dragon Fang, but the fact that she's the fastest character naturally and has an attack that scales on agility means she's going to get 2 to 3 times as many turns as Magnolia (or the enemy) meaning she's dealing more damage through sheer quantity. Sienna's also easier to set up, since everyone can learn Drunken Master and her ultra move gives her exactly the boosts she wants.
Magnolia meanwhile I'm only getting 1.6K on a weakness hit out of her (heroic ode and wild card, any number but 10). No her equipment and passives are not optimized, and I need to test how this compares to Lenne with Third-eye or her other boosting skill and Ba'Thraz with Berserker/Heaven-or-Hell. I'll get back with some hard numbers later, but I really don't remember it being that much higher unless she rolled a 10.
Third Eye has nothing on Wild Card, first of all.
Third Eye not only briefly debuffs Lenne, but it ignores the main reason Wild Card is so strong; if you have Third Eye go off, it stays off. Wild Card ensures two super strong hits.
Giving Sienna Drunken Master and saying that makes her more broken ignores the fact anyone can do that, including Mikah, who is similarly speedy (she can also legitimately reach 50 with little investment) and is a better buffer anyway because she can stack Drunken Master with her own speed buff.
Using Sienna's ultra is not unlike setting up for her because it requires her to carefully manage the overdrive bar to set it up without nuking her damage output for the next few turns, and while the damage is great it's still something she needs to do to get the most out of crit. It's still weaker than getting all hits from Dragon Fang and significantly weaker than Magnolia's cards with Wild Card up.
I've been playing on the hardest difficulty from the start, and going on harder difficulties cuts Sienna's overall damage output even more given how much stronger the enemies are, while Magnolia's damage remains consistent.
Yes, Magnolia isn't as fast as Sienna. I'm not disputing that. However, pretty much everyone should be running on Bandit's AGI boost anyway, and that more than allows Magnolia to get a fair number of turns herself. Sienna is quantity while Magnolia is quality. Her attacks hit like massive bricks.
Even if we can't agree that she's comparable to Sienna, I should hope the very fact Wild Card is Third Eye but better at least makes Magnolia comparable to Lenne, who herself is dubbed a gamebreaker because of how strong Third Eye makes her. None of the damage I've mentioned up to this point besides the 16,000+ came from Falfalaran. She just can deal 8,000 damage if she wants. If needing elemental weaknesses is what you think holds her back, I hotly debate that because she's a boss crusher and most bosses have elemental weaknesses anyway. Even against mobs of weaker enemies, she just needs to set up Falfalaran and then it's an immediate win-con. Her being frailer than Sienna doesn't matter because she needs one hit and with even a modest agility boost from Bandit and Silver Lining she can get that.
Against bosses she'll win out against Sienna, too, who needs to occasionally run on TP restoration, whereas Magnolia can stay offensive for much longer. Sienna needs to 'take a breath' so to speak to restore her buffs more often than Magnolia does, who just needs to reset Wild Card. Her damage output is such that she can usually get away with only needing to do that once. I've literally beaten Gaemdriel while Magnolia was still in fairy mode, and I set up Falfalaran at the start of the fight after Gaemdriel's first salvo. Her damage output if optimized is insane and beats out Sienna's.
Edited by TalesOfAwesome
So I did an experiment for some hard numbers. The assumptions are that Lenne, Magnolia, and Ba'thraz would fight Tak the Yak (with Glenn assisting only for Lend Energy). All have their best reforged rusty weapon, all have no armor, accessories, class emblems, crystals, or passive skills equipped. All are at 43 grimoire shards with all stat upgrades taken, all mentioned skills are at level 3 (except Elemental Pact, it's only at level 2). Lenne would use Heaven's Tear, Magnolia Lunatic Joker, and Ba'Thraz Dark Spear on Tak with their respective unique buffs. Lenne has 144 magic and 24 agility, Magnolia 158 magic and 21 agility, Ba'Thraz 144 magic and 23 agility.
Here are the results from least to most damage:
1. Magnolia, no buffs, no 10 - 936
2. Ba'Thraz, no buffs - 985
3. Lenne, no buffs, - 1046
4. Ba'Thraz, Berserker - 1480
5. Magnolia, Wild Card (V) - 1902
6. Lenne, Third Eye - 2631
7. Lenne, Elemental Pact (level 2, Glenn for TP recovery) - 2964
8. Ba'Thraz, Heaven-or-hell - 2978
9. Magnolia, Fairy form & Wild Card (X) - 7046
From this you can see that Magnolia could do the most damage in a single attack, but ONLY if she rolls a 10. Otherwise Wild Card isn't really doing that much damage. Yes she gets to use it twice before needing to refresh the buff, but even then it's not outdoing Elemental Pact and Heaven-or-hell.
Both of those skills have large downsides sure, but can be mitigated by party support. Point being, Magnolia can be an utter nuke but I feel she's too inconsistent to be a Gamebreaker.
I might retest later with "MAX" equipment and passives and whatnot, but it will take some time to grind for all that.
Edited by Stage7-4
As I've stated before, Magnolia's main benefit is how easy it is to max her out and the benefits of doing so. She needs the buffs. You're only scratching the surface of what she can do by not applying the multipliers.
Wild Card doesn't have the drawbacks Ba'Thraz and Lenne do with their own buffs, it's more consistent, and chiefly, she needs the crystal and Mag Up bonuses anyone can get. I'll admit I never used Heaven or Hell, but that mostly came down to the fact the drawback was a bit too extreme for my tastes.
You also don't need to work hard to get the buffs; the Wife from Rockbottom can set crystals to give out nothing but buffs, and by the time you can get Magnolia you can basically get the Wife.
'Grinding' for Magnolia would only take 30 minutes at most moving between maps. Her massive base magic plus the buffs she can get from her passives are what make her work here. When it comes to optimization, that's where she shines.
I can understand if the argument is that any degree of optimization goes against the idea of being a gamebreaker, but I'd also protest that because that assumes that you don't need to optimize Sienna or Lenne either, and you do, even if it's as simple as knowing to buff Sienna's crit rates and damage.
If you want, I can run some numbers myself on the final boss. I still have the game. Or on those dolls you can fight on the way to Randomage. Or hell, Tak the Yak himself.
Edited by TalesOfAwesome
Okay, re-doing the same test on Tak the Yak only now they have 2 MAG up passives each (all at level 3) and Victor uses Heroic Hymn. Only testing Magnolia with Wild Card and Lenne with Elemental Pact (I don't have two MAG up passives for Ba'Thraz at the moment, I'll need to grind the other off of a class emblem).
Magnolia 194 magic, Lenne 176 magic
3742 - Magnolia (Wild Card VI, Heroic Hymn, 2 MAG up)
5775 - Lenne (Elemental Pact level 2, Heroic Hymn, 2 MAG up, Lend Energy)
11,282 - Magnolia (Wild Card X, Fairy Form, Heroic Hymn, 2 MAG up)
Again, I'm not seeing Magnolia doing more damage unless she gets a 10 which at a 1/9 chance of happening (1/4 if in fairy form) I just can't say is a gamebreaker. More like Awesome but Impractical. And again, this isn't even for Lenne's max power since Elemental Pact is still only level 2.
I think the problem here is the spells themselves, not the buffs. Lenne's Heaven's Tear has a 2x multiplier, Ba'Thraz's Dark Spear is 1.9x, but all of Magnolia's card spells stop at 1.5x (unless of course she draws a 10). Magnolia's spells are just weaker than the other mages, so her higher MAG stat isn't shining through. And she can't even use Terra, Aqua, or the other Class Emblem spells because they won't work with Wild Card.
I'll need to test it to be sure, but I think Magnolia using Shuffle 3 times (on an enemy with no resistances) does more damage than Wild Card and two Lunatic Joker's.
Edit: did the test, Magnolia using Shuffle with no buffs or MAG passives does about 1070 damage. Over 3 turns that would be 3210. Wild Card and two Lunatic Jokers is about 3800 damage so no, Shuffle is not stronger (and it has a chance of drawing a 1). But what is interesting is that Shuffle and Wild Card seem to stack so Magnolia can use a 1.7x spell for a small boost. Need to test this more.
Edited by Stage7-4
I don't know why you're not getting my insane numbers. Having actually done the same test now on Tak, I'm routinely getting 6,000s and higher with Wild Card.
Your Magnolia's Mag looks weird to me. I have her at 229 Mag. Are you applying crystal buffs? And are you applying the buff to card damage she can get from crystals too?
Looking at your analysis, though, I'm starting to understand what the issue is.
Lenne's damage can end up getting close to Magnolia's - I wasn't buffing her as much as I was buffing Magnolia until I started experimenting myself for this discussion - but it comes with Elemental Pact and Third Eye. I was using Third Eye religiously but not experimenting with Elemental Pact much and I wasn't touching Heaven or Hell with a ten-foot pole. Even buffing Lenne further - I can get her to around just above 200 with proper buffs via equipment crystals - she isn't matching Magnolia's Wild Card buffs but Elemental Pact with proper support is allowing her to almost match it.
I'm still tempted to say Magnolia has the better situation because she doesn't need support to 'work,' but I'm willing to rescind the 'Gamebreaker' status now. Not that I don't think she is - I can still, as usual, put out 16,000 damage on the final phase of the final boss with X and 8,000 without - but I think it's more down to the crystal buffs than Magnolia herself. That seems to be why your Magnolia isn't casually exceeding Lenne while mine does.
I'm willing to compromise. Because the crystal system and passive statistic stacking are already gamebreaking in their own right, I'm willing to settle on Magnolia not being a gamebreaker, but only if the same applies to Lenne and hers is struck from the record too.
Both of them can put out similar numbers when buffed to their peak, as I'm now finding using Elemental Pact, but Lenne is reliant on support to use Elemental Pact effectively whereas Magnolia can just set up and go to town.
With that in mind, I think it only fair to note that both aren't gamebreakers and are being propelled by the gamebreaking aspects of crystals, or both are because they benefit the most from crystals and passives, since they only need to boost their speed and magic whereas Sienna, for as powerful as she is naturally, can't buff everything she wants effectively with her passives given the limited amount of slots and what she wants.
Does this sound fair? If so, which would your prefer?
Edited by TalesOfAwesome
For fun I did the Tak the Yak test with Magnolia (no buffs, no passives, no class emblems, no accessories, no crystals, Royal Cards++) trying to get the most 3 turn damage (without drawing a ten). The results were:
0. Wild Card, Eclipse Ace - 1500 (retesting showed that Wild Card doesn't effect Eclipse Ace, it did about 750 every time whether Wild Card was active or not)
1. Aqua 3 times - 3639
2. Wild Card, Lunatic Joker twice no tens - 3804
3. Wild Card, Shuffle twice no tens - 4286
So Wild Card + Shuffle twice is Magnolia's technically strongest combo, at the cost of being really unpredictable. Can't reliably hit weaknesses, and might hit a resistance. Also shows that Wild Card doesn't deal much more damage than using better spells thrice (like Aqua in this case) because the card spell multipliers are so low. Aqua is 1.9x when max'd, while card spells cap at 1.5x.
As for the gamebreaker, I agree that Third Eye needs to be cut as it's only "broken" during Act 1 to Act 2. I'd argue Elemental Pact could be it's replacement given their are multiple ways of TP recovery (Glenn, Victor, sweets, etc).
Heaven-or-hell I'm fine with leaving off. The power is comparable to Elemental Pact, but the only way to mitigate the downside is Amalia's Revival. Good for cleaning regular fights though.
As a compromise, do you want to add Magnolia as an Awesome Yet Impractical entry? Since I agree that she's got the highest damage ceiling in the game but all that depends on drawing 10's.
I don't know if I'd label it 'Awesome But Impractical' because there's nothing really impractical about her damage output - though for the purposes of her damage ceiling, sure. Even I can agree hoping for a 33% chance to effectively double damage is a bit too impractical to be used unless you're getting my insane luck. It certainly feels like Falfalaran will guarantee at least one X, though. I haven't had a Falfalaran where Magnolia didn't get an X at least once, though that is probably luck.
I kinda want to try Wild Card + Shuffle on the final boss, now. I only ever used it for the regular card moves. If I could get a 16,000 with an X hitting their weakness, I want to see what I'd get rolling an X with Shuffle...
As for Wild Card itself, I'm still running tests and even on neutral hits with Tsunami I'm getting 6,000s and higher when setting up Wild Card on Tak. At endgame that's incredible damage to put out twice, and that's without elemental weaknesses, buffs, or debuffs to account for, which will naturally make it higher.
Maybe just under 'Good Bad Bugs?' It feels like it's a bug because it goes against what the text says for the skill and there's no doubt it's a very mighty ability. I personally still think it's better than the damage Sienna can put out but once again I'm willing to compromise and settle with her not making 'Gamebreaker;' I just feel like the damage she can put out without any drawbacks deserves a mention there if nowhere else.
I do think Elemental Pact could be put under Gamebreaker though if Lenne gets proper support from allies. Try it with TP Sacrifice, one of her character passives. The damage is insane, and my Lenne isn't even as optimized as my Magnolia is.
So how about that? Good Bad Bugs for Wild Card, Elemental Pact + TP Sacrifice + Support unit like Glenn is its own Gamebreaker combo?
Edited by TalesOfAwesome
I can't tell if Wild Card is a bug or a mistranslation as the two turn duration seems intentional. But I'm good with those changes.
On the topic of Magnolia's game-breaker status - you do not need to use Falfalaran to make her OP. Wild Card alone does obscene amounts of damage with none of the RNG of Sienna's strikes, which I have tested; it is indeed RNG, higher speed simply raises the ceiling of strikes she gets. If Sienna can hit all five strikes and crit the majority of them, she'll maybe deal damage comparable to Magnolia using Wild Card and two card moves over the course of three Dragon Fangs. This is heavily luck dependent and requires set-up due to the speed cap hurting her without buffs mid-fight.
The use of Falfalaran simply makes it more likely she'll get a 10 for several turns. This is great - I've literally achieved 16,000 damage in a single strike with only two turns of set-up beforehand - but Falfalaran is not the secret to Magnolia's success. Wild Card is. Magnolia can easily outdamage Sienna without any issues regarding RNG at all. She renders all endgame and bonus bosses a joke, isn't dependent on buffs (Sienna does need some degree of set-up to be consistent) beyond Wild Card, and can get obscene damage if she's going up against anything with a weakness - and the majority of endgame bosses all have elemental weaknesses to cards she has. Even if they don't, Victor can set up for her, or she can run without a care in the world for elemental strengths or weaknesses and still do obscene damage.
Maybe you're not pumping enough into her magic? Part of her success is that she has a ludicrously high base magic statistic that doesn't need as much help as Sienna's speed or strength to get going. Magnolia has a really high base magic statistic that works perfectly with how statistics are calculated given equipment and stat boosters. You can say that without crystal boosts Magnolia's damage lags behind, but that's true of anyone.
Everything written under her gamebreaker entry is tested - I have skipped entire segments of the final boss because Magnolia's burst damage is so obscene, and unlike Sienna's Dragon Fang, if you do set up with Falfalaran you guarantee AOE damage with no dispersion effect regarding the damage to multiple enemies - useful for the final boss and several bonus bosses.
I should end this post by explaining one last thing - this isn't a full comparison. The only reason I'm comparing damage output is because Sienna's main thing, the big aspect of her character that makes her broken, is her damage output. She can't tank. She doesn't support much (past mid-game Toxic, Bleed, and Poison fall off hard). She doesn't have some god-buff that everyone else wants (MAYBE Mikah might want Nukitsuke but that's about the only one I can think of) that isn't centered entirely on her like Wild Card is. At the end of the day, she is chosen primarily because she goes fast and hits reasonably hard with Dragon Fang. At the point you get her, Magnolia outdoes Sienna's damage output with minimum investment using tools you should have at this point. If Magnolia can do all this (and she gets Silver Lining, which Sienna doesn't, which allows her to clean up any frailty issues, and she has the free slots to use it) and doesn't have Sienna's TP issues - a full-tilt Sienna's going to run into TP issues hard even with TP Minuet up and running - and can do more damage than Sienna, which is what Sienna is chiefly known for as a gamebreaker, then by that metric Mangolia herself should be a gamebreaker.
Edited by TalesOfAwesome Hide / Show Replies