The G-Meister
Giga Slime
I recently posted a thread on my new strategy to beating Arcade mode easily. Here I'll be discussing whether this sort of strategy should be allowed in Arcade. I suggest you go read the or watch the video for some context.
Thread: http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/index.php?threads/arcade-survival-guide-the-battletank.6018/
Video:
Before I start, this thread is going to be subject to my own personal biases and assumptions. The main assumption I will be making is that we are trying to reach a state in the game whereby all skills are equally as good/useful as one another, in (almost) all situations. If you believe this should not be the case, please tell me why.
So, the Battletank. High DEF and high damage to compensate for a lack of knowledge. The other builds I've seen normally involve high damage and good knowledge to compensate for a lack of DEF, and both of those work as strategies.
There's one part of me that's saying this strategy is great. It allows you to survive the whole of Arcade when you only have to do know floors 1-4 inside out. This means that you can get better at the mode at a steady rate, gradually learning all the attack patterns with equal discrimination, not getting stuck on a set of two floors until you know the enemies they contain like the back of your hand. To be honest, this is the way I would rather it be. I'm tired of the amount of times I've gone through floors 1-4 when I know pretty darn well I'm not gonna take that much damage.
The other part of me is saying it's unfair. It allows you to get solid S ranks almost across the board and still take up to 10 hits on a floor, and end up walking out of the floor with only a B for damage, getting an A overall. This is completely unfair on everyone else who has learnt most of the attack patterns and only tend to take one or two hits per floor, yet they still wind up with the same score, possibly because they clear a room much quicker than the S rank timer.
It's also a broad strategy and doesn't require you to have certain skills and level them up in that specific of an order (which on other strategies is mainly pumping all out MATK or ATK to make sure you kill stuff fast enough.) While this is a great thing for a strategy to have, it also means that you can scale it to your ability, therefore meaning a small increase in knowledge could be equivalent to a small decrease in DEF, allowing for ultimate flexibility to almost every persons skill level.
This in turn allows more people to complete Arcade mode. For the aforementioned reasons, this can be interpreted as either a good or a bad thing. I personally think Arcade should be a challenge, but not so much of a challenge you're stuck on each successive floor for the next 50-100 runs.
The place it falls down is for the absolute pros, or complete newbies. The pros don't need any defence at all, and the newbies need so much defence they can't get enough of it before they've died.
I think the place it's broken, if people want to consider it that way, is by the fact that basic 1H attacks are surprisingly strong. That, combined with Backhander and Brawler just tops off the strategy. There are other buffs to basic attacks as well - but that's where it's too far. There are so many buffs for basic attacks that skills become almost completely irrelevant due to their EP cost. They offer you the flexibility of being able to shield or charge an emergency attack at any point, as well as offering high damage output and furthermore, increased defence. If Second Wind worked properly a combo of basic attacks and Blade Flurry in respective proportions would be the strategy to go by.
I hope other people have their opinions. I'd like it if this subject wasn't just left to dwell in the dust like a lot of my long posts are, but I can't have everything.
Here's to a more balanced game,
G <3
Thread: http://secretsofgrindea.com/forum/index.php?threads/arcade-survival-guide-the-battletank.6018/
Video:
Before I start, this thread is going to be subject to my own personal biases and assumptions. The main assumption I will be making is that we are trying to reach a state in the game whereby all skills are equally as good/useful as one another, in (almost) all situations. If you believe this should not be the case, please tell me why.
So, the Battletank. High DEF and high damage to compensate for a lack of knowledge. The other builds I've seen normally involve high damage and good knowledge to compensate for a lack of DEF, and both of those work as strategies.
There's one part of me that's saying this strategy is great. It allows you to survive the whole of Arcade when you only have to do know floors 1-4 inside out. This means that you can get better at the mode at a steady rate, gradually learning all the attack patterns with equal discrimination, not getting stuck on a set of two floors until you know the enemies they contain like the back of your hand. To be honest, this is the way I would rather it be. I'm tired of the amount of times I've gone through floors 1-4 when I know pretty darn well I'm not gonna take that much damage.
The other part of me is saying it's unfair. It allows you to get solid S ranks almost across the board and still take up to 10 hits on a floor, and end up walking out of the floor with only a B for damage, getting an A overall. This is completely unfair on everyone else who has learnt most of the attack patterns and only tend to take one or two hits per floor, yet they still wind up with the same score, possibly because they clear a room much quicker than the S rank timer.
It's also a broad strategy and doesn't require you to have certain skills and level them up in that specific of an order (which on other strategies is mainly pumping all out MATK or ATK to make sure you kill stuff fast enough.) While this is a great thing for a strategy to have, it also means that you can scale it to your ability, therefore meaning a small increase in knowledge could be equivalent to a small decrease in DEF, allowing for ultimate flexibility to almost every persons skill level.
This in turn allows more people to complete Arcade mode. For the aforementioned reasons, this can be interpreted as either a good or a bad thing. I personally think Arcade should be a challenge, but not so much of a challenge you're stuck on each successive floor for the next 50-100 runs.
The place it falls down is for the absolute pros, or complete newbies. The pros don't need any defence at all, and the newbies need so much defence they can't get enough of it before they've died.
I think the place it's broken, if people want to consider it that way, is by the fact that basic 1H attacks are surprisingly strong. That, combined with Backhander and Brawler just tops off the strategy. There are other buffs to basic attacks as well - but that's where it's too far. There are so many buffs for basic attacks that skills become almost completely irrelevant due to their EP cost. They offer you the flexibility of being able to shield or charge an emergency attack at any point, as well as offering high damage output and furthermore, increased defence. If Second Wind worked properly a combo of basic attacks and Blade Flurry in respective proportions would be the strategy to go by.
I hope other people have their opinions. I'd like it if this subject wasn't just left to dwell in the dust like a lot of my long posts are, but I can't have everything.
Here's to a more balanced game,
G <3