[OOC] The War of the Three

[The 42nd Gecko]

@Lucius Cypher I think that's bias on the case of Team Angel, and the fact that Team Demon practically got an entire new codex with op new models save for their old strongest PC fighter.

Let's examine Team Angel this fight:
Tartys: Solid mid tier, but she's not exactly overpowered. In a one on one vs someone like Shizuka, she'd probably be at a severe disadvantage.
Eve: Maybe mid tier. I'm thinking she's the border between low and mid tier. She's no Miyu, because she's at least got speed, but her power set weaknesses really reflects that she's meant to be a character building character to interact with Syphax.
Miyu: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Torag: Yeah, didn't even get played, and would have been one shot by Grafdakka.
Ciel: GM.
Ananta: Former GM, above average, but Grafdakka does have the call of whether or not to take Ananta out of the fight, even if it'll cost him to do so.

Let's examine Team Demon this fight:
Olds-
Fran: Generally a mid tier demon, probably good to fight another mid tier character like Tartys.
Henry: The unquestionably strongest original demon PC. Even if his win/loss wasn't that great, he was unquestionably a force in every battle he went into, back when the general power level was lower. Unfortunately, that made him a target for people like Juno who could make an absolute mockery of a PC level threat.
News-
Mephila: Pretty rough and tumble high class demon, which is why he's able to stand fight against someone on Shizuka's class for awhile. But he's not exactly winning that fight.
Artoria: Super fucking broken compared to the other PCs, but still not enough to meaningfully affect the battlefield. Putting all her power behind an attack, with type advantage and the supposedly stolen powers of a Faction Leader, is enough to block about a tenth of an attack of a faction leader who is also doing like five other things in the same turn across the entire battlefield.
Greg: Didn't do anything.

So, that leaves you with Team Angel having: A mid tier, a sorta mid tier, two weaksauces, and gm/psuedo-gm character that's strong but not that bad. I mean, Ananta even acknowledge the strength of the chainsaws reality altering power being hard to block for once.

As for Team Demon: Yeah, they've got some massive punch this time, but Artoria trying to fill in for a faction leader tier threat on their team (seeing the others have Ciel and Eos) is kinda laughable.

[Mega Birb]

@The 42nd Gecko

I'm 99% sure Eve was made to tagteam with Syphax constantly. Though as far as I know, she's the fastest PC with the highest potential DPS outside of GMPCs if set up correctly.

Also, small updates to that massive list of characters. And by small I mean big.

-Trimmed the fat on Sliske's sheet.
-Sliske no longer looks like a butler.
-Sliske no longer looks like a bitch.
-Everyone besides Sliske and Syphax have been shoved into the "Infrequent" category, where they'll rot.

[KoL]

Artoria: Super fucking broken compared to the other PCs, but still not enough to meaningfully affect the battlefield. Putting all her power behind an attack, with type advantage and the supposedly stolen powers of a Faction Leader, is enough to block about a tenth of an attack of a faction leader who is also doing like five other things in the same turn across the entire battlefield.

@The 42nd Gecko

Hey, I though that this deal had already gotten explained. She can blow up a nice hole on the factory. The only thing I don't want to is that whatever you do with Artoria doesn't end up blowing the whole KC-00032 in one attack. If it wasn't for Artoria the demons would probably be losing even harder.

I mean, the main reason for that is because a RL steel production plant is huge (as in several square kilometers huge). KC-00032 being a beefed up fantasy version of them (like everything on the Nexus), must be the around half of the size of a place like Manhattan (The external parts cover about the same amount of terrain. It's a huge industrial complex, so blowing it up in one go is a bit disproportionate.

I hope that this sense of scale helped you people envisioning things the same way as I do.

[KoL]

@The 42nd Gecko

I'm 99% sure Eve was made to tagteam with Syphax constantly. Though as far as I know, she's the fastest PC with the highest potential DPS outside of GMPCs if set up correctly.

@Mega Birb

Unless it's a story written by Reki Kawahara (SAO and Accel World), Speed doesn't automatically equals damage, or combat skill. That's just something I need to tell you.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@Mega Birb
Eve may be fast... But she's got no attack powers that hurt the enemy without hurting her (As building up momentum prior to striking and colliding is her only real attack method), and her lance is woefully underwhelming against the power levels set by other weapons. If you gave her a decent weapon she might move up to solid mid tier as a duelist, but she's really not got a versatile or OP enough powerset. Also, calling her the fastest is pretty silly compared to the ludicrous speed-sets some of the other characters have.

@Lucius Cypher Back on the Subject of Grafdakka, I like to rate characters on three metrics:
Duelist: How good the character is in a one v one or other small fight. A lot of this ranking is based on the character's dodge, accuracy, the versatility of their powerset's attack type moves, and things like that.
Power: What's the power level of the fighter? Can they break through Zeruel's shield, or Torag's defenses, or other "You must be this high a power level to get to fight me" things.
Battlefield: What's their ability to affect the fight as a whole? Do they dominate the battlefield when they enter?

For example,
Victoire would be:
Deulist: Low-Mid, she's got versatility, and tricks up her sleeve, but there always seems to be cast times and preparations needed, and her physical capabilities are low enough that she's got a glass jaw.
Power: Mid, she's not particularly high raw power or low raw power.
Battlefield: Borderline Faction-Leader, between her long range communication, portals, and most importantly, demon flowers, she tends to win the battle without ever winning any fights within the battle.

Grafdakka would be:
Duelist: Low-Mid, if it weren't for your ability to easily sacrifice parts of yourself to trade blows advantageously, and your occasional clever "taking you with me but I've got higher durability" moves, you'd be lower than Miyu on this list. You're just such a big and unmaneuverable target when on open ground or in the air, and none of your ranged weapons are flexible or powerful enough to give you any real options other than "CHAARGE! PLEASE STAND STILL AND TAKE IT!".
Power: Borderline Faction-Leader, Zeruel's withstanding your chainsaw was dumb. You've sacrificed every other category for this one thing, and you should be the best at it.
Battlefield: Low-Mid. Used to be mid tier when you still had a nuke, as those allowed you to really make a difference occasionally. You really only have the ability to seek out and destroy targets, but with how bad Grafdakka is at a duel, you really have to hope the enemy doesn't have a dodge stat. If you had fixed emplacements to destroy or "destroy this shield to allow us access", you'd have some ways to shine, but as it is, it's a wonder you're doing as well as you are well.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@KoL My problem there is not that I didn't blow up the factory. It's that you specified everyone else would have to block the plasma attack on their own. That means Artoria, with ALL her power behind blocking Eos' attack, is still only blocking like, 10% of it. In my head I had imagined maybe blocking the half of it headed upwards, and of course, the stuff headed downwards would still land. And Eos isn't even focusing on that, she's creating clones, still buffing allies, launching lasers, and so on. In order for this to be the case, Eos would need to be something on the level of twenty to fifty times stronger, depending on how you roll the math.

In other words, I don't feel so much Artoria is fighting Eos, as Artoria is a naughty dog gnawing at the furniture while Eos occasionally grabs a spray bottle and spritzes it at her while continuing to read her newspaper.

[KoL]

@KoL My problem there is not that I didn't blow up the factory. It's that you specified everyone else would have to block the plasma attack on their own. That means Artoria, with ALL her power behind blocking Eos' attack, is still only blocking like, 10% of it. In my head I had imagined maybe blocking the half of it headed upwards, and of course, the stuff headed downwards would still land. And Eos isn't even focusing on that, she's creating clones, still buffing allies, launching lasers, and so on. In order for this to be the case, Eos would need to be something on the level of twenty to fifty times stronger, depending on how you roll the math.

@The 42nd Gecko

That's basically because the factory is too huge. Even if Artoria cancelled all the damage on the half of it that she's, there's no way that she can cancel it on every part of KC-00032. Since no one but her (who has been declared to be closer to the center) has a fixed position as in at least cardinal points, there's no way to judge whether or not she'll cancel the part of the plasma heading their way. Thus, other people who aren't very close to her have to deal with it on their own.

Did you get my idea now?

As for Eos multitasking, that's her basic trait. She's a walking super quantum computer used to micromanage the whole of the Machina war effort at once. I guess that being able to do a few things at once wouldn't be too much for her at all.

[Flamelord]

You know, 'factory is the size of Manhattan' is one of those things that really should be mentioned in the description of the battlefield, as opposed to leaving the players to assume how big the factory is.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@KoL Looking at the image, I was figuring that the central part of it was a tower that most everyone was in. Artoria coming down from the top, with Tartys, Miyu, Ruxen, still being on the upper side of it due to having entered from the air or explicitly being on the upper level.

I really felt like Tartys, Miyu, and Ruxen wouldn't have to deal with the plasma because Artoria'd prevent it from getting that high.

It's not like I'm arguing that because I want to make Artoria win. Every one of those people I'd be helping would be an Angel.

[Mega Birb]

@The 42nd Gecko@KoL

She's the embodiment of a Gale Wings Talonflame. Brave Bird spam.

That is all.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@Mega Birb Yeah, and when someone says "I think I want to to put, lets say, a wall of swords with infinite power between me and that brave bird" Eve goes "Well darn."

[TheWendil]

@KoL, @The 42nd Gecko

I feel like we're talking about two different things here. Hopefully KoL's statements will have resolved how big the factory is along with its depth. From my understanding, Artoria and Ruxen are somewhere at the factory's roof while the real center of the factory is Eos's position. As for this whole issue of the plasma, I thought we said Artoria could either deal with it via Leviathan breath, tank it with fire resistance, or haggle Ruxen to teleport her away.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@TheWindel This discussion has been illuminating, regardless of its effects.

As for the leviathan breath, right now, I THINK, we're discussing "what would actually happen if Artoria chose that option". I believe current is "Artoria gets to deal some* damage to the factory and protects herself just fine" and I'm arguing for "If I'm really supposed to be the Faction Leader Level threat for the Demons, wouldn't I block the half of the plasma heading for the upper levels, thus shielding everyone on the upper levels in addition to myself?"

*I still don't feel bad about using superlative language threatening to blow up the factory. Everything was phrased in a "the factory MIGHT blow up" tone, and Ciel's bull used "supernova" to describe one of her attacks, which, even if the super factory is the size of a fucking solar system, instead of the size of Manhattan, an actual supernova would still wipe it out like it was a saltine cracker in the pacific ocean.

[KoL]

Before I go sleep, I'll just leave this here so that you can get a bit of a sense of scale of how large a RL steelworks can be. Size of Manhattan is something that's pretty much viable for some of them since Manhattan has only around 59 square kilometers of ground area.

This is why I didn't thought that I needed to explain that as metal working factory is HUGE. In all likelihood, KC-00032 is even bigger than that, since it's not only a metalworks factory but also has an integrated production line for all kinds of weapons and machinery including giant mechs.

Also, have this video of a hot steel rolling mill, that I just love, so that you can have an idea of why these factories need to be that huge:

[TheWendil]

I'm arguing for "If I'm really supposed to be the Faction Leader Level threat for the Demons, wouldn't I block the half of the plasma heading for the upper levels, thus shielding everyone on the upper levels in addition to myself?"

@The 42nd Gecko

I have no problem with that. KoL's fear of you blowing up the entire factory stems from the fact that that would end the entire battle in one fell swoop. The superlative language seems to be the issue here since, as you said, Artoria only threatened to blow it all up as opposed to actually doing it. Furthermore, KoL's language has also caused some confusion given that Taura did just make a supernova. That's really something for KoL to explain and discuss why that supernova didn't one-shot the factory.

In any case, I don't think there's anything wrong with the fluff you added in hindsight so long as the entire base doesn't get one-shotted. You could probably even make a fourth open for Artoria, having her threaten to blow the place up and force Eos to negotiate or something.

[KoL]

And now, I go to bed, dreaming of heavy metal working.

Someone, please fetch me Iron Man from Black Sabbath.

[Flamelord]

I still think description would have been nice for the factory. For all we knew the entire thing could have been a Manhattan sized building buried underground. But I guess it's a bit late now, so it's more something to keep in mind for future battles. We can't react appropriately if we lack important information. And considering your general opinion of us I'm surprised you don't just default to pointing out the blatantly obvious off the bat.

[Lucius Cypher]

I mean, can't be any harder to get around than say, DGO. Everyone pretty much moves at the speed of convenience. One thing I do question is how well the Demons navigate this supposedly city sized factory. I don't think their saboteurs ever gave the demons any detail about the layout of the factory, and I'm frankly surprised no one's gotten lost. I know Fran would've if she didn't get picked up by the tornado and battered about outside the factory.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@TheWindel If Tauros made a literal supernova, we need to have some explanation as to why PCs exist. Like.. Seriously. At our rate of character improvement, we'll reach that point in another 20-30 solid years of roleplaying.

[The 42nd Gecko]

@Lucius Cypher Not a single demon other than Greg targeted anything specific. They just wandered around, got into fights, and destroyed whatever random stuff they could find.