Board 8 > Hypothetical Mercs Topic, S2 Topic 2: Pure Imagination

(+) Yeah! (+)

Alany posted...

If you think it'd just be better to use the one Wesker was subjected to then I'd be fine doing that.

I mean the whole point I'm making is that Wesker was already so jacked on other things plus overdosed on his regulating serum that it makes what happened to him quantifiable. Which the wiki seems to agree with as well:

Because Wesker's situation, with his preexisting virus and possibly the overdose on PG67A/W, is so unique, it is difficult to say if the symptoms he showed were typical of all compatible hosts

---

Basically, if you want the Wesker cocktail, make the Wesker cocktail clear but that is not flat Uroboros.

There's not really much to point to with Uroboros and say 'okay yes this is what it does."
---

FFDragon posted...

Basically, if you want the Wesker cocktail, make the Wesker cocktail clear but that is not flat Uroboros.

There's not really much to point to with Uroboros and say 'okay yes this is what it does."

Alrighty, it's not a hard switcheroo there. I'll make sure that's editted up.

Losing to Sol doesn't matter because Sol doesn't lose

I-No fair enough-- I don't remember this happening but if it did then uhhh...
---

Lopen posted...

Losing to Sol doesn't matter because Sol doesn't lose

I-No fair enough-- I don't remember this happening but if it did then uhhh...

Funny that

Sol actually jobs out to Ky in the epilogue to Revelator. Like, while not holding back to like 1% as usual. I'll see if I can find the cutscene but it's pretty neat stuff. Apparently the gear cells transfer did wonders for good ol holy swordboy.

(And yeah, I-no takes Dizzy down in a bunch of endings and more importantly her bodying Dizzy kickstarts GGXX. To quote the GG wiki: "A few months after the events of Guilty Gear X, Dizzy was on the deck of the Mayship when she was suddenly knocked off by I-No. She fell 20,000 feet and the impact knocked her unconscious, giving Necro the freedom to possess her.")
---

Oh I mean I knew about I-No throwing Dizzy from the ship obviously but that clearly wasn't FULL POWER DIZZY

I don't remember I-No ever beating that
---

Lopen posted...

Oh I mean I knew about I-No throwing Dizzy from the ship obviously but that clearly wasn't FULL POWER DIZZY

I don't remember I-No ever beating that

Oh shoot, sorry, was unclear there - afaik I-No has never fought Dizzy while she's going all-out, no, just that she's beaten her repeatedly when she's being her usual pacifist self. Sol's the only one who has clean wins over her at full power because he always gets called in to deal with that, whether it's evil alternate timeline Dizzy or the normal one possessed by Necro. It means she has a bit of variance in her top end, but I think you can nip that in the bud by giving her a passive that makes her immune to anything that would alter her mindset to make her angry (hell, can even keep the Ultra Pacifist name too). Take that away and I think she's a pretty consistent high 5/week or low 6.
---

man I was tired as hell last night there are so many errors I can barely tell what I was trying to say

tl;dr -- There are exactly zero instances of Uroboros successfully bonding with someone that wasn't already infected with something else, so it's impossible to say what Uroboros actually does. It's in fact possible that the only thing it does to 'normal' people is turn them into the mass of tentacles we see on all the other test subjects.

So please don't use base Uroboros because you'd just be arguing theorycraft or blindly running counter to what it actually does (which is turn people into tentacle monsters).
---

Speaking of RE....

Jack Baker (Resident Evil 7)
Villainous Male Undead
Upkeep: 2/Week

Jack Baker is as seen in his first two fights in Resident Evil 7, equipped with his chainsaw shears.

Welcome To The Family, Son (Start of Battle) -Jack's family was given a gift, and once every three weeks, Jack can spread this gift to a preselected male merc. That merc will gain similar strength and regeneration powrs that Jack shows, but in turn they will become unhinged, psychotic and sadistic and will prefer to work by themselves over helping their team. If an ally is chosen, they will still communicate and cooperate with Jack.

UPGRADES:

(Ability Upgrades)

Jack now welcomes daughters into the family, and can now target female mercs.

(Character Upgrade)

If Jack's body is completely destroyed in battle, he will get back up two minutes later in the form seen in his third fight.

(New Abilities)

You're About To Witness Something Wonderful (Pre-Battle) - Once every four weeks, Jack can show what his gift can really do. After using this ability, Jack will enter the fight without needing to be rostered. At the start of the match, Jack will approach a random post-rosters enemy merc and use their one of their weapons to kill himself. After three minutes, Jack will get back up and fight the enemy team as normal.

We're A Family Now (Passive) -When Jack appears in battle, Marguerite Baker will enter as a free assist for him.

Marguerite Baker is as seen in Resident Evil 7 in her second fight.
---

Resident Evil viruses in general are all fucking theorycraft. This is a series where one of their more successful critters (Lisa) was made by some asshole going "Y'know what, just stuff her full of every virus we got. T-Virus? Ebola? We got any chickenpox laying around?" And then she wound up invincible
---

Yeah but for most there is at least one successful subject that you can point to and be like -- "Yes, we will use that a base for translating onto other Mercs." Uroboros doesn't even have one.

But yes, poor Lisa Trevor is "the best" in that sense. Just fucked her shit up and she was immortal. I'm still convinced she's wandering Arklay somewhere.
---

For Uroboros you can just say it affects the merc like it did Neil
---

That was Uroboros mixing with T-Phobos though.

Like I said, the only evidence we have of straight Uroboros is making tentacle monsters.

Any time it's done something else, it's been because it was mixed with something else.
---

KanzarisKelshen posted...

Take that away and I think she's a pretty consistent high 5/week or low 6.

Yeah that would probably be fine. Kind of a weird merc though. Like still kinda has some of the same problems. Maybe if you explicitly ban her Instant Kill also then you could avoid OMG MOUNTAIN DESTROYING WARNING SHOTZ arguments.
---

fucking warning shot arguments, man. the worst.
---

That seems like a plan to me. The IK for Dizzy is 'real' but just as much of an outlier as Majin DT Dante. No reason to keep shit that overcentralizes the merc. Leave the IKs to the other GGers who don't suffer mental nerfing.
---

To talk a little about Dracula, one of the weirder things about his writeup is that he is coming from Harmony of Despair, a little-known and not well-liked Castlevania game with no story. Sure I love HD, and it consolidates a lot of his abilities into a single form, but maybe it wasn't the best place for him to start. The game with his best showing is probably Order of Ecclesia, maybe rebuilding the writeup to say he is from there but give him everything else from HD or whatever could help.
---

Right, HoDes is a crossover game so it's a bit like Smash but more serious. Ecclesia is kind of a wonky game to pull durability from though - he's basically immune to everything Shanoa throws out that ain't Dominus. Taken seriously that makes him too beefy for 5/week.
---

Well that puts him in a rough place since he has no really good showings beyond that. Anything else is basically him being weaker than he "should" be, but with no real good indicated of how strong he "should" be beyond OoE. I think it would be OK if he was super tanky since his offense isn't amazing beyond a couple attacks in his later forms.
---

Delete drac replace with mercury steam drac, fixes all issues

(not even once tbqh)
---

no
---

Match is a lil bit delayed because of edits to the mutant team's writeups. Plan is to get it up tonight or tomorrow, so expect a link to be posted here soon!
---

Match writeup is ready: https://pastebin.com/KPJ42rx4

@FFDragon Is this sufficiently clear on what the effects on The Boss are, in particular? We decided to go with giving The Boss the pre-RE5 Wesker boosts so as to make the writeup more elegant, since he's plenty superhuman in Code: Veronica and others. If not, how would you amend it to be clear it's the Wesker boost?
---

I mean if you were going for "The Boss also has Wesker's displayed powers as of RE5" you could have just gone "The Boss also has Wesker's displayed powers as of RE5"
---

DeathChicken posted...

I mean if you were going for "The Boss also has Wesker's displayed powers as of RE5" you could have just gone "The Boss also has Wesker's displayed powers as of RE5"

Nah the idea was to give her Wesker's general Weskery things he show from entries that happen before RE5. The afterimage speeds, huge strength, durability to survive explosions and so on.
---

I'd make it clear that it's the Prototype Progenitor Virus as seen in the Resident Evil series.

Also decide whether you're going to allow its healing factor, which is one of its main draws.
---

Got it, will edit that in for the finalized writeup. Thanks!
---

up
---

Late, but better late than never! The exhibition match we've been talking about is up now: https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/76095702

Go vote!
---

...
---

up
---

been a bit busy

aiming to resume analysis on monday
---

...
---

...
---

....
---

Sure is some analysis there
---

Special guest analysis by Crono
---

sry guys, spent this week finally updating my potato computer so I've been kinda unable to sit down and write due to shopping

Free tomorrow so hoping to rectify that a bit
---

Wait, does that mean you can finally play Transistor?
---

...
---

well
---

Time to get back into this

Gimme a bit to start writing
---

Dr. Wily

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/106563318/Dr%20Wily

I'm super sad we never got to see Wily fight in any meaningful capacity. Really curious about how much respect he'd get. Regardless though, this is a really good build - a prime example of intelligent design, reusing event mercs to create an unbelievably faithful build for the good doctor. You can get incredibly varied abilities...at the price of not being able to easily reuse any given one after it's spent. Is that worth it to you? It certainly was for FFD.

Should He Stay?: Yes. Excellent build.

Duke Nukem

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/101968285/Duke%20Nukem

I really don't get why Duke had all his fun toys removed. No Devastator, no X-3000, no explosive shotgun, nothing except the jetpack. Like what is even the point if you're not gonna make him more than a flying McGunner? There isn't even an excuse of 'well his previous build was bad' because Wang was extremely generous with him, he just had shit removed for no reason. We can do better than that - updating him to DNF, giving him the boosted holoduke from that and actual heavy ordnance could easily make him a 5. Especially if you give him a passive to represent his very unique health mechanic:

"Hail to the King, Baby!" (Passive): Something as petty as injury could never stop Duke - only losing confidence in himself could ever get him down. In battle, Duke will take no physical damage from enemy attacks. Instead, attacks that would damage him will instead reduce his ego, as seen in Duke Nukem Forever. If his confidence in himself is completely shattered, he will not die, but will instead leave the battle. He may restore his ego through any appropriate means that he can find.

Tell me a flying invisible Duke with full gear ain't a 5, I dare ya. As far as his abilities go, I feel like When It's Done needs work - it's robbing Peter to pay Paul, I think is how FFD put it once upon a time, and he was right. Make it so there's some way to get around it besides 'I have humongous ability defense' and we're really cookin' with gas.

Should He Stay?: Yes, of course. Hail to the king, baby!

D.Va

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/108621187/D%20Va

Preferred Race Random is sssssoooooo powerful. I still waffle about whether it's better if it full randoms or if you don't upgrade it to force paydowns to fight and then dickhammer them. That's really the only thing worth discussing here - D.Va is otherwise an excellent mid/low tank, which we need more of, she has two great abilities, and her build is faithful to her. Really the only thing I might want to give her is a 'NERF THIS!' ability where she can willingly lose her MEKA to use her ult as a damaging SoB. That's it.

Should She Stay?: Yes.

Earthworm Jim

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/105860145/Earthworm%20Jim

A build in dire need of more mathematical rigor. Jim's quiz show is just plain not worth five weeks of CD and it shouldn't even have the option to be so - statistically speaking, assuming your opponent picks randomly and doesn't know you at all, they have a 70% chance of nailing at least one question, dramatically limiting its usefulness. Set it to three weeks of CD no matter what and 2 on upgrade and he's good. GROOVY! is an excellent ability that enables SO MANY COMBOS - if Quiz Show wasn't trash he woulda been bought in a heartbeat.

(PS I hate the cow. It lets voters meme vote and it makes leaders angry when this happens. I recommend letting him bring a cow in as a free assist instead because we really don't want things that let voters abandon all objectivity in a game so loaded with biases already.)

Should He Stay?: Yes.
---

Edgar Figaro

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/102457939/Edgar%20Figaro

One of the most 'why' inclusions in this game I think. FF6 is already overrepresented (Kefka, Kuja, Celes, Sabin - that's a lot of dudes for one game), and Edgar is one of the most generic FF6 characters you can get. Yeah yeah, Tools, fun stuff...but they got argued precisely never, yo. And it's not like Chris is a bad arguer so you can't pin it on the leader sucking at getting votes. We can do better than this. Put in Gogo if you really need a fifth FF6 rep. More interesting stuff can be done with the fact he's a superstrong bonus boss in FF5 and hmi being able to mimic other characters without poaching their parameters. His abilities weren't that good either, so I'm not really feeling him besides being a cool character.

Should He Stay?: No.

Eleonora Yumizuru

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/109948153/Eleonora%20Yumizuru

Speaking of 'why' inclusions...I don't know why Luis made this build. Ellie isn't the fan favorite from TMS, TMS is itself a game that came and went without a peep, and HOLY FUCK THOSE ABILITIES JFC

Like, count the ways this shit is busted

Controllable KO? Yep. Friendly Fireproof status shell that can thirdparty dudes or possess them? Yep. Free ability usages? Yyyyep. Each ability is more busted than the last, it's crazy. You can nerf these all to size and make her fair, but why? She's not worth the effort. Abel, Atsuro and several others from Devil Survivor, Joker and some of his bros from P5, Demifiend from SMT3, Cielo and Heat...we have way more pressing SMT reps already.

Should She Stay?: No.

Elizabeth

mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/103044214/Elizabeth

Real talk, I don't get why Liz is a 3/week. Her abilities are fine, but nothing about this is gamebreakingly strong in a way that makes me think she deserves to be at the top cost PS slot alongside Jeigan and Ashtar. Her second branching ability upgrade also fucking sucks and is way too conservative, and honestly you could make her a permanent assist character and she'd be totally fair. I think she's the better Bioshock Infinite rep over Booker so if one has to stay it should be her, but she could use some sprucing up to justify her pricetag imo.

Should She Stay?: Yes, with some buffs/changes.

Elma

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/109131589/Elma

You know what the true Dumbest Argument was? Whether Elma starts in her mech or not. She should come back and her abilities are good but if she does, clear up that she starts in her mech or outside it, and if she does start in it clarify whether abilities will hit her or the mech. That's all folks!

PS: Mira confirms we can and should abandon the whole 'empty lifeless terrains' bullshit. It nerfs stealth characters and makes for lamer matches. We can afford a bit more pizzazz with our terrain for sure. This doesn't mean every terrain should be populated, but a fair amount? Yeah sure. And no tier restrictions either!

Should She Stay?: Yes.
---

Emiya Kiritsugu

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/109948255/Emiya%20Kiritsugu

FUCK KERRY

Anyway, personal hatred for this character aside, Kiritsugu was a bit of a rush job. I still don't agree with Newbie that removing his Origin Bullets and making them an ability was a good idea. They're Kerry's major calling card considering most mercs terrains do not allow him preptime, so it makes no sense to not just increase his upkeep (5/week sounds right) and keep him as a dedicated antimage. There's the question of whether he should stay, of course...and I have no issues with it. You're pulling from an anime for feats, sure, but this makes him more reliable and clear than most mercs. I think it's fair.

Should He Stay?: Probably? Unless you really wanna purge Fate stuff from Mercs I guess. Incidentally, Mash Kyrielight from FGO is probably a really good 5/week, what with being very support oriented and all and packing a shitload of animated showings.

Emiya Shirou

http://mercs2015.pbworks.com/w/page/102370825/Emiya%20Shirou

Sighs

Shirou...man. I really don't know what to do with him. I owned him so let's make something clear: As is, there is no point in bringing Shirou back. Reinforcement was disgustingly loose in wording and got interpreted to do nothing, Command Seals was overpriced, and Shirou himself got incredibly mixed respect because he's stuck with his pre-final fight showings in UBW and...he doesn't win a single real fight there before Gilgamesh. It's just plain not good and not workable. The most I managed to get out of him was acting as a Caladbolg suicide bomber, which is just shameful. I can see arguments for him staying or leaving, but honestly, I think the right call here is to discuss if you want a Shirou with Unlimited Blade Works and the Rin Contract OR Archer's arm active as a merc. Either one of those has actual, y'know, positive showings (beating Gilgamesh and defeating Berserker, Saber and so on), which is mandatory if you don't want to make him a walking pile of disrespect. But you could just as easily boot him. He was one of my mascot mercs and Fate is now a massive juggernaut and I...I still don't know what to do here.

Should He Stay?: I really don't know. I'm way too biased to say here. I think the paths I outlined (HF, UBW unlocked or booted) are the only ones that make sense though. Which one's better IYO?
---

Death to all Fate mercs (I'll make an exception for Nero because bias)
---

Is Kiritsugu even from a game in even a remote sense
---

You can really tell how popular Overwatch got during the course of Mercs

We went from having two late-game underused Overwatch Mercs to having like 6 or so new Overwatch builds made when Mercs CE was in the works

Last time I checked, there were builds for Reinhardt, Roadhog, Hanzo, Zenyatta and Reaper (at least) on top of the original Tracer and D.Va
---

GANON1025 posted...

Is Kiritsugu even from a game in even a remote sense

He originates in F/SN so yes

DeathChicken posted...

Death to all Fate mercs (I'll make an exception for Nero because bias)

Even somebody like Kiritsugu or Mashu where you can just watch a vid and that's legit what they can do instead of having to get into dumb arguments about text?
---

KanzarisKelshen posted...

you can just watch a vid and that's legit what they can do

Hmmmmmmmm
---