Preliminary #2 Review

Alright, so lets start this off and say that my top contenders will be Snow, Kaiden and Rojo. So I will say that Snow is just an absolute beast. If this were an actual battle that I feel like he would of moped the floor with everyone present. Now, that being said I do feel like he was both fair in the damage he dealt and received – we all know that Snow is a stable example of a Tank. So, lets move onto Rojo. So Rojo, our lovely Red Mage made full use of his wide array of spell and was fair in the fact that no only did he take damage, he took into consideration his environment created by his enemies, but he also took the time to heal himself… So next we have Kaiden.. Kaiden, if you would have been more involved in the fight I personally would have rated you higher, but due to your absence within the thread periodically it makes it hard for me to justify giving you a higher rating than I did. Ann, I liked the concept behind your character as well as Hono, but I felt like your people weren’t incredibly effective in combat.

So Again, my top three are Snow, Kaiden and Rojo. So let’s start with Snow. So you kept him very much in character, Snow is just head-strong and absolutely sure that no matter what he gets thrown at him that he’ll end up coming out ontop. I will say that you made great use of your buffs / passive abilities. Rojo so I will applaud the haughtiness of your character. He is just the type of lovable bastard that out site needs. That cockiness though, it was backed up very well and he made full use of his environment and the full list of his spells. I mean if he wasn’t fighting Snow, I believe that he could of come out on top… Snow you are almost a cheat when you have a domain of influence. So Kaiden. Kaiden, you weren’t involve in the thread as much as I would of liked / hoped for. However, when you were involved your posts… I feel like you would of done some lasting damage. Hono and Anne, your characters if you would of worked together probably would have been a good team – consider that for next raid?

So I’d have to say that Rojo you are my top contender. You made full use of your spells, the environment and kept within what I imagine a Red-Mage to be like. Now, I will say Snow. You would of won this but your character’s vitality just doesn’t even make this a fair fight… I genuinely feel that if all would ganged upon him, that somehow Snow would of still come out on top. But I will say I felt you were fair – you canceled attacks when they were interrupted. Kaiden, I liked your writing and how it stayed consistent. I will say tha if you were more active and I had gotten to see a bit more of the fight with him involved. I might of rated you higher. Ann and Hono – I felt both of you focused more on defensive than offensive. If you would of worked together you might have been on this list, but I did enjoy reading your threads.

Snow: Snow begun the battle on the offensive, which was a great start but at the same time the nature of his attack pushed his opponent (who he'd have absolutely dominated on melee combat) away from his reach, which was incredibly counterproductive. Then he was swiftly pushed to the defensive. Now, Snow is a tank and thus made to take hits, but passively defending cannot make you win a fight by itself and not realizing this is Snow's single, greatest, downfall. It wasn't even that effective considering how his defenses were swiftly breached by a very crafty Rojo and Kaiden, who managed to push through some heavy damage. Quake was a good move to follow up and kill momentum for his opponents, but healing at this point in time made himself loose traction he could have used to use the opening he himself had created and bring about a turn around that could have easily put him far ahead, this is doubly true considering how effective was the spell against Rojo, who would have really suffered from having Snow pummel him down. To make matters worse, his next post he returns to being passive, simply buffing to face off against an opponent that had left the thread (although at this point Snow couldn't have known, seing he had missed only one post at this point in time). Regardless, the whole thing was ill-conceived, making ice swords was pointless as ice, despite being an useful weapon in the form of magic, is extremely fragile and would have just shattered at the first clash with tempered, sharp steel. Also, he could have done more in that one post, as I would hardly consider getting hit by an attack as something that would consume one of your actions. But worst of all was missing his last post, his last chance to, all buffed and armed, deliver his best blows which honestly, could have turned this whole thing around in his favor. I know Kaiden had up and vanished, but come on man, you can't get discouraged at the last stretch!

Rojo: Rojo begun by casting Blizzaga, a questionable choice for dealing with an opponent like snow, but tactically sound as it targeted all opponents. Most importantly was using the ice pillar as a vantage point, which wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't used Blizzaga as Firaga or even Thundaga might have broken the pillar. Then he followed by casting Confuse which allowed Kaiden to score a critical hit, which he gets assist points for. Next up was Firaga, which targeted the otherwise uninvolved Shiro. Now, involving all participants of an event thread in the action taking place is an admirable thing, specially being a staff, definitely the right attitude. However, tactically speaking, this is an attack that should have been aimed at Snow to blast him with even more damage while he was down on the ground and burry him under the rubble of the buildings. In acting as a staff, Rojo did miss a vital opportunity to capitalize on his success breaching Snow's defenses. Next was a Blizarra spell which I get would be hard to see coming from the rubble-covered, snowy ground, but again, I don't get the focus on Ice spells when his clearest threat was Snow. Switching to melee was also pretty pointless seeing how he had such overwhelming ranged superiority and plenty of spells in the back burner. Regardless, he quickly distanced himself from all of his foes and resumed his incredibly effective ranged barrage... Only to switch back to melee to attack snow, of all people. This was a terrible idea with Snow being buffed and about a hundred thousand times more powerful in melee combat than him. Sure, he was protected by Invis, but that would have mattered little with Snow's vigilance buff. As soon as he got hit, he could have probably deduced where the hit had came from and retaliated, bringing a swift end to Rojo's otherwise stellar participation in the fight. Lucky him that never happened.

Shirogane: Shiro, having missed her second post, had to address a bunch of attacks that were sent her way. However, she addressed them all without missing a beat, for which I wholeheartedly commend her. However, her offensive despite adecuate, and even moderately successful, was cheap tricks and not much else. Nothing wrong with using a bit of wit to get a hit in, in fact, its great. However, the same trick is hardly effective twice and she didn't seem to have a clear cut strategy to follow through those tricks with. Next though, she got the order of Quake and Blizarra mixed up and also did forget the melee attacks from Rojo directed at her. I won't give her much shit for this though because it really wasn't quite clear which combatant those were targeting. Now, she used Balloonra, which, like in DDD is a great spell, but she didn't do anything noteworthy with it, no daring or devilishly smart stratgy, just an straightforward attack, which she followed by a heal. If she at least hadn't healed, she could have used Balloonra to open a combo on Rojo now that he was on the melee, where she stood a MUCH, MUCH better chance that at a distance. Her last post was rather unrealistic seeing how she dodged the Thundaga and ran the distance avoiding the successive Thundaga strikes (also ignoring the second expressly aimed at her) to use Ragnarok against Rojo, who at this time would have been locked in melee combat with Snow and would be invisible as well. Just not very well thought out all in all.

In terms of damage taken, both Rojo and Snow shine for their fairness, kudos to you two guys!... Shiro on the other hand has the Zidane problem of constantly handwaving attacks away by saying she dodged them even when it would have been extremely unlikely. In this regard she doesn't even have the in itself piss weak justification of being as agile as Zidane is. 

Snow: Overall Snow remained far too much on the passive, which was a huge issue. At times it would seem he was about to gain momentum and actually use his tankiness to bring the hurt back to his opponents, but nope, he missed his chance to do that at every turn despite managing to survive very well while remaining fair from start to finish. The use of Quake was his best move alongside the offensive start, but besides that, he let others dominate the flow of combat and just get pelted by all sort of attacks, doing very little himself to push him towards victory. Some things like the ice swords were just silly, specially for a martial artist characters. I really liked his character though, which was a very pleasant surprise because god knows I hate Snow in ALL of the FFXIII games.

Rojo: This man controlled the flow of battle and remained completely unopposed for the entirety of the thread, sure, Shiro sent a few spells his way, but his fight wasn't really with her. Instead, Rojo targeted all opponents relentlessly to push damage through again and again while they could do very little themselves to counterattack or protect themselves. It is a simple strategy, but an overwhelmingly effective one as we all saw. He should have avoided melee with snow like the plague though, Invis buff or not. This one, I really enjoyed the style of too. Reminded myself a bit of my own character, albeit more boisterous.

Shirogane: Shiro at no point had anything resembling a strategy, playing with a completely reactive mindset. I have no doubt whatsoever that no matter how many times she wrote that she dodged stuff, she would have done in by the proactive players one way or another. Tactically, her only real accomplishment was knocking Rojo down from the rooftops, which she failed to capitalize on.

In descriptive writing both Snow and Rojo were A ok. They have similar levels of writing skills, so every time they go against eachother, be it here or in the raid before, it works beautifully. I liked rojo a bit more due to his realistic descriptions of how he was knocked down from the roof. Snow on the other hand, spends a good part of a couple posts talking about "the sisters" (his summons, as if we didn't know what he was talking about) but it pans out to nothing at all, which is never a good thing. Shiro though, she lags far behind. There are poor descriptions complimented with something even worse, a poor understanding of the others descriptions and the order of events. That's how she gets Blizarra and Quake switched and why she ignores things like Rojo's melee attacks or the second Thundaga strike directed at her. I doubted she ignored any of it with ill-intent, but she really needs to step it up and pay more attention to the action taking place. My personal advice for improvement would be that before posting she spends a while reconstructing the events in here head frame by frame. That should smooth out most of the issues of this nature.

Sportmanship, I already pronounced myself. Rojo and Snow are excellent but Shiro dodges way too much with minimal damage and without a solid reasoning as how she actually managed to dodge (hell, there's no problem with dodging every single attack in a thread as long as you explain well enough how you managed to do it, but this is certainly the case). Snow wins sportmanship because there was one thing I did not agree with in Rojo's post, which was dodging Balloonra via jumping out of the way while buffed with haste. That is something that would have worked with most normal projectiles, but not really against tracking ones like Balloonra.