Posts for Ghostwheel

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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Yeah, solid and clean stuff going on here. Congrats again! This TAS was a lot easier to manage than the last one was, but still very impressive. What time do we clock in at?
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Yeah, your problem with Darkside is exactly the one I anticipated, sounds good to me. That next segment is also fantastic. Let's clean her up and finish strong!
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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
With dark mode you can double jump attack his head from any position, but whether or not you can milk that harder than this segment, I'm unsure. You have to sit through the dark mode animation, and break an extra two cards, which is inconvenient. You don't really have any dead air with this strategy either, you're hitting darkside every chance you get. I say if you've tested double jump attacking and it's slower, this is fine, otherwise check it.
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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
What are your remaining map cards? Maybe we can find a combination that works?
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Looks good. Both Auras perfect hits, whacking him with your physicals during his reload, using the deck optimally, and not reloading yourself? Yeah, just clean the rest of this run up.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Lexaeus is weak against Dark attacks, or at least Dark Firaga and Aura. Those attacks can get pretty laggy and IIRC don't benefit form berserk, but they might be faster than the damage output you had. I think 3 dark auras gets really close to killing him with good RNG on the Aura hits. Defeintely test both of those. The rest of the segment is awesome
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Looks good to me
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Looking at the new segment, Hades damage time is comparable to Ursula's so definitely test that. Both are way faster than an encounter though (even just the entrance and escape animation) Yeah it might require another hit on one or two bosses, but it might not as well, depending on which attacks are needed. Trickmaster's HP was also tricky from my Sora Berserk testing. I don't think you'll need 95 for him but it's possible so definitely test that too. If not, taking Hades damage from the get go is probably the best way. The experience number is just perfect here, optimal to get both double beserks without even having to go back and manipulate it. After the second world set, we won't be so lucky, as the EXP gives a guaranteed 1-2 levels each time.
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Joined: 3/22/2013
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You say you can use hades to damage Riku before Altantica, but I find it hard to believe you won't automatically level up during that fight. Edit: Oh wow, looking at that segment again, you don't. That's surprising. Alternatively, you could be at 95 HP for ursula because the lightning bolt damage math means you can't go in with 80 HP, you get killed before you can get berserked. You could also just get into an encounter with some sea neons and take damage there or something, but I find it difficult to believe it'll be faster
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Joined: 3/22/2013
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First segment looks a whole lot better and the second is as clean as it gets. Nice job! Guess you have to consider world order for the second set. Since Berserk stacks multiplicitively with dark mode, it might be worth the time wasted to take damage sometimes, depending on how quickly enemies can be manipulated to hit you. you should definitely do similar testing to the first world set (damage/dark mode comparison) but also look at how fast each non-hades boss is when you stick them in the second slot.
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Joined: 3/22/2013
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I think it could be possible to spread your attacks better so you don't leave one limb hanging before the torso. At least on Sora, any attack should be able to hit 3 limbs on once, and looking at the footage, that's probably true for Riku too. Stocking cards at first to get down to 3 cards might be wise, as you might get better DPS with faster reloads and only full combos. If you go that route, it's conceivable that you could have a way to naturally get to dark mode, in which case a single jump and attack cleans up the arms very quickly, and double jump attack clears the torso.
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Posts: 60
Really solid segment, if there are improvements I can't see them
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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Your reasoning is sound, I can't think of a way to reduce the lag on Cage, you don't let him spawn anything, his animations just eat up the time. Easy call to make him first. I actually forgot about All Zeros on Hook *Facepalm* that makes Dark mode and that entire fight trivial in a TAS, so yeah, put that one last. For Jafar when you get to him, test if getting RNG with the highest platforms to jump from takes longer than otherwise. Once you get good platforms, you can actually lock Jafar out and stop platform changes by ensuring that you play a higher card right before he's about to attack, as I'm sure you've already realized. After that. it's just a matter of Iago being nice. I wouldn't be surprised if this TAS was done in a couple of weeks, considering the fact that map cards are routed and in the bag. Go forth and conquer!
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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Since you have all the cards, you should probably not do Traverse first. In a TAS setting where you can manipulate patterns/Jafar Platforms/Trick cards, I'm unsure what will be the fastest. You want to do slower bosses first, unless they require going dark mode, then it's faster to put them off. I wouldn't set world order until you've ironed out TAS strategies for each. If I had to guess, you probably need to do Monstro or Argrabah first, then the other one of those two, then Neverland, then Traverse. I'm assuming Jafar Platforms are easier to deal with than Cage, and that Hook's AI and cards are easy as well. If it turns out to be the case that Monstro and Agrabah are pretty easy no matter how much health they have, consider doing Neverland first. A final thing to consider is that you may go into dark mode during the hook fight because you can manipulate him to use a high sleight into your 0 and low cards into you high cards. If you do this, you can probably put neverland last because your DPS is higher in Dark Mode and giving him more HP would be beneficial. For each boss, be sure to test how long it would reasonably take to manipulate dark mode, and compare that to straight up whacking him with overdrive and no dark mode. In Dark mode, you get more mileage out of combos and double jump into attack than sleights most of the time, especially in a TAS when you can manipulate their behavior.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
I skipped the farming after watching 10-20 of the battles, but the process is spot on. Not much to screw up there, but any mistake does cost a lot of time so it's good to be careful. Maleficent is awesome as well. As for the cards you got, as long as you have enough high value to get the bigger doors in the minimal number of cards, which is probably the case, you'll be optimal. 50 door can be gotten in minimal 6 cards, 30 red door 4.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Why would the wizard fight be shorter with more AP? With strong initiative, you kill them in one hit. For that matter, I'm not really sure why wizards are longer (is it the positioning making it harder to scoop up the exp?) but if they are then definitely go for the shadows, no contest. As long as you tested under strong initiative, go for it. And thanks, Doc. I'm always happy to help.
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Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Wow, I haven't been checking this, didn't expect you to start riku right away. So here's the deal, you should probably just lay out your farming strategy and get it all out of the way now. It's very easy to grind in the first world with luck manipulation, you can carry all the map cards you need at one time, and you don't need to worry anout blue cards. First encounter, manipulate a strong initiative drop. Go into the next room, manipulate the 2x wizard encounter in every battle, get at least one more strong initiative, repeat. I'm not sure how the exp rate is, that should probably be tested against traverse town and Halloween town (there's a similar deal there with strong initiative + 6 creeper plants). I'd just see what level you end up at at the end of that process (find an exp table or something, and do 80x what you get each time), and if it's high enough then don't worry. Level 15 should be good enough for a nice curve the rest of the game but you can probably even get away with less. Then you'll do more damage against every boss earlier, and have all the cards you need
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Look at this sub 1:20 time, it's beautiful! I'm gonna have to watch the whole thing again now that it's all nicely encoded and continuous. Congrats with everything. I know I was a little harsh with advice at times, but you really came through and made some impressive segments. I honestly never thought someone would actually get around to TASing this game, and you were a fine man for the job.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
That attack you jump over while reloading, you can't get into berserk off of that, can you? Otherwise, I agree, the one cycle looks real dicey, but just for theory's sake, how much damage did that last full combo plus 2 hits do, and how much HP does he have? If you can't kill him in 5 passes, it's definitely not possible. But it looks pretty close to me. Killing the scythes a second or two earlier give you an opportunity on his face there too, if you can go berserk on a scythe attack or two, that may edge out the opportunity faster, but it all gets really complicated from this line of thought. Long story short, with these strats it's probably perfect, and it's probably not improvable, but I can't say for sure myself because I'm not experienced with this level of play on this boss
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
1) second to last combo happened in the wrong order, small thing. 2) too much overdrive/not enough berserk? how much does his phase 1 attack do? (the machine scythes) Can you use the flowers for damage if you go in with 95 hp? I ran the numbers on that once, but 15 might be too much, I don't remember. 3) can you get a 1 cycle? in a speedrun you can't but your cards are way better here. you can get a total of 4 hits in after each cardbreak. if you assume it's optimal that's 135 x 2 x whatever weakness multiplier is, but that requires twice as many divine roses as you have. doing a hard reload while you take damage in phase one, and saving the hi potion for later may be the ticket there. Maybe slot the oathkeeper you got into the deck, if the damage is just short. 4) if you can't get a one cycle, you probably shouldn't get on his back. Let him leave and start again like normal and see if that's faster. 5) trinity limit is completely ineffective, and I'm pretty sure it would deal less damage than one combo while taking a lot longer to boot.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Yeah I brain farted there, I misremembered the power of that attack in that it can take you from green to zero in the speedrun route, which looks like 80 HP, On marluxia 2 it's pretty easy to take damage quickly from the flower shots, the 3-5 scythe wave attack, and when he slams the ground to make shockwaves. I use boosted raids to take care of the first form, but in a TAS the first hit of a combo has a hitbox that can clip both scythes (As seen in YT user Echophoenix's time attacks), which will probably be faster. Budgeting berserk is important because you'll need to save 3-4 wasted cards per Marluxia attack cycle breaking his attacks so they finish faster.With this in mind, it may be better to use it in the first phase whaile that possibility doesn't exist.
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Really hard to get that better. If there are improvements, I can't see them. I can't believe it's almost over. Oh, one thing you might want to do. If you're berserking Marluxia 1, then you may need to take an HP upgrade or two on the level up. The fastest way to take the damage is with his yellow card attack, but that may one hit kill you at 80 HP. At 95 you might live at flashing red. You should check this before you change anything though, and figure out the damage plan for Marluxia 2 as well (berserk alone isn't enough, you need overdrive too)
Experienced Forum User
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That segment is AWESOME! That kind of pace is exactly what I expect from a TAS. I can confirm that that's the fastest way to take damage on Larx, she doesn't have high power attacks before she hits half health. I like how Riku tied your two item cards so you didn't waste time with the ether, and both fights were really clean
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Also a great segment. It's hard for me to give out improvements because most of the time lost is dark firaga dead air, and that's AI manipulation, and that's hard. At this point in the game bosses spam high value sleights and if you're not prepared for that yet, maybe it would be best to throw in 3 or so zero attack cards to speed things up when you do get an inevitable one. I guess on Axel you can manipulate fire walls which can be dodge rolled for minimal time loss, and maaaaaybe Blossom showers on Marluxia, but larxene alone will be a problem unless you manipulate 1-2 hit teleport rushes. Long term it might make sense to throw them in, but I don't know, it's a judgement call on your part. Otherwise that is fantastic. As for whether this will be faster than me, absolutely. The card farming alone is insanely manipulated, and the boss fights have that extra touch of perfection. Also, I'll help with Riku routing if you need it, but each boss only has a couple of viable options anyway (to dark mode or not to dark mode? to berserk or not to berserk?)
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 3/22/2013
Posts: 60
Nah man, that's perfect. Keep it up!