Pokémon Umbral Discussion 7: Plusle and Minun Equals Zero

[Dracorion]

For one, he agreed with Impact's plans before. Also, I was posting before you were back then.

And finally, because I got bored of having Pierce play nice.

About Ruin-types, well, as you know, they possess knowledge of basic battle tactics. Pierce is willing to bet now that if they'd left the two Narchams alive then thirteen Narchams would've come runnin' and they'd be facing down three Pulverots.

As for why he wanted to kill them before he knew all that, it's because Ruin-types power mainly depends on their numbers. One lone Narcham ain't much of a threat. Not even a lone Pulverot. And their numbers depend on how many Narchams they have.

Basically, kill the Narchams and cut their advantage off at the source.

[Geminex]

Well, he still agrees with Impact's plans. He just makes sure to tell him loudly that he's agreeing with them, to assert his independence, and make sure Impact knows that HE'S NOT THE BOSS OF HIM.

As for your point, that's interesting.

But really, we want them to turn themselves into Pulverots. One Narcham isn't a biggy, but I'd sure as hell prefer to fight three pulverots, rather than 15 Narchams, even if we're fighting just three at a time.

And even if Pierce believes this:

if they'd left the two Narchams alive then thirteen Narchams would've come runnin' and they'd be facing down three Pulverots

Then all he did by killing the two Narchams is guarantee that we'll have to face three more Narchams somewhere in the future. And I'd say that

Effort of killing 3 Narcham later+Effort of killing 2 Narcham now > Killing one extra Pulverot.

Especially considering that Impact's strategy was to prevent them from facing more than 1 Pulverot at a time, since his intention was to take hits from the Narcham, but leave them alive, so that they wouldn't have to face more than 1 Pulverot at a time.

[Dracorion]

Sure, but as far as they know "facing three Narchams somewhere in the future" could be right now.

And Narchams don't hit as hard as Pulverots. You know, unless they gang up on you. Yet another reason to kill as many of 'em as you can.

[Geminex]

Yet another reason to kill as many of 'em as you can.

No! In other situations, yes. And that's what Impact's advocated before. Kill the Narcham first, collectively they hit the hardest. But in this situation, a maximum of three enemies can face us at a time. We can heal, but if we get hit by three strong attacks (say, three sweeping rays) at once, me and Chiruzu are going down. Our priority is to not face more than one pulverot at once, while at the same time trying to keep the battle short and sweet, we don't want them to wear us out with waves of Narcham.

Before we knew that the "Two Narcham and One Pulverot" force was only a vanguard, when there was still a significant chance that once one of theirs went down, they'd be replaced by another ruin type, attacking Narcham first was stupid, since there was a chance it'd be replaced by a Pulverot. The strength of the counter-attack you'd be facing would be increased, since instead of the (by your own admission) weak-hitting Narcham, there'd be a (far stronger) Pulverot.

The way I see it there's a sort of scale:

There's facing 15 Narcham on one side. This is the worst-case scenario, I think, since they'd spend 6-7 turns wearing us down with their attacks.

On the other side, there's facing 3 Pulverots. This'd make for a fairly quick battle, but due to the enemy's ability to hit our entire team with syncstrikes, we'd be taking rather excessive amounts of damage. I don't think we'd lose, but our healing supplies would still be drained.

What Impact wanted us to do, was attack the Pulverots first while taking hits from the Narcham. This would've provided a sort of middleground, since killing Pulverot would have sapped resources, while we wouldn't have been in danger of being hit by powerful waves of attacks. They would've worn away at us, but we would've ended the battle fairly quickly, without being in danger of losing. This was because we could've controlled the number of Pulverot we faced. When we killed the first pulverot, it either would've been replaced with another one, or would've been replaced with a Narcham. In the former case, we would've killed that Pulverot as well (keeping the enemy's damage per turn low, while sapping their ability to maintain combat by killing the equivalent of 5 Narcham with each Pulverot), in the latter we would've killed one or two of the existing Narcham, further sapping their reinforcements, though potentially raising their damage per turn, by giving them the chance to deploy two pulverot.

Anyway, I'm probably overthinking this, particularly since the situation is entirely hypothetical. And since Drac will probably cut off his own leg before he admits that Impact was right and Pierce is an idiot.

[DanteFalcon]

Given our current situation I tend to agree with Geminex. Our group isn't large enough or in a good enough position to deal with a multiple wave attack. Matthias is going to attempt to make the rear set of enemies less harmful via Sleep Powder/Stun Spore in hopes of delaying the group till they can regroup and rout the rear group more effectively. Unless the rear enemies continue to focus fire him. In which case he'll probably just get pissed off enough to open up with his strongest moves.

[Menarker]

My internet had totally crapped out on me today. Not happy. Glad to have gotten it back.

[Astral Harmony]

Don't worry, you're almost done. In fact, there won't be anymore reinforcements. Fuck 'em up and play some standard RPG victory music.

So we're agreed on a sidequest to fight in some immoral Pokébrid lab? Fine, I'll make that the final fight against Faynoc. That'll be pretty fun.

[Geminex]

Maybe we can do one or two sidequests after mission three, two more after mission 4, the last one after mission 5.

Edit: And after everything's over, we need to pick a Most Valuable Player. This lucky individual then gets to star in a show of "Bachelor", where he'll have his pick from a collection of all female characters in the RP.
This offer also applies to Charlotte, but yeah, she'll have to come out of the closet if she is to receive this prize.

[Dracorion]

Originally Posted by Geminex

No! In other situations, yes. And that's what Impact's advocated before. Kill the Narcham first, collectively they hit the hardest. But in this situation, a maximum of three enemies can face us at a time. We can heal, but if we get hit by three strong attacks (say, three sweeping rays) at once, me and Chiruzu are going down. Our priority is to not face more than one pulverot at once, while at the same time trying to keep the battle short and sweet, we don't want them to wear us out with waves of Narcham.

This would never happen. For one, we could kill one of the Pulverots before they got a Syncstrike in and only take a double Sweeping Ray. For another, even you were damaged and taking the double Sweeping Ray would kill you, you can heal and attack in the same turn.

Originally Posted by Geminex

Before we knew that the "Two Narcham and One Pulverot" force was only a vanguard, when there was still a significant chance that once one of theirs went down, they'd be replaced by another ruin type, attacking Narcham first was stupid, since there was a chance it'd be replaced by a Pulverot. The strength of the counter-attack you'd be facing would be increased, since instead of the (by your own admission) weak-hitting Narcham, there'd be a (far stronger) Pulverot.

Sure, but you're only thinking about this battle. The two Narchams we killed are dead and they're never coming back to bother us again as, say, an Omnisroth.

Originally Posted by Geminex

The way I see it there's a sort of scale:

There's facing 15 Narcham on one side. This is the worst-case scenario, I think, since they'd spend 6-7 turns wearing us down with their attacks.

On the other side, there's facing 3 Pulverots. This'd make for a fairly quick battle, but due to the enemy's ability to hit our entire team with syncstrikes, we'd be taking rather excessive amounts of damage. I don't think we'd lose, but our healing supplies would still be drained.

They wouldn't drain us that much. No way in hell. I could give you my thought on how that battle would go down if you'd like.

And I feel like pointing out, even though it doesn't matter because we couldn't have known then, that if we'd killed the Pulverot first we would've had to kill the Narchams anyway before replacements came. Unless you were planning on, what, not attacking the Narchams?

Originally Posted by Geminex

What Impact wanted us to do, was attack the Pulverots first while taking hits from the Narcham. This would've provided a sort of middleground, since killing Pulverot would have sapped resources, while we wouldn't have been in danger of being hit by powerful waves of attacks. They would've worn away at us, but we would've ended the battle fairly quickly, without being in danger of losing. This was because we could've controlled the number of Pulverot we faced. When we killed the first pulverot, it either would've been replaced with another one, or would've been replaced with a Narcham. In the former case, we would've killed that Pulverot as well (keeping the enemy's damage per turn low, while sapping their ability to maintain combat by killing the equivalent of 5 Narcham with each Pulverot), in the latter we would've killed one or two of the existing Narcham, further sapping their reinforcements, though potentially raising their damage per turn, by giving them the chance to deploy two pulverot.

Oh come on. As far as we know, Pulverots can't split back into Narchams. So Pulverots are Pulverots and Narchams are Narchams and once Narchams become Pulverots they ain't Narchams no mo'. You can't talk about killing Narchams when you down a Pulverot.

And I think you're playing this far too cautiously. We could've taken on three Pulverots and had to use, what, one Full Restore each? Even without Rachel behind us, that's nothing.

Originally Posted by Geminex

Anyway, I'm probably overthinking this, particularly since the situation is entirely hypothetical. And since Drac will probably cut off his own leg before he admits that Impact was right and Pierce is an idiot.

Maybe not a whole leg. I'd bet a couple of toes though.

But that's mostly because I think we've lost track of what we're arguing about.

And you wouldn't cut off your leg?

[Geminex]

Ok. We can either let it drop and call this one a tie. You wouldn't have been right in ignoring orders, I wouldn't have been right in giving them. We'd face off again later, of course, but I'd actually structure my argument, and I'd get you that time, gadget.

Alternately, we can take the situation as it was and use probabilities and expected values. The discussion would extend rather horribly, and I'm fairly certain I'd win. I've already done some calculations.

And you wouldn't cut off your leg?

Probably not. I'd cut off your leg, though! Free of charge, Dragon Slave, clean cut, I'll even use an adrenaline boost to make sure I'm precise.

Or maybe I'd use the siege boomerang. And get drunk first. Your leg would probably fall off eventually. And you didn't need those testicles anyway. Or the ribs.