Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

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Celes
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Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Celes »

The Guardian of Earth spell (Mother Earth Rune, 4th spell) is not linked to any target (allies or monsters) in the game code like all the other spells, so I tested this one. I didn't notice any effect at all, neither for DEF or MDEF or any other sort of protection.

Btw, the "Copper Flesh" (Mother Earth Rune 2nd spell; Earth Rune 3rd spell) blocks the DMG completely (rather than DEF x2 as it is listed in the runes guide currently). It does not prevent negative status. Lasts for 3 turns, beginning with the turn the effect is received.

Anyone noticed any effect for Guardian of Earth aside from the animation?
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Re: Guardian of Earth spell broken?

Post by KFCrispy »

i don't know what it does, but i had assumed it was Clay Guardian for all allies. our spell description for Copper Flesh says def x2.... i guess it's not?
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Celes
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Re: Guardian of Earth spell broken?

Post by Celes »

Either way, it seems it does nothing at all. But it's hard to imagine no one else noticed this before :?
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Re: Guardian of Earth spell broken?

Post by LanceHeart »

It's probably because nobody used the spell in a serious fashion before. We're talking about a Rune spell that does nothing but support and eats up a level 4 MP. Few people would've tested this seriously.

I'll fire up my Suikoden save and try it against the Golden Hydra sometime this week.
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Re: Guardian of Earth spell broken?

Post by Ellyos »

CelesDestiny wrote:Either way, it seems it does nothing at all. But it's hard to imagine no one else noticed this before :?
I actually always thought something was wrong with this spell because I never knew what defense bonus it could give.

So maybe the spell is broken (and I won't really be surprised), or it gives hidden bonus we can't guess.
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Re: Guardian of Earth spell broken?

Post by LanceHeart »

Tested it against the final boss.

Damage was all done to Viktor:
Pre-spell: 200-210 damage fromLightning Attack.
Post-spell, one turn later: 200-210 damage from Lightning Attack.
Post-spell, same turn: 200-210 damage from Lightning Attack.

Damage was all done to Tir:
Pre-spell: 300 or so damage from single character explosion.
Post-spell, two turns later: 300 or so damage from single character explosion.
Post-spell, same turn: 300 or so damage from single character explosion.

Since both attacks seem magical in type, I can't say it boosts DEF. However, it does absolutely nothing to MDEF on an immediate or delayed scale.
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Celes
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Celes »

Clay Guardian targets 1 ally.
Guardian of Earth targets all allies.

Both spells seem to do nothing :shock:

Tested:
It does not raise DEF. (compare Clay Guardian in S2)
It does not raise MGC/MDEF.
It does not raise SPD.
It does not grant status protection.
It does not remove negative status.
It does not raise evade/counter rates. (compare Revenge Earth in S2)
It does not heal or add Regen.

Why is it that almost all faqs on the net list something like "raise DEF"? Are they all copying from each other or just assuming the effect?

I suppose I will list those spells marked as "no effect" until someone proves otherwise :roll:
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

You did test this against something other than the Golden Hydra right? Just since it nullifies magic and all.
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Celes
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Celes »

Yes.

But the Hydra doesn't nullify magic in general, it has resistances vs. certain elements like other enemies have as well.
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Antimatzist »

Wow, that's surprising. Well, I never used them anyway.
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

But the Hydra doesn't nullify magic in general, it has resistances vs. certain elements like other enemies have as well.
Uh, no. Each head nullifies an element. It doesn't even take 0 damage it doesn't even register.

But since you tested it on something else that's moot.
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Celes »

Of course. But we are talking about defensive spells, so that shouldn't matter.
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Edit: Scratch that. I can't read properly.
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Pyriel »

I don't know what they did here. Each spell is tied to a function that runs its effects and animations, and Clay Guardian has the proper formula—(2x + x)/2—to apply the bonus. it appears Guardian of Earth has it as well, just in a loop. The issue is that each set of functions performs multiple tasks, and the state is controlled by a few different variables. No state actually causes the calculation to be carried out, and even if it did, the calculation is done with the wrong character stat. It would operate on something that's always zero whenever I've peeked at it.

Fixing it means working out which bloody state is appropriate for applying the bonus, otherwise you'd end up with like 57x your defense. Forcing it to work with the right variable should be fairly easy in theory, but it's tough to tell if they intended to do 1.5x your base defense or the computed value. It seems like base value is more likely. Then there's the question of whether or not they appropriately controlled for multiple uses. I'm not sure if there's a round-counter associated with it, but even if there's not, it may not be a problem. 50% more defense isn't a huge bonus, most battles are less than 10 rounds, and Rune-uses are precious enough that having the bonus through the end of battle is probably acceptable. That may have even been the intention.

Edit: I see what they did. They shorted the number of possible states by 1 in a check early on. Instead of doing the calculation, it assumes it's in an impossible state and just defaults out. Fixing that, and changing the variable that's operated on, the calculation gets applied properly. Unfortunately, they munged things up elsewhere and the effect only lasts until the beginning of the next round when the stats are recopied from the main array. What I may be able to do is simply take half of your defense, and store it in the unused space that they were referencing incorrectly, and then add it into total defense as part of the copy.

Edit 2: Ha ha. They already had code to add in the defense bonus stored at 0x42 in each character's battle data. Drove me nuts for a while, because I added code in to do it, and the bonus was always doubled. I thought I was somehow shifting bits or missing where data was being overlaid. So basically, they try to calculate the value of the bonus using the (zero) bonus as a starting value. They also calculate the bonus as 1.5x, when they should just be taking half so that you get 1.5x after the bonus is added in. This is all for Clay Guardian, but it should hopefully carry through on Guardian of Earth. Now the only question is whether the bonus should be calculated from base defense or total defense (taking armor into account). Anybody have an opinion?

Oh, and the way they did it, the bonus doesn't take effect until the start of the next round. I'll have to fix that as well.
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Celes
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Re: Clay Guardian / Guardian of Earth spells broken?

Post by Celes »

Nice findings!

Calculation is based on DEF for S2 as well, not ARM. So I guess thats it.
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