Part 94: God Hand: Dragon kick your ass into the Milky Way

God Hand: Dragon kick your ass into the Milky Way.





The Destroyer in 2020 was a cross between a dedicated damage dealer and a tank, having both heavy hits and the ability to draw attacks with Counter Stance. The God Hand keeps many of the same moves, but also throws in a number of support options to help make up for the fact that there's no dedicated healer class in the starting lineup.

Stats



God Hands are bulky and durable, being tied in 1st for LF and 2nd for DEF, plus above average MDF. Their MAT is also surprisingly high for a non-magical class, although they only have a single skill that makes use of it. The downsides are that their ATK, while high, is actually the 2nd lowest of all the physical classes, and they're tied for 2nd lowest MN and SPD.

The God Hand's main gimmick is that most of their attacks inflict G-Depth on whoever they hit. G-Depth is required for their stronger moves, stacks up to 3 times, and has a base duration of 3 turns. The duration resets to 3 every time a new stack is inflicted.

A main change from Destroyer to God Hand is that they can no longer inflict G-Depth with their normal attacks, unless they use their God Charge self-buff.

Tier 1 Skills

LIFE Bonus


MANA Bonus


These are generic passives that everyone has, so I'm only going over them once. You got spare SP? Toss it in here! Every class wants more juice!

Jab



Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy. Inflicts 1 stack of G-Depth on the target. Inflicts 2 stacks of G-Depth at level 5. Has priority.

Changes from 2020-II: Now has priority. Can inflict 2 stacks of G-Depth when maxed.

Do you want to use your fancy moves? Get used to Jab. The damage it deals will quickly fall off, but sticking the enemy with two stacks once it hits level 5 will keep it useful forever.

Front Punch



Requires that the target have at least 1 stack of G-Depth to use. Has a chance to inflict 1 stack of G-Depth. At level 5, no longer requires G-Depth to use and will always inflict 1 stack of G-Depth. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy.

Changes from 2020-II: Now loses G-Depth requirement when maxed.

Front Punch is a fun little skill that develops a new niche over time. Early on, it'll be your basic damage dealing skill once you land that first Jab. Once you max it out, however, you get a sidegrade to Jab that trades the extra G-Depth stack for more up-front damage for when you know a fight won't go beyond turn 1.

The strange thing is that Front Punch is the only skill that requires 1 G-Depth, making a single stack entirely useless once this hits level 5.

Quartetto



Requires that the target have at least 2 stacks of G-Depth to use. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy that increases based on G-Depth. Damage is multiplied by 1x for 0 G-Depth, 1.1x for 1 G-Depth, 1.25x for 2 G-Depth, and 1.5x for 3 G-Depth. Removes all G-Depth after use.

Changes from 2020-II: Max damage at level 10 increased from 7.5x to 8.7x.

Oh baby now we're talking! A God Hand's only way to manually reset G-Depth, you'll be wanting to pop this off whenever G-Depth is about to fall off for some extra hurt.

You may be wondering why it has numbers for 0 and 1 G-Depth when it needs 2 to use, and that's just for the edge case where you have multiple God Hands that all target the same enemy. First one land Quartetto and clears it, second one is still able to use their own Quartetto even though the target now has 0 G-Depth.

This is also our first look at VFD buffing things compared to the 2020s. It isn't much, but that extra 1.2x will add up over the course of the game.

Double Hook



Requires that the target have at least 2 stacks of G-Depth to use. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy. Reduces target's ATK and MAT for a set amount of turns. Has a chance to inflict 1 stack of G-Depth.

Changes from 2020-II: Damage at level 5 increased from 5x to 6x.

Spinning Edge



Requires that the target have at least 2 stacks of G-Depth to use. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy. Reduces target's DEF and MDF for a set amount of turns. Has a chance to inflict 1 stack of G-Depth.

Changes from 2020-II: Damage at level 5 increased from 5x to 6x. Speed Multiplier increased from 1x to 1.3x.

I've already gone over just how bonkers stat changes in VFD are, and God Hand having all of them on hand gives them a lot of influence in a fight. And then the devs made these moves hit a bit harder for good measure!

Ambush Stance



Increases the user's chance of being targeted by enemies for the rest of the turn. When the user is targeted by an enemy, they will deal melee ATK-based damage to the enemy. Each counterattack has a chance to inflict 1 stack of G-Depth. Has priority.

Changes from 2020-II: Now costs 2 MN at all levels, up from 0 for levels 1-5 and down from 3 for levels 6-10.

In 2020, Destroyers had Counter Stance as a free, low damage counter and Hard Target to deal more damage and build up D-Depth at the cost of some MN. 2020-II combined the two and had Counter Stance start off free then ramp up in cost and damage in later levels.

In VFD, they decided to split the difference and have it always cost Mana, but slightly less than Hard Target did. Its still a good skill that lets you take your enemy's attacks and turn them into your own, but you can't spam it through an entire dungeon without burning through your MN anymore.

Anti-Ailment



Increases the user's chance of being targeted by enemies for the rest of the turn. When the user is targeted by an ailment inflicting attack, they will deal melee ATK-based damage to the enemy and attempt to nullify the ailment. Has priority.

Changes from 2020-II: Damage decreased from 5.5x to 2.8x.

Destroyers also had an entire set of counter moves that keyed off of specific animations on an enemy's attack, and this is all that's left of that whole system. And as for what we have...

Why did they cut the damage by so much? Why does this have 0 base chance to inflict G-Depth when Ambush Stance does? You can still use it to skip around ailments, mind, but your God Hand won't be doing much else that turn.

Chiropractic



Restores LIFE for one target. Healing is equal to Base Heal + (MAT / 10). Can be used out of battle. Has priority.

Detox



Cure ailments. Ailments that can be cured are dependant on skill level. Can be used when not in battle.

CPR



Revives one party member. Can be used when not in battle. Healing does not scale with MAT.

Now, I can see what they were going for with these three skills. There aren't any healers in the Tokyo classes, so slap something in to tide players over until something better comes up. But they're all undercut by the God Hand being a bad fit for these kinds of skills, plus some underlying mechanical changes.

Chiropractic as it stands is a decent heal, further bolstered by a God Hand's surprisingly hefty MAT. But their offensive skills are fairly MN heavy, so you can't really afford to spare any when an item would do. Having priority would have given it a niche as a panic button back in the 2020s, but that's undercut by items having priority by default in VFD.

Detox needs three levels to cover everything, four to actually have priority, (which makes it much slower than slinging an item until then, especially when backed by a God Hand's low SPD) is more expensive than Chiropractic until you max it out, and can never target the full party. Early game enemies don't really do multiple ailments, and by the time they do you can just toss a Somanel to clear everything on the spot.

CPR gets the worst of it, however, as it never gets priority, making it impossible to revive someone and then heal them up in the same turn, as the heal would go off long before CPR can. You could technically give it priority by burning EX, but why would you ever waste it on that?

Skip these, items are much better in VFD anyways.

God Charge



Increases the user's ATK for a set number of turns. Also increases base chance to inflict G-Depth for all relevant attacks by 200% for the rest of the battle.

Hey look, a buff to go with those tasty debuffs! Hit this whenever it looks like a fight will last longer than a turn or two.

Tier 2 Skills

Drill Crawler



Requires that the target have 3 stacks of G-Depth to use. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy and heals user for a portion of the damage dealt.

Changes from 2020-II: Damage increased from 6x to 8x. Healing is no longer capped.

A God Hand's first dedicated G3 skill, Drill Crawler lets a God Hand stay standing no matter how hard they get hit, plus that whopping 2x boost to damage both makes them hit that much harder, and heal that much more. And as icing on the cake, 2020-II put a hard cap on how much skills like this could heal. They walked this back for VFD, making God Hands significantly tankier. Watch the MN cost, though, it'll run them dry in a blink.

ATK Acupressure



Increases one party member's ATK and MAT for a set number of turns. Has priority.

If God Hand being able to buff themselves wasn't good enough, they can also buff everyone else!

However, before you get any bright ideas, VFD only allows a single buff of each type on a target, so you can't try something like stack this with God Charge to really supercharge your damage. God Charge itself also gives a higher buff, so this skill is pointless to use on the God Hand, but it is great for any party members that lack an attack buff of their own like Agent or Duelist.

DEF Acupressure



Increases one party member's DEF and MDF for a set number of turns. Reduces ailment susceptibility for the target. Has priority.

A God Hand can use this on themselves, however! Throw this on, pop God Charge and Ambush Stance, and laugh as dragons break themselves against the God Hand's iron body. Cutting the odds of any ailment landing in half is gravy.

SPD Acupressure



Increases one party member's SPD and Evasion for a set number of turns. Has priority.

Rounding off the buff trio, SPD Acupressure... exists? It helps patch up a God Hand's middling speed, I guess, but most of their skills either have priority (Jab, Quartetto, the counter moves) or actively want to go last. (Drill Crawler) The only real use I can see for the SPD buff is if you really want one of their debuff punches to land before a big damage dealer.

The Evasion boost can help boost a weaker unit's durability, at least.

Pre-emptive God



The user has a chance to deal melee ATK-based damage to all enemies and inflict 1 G-Depth at the start of battle.

Who doesn't like free damage?

God React



For a set amount of turns, the user has a chance to gain an extra turn whenever they inflict a stack of G-Depth.

Changes from 2020: React chance reduced from 70% to 60%.

Changes from 2020-II: React chance increased from 40% to 60%.

One of the Destroyer's main drawbacks in 2020 was that they had no way to manually clear D-Depth stacks, so Destroy React was balanced around the fact that once an enemy hit D3, you couldn't get another React for several turns until it fell off. 2020-II added in Earth Breaker to reset D-Depth, so they heavily nerfed their React chances to stop you from easily going attack -> attack -> attack -> clear every single turn.

VFD splits the difference, making God React much more consistant than 2020-II, while still not reaching the heights of 2020. Its a good skill.

Tier 3 Skills

Coup De Grace



Requires that the target have 3 stacks of G-Depth to use. Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy. Damage is increased based on how many ailments are on the target. The damage multiplier is 1 + (0.2 * Number of Ailments). The ailments are not dispelled after use.

Changes from 2020-II: Base damage increased from 3x to 7.55x. Hack Weakness, G-Depth, Stun, and Null Action now count as ailments for this skill.

Here, have double damage with zero drawbacks! That base damage is also a bit misleading, as that G3 needed to use it in the first place boosts it to 9x damage. The God Hand alone can only inflict two kinds of ailment, G-Depth in general and Null Action on their EX Skill, so this is definitely a skill that you need to build around if you want to maximize damage, but its still the strongest move in their kit even with just one ailment on.

For funsies, if you were to somehow stick a single enemy with Sleep, Curse, Blind, Paralysis, Downer, Bleed, Poison, Burn, Freeze, Hack Weakness, G-Depth, Stun, and Null Action, all at once, Coup de Grace would hit a 3.6x multiplier for a completely monstrous 27.18x damage. Buuuut actually landing that many ailments before some start falling off would be kinda impossible.

The Final Flame



If the user takes fatal damage, they have a chance to not die and have their LIFE restored to a certain value. As the user does not die, buffs are not lost, and counterattacks will still fire, but any skills that trigger on a party member dying will not activate.

An interesting sidegrade to 2020's Death's Door. The Final Flame is a constantly active passive, so it can activate an unlimited number of times per turn, but in exchange you're gambling on a 30% chance with every death. Rage Bomber got shuffled off to another class, so you can level this up to max without worrying about losing that 1 LF status.

Stardust Press



When the user takes damage, they have a chance to deal melee ATK-based damage to a random enemy at the end of the turn. This included Poison and Bleed damage. Cannot trigger God React, as the counterattack happens at the end of the turn.

Again, who doesn't like free damage?

EX Skill

Earth Breaker



Deals melee ATK-based damage to one enemy. Has a chance to inflict Null Action.

Changes from 2020-II: Base damage increased from 13x to 22x. Inflicts Null Action instead of G-Depth.

22x base damage.

22x base damage. Nearly double the damage of Destroyer's Super EX in 2020-II. That is a ludicrous damage boost, and inflicting Null Action just makes it better!

See, 7th Dragon handles ailment resistances by giving an enemy a resistance between 1 and 0, then multiplying the infliction rate by that for the actual chance to land it. Regular dragons usually have a Null Action multiplier of 0.55, which gives Earth Breaker a 99% chance of stopping them cold for three turns! Not even the True Dragons go beyond a 0.4 multiplier, which still gives a 72% chance of landing!

This is what I mean by power creep! It deals nearly twice the damage, and can reliably shut down practically every enemy in the game! With this level of escalation with the player's power levels, there's no feasible way to make the game actually hard, short of ramping up numbers until using all the broken shit becomes mandatory to squeak out a win.

Team Skills

Charge Time: 2 turns

Buddy

Deals 1.5x melee ATK-based damage to the target, and heals buddy for 20% of the damage dealt

The damage is slightly worse than a Jab, but hey, free healing is always nice.

Support

Heals the party for 35% of their maximum LIFE.

A heal that automatically scales and doesn't take one of your frontliner's actions is also nice.