Talk:Intimidating Stance Teams

Discussing the recent additions from Ronfar

Recently added was: (in red, suggested changes and justification made by "Forgotten password")

Vishnu

Vishnu

• A fuseable alternative to Lucifer, Vishnu will do less damage, but he has extra durability and lower AGI.
• Red is the recommended color, giving him Megidolaon for 7 MP. Panel 3 reduces its cost even further, to 5 MP.
• I'd just change the wording as well as stress the fact Vishnu has a low damage output but it's good.
• His unique skill Avatar provides a death prevention effect and stacks with Endure and Enduring Soul. If he has all three skills, the enemy demons will have to kill Vishnu four times before he finally goes away - or even five, if Meat Balloon's Dx2 skill triggers. Indrajit and Alice are still dangerous because of the nature of their attacks, but most other demons will have trouble.
• cf. comment below

Skills and Brands

• Adding Endure and Enduring Soul to the unique skill Avatar will make Vishnu extremely durable.
• Although 7 MP is a lot, Spell Brands are still preferable to Divine brands; going second in PvP, you'll be able to cast Megidolaon almost as often.
• the endure + Enduring Soul + Avatar is gimmicky, and Avatar already do the job of either, seems redundant to me. wild instinct or EoF are probably better defensive addidtion if you really need some. also covering fire weakness can be a huge deal with all those Quetzal A going around.
  • Ronfar here. Yes it's gimmicky but it's also effective against the AI. The first Endure effect is a small speed bump, but the second and third are like you gained as much HP as the enemy can do in one hit. When you're getting hit for like 700 damage a pop, that's a big deal, one that's hard to replicate with HP boosting skills like Epitome of Fortitude. All you need to do is buy time to Megidoalon them down, and this strategy is indeed good at buying time.
    • Thanks for taking the time to respond. Fair enough, the triple Endure seems to be noteworthy enough. But you don't mention Enduring Soul w/ out Endure as option, my main contention with triple endure is Vishnu has a low damage output already compared to the alternative demons and you're sacrificing it for full defense. "but the second and third are like you gained as much HP as the enemy can do in one hit." > I don't agree with this statement, 200 HP is taken in 1-hit, as for Avatar: it's still activating if you use Epitome instead of Enduring Soul; but other thing is Epitome of Fort isn't considered better because of the HP gain (this is a nice bonus but still a bonus) but because of the Crit reduction; Triple Endure deserves mention but Epitome should be noted as being stronger defensive moves because of all the Guan Yu, Masakado, Kartikeya, Asura Lord, Susano-o A etc. and Avatar still activates under Epitome too.

Concentrate on Lucifer

• outside of tag bro, concentrate doesn't seem to fit IS Lucifer
• on an unrelated note, I'd add you Luci needs panels and good brands to shine in IS teams

Cu Chulainn

Cu Chulainn

• One of the easiest 5* demons to fuse, Cu Chulainn is rarely the ideal choice, but he's still a solid "budget" demon that's useable in many strategies, including Intimidating Stance teams.
• Low AGI helps ensure your team goes second.
• Purple for Force Pierce is essential, allowing Cu Chulainn to use Mazandyne freely. Relatively few teams will go out of their way to include Force Anti-Pierce, although Susano-o A and Cu Chulainn A both sometimes appear in teams with Rama.
• Susa A is nearly always accompanied by Rama. Cu A Rama is more rare though. Still Anti-Force Pierce is actually a huge problem
  • Susano-A dies to Ragnarok in one shot if they don't cover its fire weakness. Still a pain in the neck though because if you make Zhong Kui Pass you get smacked.
    • Okay, it makes sense to talk about Surt. But you mention it twice, I don't think the second time is correct (about the Concentrate build) because the Conc build still forces you to pass turns (perhaps even twice) since Surt is likely to go last (you may even want that in non-Rams+SusA encounter).
• Mother Harlot and Hecatoncheires are commonly used demons that sometimes have their Force weakness uncovered.
• MH (unaccompagnied by Orcus) is somewhat still common in D1, at least Defense Team. Heca would be paired with Orcus though, and he seems mostly to be in Defense Team. And MH can be paired with Rama + Susa A combo too. So I'd say the time when hitting force weakness was huge is somewhat outdated
  • I see plenty of Hecas used with Rama but no Orcus. It's not huge but it's a nice bonus when it happens.

Skills and Brands

• Force Amp and Force Boost increase Mazandyne damage.
• Mazan L is a possibility too if you have it
• Concentrate greatly enhances the damage Mazandyne will do. When going second in PvP with Divine brands equipped, Cu Chulainn will have enough MP to use Concentrate for his first action and Mazandyne for his second without needing to Pass.
• Spell brands are preferred when not using a Concentrate strategy.
• IS and low durability doesn't go well together. I think Life Brand is an option you can't ignore with Cu Chu

• globally no problem, would just reword some stuff here and there, talk about Cu Chu weakness in an IS (low durability, low damage output etc.). Vishnu also is very awkward too; this needs to be mentioned too. I'm also planning to invert Vishnu position with Cu Chu's because of cost vs utility advantage Cu Chu greatly in an IS team.

Rama (Update)

my understanding was the author of the article didn't mention Rama cause the article is about pure IS, and (good) IS Drain Team tends to play more like Drain and IS (like you actually create a midrange team that can go first against IS teams). Though I can create a new section called Hybridization and have Rama in it