Suggestions

I'm relatively sure that this topic has been brought up before, but I'd really like to see a finishing type move that centers around magic, considering I like to train dragons up in magic, too. Though I'm not sure what it would really look like/how it would operate. Any suggestions or thoughts about this?...

Total support.
Maybe it could be something like doom and takes three turns to do the actual damage? Or something more immediate would be great.

No support, reason:
It cannot be balanced into a similar way as how Eliminate works, because casters build up breath more quickly than fighters.

@ellobomalo
Doom? :0 I'm not sure I know what that is gdfshgt;; But! Maybe it could take like one extra turn or something idk, because with Eliminate it usually just takes one sweep with a fully leveled coli team to take out the other party.

@Ettanin
That makes sense, hm... Maybe it could actually take breath away, then? like, it could require a whole half a bar of breath(like 60 or something I think) to use it and then it goes away? I'd just like something that would be a hard hitter like Eliminate, and maybe keep at least some of the breath if it kills the enemy.

@ThreeFeline it's from FF series, basically the caster blows a bunch of magic at an enemy and on that enemies third turn they take either a serious amount of damage or they lose all health

Maybe to balance if the caster misses then they take the damage instead? So it becomes a gamble.

@ellobomalo
Ohhh I see!! That would be interesting, hm...

The elemental attacks (Envenom, Congeal, Sear, Enfeeble, Fossil, etc) are supposed to be the magical counterpart to eliminate. Instead of creating a magical clone of eliminate, what they could do is increase the base damage of those attacks so they are closer to the damage eliminate does on an elemental neutral pairing. The magical attacks would keep their side effects and would not refund breath, the only change would be to increase the damage so its a bit more even with eliminate (although I still think it should be somewhat less than eliminate since the magical attack's side effects can be quite the benefit)

For example this guide has the formulas when it comes to damage.

The current formula for Eliminate: (12 * STR + 75) - (4 * DEF)
These are the forumlas for the elemental specials:
All elemental specials except Enfeeble - (6 * INT + 17) - (2 * MND)
Enfeeble - (2 * INT + 100) - (floor(MND / 3) * 2 + round ((MND % 3) / 3))

So if we had two dragons, one with 100 str and 5 def and one with 100 int and 5 mind
the current damage for those would be
1255 for the melee dragon using eliminate
607 for the mage for any of the specials other than enfeeble. If I understood the formula correctly, then enfeeble would do 297 damage

Instead of using the current formula for the specials they could use (10*INT+50)-(4*MND) which would give 1030 base damage using the example dragon above. Quite respectable, and yet balanced when compared to eliminate considering you've got the chance at the special effect. It wouldn't refund breath, because breath is easy to generate on mages.

I'm not certain why they want enfeeble to do less damage, however if there is a valid reason, then they could use a variation of the current enfeeble formula to increase the base damage or use a variation on the suggested alternative formula perhaps (8*INT+25)-(4*MND) which would cause 805 damage.

Thanks for the interesting math, Dragonsage. I support anything to allow more variety in the Coli. I think either a more powerful magic attack or up'ing the current magic attacks are good ideas. There could also be other moves: such as one that does less damage but has a higher chance of critical hits. Maybe one that does less damage but is guaranteed never to miss (that might be alluring considering all the complaints about dodging). I am sure if FR looked at RPGs, they could find tons of inspiration for moves and strategies beyond Scratch/Eliminate.

[quote name="Ettanin" date="2015-02-14 13:33:41"]No support, reason: It cannot be balanced into a similar way as how Eliminate works, because casters build up breath more quickly than fighters.[/quote] Like others have said, it is a fair point. On the other hand, as other users have pointed out, you chain chain eliminate for as long as an enemy doesn't dodge - and at maximum it takes 5 or 6 turns to build up the breath via scratch? I feel like simply not refunding breath, so a magic user can guaranteed use a finishing move every other turn (meaning on the off turns they would have to meditate to get enough breath to use the finishing move), is a fair compromise. I obviously don't have stats, but I feel like having to build up breath again for 5 turns, for eliminate, after [s]periodic[/s] frequent dodges, would balance out in the long run vs. a caster having to rotate a finishing move + meditate. Honestly, now that I've said that, with how stupidly often enemies dodge right now in the coliseum, I would kind of prefer a caster eliminate that only takes one-two turns to build up the breath to use. So I feel like either the move NOT refunding breath, or NOT refunding breath plus a higher breath cost would be a fair compromise.