Video links

English;

https://www.youtube.com/@deshi0

https://www.youtube.com/@Evviva3980

https://www.youtube.com/@megumeffxi7742

https://www.youtube.com/@vyiv

Japanese;

https://www.twitch.tv/papasuballista

https://www.youtube.com/@oyasumirupo

Old blog, by Vyi 

https://vyiv.wordpress.com/

 

If you're completely new I'd recommend watching one of these newer 3v3 videos to get an idea of how combat plays out in the current meta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyXiLfDDns  3v3 whm pov, fairly recent, Struggler was a newish player we were training and he kicked ass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n975GluPtnA  3v3 sam pov, more recent, a good how-to-play a "scoring DD" (you aren't targeted until late/at all because your "hyper" is scary af)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPRBC6AOixA  5v5 sch pov, recent

If you can read Japanese then definitely check out Papasz' twitch above, he records just about everything.

 

Bounty and Beyond

I think people are questioning the purpose behind the increase to the bounty.  At first glance it does seem ridiculous.  Why offer real money?  What's the point here?  Maybe there isn't any.  Either way, I keep my money...  Right.. ?

Let's imagine a perfect future for it..

One month from posting, a group of serious players forms a team to challenge us.  They fail in their first attempt but understand their weaknesses and regroup. 

Meanwhile, a group of complete newbies decides to give it a try.  They flop hard, but really enjoy the matches and decide to continue fighting.

A third group, comprised of old players with a history of playing ballista, throw down with us and get trunched.  But they won't give up easily.

From here, the teams take turns fighting.. an arms race of ballista power.. competing with each other to reach the pinnacle..  hopefully very interesting to stream/record..  until one team eventually wins. 

Ideally, this leads to a resurgence in real ballista interest.  I'd happily give away 3000$ for that.

But who knows.  Maybe I just throw away 3000$ to some randos and they never play again! 

And I'm happy to take that gamble.

Updating stuff

Updated some pages today.  Here's an important excerpt that might help when we're playing:

Targeting

When the game veers off the standard path of "kill DRK and nobody else", targeting starts to get weird.  The basic rule of targeting comes down to who is the most dangerous. 

The power hierarchy:  WHM>SAM>RNG>DRG>MNK>WAR>DRK.

Anyone with hyper activated (ie. has died) is more dangerous than those who have not.  Therefore, a hyper SAM (a SAM that has died) needs to be targeted over the usual target.  Similarly, a WHM becomes the target after it dies. Period!  If you kill the non-standard target because they had 5 ON, kill them again repeatedly!

This is the reason for many comeback wins.  Players don't follow up with their chosen strategy.  Just killing someone once because they have 5 ON and then going back to killing the normal target is going to lose you tons of games.  

Exceptions to this rule are based on time remaining in the match and petras.  Obviously when there's 30 seconds left and only the DRK has petra and gate breach, then sure, target the DRK.  But beyond extreme situations like that, it really comes down to your judgment.  Every game is different.  Only experience will teach you how to make decisions at those times.

Knit Cap +1

 Friendly reminder to get your Knit Cap +1 from the New Year Event before it ends!

Useful of course on Ice days for your WHM, but also great for pre-hyper for most jobs in order to help make yourself immune to paralyze.  Don't miss it!  Ends on February 9th.

Happy New Year

 Hey everyone, happy new year. 

Been a while since the last post, I've been busy playing ballista!  This last year was pretty amazing for the scene overall.  We picked up some new members and the game videos have been flowing non-stop thanks to Mirupo and Papasz.  

Official matches are still official matches.  No matter what I do I can't seem to convince people to completely abide to the rules that I set out.. which is expected.  I'm just some guy.  That's fine.  I'm going to write an OM "guide" to being a game-respecting player after this post and see where that goes.  That being said, with the quality of hako we have going I don't really mind too much if OM are a circus.

Hako improved a ton this year; called 20-0 hako games don't happen much anymore.  The newer Japanese players leveled up in a huge way.  Qonn(a super strong Japanese player) normally attends games which I think helps.  We've recruited some new NA players this year and they're well on their way to the top.  Abz(Drekien) one of our old OGs came back and plays regularly too! 

We found a solution to the 4v4 dilemma this year with Rune Fencer.  RUN perfectly slides into the fourth player slot without overdoing it with healing or damage.  I always struggled to create decently balanced 4v4 games and now it's easy!  What a relief.

We're looking forward to trying 5v5 in 2023, using SCH/WHM and another front line job to round out the teams.  Hopefully this works out well so 3~5v5 is all easy to set up in the future.  We'll see.

I ended the year with a new rule proposal targeting the dreaded "run away" strategy that has plagued previous hako groups and now threatens to become a reality in this group.  Essentially we're putting up imaginary barriers around the hako map to prevent any looping.  The map is posted on discord but I'll post something about that directly at another time.  Hopefully that works out.

Anyway, what a fantastic year for ballista.  Two years ago it was hard to imagine any ballista of decent quality happening at all, and now we have this dedicated supergroup.  What a delight.  Thanks everybody and here's to another great year in 2023 :)

Hako update

 Quick update - things are going well lately.  We're playing at least 3 times a week, and some new players have arrived on the server.  Millefeuille from the last hako era is back.  She says Papasz is here as well but I haven't seen him yet.  Usually this means a bunch more people follow suit, but we'll see.  We already have so many dedicated players.  Amazing.

I've been recording regularly now so my youtube channel has some fresh videos for anyone interested in that.  

If you're on the fence about joining again, it's so easy these days with Discord.  We just throw the question out there in the early evening, and everyone chimes in with their availability for the night.   We can quickly determine whether a game is possible or not, then play or move on.  Such little time invested for quality hako!  Also for you lazy bums like me out there, you can still sell those Mars orbs from the NPC for plenty of gil to keep your augmenting going.  Suuuper easy.

Plus ~ new bounty coming soon! Something about nine digits of gil for 3v3!?

Edit:  Just saw Papasz in game.  Hell yeah

Update about updates, updated

 We've been playing a LOT of hako lately.  Everybody's getting stronger, so I think it's time I completed some of these job/equipment guides.  In the next few days I'll have most of the hako jobs' guides done on here.  I'm posting this so that I can't be lazy and not do it!

Feb20 - MNK and SAM have been updated to include equipment and strategy for 3v3, WHM has been updated for equipment sets

New video from 3v3 JPvNA!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyXiLfDDns

 

Check it out:)

New Years Update

Happy new year!

Balli has been flourishing in the last few months, with diorama happening on almost every non-OM day.  We've had lots of groups try the bounty battle, and even though none have been successful yet, there's been massive improvements by the players.

These groups gave it a try in 2021:

Alizka & Struggler

Sonicwinder & Nekohamnett

Igo & Senorbacon

Sonicwinder & Biabby

Sonicwinder & Giness (two drawn games)

Two of our old friends Fuuring (now Giness/Obrigado) and Jyrkainen (now Dokaaan) have come back thanks to the free login campaign, and we're hoping they stick around for some high quality games.  With those two plus Sonic and Biabby, the Japanese squad is looking great.  If you're an oldie that just checks this blog once in a while, now is a good time to swing by for a few NA vs JP classics.

Hopefully 2022 is a bit better than the last couple years have been.  Talk more soon/

Bounty reissued

We tried this a while back, but now I have more gil, so here we go again.  

The bounty

10 million gil for one win, 100 million for a best of five

Master levels: No SJ increase under Sync

New update dropped today, with a new 99 upgrade that as usual threatens our game balance.  This time it's some shit where you kill even more crabs and at some point you unlock increased subjob levels.  As far as we know it goes up to 5 so far, with 99/54 being the cap.  So naturally my first thought was how fucked things might get with level 60/35 ~ 60/60 jobs in ballista.

Fortunately, ballista is safe - tested a 99COR/51NIN with my 60 BRD with level sync, and he was synced to 60COR/30NIN.  Whew.

EDIT:  I was told you get some attribute bonus and skill ups as well every master level, so I tested that too.  Doesn't have any effect under 60 sync, so we're safe.  Thanks to Aldraii and Alizka for testing help!

Hako in 2021

Alright, so we've had some hako matches with the new crew.  Everything went pretty well.  I'm working on a diorama guide here for those looking to set things up.

WIP hako guide  3v3 specifics

 

 More to come later

2021...!!

 Well, here we are in 2021.   Ballista never dies, we all know that by now.  There's a huge following on Asura.

I saw a diorama video recorded by our very own Megume, now Alizka - and came back to see how things were going.  The video she posted was classic traditional hako style, a mirrored match with PLD WAR SAM.  Pretty enticing. 

Of course I resubbed and played some OM.  Same as before, general players doing their best to activate hyper with poison and reraise...  A few black mage players, though.  I've been trying to turn them away from that.  Otherwise the OM aren't terrible.  The players that play balanced jobs are decent, surprisingly so.  There are some super ooof new players, but I think there's room to grow.

I haven't been able to make any of their hako games.  I have seen a few that are just random, OM-style, come as whatever, which is a bit sad.  But there have definitely been some intense mirrored games as well.  There's potential here for sure.  Even in OM there are players whose game sense really pops.  I'll try to get them into serious hako soon.

To the veterans (and new friends) who happen upon this blog, I hope it finds you well.  The last few years have been harrowing beyond what I think we all thought was possible.  Please be safe, and healthy.  That's an order, maybe the only one I'd ever give, from your old man LS leader, Teishi.