Special Ability Poll

I think Malady is possibly the most creative on this list, but I just don't see it being balance-able. I'm okay with being under status effects to use the skills; we'd have to be very careful to strike a fine line between "not worth setting up for in random encounters" and "the boss fights become about setting Iris up and steamrolling the enemy". It would be tricky, but with so many minds at the task, I'd guess that particular issue could be overcome. My problem is this:

The ability cannot upgrade over the course of the game. All negative statuses are usable reasonably early on, which means the same moveset has to deal with endgame and earlygame battles. If you want an example of why this won't work, just look at Slots. Many people say Slots are a lame ability (barring manipulation), although if you look closely, when you get Setzer, 7-Flush and Chocobop (the two attacks you can always get) actually deal decent damage. As the game goes on though, these abilities quickly fall by the wayside, and most people don't use Setzer even as early as the WoR, unless they've raided Kefka's Tower for the Fixed Dice (using the Moogle Charm). I've heard people blame the luck-reliance, but to some extent I feel that is only covering up the real issue.

I see a very similar fate for Malady, as the attacks will either practically 2 hit KO earlygame bosses and deal competent damage in the WoR, or deal nice damage to WoB bosses but be entirely worthless past the Floating Continent. It would have been hard enough to balance, but this just compounds the difficulty.

With that in mind, I have to vote for Fuse. It is a creative idea, would work well with the game mechanics and fits the character well, so in my book it hits all the points. I also like that it would add a new thrill to getting new Espers, which is something I never quite cared about as much as the game intended (maybe because I usually do challenges where they're pretty much useless).

Aether is a neat ability, and probably easier to implement, but I just feel it isn't quite as "out of the box." For somebody creating a hack involving several new abilities being made, it would work wonderfully, but I feel with this we should go as crazy as possible.

Sorry if I sound like I'm being negative or anything with this post; I tend to explain negative sentiments more thoroughly because I feel the need to justify them as real problems and not just apathy or something.