|
Update 91: Deep Darkness This place is giving me such a headache! Starting off this update by re-leveling up Double Action. And then I proceed to forget about everyone else. Not that it matters, since they’re not on the exploration team!   No point in putting it off any longer, let’s go ahead and tackle this floor.     Wow, we’re at the stairs already? That was fast! Ah, no. I believe this was a dead end. We need to head that way, first.Not going down these just yet, though I really wish that was the end of this floor.   Well that sure is a great start to this floor!  Thankfully they did nothing more than just using regular attacks. Anyways, here’s the first new enemy on this floor.  Suicide Hare Level: 57 HP: 703 STR: 56 VIT: 56 AGI: 42 LUC: 44 TEC: 53 Attack Type: Slash Exp: 4332 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Tiny Tooth - 20% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Great Sword (Sword.) 2 needed for Bec de Corbin (Club.) 5 needed for Carabinier (Light Armor.) 7 needed for Cianontedae (Boots.) 8 needed for Eliminator (Club.) 15 needed for Deathly Belt (Accessory.) --Has a blade-like tip for the sole purpose of killing. -Drop 2: Demon’s Fur - 10% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Vajrayana Robe (Monk’s ultimate Light Armor. Must be restocked.) 4 needed for Goetia (Book.) --From a rabbit which murders humans indiscriminately. -Gold: N/A Description: A rabbit monster found in the Labyrinth. When threatened, the gases in it destroy all nearby. Damage Resistances: Slash: 75% Strike: 75% Pierce: 150% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 100% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 100% Confusion: 100% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 100% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 100% Arm: 100% Leg: 100% Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100% Skills: Self-Destruct: Uses the Head. Causes the Suicide Hare to explode, dealing 280% STR-based Strike damage to the entire party, and denies them exp and their item drops. Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of -10. Suicide Hares are certainly... interesting enemies. The moment they take any bit of damage, they become ticking time bombs. And the lower their health is, the more likely they’ll go boom. So either save them for last, or kill them first as soon as possible. Though it’s pretty easy to take them out, so they aren’t too much of a threat unless you get careless. There’s also a small chance that they’ll do nothing and defend, though this really just wastes their turn.   Alice and Akatsuki don’t even bother with that nonsense.  And a level up for Alice. Honestly, unless you deliberately drag out the battle, you’ll rarely see them explode since they’re pretty easy to kill.  It always pays to be prepared!I have Alice take TP Up, which increases her maximum TP pool by 10% at level 1. I’m having her take this because I want her to be able to spam Izuna as much as possible, and there’s not many useful skills she can grab at this point.   Do we really hafta do this? I’m afraid there’s no other choice. And besides, someone must suffer through this madness. Why do you look so worried? You’ll know once we go through. Trust me. Yeesh, who turned out the lights!? Oh no, we have to move through here in the dark? Yeeeeep. Um, look on the bright side. At least we’re not getting a lot of light in our eyes this time.Did you miss the mapless areas in Stratum 5? Guess what, they return with a vengeance! So the gimmick of this floor is that we have to navigate through mazes without our map telling us where we are. Oh, but that’s not enough! Oh no, there’s more!  So... which way should we go? Ooh, I think I see the path turning over there! NO NO NO, not that way! Eh? What are you all getting all bent outta- AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! ALICE! Hey! Don’t dive down there without us! Yeah, let’s go! ALLEY OOP!That’s right! Invisible pitfalls. In mapless mazes. Fun for the whole family!   Oooog... E-everything hurts... Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to break my fall. N-not that I didn’t appreciate it. What, no love for your neighborhood bucket of bolts? OW! OOF! G-gonna need a debugging session after that... Hey there! Glad to see ya’ll are... mostly okay. Where’s Mr. Robot? I thought he fell down with you. Um. You’re... Standing on him. Aw, geez! Sorry about that! Oops! Sorry, Mr. Robot! BEEDLEDEE BOOP. Eh, I-I’m fine... I think.So, you remember how floor 14 had the pitfalls, which were interconnected with floor 15, essentially combining those 2 to make a gigafloor? Yeah, this is not like that. Floor 23 is there purely to act as a safety net for all of floor 22’s pitfalls. Under Atlus’ twisted definition of a safety net anyway, but I digress. You only have to go through a tiny bit of it and leave the rest of the floor untouched if you want to. And good thing that’s the case, because I don’t plan on exploring it! Not with this party, anyway. So yeah, floor 22’s pitfalls? They’re purely there as a screw you.  This pit was being merciful, because it just dropped us into a campsite room. The rest of the pits will not be as kind.    Oh. These again. Ow! Hey, is it just me, or are these more painful than those magma splotches from earlier? Eeeeerg... Oh, they’re worse. Definitely worse.Oh by the way, damage tiles are back. And they deal 20 points of damage instead of 10. Lovely. Oh, and as for that FOE on the top screen, they’re the main reason I’m holding off on exploring this floor. They’re extremely dangerous to engage, and this party does not stand a chance against them!  Anyways, this FOE follows its patrol path, until you get into its line of sight. At which point, it will turn aggressive and go after you. And it won’t give up until you outright leave the room, so it’s difficult to shake them off.  We really need to work on being aware of our surroundings.    Good grief, what’s with the blindsides? Anyways, here’s a new enemy. I didn’t really cover it in detail the last time we saw it, but I’ll cover it now.  Longicorn Level: 58 HP: 724 STR: 67 VIT: 55 AGI: 45 LUC: 44 TEC: 53 Attack Type: Slash Exp: 4461 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Rending Jaw - 20% Drop Rate. 2 needed for Chauve-souris (Spear.) 3 needed for Struggle (Rapier.) 4 needed for Tricorn (Helmet.) 9 needed for Head Seal (Accessory.) --It rips and tears any food intended for digestion. -Drop 2: Longicorn Hull - 10% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Berserk Leather (Gladiator’s ultimate Light Armor. Must be restocked.) 3 needed for Abode (Clothes.) 4 needed for Basilisk (Crossbow.) --Red shell hard enough to destroy metal. -Gold: N/A Description: A monster that hatches from a strange egg. Much is still unknown about this species. Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 100% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 100% Confusion: 150% Plague: 25% Poison: 25% Blind: 100% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 100% Arm: 100% Leg: 100% Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100% Skills: Cover: Does not use a body part. Protects an ally and takes damage in their place. Has an action speed of +20. Corroding Acid: Passive skill. Activates upon dying from a physical or elemental attack. Attempts to inflict Plague on the entire party, with a 50% success rate. The Plague ticks for 100 damage. Throw: ??? Here’s an annoying enemy to deal with. Longicorns have the gimmick of inflicting a status effect upon death. Now normally you could deal with this by just taking them out last, but Longicorns don’t want you to have a say in the matter. If it’s not alone, it’s very likely to spam Cover, forcing you to kill it and unleash the Plague upon your party. And unlike most other enemies with a cast on death passive, you can’t get around this by using Zodiac spells. Despite that, there are answers to dealing with Corroding Acid. Even though elemental attacks trigger Corroding Acid, Almighty attacks don’t. Though there aren’t many options for those kinds of attacks. Sleep and Confusion disables will disable Corroding Acid, so you can just kill it if you can inflict those on it. As a bonus, it’s weak to Confusion, so it’s fairly easy to inflict. Alternatively...  Nice try, but no. You can just instantly kill them or Petrify it to prevent its passive from going off. And thanks to Cover, they’re very likely to leap to their own deaths for no good reason!   Yeah, that’s where those stairs from earlier lead to. Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s go back to where we were on this floor.  ...After Fang gets a level up.  Call Snake is now stronger.  There’s another invisible pitfall over here. If you’re wondering how you’re supposed to figure out where the pitfalls are... you can’t. Because this floor has no sense of cohesive design to it- wait no, I take that back. This floor- no, this Stratum has a specific design philosophy it follows, which is to annoy the everloving gently caress out of the player and waste their time as much as possible. Finding a safe route through these mapless mazes is purely trial and error. You basically have to hope for the best and if you guess wrong, well it’s either time to climb back up to B22F or just give up and thread out because the FOEs on that floor can very easily ruin your day and it’s not worth trying to get past them in some cases. Even pitfall hell in EO1 had a line of logic you could follow to find out where its invisible pitfalls were. If you’re wondering what I’m referring to, I’m talking about B27F in that game. If you do decide to look up that floor, try not to have a heart attack. The only saving grace is that when you fall down a pitfall, your position on the map is revealed, which is a very small mercy. Then again, these pits just send you directly down to the tile below, and don’t teleport you to a different position, so it’s just Atlus cutting out some busywork on the player’s side there. Speaking of teleporters, unlike the first two games, this game’s 6th Stratum is completely devoid of them, thank god! The ones in the 5th Stratum were thankfully the last we saw of them. I mean, could you imagine how diabolical teleporter mazes in mapless rooms would be? Okay something happened of the sort in EO2U’s 6th Stratum, but in that case it’s just really a few teleporters added to mapless rooms instead of outright teleporter mazes. You could just look up a map to circumvent the whole thing (and quite frankly, I wouldn’t blame you. You coward.) Though all you would be left with in that case is just a bunch of mapless rooms that you would have to take a specific route through. Truly riveting gameplay. Honestly, this Stratum is really just unenjoyable to go through. EO1’s 6th Stratum at least had enemies that would rip you apart at a moment’s notice so there was something keeping you on your toes there. The random encounters in this Stratum are really boring to fight. So really aside from the annoyances, this Stratum really has nothing interesting going for it. And the worst part is that the invisible pitfalls isn’t the worst this Stratum has to offer.  That’s the end of this mapless section.  Oh sweet sweet light! Baby, how I’ve missed you! I wouldn’t celebrate this early just yet. Yeah, take a wild guess at what’s behind that door. ...drat it!  You dirty son of a glitch! Alice, I would really like to know how ya keep avoiding that... Oh, Akatsuki just taught me how to that nimble, I guess! I’m afraid I won’t be able to teach you the Ninja arts that easily, Mr. Sidney. I’m not sure if you can be that quick on your feet while lugging that huge crossbow around... Eeerrrruuuggghhh... D7 Chop Point: Polyamide Fiber: 60% Gather Rate. 1 needed for Chauve-souris (Spear.) 6 needed for Mons Meg (Crossbow.) -Sturdy string that rarely snaps or frays. Star Driftwood: 40% Gather Rate. 1 needed for Shaternal (Crossbow.) 6 needed for Fangtianhuaji (Spear.) -Glitters like the night sky when illuminated in the dark. Stardust Twig: Rare. 1 needed for Fatal Magatama (Accessory.) 3 needed for Antioch Gun (Gun.) 5 needed for Sentence Hammer (Club.) -Branch of unknown origin that may or may not be natural. Common Gather Periods: 3 to 17. Rare Gather Periods: 1 to 4. Here’s the first Chop Point on this floor. Just unlocks some more equipment. I’ll gather from here later.   And here we go again.  Ha ha! Not going down this time! I wish I could say the same.Goddammit Sidney.  There’s a pitfall here.  Akatsuki got a level up while I was stumbling through the rooms.  Tagen Battou now has a base damage of 69%, and a skill multiplier of 107%.    Silver Octopus Level: 59 HP: 724 STR: 54 VIT: 52 AGI: 47 LUC: 45 TEC: 60 Attack Type: Pierce Exp: 4352 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Blue Tentacle - 25% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Struggle (Rapier) and Crescent Robe (Clothes.) 3 needed for Great Sword (Sword.) --Its coloration is as if the octopus mimicked the ocean. -Drop 2: N/A -Gold: N/A Description: An octopus mutated by the forest miasma to become capable of wielding spells against its foes. Damage Resistances: Slash: 150% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 25% Ice: 25% Volt: 25% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 100% Confusion: 50% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 100% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 100% Arm: 50% Leg: 100% Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100% Skills: Zone Icicle: Uses the Head. Deals 50% Ice damage to the entire party. Has an action speed of +0. Has an accuracy of 99. All these things can do is cast an AOE Ice attack. Exciting. Oh and I guess their severe elemental resistances are also worth mentioning, I guess. Screw you for using a Zodiac? Who shouldn’t even be using their elemental skills at this point in the game. You know something worth mentioning is that in these enemies’ AI files, they were originally programmed to use stronger versions of the skills I listed for them. Except for whatever reason, that change seems to have been reverted for nearly every single enemy in this Stratum, so I guess the dev team thought they were too strong or something? Which in my opinion, was not the right call to make.   Hmm, it seems that these enemies’ abilities in combat are lacking. That’s because you two keep turning them all to stone before they can do anything! I feel sorry for them. Yeah, save some for the rest of us! Uhh, except for the Dragonflies. You can take those. Nothing much to them. If you’re really having trouble dealing with them, Anticold or Ice Prophecy is an option for dealing with them.  Another pitfall here.  And another he- oh goddammit! I completely forgot that there was a pitfall here!   What’s that weird looking bumpy thing? Dunno. Don’t remember seeing that on the trips down here before.Might as well show off this thing.  Whoa, that’s uhhh... Really creepy. Um, do any of you hear baaing noises? Like, from sheep? ...Somehow I get the feeling that we should run. Very fast.If you’re wondering what that just did, pay attention to the bottom screen of that GIF. I included it for a reason. If you don’t get it, that wall eye just alerted every FOE in the room to our presence.  These wall eyes will alert every FOE in the room that we exist if we step in a 3x2 area in front of them, which I’ve marked. I’ll also mark the eyes with the event icon. It’s not gonna be used for anything else anyway, since there are no events in the 6th Stratum.  Ah, geez. This is looking pretty ugly. N-n-nice sheep. Get close to me, everyone. Sorry, but we won’t be sheep feed today. Or ever!Well since I’m trapped, I might as well warp back to town. If you’re wondering if Alice could instantly kill those FOEs, she can’t. They’re immune to both Instant Death and Petrification. Anyways, floor 23 was a new floor, so there’s some new town dialogue for us.   I caught lots of fish! So many that I shared them with everyone in Armoroad. You should have seen how happy they were! Everyone said they wish every day could be that peaceful... And you know what I said to that? What? Hee hee, we won’t let them down there! Hopefully.  I feel a twinge of worry when I watch you nowadays... Remember the maxim, “More haste, less speed.” Why not stop and relax? Why be in such a tizzy? If you wind up dead, we wouldn’t be able to have these chats over tea anymore. It would be so selfish of you to rob me of one of my few enjoyable pasttimes... Understood? Aha... Understood.Let’s see what equipment we’ve unlocked.  The Doutanuki is a slight upgrade in damage, but the Katana made from Kujura’s drop is 1 point stronger than it.  The Vajrayana Robe is the Monk’s ultimate armor. A nice amount of defense, and a boost to both TEC and HP. Oh, and I guess there’s that STR boost as well, which would be nice for Punch Monks. Actually at this point in the game, Punch Monks would be fairly decent since their fist power would start to catch up with weapons.  And that’s it for equipment unlocks. You probably won’t see too many of those at this point in the game on your own playthroughs. I don’t know if you noticed, but you might want to take a closer look at the drop rates on the 6th Stratum enemies. Yeah, they’ve tanked in comparison to the drop rates from the enemies in the main game! Better get to spamming Lucky Hammer if there’s a specific piece of equipment you want!   Where are you all headed off to? And what’s waiting for you when you get there? ...Well, I guess you’ll find out when you make it there, right? Good lucks to you!  Every explorer in Armoroad wishes they could be a part of the Tidehunt Guild. All eyes are on you now. Remember that and try to set a good example when you’re in the Labyrinth.  I’ve heard rumors that you’re fighting against what caused the Calamity a century ago. If those rumors are true, that means that the restoration of Armoroad is on your shoulders. Win this battle, no matter what it takes, and you will have truly returned peace to our city. ...Though I must admit, it’s irritating that these old bones can’t do a thing to help... Ehhh, if you’ve been through what we have, you probably wouldn’t feel that way.  The evil one’s traps will only get worse from here on out... Do not allow yourself to succumb! You’re Armoroad’s last hope left! Do whatever it takes to come back from this mission alive!  My sister kept talking about the Tidehunt Guild. Looks like she can’t take her mind off of you! But don’t go to the home office every time... Stop by the Deep City branch sometimes too, okay?  You must not fail. I know that the Abyssal King prays for your success from somewhere. Let us hope that our mission actually works out this time.Gonna stop here for now, since exploring the rest of the floor is gonna make this update too big. (And I really am not in the mood to explore the floor at the moment.) We’ll tackle the rest of the floor next time. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jul 23, 2017 |
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 13:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 14:49 |
|
|
Among the sixth stratums, this has my favourite aesthetic and music, which I guess is balanced out by being the worst nightmare to navigate! I shall admit to weakness and say I never saw it to the end way back when I played this game, not even with the help of a guide.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 13:52
|
|
|
Someone on the development team must have suddenly remembered that Etrian Odyssey is inspired by Wizardry so the quota of annoying hazards you can not see had to be met...
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2017 16:52
|
|
|
Ugh. Giant eyeballs are one of those things that never fail to make me uncomfortable. I don't know why.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2017 00:56
|
|
|
Wow. That's a horror gimmick and no mistake.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2017 05:10
|
|
|
werbear posted:Someone on the development team must have suddenly remembered that Etrian Odyssey is inspired by Wizardry so the quota of annoying hazards you can not see had to be met... It's very similar to the Claret Hollows in that as bad as each floor is the next one is worse.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2017 12:27
|
|
|
Update 92: Pitfall Minefields  How does it feel to have a taste of yer own medicine, huh!? Hee hee hee!Starting off, Sidney gets some revenge on the Dragonflies.  And snags me their conditonal drop to boot. I probably could have just gotten this more easily with Asteria, but I just opted to get it now  Continuing from where we left off, that’s the end of that mapless maze. Yeah, we were that close to the exit before I screwed up.  Oh, ha ha. Very funny, game.   Another enemy that we saw before but one that I didn’t cover at the time. Insectortoises start appearing on this floor, so I’ll cover them now.  Insectortoise Level: 59 HP: 812 STR: 54 VIT: 53 AGI: 45 LUC: 45 TEC: 61 Attack Type: Strike Exp: 3813 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Stink Scutellum - 20% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Kukuri (Knife.) --Foundation that emits an awful stench in self-defense. -Drop 2: Shielded Wing - 5% Drop Rate. 3 needed for Tilled Armor. (Heavy Armor.) --Used for both flight and self-defense. -Gold: N/A Description: Resembles an insect, but is structurally unlike any other organism and may actually be alien. Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 50% Pierce: 100% Fire: 100% Ice: 100% Volt: 150% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 50% Confusion: 100% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 100% Curse: 150% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 100% Arm: 100% Leg: 100% Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100% Skills: Discharge: Uses the Head. Deals 85% TEC-based Volt damage to one row. Sacrifices 20% of the Insectortoise's current HP when used. (Insectortoises cannot kill themselves with this skill.) Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of +10. Lay Egg: Passive skill. Activates upon death. Replaces the Insectortoise with a Pandora Egg. Throw: ??? Insectortoises are pretty hard hitting enemies. They love to cast Discharge a lot, and coming off their high TEC stat and damage multiplier, it can wreck the party. It does hurt the Insectortoise itself, though that’s of relatively small comfort since it’s based off of the Insectortoise’s current HP. Also it’s less likely to spam the skill when it’s HP is low, so you ideally want to take them out first. Now the unique thing about these enemies is that they’re kind of screw yous to 100% completionists. This is because of Lay Egg, which activates when they die, and summons a Pandora Egg while removing them from the battle. And activating Lay Egg doesn’t count as killing them. Which means that you miss out on their EXP, but more importantly, miss out on their monstrous codex entry and their item drops. And as insult to injury, one of their item drops only has a measly 5% drop rate, and you need to farm for multiples of it! So in order to actually kill them, you’re gonna have to make use of a few special methods. You can put them to Sleep or Confuse them and kill them while they have those ailments, which will disable Lay Egg. Certainly the best time to snag a kill with Lucky Hammer since their item drop rates are so low.   Oh no. You’re not getting away this time.Instant Death and Petrification also bypass react on death skills, so that’s another way to actually kill them.  Overall, they’re a pretty annoying enemy in several aspects since you have to kill them in a specific way to even get a chance at their item drops. Smith also got a level up from that.  Armored to the teeth!Investing a bit in HP Up to him more durable.  And now we don’t have to deal with all of that particular mapless section when going through here again.    This set of stairs is essentially a checkpoint. When we fall into a pit from now on, we can start back from here instead of all the way back at the start of the floor.  Onto the next mapless section.   Invisible pitfall here.  Oh, and here’s a new FOE. If you remember the Mud Lurkers from the 3rd Stratum, they pretty much behave exactly like those. They’re aggressive and will move toward us, but only if we’re in their line of sight. Unlike the Mud Lurkers, these FOEs are awake all day, so we can’t just change the clock to a specific time to get around their gimmick.  Oh and if you want to close the gap between you and them without outright running into them, you can just step in and out one of these side corridors to move them closer. You’ll have to do this in order to get past some of these FOEs.  Another level up for Sidney.  Another pit here.  And there’s a campsite in this room if you need to rest up.  Also it was at this point that I realized I screwed up. Uhhh, I think we might’ve just boxed ourselves in. What do you- oh right, that FOE. Ooh, hey Alice! Think you can work some of your Ninja magic on it? Um... I don’t know where to begin stabbing that... thing! Maybe if we stay here for a while, it’ll go away. A sound plan. I shall go ahead and set up the tent. Yeah, I’m pretty much trapped with no way to get past that FOE. And fighting it would be an even worse idea than fighting the FOEs on the 23rd floor. For one thing, these FOEs have access to an AOE Instant Death attack! Oh and said attack also inflicts a bunch of other ailments if that fails to land. Granted, Alice could probably survive that, but siccing her on the FOE is not an option since it’s also immune to Instant Death and Petrify.  Alright, I think that’s long enough. If it ain’t gone by now, it’s not moving anytime soon. Well... that plan was a bust! Think we can take it? Uhhh, I dunno about you, but I think we’d be nothing but dragon food if we fought that thing. So we do we have to go back to Armoroad again? Perhaps not... There is one other option. Which is...? There should be a pitfall over here. And it shouldn’t take that long to walk back to the stairs we saw a while ago. Hey, it’s worth a shot. Geronimo! I didn’t want to go back to town this soon, so I just bit the bullet and fell down the pit to retry that room.  B4 Take Point: Ambrosia: 75% Gather Rate. 1 needed for Madora II (Item. Must be restocked.) -Glowing, white analeptic flower. Hogweed Oil: 25% Gather Rate. 1 needed for Hamao II (Item. Must be restocked.) -Refined oil that promotes the elevation of motor functions. Maiden’s Wheat: Rare. 1 needed for Amrita III (Item. Must be restocked.) -Legendary stalk of wheat left by a fertility god. Common Gather Periods: 2 to 11. Rare Gather Periods: 1 to 5. And say hello to one of the most important Take points in the game. This is where you can farm for Madora IIs and more importantly, Amrita IIIs. Those fully recover a party member’s TP pool, so you want to farm for as many of those as you can. Oh and I guess there are Hamao IIs.  I will never understand why these are late/post-game items. Well the other 2 items you can get from this point more than make up for that. There’s also a secret passage hidden here so you can return to the first part of floor 23 if you wish.  Alice got a level up and uh...  Sure, why not? There’s not really anymore essential skills for her to take, anyway.   Okay, let’s try this without getting ourselves boxed in this time.  Okay, what you actually want to do is to lure that FOE to this very spot.  Then go up to get behind it.  And that lets you get past that FOE.  Unfortunately, I ended up losing track of where I was, and ended up falling into this pit as a result.  Shortly afterward, my party got roughed up from some random encounters, and supplies were running low. So I just opted to go back to town at this point.    The only interesting thing of note I’ve unlocked from that trip are the Madora IIs. Those restore a whopping 300 HP to a row. Now that I can farm for these, there’s no reason to ever use Madoras again. And now back to that mapless room. Again.  Fang got a level up on the way back.  Call Snake is almost maxed out. Which is good since I’ll be needed all of his binding skills maxed out for something later.  Back to where we left off. There’s an invisible pit down here.  Not that great of a shortcut, since that only lets us skip the first FOE puzzle.  And here’s the 2nd member of the pumpkin trio.  Hell Pumpkin Level: 0 HP: 1430 STR: 54 VIT: 55 AGI: 48 LUC: 46 TEC: 63 Attack Type: Pierce Exp: 4666 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Cursed Bone - 50% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Crescent Robe (Clothes) and Kurikara (Katana.) 2 needed for Grasida (Spear) and Agbuster (Gun.) 3 needed for Dark Gauntlets (Gloves.) 8 needed for Rock Amulet (Accessory.) --Still radiates an ominous presence after it’s removed. -Drop 2: N/A -Gold: Cursed Vine - Kill while fully bound. 100% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Grasida (Spear.) --Vine-like, invertebrate body of a pumpkin. Description: A more powerful form of the Death Pumpkin. The grudges given form constrict its prey. Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 75% Ice: 75% Volt: 75% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 100% Confusion: 100% Plague: 100% Poison: 100% Blind: 100% Curse: 150% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 10% Arm: 10% Leg: 10% Other Resistances: Death: 50% Petrification: 50% Stun: 25% Skills: Scorching Hell: Uses the Head. Deals 55% TEC-based Fire damage to the entire party. Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of -5. Bewildering Eye: Uses the Head. Has a 90% chance to bind the entire party’s heads. Has an action speed of -5. Halloween: ??? Hell Pumpkins (also known as Flygourds in other games) basically just try to Head Bind the party with Bewildering Eye, and then take advantage of the TEC halving effect by roasting the party with Scorching Hell. It can be a pretty nasty enemy, especially since Head Binds can screw quite a few classes up. They won’t ever bother to use Scorching Hell unless at least one of your party members has their heads bound. A Hoplite with Antifire can make them trivial to deal with. Oh, but I’m not done talking about this enemy yet. You see that conditional drop it has? The one that requires you to kill it while fully bound? That means all we have to do is just to bind its head, arms, and legs- Hell Pumpkin’s Bind Resistances posted:Head: 10% Arm: 10% Leg: 10% ...Oh. Yeah we don’t have anything like Dominate from the last game to cheese this drop, so we have to do this the hard way. To showcase how much of a problem this is, let’s say Fang has all of his binding animals at max level, his LUC and TEC greatly outpaces the Hell Pumpkin’s LUC and TEC, and he has Wild Mastery maxed out as well. He would have at most, a 25% chance of landing each bind! And there’s no way to reset accumulative resistance in this game, so he only has one shot to hogtie the Hell Pumpkin! But wait, there’s more! You see how that Hell Pumpkin is level 0? Oh that wasn’t a mistake. It’s actually like that in the game data. And since the Hell Pumpkin’s LUC is far greater than its level, that means that the Hell Pumpkin has at least a 40% chance of recovering from any disables on a given turn! Yeah you see how this conditional drop miiiiiight be a tiny pain in the butt to get? Thought kill with Curse damage was hard to deal with? This one isn’t as bad, but boy does it try to be worse. All I can really say to this is, Atlus you utter dicks.   Alright, this is looking good so far. Now if I can just land that arm bind...  ... Oh screw this. Time to activate the nuclear option. Mr. Pumpkin, would you mind if I pruned your vines real quick? They’re looking awfully long. Oops, I guess I went tufa! ...Yeesh, remind me to never piss her off. Would ya believe me if I said that she wasn’t always that good at taking out monsters? You have me to thank for that. Yeah as you can probably tell, Alice is this team’s artillery cannon. The heavy hitters in our guild aren’t guaranteed to take out these enemies in one hit, while Alice is just a walking delete button, so she’s pretty much the best in the guild for dealing with the random encounters here. ...I can’t believe that was actually a serious statement I just said. At any rate, those Hell Pumpkins can be threatening if you give them the chance, but they’re not too bad as long as you focus them down.  Back to exploring this floor, there’s an FOE in this corridor that we want to lure to this spot.  Likewise with this FOE in this corridor down here.  We can slip past that lower FOE now that it’s out of the way.  Oh, and watch out for this pit here.  Moving that FOE from even earlier to the bottom of the hallway let us slip past it now.  There’s an FOE in this part of the maze that we want to lure to this tile.  Which lets us slip straight past it, and we can head right to the door.    You dirty, dishonorable egg spawn...! Short circuited...Oh, and that’s how a Clionean can easily screw over a team.   Dishonor... must be fought with dishonor- oh, really? That didn’t get it? Don’t worry.  I got it for you. Hee hee, she’s totally a keeper. Oh, shut up... And here’s the next set of checkpoint stairs if we fall into a pit from now on.  Now this next room is a little different.  Instead of navigating through a maze, you now have to navigate through an open room with invisible pitfalls strewn about. So essentially we have to navigate through a minefield of pitfalls. Since there is nothing of interest in these rooms other than the invisible pitfalls, I’m going to be mostly skipping over them.  And here’s the last new enemy on these 2 floors.  Omnivore Level: 60 HP: 2137 STR: 62 VIT: 61 AGI: 38 LUC: 50 TEC: 52 Attack Type: Strike Exp: 4602 Item Drops: -Drop 1: Infernal Scale - 20% Drop Rate. 1 needed for Kukuri (Knife) and Beast’s Chain (Wildling’s ultimate clothes.) 3 needed for Kamewari (Katana.) 6 needed for Hildebrand (Shield.) 7 needed for Dvergr Sword (Sword) and Panic Seal (Accessory.) --Scale with evil flame patterns that calls forth misfortune. -Drop 2: N/A -Gold: Infinite Tongue - Kill while head is bound. 95% Drop Rate. 4 needed for Shuriken (Knife.) --Seems capable of stretching endlessly... Description: Its mouth is easily half the size of its body, and will devour anything that does not fight back. Damage Resistances: Slash: 125% Strike: 125% Pierce: 125% Fire: 125% Ice: 125% Volt: 125% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 50% Confusion: 100% Plague: 150% Poison: 150% Blind: 50% Curse: 100% Paralysis: 100% Bind Resistances: Head: 10% Arm: 100% Leg: 100% Other Resistances: Death: 100% Petrification: 100% Stun: 100% Skills: Snapping Teeth: Uses the Head. Randomly hits everyone with STR-based Strike attacks 3 to 5 times, dealing 100% damage per hit. Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of -5. Swallow Whole: Passive skill. Activates once a fellow enemy’s current HP drops to 25% or lower. Instantly kills the designated enemy, and triggers Kaishaku Heal, even if the enemy in question was not instantly killed. The Instant Death pierces all resistances and immunities. However, the Instant Death component cannot trigger if the user’s arms are bound. Kaishaku Heal: Passive Skill. Heals the Omnivore for 600 HP if they killed an enemy with Swallow Whole. Heals them for 0 HP if they did not. Escape: Uses the Legs. Escapes from battle, denying the party experience points and their item drops. Has an action speed of -3. This enemy is completely unrelated to the Omnivore from EO1. Though if you’re familiar with that enemy, I’m sure you could tell since the Omnivore in EO1 was a plant. These enemies are fairly interesting. They actually have their own version of Kaishaku, which thankfully only affects their side. If an enemy’s HP gets really low, they’ll get eaten by the Omnivore and restore some of its HP. The Omnivore itself doesn’t do much if it barely took damage and will even spend some of its turns defending, but once it has lost a bit of HP, it’ll make use of Snapping Teeth, and it hits decently hard. Oh and if it’s alone, it’ll either use Snapping Teeth or decide to get out of the battle. Oh, and as for that conditional- Omnivore’s Head Bind Resistnace posted:Head: 10% ...Why do you keep doing this!?   You’ve been eating too much. You need to go on a diet.  Still snagged that conditional anyway. If you’re gonna take out the Omnivore first, do it in one turn, or your party will take quite a bit of damage from Snapping Teeth.  Nothing really interesting about this room. It’s just a bit of a rest stop before the next minefield.  Here’s the pit layout in this room.  Level up for Akatsuki.  Tagen Battou now has a base damage of 72% and a skill multiplier of 108%.  F4 Chop Point: Polyamide Fiber: 80% Gather Rate. Star Driftwood: 20% Gather Rate. Stardust Twig: Rare. Common Gather Periods: 2 to 12. Rare Gather Periods: 1 to 5. And here’s the other Chop Point on this floor.  And now we can skip most of the floor on repeat visits. There’s only one last mapless section left. And since I unlocked this shortcut, I went back to town to unload my materials and restock my supplies.  10% TP increase for a Shogun. Not a bad weapon upgrade.   And here’s the Wildling’s ultimate armor, the Beast’s Chain. The LUC increase is nice, as well as the Limit increase, I suppose. And I guess the STR boost can help animals deal more damage?  And that’s all I unlocked on this trip.  Here’s the last set of checkpoint stairs.  Just one more of these sections to go.   And here’s the door to the next room already.  ... I hate this place. So much. Me too.Oh Atlus, you utter utter dicks.   E4 Take Point: Ambrosia: 60% Gather Rate. Hogweed Oil: 40% Gather Rate. Maiden’s Wheat: Rare. Common Gather Periods: 3 to 16. Rare Gather Periods: 1 to 4. At least there’s a Take Point down here.   Okay let’s try that again.  Can this just end already!? And there’s the map for part 1 of this minefield.  Oh hey, a Pasaran. Too bad I can’t really kill it with this team.  And I am finally, finally done with those stupid pitfalls!  Ooh, double Pasarans! But as tempting as it would be to go after them, this team just has no killing power. And Alice can’t even kill them with Instant Death or Petrification, so that’s not an option for taking them down as well.  And now I no longer have to bother with any of that nonsense!   Goodbye, you awful awful time waster of a floor!   Floor 23’s map isn’t complete, but whatever. I don’t care. I’m free. Screw that noise.  Unfortunately, as bad as floor 22’s gimmick was, it could at least be circumvented by looking up a map. Floor 24’s gimmick is worse and has no such way out. And I don’t feeling like dealing with this floor right now, so it’s back to town for us!  You’ve done a lot for us, after all, like granting our requests and restoring the sea lanes. I think it’s great that you’ve become real Armoroad citizens during your time here! But... you’ll be leaving soon, won’t you, boss? ...Yeah. Sorry kid, but we can’t stay here forever. Still, the people of Armoroad--including me, of course!--will never forget you guys! And I hope you won’t forget us either, boss! We sure won’t! How rude! This is the finest tea I could trade for! You should see its golden ring! ...So how much are you demanding from us this time? No, that’s all right. Just enjoy it. I’ve been making money hand over fist thanks to you all... One cup of tea is a drop in the bucket compared to all the wealth you’ve brought me. The second cup, of course, will cost you. Though I’d sell you the bag at a discount... Oh, of course it would. Just one new item this time. Hamao IIs restore 100 HP and 50 TP. Yeah, just go for Medica IVs and Amrita IIIs at this point. I’ve got one in today! It’s another request from that monster researcher... O-oh, we’re not here for a request this time. ...Oh, you aren’t here for a request? W-Well, I’ve got a new item on the menu... We’re not here for that either. Yeah uh, we just came to visit. Before we, you know... ...... ...If you make it to the end of the Labyrinth, you’ll leave Armoroad for more adventures... Thinking about that makes my heart cry inside... Hey! How can you let that happen!? Oh, I got it! You guys should just live here in Armoroad! That’d be schway, right? Right? Uhhh... ...Aw, boo. What kind of person would I be to keep adventurers from having adventures? ...Just go about your business like normal, all right? Say, want me to give you a little training and gauge how strong you are now? How about it? Um, I don’t think that would be a good idea. ...Did you get cold feet? Or are you worried you’d hurt me? To be honest, yes. Hah! That’s rich... There’s no need to worry about that. I could take you all at once. But if that’s your decision, I won’t force you. Oho, fine! Ya wanna fight? Bring it! I’m ready for ya! That’s what I’m talking about! Wait right here. I’ll go get one of my favorite weapons. The Shichiei Dourin is a legendary sword that can fell seven enemies in one... Oh, crud. Hold up. I completely forgot that it’s being sharpened at the moment. Some other time, I guess. Aww, I shouldn’t have gotten excited there. It’s not good to make an old man like me worry, you know! Hahaha! You don’t need to worry about us all the time. Yeah! We’re all rough and tough scrapper! I treat my sailors as though they were my flesh and blood, and the same could be said of you. I’ll have you know, nothing is sadder than a port without ships, so you’d better come back alive! Don’t worry! We promise! I certainly hope we can keep that this time. How the devil are you supposed to deal with that!? It’s like some sort of alien geometry... Lots of guesswork. And sore butts. I think in the end, it’s best to remember the wariness you felt at the beginning of your journey. In the end, all you can rely on is the map you’ve drawn and the skills you’ve honed! What makes you say that? Hm...? Oh, I’m saying so because the quakes are getting worse. And the guards here are talking like the fate of mankind hangs in the balance here... Oh, um. No pressure, eh? But even now, I can’t run away. It’s my job to wait here for everyone who comes back wounded. We’re all in the same boat. Plus, if you croak, I don’t know where in the world I’d be safe. That’s how I see it, anyway. You leave this place to me and go on ahead, okay? ...I wanted to say that at least once before I die. Well that won’t be today or anytime soon! I’ll say that much! Oh, right. You were, built to um... You can’t think of any ideas of what to do after we’re done? My duty will be at an end. I will cease all activity. It is difficult to think of anything else.Well I don’t feel like tackling the nightmare that is floor 24 anytime soon, so let’s go do something else instead.  Here it is. The last quest in the entire game. This is the last of the letter in a bottle requests, so in order to access this one, you need to have completed those first. Did something happen over there? I thought we got rid of that disease... Oh, you’re accepting that request? That is another one from the boy at the inn. Thanks to your actions last time, a lot of people were saved from danger. It is looking like that rascal of a kid is still worried about something, though. So, go talk to him again, just like all the other times. ...Make sure to be ready! ...My bartender sense is telling me this is going to be a big one! Get going then, explorers! Yeah, so mind telling us what’s wrong? Thank you very much! I owe you so much for all you’ve done... ...It turns out that the Green Death disease was being spread by a monster under Elly’s town. When the townspeople realized that, they tried to kill it, but it got away. It escaped onto a ship headed for Armoroad, and all the ships they sent to catch it were sunk. Wait, here!? Uh oh. The only warning that made it here was Elly’s letter! Even if I told the guards, they wouldn’t believe me! I’m just a kid! You’re our only hope! Please, find the monster and defeat it before something horrible happens!  It looked wounded... That may be why it didn’t run into the city and cause any havok. The guards will begin a full and thorough investigation soon. Please stay put until then. ...Then again, I guess there’s no point in telling you that. Just don’t do anything crazy. ...Honest question, does anyone actually expect them to accomplish much? Not really. And I dunno about the rest of ya’ll, but growing plants outta my body doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time! However, every member of the crew was found dead, killed by a monster hiding on the ship. The ship reached Armoroad on the currents, and the monster immediately fled to the forest. I think of every sailor who enters this port as one of my children! ...I beg you! Find this monster and avenge these senseless deaths! ...Maybe we should prepare, first.As you can probably infer, we’ve got a boss fight coming up. Now then, why don’t we see how our guild is doing? Boss HP: 22000 AT: 66 DF: 72 Weakness: Fire Resistance: Ice, Volt Out of all the post-game quest bosses, this one is probably the toughest of the bunch. Assuming you killed Kraken the intended way, anyway. It has access to hard hitting elemental attacks and access to some very nasty status effects.    Faye is a fantastic support to bring along. Can heal up the party with Protect Order, and protect them from status effects with Prevent Order. Not only that, she can buff the party’s physical damage output.    Cassandra is also a fantastic support to bring, as her Anti-elemental attacks can take a lot of the sting out of this boss fight. The boss also has a pretty nasty physical attack at its disposal, which she is capable of taking the sting out of as well.    Sidney is a great damage dealer, but he’s also very fragile. Front Mortar can deal a ton of damage to the boss, but he really can’t take hits without proper defensive support.    Akatsuki is the fastest party member we have, and a fairly decent low maintenance physical damage dealer thanks to Keburi no Sue. His decent TEC stat also means that he can take hits from the boss’ elemental attacks fairly well.    Meteors always make for a fun time, and Asteria also has the option of roasting the boss with Etheric Charged Hellfires. Her high TEC stat also means that she can take hits from any elemental attacks fairly well.    Susan can greatly increase the party’s physical damage output with Attack Order and Eagle Eye, and prevent any ailments from landing on the party with Prevent Order. Only downside is, she doesn’t have the healing capabilities that Faye has.     Rose is a decent physical attacker. Unfortunately, since the boss likes to make heavy use of elemental attacks, she’s not quite that durable due to her low TEC stat.       You don’t get where I am without learning a thing or two about surviving the rough seas.Increasing Scott’s HP a bit. Scott is another hard hitting physical attacker, and a fairly fast one to boot. Eagle Eye also lets him support other physical attackers on the team if needed, and he builds up Limit pretty fast.       There is no strategic benefit to overworking yourself. A tactician must be prepared for even the worst outcomes.Another physical attacker. Though for once, Charlotte is more durable than Rose, since her higher TEC stat lets her tank the boss’ elemental attacks more easily. She’s also faster than her to boot.     Smith is a decent choice to bring along, as Virus Scanner reduces the chances of him being hit by ailments, and he can deal some good damage with Breakfire Fist, since the boss is weak to Fire. Unfortunately, he’s a bit high maintenance due to his gimmicks.   The post-game does not play nicely with ailments resistance, and that means Fang really can’t do much aside from maybe providing meat shields for the party.     While Alice may be an artillery cannon when it comes to random encounters, in boss fights, she is sadly nothing more than a peashooter. Vote for up to 3 characters to exterminate that monster. Votes must be in bold. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jul 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 07:21
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Scott
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 07:49
|
|
|
I hate the post game so much - it's so cathartic watching somebody else tackle it. Voting Faye, Cassandra, Sidney.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 08:07
|
|
|
I was beginning to get worried that, if I'm right anyway, this particular boss wasn't in this game. Glad(?) to see I was probably wrong about that. Anyway, Cassandra, Charlotte, Scott.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 08:10
|
|
|
Asteria, Charlotte, and Faye
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 08:39
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Smith
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 08:48
|
|
|
Hmm Faye, MEGAQUEEN, and Sidney A healer, a buffer, and an attacker. I have no idea what this boss is, so this should be fun.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 09:10
|
|
|
It's a plant monster with multiple elemental attacks and status effects? I have a feeling that this is Alraune from EO1. This can't end well.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 11:15
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Charlotte.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 14:48
|
|
|
Dr. Fetus posted:
 Sidney, Cassandra, MEGAQUEEN
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 14:54
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Scott
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 15:16
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Smith
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 15:31
|
|
|
Smith, Charlotte, Scott
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 15:39
|
|
|
Faye, Cassandra, Alice
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 15:46
|
|
|
On the Insectortoise's Discharge, you refer to it as Raging Boar. Cassandra, Asteria, Charlotte.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 16:38
|
|
|
BlackPersona posted:Asteria, Charlotte, and Faye This is not an emptyquote.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 17:59
|
|
|
Vote so far: Faye: 10 Cassandra: 10 Charlotte: 6 Scott: 4 Asteria: 3 Sidney: 3 Smith: 3 MEGAQUEEN: 1 Alice: 1 Rose: 0 Akatsuki: 0 Fang: 0 Ooh, a 3-way tie for 5th place. Blaze Dragon posted:On the Insectortoise's Discharge, you refer to it as Raging Boar. Fixed, thanks. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jul 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 20:40
|
|
|
Hmm. Are all the Yggroids going to shut down when you clear the game, or just Olympia?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 02:18
|
|
|
Sidney, Faye, Cassandra.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 03:45
|
|
|
Glazius posted:Hmm. Are all the Yggroids going to shut down when you clear the game, or just Olympia? They aren't all made to combat Deep Ones, are they?
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 05:23
|
|
|
Akatsuki, Asteria, Smith
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 06:13
|
|
|
Dr. Fetus's Choice x3
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 06:27
|
|
|
Smith, Alice, MEGAQUEEN.
|
|
#
?
Jul 19, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
Faye, Asteria, MEGAQUEEN something something broken record
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 02:07
|
|
|
VOTING IS CLOSED! Final results" Faye: 12 Cassandra: 11 Charlotte: 6 Asteria: 5 Smith: 5 Scott: 4 Sidney: 4 MEGAQUEEN: 3 Alice: 2 Rose: 0 Akatsuki: 1 Fang: 0 My Choice: 3 Looks like the party is going to be Cassandra, Charlotte, Smith, Faye, and Asteria!
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 04:25
|
|
|
I did some basic calculations... it looks like a Ninja/Gladiator using Bunshin-Charge-Tagen Battou would do 3300% damage on average, equalling 1100% damage per turn, which seems pretty good, even with a knife! The TP expenditure is comparable to Front Mortar, as well. The clone would have a free action on turn 2, maybe turn 3 depending on if the clone using Tagen Battou goes first. Berserker Vow could fit in there on the second turn to further boost damage.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 03:23
|
|
|
McFrugal posted:I did some basic calculations... it looks like a Ninja/Gladiator using Bunshin-Charge-Tagen Battou would do 3300% damage on average, equalling 1100% damage per turn, which seems pretty good, even with a knife! The TP expenditure is comparable to Front Mortar, as well. The clone would have a free action on turn 2, maybe turn 3 depending on if the clone using Tagen Battou goes first. Berserker Vow could fit in there on the second turn to further boost damage. Is that so? Well, I suppose that's a good reason to give Akatsuki a new job, since Amrita IIIs now obsolete Dark Ether spam. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 04:47
|
|
|
Congrats. You turned the combat useless farmer into a petrification machine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 13:09
|
|
|
These conditionals are making my brain hurt. I'm not sure what's worse, having to land three binds on a target that has high resistance to them and easily recovers, or anything involving curse damage. Probably curse damage, but the first one is still annoying. I'm almost glad that I stopped playing after my first run at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2017 09:53
|
|
|
Update 93: Alraune Here’s the team that was voted in to take on this boss. Our target this time is located in the Porcelain Forest. And it’s pretty easy to get to... in a sense. It resides in that empty chamber connected to the last mapless room on this floor. Though said mapless room contains a Mortal Hunter. At this point, your party should be able to handle it, so just kill it instead of trying to navigate around it. You see a flower creature in full health! Its beautiful face turns towards you derisively. This grotesque monster with the bewitching smile must be the cause of the Green Death! Now take your weapon in hand and fearlessly fight to keep the city of Armoroad safe! Little rundown of my party setup and Limit skills. Aegis Defense well be handy in a few cases, and Hellfire is just extra damage.  Video: AlrauneMeet Alraune, another cameo from EO1! She was a post-game boss in that game and was tied to a particular quest. She had no storyline importance outside of that. Alraune Level: 71 HP: 22000 STR: 66 VIT: 72 AGI: 57 LUC: 53 TEC: 67 Attack Type: Pierce Exp: 190000 Item Drops: -Normal: King’s Petal - 100% Drop Rate. Unlocks the Book of M (Book. Must be restocked.) --Resilient petal that cannot easily be scratched. -Gold: King’s Velvet - Kill with Ice Damage. 100% Drop Rate. Prevents normal drops. Unlocks the Interceptor (Arbalist’s ultimate Light Armor.) --Multicolored cloth that’s rare among flower petals. Description: Damage Resistances: Slash: 100% Strike: 100% Pierce: 100% Fire: 150% Ice: 100% Volt: 100% Ailment Resistances: Sleep: 10% Confusion: 10% Plague: 10% Poison: 10% Blind: 10% Curse: 10% Paralysis: 10% Bind Resistances: Head: 30% Arm: 30% Leg: 30% Other Resistances: Death: LR – 10% Petrification: LR – 10% Stun: 10% Skills: Frost Smile: Uses the Head. Deals 80% TEC-based Ice damage to the entire party and has a 30% chance to inflict Stun. Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of +3. Shock: Uses the Head. Deals 90% TEC-based Ice damage to the entire party and has a 40% chance to inflict Head Bind. Has an accuracy of 99. Has an action speed of +0. Tentacle Beat: Uses the Legs. Randomly hits the party 3 to 7 times, dealing 120% STR-based Strike damage per hit. Has an accuracy of 90. Has an action speed of +0. Vampire Kiss: Uses the Head. Deals 400% STR-based Slash damage to one party member and heals Alraune for twice the damage dealt. Has an accuracy of 150. Has an action speed of +0. Pollen: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Petrification, Sleep, Confusion, Plague, Poison, Blind, Curse, and Paralysis on the entire party with a 5% success rate. The Plague and Poison components tick for 70 damage. Has an action speed of +0. Alraune got some changes to her moveset since we last saw her in EO1. And they actually end up making her a bit weaker, though she’s still a tough fight in this game. Frost Smile did got upgraded from a single target attack to an AOE, and Shock now inflicts Head Binds instead of Paralysis. Unfortunately for Alraune, she also lost access to her AOE Fire attack from EO1. Which probably would have been worth the trade off for her if Hoplites didn’t exist. And Ninjas. And Zodiacs. And subclassing. And accessory stacking if you happen to have none of the above. Well, it should be obvious by now that EO3 isn’t a particularly well balanced game. So as it stands, she only has access to 2 elemental attacks, meaning that a Hoplite/Ninja can take a lot of the tension out of the fight and basically generate so many free turns for the party thanks to Anticold and Antivolt. Tentacle Beat isn’t particularly threatening. The individual hits barely do more than a regular attack, and due to how the game’s targeting system works, the hits from it are likely to be distributed amongst your party instead of being focused on one party member. Unless you’re doing a solo run, in which case, good luck. Anyways, let’s take a look at how she behaves. Alraune’s AI Script posted:If HP is above 5%, cast Pollen on turns that are multiples of 6. (Standard targeting.) Alraune is actually quite a tough customer. She’s definitely one of the hardest bosses to take down, as the fight is just a straight up slugfest. She’s not a particularly complex fight, and she doesn’t need to be. She’ll just beat the ever-loving snot out of your party with her elemental attacks, which are the real threats in this fight. The closest thing to a gimmick she really has is the fact that she’ll try to use Pollen to inflict ailments on your party every 6 turns. Also, do not be fooled by that 5% infliction rate. Pollen tries to inflict every single ailment at once so that skill rolls for ailments 8 times. So Pollen actually has around a 34%~ chance of landing at least 1 ailment on a party member. And if the RNG is feeling particularly spiteful, that can increase to around 70%. Oh and if your LUC and TEC stats are too low, that can increase to a 57%~ chance (81%~ if the RNG is feeling spiteful in this case) of landing at least 1 ailment. Really, just set up Prevent Order beforehand instead of trying to take chances. Her usage of Pollen is predictable, and you have plenty of time to get that on your entire party. So you can turn those into breather turns for whatever purposes instead of have those turns be the points where everything comes crumbling down. She does stop using it once her HP gets too low, but at that point, she’s basically dead anyway. Once Alraune’s HP falls to the halfway point, she’ll start breaking out Vampire Kiss. And this is where the fight could potentially get really hairy, if it wasn’t already. Vampire Kiss is her strongest attack, and will very likely kill someone with its high damage out. It also doesn’t help that Alraune is very likely to target the party member with the lowest HP with it! Not only that, it heals her for the damage dealt, so if she casts this repeatedly, it can end up being a major setback. If this skill is really that troublesome to deal with, equip some Slice Amulets to either reduce the amount of healing she does (Wearing only 1 will not likely save some of the less durable classes, but at least reduces the amount of HP restored) or to turn those into breather turns. One last thing, though this isn’t really an important point if I had to be honest. She does get mad if you head bind her, and will likely spam Tentacle Beat as a result, but  at trying to inflict ailments or binds seriously at this point. Though I guess that’s something to seriously keep in mind if you’re using a Wildling.Alraune’s very likely to use Tentacle Beat at this point, so I’m gonna have Cassandra make use of Aegis Defense to block that. So she can set up freely with Bunshin. And with that free opportunity, I can set up Berserker Vow without issue. Only thing Smith is going to be doing is punching Alraune for the entire fight. He has enough TP to spam the skill now, and even if he runs out, I have Amritas. Gonna have Faye set up Protect Order on the front row. And Asteria will start off with an Etheric Charged Hellfire. Oh you poor girl. A fairly decent amount of damage from Smith, as he hit for a total of 421 there. Asteria just shaved off a whopping 5569 HP there, pretty much sending Alraune right into her next phase. Once Alraune drops below 76%, she’ll start adding in Shock to the mix. Tentacle Beat only has a 19% chance of coming out, and there’s an 81% chance that either Frost Smile or Shock comes out. So Anticold and Antivolt can pretty much lock her down. And if Tentacle Beat even comes out, it’s not gonna do much to the party. So I’m pretty confident that an elemental attack is going to come out this turn, so I’m having Charlotte and Asteria use Berserker Vow. And even if Tentacle Beat comes out, Charlotte has Endure. Ahahaha, thanks for the free turn, sucker! Time to prime these 2 for the offensive. Time for Charlotte to let loose with 5-Ring Sword. Might as well have Faye start applying Prevent Orders now. Asteria will unleash Meteors. Only 2 hits, and one of them missed. A whopping total of 3200 damage there. At this point, the only way my team took damage was through Berserker Vow and Overheat. Don’t be fooled, this fight would be really tough if Alraune wasn’t so cooperative. This is really more of a testament as to how broken the Anti-elementals are. Also if I wasn’t using them, Frost Smile and Shock would cause party wipes. I have Prevent Order up on everyone now, so turn 6 is nothing more than a free turn. So I’m free to do whatever I want here. Now that Alraune is below 51% HP, this fight is probably gonna stop being such a shut out. Vampire Kiss can pretty much kill whoever it targets. I’m still spamming Anticold and Antivolt because Frost Smile and Shock are AOEs, while Vampire Kiss can only kill one party member at most. Oh hey, she actually damaged the party for once. Except that damage output is really pathetic, and Line Guard wasn’t even used this turn. Like I said before, Tentacle Beat isn’t a threat unless all the damage happens to get concentrated on one party member, which is extremely unlikely. Now that Alraune is below 26%, Vampire Kiss has a smaller chance of coming out. Yeah, I dunno. Though when it does come out, it’s more likely to target your weakened party members. Charlotte, please. She only rolled 4 hits, meaning that she only dealt 568 damage. Eventually she goes down. Thankfully she didn’t even bother casting Vampire Kiss at all in this fight. There’s not really much to say about Alraune’s fight other than you need to kill her before she kills you, and that’s not necessarily easy to pull off depending on your party composition. The main things to look out for are Frost Smile, Shock, and Vampire Kiss. If you can deal with those, you’re golden. As it collapses to the ground in a shower of petals, you briefly celebrate your victory. The request to defeat the monster is complete! Report your success back to the bar! Before we go back, lemme just spend my SP real quick. Smith’s ailment resistances are increased by 34%. Nobility Proof restores 6 TP when a buff runs out on Faye. Incidentally, there’s an unused line that seems like he was supposed to say after finding out where Alraune went: Unused Innkeeper Line posted:
Now then, let’s turn in the last quest. And with that, we have completed every single quest in the game! We get an icon on our guild card commemorating this accomplishment. Guardian now reduces physical damage by 19%. And uh, that’s about all the interesting level ups there are. Alraune’s regular drop makes the Book of M. Which is has 5 empty forge slots. Hooray? Do note that you’d have to kill Alraune 5 more times to do that, and there’s the Book that Golem's conditional drop unlocks is already better than this. I also went ahead and farmed items from some of the 6th Stratum item points. Some equipment upgrades, nothing really special. Ah, there we go! Amrita IIIs are one of the best consumables in the game. Being able to restore all TP is a massive boon. Sadly, this was the last game such an effect showed up in. Amrita IIIs got nerfed in 4 so they only restored around 200 TP, and then eventually got removed from the series altogether. Such is life. Unfortunately, unlocking these also means that Akatsuki is essentially out of a job, as his Zodiac subclass now does nothing for him. Using an Amrita III to refill a party member’s TP pool is far more efficient than spamming Dark Ether every turn. I should change that. With that, Akatsuki is now an actual damage dealer. Hmm, half the party members in the guild are part Gladiator. Seems fair and balanced.  ...Miss Rose. Please... my throat can’t take anymore yelling...Now Akatsuki has gotten everything he needs out of the Gladiator skill tree. Tagen Battou is now maxed out, and now has a base damage of 75%, and a skill multiplier of 110%. With one clone out on the field, he can deal 330% damage per hit. And the skill hits for 3 to 5 times. Oh, there will be pain, yes. Now if you’ve played the other EO games, you might notice that there’s a particular set of bosses that haven’t been fought. Don’t worry, they’re still in this game. In this game, they aren’t actually tied to quests. Instead, we need to do something different to trigger them. So I’ve got some bad news for you if you completely ignored sailing until now. You need to have done a good chunk of the sailing stuff in order to unlock this next set of bosses. And given the rewards said bosses give out, you don’t want to miss out on this! There’s one last destination we’re going to sail to. For this one, we only need a food that provides us with at least 24 steps. And we need to start from the 4th Foothold. First we travel north 5 tiles. Then west to the current. Then west 1, and then north 1. There’s something we can check out here. It seems he is diving for fish with a harpoon in his hand. You can leave your ship and talk to him, or ignore him and continue on your way. The man is carrying a net full of fish as you approach him. After speaking with him, you learn that he hunts fish used to make Garum, a type of condiment. He tells you to wait, then goes into his ship and returns holding a small bottle. He says that he wants you to try some of it, since you have sailed here all the way from Armoroad. The bottle contains a brown liquid with a unique smell... You find it to be very salty. After more pleasant conversation with the fisherman, you set sail again and return to your voyage. Then go north 2 tiles. After that, you want to head east into this current here. Because that lest you slip past this black pirate ship that was patrolling this path. After that, go north 4 tiles, then sail east into the current. Sail into the 2 tile current and... Sail east 1 tile to reach the final destination! Here’s the path we took to get here. It was definitely no illusion; the island still floats in the sky above you. As you disembark onto a small island, a magnificent voice echoes from above! The voice then fades away. Only the residual effects of that magnificent presence remain... You decide to return to Armoroad to report this strange incident. Oh by the way, this is classified as post-game content. If you come to this place without beating the game at least once, the voice has this to say: The voice then fades away. Only the residual effects of that magnificent presence remain... Then once you’ve beaten one of the final bosses, it’ll talk to you upon loading the file, and unleash the dragons then. You return to Armoroad from the Labyrinth when you suddenly sense something is amiss... Suddenly, a noble and dignified voice echoes directly inside your head! The solemn voice ends there. It seems you have become qualified to face the Elder’s ordeals! By the way, the reason I included all that here? That’s the only hint you get as to where the dragons are. You don’t get those hints if you visit the floating island after beating the game once! Thanks, Atlus! Anyways, back to the game.Our reward from reaching that place. Oh, and since we discovered every major sailing destination, that means... For the record, we’re not done with sailing just yet. There are a few loose ends left, but I’ll cover those later. And now we’re going to go dragon slaying. I’ve held a vote on what order to take on the dragons in, and the first one we’re gonna take on is... Meet Drake. He is weak to Volt. He also has this skill. Which places a buff on him that pretty much makes him immune to physical attacks. And Volt. This causes the fight to be extremely loving annoying. Especially if he decides to cast it on a turn you decide to go all out on offenses. Oh and he has a 29% chance of casting this on a given turn if he doesn’t have that particular buff. The only ways to stop him from casting it in the first place are to bind his legs (which stops the skill from being cast entirely) or to bind his head (which just causes him to spam a different attack.) Except binds will only work once, and are very likely to fall off, and he’s pretty resistant to them. So there’s pretty much no way you can preemptively deal with it. Iceblock would be trivial to deal with in another Etrian Odyssey game, as you could just place a resistance debuff on Drake to stop Iceblock from doing anything. Except EO3 is the one game where no class has access to any of those kinds of skills! So Drake just has a 29% chance of saying “gently caress you, you don’t get to damage me this turn.” Fire damage is the only thing unaffected by Iceblock, but there aren’t many good sources of Fire damage in the first place. So no matter which way you go about the fight, it’s sure to be annoying. And if you’re wondering if there’s a way to exploit its AI to not get Drake to do that, I’m sad to say there isn’t. Iceblock is the first and third thing he prioritizes checking for, so there’s no getting around that. Oh, and one last thing, all the dragons here are recurring post-game bosses in the Etrian Odyssey series. And they all have one important aspect to them to be aware of when facing them in any EO game. (Except for EO4 for various reasons.) Bring the right max level Anti-elmental/Prophecy skill or die horribly. These are the dragons’ signature moves, the dragon breaths. If you do not have a way to deal with those at all, the fights are unwinnable. The dragon breaths all deal 300% TEC damage! This means that they are the 2nd strongest TEC-based attacks in the entire game! There is no mitigating them. You nullify or die. There are other ways of getting around them, but nullifying them is by far the easiest one. Drake HP: 25000 AT: 68 DF: 78 Weakness: Volt Resistance: Physical, Ice All the dragons have 25000 HP. They also all have a 75% resistance to physical attacks, because gently caress you. This means that any physical attacker will actually have to effectively deal 33334 points worth of damage to kill the dragons. I should also note that only one other EO game gave the dragons physical resistances and that was EO1. (And that game has a slew of other problems.) The rest of the games don’t do that, so that showing up here is just pretty much there as a gently caress you. They’re also pretty much immune to their chosen elements. Of course starting from EO2, they all have conditional drops requiring you to kill them with the element they’re immune to. Though in EO2, you could use the Hexer’s Dampen skill to easily cheese that requirement. You have no such luxuries in this game. The best way to go about snagging those conditional drops is to use a composite damage attack with the chosen element. Also contrary to the first two games, and all the complaining and ranting I just did, Drake is actually the easiest to deal with out of the dragon trio. Outside of annoying the poo poo out of the player and wasting their time, he really doesn’t have much going for him. If it wasn’t for those annoying aspects, Drake would just be a pathetic boss. Anyways, let’s take a look at our guild and get to voting. Banned Okay first of all, let me get this out of the way. Cassandra is banned from voting. You cannot vote for her because I’m forcing her into the party. I need Anticold to win the fight. You saw how much damage it did, even to party members with high TEC stats. I would also like to take note of yet another gently caress you that was slipped into this game regarding the dragons. In the first two games, the Anti-elemental skills had priority, and were guaranteed to go first. This is not the case in this game. Instead of having priority, the Anti-elementals simply have a large speed boost (+30.) If your Hoplite or whoever else you designated to be your element nullifier can’t outspeed the dragons, you’re going to die. The Rest of the Guild Faye is always a great support. She’s a good healer, and Drake has the ability to inflict head binds, which she can dispel. She is also a fantastic support, as she has access to Ad Nihilo, which is vital for dealing with Iceblock and one other skill that Drake has. Without any form of buff nullifiers, the chances of winning the fight are extremely slim. Susan is also a great support, because she has access to Ad Nihilo. She can also increase the party’s physical damage to boot. The only reason neither Faye or Susan are banned is because if neither of them make it in, I can just use Metopons to deal with Drake’s buffs. Despite the fact that Smith can get around Iceblock with Breakfire Fist, he’s really not a good choice since his damage output is paltry compared to the other damage dealers. Sidney is a good choice for a physical damage dealer since Front Mortar can deal a lot of damage. Akatsuki now has a new toy to play with with Tagen Battou, which is capable of dealing a lot of damage thanks to Akatsuki’s Gladiator subclass. He’s also fast enough that he can outspeed Drake before he gets a chance to cast Iceblock, so he can get around that particular time waster if it’s already dispelled. Asteria is another good choice for an attacker. She has both Typhoon Bolt and Meteor at her disposal. Unfortunately, Typhoon Bolt can be prone to running into Iceblock if cast at the wrong time. Rose is a reliable durable physical attacker. The most durable out of all the physical attackers we have. Scott can deal a lot of damage with Pincushion. In some cases, he might be able to outspeed Iceblock, but don’t count on it, Charlotte is somewhat fragile, and a bit of an unreliable damage dealer. She can either deal not much or a ton of damage with 5-Ring Sword. Ahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Vote for up to 3 party members to go dragon slaying. Votes must be in bold. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Sep 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2017 09:55
|
|
|
I see Alice in that sample party facing Drake. The only logical deduction from this event is that you secretly want her to slay these dragons. And uh, Akatsuki cause I want to see his new skillset in action, Sidney because he apparently came here to slay dragons in the first place? It's been such a long time since submissions that I'm impressed you knew that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2017 10:36
|
|
|
Sidney, Akatsuki, Asteria Sidney came to slay dragons (and has composite damage), Akatsuki has a new toy and Asteria's elemental damage is relevant once more.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2017 11:02
|
|
|
Sidney, Not Fang, Not Alice
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2017 11:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 14:49 |
|
|
MEGAQUEEN, Rose, Sidney Lets show off some of the guildies who haven't been getting a lot of love recently.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2017 11:09
|
|