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Water has the cheapest most basic healing spell of the game so that's pretty good
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May 5, 2021 14:11
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Magic is pretty good in RS3, but it definitely leans more towards utility than it does damage. Unless a character is very obviously full mage, it's frequently better for them to use weapons for damage and magic for buffs, heals, etc. Not to say there isn't some excellent stuff in magic. For pure damage Earth is probably the best school in the game, because it's the only school whose ultimate is a damage spell. But all the schools are pretty good at something: Wind's got a drain life spell, Fire has Reraise, Water can stop time (and therefore enemy moves) for multiple rounds, Sun has lots of damage (+ a 25% damage shield), and Moon has Shadow Servant. Oh, and the vampire you can recruit has his own unique school of magic, abyss magic. It's pretty typical vampire stuff, but it's weird because the game considers it martial arts. It uses your martial art stat and WP instead of SP.
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May 5, 2021 15:45
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Oh, also, crowns work very differently from SaGa Frontier. The effects of a crown are the same, but you get a crown according to this formula: (max SP + 5) / (max WP + 5) >= 10, or vice versa. Effectively this means that, bare minimum, you need 45 in one and 0 in the other for a crown, and actively gaining WP or SP can work against getting a crown for the other type. If you want a crown, make sure that your character is a pure fighter/mage and don't mess around with the other type at all.
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May 5, 2021 15:56
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Honestly I never really saw the appeal of crowns in RS3 compared to the utility that comes from having magic. Techs already cost enough as it is by lategame that a small discount doesn't really make a huge difference. Even moreso if you're being dangerously cheesy and using shadow servant on everyone
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May 5, 2021 16:12
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Do crowns in RS3 have the same effect on helping you spark new techs that they do in SF?
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May 5, 2021 16:26
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It's a more minor benefit than SaGa Frontier, but yes, crowns do increase your spark chance.Reco posted:Honestly I never really saw the appeal of crowns in RS3 compared to the utility that comes from having magic. Techs already cost enough as it is by lategame that a small discount doesn't really make a huge difference. Even moreso if you're being dangerously cheesy and using shadow servant on everyone Oh, I definitely feel that. Crowns are at least pretty good on pure mages though, means they can have some 0 MP basic damage spells.
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May 5, 2021 16:38
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Increased spark chances in RS3 are kinda ehhh, because the game has a system in place where any learned tech has a lowish chance to become "mastered" when used in a fight which adds the tech to a permanent repository that allows you to equip it on any character. This opens up a bunch of weirdness where characters that are good with a weapon but bad at sparking for it can piggyback off of someone who is good at sparking
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May 5, 2021 16:47
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RS3's sparking system isn't as much of a nightmare as trying to figure out RS2's (oh sorry, this character who USUALLY specializes in short swords is actually a great sword sparker this generation, no you will not realize this without looking up the tables) as there's significantly fewer spark types, you can control the MC's spark type with the character selection at the beginning, and the mastery that Reco mentioned. Crowns are nice but are kind of a nightmare to maintain. In order to maintain a weapon crown, you need (max TP + 5) / (max MP + 5) ≥ 10, and for the magic crown you need (max MP + 5) / (max TP + 5) ≥ 10. This can potentially mean crowns for some characters are impossible, as they may join with too much TP/MP to even get a crown, and your weapon masters can barely use their magic ever without risking losing their crown. The mastery can make life much, much easier, as Greatsword Katerina is going to have some issues sparking a few techs which Ward can easily spark, but Ward can't spark some of the really good late-game ones that Katarina can- this can essentially allow you to get the best of both worlds. It also means doing some early recruitment of specific characters (Fat Robin for Screwdriver) can get you some really strong techs very early by mastering them. Magic mostly is supportive in nature, but Shadow + Earth magic makes a pretty disgusting combination when you have Hypergravity, as it's the strongest damage spell in the game. Decent mages can pull out huge numbers with it, and a Scholar Thomas with no weapon specialization can potentially blast out 7000+ damage with those which nothing else in the game can compete with. While the NG+ isn't as granular as SF's was, it does reset the character's Hp, so in my playthroughs I was able to rotate around and reuse some of the same characters again but with different weapon choices. One thing to always keep in mind is that your actual stats are completely fixed throughout the game- so a character will never gain strength unless you put on equipment that raises strength. It's all about your weapon/magic levels like in RS2. It does allow you to transfer all mastered techs over which can be nice for 1) getting some of the usually hard to spark techs onto characters that you're using a new weapon with 2) allow you to keep mastered evade skills which is very, very critical for a powered up final boss. Also Boston is the best character in this game or any game, and I won't hear otherwise.
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May 5, 2021 17:11
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Kagon posted:Also Boston is the best character in this game or any game, and I won't hear otherwise. Way back when I first played RS3 and found out you could recruit a Lobster Man and an Elephant Man, I made the decision to recruit them into my team as often as possible. The fact that they both turned out to be so useful was a definite bonus.
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May 5, 2021 17:45
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I know about the "greed" mechanic, but are there any other obscure mechanics that can gate side quests and stuff in RS3, like the way Minstrel Song uses event rank or anything? I'm guessing, much like Minstrel Song, the draw of repeated playthroughs is using different characters and maybe seeing different side quests, since everyone has the same main plot.
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May 5, 2021 17:52
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There's a few confused flags that can cause certain sidequest lines to be locked out, I think it's mainly the professor stuff
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May 5, 2021 18:18
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Harrow posted:I know about the "greed" mechanic, but are there any other obscure mechanics that can gate side quests and stuff in RS3, like the way Minstrel Song uses event rank or anything? Battle rank can only interfere with one quest line, I believe. If you wait too late to start the Lance transport quests, the thieves are replaced with monsters. This later means you can't fight the thief boss in the Thieves' Cave, though I believe it can still be unlocked eventually by talking to the old lady in Stanley who will also open up the Ancient Ruins eventually. You can screw up the Professor questline by selling all of the pets she wants you to capture to the guy in the Zweig pub. This may interfere with the Kidlanto quest with Nina, but I'm honestly not sure. Starting the Kidlanto quest with Nina DOES end the strange pets quest from the professor, so it's possible to miss that if you do the events out of order.
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May 5, 2021 18:33
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All you need to remember about RS3 is it's a game where you get to fight a rampaging demon muscle car while, riding a new prototype demon muscle car.Kagon posted:RS3's sparking system isn't as much of a nightmare as trying to figure out RS2's (oh sorry, this character who USUALLY specializes in short swords is actually a great sword sparker this generation, no you will not realize this without looking up the tables) It's based on the character's name and not the generation. IE: Achilles is actually the same sword type as Samurai, who you don't normally get access to until late in the game, so if you want them for early sparking and they aren't available, you could just wipe parties until he comes up in the list for the mercenaries or whatever class he is. The monks in the dragon den are mostly focused on fist-based martial arts with a few exceptions as well IIRC. It's really annoying and yeah you definitely want to refer to guides if you're trying to spark specific techs in RS2, which you should do since anything you learn will carry over to future generations as long as the party member(s) with the new tech(s) are alive when the current generation ends.
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May 5, 2021 18:38
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Evil Fluffy posted:It's based on the character's name and not the generation. IE: Achilles is actually the same sword type as Samurai, who you don't normally get access to until late in the game, so if you want them for early sparking and they aren't available, you could just wipe parties until he comes up in the list for the mercenaries or whatever class he is. The monks in the dragon den are mostly focused on fist-based martial arts with a few exceptions as well IIRC. Yeah that was poor wording on my part- I meant that since it cycles to the next character in the list of all the units on generation switch. I definitely did my fair share of killing off certain characters to be able to cycle the list to have a nice group for the final emperor as well. There's at least some good documentation scattered around that helps pair names with spark types since it's even more impenetrable than normal.
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May 5, 2021 18:43
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Kagon posted:You can screw up the Professor questline by selling all of the pets she wants you to capture to the guy in the Zweig pub. This may interfere with the Kidlanto quest with Nina, but I'm honestly not sure. Starting the Kidlanto quest with Nina DOES end the strange pets quest from the professor, so it's possible to miss that if you do the events out of order. Yeah these are the big ones. I heavily recommend doing the professor pets as early as you can even if the weird dragon lizard thing is hard because it can be easy to stumble onto Algernon/Kyrdlund cave completely by mistake and starting that quest borks the former's flag Reco fucked around with this message at 18:51 on May 5, 2021 |
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May 5, 2021 18:49
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Kagon posted:Yeah that was poor wording on my part- I meant that since it cycles to the next character in the list of all the units on generation switch. I definitely did my fair share of killing off certain characters to be able to cycle the list to have a nice group for the final emperor as well. There's at least some good documentation scattered around that helps pair names with spark types since it's even more impenetrable than normal. The only time I find this stuff frustrating is with the like 4-5 different sword/greatsword spark types. Every other weapon save martial arts has one "they're good at all this" spark type that can learn pretty much everything in that category, and RS2 is pretty good about starting characters with higher skill levels and an equipped weapon in whatever unusual weapon type they specialize in for their class to indicate they have a knack for it.
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May 5, 2021 19:01
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This is making me want to restart a RS3 game from scratch actually. I don't have the Platinum yet.
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May 5, 2021 19:09
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i'm a little surprised by how much english saga information is tucked away on incredibly detailed blogspot pages
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May 5, 2021 19:29
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Red's scenario down! We're on to Asellus now! I should probably look up how exactly Mystics function since it's been so long.
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May 5, 2021 19:47
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TurnipFritter posted:i'm a little surprised by how much english saga information is tucked away on incredibly detailed blogspot pages I don't know who maintains that RS3 page but they are a god They even kept it up to date when the remaster came out (besides not updating names anyways)
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May 5, 2021 19:57
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Vandar posted:I should probably look up how exactly Mystics function since it's been so long. Mystics aren't too complicated. It's basically like this:
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May 5, 2021 19:58
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something that took more than a modicum of googling to figure out: all mystic weapons have an innate chance of applying instant kill (as any spell with it as a bonus effect would), and have to kill a monster to absorb it. so if it's immune to instant kill it's gotta be a finishing blow
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May 5, 2021 20:02
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Oh right, that's the part I forgot to mention. The way you absorb monsters as a mystic is to hit them with a mystic weapon and try to get the finishing blow. Like Cowcaster pointed out, there's a chance of instant-kill (and therefore instant-absorb) but the safest way is to try to aim to get the final blow with the mystic weapon.
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May 5, 2021 20:05
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Harrow posted:Mystics aren't too complicated. It's basically like this: Sort of a follow-up on this, because I'm about to start Asellus and never bothered with her mystic stuff: Can she only spark moves in human mode?
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May 5, 2021 20:06
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Hobojim posted:Sort of a follow-up on this, because I'm about to start Asellus and never bothered with her mystic stuff: I believe so, yes. I think she basically plays by mystic rules entirely when she's in mystic mode for a battle, so she can learn spells at the end of battle and increase HP/WP/JP/CHA, but otherwise nothing. Chances are you'll be fully human mode when trying to spark moves, anyway. It helps to have the mastery crown for sparking moves and equipping the mystic weapons in your skill slots makes it impossible to get the crown. I usually seal the mystic weapons while I'm trying to spark moves with Asellus, then put them back on for tougher fights/absorbing/etc. I only really go mystic mode with Asellus when there's a monster I want her to absorb or when it's a boss fight.
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May 5, 2021 20:11
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Hobojim posted:Sort of a follow-up on this, because I'm about to start Asellus and never bothered with her mystic stuff: Yes, has to be regular human mode to spark moves. Spells should be learnable in both and I think you can equip two mystic skills and fill the rest with spells to get a magic crown to make learning stuff go faster but I haven't tested it.
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May 5, 2021 20:15
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Yeah, RS3 has some wild scripting nonsense in terms of what does and does not lock you out of quests (and occasionally sometimes, recruitments). I used to think they were based on your Battle Rank but I think there are other triggers as well? There aren't really bad characters at all for recruitment. There are definitely opportunity costs; Charl eats your Silver Hand to be made good; Herman requires to drag him along for a dungeon and boss fight to turn into a good character; Robin is pretty great but cuts you off from getting Fat Robin, who is also very great; Muse takes a while to get going; the Eastern characters take a long time and effort to be able to recruit. There's not really a lot of "worse options"; maybe Zhi Lin is outclassed by Yousei, but that's about it? There are two characters that you can't use in the final boss fight, so that's an issue. I guess the Snowman is pretty weak but they can also help you cheese a pretty tough boss fight, so.
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May 5, 2021 20:18
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Frankly, you should use Flurry on that boss fight IMO because it's a good, bizarre moment.
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May 5, 2021 20:25
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Getting pretty excited to start RS3. Doing a bit more grinding in SF to get ready for a Fuse boss rush or two, then it's time to jump in. Torn between starting as Julian or Katarina. Leaning towards Julian but people do seem to like Katarina a lot. Maybe I'll let the town themes decide.
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May 5, 2021 20:33
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I think a good bit of the love for Katarina is that she has more of a storyline than quite a few of the protagonists, she has a rare spark type with greatswords chosen (that's only shared with two characters- one of which is end game only for most protagonists, and one who can be recruited early through a trick or is otherwise gated behind a major boss), and she can only be recruited on her own route. Khalid and Mikhail briefly get her for a portion, but she leaves right after. If you switch her to bows and artemis, she's also the best archer in the game by far.
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May 5, 2021 20:41
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Sounds like maybe she's the rough equivalent to the Asellus of the game maybe? Or, y'now, as close as you get for a very different game. Maybe I'll do Julian first to familiarize myself with how things work and inevitably gently caress up a bunch, then Katarina second. Sorta like how I started Minstrel Song with Albert because he seemed like a decent enough generic starter guy and it let me make all my mistakes before I got to the cooler characters.
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May 5, 2021 20:44
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I think the last time I played I started as Katerina. I kind of wish I had picked it up on Switch while it was on sale (I got it on my phone when it first came out). I replaced phones and my saves didn't transfer over; not sure who I'd start with nowadays. Maybe a Spearmage Thomas?
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May 5, 2021 20:45
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Harrow posted:Sounds like maybe she's the rough equivalent to the Asellus of the game maybe? Or, y'now, as close as you get for a very different game. I think Asellus is the closest analogue to SF. Julian is a good starter considering he does have an extended prologue to get you more used to everything.
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May 5, 2021 20:51
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I'm a big proponent of just regular mage Thomas. Thomas with Scholar/None has an incredible 27 Intelligence; most dedicated mages you can recruit get between 23-25. It's a little janky because he starts with Water magic and you want to ditch it for Earth as soon as possible, but that's not too difficult.
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May 5, 2021 20:56
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With the whole class/specialization system, does that only apply to your main character and not recruits? For example, if I recruit Thomas as someone else, can I make him a pure mage build or is there a set "here's what recruit Thomas is all about" setup? Also adding Thomas to my list of characters to consider playing early on because "pure mage who can nuke things real hard" is something I enjoy, despite all of my advocating for hybrid swordmage Blue (dude's gonna have maxed out casting stats and probably maxed out JP if you NG+ into Fuse's scenario anyway) 
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May 5, 2021 20:59
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Class/Weapon only affects your main character, and does nothing to other characters. In fact, the stats characters have as recruitable is different from their base stats as main characters. Main character Thomas, before picking class/weapon, has a stat spread of 15/14/16/17/22/16/19; as a recruitable, it's instead 17/15/18/19/20/13/19.
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May 5, 2021 21:04
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That's what I thought, cool. Side note, but if I had one wish for future SaGa remasters (and I guess other Square Enix ones, for that matter), it'd be the ability to change the in-game font. I understand they pick the fonts they do so they're easily readable in the mobile versions, but it results in really ugly UI in the console/PC versions. I got used to it in SaGa Frontier but wow it's really glaring in Romancing SaGa 3.
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May 5, 2021 21:15
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Every time I look at this image of Riki I think he's wearing jorts
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May 6, 2021 01:41
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Hey there, SaGamers! im never saying that again Okay, so like, I've been playing this and I just finished up a full-clear of Asellus's scenario with all the new content, and it is possible that the Furdo and Bio Lab quests alter your ending affinity—but, this is an important note, with these conditions, you can talk to Rastaban to lock in your ending for the Mystic ending, then turn around and fight the Griffin to get the absorb/monster skills and rescue Gina, and you'll still get the Mystic ending, which as we all know is the best Asellus ending. I'm pretty darn sure this wasn't the case in the original, so have fun with the lesbian vampire!
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May 6, 2021 02:00
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Arzaac posted:Every time I look at this image of Riki I think he's wearing jorts Denim jorts and denim shawls were all the rage in Margmel
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May 6, 2021 07:25
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