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Hart, Juthro, Logan. RIP Beowulf. They were kind of a weird addition to this game, they get talked up a bit by the townsfolk but don't really get enough appearances for their death to make an impact. I feel like it would have been better to leave them dying for another stratum or two and give them more appearances to make it properly shocking. It would be interesting to have them interact with Esbat or help out with some of the later floor gimmicks. They're done considerably better in Untold, though you could say that about a lot of things.
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Sep 6, 2021 00:43
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Beast was likely very very unfinished. The game was rushed out the door and some mechanics are like barely finished. (Speed's an unfinished mechanic for one, but I need to look into the disassembly of the speed formula code more.) If Loyalty worked properly it'd probably flip straight around to broken because a Beast's innate durability is super huge.kvx687 posted:RIP Beowulf. They were kind of a weird addition to this game, they get talked up a bit by the townsfolk but don't really get enough appearances for their death to make an impact. I feel like it would have been better to leave them dying for another stratum or two and give them more appearances to make it properly shocking. It would be interesting to have them interact with Esbat or help out with some of the later floor gimmicks. They're done considerably better in Untold, though you could say that about a lot of things. They were probably supposed to serve as a reminder the Labyrinth is dangerous and anyone is capable of dying there (granted the player themselves will be personally getting that reminder very often), not just some faceless guards, and to provide extra motivation for the player to take down Chimaera. Araxxor fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Sep 6, 2021 |
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Sep 6, 2021 06:03
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Hart/Sophia, Eleanore, Sonia So how usable would Beast be if points into loyalty did literally nothing? Just a point sink, no screwing yourself.
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Sep 8, 2021 19:45
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Voting is closed! Logan: 5 Sonia: 5 Aleks: 3 Rajah: 3 Will do 7F-8F Hart: 2 Holly: 2 Eleanore:1 Juthro: 1 Will do 9F-10F kathy: 1 Corinth: 1 Alastor: 0 Lily: 0 Will do 11F-12F JeffRaze posted:So how usable would Beast be if points into loyalty did literally nothing? Just a point sink, no screwing yourself. 3/4 skills locked behind Loyalty are great, and only Rampage actually works with Loyalty, so it would make the Beast into a much better tank! Alas, that is not the case.
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Sep 8, 2021 22:19
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JeffRaze posted:Hart/Sophia, Eleanore, Sonia A point sink would make Loyalty into a straight upgrade. It is genuinely that bad that doing nothing is better than what Loyalty does. Beast would turn into a strong durable unit with the best attacking skill in the entire game. Like I said, it's loving rare a skill brings down a class that much, because most detrimental skills in this series can easily be ignored or that taking them doesn't result in the entire class getting straight up worse.
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Sep 8, 2021 22:40
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Araxxor posted:A point sink would make Loyalty into a straight upgrade. It is genuinely that bad that doing nothing is better than what Loyalty does. Beast would turn into a strong durable unit with the best attacking skill in the entire game. I'm aware it would vastly improve the class, haha. I was just wondering how strong a class it'd be without loyalty ruining it.
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Sep 8, 2021 23:05
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Update 9: Everything tastes like burning  You're, uh, sticking pretty close, eh? Mmmm. So it's time for the second stratum, and Beasts. Due to not having much equipment, what they do get has pretty inflated stats and you can use accessories to make up the difference. So we'll stack STR boosts on our Loyalty as it doesn't matter what their defensive stats are. They're honestly not that bad when things work out, but we'll be seeing the issues as we go. Also since last update was a little long, we've got some new dialogue to see! Oh joy. Time to work with Beasts.  It's so strange how the colors change on the different Strata. Yet it's the same tree all the way up... it's beyond me! Makes you wonder what other trees and dark lords are hiding up there. Wait I just realized, how does that work? Are these some special everred kind of trees in the 2nd Stratum or something? Not "up there," necessarily—in fact, it's in a different game—but have you seen the poo poo in Armoroad's Yggdrasil?  They say you've reached the next Stratum! Congratulations. Tell me, are the trees in this new area really on fire? If so, the temperature must be a lot higher in that region of the forest. Keep yourselves hydrated, watch your body temperature and... oh? The rumor isn't true? I see. It's a good thing those trees aren't really on fire--it could be a serious health issue. Even so, you should be careful. Red is a very strong color. Stare at red things for too long, and you may experience impaired vision or nausea. You're fine for now, but I'm concerned about long-term exposure. Be careful out there. I'm done seeing red, personally. ominous  That's so, so amazing! Congrats! People ask me all the time about you all... Like "What weapons did they just buy?" or "Can I get some armor just like theirs?" I always tell them the truth. It's not your weapons or armor that make you so great! Even though we'd sell a lot more equipment if I stayed quiet, it wouldn't be right... My father agrees, too! We both think being honest is more important than being rich! So go ahead and shop here as much as you want! No, I am thinking that being rich is bettering. You always say that, though. Don't tell Napier about this.  I heard the place is filled with burning trees! How do the critters there survive? Eh? It's not true? Ahh, I see... the trees are red, but they're not on fire... hmm. Anyways, the Nidhogg Guild is getting to be famous now. But don't get a swelled head! I'll be counting on yeh... G'luck! Yeh guys are on fire. Literally! Ah- hey, you said you put it out! But it made my cape nice and warm... I do wonder what it would be like to go through a Stratum where being on fire was the natural state of things. Cass's bizarre "are the trees on fire" bit makes more sense when you realize that Lagaard is, to my recollection, extremely cold year-round, and deathly so when winter rolls around. I'm not sure there's a temperate enough time of the year for the trees around the city to turn auburn.  Yer job is to bring them some ingredients, but there's more to it... oh, so yeh wanna know? Yeh'll have to talk to the lad at the hospital. Yeh know where it is, right? Well, g'luck to yeh! Pop over and see what they want, chum. No problem, buddy.  He's famous in the Grand Duchy, Lord Gascoyne is. He's got a powerful love for animal hide... not that I blame him, what with the bitter cold we see in winter, but the man's obsessed. His mansion's full to bursting with furs lining the walls, the floors, even the ceilings! It's men like him I'll never claim to understand... Ugh, that guy, never seen his face when he visits the Duchy since he's covered head to toe in fur. Wonder if he's related to Aleks... Anyhow, our Lord Gascoyne went into the Labyrinth to hunt for new kinds of fur... says he found a rare beastie no one's ever seen before. Naturally, he wanted the hide. But no matter how fast he ran, this monsters just wouldn't be caught. He had a nasty spill while giving pursuit, and banged himself up pretty badly. But that hasn't dampened his desire for that hide one jot. And that brings us to the quest on the board now. G'luck out there! The monster should appear on the 6th floor. Don't forget to bring back the hide! back so soon? Can't get enough of Medics apparently. Who's the guy covered in fur over there? Oh, did they not tell you the details at the bar? Well, remember when you found the Pale Bloom some time ago? Our current medical research is based on the same flower. Since it was you who were the ones that started us down this path... I wanted you to be the ones to help us finish it. Now, we're all set as far as flowers, but there are other things we need as well. And they can only be found in the Labyrinth. So I need you to retrieve them for us. We need one Mint Leaf. I've heard you can find them around the 6th floor. Once you collect it, just sell it to Sitoth Trading. That's all we need to finish the medicine. It'll come in real handy during your journey! Well, take care out there!  What's the second Stratum like? They say it's an autumn-covered forest. I'd like to see it... but stay on guard. The monsters there aren't in the same league in the first Stratum. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. Should be just fine if one of- oof! Okay, okay, you're up first. Yaya! Bah... Hmm? Yes, I was just filing in the maps for the first stratum, uh, sir. The forest of red trees... yes, I know it. It took us several months to discover. Legions of guards fought pitched battles against monsters before we made it that high. It was a difficult period in High Lagaard's history. And now your guild has reached it... mmm. In those excursions, we would abort the mission when we lost over half the team. But you overcame all obstacles with a team of only five. That in itself shows your strength. I expect great things from you. A Sudden Gust of Wind that Calls for Death  Gotta be a knack to this... Be the leaf! Stalker HP: 1200 STR: 20 VIT: 25 TEC: 20 AGI: 25 LUC: 20 Level: 18 Exp: 0 Skills Amputate: Uses the Arms. Deals 200% Cut damage to a single target. Has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Scythe: Uses the Arms. Deals 200% Cut damage to a single target with 50% splash damage. Has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities  100%  75%  100% 125%  50%  125%Disable Vulnerabilities  25%  25%  25%  25%  25%  15%  25%  3% 20%  3%Drops Scythe: 80% chance, sells for 389en 1 required for Sensui - Katana, ATK+55, STR+2 - sells for 1,020en Conditional: Kill within 1 turn Harvester: 100% chance, sells for 1,280en Required for nothing Last thing to do before the new stratum is to take on an enemy weaker than Chimeara with the Hexe- I mean, team that beat Chimeara! We'll have to come back later anyway to get the conditional for the codex, because that's fun. Stalkers don't have much to them other than eviscerating you if you don't pass their stat checks. Red FOEs are generally best saved near the end of the Stratum or once you've reached the next Stratum. I've never liked "kill on the first turn" conditionals, it feels a lot more like arbitrary time-gating on filling out bits of the Item Compendium.  I can only do this for so long... Give me, uh, a little while. With our current damage output we could do this in around 20 turns, or we could speed it up a little.  Well I don't need both arms to play music...  i'll get 'em next time... Well Juthro would've died to Amputate's splash damage anyway. It has a bigger chance of using it when below 25% health and if it doesn't use it, then it activates a flag to give it an even bigger chance of using it. Always fun looking through the AI files, though I'll only bring them up when there's something interesting going on, otherwise I'll just skim, but there is one passage in particular that's funny: if it's 2 turns past turn 25, 79% chance of using front row Scythe, 21% chance of using back row Scythe. What an interesting routine that most people have never seen, guess they don't want you to stall it! why 25 turns. what the hell was that a typo or something? EO2 switched from controlling AI through binary tables like EO1 (shudder) to Atlus's FLOW scripting system, probably more well-known amongst romhacking types for being used in every Persona game from P3 onwards. Later games will actually use the fact that they can script out AI in a programmatic fashion to a much greater extent, but in EO2 everything—even bosses—use really simple behavior patterns. In the process of poking at Persona Q2, though, I actually learned that the FLOW scripting system actually has support for multiple functions within a given compiled script. All of the EO games, from 2 on, just never use it for AI, which is why it took me by surprise when I decompiled PQ2's largest enemy AI file and found not just multiple functions, but multiple functions dedicated to custom targeting types used only for that boss! I dunno, I find it interesting to see how different teams within Atlus use the same tool in different ways.  1 Scythe and 5 Feathers required for Sensui, +5 speed. Not that necessary since we'll unlock a better katana in the next stratum soon enough, so speaking of next stratum, let's go to it already! Ever-Scarlet Forest  Noticing your presence, it prepares to flee. You suddenly remember the quest you undertook at the bar... There was a similar cowardly monster whose hide Lord Gascoyne desired. Perhaps the monster in front of you now is none other! You may choose to pursue the monster and complete your task, or resume your explorations. I must be obtaining that fur! It won't be an easy critter to catch. Perhaps we should use a Sleep Bell? where's the fun in that We could stun this quest FOE to quickly catch it, or we could chase it around half the map.  Well I can't block that. i don't believe you tried Bigcap HP: 132 STR: 16 VIT: 16 TEC: 15 AGI: 16 LUC: 15 Level: 17 Exp: 599 Skills Mold: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Poison on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance, deals 52-78 Poison damage and has a 100% speed modifier. Spores: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Paralysis on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 0% 0% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Open Cap: 50% chance, sells for 21en. 1 required for Stud Coat - Light Armor, DEF+26 - sells for 720en 1 required for Fungus Jet - Accessory, Paralysis Resist Up 50% - sells for 2000en 2 required for Milk Staff - Stave, ATK+48, TP+10 - sells for 830en TWENTY required for Milk Maul - Stave, AK+65, HP+15 - sells for 1,530en 1 required for Smithy Thompson's request I Tiny Bloom: 20% chance, sells for 25en. 1 required for Nectar - Medicine, revives the target to 1HP - sells for 500en 2 required for Theriaca A - Medicine, LV5 Unbind, removes all binds from the target - sells for 100en 3 required for Theriaca B - Medicine, LV8 Refresh, removes all ailments from the target - sells for 100en Conditional: None Lots of new enemies to go over and we start with a mediocre one since they're only threatening if they land Mold. That's a 39% chance so it'll happen every now and then, but they're also weak enough that you can kill them before it can be an issue. I guess it's here to teach you about more ailments, though it's super weak that it's pretty much a trash mob.  Hmph! You will just be getting them the next time. Good start to the Beast showcase, but I'm sure that miss was just a fluke. Anyway, I'm just gonna rip the bandaid off and get max level Loyalty to show why that's a really bad idea, even if Rampage is oh so good. Beasts do incredible damage for this part of the game, but they're incredibly slow and because of Loyalty, Loopy has a 3/4 chance of taking a hit with squishy defensive stats multiple times before he can deal very nice damage. Still gotta wait a level to actually get Rampage, this better be good! I'll go make the funeral preparations. Just solemnly shaking my head over here. uh, there's a ghostly pumpkin behind you What a ridiculous statement, as if I could believe something could sneak up on- bloody nora! A bizarre monster suddenly appears right before your eyes! You wonder how it could have come so close without you sensing it at all. Take heed! There seem to be monsters in this forest that do not appear on your map! Hm? Hmhmhm? Agreed, I can't sense any kind of malice or any real presence from it. Is it alive? Ugh, the thought of this being behind a door... I think invisible FOEs are pretty rad and stops you from just going into autopilot and looking at the bottom screen when you've finished your map. We'll try and beat it up in a moment, but we have something to chase still! Honestly it's kind of a rather underutilized concept and something that could afford to be used more to give a reason to keep an eye on the top screen in some places. It's only used fully in 2, and for certain types of FOEs in the 3DS games. Aha! That sounds like a dead end. Big bird! Big feathers! Fluffy pillows!!! Your animal killing lust really is quite something. Moa HP: 144 STR: 16 VIT: 17 TEC: 16 AGI: 36 LUC: 34 Level: 19 Exp: 774 Skills Rush: Uses the Legs. Deals 135% Stab damage to the entire party. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 120% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 150% 100% 100% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Tail Quill: 55% chance, sells for 31en. 1 required for Bird Whip - Whip, ATK+51 - sells for 680en 2 required for Madfa - Gun, ATK+55 - sells for 870en 2 required for Quill Arm - Gloves, DEF+11, VIT+1 - sells for 400en 3 required for Shell Boot - Footwear, DEF+12, AGI+1 - sells for 420en Conditional: None Oh goody an enemy that hits the entire party after you get Beasts, thanks game. Moas will definitely do a big chunk of damage, but they're also pretty fragile, so a good round of smacking should sort them. Let's see how this first turn goes. Oh. Oh wow. I just realized how unfavorable the enemy roster is to Beasts right after you get them. Not a great showcase of a new class's... strengths. Or perhaps it is the perfect showcase for Beasts. Take these things down fast unless you want to be AOE'd down.      that was a lot of hits you took for us, have this as a reward You're not helping! Still, kinda worrying how eager he was to do that... He was taking the full brunting for such a delicate flowering like me. We've only known him for a day, did we make that good an impression on him? What a lonely time you must've had... So Loopy took 4 hits of Rush and died, both of the attacks from Aleks and Juthro missed and I was planning on healing him at the end of the turn, but that obviously didn't happen! Probably one of the worst turns I've ever had playing this series. The only fragile member we have is Aleks, but you can see how that didn't really matter, Loyalty is a huge pain against certain enemies and party wide attacks only get more frequent from here! Welcome to the Beast experience. It's like blindly tanking partywides with Hit-Taker in EO2U, except instead of blaming yourself, you can blame God, by which I mean the game's RNG. We've chased the creature all this way, better brace for a tough fight! it was a bit hard to tell before but this is a lot smaller than i was expecting... Fleehog HP: 414 STR: 16 VIT: 17 TEC: 15 AGI: 34 LUC: 32 Level: 18 Exp: 0 Skills Claws: Uses the Arms. Deals 120% Cut damage to a single target. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 150% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops None Conditional: None Quest FOEs sure are something, they have a fair bit of HP but that's about it. Really nothing to worry about, I only make these because I might as well. Quest FOEs in this game are usually beefed up verisons of regular mobs. That's it. The funny thing about the Fleehog is that its skill comes from the Mole, not a Hedgehog. Error or last minute change? Would Sonic be a Fleehog? He is quite adept at that, given his speed. Sonic the Fleehog.  I think we'll be just fine, look at that damage! But there's a downside, being based on a Hedgehog has doubled the number of enemies weak to Bash in this game, from 1 to 2, so we'll never see such a thing again. Hell yeah EO2.  It was rough work catching the monster, but you've succeeded in defeating the beast! Judging by the way it moved, there can be no doubt it is the monster from your quest. You efficiently strip it of its fur and take your leave. Almost a wasting to be handing this over. 6F B3 Take Point Ambush Chance: 1% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Mint Leaf. 70% chance. Sells for 65en. 1 required for Medica II - Item, heals the target by 200HP - sells for 200en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12% - sells for 700en Mugwort. 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispells 1 buff from a single enemy - sells for 100en 3 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en 3 required for Labyrinth stew Tri-Fruit. 5% chance. Sells for 175en. 1 required for Fire Jar - Item, Lv5 Fire, deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Ice Jar - Item, Lv5 Ice, deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Volt Jar - Item, Lv5 Volt, deals Volt damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked It's new gathering point time, wow! Definitely some useful items, Medica IIs can be a godsend for teams with not much healing and I'm sure the other items are good or whatever. Like last stratum, Poseidon is a dangerous enemy we'll see on later floors, but it won't murder you as much as Raflesia, so that's a relief. Now then, we skipped a chunk of this floor chasing after this thing, so let's backtrack a little! Medica IIs are worth the unlock so go after those if you can. The Jars are mediocre, but at least they're level 5 versions of the items instead of level 1?
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Sep 27, 2021 17:23
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  Heh! It's weak to electricity, just like me. Mystue HP: 180 STR: 23 VIT: 17 TEC: 12 AGI: 15 LUC: 17 Level: 20 Exp: 764 Skills Breath: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Petrify on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance and a 125% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 75% 75% 75% 0% 0% 150%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 0% 100% 100% 100% 0% 0% 0% 100% 0%Drops Rock Shard: 40% chance, sells for 27en. 1 required for Kora - Sword, ATK+50 - sells for 820en 1 required for Stud Coat - Light Armor, DEF+26 - sells for 720en Amazonite: 20% chance, sells for 30en. 1 required for Iron Glove - Gloves, DEF+10, VIT+1 - sells for 380en 1 required for Venom Ring - Accessory, increases Poison resistance by 50% - sells for 800en 1 required for Bird Stare - Accessory, increases Panic resistance by 50% - sells for 800en 1 required for Leg Guard - Accessory, increases Leg Bind resistance by 50% - sells for 800en 3 required for Matchlock - Gun, ATK+46, STR+3 - sells for 530en 7 required for Warubide - Katana, ATK+39, STR+2 - sells for 450en 5 required for Paint the town blue Conditional: Kill with Stab damage Holed Rock: 85% chance, sells for 39en. 1 required for Shard Mace - Stave, ATK+60, TP+10 - sells for 1,880en Statues are dicks. If it's below half health, it has a 75% chance of trying to petrify one of your party, and that's pretty rude if you don't have many Theriaca Bs. Otherwise they're a pain to kill without Volt damage, thankfully Aleks can 2 shot with level 1 Voltshot, but without anything like that it'll take a minute. Thankfully if you leave them alone and focus on other enemies you don't have to worry about getting tagged, but otherwise ugh, screw these guys. These things also don't use standard targeting and hate your back row and will gun for them instead, so be aware of that. Also hi, here's your introduction to Petrify. Statues are dicks! Funnily enough, EON basically replicated this enemy and its gimmick exactly, except as an FOE, and party-wide instant death instead of petrification, 0% damage vuln to all of the physical types, and a weakness to ice instead of volt. Frilzard HP: 138 STR: 16 VIT: 17 TEC: 15 AGI: 34 LUC: 32 Level: 18 Exp: 580 Skills Clawing: Uses the Arms. Deals 100% Cut damage to a single target. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 100%Drops Soft Horn: 40% chance, sells for 18en. 1 required for Broadaxe - Axe, ATK+53 - sells for 780en 3 required for Tachi - Katana, ATK+51 - sells for 790en THIRTY required for Sting Whip - Whip, ATK+64, VIT+2, AGI+2 - sells for 1,350en Collar Fur: 35% chance, sells for 22en. 1 required for Muffler - Collar, DEF+59, HP+20 - sells for 1,460en 2 required for Petal Coat - Clothing, DEF+24 - sells for 640en Conditional: None And then on the flipside there's a nice, easy fodder enemy. You're reading that right, Clawing is just a slightly less accurate regular attack, I don't get it either. Check out this AI too: If HP is below 99%, cast Clawing. (Targets the party member with the lowest HP.) This does mean they'll try and finish something off if they're slightly damaged, which can be pretty rude, but that's the extent of their trickery. Another trash mob to help ease you into the 2nd Stratum. In the same battle as the Mystue. I'm getting mixed messages here. Sometimes, I want to just go up to EO1 and EO2's designers, present them with stuff like the Frilzard, and ask "why?" what is it boy, logan fell down a well? This is fine, too, though I prefer being at the back. Good enough for me.  Hrmph. Lowest HP will be Loopy like 99% of the time. Means everyone else stays pretty healthy! However... it doesn't seem to notice you. It is focused on licking something before it. Straining your eyes, you can tell that it's a nest of giant ants. The monster seems to have destroyed the ant's nest, gleaning the honey inside. That does look the tastying. You remain silent, hoping the monster will leave before you sneak to the ant's nest. You briefly worry that the monster may return or the ants may swarm, but nothing happens. Unable to resist the sweet scent any longer, Loopy takes a taste of the flowing honey. It melts on Loopy's tongue, permeating their tired body and relieving all tension! Reericious! I wonder where he learns these odd words, the Guildmaster? ooh a pretty mix of red and gnarled grey  Fuh! Language. Trigourd HP: 780 STR: 27 VIT: 27 TEC: 27 AGI: 27 LUC: 27 Level: 21 Exp: 0 Skills Pain: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to the entire party, with a spell power of 35 and damage multiplied by 105%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and an 80% speed modifier. Whisper: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Curse on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 10% 50% 10%Drops Curse Bone: 25% chance, sells for 390en. 1 required for Mirage Rod - Stave, ATK+50, TP+50 - sells for 4,780en Gourd Head: 25% chance, sells for 380en. 1 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en Bendy Tool: 90% chance, sells for 37en. 1 required for Headdress - Headgear, DEF+12, TP+3 - sells for 380en 1 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en 3 required for Fancy Coat - Clothing, DEF+28 - sells for 1,030en Conditional: None The start of the pumpkin trio. These guys are assholes, but I love them, even if we can't fight them with what we've got! They don't have too much health compared to the strong enemies we've been fighting recently, but unless you have some charged elementals, you'll be doing sweet gently caress all to them. Now yes you can solve all your problems with Poison, but there's other damage sources you could use as your team starts forming properly. But really, what are the chances you could find something next floor that lets you easily control the amount of untyped damage you're dishing out? Pish posh. Anyway, it doesn't do much Fire damage, but it'll still sting, and Curse can be a pain if you're trying a nuking strat, but for a first encounter, the main puzzle is finding a way to kill it. Trigourds are a bit of a wake up call in that you can't just rush into every FOE battle and expect to see results. Though you'll have to play around to see what damages them if you're playing the game blind, as the game doesn't provide weakness info in the game outside of seeing Analysis activate.  Gah, shot through the hearth! This is going nowheres. Agreed, I don't want to go on a boring adventure like this, heh.  very carefully ...don't tell me yeh just chased the thing all over creation! Haw haw haw! Let's have a look at this hide, shall we? Hmm? This... this looks like a dirty old rag. Why would he...? W-Well, whatever, eh?! No one told yeh how to kill it, did they? Then no harm, no foul! Job done, then! Great work, and don't forget yer reward! Wasn't this supposed to be a Pole Stone? Ack! I was hoping you wouldn't notice my mistake. Between map fixing and quest transcribing I'm stretched a bit thin! Ohhhh, fancy writin' fer a fancy boy, hahaha! 2 Open Caps required for Milk Staff 1 Rock Shard required for Kora, ATK+50 - Its tip is angled for greater destruction. 3 Soft Horns required for Tachi, ATK+51 - Designed for large, arcing swings. 1 Soft Horn required for Broadaxe, ATK+53 - A precision axe with a chiseled blade. 1 Tail Quill required for Bird Whip, ATK+51 - A whip covered in sharp bird feathers.  1 Collar Fur required for Muffler 1 Rock Shard and 1 Open Cap required for Stud Coat - Light Armor, DEF+26 - Metal pieces are wedged in it to deflect blows. 2 Collar Fur required for Petal Coat - Clothing, DEF+24 - Outerwear made of forest plants sewn together. Looks good on you two. Purrrrr! Ayeaye. It will barely help. They overcompensate a little for Beasts not being able to equip other armour since the Muffler is a 20 DEF increase from the Wildflower we unlocked technically last floor, as well as +20 HP. Of course for a Loyalty Beast it doesn't make too much difference, but every little helps...  You in the okiedokie? Oofah! ...just about, how you holding up, Lily? Hrmmm... we won't last long like this "I really need more Theriaca Bs" I say as I use two in one fight.   2 Tail Quills required for Quill Arm.   You in the okiedokie? Well actually I feel like *bleurgh*  Getting a foothold on the new monsters on this floor, so let's finish it up already. If you have a Troubadour, now would be a very good time to max out Health. The deliberate way that they've been placed makes you suspect that a human did this. As you mull over the path of berries, one tactic occurs to you... you can always follow the trail if you want to learn why they may have been placed here. Hmhmhm... I'm one to be cautious, but I'm also hungry, let eat! Thinking it may be a sign of some sort, your curiosity leads you to follow them. The trail ends at the wall. You walk towards it to investigate it more closely... suddenly, Juthro screams out! You spin to see what happened. Two saplings hidden in the grass spring up to catch Juthro's leg, locking it in place. Gah, bloody traps! Gah, bloody mushrooms! Gah this bloody floor! Okay I'm done ranting. The row of berries was a trap all along to catch wild game! It was most likely set by other explorers, and now it has snared one of their colleagues. You carefully break the trap, setting poor Juthro free. But the saplings sprung up with such force, Juthro's foot was injured in the process.  you should live Ah, well, can't be too annoyed at a simple, yet effective, trap like that. Very interesting. There's an FOE puzzle down there, so let's put it off for a bit.  Don't be looking so glummy, chummy, it is what he wants to do. i'm sad this idiot keeps giving me more work  A +2 DEF increase, oh yeah, frickin' content baby!  Gah! Why are birds falling from the sky?! Ruhroh!  This ways! Well that was terrifying... Use it or lose it. If both Moas had used Rush on the second turn we would've been loving dead and there was nothing I could've done. Nice reminder that this game will gently caress you up given the chance. The Beast died there, but that was actually an instance where Loopy saved the entire party as no Loyalty procs would have led to a game over. I guess it's good for something after all, even if the cost is a dead pet. Little difficult showing how I dodged two invisible FOEs on the map, but the path I took says a lot, grumble, grumble. Bah bah bah. There a sheep behind there? Hopefully not, the only sheep I've heard of are the size of tall cliffs and live on tall cliffs. There's half the floor missing, but I'm sure it's nothing important.  Yatah! Nice little shortcut, and a little trick of purposefully getting an encounter on the earlier side of a shortcut. Oh yeah, now that we have a moment, you might have noticed I've been missing here and there. I've been cutting a good chunk of it out because it's being a right pain, but it's something to expect if you take the quick way out of killing Chimeara and end up on this floor a good few levels lower than you're supposed to. Not because of level difference, but because you haven't invested in skills as much, as well as their base accuracy, and you'll have a lower AGI, those two factors end up mattering quite a bit. In comparison to the old EO2 LP, I'm four levels lower, and due to the overall boost of the enemy's LUC, you'll be missing a lot more at the start of a new stratum. Oh yeah, welcome to the main mechanic of EO2. Accuracy. Where it barely mattered in 1, missing is very common in 2, so get used to it. Later games would strike a better balance. You can try climbing a nearby tree to reach it or give up and leave it be. As you have guessings from my character, I am actually an expert tree climbing! Uh, sure. Aleks finds a strong branch and uses it to shimmy up the tree. The sack is further from the tree than it looks. Aleks nearly slips trying to reach it. No one in your party had any way of knowing, but this is no normal tree... its sap is harmful to animals and Aleks's body turns red all over with a painful rash! Still, at least you caught the sack that Aleks dropped, so its contents are yours to keep.  What's redder, your face or the rash? Urk, most unbeffitings for a lady. This is a rare chop item, and you wouldn't know this, but you'll need it for a quest later, so it's a good idea to store it. I'll get another one, so hey, free money!  Quick rest at town, not because we'll be doing 7F, there's a newly voted team for that, but because there's a bit extra to 6F. Sigh... t-thanks Well I'm not as quick as I used to be. Reduces Fire damage by 50%, stack them for a near immunity, but what are the chances we'll need to fight a horrendously strong fire breathing monster?  See, we can handle this team just fine when they don't kick my rear end!  Heh. Someone's happy to complete the floor. One of us has toos.6F B7 Take Point Ambush Chance: 1% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Mugwort. 70% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispells 1 buff from a single enemy - sells for 100en 3 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en 3 required for Labyrinth stew Mint Leaf. 25% chance. Sells for 65en. 1 required for Medica II - Item, heals the target by 200HP - sells for 200en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12% - sells for 700en Tri-Fruit. 5% chance. Sells for 175en. 1 required for Fire Jar - Item, Lv5 Fire, deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Ice Jar - Item, Lv5 Ice, deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Volt Jar - Item, Lv5 Volt, deals Volt damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked That's all of the floor for now! Why is there a gathering point in a hidden area of an optional part past the stairs? EO2, baby! At least it's pretty safe? Only 1% ambush chance. Hey, you're staying at the Flaus Inn, right? I talk to the owner all the time! We usually shop together. Have you met her daughter? She's so small and cute... she looks almost like a doll! She's usually out doing errands, so you won't run into her often, but try to meet her if you can! Ah yes I have seen her a few times. Doubt she'd ever approach a seasoned hunter like me, though. We should be near the top by now, surely. Hey, why don't yeh ever bring me back something from the Labyrinth? Oh, yeh know... like a fruit that looks like a diamond, or a golden egg... something rare! Eh? Sounds expensive? Of course it does! Who wants something that's not worth anything!? Are yeh lot fresh from the crib? Money is power! Haw haw haw! Money doesn't buy happiness, but it really helps. Yeh've stayed at the Flaus Inn, right? This request is from the lady of the house. I wasn't sure what to do, since she wasn't offering much of a reward... but yeh can consider all the great times yeh've had at the inn yer reward! Haw! I don't have the details. Yeh'll have to ask the Flaus lass for all that. G'luck! Ah yes, apparently she's out of this stew we're polishing off. Leftovers? ...this cold slop is worse than the rashings I've had today. I'll pass on the details since I need some sleep, but lay it on me. I'm assuming you mean me... well I need to clear up this map anyway. Please tell me the wolf didn't draw this. Er-hem... Hear me out, because we have some real problems right now. Have you eaten our chef's meals before? He calls it the Labyrinth Lunch. It's made of ingredients from the Labyrinth. People say it's good, but I wouldn't know. My husband usually fetches the ingredients, but he's been injured, the poor dear. Now we have a full house and there isn't anything left for the chef to prepare! Could you go to the Labyrinth for me and bring back 3 Mugworts and 1 Moving Eye? We need them at once! Where do you get them...? How should I know!? This is my husband's job! But I think he spends most of his time in there on the 7th or 8th floor... when you find the ingredients, just give them to Cass at the Stickleback Bar. Hurry! Time's a wasting! Ugh, that mush shouldn't be called stew- ah h-hello, I mean, uh, mmmmmm, have you been making more, cause something smells good! It's good, isn't it? My daughter made them. She's cute as a button and a good cook to boot. Just like me when I was young! What? Don't you believe me? Can't you tell by how beautiful I am now? Bahaha! Hmm... you don't look so good. Are you tired? Exploring while tired can be risky. Take frequent breaks to maintain your stamina. You always ask me this, but this is how I look. I'm no longer sure you need my advice, but... all the same, a word of warning. It takes insight, analysis, judgement, and action to make it further into the Labyrinth. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. Hey I made it far into the labyrinth with none of those things! Uh, I'm just here to get the new map- You've grown stronger... and so I have a favor to ask. Very few explorers know of what I am about to say. Please keep it a secret. Our chief goal in exploring the Labyrinth is, of course, to find the floating castle. But there is a more pressing concern... it's the Duke. He's a very wise, very good man, but he is grievously ill. I've asked many priests and shrine maidens, but none could ease his pain. Though his suffering is slight compared to his daughter's. She lost her mother when she was young. Her father, the Duke, is the only family she has left. So she went out into the forest to find a cure for her father's disease. But this old man has rambled on long enough... here is the hard information you need. The Duchess's document say that ingredients for a miracle cure are in the second Stratum. I would ask that you help us obtain those ingredients. Oh hey, Ro, there a mission for us? I think so... I'll tell you the details later, I'll take the map you finished. Hmm, you seem to visit the Duchy a lot. It's none of yer business! We beatin' up some fannies in this mission?! I hope not... Then you will help? Thank you... I'll explain further. We know that the Salamox resides on the 8th floor. Its feathers are used to make the Panacea. Panacea, I should explain, is the term used for the miracle cure in the Duchess's papers. Guild Nidhogg... will you help the Duke's daughter and myself? I must warn you, the rumors say that this Salamox is an incredibly strong beast. I've spoken to an explorer who tells me Salamox wiped out his entire guild at a stroke. I have the map he made. Watch for enemy movements, and avoid battle as much as possible. Well I guess I can copy this over, get an early start. May I escort you to the meeting hall, madam? Yer on thin ice, bucko. Heh, but ye meh. See ya guys, guess I'll get some resources. Uh, I was just here you daft old cu- There's a legend regarding this nation I'd like to share with you all... they say our Duke is descended from men who came to earth from the floating castle. No one knows for certain, but I thought you might be interested to hear the legend. Well, then. I expect great things from you. Next time, we've got a massive beast to die against. Sounds like a pain. Or a delight if you're watching from the sidelines! Unlike what will quickly become business as usual, where you've got a massive beast to send to its death. I'm very funny.
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Sep 27, 2021 17:24
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Medic Overview Can equip: Staves, Clothing Okay obviously this class has fallen, these guys were RIDICULOUS in the first game, with one of the best skills in the series that reduced all damage by up to 85%, as well as being damage dealers on the front lines and healing a crazy amount on downtime. Of course they got hit with the nerf bat and completely lost Immunize, got their STR reduced to pathetic levels, but they can heal with much greater potency, maybe even too much. Not bringing a Medic last game was a miserable, and expensive, time, but now there's a few more options making them not as necessary, though they absolutely have their uses. They'll never reach their previous heights, but it's fine they don't. Also they have Scavenge which gives them bonus points. Medics were absolutely asking to be nerfed since they were a master of all in the previous game. Ridiculously good DPS, even outclassing the Landsknecht at DPSing, and causing several enemies to lose their turns in the process! Along with making your party invincible on top of being a great healer. Pretty much the most broken class in the entire game, and the nerfs it got were pretty much deserved. Unlike Survivalist, they got off a lot easier, though now they're no longer a must have in the party. And their overall usefulness in this game is debated by some since their nerfs really do hurt. Still, not a bad class to bring along if you want some defensive support, but they're competing against the War Magus in regards to the healing department, and that class is generally considered to be a better healer since they're much faster due to the way this game handles speed. OOF, that's a big hit in STR, down from 53 last game, as well as the loss of ATK Up to make that even beefier. At least it's better than a Troubadour? Pretty bad VIT as well, as well as lower AGI and HP. Second best TEC and TP which helps healing a lot since the former impacts the healing formula, but most stats don't really matter since Medics will never really attack, they just hide in the back row and keep everyone else alive. Higher LUC gives them better stun rates with uhhhhhhh Caduceus? Never mind then. Yeah, the Medic's STR got utterly gutted. And as insult to injury, they no longer have access to ATK Up, which tripled their STR in the last game! Yes, really. It made them an absurd DPS class. STR Up is pretty much the replacement for ATK Up in this game and uh, +10 STR really doesn't compared to 3x STR. If you really want to experience the glory days of offensive Medic again, I suppose you could take it, but don't expect STR to be an effective investment for them. Their defenses are even more poor than they were in the last game, so putting them on the front lines isn't a good idea unless you want to see them get pasted, and investing in VIT doesn't really offset the damage they'll take that much. But if you really want to have a front line fighter, you'll have to invest in that along with HP to give them way more survivability. Unfortunately neither AGI nor LUC are great investments as well. You'd think a fast healer would be a good idea, but staves essentially set the Medic's speed to the near absolute minimum, so AGI doesn't have much of an effect. And LUC just doesn't do all that much. As for stats that are good investments, TEC increases the potency of their healing by quite a bit. They'll also really appreciate any boosts to TP they can get, as some of their strongest heals can get very expensive. And HP boosts on a backliner will always be appreciated, though pick that one up after getting all of their important skills.Common Passive Unlocks TP Up: Lv10: TP Regen STR Up: Lv10: Caduceus TEC Up: Lv 10: TP Regen VIT Up: Lv5: Caduceus OOF, those are some heavy investments for some TRASH skills, TP Regen requires half the investment but still recovers the same, absolutely pathetic. Caduceus can hit hard with a 300% ATK Up and pretty okay STR and EO2 Medic has neither of those, and both STR and VIT are low enough that putting lots of points into them is a massive waste for an SP hungry class as this. Now granted you can max out TP Up and maybe even TEC Up, but even then TP Regen is nowhere near worth it. Ah crap now I don't have anything to talk about when I get to those skills.Healer Unlocks: Lv1: Patch Up, Cure; Lv3: Cure 2, Salve, Unbind, Refresh; Lv5: Cure 3, Revive; Lv6: Salve 2; Lv10: Salve 3, Phoenix Increases healing from non-fixed sources. Passive.  Ah, the classic, Healer is a great skill that you want to max out asap, not only does it have most of your good skills, especially Salve and Revive, it's as if you're levelling those skills at the same time. Due to the exponential growth this skill is pretty bad to begin with, but you want to beeline to Revive, so it quickly gets good fast. Since this is applied at the end of the formula, it boosts your healing skills by a lot but can also make them overkill territory. I guess that's fine, since you can save SP by not investing in other skills but it definitely adds to the Medic's reputation. Without this skill, each point of TEC adds on 0.625% to the healing multiplier. This caps out at a 61.875% boost to healing at 99 TEC. With a max level Healer, each point of TEC adds on 0.96875% instead, capping out at a 95.90625% boost at 99 TEC! Pretty hefty, though if you're going to be using the best healing skills, you won't be seeing Healer come into play much at all. Still, a very good skill to invest in as your Medic's main job is... healing. What else are they gonna do in this game, DPS? You'll want to max this one out earlier than their healing skills, as you don't want to invest too much in their weaker healing skills if you can help it.Patch Up Prerequisites: Healer Lv1 Restores a certain amount of HP to the entire party at the end of each battle. Unaffected by Healer. Passive.  Hm, no. This was a bad skill before and it's still bad, since it just doesn't heal enough to sink points into. Like wow, 12%? Just use Cure outside of battle, it'll be not a lot of TP for way more healing, you want to be properly ready for the next fight and this skill won't cut it. Pass the gently caress over. A fairly unchanged skill. Could be good for sustain, but it's ultimately not a huge priority to grab. If you really want it, wait to grab the Medic's important skills before doing so.TP Regen Prerequisites: TP Up Lv10, TEC Up Lv10 Restores a certain amount of the user's TP at the end of each turn. Passive.  What the gently caress is this garbage??? Not only do you need to heavily invest to unlock this skill, it's identical to the last game's also terrible skill??? Did they think this was a great reward at the end of the game? 5 TP is NOTHING, especially with skills that are pretty costly. What a waste, though getting TP and TEC to 10 might not be a bad idea. This skill is even worse than it was in EO1. Sure, it only needs 5 SP to max out this time, and the prerequisites are something you'll want to pick up, but the TP costs for the Medic's skills are way higher than in the previous game, making -5 TP per skill essentially not a great return cost when skills can cost around 30 TP. And TP Up mostly deals with any TP issues anyways.Scavenge Additively increases drop rates. Stacks with itself. Passive.  Now we're playing with power. Last game had some terrible drop rates that could be increased... at a cost, since the game checked drops in reverse, so if you increased rates too much, the first drop would never, well, drop. No longer the case, thankfully, this skill is insane and 2 users will make even the craziest drops actually obtainable without a million resets or a few cheats here and there. Will definitely recommend, though of course you need to have them on your team against the most dangerous enemies for this to work as well, which can make for... interesting team comps. Still, in the regular game, this just boosts your cash flow by a crazy amount and will also annoy you with constant item discard. Always get. Holy moly, what a buff! In the first game it was not that great, being only a 30% boost, oh and it was multiplicative. So it didn't do that much for low drop rates. The lowest drop rates get in this game is 10%, meaning that 1 max level Scavenge boosts drop rates to 51% at the minimum! And up to 92% if you have 2 Scavenge users, which is absolute overkill. This skill basically destroys the concept of random drops, and it's great. The closest thing to a downside this skill even has is that it causes your inventory to get filled up very fast during explorations, so you're gonna have to toss a lot of junk out depending on how much supplies you brought along for that trip. Oh, and if you really like the idea of having this skill around, but don't want to cart around a Medic, don't worry. There's an even better class that has access to this, with even more reason to take this skill, heh heh heh.Cure Prerequisites: Healer Lv1 Unlocks: Lv3: Salve Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Here's the basic bitch skill for your basic bitch needs. Cure is, well, exactly what you expect, the worst healing skill, but that lies its usefulness. Of course you're gonna use it a fair amount at the start of the game, but it still has its uses later on for out of battle healing and it'll scale pretty well with Healer so it stays effective longer. You only need to get it to level 3 to unlock Salve later on, but it works perfectly fine. And since there's not much to talk about we can go over the healing formula, previously only Healer affected the base heal, so at max level you were always going to get the same results. Now it's [Base Healing * (160 + UserTEC) / 160] * Mastery Bonus, so there's a bit more variety, the central part can vary between 1-1.62 depending on the user's TEC, 1-99. So even level 1 Cure goes from a 54 heal with 1 TEC and level 10 Healer to an 88 heal with 99 TEC. Obviously it gets more impressive with later skills, but it can make a big difference, another reason why levelling up healing skills isn't that useful, since the numbers balloon into overkill pretty quickly. This can save on SP, but if you don't fancy working it all out, just max Salve II and you'll have no issues. Your basic healing skill. Take it and you'll save a lot of money from splurging on Medicas. You'll be using this quite a bit throughout the earlygame, but past that point you'll want to move onto the higher tiered healing skills. The main reason to even use the weaker healing skills past that point is so that they're faster and more likely to heal your party members before something bad happens. Unfortunately, that's not how this works in practice in this game. Because the Medic is a very slow class due to being forced to use staves, the speed modifiers of their skills don't really do all that much for them since the Medic will be at near minimal speed no matter what you do. The earlygame is pretty much the only time they matter, but after that point, they're pretty much always going to move last, so you'll have to be preemptive with your Medic's heals, which will be more effective with stronger heals. By the way, when starting out, I highly suggest spending your Medic's starting 3 SP like this: 2 on Healer, and 1 in Cure. The reason for that is simple. A level 1 Medic with a level 1 Cure heals for 40 HP with their current stats. With their starting TP pool, they can use it up to 10 times, so that's a total of 400 HP they can heal the party with before running out of juice. However if that TP cost of 3 increases to 4, that reduces the number of times they can use Cure to 7, which only heals for 43 HP each at level 2. Reducing that total potential heal from 400 to 301 HP. Not a great deal, and at the start of the game, 40 HP heals already cover a whole lot. And that extra SP in Healer won't affect healing any bit, but it gives the Medic a bigger head start to unlock their better healing skills. Granted you should probably level Cure up to 3 at some point to get access to Salve.Cure II Prerequisites: Healer Lv3 Unlocks: Lv4: Salve II Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Healing... 2! For a bit more TP you can have quite a bit more healing for a little less speed. Cure 2 probably won't see much use in battle since Salve will definitely be more effective by that point, but it'll be a great topper out of battle. It'll heal between 200 and 326 at Healer 10, TEC depending and you can see why I didn't list all these values, we'd be here all day. It's a big improvement right out of the gate and also shows how long you can wait to actually use this. You need to invest a little more into it to get Salve II, but that's a skill you'll be using for the rest of the game so I think it's worth it. Of course, you can max these skills out if you want fast and mad heals, but for single target it's not really worth it, their main use is their out of battle utility. Your midgame healing skill. If you play your cards right, you can gain access to this skill as early as level 3 while still having access to Cure. Granted, it's complete overkill at that point, and really hefty on the TP pool. But having access to this can help with the later parts of the 1st Stratum and its boss. By midgame you'll see this used occasionally, but you'll likely be breaking out Salve 2 more since multitarget attacks start getting more common there. So level this up enough to unlock Salve 2, and feel free to ignore this skill afterwards. The next one is what you really want for your single target healing needs!Cure III Prerequisites: Healer Lv5 Unlocks: Lv5: Salve III Restores all HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Healing... 3! This one is a little tricky to recommend since it starts off pretty bad, but since you should probably max this out for Salve III, for the few times you'll need that OH poo poo button, it makes Cure III a much more interesting prospect. Until you max it out, it's still worth using Cure II outside of battle to heal someone, it'll be slightly cheaper, but a full heal can be very useful on your tankier party members. This requires a bit of timing to use correctly, which I'm dumb as poo poo about, but can be pretty alright. You'll still want Salve III anyway. Pretty much the best single target heal in the entire game. There's pretty much no reason not to take this and make use of it in the late and post-games. At max level, it's only 4 more TP than a max level Cure 2, but will always fully heal the target. This makes it an incredible value heal, as while Cure 2 can get up to high healing values, the Medic would need to be at like 99 TEC or so to do so. Meanwhile you can grab this skill way before then, and if you invest in HP Up for your classes, their max HP pools will get very high, which will never outpace the healing from this skill. With that being said, while you'll want to max out this skill, that's mainly to unlock a much better skill for them, which will see far more use. Still, Cure 3 is a pretty good skill to have in the Medic's back pocket. Also something you've likely noticed is that the prerequisites for the higher tiered healing skills don't even require the lower tiered ones at all. Resting a character also got changed form being usable only at level 30 and beyond and subtracting 10 levels, to being usable at anytime and only subtracting 5 levels from the user for a full SP refund. This means that Resting a Medic is extremely optimal, as they'll have plenty of SP to spare in other skills, as there's basically no reason to ever use Cure or Cure 2 once you can make use of the best healing skills. It's a really weird aspect of the first two DS games where certain skills basically exist just to be obsoleted, but hey that's just how things play out here.Salve Prerequisites: Healer Lv3, Cure Lv3 Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Ahh, these skills were amazing last game, relatively cheap and spammable, great way to keep your party alive, because enemies did a lot of damage and were very scary. This is somewhat the case here, but to counter their spamminess, Salves now have pretty extortionate TP costs, which is a bit rough, but because of their still great utility, it's still worth using them. If you crunch the numbers, healing everyone with Cure is 3TP cheaper overall when both skills are level 1, but you're paying the extra TP for the utility of doing so in battle. And Cure would be level 3 but whatever you know what I mean. Because there's only 5 levels, it's pretty easy to max these skills out if you have all the Amritas in the world, since having a moderate Salve will be more TP efficient so you're not using a maxed Salve II for the smallest of booboos. If you have the resources you can max them out if you don't want to really think about it, there's no kill like overkill! In the first game, you could get away with only making use of Salve instead of Salve II, as Immunize lowered damage heavily to the point where big heals were complete overkill. Immunize is gone now, so that's no longer an option. This is now strictly an earlygame heal. While very good at that point as AOE healing is always welcome, past the earlygame you'll want to use the higher tier Salve skills instead. In fact when you see the skill data for the next skill, you'll understand why there's absolutely no reason to use this over Salve 2 and 3, and why you may want to consider resting your Medic to put those spent SP elsewhere.Salve II Prerequisites: Healer Lv6, Cure II Lv4 Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Now we're talking, if you want a healing skill to last you all game, then get this sucker to level 5 and watch the TP disappear... just like that! At, let's say 50 TEC and Healer 10, this skill heals 463 HP to the ENTIRE PARTY which is a little nuts and will be mostly what you need for a wide chunk of the game. Salve III can pick up the slack, but it depends if the extortionate TP costs are worth it. That's the main issue with these skills, 48TP is not a massive deal in later games, but if you need to chug an Amrita every time you want to use this skill, then it might be just a weeeeeeeeeee bit expensive. Still, the utility is pretty much unmatched, but if you don't need all this healing why are you paying so much for it? Considering Medics don't really do much else and are pretty helpless when Head Bound, sometimes it might seem they're more trouble then they're worth, but it depends how much healing you need. Maybe don't get hit? And say hello to your midgame healing skill! Heals twice as much as Salve, for only 60% more TP at max level! Also, take a look at the speed modifiers. Yeah, for whatever reason, the Salve skills all have the exact same speed modifiers at every level, meaning that the higher tier Salves are basically just straight upgrades, and you have very little reason to use the earlier versions other than cheaping out big time on TP costs. Which aren't remotely an issue once TP Up is maxed out. So take as much as you need, then ditch it all for the hotness that is Salve 3 when the time is right.Salve III Prerequisites: Healer Lv10, Cure III Lv5 Restores all HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  The last healing skill is also an interesting one. SEVENTY FOUR TP??? You'll be using this after you max it since it's an upgrade from Salve II, but it's a hard sell before then. This skill has its uses in the very OH poo poo postgame and your Force Skill is basically this skill for free, as well as another skill. Hopefully you'll need all this healing and you can find the happy medium between using this skill and Salve II, but I suppose TP isn't a crazy hard resource in the postgame. This is the main draw to using a Medic, so you'd better find it useful. Salve 3 is pretty much the best healing skill the Medic gets access to, and pretty much their best selling point, as War Magi do not get access to this skill. And at max level, it only costs 2 more TP than a max level Salve 2. It's a fantastic deal and there's basically no reason to use anything else unless you're an ultra cheapskate with TP. Max both this and TP Up to be able to use this a whopping 7 times before they need to refill. More if you opt for TP increasing accessories. So, how do you get the most out of your Medic with this? Their speed is so low that they'll almost always move last. Well, you just spam this skill, even if your party is at full HP. Because Medics are so slow, they can't really react to much. How players got around that was just proactively using their healing skills, and undoing the damage the enemy does in the same turn. Other skills only get used if they absolutely have to be. Yeah it's an incredibly one-dimensional playstyle, but it's really the most effective one they can really do. While Medics did deserve to get nerfed, the way Atlus handled that nerf ended up making them have way less options than they did in the first game, and I'm not really a fan of it. They're still fairly usable, just don't expect this class to be a particularly exciting one to use.Revive Prerequisites: Healer Lv5 Unlocks: Lv10: CPR Revives a single target to a certain HP amount. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Oh sweet salvation. Revive is such a wonderful skill to get early and will save you so much Nectar money. Later on it becomes less effective when Nectar IIs become all the rage and it never heals by a fantastic amount, so it's not a great skill to max out. This is one of the skills a Medic has over a War Magus, along with Salve III, and considering there are plenty of successful teams with a War Magus and not a Medic shows how relatively unnecessary this skill can be. It's still super useful when you have it and one big use is reviving a Hexer to 1HP to continue where they left off. Will I be abusing that? OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO, but really this skill is a way to save on Nectars outside of battle and something to use if you have TP to spare in battle, so it's still incredible utility, but mainly for the early game, let's be honest. One of the other big selling points of the Medic, as War Magi completely lack the capability to revive people without using Nectars. Unlike in EO1, you can pick this up far earlier, making it much more usable and allows it to compete with the lower tiers of Nectars. It's great to pick up early on as it saves a decent bit of money from being used on Nectars, and you'll want to max this out for a fantastic skill. Granted at max level it doesn't do a whole lot, though unlike later games, the heal can be boosted to an okay amount. A level 1 Revive can be used for Revenge strategies if you have a Hexer in the party. But even then, if you want to abuse that skill, you can just use Nectars instead for a low HP revive, so it's not too much of an issue.Unbind Prerequisites: Healer Lv3 Unlocks: Lv5: Freedom Removes binds from a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Well this skill hasn't changed much, I'm surprised it's not 10TP more expensive like everything else. If you're not using Theriaca As then this works fine, though you will need to get this to level 5 for Freedom, even if removing 3 binds at once isn't very useful due to how rarely it happens. And if it does happen your Medic has been tagged as well, remember, they can't free themselves from a Head Bind... without a Theriaca A. Also make no mistake, this is completely unrelated to the Dark Hunter's Unbind or the Landy's Unbound. Can't see why you would get confused. Bizarrely enough levels 2 and 4 provide absolutely no benefits and just serve to make the skill slightly worse. So uh, save enough SP to skip past those levels before investing in this skill, I guess? Like with the other unbinding skills, level 3 is the sweet spot, as getting hit with multiple binds isn't too common in this entry of the Etrian Odyssey series.Freedom Prerequisites: Unbind Lv5 Removes binds from the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Well this is nice, but has very niche uses. Firstly, Theriaca AXs are way easier to throw around and don't require a slight SP sink, and like before you shouldn't go past level 3, since if your ENTIRE PARTY is fully bound... uh how's your Medic doing? Fully bound too? Well colour me surprised. Also you're about to die anyway so I really don't find this skill useful, when the game fully binds you, you know you're about to get hosed up. Now Theriaca AXs only heal one bind, and in the case of multiple binds, prioritises Head, then Arm, then Legs, which isn't that amazing, so this skill has some use in comparison, but it's admittedly not much. While one person being tagged with multiple binds at once isn't particularly common, multiple party members being tagged with a bind is something you'll see more often. So investing a bit into this skill can be a great boon. That being said, you won't see them all the time, so I would say level 3 is the sweet spot here if you invest in it at all. And like with Unbind, levels 2 and 4 just make the skill worse, so if you want to go for levels 3 or 5, just save enough SP to skip past to those thresholds.Refresh Prerequisites: Healer Lv3 Unlocks: Lv5: Purify Removes ailments from a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Here's something funky, very similar to last game though the ailments got shuffled slightly, with Panic being at 7 instead of 3, in any case a Theriaca B is a level 8 Refresh so it's probably better just using that instead, but if you get tagged with multiple ailments, you're gonna need Purify, since Theriaca BXs are a little late. Of course this skill is great for Petrify, there's only 2 ways to cure it after all, but if you want to save just a little SP and use Theriaca Bs for the last 3 ailments, you can just move on to Purify. A pretty big nerf from before, but it's up to you if you want this or the item. Disables are very debilitating to be hit by, so being able to clear those quickly is a must. This is the only ailment dispel skill in the entire game that can purge Petrification, so you'll likely want to get it up to at least level 8. Whether you get it up to 9 or 10 to decrease the cost is up to you, but the Medic isn't exactly starving for TP, so I don't really recommend it. Or you can stuff your pack with Therica Bs instead. Up to you.Purify Prerequisites: Refresh Lv5 Removes ailments from the entire party. Cannot heal Petrification. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Alright now we're getting back to a regular skill again, Purify can be very useful since there will be a fair few times you'll get tagged with multiple ailments, but it's not a necessity, depends what ailment you get hit by after all, and your Medic won't be very useful if they get tagged and can't do anything either. Theriaca BXs are very late items but can also cure Petrify, so this skill becomes pretty redundant by that point, but you can get a lot of mileage before then. It's pretty expensive, especially if you're curing less than 3 party members, but such is the price you pay for convenience. Oof, a bit on the pricey side, but getting this up to level 4 is a very handy tool for the Medic since Theriaca Bs got nerfed to be single target in this game. Whether you get it up to 5 is up to you, but disables are way more debilitating than binds, so you'll want to get those off ASAP. Like with Refresh, whether you get it up to max level or not to save on TP is up to you, but I'd advise against it unless you really have some SP to spare, or you're running less than a 5 man party at which point saving all the TP you can is a must.Caduceus Prerequisites: STR Up Lv10, VIT Up Lv5 A single target Staff attack that attempts to inflict Stun. Staff skill with Bash damage, uses the Arms.  Look at how they've massacred my boy. Last game, when your Medic wasn't doing a million other things, they could stay at the front and whack the monsters as much as they wanted, but since their STR took a big nerf AND they no longer get a 300% ATK Up, investing similarly will not give the same results, not even close. Adding 10 STR will give them 42 at level 70, which is still PATHETIC, and the numbers from this skill compared to last game are pretty similar, aside from the speed modifier, so it doesn't in any way compensate. Now with that increased speed modifier, you could actually see the Stun effect in a lifetime, but it's expensive, doesn't do enough to justify the investment and needs a lot of SP to actually become even slightly passable. Gonna skip the gently caress over this skill and make my Medic completely beholden to head binds. Sigh... Holy poo poo how the mighty have fallen. In the last game it was a fantastic way for a Medic to spend their non-healing turns, which they got a lot of thanks to Immunize making the party almost invincible. But this skill barely does any damage in this game thanks to the Medic's laughable STR stat, and level 10 STR Up barely helps with this skill's damage output. Do not be fooled by the high damage modifier. STR is one of the biggest factors of damage, and the Medic barely has any to make this skill deal a noticeable dent in enemies. Oh and thanks to the new speed mechanics, you're not likely to see the Stun come out either. Ignore this skill entirely, it's nothing but a shadow of its former self.CPR Prerequisites: Revive Lv10 Gives the entire party a chance of living one lethal attack at 1HP for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.  Ah, this skill again, CPR is a pretty amazing skill... when it works. That's always been its issue, there are some times when this skill will shine like a beacon, but if it doesn't work, that's a lot of TP and SP you just wasted and you'll look like a real idiot. It can create some real good cheese strats and let you pull of some dumb stuff... if it works. Still, even having some of your party survive a deadly attack instead of none of them can be pretty amazing. Or you'll just die next turn anyway. It's a harder sell since Revive isn't a great skill to max out and dying in a boss fight is usually not a big deal due to better checkpoints in this game, so if this delicious coinflip cheese sounds like fun, well I can't really stop you. Another big selling point of the Medic. CPR is an amazing safety net in case something goes horribly wrong, which is likely to happen in a game like EO2. It can't protect against the likes of Petrify or Instant Death, but having a chance to save a party member from a stray lethal attack can be a huge momentum saver. And believe me, you'll be seeing a lot of that later in the game, so anything to mitigate that can be a huge help. A few things to be aware of when using this skill. This is not an endure! This is an on the spot revival, so any party members saved by this skill will lose any buffs or debuffs they had at the time of dying. Make sure to refresh any buffs they had afterwards.Phoenix Prerequisites: Healer Lv10 Sacrifices the user to fully heal and revive the entire party and removes one random bind. Healing skill, uses the Head.  From the outset this skill seems a bit questionable, it doesn't mention what it fully does, if it just fully healed your party like Salve III, then it would be bad. But it's, in effect, a spammable Force skill, which is pretty nuts, minus the full ailment heal. Sacrificing your Medic might seem strange, but it can be worth it if they won't be immediately useful after fully healing everyone. Since the level only increases the base heal, there's no point investing in it much, the speed modifier is barely a factor and you hopefully shouldn't use this skill much so the TP cost doesn't really matter. It's a weird, but good skill. This skill may look very questionable, but it's a fantastic panic button. While it shouldn't be used if none of your party members are dead, it's a massive undo button for when things get really bad. Being able to revive multiple people at once is a huge boon, helping your party get back on their feet more easily. Sure you'll lose your Medic in the process, but in a situation where multiple party members are dead, Salve 3 spamming wouldn't have done much to save them, and really, what else can your Medic do in this game? And think about it this way. Nectalls are fantastic items. Reviving a Medic is essentally converting a Nectar into a Nectall, which is a fantastic deal. It's an incredibly cheesy panic button if the time comes for it, salvaging situations that shouldn't be salvageable otherwise. With that said, you may want to leave this skill at level 1, as it doesn't scale too well, and the chances of using this multiple times per battle is slim. And if you have to use it a ton... you may want to rethink your strategy. Do be warned, the one bind it decides to clear is random per party member. And it can end up selecting a bind that said party member doesn't even have. Like attempting to dispel an Arm Bind when they have nothing but a Head Bind. So don't rely on that aspect too much.Patrol Decreases damage tile, uh, damage for a certain number of steps. Field skill.  Same as the Survivalist's skill, can be useful but since you have a Medic on the party, just heal everyone before battle and use Guard Soles if you really want to save TP. Or go all the way and not need to Salve before battle, due to how expensive those skills can be, it can be worth it. This might be the only time I can recommend these skills. This can be a nice way to cut down on how often your Medic has to heal the party whenever damage tiles get involved, though it's not strictly a necessary skill to have. Can make certain floors much less annoying, and the Medic can have a large amount of SP to spare if they've rested their lower tier heals away.H. Touch Fully heals and revives the entire party and dispels all status ailments. Does not remove binds or Stun. Force skill, uses the Arms.  And finally, a great Force skill. Don't panic seeing that skill name, H. Touch is actually amazing in this game and is absolutely fantastic as an OH poo poo button, it can combo pretty well with CPR as well if you fancy, but you have to be mindful of how slow it is. Not removing binds can be a slight pain, but usually they're not a big deal and this can be a way of just not using Salve II if you're low on TP and near the end of the floor, it's brilliant and will be a great crutch later on. Hey, so what if Phoenix had absolutely no downside at all? You get this skill. Phoenix was already a strong panic button, and this one is even better. Mostly. It doesn't remove binds, but Phoenix's bind removal was unreliable anyways, so meh. A great way to salvage a bad situation, assuming the Medic has their Force ready. Which admittedly won't be too often due to how the Force mechanics work, unfortunately. Unless you opt to use Axcelas. Medic doesn't have any fancy tricks this time around, unfortunately, Immunize was wiped from existence and Caduceus can let the Medic do something not involving the head, but was indirectly nerfed in so many ways it's not worth it. War Magus does a good chunk of the Medic's skillset while having other utility, while also not having Healer, Revive and Salve III, which can be a dealbreaker. You don't have to use a Medic, which is wonderful to say after last game and they're not the most busted class in the game, but they still have incredible utility and sometimes you just need a fuckton of healing to make your life easier. While the Medic was completely overpowered in the first game and deserved to be nerfed, the way they got nerfed made them a little too one-dimensional to play, though they're still a fairly effective class to bring along. Not all parties need one this time around, especially with the War Magus competing for the healer slot on a team, but the nerfs thankfully did not utterly kill them like the Landsknecht or Survivalist. So bringing one along isn't a huge setback, and they can contribute a lot to a party despite the changes they went through.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Jul 6, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2021 17:25
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AI OdditiesStalker posted:If the party is blindsided, and flag 1 is not active, activate flag 1, then: Moa posted:If the party is blindsided, and flag 1 is not active, cast Rush. (Standard targeting.) Activate flag 1.
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Sep 28, 2021 00:41
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Update 10: Foul Thorns Underfoot  I like how warm this place is, but looking after two animals is, well... I see their furs as long term investings. Don't let them hear that! Pfeh. Purr... It's time for 7F, which we can reach without a single encounter if you're lucky. And our main Beast is here, gonna be a right bloody tank even if the best defensive skills aren't accessible to him. Oh well. A tank that dies right away is doing its job correctly, right? Ugh. Hm? Hmmmmm....  Oh wow that is a problem. You have no ideas. Gigaboar HP: 180 STR: 23 VIT: 17 TEC: 12 AGI: 15 LUC: 17 Level: 20 Exp: 805 Skills Bullrush: Uses the Legs. Deals 150% Bash damage to a single target, with 50% splash damage. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 200% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Steel Fang: 40% chance, sells for 30en. 1 required for Iron Claw - Claw, ATK+64, STR+1 - sells for 990en 2 required for Long Bow - Bow, ATK+52 - sells for 770en 2 required for Beast Tail - Whip, ATK+65, VIT+2, LUC+2 - sells for 2,310en 3 required for Snow Axe - Axe, ATK+66, Type: Ice - sells for 1,690en Beast Hide: 35% chance, sells for 34en. 1 required for Hard Aspis - Shield, DEF+14 - sells for 450en 2 required for Plate - Clothing, DEF+27, VIT+2, AGI-1 - sells for 790en 3 required for Volunteer Service II Conditional: None Tired of the Moa kicking your rear end? It's back, in splash form! In case you breathed a sigh of relief that your Beast didn't tank this hit and die, well they'll still die anyway, but aside from these things being a little chunky, they're not too crazy. Hopefully you don't encounter too many at once! More AOE hitting enemies, and essentially another version of the Moa. Or a bit of a weaker version. Perhaps we should start keeping a funeral count for poor Loopy to put a Loyalty Beast into perspective? Before anyone asks, I ain't counting! Never met a boar I didn't hate. Ask me about the loving Babirusas in EOU... That's a nice chunk of cash. For me to poop on, cause we're rollin' in it from Chimerea! As an aside, since we haven't done the 4F quest of wasting 3 days of our time (we'll get to it very soon) it means we haven't unlocked the next quest, which has you help the guards map 7F and 8F. Again, we'll get to that pretty soon, but it does mean we miss naturally encountering the guards while exploring the floor. Thankfully there's another EO2 LP that's free real estate, so here's what the guard's map would unhelpfully show us! Does this count as a weird Frankensteining surgery grafting of 2 LPs by this point?  No worry, my speed will get you back in- oh come on! There are times when Aleks is better off reviving someone than our speedy Survivalist. Unfortunately she's usually busy dealing lots of elemental damage, so to Logan it usually falls to. Firstly, trees, secondly, gathering, thirdly, thorns? Hrmmm...7F D6 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Red Root: 70% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Self Bow - Bow, ATK+56, STR+2, AGI+2, +15 speed - sells for 1,440en 2 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en 5 required for Snake Whip - Whip, ATK+, STR+2 - sells for 1,680en 5 required for Fire Beads - Collar, DEF+62, STR+2 - sells for 1,580en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Hardwood: 25% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,550en 5 required for Milk Maul - Stave, ATK+65, HP+15, -3 speed - sells for 1,530en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Pine: 5% chance. Sells for 250en. 1 required for Quid pro quo Easy gathering point to get to, nothing too crazy though. Didn't we just get a collar that is now being immediately replaced? Weird, but okay.  Wait, you two, that's not a plant! Yeep! Gah! Fangleaf HP: 201 STR: 19 VIT: 20 TEC: 22 AGI: 17 LUC: 17 Level: 21 Exp: 879 Skills Binding: Uses the Arms. Attempts to inflict Arm Bind on the entire party. Has a 50% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Thorn: Uses the Arms. Deals 165% Bash damage to a single target and attempts to inflict Blind. Has a 90% base infliction chance, a 100% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 0% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Moving Eye: 35% chance, sells for 33en. 1 required for Madfa - Gun, ATK+55 - sells for 870en 1 required for Bite Piece - Accessory, Blind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 5 required for Battle Axe - Axe, ATK+65, STR+2, VIT+2 - sells for 1,480en 1 required for Labyrinth stew Bendy Tool: 30% chance, sells for 37en. 1 required for Headdress - Headgear, DEF+12, TP+3 - sells for 380en 1 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en 3 required for Fancy Coat - Clothing, DEF+28 - sells for 1,030en Bent Twig: 25% chance, sells for 30en. 1 required for Wood Bow - Bow, ATK+27, +20 speed - sells for 170en Required for The item trade I 3 required for Slice Whip - Whip, ATK+38, STR+2 - sells for 370en 5 required for Beast Bow - Bow, ATK+39, STR+1, +5 speed - sells for 440en Conditional: None Annoying, but not too bad. Fangleaf are pretty tanky and are very, very likely to inflict Blind. Their main scare is arm binding, pretty much everyone gets shut down from that. They'll be pretty deadly when combined with other enemies, but also not a huge deal to not go after immediately. It's a 49/51 to what it'll go for, but will go for Thorn more often as it gets lower in health. Fangleaves by themselves are guaranteed blindsides, but there's not a whole lot they can do to you, so solo Fangleaves are just an annoyance at best. They can be deadly when paired up with other enemies provided they're strong enough to capitalize on the Fangleaf's disables. There's always environmental hazards when I'm out slaying... Yay it's damage tiles again. These are more dangerous compared to last game, not because they do more damage, but because Salve is way more expensive. They're also way more prolific, but have their one use we'll go over soon enough. Remember tha damage tiles are percentile based in the first two games. Ask me about the cosmic revelation I had when I first stepped on a damage tile in EO2U, and it was automatically colored orange on the map.   Let's cut our losses, eh? So long as you are never making me wear the drabby feets. An encounter on the tile I was gonna get the treasure and warp out with... anyway Guard Soles are one of the ways to mitigate damage tiles, but it's only 40% reduction for 50 steps which requires quite a few of them. Best to invest into Patrol proper, or just suck it up and still use Salve even if you can't spam it like before. Later games switching to fixed damage makes damage tiles much easier to tank, but not so in this one. You'll really want mitigation of some kind unless you want to be walking around at 1 HP. At least they can't kill you.  1 Steel Fang required for Iron Claw 1 Moving Eye and 2 Tail Quills required for Madfa - Gun, ATK+55 - A firearm capable of firing huge bullets. 2 Steel Fangs required for Long Bow - Bow, ATK+52 - This bow's large size lets it deal greater damage. 1 Beast Hide required for Hard Aspis 1 Bendy Tool required for Headdress - Helmet, DEF+12, TP+3 - Headpiece made of boiled and linked plant leaves. 1 Bendy Tool and 3 Mugworts required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - A dark gas that blinds all enemies. Another nice haul, eventually we'll stop unlocking all these lovely gas items. And just in case you thought your Beast wasn't doing ridiculous damage, here's one with 20 more ATK than the first claw we unlocked, and 1 more STR, cause why not. Due to how the EO2 damage formula works the weapon ATK increase is far less than it sounds. You generally want to prioritize armor upgrades instead of weapons in this one. It's like around +1 or 2 STR here. I know, for those of you familiar with most other EO games, your world has been turned upside down. Glad you agreed to join us, but I'm surprised you could take such a cursed thing off your head. It hurt like hell but I managed it, ohohohoho, what a great little trinket. Because I don't fancy going around a damage tile ridden floor with no healer AND a Loyalty Beast, I've made the important decision of changing my wildcard slot for Alastor, since he was one of the least voted. Also the Town Crown is nice, but I do want some actual DEF in that slot, so fare thee well. RIP to all the potential RIPs we could have seen this update. Ugh, we could go straight through! But my feet... Hmm! Good doge. Already I feel so much better having an actual wall of a class instead of, well, *gestures wildly* Harrumph. Coward.    Going the longer way round means more encounters, but you should be grateful for the exp! Looking closely, you can see that it's red amber. Could the tree's sap have seeped out and hardened? Amber normally solidifies under ground, so it seems out of place but valuable nonetheless. You can carve out the amber and take it with you, or give up on it and leave the area. Ah, a sparkle as beautiful as your eyes. Purr, purr. Guess I'll do all the work then... You pry the tip of your weapon into the amber's edge in an attempt to extract it. But when about half the mass has been scraped out, you hear an odd sound and turn to meet it. You gasp as you see a monster standing there, roaring menacingly at your party! You belatedly hear something squealing at the tree's roots. It seems that the tree was serving as a sanctuary for the monster's young... the monster has marked you as a predator of its children! You cannot avoid battle now!  While I would be liking the amber, we'll be putting it back! Bit too late for that, time for more orphans! Tortmail HP: 206 STR: 25 VIT: 20 TEC: 14 AGI: 17 LUC: 18 Level: 24 Exp: 992 Skills Armor Up: Uses the Arms. Reduces all physical damage on the user by 50% for 5 turns. Has an 80% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 75% 75% 75% 125% 125% 125%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 100%Drops Armor Hull: 35% chance, sells for 44en. 1 required for Broadsword - Sword, ATK+60 - sells for 1,230en 1 required for Fancy Coat - Clothing, DEF+28 - sells for 1,030en 1 required for Shell Boot - Footwear, DEF+12, AGI+1 - sells for 420en 1 required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispells 1 buff from a single enemy - sells for 100en 2 required for Breaker - Claw, ATK+65, 120% base accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,020en Conditional: Kill with Bash damage Armor Bone: 75%, sells for 69en. 1 required for Godhunter - Gun, ATK+66, AGI+2, 120% base accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,920en Well at least we're not blindsided, we'll see these enemies next floor but Tortmails are your usual element check, nothing too special. They'll always lead off with Armor Up, making them a right pain for physical parties, and then just attack, attack, attack. Thankfully lot more elemental options in this game, so these enemies aren't as annoying as they were last game. They're annoyingly durable if you lack elements, but even a Gunner can take em down pretty fast. Otherwise, get annoyed for the amount of time it takes to kill them I guess? Use your imagination. That's one of the main aspects of the series after all! These things are a completely different enemy in EO2U, but you probably could've guessed that. They're all the way in the 5th Stratum in that game, for some reason!  Grrrrr! While Aleks and Rajah continue to miss, at least we have Viper to speed things up. This is one of the events where it's a shame there's no text after the fact, what happened to the amber you chipped off? What about the babies? Are they gonna die? Who knows. Hmm? Hey, don't go that way, listen to me! Dammit! Aww... This game has plenty of rude moves, with plenty more to come. I love it. It is an Etrian Odyssey game on the Nintendo DS. 1 Armor Hull required for Broadsword 1 Armor Hull and 3 Tail Quills required for Shell Boot - Footwear, DEF+12, AGI+1 - Sturdy, lightweight long boots. 1 Armor Hull and 1 Mugwort required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispels 1 buff from a single enemy - Neurotoxin that neutralizes an enemy's stat boosts. Going to be getting more fractured unlocks as I keep heading back after running out of Salve TP, but hey Metopons are nice to have to slap down a buffing enemy. Would've been nice for Chimeara... lol why does it only use level 1, that's so bad Tha' aye's still movin'! Stop squidging it!!! Welcome back! How'd it go? That innkeeper lass is scarier than a forest wolf, eh? Her husband must be a brave one to deal with a woman like her... and don't tell her I said that! Let's see now... ugh! She feeds this rubbish to her guests...? Some things man was not meant to know, eh? Well, much as I don't want to touch that foul stuff, I s'pose I should go deliver it... Here's yer reward. I'm counting on all of yeh! Don't have a need for these just yet, so they're basically money for now. Purr, purr! Showoff... Looking at the map, we've still got a chunk to go for the floor, but if we went through the top passage we'd reach the stairs very quickly. We'd walk through a bunch of thorns, but we'd reach the pole and an easy checkpoint to then explore the rest of the floor at our leisure. Very recommended. I won't do that because I'm a bit bonkers and there's not much left to this floor anyway. But it is basically optional. Not sure why they did it that way, but hey, most people won't complain! Odd bit of map design. I guess they thought damage tiles were bigger obstacles than they were to players in practice. That is a big monke. Well nothing to do now except kill it. This guild is crazy... Redwood HP: 810 STR: 29 VIT: 29 TEC: 27 AGI: 29 LUC: 27 Level: 22 Exp: 0 Skills Poison: Uses the Arms. Deals 100% Bash damage to a single target and attempts to inflict Poison. Has a 25% base infliction chance, deals 48-72 Poison damage, has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 125% 100% 50%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 10% 50% 10%Drops Sharp Nail: 30% chance, sells for 350en. 1 required for Shida - Katana, ATK+67, STR+2 - sells for 2,060en 5 required for Pain Aspis - Shield, DEF+37, STR+30, ALL Resist Down 50% - sells for 75,000en Blood Hide: 25% chance, sells for 410en. 1 required for Pale Round - Shield, DEF+18 - sells for 1,120en 5 required for Pain Aspis - Shield, DEF+37, STR+30, ALL Resist Down 50% - sells for 75,000en Beast Hide: 90% chance, sells for 34en. 1 required for Hard Aspis - Shield, DEF+14 - sells for 450en 2 required for Plate - Clothing, DEF+27, VIT+2, AGI-1 - sells for 790en 3 required for Volunteer Service II Conditional: None I'm not crazy, but you might think I am! There's a few FOEs we can take down when we encounter them, not many mind you, but this is one due to how relatively non-threatening it is. Now of course it could paste us into next week, especially with those stats, but it can only do it one party member at a time. I have a pretty offensive party, so I can be a bit reckless, and since you don't get exp from FOEs you don't have to worry about keeping everyone alive. So let's go nearly die. WELCOME TO DIE etc. etc. Also why did they call the White Ape "Redwood," that's bizarre. Oh and don't get excited seeing the Pain Aspis here, sure you need these drops but there's a 3rd material we need that's... postgame. This game's fuckin' wild yo. Not that +30 STR would make a Protector deal damage anyway. This is a trick that would later be pulled in EO4, of all things! That game gates your access to gear made from boss conditionals by making them also require 6th Maze enemy drops to buy. Y'know, since the en cost—in a game with severely nerfed conditional drop sell prices—wasn't enough. Oh poo poo we're doing this already? Right it's an FOE with single target attacks. If you can chain revive you've basically won. Otherwise who they go after is basically dead meat if their stats aren't high enough. Not too threatening, the weakest FOE in the stratum basically.  Grah! That's the slaying spirit! And so the pasting begins. Could probably use more HP on our units it seems.  So those are my insides... well have fun! I was definitely sweating by this point, but I'd done enough alpha strike damage that I was gonna be fine, you know, if my drat hits landed. Big if. Well that wasn't so badman, right mans? Right. People who care about synched XP bars are sighing in relief that EO2 FOEs can't possibly screw those up.    1 Sharp Nail required for Shida, -5 speed. 2 Beast Hides required for Plate I'll kill another 4 of these drat things later, but let's move on and ignore Redwoods, they're not aggressive. Thought I saw something shiny, ah no matter. Better not be going senile. I'm following the online maps too closely and went the long way around for no reason!   1 Armor Hull and 3 Bendy Tools required for Fancy Coat. And that was one trip because using two Salves for damage tiles is all we get. I can't avoid them sometimes!
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Nov 3, 2021 23:01
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  Hehe! Amazing what you can put out when you actually land it.  Here's the Redwood lair, but since the second one patrols the top row only we won't go anywhere near it.  Son of a- Phew, we barely held in there, right Sonia? Ah bugger. 7F A4 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Hardwood: 70% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,550en 5 required for Milk Maul - Stave, ATK+65, HP+15, -3 speed - sells for 1,530en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Root: 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Self Bow - Bow, ATK+56, STR+2, AGI+2, +15 speed - sells for 1,440en 2 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en 5 required for Snake Whip - Whip, ATK+, STR+2 - sells for 1,680en 5 required for Fire Beads - Collar, DEF+62, STR+2 - sells for 1,580en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Pine: 5% chance. Sells for 250en. 1 required for Quid pro quo Ugh treasure and ugh gathering. They can't all be winners. Ain't this going swimmingly... Hmph. Not to worry, we can probably reach the stairs. Not a big floor, but I was definitely one step away from an encounter. Phew! You can see how much you skip by coming from below and yeah the treasure isn't that worth it, but you'll need to explore this floor anyway, so might as well! Now that is some intense heat. You're looking a little worse for wear over there? Well half due to the immense pressure coming from the center of the floor, and half due to this terrible guide the Radha gave us. Makes me despair just looking at it. Blech! I will murder whoever draws these "helpful" sections one day.  slain that lizard yet? No... but I'm itching to! If it's the source of the stratum's heat then us beating it now would be quite the tale. So what's this I hear about yeh reaching the 8th floor? Did yeh meet that lizard? Whaddya mean, "What lizard?" Don't yeh know?! It's a huge beastie that shoots fire! How could yeh miss it!? Maybe it's just a rumor. Well, I was taken in! I hear about the thing destroying guilds all the time! I don't know what's going on in there, but yeh'd better watch yerselves. Better to be cautious than to be dead! G'luck! Nice chunk of quests that won't take long. I'm seeing if we could get a level 20 Medic before the end of the stratum (we won't) but the next step of Volunteer service won't unlock yet so no rush or whatever. If I have one more serving of that drat lunch... Come now, I might have no tastebuds due to atrophy, but it goes down a treat. Seems she's got an important guest, and she wants to keep him happy with some tasy fruit. Though after that Labyrinth Lunch, I'm not sure I'd eat any fruit she brought me... As always, yeh can get the details over at Flaus Inn.  we'll need that guy again I thought about summoning him with a bell, but he recoiled in horror from the idea. That makes two who aren't fans of those. Yeh lot should know him. He works at Sitoth Trading. He's asked for any guild to collect materials for his next piece. Go to the shop and ask him what he needs. G'luck!  Ugh, I'll go grab my stuff. You should always keep your tools close at hand. Yeh're in the same profession, so yeh're rivals in a way, but yeh have to put that aside now. Anyway, the lot of them were ambushed as soon as they set foot on a certain floor. Most of them escaped with their hides, but their alchemist weren't so lucky. So they're asking if they can borrow yer alchemist. Don't let yer fellow explorers down! Have fun on your trip, son! Shut up dad, you're not my real mom. Yeah, that one doesn't look half bad. I'm sure the other guild will be pleased. All right, follow me to where the other guild is waiting. The rest of yeh, stay here. ... All right, I delivered yer alchemist safe and sound. Their mission starts soon. We'll just sit right here and wait for yer friend to come back, shall we? Let's hear a few war stories, eh? I know yeh must have some good ones! Drink up, friends! Haw haw haw! Well, this one time, at band camp... Back. What a waste of time that was. Back, are we? So yeh killed the beastie, but yeh nearly died trying...? Well, here's what the leader of that other guild had to say... "I appreciated your help, and we'll return the favor someday. In the meantime... train harder." What a tosser! Haw haw haw! Here's yer reward. Yeh better not lose against that lot!  Due to my lack of caring, we didn't get the best reward for that quest, since the money reward changes slightly depending on what skills your Alchemist has. If you have the Fire skill you get an extra 300en and if you have the Flame skill you get another extra 300en. It's still pretty early on and since I'm going for Megido at the moment I didn't fancy investing in Fire Up Lv5 and Fire Lv5 to unlock Flame to get a paltry 300en. It's nice if you were already going for this skill, but uh, whatever. I've got a VIP staying here who wants to sample our meals between jaunts in the Labyrinth. He's simply mad about hunting! He wants the meal delivered to his camp on the 4th floor today. Trouble is... we're low on the Labyrinth Lunches, so I decided to send him some fruit instead. And I heard an explorer say he'd found the most delicious fruit in his travels. I don't know much about it, but he assured me it would make a great meal for my guest. I want you all to find the fruit and deliver it to the VIP on the 4th floor! He said the fruit should be around the southeast area of the 8th floor... I think. Oh, but he also said once you pick the fruit from the tree it starts to spoil at once. You'll have to deliver it before it goes completely rotten! I know you won't let me down! A vegetable from the 9th floor to be delivered the day after on the 6th floor, got it. Close enough... EO2 had quite a few "backtrack through the Labyrinth" quests and I'm not sure why or what they really add to the game. And no you can't use the Geomagnetic Fields for these. Hello, children! Could you lend me a hand again? I just need someone to care of those dishes, thanks! Gah, this meal again, it's everywhere! Let me sleep! Huh? You've really never had this before? It's one of our best-selling meals. We call it the Labyrinth Lunch. My husband came up with it! I can make it myself, if you want, but to be honest, I don't think that's such a good idea. Why? Oh, well, you know... Bahahaha! I'm gonna kick Salamox's rear end! Nae, I will! As more people explore the Labyrinth, we make breakthroughs in science and medicine. Just the other day, we found a plant there that actually eases a fever in humans. But there are so many different plants and herbs, and we don't know what many of them do. If we could do research on them, it would advance the cause of medicine worldwide. But to that research, we need explorers to bring us samples of these plants. We need their help to cure wounds... but so many of them are wounded trying to help us. That's the circular situation I'm in now. I hate to see anyone get hurt, but... I know it's asking a lot of you, but I'd like you to continue exploring the Labyrinth. I never noticed how much dialogue freakin' Derek has. I miss when Derek was kind of incompetent in the first Trauma Center. Man, I haven't played a Trauma Center game in fuckin' forever. Does he only come out when we're not here? He says he's too busy to come out, but I think he's just shy around people. Isn't it weird for someone like him? Hee hee! Oh, I need to give you his list! He asked for 1 Fluorite and 1 Open Cap. You can get them from the Auburn Thicket. Just sell them back to me once you collect them! We're counting on you! I need something for lizard slaying! Huh? Oh, Sonia... your clothes are torn! Come here and let me fix it. There you go! All better! Hee hee... I'm good at mending clothes and things like that. I'll be over here, so call me when you're ready to check out! How thoughtful, now I'm properly dressed! Heh, sure. How delightfully blunt. Grr! Hrmhrm! Ahaha... it was only a joke. Don't take it so personally. I heard your next destination is the 8th floor to collect a Fire Plume from the Salamox. There's no shame in running from a monster that strong. Survival is your first priority. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. I don't think you'll have much of a chance to run if you get into a battle with that thing. I would be the telling you but then I would have to be the shooting. Please don't threaten my boss! High Lagaard is somewhat remote and difficult to reach from anywhere else. We have been considering how to deal with the influx in new residents. We need new roads, housing, and food sources... so many things to consider. We didn't expect Lagaard to become the boom town that it is now. But you have been abroad. Have you any suggestions as to how to deal with these issues? I realize that exploring is a full-time job, but if you should think of something, tell me. I expect great things from you. If you want to develop a town... open a restaurant. Nah, that's sounds stupid. Anyway, despite what these walls of text might make you think, we haven't done that much exploring, 7F is pretty small, so let's go fight a large salamander! The obviously correct choice involves sailing. Hmm, what is that? You remain vigilant for some time, but the sound does not reoccur. You can't be certain if it's hiding from you or waiting for a chance to strike. Part of you wants to leave the room now, and part of you wants to proceed with caution. Slashin' time, baby! Hrm! Apparently scared by your drawn weapons, the source of the noise flees deep into the forest. You sheathe your weapons and look around. Something has fallen to the floor. The unseen creature must have dropped it. You stow away the unexpected bounty in your bag. Ah, a fruit as tasty as your neck. You are not the wrong. We only need one of those for the jar items I'll never use, so neat! Bats. I can deal with bats. Their wings shred like pa- eek, why does it breathe fire?! Firezard HP: 165 STR: 19 VIT: 20 TEC: 18 AGI: 20 LUC: 19 Level: 23 Exp: 741 Skills Breath: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 35 and damage multiplied by 150%. Has a 99% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Fumes: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to the entire party, with a spell power of 30 and damage multiplied by 80%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 50% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 0% 150% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 100%Drops Green Hide: 30% chance, sells for 23en. 1 required for Flame Whip - Whip, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,070en 1 required for Fire Wall - Accessory, Fire Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 7 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en Green Tail: 25% chance, sells for 25en 1 required for Fire Beads - Collar, DEF+62, STR+2 - sells for 1,580en 3 required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,550en Conditional: None Either damage to one or damage to all. The Direwolf last game worked exactly the same, but the Firezard is too weak to really do much of note. It doesn't even soften you up for other enemies, so it's a relief that they're here. Wizard trash mobs basically. Magic casting enemies in general are weak because they too have their damage halvved by the magic formula. They just do partywides in EO2U.  I should be throwing up the raining bow instead, bleh! Grrrrrr! Who fell down a well? Sorry, I don't speak beast. ...oh, right, the scythe wielding maniac behind us. I haven't been decapitated yet, ohohoho! Razekings spawn in these small nooks as you walk past and chase you for a fair while. Can we take it on like we did the Redwood? Haha, no. While we're next to it I needed to fix this hot mess. Much better! We'll dive in here! It'll be safe... amongst the... thorns. Sigh. Yelp! Never slain something like that before. I have been wanting the snaking skins. Garauchi HP: 162 STR: 19 VIT: 19 TEC: 18 AGI: 38 LUC: 36 Level: 22 Exp: 741 Skills Taillash: Uses the Legs. Attempts to inflict Head Bind on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifer. Corrode: Uses the Head. Increases physical damage taken by the entire party by 130% for 5 turns. Has a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 100%Drops Ruby Shard: 35% chance, sells for 28en. 1 required for Stain Gage - Gloves, DEF+13, STR+1 - sells for 750en 2 required for Gara Rod - Stave, ATK+63, HP+10 - sells for 1,250en 5 required for Snake Whip - Whip, ATK+66, STR+2 - sells for 1,680en FIFTEEN required for Self Bow - Bow, ATK+56, STR+2, AGI+2 - sells for 1,440en Conditional: Kill with Volt damage Ruby Scale: 80% chance, sells for 41en. 1 required for Horn Plate - Light Armor, DEF+33, VIT+2, Volt Resist Up 10% It's a support enemy that isn't very dangerous if there's nothing to support. We only care about head binds for healing, but Corrode can be a real fucker combined with a Moa or Gigaboar. Otherwise not that big a deal, if you kill the dangerous attacker first then they're just gonna sit there, especially cause it's a 50/50 what they'll go for, so you'll probably get lucky and only get bound! Not much to em. Just ignore or take em out first depending on how much your party loves their heads.  Ugh, this gel is melting my clothes off and reducing my defense! ...I was only joking, Logan, you are too easy to teas- urk! That's technically karma but it screws me over too. Viper is my main way to kill Tortmails...  Much better. That chest contains a Nectar II, which we need to hoard excessively since we won't unlock it for a fair while. At least we'll get a few dotted around here and there. Mmrph. No muzzling the doggy, we need him for the bites! With a bunch of damage tiles and no TP on our healer, that's how we're heading back. Man, remember TP recovery? Good times. Could be worse. Could be forced to work with EO4 Amritas. Now that's jibblie inducing!  2 Ruby Shards required for Gara Rod, -3 speed. 1 Green Hide required for Flame Whip - Whip, ATK+62, Type: Fire - Red whip imbued with the power of flames. 1 Ruby Shard required for Stain Gage.  I lived, bitch. 8F A6 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Fluorite: 70% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Fungus Jet - Accessory, Paralysis Resist Up 50% - sells for 2000en Required for Smithy Thompson's request I 1 required for Arm Guard - Accessory, Arm Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Bite Piece - Accessory, Blind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Warp Stone - Item, Lv1 Return, warps user to the last Geomagnetic Field - sells for 100en 3 required for Godhunter - Gun, ATK+66, AGI+2, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,920en 5 required for Battle Axe - Axe, ATK+65, STR+2, VIT+2, +0 speed - sells for 1,480en Red Ball: 25% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Breaker - Claw, ATK+65, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,020en 1 required for Fire Wall - Accessory, Fire Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 1 required for Bash Wall - Accessory, Bash Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 3 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en 5 required for Katzbalger - Sword, ATK+63, STR+1, VIT+1, +15 speed - sells for 1,550en Blood Rock: 5% chance. Sells for 200en. 1 required for Life Belt - Accessory, HP+50 - sells for 1,000en 1 required for Quid pro quo You might've wondered why I didn't go straight for Salamox but we need to explore this whole floor for the quest, so might as well. Also so we can unlock Life Belts, which are great defensive items for quite some time, as well as something we'll be doing pretty soon. Also there's just a lot of stuff to unlock, so this is pretty helpful to find. Life Belts are ridiculous defensive accessories to have this early. That's a ridiculous amount of defense this early.  How do these birds keep getting the jump on us?! Oh, was I meant to be on the lookout? gently caress you, game. Still, nice chunk of the floor done and some armour we won't get until next floor. Neat! Now for Salamox... This labyrinth sure is interesting sometimes... The open area formed by the scarlet forest feels as though it's warmed by a furnace. You can sense a terrible aura drifting to the room's entrance from beyond the trees! Have a care! Fighting in this area will surely lead to your deaths. Be on your guard! T-T-That is some heat! It is like all of my comforting feathery blankets in one, which would be most uncomfortable! Well, are we ready? Hrmmm... No, not ready to die, where's your faith doggy?  The red FOEs of even numbered stratums are elemental kings that will absolutely gently caress us up. It'll be quite a while before we fight these, but they're passive and are pretty easy to dodge. No, the real danger is the massive black ball of death guarding the way to the Fire Plume. We need to lead it around the loop and- whoops my finger slipped!  GAH! No one said it'd charge towards us! It's breathing in deeply! Too hot! Too hot!!! Bark bark bark bark bark! Well bugger.  It's good thing we have the Edda guild here, looks like they'll take up the mantle and finish the LP for us! ... Alright fine we'll do the stupid 3 day quest, train up and then do this properly. Sheesh. Great excitement. Doing a quick check of the Salmox's stats and the skill it just used, the amount of overkill it applied is quite sad. Like normally when a post-game fight overkills a low leveled party, it's like 18-20x the overkill, but here it's only 4-5x, which is rather pathetic meaning that when this thing is fought at the proper point, the magic attack will basically be nothing. God why does magic in EO2 have to suck so much rear end?
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Nov 3, 2021 23:02
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Part 11: Three Day Fun Alright, rub this on you and you'll blend right in. So that's why you bathe twice a day, thought you were weird like El. It is most strongly. You get used to it, geh, mostly. Before we do the 3 day trip there's a few things to do quickly, won't take a moment. Keen senses to still notice us. Hmph! You have noted the locations of numerous withered trees, as the doctor requested. This should be sufficient data. Report back to the bar at your earliest convenience. What if there's more trees on further floors? Best not think about such things. Its smooth bark and odd branch structure would make it difficult to climb. But looking up, you can see a perfectly sized fruit daring to pluck it. You weigh your options. Pluck the fruit, or walk away? Sure let's walk away from this required item for a quest. No sarcasms in this happy guild! My previous climbing skilling is not for this type, how about it Sonny? Mmm! Uh, never been called that before, but sure. Break a leg! As leader of the party, Sonia was chosen to climb the tree and pick the fruit. The fruit's skin is a shining yellow sheen, and it emits a pleasing aroma... you remember now about the quest you accepted at the bar. You agreed to fetch a type of fruit from the Labyrinth. The fruit in hand can only be the one the innkeeper requested! But you have the nagging feeling there's something else relevant about this fruit... Oh yes... as soon as you pluck it from the branch, it will begin to spoil! You resolve to head for the 4th floor before the fruit spoils, angering the VIP. A thud breaks the reverie... Sonia fell from the tree and landed badly!  I'm okay! You got the lucks... Uh, sure game, let's get to 4F! A lack of encounters from your Stalker gathering party is very nice for this quest. Engaging gameplay. Ah, the feeling of no longer burning my lungs with each breath. I miss it. You don't want to delay this quest too long since it'll be soon time for Chimeara to respawn and make things annoying as hell. I still don't think we could take it on in a regular fight lol.  Different guild, same results... Annoyingly placed FOE can piss off and we beat it easily even though I forgot to heal off thorns! Ahem. Also kill this one, you'll see why in just a moment. Killing this FOE is key to cheesing the ever loving poo poo out of this quest. Greetings, we have acqui- You approach them, but they block your way with their weapons. Halt! If you have no business past this point, we must insist that you turn back." You show them the fruit you're holding and tell the guards about the request. After considering your words, the guard relents slightly. All right, I'll see that he gets it. Now be on your way. Wait... maybe you should take half of it, as proof that you completed your duty. The guard pulls out his hunting knife and slices the fruit in two equal pieces, giving you one. You thank the guards for their hospitality and decide to not overstay your welcome. Giving you half the fruit seems very weird to me from a "giving the rich guy the fruit he wants" perspective, but what do I know? Back with half a rotting fruit, great use of our time. Ooh something smells good. drat, what took yeh so long? Let's have a look at that fruit... eeeuuh! That stench! Don't put that on the table! It'll stink up the whole place! That's the reek of evil, it is! I've gotta get rid of it before they condemn the place! How'd yeh carry it all that way!? Yer reward's on the table. Take it and get out already! "Requests where Cass gets upset at the end" are my favorite genre of quest. The hell did they all bring back, a Durian?  Oh yeah we found some dead trees. we're working on it Welcome back! So what was all that about? Something about withered trees...? It does sound pretty strange that they'd all wither that way. But it's no big deal, is it? It's not like everything'll rot away... will it? Hmmmmm. Truth to tell, I've never once understood what that man goes on about. Oh well... the quest's done, so here's yer reward. Come back anytime!  Woo, not worth it. Still, this is a passive quest that's really easy to complete so might as well. Right that's enough convenient preamble, let's get going. Right, I believe that's everything in order, excited for the camping trip? No. That's the spirit! Your task is to stay on this floor for 3 days, defeating as many monsters as you can. Will your items and stamina last that long...? You now have 3 days remaining. Ugggggghhhhhh... okay so this isn't too bad compared to the five days of absolute tedium last game. There's a few differences, this is earlier in the game so the encounters are easier, but there's no fountain or 3 tile wide no encounter section to hide in. The secret area on the east side of the floor has a lower encounter rate compared to the rest of the floor and any Evil Eyes you encounter will be with other enemies, so there's no blindsides. Otherwise just cheese the entire quest with Stalker and if you don't need to train slightly before Chimeara, or you'll cheese that too, don't bother fighting anything. Like the 5 day quest we'll have some fireside chats with the guild, though it'll be 4 per conversation instead of 2, oh well. Let's get going. "Hmm, so the problem with the quest was that so it could be cheesed. Let's get rid of no encounter zones and fountains and force the player to do it the intended way." The end result is still a quest that sucks major rear end. The whole killing things is just flavor text, all the game cares about is that you travel on the floor for 3 days. At least it's not 5 days? Still have to walk 2160 steps, but 9 uses of a level 10 Stalker can make it as painless as it will get. Thankfully this quest never returned in later games. Unless you count the remake of EO1, in which case it's mitigated considerably in Story Mode. Classic Mode? Lol get hosed. Don't worry, I brought a sleeping bag and a pillow, I'm ready to look at this exciting gameplay! And yeah this took me like 15 mins sidestepping against the wall to reduce lag while watching a speedrun. Not the best way to spend an evening, but at least this quest is outta here. "Reduce lag." I want you all to read those words and then realize this is within the context of EO2, a DS game, we're talking about here. God this game's back end is so bad. Alright, let's set up camp and we'll take it in turns to guard, like mentioned. Uh, are you really going to stay awake the entire time, Ro? I'll sleep when I'm dead. Oho! My kind of gentleman! Good night everyone, have fun you four.First Night Meh. Heh, you'll be a great conversationalist I'm sure. At least we are getting it the over with. like i could sleep in this mess ...are you gonna watch us this whole time? I'll be here and there, don't let me disturb you, had enough of this sharing backstory nonsense last time. He doesn't seem to like his previous guild that much. He is having the point, we should be opening each other up. i'd rather you didn't Who wants to go first? I love stories! You look like you have a heck of a story to tell! I do, but no. I... have fears to conquer. But it takes time. ah your gauntlets, you always look at them with such sadness, and i've seen better explosions from a firecracker Geh... I suppose I'm not very subtle. But it's true, I don't like using these, though to protect the ones you love, your family, your country, needs must. Oh you are from the Apen Warrings. Ahhh, one day wars will be foughting over me. Apen! I knew I recognised your outfit from somewhere! Heh, my older sister loved dressing up in uniform and guarding doors for me. Ah, yeah, the secret's out... it was one hell of a war, mainly the hell part, but we had to to survive. again with the hands, though you cover them with gauntlets the blood still remains... Y-You've killed people too? That I was not the expecting! uh, well, yes? in a manner of speaking, you can't save everyone in my profession... especially when they die because your supposed better screwed up during treatment and you couldn't fix their mess in time That, uh, would make sense, yeah. ugh... it always feels like i can't rely on anyone else, i've gotta come in and help them... well i guess i don't mind You do like to order the pack properly. Pretty sure you've snuck in a few corrections to Logan's maps too. Ahaha! He was most the upsetting when that happened! i don't like doing it sometimes cause i feel like a right busybody, hopefully you guys can step up to your roles... one person i can think of in particular ...what?! Grr, I'm trying, okay! It's just really hard to work through this trauma. Of doors. Yes! Come on, we all have irrational fears, I know it's dumb, but... well my siblings took the wrong approach to helping me prepare for this. I know I'm letting the team down! Ah, p-please don't be getting the upsetting, we are all here to helping, we work together as one! yeah i'll moan a bit but it is my job to pick up any slack, i don't want anyone to die Heh, thanks guys. If I want to have an epic adventure written about myself then I've gotta work on some character growth. Could be worse, could be scared of cabbage. GAH! I am not the scared of it! And Holly's waving it in my face is not the proving! you're just too picky, especially since you don't know what fancy means Heh, it's nice to have a goal, but it's pretty obvious you don't know what it is. That it may the be, but I do not care, I will restore my family's good naming no matter what! And if I must leave behinding the cold food and the scratchy blankets that was most of my young then so be it!!! Oh now it makes sense. As someone who lost everything, I get it. But you shouldn't cling to such outdated ideals. Hrm, I supposing, but I will not let my ancestors down! so long as you don't go for our furry friends You have no way of knowing the hour, save by the sun's light fading and rising. Still, you have little choice but to remain until the next guild arrives to relieve you. You have 2 days remaining. Good morning, everything work out alright? From my perspective it looked like a group hug. Not that I wanted one, sniff. Second Night We will be on guard, hyah, HYAH! You'll scare me half to death shouting like that. And what's wrong with that? Not everyone wants to die. Though it is inevitable! True, it would be very interesting to discover how you two would die. I don't want to know, I just want my body back to make my own choices! Hey, I thought we were getting along well enough? Well you're keeping clothes on at least. Ugh, I still can't believe you nearly did it in front of everyone in the bar! I was getting too warm and it was getting in the way, honestly I will never understand what's the big deal, I've never worn clothes, you have your natural fur. Yours was always much longer. We don't suffer well in these cold climates. A small little girl especially so. And what's wrong with that?! Well for one thing they're harder to bite. Please be careful with how you word things, old man. Otherwise you might actually convince some idiots that you're a creeper rather than a wannabe vampire. Wannabe vampire??? Oh here we go... Of course I'm not! Everything about me screams vampire, how could I not be? Well you lay it on a bit thick, I've read plenty of novels and you seem to hit literally every trope, including the contradictory ones! Well except the sparkling... Oh yes that old posh, the ancients had very vivid imagination. Well, uh, I only sparkle when I want to. Do not push me further, or you will pay the price! Ooh, what, what? Oh don't encourage him, you're too gulliable. Says the girl that thought stealing my horns would work! Pfft! No way! That would be quite the sight... W-What?! There's no way I would ever- ah dammit, fine, we all know our minds have merged. Ugh, I wanted to be a pretty antler lady but when he started charging towards me I panicked and said... something, I don't know what, it's hazy for the both of us. You've turned so red you might burn my skin, ohohoho! Well I can kinda get it, I've dreamed of all sorts of extra features to make me stronger in battle. Anything to stop you dying so easily. Come now, it's only been twice this week. Three times, you wanted to test your mettle against me and I kicked you so hard you forgot about it. Ah, it is around the time I should be reminding you not to do that again, kathy's making me. ...ah poo poo. I really don't remember that. Well no matter, just means I wasn't strong enough! I'll take it better next time! Oh for- do you actually have a death wish?! No, I just wanna be the strongest there is. What's wrong with that? Dying before that. And what's wrong with that??? Honestly I'll be fine, one day I'll be so strong that I can fulfill my dream and arriving just in the nick of time to save everyone. And I'll be making a badass pose and everyone will hoot and holler and shout "ENTER" over and over. Oh I can't wait! Riiiiight... well this has been an eye opening experience for everyone but the sun is nearly here, let's get everyone up. Someone doesn't want to share with the class. Can never get a read on that guy. The only indication I've ever gotten of his life is when Hart asked him to count some money, drat deer couldn't wrap his head around it. Juthro went pale and then ran off! Well now I'm even more interested! Killed a lover for money? Stole from a great king?! Ooh, I'm gonna squeeze it out of him right now! Ah poo poo he heard me... You'll never catch me alive! If you can make it through the day, your quest will be complete. Visions of returning to town and collapsing onto a soft, comfortable bed tempt you. You have 1 day remaining. How the hell is a bard so slippery? Huff, huff, oh hey Ro... wanna catch him for me? No time for that now, on with the quest! Third Night Ugh, drat beasts are supposed to be watching but they're just curled up asleep. And you two aren't much better! But they're so soft and cuddly... Wake meh up when there's summat tae kill... Purr... Zzz... Siiiiigh. Well if a dark lord shows up you better be ready! We won't be able to see much in this light. That's fine, yaaaawn, we have some candles in the pac- gah! What was that for??? Woah yeh sliced that candle reet in half! Hm? Yeep! Ah, sorry, sorry, can't help it, it's instinctive at this rate. It's... well, I've hated candles ever since my childhood, I was in my mansion and needed the toilet, but a bat had gotten in through the window. It went to attack me and I smacked it with my father's whip that was hanging nearby. Unfortunately I hit it into a candle and it caught on fire. Scared the poo poo out of me. Wow that is... a specific trauma. Well hopefully we don't find any of those, eh? That sounds spooky! Wah!!! Ah come on it was just meh fingers on yeh neck! Don't frighten the poor thing, he looks like he had a traumatic enough childhood. Hehe... Hmm? I had nothing of the sort! Don't lump me in with all these crazy people that decided they wanted to benchpress a tree to get over something! I just don't feel the need to put myself at risk, I have my life's work to think about. Oh right yeh little book of maps and notes, how can yeh properly document somethin' if yeh terrified of it? You're acting like I'm scared of everything. Well, uh, I'm not afraid of you, all big talk and no brain! Ooh, look who finally got some baekbone! But I know what yer weak teh. How about, uhhhh, this...? ...why you are pinning him against a tree like that? W-w-what?! You're so c-close and your ha-hands are-! What yer so scared of, I'm just strokin' yer face and lookin' in yer pretty little eyes. Aha, yeh-yeh are scared! Are you sure it's not just him...? Anyway, why are you trying to prove a nerdy cataloguer is nervous around girls? I could've told you that. I'm n-not! There yeh are again! Quit lying already and face yer fears! It's the only way ye'll ever get o'er them! Grr... alright, fine, I'm scared of these large, patrolling dinosaurs and freaky birds and house sized salamanders we're up against, but I'm n-not gonna back down from them cause I want to learn about them. Help this guild out... and-and... gaaaaaah! Woah! Ooh a reversal. So, uh, why are you pinning her against a tree? Should I be concerned? Oi oi! Growl! Hey now, this might be important. Go on then, Cube Gel legs... what ya gonna do now? Ah, wait, I didn't mean for this... but... but you can't talk to me like that when you're lying to everyone! I've seen you in the Grand Duchy plenty of times, and I know someone like you isn't sightseeing! Lumberjack! Hah! You don't know how to use an axe, I've been watching you! Uh, wait, not like that! Hmm, he makes a fair point. And this is very entertaining, so what now? Heh... worked somethin' out have yeh? Well if you wanna noo... then yeh'll hafta maek meh, noodle boy! Gah, stop with the name calling! I'm sick of it! I will do when yeh stop being them! Pasty face! Knee-knockin' chicken! Yeh couldn't hit the broad side of a barn without yeh goggles! I think you're going a bit far with this... You-you... so abrasive... so lacking in tact... but you know, I met a nice girl in the Duchy who gave me some good advice and... and I won't take any more of this, I'm gonna stand up for myself and make you regret ever crossing me you... you loudmouthed, stupid sounding, idiotic... oval office!  ... A-Ah, no, that was wrong of me, I shouldn't have- mmmmmmph?! My tent. Five minutes. Aha! Hmm! Wha... what just happened? Guess she likes it when you stand up for yourself. Also calling her a- uh, best not delve into that. The sun's gonna rise soon, so you better... ah dammit I share a tent with her, you better not mess up my stuff! Yeah... I'll, uh... yeah... Purr... Hehe! Well that was exhausting... huh, you guys are pretty comfy. Hehe, I'm glad that you two are so friendly, I don't think I could've come around to working with animals if it had been anyone else. ... ... ...wow, Holly is saying "Och!" a lot, but if I can just tune them out then maybe I can just close my eyes... for a few... zzzzzzz. Ahhhhhh... Mmmmmm... Your harsh, three-day ordeal is finally complete! You may return to town or continue exploring. Either way, you have much to be proud of. gently caress you game! The feat of wasting a lot of time. A proud accomplishment indeed. Heuh? Wha? What happened, I was taking a nap. Nice and simple, just how I like it. Did you all have a good night? Fook yeah! It was very fun, right Logan? Yep. Oh yeah. Sure was. Hoo boy. Wowzers. Yessir. Rowr! Gahaha! It's nights like these when I hate my amazing hearing... And there we go, thank gently caress that's over with, probably one of the worst quests in the series, but with Stalker and running away from everything, it's not as soul draining as the 5 day quest. You'll be unsurprised to hear that, unlike the EO1 quest showing up in EOU again, this quest is not in EO2U at all. Gracious, yeh're back! You look sore all over. I told yeh this one would be hell. On the other hand, the Nidhogg Guild is on everyone's lips now. Yeh lot are famous! And of course, there's this other reward on top of that. Take it, and enjoy yer rest!  A nice reward at least, but you can see why I tried to put this off for as long as possible, yeesh. Oh yeah, now we can do the mapping quest or whatever. Life Belts aren't bad I guess but really not worth the task the quest puts you through. surprised logan isn't all over this quest, is he unwell I sense dark forces brewing. Nah, he just seems... happy. He... hehe... heeeee. That quest comes straight from the Grand Duchy. Getting pretty cozy with them, aren't yeh? Haw! Yeh know the Grand Duchy does their share of Labyrinth exploration, right? Well, they want yeh to make a map of floors they haven't gotten around to yet. Personally, I think they should do it themselves, but I s'pose the corps can't hack it. Say... how far have yeh lot made it up by now? Don't tell me yeh've gone that far already! I am here as Logan's replacement since he can't stop smiling weirdly at Holly, someone who only drew ire from him before. I can only guess what has happened. Oh they fuckin'. We in the Grand Duchy take this task very seriously. There aren't many we'd entrust it to. But if it's you... well, I daresay there'll be no problem. Now, to business. Own own maps of the Labyrinth are only complete up to the 6th floor. We've reached the next floor, but the corps are having unexpected difficulties. So we'd like to enlist your help in mapping the 7th and 8th floors of the Labyrinth. Once you finish the map, you are to check in with Cass, the bartender at the Stickleback. It's a great responsibility that we place on yout shoulders. I hope that will be the last time I have to do that dumb quest. Next time, we'll finish our mission, but I wonder what's occurred these past three days...? Huff, huff, drat this heat. But we've finally made it... It's not that warm you big softie. It is this dishonourable culprit that is causing our leader such distress! Mmm, the tales that will be told for this feat, let's put our plan into action~ It's here. Salamox. Let's kill it. I'm going to kill Salamox.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 23:02
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Technically, it is. It's just a plant capable of literally biting you to death for some unknown reason.
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Nov 3, 2021 23:27
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Wait, you two, that's not a plant!
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Part 12: Revenge is a dish best served bullshit I am a genius!  Okay, uh, while you do that I'll just back away slowly. We'll see Poseidons on 10F but because they always go for Charge on the first turn, you have two chances to run away, so them wiping your gathering party is low. If you somehow fail that then yeah you're loving dead, but such is EO2. EO2 giveth away, EO2 taketh. Oh, hey, sauroposeidons. They're trivial to deal with in EO2U, because of blast grenades.  20 Open Caps and 5 Hardwood required for Milk Maul, -3 speed. 5 Red Roots and 1 Green Tail required for Fire Beads. 3 Green Tails and 1 Hardwood required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - Pyrexic clothes that guard against the cold. Pretty tame unlocks from this stratum's Chop points, especially since the Red Pine is for the one quest and that's it. But I'll be a bit cheeky and also unlock all the Mine items as well, even though I usually wait until I finish the floor before I do so, if you noticed. It'll make the next part of this update MUCH MORE INTERESTING! Why would you want gear for your beast that burns them when enemies are near? The flavor text for equipment is so weird sometimes. Beast armor tends to have a lot more defense. Except due to Loyalty's mechanics the defense boosts are loving useless! Basically just pick the thing with the best secondary stats. (Dear god no, it is one game too soon for that loving bullshit!) If you are ignoring Loyalty, then get the best one you can obviously. 1 Armor Bone and 3 Fluorite required for Godhunter, 120% accuracy, +3 speed. 2 Armor Hull and 1 Red Ball required for Breaker - ATK+65, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - This claw cuts as well as smashes enemies. Before we see the ridiculous accessories we get from the Mine points, I should highlight these weapons, for the slow and inaccurate Gunner and Beast, these are very nice upgrades, being +24% more accurate and getting the Gunner out of the negatives for speed. Unfortunately you can't keep them for too long, the next +accuracy weapon for Gunner won't be unlocked for 10 more floors, but they come pretty consistent after that, while Beast gets pretty screwed, the next weapon like this for them is postgame. Oof. Still, these are very useful considering the game vaguely tells you about one positive, while never telling you about the other. I wish I had "accuracy up" guns in EO2U... Don't you love entirely unexplained mechanics? These ones are smaller fries but there are some boss fights that become infinitely harder if you have no idea how they operate. (Quite a few from EO4 come to mind here.) 1 Fluorite required for Arm Guard - Arm Bind Resist Up 50% 1 Fluorite and 1 Open Cap required for Fungus Jet - Paralysis Resist Up 50% - Made after analysis of paralyzing fungal spores. Required for Smithy Thompson's request I 1 Fluorite and 1 Moving Eye required for Bite Piece - Blind Resist Up 50% - Piece made by hardening a carnivorous plant bulb. 1 Red Ball and 1 Green Hide required for Fire Wall - Fire Resist Up 30% - Lessens the damage taken from fire attacks. 1 Red Ball required for Bash Wall - Bash Resist Up 30% - Dampens the damage taken from strike attacks. 1 Blood Rock required for Life Belt - HP+50 - Assists in circulation of the bodily humors. 1 Fluorite required for Warp Stone - Item, Lv1 Return, warps user to the last Geomagnetic Field - Magnetic rock that takes the user to the last used Field. Phew, lot of good stuff from one little point, eh? You can look at this list and see some nice resist accessories, see the Warp Stone and laugh, and not even notice the seemingly small boost the Life Belt gives. OBJECTION! The Life Belt is one of the best defensive items in the game because of how it's better than any piece of armour that reduces incoming enemy damage by less than 50HP and the fact that it's stackable. THREE TIMES! Well stacking twice is usually fine since if you become a brittle sponge it's not that useful, but HP stacking is just a good strategy in this game and is very helpful in certain, cheesy, strategies. Later on we'll get armour that can reduce incoming damage by more than 50, but by then we'll get an upgrade to this item. Everyone will have a Life Belt and having high HP numbers is pretty nice, which also gives the Medic a hidden buff as they can now use their overpowered healing! Now then, onto the reason I unlocked these at this point... I'd probably debate the usefulness of the HP advice at this point. This isn't EO3-2U. Like sure, one accessory could be useful. But due to EO2's multiplicative damage formula, and defense functioning as a divisor, you will notice the lack of a defense stat very quickly. Wear some armor, but don't go stark naked with a bunch of accessories. +150 HP will not mean much when you are taking like 200 extra damage or so due to a lack of armor. Alternatively, you're about to abuse a rather infamous strat. In addition to the inherent nerf of being unable to stack accessories in EO2U, life belts ate another severe nerf in that their HP boost was dropped from 50 to 20. In a game where enemies deal much more damage and your characters have much more HP. I imagine it was both a nerf to how strong they were in the original EO2, and also a nerf to how strong equipment HP boosts were in EOU. Also within that pile of unlocks was the Fungus Jet, which we needed for a quest. Hmm? Did I bring you something important...? Well, I assume so in that comically large pile. When a smithy puts his heart and soul into a piece, it ends up with mysterious powers. Just by holding it, you could become faster, or stronger, or who knows what else! My father and everyone in his crew pray for your safe return when they make equipment. I know they'll protect you in the Labyrinth, so please use them! Thank you again for all your help! You'll take any other requests I have, right? Oi there, welcome back. Yeh lot did another bang-up job! Haw! Excellent work as usual. Here's yer reward! We gonna need this? I prefer being still and unable to move, thank you, so it is not needed for our preparations. You say it's returned? Yeah we were just behind that up and coming guild but because someone let them go ahead, they got the kill. They asked nicely! I was not going to say no! Shouldn't take long anyway, we have bigger fish to fry. Oh, a river system higher in a tree? It would not surprise me~  I guess I should stick in my lane... Just before we get to the main reason Edda is back, let's actually fight Chimerea properly since these guys are a few levels higher and can actually dish out damage. Except Gerson, rip.    Nothing about it! How's your vigour?~ Could be worse, so something to improve! Nice little comparison as well as showing how Hexer's can contribute pretty easily with Revenge even without damage tiles, but we'll get to the full extent of this in just a moment. After all, Troubs have more than one HP boosting skill, right?  Doof! Tough little thing aren't you? Aww, those flames looked pretty painful... Because of how much damage we're doing, like with Poison strats it gets locked into doing Blaze pretty predictably, letting Gerson take the heat!  Well, that's a pain, Bijejefjfd, avenge me, blehhhhh! On it! Flaming squirrel throw! A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing much to worry about! Such interesting adversaries even after all this time~ I was starting to get close to 10k, oh noes, so if I'm gonna get some extra cash, might as well make it interesting! Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Yes, good, let my fallen furry comrades fuel my power! Note: no squirrels were harmed in the making of this LP, I've been generous to them so far! The time that we can harm squirrels will come. But that day is not today.   Huff, huff, that is some temperature. You sure about this, Cheese? Yes, let's kill it. Well if that's what they want, how can I say no? It would be a great honour to fight with my friends! Should I partake in a great tale of heroics and foolishness? You're drat right I will!~ Gahahaha! Alright guys, let's bring home the bacon and take this monstrous lizard down! Alright ladies and gents, it's time for the big event, where the EO2 LP takes down Salamox when you can first encounter it. As you can see from my stats, I'm doing this at a similar level to the main guild and no fancy equipment, just 150HP more Cheese and something I haven't gone over whatsoever. It's just that easy. ...I've created a monster. What have I done? Salamox HP: 4,100 STR: 85 VIT: 80 TEC: 65 AGI: 75 LUC: 55 Level: 65 Exp: 0 Skills Breath: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to the entire party and attempts to inflict Leg Bind. Has a spell power of 75, damage multiplied by 130% and has a 100% base infliction chance. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 50% speed modifier. Tail: Uses the Legs. Deals 250% Bash damage 3-4 times at a 20/80 chance, respectively, randomly to the entire party. Has a 35% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Bloodcry: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Curse/Instant Death on the entire party. Has a 50% base infliction chance and a 150% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 0% 150% 75%Disable Vulnerabilities 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20% 0% 25% 0%Drops Flame Bone: 85% chance, sells for 6,201en. 1 required for Levantine - Sword, ATK+151, Type: Fire - sells for 155,000en 1 required for Soma III - Medicine, LV1 Salve 3, fully heals the entire party - sells for 20,000en, must be restocked 2 required for Megido Gun - Gun, ATK+189, TP+30, Type: Fire - sells for 278,000en, must be restocked Conditional: Kill with Fire damage Flame Puff: 100% chance, sells for 30,000en. 1 required for Agneyastra - Gun, ATK+202, STR+5, Force Gain +5 - sells for 331,000en, must be restocked Here's the full extent of what we're up against, this is an honest to god postgame superboss, something we should be tackling in Part 42 not Part 12, yet here we are. Let's win in 3 turns. If ideally pulled off, this enemy should be no threat at all and should be nothing more than a DPS dummy. Barring really extreme RNG manipulation, I do not know of any way to kill Salamander early in EO2U. I'm sure there's a way, but boy is it probably complicated.    You shall not pass! This is my ultimate rhythm! Hey, hey you, come here for a sec, my sword wants a word. Super Soaker Headbutt Mega Slash! Hey, wait, why does Crusade's status message mention status ailments? None of its components do that.  Eh, needs more work. I fight for my friends, face my full power! Oh drat that is some almighty stuff! Where did you even find that curse? Maybe I should've worn that crown we got from Etria too~ I've seen my share of cursed items and trust me, it only worked for them due to an overflow glitch.  More... MORE!!! Not so sure about this, but I'm in this deep, so what if I'm complicit?~  DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE... ... ... uh, woah, that was a real power trip. I'll say! You absolutely blew me out of the water and for that I will not forgive you, but now I have a new goal and for that I will forgive you. Yeehaw, what a rush! I don't feel like I gained much from that, but it sure was nice to look at. Let's get home and tell everyone, I wanna do this again sometime! Ah, postgame superbosses don't give exp. Thanks, game. So what the hell just happened? Well we pulled through due to Revenge being one of the most ridiculous skills in the series and Force skills being some of the most ridiculous skills of the series. Of course I haven't shown off Force skills because you get just a few points for doing certain actions in battle, it's much easier to wait until you get Axcelas and really start having fun. But of course if you want to grind them out beforehand, you're gonna see some crazy poo poo. Using Painless, Gerson protected everyone from dying horribly from Breath on the first turn, Simone fully bound Salamox with Dominate and Wagner increased everyone's ATK and DEF, but most importantly HP with Crusade. Doesn't matter what your current HP is, your max gets boosted, which can also be stacked with Stamina to get ridiculous HP pools. Aryll was here for moral support, the 5th slot is flexible, you may want to bring a Gunner to stun the enemy for a turn with Riot Gun, but I was keeping with the OGs for this fight and it worked out fine. And oh yeah, Revenge, (MaxHP - CurrentHP) * SkillPower, so it scales ridiculously quickly and can cap out at around 2500, which if you notice is 60 loving % of Salamox's HP. By landing a pretty good hit on the first turn and then a real nuke on the second turn, you can outspeed and KO Salamox easily enough on the 3rd turn since it's very likely to be fully bound on the 2nd turn. I believe I outsped it since it was using Breath, you can always bring a 1st Turn Survivalist to ensure the kill, but I didn't have any issues even with a negative speed modifier on my weapon. I hope I've proven how easy it is to do this strat and why I obviously won't use it with Sophia/Hart that much so that this isn't the dullest LP on the forums. Still, what fun, but it's time to move on. We'll see the Edda guild later on, they'll have some interesting builds to show us, but for now, our 3 days is up. A safer setup would be waiting to use Dominate on turn 2 since disables can't wear off until 2 turns later after the infliction turn. You'd need another copy of Painless or Riot Gun to pull that off. Theorycrafting this strategy years ago was pretty interesting. At the time no one pulled it off but knowing how absurd some of EO2's tools back then made it a distinct possibility in my mind. Theorycrafted with some other goons back then, and I finangled a bit and it took a few tries, but a successful kill was eventually had. The main question being answered was really "how can I kill this boss in 3 turns?" Since any longer would be throwing the kill into the whims of RNG. Though from my experience people love to see the games being dominated more often than not, so no need to worry too much about making things dull, ha ha! You'll be unsurprised to hear that Revenge Curse's math is significantly different in EOU, and EO2U basically shattered it further by making it heal the party based on the damage it deals. This is also an extremely good example of why Dominate was turned into an extremely high base chance to inflict the three types of binds in EO2U, instead of a loving vulnerability-piercing guaranteed infliction what were they thinking. A strat like this would've required extreme RNG manipulation to land an early head bind were it not for Dominate. Man you should've seen it, I think Cheese gets stronger the more we love and cherish them, how ironic, right? Well that's lovely, but you seem to be missing a couple things. Did it drop anything we could sell so we don't have to eat Crabapples AGAIN, what about the Fire Plume?! Oh yeahhhhhh, shiiiit. Well, that's my bad, aren't I a stinker? I love you! gently caress you!!! I love you too!  1 Flame Bone required for Levantine I can barely hold what these squirrels pestered me for 3 days about but I wonder how much it'll- HOLY poo poo! We'll fight Salamox properly in the postgame to get its conditional, we wouldn't use the gun it dropped anyway, but yeah your Gunner becomes insane if you grind for the Agneyastra. You know, not that this game needed to be broken further. The scary part is that the conditional drop snags you something rather game shattering, even if you wait till post-game to buy it. Three days of my life I'm never getting back, least we can resume dying to giant lizard. It would be nice if it was not torching my lovely coat any more. I'm not gonna die here, I've got so much to live for! Nice to see getting badonked gave you a purpose in life, a tale as old as me, ohohohoho. Ehhh... He seems more exhausted than pained, as if he wants nothing more than to take a rest. Once he realizes you are here, he wearily waves to you and approaches your position. Good morrow, you look like me after a nap. Hey... are you the guys the ones the Grand Duchy sent? Thanks heavens... we came to map this place, but the monsters were too much for us. I've got part of it done... hope it helps. Sorry about any mistakes... I was so tired... The guard pulls a parchment from his bad and hands it to you. There should be another guard up on the next floor... tell him I've gone back. Good luck. The guard leaves as unsteadily as he came, heading for the Labyrinth's exit. You stare at the guard's map, unsure whether to trust it or to double-check his work... drat this magic parchment fusing these together... A comparison of what their map would've shown us had we done the 3 day quest earlier, they really like drawing walls around chests, huh? It's fun to compare how the game automatically fills in your map from game-to-game, you can really feel the individual differences in mapping logic change as the design team is rotated. Note that the series never ever cares about how you aesthetically do things on the map when it comes to map checks. The minimum it asks for are that walls have walls drawn and the same goes with floors. Checks or doors or other similarly wall-y objects? Game doesn't care how you map, put a wall or don't put a wall, it's up to you. The one time the series actually penalized for more than that (namely painting in water tiles in a certain title counted as giving those areas floors when they counted as having no floors) got people pissed off, so probably for the best they're pretty lenient with map checks otherwise!  His triple flip dodges are so unnecessarily... how are you up, dog? I should be getting some doggy statues for my mansion. There are some blank spots... but these areas are currently inaccessible, so no harm done. You painstakingly create a copy of your current efforts, in case the original should be marred. The Grand Duchy should be able to conduct safer explorations with the map you have made. After you finish copying out your work, you place it in your bag and decide to move on. To complete this quest, you will need to map both floors. Only then can you report back. If you have not yet mapped both floors, you must carry onward and complete your map. Not too bad finishing 7F but we can't finish the quest with the amount of 8F we have available right now, so it's back to dying to Salamox! Your search comes up empty. The plume is somewhere else. This is eerie, we weren't gone for that long, but did someone slay that terrifying monster? That would make them just as terrifying! I think we should count our blessings, but who knows when it'll come back! Hmm... I've heard these big monsters keep coming back, it's positively sacrilege, ohohoho! Only you would liking that thought...   Ahah here it- gah, gently caress, that's hot! Duh! This game isn't that mean enough to make you warp out or fight Salamox, there's a one way shortcut outta here. ...That's more consideration than I'd have expected from an early EO game. Looking around, the small, open area seems to be completely barren, even of shrubbery... Yet even here, something seems familiar near the tree growing in the clearing's center. An unmoving arm... splayed legs... in the Labyrinth's context, it makes a grim scene. You take his pulse and confirm that he is gone from this world. His armor marks him as a guard. Much too late to do anything for him, a shame. It is a sight you never get- wait, are those... watch out everyone! Glancing up at the tree, you suddenly notice an unmistakable set of claw marks. By the time you realize something is here and stand to face it, it is too late! There is a thud from behind you as a giant monster leaps from the tree! The monster has honed its claws and teeth on the tree... you have no choice but to fight! This place is weird, why were deer hiding in a tree? Less asking, more the killing! Actaeon HP: 213 STR: 26 VIT: 20 TEC: 14 AGI: 17 LUC: 19 Level: 25 Exp: 1,062 Skills Deathorn: Uses the Head. Deals 150% Stab damage to a single target. Has an 85% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Neigh: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Fear on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Steel Horn: 35% chance, sells for 49en. 1 required for Vine Bow - Bow, ATK+59 - sells for 1,130en 1 required for Horn Plate - Light Armor, DEF+33, VIT+2, Volt Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,670en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, LV5 Provoke, increases the user's physical defense by 12% and provoke rate by 70% - sells for 700en 10 required for Ice Musket - Gun, ATK+68, STR+2, Type: Ice - sells for 1,610en Conditional: None Claws and teeth, huh game? We'll see these deer next floor so here's a little taster. I forgot they had an actual damaging attack cause they usually died before they could go for it, they only have a chance to use Deathorn if they don't use Neigh, with the chance increasing the less health they have. But, uh, they're not particularly tanky and not that common either. Looks cool though! I think events like this make it clear that they come up with the event text before assigning an encounter to them, because this is far from the first mismatch of the series like that. Actaeons can kinda hit a bit hard if you let them but they're pretty unnotable otherwise. The fear can be annoying to deal with though.  Gaaaah, why are these deer shooting bats from their mouths that also shoot bats from their mouths??? ...eh? You can trust his map and continue exploring, or retrace the guard's steps. Eh, I'll allow it. Aside from putting a wall before a chest again, this map seems harmless but we'll see how reliable it is when we get to that point. Anyway feels like we've been on 8F for about three days, so let's finally move on, eh? A note informs you that the Grand Duchy has temporarily closed the way ahead. It seems there is a task yet to be completed for the Grand Duchy before you may proceed. We could be rounding this single rope. Unfortunately we have a narc in the party. drat right. Ugh! Guess we'll hand this back first, it is starting to burn a hole in the bag.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Mar 23, 2022 |
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Dec 1, 2021 02:56
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  Simply amazing work. I've half a mind to ask you to train our own guard corps! I assume you were able to avoid contact with the Salamox? There's no shame in fleeing from it. Cough cough cough. Take your time, build your strength, and challenge it when you have more experience. It's more than enough for our purposes that you were able to bring back the plume! As a reward for your excellent service to the Grand Duchy. I present you with this. Wow, I... totally needed that. The game raelly does not expect you to pull off something rather nuts like that so there's no acknowledgement at all, sadly. In EO3 and 4 they do acknowledge such feats, but that's namely because they have a New Gam Plus feature and this game doesn't, so those cases are more easily accounted for. Though EOU onwards sadly went back to not acknowleding early kills of strong plot enemies. 7 Green Hides and 3 Red Balls required for Zanmatou.   5 Ruby Shards and 5 Red Roots required for Snake Whip. Just before we finally moved on to a new floor, I did want to confirm that you couldn't finish the mapping quest with just this section on 8F so I stepped on most tiles and gained a couple levels, might as well be a little prepared for the next boss. And yeah, nothing, so on we go! And back we go because we reached a new floor! It's so stupid whenever they do this, game development man. Some of the pacing really could afford to be better because it's annoying to basically rush through an already explored floor and have to go back immediately. It's one thing where an odd playstyle just naturally leads to that happening, but EO2 is not really a game where they figured out proper roadblock pacing and it gets really annoying! The one I was talking about the other day? Nasty thing, breathes fire? Ring any bells? I know yeh've seen it! Yeh think its tail grows back after it's cut, like a regular lizard? I made a bet with one of the patrons, yeh see... if it does, I win! C'mon, yeh can tell me... the tail grew back, right? Spill it! Haw haw haw! So aggressive, but I'll admit to being curious myself. Heh, we'll find out eventually, but wonder who killed it. Maybe the recently cheerful Protector I see in here a lot would know. Ooh, what does the furry guy want? I don't think you should get so associated with that guy. Ahhh, that one, eh? It's from that odd duck of a nobleman... remember him? Lord Gascoyne, him who was so keen on that animal hide. His wound's all closed up, but as soon as he went back to the Labyrinth, he got a real scare. Looks like the monsters from the higher floors are heading below to the lower ones. He 'spects if they're heading downward, eventually they might reach the town. He's asked the Grand Duchy for help, but yeh know the guard corps... he needs yeh lot! So yer job is to stop those monsters from getting any closer to good ol' Lagaard. Right now, they're s'posed to be around the 10th floor. Go and show them what's what! 10F, got it! Bit early for this quest, but it helps to be preemptive with this stuff. The quest distribution also needed more work at this time. More for me? Heh, you love it really. Ohhh... right, that quest. Haw! It must be tough to be so famous, eh? It's another one from that old bat of an innkeeper. They're looking to remodel the Flaus Inn, and they need some building materials. Yeh can hear the rest of the story at the inn. G'luck! Ah yes, kathy posted this earlier before crashing to sleep. Wonder what they've been up to. She won't tell me! Ahh, yeh're here. This request was addressed to yeh from the start. Who's it from? Oh, right... the doctor at the hospital. He said something about not being able to make it, so he'll send someone else in this place. Oh, right... he left a note. It asks yeh to go to central Lagaard at the time specified here. The note reads "Meet at 8 PM in the central city." Massive blocks is my speciality! Kicking them is mine. Not with these legs!!! Cass probably told you most of it, but basically, we're planning to renovate the inn. I know the Labyrinth has some good stuff, so I thought we might use that... listen carefully, because here's the list of what we're looking for. 3 Red Roots and 2 Hardwoods. Got that? I think you can get them all on the 10th floor. No problem for you, right? When you have all of them, just bring them to the bar and the carpenters will collect them. Now then, off with you! Again with 10F, like yeah we technically can, but we can just get those from the 7F point as well. ah no, that's my bedhead, and those two usually look that filthy Hey didn't you go to bed like 3 hours ago? more than enough, i'm busy Well, okay, but we'll take that bath! I'm sick of him making me sleep outside! You sure get a kick out of exploring. That kind of life isn't for me, but... is it really even for you? Every time I see you you're all scratched and bruised up! That's fine for men, but I don't know if that's any way for a lady to behave! Someone with all those scars would have a hard time finding a husband!  Ah... extremely old fashioned dialogue. And no, the game doesn't check for your portraits' genders nor any other properties of them. She says this regardless of your party makeup. Which has a ton of other issues I refuse to speak on. For the best, later town dialogue tended to be more entity neutral when bringing your party into the subject. Sigh. EO2U reworded the final lines, if you're curious. I don't know if the actual Japanese lines are different, but at the very least, Atlus USA realized that's kind of a lovely thing for an ostensibly friendly town NPC to say. Every time I see you, you're all scratched and bruised up! You're going to get scars like that, you know. I'm sure you boys don't mind, but you girls need to watch out! I don't know much about explorers, but I do know that people look at a girl's battle scars differently than a boy's! Still kind of a dumb sexist sentiment, but it's...less bad. Always sound so disappointed. we both are, you're always in here How is your journey going? You've been in the second Stratum for a while... oh, you're up to the 9th floor? I must say, I'm surprised. Always be on your guard, though. The Labyrinth is filled with danger. Don't neglect your health. Oh, my dad wanted me to tell you something... hee hee... he said he feels more energetic when he knows he's making things for you! He's always asking my opinion to make sure he makes it perfect, just for you! You're always in my prayers. Don't overdo it, and good luck in the Labyrinth! How sweet, so long as you keep my whips in check, I'm a happy customer! How about you? Uh, well, it's nice he put custom dampeners on my gauntlets... You're staying at the Flaus Inn, aren't you? Have you met the owner's daughter? She's a pretty one... weak, though. If you should meet her, be kind to her. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. Yaha! Purr... She seems pretty lonely with just her Beasts to talk to. Well like I stay for long... Yeah, uh, do you know much about love- Ah, but you know so much more about the Labyrinth than myself. I doubt I could tell you much. All I can suggest is not to overstrain yourselves in trying to find the floating castle. That's all for now. Good luck, explorers. Tenth floor, right. But hey, means we get to slay them instead! Hmhm! You gulp, remembering the quest you accepted at the bar. Those monsters are heading for the Labyrinth entrance, and you must stop them. The client believed they were still on a higher floor, but they must be on their way down! Their descent through the Labyrinth will lead them inexorably to Lagaard! There isn't a moment to waste. Ready your weapons and defeat them at once! Three quest FOEs, so this probably won't be too bad. Let's see what they are.  I am not with the best energy for this! Hmm, I think if we go here then we should be able to funnel them through and wear them down...Spectre HP: 702 STR: 29 VIT: 23 TEC: 15 AGI: 19 LUC: 20 Level: 28 Exp: 0 Skills Breath: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Petrify on a single target. Has an 80% base infliction chance and a 125% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 75% 75% 75% 0% 0% 125%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 0% 100% 100% 100% 0% 100% 0% 100% 0%Drops None Conditional: None Pretty great Bond film, haha. Quest versions of Mystues, so they can be a pain if you, say, have one source of elemental damage, but so long as you don't get caught out by the quest's weird wording and bring lots of Therica Bs, you'll be just fine. We'll be here for a little bit. I've never seen any James Bond movie. Because these FOEs are of the gargoyle archetype, they are the only FOEs in the entire game immune to instant death. Everything else? You can use Climax on them. Nothing else interesting to say other than it's a beefed up Mystue. Deal with this as you would do those. You fail the quest if they reach the stairs, so stand here and you can take them on one by one, they thankfully don't join in. See, this game is nice when it can be. A bunch of tower defense FOE style quests can be cheesed with this method. Park your butt on the critical path and wait for them to come to you. Simple as that.  Phew, I need a ten thousand year nap after that! Paper Alastor: The The N64 Paper Mario is a better game, by the way. In the absence of the intruders, a welcome silence can be felt throughout the floor. Through your quick work, you have prevented the encroaching threat from reaching Lagaard! You may report back to the bar at any time. Gah, where did she come from?! Eep! I'm one of his assistants. He asked me to help you out on this quest. You are the ones who documented Grey Bark Disease, aren't you? Oh sorry... it's the name of the malady affecting the trees withering in the Labyrinth. We reported your findings to the Northern Academy. Unfortunately, they refused to accept our research, even with plenty of documentation. They told us "further study is needed"... but if we wait, the disease will spread! We'll have to go into the Labyrinth and pinpoint the reasons for this phenomenon. If possible, we need to take a sample to convince those hard-headed doctors. We're headed to the south of the 9th floor. It's spreading there... we might find a clue. I'll be tagging along, so lead the way into the Labyrinth! Uh, right well, we have a couple things to do but the next party will be happy to take you on. Probably. It's best to trigger the 8PM introduction of Angie before you forget cause you can do whatever the hell you want and you'll forget she's there until you reach that specific point of 9F. I know I did! The real annoying "come to a location at this time" quests are the ones that are massively far off from an inn sleep or nap. Fortunately there aren't too many of those in this series but the ones that exist just add on some needless annoyance. Heh, you look exhausted. So many statues... That good-for-nothing guard corps is worse than useless... I ask yeh, why does the Grand Duchy even keep them around if they can't protect the city? Still, thanks to yeh, our town is safe. And the Grand Duchy trusts me even more! Haw! Well, here's yer reward! Come by and have a drink sometime, why don't yeh?  Alright, with all that done, are we finally ready to explore 9F with a new team of 5? Uh, no, cause there's this event I forgot! The Gamefaqs maps are 13 years old and not perfect, but they're useful enough that I don't mind, but I won't be blindly following them as much! Rule of thumb is to just check every dead end and corner. Though now that I've got access to event scripts, we could theoretically know exactly where all the events of a floor are. In EO3 and beyond. EO1 and 2 use a different format and their scripting is different so I don't know all of this game's events. EO2 is definitely the most neglected of the EO games, so I can't say I'm surprised the old resources aren't the best. Still, that's kind of disappointing. It seems ancient... vines are choking the thick trunk and a scarlet veil is drawn over it. As you follow the path of the twisting vines, you spy a large, violet fruit. The fruit seems ripe... if you step forward, you might be able to reach it. It's awfully tempting... so much so that you wonder if you should leave it alone. Well I am the tallest... I don't recognise the fruit, so uh, good luck. Sonia, at the front of the party, walks forward and reaches for the fruit. It's large and plump in Sonia's hand, and seems to be very juicy. Sonia cleans the fruit with a bit of cloth and bites into its soft skin! The taste... it's incredibly bitter! Rather than spit it out, Sonia forces the bitter fruit down. Judging by the reaction, you make a mental note not to try the fruit for yourself. But you hadn't realized that it's commonly used in medicine! Sonia regains health! Ugh, and here I thought it was a blueberry. Ooh, would like to be trying whatever that is. Neat, could be helpful when first exploring the floor, if the first party slot needs it of course. Some of the AOE healing events in later games can be a bit too overly helpful, but at least they're a lot more useful than "only 1 party member benefits" which in practice tends to not do all that much. Knock knock. Who's there? It's me, with the required materials! ...I guess this is just who I am now.  Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 1, 2021 |
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Dec 1, 2021 02:56
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Alchemist Can equip: Staves, Clothing The cool mcfuckers are back, Alchemists were pretty okay last game, due to being the only class that could really make use of elemental damage, especially in the early game. They fell off towards the end, but using a unit's TEC stat for once made them fun to use. Elemental damage is more accessible on some other, even unexpected, classes in this game, but Alchemists have some fun tools like Megido and Analysis, as well as the physical spells. Their main issue is their TP sinking skills, which makes them very costly on the same party as a Medic, as well as their mediocre damage output, not helped by their damage formula, so they need quite a few buffs to compensate. Oh yeah, and the Gunner is a better class in pretty much every way while also having other utility, since the Alchemist does one thing kinda well and that's about it. They're still a fine class to use, but they're also not very exciting and have difficulty keeping up late game due to various factors. Alchemists were a pretty decent class in the first game, a hard hitting mage archetype that could dish out the pain easily, only dropping down to fairly average by the post-game. Of course because this was a class people actually used, Atlus saw fit to hammer them with the nerf bat. The nerfs are... weird, to say the least. The magic damage formula got a complete rework for the bizarre in this game. In all other Etrian Odyssey games, spells functioned like physical skills, with increasing damage multipliers for each level like you've seen in the previous class writeups. That is absolutely not how magic functions at all in EO2. Instead, to put it crudely, spells are essentially "weapons" in this game, with leveling up the spell giving you a better "spell attack power" in place of weapon attack power on actual weapons as you've seen in the damage formula previously. This ends up creating an incredibly bizarre power curve for the Alchemist, as leveling up the spells enough essentially gave them a powerful weapon that greatly outpaced the current point of the game they were in, destroying pretty much everything in sight. Up to a certain point anyways. How Atlus tried to disincentivize this is by making it so that the TP costs of their spells at high levels are ridiculously expensive! Using high level spells meant that while the Alchemist could hit really hard, they would heavily deplete their TP pool in the process so they could only be used a few times at most. This created what is essentially a clunky class to use. Leave their spells at a low level so you can use them more often, but due to the magic formula rework they'll stop doing damage past a certain point due to being far too weak. Or level up the spells so they can heavily contribute, but develop a horrific addiction to Amritas in the process to stave off their TP woes. If you intend on tackling the post-game though, this is a far different story. Alchemist becomes one of the worst classes in the game at that point due to various factors I'll elaborate on in a bit. Hopefully they were able to carry the other 4 party members and give them enough space for them to take control in the post-game. This looks familiar, their stats haven't changed too much, even with the 70 cap. Their TP is slightly boosted, though it doesn't completely compensate their increased spell cost, their STR and VIT took a slight hit, as expected, but it shouldn't make them too fragile. Right? AGI and LUC are mostly the same, while TEC got a nice little boost. While it would be fun to nearly naturally hit 99 with level 99, there's plenty of TEC boosting equipment that it's not going to be an issue. Overall, what worked last game works here. TEC is the Alchemist's version of the STR stat, so level up TEC to increase the Alchemist's damage output. Due to their aforementioned TP woes, leveling up their TP pool is an absolute must! Yes their base TP pool may look high, but trust me when I say it's not really enough to make up for their skills' costs. They're that expensive! STR is absolutely useless for them since they are not muscle wizards, but are needed to unlock certain skills. Which suck so they're not a great investment. AGI isn't that important for them, as AGI is not used in the accuracy formula for TEC-based attacks, as TEC also doubles as an accuracy stat there. Not to mention because they're forced to use Staves, their speed hits rock bottom anyways. LUC is also fairly irrelevant for them since they can't inflict anything, and it's already decently high. HP is basically take it or leave it, but Alchemists are squishy even with the HP increase. However there is one thing we need to be upfront about : the new magic formula. It wasn't too crazy last game, where part of the formula could be ignored due to how little difference "Damage Boost" had, but this time, it's, well:((SpellPower + 20) * (aTEC + 20) * (aTEC + (SpellPower / 2))) / ((dVIT or (Armour / 3) + 20) * ((((dTEC * 3 / 2) + (aVIT / 2)) / 2) + 20)) * 17 / 10 * Passive Boosts * Resistance / 2. Yeah. It's a big of a bugger so it might not be completely correct, but it's simple enough once you plug the numbers in. I won't go over all of it, but there are a couple big things to note. Firstly, ignoring everything else, there is a literal /2 at the end. This is why magic doesn't scale too well past the early game. It would be ridiculous at the start of the game if it wasn't halved in damage due to how low enemy's TEC often is, but it also makes it pretty mediocre towards the end of the game when the enemies get stronger to compensate. It's not a dealbreaker, but it is a pain in the arse. Second, there's of course a bug, there usually is, since one of the factors is YOUR OWN VIT!!! Why that should be a factor in a magic formula is beyond me and it's a pain due to how low the Alchemist's VIT will always be, as well as other classes that usually use elemental damage. Again, it's not a massive deal, it's one factor, but it's another reduction in damage that this class didn't really need. So you need to stack various passives and other buffs to make the damage even remotely competitive. Alchemists will be just fine, but man they could be so much better if they had a formula worth a drat. Yeah so uh, magic in general in this game sucks all around. Not just Alchemists, enemy spells too suck thanks to this formula. Every bit of magic gets halved due to poor balancing foresight, allowing you to facetank several attacks that would have been complete party wipes in another Etrian Odyssey game. Yes, even that elemental trio of attacks in the post-game for you veterans. Also the VIT bug applies to enemies as well, meaning that their damage gets further reduced because the stronger the enemy is, the higher their VIT is. Meaning that they're mostly punching themselves in the face to damage you, and it's not very effective cause their skin is so thick. Yeah already you can see a huge mess and we're only just getting started. The last kicker is that when Alchemists hit the post-game, their damage will drop down to Landsknecht and Survivalist tiers of awful thanks to this formula! And they end up being far worse since you won't be able to use their skills as often, while Landsknechts and Survivalists can at least go on for longer before they're forced to chug down an Amrita.Common Passive Unlocks TP Up: Lv5: Analysis STR Up: Lv3: Phys Up TEC Up: Lv5: Analysis; Lv 10: Megido More standard stuff, and ones you'd probably invest in anyway, so it works out. Well, except for STR Up of course, you don't need to invest in Phys Up, uh, past level 1 due to how thoroughly awful mastery passives are in this game, and the physical spells are also not particularly exciting. You'll fully invest in TEC and TP anyway and Megido is a pretty good nuke that trades weaknesses for more damage. And Analysis is one of the best passives in the game. So, you know.Fire/Ice/Volt Up Fire Up Unlocks: Lv1: Fire; Lv5: Flame, Inferno Ice Up Unlocks: Lv1: Ice; Lv5: Freeze, Cocytus Volt Up Unlocks: Lv1: Volt; Lv5: Thunder, Thor Increases Fire/Ice/Volt damage. Passive.  Well. Here it is. Alchemists are ruthlessly simple and this is one of the main reasons, their passives are pretty pathetic, but it also means you don't need to go past level 5, the increase in damage is negligible and you don't unlock anything else, so these are, yet again, trap skills. I don't think there's much preference on elements, Ice isn't used too much and Fire is pretty taken if you're also using a Ronin, but it's not a big deal, and there's plenty of SP to go around, so go directly to 5. Unlike in the first game, these passives actually work like you think instead of literally only adding 3 points of damage at max level so they're safe to take this time. However like all other mastery skills, maxing them out unless you have nothing left isn't a good idea due to the miniscule gains. As for which elements to take, veterans of the series may think you'd invest in all 3 at some point to give them good coverage. That's absolutely not the case in EO2, tribridding is simply not practical in this entry. Instead the elements you mainly want to focus on are Fire and Volt, as Ice is a terrible element past the earlygame. Maybe invest in the tier 1 Ice spell if you're not confident your team can get past the first two Stratum bosses easily, but past that point Ice should never see any use. Fire and Volt cover each other really easily in a lot of cases, and in the times they don't, there's another skill you can use in their place.Phys Up Prerequisites: STR Up Lv3 Unlocks: Lv1: Blades/Gravity/Piercing Increases Blades/Gravity/Piercing damage. Passive.  ...okay. The physical spells are a bit weird in this game, they just kinda exist since there's only the AOE spell and it doesn't do a great amount of damage due to the lack of physical weaknesses compared to elemental ones, but we'll get to that in a moment. For this skill, thankfully you only need to put one level into it because gently caress me what is the point going further. It's also pretty weird since it boosts the physical spells, not the Alchemist's physical damage, not that it would change much. The STR Up investment prior to this seems completely superfluous and it's just annoying having to waste SP like this to get to something slightly different. Anyway, due to how boring the execution is, you wonder why they bothered. Extremely questionable unless you're doing a challenge run with 5 Alchemists or a solo Alchemist or something. Chances are you took an Alchemist so you'd have elementals on your side, as several other classes already have the physical damage front covered. Something interesting to note is that unlike in the first game, all of the Alchemist's spells benefit from attack buffs now. This is because in the first game, said buffs only increased the ATK stat which has no effect on spells, while in 2 they got changed to increase all outgoing damage period. This makes Troubadours and War Magi very good classes to pair up with the Alchemist. Defense buffs and debuffs on the other hand are a little different and I'll go into that in a bit.Analysis Prerequisites: TP Up Lv5, TEC Up Lv5 Unlocks: Megido: Lv5 Increases damage of spells when they hit a resistance of 110% or higher. Passive.  For passives, this is one of the best. Here's a bunch of free damage on top of the free damage you were doing anyway. There's a lot of elemental weaknesses and this is a way to keep somewhat on top of damage throughout the game, and you can use a Hexer to forcefully create weaknesses, bonus! This is why the physical spells aren't that great, among other things, as they don't take advantage of this as much as they'd like, but the elementals absolutely love this skill. Once you get your standard spells, beeline for this, it makes so much difference. Unlocking Megido at max level is a pretty great incentive, even if it doesn't make use of this skill at all, but oh no what a shame. Analysis is a super good passive as it's a free massive damage boost. It turns 125% damage multipliers into 193.75% damage multipliers, 150% into 232.5% and 200% damage multipliers into 310% damage multipliers! Considering how expensive Alchemist spells can get, you'll want every single free damage boost you can get! Get this as soon as you can. The best part is that you can actually end up creating weaknesses to exploit in this game. Defense buffs and debuffs got a huge change going into EO2. In the first game they manipulated the DEF stat (and had a ridiculously tiny effect due to DEF having a miniscule impact in the damage formula) but here those modifiers are applied directly to the target's damage multipliers making them far more effective. And you can use the Hexer's Frailty skill to create weaknesses for the Alchemist to exploit. Though keep in mind while defense debuffs can help trigger Analysis, attack buffs cannot. Something kind of bizarre is that when you trigger Analysis, the game notifies you with "Critical Hit!" even though skills can't crit. That's an odd localization mistake, as the Japanese version properly displays that as "You struck the enemy's weakness!"Fire/Ice/Volt Prerequisites: Fire/Volt/Ice Up Lv1 Fire Unlocks: Lv5: Flame, Inferno Ice Unlocks: Lv5: Freeze, Cocytus Volt Unlocks: Lv5: Thunder, Thor Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.  Here's the first tier. That is definitely first tier-y. Already the first level costs more TP than the skill did in its entirety last game and it then balloons into ridiculousness at max level, but of course you don't need to, since the next tier skills transition very nicely from a level 5 tier 1 skill. How considerate. Like the passives, going past level 5 in these skills aren't a great idea and these can still be perfectly fine single target damage on the cheap when you don't need to go all out to save TP. Otherwise, uh, yeah, that's it bye. Your tier 1 spells. Pretty much useful for 2 things. Use them in the earlygame so your Alchemist isn't just smacking things with a stick. Or if you just can't use a tier 2 or 3 spell at the moment due to high TP costs. Invest in Fire or Volt, order doesn't really matter. Though more things in Stratum 1 are weak to Fire. Invest a bit in Ice I guess if you're that scared of the 1st or 2nd Stratum bosses. Still, going from a 6 TP cost at max level to 26 TP is just ouch.Flame/Freeze/Thunder Flame Prerequisites: Fire Up Lv5, Fire Lv5 Freeze Prerequisites: Ice Up Lv5, Ice Lv5 Thunder Prerequisites: Volt Up Lv5, Volt Lv5 Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.  Here's the second tier and- hey, wait a minute these are just slower tier 1 skills! Well, yes, the numbers are pretty much the same, which is why they're not fantastic skills, but a 1.5x multiplier is applied to the base damage, so that makes them pretty okay I guess. They get pretty expensive, but they scale pretty well, so you need to max them to squeeze as much damage from this class as you can. Feel free to run the numbers yourself to see what the final result will be, you have all the factors, this is as good as the elemental skills get. Though for pure damage... we could go bigger. The Alchemist's main damage skills. Level up Flame or Thunder how you see fit, though mind the TP costs. Later in the game they're basically not worth using if you can't trigger Analysis at all, as you'll end up dealing no damage. It's not super vital to have Flame maxed out, though you might want to have Thunder maxed out by the end of the 3rd Stratum, as the boss there is an infamous brick wall.Inferno/Cocytus/Thor Inferno Prerequisites: Fire Up Lv5, Fire Lv5 Cocytus Prerequisites: Ice Up Lv5, Ice Lv5 Thor Prerequisites: Volt Up Lv5, Volt Lv5 Deals Fire/Ice/Volt damage to all enemies. Spell skill, uses the Head.  Once you got late enough in the first game, Thor was the skill to spam all the time, since most enemies didn't resist Volt and it was pretty cheap and easy damage to get you out of various pickles. Boy is that not the case in this game, 52 TP!!! What the gently caress. It's a rough recommendation to max these skills, but they're not that great if you don't. They don't have the damage multiplier of the previous skill, even 1.2x would've been something, but nope, at their best, they're level 9 tier 1 skills that you need to use on 3 enemies at once to save on TP, which is pretty sad, let's be honest. They're still useful, especially as 4-5 enemy groups start showing up, but these are not skills you can spam without a crippling Amrita addiction. Say no to TP dependency, kids! Your... encounter clearers, I guess. Boss fights are significantly shorter than a single exploration session, so you won't have to use as many Amritas to get through one of those. Meanwhile you can get into a ton of battles in a single exploration session, and too many usages of the level 5 spell will constantly have your Alchemist zero out their TP pool! Better bring a lot of Amritas, if you're willing to use these liberally! Inferno is the skill you'll want to "spam" as a lot of enemies in the Labyrinth are extremely inflammable. Thor can be a good secondary if you run into a lot of fire-proof enemies. Assuming you're willing to front the expensive TP costs, cause boy your Alchemist will be run dry with these skills! And you can't leave them at a low level forever as they'll stop dealing any bit of meaningful damage whatsoever the later on in the game it is.Blades/Gravity/Piercing Prerequisites: Phys Up Lv1 Deals TEC based Cut/Bash/Stab damage to all enemies. Spell skill, uses the Head.  So everything I just said about the AOE elemental skills? Applies to these and then some. At least the elemental skills will usually hit a weakness and get more bang for your buck, something the physical elements will often struggle with. They're on similar damage output, since the passives behind them are barely any different so there's not really much reason to use these skills over the other elementals. If these had single target hitters then maybe they could see use on occasion, but when are you gonna face 3+ enemies with the same physical weakness that also isn't covered by another party member? In some cases, NEVER! Because we have all the data at our fingertips, we can see that there are TWO enemies weak to Bash and ZERO enemies weak to Cut. Christ what a waste of time, only Piercing will see any actual use and even then it's very niche. It's an interesting idea, but a poor execution. Also still a TP black hole, christ. Absolutely not worth it. They're not even good as secondary AOE skills as Inferno already roasts a lot of enemies in the Labyrinth and the Alchemist has a much better alternative attacking option if their elements don't cut it.Megido Prerequisites: TEC Up Lv10, Analysis Lv5 Deals untyped damage to a single target. Spell skill, uses the Head.  Here's the big skill to use when there's no weaknesses to exploit and no Dampen allowed so the game has some semblance of difficulty. Megido is the most expensive skill in the game, as well as being much stronger than the strongest elemental spell, so it's great to use on enemies with no weakness. However, of course it's a ridiculous TP sink so you can't spam it, it's 20TP more than the tier 2 spells for god's sake. It also does less damage than the same spells with max Analysis, so there's no point using it then. Also Dampen is just so good and if you have no qualms about using it, then this skill is much harder to recommend. Still, when you wanna nuke, you gotta nuke. Megido is basically their big damage skill to use if using a tier 2 spell is a bad idea. Unfortunately as it's Untyped, it bypasses the damage multiplier check entirely, which includes positive multipliers, meaning it can never exploit weaknesses. So the likes of Frailty does absolutely nothing for it. Fortunately attack buffs still boost this skill, so it's not all bad. And this skill basically covers all the remaining situations that roasting or zapping an enemy can't cover. However it's pretty expensive, so be prepared for your Alchemist to develop a severe sugar addiction if they max out this skill. And now that we've seen this skill, here are the basics of how to Alchemist. Assuming all your tier 2 spells and Megido are at the same level anyways and you have Analysis on your Alchemist. Does the enemy take 150% or more damage from your chosen element? Use the tier 2 spell. Does the enemy take 125% or more damage and are under the effects of Frailty as well? Use the tier 2 spell. In all other cases, use Megido instead.Return Returns, heh, the party to the last used Geomagnetic Field. Does not work for Geomagnetic Poles or the labyrinth's entrance. Field Skill.  WARRRRRRRRP STOOOOOONE!!! That's about it, why the gently caress is it 30TP??? This is useful if you forgot both your Warp Wire or your Warp Stone. ...why did you forget both? Even still, this has weird limits on it, even if you'll use Fields for a good portion of the game, but why doesn't it work on Poles anyway? You can put a point into it for emergencies, but this game makes you quickly realise having 2 Warp Wires is a pretty good idea. The extra restrictions added into this game make it an even more questionable investment in this game compared to the first one, and it's literally useless in the first Stratum. And as the game teaches you, you should be packing multiple Warp Wires at once if you can. I'd probably avoid this altogether, as even in a vacuum, this is a very questionable safety net.Eschaton Deals untyped damage to all enemies. Force skill, uses the Head.  And we end with a big bang, kind of attack. Eschaton does a lot of damage and is quite a good emergency button, but also isn't very exciting, like the entire class. It's slightly stronger than Megido, but also has the damage multiplier despite being AOE, so it can be used generally if you happen to build up the requisite Force. That's about it. It's Megido, but stronger, faster, and more accurate, on top of being AOE as well. Not much to say about it. Use it whenever it's up. Though you can grind up Force super early in the game to cheese a bunch of things that shouldn't be easily possible to take on at that point, such as FOEs. And for more cheese, the first Stratum boss can be one shot by this if the Alchemist's TEC stat is high enough, and they have a damage buff from the Troubadour and/or War Magus. A neat little trick to know if you're willing to Force grind. However due to how magic works in this game, don't expect this to hold up for the rest of the game. Because yeah, Alchemists are so, so simple compared to the slight Poison utility they had last game, even if it didn't amount to much. They do one thing pretty well, but suffer from a few nerfs and endless TP issues. They're a little tricky to spam but when you want to sling spells... use a Gunner, but this is a fine second choice! Oh there's also the Ronin's elementals... a fine third choice! Out of three. Alchemists ate a ton of nerfs going into EO2, turning them into a fairly clunky class to use. You basically have to watch their skill levels closely, which no other class really demands in this game. The other problem is their role as an elemental attacker is easily taken up by two other classes, the Ronin and the Gunner, both of whom have far more manageable downsides to deal with. While they can be a force to be reckoned with in the main game, being only held back by their expensive TP costs, in the post-game they pretty much turn into one of the worst classes in the game, so if you intend on tackling that, you may be better off dropping them for something else.
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Dec 1, 2021 03:08
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Part 13: Down and Up Nine and Eight Ye ready or woot? Sorry, sorry, took some time with bathroom etiquette. Cause you kept raising your leg up! I can't help it, it's natural! Mmm! Well with that delightful time out of the way, let's get moving. With a grin like that, someone was impatient. Feels like we've been on 8F for months, so with the final exploration team of the stratum, let's move on already. Kicks! Flames! Owchies!  That's a great start when you don't have a Medic. Thankfully we do have a Hexer. A good offense can make a good defense.  Don't think they'll flap much if I put a bolt through them. Though why do they even have those wings to begin with- Spin teh win baby! Gryphon HP: 183 STR: 21 VIT: 20 TEC: 21 AGI: 42 LUC: 42 Level: 26 Exp: 1,072 Skills Fangs: Uses the Arms. Deals 150% Cut damage to a single target. Has an 85% accuracy modifier and a 10% speed modifier. Claws: Uses the Arms. Deals 75% Cut damage to a single target 2 times. Has a 70% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 150% 100% 100% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Steel Beak: 35% chance, sells for 36en. 1 required for Broba - Axe, ATK+68 - sells for 1,150en Pure Quill: 25% chance, sells for 33en. 1 required for Oval Aspis - Shield, DEF+16 - sells for 945en 2 required for Wing Plate - Light Armor, DEF+31 - sells for 1,140en 4 required for Jelly Helm - Headgear, DEF+12, TP+3 - sells for 780en Conditional: None New floor so new monsters, Gryphons either do 150% damage to one target with Fangs, or ~150% damage to one target with Claws. That's... the game alright. The main annoyance is it dodging hits due to being pretty fast, but otherwise that's about it. Claws is worse than Fangs because it has more chances to miss. I don't know why the skills are nearly identical. And it's more likely to use Claws than Fangs as its HP gets lower, so it actually gets weaker. Oh and despite a skill being called Fangs, it uses the arms. Other things to note is that a battle with a sole Gryphon is always going to be flagged as a blindside. Otherwise not much to em other than you cursing their evasion because of their high evasion stats. lol what is this enemy design. not the visuals but the skills  9F C6 Take Point Ambush Chance: 10% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Mint Leaf. 60% chance. Sells for 65en. 1 required for Medica II - Item, heals the target by 200HP - sells for 200en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12% - sells for 700en Mugwort. 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispels 1 buff from a single enemy - sells for 100en 3 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en Tri-Fruit. 15% chance. Sells for 175en. 1 required for Fire Jar - Item, Lv5 Fire, deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Ice Jar - Item, Lv5 Ice, deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Volt Jar - Item, Lv5 Volt, deals Volt damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked Gathering point I'll never use, yadda yadda, the first part of this floor is full of slow Firekings, but to conserve you for the longer journey ahead, we can walk into the back of them to reset the encounter orb.  drat dodgy immobile plants! Uhuh. Clearly, your weapons just slide off the enemies, like they're coated in grease or something.  What's around this way, boy? Oh, I see. A wall. Behind the wall ya numpteh!  Neat.  Let my songs give you strength! I feel my flames getting hotter, you really know your stu- blehhhhh! Remember to move away from the opponent after you attack it. 9F D6 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 5% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Red Root: 45% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Self Bow - Bow, ATK+56, STR+2, AGI+2, +15 speed - sells for 1,440en 2 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en 5 required for Snake Whip - Whip, ATK+, STR+2 - sells for 1,680en 5 required for Fire Beads - Collar, DEF+62, STR+2 - sells for 1,580en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Pine: 35% chance. Sells for 250en. 1 required for Quid pro quo Hardwood: 20% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,550en 5 required for Milk Maul - Stave, ATK+65, HP+15, -3 speed - sells for 1,530en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn I don't want to walk over and show you it. My crutch for this last LP was recon squirrels telling the party where things were, now it's Beasts with super senses that I assume they all have. Gotta craft a believable narrative, y'see. Efficient gameplay I see. Both pale in comparison to Byeahs.  Gah, gently caress! Has she been with us the whole time? I mean, uh, sorry. Easy teh blend in all that protectin' fur! Purr! It appears the doctor's assistant sensed no danger... she seems to have had a nasty collision with the retreating Juthro. You apologize to her, while keeping an eye on your surroundings. You stand there for some time but all that you hear now is the soft falling of leaves. As you inspect the trees nearby more closely, you notice that they're in a withered state. What's this strange liquid...? And this scratch, too... You notice she is investigating the very place where you felt the strange presence... you step closer to her, seeing that she's using tools from her bag to scrape off the liquid. Several other trees are coated with the liquid, and you can see a pair of scratches on them. The markings and liquid must be related to the disease... but what was the presence? Well, don't just stand there! I have the sample we came for. Let's hurry back home... The assistant stores some of the liquid in her bag and prepares to return to Lagaard.  But that'll probably mean we'll have to get another sample, so be careful on the way back. why Don't bother her, she's a professional. Oh, and uh... I forgot my Warp Wire... sorry to ask, but please don't use yours, or I'll be stranded out here all alone. Let's do our best and head back to Lagaard! You nod in agreement and leave the area. Can't we just hug her real tight and still use the wire anyway? Alas due to the dimension warping properties of teleportation, more than five people isn't possible without things getting dangerous, so we must walk all the way back. ...? Tha' makes sense. Grrrrrr... So I hope you had enough resources to walk from the 8F Geo to some of 9F and then back to 6F, so we'll see how it goes. Angie heavily implies that if anyone dies you'll have to come all the way back here to get another sample to then go BACK, so try not to do that, eh? Thankfully going into that room is optional until you're ready, so you can bring Angie with you exploring as long as you want. Oh god, gotta love arbitrary restrictions. Yeah even if you have spare Nectars, it counts as an automatic failure. That being said if you can revive dead party members in battle, you'll avoid triggering the fail condition. A lot of quests in this game are annoyingly saddled with failure conditions, and I'm thankful later games cut down on that. Meanwhile, in the EO4 LP, Ariadne threads can affect entire skyships. Actually, no, that's not even the LP, that's just EO4. You can use an Ariadne thread while you're just flying around on the skyship, and it'll return you to Tharsis.  Very handy way to get back to the stairs.  Getting tempted to use that wire... We're nearly there, hold strong! But as expected without a Medic and using most of your healing items on the first blindside... I was resigned to just leaving the labyrinth and trying the quest again, this time with way more healing items! But, uh... I'll head back first. Let's meet up at the central city. The assistant nods to you as she teleports back to Lagaard. You can remain in the Labyrinth to explore, or follow her back. Yeah uh, I just used a Nectar after the battle and finished the quest fine. Maybe she only steps in to help if you have multiple deaths? I ain't loving complaining! Oh, and if you came from the Field to start the quest, you can just use a Warp Stone to instantly come back here from 9F. Probably not the intended way, but hey, one of the few uses for them I can think of! "Few?" Sounds more like the only one to me. ...I'm genuinely baffled. What the gently caress happened here? How'd Cross avoid the failure condition? I have absolutely no idea other than sheer force of luck! The only possible theory I have is that it had something to do with the turn being a blindside, because blindside code is a huge mess in this game, so that might've interferred with some flags? Don't take this as the gospel, I'm purely spitballing here as I'm just utterly baffled at EO2 being EO2 in ways I didn't think possible.  Impatient little fu- Shut up! Ow, I just kicked myself... The assistant gives you a wry smile and talks with you before returning to the hospital. The quest is complete! Report your success to the bar whenever you wish.  Were yeh on a date with her, strolling through the forest? Yeh lucky skunks! Now I wish I'd taken the job instead! Haw haw haw! Jokes aside, here's yer reward. Come back anytime! Isn't Angie like 12? That's Abigail, not that I think Cass cares for such things... Well that wasn't fun. As for the reward, Laudanum is a tincture made by dissolving opium poppy in alcohol. Oh, and it removes 1 buff from all enemies, like Lv1 Nihilo, can be handy!  5 Moving Eyes and 5 Fluorite required for Battle Axe, +0 speed 1 Steel Beak required for Broba - Axe, ATK+68 - Battleaxe with a wide, crescent-shaped blade. 2 Pure Quills required for Wing Plate 1 Pure Quill required for Oval Aspis - Shield, DEF+16 - Round shield for front line warriors.  Back to the Labyrinth, boy howdy going through 8F is getting old. I wonder how many times I visited B8F in the EOU LP for the healing spring. C'mon, let's kill this fannae already! No thanks.  Just after where Angie found the samples is stairs going back down, yes it's another joint floor just like last game. It's not as integrated this time, it's mostly side areas. 8F F4 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Fluorite: 70% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Fungus Jet - Accessory, Paralysis Resist Up 50% - sells for 2000en Required for Smithy Thompson's request I 1 required for Arm Guard - Accessory, Arm Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Bite Piece - Accessory, Blind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Warp Stone - Item, Lv1 Return, warps user to the last Geomagnetic Field - sells for 100en 3 required for Godhunter - Gun, ATK+66, AGI+2, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,920en 5 required for Battle Axe - Axe, ATK+65, STR+2, VIT+2, +0 speed - sells for 1,480en Red Ball: 25% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Breaker - Claw, ATK+65, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,020en 1 required for Fire Wall - Accessory, Fire Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 1 required for Bash Wall - Accessory, Bash Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 3 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en 5 required for Katzbalger - Sword, ATK+63, STR+1, VIT+1, +15 speed - sells for 1,550en Blood Rock: 5% chance. Sells for 200en. 1 required for Life Belt - Accessory, HP+50 - sells for 1,000en 1 required for Quid pro quo These just get more and more out of the way!  Haven't missed this... Blech! Also we're being chased, but you've gotten used to that by now. Watch where you point that thing! Just having a look... really wanna smash it for some reason.  And that's all that section had, so warp out and go back to where we were. Again.  I'm helping! Eh. If I had a nickel for every time I got blindsided just before the 9F stairs, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it could be due to static RNG. Another day, another door. And there's all of 9F! Ahah, yeah, let's keep going. You're surprised to find a large beast! It's heavily injured and breathing heavily... the beast is so large that you haven't the first idea where to begin treating it... if only you had someone skilled in the healing arts, you could diagnose its condition... Does kathy even know how to heal this? Ow. Hopefulleh. Notice that yeh didn't say Alasty first. Och! I don't think even he knows how to heal himself. Ow! The class exclusive shortcuts are annoying, and will get more annoying, but they can be pretty creative. I do appreciate the unique flavor text for these if nothing else. Also no, Angie can't do anything about this in case you had ideas. Beyond the low grass is a small field with patches of wild strawberries growing in places. You give thanks for the blessing and enter the field with your comrades to enjoy the snack. It's packed with strawberries preserved in syrup, strawberry jam, AND strawberry jelly. I don't know how to describe it... Mrow! Ahh, this brings back memories, let me just bend over... Not like that! You wade into the field and feast on the strawberries. A worry flits across your mind that a monster may ambush you, but it proves to be unfounded. You enjoy your fill of ripe strawberries before returning to your exploration. The sweet forest strawberries have calmed your nerves! Eleanore, who gorged the most, seems to have entered a transcendent state! Ahhhhhhhhhh, this place is great. I remember the last time I was here, before I met you guys, bleeding from my head, one leg missing, this cured me right up. One day we'll find oot how high yeh climbed up before.  Hey diddle diddle, the cat did a piddle! Stop pulling songs from my childhood! It's really hard not obliterating the difficulty with Hexers, but I can use their busted skills on occasion, as a treat. A movement puzzle with a Fireking, but I got lucky, so see ya! Urrrrgh! Urrrrgh is right, weirdly coherent animal. It seems to have died leaning against the tree roots, with its legs splayed out. Could another explorer have slain it? Perhaps you could scavenge some raw materials... but you'd have to ignore the stench to search the corpse... you may simply want to leave. Go fer it, Hart. Smells pretty good! Help me... Blinking back tears against the awful stench, you take a careful look at the corpse. But it seems you weren't the only one attracted by the smell...! A monster with a taste for rotten flash hangs from the trees above you, baring its fangs!  Always the drat trees! Uhoh!  Get away from my lunch! Pretty sure we fed you before we left. Grab whatever you can and leave the area before you lose the contents of your stomach! Well that was fun, anyone for seconds? gently caress you!!! Language. Let's not tell Logan about how accurate the map was. Yeah good enough, you'll get this later since I walked on a lot of tiles from the first section, just in case I could finish this early. Don't forget that you can use Patrol or Guard Soles to walk on the damage tiles with less damage to map the areas properly.  Oop, doon, oop, doon, where's the big bastard we gotta punch? We're getting closer, it smells... fiery. Purr! According to Hart's understanding of beast talk, he's saying "try finger but hole"? You're such a tease game, just let me craft these already! Be thankful it's not EO2U where you have to wait till Stratum 4 to craft it. (Or worse, Stratum 5 if you're playing Story.) I'm yelping! No, uh, helping. It's the first shortcut since 6F! Still have to go through 8F to reach this, but not the pointless parts. 9F A4 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 10% Ambush Encounter: 30% Mystue x3 30% Gryphon x3 30% Addleowl x3 5% Poseidon x1 5% Bigcap x5 Fluorite: 60% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Fungus Jet - Accessory, Paralysis Resist Up 50% - sells for 2000en Required for Smithy Thompson's request I 1 required for Arm Guard - Accessory, Arm Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Bite Piece - Accessory, Blind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Warp Stone - Item, Lv1 Return, warps user to the last Geomagnetic Field - sells for 100en 3 required for Godhunter - Gun, ATK+66, AGI+2, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,920en 5 required for Battle Axe - Axe, ATK+65, STR+2, VIT+2, +0 speed - sells for 1,480en Red Ball: 25% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Breaker - Claw, ATK+65, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,020en 1 required for Fire Wall - Accessory, Fire Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 1 required for Bash Wall - Accessory, Bash Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 3 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en 5 required for Katzbalger - Sword, ATK+63, STR+1, VIT+1, +15 speed - sells for 1,550en Blood Rock: 15% chance. Sells for 200en. 1 required for Life Belt - Accessory, HP+50 - sells for 1,000en 1 required for Quid pro quo That's all we can do in 9F, I hope those two closed doors won't be so for long! Alright, if my senses aren't failing me, then the distinct copper tang of the Pole indicates it's much deeper into the Labyrinth. Ah bloody 'ell! So that 9F shortcut was an indication that you weren't gonna get a nice little shortcut to this floor. In fact, it's directly outside the boss room because there's no shortcut to quickly get from one side of the floor otherwise. It's pretty annoying. Now, we're not gonna warp out right away, there's a couple things to do on this floor while we're still pretty fresh. But also, need to double back quickly cause there's an important NPC we nearly missed! Ah, explorers. Nice to see you... good luck... good night... The guard seems to be filled with ennui, lacking anything resembling motivation. I'm stuck here all day, it's hard to stay awake... He yawns brazenly, rubbing his eyes as he does. If he's this sleepy in the daytime, you doubt his ability to stay awake once night falls. You leave the sluggish guard slumped over the rock and depart from the area. We should probably check on him later to make sure he's not a bag of bones. Ugh! Upon inspection, it seems to be a small, furry animal in the shadow of a large plant. The animal shows no fear of your party and scampers right up to you with a bright squeal. It's so cute friendly, you almost want to reach out and pet the furred rodent. Hello fluffy friend, I'm gonna call you Sally and love you and hug you and pet you- Grrrrrrrrr! What's with the wild one? ...hey didn't we have a squirrel before that- oh shitzen! You reach out to the small, furry animal, coaxing it to your side. But it backfires when the animal takes this as an invitation to run up your arm! The squirrel jams its head in your backpack and runs off with something in its mouth. Panicking, you rifle through the pack to see what you lost to the creature. It seems it ran off with a Warp Wire... one of an explorer's most vital tools! The creature is long gone by now... you sigh and resolve to take greater care in the future. Not again! Why must my furry friends betray me??? That's nae the issue ya dumb oval office! This was probably the worst time for this to happen, we're out of wires! Frrk... Well no point fretting about it now, perhaps we'll find one in a chest, we're not in any immediate danger. I'm still not sure what a Warp Wire is, do we eat it? ...wow I wasn't expecting that to work twice. They seem a bit screwed, but I think they'll be alright. Probably. Let's keep looking around Guehfeuf- er, Sally. Did you learn your lesson the first time? How about now? Unlike last time there's no Warp Wire in a nearby chest, but perhaps for some there is a way out. Let's keep going. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. 10F A4 Take Point Ambush Chance: 5% Ambush Encounter: 30% Mystue x3 30% Gryphon x3 30% Addleowl x3 5% Poseidon x1 5% Bigcap x5 Tri-Fruit. 55% chance. Sells for 175en. 1 required for Fire Jar - Item, Lv5 Fire, deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Ice Jar - Item, Lv5 Ice, deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked 1 required for Volt Jar - Item, Lv5 Volt, deals Volt damage to a single target, with a spell power of 43 - sells for 300en, must be restocked Mugwort. 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Metopon - Item, LV1 Erasure, dispels 1 buff from a single enemy - sells for 100en 3 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en Mint Leaf. 20% chance. Sells for 65en. 1 required for Medica II - Item, heals the target by 200HP - sells for 200en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12% - sells for 700en Well this is no help for our current predicament, as per usual.  Mmm mmm! Red Gel HP: 183 STR: 21 VIT: 21 TEC: 21 AGI: 21 LUC: 21 Level: 26 Exp: 850 Skills Acid: Uses the Arms. Deals 75% Untyped damage to a single target, healing the user by 50% of the damage dealt. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 0% 200% 200%Disable Vulnerabilities 150% 150% 150% 150% 150% 150% 200% 150% 150% 150%Drops Red Core: 30% chance, sells for 34en. 1 required for Nodachi - Katana, ATK+63 - sells for 1,180en 1 required for Jelly Helm - Headgear, DEF+14, TP+3 - sells for 780en 3 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en 3 required for Shard Mace - Stave, ATK+60, TP+10 - sells for 1,880en Conditional: Kill with Ice damage Ice Fiber: 75% chance, sells for 48en. 1 required for Snow Axe - Axe, ATK+66, Type: Ice - sells for 1,690en Didn't feel like we were on 9F for that long, so 10F has a couple new enemies to spice things up. If the only elemental has been your Ronin's Kienzan then this guy might stick around a while due to how they can heal for a chunk. A solid turn of attacks should keep it down and it doesn't really do anything, but it'll be there! The gel is a now established as an archetype of enemies you can encounter in this game. It's uh, still not particularly notable other than it has an immunity now. ...you 'avin a laff, bruv? Wait, wait, wait, let's hear what he has to say before you punch his lights out. It's the rare fool who makes it this far up and forgets to bring a wire... but of course, it has been known to happen! That's where I come in! A helping hand for those in need! I love this game. Same. It's just hilarious in so many ways. His price is 1000en per--pure highway robbery for explorers in need! You suddenly realize that you are without a Warp Wire! It will be extraordinarily difficult to trek back to town from here without one... weighed against your life, the price suddenly seems less appalling. You dither on whether to pay a premium for security or walk all the way back to town. Hmph! Hmph! is right, that's a lot of money, whatever that is, for a Warp Wire, whatever that is. But we do kinda need one. Boy I wonder why! You receive a Warp Wire in return for the nigh-criminal amount the quasi-guard asks. Heheh, thanks! Hope to do business with you again... The sleazy guard does not budge, apparently intending to continue his practices. You shake your head as you walk away with a much lighter wallet. Even I'm tempted to deck him for that. He's on t'list... So here's your salvation from squirrels... if you're playing a password game. Forgot about that? Well it really doesn't matter past this point, but yeah if you're not, then you're pretty screwed. Still, this means you can explore without worry, especially cause there's a good spot to return to town in just a little bit... If you or a loved one are veterans of exploring trees, you may be entitled to being taken in by highway robbery. Why is this locked behind using an EO1 password? What the hell? Huff, huff, getting a bit drained, we gonna head back soon? If you wouldn't mind my indulgences, there is something with quite the smell up ahead. For once I actually concur.  Guardians of the Sorrowful Ice  Woah! Grrrr! ...... The figure standing silently before you is an old man with a gun in each hand. W-What do yeh- I hear a lot of things about Nidhogg. You made it here, so you can be half bad. The old marksman's voice is deep and cold. Not half good either, though. Why not leave this place to us and retire while you can? The marksman's words are shot through with spite. You can respond to him in kind, or ignore him and move on. That isn't very nice, we won't give up over something like that. The old man's mouth twists into an eerie smile at your retort. How many have I gunned down for saying that? I don't know, but I could send you to meet them. You sound deranged, old man, who the hell are you?! You ask the strange old man to identify himself, and he responds with a mocking laugh. Since I'm the last man you'll ever meet. I should introduce myself. Listen well! Wilhelm is my name, but they call me Der Freishütz! I think we've heard enough from him, no use hurting another explorer, let's ignore him. You ignore the strange old man and step around him to continue your exploration of the forest. But you haven't taken five steps when a bullet whizzes into the ground at your feet! Wilhelm, Der Freishütz, never misses twice, children. Leave here if you value your life. The old man takes aim with both guns. You draw your own weapons and prepare for battle! They forgot the umlauts in EO2U. Well, I say "forgot," it's more like "it just isn't in the font." Now this way we might stand oonderstandin' each other! Bring it oon, Der oval office! Grah! You picked the wrong herd to mess with! You prepare for an epic clash against the man they call Der Freishütz! Just as the battle is about to begin, a voice echoes through the area. "That's enough! What are you thinking, picking a fight against other explorers!?" The voice coming from behind is that of a young woman. You turn to face the girl.  I'm sorry. My guardian must be overdoing it. That man... She flashes a glare at the old marksman and to your surprise, his menacing demeanor softens. Overdoing it is a ridiculous understatement, what the hell is going on?! How do I begin to explain this one...? She takes a long look at you and then stares at the ceiling, deep in thought. Let's get introductions out of the way. We're Guild Esbat... you must know the name. I'm Artelind, a war magus, and this gunner is my guardian. We explore the forest together. And believe it or not, but my guardian was trying to help. ... There's a nasty beast on the Labyrinth's 10th floor. It's not like anything you've seen. We don't want anyone without permission from the Grand Duchy to get themselves killed there. So he meant well... he was only concerned for your safety. You find this hard to believe, but the old marksman has said nothing since the girl arrived. You finally nod to show that you're willing to let the matter drop. The girl continues. If you want to go on ahead, you'll have to talk with Dubois at the Duke's Palace. Artelind waves goodbye to you, as if impatient for you to leave. Well, see you later! You walk away from the sullen old marksman and the impish black-haired witch. It seems you have no choice but to return to Lagaard and visit the Duke's Palace. But if yeh could let me smack 'em up... Come on let's go back already! Right, right, I know you want to go on ahead... but I have to be firm on this. Just get permission from the Grand Duchy, and you can waltz right on in. The girl has no intention of moving aside. You have no choice but to return to Lagaard. That's why you gotta push yourself sometimes to hit a story gate, so next time, we've got the whole of 10F to explore. You think they would have let things slide if you were robbed at stumppoint by a squirrel and had no Warp Wires to get back to the Duchy with? Incredibly funny how character limits forced them to just drop the "e" off Artelinde's name.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 01:43
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Troubadour Can equip: Swords, Bows, Light Armor, Clothing May I compare thee to a summer's day? Hey that's how I started the EO1 Troubadour overview, oh wait, that's because they're basically the same. Before, they were relatively passive buffers that lasted all battle and were only really useful for Bravery and Relaxing. In this game... well they're nearly the same, they got hit with the nerf bat like most of the pretty alright classes, such as no longer having Relaxing and Healing. The last one wasn't a big deal, I couldn't really recommend it since it took too much investment, but losing Relaxing kinda stings. Now I didn't use it because I was rotating the party pretty often and when you run out of TP that's usually a good time to head to town, but for standard playthroughs, man it's such a good skill. Otherwise they still have Bravery, so that's what we really care about, still the only skill that actually matters, as well as having some out of battle utility. They're exactly as interesting as last game, though they now have some competition in what they can do and that means they're not as amazing as they were before. Troubadours got some hefty changes between games, but overall mostly play out the same way they did in EO1. They're not really a must-have class anymore, but they're a pretty strong support unit to bring along. A few things bring them down, but they're one of the top tier classes from the previous games to not get utterly nerfed into the ground, thank goodness! Like most classes, Troubs have lower stats overall from the previous game at level 70, such as STR, which they didn't use, and TEC, which they didn't use, as well as slightly reduced AGI. That last one does matter since they don't get as big a boost to song speed as the previous game, which will come into play on occasion. And by that I mean maybe 1 or 2 allies might attack before you get Bravery up, and that's about it. They got slight buffs to HP and TP, but they should be in the back not taking hits and they will rarely run out of TP, so whatever. Troubadours are far from a stat hungry class. In fact, due to the way they operate, there's only one stat they remotely care about, and that's AGI. Which is already pretty sky high. Their skills don't really depend on stats, but getting them to move faster is pretty important since they're strong support skills. Their STR took a noticeable hit, so they're not really that great at dealing incidental chip damage anymore, though I guess if you really want that you could invest in STR. Though really a better investment might be their defensive stats since they're not really an attacking unit. They'll definitely want a TP boost, though due to the way songs function it's not a huge priority. And HP increases are always appreciated as well.Common Passive Unlocks LUC Up: Lv10: Divinity Troubadours are a ruthlessly simple class, Songs does all the heavy lifting, so there's only one other passive that makes a difference. Due to how much spare SP this class has, I guess you can max out loving LUC Up for more exp. This game isn't very difficult and the only class unlock is very early on so you don't need to grind much, but hey, what else are you gonna do? Due to being a support role with SP to spare, you can give them some much needed VIT or boost their AGI a bit, but 10 points can only do so much.Songs Unlocks: Lv1: Bravery, Shelter, Mercury; Lv3: Stamina, Recovery; Lv5: Erasure, Nihilo; Lv7: Blaze, Frost, Shock; Lv10: Ifrit, Ymir, Taranis BUGGED: Description incorrectly states skill does nothing. Increases song speed. Passive.  Hey look it's this skill, the skill that they need. This is one you should max out, even if the game wrongly says it does nothing, since even if it's not as good as last game, every bit helps when it comes to song speed. Technically a Troubadour only needs 1 point in this for Bravery, making this class SP optional past level loving nine, but I guess you could go all the way to the elemental resistance skills, even if Dampen makes them pretty pointless. If nothing else, you should get this to level 5 for Erasure and Nihilo, but like I'm gonna say multiple times, this class has never had SP issues, feel free to get whatever the hell you want. It's a pretty minimal effect mastery, but Troubadours don't really have a lot of skills they want, so they have SP to spare. So take it up to the various points you need to unlock the songs you want, or max it out. Up to you. Probably should be maxed out last if you opt to do so, as the speed increase is rather minimal.Divinity Prerequisites: LUC Up Lv10 Increases experience gain. Stacks with itself. Passive.  This is a skill that can go either way, while LUC is better in this game than previous, Troubs don't really need 10 extra points into this and the game isn't particularly challenging due to all the busted classes and Force skills, so extra exp isn't that important. Since it stacks, you can use it to get to level 99, but we'll hopefully do an intervention before that can really get going. It's always best to get this early and if you want to make the game even easier, by all means, but I don't believe it's necessary, especially since bosses give you so much exp to compensate for none from FOEs. Hey, it's the grinding skill. In the last game it could see some use since you were pretty starved for experience points overall there. This game? Not so much. Grinding in this game is far easier, and bosses are experience point feasts in this game. So rather than spend points into this, you can just kill bosses a few times. Though you could theoretically use this to level up to 99, but for the love of god please never attempt such a thing! You don't need to grind that much, 70 is enough, and there's no reward for getting all the way up there!Bravery Prerequisites: Songs Lv1 Increases the base damage of the entire party. Affects untyped damage. Song skill, uses the Head.  Ahhhhhhh~ god I love this skill. It's something you should go for immediately, and you'll max it out very quickly, since it's such a great ATK buff that can make this easy game even easier! One turn to lay a buff down for the entire battle is still so stupid, especially since your Troub will kinda twiddle their thumbs for most of the battle after this, but it's great to lay down as soon as you can. Last game, this class had alright STR so could contribute with imbues and buffs, but since all that has been nerfed, they'll be an item monkey forevermore. A bit of a shame, but this is why you're using this class, it's good, so they're good, everything else is honestly just a bonus. Now, in fairness, not only do level 11-15 skills no longer exist, which does hurt, but this is weaker than last game. It's still really good, so I'm fine with it. The Troubadour's bread and butter skill. Pretty much should be the first thing you should max out without question. Lay it down and pretty much the Troubadour's main job is done. Especially since they lost Relaxing, so they don't really have a must have secondary buff to put up (though still plenty of good candidates in this game). And like Cross mentioned, their STR went down the gutter, so they don't really contribute good incidental chip damage anymore. So they're pretty much stuck thumb twiddling unless an emergency happens. Something to note is that this game changed Bravery from a direct increase to ATK to being a general damage boost. Which affects everything by the way, even Untyped damage (though not Revenge due to its mechanics.) This means that even the Alchemist can get in on the action from being buffed by this, and a boosted Megido or even Eschaton can deal a ton of damage, as well as their other big hitter spells.Shelter Prerequisites: Songs Lv1 Reduces damage taken by the entire party. Song skill, uses the Head.  It's back, and it's a bit different to before. Last game it boosted your final DEF value, which didn't really help since ATK and DEF had such a wild disparity, especially when it came to lategame enemies. But now it's been changed, for the better, to be a general damage reduction. This is actually important to the balancing of stats to make things a bit more consistent, enemies can hit pretty hard, but it's also important because this is the only defensive buff the Troub gets access to, since their Force skill is... bugged. Still, killing enemies is better than surviving them, so Bravery is still preferable, but this ain't a bad skill to drop down. The changes to the buff mechanics in this game make Shelter a much stronger defensive than in EO1. Whether you take this or not is up to you, but due to the changes to defense buffs, you'll definitely want at least 1 point in this to clear defense debuffs, as they're far more threatening now that they actually increase the enemies' damage by a noticeable amount instead of a few points. Though at level 10 it's effectively a 25% decrease to most damage taken. It doesn't work against Untyped damage because this is effectively a multiplier applied to the party's damage resistances. So that's something to keep in mind.Mercury Prerequisites: Songs Lv1 Increases AGI for the entire party. Song skill, uses the Head.  Another song that's a bit better in this game due to a couple factors. AGI was miserable to boost before due to it getting the nasty habit of /5, which made it tough to actually get enough to make a difference. This game doesn't have that issue, though some weapons like staves completely tank a class's speed modifier. But again if you use this skill and you're still not faster, you look like an idiot, and there's not many cases when going first will make much difference. I've never used this skill, and I don't fancy starting now! Probably the worst of the main 3 buffing skills. While speed is a more notable mechanic this time around, the kind of buffs this skill has to compete with make it much less appealing, especially when its competition got buffed. Granted, this is an increase to AGI, so you do get more accuracy and evasion out of this, so that is something that can benefit certain parties. Especially since accuracy is actually a concept that exists in this game now instead of something that makes you wonder why they bothered implementing it. Of course the weapon speed mechanic in this game can make this buff nearly meaningless, so uh, probably not a good idea at all if your party is full of slow people.Stamina Prerequisites: Songs Lv3 Increases max HP of the entire party. Does not recover the health gained. Song skill, uses the Head.  A bit of a weird skill that is harder to recommend due to the loss of Healing, but can work out, maybe. You've gotta have a heal on standby, but due to speed modifiers, you'll have this skill start the turn and then the heal end the turn, not too great. It gets much more utility lategame when you can really boost up the numbers and hit the 999 cap, but it's also not necessary either, so it's hard to say when a skill like this could be useful. Overall some tanky classes would love this, but you also need to toss them a heal in short notice to really help them tank stuff, especially Beasts, christ. It gives more effective HP than Shelter, but you'll have to maintain it through active healing, which drags it down a bit. If your party is lacking in that for some reason, stick with Shelter. Another thing that makes this skill not particularly appealing is the 999 HP cap, and nothing can break that cap in this game. Which is especially a big factor when the HP Up passive gives so much more HP when maxed out that this buff ends up not typically having much effect and eating a buff slot for something better. Up to you whether you take it but it's personally a slight pass for me. That being said, if you have a Revenge Hexer, this is a very easy way to give them a big damage boost. The increase from the old max to the new max HP isn't healed up, so that's a good chunk of empty HP the Hexer can use to fire off even more powerful Revenges. If you actually intend on using that strategy, this skill turns into a very good pickup because it's such a huge DPT boost to Revenge.Blaze/Frost/Shock Prerequisites: Songs Lv7 Unlocks: Lv3: Ifrit/Ymir/Taranis Imbues an ally's regular attack with Fire/Ice/Volt damage. Song skill, uses the Head.  Imbues were pretty great last game since composite attacks were as if you were attacking twice and helped Troubadours contribute in battle when they didn't have much else to do. Ah, that's no longer the case, your normal attack is just replaced with an element, so can be useful on certain enemies, but usually you'll just unload a bunch of elemental skills on them and leave the normal attacks to those who do a pitiful amount anyway. It can be useful if you're out of TP, just to squeeze more damage out, and you can create weaknesses with Dampen, but when you want to use a lot of elemental attacks, you're fully rested and taking on a big boy with lots of HP. It's also not worth investing in them, since there's not much to gain from it, especially since the last thing you really worry about is whether it has a good enough speed modifier. Oh boy. A rework to how composites worked basically nerfed imbues as a whole to oblivion to a huge part of the series. In 1, using imbues gave a damage boost, as an imbued party member attacked with both their STR and TEC at the same time when using a regular attack. Not so much in 2. And the rest of the series. All it does is add the respective element to your regular attack with no damage boost. Yeah, and skills start getting way more powerful than regular attacks, so it's not a good idea to use these. At best these can help snag conditional drops more easily if you're not using Dampen, but for the most part, these are not worth using. That being said, there is one possible use case for these skills. Creating fodder for the Landsknecht's chaser attacks, especially if you don't have a lot of elemental attackers otherwise. Though you could probably use items for that instead.Ifrit/Ymir/Taranis Prerequisites: Songs Lv10, Blaze/Frost/Shock Lv3 Increases elemental resistance for the entire party for the entire battle, and reduces enemy's elemental resistance for 5 turns. Song skill, uses the Head.  Oh boy these skills are a little lame. Last game they could actually be used in some circumstances over the Protector's antis, but they're too mediocre this time to really do that, which is a shame. They can help in creating weaknesses, since there's more elemental damage to make use of in this game, but Dampen does the same thing, though not to the same degree. These skills are a little pointless, especially for how much you need to invest into them to get any kind of use out of them, but since they're a double effect skill, they still have some utility. Hoo boy, these skills got mega nerfed. They were fantastic defensively against elemental attacks, and a fairly alright elemental damage boost. Now, the defensive portion is rather crappy, going down from a 70% reduction to a 30% reduction. Ouch. That being said, magic in this game sucks, but chances are you're better off throwing down an elemental mist instead to deal with those defensively. The offensive portion on the other hand, got buffed from EO1, as the 50% damage boost can be applied naturally without using Boost. Very handy if you're using an Alchemist, as these do stack with defense debuffs and can heavily increase their damage output.Erasure Prerequisites: Songs Lv5 Dispels buffs from a single target. Song skill, uses the Head.  Guess who's back, Erasure has very niche uses, but it's a very good niche in slapping down whatever the boss wants to do. It only needs 2 levels in it, there might be one time you would need to remove 3 buffs from an enemy, but you really shouldn't have let it, but there will be some cases when 2 buffs are annoying. Overall, yeah it's alright I guess in that it does one specific thing. You'll definitely want to take at least 2 points in it, as more big enemies are prone to buffing themselves compared to the opposition in EO1. Though no more than that should be necessary. 3 buffs on an enemy isn't happening unless you let it happen, and that's really just sloppy playing at that point if you really need to erase 3 buffs at once.Nihilo Prerequisites: Songs Lv5 Dispels buffs from all enemies. Song skill, uses the Head.  And it's the same thing again, but less useful. Regular enemies will very, VERY rarely ever have 2 buffs, let alone 3, so you can put one point for a few edge cases, but that's about it. At least these are both cheap, easy skills to use, so definitely pick them up and hopefully you won't have to worry about enemy buffs ever again. A one point wonder at best. You shouldn't see too many group enemy buffs, and you're very not likely to see 2 or more. Maybe get 2 if you're really scared of buffs, but level 3 and beyond really shouldn't needed, ever.Health Reduces the base chance of status ailment infliction on the entire party. Affects Instant Death, but not Binds or Stun. Song skill, uses the Head.  This is what replaced Healing and it's different, and also pretty drat good. It's a straight subtraction from the base chance, which is always 100% before LUC is factored into the formula, making it a 20% base chance of infliction at max level. That's pretty drat incredible and not only does it not need any kind of investment, not that you really need it earlygame, but it also lasts all battle! What a fantastic counter to some enemy's tricks and definitely something to pick up to save of Theriaca Bs. Its scaling is pretty wonky, so you might not need to invest all the way, but even from level 1 you'll notice the effects of this buff. Health is a fantastic defensive, preventing ailments and instant death from landing on the party so much in the first place! If you're worried about your party being disabled, putting this up can heavily decrease the chances of that happening, making a number of encounters far less dangerous. Also bizarrely one of the few skills in the game to have reverse exponential scaling for some reason.Recovery Prerequisites: Songs Lv3 Increases the rate of status effect recovery for the entire party. Does not affect binds. Song skill, uses the Head.  So after a skill that has a really good chance of blocking status effects, here's a skill that reduces the time you have them...? Okay, sure, this wasn't a great skill last game and while it's better this time, since this is added onto the final recover chance, making you instantly recover from ailments at max level, it's still not as good as preventing them entirely. Also you'll still have, at least, 1 turn with an ailment, which is still a pain. It's cheap and you can see the effects pretty quickly, but it's hard to recommend over Health. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that applies big time here. Health is way better since it has a huge chance of just stopping the ailment from landing in the first place. And no matter how fast this makes you recover, you'll still be stuck with the ailment on the turn it was inflicted and the turn after that. Which is basically the same time it takes to toss a Therica B to someone and doesn't eat up a buff slot. Just use Health instead if you're worried about ailments.Danger Increases danger value of tiles. Field skill.  Danger. High voltage. I feel like there's enough encounters in a regular game that we don't really need more. It's good for grinding or hunting for a specific enemy, but if you want more exp, just beat a boss. Also it gets annoying having a fight every 3 steps, but that's just me. Encounter reduction skills aren't too great outside of gathering parties, so surely encounter increasing skills would be great, right? Not really. It would honestly make things more annoying for yourself if anything. The game's encounter rates are already well balanced to keep you on the curve, and there are far far better ways to grind for levels in this game if you need to do so. At best you'd use this to hunt certain encounters, but it's not really a skill that should really see much use.Luring Lures non-red FOEs in a certain radius to tile used and stuns them for a set duration. Field skill.  Oh hey it's Dark Hunter's Racket. Like I said then, you can use items, or you can use this, though Troubs have the SP to spare. It's pretty whatever though. There is one section of the game where it can be handy for Troubadours to have this. Otherwise, take it or leave it, and nothing is stopping you from using items instead there.Slumber Stuns non-red FOEs in a certain radius for a set duration. Field skill.  Oh hey it's Racket without the lure. Again, items, but these two skills give Troubadours some nice field utility, since they can be useful here and there to avoid FOE fights. And you'll want to avoid FOEs in this game for sure. It's pretty whatever though. Once again, take it or leave it. It technically wastes less "FOE turns" compared to Luring, though it's easier to use as it stuns FOEs on the spot, and you won't have to worry about dodging them as they come towards you. But again, there are items to deal with that.Crusade BUGGED: DEF buff doesn't define what it works against, so does nothing. Increases ATK, DEF and maximum HP of the entire party, in that order. Force skill, uses the Head.  Goddamn morons... Crusade is a pretty good skill, but the bug holds it back for a few reasons. It would be a great way of casting a greatly boosted Bravery and not have to think about using Shelter or Stamina, but because of the dead DEF buff, it's probably easier just using Bravery instead. Because of how the buffs are cast, any further buff you use will remove the ATK buff, so you can't stack this skill with Bravery, annoyingly, and it means the dead DEF buff that, again, does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, is in the middle and needs 2 other buffs to remove it, right pain. And of course this fills up the buff slots of the entire party, which can annoy some classes, while also making some bosses really not like your buffed face and thus punch it really hard. This skill is great for the ATK buff alone, but it has quite a few issues that hold it back. Crusade seems powerful on paper, but there's quite a bit that makes it not as good as it seems. The bug makes 1/3rd of the skill a huge annoyance, as it basically does nothing other than shield you from defense debuffs. And the ATK buff is strong, but that's about all you're getting damage wise. Can't be stacked with other ATK buffs or even different buffs if you want something else. And the amount of buffs it gives causes certain bosses to go ballistic and smacking you down hard because you have too many buffs. Just be mindful about using this, because it'll also clear out any existing buffs on your party as well, especially if you had important defensives up like mists. And that's the end of the album, Troubadours have their uses, mainly Bravery, and while they're not as good as last game, they can still contribute in many ways. Like Medics and Alchemists, they're very dependant on their Head and really don't do much outside of buffing, but they have some great utility and have a lot of freedom in SP as well as turns in battle. Since they weren't changed all that much, they're still pretty good, thank heavens. The loss of Relaxing, their TP regeneration song, hurts, but overall Troubadours didn't get too many direct nerfs. They did get some indirect nerfs due to changes to enemy behaviours and other mechanics, but overall they're not really a bad class to stick into your party.
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Apr 8, 2022 01:53
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We're nearly at the next boss, so it's time for voting, omg. Since our guild is actually starting to invest in skills properly, we can now do a proper overview of who to vote for. But first, let's look at the upcoming boss. Hellion HP: 2,100 STR: 40 VIT: 40 TEC: 42 AGI: 42 LUC: 32 Level: 30 Exp: 54,000 Skills Roar: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Panic on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 150% speed modifier. Inferno: Uses the Arms. Deals 110% STR-based Bash and Fire damage to a single target. Has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 120% speed modifier. Embrace: Uses the Arms. Deals 75% Bash damage to a single target, with 90% splash damage and attempts to inflict Fear. Has a 100% base infliction chance, a 90% accuracy modifier and a 15% speed modifier. Kingfire: Uses the Arms. Deals Fire damage to the entire party, has a spell power of 90 and damage multiplied by 75%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Atrocity: Does not use a body part. Deals 75% Bash damage to the entire party and dispels all buffs. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 10% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 0% 125% 75%Disable Vulnerabilities 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20% 0% 25% 5%Drops Red Wings: 90% chance, sells for 1,680en. 1 required for Malice Rod - Stave, ATK+73, TEC+8, Type: Fire - sells for 5,510en 1 required for Hamao III - Medicine, fully heals the target's HP and TP - sells for 20,000en, must be restocked Conditional: Kill with Instant Death Sharp Claw: 100% chance, sells for 30,000en. 1 required for Bomb Axe - Axe, ATK+196, Type: Fire - sells for 267,000en Definitely looks dangerous but since we've gotten some skills compared to Chimaera and have more options available, it's not too bad. Not having a ticking timer with mobs as well as mediocre Fire damage helps too, but can definitely lay in the hurt if you're not expecting it. Also this fight can be super easy if you know which specific Dark Hunter skill to use to remove half her health, but well, we won't be using that. Mainly cause Sonia doesn't have that skill maxed out. ANYWAY, here's who you can vote for. Holly: Definitely use her before she falls behind and off a cliff, she has chasers to follow up on Ice attacks and does some piddly damage with Tornado. She's mainly going for Counter right now which eats up a lot of early SP, but it's the main way to make her unique, so uh, a ringing endorsement I know. Logan: Has 1st Turn for emergency healing or a quick smack, as well as piddly damage with 2-Bolt. Again, nothing all that crazy but he has his best skill already so it's mostly downhill from here. Lily: Hellion's attacks are all physical aside from the mediocre Kingfire, so Lily can Front Guard this monster all day, Antifire isn't that necessary even though she does have it. Add in Provoke to tank the deadliest skill, Inferno, and you've got a pretty solid member. Sonia: Yes, she has Climax, no I won't use it, but she can bind arms with Cuffs and attempt to inflict Poison. Definitely one of the less flashier members to bring but she'll do her job and dammit do it well. kathy: Has Salve 2 to ease off Embrace and Kingfire but otherwise can't do much else. A very reactive member that can definitely combo with Logan for fast healing, even if we also have a fast healer... still nice to have! Corinth: You might think he has big Ice damage to do, but since he went for Analysis first he won't be using tier 2 spells just yet. Still, he's one of the best ways of damaging the boss and due to only getting one vote we haven't seen him since the last boss! Juthro: Bravery and Health yes please. Hellion uses Atrocity if you have 11+ buffs so you can use two Troub skills and nothing else, which will depend on the party. Since Fear can be a right pain I might go with Health if we have another buffer but it depends how strong the team is. Eleanore: After maxing out Kienzan it's time to use it against a... Fire immune boss. Well thank god she just learned Midareba. It won't be a boss melter just yet but she can hit really hard regardless, Ronin are still ridiculous. Hart/Sophia: Probably the worst time to be using a Hexer since it's unlikely you have a lot of their busted skills unless you were super gunning for them. Hart/Sophia can try to land Sleep or Poison and not much else, they're even going for head binds, so not much use there. Even if they had Revenge I wouldn't use it anyway. Aleksandra: Can do some nice damage with Iceshot and even a middling Richochet, but the main draw, heh, is Medishot to heal Fear, assuming she doesn't get tagged. Bit early and a bit squishy to be using Riskice anyway. Alastor: With pretty okay speedy heals and some singular boosting in Warmight, definitely a fine option. Will be doling out Nectars instead of Revive, unfortunately, but can also stab at things if need be. Rajah: No Loyalty? Then he's usable for this fight! Wildcut has been very nice for mobs but alas he'll have to rely on the quite expensive, but very powerful Bodyslam. Should've gotten Devour earlier but hey that's what the healers you'll vote for will do. R-Right? Vote for any three you'd like and we'll soon be out of this drat stratum.
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Apr 8, 2022 01:55
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Might as well let Holly and Logan to let them shine one last time with kathy to keep them alive.
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Apr 9, 2022 21:17
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Holly, Corinth, Lily. I always did like Esbat more than Beowulf, their story isn't exactly complex but their dynamic is fun. It was a little disappointing EO2U never let you recruit either of them as guest characters, letting them take revenge against the Overlord or the one dragon boss (?) would've been a nice bit of closure.
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Apr 9, 2022 21:39
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Votes so far! Holly: 4 Corinth: 3 Logan: 2 kathy: 2 Juthro: 2 Lily: 1 Aleks: 1
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Apr 10, 2022 17:20
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Part 14: Tenth Floor, Ten Doors Met is... one way to describe it. Then you must know of the beast at the end of the 10th floor. Its strength is quite fearsome, but it has an even more horrific quality... You see, Esbat and the other powerful guilds joined forces to destroy it at my request. As one would expect, their combined strength was enough to destroy the monster. But only days later... the monster reappeared as if nothing had ever happened! Don't tell Alastor about this. Deal. Now do you understand why I hired Esbat to block the path? While that beast still lives, I can't let any explorers throw their lives away by accident. Only those who have heard the tale I tell you now are allowed to proceed to its lair. Well? Is your guild willing the challenge the immortal beast? So this is kind of a weird tidbit. In other EO games a boss being able to respawn is kind of lightly acknowledged, but this is like the first time that sort of phenomenon is actually seriously acknowledged in-universe for whatever reason. It won't be immortal when I'm throo wi'it! Hrr hrr! I see... I expected as much. Then I won't spare the details. Its den is at the end of the 10th floor, directly in front of the stairs upward. Its unholy power of healing and control of fire has led us to name it Hellion. Countless explorers have met their deaths in combat against the fiend. If you intend to defeat the Hellion, you must face him fully prepared! Still need to reach it first, but otherwise, you seem to be in a lot of pain. If it's back problems I can kick it into shape. We received the specially made clothes we ordered for the Duke's daughter. It's almost her birthday... one of the few times each year she goes out in public. She's a wise woman, and very kind to all she meets. Beautiful, too... she attracts marriage proposals from royalty all over the world. Perhaps if you keep up the good work, you might meet her in person. Until then, head back to the Labyrinth and be diligent in your exploration. I'm never okay. But I assume you meant something else. What do you mean, "What?" You're up on the 10th floor, aren't you? I heard that's where a huge monster lives! He said it looked just like me! The cheek of that one! Do me a favor, and go see if that monster really is as pretty as me! Bahaha! that makes one of us I would be hoping my mannerings would be distinctly enough! Oh, yes, I heard that you often shop at Sitoth Trading. It so happens that all the medicine they stock is made at this hospital! We're always working on medicine to ease the lot of an explorer. Please take advantage of our medicine for a safe journey through the Labyrinth. Well I, eheh, have my reasons. Sigh... Listen to this! The other day, I got the cutest earrings! They're made of gold, and they shine so wonderfully in the light. They're so, so pretty. Our jeweller does a great job of making them! They're useful in the Labyrinth, too.  1 Ice Fiber and 3 Steel Fangs required for Snow Axe 1 Red Core required for Nodachi  But of course, the best necks are the ones I can't see. Ahaha... but you came for information, not jokes. I've heard that you've gone as high as the 10th floor. It's supposedly home to a fierce monster. Only a few explorers have seen it. One of the survivors gave me a description. Black, bobbed hair, and a horned monster... Honestly, I couldn't make head or tail of his babbling. I don't think the beast looks very threatening, but we only know it's strong against fire. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. Word travels fast, they only just got back. I need a cuntin' drink! I admit, I never expected yeh to make it up there. Explorers are a dime a dozen here, but not half of 'em could have made it up there. Hey... hold on a tick.. when did the trees start turning red? Around the 6th floor, eh...? So the place changed on yeh after five floors... yeh're on the 10th floor now--think it'll change color on yeh again on the next floor? Wouldn't that be something? I can't wait to see what'll happen as yeh go higher! Yeh lot better get up to that next Stratum so yeh can tell me! He makes a fair point, considering the heat of these floors due to Salamox, and how it'll rise upwards, I believe the next stratum would be a desert.  I love finding precious gems, they make a nice crunch. Well, yeh know the Duke's Palace isn't far off, right? Naturally, his daughter lives with him. Us common folk don't hear much about their daily lives, since they're up in the palace, but... the Duke's daughter is having a birthday soon. There's a big celebration every year, and usually the whole city bands together to buy a gift. Usually it's a jewel. We have lots of jewelers, but not many quality stones. I think yeh can see where I'm heading with this. Sorry to ask yeh to do our dirty work, but... yeh can find precious stones on every floor up to the 10th, in at least one area per floor. Take yer time and find as many precious stones as you can, then bring 'em right here! Best of luck! Oh baby it's time for a tile hunt quest spanning everywhere we've visited so far! Shame you couldn't find these places beforehand to note them for later, but considering the reward for obtaining more than you need to is money, it's not that important. I'll still go to every spot anyway. Let me tell you that doing these yourself isn't fun. Once again, I sure am glad I'm not the one that has to play through this crap! I'm not sure who exactly posted it, but it's from the hospital. Just go to Lagaard Hospital as usual if yeh want the details. Helpful, but we need to kathy for something anyway.  Ah gently caress. oh boy oh boy oh boy Oh this is an infamous one. A bit of history to start... yeh ever heard of the Master Craftsman? He lived in Lagaard long ago, and he was so talented, he even made the Duke's throne. His last work was a chess set. Yeh don't know chess? It's a type of board game, see... there's six types of pieces in chess, and 32 pieces all told. Lots of craftsmen give their own special touch to the pieces. Some collect them just as art. It's the same for this Master Craftsman's pieces... yeh get the drift, eh? One of the nobles around here is after the most important piece, the Queen. It's a rare piece, so yeh're on yer own finding it, unless... Well, if yeh meet someone who's got one, they'd want all the other pieces in trade. G'luck with this one! What's a chess? He didn't really explain it very well. Beats me, I don't play board games since they're spawns of darkness. Now as to finding the pieces... oh Cass just posted a request. That rewards us a chess piece. Okay then. Yeh remember the quest yeh've got going, where that noble wants the Queen piece? I told yeh before, but it won't be easy to come across. Many nobles collect the Master Craftsman's stuff, and they won't part with it for nothing. But they just might trade it to yeh for a piece they don't have. Now then... to tell the truth, I myself have one of those chess pieces! A man were in here once, and he paid with this piece instead of money. It's the only one I have. But it doesn't interest me much, and I know yeh need it, so I can't hide it away. So I'll swap it to yeh for a few things from the Labyrinth. Here's what I want... 1 Blood Rock, 1 Red Pine, and 3 Tri-Fruits. Bring me back all of that and I'll fork over my piece. G'luck! So begins the Queen quest, Cass mentioned we'll likely get one by trading in all the other pieces for it, and we've got a quest for the first one. You can see where this is going, the reward for the Queen quest is a Beast Bell to hide the fact that we won't be finishing this until POSTGAME! Bit of a pain, but we only need to accept it once to get the rest of the quests, so this will just sit on the request board for the rest of the game. Still, it's not too bad if you keep on top of quests, if only they were mostly interesting. EO2U just flat-out tells you at the start that your reward is a weapon, the Yggdrasil axe, in addition to the complete rework this questline got in general. This one is infamous for lasting all game with basically no end in sight until the game is almost over. One thing you can do to make things less of a pain? Just cancel the quest after taking it. Taking it enables the flag for the later quests to spawn, and canceling it doesn't clear those flags, so you don't have this thing eating up a slot in your quest log.  Eh, good enough. What are yeh, a map ninja?! When they told me someone died up there, I was worried it was yeh lot! Huh... so this is how the floors up there are laid out... that's quite a maze! Well, yeh can count on me to deliver the map to the Grand Duchy. Here's yer reward! I'm counting on yeh! That, and your assistant. Hey, don't glance behind you all innocent like! drat that never works... Haha, we have so many patients these days, it's automatic for me to ask that. Sorry! As for the quest, we need to build up our stock of medicine for times like this. Could you please retrieve some medical components from the Labyrinth? We need 5 Mint Leaves and 3 Beast Hides. I'm fairly sure you can find them all on the 10th floor. We can't let patients go untreated for lack of supplies. If you find what we need, take it to the Stickleback Bar. I have every confidence in you! you sure it's not already dead? Then Hart will be sad to miss out on a meal. Phew, it took a lot of text but we're gonna play the game again, wow! Before we continue with 10F, there's a couple things here and there to finish up. The Mint Leaves are easy enough, but we'll need to grind for some Beast Hides.  Huff, huff, need to extend the reach of this slash already! I'll run, but I wooon't hide! Grrr! はやい! Your medic skillfully examines the beast and asks for help in treating the wounds. Thanks to the medic's and treatment, the beast recovers and leaves the area. Once it's gone, you notice that its hulking body has trampled a path for you to use. You can use this path to cross to the other side of the forest wall! Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. best of luck cause i'm tapped out We'll be reet as rain!  It required a Medic and trudging across pain floors you should totally mitigate with Patrol, but the reward is pretty worth it. 1 Steel Horn required for Vine Bow 1 Steel Horn and 1 Ruby Scale required for Horn Plate - Light Armor, DEF+33, VIT+2, Volt Resist Up 10%, sells for 1,670en - Has a horn to allow electricity to escape. 1 Steel Horn and 1 Mint Leaf required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12%, sells for 700en - A pheromone gas that causes enemies to target the user.  Let's get back, Hart is starting to get quite irate about all these hides. Ahh, welcome back! Did yeh find what they needed for the medicine? Perfect! Now I've just got to pass these on to that health freak... gahhh. Here's your reward. Use it wisely! Neat, we can hoard these for now. And while it took half the update, it is time to explore 10F. Oh not again! Killed by a Griffin on a previous adventure... how embarrassing. ...zzzzZZZZZzzZZzz... Oh fer cu- Hmm! I was about to kick him awake but what is it boy? Shockingly, the guard has fallen asleep on the job in the middle of the Labyrinth! You reach toward the guard to give him a hard shake, when you see something that stops you. There's a heavy-looking money pouch fastened to the guard's waist... It's a tempting situation... the guard's fast asleep, and doesn't realize you're here. You stand frozen between the two choices: filch the guard's money pouch, or wake him up? Well he's sleeping on the job, but we have plenty of money, something he might not be so fortunate about. We should wake him up anyway, it's a terrible idea to sleep here. You couldn't live with yourself if you stole from one of the Grand Duchy's guard corps! You resist the temptation and tap the guard's soldier, trying not to look at the money pouch. Mmm... whaat...? I'm a little busy... lemme alone... zZzZZ... The guard shakes himself free from your grasp and seems to be falling back asleep. You give up on the idea of waking the guard, and take your leave from the room. No matter, I'm sure he'll be fine. Still, this is a good lesson about how one should never- Holly!!! Wha? A fool an' his money are easily parted. I learned tha' from an ancient thing called crypto-summit. Hehehe! You tell yourself it's what the guard deserves for falling asleep in the deadly forest... Carefully, steadily, your fingertips brush his pouch... suddenly, the string holding the pouch comes loose and it falls neatly into your hand! Inside, you find a considerable sum of coins. It's too late to return it now. You add the coins to your own and hastily leave the area. We don't really need this, but it is very funny. Ooh, how naughty! It appears as though the wall might have some sort of mineral inside... you may use your tools to chip away at the wall, or ignore it and move on. I question Hart using his teeth for it... but he is very good at this. You'd be surprised with his skills, did you know he can breakdance??? As you chip at the wall, you hear a clinking sound as your tool strikes something hard. Upon carefully pulling it out, you discover that it's a large mineral deposit. You recall now the quest you accepted in the bar... the people of Lagaard anxiously seek stones to fashion into jewels for the Duke's daughter. To your untrained eye, this could be a precious stone or simply a chunk of rock. Either way, you decide to stow it in your bag and hope for the best. Sharp is right, nearly split my head on one of these before. If the gem quest seems like a huge pain in the rear end then this basically unavoidable one is a way out. 6 of the 10 rocks you obtain can be gemstones, but the only thing you get for it is more money, and we just got more money from stealin and pinchin and thievin than we'll get from this quest. So feel free to hand it in now. Would be nice... Don't like the taste of apple? What's an apple? Ugh, doors. There's a lot of doors and one of them leads the right way, the rest of them will be explored anyway because I hate my life. Hmm. Hmmmmmmmm. Hm? Hmmm. Hurry up drawin', toots, we're leavin'! Game design is my passion.  GRAAAAAAH!!! Holy poo poo... I'm glad he's on our side. You can hear rustling and chirping from within. It seems the tree is home to an animal nest with young chicks inside... you search your belongings for a Tri-Fruit you can feed to the baby birds. Eat up and grow big and strong and then I can fight you! Hm. You remove a Tri-Fruit from your pack and place it in the hole. The chirping stops momentarily, but eventually resumes as they begin eating the fruit. You feel the warmth of a good deed done, and leave the area behind you. ...there's no punchline, uh, that was it. If you have a Tri-Fruit then you can feed the birds. No reward, no healing, nothing. And hey, I think expecting something in return isn't a good way to live, do it because you want to, to put a smile on their face, to make the world a better place. These are the kind of lessons Etrian Odyssey II teaches us and that's why it's my 2008 GOTY, yes, even above Super Mario Bros. 2! Some events don't give anything, and I think it's fine for some of those to exist to spice things up. Got Japanese Sonic boxart quote vibes from that bit from Cross. Hey, hey, oval office, yeah, relax, I just wanna talk. I do declare that we're in a spot of bother. You ever realise... that giraffe... is giraffe backwards. Woah. Wow this is insufferable when it happens to multiple people. Hope we never get hit by it. That's my secret, gurl, I'm always crazy. Addleowl HP: 171 STR: 20 VIT: 22 TEC: 32 AGI: 20 LUC: 19 Level: 27 Exp: 1,168 Skills Powder: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Panic on the entire party. Has a 55% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 150% 100% 100% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 0% 0% 0% 100% 110% 100% 100%Drops Glow Quill: 30% chance, sells for 32en. 1 required for Beheader - Axe, ATK+73 - sells for 3,360en 1 required for Greaves - Footwear, DEF+14, AGI+2 - sells for 860en 2 required for Hard Plate - Heavy Armor, DEF+32 - sells for 1,460en Conditional: Kill with Fire damage Curse Nail: 80% chance, sells for 65en. 1 required for Scorch Bow - Bow, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,720en Remember the owls that put you to sleep last stratum? Yeah that was a bit annoying, so here's the next one, that confuses the entire party. That can quickly become a huge problem, but if you know how to read the AI files like I'm sure you all totally do, uh, then it'll just limply smack you at full health. If it blindsides you, or if it's below 99% health, then it'll guarantee go for Powder. So... don't do that? Basically save them for last or prepare to one shot them to avoid the deadliest aspects of them. I don't find the invisible enemies that hard to dodge, but you can skip one of them this way. We can kill it, I'm sure! Pole first, kill later. Another one for the pile. Can't use them just yet, what if I need it later? Grr! Grr! Grr...  Ah the classic hidden shortcut in the corner of an empty room. This is something we definitely can't use for 15 floors! Almost bounced off his fur.  Meh, well, this exploration has been going quite smoothly. Let's fix that. Woah, I barely reach its knees. You are quite small, but I guess I have to live with that! Poseidon HP: 500 STR: 32 VIT: 25 TEC: 20 AGI: 22 LUC: 25 Level: 28 Exp: 1,504 Skills Charge: Uses the Head. Increases the user's damage by 110% for 5 turns. Has an 80% speed modifier. Scurry: Uses the Legs. Deals 110% Bash damage to the entire party. Has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 200% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 75% 75% 75% 125% 150% 125%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 150% 100% 100% 100% 150% 110% 100% 100%Drops Brute Bone: 40% chance, sells for 52en. 1 required for Shotgun - Gun, ATK+65 - sells for 1,290en 1 required for Pale Round - Shield, DEF+18 - sells for 1,120en 2 required for Katzbalger - Sword, ATK+63, STR+1, VIT+1, +15 speed - sells for 1,550en Conditional: None Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, Raflesia weren't too bad by the time you properly got to them but they could still wallop you. Poseidon are tanky, can buff themselves and then basically oneshot your team. Best to nuke them down on turn 1 and then Defend the onslaught, but they can definitely survive a max level Poison or being sleep bombed, so your overpowered strats might not work, since Scurry comes out annoyingly fast. Still, all it does is wipe you, if you can avoid that you can deal with its free turn. Or run, that's fine too. The strongest monster in this stratum. Its high STR stat is what really makes it hit hard, so try to either disable them or take em out first in the 2 turn timespan you're given. Or just defend on the 2nd turn. That'll easily let your party facetank the incoming Scurry.  Alright we have it on the back-gently caress! Gahhh, buggeration! Those familiar with later games might be surprised that it just wrecked us since it should go for Charge first, right? Well, that's what they're attempting, but it doesn't necessarily have to use Charge to then go for its nuke, since even if you disable them, the AI flags are still triggered anyway, bit rude. Still, because it didn't get that small boost from Charge, it didn't wipe the whole party. Still surprised the hell outta me, so definitely watch out for second turns regardless. Time to run. Yeah the AI handler in the first 2 games was rather primitive and wouldn't really check the battle state too closely resulting in some weirdness. Sometimes even fatal weirdness. Cuntcuntcuntcuntcunt... Blehh...  I suppose it had been going too well. I hate this place. Definitely can't get both chests in one smooth line without getting trapped! They look soft and inviting... it would be an excellent place to take a rest. You're sorely tempted to dive into the fallen leaves and forget your cares for a time. Doesn't seem like the best idea with- They've already dived in. Wheeeeeeeee! Well what's the harm? Taking turns standing guard, you dive into the fallen leaves one by one. After frolicking in the leaves, you begin to leave when Rajah cries out sharply! Beasts are such a great class because of stuff like this happening by chance. Who gave the tiger the item backpack??? If you had an Amrita, then you have unfortunately lost the Amrita! If you weren't carrying an Amrita, you lost Rajah's wallet! If you had given Rajah a portion of your money, you lost half the total amount! Whatever you lost, you cannot find it now. You curse your bad luck and move on. What oval office gave the sabre the item pack??? But he looks so cute with it! Hehe! So to add to the pile or weird things this game has... how about stat checks in events? Not the ones you expect like moving something with STR or dodging traps with AGI, but losing an item or money because your party's LUC was less than 100??? So yeah, I'd rather not lose an Amrita, let's reload a state and come back when we're luckier. Also lol that the game highlights "bad luck" as if you can repeat this event and get the good reward later. EO3 had at least one stat check event early on, I remember that much, but EO4 and on ditched them. I don't miss them, personally. Etrian Odyssey really should have more off the wall classes to conjure up bizarre mental images. You lose 1000 en if you don't have an Amrita on hand for the record.  Delicious prey! Please don't make that malicious face with Sophia ever again. 10F B3 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 10% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Hardwood: 60% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Flame Leaf - Clothing, DEF+30, TP+10, Ice Resist Up 10% - sells for 1,550en 5 required for Milk Maul - Stave, ATK+65, HP+15, -3 speed - sells for 1,530en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Root: 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Self Bow - Bow, ATK+56, STR+2, AGI+2, +15 speed - sells for 1,440en 2 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en 5 required for Snake Whip - Whip, ATK+, STR+2 - sells for 1,680en 5 required for Fire Beads - Collar, DEF+62, STR+2 - sells for 1,580en 1 required for Toward a cozier inn Red Pine: 15% chance. Sells for 250en. 1 required for Quid pro quo Bit risky at this low health, but I really wanted to unlock the shortcut. We'll use it once before we unlock the pole and then never use it again, but it's the principle!  3 Red Cores and 1 Holed Rock required for Shard Mace 1 Curse Nail required for Scorch Bow - Bow, ATK+62, Type: Fire - Its magical arrows become balls of fire. 2 Glow Quills required for Hard Plate 1 Glow Quill required for Greaves - Footwear, DEF+14, AGI+2 - Hefty legwear designed for concealment.   The walk to 10F. Hopefully the last time! And while we're on the way... I won't sleep, dammit! I'm not falling asleep this time! The guard seems to be muttering something repeatedly to himself. Er-hem, uh, money problems? N-Not that I would know anything about those. Wow you're bad at this. Oh... hi. Last time I fell asleep here, I lost my entire salary. My wife yelled at me, and I couldn't even get drunk at the bar. What a mess... You're at a loss for words... especially since you alone know the truth of the matter. It must have been some drat monster that eats money! This forest is one big hellhole! You feel as though you should leave before your conscience gets the better of you. After a short farewell to the guard, you walk briskly from the area. So, what have we learned? The ends justify t'means! Yep. There's no karmic retribution for stealing the money. Do so if you wish, you dirty thief!  See, not a problem! Well... for most of us. By using Defend it's like it never used Charge at all! Ow... There's other doors to go through but dammit I want that pole. Typical Friday night for me.  Not a problem for me! Cough! Please try and keep my blood in my body. Fucker survived on like 4HP and if Hart wasn't weighed down by staves he would've gone before it! Oh well, we're nearly there and everything will be just- gently caress OFF!!! The suffering of others is the most amusing thing there is. Well that was... something. Can we go back now? Cannae wanna take a peek? Not really. You sense a horrible presence beyond the fluttering red leaves. It knows you're here, but for now, it's content to watch your every move. This must be the Hellion you were sent to defeat... draw your weapons and challenge the fiend!  Yoink! And with that, the typical 10F experience is over with. I don't want to fight dinosaurs again...  5 Red Balls and 2 Brute Bones required for Katzbalger, +15 speed 1 Brute Bone required for Shotgun - Gun, ATK+65, +0 speed - Capable of firing both barrels simultaneously. 1 Blood Hide and 1 Brute Bone required for Pale Round  Beautiful. Fear me! Now you're getting it! The tree trunk before you is forked in two, and a shining liquid spills over the center. You came all this way... you may as well see what happens if you drink the liquid. Hmm? Agreed, but variety is the spice of life. Down teh hatch! You each scoop the liquid in your hands and swallow some. It's faintly sweet to the tongue, and relieves your exhaustion. Two of your party respond particularly well, becoming filled anew with vigor!  Thank god my Troub got a TP refill! Anyway, only available at night, so it's neat or whatever. Hmm, reduces Fire damage, just before a Fire wielding boss... I wonder if there's a connection? Uhuh. Like we could've anyway.10F C5 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 5% Ambush Encounter: 60% Poseidon x1 40% Bigcap x5 Red Ball: 40% chance. Sells for 75en. 1 required for Breaker - Claw, ATK+65, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,020en 1 required for Fire Wall - Accessory, Fire Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 1 required for Bash Wall - Accessory, Bash Resist Up 30% - sells for 1,500en 3 required for Zanmatou - Katana, ATK+62, Type: Fire - sells for 1,480en 5 required for Katzbalger - Sword, ATK+63, STR+1, VIT+1, +15 speed - sells for 1,550en Blood Rock: 35% chance. Sells for 200en. 1 required for Life Belt - Accessory, HP+50 - sells for 1,000en 1 required for Quid pro quo Fluorite: 25% chance. Sells for 70en. 1 required for Fungus Jet - Accessory, Paralysis Resist Up 50% - sells for 2000en Required for Smithy Thompson's request I 1 required for Arm Guard - Accessory, Arm Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Bite Piece - Accessory, Blind Resist Up 50% - sells for 2,000en 1 required for Warp Stone - Item, Lv1 Return, warps user to the last Geomagnetic Field - sells for 100en 3 required for Godhunter - Gun, ATK+66, AGI+2, 120% accuracy, +3 speed - sells for 1,920en 5 required for Battle Axe - Axe, ATK+65, STR+2, VIT+2, +0 speed - sells for 1,480en  It's like we're not even here. I mean, I can stop if you want. It's really hard not using Hexers, but the enemies get really annoying! Treasure time! But the way to the path is blocked, and there seems to be no way to walk through it. As you discuss the issue of how to cross the forest wall, you notice a branch jutting out. If only you had someone capable of twining something around the branch, you could pass over it. A simple Dark Hunter check, right? WRONG! The game will actually elaborate further if you do have one in the party: Just as you had despaired on passing the forest wall, the dark hunter present speaks up. With one stroke of the whip, the dark hunter latches onto a thick branch on the other side! Unfortunately, the branch is rotten, and will not support the entire party's weight. You estimate the branch could support three people at most... This game is pretty rude! Still, we have the tools at our disposal to get here with 3 people, but that'll be for later. Now that you know that the game enforces party count checks you may wonder if the game will truly go that far. Yes, yes it will. However, the wall before you is thick, and passing it will not be an easy feat. However, your troubadour has a keen ear and picks up on an unusual sound. It's very faint, but it's definitely a musical scale. As the troubadour hums along with the scale, something in the forest begins to change...! The troubadour's voice echoes through the forest, gaining volume and strength as it goes! The trees before you suddenly begin to move as if alive and a path opens up. You stand in awe of the event before realizing that the way forward is clear. How did you do that? gently caress knows. Nice, an accessory for a disabler. Why did a Troub shortcut lead to this? gently caress knows. That's one of the most baffling class events flavor wise.   And that's pretty much this floor. Next time there's a few things to finish up and one Hellion of a boss to fight. Ugh. I don't have anything to say at the end this time.
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Apr 18, 2022 21:43
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Ronin Can equip: Katanas, Swords, Light Armor, Clothing With their folded blade of hanzo steel and other such surface level references, Ronin return with a real bang. In the last game, they were an unlockable class and had a few issues, only really useful against one enemy at a time, had to spend every 4th turn reapplying their stance, and being pretty inferior to the Landy. In this game most of these issues are basically gone, their stances are passives now, but that's what kept them mostly in check. Ronins are one of the most busted classes in this game, able to use their powerful attacks without setting up, have new skills that let them cleave through groups of enemies with little issues, and due to the Landy being hot garbage, they have practically no competition, so using them is super easy. They were fun last game, but they're freaking busted this game, and I cannot wait to use one! Ronin got some super hefty buffs going into this game. Enough to skyrocket them into overpowered territory to be honest. One of the main weaknesses holding them back was their stance system. Instead of opting to rebalance it, Atlus just scrapped it entirely. The Ronin can now use every skill in their arsenal without any restrictions whatsoever, making them able to use their overwhelming offenses from the get-go. So what makes the Landsknecht and Ronin stand out from each other? Not much. In fact the Ronin in this game is straight up a better version of the Landsknecht. Almost everything the Landsknecht can do, the Ronin can do better. It's really sad on the Landsknecht's end, but the Ronin is pretty much one of the most reliable front line fighters to put into your party. Incidentally, this class is by far the glitchiest class in the game in the Japanese version. Fortunately most of these bugs were fixed by the time the game was localized, but not all of them. Ronin have very similar stats to the first game, though took a hit in some in the level 70 comparison. The main one, STR, remains the same, which is the important part, and they even got a very slight buff to TP. It's TEC and LUC that took the biggest hits, but oh no what a shame. Their HP and VIT are comparable, so they're still pretty fragile, but their other various buffs more than make up for it.Common Passive Unlocks STR Up: Lv1: Dead Law; Lv5: Clarity AGI Up: Lv8: Shiraha LUC Up: Lv8: Shiraha A few more passives compared to the pretty linear Troubadour, but similarly a Ronin will have a fair few SP since, like usual, only Overhead is the path worth a drat. It's definitely worth getting both Clarity and Shiraha since it'll make your Ronin waaaaaaaaaay more survivable, and a focus into STR Up doesn't hurt. Shiraha unfortunately takes a bit of time, but since your skills are pretty strong, it can be worth heading to it midgame, it's just nice to have. Dead Law is a great damage boost, but also unnecessary if you're running a Troubadour or War Magus. Nothing wrong with stacking Atk buffs though. STR Up is pretty much the biggest must have since they're a damage dealing class. Their defenses may seem rather frail, but don't worry too much about it. The Ronin is a lot more sturdy than it seems. In fact if you build them right, they're not even remotely a glass cannon at all, so don't worry too much about buffing up their VIT or TEC. Their TP pool is really tiny, so they'll appreciate TP Up once you get all of their important skills. Which there aren't that many of, admittedly.Shiraha Prerequisites: AGI Up Lv8, LUC Up Lv8 Chance to nullify a single enemy attack. Unaffected by evasion and other stats. Passive.  Alright, first skill up is a real doozy. Shiraha can be pretty amazing... when it works. And work it probably will, 30% is a pretty good chance to completely ignore a specific attack and will definitely be noticeable when it does work. It'll take quite a bit to actually get to, those aren't cheap prerequisites, but as enemies get stronger, this will be invaluable in making sure your Ronin won't get pasted. Uh, if it works. Still, because this is a completely separate check to evasion, this gives the Ronin two chances at dodging an attack, very worthwhile. Later. Hoo boy! Shiraha is one of the reasons I said the Ronin was not as fragile as it looked. A 30% chance to nullify any damaging attack is huge for the Ronin. It's the kind of thing you'd expect to see on a tank class instead of an attacker. (In the later games, it's the tank class that gets access to this kind of passive.) And on an attacker, it really increases their lifespan so much more. Not only that, it works with evasion, so the Ronin essentially gets 2 chances to dodge an attack entirely, which is just completely nuts. Definitely a must have pickup after they've picked up their most important skills first. A max level Shiraha is pretty much a 43%~ increase to their base HP, which is just nuts. I did say that Ronin were a lot more sturdy than they seemed. Another benefit about Shiraha is that evasion boosts doesn't really work on attacks that have extremely high accuracy. Shiraha does, so it's a more reliable form of defense for the Ronin. Still, due to the steep prerequisites, I'd recommend picking this up after you pick up Clarity.Overhead/Seigan/Iai Overhead Unlocks: Lv1: Zamba; Lv5: Orochi; Lv7: Kienzan; Lv10: Midareba Seigan Unlocks: Lv1: Koteuchi; Lv3: Getsuei; Lv5: Raizuki; Lv7: Minakata Iai Unlocks: Lv1: Kubuichi; Lv3: Nukeuchi; Lv5: Hyosetsu; Lv7: Hosoyuki Increases damage done by Overhead/Seigan/Iai skills. Passive.  We're back to the main reason to use Ronin, this time around the stances are completely passive, instead boosting their unlocked skills by an alright amount. Like before, we'll go into the positives and negatives of each stance and see- oh Overhead is the best. Again. Now each stance has an equal boost this time, as well as equal strength in their elemental attacks, so we have to see which of the regular skills in a stance tree is the best and, as per usual, it's Midareba. Notice this time that you need to invest more into Overhead to get all its skills and that Seigan and Iai don't have an equivalent L10 skill. That's their main issue, Midareba completely crushes the next best skills in Getsuei and Nukechi, so there's never any reason to use them. And the passive buff helps Midareba even more because it gets boosted for each of its three hits! But I'm getting ahead of myself, you could go the other stances, but the only reason to do so is because of their elemental attacks. Now, if you wanted, you could invest in all 3 trees to get all 3 elemental slashes, but then you wouldn't have enough SP for anything else. It's nice that the three stances were all balanced in some way, but because they're now so similar, Overhead only needs a slight advantage to make the other two completely pointless, more so than last game! It's a funny world, but even the other skills in the Seigan and Iai trees just aren't that useful compared to the raw damage Midareba dishes out, you have other party members for being weird, so there's really no contest. Regardless of having to max out Overhead, because you need to get to level 7 for the multi target elementals, having to max out Overhead is a moot point anyway, you're close enough in all three stances that you could just finish it off! In the first game, the stances were active buffs you had to set up to use a certain set of skills. Here, they've been converted to masteries, which pretty much unshackled the demon known as Ronin, and let them go on a rampage in the Yggdrasil Labyrinth completely unimpeded. In fact, with the stance system gone, you could theoretically mix and match stance skills, something that's almost impossible or just a hassle in most EO games featuring the Ronin. However, this isn't as good as it sounds, as Overhead is the only branch that has worthwhile skills. The other 2 stances don't really have any must haves, and spreading out your class too thin just makes a unit that can do anything, but isn't good at any of it. Which is not what you want in a post-EO1 title.Katana Mastery Applies the highest level stance to regular katana attacks, Sayageki and Issen. Hidden Passive. BUGGED: Checks for Healer and War Lore instead of the stance skills so does nothing. Oh EO2, how I love you... this is the first, and only, hidden passive in the game, level up your stances, and your regular attacks, along with a couple others, would also get that boost. Would've been neat, but it doesn't work in any version, so you'd never know you were missing out. It's not a big deal, since you hit hard enough with regular attacks anyway, Sayageki is a bad skill you should never use, and Issen has plenty of damage already. More would've been nice, but such is life, we can't choose what is and isn't bugged in this stupid good game. And here's one of the bugs that the localization missed. Whoops. And since the Ronin doesn't have access to those skills, those 3 skills miss out on the 11% damage boost. What a shame.Clarity Prerequisites: STR Up Lv5 Increases the user's evasion depending on user's HP. Passive.  Well STR Up is pretty nice, so why not? Combine this with Shiraha and you'll have a Ronin that can become very good at dodging hits. Of course you won't be able to make use of both until much later, but you have SP to spare, so this lets your Ronin do their job with not much issue. Though, since they take a lot of damage when they do get hit, you might skip a few steps, or just die, so those low HP numbers probably won't see much use, especially if you want to keep them as healthy as possible. Even at max health, a 24% boost is still drat good, so it's definitely an option when you've got your standard attacks set up. After you've picked up the Ronin's attacking skills, consider taking this amazing passive defensive. At max level it starts you off with 24% evasion at full HP, which is already nuts. That provides 31.6% more effective HP. If you combine that with a max level Shiraha, they'll essentially have 88%~ more effective HP, which is nuts. Clarity should probably be what you pick up first before Shiraha, as it's just an easier skill to build into. And this skill is more likely to save your Ronin the more they're in danger too, which is just a great benefit, and makes the Ronin really hard to take down. The only downside is that some enemy attacks have high enough accuracy to the point where they can bypass any form of evasion, but thankfully there aren't too many of those. Because this skill is an evasion boost, avoid taking this in the Japanese version, as it makes your Ronin's accuracy considerably worse as their HP drops.Sayageki A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Bash damage, uses the Arms.  Our first offensive skill is... boring as gently caress. This is meant to be a skill to use before you have anything else, I guess? The Bash damage is basically meaningless since there's 2 enemies in the whole game weak to it and while it's slightly faster than most katana skills, that doesn't really cut it! Pun not intended. And you can very easily dive straight for a useful skill with this class by getting Orochi by level 4. You might not even finish the first floor before then, this skill is completely useless, so completely ignore it. Sayageki is a basic attacking skill. Except you really don't need it because it's so weak, and a bit of patience will net you better attacking skills for your Ronin to use. Hard pass. There was an equivalent skill in the previous game which allowed the Ronin to attack from the get-go without setting up a stance. Except the stance system isn't even in this game, making this game's counterpart to that skill completely and utterly useless.Zamba Prerequisites: Overhead Lv1 A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.  Oh I suppose this skill exists, even if I haven't mentioned it. I guess you could put one point into this so all your attacks early on aren't Fire based, but it's also similarly pointless when you can go straight for Orochi. This does do more damage than Orochi initially, but you'll be maxing that skill out instead of this one, depends if you want to save the single SP or not. I'll do that just for the heck of it, but this isn't the worst skill? Moving on... It's another basic attacking skill. But I'd avoid making use of this for now, as the only benefit it has over their best attacking skill is that it can be picked up a lot earlier.Midareba Prerequisites: Overhead Lv10, Dead Law Lv5 A single target Katana attack that hits 2-3 times. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.  Guess who's back. Back again. Midareba's back, slice a friend. This skill takes a while to get to, but it's what you were going to get anyway, and Orochi and Kienzan will do you just fine until then. When you do get this skill, you'll then cleave everything in your path because of how STUPID GOOD this skill is. The exponential curve of EO2 blesses this skill with a crazy power up towards the end, going from 232% damage at level 8 to 264% damage to 420% what the gently caress were they thinking. This is why Overhead blows the other two stances completely out of the water. Again. Remember the three hits each get boosted by Overhead's passive, to 33%, and since you just got Dead Law to max level for this skill, add another 30% on top of that. It's so STUPID GOOD and that's why this game is so STUPID GOOD. And you wonder why we were so harsh on the Landy... Pretty much the best damage option for a Ronin period. The only reason not to use this is because the enemy you're fighting is resistant to Cut attacks, or you're just doing some sort of challenge run. Or you're out of TP. No other damage option the Ronin has really compares, and this just lets them tear through everything in the Labyrinth with ease! Easily one of the strongest non-conditional damage skills in the entire game, and this alone just makes the Ronin a broken class. Also in the last game, multihit skills were slightly weaker than single hit skills due to how the damage formula worked. No longer the case in this game due to a reworked damage formula, so it's just straight up 420% damage with little drawbacks. The only drawback being is that there's more accuracy checks, though that shouldn't matter too much with the Ronin.Koteuchi Prerequisites: Seigan Lv3 Unlocks: Lv5: Getsuei A single target Katana attack that has a chance to inflict Arm Bind. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  And now we come crashing back down to ground level. Because Seigan doesn't have the boosted DEF or Iai doesn't have boosted... AGI, it's a struggle to recommend them over Overhead when they're now so similar, and skills like these don't help. With Ronin's piss poor LUC, what are you trying to do with this skill? Like, I get it, every skill can't be all damage all the time, but the Ronin REALLY can't do anything else and trying to do otherwise is pretty rough. There are like 5 other classes that can land binds, for the love of god use them instead. You know what's better than a disabled enemy? A dead enemy. Koteuchi is really hard to even recommend, cause binds are a lot harder to land in this game, and there's a sizeable prerequisite in place. Also you can't even settle for a low level version due to the game's exponential scaling in skill design. Not to mention that the Ronin's LUC stat isn't great, tanking the usefulness of this skill further. Most of the defensive parts of the Seigan stance shifted over to Shiraha and Clarity instead, so use those if you want your Ronin to be more sturdy. In the Japanese version of the game, this skill wasn't worth taking at all because it was bugged to not be able to inflict arm binds at all.Getsuei Prerequisites: Seigan Lv3; Koteuchi Lv5 A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Oh yeah, these last two skills deal Stab damage instead of Cut damage, that doesn't matter, there's a dedicated Stab skill in the Iai tree that does more damage and even that doesn't matter, we'll get to that later. In any case, what does this skill do? Well it's fast. And that's it. Ronin are kinda slow with their speed modifiers, but it's not really that much of an issue, honestly, so a fast skill that does mediocre damage does nothing for them. You can use this to snipe Stab weak enemies, and there are a lot of them, but not only do you need to invest in the godawful Koteuchi to learn this one, but they're completely outclassed by Nukechi, as well as, you guessed it, Midareba. Well uhhh, it's a fast attacking skill. That's about all there is to it. While Ronin aren't exactly fast, they aren't slow either, so the usefulness of this skill isn't too great, unless you desperately need to snipe something, which shouldn't come up too often. Also the steep prerequisites make it a very unattractive option to pick up on the side for even that purpose unless you plan on making Seigan your main stance. Now in Sekaiju no Meikyuu II, this skill was broken. And was pretty much the main selling point of the Seigan Stance. The reason Koteuchi couldn't inflict arm bind was that they accidentally set the "can inflict arm bind" flag on this skill instead! This game also has a failsafe where any value set to 0 is automatically set to 100. And since this skill doesn't have an infliction rate baked in, it was set to 0, which got corrected to 100, giving this skill a base 100% chance to inflict arm bind. As a result, it was the most reliable source of arm bind in the game, and super fast too, binding enemies before they can even act. Since the infliction rate is set to 100% at all levels, you can spam this skill from level 1 to disable FOEs and bosses almost instantly wthin a few tries, locking them out of arm skills, and also considerably lowering the damage output of their physical attacks. Sometimes there is a lot to mention with the much buggier Japanese version, but it's something I'll leave to Arax since, well, I don't remember too much otherwise, and also it'll never come up in the LP, so whatever. It's very entertaining to hear how wonky the Ronin was in that version, but it's just some neat trivia as far as I can mention it in any way.Kubuichi Prerequisites: Iai Lv1 Unlocks: Lv5: Nukechi A single target Katana attack that attempts to inflict Instant Death. Katana skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.  Hello old friend, this was the only real reason to go into the Iai tree last game if you didn't fancy with Climax shenanigans, and it was pretty cheap so it was whatever, you only needed it once. It's much the same in this game, except it's quite a bit worse. Again, Ronin's LUC is shiiiiiiiit and also Climax is loving INSANE, so unless you're not running the best FOE deleter in the series, this skill is completely and utterly worthless. Also just use Issen, but also don't use Issen because it's also not that effective, so I dunno man. But hey, at least you'll max it out to unlock the next skill. Great... As a form of instant death, it's not too great and is weaker than Climax. Granted if you lack a Dark Hunter, I suppose this might be your only way to get certain conditional drops though do be aware it will take a lot of tries on average for this to proc against those enemies, even at max level and a lot of LUC.Nukechi Prerequisites: Iai Lv3, Kubuichi Lv5 A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Here it is, the big important Stab skill that does a lot of damage. Now, granted, there are quite a few enemies in the game with a 150% Stab weakness. So at max level this skill does 405% damage, which is... that's right, less damage than max level Midareba! Not a single other regular skill outdamages it, no matter the circumstances, unless there's a Cut resistant Stab weak enemy I don't know about. It's likely, but it's still so whatever. So do the other stance trees have anything, ANYTHING AT ALL over Overhead? Well it's the strongest skill in the Iai tree, but even at its best it doesn't outdamage Midareba. Only reason to take this is if you decide to make Iai your main stance for whatever reason. Also not that many enemies are weak to stab, so you're going to be smacking for 270% or less damage most of the time. There's only one FOE in the entire game where this can possibly outdamage Midareba, but the damage difference isn't that much.Orochi/Raizuki/Hyosetsu Prerequisites: Overhead/Seigan/Iai Lv5 Unlocks: Lv5: Kienzan/Minakata/Hosoyuki A single target Katana attack. Katana skill with Fire+Cut/Volt+Stab/Ice+Cut damage, uses the Arms.  No, the other stances do not have anything over Overhead, because Fire is the best overall element to use. Now the single target versions are pretty okay, you'll max these out to get to the group wide attacks, but for single target weakness, they're pretty drat good. Of course, since you're getting Midareba, you might as well get Orochi along the way and it just so happens that more enemies are weak to Fire than they are any other element AND they are resisted the least out of the three, though Volt is a very close second. I don't think it was intentional, but there's no reason to take another element aside from Fire, it'll do you the best out of them and it's the one you were investing in anyway, bonus! Now since the elements and the associated stances are otherwise equal, there's no reason you can't take them, they will work just as well, the Volt ones also deal Stab damage for... some reason, but the whole reason you're doing this is for Midareba and for crowd control with Kienzan, so might as well. Now Midareba won't work on everything since some things are really resistant or immune to Cut damage. That's what these skills are for. They provide additional coverage for the Ronin just so they aren't stuck twiddling their thumbs when using Midareba just isn't an option. As for which skill to go with, Orochi is the easiest option as if you have Midareba, Orochi costs the least amount of SP to pick up. Picking up the other elemental skills would be nice, but Fire already has a ton of places it can strike a weakness, and all of the other stances require a rather steep SP cost, which is the only reason we're not clamouring for you to pick up all of these skills. If you're not making use of Overhead, I'd say to pick up the respective elemental in your chosen stance mastery.Kienzan/Minakata/Hosoyuki Prerequisites: Overhead/Seigan/Iai Lv7, Orochi/Raizuki/Hyosetsu Lv5 A multi target Katana attack. Katana skill with Fire+Cut/Volt+Stab/Ice+Cut damage, uses the Arms.  Now for something much needed, Ronin had zero crowd control last game, so this is a way for them to become ridiculously overpowered, since these skills start weak, but then quickly ramp up into pretty powerful mob killers. It seems Atlus looked at every weakness Ronins had and decided to fix pretty much all of them and oh whoops now they're busted, who could've seen that coming. It takes a bit of investment but these skills are well worth it and all three are pretty effective, though of course we've been focusing on Overhead and thus Kienzan. Just add it to the pile of great skills you should max out, and the fact they're only 5SP is even better. Right, onto the next great skill. And even though stances are no longer holding them back for random encounters, Atlus decided to go ahead and patch up another weakness they had while they were at it. These skills can easily clear out most random encounters in the game easily, pretty much making them a non-issue when you pick one of these up. With the Overhead stance, Kienzan is pretty much the skill of choice here since these skills have very steep prerequisites, and it's easier to build into, and Fire is just a really good element in general. Otherwise, just go with the AOE tied to your chosen stance. It's really not feasible to pick all of these up, nor is it even necessary. Just letting your Ronin have AOE in the first place is already a huge boost to their contributions to Labyrinth explorations.Dead Law Prerequisites: STR Up Lv1 Unlocks: Lv5: Midareba Increases the user's ATK and decreases the user's DEF for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.  So on your way to Midareba, hey might as well pick this up. It's a nice damage boost even if it makes the Ronin way more fragile, not exactly what you want. But with proper defensive team support, this turns the Ronin into even more of a monster. Of course, because there are other, less suicidal ATK boosting methods in this game, it might be best to ignore it, but since you'll max it out for the best skill in the kit, you can use it every now and then. Shouldn't hurt, right? Dead Law isn't a great skill, as it only slightly increases their damage at the cost of making them more fragile. The overall damage boost comes out to -12%/-10.4%/-7.2%/-2.4%/4%. Yeah that's right, the first 4 levels are an overall damage loss, and the last level is a very marginal increase. At best it's a TP saver, and whether the decreased defenses are worth saving that much TP is up to you.Issen A single target Katana attack that attempts to inflict Instant Death. Force skill with Cut damage, uses the Arms.  To top this dumb as hell class off, it's a skill stronger than Midareba! That's about its only real use, as its ID chance is pretty mediocre, it's less than a max level Kubuichi even! So you'll be using this skill to throw out a big hit on Bosses who won't really care about the side effect, might as well, and maybe if you're feeling spicy and happen to have it, you'll use it to try and kill something. Again, it's nice but it's pretty boring and you should just use Climax anyway. It's stronger than the rest of their damage options and that's about it. Throw it out whenever it's up. The instant death component is kind of a non-factor in big fights and if you're trying to go for instant death conditionals on bosses... there are far better options, such as the Dark Hunter's Climax. Or even Kubuichi because this being a Force skill makes it impossible to spam. And that's how not to balance a class, Ronin are so STUPID GOOD and I love them. Overhead is yet again the unanimous choice to go for, Midareba is a dumb skill and everything else just kinda falls into place. Ronin are super busted in this game, their single target damage is undisputed and their crowd control and general skillset is top notch. Sure most of their skills are completely pointless, but I guess that's how Ronin work. They do have some use I guess, but Midareba is just so ridiculously oppressive that it doesn't matter. They can be squishy and they're useless after an Arm Bind, but Ronin are by far one of the best classes in the game. But there's a class that's even dumber, even more busted, and they rose from the ashes of the previous game to poo poo all over this stupid good game. This is pretty much a textbook example of overbuffing a class by getting rid of every single aspect that made it bad in the last game. The result is that a mediocre class became an incredibly overpowered demon, as the Ronin is the most powerful and reliable straightforward damage class in the entire game. Of course if we're talking conditional damage classes, there are even more busted classes, such as the Dark Hunter, and one other class that's easily one of the most broken classes in the entire series!
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Apr 23, 2022 |
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Apr 18, 2022 21:43
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Part 15: Hellion of an End       Obtained Sharp Rock. Welcome back to a tedious tile hunt. We already dug out the ones on 9F and 10F but the one on 8F is a little tricky to reach. But first: Riveting gameplay, this questing is. It's a good thing all three heads look the same way. Been a while since I were smashin' pumpkin'! Into small piles of putrid debris?Trigourd HP: 780 STR: 27 VIT: 27 TEC: 27 AGI: 27 LUC: 27 Level: 21 Exp: 0 Skills Pain: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to the entire party, with a spell power of 35 and damage multiplied by 105%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and an 80% speed modifier. Whisper: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Curse on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 0% 0% 0% 0% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 10% 50% 10%Drops Curse Bone: 25% chance, sells for 390en. 1 required for Mirage Rod - Stave, ATK+50, TP+50 - sells for 4,780en Gourd Head: 25% chance, sells for 380en. 1 required for Pumpkinhat - Headgear, DEF+15, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 1,820en Bendy Tool: 90% chance, sells for 37en. 1 required for Headdress - Headgear, DEF+12, TP+3 - sells for 380en 1 required for Blind Gas - Item, Lv1 Blinding, 15% base infliction chance - sells for 450en 3 required for Fancy Coat - Clothing, DEF+28 - sells for 1,030en Conditional: None Let's seriously take these on. And by seriously I mean cheese with Poison because we don't have any strong Ice or Volt attacks yet. Almighty attacks like Megido is also fine but most classes will do sweet gently caress all. So yeah, cheesing it also avoids Curse damage and it doesn't really do much otherwise, so hope you gets its drops sooner or later, cause this is a bitch! The Trigourd has a simple gimmick. If you have the improper damage types, you can't scratch this. Untyped damage also works, like a Hexer's Revenge, or an Alchemist's Megido. It's easy to bypass if you're prepared, however if they jump into a battle, which is very much possible as they are invisible, they can be very nasty enemies.  Bleh! Honestly are any of you even trying? Rather try it my honourable way than whatever foul magics you have.  1 Curse Bone required for Mirage Rod 1 Gourd Head and 2 Red Roots required for Pumpkinhat Gonna be real hard to remove these from our staff users, especially because it doesn't put them into negative speed! Mine's bigger. I don't really want to corroborate that, thank you. Razeking HP: 885 STR: 30 VIT: 30 TEC: 30 AGI: 32 LUC: 32 Level: 25 Exp: 0 Skills Crusher: Uses the Arms. Deals 150% Cut damage to a single target. Has an 85% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Axe Roar: Uses the Head. Deals Volt damage to a single target, with splash damage, with a spell power of 50. Damage multiplied by 125% for initial target and 75% for adjacent targets. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 10% 50% 10%Drops Horn Shard: 30% chance, sells for 350en. 1 required for Beheader - Axe, ATK+73 - sells for 3,360en Beast Hide: 95% chance, sells for 34en. 1 required for Hard Aspis - Shield, DEF+14 - sells for 450en 2 required for Plate - Clothing, DEF+27, VIT+2, AGI-1 - sells for 790en 3 required for Volunteer Service II Conditional: None So one of the sharp rocks is behind this FOE. How were you supposed to know this? Oh, am I meant to have the answer to that? Still, we can beat it up, and Razekings aren't toooooo bad, they definitely hit hard but only one at a time, while Axe Roar is only an issue for the main target, the splashes are pretty whatever. Nothing much to these FOEs other that they can hit pretty hard. If they jump in on a battle they can be a very unwelcome presence, but outside of that there's not much to say about them. Poor guys got downgraded to a Ginnungagap random encounter in EO2U.  Grah! He's so protective of us, but not to a crazy degree. It's definitely a slugging match so we just gotta kill it before it kills us. 1 Horn Shard and 1 Glow Quill required for Beheader   A rock as beautiful as your fur. Ohoho! Hey, uh, you sure you wanna give all of these over? I can tell some of them are r-real lame. Trust me, trust me! I've got a jeweler's eye for those things! Haw haw haw! H-Holy... this is mad! Did yeh lot used to be in the Jewelers Guild? I can't believe it...! Smashing work, Nidhogg! I know the jewelers will be drooling when I show them these babies! Here's the reward for a job very well done! Glad to see I can still count on yeh! Supremely not worth it. I do not miss EO2 quests in the slightest. Even if you didn't get rich off of Chimaera's conditional, that is poo poo money for the effort you put in.  She didn't come quietly. well i was on a record 5 hour sleep but i guess this is more immportant. He asked for yeh special, so I s'pose it's good that yeh're taking this one. There was a shipwreck near the city, and the survivors were all sent to Lagaard Hospital. They called in every able body to deal with it, but they're still short-staffed on medics. Lots of medics are volunteering, but the more the better, right? I'm counting on yeh! Well, come with me. The rest of you know the drill: stay here and watch the shop! wonder how crazy it is, one time i treated a guy with a ship's wheel through his head... "Dead with a ship's wheel through their head" was just the natural state of TF2 players in the immediate aftermath of Love & War. Ahh, sorry about the wait. I walked yer medic over to the hospital. The doc was happy to see the medic, but I hope yer one will be all right... That doc... once yeh get him started on health or medicine, there's no stopping him. "You drink too much," he says, or "You should think about exercising more." What a pill. Speaking of which, while we're waiting, how about a shot or two? Drinks are on me! Tha's a huge mistake. I concur. Geh? Come on now, be reasonable! Don't order the high-end stuff, or the hard-to-make ones... I'm treating yeh here! Yeh gotta be respectful of my feelings! Haw haw haw! Ah, yeh're back! That were quick. nothing interesting, just a load of splinters. Seems like yeh did all right for yerself out there! Good work! Here's yer reward, and I'll be counting on yer help again!  We held out on this quest for so long because the max reward requires your Medic to be above level 20. Well, you get an Amrita no matter what and then 200en for a level 11-19 Medic and an extra 200en for 20+. Again, most of these bonus rewards are super not worth it, so just hand them in when you get them, no point waiting around. I'm wondering what the point of these caveats were. A way to scale up rewards if you tackled them later? Which still has poo poo rewards. One, two, three, got them all. Ah ah ah. ...stop looking at me like that, drat squirrel.  If I knew yeh were going to be back that quick, I'd have asked for more! Haw haw haw! Just kidding... here's the chess piece. Good luck getting that Queen! See yeh around!  One down... that's all the quests for this stratum, so there's just a couple things left before the boss. With one stroke of the whip, the dark hunter latches onto a thick branch on the other side! The rotten branch looks weak, but it will likely support your party until you all cross over. If you wish, you can use the whip strung over the wall to cross to the other side. Why so red, friend? Just hold on tight! Is mister finder a little girly shy? Gah, shut up! Just not used to this... Getting this shortcut is a slight hassle, but with a Stalker Surv it's not too bad getting here, but you will also need a Haltshot Gunner or a Sleep Bell unless you come back to this much later. These are the only monsters I can't sneak by. With how big they are it's not surprising. Reach for the Skybox! How is that working...? If you think you can take a Razeking with 3 party members, it's definitely doable with a Climax DH, but not for these three.  Well it's not heaps of gold, but it'll do. We'll unlock these next floor, so pretty handy for the boss!  30 Soft Horns required for Sting Whip, +35 speed 10 Steel Horns required for Ice Musket Ugh, that's every item unlocked for this stratum too. All that's left is the boss! Well, suppose there's one more thing... Once again, gently caress the gear registry. And gently caress these gear hellgrinds. Alreeeeeeeeeet! Yippee! Taking turns standing guard, you dive into the fallen leaves one by one. The pile acts as a soft cushion for your bodies, feeling like a luxurious mattress. You frolic amongst the leaves for some time before returning to your exploration. Eleanore, who managed to avoid standing guard the entire time, feels completely refreshed!  Ah, much better than the last time I was lying in leaves and recovering from internal bleeding. It's a good thing these aren't burning leaves. They do taste nice when crispy though. They really don't... And with that, nothing left to do but the boss. Here's the team that was voted for and it might be light in damage, but it has a lot of support for the single competent attacker! For those of you that have played the later games, consider yourself fortunate that it is much harder to make incredibly lovely parties. Because my god there's only 1 real carry here. Scarlet Rain  Bout time I smashed a reet big fannae! Like we talked about, you're following up attacks, not going wild! It might be big, and hit hard, and be quite the looker, but I've got some pounding beats for it! well i won't be doing much to start so i'll have a nice sit down. Are-are you eating lemon drops?! ...can I have one?Hellion HP: 2,100 STR: 40 VIT: 40 TEC: 42 AGI: 42 LUC: 32 Level: 30 Exp: 54,000 Skills Roar: Uses the Head. Attempts to inflict Panic on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 150% speed modifier. Inferno: Uses the Arms. Deals 110% STR-based Bash and Fire damage to a single target. Has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 120% speed modifier. Embrace: Uses the Arms. Deals 75% Bash damage to a single target, with 90% splash damage and attempts to inflict Fear. Has a 100% base infliction chance, a 90% accuracy modifier and a 15% speed modifier. Kingfire: Uses the Arms. Deals Fire damage to the entire party, has a spell power of 90 and damage multiplied by 75%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Atrocity: Does not use a body part. Deals 75% Bash damage to the entire party and dispel all buffs. Has a 90% accuracy modifier and a 10% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 0% 125% 75%Disable Vulnerabilities 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20% 0% 25% 5%Drops Red Wings: 90% chance, sells for 1,680en. 1 required for Malice Rod - Stave, ATK+73, TEC+8, Type: Fire - sells for 5,510en 1 required for Hamao III - Medicine, fully heals the target's HP and TP - sells for 20,000en, must be restocked Conditional: Kill with Instant Death Sharp Claw: 100% chance, sells for 30,000en. 1 required for Bomb Axe - Axe, ATK+196, Type: Fire - sells for 267,000en We faced quite the wall with Chimaera and we could do so again with Hellion, she can be quite the terror if you're not properly prepared, but there's a few ways around this big 'un. The most obvious is lopping off around 1000 health and then ending the fight quickly and easily with Climax. It let's you move on to the more enjoyable parts of the game and you get a truckload of cash and exp for not much effort. It also means you ignore Kingfire and Roar, since there's only four AI stages to this boss, though they're not the skills I'm worried about. Without defenses Inferno is just a nuke and Embrace is more dangerous to those next to the recipient, so it could be quite the damage rush to even get to half health. You should also just stick to two Troub songs, especially Health, but Atrocity isn't that devastating, so maybe you can push through it. Let's see how we get on? Hellion is a very simple boss. Even discounting the fact that a Dark Hunter completely lets you skip the 2nd half of the fight, she doesn't actually do all that much. Roar can be annoying, but she only uses it at 2 points in the fight, on the first turn, and when she's about to die. Atrocity only ever has a 50% chance of coming out if you have 11 or more buffs. So just don't have that many on the party to avoid that mechanic. The rest of her attacks just don't deal that much damage, and good enough defenses will reduce their damage to nothing. Embrace is pretty annoying with the nearly guaranteed Fear, but that's the only real obstacle to this fight. Bizarrely enough that's an attack that's more dangerous on the splashed targets than the primary targets. I won't bore you by talking about the loving NIGHTMARE that this boss was made into in EO2U.  As if you could pierce this veil! drat, even I'm not flinching to this addling attack, so this is the power of music.    Ice Punch Follow Up Attack! I really don't want to shout these out... Yer part of the combo, yer part of the shout! So the best damage I can dish out with these two is around 160 with Ice and then a chaser. It's, uh, not ideal, but Hellion isn't actually too deadly with how much support there is, but we'll be in for the longer haul. Sure I could rest to get Freeze and a higher level of chasers and deal with this fight faster, but I'm lazy.  gently caress. Holly is pretty durable so she doesn't get one shot, which helps being one of my two damage dealers, but the same cannot be said for Logan or Juthro. "The Survivalist is a class that can be on either line" is an incredibly funny joke by the game. Same with Troubadours. That was true in 1, but neither of these classes will live long if placed on the front in this game. what a nice hug. i would like a hug. No. Logan to his credit does survive Embrace, so long as he's not getting hit with the splash. Also pretty impressive that Fear landed twice through Health, but it's only annoying if it lands on Corinth. Huff... huff... looks like... no smashin' today... Well, uh, I said I was thinking about it, I mean you are nice, but- oh wait, the fight. I was getting into an alright rhythm of being able to heal enough for the next one shot or keeping buffs applied. But we're not even halfway through and I had a couple failed attempts when things went downhill quickly, especially if I wasn't keeping the damage output consistent. So this isn't a 25 turn fight, I have my last resort that lets me do these free votes without much worry. Hellion is a simple fight as long as your party is reasonably compotent. This is not a compotent party, it is in fact an incredibly lovely party. That being said it's definitely possible to win with this without resorting to cheese tactics, chances are it just won't be a lot of fun doing so.    Take that ya oval office! Alreet, let er rip! Forgive me, my darling, but I must use... that. Haaaaaaah... SUPERNOOOOOOVAAAAAAAA!!! They still aren't that obtainable, but Force skills are in the game so might as well use them in a pinch! I could wait a couple turns and deal more damage with Bravery, but let's have a bit of struggle with this fight. I could also use the other Force Skills later on in the fight, but we have two bad ones and an emergency one, so probably not. Those two attacks did as much damage as nine turns of battle, so let's continue where we left off, eh?  Ooh, aah, that is toasty! mmm, it's so enveloping, it's making me... sleepy...  Applying the healing, double time! I read most of Biology for a reason! At half health, Kingfire does a fair bit of damage, but considering the oneshots from before, this is much easier to get back from. 1st Turn Salve II is slightly illegal, but what else are Survs good for? Still, since it requires Inferno and then Embrace to not be rolled for, it's not something we can depend on.  Hold strong, I've faced fires much worse than this! Ooh, such anger and determination, I could write a song about that.  what a racket. We're in the last quarter of health so Roar is added back in. This could really derail a winning run, but with Health it's just free turns. And since it's the first skill rolled for, we could get pretty lucky!  You good?! Huff... huff... hahaha, this a reet blast! Ugh, that was hell on my hands. Hot, cold, hot, cold! was pretty fun at least, hope i get to see something that cute soon. If you say so, but I'm happy no one died. I hate nothing more than death and, er, you know. Used teh fight fannies like these during mah lumberjack days so no sweat! Uh huh. But you know, with support like this, I didn't find it too bad! Sure I used Force skills to lop off half its health, but it was still a time actually getting rid of the rest. Everyone did their part and it was a pretty tense fight regardless, I had a lot of fun! If we add up the turns from the 2 attempts together and discount the Force usage to skip half the battle, that was about 16 turns of a peashooter fest. How fun. There's a point where playing defensively goes from an interesting strategic exercise into mind-numbing tedium. Hot air rises and we've got a seasonal theme to continue, so you know what's coming next. It's a real treat for me because this is my favourite stratum in the series. Woodland of Frozen Flowers    What the gently caress. This isn't how science works. welcome to the labyrinth. maybe there's something here that's as cold as salamox was hot? Ah geez all my sweat is getting chilled! I was not expecting this! Bleh! Cool off wit' a snowball fight then! Oof! Yeh'll pay fer that! I like snow. Your mission to defeat the Hellion is complete. You should return to town now and report to the Duke's Palace. Don't look at me like that, we need to tell everyone the good news. And get some more layers on. Narc. The aesthetics, the music, the cronch, cronch, cronch as you walk, man I love every part of this place. Frozen Grounds is a neat Stratum. Not my personal favorite, but 2 definitely has some of the better looking Strata in the DS era of EO.   This puts you among the elite rank of explorers skilled enough to challenge the third Stratum. Not many in High Lagaard even achieve such strength... your confidence suits you, but do not get carried away as your adventures continue. Ah yes, and as Minister of the Grand Duchy, allow this old man to present your reward. Meh. No complaints from me, thanks. ah, the resident crow appears. You've outdone yourself this time! It pains me to interfere with your triumph, but... Guild Nidhogg, will you heed an old man's request? I'm sure you remember your mission to help create the medicine for the Duke. But I fear the Fire Plume you retrieved for us... will not be enough. Only lately have we discovered the other ingredients necessary to save the Duke's life. Would you be so good as to lend us your strength to find the rest of them? Sounds like, uh, reet fun. You've got this, right toots? I'll get a pint for you. Ah hey, wait! Ugh, fine, detailing up a mission sounds like a relaxing time. Then you'll help us? Many thanks... I'll waste no more time in explaining. Your next objective, the Snow Bloom, grows on the 12th floor of the Frozen Grounds. I had assumed it would be a fairly easy task, and sent in the guard corps... But not a single member has yet returned with a Snow Bloom. Guild Nidhogg, I believe you are our best hope in the matter. Go to the 12th floor and work with the soldiers there to obtain the Snow Blooms. We need four flowers in total. I realize it's a lot to ask, but we're counting on you. Well before I start figuring this out, I'll need something warmer. After all, most of the buildings in this place are freezing! Achoo! Ahh, of course. You've reached the third Stratum, the land of ice... you have my sympathies. If you haven't experience a Lagaardian winter, I know that the cold is considerable. Newcomers to our country often find it difficult to cope. But you're a hardy breed. You should have no troubles. I expect great things from you. Oh just getting some undershirts, but little busy, so not really. Cause if you are, there was something I wanted to ask you to do for me. There's a big sale on nearby, and I need people to come with me. Ugh, all this shopping is so confusing to me, I find it easier to steal. So unless we're pilfering, nah. Huh? No? Oh... well then, I'll ask some of the barflies. They could use some honest work! Oh, and my daughter might want to come. She'll be back soon. She's out shopping now. Have you met her yet? She looks just like me when I was younger. Can you imagine? Bahahaha! Don't mind me, heh, just going through each door once. Still don't like it. It seems half the patients I treat these days are talking about you. What do they say? Ahaha... nothing that important. They're trying so hard to catch up to you that they overstrain themselves and get injured. I'm not really thrilled at the prospect... but injuries come with the territory for explorers. We can handle almost any wound here at Lagaard Hospital, so please come by anytime! Hmm, hmm, oh hey, got any wetsuits? Good lucking getting through north ice if that is your idearer. I heard that you made it to the third Stratum. Are you okay? I mean... I knew you'd be fine. I was just... a little worried. It's your job to explore, but please be careful in there! 1 Red Wings required for Malice Rod, -3 speed. We can Climax later, we're not in a money emergency and it just unlocks an axe. I mean, it would be really good at this point of the game, but then you'd be using an Axe Landy in EO2. so how much fur you wanna part with? Eep! An entire level covered in snow and ice... what causes this climate change in each Stratum? Speaking of which, I don't know if you're aware, but this town gets very cold in the winter. If you walk around in that kind of clothing, you'll catch a severe cold. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth.  Ah, a cold land you say? Ohohoho, uh, just what I love. I'm gettin' fired up just thinkin' boot it!!! I heard yeh bested a huge fiend up on the 10th floor! No need to be shy! C'mon, tell us all the story! Aww... being all humble about it spoils the fun! Relax once in a while! Enjoy life! Working is good, but yeh need yer downtime! Ugh, such a nag, I'll cheer myself up with... aww man. You're as pale as me. Ah, I see why. Now I have to warn yeh, this quest comes with its share of sorrows... the client is a poor lass who was all set to be wed last month, but... Just before the ceremony, she came down with a heavy fever. Her fiance, being a helpful lad, went into the Labyrinth to find some healing herbs. The guard corps... they looked for days, but all they found were his things. No body left behind, but we all know what happened. The girl's drowning in tears nowadays. Says she'll have her revenge for her fiance. I thought she'd gone round the twist. So I promised her if she posted a request, someone would take care of it. Nice guy, me! Haw! His things were found on the 12th floor. The monster's s'posed to be some fish-thing. If yeh can't figure out which one it is, just kill every fish yeh see! G'luck. Weird getting this a floor early, especially since it's pretty deep into 12F. Phew, back for that sit down and a pin- oh dammit. I'll, uh, keep good care o'it! Ah, yeh're taking that quest, eh? Yeh've done work for the Grand Duchy before, right? Then that makes this a mite easier. A lot of guilds are volunteering mere babes. The higher-ups want to see better-quality volunteers, so they're being a mite stricter. I can't let just any weakling work for the Grand Ducky, or they'd lose all faith in me! This time, they need a strong survivalist. I expect good things from Nidhogg! What would be the perfect gift? Well it would be something unique and wonderful at many things. I guess it's me! Hahaha, anyway what were we talking about? How're things? I was waiting for yeh to take this one... why? Well, cause the client asked for yeh specifically. It's the owner of the Flaus Inn, the place where yeh stay and store yer items. Go ask at the inn for all the juicy details. G'luck!  Bahhhhh! Ugh, ack, downed that pint so quickly some of it went up my nose... Shall we be off, then? The rest of yeh, stay here. This won't take long. Well I suppose I can peruse the different liqueurs, always looking to expand my- I'm back! It looks like the job is to do some exploring alongside the guard corps. With that many survivalsts, the risk will be cut in half! Yer one will be back here just as soon as the job's done. No sense in worrying... let's have a drink while we wait, eh? Ehhh!? Come on, don't be shy! Why don't yeh pour the first shot for me? Hey. Yo. ...gahh! Don't scare me like that! Yeh need to warn people when yeh're approaching! How'd the work go? ...work? Oh I just found him on my way back. It was a little rough, monsters, traps, all stuff I can totally handle! Haha... I see... monster ambushes, traps aplenty... rough work eh? Ah, but yeh handled yerself with no problem. Yeh're a little smudged, but no harm done. Fine work all around. Here's the reward. Come back again, all right? Since I couldn't be bothered resting to get some measly coin, we won't get any bonus reward from this. You get 300en for having Lv1 Patrol and an extra 300en for Lv1 Stalker. Why are the requirements for the bonuses so weirdly obtuse? What a strange game.  The greatest gift is an area to patrol and a hard tree to kick, I will teach all I know! I'm so happy you agreed to help out like this! It makes me want to give you a great big hug! Do you know my daughter? Oh... maybe you still haven't met her. How silly of me! She knows about you, so I assumed you knew her just as well. Wait here one minute while I go get her! We have found someone smaller than you! Well she is 10 years younger... I'm not that short! Very good, dear! Now run along and play, all right? Isn't she just adorable!? She gets that shyness from me. I couldn't tell you while she was in the room, but her birthday is coming up. She's taken a shine to you ever since you started staying here. This might not be your usual kind of quest, but I want you to get her a present. Anything will do! Just as long as you think she'll like it. Thanks a bunch! Bahaha! Is that what she wants- oh hello, uh... Hart?! I dunno, you all look the same to me. Hey, long time no see! Don't you remember me? You don't? Oh, we see each other all the time. I'm a doctor's assistant at the hospital. Don't you remember at all...? Well, just don't forget next time, or I'll be mad for real! By the way, why the puzzled look? You're a little girl, I think, got any ideas? Well, that's an unusual sort of quest. A birthday present for a young girl... hmmmm... Hey, I bet she'd like a copy of the Index of Medical Herbs! Or maybe some parasite samples! They're easy to buy. Some are as long as your finger, and some have suckers on their cuticular... Uh... This is weird even for me. Well... maybe not. Ordinary girls would probably want to stay away from that stuff. How about flowers, then? I hear you can find some beautiful ones south of the 2nd floor. Hmmm... that suggestion might be too ordinary, though. Sorry! Why don't you ask around town? I'm sure someone in Lagaard has a good idea for a present. Good luck! you're still here? Gah, I'm just working up the nerve, it's a big door, alright! Huh? A birthday present for a little girl? Hahaha... why ask me about that? I know plenty about child physiology, but nothing about child psychology. Sorry, but I can't help you. I recommend asking a woman instead. Maybe you could ask my assistant... if she's here. Oh, you already did? Maybe we shouldn't get her a weapon... It is how I was the raising, could shoot an apple at age four! What's an apple? Eh, maybe Abigail has a better idea. What...? A birthday present for the girl at Flaus Inn? Hee hee! Oh! I didn't mean to laugh at you. I mean, you're such capable explorers... it's funny to see you with no idea what to get a girl for her birthday! It's kinda cute. N-Not that I mean to say I think you're cute or anything... sorry! That came out wrong. I am the cutetist. Ummm... let's see... she might like something that's shiny or pretty. Do you know the Whistling Bird? It has multi-colored feathers, a long tail, and a great voice. It's rarely seen, but it has a habit of collecting shiny rocks and things for its nest. You might be able to take one from a nest on the southeast of the 10th floor. Well, that's just what I would want, though. She might not like it. You should ask other people! Good luck! For the record, EO2U actually gives the innkeeper's daughter a name—Quona—and rewrites Abigail's dialogue so that she's been friends with Quona for a while. Yeh sell pints to little girls? Eh? That quest? Here, talk to Cass... tell me yer troubles. A birthday present for the innkeeper's daughter...? Alas, I've no clue what she'd want. But look, I'll help yeh out... I know where yeh might be able to find something valuable. Two days back, a caravan of merchants was attacked on the south side of the 9th floor. Then fled from the demons and left behind two wagons full of treasure! I bet yeh could find some nice swag there... oh, and keep this a secret, eh? Why? Well, I want my share! Haw haw! I don't know if they'll have been carrying anything she likes, so keep asking around. G'luck! One has to wonder what a caravan of merchants was doing up in the labyrinth.  Hmhm? Er... eh? I don't have to worry about it now, but I also had gift troubles for young girls. A birthday present for the girl at the inn? What possessed you to come to me for advice...? Y-You fool! Well, I'm sure I can think of something. Let's see... how about a sword? These are dangerous times. If she starts training now, she'll be ready to deal with attackers. ...... ...... The point of people like me is so fragile flowers like her don't have to think about weapons. You seem unsure. Well, perhaps she'd like some berries? After all... who doesn't like berries? You can find high-quality berries in the northwest region of the 7th floor. It's ordinarily not berry-picking season, but I'll grant you special permission for now. But it might be wise to seek more recommendations around town, just in case. That's all. If there's nothing else to discuss, clear out. Hmm, should I ask an old man in a position of power about a little girl? I'm sure it'll be fine. Ah... a birthday gift for the girl at the inn... a very difficult problem. As a member of our board of education... I still have no insight into young girls. Would that I could help you, but my primary duty is to the nation as a whole. I cannot set aside time for one individual citizen, adorable though she may be. I suggest you ask others in the city... they may be able to offer more useful advice. Forgive me for not being able to help. May you have luck in your quest. The minister does not have any hint to offer for the quest, but the other NPC list out possible choices for gifts. This is similar to a quest last game where you asked around for gift ideas for the recently deceased, though unlike then when you could obtain everything, you can only choose one birthday gift. Which will we choose, what will the new stratum be like? Such burning questions will be answered next time, the real Etrian Odyssey starts here! Surely that should be "freezing questions," given the next stratum.
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Apr 28, 2022 17:45
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Hexer Can equip: Staves, Clothing  What a terrible night to have level 10 Curses. Hexers weren't very good last game, you got them 3/5ths through the game and their only great skill was Sapping, since enemy ATK was pretty nuts. They had some utility, but were outclassed by Dark Hunters and were basically useless against Bosses. So of course when it came to this game, they needed a buff. AND BOY DID THEY GET ONE!!! Hexers are the most powerful class in the entire series, the amount of poo poo this class can do is absolutely insane. Between broken skills like Dampen and Revenge, they have crazy utility in Frailty, Torpor, Poison, binds, Suicide, pretty much everything about them got buffed and despite having a few issues that stick around from last game, this class is another way you can completely destroy any semblance of difficulty this game has. Enough teasing, let's get right into it! In the first game, they were pretty much one of the worst classes in the game, if not the worst class due to being unlocked super late and the actual class itself was pretty mediocre, in a game that makes grinding incredibly difficult. So they weren't worth it to use. Now not only are they available from the start, they also got some MEGA BUFFS in the transition to EO2! They basically went from one of the weakest classes to complete gods of destruction that's basically a walking middle finger to several of the game's mechanics! Of course, one of the big negatives of Hexers is their stats, it's all gotten a nerf from the last game, mainly because their level 99 stats in this game are the exact same as the level 70 stats in the previous game. Weird, but it does mean that ALL of their stats are worse than before. And it doesn't matter. Their LUC and HP are the two most important stats and they're... fine, it's a little easier to land ailments and binds in this game due to formula changes and like before their large TEC doesn't matter since they have nothing to use it with. For whatever reason Gunners have higher LUC than Hexers, but again, even with these low stats, the Hexer is still the best class in the series, so it's a pretty moot point. Pretty much the only stats that matter for a Hexer are their defensive ones and TP. LUC is used in the infliction formula now, but uh, it doesn't really matter that much because LUC has a rather small effect. So they're basically a stat independent class since most of their skills (barely) scale off of their stats. AGI isn't much of a factor because Staves weigh them down to turtle levels of slow, and they only have 1 attacking skill, which has really high innate accuracy anyway. And one of the more popular ways to use a Hexer turns them into a glass cannon, so if you choose to use yours that way, don't bother investing in VIT. Though HP is probably one of the most important stats to invest in for that playstyle. Just trust me on this.Common Passive Unlocks TP Up: Lv5: Scavenge TEC Up: Lv5: Scavenge Well that's not very interesting. Scavenge is identical to the Medic's version, so this is one skill you absolutely want to get because of how stupid it is, and you need Scavenge to unlock Dampen, so yes, yes indeed. The 5 points of TEC are a bit wasted, but since the Hexer doesn't need many stats, you can invest in HP and TP and be just fine, maybe even LUC if you have space but Hexer's are very SP hungry because of all their ridiculous skills, so it's whatever.Curses Unlocks: Lv1: Sapping, Frailty, Leaden, Blinding; Lv2: Poison; Lv3: Cranial, Abdomen, Immobile, Torpor; Lv4: Evil Eye; Lv5: Paralysis; Lv6: Corrupt; Lv7: Revenge; Lv10: Dampen BUGGED: Has no data, so does absolutely nothing, despite the game saying otherwise.  Okay, uh, not a great start. Last game, Curses was a 30% boost even if the game said otherwise, and now this time the game says this boosts the user's skills, but it actually does nothing at all. So this is a point sink, but since you need to max it out for Dampen, that doesn't matter. Now, if you didn't want to use Dampen, then you should get it up to 7 for Revenge. If you're ALSO not using that skill, then okay the Hexer won't be as good, but you could stop much earlier. If you have a War Magus, then Curse actually does something for once, so Corrupt is worth it, otherwise you can stop at Evil Eye. Also please remember that we still say this is the best class in the series EVEN THOUGH THEIR MASTERY SKILL DOES NOTHING!!! Nothing much to say other than this skill got bugged into oblivion. Now it does nothing, so level it up as much as you need to, and nothing more. Of course if you want access to some of the most broken skills in the game, you'll have to max this out at some point anyways.Scavenge Prerequisites: TP Up Lv5, TEC Up Lv5 Unlocks: Lv5: Dampen Additively increases drop rates. Stacks with itself. Passive.  It's back again and still as busted as ever. Since you're maxing this out to get to a stupid good skill, this gives another edge to Hexers, as they'll give you lots of drops and thus lots of money, making them even more worthwhile in taking along. It can even be worth taking a Medic and a Hexer to scary postgame fights to get some good rates, but you could also take 2 Hexers instead and have an easier time, so it's up to you. If you saw Scavenge on Medic and wanted some of that action, but didn't want to cart around a Medic, don't worry, this class is here to fill that need! And a Hexer is a much stronger class to cart around so they can completely break the concept of random drops. You also have to max this out to get one of the most broken skills in the game, so there's little reason not to pick this up if you're going for that.Sapping Prerequisites: Curses Lv1 Reduces all enemy's ATK for 5 turns. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Sapping was probably the best Hexer skill last game due to some dummy thicc ATK stats towards the end of the game that went as high as the 400s, so the 60% reduction could do a lot of work, it was useful all throughout the game. Uh, not that you could use Hexers in EO1's early game when they were most useful. ANYWAY, Sapping got a few nerfs that make it pretty mediocre, enemies now have properly scaled ATK and DEF values so it takes off less of their bite, and it only goes as low as 80%, which is kinda pathetic. Add in a more survivable set of classes and you'll find that you don't really need Sapping that much anymore. It can still be useful, you want to take 1 point to remove ATK buffs, but it's definitely one of the weaker skills this time around, a real shame. Oh dear, how the tables have turned. Sapping was a fantastic debuff in the last game, but it's a bit weaker here. It's an alright defensive though not likely what you'll be using a Hexer for. It's essentially a defense buff that doesn't eat up one of your buff slots, and debuffs are more valuable because of that, so it might be worth investing in slightly. However, this game really favors killing your enemies fast over playing defensively, so this skill isn't really a popular choice as a result. May want to take at least 1 point in it to dispel attack buffs at least.Frailty Prerequisites: Curses Lv1 Reduces all enemy's damage resistances for 5 turns. Does not affect Untyped damage. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Frailty has gotten an interesting change compared to last game. It was alright before, but since enemy DEF never got that high, it was never hugely effective. This time it actually makes all enemies weaker to all damage types, which makes it pretty great for other elemental attackers. It's can be useful in making resistances much softer, such as turning a 50% resistance into a 66% resistance, but the main draw is compounding weaknesses, making a 125% resistance into a 165% resistance at max level. Because it only affects resistances, it doesn't change Untyped damage, alas, but if it goes over 110%, it'll activate an Alchemist's Analysis so it is useful in that regard. Because of how little it really changes resistances, Dampen is a better pick for that, but for weaknesses, this is a way to stack good damage fast. Frailty got a really good buff due to a change in mechanics. In the first game it lowered the DEF stat which... didn't do a whole lot in that game's damage formula. Here it affects the damage multipliers of an enemy, which is a much bigger buff! It also combos nicely with an Alchemist, since Frailty can create weaknesses if a damage multiplier goes over 110%! The downside of that is because it only affects damage multipliers and not your party's outgoing damage directly, it won't affect Untyped damage, so Megido and Eschaton won't get a boost. It doesn't stack with Dampen, another defensive debuff, so it has to compete with that. Frailty is better for amplifying normal damage multipliers and weaknesses, while Dampen is far better for dealing with resistances. If you're using an elemental oriented party, you'll want to focus more on this over Dampen.Leaden Prerequisites: Curses Lv1 Reduces all enemy's AGI for 5 turns. Curse skill, uses the Head.  And we end with a whimper, Leaden has never been all that great, but it is better than last game. AGI isn't divided by 5 this time around for whatever godforsaken reason and it does decrease AGI by quite a bit, so you would notice the difference. However, going first in a lot of cases usually isn't that big a deal, and Hexers have much better things to be doing than wasting 10SP into something like this. It's cool that it actually does something now, but that doesn't make it good. Leaden is still basically the worst of the 3 basic debuffs the Hexer has access to. Due to the still hosed up speed system, it won't change the turn order too much. Fast characters will still go first, and slow characters will still move last most of the time. Reducing AGI does reduce accuracy and evasion, but doing so doesn't reduce it by a huge amount. Frailty is a better use of a debuff slot and the Hexer has a lot of other places they want to spend their SP.DAMPEN Prerequisites: Curses Lv10, Scavenge Lv5 Removes an enemy's resistances and immunities for 5 turns and sets all 6 damage resistances to the corresponding values, higher values remain. Is the last debuff checked for, so does not stack with Frailty, Ifrit, Ymir or Taranis. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Here it is, the best skill in the entire game. What the heck were they thinking with this? It takes a while to get to, but after this you'll be able to easily cleave through every enemy you encounter and completely sidestep their intended strategy. No matter the enemy resistances or weaknesses, at max level this sets the enemy's resistances to 120%, no matter what. If they had anything below 100%, it's now a weakness, if it was above 120%, that still loving sticks, all you gain is weaknesses, no drawbacks, use it on any drat enemy you fancy. The biggest boon is it gives physical weaknesses as well, which are pretty rare, making your Ronin or DH even more potent, as if they needed more help. For general weaknesses, Frailty will compound them, so it's easier to use that instead, but if you want to wipe out an enemy's resistances and make them so incredibly easy to burst down, then this all you need, it's so stupid. At least it doesn't give an Almighty resistance, though that's not really a thing until next game. So say hello to one of the most broken skills in the entire game, if not the most broken! Yes that is right, Dampen eliminates resistances entirely! Oh they were immune to fire attacks? Now they take 120% damage from it. It's so busted, that a skill like this was never reused in the entire series, while all other broken skills usually came back in a nerfed form. The concept of resistances is one a Hexer gives a middle finger to, as they can convert them to weaknesses. This skill also especially shines in physical oriented parties (which tend to be the meta type of party) as quite a bit in this game resists physical attacks, and Dampen deals with that issue handily, allowing them to shred their targets within a few turns. It is so stupidly busted and yet another thing that elevates Hexer to a god of destruction.Cranial/Abdomen/Immobile Prerequisites: Curses Lv3 Attempts to inflict Head/Arm/Leg Bind on a single target. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Now it's bind time! They trade the damage of the DH or Gunner's binds for higher infliction rate, not that it's a huge issue since the game boosts your bind rate if you keep missing, so on average you'll probably land with enough tries on each class. Still, these are nice skills to have, though since it's covered by other classes, ESPECIALLY the DH's Dominate, the Hexer can focus on multi target ailments, which are pretty phenomenal. If you don't have those classes, then Abdomen is usually a good pick due to all the physical attackers everywhere, though Cranial is a very important skill for very dangerous enemies. As always Immobile gets the short stick, but there are some deadly Leg skills out there, though due to the ease of Dominate, there's really not much of a reason. The Hexer is SP strapped, so these are skills you could skip easily enough. Take whichever ones you want. If you wish to avoid Dominate cheese, like I said with the Dark Hunter, Cranial and Abdomen would be good choices for binds. Unlike in the first game, it's not quite as important to snag all binds as the boss AI was designed differently in this game. They won't switch body parts if you bind a specific one. They can end up wasting a lot of turns trying to use a body part that was bound, which is a pretty huge buff. With that in mind, not a whole lot of deadly skills are attached to the legs, and nullifying evasion isn't really a huge deal in this game compared to the later titles, so Immobile is probably a safe skip if you absolutely have to.Blinding/Torpor/Paralysis/Corrupt Prerequisites: Curses Lv1/Lv3/Lv5/Lv6 Attempts to inflict Blind/Sleep/Paralysis/Curse on all enemies. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Here's a massive glow up from last game. We'll touch on Evil Eye and Poison in just a moment, but multi target ailments are so good, letting you roll multiple chances at once, and a great infliction rate too for how much you invest. While Blind and Paralysis aren't amazing ailments, Sleep and Curse are. Well, the latter is only useful with a Cursecut War Magus, otherwise it's as useless as ever, but multi target Sleep is kind of insane in letting your party get setup and burst the enemy down. Because they have great speed modifiers as well, you're likely to land a few before the rest of your party attacks, which is great for Sleep strats. They're just good skills to spam and try your luck with, you'll get good uses out of all of them if you want to invest a piddly 5SP, but Torpor is definitely the best one. Or at least, one of the best ones, we still have... Now that ailment resistances are separate stats, you don't have to be stuck using the best ailment or not even bothering. Blind can be pretty decent since it reduces accuracy by 75% and can be used to dodge some really deadly attacks late in the game. Paralysis is basically worthless. Evil Eye does the exact same thing and can be used to combo into more of the Hexer's skillset, can be picked up sooner, and Paralysis and Fear have similar ailment multipliers on enemies. Curse is slightly better than it was in EO1 due to enemies having smaller HP pools, but it's the hardest ailment to inflict against FOEs and bosses, and the backlash damage still isn't too great. Though since backlash damage still activates on deaths in the first two games, you could use a cheese strategy where a big enemy kills a bunch of weak party members then dies from that. However Atlus did take some measures against this, as Curse is one of the hardest ailments to inflict, so it's not a reliable cheese strategy. Pretty much the main use is having a War Magus use Cursecut on those enemies, but that doesn't really hold up all game. Now Torpor on the other hand, is the big ticket skill of this lot. It's the Hexer's best skill for dealing with random encounters since it shuts down all enemies while your party sets up or quickly defeats them with little opposition, and this holds up all game. In fact, if you aren't going for Poison, this should be the very first skill you should go for. A Hexer can have a max level Torpor by level 6, letting them contribute heavily to the party from the get-go. Even in the post-game this skill holds up at disabling randoms immediately, so it's one of their best support skills and a real must-have. Oh, and as you can see from this table, infliction skills really need investment to be good due to the exponential scaling. They're terrible at level 1, so don't bother seriously using these until the skill is almost maxed.Poison Prerequisites: Curses Lv2 Attempts to inflict Poison on all enemies. Curse skill, uses the Head.  Last game this was part of the Alchemist's skillset, and was unfortunately bugged to buggery, making it pretty pathetic past the second stratum, when it really could've worked until the fifth stratum. Now that it's been fixed up, oh look at that, it can be used until the fifth stratum and is yet another reason why Hexers are so gosh darn good. It definitely drops off towards the end of the game, but with a fantastic infliction rate, even if it doesn't oneshot the enemy, it's still a way for a Hexer to contribute in damage with little effort. Of course, Revenge strats are better, but this works at any HP, so it's a great ailment to throw at mobs, you're sure to tag something! This is a skill you could have before you set foot in the labyrinth, but it really needs a lot of levels to land effectively, the exponential scaling works both ways after all. If you wish to shatter the entire maingame at the cost of slightly weakening the Hexer's earlygame, this skill is for you! Poison basically eliminates several random encounters after 1 turn, giving your Hexer another way to contribute to those fights. There are some downsides compared to Torpor though. A Hexer won't be able to get this to max level until level 10 if you rush this from the get-go, which severely weakens how much they can contribute to the party during the first Stratum. It also starts falling off by Stratum 4, at which point enemies can survive the Poison damage, though they'll be severely weakened so they can be finished off pretty easily. But when you hit post-game, this won't do a whole lot, and you're better off using Torpor by that point. Still, this is a good way to utterly shatter randoms during the entire main-game, and using this on a few bosses is a fantastic way to utterly break the economy, another way the Hexer shatters a piece of game design. And unlike in 1, the bugs relating to Poison got fixed, so its damage doesn't cap at 255 anymore. Though now there's a 20% damage variance in how much Poison damage deals, but that's only really a factor once you get to lategame.Evil Eye Prerequisites: Curses Lv4 Unlocks: Lv1: Suicide, Betrayal, Paralyze Attempts to inflict Fear on all enemies. Curse skill, uses the Head. While similar to the other ailments, the FEAR TREE has some uniqueness that make it a worthwhile venture. Or, well, mainly Suicide so Hexers can contribute "damage wise" in FOE and Boss fights, but Fear is an alright ailment that can stop the enemy from attacking. A War Magus's Fearcut isn't very useful, but they pair together very well, so I guess it could work, you're mainly using this to go into Suicide. I only really suggest this because of how cheap it is to use these skills, otherwise they're not too notable, but it's a bit of fun when you're bored breaking the game's difficulty into smithereens. Assuming you don't want to take the infamous Revenge skill to smash the game into smithereens, this is probably one of the Hexer's best skills for dealing with FOEs and boss fights. It's the most reliable hard crowd control they have once they pick up Suicide. But until then it's just a reskinned Paralysis. To get the most out of Fear, it has to be comboed with one of the Hexer's next three skills.Suicide Prerequisites: Evil Eye Lv1 Makes a Fear inflicted enemy attack themselves. Curse skill, uses the Head.  First skill is best skill in the FEAR TREE. Suicide scales really nicely, becoming super cheap to use while making the enemy deal a lot of damage to themselves. Admittedly it's not as good as the first game because ATK and DEF are scaled properly, but 3 self inflicted hits will do more damage than the Hexer would do otherwise, so why not. There's not much to it, gives you a free turn at least, but it's definitely interesting. Pretty much the only skill in the fear tree worth using. Once you land Fear on the enemy, you can have them smack themselves a few times for some free damage on top of completely wasting their turn. The hits do go through the damage formula, so you won't see a ton of damage from this, but guaranteed stuns on a big enemy is pretty much the Hexer's biggest contribution to those fights that doesn't utterly vaporize the game's difficulty into ashes. And free damage is free damage, hard to say no to that.Betrayal/Paralyze Prerequisites: Evil Eye Lv1 Makes a Fear inflicted enemy attack an ally once/do nothing. Curse skill, uses the Head.  These skills, however, are not interesting. Betrayal would be kinda fun if it scaled like Suicide, but one attack on another enemy is pretty mediocre. Paralyze is... completely pointless since that's what the other two skills already do in addition to damage, so I don't see the point of this. Never put more than one point into these if you want to try them out for whatever reason, but otherwise the FEAR TREE only has the one interesting skill. Betrayal is alright, but it's ultimately a worse version of Suicide and there's little reason to invest in that when Suicide is unlocked at the same time as the other 2 skills. Paralyze should never be touched, as the other 2 skills already waste the terrorized enemy's turn.REVENGE Prerequisites: Curses Lv7 A single target ranged attack that deals more damage the less HP the user has. Ignores the enemy's defensive stats and resistances, as well as damage buffs or defensive debuffs. If used at full HP, will always miss. Curse skill with TEC-based Bash damage, though only for accuracy calculations, uses the Head.  Phew, lot of caveats, but let's dive into the second best skill the Hexer has, and the best attacking skill in the game. Because it ignores all outside factors, the formula for this is simple, (MaxHP - CurrentHP) * SkillPower, so in a best case scenario, it would deal 998 * 2.55 = 2544 damage. What. The. gently caress. With Stamina and a few HP boosting equipment, you can get to 999HP easily enough and it's very, VERY easy to get to 1HP because of damage tiles, letting you fire off incredible damage turn after turn. Of course, leaving your fragile Hexer at 1HP is risky, but just use a level 1 Revive and oh look, you're back at 1HP again. Hell even using a regular Nectar puts you at 20HP, which is still 2496 damage, so it's really not a big loss. Dampen and Scavenge would be enough to say this class is busted, high infliction rates on Poison and Sleep, effortlessly crushing mobs, makes this class broken, and Revenge, with its incredible damage and ease of setup push this class into the best in the entire series. It's just mindblowing how much they turned this class around from the worst one last game. All hail Hexers, all hail Cheese. 2544 damage may seem like a small amount of damage at first glance, but enemy HP pools in EO2 are much smaller than in the rest of the series. For reference, the final boss in EO1 has 18000 HP. In EO2? Only 8000. And the rest of the maingame bosses don't have as much, so a Hexer can nuke them in just 1 or 2 hits of Revenge. Most classes can't really reach this amount of damage in most circumstances so this actually makes Hexer the best DPS class. Yes, really. It's super easy to reach or almost reach the 999 HP cap, so if you plan things out right, you can have a walking artillery cannon really early on in the game. And damage tiles in 2 deal percentage based damage, so it's really easy to set up a Hexer for fast nuking. If they go down, just use a Nectar to revive them. A Revenge Hexer doesn't give a drat about defenses because either the fight will be over before they can die, or they will die from a single hit (and then can be revived to get back to blasting the enemy.) This is the final aspect that truly elevates the Hexer to a god of destruction, and the best class in the entire series.Caprice Attempts to inflict Stun/Instant Death/Petrify/Curse/Poison/Sleep/Panic/Paralysis/Blind on all enemies, in that order. Force skill, uses the Head.  To end a ridiculous class is an alright Force skill. Caprice allows the Hexer to inflict every ailment in the game, but which ailment? Well that's its issue, because of the high infliction chance and the NINE rolls you'll do, you're bound to land something. But there's a huge disparity between the different ailments, so unless you're going for something the Hexer can't do themselves, it's better going for the actual skill for consistency, especially when you have additional strategies revolving around that ailment. Still, when you get it, might as well throw it out, you never know what you're gonna get, it can be fun. Or it'll land Stun and you've nearly wasted your turn. In any case, it's for the best this Force skill isn't good, we didn't need it to be. At first glance this Force skill might seem amazing. In practice it's not. While on random encounters it'll land Instant Death or Petrify most of the time, against FOEs and bosses it's a complete crapshoot what will land. You're basically playing a roulette there. You might land an amazing disable like Confusion. Or you could just end up inflicting Blind. Or even nothing at all. If you do happen to get it active, you might as well use it, but surprisingly their Force Skill is the one thing that isn't broken about them. And that's how not to balance a class. Ah, I said it again, but it's true, the Hexer is just so incredibly, phenomenally, positively the best class in the series and nothing really comes close. Sure you've got your Nightseekers and your Fafnirs and your Necromancers, but the sheer amount of bullshit EO2 Hexers have cannot be outmatched. This is even with a mediocre Force skill, a bugged Mastery, a Head Bind weakness and many stat issues, they don't matter. Bow down to your master. Hexers are such a walking middle finger to so many of the game's mechanics it's unbelievable. They went from one of the worst classes in the first game to one of the best in the entire series! Drop rates? Doesn't matter. Resistances and immunites? Doesn't matter. The economy? Doesn't matter. Random encounters? Doesn't matter. FOEs and boss fights? A Hexer cares not for any of that nonsense! They'll destroy them all the same. This is a textbook example of overbuffing a class into godhood and it is a sight to behold.
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Apr 28, 2022 17:53
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AI OdditiesTrigourd posted:If the party is blindsided, and flag 1 is not active, cast Pain. (Standard targeting.) Activate flag 1.
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Apr 28, 2022 21:19
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Well gee. It's like stat-independent classes don't lend themselves very well to things like "balancing." Turns out when your moves all function in absolute terms, there's very little flexibility in quality! And that gives us EO2 Hexer. It's hilarious.
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Apr 28, 2022 23:22
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Part 16: cronch cronch cronch cronch cronch Welcome back to Tile Hunt II: Tile Harder. Gotta face this way to activate the event or you'll try to open the chest. Can't think of another time this happens in the series. They're more careful about avoiding this sort of thing in later titles, though I believe there's no engine level protection for this so they just have to avoid doing it themselves. You remember now the quest you accepted from the bar. Your task is to find a birthday present for the innkeeper's daughter. One suggestion you received was to gather beautiful flowers for the young girl. An exquisite patch of flowers is blooming not far from you. Nothin' adventurous about pickin' flowers, but I guess I can. This smell is a treasure in itself. As you bend to pick the flower, its sweet aroma tickles your nose again. It must be the season for the flowers near your feet to be giving nectar! You rejoice at the serendipitous find, and extract some of the nectar to be used as a gift. And there we go, all done, you can only choose one gift and this is the easiest to reach, so might as well, there's no difference anyway. We're not choosing this gift. You recall someone telling you of a place where delicious berries grow... and indeed, you can see the dark green leaves beneath a carpet of purple berries. Ah, I remember picking berries as a kid in a field by my house. That's all craters now. you don't always have to bring the mood down you know. Being depressed while exploring is the only way! You pluck as many berries as you can fit into the jar you brought along for the purpose. But the patch of berries is not altogether peaceful, monsters still roam the forest! The fiends which feast on the berries for their diet appears and attack you! I don't remember seeing these here before! This event features an enemy we'll see later this update because it's from the new stratum. Why their food requirements consist of berries 4 floors down where they live is just another mystery of the labyrinth. Probably.  Guh! Sixteen hooves is more than you'd think! Their mane is particularly flammable. The delicate berries have been smashed, but on opening the jar you still smell their sweetness. You can no longer offer the berries as a present... but perhaps in their place, you can convert the crushed mass into a high-grade jam. You spend some time working the paste into a fine jam, and take it back as a birthday gift. no sugar and full of seeds and gritty leaves, delicious. Missed this one, did you? We didn't want to be here for 3000 years. Fireking HP: 2,100 STR: 44 VIT: 44 TEC: 44 AGI: 44 LUC: 44 Level: 30 Exp: 0 Skills Fury: Uses the Head. Deals Fire damage to a single target, with a spell power of 40 and damage multiplied by 150%. Has a 99% accuracy modifier and a 50% speed modifier. Roar: Attempts to inflict Fear on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 75% 100% 100% 0% 125% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 15% 25% 3% 25% 3%Drops Spine Horn: 35% chance, sells for 690en. 1 required for Rapier - Sword, ATK+66, TP+10 - sells for 2,580en Conditional: None Can't forget about this red FOE before we properly move on. Firekings aren't that deadly since they only hurt one person at a time but they have the same HP as Hellion and can drag the fight out for ages with Roar. Considering how long the boss fight was, we're just gonna power through this thing without much resistance. They hit pretty hard with their high stats but that's about it. They're just kinda tanky little lizards otherwise.  No... not the doors, NOT THE DOORS! She's, uh, properly sobbing. I think we've been making light of her real trauma.  Back! Back I say, you foul four legged, two horned, spiny bat! you're still cute, but i don't wanna go near you Perhaps I will die of old age at this rate...  That's enough out of you, return to the spawn from whence you came! Useful, but please don't do that again. Ohohoho, that's why you call it Climax! What a way to go... I'm using the voted team for 11 and 12F a little earlier just so I could take this enemy out now with the wildcard Sonia. This party could've used some nice utility and a proper physical attacker and it's as if the Fireking only had 1,155 HP, which makes it much more bearable. You cautiously approach the cart, wary of any lingering monsters. But none appear... You recall hearing that a poor merchant's caravan had been attacked near here. Perhaps you may find a suitable gift somewhere in the bags strewn across the ground. I have no need for such trinkets, watch out for traps and fake items, these guys are a shrewd bunch. hmm, not finding much edible. ...ooh a pack of skittles. Heh, I think I found something good, smells nice and expensive, but it's probably fine. The rules of the Labyrinth allow whoever finds an item within to lay claim to it. Regardless of the caravan's destination, it must have carried something worthwhile. You rummage through the bags for something that could be used as a birthday present... before long, Lily finds a candle with a faint floral scent in an open chest. You recognize the candle as a type popular among nobles. It's clean, fresh aroma, created by alchemy, provides relaxation for the owner for years on end. It may be too valuable to give to a young girl, but it would certainly be well-received. Unfortunately, Lily also finds a trap in the chest!  Uh... Okay phew, here I thought the game was actually poorly made, it was just giving you the ol' tense misdirection. Hah, classic! Lily is the one who checks the chest and gets hit by the trap, losing all her TP, but the game says Corinth is the one that loses all their TP instead. Bwah? Is that a bird's song...? The flute-like chirping continues for a moment before stopping. You recall being told of a bird that hoards shiny objects. Could the chirping have come from the rarely-seen bird? Sniff, sniff, I think I can smell treasure from this direction. I'm not even gonna ask. You quietly move up to the bird's nest, taking care not to startle it. Peeking through the bushes, you can see a neatly-built nest with shiny stones inside. You reach to grab one when you hear wings flapping overhead, as something drifts down. It is a multicolored feather, with several radiant hues. The bird that dropped it seems to be gone... in any event, the feather would make a good gift. You leave a few coins in the nest as homage to the bird, and depart the area. We lose 100en for that, ohhhhh noooooo, and this is the gift we'll go with since it's the last in the path of going from one to the other. Woo laziness. Quite t'haul! If only I had use fer any of this trash! Guess we can use the jam tonight but I think she'll like this best. This candle will relax me... when I sell it! I'll eat the dew, thanks. Ahhh, Nidhogg! Perfect timing! We're having a birthday bash for the innkeeper's daughter! Why don't yeh join us? Yeh can give her the present yeh found!  ...... I-Is this for me? Hooray! U-Ummm... thank you... this is a wonderful present...! Well? Did yeh get a nice gift? Yeh certainly seem satisfied! Haw haw haw! All right... let's get to business, Nidhogg. Here's the reward for doing the job. Nice work! The girl has her gift, yeh have yer reward, everyone's happy! Cheers! Thanks for helping out! Happy birthday!!! Yaha! Hehe! 1 Spine Horn required for Rapier. Here's the other three reactions for the quest, can you guess which goes with each item? Wow, gameplay! Wow...! ......it smells good. How nice... this is a great present... th-thank you... ......! ......wow... it looks delicious. Can I share it with my mom? Thank you... this is a wonderful present... ha ha... Whoa...! ......I hope my mom won't get mad at me for having this... ha ha... it's a great present! Thank you! Wish I could wear more armour, cold has never agreed with me. I stay warm through the burning desire to slay darkness. Well, uh, we all have our own ways of keeping warm. were i a different kind of doctor a shot of brandy would do it for me. I prefer to stay frosty, like my outlook. A doorless exit... heh, but I don't fancy going over these monster infested fields to reach them. Well g-g-g-good thing we c-c-c-can stay in this l-l-lovely cold for l-l-longer! Ohohohochoo! Achoo! Stay near me before you go from white to blue, old man. Now I'll say this is my favourite stratum, but this floor is kinda lame, we'll see why shortly, but we've got a bit of a walk to this stairs.  What a little cutie, heh- ow! Time to melt, sucka. wanna hug the fish. Snowsoul HP: 201 STR: 22 VIT: 23 TEC: 22 AGI: 24 LUC: 24 Level: 29 Exp: 1085 Skills Icebreath: Uses the Head. Deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 40 and damage multiplied by 110%. Has a 99% accuracy modifier and a 125% speed modifier. Summon: Summons 1-2 Snowsouls, if there's sprite room. After turn 10, summons 1 Helldra instead. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 0% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 100% 100% 100%Drops White Gem: 45% chance, sells for 49en. 1 required for White Rod - Stave, ATK+73, HP+10 - sells for 3,070en 1 required for White Helm - Headgear, DEF+18, TP+5 - sells for 1,780en 2 required for Nalnari - Gun, ATK+74 - sells for 3,020en Conditional: None It's time for some chilly contemptions and here's the weak mob of the stratum. It has a small chance each turn of summoning more of itself if they can fit on the screen, but otherwise they do poor damage in all cases, so it's just more exp. We'll see their turn 10+ summon next update but they absolutely will not last that long, so it's just a fun bit of trivia to impress all your Etrian Odyssey friends. Snowsouls are basically the trash mob of this stratum. Don't think you can safely force grind on these things, or you'll very heavily regret it! Fishman HP: 207 STR: 23 VIT: 23 TEC: 23 AGI: 24 LUC: 24 Level: 30 Exp: 1330 Skills Jaws: Uses the Head. Deals 150% Bash damage to a single target. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 50% 150%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 50% 100% 100% 100%Drops Blue Fin: 40% chance, sells for 54en. 1 required for Zeta Axe - Axe, ATK+75 - sells for 2,960en 1 required for Hide Boot - Footwear, DEF+16, AGI+1 - sells for 1,710en 2 required for Hunter Bow - Bow, ATK+69 - sells for 2,790en Conditional: Kill with Ice damage. Dew Scale: 75% chance, sells for 69en, nice. 1 required for Kuzunosada - Katana, ATK+86, STR+2 - sells for 4,620en Slightly more dangerous but slightly less interesting. Jaws can hit hard if like 3 of them go for the same person, otherwise it's really whatever. They, uh, don't do anything else. With your team starting to shape up and getting to some busted stuff, and level correction not being a thing, you'll find the new denizens of a stratum aren't particularly deadly anymore. The other trash mob for this stratum. These things you can force grind on safely if you have to. Soon, my pretty. Soon. you're drooling.   Woah, big buggy- mmrmph! Not a problem, its rigid exoskeleton makes it quite the conductor. T-T-That makes s-s-s-sense. Moriyana HP: 213 STR: 24 VIT: 23 TEC: 24 AGI: 48 LUC: 48 Level: 31 Exp: 1394 Skills Bewilder: Uses the Legs. Deals 150% Stab damage to a single target and attempts to inflict Head and Leg Bind. Has an 80% base infliction chance, a 100% accuracy modifier and a 120% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 75% 100% 100% 100% 150%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Bug Nest: 45% chance, sells for 52en. 1 required for Ganyu - Katana, ATK+74 - sells for 2,880en 1 required for Ring Mail - Light Armor, DEF+36 - sells for 2,780en 1 required for Bug Piece - Accessory, Panic Resist Up 50% - sells for 5,000en 1 required for Sleep Gas - Item, Lv1 Torpor, 15% base infliction rate - sells for 450en 5 required for Hard Mail - Clothing, DEF+40, TP+10 - sells for 4,460en 15 required for Estoc - Sword, ATK+76, HP+10, Type: Stab, +30 speed - sells for 4,640en Mint Leaf: 20% chance, sells for 65en. 1 required for Medica II - Item, heals the target by 200HP - sells for 200en 1 required for Charm Gas - Item, Lv5 Provoke, Provoke Rate Up 70%, DEF Up 12% - sells for 700en Conditional: Kill with Volt damage. Front Wing: 80% chance, sells for 73en. 1 required for Luck Staff - Stave, ATK+79, LUC+5, TP+10 - sells for 4,890en Ugh these drat things are back to be annoying. A guaranteed blindside by themselves and a pretty likely chance of someone's accuracy being tanked. Thankfully your physical attackers aren't that bothered but can put your Head based classes on the back foot. They're the deadliest enemy on the floor due to being slightly threatening so definitely go for them first, they're less likely to use Bewilder at low health so it's definitely to your benefit. Solo Moriyanas are guaranteed to initiate a blindside. They can be pretty annoying to deal with. At least their conditional is super easy to snag and is one of the few damage type conditionals to require smacking their weakness instead of a resistance or immunity. And doesn't even penalize you like some conditionals of that kind do. They're also absolutely bizarre in that they invert enemy behaviors where they get more dangerous at low HP. Instead they're more likely to use regular attacks at low HP, so you definitely want to smack them down first. That's got a nasty glare in its eye, it'll definitely go after us. well since you can see something like that surely you can tell us which way it's facing. Nope.  We'll get this next floor, so neat, not that a power boost hugely matters on a Protector or War Magus.  The enemy's coming from behind! Gahhhh! Siiiiiigh, trying that again...  Chill out. I'd l-l-l-love to! Darksoar HP: 1200 STR: 39 VIT: 40 TEC: 40 AGI: 50 LUC: 42 Level: 33 Exp: 0 Skills Dust: Uses the Head. Deals 175% Cut damage to a single target, with 75% splash damage. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 150% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 125% 100% 100% 125% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 10% 50% 10%Drops Wing Skull: 25% chance, sells for 780en. 1 required for Bone Helm - Headgear, DEF+21, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 2,860en White Chip: 95% chance, sells for 51en. 1 required for Bone Glove - Gloves, DEF+15, STR+1 - sells for 1,810en 1 required for Sallet - Headgear, DEF+20, TP+8 - sells for 2,350en 1 required for Ice Wall - Accessory, Ice Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 2 required for Yggdrasil Cider Conditional: None. Ahem, where were we. So Darksoars are aggressive flying FOEs that'll chase you if you walk in front of them. There's just a slight problem, dear readers, HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO TELL WHERE THEY'RE FACING?! So expect to get into a few scraps with these guys unless you have a lot of Sleep Bells. Anyway, they hit pretty goddamn hard, but only to the main recipient of the attack, so you can escape from them pretty easily, but they are a pain to avoid just because you have no idea if you'll aggro them or not and it kinda sucks. Obviously you use Foesense so you never get caught off guard. Hey an actual use for Survivalists, fancy that! I guess it's for that reason they made flying FOEs weak as a patchwork solution to issues like that. And yeah it's a flying FOE, so it's really weak. You cna probably take one down at first sight frankly.  Sweet dreams, luv. didn't even know birds could make that face. We now have its drop, so we can ignore it for the rest of the game. EO2, babyyyyy.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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May 16, 2022 01:19
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  Heh, not being seen is quite the adventure.  Between two Darksoars is a nice defense boost we can't unlock until 14F, but the main issue is getting to this item without being seen. Since you have no idea where they're looking, you either get the bells out or just get lucky. I got absurdly lucky that neither of them saw me, but I guess I'm just that skilled. Woop woop woop woop woop! Looking around, you see a gleaming stone like a pillar of ice atop a mound of snow. You think you may be able to grab the stone if you reach for it... it's out of character for me but i could step out of my shell on occasion. Who are you talking to...?  Only at night, we can get a gathering item one floor early, wooooooo, back to town. 1 White Gem required for White Rod, -3 speed. 2 White Gems required for Nalnari - Gun, ATK+74 - Fits naturally into the bearer's hand. 1 Blue Fin required for Zeta Axe - Axe, ATK+75 - A battleaxe that cleaves using a rounded blade. 1 Bug Nest required for Ganyu - Katana, ATK+74 - Its heavy blade can shatter even boulders.  1 Bug Nest required for Ring Mail 1 White Chip required for Bone Glove - Gloves, DEF+15, STR+1 - Powdered bone fragments have been sewn inside. 1 White Gem required for White Helm - Helmet, DEF+18, TP+5 - Snow-white helm with high defense. 1 Blue Fin required for Hide Boot - Footwear, DEF+16, AGI+1 - Boots of layered, sewn-together fish hide.  1 White Chip and 1 Adularia required for Ice Wall - Accessory, Ice Resist Up 30% 1 Adularia required for Stab Wall - Accessory, Stab Resist Up 30% - Dampens the damage taken from piercing attacks. Phew, look at all these items, I might even use some of them! It's hard to tell the exact number against the snow, but there seem to be at least ten. The snow creatures have not spotted your presence yet... you may have a chance to strike first, though it's also an opportunity to leave quietly. aw, how cute. let's kill them. Bitchin'. As you begin your charge, the snow underfoot melts, revealing another snow creature! This must be their nest! Dozens of monsters, all alike, appear around you. You are grievously outnumbered, but completely surrounded with no chance of escape! Just as you're sure that death is inevitable, the monster's behavior changes... the snow monsters clump up into a single area and begin to combine into one! Its size grows larger by the second, eventually developing into a gargantuan monster! The moment while it's still combining may be your only chance to escape from here! The bigger they are, the slower they melt! I don't think I'm remembering that right. Close enough! You screw up your courage and face the gigantic monster! Failing to anticipate your resistance, the conglomeration of snow demons stop moving. You wait tensely for it to make the first move, but it begins to fall apart! It seems that it's not a true merging... merely a pile of monsters clinging to each other. Unable to sustain its own weight, the monster crumbles from the "feet" up! The dissolution continues until only one snow monster remains... weapons in hand, you change at the sole survivor! Just admit you can't handle the cold and I'll warm you up with some fire. N-N-Nonsense, I love the c-c-cold! Ahh... ahh... ACHOO! ...alright f-f-fine, hanging in r-r-rafters is miserable, but I m-m-must do it! Please warm me u-u-u-up... After your victory over the Snowsoul, you find stones at your feet resembling snowballs. You gather the Snowsoul's remains and leave the area. I was so enamoured by the stairs last time I forgot about this event! Seven drops we don't really need, but hey free money. This event is a bit of a ruse, but if you try and run away from the big monster in the second prompt then you take a bunch of damage and still have to fight it anyway. It's not a big deal regardless. This textbox pops up multiple times instead of saying obtained 7 White Gems. But yeah either way you fight a very non-threatening Snowsoul. that's not the right plural. Just cause I read a lot doesn't mean I'm good at language! So this floor sucks because it's just a long winding walk to get back to where you were. I'm not a huge fan of when the series just has you snake around to fill up map space, but we'll only have to do this a few times for this floor. Hey, better than the LONG HALLWAY OF NOTHINGNESS back on B10F of EO1. As interestingly labyrinthine as its map design could get in comparison to the later games, it had a buncha stinkers like that as well. Also get used to bizarre plurals for enemy formations. That issue wouldn't be corrected until several years later, in Nexus.  So lovely and quiet back here.  Stop it!!!  If only we had a way of hitting multiple enemies at once. Well, food for thought. drat Megido delaying the multi hit spells! 11F B1 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 1% Ambush Encounter: 60% Warbull x1 40% Clawbug x3 Sea Branch: 70% chance. Sells for 130en. 3 required for Doom Mace - Stave, ATK+88, HP+20, -3 speed - sells for 4,640en Death Stem: 25% chance. Sells for 120en. 3 required for Tentacle - Whip, ATK+83, AGI+2, LUC+2, +40 speed - sells for 4,420en 5 required for Hades Bow - Bow, ATK+79, STR+2 - sells for 4,290en 1 required for Yggdrasil cider Ice Branch: 5% chance. Sells for 350en. 1 required for Playing Cupid II Nothing too crazy here but we require other items to unlock these, which is actually a right pain. Get the rare item for the quest and then super scoop outta here. This seems familiar, take this friends. I'd rather not. It's a War Magus shortcut, same event as last time, lazy gits. hush little cutie, you're with me now. We're gonna leave you behind if you don't stop petting the weird skull flying thingy! Ugh! I mean, it's more exp, but ugh! And we'll unlock this next floor, so that's neat. 2 Blue Fins required for Hunter Bow.   Back to where we were, for the last time. Enough with your endless evil! Here's another Darksoar that I walked past without incident. Still got it. It seems that the past continues beyond the wall... you search for a way past the wall, but the forest is too thick and it seems to be no use. Even if you could climb the wall, the branches are too high for you to reach. If only you had someone nimble enough to jump to the high branches, you could cross... Survivalist shortcut, though of course it declines to tell you the important part when you do come back here with one. Or had one in your main party like a weirdo: However the branch is very thin... it would be too risky to attach a rope there. It seems that only a single Survivalist will be able to cross the wall. For now, you give up on crossing the wall, and leave the area. This game will absolutely throw solo shortcuts at you, though it starts off with a very easy one. You'll see next update that it's super whatever but be prepared for lots of Beast Bells in your future if you don't want a lot of solo running away. Yeeeep. The game actually goes there. Better have good party members on hand to handle these sections. Fortunately Survivalists can cheese this one with a max level Stalker. Later solo class shortcuts won't be as generous.  Slushee time. You say such silly things with such a serious face.  There are plenty of dead end rooms in this series, but some do lead to somewhere! And if you can avoid the Darksoar like I somehow did yet again, even better!  Lotta hooves but I got a lotta stam! oh no please don't leave me with nothing to do that would be teeeeerrible... Sleipnir HP: 219 STR: 25 VIT: 24 TEC: 24 AGI: 48 LUC: 48 Level: 32 Exp: 1561 Skills Run Amok: Uses the Legs. Deals 120% Stab damage to the entire party. Has an 85% accuracy modifier and a 150% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Red Mane: 55% chance, sells for 65en. 1 required for Rouge Whip - Whip, ATK+70 - sells for 2,760en 1 required for Red Tunic - Clothing, DEF+34 - sells for 2,690en 5 required for Gore Chain - Whip, ATK+86, STR+2 - sells for 4,710en Conditional: Kill while Legs are bound. White Hoof: 100% chance, sells for 105en. 1 required for Gendawa - Bow ATK+76, AGI+2, TP+10 - sells for 4,610en Oh good there's not just three enemies for the whole floor. Sleipnirs are the usual dodgy annoying enemies that don't do a whole lot since their party wide damage is kinda rubbish. I was using Front Guard in that image, sure, but it's really nothing to worry about. They don't even use their named attack until they're below half health, so despite a cool design they do nothing much with it. A very vanilla mid tier mob. Man I miss EO3 and beyond enemy design, I got nothing to say about a lotta these folks!  If you felt like skipping a nice chunk of floor then there's two ways to do it, though it depends how lucky or belly you are. There was stuff to show anyway so I didn't see the need, also taking the long way round means more exp, stop speedrunning! 11F F5 Chop Point Ambush Chance: 1% Ambush Encounter: 60% Warbull x1 40% Clawbug x3 Death Stem: 70% chance. Sells for 120en. 3 required for Tentacle - Whip, ATK+83, AGI+2, LUC+2, +40 speed - sells for 4,420en 5 required for Hades Bow - Bow, ATK+79, STR+2 - sells for 4,290en 1 required for Yggdrasil cider Sea Branch: 25% chance. Sells for 130en. 3 required for Doom Mace - Stave, ATK+88, HP+20, -3 speed - sells for 4,640en Ice Branch: 5% chance. Sells for 350en. 1 required for Playing Cupid II  Bats and bugs are close enough, right? I don't feel bad in any case. And that was the end of the 11F gauntlet! Well, it only feels that way cause we waste time with winding corridors, but since the floor is symmetrical I'll give it some points back.  This must be the floor where the fearful beast dwells! I'd recognise the sound of a vile fish monster out for blood anywhere. I-If you say so. now that's good eatin'. You ever played this series and wonder if a party wide Nectar would be overpowered? Well as always, EO2 has you covered. AHAHAHAHA! There's a very good reason why this item never made a return to the series!  Mmrmmrph! I'm thinking the same thing, ahh... Curse you for stopping my only real damage dealer. You can rest here and admire the snowman, or ignore it and plow onward. Come now, we need to head back and- blurf! Ah gently caress. A mere glance will suffice to appreciate the snowman, you decide. But as you prepare to leave, you trip over a root and land face-first into the snowman! The Snowsoul that seems to have made the figure appears and flies at you in a rage!  Sorry for ruining your day or whatever. Heh, the story of the furious snowman builder. A fun way to end the floor, or something, if you decide to rest nothing happens. You don't even get healed or anything. EO2! Hey, you gotta have some detrimental events here and there to spice things up! Make everything too friendly and the dungeon loses its threatening and dangerous aura. Simple enough floor, we'll be back in a moment to fill it out properly.  1 Red Mane required for Rouge Whip 1 Red Mane required for Red Tunic  ah, thanks, would've spilled out onto my floor. That's cause you fall asleep with it still on! There you go, all done. Be careful! Pickpockets could be anywhere, you know? Maybe not around my inn, but... better safe than sorry! Why, just the other day, I fell on the street right onto my keister. My back hurt for the rest of the day! There's danger everywhere, not just in the Labyrinth! Always be careful! Need someone that could use a... kickstart? I'll give you a kickstart. Ow. I've got a patient here who's badly injured. He's in critical condition... be careful! The third Stratum is filled with strong enemies. If you feel endangered in any way, do not hesitate to escape! Greetin' ya wee sprog, wanna fight this wee sprog? It would be fair! Just cause I keep my distance doesn't mean I'm weak! Okay, maybe a little... Know something neat? I heard from Cass at the bar that the whole town is fascinated by you. Everyone's saying you'll be the first ones to climb Yggdrasil and find the floating castle. I think so, too! Even when you get famous, don't forget this shop! Don't forget me...! None taken, they are quite chilly, ohohoho! Sigh, sometimes trying to learn everything is not an easy task. I hate winter, so there's no way I could stay up there for long. It's beautiful, yeh say? Yeh sound like yeh're going there on vacation! The place is packed with monsters! This town gets freezing cold during winter. Icicles as far as the eye can see! I don't even like to get out of bed in the morning cause it's so friggin' cold! I wish I could live someplace warm... and drink whatever I wanted... but for that day to come, I'll have to keep slaving away here! Haw haw haw! It is only surprising to those southern doltings who know not the danger of northing! Hmhm! Are you used to the ice and snow? Even veteran explorers have trouble with the cold. But for the monsters, it's home. They have the advantage of it being their native environment. If your surroundings give you trouble, you'll have to devise a new strategy. That's all the advice I have for you. Never underestimate the Labyrinth. Yep, here's the 11F map. Once we got the proper corrections, of course. Purr! Your appearance belies your strength. I have underestimated you explorers. Tell me, what will you do if you do find the floating castle? The Duke has offered a title to those who discover it. Is that ultimately your goal? We consider it a small price to pay, but if you wouldn't accept it, then... I confess I'm not certain those with an explorer bent would be willing to become nobility. Oh, but please excuse me. I am rather getting ahead of myself, aren't I? You are ascending through the Labyrinth so quickly that I got a little carried away! Oh boy a bunch of rubbish quests to dump on us. We covered a whole floor and a whole quest four times over so we'll leave these til next time and actually get into the good floors of this stratum. I'm not sure how many times I've said this already, but I'll say this again. I absolutely do not miss questing in the older games.
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May 16, 2022 01:20
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Gunner Can equip: Gun, Clothing Wielding their neutral special, the first new class of the game starts off with a, heh, BANG. If you ever wanted to use Survivalist or Alchemist but didn't fancy the heavy investment for them, then this is the class for you, since it's better than both of them combined. Gunners dish out a lot of physical damage, as well as STR-based elemental damage, can support with binds and Medishot, and have some other utility in regular attacks. Being one of the new classes, they get some favouritism and they're definitely worth using, because while they're pretty drat squishy, especially with the Riskshot skills, they can hang in the back and fire all day long. It helps that most of their skills are easy to invest in and a fair few can just be ignored. Hey, now we get to the new folks. Welcome to the series, ya'll! If you had woes about Survivalists being unusable or Alchemists just being plain clunky to use, then Gunner is the backliner of choice! Great physical damage, decent coverage, and decent support. It's basically the jack-of-all trades role the Survivalist could fill in the first game. Seriously it's like, why is Survivalist in the game when this class exists? Alchemists have other redeeming aspects but Survivalists pale in comparison to Gunners so much it's not even funny. At any rate Gunners are a very solid unit to put into a party. They may not be overly busted like Ronin, Dark Hunter, or Hexer, but they're a pretty strong class all the same. At least we don't have to compare these stats to last game, they're brand new! Gunners have a weird stat variation, having the best LUC in the game, something that'll be important later, while having the worst AGI, and terrible HP and VIT. Their TEC is higher than their STR for some reason, since their elemental attacks are all STR based, and their higher than average TP helps with their somewhat cheaper skills, especially compared to the Alchemist's elementals. Do note that their horrific AGI means that Gunners have a bit of an accuracy problem, though their high LUC stat at least mitigates a bunch of that. The effects aren't too great, though the Gunner typically has a lot of spare SP, so it might be worth investing in them later on top help with their accuracy woes just a little bit at the very least. It's probably the biggest weakness of a Gunner, and probably the closest thing holding them back from uh, being slightly more good. Because they're a damage dealing class, they really want as much STR as possible. Their TEC is already pretty high so there's no need to invest in it, especially since it's basically a defensive stat. There are misconceptions about whether some of the Gunner's skills use TEC or not, but they don't, so don't worry about pumping that up. LUC's also not super relevant for them, so that's not really a stat that needs to be invested in either. Take HP, TP, or VIT how you see fit, though the first two have larger priority I would say.Common Passive Unlocks TEC Up: Lv1: Medishot AGI Up: Lv1: Legshot, Armshot, Headshot Nice and simple, and for some good skills. While you can go all out attacking, the Gunner has the means to support pretty well, you can definitely spend 2SP getting these skills available, the Gunner has plenty to spare.Guns Unlocks: Lv1: Fireshot, Iceshot, Voltshot; Lv2: Legshot; Lv3: Armshot; Lv4: Headshot; Lv5: Riskshot, Stunshot, Snipe, Riskfire, Riskice, Riskvolt; Lv7: Wildshot; Lv10: 2-Hit, Ricochet Passive.  Ah the standard point sink that you need to max to get all those sweet skills. Gunners start off really well with 3 elemental skills right off the bat, gives them great early game variety, and then they get stupid squishy and stupid strong with the Risk skills. If you wanted to stop there, I guess you could, but Ricochet is like Multihit on steroids, so definitely worth picking up. Pretty much everything the Gunner uses stems from this so you'd best get maxing it as soon as possible, their low level skills will be carried by their relatively high STR for the time being. Hey, yet another mastery skill. Not much really to say here other than it's a rather minimal damage boost, but unlike the other classes, you'll want to max this out fast, as their best skill is locked behind level 10. Won't do much for your Gunner but you don't really have a choice in the matter if you really want them to get going.2-Hit Prerequisites: Guns Lv10 Normal attacks have a chance of hitting twice. Passive.  So good(?) they handed it out twice. The Gunner can make more use out of regular attack boosts, but they also do incredible damage with their skills, so it's hard to recommend these strats outside of saving TP. Not many of the Gunner's skills actually require 10SP, so they have the points to spare, and this can be something to sink into lategame. But it's only half of the equation. A lot of what I said about the Landsknecht's version applies here as well. You're spending 10 SP to increase your regular attack damage to an average of 135% damage. That's a really terrible tradeoff, and I'd only recommend investing points in this if you really have absolutely nothing else you want.Weakshot Increases critical hit chance of regular attacks. Added onto user's crit rate. Passive.  This can be useful if you hit twice and crit on both of them, but again it only really works out if you're saving TP and get some luck, not that it really takes much to proc both skills. Gunner's have pretty good crit chances due to their high LUC and while a +30 boost is nice, the total chance is capped at 50%, so the enemy needs to have a good amount of LUC so you're not wasting points. This will happen most of the time, so it's not too bad, but this isn't something you can use much when you're newly exploring, this is just a nice thing to do when you're going back to previous floors. Critical hits only deal 25% more damage in this game, so this functionally works out to a 7.5% damage boost at max level. Which requires 10 SP to reach. Which is less than max level Guns, a damage boost that affects everything, not just regular attacks. Not what I would call a great deal. And if you decided to invest in both 2-Hit and Weakshot, congratulations. You spent 20 SP to increase that average of 135% damage to 145.125% damage. 20 SP that could have gone elsewhere. Granted the attacks cost 0 TP and the Gunner will have a lot of SP to spare, but really now. If you absolutely insist on taking both of these skills, take 2-Hit first. It'll do more for your Gunner.Legshot/Armshot/Headshot Prerequisites: Guns Lv2/3/4, AGI Up Lv1 A single target Gun attack that attempts to inflict Leg/Arm/Head bind. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Cheap and dirty binds at the start of battle. Now these are kinda pathetic when compared to the Hexer's version, since these are level 5 skills that are scaled like they're level 10, but the higher LUC helps mitigate that. Uh, well not really, but it's not as bad as it could've been. If you're desperate for binds then these skills are good enough, but you're better off using other classes. It's some interesting utility and can work out fine, but you should you only really invest in Headshot and Armshot, like always. If you want your Gunner to edge more into the support role, these could be possible pickups. But their damage is rather piddly and this is a game where offense and just outright killing the enemy is heavily favored over faffing about. What really sets these skills back are the rather mediocre infliction rates. Don't be fooled by the Gunner's high LUC stat, it doesn't increase infliction rates that much and the small boost will get utterly tanked against FOEs and bosses. The base infliction rates are what has the most effect in the infliction math, and as you can see... they're not great. Whip Dark Hunters and Hexers are far better binders, so if you already have either of them in your party or even both, these skills are very safe skips and your Gunner's better off focusing on damage since the lockdown part is already pretty much handled. Against bosses these skills have 11% to 13% infliction rates at best. Which is an average of 8 to 9 turns of attempts for a successful infliction. And in a well crafted party, chances are the fight has ended long before then. Otherwise if you lack binds or just have a party that's really slow to finish fights, you could take them if you are desperate for binds, though they aren't super necessary to beat the game. Like always, you can ignore Legshot since leg binds aren't too great in this game.Riskshot Prerequisites: Guns Lv5 A single target Gun attack that increases damage taken from all attacks until executed. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Feeling lucky, punk? The Risk skills do really nice damage, but also come with a huge cost. The Gunner has difficulty surviving hits at the best of times, but adding a ridiculous damage modifier on yourself makes these a little hard to recommend. It's not worth using these skills until they're maxed out, but even at 256%, you'll probably still be turned into a red mist if a butterfly so much blinks at you. The elemental Risk skills have utility in doing big damage on weaknesses, so this skill is only really useful if the enemy doesn't have a weakness. You can circumvent this with 1st Turn or 1 Guard/Provoke, but that means you have a Survivalist and a Gunner on the same team, weird, or your Protector is solely there to stop your Gunner from eating dirt five times a battle. If you think you can get away with it, these skills are great, but they're also... risky. Riskshot is a skill I would say is absolutely not worth taking at all. The elemental Riskshots deal more damage, and actually cover an aspect a Gunner can't otherwise cover while Riskshot is severely outshined by Ricochet. The only saving graces of this skill are that it's one of the most accurate skills they have, so it's unlikely to miss, and that it costs less SP than the elemental riskshots. Which honestly doesn't make up for the fact that until this skill activates, a hedgehog glancing the Gunner's way will instantly blow them up, and that you are forced to use a Survivalist or some other means to reliably use this skill. All of those are bad enough, but skill is just so hard outclassed, that I really do not recommend picking it up.Stunshot Prerequisites: Guns Lv5 A single target Gun attack that attempts to inflict Stun. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Hmm, okay, this could work due to its higher infliction rate but of course the main issue is Gunners are slow as poo poo. You can combine this with 1st Turn and with the higher LUC of this class, could pretty dependably stun the enemy, depending on resistance. It's a bit wonky, but it's basically a free Force skill. Otherwise this skill isn't that useful, since Riot Gun is a guaranteed stun no matter what, so instead of 1st Turn... use an Axcela. Stunshot is basically "what if Riot Gun was completely nonfunctional?" This skill is absolutely worthless unless you're using one with a Survivalist, as Stuns only work if the inflictor acts before the enemy. And the Gunner is slow as poo poo, and this skill's low speed modifier isn't enough to deal with that issue. It's easier to stun big enemies in this game compared to EO1, as the Stun multipliers are considerably higher, but the low speed is what kills this skill. Chances are you can save that SP for something else unless you deal with that issue somehow.Snipe Prerequisites: Guns Lv5 A single target Gun attack that can never miss, even if user is Blind or Head Bound. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  ...uh, okay? While a fast, guaranteed hit is nice in theory, it doesn't do much damage, so I don't feel the need for this. Sure, it could help on enemies with high evasion, but Ricochet will likely land at least one hit in that instance, so this skill is kinda whatever. Nice idea, needs some power to actually work. Snipe isn't a great skill, but it can fill some niches. It's cheap, so it doesn't stress the Gunner's rather tiny TP pool too much. It has a really high speed modifier, so it can bypass the low speed issue, which can be a nice way to bypass that annoyance for a Gunner if you really need to, and being guaranteed damage doesn't hurt either. That being said you're more likely to use this for the speed than for the guaranteed accuracy, as there aren't too many situations where you'd be tagged by blind and absolutely need to get a hit in. This skill is a possible skip but investing in this can cover some niche situations that would really annoy your Gunner.Fireshot/Iceshot/Voltshot Prerequisites: Guns Lv1 Unlocks: Lv5: Riskfire/Riskice/Riskvolt A single target Gun attack. Gun skill with STR-based Fire/Ice/Volt damage, uses the Arms.  Ah here's the skills that make the Gunner pretty unique. You can grab two of these before even entering the labyrinth and really gives some early game variety. It's like the Alchemist's spells, but cheaper and much easier to slot into a party. Since you're mostly going to be using them on weaknesses, even at Lv1 they deal a nice amount of damage, so there's not much reason to upgrade them unless you want to be... risky. Still, you can pour some points into these, you have the freedom to, and they're way safer than the Risk versions, obviously, but just think about the DAMAGE you'd do. Well, up to you, but these skills are definitely great, and cheap, compared to other elemental options. And say hello to one of the biggest reasons why Alchemists are a contested class. A Gunner can provide the elemental coverage you need if you truly need it, without having to develop an Amrita addiction. There's not a whole lot of big enemies that resist Stab, but there's enough that picking these up are worthwhile to give them some coverage. Generally there are two ways you can level up these skills. For one, these skills can be considered one point wonders due to rather terrible scaling. You are spending 9 more SP on top of your initial 1 point investment to not even double their damage at the price of more than doubling their TP cost. Not a good deal. The other option is to level them up to 5 to get access to more risky but more effective elemental nuking options. Whichever option you go with is up to you but investing at least 1 point in all of these can be considered a pro move.Riskfire/Riskice/Riskvolt Prerequisites: Guns Lv5, Fireshot/Iceshot/Voltshot Lv5 A single target Gun attack that increases damage taken from all attacks until executed. Gun skill with STR-based Fire/Ice/Volt damage, uses the Arms.  Prepare to die. The Risk elementals can do some spicy numbers but of course you need to actually live to pull it off. It offers a barely better protection than the 5 level Riskshot, so it doesn't really matter which one you choose. There are other classes, mainly the Ronin, that deals big elemental hits without the drawback, so there's honestly not much point, but what if you weren't a coward...? It's definitely better sticking to the 1st stage of elementals, it's the main draw for the Gunner because of how easy they are to use, and these either require a lot of setup, or a lot of luck. Since you have a lot of spare SP, you're free to experiment, but just know what you're getting into. You'd have to be crazy to pick up one of these skills, haha, unless... If the previous elemental skills weren't enough for you and you want to nuke enemies harder with elemental damage, these skills are for you! ...If you're willing to deal with the penalties. They could potentially hit the enemy for a huge amount of damage. Or your Gunner gets smacked and whoops, they're dead! This also feels rather excessive when other classes have elemental damage that doesn't put them at massive risk. The risk of losing the Gunner's turn on top of having to spend an action reviving them can be a huge loss of momentum for your party. I'm not a fan of these skills. The other elemental shots cover the factor of elemental damage without letting you gamble. And there are too many caveats if you want to use these skills reliably. You'd either need a Survivalist's 1st Turn, protection from a Protector, or making sure the enemy is completely incapacitated or something to ensure your Gunner can use these safely. They're too unreliable to use seriously.Wildshot Prerequisites: Guns Lv7 A multi target Gun attack. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Let's step down to a much less riskier skill, Wildshot is fine if you want some spread damage on a lot of enemies, but it's also kinda pathetic. Ricochet isn't as dependable but will likely do more to help you, but hey if you're facing 5 enemies and want to finish them off after your party softened them up, it's perfectly okay at that. Wildshot is the Gunner's only AOE attack, and one of the few physical AOEs in the entire game. If your party is lacking in the crowd control department, this skill could be worth picking up for reliable AOE damage. But if you already have other sources of reliable AOE damage such as the Ronin's Kienzan or the Hexer's Poison, you can most likely skip this skill, as it is really slow and the damage isn't super great to make up for that.Ricochet Prerequisites: Guns Lv10 A multi target Gun attack to 3-5 enemies, does not redirect if original target dies. Gun attack with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  Oh hey remember Multihit? That was nerfed into oblivion to 2-Bolt? Well it's actually still here, but better and on a better class, because gently caress Survivalists, apparently. You even do 3 hits like Multihit could, but also have a smaller chance of doing even more damage! It's kinda dumb how much better this is than Multihit, and especially EO2's version. But that's what the Gunner is, Survivalist 2. Sure it'll suck if 4 hits just disappear into the ether, but with larger enemy groups this time, you're gonna get a lot of mileage from this great skill. If you don't care about elemental damage, you could just stick to this for the entire game and not even notice much. So let me get this straight. You took Multihit, gutted it into uselessness, and gave the unnerfed version to another class, and buffed it in the process!? Goddamn, I get that Survivalists were broken in EO1, but EO2, did you really have to poo poo that hard on them!? Anyways, most of the Gunner's skillset isn't really too great. But this skill makes up for their rather lackluster skillset tenfold! This is easily the Gunner's best damage skill in their toolkit, and one of the first things to gun for if possible. The only real downside is that it's fairly inaccurate, as the accuracy modifier on this skill is smaller than the modifiers on most of their other skills. Despite that drawback this skill is absolutely worth taking, but expect to see some misses every now and then. As for how much damage this skill will actually do due to EO2's weighted hit system, allow me to illustrate that out for you. Ricochet dishes out an average of 1.6/2.6/2.6/2.6/3.4 hits which equals 120%/208%/234%/273%/425% average damage. You gain +120%/+88%/+26%/+39%/+152% damage per level. Yeah the scaling is really wonky as levels 3 and 4 don't do much, but there's a huge jump at level 5. 425% damage is higher than Mideraba's damage modifier, and there's a 20% chance to deal 475% damage, or a 10% chance to deal 625% damage! Worst case scenario, you only deal 375% damage, which is more than most other damage skills in the game! Of course due to Katanas having higher ATK and Ronin having higher STR, Midareba still outdamages this skill most of the time, but this one skill truly carries the Gunner class into greatness. This skill was also why I said Riskshot was not worth taking, as even if it rolls for the minimum amount of hits, it still deals more damage, and doesn't blow up the Gunner in the process. And is also faster to boot.Medishot Prerequisites: TEC Up Lv1 Dispels certain ailments from the entire party, depending on the level. Cannot dispel Petrify. Heal skill, uses the Head.  If you didn't fancy the bind aspect of Gunner support, then this is a skill you definitely want to get. Party wide ailment healing is rare outside of Purify and Theriaca BX, so having a really easy version to use is another great point in this class's favour. Sure you could be shooting stuff, but what if you shot your party instead? Going to max isn't really worth it due to speed modifiers being a suggestion for this class, but you've seen all the worthwhile skills, it's up to you how much you wanna go. Somebody please explain to me why shooting your party members is better than a Medic treating them? No seriously, take a look at Purify in the Medic's skillset and come back here. Yeah, Medishot is half as cheap as Purify. Though don't be fooled by Medishot's speed modifier, Purify is actually faster by virtue of the Medic having a much higher AGI stat. At any rate, AOE ailment dispels are really valuable to have, so this skill is definitely a good pickup. Especially if you choose to have War Magus as your healer of choice over the Medic, as the War Magus cannot dispel ailments with their skills. So the Gunner pairs up with them really nicely, and fills up that hole. Even if you are using a Medic this skill is still worth picking up, though lower priority as multiple sources of ailment dispels can really help if one of your dispellers gets incapacitated. And ailments on the entire party are a fast track to a game over!Haltshot Stuns non-red FOEs in a certain radius for a set duration. Field skill.  Oh hey it's Slumber. Sure you can put a point into this, avoiding pointless FOE fights is half the game! But also item, you've heard this spiel before. Unlike with the Troubadour where they had the choice of taking Luring, Gunners are stuck with stunning them. Though there is an item that can replicate this skill, though said item is a bit weaker. Otherwise like I said before, take it or leave it.Riot Gun A single target Gun attack that inflicts guaranteed Stun. Gun skill with Stab damage, uses the Arms.  To top off this great class, it's one of the best Force skills! So long as your Gunner has a little bit of AGI, as a treat, they can outspeed and land a Stun on A N Y enemy in the game. Like with binds, no monster is immune to Stun, so combine with Dominate and Painless and suddenly you can see how you're able to burst through whatever enemy you fancy. It's kinda crazy how much disparity these Force skills have. Like with most of them, this isn't something you should pull out against regular enemies, so get ready to Axcela for that boss! One of the best Force skills in the game as it fills multiple roles at once, and what truly hurtles the Gunner into a very strong class. It's a good damage nuke and one of the Gunner's best reliable damage options, so there's little reason not to use this when it's up. It's also a fantastic support skill due to the guaranteed Stun buying you a free turn, and the severe speed boost making Gunner almost guaranteed to act first. However there are some tradeoffs compared to the Protector's Painless. Sure it deals damage in the process, but Riot Gun can only lock down one enemy at a time, making it not a great panic button in randoms or battles where there are more than 1 FOE. (You're probably better off trying to run in that case. Unless you got cornered in which case, good luck!) Painless also has priority, but Riot Gun does not, so it is possible for the Gunner to get outsped before they can use this. However I'm only acknowledging that as a possibility. In most cases this skill will move first, so that's not something to worry about too much. If you are worried, just get some AGI increasing equipment and slap it on the Gunner to solve that issue. On the other hand, Painless cannot protect against debuffs and dispels, but Riot Gun can because it denies the action entirely instead of shielding your team. Not to mention that this skill deals a ton of damage to your target, which speeds up fights. In big fights you can stagger this with Painless to get 2 guaranteed free turns! And if you have Dominate on top of that, 3 turns! It's truly absurd how strong this skill is, and you can spam Axcelas once you get access to them in the late-game to make them spam it every turn if you so choose. There's also one more aspect that makes this skill even stronger, but I'll talk about that in the main LP when the time comes. First new class is off to a great stat, since it's just a better Survivalist, Alchemist, hell let's toss Landy in there too, it needs some more kicking. Despite having a lot of naff skills, some super suicidal ones, and a very wonky stat spread, they have just enough positives to keep them on the better side of the class disparity. Gunners are a pretty strong class, though a lot of their strength comes from a few skills that are incredibly strong at the roles they cover. A bunch of their skillset is really terrible and not worth taking, kind of making the overall class design not too great. Despite their issues, they're a great candidate for a backliner. Or some may argue they're the only candidate for an offensive backliner. Still, this class makes a good first impression, and has a strong showing in this game. And will still have a strong showing as the series goes on.
Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 01:34 on May 16, 2022 |
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May 16, 2022 01:23
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12F isn't that long so it won't be long until we need to vote for who will be exploring. And since I'd really love to reach the next page soon, let's decide when we're gonna be seeing earlier than others! Vote for three party members to be exploring 13F and onwards! Top 4 votes will be doing 13F and 14F. Next 4 will be 15F and 16F and the last 4 will be 17F and 18F. As always boss encounters will be a separate vote, and the next one will be a double fight, wow!
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May 16, 2022 01:34
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Let's go with Eleanore, Aleks, and Juthro.
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May 16, 2022 06:54
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Votes so far! Aleks: 4 kathy: 3 Eleanore: 2 Holly: 2 Logan: 2 Juthro: 1 Rajah: 1 Alastor: 1 Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jun 11, 2022 |
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May 18, 2022 00:34
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kathy, Aleks, and Alastor.
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May 18, 2022 00:37
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Part 17: Slippery When Wet But Not In That Way  I have been writing all the descriptions for them, yes. And then Loopy draws the image, very impressively, I might add. They're looking for more details so the guard corps know what to expect in the Labyrinth. Remember when yeh lot brought back those stones for the Duke's daughter on her birthday? The Grand Duchy was chuffed about that! I've been in like Flynn with them since. Yeh're getting better and better at these! It makes my wicked old heart swell... anyways, this job is another one for the Grand Duchy. Just head to the Duke's Palace for more details. And wear yeh best clothes! What do you mean, "Who cares!?" Yeh need to learn a thing or two about etiquette! Get outta my bar and to the Duke's Palace! March! Alright, back from shopping and ready to have a- oh what now?! You know that Grand Duchy place you love so much? Even though we've been doing everything we can, we're just barely short on the requirements for this, we're at like 48 or whatever. But we'll easily do it on this new floor.  Heh, time for the usual one sided creep fest to begin. Sounds like you've got some experience with this. Ah well, no harm in telling yeh. There's a beautiful woman some ways off. Yeh wouldn't know her. She's a fickle one, with a new "type" of man every day. Most men know to stay well clear. But not this unlucky fella... he's an old friend of her, and they're on reasonably good terms. So he figures, "What the hell?" and decides to propose. He lavishes gifts on her, but she refuses every one. He's tried every method of proposal in the book by now, and more'n a few that aren't. All he can think to do now is try stuff in the Labyrinth. There's a solid mineral there, called an Ice Sheet, or sometimes alabaster. It's no easy rock to get ahold of. If a man gave it to a girl, she'd be swept off her feet. It's a silly-sounding request, but... if yeh find some, bring it here, all right? Thanks! Imagine if men could take "no" for an answer. Instead they hear "try harder!". God I hate my gender.  Hrm, where's Holly when you need- Alreeeet, I luv chuckin' rocks! I warn yeh... it'll be rough. This one involves carrying a huge load. Yeh've seen just outside the gate, right? And the shops that line the street... yeh must have noticed that the roads here are in absolute shambles. I'm not just talking about bumps in the road--some of them have huge boulders jutting out! And the problem is just getting worse with all the new explorers. To fix up the roads and add some new ones, we'll need a bunch of big rocks. There's some quarries on the 3rd, 5th and 14th floors that we use for times like these... yer job is to go get the rocks from there, one by one. Backbreaking work, that is. So we figured we'd let yeh do it while we sit back and relax! Haw! Aww, don't get sore... yeh can only carry one rock at a time, of course, because of their size and weight. We need three rocks in total, so you'll have to make three trips. Take your time... it's a brutal job, but it's for the good of the town. Just put yer head down and power through! Long winded explanation for something we can't complete for two more floors? Yeah this'll be sitting in the quest pile for a while. Yet another quest with the same general plot but completely reworked mechanics in EO2U.  Guess we'll wait for Logan to come back to then send him off again, ohohoho. I'm sure he'll figure it out while he's there. Apparently there's a monster going berserk on the 11th floor. It's not yer usual beastie. The worst part is that it's really close to a prime spot for chopping wood. They dispatched the guard corps to take care of it, but yeh can guess how that went. Go talk to the Minister at the Duke's Palace for the details. G'luck! Wow a quest we can actually do right now. Only took 3 tries. Quest availability is so funny in the earlier games. Yeah you need help filling the Code- As you may have heard, there is a violent monster on the 11th floor of the Labyrinth. The guards tell me that it's unusual for this monster to be on that particular floor. We've determined that it's a mother with child. Its nest is to the northwest of that floor. That being the case, we assume something must have disturbed the nest. It's important that we be able to coexist with the Labyrinth. This cannot go unaddressed. It would be easy to slay the rampaging beast, but the Duke's daughter is firmly against it. To find a peaceful solution, you must first discover what is causing the monster's distress. When you've concluded the investigation, report your findings back here. Remember, don't kill the monster, and know that we are all relying on you! Alright, easy enough, I'll pass it on. Was there something else... eh, whatever, see ya! Oh, me? I was just walking the dog. Yo! First, let me extend my thanks for all the jewels you found for the Duke's daughter. As for the next job... you know, of course, that we explore the Labyrinth as well. It's an important site for us, filled with natural resources. But our work would go more smoothly if we knew what kind of opposition to expect. We would like your help in researching the habits and characteristics of the monsters. Catalogue over 50 types of monsters in the Codex and show us your work. When your gallery is sufficiently full, you can inform the bar. You're not the only guild we have assisting, of course. I wish you luck, and godspeed. Well I'll pass it on to that shy guy that compiles all this stuff. And credit to the artist, of course. Hehe!  can't wait to be rid of these things, bugs aren't cute. Heh, nearly there at least. You think back to the quest you accepted at the bar... you agreed to find the reason for a monster's rampage and report to the Duke's Palace. The monster is breathing heavily... it must have picked up your scent! You have been enjoined against slaying it, and you can do nothing now but flee! You must quickly find the cause of its aggression before leaving the area!  Seems like a bad idea, but Logan said to kill it. That doesn't sound right, but I don't exactly remember. I'm sure it's not a problem. Anything in this labyrinth can't be left alive!Madsteps HP: 711 STR: 26 VIT: 25 TEC: 26 AGI: 54 LUC: 54 Level: 35 Exp: 0 Skills Run Amok: Uses the Legs. Deals 120% Stab damage to the entire party. Has an 85% accuracy modifier and a 150% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 125% 100% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops None Conditional: None. Come now game, you can't create a new enemy that isn't added to the codex and expect me to not kill it at least once? I made the writeup and everything! But yeah it's a beefier Sleipnir, but since you either go around it, or Sleep Bell it, it doesn't matter what it actually is. There are a couple of quest exclusive monsters in the series that don't get added to the codex because they're either missable, or you aren't supposed to be fighting them in the first place. This one isn't too hard to deal with since it's just a beefed up random, but you're not supposed to be killing this thing. You get nothing, you lose, good day sir!  nah  The monster should find it more difficult to follow you now... you head further inward to investigate the area. This is definitely a nest, but uhhhh, something's missing. It seems we are dealing with a mother, the most dangerous monster of all, ohohohoho. Could this be the monster's nest? But what you find as you inspect it causes your shoulders to droop... contrary to your expectations, there are no indications that it has been disturbed. In fact, you cannot even find the monster's child here! With no other avenues of inquiry, you decide to return to Lagaard. You must be careful, however... the rampaging monster still has your scent! You are aware that if you slay the monster the quest will end in failure. We can leave now, always good to have a couple wires on hand... just in case. So do we file a missing child report, or...? Mm? The nest was intact? Then what could have possibly caused its rampage...? This is a dilemma. I don't know how best to proceed... but your efforts are commendable. No one else has managed to so much as reach the nest. We must investigate the matter further... please collect your reward at the bar. Should we need your assistance again, we shall call for you.  What an interesting quandary, this must be investigated further. Heh, maybe it went for its own adventure. Flew the coop, as it were. So that's how it went, eh...? Then why'd the beastie go berserk? I hear after yeh left that floor, no one's seen hide nor hair of the thing. I was worried yeh'd accidentally killed it! But yeh did the job, so yeh get the reward. Come back anytime! A way to heal all ailments from everyone, so we'll keep this close until we can get more. Meaning never using it! A very good reward for a decently easy quest. There's definitely at least one point in this Stratum where it'll come in handy. Technically all the branches around here are Ice Branches, hehe. Hmm, I wonder if Ro talks to himself like this? Just before we start the shiny new floor, there's a couple of things the gatherers will do, but since we should focus on our own guild during solo shortcuts, we'll just pretend I rested Logan to get Stalker and Chop and all that garbage. Fighting scary monsters is one thing, but high trees make the best camping spots! You look above the wall and spot the branch you hoped would be there, and leap up to it. You move from branch to branch until you can see a hidden path through the wall below. From here, it would be child's play to move to the other side of the wall. Easy enough, phew. Good thing Hart is such a... willing test subject for these. A calming pulse of magic, but it doesn't seem very strong... And that's the entirety of 11F! Unfortunately coming all this way with a pretty easy solo class results in a mediocre accessory. We won't be unlocking this for another 12 floors but since it only reduces elemental damage by 15%, it's more worthwhile to use the specific element resist, since it's not likely you'll face multiple in a fight outside of overkill ones for Anti skills. Multi-defense accessories like that can be nice for general purpose use when you have no idea what to expect, or when just doing your standard explorations. But if you know what you're going up against, using stuff that defends against a single damage type or disable tends to be better. so why are we waiting around? It'll be worth it, ohohoho.  AHHHHHHHHHH!!! cute, but i don't get it. You should have a proper scare once in a while, now you all look as pale as me, ohoho- GAH, hothothot! gently caress you. Helldra HP: 3000 STR: 50 VIT: 50 TEC: 50 AGI: 50 LUC: 50 Level: 42 Exp: 0 Skills Fang: Uses the Head. Deals 80% Bash damage to the entire party and attempts to inflict Poison. Has a 25% base infliction chance, deals 80-120 damage, has a 100% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 50% 50% 50%Disable Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 25% 25% 15% 25% 3% 20% 3%Drops Dark Scale: 35% chance, sells for 980en. 1 required for Kotsujiki - Katana, ATK+99, VIT+2 - sells for 6,640en Conditional: None. We'll encounter these red FOEs in like 30 screenshots but you could meet them a floor earlier to get a nice katana earlier? Ehhh, we can't even survive its proper attack, let alone the Poison it inflicts, let alone when it gets low in health and has a high chance of using Fang every turn. We'll come back to this monster later, but thankfully they're easy enough to avoid, especially since you can't bell them. A weak enemy being able to summon sic the strongest FOE in the stratum on you is hilarious. At least you don't have to loving petrify this thing for 100% completion. As you pass, he suddenly recognizes you and begins to speak. You're explorers, aren't you? Is there anything I can help you with? know about snow blooms? oh that comes later? fine, ice sheet? You tell him the story of the Ice Sheet, and he gives a slight chuckle in response. Ah, yes, the Ice Sheet. I actually saw someone mining it on this floor. But it's not easy to find... you'll have to look long and hard for that one, heh. You thank the guard and move on. It appears this quest will take longer than you thought. I guess he's here to tell you it's the rare gathering drop so you don't get discouraged, but it's not harder to find than other rare drops, thank god. Wheeeeeeeeee! Starting from this floor is a sliding gimmick, you go in one direction until you hit a wall or soft ground. We have a lovely cool blue to denote these and since you don't increase the encounter rate on these tiles, it's really fun to chain these together and go quite the distance. Oh, uh, and this is a nice helmet we'll unlock next floor. Not the easiest to show in screenshot fashion, but I'll put the exits to rooms with sliding puzzles so you can work back and see how we might get to them. Starting off nice and easy.  Pathetic. Still cold though! Snowzard HP: 219 STR: 25 VIT: 25 TEC: 24 AGI: 25 LUC: 24 Level: 32 Exp: 1286 Skills Icebreath: Uses the Head. Deals Ice damage to a single target, with a spell power of 40 and damage multiplied by 125%. Has a 99% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Freezing: Uses the Head. Deals Ice damage to the entire party, with a spell power of 35 and damage multiplied by 90%. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 50% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 150% 0% 100%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 0% 100% 100% 100%Drops Torn Tail: 35% chance, sells for 48en. 1 required for Cutlass - Sword, ATK+70 - sells for 3,080en 3 required for Biliomg - Axe, ATK+86 - sells for 3,890en 15 required for Doom Mace - Stave, ATK+88, HP+20 - sells for 4,640en White Chip: 30% chance, sells for 51en. 1 required for Bone Glove - Gloves, DEF+15, STR+1 - sells for 1,810en 1 required for Sallet - Headgear, DEF+20, TP+8 - sells for 2,350en 1 required for Ice Wall - Accessory, Ice Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 2 required for Yggdrasil Cider Conditional: None. Hey it's a Firezard with cold fire, or something. It either hits someone kinda hard or everyone not very hard. It's basically 50/50 at higher health, so who knows what'll happen! But then it'll do more party wides at lower health, surprise surprise. And that's the end. The resident trash mob of this floor. There's not much to these. The damage isn't huge and you should be able to dispatch them easily.  Ohoho! You were so still I thought you were a statue! I'm using my gauntlets a lot more than I thought... A soldier's forlorn voice pierces the cold air. The soldier walks to you, his teeth chattering as he fights against the wind. We were s-s-specially selected by M-M-Minister Dubois to find the S-S-Snow Blooms, but... The guard falls silent and stares at the ground before he continues, chastened. The forest is t-t-tougher than we thought. The slippery ice g-g-gets in the way... we c-c-can't find any flowers! We only work during the day to avoid d-d-danger, but... The soldier sadly meets your eyes before continuing. We weren't up t-t-to the mission. C-C-Can we leave the rest to you...? The pitiful soldier stands there hugging his own body from the cold and fear. It falls to you to investigate the ice-covered forest and find the Snow Blooms. only chumps do stuff during the day. Not exactly why we're here now, but close enough. The name of the game is Etrian Odyssey II, haha, but it's also to find the Snow Blooms scattered around the floor. As the guard inferred, you won't have much luck during the day, so you have to come at night, which has a big issue. But first, we need to get across this room. How big is it anyway...? Well! We'll be slipping and sliding along all this ice to reach all the various exits, see if you can trace the path back! Should be easy, right? Well, watch where you're walking.  How was this hiding round the corner?! It was as still as that guard... Siiiiigh, I walked into it on purpose to reach something, but whatever... There's a few Helldra on this floor and during the day they sit in one spot, forcing you to go around them if you can't beat them. But at night they start walking back and forth, but thankfully they're not aggressive. So let's just get around this drat thing... This is why you don't gently caress with FOEs in EO2. Crikey that's chilly! Gettin' frostbite over here! Could this be the Snow Bloom that Minister Dubois asked you to retrieve? The flower blooms alone in the frigid night air... oh hey they keep their shape at night. and they're cold to hold. fancy that. You reach out to pluck the flower blooming quietly in the snow... taking the icy, sublime flower in hand, you leave the area. You have obtained one of the requested Snow Blooms. However, the number of them you possess falls short of the total required. Resume your search for the rest of the flowers! Three to go, that was the easy one. 12F B2 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Warbull x1 40% Clawbug x3 Celestine: 70% chance. Sells for 120en. 1 required for Bipennis - Axe, ATK+88, TP+10, -10 speed - sells for 4,550en 1 required for Rune Gage - Gloves, DEF+20, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 3,490en 1 required for Bug Piece - Accessory, Panic Resist Up 50% - sells for 5,000en 1 required for Head Guard - Accessory, Head Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 5,000en 5 required for Nikkari - Katana, ATK+84, AGI+2, HP+10 - sells for 4,360en Adularia: 25% chance. Sells for 130en. 1 required for Pure Plate - Heavy Armor, DEF+42, Fire Resist Up 10% - sells for 4,150en 1 required for Ice Wall - Accessory, Ice Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 1 required for Stab Wall - Accessory, Stab Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 3 required for Fire Saker - Gun, ATK+87, VIT+2, Type: Fire - sells for 4,550en 5 required for Flissa - Sword, ATK+80, STR+2 - sells for 4,850en Ice Sheet: 5% chance. Sells for 300en. 1 required for Brio Wrist - Accessory, VIT+10 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Haste Pin - Accessory, AGI+10 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Fate Beads - Accessory, LUC+20 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Playing Cupid I We'll be back later for that dang quest, but some good stuff in here. Trivial to get here during the day at least. Holy poo poo, just look at those stats those accessories give you! Granted VIT is the only one that's an actually meaningful boost, as the other 2 stats aren't great in this game, even with those nutso boosts.
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Jun 3, 2022 03:52
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  How shocking. You keep this up for the entire labyrinth and it'll go from cute to annoying. Clawbug HP: 270 STR: 33 VIT: 26 TEC: 17 AGI: 21 LUC: 23 Level: 33 Exp: 1600 Skills Whirr: Uses the Arms. Attempts to inflict Head Bind on the entire party. Has a 25% base infliction chance and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 25% 25% 25% 100% 100% 150%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops Space Husk: 40% chance, sells for 67en. 1 required for Aqua Claw - Claw, ATK+86, Type: Ice - sells for 3,650en 2 required for Volt Axe - Axe, ATK+84, Type: Volt - sells for 4,740en 5 required for Kuzunosada - Katana, ATK+86, STR+2 - sells for 4,620en Conditional: Kill with Cut damage. Stag Horn: 60% chance, sells for 75en. 1 required for Gore Chain - Whip, ATK+86, STR+2 - sells for 4,710en Oh goody, these are back. Bring a conductor or be here for a few turns. It's likely someone will get tagged with their party wide infliction, but what are the chances it hits your Alchemist, right? At least your Gunner and Ronin avoid this nonsense, but it doesn't make them any less annoying. At least compared to last game they then can't gank your party with a regular attack after binding stuff, rip 400+ ATK stats. These enemies punish lack of coverage hard. You'll need to use elementals to take them down in a timely manner. Alternatively, Poison works too. Solo encounters with these are always guaranteed blindsides. hmm hmm hmm, ladadada... You don't mind the cold, or- wooaahhh, the ice... you're making me look bad! Has the ice thinned and cracked? You can see crystal clear water flowing beneath the icy surface. If you enlarge the hole, you may be able to enjoy a bit of ice fishing here. Have you had that the whole time? Yeah, uh, I like fishing. Just never mentioned it before. Eager to try ice fishing, Corinth drops the first line. But Corinth slips on the ice and falls into the frozen lake! You hurry to pull Corinth out of the water, but it's too late... Corinth has severe frostbite! The fishing trip is hastily abandoned... you don't seem too bothered. W-W-Well I d-d-don't mind the c-c-cold... and sometimes it f-f-feels like k-k-karma... rather me than y-y-you! That's the spirit! Thanks game. Fun distraction aside, we'll clear the top of the floor first. Gah, no, come back treasure! Heh, she ain't nothin' but a gold digger... Eurgh, they got a fishmongers in here?   Sniff, sniff, that is indeed the culprit! that is quite the aroma but what's that in its mouth? Ugh, you don't wanna know.Killfish HP: 693 STR: 25 VIT: 26 TEC: 25 AGI: 27 LUC: 26 Level: 34 Exp: 0 Skills Jaws: Uses the Head. Deals 150% Bash damage to a single target. Has a 95% accuracy modifier and a 100% speed modifier. Damage Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 50% 125%Disable Vulnerabilities 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%Drops None Conditional: None. Two quest enemies in one update, I do spoil you! But yeah, fish, it might hurt a little bit harder but these enemies are designed to be forgotten about as soon as you hand the quest in. Just slightly beefed up to not keel over instantly in 1 basic attack. Kill The monster that shattered the young bride's heart has at last been stilled forever. After taking a few deep breaths, you notice something caught in the monster's jaws. Looking closer, you catch a gruesome glimpse... it's a human armbone! It must have caught in its jaws as its teeth sank into the surrounding gauntlet. Prying the mouth open, you discover that the dead arm was holding a sheaf of herbs. You now remember the details of the quest you accepted in the Stickleback Bar... a lady of Lagaard lose her fiance to the Labyrinth just before her wedding. This must be the same man. After pulling the arm free, you stow it in your bag to bring it back to the bar. This is the way of the adventurer. Shame we can't bring more back to be buried. Hm, if I had an ental for every time I brought a severed arm back as treasure... well, it'd be two. You can barely make out a squirrel-like animal in the shadow of a large plant. The rodent doesn't seem to fear your party, and it chirps brightly as it approaches. It seems as though it wants you to pet it. You wonder if you should oblige the creature... Hmm, it was a while since the first encounter, so I don't recall what happened, did we reach out, or...? Come now, the chance of that happening three times is absurd, you should be more trusting towards critters. Your funeral. You reach out to the small animal... but it takes the opportunity to run up your arm and onto your body! From there, it jams its head into your backpack and runs off with something in its mouth. You hurriedly rummage through your pack to see what it was the thieving rodent stole. It was a Warp Wire, one of an explorer's most essential tools! It's too late for you to catch the animal by now... you sigh, and move on with your journey. Heh, heh, heh, this is gold! ...well it can't happen a fourth time. i'd bet on that wager. Aren't you glad I bring two? Might have to be three at this rate... HAVE YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON YET?! I love idiot trap events like these. Are these guys tossing away wires or what? I almost feel bad for them. Almost. Still, we'll add it to the collection Isdsjjn- what? They didn't give you a name! Er, fine, Tyson? Ugh, of course you like that one.  Oh hey, back from another- GAH what the hell is that??? Hardycorey. Uh, maybe we shouldn't just slam it on the table in front of everyone. Yeh have proof...? What the--these are his bones! Don't do that to me! For the love of... couldn't it have been his gauntlet, or the herbs, or something... nicer? Yeh lot... have yeh no common sense!? Have yer brains turned as twisty as the Labyrinth!? Yeh'll send her into a deeper funk than she's already in! How cruel can yeh be!? Just because yeh avenged her fiance doesn't mean he'll return hale and hearty, yeh know. Taking revenge in anger only makes a body feel worse... but I s'pose it's human nature not to let bygones be bygones. Ahh, listen to me maunder on! I'd say it's time for some drinking songs! The reward...? Yeh have some nerve, asking for that! Take it and get yeh gone! I'll be counting on yeh again, dammit! why did we bring the whole arm back? It seemed like a good idea at the time... Sometimes the series makes your guild out to be pretty awkward weirdos, but I suppose you have to be to explore the Labyrinth. I love this scene. Your guild is just a bunch of dicks as they just give him the bones of a human arm. I love the interactions with Cass in this game.  3 Torn Tails required for Biliomg 1 Space Husk required for Aqua Claw - Claw, ATK+86, Type: Ice - Fires high-pressure jets of water at enemies. 1 Torn Tail required for Cutlass - Sword, ATK+70 - Simple one-handed sword with a sharp blade. 1 Space Husk required for Aspis   Stop it.    While we're fresh and ready, what if we just wanted to head straight to the end of the floor? Wouldn't that be nice? How many times must I be tortured so??? Guardians of the Sorrowful Ice The desolate atmosphere is broken by an incongruously cheerful voice. Hey... it's Nidhogg! I'm surprised to see you make it this far.  oh hello, as cheery as ever. Indeed... So if you're here... I take it you're looking for Snow Blooms on the Minister's orders. Well, you won't find any past here. Nothing back there but the stairs upward. The girl's eyes flick toward the door momentarily, then back to you before she continues. You're on an official mission, so you'd better finish it before you do anything else. The black-haired witch is none too subtly blocking your progress further. You have no choice but to turn back now... you nod to Artelind and leave the area.  Heh, it even vomits up snow. Oh, right, you seem concerned, Corinth. I'm always concerned, but interacting with Esbat is so strange, there's no warmth behind that smile of hers. And the less we mention her crazed guardian the better! Alright, next on the random exits... So carefree, so asking to be slain. i will not allow it. Surprise, it's blocked off at night and was the reason we didn't head down after slaying the fish. Of course it being a shortcut doesn't really matter during the day since the only reason to go up there is for the Snow Bloom but that's at night, so I guess it's easier for the quest, but what do I fuckin know.  Now we'll go straight across and... huh, that was easy. Ah, pardon me. Ah, pardon me again. This is where the Helldra would rest during the day, blocking access to the treasure. I'll be putting icons where they would sit when we finish the floor, so don't worry about it.  neat. I would prefer being rich beyond my wildest dreams but fine, have your brimming bottles. 2 Space Husks required for Chain Mail.  Heh, you keep standing on them. You would be too if you were actually leading the group through doors!  There's one exit left and one Snow Bloom remaining. Don't think they're related. My, my, so much traffic around here. i will clobber you if you keep this joke up.12F E4 Mine Point Ambush Chance: 3% Ambush Encounter: 60% Warbull x1 40% Clawbug x3 Adularia: 70% chance. Sells for 130en. 1 required for Pure Plate - Heavy Armor, DEF+42, Fire Resist Up 10% - sells for 4,150en 1 required for Ice Wall - Accessory, Ice Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 1 required for Stab Wall - Accessory, Stab Resist Up 30% - sells for 4,000en 3 required for Fire Saker - Gun, ATK+87, VIT+2, Type: Fire - sells for 4,550en 5 required for Flissa - Sword, ATK+80, STR+2 - sells for 4,850en Celestine: 25% chance. Sells for 120en. 1 required for Bipennis - Axe, ATK+88, TP+10, -10 speed - sells for 4,550en 1 required for Rune Gage - Gloves, DEF+20, TEC+2, TP+10 - sells for 3,490en 1 required for Bug Piece - Accessory, Panic Resist Up 50% - sells for 5,000en 1 required for Head Guard - Accessory, Head Bind Resist Up 50% - sells for 5,000en 5 required for Nikkari - Katana, ATK+84, AGI+2, HP+10 - sells for 4,360en Ice Sheet: 5% chance. Sells for 300en. 1 required for Brio Wrist - Accessory, VIT+10 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Haste Pin - Accessory, AGI+10 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Fate Beads - Accessory, LUC+20 - sells for 3,000en 1 required for Playing Cupid I I will never use this one. Whatever... Are we doing him a disservice by reviving him...? Oh hey a free axe we unlocked earlier. We have someone who uses those, right? Maybe I should try and block some of this stuff? Eh, I'm sure I'll come up with it later. You succeeded in obtaining four of the requested Snow Blooms! They shine radiantly in your hands... hurry and return them to the Duke's Palace to complete your mission! This would be blocked off during the day, but the flower wouldn't be there during the day, so I guess it doesn't matter? Well I suppose it would entice you to come through this door when it became available to you and- oh whatever, game design, let's finish this already.  A flower as beautiful as your neck, ohohoho. Please stop trying to seduce the Minister. i think he likes it. There is one last ingredient mentioned in the ancient documents... please wait here, brave explorers. I must consult my Lady...   I would express my gratitude to them in person... L-Lady Gradriel... th-that's... Stay. As the Duke's daughter, I must thank those who risk their lives to save my father! M'lady. Ugh, I don't like bowing, but when in Romulus... It's almost instinctual. He says that the renowned Guild Nidhogg is the one to obtain the Snow Blooms. My father is bedridden with a grave illness... in his absence, I thank you. I had thought to enter the Labyrinth myself to cure my father's malady... but as Lady of High Lagaard and the Duke's only daughter, I was unable to do so. It is through your courage that my spirits are lifted. I understand that no monetary reward is adequate to the risk you have incurred thus far. But that is currently my only concrete means of expressing gratitude. I pray you accept this reward for your hard work in the spirit it is meant. i'll move this away before it gets any slobber on it. Hey, come on! Only a little... I know I ask much of you, who have only just returned from the quest for the Snow Blooms... but... there is yet more to do. I beseech you to listen to my next request. Our lore stats that the royal family descends from residents of the floating castle. Many ancient texts support the legend, and my parents believe it to be true as well. One source also makes mention of something called the Grail of Kings. With further research, we were able to identify the components necessary to create this cure. You know them as the Fire Plume and Snow Blooms. By mixing them within the Holy Grail, we can create the Panacea that cures all illness. Thanks to your guild, we have obtained the two ingredients that must be combined. We lack only the container to brew the medicine. All that is left is to find the Holy Grail. Legend says the Holy Grail is enshrined in the center of the castle in the heavens. I would ask that you continue your journey until you gain access to this castle. Should you discover the Holy Grail there... I beg that you use it to save my father... nay, to save High Lagaard! We won't force you. But if you discover anything of use, I beg you to inform this old man. You'll be rewarded, of course. Forgive us for laying this burden on you... That was Princess Gradriel. She's a reference to one of Atlus's earlier games, Princess Crown, where she was the protagonist of said game. Said game is currently exclusive to Japan, and will not likely receive an international release, as they lost the source code. There is a fan translation being worked on, but it's not finished yet. First time I've heard of this game, here I thought Atlus only had one other game, Persona 5.  So like, this big? I believe their description summons to mind a bigger fish. Ne'er mind all tha'! We gonna beat someone up ta get a cup? That's been my plan from the start. Welcome back, yeh lot. Let's have a gander at all those monsters yeh've researched. Ahh, very nice! Yeh picked up a lot of good info! The other guilds have nothing on this! Not that I ever doubted for a second than yeh'd outshine that rabble... here's the reward. I'm always counting on yeh! Being 10k ental richer, it's almost time for us to switch teams as we finish up the slidey floor and move on to... slidier. Next time! Mario 64 noises go here
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Jun 3, 2022 03:52
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War Magus Can equip: Swords, Staves, Light Armor, Clothing You've seen a Medic that whacks, but how about a Medic that jabs? War Magus are another interesting new class that compresses a few roles and are a weird combo of Medic, Troubadour and Landy. In the right setup they are pretty incredible, but since they rely on external ailments for nearly half their skills, they're otherwise a nice healer and buffer with not much else going for them in some team comps. They really, REALLY appreciate a Sword Dark Hunter or a Hexer to shine, and their toolkit can get some taking used to, they technically perform worse in their roles than the dedicated classes they copy, but having them rolled into one class is quite the strength. And one bonus is they have faster heals due to sword speed modifiers being much better than staff speed modifiers. If you're willing to have some of the best classes in the game with you and want to have some ailment fun, you'll struggle to remember why Medic's are even in this game. War Magi are... well frankly a class that doesn't have much of a right to be good. They're very generalist instead of specialized, so why would you take them over the classes that are dedicated to the role? Well there's one big issue. Those classes got nerfed hard, remember? So War Magus ended up being better than those by default. Unfortunately they do fall a bit into "jack of all trades, master of none", but make up for the latter in various ways. One of which is their flexibility. They're a pretty easy support to fit onto a team with their versatility, being able to heal, buff, disable, and deal damage all in one role. The other reason being that they are a fast class. This allows them to react on the fly to situations in battle a lot more easily than say, a Medic can. They can wield Swords or Staves, but there's really not much of a reason at all for them to use Staves as Swords are a massive speed boost and you can't use War Edge skills with Staves. And using Staves are essentially weighing them down with an iron ball. War Magus are at least more straightforward than Gunner, having pretty good stats overall, with the main weaknesses being AGI and LUC. They have one of the highest TP totals, which is always nice, as well as a great VIT stat brought down a little by their middling HP. Pretty equally above average in STR and TEC, which is good, as we need both of those. Overall, pretty solid. War Magi have pretty decent stat bodies with only their low points being AGI and LUC. STR is an okay investment if you really want to make use of an offensive War Magus, but not a huge priority since the damage mods on their skills aren't too great. TEC is good for boosting their healing capabilities. Don't worry too much about investing in AGI, as Swords give them enough of a speed boost to act first most of the time. LUC is also not really a priority as their infliction skills have the highest base infliction rates in the entire game. As always, HP and TP are always good investments, though not a huge priority until later as they already have strong HP and TP pools.Common Passive Unlocks TP Up: Lv1: Transfer STR Up: Lv1: Blindcut; Lv2: Venomcut; Lv3: Sleepcut; Lv4: Fearcut; Lv5: Stuncut; Lv6: Cursecut Now this is very different, but first, one point of TP to get a pretty good utility skill is definitely worth it, though it's up to you if you want to max TP. One of the issues of this class is how interwoven STR Up is to War Edge, technically giving this class three masteries. Now, War Magus do appreciate extra STR points, but we prefer to invest in these lategame due to how little they matter, it's just a nice bonus. But it means if you want to invest in the offensive skills, you have to pay double duty, and that's kinda lame. These skills are also a little hard to use, and have limited utility outside of Cursecut, so it can be hard to recommend them as well, but we'll get to that in due time. War Edge Unlocks: Lv1: Blindcut; Lv2: Venomcut; Lv3: Sleepcut; Lv4: Fearcut; Lv5: Stuncut; Lv10: Cursecut Passive.  The first, or maybe second, of the mastery skills, as bland as always. But due to being in tandem with STR Up it's hard to just invest in this skill to get an offensive War Magus, you'll be focusing on War Lore to start with anyway. Its second issue comes with how it's frontloaded, but not with great skills, depending on your setup, and there's a nice abyss of unlocks until Cursecut. Just a weirdly designed skill that you'll max out if you want the best sword skill, but you won't be best pleased about it. These sets of skills are bizarre and are probably the ones you can easily skip if you had to. For one thing, they require you to have access to that specific ailment in the party to really work, so if you don't have access to any inflictors, feel free to ignore this branch of skills entirely. Since requiring other inflictors is basically going to be a given, those skills will be written assuming you do have access to these ailments in the party. Hexers make good partners to these Doctor Magi as a result, since they have access to all the required ailments, so there's something to keep in mind. And remember you need to be using Swords for these skills, so any dreams of wielding Staves are basically thrown out the window, not that Staves are an appealing weapon type to use.War Lore Unlocks: Lv1: Cure; Lv2: Warmight, Rockskin, Elkspeed; Lv3: Cure II, Erase; Lv5: Cure III; Lv7: Salve II; Lv10: Salve II Increases healing from non-fixed sources. Passive.  This is where the magic happens. This is a renamed Healer skill, but obviously much worse since maxing it out gives you the same effect as Lv2 Healer. Yeah... add on no Salve III and other useful tools like debilitation healing and, uh, oh yeah, NO REVIVE, makes War Magus a very discount Medic. But it speaks to how nuke heavy this game is when you can use this class as your dedicated healer all game and be just fine. And there's some other tools here that give War Magus the edge. Still, because of the various disadvantages you'll need to squeeze as much as you can from these skills, so maxing is of course the way to go. Though since it's not a great effect, you don't have to do it immediately. This is pretty much one of the big reasons why War Magi are a bit weaker than the specialized Medic. Their healing passive is weaker in comparison. Without this skill, each point of TEC adds on 0.625% to the healing multiplier, capping out at a 61.875% boost to healing at 99 TEC. With War Lore maxed out that turns into... 0.69375% per TEC. Which caps out at a 68.68125% boost to healing at 99 TEC. Yeah, pales in comparison to the potential 95.90625% boost the Medic could have for their healing skills. And the lack of a healing boost actually hurts here, because unlike Medics where Healer's effects essentially become meaningless in the late game, War Magi actually have to care about the amount of healing they can output since they don't have access to Salve 3. You have to max this out at some point to get Salve 2 anyways, so you'll just have to deal with the weaker healing. On the plus side, these and the rest of the War Magus's skillset aren't dependant on having a specific team composition. Not only that, they lose access to a few important defensive skills the Medic had since they're a more offensive oriented support. They have no access to revival or disable purges. You'll have to make up for that with items or other means. Gunner is a popular damage dealer to include in the party since they come with an AOE ailment dispel, though Medics are the only source of AOE bind dispels. Nectars, Therica As, and Therica Bs are plentiful at least for the single target dispels.Regenall Heals the entire party by a set amount each turn. Passive.  Woah one of these skills isn't godawful for once. This is actually pretty alright at the start of the game, but of course falls off a loving cliff past, like, the first stratum. Honestly not a bad option if you're not gonna invest in the healing skills immediately. At the start of the game it can provide some very nice passive regeneration for the party, letting them last longer in the brutal earlygame. And you'd likely want all the help you can get. An overall 25 HP heal isn't terrible in Stratum 1, but this skill sadly ceases to see use past that point and is just a waste of SP past that. If you're willing to Rest your War Magus at some point to regain the SP in this skill, feel free to take this at the start for a nice earlygame advantage.Blindcut/Venomcut/Stuncut Prerequisites: War Edge Lv1, STR Up Lv1 / War Edge Lv2, STR Up Lv2 / War Edge Lv5, STR Up Lv5 A single target Sword attack that attempts to inflict Head/Leg/Arm Bind if the enemy is already inflicted by Blind/Poison/Paralysis. Sword skill with untyped damage, uses the Arms.  Alright, sooooooo, War Magus can inflict binds, but with some prerequisites. Now as sword skills go, these aren't bad, since they deal untyped damage and thus can do pretty dependable damage on all sources, even if the other effects of these skills don't proc. The main issue comes in trying to land the binds, if you don't have these ailments available, and some parties won't, these skills are effectively identically very bland. One issue I find is the combinations of binds and ailments is... subpar. Like Blind AND Head Bind seems a bit reductive. Poison is good, but when are you gonna want a Leg Bind on top of that? Finally, Arm Binds are great in most cases, but Paralysis is one of the worst ailments. The most dependable source of these ailments is a Hexer, which is what most parties will carry, let's be honest. But otherwise, Sword Dark Hunter? Status Survivalist? Seems a little much for relatively mediocre skills, so it might just be worth ignoring them, even if you have the right tools for the job. One of the upsides of the War Magus's offensive skills is that they are guaranteed forms of damage since they are untyped. No form of resistance will block their attacks. Unfortunately this also means that they can't take advantage of weaknesses, though that's not a huge deal in this game. Still it's a nice form of chip damage. That being said the secondary effects of these skills are easily some of the most ignorable of the bunch due to how absurdly conditional they are. If you can capitalize on them, great, go for it! But chances are you can't most of the time. That being said they do have the highest base chances to bind, so that's nice. And of all their War Edge skills, they deal the highest amount of non-conditional damage so it may be worth maxing out at least one of these if you want your War Magus to contribute damage to fights.Sleepcut Prerequisites: War Edge Lv3, STR Up Lv3 A single target Sword attack that deals more damage to enemies inflicted with Sleep. Sword skill with untyped damage, uses the Arms.  This is a little better, mainly because it's pretty straightforward, but still has its issues. Without Sleep, this skill is pretty subpar, but with Sleep this skill is pretty- hang on, I'm getting a reason why this isn't good: Unfortunately this skill does not benefit from the 50% damage bonus from attacking a sleeping enemy since it is Untyped damage, which really brings down this skill further. This skill may look like it's the best damage option for a War Magus, but it's base damage is weaker than the bind cuts, and the problem with attacking a sleeping enemy is that they wake up after 1 attack, so you can't spam the boosted version of this often in big fights. And in those, chances are you want someone else to benefit from the Sleep damage bonus instead, especially since all hits of a multi-hit attack in 1 and 2 benefit from the damage boost! You might get some use out of this for clearing out randoms if you lack damage in your party, I suppose. Ailing Slash this is not. I actually did not know about this technicality, Sleep actually lowers the damage resistances of an enemy, so an Untyped attack isn't affected by it. It still deals more damage attacking a sleeping enemy, but you can't stack the bonuses. Because of that, it's best if someone else on your team attacks the sleeping enemy, but in randoms this is something you can fire out when Torpor has afflicted all 5 enemies. That's about its only use.Fearcut Prerequisites: War Edge Lv4, STR Up Lv4 A single target Sword attack that heals the user by a percentage of damage dealt if the enemy is already inflicted with Fear. Sword skill with untyped damage, uses the Arms.  Next up is this alright skill, having your healer stay in prime condition is nice, but they could also be more helpful and slap on Salve II, so this skill isn't that great. Fear is pretty uncommon and pretty useless outside of the FEAR TREE, which the Hexer can go for, but they also have a million other things to be doing, so don't count on it. If you're using a Fear Hexer, the enemy will be helpless and you'll be granted free turns to just spam this for free chip damage. However it deals less damage than the binding cuts, so if you want your War Magus to deal damage, you're better off using those to attack instead. And in big fights if the Hexer has the enemy locked down, your party won't be taking damage at all so the heal is kind of superfluous. Could be alright ways to keep your War Magus topped up in random encounters, but you're probably better off using Salve 2 there instead.Cursecut Prerequisites: War Edge Lv10, STR Up Lv6 A single target Sword that heals the user's TP by a percentage of damage dealt if the enemy is already inflicted with Curse. Sword skill with untyped damage, uses the Arms.  Now we're getting somewhere. This skill might seem a bit naff, it does pathetic damage and requires Curse, one of the worst ailments, but it's because of this skill that using Curse is actually worthwhile. TP recovery is pretty rare, and having such a dependable way, after some hefty prerequisites, gives War Magus unmatched utility, especially because they can Transfer it to other members. Also having your healer being at high TP is pretty great, though as you get later into the game, it's probably more worthwhile chugging Amrita IIs while you do something else. Still, if there's one reason to invest in sword skills, this is it. If you're using a Hexer of course, otherwise you better invest in Curse Gas (please do not use the gas items). The best War Edge skill due to the sheer utility it provides. Keeps your War Magus's TP pool heavily topped up, especially since the Troubadour lost Relaxing. And combining this with Transfer lets your party's TP pools stay topped up, though it's a rather tedious way of doing so compared to throwing down Relaxing and waiting back in EO1. And later on it's just far more worthwhile to use Amritas instead.Cure Prerequisites: War Lore Lv1 Unlocks: Lv3: Salve Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Alright, discount Medic time. On first glance this looks pretty similar, but the main issue is War Lore being kinda pathetic. What you might not immediately notice is the Medic's version of these skills have better base healing, though it's hardly noticeable at low levels. At max, it's 125 compared to 170, but I wouldn't recommend going further than you have to. Because you don't have the proper Healer boost that in essence levels these skills at the same time you level it, you should just stop at unlocks and move on to the next tier as soon as possible. Thankfully War Magus has very little in the way of multiple prerequisites, so you could skip Cure and Salve and head straight for II, though that could get expensive. Like with the Medic's version, you'll want to invest in this first so your funds don't all have to be blown on Medicas in the earlygame. While War Magi are much faster than the Medic, the issues I've outlined with the whole dividing healing skills into different speed tiers still applies here. The reason being that War Magi with Swords are so fast chances are they'll act before the enemy anyways. As for how to spend your War Magus's starting SP, no matter what you do, you'll only want 1 point in this at the start like with the Medic. At level 1 it heals 37 HP with their starting stats and can cast it up to 8 times for a total healing pool of 296. Level it up to 2 and it only heals 39 HP for a 25% increase in TP cost, reducing the amount of casts to 6 times for a total healing pool of 234. And you really don't want to spend too much in this skill since War Lore can't keep the restoration amount up to date like Healer can, and it really needs to be ditched for better healing skills down the line. Or you can just ignore this skill entirely since Regenall can help quite a bit during the 1st Stratum.Cure II Prerequisites: War Lore Lv3 Unlocks: Lv4: Salve II Restores HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Same as before, but slightly better. Again, even though this isn't as good as the Medic's version, 265 compared to 310, you shouldn't go past Lv4 due to how useful Cure III is as an emergency heal for one ally. It can still be useful as cheap healing outside of battle, but otherwise this skill just isn't too great because it quickly gets outclassed by both Cure III and Salve. Because the War Magus has Regenall, or you're opting to spend more money on Medicas, you can beeline straight for this skill instead and ignore Cure entirely. And you'll want to get Cure 2 at level 4 anyways since it unlocks Salve 2, their best AOE healing skill. Just don't go past level 4 as they still have access to Cure 3 thankfully, and that should be your go to single target healing skill while this skill holds you over until then.Cure III Prerequisites: War Lore Lv5 Restores all HP to a single target. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Last one, and it's a good one, since Cure II might not even heal half health by postgame, so something that has a full healing effect is very useful for a class that has this skill as that only option. This is identical to the Medic's version so that explains why it's so good and should definitely be maxed out for a quick and very useful full heal that has a good chance of going before enemies due to sword speed modifiers compared to staves. Like with the Medic, this is your best form of single target healing. Get this whenever you can. And it's extra important here since the War Magus's innate healing capabilities pale in comparison to the Medic's. You'll definitely want to max this out to make things easier on their TP pool and to almost double its casting speed, which does matter since War Magi actually care about the speed mechanic.Salve Prerequisites: War Lore Lv7, Cure Lv3 Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  Ah, party wide healing, so nice. But of course it doesn't heal a great amount, 91 base compared to 115, but earlygame this is probably the skill to speed towards to be more TP efficient. Unfortunately War Magus will be never be great at party healing, but they'll work pretty well until the postgame. Still, if you're not too worried about early game healing, then you can skip this and move onto the next one. Your earlygame healing skill, and probably one that can be ignored entirely if you play your cards right. AOE healing is good, but War Magi have access to a better skill for that and AOE healing is not super important to have early. And without Healer, this falls off hard past the earlygame, which isn't helped by the weaker base healing either.Salve II Prerequisites: War Lore Lv10, Cure II Lv4 Restores HP to the entire party. Healing skill, uses the Head.  And for the upgrade... ehhhh? This is the best healing a War Magus can do for the entire party and it'll be great... for the main game. Postgame will start showing the cracks compared to the Medic, especially with their Salve III that will cost nearly the same TP. Still, you don't need the massive overhealing depending on your team, and this is a pretty great heal with sword speed modifiers, so it's not too bad honestly. Main issue of course is how expensive it is, but with a Cursecut setup and lots of Amrita, that shouldn't be an issue. Oh yeah it's 214 base compared to 230, so not a big a hit as the Cure skills, but it's overall not a massive deal. The lack of Healer is the main problem, but what can ya do? Unfortunately, this is what your War Magus is stuck with in terms of AOE healing. It's basically a midgame healing skill, but this is all they've got since there's no Salve 3. Crank this and War Lore up as best you can since you might as well get the most out of it. At best it can get up to 346 AOE healing which isn't great since that requires 99 TEC but it's something at least. War Magi are at least pretty fast so they can decide if they want to be using Salve 2 or Cure 3 on a given turn where Medics are just forced to spam Salve 3 due to how slow they are.Warmight Prerequisites: War Lore Lv2 Increases the target's base damage for 5 turns, affects untyped damage. Buff skill, uses the Head.  Oh baby now this is an easy skill to get early. I sing my praises of Bravery often enough, but honestly some of your party won't benefit from the buff, singer included. So having a precise version that gives a better boost is incredible for classes like Ronin, Gunner and, due to the untyped boost, Alchemist and even other War Magus. Shame it doesn't last all battle, but honestly you've got turns to spare, so it's definitely worth it, and combining with Bravery can make some beeeeeeeeg numbers. Get your basic healing then pick this up immediately. Without a doubt, the best skill in the War Magus's skillset and what really carries this class into usefulness. A 60% damage boost is ridiculous, and that's almost twice as powerful as Bravery! That sheer amount is pretty much enough to deal with the downsides of it being single target and only lasting for 5 turns. Oh and it also stacks with Bravery, so if you also have a Troubadour in the party, you can really get up to some absurd shenanigans! Definitely should be one of the skills beelined for and maxed out as soon as possible. Having access to both Warmight and fast healing is the biggest selling point of a War Magus, so ignoring those means you really should be using a different class instead.Rockskin Prerequisites: War Lore Lv2 Increases the target's DEF for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.  Well they won't all be winners, but Rockskin is still pretty alright. It can be useful to put on your Protector or Beast to help them tank more but it's barely better than Shelter despite only working on one target. Still cheap to max out and helpful for the slower strats, but slapping down Warmight and going to town is just way more effective, you don't take damage if the enemy is dead, so it's harder to justify. Functionally it serves as a 42.86~% increase to effective HP, so it's a pretty beefy defense buff. The real problem is that this game heavily favors killing your enemy before they kill you, so Warmight also serves as a good defensive kill in that regard since enemies dying faster means you take less damage overall. Still it can be pretty handy in less offensive parties, though the Troubadour's Shelter would be a way stronger skill for that since while everyone might not care about a damage boost, everyone will care about a defense boost, and a single target defense boost is a bit of a harder sell than a single target damage buff. May be worth taking 1 point in to dispel defense debuffs at least.Elkspeed Prerequisites: War Lore Lv2 Increases the target's AGI for 5 turns. Buff skill, uses the Head.  Ah, the standard AGI buff, this provides quite a boost, so can be useful in helping a specific ally go faster for whatever reason, but the main issue is going first isn't really that big a deal in this series, and the slower classes won't really get much benefit from it due to their low numbers. The main use for this is using it on the War Magus themselves to help outspeed your own allies for Sleepcut, but drat 5 points in this is really hard to justify. You know what would make you faster? Killing everything in 1 turn with Warmight. This falls under the same problems Mercury had, in that fast classes don't need the help from this, and slow classes can't get the help from this. It's also not that much of an increase to accuracy so it won't help your Gunner's accuracy woes all that much. Even on inaccurate classes, Warmight is a better damage boost to slap onto them since that increases their overall damage more than an accuracy boost would.Erase Prerequisites: War Lore Lv3 Dispels buffs from a single target. Debuff skill, uses the Head.  Oh hey it's Erasure again. Since it's the exact same skill, don't go higher than Lv2, but it's nice utility to have, quick and cheap to get to, though you won't really need it until later on. Like with the Troubadour's version, it's still really good to grab here. Grab 1 or 2 levels and be on your way. The War Magus doesn't get access to the AOE version of this skill, but that's an even more situational version of this skill so they aren't exactly crying about it.Transfer Prerequisites: TP Up Lv1 Restores the target's TP by a specific amount. Heal skill, uses the Head.  To round off this interesting class is a great skill, spend some TP, heal some TP, you even get a slight discount at later levels! Now this skill isn't that useful in the lategame when 40TP doesn't massively help, but it's something you can throw out on occasion if you know you'll need something big next turn. It's probably better tossing them an Amrita II when you get that far and just using Cursecut on occasion. Again, it's just some nice utility that's quite rare in the series, won't complain! Part 2 of the TP restoration combo. Slurp up TP with Cursecut, give it to another party member with Transfer. Like I said before though, it's pretty tedious to do to your entire party since it's single target, and eventually this falls off and you're better off using Amritas instead. Take it if you want, can help out during midgame and the early parts of late-game.Invoke Fully heals the entire party's HP and increases their resistance to all damage types, except untyped, for 5 turns. Force skill, uses the Legs.  And last up is a pretty alright Force skill that isn't as much of an OH poo poo button as Medic's, but also isn't complete trash, so we'll take it. It's pretty nice to turtle down with and be on the defensive, pick up the pieces from the near asskicking more easily. But when compared to other defensive options, like Painless or H. Touch, or the offensive Force skills that end battles nice and quickly, you have to wonder when you'd really need this. Still, can work really well on slower teams that use Sword DH or so to combo with ailments. Those comps exist! They're not as good, but they exist. Oh hey, it's Immunize. It basically got turned into a Force skill here. If you're farming Force, there are far better defensive Force skills to use, such as Painless or Riot Gun. But if you don't have the Protector or Gunner in your party, you could stick with this. And it lasts for 5 turns too as opposed to those skills lasting only for 1 turn. But do be warned, this buff can be dispelled so that is a downside to be mindful of. Otherwise, you might as well throw it out if for a free big heal and a defensive buff. Be warned that unlike H.Touch and Salivall, this cannot dispel disables nor can it revive the dead. Well that was a weird journey, there's some chaff, there's some good skills and there's some mediocre healing thrown in, so overall it's a pretty mixed bag. It still works out because the unique combination of skills make for great role compression and the good skills are REALLY good, but there's definitely some aspects of this class you could leave behind. Last up, it's time for the shitpost class. Oh joy. War Magi are overall kind of a class that's all over the place, but they can use it to their advantage as they can cover multiple roles in one party slot, something that's a bit lacking in EO2's class design as classes got more and more specialized. Also mostly because they are fast and speed is something that really makes this class shine compared to its competition. As a result, it's a pretty easy support to slot into your team.
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Jun 3, 2022 04:06
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| # ? May 9, 2024 12:58 |
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Happy 2 year anniversary to this LP! I should really get a move on...
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Mar 9, 2023 17:15
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