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IIRC the path to the Earth Bangle is accessible starting from the Delende jump you took to path to the Jewel of Defense. That's how you get to the higher areas of the Seaside Cliffs. Shaman illustrates one of the points of friction in the game: in Hard, you quickly get to a point where Power/Magic Down is essentially obligatory not to get stomped, and there's not too many sources of those debuffs relative to their importance. With Warrior and Shaman, I think that's 2/3 of the options for those debuffs already obtained, so you're going to be using one of those for bosses for at least 50-60% of the game. (There's another debuff source, but it's random debuff debuffing, which doesn't help there.) Warrior having no weapon restrictions does make it more reasonable, but when a Rogue is also obligatory for 80% of the game on Hard and there's no practical replacement for that class, Hard ends up feeling pretty restrictive. But then again there's a surprising number of bosses where you can say "gently caress this" and just juke them into water, so there's that.  A For Not Scholar.
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Oct 19, 2023 17:40
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:56 |
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The spider blocking the way to Scholar is a boss you can dodge, if you use the pillars on the sides and you're willing to reload a few times. Scholar's a worse mage class than it seems like just by virtue of not getting Wands; the magic attack boost from them is actually pretty hefty, especially as the game goes on. There's a few points in the game with mixed Staves or Rapiers that can compensate, but most of the time you'll be eating a hefty damage penalty if you aren't using the Wizard's Equip Wand. The class itself eventually becomes a pretty good generalist, and the fact the skills are free means I usually end up shoving it on my non-mages instead. If there's no relevant secondary, Scholar will always do work... But maybe leave getting the skills on everyone for a little later, if you're playing along. You can get to the Mercury Shrine basically as soon as you cross over into Delende if you hang right and make jumps, though up until this point you won't be able to afford the Stone anyway. Thankfully, any time you can get to a Shrine, you can pay pennies for a Shard and come back when you can afford the permanent teleport. Once you buy the stone, anyone playing should do themselves a favor and turn on Healing Save Points, on account of the Nans healing you for free. The only effect from teleporting there and back is that enemy flames respawn, but most areas aren't designed in a way that makes that actually important, so in practice it just saves you time. Though I guess you could see your tolerance for spending time on heals to be a resource that needs managing. I don't know that I have ever found a use for Contract; there just aren't enough early sources of +HP, and later on that attack stat just doesn't cut it. Gran and the Troll are a fun artifact of how the game handles the demo--there's still a few hours to go before it ends, so you can easily play it for ten hours depending on how much you wander. So it's designed kind of like a full game, with Gran and the Troll as its superbosses. It was a cool thing for the dev to do.
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Oct 24, 2023 22:31
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B, Quintar Fields. The capital is supposedly where the demo ends, but I played the demo for like an hour and then bought the full game, so I have no idea what the exact cut-off is. The capital's a great area, and given how good Silver/Gold/Diamond are when they first become available, you're really rewarded for investigating. I like the pacing of it, in that you go through a big dungeon with a fairly tough boss and then you exit out into a big area you can explore for strong rewards... But if you don't want to, you don't have to yet. It'll eventually get easier to explore, and since you need both the Craftwork and the metals to actually upgrade the weapons, there's no immediate punishment for wanting to move on and check out another area instead of digging into the capital. It's good design! But if you want to put in the work, it's a good little training area for developing your skill at Crystal Project map traversal.
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Nov 15, 2023 23:32
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A. Sleep Aura is funny in that it's a scary enemy move and a future combo piece, but at base it's pretty useless. Being able to Sleep all enemies on turn 2 isn't really worth all that MP, especially when Sleep Bomb is free. Hunter does at least answer the question of "what secondary can I give my Rogue." Can't use any of the bow skills, but Hide helps manage aggro! It's not nothing. They're also a higher-damage option for randoms, so it's not a bad wandering-around class for your Rogue character. The Fancy Quintar is a scripted boss. It'll always use Quick after the same number of turns, and that number of turns is low enough that it's going to be very hard to survive it on Hard when you can first encounter it. It's probably the first real wall there, and I'd probably recommend it as the last thing you do before you finish up the things around the capital.
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Dec 4, 2023 18:32
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The big thing about Shelldin is that they have an "act immediately after using a non-damaging effect" passive. It's a recurring trick some enemies have and all of them are cheating bastards. Mercifully it IS reflected on the action timeline, as you can see in those screenshots, so it's only going to blindside you if you aren't paying attention. The fact it means you can't use the damage prediction is annoying, though. It is very easy to take a wrong turn and go up a different waterfall during the Salmon Run, because there's nothing really marking the actual course other than the other racers. Sadly, a high finish with the rental Salmon mostly comes down to having other faster Salmon shove you forward, and it's just long enough to be a pain to retry. Going to Cobblestone Crag seems to be the main point where new players get lost. Most people see the scary demon and say "no thanks," I guess. Double Axebeak formation exists to convert you to the cult of Sleep Bomb. Sleep Bomb is love, Sleep Bomb is life.
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Dec 14, 2023 03:52
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A, murder. The Art of War is one of the few useful book weapons, because there's a couple of mage classes that use AP. Sure, you don't have either of those classes yet, but books don't improve magic damage anyway, so the book's passive is the only part that matters. Unlike some games, dual-wielding works for physical skills in general instead of being locked to the Attack command. Aside from that Ninja's pretty bad, but at least (like Hunters) they have knives. It's pretty common for your party Rogue to wander among the classes with Rogue secondary locked to the slot, and if the class already can equip knives, then hey, you've saved a few passive points on Equip Knife. If you're only doing Rogue things with them anyway due to the class's aggro management requirements, then Ninja's the best chassis for a while yet. If the Fancy Quintar was when bosses start to get mean then the Desert is when normal enemies start to get mean, especially since the enemies there move fast enough that you need a Quintar AND to be good at dodging. Being there without the Quintar Flute would not be a fun time. The Bazaar Quintar rental is neat because Desert Quintars move notably faster than normal Quintars. Being able to rent Desert Quintars there is kind of pointless, though, what with rented Quintars disappearing the moment you dismount. But if you're real bad at dodging enemies then I guess every bit helps?
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Dec 25, 2023 09:26
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A. Go East. Did the exact same thing with the bazaar exits on my first playthrough. Good to know I wasn't alone on that, with how dumb it made me feel. Ugh Dervish. It has debuffs on the basic magic as well as its high charge time high damage spells! But I don't count it as a class with full debuff access because the Power Down effect spell is Earth elemental, with the typical "misses flying" modifier. (But the magic attack debuff wind spell doesn't have the 90% Wind miss chance. Favoritism!) Its role compression is a good idea, giving you both high magic damage along with the vital debuffs, but focusing on Wind and Earth is a problem. Sometimes Wind will miss on the 90% hit chance or an enemy you need a power debuff on will be flying or your charge times will be too long.
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Jan 3, 2024 07:48
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That sure would be an ideal combo for that item and passive. How unfortunate that you don't yet have the Nomad.
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Jan 4, 2024 18:09
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Blank Pages is one of the combo options that enables the Scholar's Sleep Aura and makes it great for random battles, and it comes much much sooner than the other combo. Only problem with it is the MP cost when you're using that spell so often. The meat tunnel is legitimately good visual storytelling and I'm very fond of it. You can look at that and know basically what's going on and that it's bad news, mostly just through good map tile placement and some supporting lighting. One more big thing is available in the capital city, for a certain value of "big thing." You need the goat for it.
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Jan 12, 2024 23:39
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Beatsmith has two incredibly specific use cases. One: there's an endgame area where Beatsmith/Scholar is a relatively painless way to switch your physical characters over to support for the dungeon. Two: they're amazing early in a randomizer, since high attack staves are offered up at regular intervals throughout the game, and all of their abilities have uses early on. In particular, enemy offense debuffs! Auto-Haste is also a fantastic passive to get very early, even if it wears off. Other than that, not great. The volcano is going for sort of a Zelda thing with the camera perspective and the keys, so I'm surprised they didn't at least have block pushing puzzles or something. But, hey, that at least means they didn't feel tempted to reuse block pushing mechanics in other places outside the volcano, so I'll count that as a win. Unless they changed it in a patch, the Burn in the volcano is infinite duration but one-time on battle entry/revival and removable through standard status removal. So if you have a Warlock, you can doublecast Remedy and have it off of everyone in two turns. Valkyrie is funny in that it's a tank class that you might want to teach your healer. The spell side is about as good as support gets in Crystal Project. Sure, the Vit scaling on the healing hurts a little, but their Spirit is going to be so much higher than a proper Valk that it barely matters. In particular, party Armor Up makes physicals notably less scary going forward.
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Jan 30, 2024 18:32
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Shoudu is cool so long as you know to beeline for the Shrine. Being able to just instantly pop back up to the top makes the place so much more tolerable. Aside from that, I appreciate the enemies being easy to bait, because it lets you focus on the platforming. There's a Steam Workshop mod that adds Etrian Odyssey 4 classes to the game, and that provides the one good use of Samurai that I've seen. The Bushi class has Dual Wield, katana access, and a secondary passive that turns its normal attacks into an HP drain, and IIRC each hit of Dual Wield gives you a separate +6 AP from a normal attack. So a Bushi/Samurai draws in aggro, tanks with lifesteal normal attacks, and then blows their entire stock of AP on Samurai moves to keep aggro. It's a cute use of the Samurai class and the general Sky Arena strategy is lifesteal and counter-attacks, so it's a good fit for that.
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Feb 15, 2024 09:06
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Yeah, the last sentence of your third paragraph is really the crux of it. You have a lot of flexibility with mages even if there's a Mind/Spirit divide, because a fair number of classes do both and give you both stats. Plus, you can mostly do whatever you want with mages so long as you have /Warlock on them, because that skill set always provides them something useful to do. But the tyranny of weapon restrictions on top of differing stat growths means that your Tanks and your Rogues tend to have more rigid roles in comparison, and Samurai is on the tank side of the class divide... But the class can't really tank in any way other than pulling threat by doing damage, and if you're putting away the tools of a character's role in exchange for them doing more damage, it's usually the Rogue who does that. But that trade stresses your other characters more and makes it more important that they do their roles well, and Rogues and Mages are all dependent on good, reliable threat management to work properly. That said, basically any Tank-side can salvage a half-decent tank role out of /Scholar thanks to Insult and aggro-boosting armor (even if it's not scaling on their stats), and Adrenaline is a decent use of free turns. It's also not eating into the AP a Samurai needs, so that's probably their best class combo. It's just hard to ever call Samurai/Scholar a good idea, as opposed to one you can get away with.
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Feb 16, 2024 09:05
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If you're cheap then navigating the Undercity is really, really annoying. Having to pick dead dudes up off the floor four separate times is a pain in the rear end. Assassin is funny in that it's the end point of every Rogue-branch class. Running a Rogue? Assassin/Rogue. Fencer? Assassin/Fencer. Hunter? Assassin/Hunter. Ninja? No you're not, stop lying. (Okay, maybe not Ninja.) There's even another later axe/dagger class, in case you're wondering why the axe access on the skills. Assassin is just a really, really good class! As a side note, the two debuffs on that middle branch to Harm Memory, Harm Power/Harm Magic, used to be bow-only. In practice you still have other characters do the debuffing unless you're using bows, but it's nice to have them available on the rogue-branch character.
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Mar 2, 2024 10:05
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A reminder that our wonderful LPer is on normal. Bears are even worse on Hard. Though if you have some kind of dispel access, removing their starting speed buff helps. Snowbirds are also a particular pain in the rear end because of their MP damage. (If the snow fairies are damaging your MP then you're getting murdered and you have bigger problems.) At this point you're probably using a Valkyrie as your tank or at least subbing the skills, so them losing their MP is actually an issue now, let alone if it hits either of your mages. Doing the Castle Ramparts without the future mobility upgrades? You madman. Respect for that. I expect that Beastmaster is the last class a lot of players find simply because the Castle has strong Final Dungeon vibes, and also dodging the flying flames is kind of annoying. Beastmaster's most painful drawback is that all of the skills have a charge time, the way most spells do. Even its stances have charge times! The skills aren't really anything special either, so in general it's a class you might dip into for the passives before you leave it to mold in the back of the closet.
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Mar 17, 2024 10:46
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The thing that makes the axe from the Digested Heads really hard to find is that you need to have the sadist hurt you at least once before the prompt to trade in the Digested Heads appears, even if you talk to him with all three Heads in tow. And you have no real reason to get hurt for 99% of builds and no reason to think doing so accomplishes anything else. Kneurotoxin has always seemed like some sort of pun and I have no idea what it is. Neurotoxin is half of it, obviously, but I can't think of anything related to horse, fish, or hippocampi that's tied to "kneu" or "kneuro" or anything like that. A little unanswered question there. Funny thing about that hidden Samurai miniboss: his Cleave has the normal attack skill icon because it's only available from effects that make it replace the normal Attack command. In the base game, I'm pretty sure that's only certain weapons, and there IS a Katana that gives you Cleave. It's purchasable in an earlier shop instead of being the one he drops, though, unlike the counter effect on his Ninja friend's knife. Makes me wonder if which katana drops where was changed at some point. Sadly that counter knife is even bad on Ninja, since the "on physical damage" effect should mean that it won't take effect if you evade an enemy. Weirdly at odds with the knife itself having evasion on it. I guess you could put it on an Assassin or Beastmaster?
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Mar 30, 2024 02:50
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PurpleXVI posted:My understanding is that I'd need more mobility to get up there, I don't think it's reachable without the next option we pick up, at the very least(in fact, do I need the last option, too? We will find out), and while in an ordinary game I'd have "cheated" my way to the last mobility option already, this time around I'm trying not to break the game in unintended ways. Yeah, you could have obtained Nomad quite a while ago. The rental salmon gives you enough time to veer off from the finish line to the north, go up the waterfall, answer the questions, and hop across to the crystal. The execution's a bit tight, but it's doable.
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Mar 30, 2024 16:57
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Yep, I figured that was why you hadn't picked it up. It's more an endgame combo class than anything, so no great loss.
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Mar 30, 2024 19:23
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I like this dungeon because, as you mentioned in the update, it's easy to get through the parts that get you to the crystal but more demanding if you want to get the chests. None of the optional ones are very important, but if you're up for a platforming test it's a pretty good one. IIRC, that jump you skipped is way easier to get from the 30 silver chest, because it makes it simpler to repeat. Drop down as the goat while charging the jump then go for it the moment you land. Still a pain, but much less bad. I figure this is why the chest is bad--the easier set-up is your actual prize. Still sort of rude to make the jump available earlier than that, so that I imagine a lot of people waste time trying to do it the hard way and don't try it the easier one. (Also I generally think of the physical staves more as Beatsmith weapons than Monk ones, but it's fair to forget that Beatsmith exists. )Summoner is probably the biggest power-boost of any class, more than justifying the double unlock requirement and all the footwork. The Summoner getting unconditional statuses with 100% affliction rate is insane. It feels like a nice acknowledgment that if you've gotten this far, then you understand the game systems, so now you're granted permission to damage race all that your heart desires.
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Apr 23, 2024 15:39
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PurpleXVI posted:The game isn't very well-documented by guides or any such, as far as I can tell it only exists in there. I look at Summoner like this: it essentially gives you absolute negation of a minimum of 3-4 actions, which you can call in almost at any time. If they use single-target physicals you get more turns, if they use both physicals and magic then you also get more turns. (Plus your one use of Sleep per enemy.) Their status support lends itself to either very lightweight teams that shed all other defenses to damage race, or as an incredible supplement to the standard Tank+Rogue core, and no mage can play either of these roles as well as Summoner. The damage is irrelevant, they're almost entirely a support class. Also, putting a pin on "A Nomad... uh, exists" for later. It's probably the single class most reliant on having all its combo pieces, and the class hasn't even shown up in the LP yet anyway.
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Apr 23, 2024 21:40
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There's two main Nomad strategies early on. The first focuses on finding a way to support Wave Armor. So long as you start each turn with at least 12 AP, you get a free AoE attack. They hand you a free way to support this early on, using the Art of War from the Ninja Shrine for its +6 AP a turn effect. The tricky thing is that since Wave Armor takes effect and activates the attack every time you take a turn, the Nomad wants to take as many turns as possible, meaning they don't want to cast anything with CT. So Warlock is their most natural partner, especially since their Water and Ice spells are effectively a buff to their Wave Armor's damage. Make sure you have very good aggro management, though, because two spells a turn (or three, with Doublecast!) means two times the generated aggro. It's easy to mess up and get them killed. (An example of what Summoner is good for!) The alternative is also a Warlock combo, where you're instead activating Therapy Stance and using them as your healer. This is the game's most reliable source of AoE debuff healing. The volcano dungeon, for example, can be made a little easier by starting every fight with Therapy Stance -> Remedy to remove the start-of-fight burn debuff there. Being able to cast with AP through Nomad also lowers the strain on the Warlock's MP, so this build can afford to Dualcast more often than most Warlocks. The Tangle is the game's #1 "don't get into fights here" area. The dungeon you unlock with the keys is perfectly manageable in comparison and fights are relatively easily avoided there, so I'm guessing it being mean was the point. In particular, the Greenjackets are a nightmare and should be avoided at all costs.
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Apr 24, 2024 07:19
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When I said that Beatsmith had one specific use, it was the cube. Ducking your two physical characters into the class and picking up the MP and HP heal songs for 6 and 5 AP respectively is one of the easier ways to make them useful there, and it lets your actual mages focus on attacking.
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May 1, 2024 00:28
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Quintar Racing is either an exercise in frustrating perfectionism or an exercise in learning how to cheat like a motherfucker. Considering that Quintar Breeding means doing a lot of racing, the latter is generally a much, much better idea. There's a Steam guide that is very helpful in this regard, and once you learn what to do 4/5 of the races are simple. That 1/5 remains a waking nightmare, but, hey, you only need to do it once! Warlocks can also use Rapiers, so Windsong is mostly a Warlock weapon. You're generally better off with a staff with both Mind and Spirit, but it's not a bad fallback if you want a shield for some reason. Warlocks can remove enemy buffs with Dispel, it just comes at the cost of also removing one debuff.
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May 6, 2024 18:51
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Congrats on the early Conscript kill! It's pretty well-designed as part of an open-world exploration game. Even if you ignore all the spooky vibes of its environment, you're supposed to look at its skills, say "what is this nonsense," and then leave it for later. The fact that it drops nothing immediately useful is also similarly discouraging, if you're the spoiler-searching type. Nudging the player to go somewhere else without putting up a wall is an important thing to do! Warlock helps for that fight, since Dualcast is IIRC the only non-Pingu way to remove statuses from multiple characters in a single turn. It's expensive, but Doom Song is the main lose condition of the fight, so it's worth it. I never actually did the fourth mount early strat. It would make the dungeon where you get the fourth mount normally way easier, though.
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May 9, 2024 19:07
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:56 |
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Encounters in the temple are so, so much easier than encounters outside it. Ignoring encounters outside pretty much entirely is recommended; you can catch up on experience inside. Weaver is especially notable in the randomized runs, especially if you also get Scholar. Preemptive Fast Cast Sleep Aura trivializes pretty much every random encounter. It's also a class with Knives, so if you haven't done the cube yet then it's good to stick your Rogue in the class a while so they can Haste and Slow in that dungeon. Plus, Weaver/Rogue can start every encounter with all-target Sleep Bomb, which is Preemptive Fast Cast Sleep Aura except free (because you can only Sleep each enemy once per fight). The salmon puzzles in that dungeon really are excessively demanding. The temple is probably the most annoying dungeon to me for that reason. E, Summons. Might as well.
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May 15, 2024 07:53
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