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Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

aweigh

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Gunnar

Gunnar, that party is very good, but one piece of advice:

- You'll get wiped by chest traps in ibag's tower faster than from a bad Skillving encounter (hehe). This means your Alchemist -> Hunter characte will be wasting all 9 castings of his level 1 and level 7 spell slots on Portal/High Portal after every enconuter. Why?

- Because traps in the Tower were made for pure Thieves. Sure, your Hunter -> Ninja can absolutely check and disarm them, and in fact, my first Tower playthrough did not include a Thief; but just be ready to accept the fact that your Ninja's trap disarming will not work as well inside the Tower as it has in the previous two post-game dungeons. This will be the place where you finally realize, "oh, they really weren't kidding when they seperated Thief Skills into two seperate tiers!".

Again, by no means saying you need a Thief, and I already mentioned that I used to roll without thieves for my first playthroughs of both E: Original and E: Gothic... the point of my post is merely to warn you ahead of time to take traps seriously when inside the Tower.

:)
 

aweigh

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If it were me playing through that right there, I'd also take a few minutes to create and bench a level 1 Alchemist just so you can enchant more Armor Class bonuses onto the increasingly god-tier items you'll be finding inside the Tower. Squeezing every bit of AC you possibly can onto armor pieces helps keep your party alive in the final set of floors.

(No need to level up the benched Alchemist as you can sell an enchanted piece of gear and buy it back from the Shoppe, and it will be de-enchanted. Nice little trick.

Only reason to have high LVL alchemist is for maximum % chance of landing their debuffs/ailment spells, because your Hunter will definitely not be be landing Charm on anyone inside the Tower, heh; and of course to squeeze out more AP points from high point Ores).

EDIT: Let me put it to you this way: your goal for the front-row chars should be reaching -25 to -30 Armor Class by the time you're trying to clear the final 10 floors. The back row? Another "dirty trick":

- Shields can be dual-wielded. For classes without access to a 2nd shield, un-curse one of the shitty shields from early-game and raise its Armor Class while you're at it, and boom, Alchemist dual-wielding two shields.
 

Gunnar

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Yeah I'm on level 2 of the tower and getting chopped up pretty bad by the enemies. (It's the counterattack thats really dangerous). There's an extremely effeminate man in Pink who crushes me every time I try to fight him. I think I'll take a detour to the fossil cave to get some more ores and see what I can do about my AC. Already getting some great drops tho, it's exciting! Also, I really like being able to change my portraits after getting the staff of transformation, felt like maturing in FF1.

btw, am I alone in thinking this game has some peculiar enemies? Like it has a camel living in the ice cave. And there was a scottish guy with a bagpipe hanging out in the tomb. How about the guy sitting on the pillows?
 

aweigh

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That man is called Skillving, and he has 1 job and he does it well.

CRUSHING NOOBS WHO DARE ENTER THE TOWER!!!!1













































It's great fun kicking his ass once you're better equipped and higher level. Here's a hint on how to easily beat Skillving:

Step 1: Open Bestiary.
Step 2: Find which ailment Skillving has the least amount of resistance to.
Step 3: ?????
Step 4: Profit.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
That guy is an example of fantastic design, though this might be coincidental:

What does he look like?
Does he look like he might be sexually [fill in blank]?

And there's your answer on how to beat him. Fucking genius.
 

Comte

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I decided to take another crack at this. Just completed several Might and Magic games and looking for something more challenging. What is a decent party to create at the start that will take me through the game? Races/Classes etc. I think I'm ready this time. Started EG a few times this year but wasn't in the right mood.
 
Self-Ejected

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There are many good builds. Depends on what you want.
Mine is a Fighter-Fighter-Cleric-Thief-Mage-Alchemist

But you can use Brawler instead of fighters, they normally do more damage.

Having an Alchemist is a must. It has strong buff-debuff spells which can save your life and the ability to enhance weapons is very useful.

Mage has very powerful spells and i guess they get a teleport spell at around level 26 so you won't have to backtrack often.

Also ignore Bard. Instruments break so fast and tarrot cards are only useful for a few times and have high chance of backfiring.

I haven't tried Shaman class yet, you can check posts above.

For Identifying your loot you can always use the pre-made Bishop. No need to make a Bishop imo.

Summoner is a fun class. You can make a pact with monsters and use them as 7th member of your party.
It feels useless at the early game since you don't face powerful monsters early on. It's better to change your Mage to Summoner later once you learned all the mage spells.
 
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aweigh

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Comte

if you realy don't want to put any thought into reading the info (http://elminage-gothic.wikia.com/wiki/Elminage_Gothic_Wiki) and making your own party, somethng which is unarguably the cornerstone of appeal for all Wiz-clones...

then just go with this:

- 3x Human-Fighters, and when they meet requirements change 1 into Samurai (can't be Evil), 1 into a Lord (must be Good/Male), and the last Fighter into a Valkyrie (must be Female/Neutral).

- 1x Hotlet Thief. No class changes required.

- 1x Elf-Cleric, and when he/she learns all of the Cleric spells then change into a Mage, or alternatively into a Bishop.
- 1x Elf-Alchemist. No class changes required.

That's a brain-dead, tried and proven party that'll be able to equip almost everything you stumble across, will have no problems with disarming traps or finding secret doors and will have access to a powerful front-ro of melee hybrid-tanks and also access to all 3 spell schools.

(Front row is Human because their Attribute-spread makes it much faster/easire to class change quicker)
 

Comte

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Comte

if you realy don't want to put any thought into reading the info (http://elminage-gothic.wikia.com/wiki/Elminage_Gothic_Wiki) and making your own party, somethng which is unarguably the cornerstone of appeal for all Wiz-clones...

then just go with this:

- 3x Human-Fighters, and when they meet requirements change 1 into Samurai (can't be Evil), 1 into a Lord (must be Good/Male), and the last Fighter into a Valkyrie (must be Female/Neutral).

- 1x Hotlet Thief. No class changes required.

- 1x Elf-Cleric, and when he/she learns all of the Cleric spells then change into a Mage, or alternatively into a Bishop.
- 1x Elf-Alchemist. No class changes required.

That's a brain-dead, tried and proven party that'll be able to equip almost everything you stumble across, will have no problems with disarming traps or finding secret doors and will have access to a powerful front-ro of melee hybrid-tanks and also access to all 3 spell schools.

(Front row is Human because their Attribute-spread makes it much faster/easire to class change quicker)

Yeah no time to read the wiki bro. I got two young kids so my gaming time per day is limited. Ok looks decent. Maybe is the hunter a better alternative to the thief? I did skim the classes in the manual.
 

aweigh

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Hunter and Ninjas, and hell, even Bards are all better combat-oriented alterntives to the Thief, yes, out of the 4 classes with "Thief Skills" the actual Thief is the weakest in terms of access to gear or dealing damage... BUT the Thief has a super-high chance for:

- finding secret doors/switches.
- will almost never fail at disarming traps (which wipe parties out quicker than anything else in the game).
- and while they will suffer through 3/4's of the game with average loot, you can do a quest which rewards you with a Thief-equippable sword which is like, the 3rd (maybe even 2nd) best 1-handed sword in the game. (The "Full-Body-Swing" sword).

Sure, the first two bullet points sound like convenience but there's really nothing like having a pure Thief. And since your gaming time is limited you will definitely appreciate the hell out of your Thief saying thy "sense something nearby", saving you hours of checking squares for a fucking door. :D

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and their Class Mastery skill is nothing bad either. Upon reaching LVL 26 they get the ability to just straight-up jack loot off enemies. Doesn' mean much when fighting monster-types, but versus Humanoid-type enemies (ogres, kobolds, mermaids, player-available races, etc), there is such a fucking feeling of satisfaction of jacking their weapons and watching them flail at you with their bare hands and dealing 1 point of DMG.

Plus there are like, 6-8 weapons that are only available via Thief-mugging, (there are more than that, i just mean 6-8 that are really worth it).

You could change the Thief into a Ninja, tho, and i actually did just that for my 1st playthrough. You can get a free Ninja char as well by completing a quest inside the 1st dungeon. It's a toss-up on what you prefer: convenience and safety from trapped chests, or a damage-dealing Ninja.

Hunter is a good alternative to the Ninja solely and only due to their class ability to strike at the enemy before the Turn Order begins. This allows your party the chance to "snipe" a troublesome back-row enemy before they can begin their shenanigans.

Bards? Meh. Even if the instruments didn't break, they got nerfed hard in E: Gothic (compared to E: Original), and although a case can be made for a few strategies that involve the Lovers tarot card (have everyone unequip their weapons and then use the Lovers card which will either charm the enemy, thus ensuring they kill themselves of their own will, or charm the party, which will flail at each other harmlessly with their fists), and also the Sun tarot card (which disables both enemies and party members from using weapons, but against melee-only enemies you can begin to see why it would be beneficial)... they're still more of a flavor class than a useful one.
 
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Haplo

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Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Some great advice was already given. Just to nitpick some details:

Mage has very powerful spells and i guess they get a teleport spell at around level 26 so you won't have to backtrack often.

Mages learn the teleport spell, Diomente, at level 13 (although it is not guaranteed and he may learn other level 7 spells instead). Samurais learn Diomente on level 16.


For Identifying your loot you can always use the pre-made Bishop. No need to make a Bishop imo.

Early on that's fine although nothing beats identifying items in bulk and throwing unneeded ones out on the fly. But identification is level dependent, so he won't be able to identify stronger items later on.
That said, I definately don't recommend the Bishop as a starting class, he's simply too slow. Okay to multiclass into one after learning spells from some other schools, though.

Summoner is a fun class. You can make a pact with monsters and use them as 7th member of your party.
It feels useless at the early game since you don't face powerful monsters early on. It's better to change your Mage to Summoner later once you learned all the mage spells.

Yes it is a fun class. And no, it doesn't feel useless early on in E:Gothic. Okay, so the first dungeon, Caves of Tsun Kurn, is rather meh in enemy selection. But already the second one includes some very viable summoning targets... and it only gets better.
 

aweigh

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Personally I prefer the extra "challenge" of rolling without any Mages, ever, and learning Diomante later on from my (always required!) party Samurai. He/she usually ends up learning it right around when I get to the Ice Cave; which has a very primo spot for abusing Diomante-grinding in terms of Ore.

I like knowing that my only escape from a dungeon is a spell that has to be-relearned, Honey Restorer (Loktofeit). It makes all of the early game dungeons more "dangerous" knowing I don't have the option of grinding up a Mage and learn Diomante in b3f of Tsun-Kun Cave. (Make a 2 person party: the Mage and someone to kill enemies. Valkyrie and Lord make best choice due to also having healing spells / AC buffs. The less people in the party the more XP each one receives).

Fuck, I'm ashamed it's even there! Serious decline :D
 

Gunnar

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Ibags tower, level 10 reached. I searched until my last resource, but I found the elevator switch! Half the challenge completed...

So far, I've seen that Mysterious Bag is essential for the final dungeon. I changed class with the HR/AL and lost all her xp just so I could change her ex-skill. Bringing in heaps of treasure from each run now.

Brawler and Samurai in are in their 50s. Trying to stem the aging with Kiss of the Goddess traps, but slowly losing the battle. Wondering if two humans in the front row was such a good idea. Actually I'm thinking Brawler or Samurai might have been a better choice for going Devilish at the altar than the Ninja. I've seem some nice cursed items they can use. Actually, Brawler just found a cursed item, Dark Claws which does good damage so I'm using that now, but had to waste its ore slot to uncurse it.

I found a 49 ore. Used it to make one of the nice short range ninja swords go long, so ninja is doing better damage now from the back row.

Samurai AC is -32! He laughs at physical attacks before getting beheaded, it's great.

Here is what 10 levels of Ibags tower did to me:

Brawler Deaths was 26, now 43
Samurai Deaths was 39, now 53
Lord Deaths: was 39, now 61
Valkyrie Deaths: was 9, now 13
Ninja Deaths: was 12, now 20
Hunter Deaths: was 5, now 16
 

aweigh

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keep going !

can't wait till you meet Belial. He's Skillvings replacement basically. belial don't give a fuck.

belial comes at you hard, hits hard and melee has armor break %, also uses Group ATTACKS as well, has Mark of Ruin and Brace (super broken haha), fucker lasts a while, and thanks to his cheesey Brace always tries to get that last lucky turn. Gotta hit him hard, fast, and take note of how many spell castings were done and zap him with neo zadaar and then Elnam.

fun as fuck. Just like with Skillving, however, the most numerically strategic way to beat him is also derived from spells from Alchemy-school. Gotta buff party's attacks-per-swing with Orath, gotta use mage spell to debuff his Armor Class so your 2nd and 3rd and 4th turns gradually mean mounting damage on him, gotta up party's AC with the cleric spells, and gotta debuff his turn order speed and the boost the party's speed with the alchemy spells to make sure you always beat out his Brace-turn.

Also 2nd char with access to alchemy spells helps because then the 2nd guy can concentrate on repeated castings of the item-repair spell, cos belial armor breaks a lot. that means if the char isn't guaranteed to get the shit repaird, IF belial targets him next round and he's not defending (or being defended by someone), or is not rendered invisible first with that alchemy spell; he will die immediately, unless he/she has Brace, because unlike other annoying enemies (like the Polyetes and Stargazer) he only uses group attack, like Skillving, but he doesn't have more than 1 action per turn so that means when you Brace back to life you're safe until the next round's Turn Order begins.

However, fucker usually spawns with helper enemies (the Pheonix), and worst case scenario nothing funnier than a backrow of 2 belials and a front row of 2 pheonix. haha. he needs to be taken down before any other enemy and starting out in the back row automatically puts stress on your parties ranged capabilities or (ranged enchantments/strategies).

one of the damage-dealer chars with a good old Chi Wave ex-skill, instead the (probable) Brace or Mark of Ruin, can hit him for close to normal amount of melee attack's worth of damage with each Chi Wave. That's huge help. Also having a Hunter to hopefully Confuse or Sleep him with the Swift Strike, plus make sure it's enchanted as well with 2x dmg versus Demons, (i.e. after doing the damage 2x, use leftover points for the % increase to the ailment. Only one of the six ores allows that in its list of options).

There is a 2x dmg versus devil's bow. think it's called "Fallen Angel" or a name similar to that. I think it requires good alignment as well. That frees up the ore points from the 2x dmg versus devil.
 
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aweigh

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Now, before you begin thinking that the strategy of letting your offense-oriented Summon capture do the damage dealing while the party concentrates on buffs/debuffs and making sure enemy targets someone specific is like, the ultimate strategy, rememer that:

- Belial is actually a rarity in his "monster tier" of friends because his pals come with an enemy-only skill where they spend 1 of their Turn Actions (Belial only has 1 of those) on instantly banishing the party's Summon, no saves allowed.
 
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Gunnar

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keep going !

can't wait till you meet Belial. He's Skillvings replacement basically. belial don't give a fuck.

belial comes at you hard, hits hard and melee has armor break %, also uses Group ATTACKS as well, has Mark of Ruin and Brace (super broken haha), fucker lasts a while, and thanks to his cheesey Brace always tries to get that last lucky turn. Gotta hit him hard, fast, and take note of how many spell castings were done and zap him with neo zadaar and then Elnam.

fun as fuck. Just like with Skillving, however, the most numerically strategic way to beat him is also derived from spells from Alchemy-school. Gotta buff party's attacks-per-swing with Orath, gotta use mage spell to debuff his Armor Class so your 2nd and 3rd and 4th turns gradually mean mounting damage on him, gotta up party's AC with the cleric spells, and gotta debuff his turn order speed and the boost the party's speed with the alchemy spells to make sure you always beat out his Brace-turn.

Also 2nd char with access to alchemy spells helps because then the 2nd guy can concentrate on repeated castings of the item-repair spell, cos belial armor breaks a lot. that means if the char isn't guaranteed to get the shit repaird, IF belial targets him next round and he's not defending (or being defended by someone), or is not rendered invisible first with that alchemy spell; he will die immediately, unless he/she has Brace, because unlike other annoying enemies (like the Polyetes and Stargazer) he only uses group attack, like Skillving, but he doesn't have more than 1 action per turn so that means when you Brace back to life you're safe until the next round's Turn Order begins.

However, fucker usually spawns with helper enemies (the Pheonix), and worst case scenario nothing funnier than a backrow of 2 belials and a front row of 2 pheonix. haha. he needs to be taken down before any other enemy and starting out in the back row automatically puts stress on your parties ranged capabilities or (ranged enchantments/strategies).

one of the damage-dealer chars with a good old Chi Wave ex-skill, instead the (probable) Brace or Mark of Ruin, can hit him for close to normal amount of melee attack's worth of damage with each Chi Wave. That's huge help. Also having a Hunter to hopefully Confuse or Sleep him with the Swift Strike, plus make sure it's enchanted as well with 2x dmg versus Demons, (i.e. after doing the damage 2x, use leftover points for the % increase to the ailment. Only one of the six ores allows that in its list of options).

There is a 2x dmg versus devil's bow. think it's called "Fallen Angel" or a name similar to that. I think it requires good alignment as well. That frees up the ore points from the 2x dmg versus devil.

I have encountered this fucker of a creature, yes, and been regularly destroyed by him. I did manage to beat him once but I was lucky because he became afflicted with a status effect and I was able to take him out pretty easily. I usually just use the escape spell to avoid him.

Also getting my ass blown out by lots of other monsters up on these floors 10+. Things just got an order of magnitude harder. Gotta do some research to see how to deal with them.

I have noticed this problem with my party, not enough Alchemy casters. If I was to do it over I'd make sure at least 2 could cast it. Innocent gear I've seen so far hasn't been great. I used the Innocent cloak mostly for the spell resists, and the samurai used the sword for a while but that's it so far.
 

Gunnar

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Ibags tower, level 15 reached. After 5 more floors of walking into the face of the blistering winds of Hell, I can only shudder to imagine what awaits on the final floors of the tower. Belial, kongoushin, the dragons, the archer, the phoenixes... I hate you all so much!!!

There is some kind of loot limit, so even with mysterious bag, loot stops dropping after awhile. I'd still rather roll with the bag than without, though.

Haven't had any problems with traps yet, aweigh. I'm assuming that becomes a problem right around now.

I ran into several sealed objects on my way up the tower, but I couldn't access any of them. There was an altar with objects on it that I could arrange, but I didn't touch it.

I have Dark claws, full-bodied swing / happy seven, freeze sword, angel strike, thunder god particle / kutneslika, silver bow at this point. Really hoping for some better weapons up on the final floor!
 

aweigh

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oh, there are still 1 more set of ibag's tower weapons left, plus floor master of last floor gives a super unique weapon/armor. I think it was a shield of truth which can be SP invoked and its power functions exactly like a Medal of Power. note that the FM is neither the guardian nor the boss of the tower.
 

Gunnar

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oh, there are still 1 more set of ibag's tower weapons left, plus floor master of last floor gives a super unique weapon/armor. I think it was a shield of truth which can be SP invoked and its power functions exactly like a Medal of Power. note that the FM is neither the guardian nor the boss of the tower.

Man, 16F is a death march. There's no easy way to the staircase, you just have to take every single punch and by the end I'm practically all used up. My AC range is -21/-32/-27/-20/-13/-10. Need some better ores, but after 3 runs and exploring some of of 17F, I haven't found much useful loot at all. It's all clubs and rings and rocks other crap I can't use.

Really missing those secondary mage/alchemy casters at this point, wouldn't leave home without them on a second playthrough. You need them to fight some of these monsters. You know which one pisses me off the most? That fucking archer polette. She just shows up, moves first, and attacks with 4 arrows killing at least 2 characters. I've seen encounters with 4 of them behind some other monster. WTF? You would be hit with 16 arrows!
 

Dorarnae

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oh, there are still 1 more set of ibag's tower weapons left, plus floor master of last floor gives a super unique weapon/armor. I think it was a shield of truth which can be SP invoked and its power functions exactly like a Medal of Power. note that the FM is neither the guardian nor the boss of the tower.

Man, 16F is a death march. There's no easy way to the staircase, you just have to take every single punch and by the end I'm practically all used up. My AC range is -21/-32/-27/-20/-13/-10. Need some better ores, but after 3 runs and exploring some of of 17F, I haven't found much useful loot at all. It's all clubs and rings and rocks other crap I can't use.

Really missing those secondary mage/alchemy casters at this point, wouldn't leave home without them on a second playthrough. You need them to fight some of these monsters. You know which one pisses me off the most? That fucking archer polette. She just shows up, moves first, and attacks with 4 arrows killing at least 2 characters. I've seen encounters with 4 of them behind some other monster. WTF? You would be hit with 16 arrows!

yeah those archer are a pain. pretty good as a pet tho. :)
 

Gunnar

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use dove bells to eradicate fixed encounters while you explore the maps

THANK YOU, I didn't even consider this. And I believe you said before you always carry around a Sheephair brush as well, now I can see why.

You know which one pisses me off the most? That fucking archer polette. She just shows up, moves first, and attacks with 4 arrows killing at least 2 characters. I've seen encounters with 4 of them behind some other monster. WTF? You would be hit with 16 arrows!

yeah those archer are a pain. pretty good as a pet tho. :)

I haven't explored Summoning or Stealing at all this playthrough. I wanted to leave the fiddly / potentially game breaking awesome stuff for a future game. As a party member, I think I'd love her, yeah. Actually most of the monsters 15+ seem like boss encounters, and you either commit fully to spending big resources to defeating them, or escape.
 

aweigh

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polyete's big sister, stargazer i believe her name is, is the most annoying tower enemy; but all enmies past level 15 are way strong. Ancient Dragons packing a good punch await in floors 18, 19 and 20th. still, ancient dragons don't use swift strike or pursuit so they're slightly slower in killing a party member, plus they rarely come accompanied; but they always use ability which instantly kills any summons u may have up. it's very annoying.

there are more innately dragon-specific gear to use against them, and also to use for protection from them; at least many more pieces of dragon-gear than there in comparison to weapons which target Thief-types, which is what Polyete and StarGazer are. Skillving is Fighter-type.

Makes that golden axe look so sumptuous, doesn't it
 

Dorarnae

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polyete's big sister, stargazer i believe her name is, is the most annoying tower enemy; but all enmies past level 15 are way strong. Ancient Dragons packing a good punch await in floors 18, 19 and 20th. still, ancient dragons don't use swift strike or pursuit so they're slightly slower in killing a party member, plus they rarely come accompanied; but they always use ability which instantly kills any summons u may have up. it's very annoying.

there are more innately dragon-specific gear to use against them, and also to use for protection from them; at least many more pieces of dragon-gear than there in comparison to weapons which target Thief-types, which is what Polyete and StarGazer are. Skillving is Fighter-type.

Makes that golden axe look so sumptuous, doesn't it

you meant the black dragon, with 6 or 8 actions per turn lol? ancient and shinryuu I think his name? are only on floor 20.
 

aweigh

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Dorarnae Courtier Haplo Emmanuel2 Gunnar Dorateen CryptRat Comte an Administrator Siveon Celerity Crooked Bee Jasede Sacred82 Infinitron Jaesun Darth Roxor hackncrazy Viata Deuce Traveler

Oh, right, I forgot about the 20th floor one. still, his low AGI (in comparison to polyte/stargazer, i mean) means that 3 times out of 5 i'll get lucky and my two (or three) dragon-killing chars will stun-lock him with dmg (not literally) while I debuff/buff my party, where as the archer sisters will just swift strike and pursuit my characters and also: they behead, AFAIK never been beheaded by ole blackie the drackie.

Current PC version party, resting their heels in 20th floor of ibag's tower:

- Fighter (believe it or not, hotlet, as my original vision was for a Lord who would act before the enemy and heal as needed, and if healing was not needed then with Hotlet's high AGI be able to deal hard Melee DMG to the enemy before their turn came up, when decision to change into Fighter was made it turns out Hotlet race is even BETTER because the fighter's naturally higher DMG output, which is usually OP anyway with a high STR race, goes down from "almost OP melee dmg" down to "still dealing more melee dmg than devilish samurai and lower level even!" because fighters hit hard and hit harder as they level up, except with benefit of high AGI meaning will deal that better-than-average-DMG before enemy turns comes up, which is... very good for conserving healing spells and other stuff like that).

HIS ROLE IN THE PARTY: Tturned Lord turned BACK INTO fighter (don't have patience to roll a Lord on char-gen, thus this is his 2nd time going Fighter, lol); and leveled back up with millions of amassed Ibag's Tower monies to almost the same lvl the Lord was at, wielding the 1-handed s-tier sword, i forget its name but its stats are like 2 or 3 dmg points better than the full-body swing; 2nd weapon is the s-tier axe from final floors of the Tower, the "Lavalus" i think it's called, which is easily top 5 1-handed sub-weapons, if not #1 already, and comes w/ built in +3 bonus to armor class. Way, way better dmg output than while he was Lord, but yes, the loss of Court Sanctuary was immediately felt throughout entire party. Had to change up almost everybody's enchantments on almost all pieces of gear to make sure everybody had least an Ankh of Divine Fortune and/or Angel Ring for the beheading resistance).

Yes, i know, an innocent one w/ access to the Golden Axe would be even better if deciding to sacrifice Lord's sole benefit over Fighter which is sacrificing Fighter's hp gain and class mastery skill of phys atk pwr up++ in exchange for having the Lord's 9 castings of cleric spells (meh, at these levels a previously-cleric now turned Fighter will always be better in combat than a Lord), and really the only good thing a Lord brings over a Fighter: court sanctuary mastery skill. Missed, definitely, but not sorely missed. If you took time to Diomante-grind high point Ores inside the Body of the Giant Soldier (Dead God) dungeon, the 1st one after beating Cyclonus, should have more than enough Ores to craft something for everybody to give them at least 35-40 % behead resistance.

- Innocent Samurai (changed original race, which was dwarf, into Devilish because tons of godlike katana weapons are cursed and beneft immensely from having Ore-points poured into enhancing the weapons DMG spread or enhancing the katana's (almost usually always present) ailment % katanas usually come with, mostly coming w/ like 1-10% of beheading; thus having to spend Ore pts stripping off the CURSE is painful to the soul...

Dual-wielding Masamunes (there is a 1-handed katana with better dmg spread but doesn't come w/ the 10% bonus to beheading the Masamume does; even at a 'lowly' 10%, and even being Samurai with no further bonus, simply enchanting both to 20% behead (already 40 points thhere, so it's more of a goal than realistic) would bring it over 30% and beyond for beheading for each 1 of his Masamune katanas. Slightly less dmg than dual-wielding the true S-tier 1-handed katana, which name i completely forget, but clearly superior due to beheading + access to high point ores, or alternatively/also with access to an Alchemist who can make Ores be high point thanks to level 100 and beyond's godly bonus % of points on Ores due to alchemist class mastery skill.

- Innocent Thief (hotlet, ofc, to ensure highest LUCK from hotlet race means almost never being party wiped by a chest and also to ensure highest %/dice rolls of spotting doors and shit, and, of course, luck, and also AGI, are the two main contributing factors to %/dice roll success of the Thief actually disarming the enemy of their gear and stealing it, with 3rd resolution variable being thief's char level).

ROLE IN THE PARTY: Stealing shit, jacking radios from cars, and holding his own w/ full-body swing 1-handed sword and changing depending on encounter between an M/L-ranged sub-weapon or going sword-and-board with an enchanted shield, again name i fucking forget, which has built-in 90% versus beheading. you find a lot of those in the Tower, but not everybody can equip one. also, aside from the behead % reisstance, the shield sucks, so it needs enchanting regardless.

- Cleric (Human, as when I changed him to his 2nd class that wasn't originally planned: original plan for this guy was straight up human alchemist; otherwise seeing as how he ended up Cleric i would change his race if possible to either Werebeast or to Dwarf or Devilish... oh, and yes, Devilish make GREAT any class. Seriously OP race, is why has to be unlocked).

ROLE IN THE PARTY: Originally party alchemist, then turned Hunter, and throughout 75+ hours spent inside ibag's tower is now a level 150+ Cleric. I simply need access to extra healing, and the extra safety that comes w/ knowing his resurrection spells will (almost) (proooobably) not fail. Gave him a Rainbow Charm i found in level 16th which gives him instant 200% holy atk. that, plus innate bonus to all clerical spell dice rolls coming from pure Cleric's class mastery skill of "divine pwr up++"; the only char who can heal entire party in heat of battle due to extremely bloated HP from everybody. Also gave him hand of kindness when i class changed, obviously, although that only affects healing spells, AND it also affects %/dice rolls of healing potions AND, AAAAAAAAAAND affects success % (i.e. resurrection dice roll) when using REVIVAL TONIC, while it DOES NOT, repeat: DOES NOT AFFECT the %/roll of either of the 2 resurrection spells.

- Innocent Bishop. Fairy to make sure his spells trigger before enemy turns. He i.d.'s stuff. Sigh... nothing to type here.

ROLE IN THE PARTY: PERPETUATE OUTDATED WIZARDRY TRADITION OF HAVING ITEM I.D. A CLASS SKILL THAT ONLY A COMPLETELY USELESS CLASS HAS ACCESS TO.

ALL WIZ-CLONES, and WIZ ITSELF, would greatly benefit from making game mechanics of both item identification AND ALSO item "enchantment", whatever form it may take in the game, behanded SEPERATELY FROM CLASS-SPECIFIC SKILLS: OTHERWISE PLAYERS WILL WANT THE CONVENIENCE OF HAVING THAT SHIT AVAILABLE TO THEM ALWAYS AND THUS EFFECTIVELY WASTE, at the very LEAST, 1 party slot (the Bishop), reducing ACTUAL PARTY SIZE to 5 slots instead of 6...

- Originally the party Summoner but class-changed him to Alchemist to take over the role after I changed my original Alchie to Hunter. Race is Human, ofc, as you need as high a char lvl as humanly possible (tee hee) cos being able to squeeze even ONE EXTRA POINT from an Ore can be the difference between enchanting a weapon with 2x DMG versus 2 enemy types and also 1 or 2 point bonus to weapon's dmg spread; or having to choose between going 2x DMG or going all out on linear DMG increase. Best option, obviously, is to have your high lvl alchemist squeeze out tons of points out of 30-40 pt ores, thus bringing them up to 50 and above (mmm, delicious), so you can be ready for everything.

2x dmg versus 3 enemy types on top of the weapons (if it has any) built in dmg modifiers (for the tower, and actually for most of game, best picks are: 1. Devil/Demon-types, those will be problematic from early-game, 2. Undead, same issue as with devil-types but less of them overall, but inside Tower Samael alone is annoying enough to warrnt a 2x dmg vs undead just to fuck him up faster, and lastly IMO 3.

(pre-Tower) definitely Dragons, but inside tower (and although elementals would still be useful), you absolutely need 2x dmg versus God-types, full stop, so if weapon has NO MODIFIERES, those are my 3 recommendations as a general rule of thumb. Hence, the unbelievable advantage of having the luxury to cover more then 3 enemy types (i.e. without alchemist skill of Ore-boosting, player's findings for high-point Ores will almost never break 40, and rare ones might come with 45, i have NEVER gottan a 50 point ore naturally.)

This means that 45 points only allows 2 double-damage enchantments, each one being 15 points a pop, so a 50 point and beyond ore which is what you'll have from the originally 45pt Ore (it might even reach 60 pts, can't remember right now how much) once your level 125+ alchemist does his thing and squeezes more AP out of that thing, thus allowing the 3 2xdmg enchants, plus 1 extra point added to damange spread and perhaps 10% of confusion or sleep, and/or just going for maximum enemy type 2x dmg modifiers... you guise get the idea.

And then, being able to boost 1 or 2 of the weapon's dmg points, or give it a quick 15%-25% confusion/sleep, only because your high lvl alchemist was able to turn the 37 point ore into a 45 point one... mindblowingly, amazingly and absolutely PRICELESS.

ADDENDUM:

Innocent alchie is dual-wielding L-ranged secret-weapon u buy inside Cave of the Ancients, AGAIN NAME I FORGOT (too much christmas weed). Both of those suckers enchanted not with damage (viable strat, but considering a pure alchie's dmg output better to put those precious 40+ point ores to more satistically better use thus, both of the L-ranged mystery weapons enchanted with 25% (approx) confusion, as both Skillving and a few other other annoying enemies have "weaknesses" to confusion (read: they have like only 40 or 50% res, as opposed to 70-90% res...).

also, you can use this secret weapon to mine guaranteed level 2 (or 3? whatever the highest ore level) ores in the 2nd floor, if i remember correctly. Save beforehand, as each "Ore search" in the spot I speak of (Ibag's Tower, ofc) gives a random Ore, or sometimes supper annoying nothing at all, so reload if necessary as the MYstery Weapon that costs 1 million GP and bought inside CotA, is very useful,(VERY USEFUL), in both as a weapon itself if properly enchanted (needs to be enchanted to deal damage before anything can be done with it), AND it is also useful for lucking out on "finding" a 35-45 point high lvl Ore inside the Tower's 2nd floor one and ONLY spot for mining Ores you will find after Body of the Giant God/Soldier.

There's a trick tho which was not fixed for 3ds remix port, amusingly enough: have party ninja use ninja-only ex-skill "REPLICA" and summon a replica of himself, but make sure ninja had/has the L-range mystery weapon equipped before doing so; then change party ninja's items to whatever they were, meanwhile the replica will be "stuck" with the L-range mystery weapon(s) equipped and the game allows the "summon", i.e. the party ninja's REPLICA, to mine for the ore in the spot I speak of inside the Tower. His/her REPLICA-items will never break!!!!

EDIT: Make sure to leave the "original" L-range Mystery Weapon(s) safe and sound back at the Warehouse, to make sure the game selects/uses the Replica's items!!!


So, don't say I don't come at you guise with the absolutely most dankest PROTIPS ever. :D
 
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