Items can get you through anything if you're willing to go back to town and be very discriminating on what monster loot you keep. Of course you'd then actually have to worry about money assuming you don't boss grind...
It's nearly impossible to run a healing medic out of TP in EO II, such a good role player in the party.
I think a lot of you are exaggerating the problems of the Alchemists in EO II. You need to keep them well equipped and make sure their spells are leveled appropriately for their character level and that you need to take time out early and max their tp. I get many many more casting of spells on my properly equipped end game Alchemists then you guys are alluding to.
It's nearly impossible to run a healing medic out of TP in EO II, such a good role player in the party.
I think a lot of you are exaggerating the problems of the Alchemists in EO II. You need to keep them well equipped and make sure their spells are leveled appropriately for their character level and that you need to take time out early and max their tp. I get many many more casting of spells on my properly equipped end game Alchemists then you guys are alluding to.
Seconding dis. For a huge portion of the game, even just level one single target spells hit like trucks if you've got Analysis too (and can remember weaknesses).
Jesuits on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
The smaller enemies that my guys can take out in a couple hits, that's not alchemist material. Alchemist material is the bigger guys. Just a single spell takes out enough of a chunk to do the rest with regular attacks.
I felt as though I were in love when I finally upgraded one of my element spells to level 2 (up 'til then, I was boosting the element "Ups" to rank 5, and then worked on TEC Up and TP Up to max - one rank in Analysis for now), and the damage increased by almost 75ish.
I never bothered with an Alchemist in EO2 because I heard that they were bad. My Gunner or Ronin could do elemental damage when it was needed, anyway.
I personally loved my War Magus, although that might have something to do with the fact that I also loved my Hexer. When not paired with the Hexer, TP was certainly an issue, though.
War Magus's big problem was no way to do anything with status, including death. That and at some points there arms and armor doesn't quite match up to front row standards. Other then that a great class, the Red Mage of Healing.
I think a lot of you are exaggerating the problems of the Alchemists in EO II. You need to keep them well equipped and make sure their spells are leveled appropriately for their character level and that you need to take time out early and max their tp. I get many many more casting of spells on my properly equipped end game Alchemists then you guys are alluding to.
No, I'm really not exaggerating it.
I'm looking at my Alchemist right now, and ...
He's level 50 with 341 TPs, rocking a Malice Rod (+8 Tec), Hard Mail (TP +10), Pumpkinhat (Tec +2, TP +10), and Rune Gage (Tec +2, TP +10). I've mastered TP Up and TEC Up.
I've got Fire Up at 5, Ice Up at 1, Volt Up at 1, Phys Up at 1, and Analysis mastered.
My spells are Fire at 5, Flame at 1, Inferno at 3, Ice at 2, Volt at 2, and Blades, Gravity, and Piercing at 1; and Megido at 4. As you can see, he's built to mainly throw Fire at shit as a result of a recent rest / respec.
Fire costs 16 TP. That means I can toss 21 total Fire spells before resting.
Flame costs 18 TP. So, I can cast 18 Flame spells before resting.
Inferno is 36 TP. This allows 9 Infernos before resting.
Ice is 10 - 34 before a rest.
Volt is 10 - 34 before a rest.
Blades, Gravity, and Piercing are all 20 TP, so 17 in combination before resting.
Megido is 47 - so, 7 uses before resting.
Looking at my bread-and-butter spells - Flame and Inferno - the Alchemist gets somewhere between 9 and 18 uses of his spells before he's tapped out. The problem is that I'm going to be in many, many, many more than 18 rounds of combat on each trip into the dungeon. Ergo, the Alchemist, on most turns, is not going to be casting anything. Yes, Flaming a badguy will almost certainly kill it in one hit - however, so will two rounds of War Magus / Protector attacking it. The Alchemist, then, is expending a large percentage of his TP in order to save me a couple rounds. Yes, everyone will take more damage, overall, with the WM / P attacking, but the Medic's got some cheap heals for which she'll regen the TP pretty quickly and healing items are cheap as hell from the store.
It's not that Alchemists are bad people, it's just that their schtick - casting offensive, damage-dealing spells - is too expensive for them to do every round or even most rounds, and therefore they spend a lot of time hanging around and making weak autoattacks. They're great panic buttons, and decent against FOEs (assuming you've got the requisite skill points in the appropriate elemental discipline to avoid doing 4 damage with an 18 TP spell), but I wish they had a bit more all-around utility and a bit more dungeon-staying power.
EDIT: You might point out that, for instance, my Medic is also standing around not casting spells for the majority of her combat turns, and so why aren't I complaining about her? This is true. However, my Medic is also passively healing everyone at the end of every battle, saves me thousands of GPs' worth of nectars and return-to-town annoyance over the course of the game, has increased my item drop rate by 41% (or whatever maxed Scavenge gives you), and, if she does need to cast a spell, will regen most or all of those TPs over the course of the next battle (she can cast an 80+ HP cure every round for 20 rounds and be down 20 total TP at the end of it).
I can't disagree that a goodly portion of the time my A is just swinging a stick, but at 72 mine has something like 530 TP. You can cast a lot of level 2 and 3 spells with 530 TP.
Also my equipment has some consessions to other stats but it looks like I could hit 700 TP no problem if I wanted too...
EDIT: Yep, 700 TP.
Kerykeion
Mobius Alb
Divine Orb x2
of course doing this lowered my max DEF down to a Gunners level...
Damn it now I'm stuck here at the equipment screen trying to remember if 99 is a hard stat cap or just where the game stops keeping track...
If I remember correctly, it's a hard cap for the game. Kind of a shame, since it's kind of easy to get there with [strike]reincarnation[/strike] retiring. At least it can free up skill points, hmm?
Also, I took my Alchemist from the start to end of stratum 5, and it worked out just fine. (Haven't played the post-game because I stupidly retired everyone on my team at the same time.)
That's just the thing, Elv. Your alchemist is very spread out in everything so he can't help but use a lot of TP. Seriously, a level one spell (8 tp) with max analysis will splatter every normal enemy (with exploited weaknesses) - double useful against normal enemies with physical resist, like gels and those fucking crabs. For everything else, there's warmighted Megido. This holds true pretty much until partway through the fourth stratum, where level one spells will almost take down regular punch-clock baddies. High ranks of spells, especially area ones, are kind of way overkill for you right now. During my normal game, my inventory (with scavenge) filled up long before my Alch ran out of TP, with a few hundred in reserve for nuking FOEs.
Not really. I mean, I haven't really used the physical spells much*, but eliminating them will pump 7 skill points into my other spells (3 Str Up, 1 Phys Up, 3 spells). Let's say I dump those into Fire Up (max) and then level up, I dunno, Flame another two times.
There! I'm less spread out, and am now better at Fire spells (uh, I guess they do 5% more damage, or something).
However, my main fire attack spell (Flame) now costs 22 TP, so now I only get 15 per trip into the dungeon. In most cases, the 18 TP version would've killed things in one hit, so I'm really just expending 4 extra TP to achieve the same effect. The ever-helpful GameFAQs says that those two skill points change my damage from 150% to 175%-195%, whatever that means (see earlier complaints about interface impentrability).
Now, later on, the damage difference might mean that I can kill things in one shot instead of two, which will save 14 TP per iteration. But for now, it's actually saving me TP to have a lower-level version.
I've also got onepoint (or a bit) in every spell category specifically so that whenever I come across those "Hit me with Lightning to get a free prize!" enemies I can do it. That's, largely, at least to me, the whole point behind having an alchemist around.
* - I mostly keep these around because they're cheap all-targeting spells, even though they tend to do crappy damage compared with the elemental options.
Pursuing that argument to its logical conclusions means why have anything but maximum damage dealing swordmen? Well each class has unique situations when they are helpful. I use a hexer and he does even less damage than an alchemist. However, I can win battles just fine without him and what he is really for is those tough battles and to help my Dark Hunter. The alchemist has its awesome Force skill and elemental damage (when everyone else is physical) It's a team effort.
Renegen on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
I retired my team to 1) try out a couple new things and 2) fix up some skill point assignments. The party is now:
Protector - Ronin
Alchemist - Medic - Hexer
I was considering going with a War Magus instead of the Ronin, so that I could work some synergy with the Hexer, but I decided against it.
Pursuing that argument to its logical conclusions means why have anything but maximum damage dealing swordmen?
Because it's more fun to have a varied team. The issue, though, is that the Alchemist is, most of the time, dead weight that the team is dragging around. I'd like to avoid that, because, to me, it would be more fun.
See also: the Medic, for a way to make dead-weight-most-of-the-time characters into something more useful. Specifically, I'm talking about auto-healing at the end of each battle, damage floor mitigation, increasing item drop rates, etc. Plus, she gets mana regen to help her do her primary oh-shit job for longer periods of time.
If the Alchemist had some other kind of support ability, and a longer endurance, he'd be a better member of the team, too. Instead, every single ability is focused around doing damage with his spells, which he can't even do all that often.
And, to be clear, my "primary" party is War Magus, Protector / Alchemist, Medic, Survivalist. They're, by far, my highest level characters (50-60, with a retirement at 30 in their past). I keep dragging the Alchemist around because I find his abilities useful. That doesn't mean that he couldn't be more useful to the group were his abilities done differently, however.
EO2 get. For my party I'm thinking Protector, Ronin, War Magus / Gunner, Troub. I'm trying to use different classes than my EO1 playthrough. This group viable?
Oh, and what item does the EO1 complete code (but not the monster index filled) code give you?
I got a question about the Dark Hunter. If I want his stat. effects (like poison, binds, sleep) from his abilities to activate more should I go for luck or tech while leveling?
Ninjabear on
Play Smash Bros 3DS with me!!! Friend Code: 2981-7429-8364
TEC is the strength of your skills, for alchemist it affects spell damage for example. For medic it affects the strength of your heals. Not sure how much if at all it affects physical classes' skills.
I've discovered that boosting up STR Up from the get-go with new melee characters is like the best thing for them. Boosts damage so fucking much.
This is more true for L, G, and R then the rest who probably need to go up their trees a bit first and then double back.
L's will almost always have tons and tons of extra skill points for stats though so yeah, going ten in from the beginning is a great idea.
Str Up increases the damage Gunners do? DOES NOT COMPUTE!
My current line-up is my Protector, Landshark, and Medic, but now I have a Dark Hunter and Hexer in the group. Hexers are fucking AMAZING, why did I hate this class in part one? (okay probably because they sucked) Evil Eye and following up with Suicide is the most pleasing thing I've done in this game. Like when I don't fee like putting up with an enemy, here, you just kill yourself please.
I pumped STR Up on my protector, dark hunter, and landshark when I found how much it was increasing damage by. How does VIT up work in the context of defense? I know that STR Up is more than a single point of damage per point invested.
I've discovered that boosting up STR Up from the get-go with new melee characters is like the best thing for them. Boosts damage so fucking much.
This is more true for L, G, and R then the rest who probably need to go up their trees a bit first and then double back.
L's will almost always have tons and tons of extra skill points for stats though so yeah, going ten in from the beginning is a great idea.
Str Up increases the damage Gunners do? DOES NOT COMPUTE!
My current line-up is my Protector, Landshark, and Medic, but now I have a Dark Hunter and Hexer in the group. Hexers are fucking AMAZING, why did I hate this class in part one? (okay probably because they sucked) Evil Eye and following up with Suicide is the most pleasing thing I've done in this game. Like when I don't fee like putting up with an enemy, here, you just kill yourself please.
I pumped STR Up on my protector, dark hunter, and landshark when I found how much it was increasing damage by. How does VIT up work in the context of defense? I know that STR Up is more than a single point of damage per point invested.
Damage formulas are extremely complicated, but from what I remember offhand, points in stats on character (STR/VIT) and stats on equipment (ATK/DEF) are all in the damage formula, even though STR itself boosts attack (likewise for VIT and DEF). On-character are quite a bit more valuable than on-equipment, but they're all important. For specifics, you'd likely have to ask some FAQ writers, but it isn't terribly important. VIT doesn't help at all against elemental damage, which many bosses like to throw at your casters in convenient you-lose packages, so HP Up is generally a wiser investment (doubly so if you've got a medic with Salve 3 all up ins).
Man I used to know all these gameplay mechanics by heart. It's not 1 to 1 though.
TEC also effects magic resistance and spell accuracy...but I never remember spells ever really missing. So statwise it is the equivalent of Half of AGI, Magical STR, and Magical VIT, and yet still only one character ever really needs it. The healers heal fine with just skill points, everyone else uses ATK for damage and AGI for accuracy, and the spells that do hit the party usually don't hit hard enough that the resistance bonus would even be noticed.
Xenogears of Bore on
3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
I've seen the bounty that TEC Up reaps for alchemists.
Would you recommend a full out investment of AGI Up for the non-casters, or just like a 5 point investment?
Builds that have points to spare for AGI and could use it:
Landshark 2 hitters
Single Element Gunners
Beasts of all sorts
I don't think any of the rest of the phyiscal classes have a problem with missing. Gunners are the only truely slow miss happy class of that group, and they won't miss much (if ever) if you stick to using TP moves.
It definitely helps 2 hitting LS. Hell if you can afford 10 into STR/LUC and a bunch into AGI you'll have some reliable damage numbers out of those guys.
Xenogears of Bore on
3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
Didn't you say LUC is status ailment related though?
I thought 2-Hit was just based on the number of points you pumped into the skill.
Anyway, you're better off looking for Terence's stuff on GameFAQS. Guy's torn the game apart and figured out how it works.
Big problem with that is that they were all board posts; he never made a game mechanics FAQ. But yes, pretty much everything I know about the game is stuff I've forgotten from reading his posts.
Posts
I think a lot of you are exaggerating the problems of the Alchemists in EO II. You need to keep them well equipped and make sure their spells are leveled appropriately for their character level and that you need to take time out early and max their tp. I get many many more casting of spells on my properly equipped end game Alchemists then you guys are alluding to.
Seconding dis. For a huge portion of the game, even just level one single target spells hit like trucks if you've got Analysis too (and can remember weaknesses).
I felt as though I were in love when I finally upgraded one of my element spells to level 2 (up 'til then, I was boosting the element "Ups" to rank 5, and then worked on TEC Up and TP Up to max - one rank in Analysis for now), and the damage increased by almost 75ish.
I personally loved my War Magus, although that might have something to do with the fact that I also loved my Hexer. When not paired with the Hexer, TP was certainly an issue, though.
No, I'm really not exaggerating it.
I'm looking at my Alchemist right now, and ...
He's level 50 with 341 TPs, rocking a Malice Rod (+8 Tec), Hard Mail (TP +10), Pumpkinhat (Tec +2, TP +10), and Rune Gage (Tec +2, TP +10). I've mastered TP Up and TEC Up.
I've got Fire Up at 5, Ice Up at 1, Volt Up at 1, Phys Up at 1, and Analysis mastered.
My spells are Fire at 5, Flame at 1, Inferno at 3, Ice at 2, Volt at 2, and Blades, Gravity, and Piercing at 1; and Megido at 4. As you can see, he's built to mainly throw Fire at shit as a result of a recent rest / respec.
Fire costs 16 TP. That means I can toss 21 total Fire spells before resting.
Flame costs 18 TP. So, I can cast 18 Flame spells before resting.
Inferno is 36 TP. This allows 9 Infernos before resting.
Ice is 10 - 34 before a rest.
Volt is 10 - 34 before a rest.
Blades, Gravity, and Piercing are all 20 TP, so 17 in combination before resting.
Megido is 47 - so, 7 uses before resting.
Looking at my bread-and-butter spells - Flame and Inferno - the Alchemist gets somewhere between 9 and 18 uses of his spells before he's tapped out. The problem is that I'm going to be in many, many, many more than 18 rounds of combat on each trip into the dungeon. Ergo, the Alchemist, on most turns, is not going to be casting anything. Yes, Flaming a badguy will almost certainly kill it in one hit - however, so will two rounds of War Magus / Protector attacking it. The Alchemist, then, is expending a large percentage of his TP in order to save me a couple rounds. Yes, everyone will take more damage, overall, with the WM / P attacking, but the Medic's got some cheap heals for which she'll regen the TP pretty quickly and healing items are cheap as hell from the store.
It's not that Alchemists are bad people, it's just that their schtick - casting offensive, damage-dealing spells - is too expensive for them to do every round or even most rounds, and therefore they spend a lot of time hanging around and making weak autoattacks. They're great panic buttons, and decent against FOEs (assuming you've got the requisite skill points in the appropriate elemental discipline to avoid doing 4 damage with an 18 TP spell), but I wish they had a bit more all-around utility and a bit more dungeon-staying power.
EDIT: You might point out that, for instance, my Medic is also standing around not casting spells for the majority of her combat turns, and so why aren't I complaining about her? This is true. However, my Medic is also passively healing everyone at the end of every battle, saves me thousands of GPs' worth of nectars and return-to-town annoyance over the course of the game, has increased my item drop rate by 41% (or whatever maxed Scavenge gives you), and, if she does need to cast a spell, will regen most or all of those TPs over the course of the next battle (she can cast an 80+ HP cure every round for 20 rounds and be down 20 total TP at the end of it).
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I can't disagree that a goodly portion of the time my A is just swinging a stick, but at 72 mine has something like 530 TP. You can cast a lot of level 2 and 3 spells with 530 TP.
Also my equipment has some consessions to other stats but it looks like I could hit 700 TP no problem if I wanted too...
EDIT: Yep, 700 TP.
Kerykeion
Mobius Alb
Divine Orb x2
of course doing this lowered my max DEF down to a Gunners level...
If I remember correctly, it's a hard cap for the game. Kind of a shame, since it's kind of easy to get there with [strike]reincarnation[/strike] retiring. At least it can free up skill points, hmm?
Also, I took my Alchemist from the start to end of stratum 5, and it worked out just fine. (Haven't played the post-game because I stupidly retired everyone on my team at the same time.)
Not really. I mean, I haven't really used the physical spells much*, but eliminating them will pump 7 skill points into my other spells (3 Str Up, 1 Phys Up, 3 spells). Let's say I dump those into Fire Up (max) and then level up, I dunno, Flame another two times.
There! I'm less spread out, and am now better at Fire spells (uh, I guess they do 5% more damage, or something).
However, my main fire attack spell (Flame) now costs 22 TP, so now I only get 15 per trip into the dungeon. In most cases, the 18 TP version would've killed things in one hit, so I'm really just expending 4 extra TP to achieve the same effect. The ever-helpful GameFAQs says that those two skill points change my damage from 150% to 175%-195%, whatever that means (see earlier complaints about interface impentrability).
Now, later on, the damage difference might mean that I can kill things in one shot instead of two, which will save 14 TP per iteration. But for now, it's actually saving me TP to have a lower-level version.
I've also got onepoint (or a bit) in every spell category specifically so that whenever I come across those "Hit me with Lightning to get a free prize!" enemies I can do it. That's, largely, at least to me, the whole point behind having an alchemist around.
* - I mostly keep these around because they're cheap all-targeting spells, even though they tend to do crappy damage compared with the elemental options.
EDIT: And Warmight works on spells? ... Mutha.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Protector - Ronin
Alchemist - Medic - Hexer
I was considering going with a War Magus instead of the Ronin, so that I could work some synergy with the Hexer, but I decided against it.
Because it's more fun to have a varied team. The issue, though, is that the Alchemist is, most of the time, dead weight that the team is dragging around. I'd like to avoid that, because, to me, it would be more fun.
See also: the Medic, for a way to make dead-weight-most-of-the-time characters into something more useful. Specifically, I'm talking about auto-healing at the end of each battle, damage floor mitigation, increasing item drop rates, etc. Plus, she gets mana regen to help her do her primary oh-shit job for longer periods of time.
If the Alchemist had some other kind of support ability, and a longer endurance, he'd be a better member of the team, too. Instead, every single ability is focused around doing damage with his spells, which he can't even do all that often.
And, to be clear, my "primary" party is War Magus, Protector / Alchemist, Medic, Survivalist. They're, by far, my highest level characters (50-60, with a retirement at 30 in their past). I keep dragging the Alchemist around because I find his abilities useful. That doesn't mean that he couldn't be more useful to the group were his abilities done differently, however.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Oh, and what item does the EO1 complete code (but not the monster index filled) code give you?
LUC is for status hits as you've deduced. Also Crits and I believe running the hell away or something. Mainly status/binds though.
...ok, that would explain why my status attacks never worked. Goosit.
Oooohhhhhhh, okay. No wonder Torpor doesn't work as often as I'd figure it should since it's maxed out. I know how to fix that now.
This is more true for L, G, and R then the rest who probably need to go up their trees a bit first and then double back.
L's will almost always have tons and tons of extra skill points for stats though so yeah, going ten in from the beginning is a great idea.
Str Up increases the damage Gunners do? DOES NOT COMPUTE!
My current line-up is my Protector, Landshark, and Medic, but now I have a Dark Hunter and Hexer in the group. Hexers are fucking AMAZING, why did I hate this class in part one? (okay probably because they sucked) Evil Eye and following up with Suicide is the most pleasing thing I've done in this game. Like when I don't fee like putting up with an enemy, here, you just kill yourself please.
I pumped STR Up on my protector, dark hunter, and landshark when I found how much it was increasing damage by. How does VIT up work in the context of defense? I know that STR Up is more than a single point of damage per point invested.
Damage formulas are extremely complicated, but from what I remember offhand, points in stats on character (STR/VIT) and stats on equipment (ATK/DEF) are all in the damage formula, even though STR itself boosts attack (likewise for VIT and DEF). On-character are quite a bit more valuable than on-equipment, but they're all important. For specifics, you'd likely have to ask some FAQ writers, but it isn't terribly important. VIT doesn't help at all against elemental damage, which many bosses like to throw at your casters in convenient you-lose packages, so HP Up is generally a wiser investment (doubly so if you've got a medic with Salve 3 all up ins).
TEC also effects magic resistance and spell accuracy...but I never remember spells ever really missing. So statwise it is the equivalent of Half of AGI, Magical STR, and Magical VIT, and yet still only one character ever really needs it. The healers heal fine with just skill points, everyone else uses ATK for damage and AGI for accuracy, and the spells that do hit the party usually don't hit hard enough that the resistance bonus would even be noticed.
Would you recommend a full out investment of AGI Up for the non-casters, or just like a 5 point investment?
Landshark 2 hitters
Single Element Gunners
Beasts of all sorts
I don't think any of the rest of the phyiscal classes have a problem with missing. Gunners are the only truely slow miss happy class of that group, and they won't miss much (if ever) if you stick to using TP moves.
It definitely helps 2 hitting LS. Hell if you can afford 10 into STR/LUC and a bunch into AGI you'll have some reliable damage numbers out of those guys.
Anyway, you're better off looking for Terence's stuff on GameFAQS. Guy's torn the game apart and figured out how it works.
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
this is a hilarious sentence
this game is great news, even though I didn't actually play the second
Big problem with that is that they were all board posts; he never made a game mechanics FAQ. But yes, pretty much everything I know about the game is stuff I've forgotten from reading his posts.
2) While waiting, if I can only play one for a variety of uninteresting reasons, should I play Infinite Space or Strange Journey?
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2