So I just got to the second stratum in EO2. Holy shit did the difficulty ramp up here.
How the fuck do I beat those pumpkin bastards? Is it just a matter of getting some levels or is there a trick to beating them? Also, I guess I should either invest in some skills or items for those trap floors on floor 7?
So I just got to the second stratum in EO2. Holy shit did the difficulty ramp up here.
How the fuck do I beat those pumpkin bastards? Is it just a matter of getting some levels or is there a trick to beating them? Also, I guess I should either invest in some skills or items for those trap floors on floor 7?
Volt, Ice, or nonelemental attacks. (Note that Slash/Stab/Bash counts as elemental.)
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
So I definitely heard some of the music from the game. The town music (or, what I suspect is the town music) is definitely chipper and neato.
Edit - Okay now I've heard all the music. I like the battle songs. And in general, a lot of these tracks sound slightly inspired by songs from the first and second game. I mean, I know it's the same composer, but still.
Did a little poking around in the gameFAQs board for this - since it's filed under its romanized name instead of Etrian Odyssey and it is a pretty niche game to begin with, the board isn't all that bad. Some things that stuck out:
Partway through the game, you'll get to unlock one of two additional classes: Shogun (!) and Android (!?!?!?). Shogun character portraits are pretty badass, male and female alike. Androids are kind of... bizarre looking. Seems like you have to choose to have one class or the other, but some screenshots have shown both in the same party, so maybe it is just a matter of choosing which you want first.
Also seems like some ridiculous sub-class possibilities, like Shinobi/Zodiac putting out a constant stream of 1 TP nukes. Didn't mine too deep before I had to leave, though.
So, I've reached the first point in EO2 where I am actively not having fun.
I refer to the first part of the 5th Stratum, where every other enemy and all of the FOEs I've run into have an attack (Scream for Mandragoras, [Whatever]Blade for Deathmen) that can instakill the whole party.
I've wiped ... Hm, 5 times already, and I've explored half of the floor?
Basically, abilities like this suck and developers who put them in their games should be ashamed of themselves.
Cough, cough, this is why A's are worth it in EO II, cough cough.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Cough, cough, this is why A's are worth it in EO II, cough cough.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
My A never had trouble. My inventory would generally fill up before my A came close to running out of TP. Perhaps rebuild your alchemist to be a bit more resource efficient, at least until you hit the sixth stratum?
Had to dig it up because I knew I posted it somewhere before:
So, I just went and fought Artelind and Der Freischutz. The first time I initiated the battle, I was using a Mezzer-based team (statusing everything) and I promptly got creamed. So then I went a switched in a more all-purpose team for the second go, and I promptly got creamed. After analysing how those two fights went, I switched in a defensive/healing-based team focused around outlasting the enemy while I chipped away at their health. I would have won if Melody, my only form of real damage, hadn't ran out of TP for Snipe (Ricochet was too unreliable and wasted too much mana), and me getting stuck in a deadlock since Artelind kept healing. Learning from my mistakes, I then carried a pair of Amritas with me, and won the fight.
After prepping a bit, I went to fight Scylla and promptly got my shit ruined by her Cry Soul attack. However, prior to that she had spammed Tentacle and Lullaby a lot so I switched to a more anti-status team. Got my shit ruined by Cry Soul again. Then I went 'Wait a tick - bringing along a Healer is useless - if she uses Cry Soul I'm OHKO'd anyway.' That I mind, I swapped in a pure DPS team and went to town on Scylla. Then I won.
That's why I love this series. If you're really, really at a loss for how to overcome the challenge, you can always level grind, but with analytical thinking, preparation and tactics you can nearly always succeed in seemingly impossible encounters (and make you feel awesome doing so).
Cough, cough, this is why A's are worth it in EO II, cough cough.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
My A never had trouble. My inventory would generally fill up before my A came close to running out of TP. Perhaps rebuild your alchemist to be a bit more resource efficient, at least until you hit the sixth stratum?
To be clear, I'm not saying that my A is "having trouble" or is useless.
Previously, I was arguing that:
1. Alchemists are very 1-dimensional; all of their abilities revolve around doing spell damage to the enemy (save 1 - Return - which doesn't work reliably).
2. They don't have the TP reserves to do spell damage routinely (e.g., every round), because their abilities are expensive relative to their pool size and they have no way to regenerate TP (unless you've got a War Magus and a Hexer hanging out with them, but that requires two additional characters keeping another one running).
3. They therefore suffer in the vast majority of battles, which EO slants towards autoattacking (especially with the Medic's ability to, essentially, throw out free Cures every round).
Cough, cough, this is why A's are worth it in EO II, cough cough.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
My A never had trouble. My inventory would generally fill up before my A came close to running out of TP. Perhaps rebuild your alchemist to be a bit more resource efficient, at least until you hit the sixth stratum?
To be clear, I'm not saying that my A is "having trouble" or is useless.
Previously, I was arguing that:
1. Alchemists are very 1-dimensional; all of their abilities revolve around doing spell damage to the enemy (save 1 - Return - which doesn't work reliably).
2. They don't have the TP reserves to do spell damage routinely (e.g., every round), because their abilities are expensive relative to their pool size and they have no way to regenerate TP (unless you've got a War Magus and a Hexer hanging out with them, but that requires two additional characters keeping another one running).
3. They therefore suffer in the vast majority of battles, which EO slants towards autoattacking (especially with the Medic's ability to, essentially, throw out free Cures every round).
I still stand by those points.
So, you're saying your A is having trouble.
Point 2: They actually do, if you build their skills up right and exploit weaknesses where appropriate. The ranks of your skills are very probably overkill right now, and you might not have the TP Up skill maxed. If your skills are not overkill, you probably don't have analysis. Give your A's build a look and see where he can be made more efficient.
Cough, cough, this is why A's are worth it in EO II, cough cough.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
My A never had trouble. My inventory would generally fill up before my A came close to running out of TP. Perhaps rebuild your alchemist to be a bit more resource efficient, at least until you hit the sixth stratum?
To be clear, I'm not saying that my A is "having trouble" or is useless.
Previously, I was arguing that:
1. Alchemists are very 1-dimensional; all of their abilities revolve around doing spell damage to the enemy (save 1 - Return - which doesn't work reliably).
2. They don't have the TP reserves to do spell damage routinely (e.g., every round), because their abilities are expensive relative to their pool size and they have no way to regenerate TP (unless you've got a War Magus and a Hexer hanging out with them, but that requires two additional characters keeping another one running).
3. They therefore suffer in the vast majority of battles, which EO slants towards autoattacking (especially with the Medic's ability to, essentially, throw out free Cures every round).
I still stand by those points.
So, you're saying your A is having trouble.
No. Don't fuckin' put words in my mouth and try reading what I actually wrote.
Point 2: They actually do, if you build their skills up right and exploit weaknesses where appropriate. The ranks of your skills are very probably overkill right now, and you might not have the TP Up skill maxed. If your skills are not overkill, you probably don't have analysis. Give your A's build a look and see where he can be made more efficient.
Or, you know, I do have all of that. I've got maxed TP Up and maxed Analaysis.
I'll post my build from earlier; it's largely unchanged from where it was then (he's gone up a couple levels since then, and I've upgraded Megiddo for bosses / FOEs and added more points into the Flame, Fire Up, and Volt Up abilities).
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).
As I added later on in response to other questions, the main "wasted" skill points I've got are in the physical skills. I could dump his three points in Str Up and the three physical spells, but:
1. They're his cheapest multitarget spells, at 20TP apiece
2. Adding those points back into Fire Up, Ice Up, or Volt Up would have a negligible effect on the actual damage done (according to Gamefaqs, 1 skill point = +1% damage)
3. Adding them to a spell would meaningfully increase the damage done, but at the cost of making the spell more expensive (and, therefore, making him less mana efficient given that he's usually one-shotting most things with this spells to begin with)
Posts
Volt, Ice, or nonelemental attacks. (Note that Slash/Stab/Bash counts as elemental.)
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I mean, ocean travel, new classes, local multi, group limit breaks isn't enough info for you?
TBH nothing but the actual localized game in my hands will be enough.
I'm just waiting for the Amazon leak. C'mon Amazon.
Also that's the only van I would enter if promised candy.
Edit - Okay now I've heard all the music. I like the battle songs. And in general, a lot of these tracks sound slightly inspired by songs from the first and second game. I mean, I know it's the same composer, but still.
Also seems like some ridiculous sub-class possibilities, like Shinobi/Zodiac putting out a constant stream of 1 TP nukes. Didn't mine too deep before I had to leave, though.
I uploaded all the EO3 music via youtube if anyone's interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dV_jd1KwKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E2M_fLzom8
full playlist here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=284C7CC46A7EDE4C
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
Trying to give the music a listening to, Pureauthor?
*nudge nudge*
Hey.
Hey.
Wanna hear the FOE music?
What the what? What am I supposed to have said?
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Thanks, Sollah!
It's in the Trauma Team thread.
Something like me asking you to nod if you were in the middle of translating it right now, and then you said something else.
It's a joke, you didn't say anything. Everyone knows Amazon is the goto source for Atlus USA leaks.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
So, I've reached the first point in EO2 where I am actively not having fun.
I refer to the first part of the 5th Stratum, where every other enemy and all of the FOEs I've run into have an attack (Scream for Mandragoras, [Whatever]Blade for Deathmen) that can instakill the whole party.
I've wiped ... Hm, 5 times already, and I've explored half of the floor?
Basically, abilities like this suck and developers who put them in their games should be ashamed of themselves.
Any news on EO3?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Part 2 that is. Hopefully part 3 doesn't have it.
That's right. And he can wipe out, oh, I dunno, three or four Mandrakes at once - if they all show up at the same time and if he actually manages to get the spell off before they scream.
But, since they tend to show up one or two at a time, he's spending about 18-20MP per to kill them (20 if he Flames one to death, 36 / 2 if he Infernos two). That means he can do, oh, 10 battles? ... before it's time to go back to town.
Again, assuming he gets the spell off before the mandrake screams and wipes out half the party / deathman attacks.
Also, "He really comes into his own once you've beaten 80% of the game!" is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
My A never had trouble. My inventory would generally fill up before my A came close to running out of TP. Perhaps rebuild your alchemist to be a bit more resource efficient, at least until you hit the sixth stratum?
Shouldn't you be able to buy some TP restoring items at this point in the game?
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
After prepping a bit, I went to fight Scylla and promptly got my shit ruined by her Cry Soul attack. However, prior to that she had spammed Tentacle and Lullaby a lot so I switched to a more anti-status team. Got my shit ruined by Cry Soul again. Then I went 'Wait a tick - bringing along a Healer is useless - if she uses Cry Soul I'm OHKO'd anyway.' That I mind, I swapped in a pure DPS team and went to town on Scylla. Then I won.
I love this game.
Platinum FC: 2880 3245 5111
To be clear, I'm not saying that my A is "having trouble" or is useless.
Previously, I was arguing that:
1. Alchemists are very 1-dimensional; all of their abilities revolve around doing spell damage to the enemy (save 1 - Return - which doesn't work reliably).
2. They don't have the TP reserves to do spell damage routinely (e.g., every round), because their abilities are expensive relative to their pool size and they have no way to regenerate TP (unless you've got a War Magus and a Hexer hanging out with them, but that requires two additional characters keeping another one running).
3. They therefore suffer in the vast majority of battles, which EO slants towards autoattacking (especially with the Medic's ability to, essentially, throw out free Cures every round).
I still stand by those points.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
So, you're saying your A is having trouble.
Point 2: They actually do, if you build their skills up right and exploit weaknesses where appropriate. The ranks of your skills are very probably overkill right now, and you might not have the TP Up skill maxed. If your skills are not overkill, you probably don't have analysis. Give your A's build a look and see where he can be made more efficient.
No. Don't fuckin' put words in my mouth and try reading what I actually wrote.
Or, you know, I do have all of that. I've got maxed TP Up and maxed Analaysis.
I'll post my build from earlier; it's largely unchanged from where it was then (he's gone up a couple levels since then, and I've upgraded Megiddo for bosses / FOEs and added more points into the Flame, Fire Up, and Volt Up abilities).
As I added later on in response to other questions, the main "wasted" skill points I've got are in the physical skills. I could dump his three points in Str Up and the three physical spells, but:
1. They're his cheapest multitarget spells, at 20TP apiece
2. Adding those points back into Fire Up, Ice Up, or Volt Up would have a negligible effect on the actual damage done (according to Gamefaqs, 1 skill point = +1% damage)
3. Adding them to a spell would meaningfully increase the damage done, but at the cost of making the spell more expensive (and, therefore, making him less mana efficient given that he's usually one-shotting most things with this spells to begin with)
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]