An Alchemist over the Dark Hunter or the Troubadour would probably make the early game a LOT easier for you. My impression is that Dark Hunters take a while to get going, and in the meantime, you're lacking in offense. Troubadours also take quite a while to get going. You may be better off going with some combination of Alchemists and Survivors for those spots and then training up a Troubadour and a Dark Hunter once you hit the second strata and can get them up to levels at which they'd be useful much more quickly.
DH and Troubadour are utility laden, and like most utility classes in most games, don't really shine until you get enough skills to really get synergies going. Starting out, pure damage will get you more experience faster, and therefore get you to a point where you can powerlevel a Dark Hunter and a Troubadour faster than if you had tried to start out with the D and T.
(I started out PLAAM, then switched to PLATM around BF 3 or 4, but in hindsight it would have been easier waiting to do so until I got to BF6)
Am now thinking that PMAAT might be fun to play with on my game. Or even just PMA for quick powerleveling... The alchemist can wipe most regular enemies pretty quickly if it's either poison susceptible or weak to lightning (even with only 1 point in Bolt and Thor, it tends to one shot the weak to lightning critters - a pretty good argument for throwing min points in all elements on an A early), and TP isn't a problem on BF8 with the restore spring. It would probably get my PMA up to some decent levels pretty fast, and I could do the five day challenge at the same time... Hmm...
EDIT2: I love how this game encourages you to optimize your party for specific areas by making it pretty easy to catch new chars up/retire and reroll/etc. Has that dynamic that Pokemon has of being able to level up spare characters for specific tasks and mix and match your party.
Well I took the plunge to the 5th level, and a party of now 15s are sitting in an area having just fought a Skoll, who I could probably take 2 or 3 of before resting. Do I need to keep
heading back to the healing Hexer
between every 2 battles here, or is there some sort of spring or something nearby?
Well I took the plunge to the 5th level, and a party of now 15s are sitting in an area having just fought a Skoll, who I could probably take 2 or 3 of before resting. Do I need to keep
heading back to the healing Hexer
between every 2 battles here, or is there some sort of spring or something nearby?
Hey i'm there too now.. My parties lvl 13ish i believe, i took out all the skolls around fenrir no problem (thank god I got defender as high as possible as quickly as possible on my protector) and then fenrir proceeded to 1 hit kill a party member a turn, while i vainly tried to run away I've been running back to the
hexer
, havent found anything else between her and level 5..
Something thats really driving me crazy is my protector is doing over twice the damage of anyone else in my party (exluding alchemist) because he has a weapon that does over twice as much damage as everyone elses..its like swords are falling out of the woodwork but a new bow or whip? no way in hell
Well I took the plunge to the 5th level, and a party of now 15s are sitting in an area having just fought a Skoll, who I could probably take 2 or 3 of before resting. Do I need to keep
heading back to the healing Hexer
between every 2 battles here, or is there some sort of spring or something nearby?
There is no other healing spring nearby, but there is a shortcut to open up on BF5 that'll save you a lot of time getting from the stairs to the boss. In general, a lot of floors have hidden shortcuts, so checking all the walls as you explore the first time is advisable.
Well I took the plunge to the 5th level, and a party of now 15s are sitting in an area having just fought a Skoll, who I could probably take 2 or 3 of before resting. Do I need to keep
heading back to the healing Hexer
between every 2 battles here, or is there some sort of spring or something nearby?
There is no other healing spring nearby, but there is a shortcut to open up on BF5 that'll save you a lot of time getting from the stairs to the boss. In general, a lot of floors have hidden shortcuts, so checking all the walls as you explore the first time is advisable.
Often, secret doors are exactly where you would want them to be.
There are also some secret doors that only appear later. Did anyone manage to find the hidden section of B1F by themselves (I didn't)?
So now that I've unlocked the 6th floor I'm contemplating what I'm going to do with the party.
When I have all the classes, I'm either going to have an Ecstasy-rush party (PDTHM) or a mad DPS party (PRLTM). Any thoughts on either? For the Ecstasy rush, I'd just use a whip-D and a H to rush binds and pop ecstasy, with a DPS party I'd respec my Landshark swords, go elemental songs on the Troubadour, and serenade the Ronin's blade. I'm leaning towards the latter right now, if only because the damage wouldn't be nearly so situational and it wouldn't all hinge so absolutely on the Dark Hunter being alive.
I'm a little wary of swapping my A for a T, though, because as it stands right now, the A is the heavy hitter on my team. Period. Crush/Stunner can sometimes hit for ~60, while Flame hits for about 150-200. I understand T buffs are awesome, but I don't think I could recoup that lost damage at this point.
Finally went through a bit of the thread...I'm very conflicted. I'm gonna stick with this team until I've unlocked Hexer, then probably retire all but the Medic and the Protector, and turn my D into a H, my A into a T, and my L into an R. Probably.
I'm thinking of making a PMA group to level up a bit. Then add on others when I'm at a better place for xp with better equips. But first I want to plan out my final team and what stats they want to be retied from.
which means you got hit (with healing) thus setting off the chance of the status effect (poison/death/disabled, etc)
Emphasize that you *never* want more than 5 points in the Protector's anti-Element skills. At 6+, any secondary effects from an enemy's elemental attack (such as Drake's insta-kill) can affect your characters, even if they're healed. At level 5, though, the attacks are completely nullified, including secondary effects. Also, the anti-Element skills are *essential* against optional bosses in the post-game, but kinda useless until then. Definitely save those skills for last (but get all three, and all at lvl 5).
Gamefaqs(lol) mentioned how level 5 anti- is better than level 6. That's all I thought was important enough to remember.
Level 5 completely negates the effect of the attack. Level 6+ absorbs some of the effect's damage as healing.
There's a reason for keeping it at five other than that though - with a negation, any side effect of the attack (% chance of instant death, whatever) is also negated - if the attack is absorbed, the side effect can still happen (and is still a bad thing).
P: Defender, and the three level 5 antis (someone want to elaborate how level 5 is better than level 10?)
M: Immunize
The rest is about how you want to destroy the enemy.
Second Tier (hahah fighting game tiers lawls) would include:
S: 1st turn. and a bajillion other utility skills
T: Divinity and relaxing
The rest are third tier in terms of absolute need in party.
For an alternate perspective on the "requirements", I haven't had a Protector in my party since floor 6, and I swapped out the Survivalist for a Troubrador at 11, so you can definitely do without either of those (granted, Protectors become a necessity again for the post-game). Ultimately, the Protector's damage is sub-par, and Defender is outclassed by Immunity once you have that at rank 10. I swapped mine out for a Dark Hunter early on, and a Ronin later on once that became available.
Losing the Survivalist hurts you by losing First Turn and Multihit/Apollon, but the Ronin will make up for the damage output, and while First Turn is helpful it is not strictly necessary. Troubradors seem like a poor replacement at first - they defintely suck at low levels because all their abilities are percent-based, but they really shine later on. Once you get Relaxing maxxed, you won't have to worry about your TP - just hole up for a few rounds and you'll recharge, and at higher levels your TP will recharge so fast your other characters can liberally spam their best attacks basically for free. The Troubrador has a few other abilities that are quite useful as well: Healing (12.5% healing/turn regen), Divinity (30% XP bonus), Erasure (remove enemy's buffs), Stamina (combo's with Hexer's Revenge), etc. And while their damage isn't great they can use bows, so they're not totally gimped from the back row.
Anyway, there are plenty of ways to approach the game, and I think the only truly "required" class is the Medic. Once you get to floor 11 you can powerlevel new characters very quickly, so feel free to experiment a bit and find what party combo works best for you. Also, if you plan on getting all of the rare drops you're pretty much going to need at least one of each class anyway, so that is another reason to experiment.
Reading the stat descriptions in the OP, it looks like every class should just get TEC, since it increases skill damage. Unless you want them to all have LUC for item hunting.
do the 3 stat points even make a difference? Think they scale as you level up?
"Wow, these random encounters are kind of tough, but the game is really fun! I'll bet I just need to get some skill points and everything will be fine."
*5 minutes later I get an option to rest among flowers, which summons a pack of venomflies that 1-shots my entire party*
Well, no, I think that apart from that one they're pretty safe. But, y'know, always be prepared. Make sure to always keep enough TP for a big fight when exploring, 'cause you never know when you'll have one. That sort of thing.
EDIT: Oh, and always have two Warp wires. The second is if you forget to buy another one and leave.
Heh, I think that happened to everyone. Just a reminder from the game to stay on your toes!
I loved that part. It was very much a statement on the developers part. Made me more hyped to start over than I had been to go into the Labyrinth in the first place.
Heh, I think that happened to everyone. Just a reminder from the game to stay on your toes!
I loved that part. It was very much a statement on the developers part. Made me more hyped to start over than I had been to go into the Labyrinth in the first place.
I laid the smack down on those venom flies.....ok..they killed everyone but my protector...but he won damnit! I actually kinda hate my protector now, he's always the soul survivor of horrible encounters since nothing seems to be able to kill him, and then i never have enough money to res my party so i need to spend the next 20 minutes or so farming wood
Also, finally on the 6th floor onwards my DH has finally come into her own, foes can't do much when they're cuffed, gagged and shackled in the first three turns. I have to admit i was starting to think you guys were lying bastards with the "Dark Hunters are just late bloomers" and it would suck forever
According to gamefaqs, AGI is for evade rate and turn order while STR is for weapon damage.
Reading the stat descriptions in the OP, it looks like every class should just get TEC, since it increases skill damage. Unless you want them to all have LUC for item hunting.
I was under the impression that for some of the melee-based skills your base weapon attack and STR play into it as well. For example, my Ronin's Midareba sure improved at lot once I got the Ant Jaw katana.
do the 3 stat points even make a difference? Think they scale as you level up?
Dunno about this one... Seems like the main benefit to retiring characters is for the bonus skill points.
I went with my idea of PM+Damage, and used a suggestion from gamefaqs to make an Alchemist with 1 toxins/10 poisons.
255 damage per turn on FOE's at level 8? k.
Tore up everything on the way down to fenrir. Since it's a new character she ran out of tp constantly. And less people and no AoE makes battles a little more annoying. But FOEs are a breeze.
So what's the alchemist's AoE attack? I know it's two Single Target and one AoE, but which is it? The one that needs 5 xUP only? Or the one that needs the first tier spell as well?
Lost track of time and played till like 1 AM last night. Up to level 8 and cruising around the 2nd floor, hunting the FOEs. Good times. I'm running a PLSAM because I'm boring and I heard the game is hard. Maybe I'll switch it up when I get used to the battle system a bit more.
Man I'm doing the 5-day quest now...my Dark Hunter is tearing shit UP. He hits for more than my Landsknecht or my Protector (can one-hit anything) and mad-bindz, yo. Even managed to get an Ecstasy off on a Cutter last level - 300 dmg, not bad for a first-level ability.
Well this game sure doesn't pull any punches does it?
Just cleared B10F and:
Was kicking the final bosses arse all over the place. Then on the second last round he used his 'insta-death' spell on my survivalist. My jaw dropped and I'm sure I let out an expletive or two. It didn't affect the outcome of the battle, but it did rob her out of 5000 exp.
I just did the Wyvern's Egg quest, spoilers abound, though they'll be very, very helpful if you haven't done it. But still, spoilers.
So I after finishing the Explorer's Guild trial or w/e, I run to the field, save, turn around and head back down to B8F. Pop into the Wyvern's Lair, try fighting him, after a full unload see no difference in health and escape. I discover he misses a step during random encounters, so I use that to sneak by him. Grab, the egg, turn around, and he's in the horizontal bar of floor right above me. No matter where I go, I can either delay or fight him...and fighting doesn't work so well, and escapes just push me back a square. And I'm out of Warp Wires. After about 10 minutes of trying everything I can think of, I reset, go to town, buy a Warp Wire, and do it again, only after grabbing the egg I just leave. Wasn't terrible, I guess, but damn.
I just did the Wyvern's Egg quest, spoilers abound, though they'll be very, very helpful if you haven't done it. But still, spoilers.
So I after finishing the Explorer's Guild trial or w/e, I run to the field, save, turn around and head back down to B8F. Pop into the Wyvern's Lair, try fighting him, after a full unload see no difference in health and escape. I discover he misses a step during random encounters, so I use that to sneak by him. Grab, the egg, turn around, and he's in the horizontal bar of floor right above me. No matter where I go, I can either delay or fight him...and fighting doesn't work so well, and escapes just push me back a square. And I'm out of Warp Wires. After about 10 minutes of trying everything I can think of, I reset, go to town, buy a Warp Wire, and do it again, only after grabbing the egg I just leave. Wasn't terrible, I guess, but damn.
Re: Wyvern. I don't know if you've realised this by this point but I'll post it anyway.
Did you notice that the wyvern keeps turning on the spot? The way that part works is that you can stay behind him (as in make sure his little arrow never points towards you) and he won't agro.
So rather than trying to get into random encounters, you can go around him clockwise and he'll be none the wiser!
I just did the Wyvern's Egg quest, spoilers abound, though they'll be very, very helpful if you haven't done it. But still, spoilers.
So I after finishing the Explorer's Guild trial or w/e, I run to the field, save, turn around and head back down to B8F. Pop into the Wyvern's Lair, try fighting him, after a full unload see no difference in health and escape. I discover he misses a step during random encounters, so I use that to sneak by him. Grab, the egg, turn around, and he's in the horizontal bar of floor right above me. No matter where I go, I can either delay or fight him...and fighting doesn't work so well, and escapes just push me back a square. And I'm out of Warp Wires. After about 10 minutes of trying everything I can think of, I reset, go to town, buy a Warp Wire, and do it again, only after grabbing the egg I just leave. Wasn't terrible, I guess, but damn.
Re: Wyvern. I don't know if you've realised this by this point but I'll post it anyway.
Did you notice that the wyvern keeps turning on the spot? The way that part works is that you can stay behind him (as in make sure his little arrow never points towards you) and he won't agro.
So rather than trying to get into random encounters, you can go around him clockwise and he'll be none the wiser!
Speaking of, I finally killed the bastard yesterday and he didn't drop anything (I know he does, I was just unlucky), but I didn't know he's worth 0XP. Wow, that was a waste of time. :x
Darmak on
0
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited July 2007
My favorite parts of exploring the Labyrinth are the narrations. They really make it feel more alive.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen nearly as much of it in the Second Stratum as I did in B1F.
So did anyone else follow the Norse theme when naming their dudes? I called my guild Ratatosk after I found out the labyrinth was called Yggdrasil, and all my party members except for my dedicated lumberjacks are named after Norse gods.
Posts
An Alchemist over the Dark Hunter or the Troubadour would probably make the early game a LOT easier for you. My impression is that Dark Hunters take a while to get going, and in the meantime, you're lacking in offense. Troubadours also take quite a while to get going. You may be better off going with some combination of Alchemists and Survivors for those spots and then training up a Troubadour and a Dark Hunter once you hit the second strata and can get them up to levels at which they'd be useful much more quickly.
DH and Troubadour are utility laden, and like most utility classes in most games, don't really shine until you get enough skills to really get synergies going. Starting out, pure damage will get you more experience faster, and therefore get you to a point where you can powerlevel a Dark Hunter and a Troubadour faster than if you had tried to start out with the D and T.
(I started out PLAAM, then switched to PLATM around BF 3 or 4, but in hindsight it would have been easier waiting to do so until I got to BF6)
Am now thinking that PMAAT might be fun to play with on my game. Or even just PMA for quick powerleveling... The alchemist can wipe most regular enemies pretty quickly if it's either poison susceptible or weak to lightning (even with only 1 point in Bolt and Thor, it tends to one shot the weak to lightning critters - a pretty good argument for throwing min points in all elements on an A early), and TP isn't a problem on BF8 with the restore spring. It would probably get my PMA up to some decent levels pretty fast, and I could do the five day challenge at the same time... Hmm...
EDIT2: I love how this game encourages you to optimize your party for specific areas by making it pretty easy to catch new chars up/retire and reroll/etc. Has that dynamic that Pokemon has of being able to level up spare characters for specific tasks and mix and match your party.
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
between every 2 battles here, or is there some sort of spring or something nearby?
Hey i'm there too now.. My parties lvl 13ish i believe, i took out all the skolls around fenrir no problem (thank god I got defender as high as possible as quickly as possible on my protector) and then fenrir proceeded to 1 hit kill a party member a turn, while i vainly tried to run away
Something thats really driving me crazy is my protector is doing over twice the damage of anyone else in my party (exluding alchemist) because he has a weapon that does over twice as much damage as everyone elses..its like swords are falling out of the woodwork but a new bow or whip? no way in hell
There is no other healing spring nearby, but there is a shortcut to open up on BF5 that'll save you a lot of time getting from the stairs to the boss. In general, a lot of floors have hidden shortcuts, so checking all the walls as you explore the first time is advisable.
A fully boosted party of 16s.
Fenrir went down like a bitch.
My Alchemists first boosted Flame hit for just over 300 =P.
Often, secret doors are exactly where you would want them to be.
There are also some secret doors that only appear later. Did anyone manage to find the hidden section of B1F by themselves (I didn't)?
When I have all the classes, I'm either going to have an Ecstasy-rush party (PDTHM) or a mad DPS party (PRLTM). Any thoughts on either? For the Ecstasy rush, I'd just use a whip-D and a H to rush binds and pop ecstasy, with a DPS party I'd respec my Landshark swords, go elemental songs on the Troubadour, and serenade the Ronin's blade. I'm leaning towards the latter right now, if only because the damage wouldn't be nearly so situational and it wouldn't all hinge so absolutely on the Dark Hunter being alive.
P: Defender, and the three level 5 antis (someone want to elaborate how level 5 is better than level 10?)
M: Immunize
The rest is about how you want to destroy the enemy.
Second Tier (hahah fighting game tiers lawls) would include:
S: 1st turn. and a bajillion other utility skills
T: Divinity and relaxing
The rest are third tier in terms of absolute need in party.
Finally went through a bit of the thread...I'm very conflicted. I'm gonna stick with this team until I've unlocked Hexer, then probably retire all but the Medic and the Protector, and turn my D into a H, my A into a T, and my L into an R. Probably.
Any ideas what stats are best for retiring into?
Level 5 completely negates the effect of the attack. Level 6+ absorbs some of the effect's damage as healing.
There's a reason for keeping it at five other than that though - with a negation, any side effect of the attack (% chance of instant death, whatever) is also negated - if the attack is absorbed, the side effect can still happen (and is still a bad thing).
You just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake
Shiren FC: 3093-6912-1542
Losing the Survivalist hurts you by losing First Turn and Multihit/Apollon, but the Ronin will make up for the damage output, and while First Turn is helpful it is not strictly necessary. Troubradors seem like a poor replacement at first - they defintely suck at low levels because all their abilities are percent-based, but they really shine later on. Once you get Relaxing maxxed, you won't have to worry about your TP - just hole up for a few rounds and you'll recharge, and at higher levels your TP will recharge so fast your other characters can liberally spam their best attacks basically for free. The Troubrador has a few other abilities that are quite useful as well: Healing (12.5% healing/turn regen), Divinity (30% XP bonus), Erasure (remove enemy's buffs), Stamina (combo's with Hexer's Revenge), etc. And while their damage isn't great they can use bows, so they're not totally gimped from the back row.
Anyway, there are plenty of ways to approach the game, and I think the only truly "required" class is the Medic. Once you get to floor 11 you can powerlevel new characters very quickly, so feel free to experiment a bit and find what party combo works best for you. Also, if you plan on getting all of the rare drops you're pretty much going to need at least one of each class anyway, so that is another reason to experiment.
Reading the stat descriptions in the OP, it looks like every class should just get TEC, since it increases skill damage. Unless you want them to all have LUC for item hunting.
do the 3 stat points even make a difference? Think they scale as you level up?
"Hey, this game is awesome!"
*I start exploring the labyrinth.*
"Wow, these random encounters are kind of tough, but the game is really fun! I'll bet I just need to get some skill points and everything will be fine."
*5 minutes later I get an option to rest among flowers, which summons a pack of venomflies that 1-shots my entire party*
"..."
...So there are context options you're just not supposed to take?
EDIT: Oh, and always have two Warp wires. The second is if you forget to buy another one and leave.
It made me want to throw my DS. =P
I think I made the right choice
Also, finally on the 6th floor onwards my DH has finally come into her own, foes can't do much when they're cuffed, gagged and shackled in the first three turns. I have to admit i was starting to think you guys were lying bastards with the "Dark Hunters are just late bloomers" and it would suck forever
255 damage per turn on FOE's at level 8? k.
Tore up everything on the way down to fenrir. Since it's a new character she ran out of tp constantly. And less people and no AoE makes battles a little more annoying. But FOEs are a breeze.
So what's the alchemist's AoE attack? I know it's two Single Target and one AoE, but which is it? The one that needs 5 xUP only? Or the one that needs the first tier spell as well?
_ up
weak, cheap single attack
strong, expensive single attack
expensive AoE attack.
Inferno, Cocytus and Thor (and Venom) are a the AoEs.
Just cleared B10F and:
I just did the Wyvern's Egg quest, spoilers abound, though they'll be very, very helpful if you haven't done it. But still, spoilers.
So rather than trying to get into random encounters, you can go around him clockwise and he'll be none the wiser!
Unfortunately, I haven't seen nearly as much of it in the Second Stratum as I did in B1F.