Author Topic: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.  (Read 689445 times)

Ultradude

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5500 on: October 31, 2009, 03:27:40 PM »
Use whoever. FE8 is piss easy. Seth can still practically solo maps even when your other guys are catching up to his levels.

Oh, and promote Neimi to Ranger, so you can realize why you were using her a lot. She ends up a lot like Sue if you've played 6.
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Jo'ou Ranbu

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5501 on: October 31, 2009, 04:07:21 PM »
Oh, and promote Neimi to Ranger, so you can realize why you were using her a lot. She ends up a lot like Sue if you've played 6.

Having the goddamned best support in the game from the minute you get her and the awesome stat spread aren't enough? I mean, Neimi does start off kinda slow, but that fixes itself pretty fast and the support mitigates that a deal given how braindead easy, fast and good it is.
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> HEY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> LAGGY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> UVIET?!??!?!
[01:08] <Laggy> YA!!!!!!!!!1111111111
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> OMG!!!!
[01:08] <Chulianne> No wonder you're small.
[01:08] <TranceHime> cocks
[01:08] <Laggy> .....

Ultradude

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5502 on: October 31, 2009, 07:54:30 PM »
Well the stat spread doesn't matter as much if she's a Sniper. Because, you know, Snipers in FE.

The support... uh, he didn't mention Colm so I forgot?
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Anthony Edward Stark

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5503 on: October 31, 2009, 07:55:22 PM »
I seem to recall having Gerik and Joshua tag team that game in to the ground. Gerik was kind of rediculous, armored like a Knight and dodging like a swordsman.

Meeplelard

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5504 on: October 31, 2009, 08:16:53 PM »
Thing about Colm is...why WOULDN'T you use him?  He's literally your only thief until Rennac joins, and Rogue Colm is clearly superior to Rennac (DESPITE GODLIKE RES!!!), let alone a decent PC in his own right.  If you have any experience in an FE, just knowing to have a thief handy on utility is a good thing, and frankly, I just figured "use Colm", at least for a first play through, was a given.

I'm betting Snow was thinking along the same lines.
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Jo'ou Ranbu

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5505 on: October 31, 2009, 08:49:17 PM »
Doesn't hurt that Colm is one of the high-tier PCs in the game and quite possibly the best Thief in the series up to then to begin with.
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> HEY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> LAGGY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> UVIET?!??!?!
[01:08] <Laggy> YA!!!!!!!!!1111111111
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> OMG!!!!
[01:08] <Chulianne> No wonder you're small.
[01:08] <TranceHime> cocks
[01:08] <Laggy> .....

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5506 on: October 31, 2009, 08:57:40 PM »
Doesn't hurt that Colm is one of the high-tier PCs in the game and quite possibly the best Thief in the series up to then to begin with.

Just to be clear that qualifiers are not necessary here.

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Niu

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5507 on: October 31, 2009, 09:38:58 PM »
ToV- What's wrong with that defense on Unknown Spiral Draco??? Okay, guess breaking the record time on killing this thing might not be as easy. The combination trick only works on one target a time..... This call for 99 Limit Bottle and spam Zankantou until it is dead.

Jo'ou Ranbu

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5508 on: October 31, 2009, 10:41:13 PM »
Doesn't hurt that Colm is one of the high-tier PCs in the game and quite possibly the best Thief in the series up to then to begin with.

Just to be clear that qualifiers are not necessary here.

G3 - Beat! Mega-post coming soon.

IF I HAD PLAYED FE9 AND 10 I WOULD KNOW THAT OKAY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> HEY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> LAGGY
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> UVIET?!??!?!
[01:08] <Laggy> YA!!!!!!!!!1111111111
[01:08] <Soppy-ReturningToInaba> OMG!!!!
[01:08] <Chulianne> No wonder you're small.
[01:08] <TranceHime> cocks
[01:08] <Laggy> .....

Meeplelard

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5509 on: October 31, 2009, 10:56:51 PM »
Well, FE9, Thieves were condemned to suck (relative to Colm) on grounds that their best weapon was like 8 Might (granted, I think it gets double Might against Armored units...which makes it on par with a Silver Weapon AGAINST SPECIFIC ENEMIES!) Volke's good for an evasion tank and such, mind, and usual thief benefits, so he's still a fine utility, and worthwhile PC, but  Colm is basically him with a Non-Joke weapon class, thus superior by default.
Sothe...doesn't promote, do I have explain anything from here?

FE10...well, Heather is pretty awful combat PC; she really can't do damage at all.  Sothe's a Jeigan, and...pretty text book one at that.  No, he's not completely worthless end game like the earlier ones are, but he's certainly subpar end game...which is insulting cause he's required -_-
Volke is a totally different class entirely and thus doesn't count here!
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Dark Holy Elf

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5510 on: October 31, 2009, 10:59:23 PM »
FE10 Sothe certainly ends up worse than Seth (let alone Titania). He's honestly, probably closest to FE7 Marcus. Maybe a bit better? But not much. Though yes, awesome for a while due to Jeiganness and then Beast Killer, so it's not until Part 4 that the cracks really appear.


Grandia 3: LOVE IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END. ALL LOVE BRINGS PAIN. ONLY WHEN ALL LOVE IS DESTROYED CAN MY WORLD BE BORN.

This is the last arc. Increasingly, the gloves are coming off. Setup doesn't change too much from before, though... maybe switch in some Water Mastery here and there, since a new attack spell is about to dominate. Also, Hect picks up the Expert Book so she can now use Perception along with her Body+Mind setup.

Let's talk enemies. First off, some amendments to the previous post. Omega Vulcan does NOT cancel, which means Pico Omegas just suck. What happened, little verse realm dudes? You were scary bastards back in the Silver Stream/Eternal Corridor.

So, new folks:

Gigas Omega - I mentioned these guys being summoned by Omega Breed. They're pretty rare as randoms, existing only in the last gasp of the Xorn Shell (after killing the second Omega Breed) and in the final room. They have a respectable HP score, and lack the trademark fire weakness of Verse enemies. They mainly use cancelling physicals, which are pretty potent for wussy ol' physicals. They also have Morgenstern, which hits everyone around them for 4HKOish damage and cancels. Rarely they'll cast Wow. Not terrible, but not too impressive either.

Calibus (2 resets) - I hate these guys so much. 3000 HP isn't much, but they're fast, and their money attack, Buster Horn, is even moreso, and it does 2100 damage. Insanity. They also have Dynamic Dawn, which is about 900 GT damage and isn't quite as fast. Much less scary. Unfortunately they far prefer Buster Horn and ALWAYS use it first turn. The first time I fight two at once, and the first time I fight three, are good for resets. Absolute Zero'ing a group of them while Hect cancels is the way to go. Being caught without Hect SP is very bad news.

Demon Lord - Y'know, I'm not sure I ever see these guys get a turn. I don't have to, I know what they do: Ba-Boom for low 4-digit damage. Nobody wants to see that, especially given that elemental damage is almost non-existant here otherwise so I'm not actually guarding it. Fortunately, Absolute Zero overkills.

Lucky Mink - I actually manage to kill one this time! Turns out just nailing them with Galactic Bang and Heaven's Gate does it, with a lot of luck. It's also a waste of MP, but it's fun, the one time I do it.

Burnblaze, Hellburner, Boomor, and occasionally Ba-Boom still shine here at taking out the swarms, which generally are made up of the three enemies from earlier in the dungeon (Pico, Aton, Zeptol). Absolute Zero comes out against the stronger enemies. Absolute Zero + ambush = dead any party with less than 4000 HP (since they start bunched up) providing Hect cancels anyone particularly speedy. Nobody for much of this dungeon has more than 4000 HP!

Which brings us to... the hallway of pain. Game calls it the Cursed Tower, but it's not especially tower-like. It's where La-Ilim got owned, and La-Ilim wishes he was half as competent as these guys.

There are three main fights here, represented by two Excises and a Gigas, on the field. There are also two Demon Lord fights that spawn eternally, one from each side. These fights are important enough to describe separately. Also, every single fight here MUST BE AMBUSHED AT ALL COSTS. Not because of the initiative boost, but because the enemies really need to start together (Astraea Zap just isn't good enough). I run away if I fail to do so. Fortunately the G3 run command is really good.

New skill setups: Hect loses Revenge, gets Verse Hunter and Berserker. Dahna gets the skill which blocks IP damage regardless of skill level.

Let's review the two new opponents, here. They're the two best randoms in the game, assuming you don't scale up the rest. Even if you do, they don't put up a bad fight.

Excise Sigma -

Damn right I'm bolding him. At 11500 HP it has less HP than its Excise Psi counterpart, unscaled, though it trades away the fire weakness. The damage is better unscaled, but not by much. Raw damage isn't this guy's job, not that he's bad at it. His job is to act with super speed (3x-ish), have minimal charge on almost all his actions, and be a general nuisance. What they do...

Attack: Cancels, 350 damage or so. Evadable! Quick hit.
Deadly Drive: The favourite attack, resembles Pluto Killer. Same massive IP damage, cancels because why the fuck not, 1200 damage or so.
Nail Crush: 650 or so damage to a fan. Their slowest attack. Not too scary.
Dark Mist: 800 or so GT non-elemental magic damage, decent IP damage.
Dark Force: 1400 ST non-elemental magic damage, high IP damage. Mercifully, this is low HP only.

Okay, that's pretty competent, but nothing toooo special by G3 standards. What makes him special is something else. You'll notice I mentioned he spends very little time charging in general. Unfortunately, whenever he ISN'T either charging, or being beaten around by attacks (he has ~50% evasion), i.e. whenever he can evade normally, he will respond to any attack which targets him with Auto-Cancel, which... does what it sounds like. It cancels the attack, and does the same ~350 damage as the physical. As if THAT isn't enough, any MP/SP you use on the attack is flushed down the drain (really sucks if you used Armageddon!). Basically, this makes him a cheap whore who can basically shrug off almost any attempt to competently damage him.

Auto-Cancel has three weaknesses, and exploiting these is essential. The first is that GT attacks aimed at someone BESIDES the Excise, he can't cancel, and he can still be hit by them. Absolute Zero is my friend. The second is that Auto-Cancel doesn't deal with the basic combos and criticals (although evade does), so you can lead with those to both do some damage AND tie him up, and while he is tied up in his flinch animation, he can't auto-cancel anything the other PC does. Third, if I can anticipate exactly when he'll be charging, I can unleash a spell that resolves in the middle of his charge time... he can't cancel those. Given the quick charge times, this is very tricky.

He is vulnerable to IP damage, and being stunned momentarily by Verse Hunter's weakness-hitting. Hence the above Hect setup. It's one of the only weapons I have against him.

Finally, there is multitarget damage. This... sometimes works. Near as I can tell, multitarget damage works for you like it does for the enemy: it technically takes a target, randomly chosen. If it's the Excise, he can cancel it. This makes MT damage very risky, and impossible once he's alone.

Side note, he can Auto-Cancel against a Revenge counter. That's just cheap.

Last Keeper -

In some ways, he's less obviously impressive than the Excise. None of that cancelling junk. HP is merely respectable at 7200. Speed is "only" about double average. But in his own way, he's at least as nasty.

I mentioned before that Excise Sigma's job isn't to do damage. That responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of this guy. His attacks...

Power Slam: Cancels, 1500 damage to one, quick to charge. Almost always uses this, except for the first turn, and right after you cancel him. That's a solid 2HKO against this party. If it comes comboed after a Dark Mist or Dark Force, we're talking 2000 damage instead, which means death.
Magic Immunity: This attack does exactly what it sounds like. He'll always use it first turn, and it grants him immunity to all magic for the rest of the battle. If it wears out it must take near forever like Hyudra's regenaration. It is extremely fast to charge, so much so that Hect, who goes second, can't cancel it.

Straightforward and deadly. No mucking around with nails or mists or gimpy physicals, he just slams you into the ground again and again until you die, while laughing at your inability to do big damage to him.

The only good news is he's weak to all elements before he puts up Magic Immunity. I imagine some of Ulf's/Yuki's special techs wreck him, although he does have nearly Gigas-level high Def so maybe not.

Anyway, the basic rule is this: A Last Keeper together with an Excise Omega will overwhelm two PCs. It's not a matter of if, it's when. There is no opportunity, nor effective method, of attacking them, with this party. This is problematic.

Onto how I handled the encounters themselves.

First Excise Omega fight (4 resets)
Excise Omega + Last Keeper + 2x Gigas Omega

The winning strategy is simple enough I am embarressed I didn't realise it sooner. Dahna Galactic Bangs the Last Keeper, killing it.

No, seriously, that's it, more or less. I waste resets trying to kill the Gigases first, trying to mess with the Excise, or doing any sort of GT or cancel-related nonsense, not realising that I even HAVE this option. Once the Last Keeper is down, the rest can be mopped up. It's definitely tense while the Gigases still live, but two Absolute Zeroes leave both dead, and the Excise fairly badly beaten up. A solo Excise can't defeat me, although he can certainly annoy. Hect goes berserker on him and Dahna looks for opportunities to lob spells in, while healing is done.

Second Excise Omega fight (3 resets)
Excise Omega + Last Keeper x2

Oh, rest assured, this is the harder fight of the two. Three of these guys at once? Geez. Taking out one Keeper doesn't help, the other two just kill me, and Hect is too slow to stop them.

OR IS SHE?

Yes, by the time Hect gets her turn, the Last Keeper is 90% done charging Magic Immunity. There is, I reason, one thing I can do. And that is to Freeze him.

I've never really gotten any mileage out of Hect's second tech before, but here, it proves the difference between winning and losing. I luck out, and Freeze, on its first use, goes up to Level 1 (this is hardly unlikely, to be fair, as at Special Level 10, an unused tech has a high probability of going up). This means it resolves instantly. The Keeper is paralysed, and Dahna is able to survive the ravages of the Excise (it mainly goes for Hect anyway) long enough to Galactic Bang the second Keeper. That's game.

Had I not had the move level up? I may still have won, since Freeze meant I would only face one enemy. I could conceivably have Absolute Zero'd the Keeper, watching it tink off him but kill the Excise. I'm not really sure.


Oh yeah, the other fights. Each features either a Keeper or an Excise, but not both. A single one can be managed easily enough, and the accompanying Demons or Gigases are easily dispatched with an Absolute Zero or two.


And that's it! Thanks mainly to the final room, the final dungeon ties Melc Ruins for inflicting the most mental trauma on me.


Alfina rejoins. Some monkeying with skills and magic follows. Emelious has a change of heart and goes to SLAY XORN IN THE NAME OF LOVE. But LOVE IS THE CAUSE OF ALL PAIN and Emelious gets owned. Sad day. :( Only the power of girls can bring forth the love needed to own Xorn!

Let's talk final setup:

Alfina: Lv 48 / Magic 12 / Skill 11 / Special 10
Comet Strike: PSPRP
Stun Force: PSPRP
Ripple Shot: PSPRP
Holy Circle: P
Energy Drive: :(
Armageddon: PSP

Equipped for Magic, Knowledge Medal (mag+25) + Spirit Boots (halves all elements; armour gets status)
Expert Book: Guru's Way, Magic Up, Fire Mastery, Water Mastery, Perception, Quick Draw, Passive Defence, Life Up, Warrior's Way
Ether Egg: Galactic Bang, Alhealer, Resurrect... the rest is filler

Dahna: Lv 48 / Magic 12 / Skill 9 / Special 10
Homing Cards: PSPRP
Mana Capture: PSP
Dancing Cards: PSP
Mana Spring: :(

Equipped for Magic, Rainbow Heels (ini+24) + Spirit Ring (halves all elements and nulls all status)
General (body/mind) Book: Same skills as Alfina, minus Perception and Quick Draw
Same spells as Alfina, except for Heaven's Gate in place of Galactic Bang

(for reference, though she's left the party now)
Hect: Levels are the same as Alfina's
Crimson Shock: PSP
Freeze: P
Armageddon: PSP

Xorn

Shockingly simple and disappointing, really. If you're paying attention you'll already notice there are no resets here. Frankly, it's weird. Xorn is NOT an easy fight, but he doesn't get noticeably harder in this challenge, and I know him too well. I've seen far more of him, between my own playthrough and watching others, than I have any other boss; I have a good sense of exactly what he can do, how fast and he can do it, and so on. It doesn't help that Unama gets better with only two PCs, and the two most damaging PCs at that. It ALSO doesn't help that, for some reason, Xorn seems to occasionally get confused in this fight, waiting at the Com line to choose an action. I've never seen this before that I can recall; dunno if having only two PCs does it... doubt it, since I've been lowered to that number before. It's not a big deal, but it's a little edge that adds up.

128000 HP, good MDef, immune to IP damage/being aired/downed/stunned/etc. 2.5x average speed. He has:

Physicals: 400 to both PCs, or 800 to one if only one lives. Quick hit. He gets up to 5 turns in a row if he spams this. Perception to the rescue, Dahna not having it may be a mistake but I don't think so.
Dark Hymn: 1600 to one, cancels.
Erosion: Inflicts Disease. Yeah I am so blocking that.

My HP is nearing 3000, so periodic healing keeps up with this stage easily.

Below 75% HP, we add:

Death Knell: Move out of it. Yeaaah, knowing this makes this an easier fight.
Darkness: 1200 damage MT. His only noticeably slow move to charge. And it's not slow at all. I should say, "not fast".
Despair ("WARMTH AND COMPASSION HAVE NO PLACE IN MY WORLD"): Makes the target immune to stat boosts, including those from skills. Passives like Life Up and Guru's Way are disabled by this. Also dispels Diggin' and the like. Annoying.

Still not really too bad, knowing about Death Knell. Darkness is scary and makes me heal more.

Below 50% HP:

Dimension Gate ("ALL LOVE MUST PERISH!"): 2500 damage. Ouch! The threat of this makes me heal often, and it definitely kills people. It's especially dangerous coupled with Despair's nuking of Life Up, which makes it one-hit kill Dahna and just miss Alfina. Fortunately this never happens.

This phase, finally, is tough, and there are some scary moments, finally ending in what seems like an unwinnable situation. Unfortunately, I have two trump cards. The first is Armageddon, which is disgusting. We already saw what it did to the Omega Breeds, Xorn doesn't like it much better. Sure, he resists stat downs, so they wear off in about a round, but it's still an incredible boon for doing some extra damage and keeping him under control. And I can use it pretty often, since hey, Dahna can always toss SP boosters if need be.

Last, there's Unama. I mentioned before it's better in this challenge than normal. That's because it's based on the number of turns you get. So... it basically lasts twice as long. And both Dahna/Alfina have very painful damage, particularly Dahna's Heaven's Gate. I use the orb to escape a certain doom, and end up turning it into, in addition to reviving/healing, dealing some 35000 damage or so. This meant the low HP phase wasn't nearly as dangerous as I feared overall, and I was able to do the last hits I needed.

Nor much more to say about the fight. I was really hoping for something better. Again, it's not that I walked over this fight, but I was surprised that Xorn was easier than, say, Emelious.


So, done! Emelious' spirit smiles and ascends to heaven because he was such a swell guy. Yuki and Alfina grow up and have a cute little baby Yuki. Ending is short, hooray!


Final time was about 43 hours, a few hours longer than my first playthrough. No shock there, fights do take longer with only two PCs.


Overall, a pretty fun challenge. Made me learn the battle system much better and appreciate its subtlties, provided a suitable challenge level without ever forcing me to grind. Ended up as a great way to do a second playthrough.


Hardest dungeons: Melc Ruins and Surmania Ruins (final dungeon)
Honourable mentions: Silver Stream/Eternal Corridor and Vejas Jungle/Ruins

Hardest boss: Melc Crystals
Honourable mentions: Excise Sigma 2 and Emelious
Other decent fights: Kornell/Violetta, Mother Breed, Violetta, Xorn


Skills

If there is one aspect of the game I learned a lot more about this playthrough, it is skills. They were simply much more important, and often made the difference between winning and losing. So, here are my caption reviews on the ones I used.

Mind

Absorb Magic: It's an okay filler skill, as it extends your MP reserves. Unfortunately you don't really WANT to get hit by magic, so it's not the best choice.

Elemental Mastery: They reduce MP costs by 10/20/30/50% depending on skill level. This is a much better way to conserve MP, even though they cost 2 skill points. Fire is the most useful given the dominance of fire spells, followed closely by Water. Fire, unfortunately, is only available fairly late. So is Earth, which is baffling because Earth is a terrible element with incredibly slow spells almost nothing is weak to. Oh boy. At least it has Resurrect.

Guru's Way: If you're training Mind, no reason not to set this, 20% boost to Magic is sexy and it's cheap.

Magic Up: 20% boost to MP at max level. A solid choice, though it can be removed once you're no longer at full MP mid-dungeon.

Magica Esoterica: Making magic cancel is cool. However, it's hard to justify the cost of 5 skill points. Didn't use much.

Meditation: Defending restores 40 MP. Yet another MP increaser, but at 3 skill points, it's not a great choice unless you think you'll get lots of chances to defend. Probably better with a full party. There's an equivalent skill for HP, which is lulz.

Sharp Eyes: Quietly, the best damn skill in the magic side of the skill section. Oh, Guru's Way probably puts up a fight in its own understated way, but Sharp Eyes is a rather noticeable initiative boost. Ambushing enemies, and then using Sharp Eyes to get a turn more quickly, is the difference between hard randoms and painfully easy randoms, sometimes. Not a great skill for bosses. The initiative boost always kicks in if trained.

Technique

Perception: Is the best skill in the game. If you think otherwise, you are wrong. It grants near immunity to evadable attacks, and while those aren't quite a majority of enemy attacks (except in some dungeons early on), they're numerous enough that laughing them off is very valuable. I don't want to think about this challenge without that skill.

Counter: Hey, if Perception isn't good enough, you can stack it with this! Usually there are better ways to spend skill points, but hey, countering with a normal attack when you dodge isn't bad.

Jolt Counter: Goes with the former well, turns those counters into meaner criticals which do more damage, air the target, and cancel them if they're doing a multihit physical.

Beast/Lizard/Demon/Verse Hunter: Makes physical attacks hit weakness on certain species. Each species is pretty broad (most, though not all randoms fall under one of the above four headings, since lizard includes fish/amphibian and beast includes bird) though some randoms, such as golem-types and gilled enemies don't fall under any of them, same with most bosses. Weakness means 1.5x damage and the increased IP damage. Can be nice if you're planning to use physicals anyway. These skills would be better if magic didn't dominate to the degree it does, but still find plenty of use, especially when stunning an enemy is your goal.

Berserker: Adds 1-4 extra hits to your physical depending on skill level. It's pretty cool, especially paired with a Hunter skill to rack up big damage and stun time. Very pricy at 4 skill points, though, so it's not something I always use by any means.

Quick Draw: Items are faster. Awesome if you plan to use 'em. Good solid, cost-effective skill.

Item Mastery: Items do more. At 3 skill points, this one is hard to justify... you'd never use it without Quick Draw, and do you really want 4 of your valuable skill points sunk into item use? Probably for some situations, but they didn't come up much for me.

Way of Speed: 10% INI boost? Kinda wussy. I expected 20% like all the other stat boosts... and this one even costs more than the rest. G3 does realise how valuable speed is, but really, this is barely better than tossing on a First Ring.

Body

Brute Strength: Increases the IP damage from combos. Doesn't seem as effective at its job as the slayer skills in practice, so barely worth it.

Life Up: 20% more max HP? Sign me up. No reason not to set this if you're training Body.

Passive Defence: If Sharp Eyes is the reason you train Mind and Perception is the reason you train Tech, then on Disc 2 in particular, this skill is the reason you train Body. IP damage sucks. Being able to greatly reduce said IP damage at the cost of only 1 skill point is heaven.

Revenge: Chance (maybe 40%?) of countering with your basic cancel tech. On most PCs this isn't really worth the cost. On Hect, it is amazing, because Crimson Shock hits everyone instead of one person, and potentially cancels a bunch of enemies. On her, it's great for regaining control of the battle. On anyone else... definitely feels like mediocre filler.

Unshakeable Will: I thought this was IP damage immunity regardless of skill level, which would make it good if Body is untrained. However, I don't think it always kicks in. In which case, not very good, since it's 3 skill points.

Warrior's Way: Stock 20% boost to Atk and Def. Another one I usually set if it's applicable.


Big enough post? Big enough post. Not sure what's coming next. Likely LFT and/or a Super Mario Sunshine replay.

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Meeplelard

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5511 on: October 31, 2009, 11:48:24 PM »
Quote
FE10 Sothe certainly ends up worse than Seth (let alone Titania). He's honestly, probably closest to FE7 Marcus. Maybe a bit better? But not much. Though yes, awesome for a while due to Jeiganness and then Beast Killer, so it's not until Part 4 that the cracks really appear.

By earlier ones, I meant "FE1-6 Jeigans" who are completely worthless end game.  Marcus, while clearly bad, is at least usable end game in FE7.  I should have specified what I meant; Sothe is clearly worse than Titania9, and I'd buy he's worse than Seth too.

...I suppose Oifaye is usable in FE4, but that's mostly cause FE4 lets you use anyway, and Oifaye being mounted means you can at least have him do stuff like "THrow Javelin at enemy, avoid counter, RUN THE FUCK AWAY!", but he's clearly far worse than like everyone else when they catch up (either cause they're ON CRACK CHILDREN, or just total  freaks like Shanan <_<)
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

AAA

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5512 on: November 01, 2009, 12:57:38 AM »
Dicking around in TF2 today, and...



Broke my kill record, headshot record, points as Sniper, and went from like 8th to 2nd in one round. 4 Dominations is usually only something I get as Soldier. And I would have had 5 if one of the people on Blu didn't go Sniper and headshot me when I was distracted by a Heavy. Pity everybody left at this point. See what your lack of faith brings you!

So, in short, PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSST heh heh heh

Don't think of it as a novel. Think of it as a chance to retroactively win every argument you have ever walked away from.

hinode

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5513 on: November 01, 2009, 01:57:01 AM »
Quote
FE10 Sothe certainly ends up worse than Seth (let alone Titania). He's honestly, probably closest to FE7 Marcus. Maybe a bit better? But not much. Though yes, awesome for a while due to Jeiganness and then Beast Killer, so it's not until Part 4 that the cracks really appear.

By earlier ones, I meant "FE1-6 Jeigans" who are completely worthless end game.  Marcus, while clearly bad, is at least usable end game in FE7.  I should have specified what I meant; Sothe is clearly worse than Titania9, and I'd buy he's worse than Seth too.

...I suppose Oifaye is usable in FE4, but that's mostly cause FE4 lets you use anyway, and Oifaye being mounted means you can at least have him do stuff like "THrow Javelin at enemy, avoid counter, RUN THE FUCK AWAY!", but he's clearly far worse than like everyone else when they catch up (either cause they're ON CRACK CHILDREN, or just total  freaks like Shanan <_<)

HANNIBAL still exists to make Oifaye look better by comparison!

Also JOHAN/JOHALVA.

Meeplelard

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5514 on: November 01, 2009, 03:30:08 AM »
Quote
Also JOHAN/JOHALVA.

No, Johan's actually not half bad.  He's a good tank, and the Hero Axe early rules out one of his big flaws, not to mention he has Ambush.  He really is just Lex in Gen 2; sure, this is worse relatively, but its still decent.

And no, he doesn't stop you from getting Resire, so trying to spin that argument fails; you just have to do things in the right order.  Very possible to get Resire and Johan in the same game (hell I did it in the LP.)  Oifaye's a typical Jeigan in the grand scheme of things (just unlike other FE games, FE4 has no unit cap), he becomes really bad late.  Johan...subpar, but clearly better than Oifaye.
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> so Snow...
[21:39] <+Mega_Mettaur> Sonic Chaos
[21:39] <+Hello-NewAgeHipsterDojimaDee> That's -brilliant-.

[17:02] <+Tengu_Man> Raven is a better comic relief PC than A

Grefter

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5515 on: November 01, 2009, 08:51:07 AM »
Borderlands - So another FPS/RPG hybrid.  Kind of being treated as something amazing, but hey Bethesda has been doing that for years.  Beats the shit out of Fallout 3 at it also just as an FYI.  Does the post apocalyptic wasteland better at that now that I think about it.  Much more pure Mad Max 2 style than Fallout is though (which was MM1ish which featured way less small children with bladed boomerangs and a lot more brutal shotgun blasts).  Fun game to play Co-op.  A bit rough in spots but overall pretty fun.  Not sure if it was worth it with how hard we played it (24+ hours in a period of three days), but still it is done.  Not sure how soon I will play it again since I am pretty burned out on it. 

Oh yeah for people who don't follow this, it is 4 player co-op Diablo style first person shooter.  That is pretty much it, you should know up front if this kind of thing appeals to you.  Biggest issue is how huge an effect level has, far more so than equipment really to be honest.  Equipment has you doing a certain amount of damage, level lets you even reach that potential though.  Fighting anything over 2 levels higher than you is incredibly painful and you will sink hundreds of rounds into it before it dies if it is a seriously threatening enemy (this is three player though so stuff gets scaled up) and it will kill you in very few shots at all, sometimes with nearly unaviodable damage.  2+  stuff is a bother even, but manageable.  3+ if you are determined to kill it will probably be a graveyard zerg (debatable how much it is worth it, we only really did it ... once or twice).  The best solution is honestly to out level stuff and you can handle it much better.   So it is kind of inelegant, you have a roughly 3 level variance where the fights will be about right.  Once you get three levels higher than you or even just 2 levels lower than you the fights are not really very threatening.

The game seems like it would play quite differently single player though.  Such is life. 

Oh yeah PC version is console port feeling, but there is much worse (YOU CAN BIND MOUSE 4 AND 5 HOLY FUCK), it is mostly just shitty menus (see any complaints regarding Bioware console ports menus, they apply here, I accidentally sold my awesome shotgun near the end of the game because of them (YES GAME I MOVED MY MOUSE OFF IT AND WHEN I HIT ENTER I TOTALLY MEANT TO BE SELECTED ON IT).  Is fine I had 3 other weapons I was using, so I used some other things to fill in the gap, but I was pretty pissed for a while since it didn't show up in Buy Back when I went to check. 

So yeah pretty fun weekend investment.  Rough dollar per hour of fun is at 2:1 so that is a solid ratio.

The final boss is also a giant vagina.
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Yoshiken

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5516 on: November 01, 2009, 03:29:04 PM »
If you have any experience in an FE, just knowing to have a thief handy on utility is a good thing, and frankly, I just figured "use Colm", at least for a first play through, was a given.

Ehh, not strictly true. I've played FE9 and 10, where thieves, uhh, kinda suck, as you mentioned. Having a thief is useful... on some stages. Generally speaking, though, my instinct was to just leave Colm out unless there were doors/chests, until I realised that, uhh, he had competent weapons.

Fog of War is the bane of my life on Fire Emblem, despite me preferring it on Advance Wars. Neimi still sucks for now. Lute: Burning traitors long before Sanaki. Gilliam still sucks, but not as much as Ross, so he's found a place on my team. Why am I not using Moulder? He has a moustache, but Natasha's just more fun. As always, Killing Edge is hilariously awesome. I still love Garcia's attack animation.
I've had about 6 resets on this stage now (Chapter 6, I think?), 'cause I suck at Fog of War (I'm really bad at keeping my units protected from enemies I can't see) and I'm trying to keep everyone alive. Hence the switch from Ross to Gilliam (well, that and Ross fails. Miserably.)

Ultradude

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5517 on: November 01, 2009, 03:36:19 PM »
Obviously, you just need to tower abuse when the option presents itself.
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Bardiche

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5518 on: November 01, 2009, 03:54:16 PM »
Ross was always one of my best units, heh.

Excal

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5519 on: November 01, 2009, 04:11:45 PM »
Ross is a wildcard.  He starts off bad, but with a bit of luck will end up one of the better units in the game (still can't compete with Colm/Neimi).  Emelia also does that, while Ewen is mostly just there for the novelty of a chance to have a Druid who doesn't suck.

So, MK2 completely beaten.  I don't really have that much to say as the conversations with the merged party are, well...  mostly way too serious.  So the best part is easily near the beginning, and at the final confrontation.  As for the bosses, outside of the final they seem to just be taking the best bosses from the main game, two from each path, pallet swapping them and upgrading their move sets.  By far the best boss was Buffacow Mk2, which I am fine with.  He was one of the tougher non-finals in the main game as well.

Final thoughts?  Not much that wasn't already stated.  Generally liked Raze's path a lot.  His team gelled, and all of them were fun additions.  Lily also scores points for the most screwed up character while having two effective voices of reason.  My only real complaint there is the fact that it is, very much, a side story.  And as such, could have been folded into Ulrika's path without any harm besides making Goto scenes mandatory.  Ulrika's path gives up a lot of the chemistry that Raze's team had.  Everyone played well off of each other in Raze's path, while Ulrika's...  the dynamics seem wonky because of the way they kinda factionalize.  Ulrika is for Uryu, Pepperoni and Goto hype each other, Chloe is against everyone, and everyone is against Enna.  Whereas in Raze's path, everyone is there because they're a part of the workshop, damnit!  Whether they're there because they're working for Lily (Raze, Yun), or part of Raze's unofficial and very much unwanted harem (Lily, Et, Puniyo) they are all at least part of one group and act like it.  Ulrika's path also has the issue of Tony who...  kinda disappears half way through.  Especially since he can't get no respect.  I mean, he was at least considered a decent fighter and worthwhile opponent in MK1, who just had the bad luck of going against Flay and the wonder-prodigy Vayne repeatedly.  Here he doesn't even get that.

But, eh.  Not as good as MK1, likely worthy of a 7/10 though.

Idun

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5520 on: November 02, 2009, 03:49:51 AM »
Finally balanced Ming out in Lost Odyssey. She was severely lacking once I traded in Sarah for her. My current team is Kaim and Mack in the front, and in the back it's Sarah, Jansen and Cooke. After seeing their stats @ L45, I really wish Cooke had good Mag Atk because she has the best spell time casting out of the entire mage bunch. I'd actually prefer her over Sarah (though Ming is more of a power house) though I prefer Jansen over all. I'll swap in the others once I feel like I've homogenized enough - primarily giving Kaim as much skill opportunities as possible and mastering all of Mack's. I'll put Sed in later with his Seth once I feel like Kaim completely owns.

I just finished the second arc in the Lion King. Seriously. Simba is a motherfucking punk. And the boss was a bitch. First I didn't see the triangle prompts clearly. Died. Second, once I climbed the wildabeast Heartless, I got pwned by some seethrough clear thing that kept trapping Sora even when I was speed running around waiting for my magic to charge back up to heal. But I pwnd him anyway. Simba is a punk. OH, and chasing those hyenas previously? Total waste of time. Finished up to the cave page in Winnie the Pooh because I've let that slack too much. Now just wandering around seeing what I need to do next.

Oh yeah?

And Atlantis blows turds this game.

Grefter

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5521 on: November 02, 2009, 08:14:19 AM »
And Atlantis is a million thousand hundred bajillion times better in this game.
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The king perfect of the DL is and always will be Excal. - Superaielman
Don't worry, just jam it in anyway. - SirAlex
Gravellers are like, G-Unit - Trancey.

Captain K.

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5522 on: November 02, 2009, 12:24:53 PM »
Eh, Atlantis sucks in both games.  1 because of lousy swimming mechanics, 2 because they got their songs from the Little Mermaid *sequel*.

Clear Tranquil

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5523 on: November 02, 2009, 12:47:25 PM »
Yeah ;o

Yay NEB for completing Grandia 3 w/th gurls. Big enjoyable posts yesu. Really enjoyed reading the recaps overall.

Condemned- Chapter 4 had zombies! Chapter five had ... uhhh ... weird freaks w/th masks pretending to be store dummies and more zombies! Yay. Chapter six and early seven returned to your more "normal" usual brand of hooligans. Chapter seven returned to zombies later on and chapter eight also had more zombies. Yay. I'm on chapter nine now at Appleby manor or w/e. I received a Super Taser in Chapter seven. Awesme. I also picked up a submachine gun in chapter eight w/th twenty shots but lost it when I was amushed by a plot even =-(

Ammo is limited in Condemned and apparently my favourite weapon is the taser >_>
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TranceHime

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Re: Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.
« Reply #5524 on: November 02, 2009, 02:17:23 PM »
Valkyrie Sky:



This dungeon is harder than it looks T_T;;
19:35:58 (trancehime) there's a specific spot in the game that's for item duping
19:36:14 (Sanae) o.o
19:39:11 (Sanae) I'd love to dupe a second trancehime.