What games are you playing 2014?

[Cmdr_King]

Actually, that happens either late in or immediately after Chapter 6.

The japanese subtitle is just "Flying Fairy", and the same removing of FF (ha HA! internal puns) renders it as "Lying Airy", so the pun is essentially unaltered between languages.  At least according to everything I've read.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I also suspect Black Mage'll end up near the top of the damage curve anyway because Pierce M. Defense is -awesome- and they get M. Attack +20% - so they'll manage. Additionally, the draining's also pretty decent. For pure offense, otherwise, Meteor is very def-subject and, while TM gets M. Attack +30%, it's mdef-busting that makes the spell truly nuts (though they'll probably end up good too). The rest suffers from varying shades of bad to downright depressing - Aeroga and Holy are horrible and trying to boost their offense eats into WM's healing, Red Mage doesn't even get elemental L3s (eeeeeeeeeeew), Summon Magic just doesn't pan out for duelling and suffers further from getting no real significant boosts besides Summoning Amp, which plain isn't enough running off awful overall stats. Arcanist gets Convergence Interment, but that's 4PB and Arcanist's going to mix its amazing basic physical along its three-turn average. Vampire doesn't count because that's a -physical- class.

[Cmdr_King]

Definitely possible, although my instinct is that the physical classes have better DL tools for damage averages.  On the other hand, weapon availability, so who knows.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

From experience, basic physicals -really- need skill crossclassing in order to not look unimpressive, especially if they don't get damage-boosting options. In-game, for instance, you toss Two-Handed right and left at worst, but only Knight, who has poor damage skills and bad speed, gets it in the DL. Attack-boosting passives also run off people with their own issues (Monk's bad weaponry, Pirate's egregious accuracy and Dark Knight's mHP sacrifice to attain good offense, which also eats into the damage averages).

The split from DL weaponry and in-game only stuff mostly isn't that wide until you factor in Dimension's Hasp stuff, but some weapons get it real bad (daggers, axes, knuckles, mainly. GRANTED, axes is more because they really suck regardless) and we'll have some classes who get UTTERLY screwed (holy crap Spiritmaster will fail beyond all reason). Classes with good in-game damage will get the shaft on the three-turn splits (hi, Valkyrie), some others will be stuck with basic physicals (hi Ninja, HI SWORDMASTER). It'll be an interesting beast, and then there's Salve-Maker, who may either suck, stuck with 1.5k Poison X-Potions, or stand tall atop the heavens with 7.5k Shadow Flares depending on how harsh you are with mixing items.

[Sierra]

Andy you should just do what I do and stick to the sexiest armor available. It's only marginally less useful than real armor and more to the point at least you look totally flash getting 2HKO'd by everything.

Character quest stuff (such as it is) generally not missable outside of Lucatiel and Benhart. For the Bastile smith & ladderbro it's just buy a lot of shit from them and then exhaust dialogue. For mapguy it's just kill every mandatory boss and then exhaust dialogue. Pyrogirl you just have to give spare clothes! Not going to get the "get everyone to relocate to Majula" trigger without at least 8 INT though (because if you're any dumber than that then the sorc trainer won't talk to you).

[AndrewRogue]

I was generally referring to Lucatiel/Bernhart. Although I have no idea who the hell Mapguy is.

Anyhow, decided to reallocate stats a bit to clean up some points before the Giant Lord (fuck everyone who whined about the Soul Vessels). Sitting at SL 130. 26/6/35/5/80/11/10/5/5.

Probably should have dumped Vit a bit but eh, I like the weight I'm at.

[Sierra]

Mapguy's in a wing of the Forest right past the second bonfire. The bit where you walk up a giant branch? Jump off to the right instead of ascending. He opens up that locked house in Majula if you talk to him enough (and there's an estus flask shard in there). I didn't even notice he existed either until I went back for the giant memory stuff at the end of the game.

Geez, do you actually get anything substantial out of 80 strength? I stopped leveling that at 40 because diminishing returns.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Time Mage was definitely useful for a while early. Haste and Slow were really good for bosses, which on HM seem to get some sort of hidden unlisted speed boost since they regularly go before PCs who are listed as faster than them otherwise (probably similar to the thief passives, which also don't list the effect). Unfortunately Pirate and Performer then show up to utterly ruin this niche (since instead of just modifying speed, they also modify other stats, and in pirate's case do damage at the same time), and nothing else in JL1-9 really recommends the class so far. I mean Slowga was god against the Automatons but that's the last time I've really felt a pressing need for the class, to the point where I still haven't investigated the JL10+ stuff. I've increasingly moved away from magical offence, though. I keep saying I'll put Ringabel back along that route for a bit but I'm too happy with him as the "draw fire and tank" performer/defender build he has going. I think this is the first Final Fantasy game where I've been underwhelmed by offensive magic (except FF2? We don't talk about FF2).

Bravely Default - Chapter 6. Bwahaha well played with the villain, game, well played. Current main builds are dark knight/spellfencer, pirate/valkyrie(/spellfencer), white mage/whatever, and performer/templar.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Time Mage was definitely useful for a while early. Haste and Slow were really good for bosses, which on HM seem to get some sort of hidden unlisted speed boost since they regularly go before PCs who are listed as faster than them otherwise (probably similar to the thief passives, which also don't list the effect). Unfortunately Pirate and Performer then show up to utterly ruin this niche (since instead of just modifying speed, they also modify other stats, and in pirate's case do damage at the same time), and nothing else in JL1-9 really recommends the class so far. I mean Slowga was god against the Automatons but that's the last time I've really felt a pressing need for the class, to the point where I still haven't investigated the JL10+ stuff. I've increasingly moved away from magical offence, though. I keep saying I'll put Ringabel back along that route for a bell but I'm too happy with him as the "draw fire and tank" performer/defender build he has going. I think this is the first Final Fantasy game where I've been underwhelmed by offensive magic (except FF2? We don't talk about FF2).

Magic offense is definitely niche even when you figure out its optimum build (mainly effectively gets around defenses and this -matters-, also becomes the optimum randomsmashing method once you master BM/reach L10 Summoning), and just useless later on if you don't tweak specifically this way - and, since you're playing on Hard, magic suffers -further- because the stat boosts also apply to Mind, which raises enemy mdef across the board, but not Vitality. I only have one dedicated attack mage while I have two fighters, which says everything you need to know. Physicals are strangely more versatile than magic in BD.

[Fenrir]

Armor is only the tiniest bit helpful if you stack absurd amounts of it.  When I hit 1300 the Royal Aegis changed from two-shotting me to three-shotting me.  And that's only if one of his hits was with the handle otherwise it was a coin toss to survivability.  I just stuck with my item-find or soul-gain sets unless I felt like whoring out with pure armor.  Against normal enemies insane DEF can matter... but bosses it's useless.  With 8 VIG I had 1000 HP and took 800 in damage roughy.  Even if I pumped every stored level I had into VIG I still would have only reached 1600.  Two-shot range anyway!

I'm pretty sure not every enemy does exactly 800 damage!

Anyway I've finished with the mage. She nuked things.

Planning to get the last 4 trophies, which involve going into the castle in NG++, re-doing the assassination quest, and giving some NG+ souls to Straid. Everything else is done (I've spent the evening sunbroing for 30 sunlight medals) Whee.
Then the true Dark Souls 2 will begin, for real.
Since I'm level 150 I don't plan to do much more levelling (Stats are roughly 40 mem/int/faith, 50 vig) so I can finally use all these souls I can't hold on those soul-costing spells. I've updated the traitor's bell to +10 and started using them. Man. Ultra fast 900 damage for 500 Souls. NG+ = So dead.

[hinode]

The default system in general rewards free or resource cheap spammable attacks, which naturally skews physical (especially once you get skills like Crescent Moon, Energy Burst, Drain Sword+Black Wave, etc.)  Meanwhile, it takes experimentation to find an attack magic setup that's both strong and reasonable on MP consumption. I dunno on Hard, but on Normal I there was nothing to keep me from going all-in on physical damage vs randoms after I realized that MT attacks won't trigger counters. Conjurers get one skill that can help MP a non-issue, but then they also get Obliterate which makes randoms a non-issue, period.

[Cmdr_King]

Honestly I think conjurer exists solely as a Mage carrier class and that's basically why.  But yeah magic tends to be more straightforward but less effective than swording after C3.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Conjurer also comes by -way- too late, and Conjuring is kind of a bad skillset for party synergy. Granted, I found MP expenditure to matter more for PHYSICAL classes until Free Lunch after that C3 point (thanks mainly to Pirate), but that's temporary. Also, if you're running a Black Mage, by the time you get L4 magic, you'll never have MP problems for offense again.

[hinode]

Conjurer is weird in that it's part carrier class for mages and part self-buff and smack things with physicals class, with the net result that it isn't really good for any niche lategame, when you can actually get it. The two grinding skills are great if you're looking to grind, but it's not particularly good for much else besides that, which is kinda sad for how late it comes.

It fares especially poorly compared to Vampire, which has a crazy good skillset that is even better when carried over to a faster/more offensive class.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Vampire's particularly insulting thing is being a PHYSICAL class. The only thing you'd want to tweak its magic for is the MT status, but, as I mentioned before: status just isn't very useful late, and the goddamn physical status skills are plenty accurate anyway. Vampire also does the whole self-sustainable deal -beautifully- as is, with its free, easily buffable through attack amping draining. I'm really not sure why they made the class physical, it's not like magic needed to suffer any -further-.

[Fenrir]

BTW

Mapguy's in a wing of the Forest right past the second bonfire. The bit where you walk up a giant branch? Jump off to the right instead of ascending. He opens up that locked house in Majula if you talk to him enough (and there's an estus flask shard in there). I didn't even notice he existed either until I went back for the giant memory stuff at the end of the game.

Geez, do you actually get anything substantial out of 80 strength? I stopped leveling that at 40 because diminishing returns.

Do you even lift?

You need 90 strength to dual wield those Giant Warrior Clubs. That's a very reasonable goal in life.

[hinode]

The -ja spells are also magical, but they're spotpass only so they don't even show up in the Encyclopedia. 99 MP cost is also pretty bad, compared to something like Gastric Juice which costs 20 MP for MT damage and defense down that works on bosses

[Niu]

BD:  I just noticed that the title screen changes after you get the bad ending.  Bwahaha!  Did it do that in Japanese version?  Doesn't seem like something that would translate across.

The proper way to read the original Japanese title is this:

Brave (ly)Lee Default - (f)Lying (f)Airy
or Brave Lee de Fault - Lying Airy, depends on how you look at it.

[Hunter Sopko]

Escha & Logy- Right before the final. Welp, the game finally did something. God knows why they waited so goddamn long. Even the character arcs don't trigger until late. The game is generally longer than Ayesha to boot, so prepare for a whole lot of nothing until that point!

Beat the two optional bosses (Child of Terror and Dreadnaught). Neither are as hard as Grand Dragon was, but they were tough since they have a sort-of limit. Prepping for hard mode final. Lots of prep work to do, but I have like almost a year. Level ~58. Another 10-20 levels and further item refinement/testing should do it.

[MC50]

Bravely Default

Also last boss!

...Also got Disaster'd for 9K.

Guess I should slap Time Magic on Edea or something for Reraise.

Team is about the same as before. It's been pretty effective, able to beat the Chapter 8 Sidequest bosses (mostly) without resorting to anything too cheesy. It's amazing the difference a Scale Strip from a Pirate does on Summon magic's damage, though. It makes Tiz's Girtablulu go from 3500 to, like, 7500. (Enemy depending), Girtablulu Spam for 9999 was basically how I beat most of the Chapter 8 Sidequest fights, though it requires a fair bit of setup (Withering Ripple > Earth Weak, Sacrifice on Self for M.Atk buff, Zero Passive ability for constant +50% M.Atk for only one slot, Gaia Gear, Summoning Surge). Obviously not optimal but it's fun and works.

I'll post final story thoughts and such when I do actually beat the last boss.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default: Holy crap who thought Dark Nebula was remotely balanced?

[Sierra]

Do you even lift?

You need 90 strength to dual wield those Giant Warrior Clubs. That's a very reasonable goal in life.

I don't go the gym, I'm just naturally this way.

How exactly does that special dual-wieldy stance thingy work? Considering running double DEX weapon build as last playthrough (though if I'm honest the impetus is more look man you've got 75% of the Noir cast accounted for here you might as well toss in a ninja). Ignore STR this time and dump extra levels in random stuff for some utility magic and maybe ability to use real armor this time?! (I probably wouldn't even if I could.) Plan would be access Brotherhood of Blood as early as feasible. Invade bellbros. Invade everybody! Complete Navlaan's quest by genuinely killing everyone because I'm such a fan of murrrder. Wear the Herald's clothes for the rest of the game.

I don't know if I'm ever getting all those magic trophies because seriously NG+++ for some of them? But everything else is done.

[Fenrir]

I think you can go to Majula in NG+, use a fragrant branch of yore on the pyro and go straight to Drangleic castle while ignoring everything else. Not 100% sure though.


Dual wielding is like world tendency in Demon's Souls, totally obscure and complicated.

To dual wield you need 150% of the strength/dex stat requirement on the weapon with the highest stat requirement. For example, something that requires 30 strength and 20 dex requires 45 strength and 30 dex to dual wield with another weapon with lower requirements.

You can only dual wield weapons of -roughly- the same type. = You can't dual wield a whip and a great club. You can dual wield a rapier and a curved sword though.
To dual wield, press Triangle for a short while (Dual wielding replaces "Two-hand your left weapon" if you have the stat requirement)

I've found that dual wielding does a lot of damage but is slightly slower and has low stun power.


Also, dex build is pretty crappy in this game. Good luck with your invasions.

I found out that my base damage is 1200 and not 900. Must have fought an enemy with some dark defense before. Neat!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Bravely Default: Holy crap who thought Dark Nebula was remotely balanced?

Man, it's not even the nastiest thing Dark Knight has in its arsenal. The class is just -ridiculous-.

[Pyro]

The person who thought Dark Nebula was balanced didn't realize
1. You get like 3 Dark. Shields
2. PC. defense stats can be higher than Atk
3.  A 5x MT mult is a little much!

Otherwise people saying Knight sucks at offense amuse me as they obviously have not Mastered the class~