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Sep. 28th, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoStarting out on Etrian Odyssey III! As usual, it has the classic problem of ability triage, in which you have to break abilities down into categories (melee damage/not being useless with the basic "Fight" command, single-target damage skills, multi-target damage skills, elemental damage, HP recovery, status/bind recovery, resurrection, buffs, debuffs, buff/debuff removal, I actually made a spreadsheet to try and sort them all and I assure you there are a lot of categories) and try to decide which ones are most important for an ideal party to be able to do without having to rely on items or something, because you're not going to come even remotely close to having them all. After studying and sorting and agonizing, I have come up with the following party to start: Julian (Prince), Samuel (Hoplite), and Rachael (Monk) in the front row, Simone (Arbalest) and Jonas (Farmer) in the back. Multiclassing is something you only get the ability to do later and I honestly have no idea how much later, so I'll just keep playing and worry about that whenever it happens.
Yes, I have a combat Farmer. Atlus has gone out of their way to trash the Farmers' reputation in this game, even describing them in-game as being the masters of terrain/world manipulation type skills (gathering at item points, etc.) in exchange for being completely useless in battle. Common wisdom in EO games has always been to segregate gathering and adventuring parties--even when actual competent classes happen to have gathering skills, it was just a better idea to spend those skill points elsewhere and have a separate team of throwaway gatherers. With Farmers as allegedly sucky as they are, the whole "keep your fighters over here and your gatherers over there, your gatherers are an insufferable load in anything except gathering" thing was poised to be stronger than ever.
Except... no. I remember EO2, where having a non-combat party go through the dungeon was a colossal pain, having to use encounter-reducing items and running from everything on the way just to get to the gathering point, only to face the damned "Oh no!" mechanic of randomly getting into a fight instead of pulling something when trying to gather. I remember how much it sucked to have my gathering party completely raped by something that my adventurers conceivably could have beaten, had they been there. Besides, some of the Farmers' world manipulation stuff this time around actually looks pretty handy for long treks through the dungeon. They have a safe walking skill that completely turns off damage tiles (of which I still have traumatic flashbacks)! They're the only class in the game this time around with a Scavenge-like passive skill that increases the enemies' item drop rate! And best of all, they're not even as useless in battle as claimed! Sure, they may hit like a mage without the excuse of having spells they're supposed to be using instead, but since there aren't any Dominate-using Dark Hunters anymore in this game, Mystery Seed actually makes them as viable for the class that's in charge of binding things as anything else in the game.
So yeah, I have a Farmer. He's going to learn skills that make walking through the dungeon suck a lot less for everyone, and then he's going to get good at gathering so that if I try it and monsters jump out, the rest of my party is right there to deal with them. So there.
Anyway, EO3 opens, as usual, with a newbie quest in which you have to map a portion of the first floor and show a guard to prove that you know how to map things. As usual, the game won't sell you Warp Wires until you prove yourself worthy by beating this quest. The area they expect you to map is huge, next to impossible to handle in one trip with you at level 1 with newbie starter gear. I imagine the trips to the far corners of the map and that feeling of "whew, made it, but can I make it back? D:" would be particularly brutal this time around... except that Jonas knows To Market (instantly warp out of the dungeon and return to town--basically a Warp Wire in reusable spell form) which means he is already my God damned MVP.
Yes, I have a combat Farmer. Atlus has gone out of their way to trash the Farmers' reputation in this game, even describing them in-game as being the masters of terrain/world manipulation type skills (gathering at item points, etc.) in exchange for being completely useless in battle. Common wisdom in EO games has always been to segregate gathering and adventuring parties--even when actual competent classes happen to have gathering skills, it was just a better idea to spend those skill points elsewhere and have a separate team of throwaway gatherers. With Farmers as allegedly sucky as they are, the whole "keep your fighters over here and your gatherers over there, your gatherers are an insufferable load in anything except gathering" thing was poised to be stronger than ever.
Except... no. I remember EO2, where having a non-combat party go through the dungeon was a colossal pain, having to use encounter-reducing items and running from everything on the way just to get to the gathering point, only to face the damned "Oh no!" mechanic of randomly getting into a fight instead of pulling something when trying to gather. I remember how much it sucked to have my gathering party completely raped by something that my adventurers conceivably could have beaten, had they been there. Besides, some of the Farmers' world manipulation stuff this time around actually looks pretty handy for long treks through the dungeon. They have a safe walking skill that completely turns off damage tiles (of which I still have traumatic flashbacks)! They're the only class in the game this time around with a Scavenge-like passive skill that increases the enemies' item drop rate! And best of all, they're not even as useless in battle as claimed! Sure, they may hit like a mage without the excuse of having spells they're supposed to be using instead, but since there aren't any Dominate-using Dark Hunters anymore in this game, Mystery Seed actually makes them as viable for the class that's in charge of binding things as anything else in the game.
So yeah, I have a Farmer. He's going to learn skills that make walking through the dungeon suck a lot less for everyone, and then he's going to get good at gathering so that if I try it and monsters jump out, the rest of my party is right there to deal with them. So there.
Anyway, EO3 opens, as usual, with a newbie quest in which you have to map a portion of the first floor and show a guard to prove that you know how to map things. As usual, the game won't sell you Warp Wires until you prove yourself worthy by beating this quest. The area they expect you to map is huge, next to impossible to handle in one trip with you at level 1 with newbie starter gear. I imagine the trips to the far corners of the map and that feeling of "whew, made it, but can I make it back? D:" would be particularly brutal this time around... except that Jonas knows To Market (instantly warp out of the dungeon and return to town--basically a Warp Wire in reusable spell form) which means he is already my God damned MVP.
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Date: 2010-09-28 08:34 pm (UTC)Also, I have three teams which use different members of different teams. None of them is a farming team. I've a "mapping", a "killing/leveling", and an "FOE" team.
Farmers in this game do such shitty damage (they do not do "hit like a mage". They hit WORSE. Weapon selection will make this worse.) That said, their passive abilities make them absolutely useful in a party where the drop in damage won't kill you (like when you're exploring) Mystery Seed looks good but in practice it sucks. I prefer my Wildling for binding; despite the cost of their summons, they have (when maxed) the highest chance of binding anything in the game.
Personally, I hate Ninjas, although unlocking Dark Ether made the one I have a little more useful.
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Date: 2010-09-28 10:05 pm (UTC)Are you sure about the success rates on Mystery Seed vs. Wildling pets? According to Zaraf's EO3 skill sim thing, Wildling pet binds have a 50% success rate when maxed. He forgot to actually put the rate in for Mystery Seed but Googling for forum posts and such brings up claims that it's 60% when maxed, plus Farmers have better Luck. Anyway, I'm used to not having a full party who can actually hit things--actually, if the Farmer's damage didn't suck, then all five of my party members would actually be useful with the standard Fight command, and that is something that is not ordinarily supposed to happen. So yeah, I think there's room to offset his damage, and he already more than than makes up for it and pulls his weight and earns his spot on the team with To Market alone. He stands to only get even more awesome from here, too, once I get the drop rate increase, damage tile negation, etc. Oh, and Mystery Seed.
I may change my tune once I have to fight an FOE or boss, of course, but I really like my team so far for exploring at least.
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Date: 2010-09-28 10:56 pm (UTC)For the Ninja, two abilities create shadows. One of those clones [Kagerou] does nothing but take damage if targeted. The other ability [Bunshin] takes half of your HP and TP, uses it to create a clone, and that clone can do anything you want it to. (You can even use it to create clones of itself; I'll get to that later.) The Bunshin clones are fully controlled by you, the player. The Kagerou clones don't do anything but get hit.
The clone will go into your imaginary sixth slot. So let's say you're
1 2
3 4 5
Well now you're
1 2 S
3 4 5
It gets odd if you're using less than a full party though. It seems to favor the front row first in these cases, but I've seen the shadow go in the back when I'm only using four, so... yeah.
However, if you've got fewer than five party members? You have have more clones. This is where that Tagen Battou ability comes in. It does what I'd describe as "above average" damage. It's not game breaking, but a lot of people will use it.
A thing to note: Dark Ether makes any skills in that line free, and being a Ninja you can make Dark Ether cost 1TP instead of 10. However, that uses up your Ninja's turn, so it won't work for its own abilities... unless you create a Bunshin clone in the same line as you and have IT use it.
Are you sure about the success rates on Mystery Seed vs. Wildling pets?
Nope, in fact this is why I shouldn't be discussing the rates of one thing while discussing the rates of another. It is, in fact, a base of 50% for Wildlings (when capped) versus a base of 60 for Farmers... again, while capped. (I was discussing Hexer ecstasy builds and how broken they could be with someone else and... kind of got befuddled, hahaha!) However a thing of note. Your farmer will need to cast that ability every time in hopes it will stick. That pet, once summoned, will attempt its special ability every turn until no longer summoned (because you unsummoned it, or it died, or whatever.) So keep that in mind when figuring percentages. That, and both LUC and TEC play into that formula... guess which of those two Wildlings quickly get. :D
I need to find out what Waste Not's modifier is because I have it capped and it doesn't seem to be much. Keen nose though? Go for that shit as quickly as possible. It'll make farming for rares so much easier. :D
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Date: 2010-09-28 11:11 pm (UTC)I guess sticking a Wildling pet in the sixth slot may have its uses, though. Hmm. Maybe I'll sub it at some point or something. Like I said, I'm pretty happy with my party for what it is right now, but it's only floor 1 and I haven't even beaten the "map this chunk of the floor to prove you're not a complete n00b" quest yet, so who knows what the future holds.
Also, Hexer + Ecstasy is nice, they complement each other well and such, but I wouldn't call it broken, especially because Dark Hunters could pretty much take care of everything by themselves if they wanted to with Dominate anyway. Especially with their Force Up whip (the aptly named Dominator) equipped.
According to the skill sim, Waste Not caps at +5%, but since I assume that's just straight-up added to the drop rate (80% chance to drop items are now 85%) rather than going through some arcane formula, that's not too bad. I mean, it's not the night-and-day "enemy drops? what are those?" vs "OH MY GOD I ONLY GOT IN TWO FIGHTS AND MY INVENTORY IS FULL ALREADY, HALP" difference EO2 Scavenge made, but it's helpful. As for Keen Nose, considering I still have traumatic flashbacks of trying to get those damned Pop Leaves for Ur-Child, let's just say Keen Nose is one of the main reasons (though there are surprisingly many other reasons when all is said and done) I'm maining a Farmer.
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Date: 2010-09-28 11:28 pm (UTC)Exactly. You not only need to be soloing as a Ninja, but you need to be creating clones until your party is full.
Also, someone just shared with me a protip I'm gonna try: getting a book with lots of slots and adding sleep element to it. Just as soon as I get a sleep hammer. Hmmm.
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Date: 2010-09-29 02:41 am (UTC)But yeah, never mind on Ninjas, then. Well, maybe I'll reconsider potential combinations when I can subclass, but I think I'm comfortable writing them off at least until then.
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Date: 2010-09-29 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 03:15 am (UTC)I guess my damage output isn't stellar if I have exactly zero Gladiators, four classes that are... okay, not useless at least, but somewhat lacking in big-name boss-killer specials, and one Farmer. On the other hand, maybe someone somewhere in the Prince/Hoplite/Monk/Arbalest group will turn deadly once I grow up a bit and can afford to climb further up their tech trees, who knows. If damage becomes too much of an issue later, then I'll address it later, but I don't really see a Ninja being the answer there either.
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Date: 2010-09-29 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-29 03:32 am (UTC)Also: Wildlings
Date: 2010-09-28 11:02 pm (UTC)And Wildlings 50% chance to land something capped, while less than 60%, includes a 15% that is applied after all modifiers. As such, if the beast isn't immune, there will ALWAYS be a 15% chance of landing a bind.
But your mileage may vary, and by all means if you're gonna take your farmer into the main party more power to you. It doesn't really matter in the end, so long as you can defeat the FOE.
Re: Also: Wildlings
Date: 2010-09-28 11:18 pm (UTC)Re: Also: Wildlings
Date: 2010-09-28 11:29 pm (UTC)Beat the game.
Win the love of GameFaqs forever. :O
Some people will run a Hoplite and a Prince/ess late game and drop the monk, focusing on item cures instead. Something to think about.