[X] My Assistant

I find it easier to use a staff on lower settings and a rapier+shield on higher ones, mainly due to the sheer amount of mana required to kill something with lots of HP. (The shield helps too, when I'm facing a group of 5 monsters on Battletoads and desperately trying to put all but one to sleep before they kill me.) I still find that bosses are a pain in the arse to kill with a staff, despite having all the required spells and a ton of Elementalist gear, so they get the rapier build. My staff prof sucks btw - I really wish you could raise it by casting.

Ya know, I tried that method once, and didn't like it. The ease of killing PA'd monsters didn't make up for the enormous loss of elem prof from not using a staff, and the inability to manually proc Channeling. Maybe I'll give it a try on higher difficulty, though.

Raising staff prof is easy. Wearing a staff and whatever type of armor you most want to get prof with, go into a high-level Flimsy IW on Cake, start a movie, and mindlessly mash your numpad. That's how I got my staff prof from 20 to 80 in a day. Don't forget that you get a huge chunk of your +elem prof from a good staff, so getting the stats bonus from prof really makes a difference.

By the way, I'd just like to brag a little about something I achieved recently. Note the absence of the word "Normal". (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Got you beat (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
(IMG:[i47.tinypic.com] http://i47.tinypic.com/15xmxj4.png)

I started Longest Journey on Heroic by mistake last week. It took 5 Geater and 6 Superior mana draughts, and a Mana Elixir, but I cleared it. And this was before I'd gotten the right spells to use against the boss, which is why I needed that elixir.

New NormalFest achievement: Round 169
(IMG:[i49.tinypic.com] http://i49.tinypic.com/evdifr.png)

Items used: 2 Greater and 4 Superior Mana draughts/pots.

I started using Shield, Haste, and Shadow Veil on auto-cast, for the extra chances at supportive prof gains. It seems to have also helped a lot in terms of reduced healing requirement. I cast a total of maybe 10 regens over all 169 rounds. Of course, I've also built up a base Elemental prof in the mid 120s. With my gear I'm at around 200 prof, which makes my Thunderstorms kill half the field instantly, and the other half on the next turn, all for 14-18 mana. I only get attacked about 4-6 times per round, and half of them don't hit me.

I even ran into White Bunneh on round 162. Fucker hit like a ton of bricks, but Weaken + Slow + Poison helped me kill him with Fimbulvetr spam before he charged up for any specials. Two of those Superiors were dedicated entirely to killing the two bosses I ran into (spamming Banish and Fimbulvetr is expensive!!), so I could have gotten quite a bit further on the same items, if I hadn't run into bosses.

Once the 3000 cred/day limit expires again, I'm gonna try for 200 rounds.

Longest Journey Completed!

It was easy too! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) I love you Silence! Will you be mine?
What? Just friends? O-okay, if that's the way it has to be... *grumble*

My next goal is Mikuru. She's beaten me twice, but now I know I can't use my steamroller tactics on her.

Edit -
Mikuru Defeated!

This fight wasn't pretty. I used four godly mana draughts and FIVE mana elixers. That's just too much.
I used an ax with 256 dmg/4 turn bleed for damage and it took 650 rounds to kill her.
I kept up silence, haste, and shadow veil up (and regen most of the time). I wonder if it would have
been better to spam holy magic? Banish only did around 180 dmg, but that's without PA (and with a low divine prof).




This post has been edited by torotuna: Jan 26 2010, 02:39

Longest Journey Completed!

Mikuru Defeated!

I used an ax with 256 dmg/4 turn bleed for damage and it took 650 rounds to kill her.

Grats on Longest Journey!

Out of curiosity, why'd you go with bleed damage against Mikuru, instead of Rapier + Shield/offhand? She's not melee immune like Ryouko and Yuki are.

I got to about 35 in grindfest. I burnt through a few strong healing items, but it taught me the virtues of bringing MP healing items. 200 HP being healed < 6 uses of heal = 400 HP healed.

HEROIC DREAMFALL CLEAR!
(IMG:[i47.tinypic.com] http://i47.tinypic.com/qpp43l.png)

Items used: 10 Godly Mana and 2 Mana Elixir

This was pretty easy, up until the last 5 rounds or so. Fighting 4 heroic minibosses at the same time is nasty.

I needed both Mana Elixirs just for Mithra alone. She's got so much HP that even Banish only takes off about 1/60th of her bar. 60+ Banishes is expensive. I think I'm gonna bring an Infusion of Gaia to the next arena I try on heroic, for the bonus spell ratings against every possible boss.

I did learn something pretty interesting, too. Arcane Meditation ran out right before Mithra died, so I got to see how much of a difference it was making in my magic damage. I started dealing 800-900 per Banish, rather than my usual 1000-1100. So it makes a bigger difference than I thought (~20%).

Grats on Longest Journey!

Out of curiosity, why'd you go with bleed damage against Mikuru, instead of Rapier + Shield/offhand? She's not melee immune like Ryouko and Yuki are.

I wanted to evaluate it's effectiveness. It worked, but it took forever (with my ax at least).
I fought her twice using my rapier and had trouble dishing out any significant damage, but that
was using my standard grindfest/IW tactics. I'm tempted to fight her again using PA and holy magic.
I'm embarrassed at having used all those elixirs. It seems so sloppy.

I wanted to evaluate it's effectiveness. It worked, but it took forever (with my ax at least).
I fought her twice using my rapier and had trouble dishing out any significant damage, but that
was using my standard grindfest/IW tactics. I'm tempted to fight her again using PA and holy magic.
I'm embarrassed at having used all those elixirs. It seems so sloppy.

Honestly, I've found that elixirs are overkill for everything except RoB bosses, and to a lesser extent, attempting arenas on high difficulty levels. So using a bunch of them to kill Mikuru is entirely justified.

What did you mean by "standard grindfest/IW tactics? I'm interested to learn why you had trouble dealing enough damage.

Twisted Plots Cleared.

So I got it into my head that going full mage might work, since it did with Endgame recently. But I forgot that time was made easier by the fact that I got Mithra, who is weak to Holy, which made her easy prey for my new Holy damage + staff. No such luck with Dalek. Ate up a lot of Mana Potions, since my elec damage was all over the place (mostly 600ish, sometimes jumping to 1100+) but I got him in the end. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

my elec damage was all over the place (mostly 600ish, sometimes jumping to 1100+) but I got him in the end. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

You know, I ran into the same unusual inconsistency with Dalek as well. My Chain Lightnings would usually hit for ~1700 and crit for ~2200, but I'd occasionally get ~2100 dmg non-crits. I wonder what's up with that?

Regardless, I've found that arena is a LOT easier as a mage now that I have spells of all 4 elemental weakensses that the bosses have (Holy, Elec, Fire, and Cold). All of them except White Bunneh also supposedly have Soul weakness, but it seems to be a minor weakness, at best. That could just be my difference of 130 prof points between Elem (210 with gear) and Forbidden (80), though.

You know, I ran into the same unusual inconsistency with Dalek as well. My Chain Lightnings would usually hit for ~1700 and crit for ~2200, but I'd occasionally get ~2100 dmg non-crits. I wonder what's up with that?

Regardless, I've found that arena is a LOT easier as a mage now that I have spells of all 4 elemental weakensses that the bosses have (Holy, Elec, Fire, and Cold). All of them except White Bunneh also supposedly have Soul weakness, but it seems to be a minor weakness, at best. That could just be my difference of 130 prof points between Elem (210 with gear) and Forbidden (80), though.

Huh. And I was about to lay the blame on my staff having a low elemental prof. bonus. But it may just be that I'm so used to using Elementalist ones that using anything without the hefty elemental bonus screws with my style, at least with bosses. I switched to a Heimdall because most minibosses were weak to either Holy or Elec, and I have been able to one shot a couple of minibosses since I got it. Manthras are still annoying with Wind maxed, so I might try a staff with a big Wind bonus next time.

I find myself using Soul mostly in IW, because there getting 60 or so HP back every few turns actually helps. A typical hit in the arena on me is around 120 as a mage, so there's really no point unless I get my Forbidden prof way up.

Manthras are still annoying with Wind maxed, so I might try a staff with a big Wind bonus next time.

I find myself using Soul mostly in IW, because there getting 60 or so HP back every few turns actually helps. A typical hit in the arena on me is around 120 as a mage, so there's really no point unless I get my Forbidden prof way up.

When I was doing Dreamfall on Heroic, the biggest drain on my mana was the damn Manthras. They have very high Barrier Rating, so even Wind magic is still not very strong.

In IW, I use Elec almost exclusively. Since you run into minibosses very rarely, and the only monster that is strongly resistant to Elec is Blue Slime, I just point 2 Thunderstorms at the Blue Slimes (the extra damage from targeting them directly helps to overcomes their resistance), and the rest of the field just fries along with them. However, I'll always point the second one at a Coa'd target, to save mana. Most of the time, the Blue Slime will either die from the splash damage, or be so close to death that one staff smack takes it down.

This post has been edited by coredumperror: Jan 26 2010, 22:58

Honestly, I've found that elixirs are overkill for everything except RoB bosses, and to a lesser extent, attempting arenas on high difficulty levels. So using a bunch of them to kill Mikuru is entirely justified.

What did you mean by "standard grindfest/IW tactics? I'm interested to learn why you had trouble dealing enough damage.

My standard IW/grindfest tactics are to build overcharge, inflict PA, use spirit attack, use spirit potion, repeat.
I invented this and as far as I know no one else does it. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Seriously though, I beat Konata and the rest
like this, but 3 full force spirit attacks only took away about 10-20% of Mikuru's HP, at which point all my mana
was used up. This was my IW EXP grind setup which had poison, sleep, absorb, and shield as my only tactical
spells. I had dumped a lot of AP into overcharge boost to see if it would help me survive longer in IW. I don't
think it helped out enough to be worth all those AP.
Now I'm all loaded up with deprecating spells and holy magic. I'm going to take a shot at Ryouko after
training my holy prof a while. I doubt trying to bleed her will work.
I can't help but wonder, since Mikuru gave me her bunny girl suit when I beat her, did she have to walk home naked?

My standard IW/grindfest tactics are to build overcharge, inflict PA, use spirit attack, use spirit potion, repeat.
I invented this and as far as I know no one else does it. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Seriously though, I beat Konata and the rest
like this, but 3 full force spirit attacks only took away about 10-20% of Mikuru's HP.

Ahhh, there's your problem. Konata and 3 of the bosses are weak to Soul damage, meaning your spirit attack deals a ton of extra damage to them. Mikuru, however, is not weak to Soul, so spirit attacks aren't nearly as strong. The best way to defeat her, from my experience, is to Weaken, Bewilder (or just Silence), PA+Poison, and Slow her, and beat her down with regular melee attacks. She has more HP than Konata, and takes a little less damage, but she's still a pushover compared to Ryouko and Yuki.

Sealed Power- Complete

95 11 You gain 25543 Credits!
95 10 You gain 13995.39 EXP!
95 9 Your HP and MP have been fully restored!
95 8 Arena Clear Bonus! Received:
[Fine Sapphire Plate Sabatons of Protection]
95 7 You have obtained the title: Destined
95 6 Dalek dropped [Dalek Voicebox]
95 5 Mithra dropped [Mithra's Flower]
95 4 You are Victorious!

Cost: 4 Godly Mana Draughts.

That was not hard. Not hard at all.

And, finally, i cleared The Trio And the Tree !

(IMG:[94.23.12.47] http://94.23.12.47/pub/images/hv/hv-arena-the-trio-and-the-tree.png)

To add to it, i did it in hard mode, not that it was intended, i just forgot to set the difficulty to normal after doing some other arenas ^^; But the final round was a lot easier than expected, and i only needed 5 mana elixirs and 2 scroll of the gods in grand total, with 1 full mana elixir wasted to test if i could outheal yggdrasil while hitting skuld (i couldn't, just own the tree to /lol the 3 others). But it's certainly doable with only draught, and i don't even imagine in normal.
To be honest, To Kill a God and Eve of Death are a lot harder in hard mode when you have a physical immune last boss.

So, i'm now a Godslayer too. This was a long rush, with a little more than 10 days played (~4h/day) in nearly 2 monthes to go from 0 to 200, even if it's still nothing compared to my ~450 days played on WoW.
I'm not stopping the game, but be sure that i will play quite less for some time, because 2/3 of my xp comes from mind numbing IW's, even if i'm calculating the difficulty to have them last between 15 and 20mn each (but that's still 3h/day of IW's + 1h/day of arenas).

Edit: Totaly out of topic but i dunno where to ask about it : wtf is happening with the hath exchange ? The average price jumped from something like 1800C to 2200/2300C in a week. It's hard to buy even 1/day if you don't buyout it at 2500C.

This post has been edited by vaelh: Jan 27 2010, 04:26

Edit: Totaly out of topic but i dunno where to ask about it : wtf is happening with the hath exchange ? The average price jumped from something like 1800C to 2200/2300C in a week. It's hard to buy even 1/day if you don't buyout it at 2500C.

I'd say that it's a combination of GP inflation and supply and demand shifting. Since credits cost more GP than they did last month, Hath costs more too. And since people keep buying 1 Hath for 2500c, people keep selling them for that much.

Edit: Totaly out of topic but i dunno where to ask about it : wtf is happening with the hath exchange ? The average price jumped from something like 1800C to 2200/2300C in a week. It's hard to buy even 1/day if you don't buyout it at 2500C.

The Exchange is basically a stock market. Some people buy Hath simply to flip it and make a profit. So long as there are people willing to buy at those prices, that's what they'll be sold at. I actively try to buy as low as possible (except for that last batch from Rob since I just wanted to be done with Hath for a little while) and try to never exceed a certain threshold in order to try to keep Hath prices stable and on the low end.

In other news: Can I be one of the cool kids now?

(IMG:[i49.tinypic.com] http://i49.tinypic.com/16ach7m.png)
0 2 Spawned Monster A: MID=24 (Real Life) LV=160 HP=283810 MP=101 SP=147 NA=50 Type=hostile

Same setup and overall strategy as the when I took on the Legendaries, except this time I brought a Soul Stone, some Gum, and a Vase (what else am I gonna use them for?). Used 5 Godly Mana Draughts, 2 Elixirs (probably could have subbed this with more Draughts, but whatever), and a Shield Scroll (only used this one late in the battle because I wanted to minimize my Elixir usage). About 100 turns in, I decided to pop the Stone because I didn't feel like doing this for a thousand turns. Once that finished, I waited until I proc'd PA before dropping my Vase and Gum and unleashed REPPUU SEIKENZUKI!! on Real Life for 108041 soul damage.

Once that finished, I waited until I proc'd PA before dropping my Vase and Gum and unleashed REPPUU SEIKENZUKI!! on Real Life for 108041 soul damage.

SIIICK. I've often wondered what a spirit attack would hit for with PA+Gum+Vase. 6-digit damage is awesome.

SIIICK. I've often wondered what a spirit attack would hit for with PA+Gum+Vase. 6-digit damage is awesome.

I don't know if the extra 120% OC did anything to add to that, though. Or what kind of damage rolls I got with that Spirit. That might even be on the low end. But if I can deal that kind of damage consistently against IPU and FSM, they're toast. I just have to survive long enough to set it up, LOL.