Breath of Fire

2009-05-19 08:14:05 pm

D:

Quote from Abazaba:

#3 would be important for times in the game when gold is of the essence, like this situation with the long sword. Even though I know I'll collect better gear later, I can't sell the gear that I'm wearing now. This also means that the Gbar situation becomes that much more of a pain. It doesn't matter if I know I'm going to get a new weapon, so I can just sell it and use mrbl3 until I get the new one.

Yeah, that's a pain in the ass. The trade-in option is actually useful with the LongSD, but it would be nice if you could sell your good gear in advance.

I guess I got used to most of the frustrations when I was working on my EarthBound run. Smiley

Quote:

Also, the first death abuse I have found is the post pog/general fight in the forest. Have you found any before this? Tonight, I'm going to retry the wizard times, and hopefully through pog/general.

Bah!

*checks notes* Nope, that's the first one. Any potential backtracking before then is covered up by cutscenes that automatically take you back where you want to go.

Also, in case you aren't already doing it I really recommend skipping Pog, unless you think you need the experience. The General goes down pretty quickly with judicious use of Fry and E.Key.

...and back to refamiliarizing myself with the game (since I don't think what I'm doing at this point really counts as practicing a speedrun).

[quote="Abazaba"]
#3 would be important for times in the game when gold is of the essence, like this situation with the long sword.  Even though I know I'll collect better gear later, I can't sell the gear that I'm wearing now.  This also means that the Gbar situation becomes that much more of a pain.  It doesn't matter if I know I'm going to get a new weapon, so I can just sell it and use mrbl3 until I get the new one.[/quote]

Yeah, that's a pain in the ass.  The trade-in option is actually useful with the LongSD, but it would be nice if you could sell your good gear in advance.

I guess I got used to most of the frustrations when I was working on my EarthBound run. :)

[quote]
Also, the first death abuse I have found is the post pog/general fight in the forest.  Have you found any before this?  Tonight, I'm going to retry the wizard times, and hopefully through pog/general.

Bah!
[/quote]

*checks notes*  Nope, that's the first one.  Any potential backtracking before then is covered up by cutscenes that automatically take you back where you want to go.

Also, in case you aren't already doing it I [i]really[/i] recommend skipping Pog, unless you think you need the experience.  The General goes down pretty quickly with judicious use of Fry and E.Key.

...and back to refamiliarizing myself with the game (since I don't think what I'm doing at this point really counts as practicing a speedrun).

2009-05-20 10:23:35 am

Didn't get what I wanted to do last night. Long story short, arrived at Tantar in 50 minutes flat. By manipulating drops and leveling luck, I'd estimate that the same route can be done segmented in 45 minutes. I think under 45 minutes is impossible for me, based on my route and skill. Anyways, I'm still going for SS.

Are you just replaying the game right now? How far are you doing that?

In regards to pog, here's what I think. Leveling is really critical right now as Nina needs to get to level 13 ASAP to learn warp/exit. By doing the pog fight, you get 1400 ep and 800 gp. The general only gives 1120 ep and 300 gp. Now, does he give more if you skip pog, or does he just hit harder? I haven't tested it yet, but it would be interesting to see. If it's doable, I think skipping the fights in the forest via mrbl3's and killing pog will be faster. But again, this is all contingent on how fast I can level up Nina. She's level 6 at the moment...

I don't know. Any thoughts?

Edit history:

__sdfg: 2009-05-20 09:18:17 pm

2009-05-20 05:52:10 pm

D:

Quote from Abazaba:

Didn't get what I wanted to do last night. Long story short, arrived at Tantar in 50 minutes flat. By manipulating drops and leveling luck, I'd estimate that the same route can be done segmented in 45 minutes. I think under 45 minutes is impossible for me, based on my route and skill. Anyways, I'm still going for SS.

Cool. Hopefully, you'll be able to come up with a more reliable strategy for the Gremlin fight than I could :).

Quote:

Are you just replaying the game right now? How far are you doing that?

Yeah, I'm trying to sort of guess how I might do a speedrun as I go, and estimate how feasible different approaches might be. Progress has been rather slow lately because I've had to devote more time than usual to reality.

Last night, I got up to the GrimFowl woods and the egg wasn't there. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to talk to the weapons expert. This made me sufficiently grumpy that I closed Snes9x and went to bed.

Quote:

In regards to pog, here's what I think. Leveling is really critical right now as Nina needs to get to level 13 ASAP to learn warp/exit. By doing the pog fight, you get 1400 ep and 800 gp. The general only gives 1120 ep and 300 gp. Now, does he give more if you skip pog, or does he just hit harder? I haven't tested it yet, but it would be interesting to see. If it's doable, I think skipping the fights in the forest via mrbl3's and killing pog will be faster. But again, this is all contingent on how fast I can level up Nina. She's level 6 at the moment...

I don't know. Any thoughts?

The General gives the same experience either way: I got 1443 EP from five rounds of fighting, both with and without Pog (and I'm still not convinced he's actually harder... he has the same HP, at least).

With regard the forest... I don't know. I think that in terms of EP-per-round, Pog isn't likely to be much worse than what you'd get in the forest, and possibly better. I'm not sure of the difference in EP-per-minute, however. Doing the Pog fight adds some cutscene time, and probably requires more attention to be paid to the menus (you'll have to heal a lot rather than always Rang+E.Key spamming). On the other hand, it saves some before- and after-battle animations. I guess it's another thing that needs to be timed. >_<

Also, I think the first time you really miss Warp is when you're leaving the Krypt, and you have to return to Bleak and then Auria. There's a lot of walking involved otherwise. In addition, it'd be nice to have Warp there because then you could take Karn cruising for items in Winlan/Agua (though the time involved in doing this is another thing that I need to record... I'm guessing they're worth the effort). I've got a spreadsheet started with all of the mandatory battles and the experience that will be learned from them. I need to make some more changes to it -- I'm missing stuff like the Archers in the forest, and I haven't taken the round bonuses into account yet -- but when I do, I should be able to tell you just how many more EP you'll need to get Warp then. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to do that later tonight.

Also also, Bleu is the only character who can learn Exit. Sucks, I know.

EDITz: My current estimates give Nina 4000-4500 EP when you defeat the EyeSpy. According to Novalia Spirit's documentation, she needs 9300 EP to reach level 13. It'd take a lot of G.Slime grinding or something to make up the difference after Krypt (unless you just left Bo dead the whole time). Cloud drops 4800 EP for the whole party, which divides out to another 1200 (again, unless you leave someone dead). It might be possible to level strategically enough in advance of this that Nina could learn Warp then... dunno. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure how much the 700 EP from Pog will ultimately contribute.

[quote="Abazaba"]
Didn't get what I wanted to do last night.  Long story short, arrived at Tantar in 50 minutes flat.  By manipulating drops and leveling luck, I'd estimate that the same route can be done segmented in 45 minutes.  I think under 45 minutes is impossible for me, based on my route and skill.  Anyways, I'm still going for SS.[/quote]

Cool.  Hopefully, you'll be able to come up with a more reliable strategy for the Gremlin fight than I could :).

[quote]Are you just replaying the game right now?  How far are you doing that?[/quote]

Yeah, I'm trying to sort of guess how I might do a speedrun as I go, and estimate how feasible different approaches might be.  Progress has been rather slow lately because I've had to devote more time than usual to reality.

Last night, I got up to the GrimFowl woods and the egg wasn't there.  Then I realized that I'd forgotten to talk to the weapons expert.  This made me sufficiently grumpy that I closed Snes9x and went to bed.

[quote]
In regards to pog, here's what I think.  Leveling is really critical right now as Nina needs to get to level 13 ASAP to learn warp/exit.  By doing the pog fight, you get 1400 ep and 800 gp.  The general only gives 1120 ep and 300 gp.  Now, does he give more if you skip pog, or does he just hit harder?  I haven't tested it yet, but it would be interesting to see.  If it's doable, I think skipping the fights in the forest via mrbl3's and killing pog will be faster.  But again, this is all contingent on how fast I can level up Nina.  She's level 6 at the moment...

I don't know.  Any thoughts? 
[/quote]

The General gives the same experience either way:  I got 1443 EP from five rounds of fighting, both with and without Pog (and I'm still not convinced he's actually harder... he has the same HP, at least).

With regard the forest... I don't know.  I think that in terms of EP-per-round, Pog isn't likely to be much worse than what you'd get in the forest, and possibly better.  I'm not sure of the difference in EP-per-minute, however.  Doing the Pog fight adds some cutscene time, and probably requires more attention to be paid to the menus (you'll have to heal a lot rather than always Rang+E.Key spamming).  On the other hand, it saves some before- and after-battle animations.  I guess it's another thing that needs to be timed. >_<

Also, I think the first time you really miss Warp is when you're leaving the Krypt, and you have to return to Bleak and then Auria.  There's a lot of walking involved otherwise.  In addition, it'd be nice to have Warp there because then you could take Karn cruising for items in Winlan/Agua (though the time involved in doing this is another thing that I need to record...  I'm guessing they're worth the effort).  I've got a spreadsheet started with all of the mandatory battles and the experience that will be learned from them.  I need to make some more changes to it -- I'm missing stuff like the Archers in the forest, and I haven't taken the round bonuses into account yet -- but when I do, I should be able to tell you just how many more EP you'll need to get Warp then.  Hopefully, I'll get the chance to do that later tonight.

Also also, Bleu is the only character who can learn Exit.  Sucks, I know.

EDITz:   My current estimates give Nina 4000-4500 EP when you defeat the EyeSpy.  According to Novalia Spirit's documentation, she needs 9300 EP to reach level 13.  It'd take a lot of G.Slime grinding or something to make up the difference after Krypt (unless you just left Bo dead the whole time).  Cloud drops 4800 EP for the whole party, which divides out to another 1200 (again, unless you leave someone dead).  It might be possible to level strategically enough in advance of this that Nina could learn Warp then... dunno.  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure how much the 700 EP from Pog will ultimately contribute.

2009-05-20 10:15:00 pm

There's a word for that

I don't think it makes the General himself any harder, I think maybe it was something to do with not being able to heal or equip Bo etc before the fight. There's only one entry for the General in the monster guide anyway >_>

2009-05-21 06:38:25 am

D:

Actually, you don't get the chance to heal or equip anyone between the Bowman+2 Lancer fight and the General fight, regardless of whether Pog's in the middle or not. All of the between-battle space is filled up by the General/fake chief's dialogue. I'm not sure from where the idea that skipping Pog made the fight harder came, unless Bo gets different equipment or something. :|

I did notice one potential use for fighting Pog, however. My spreadsheet estimates Nina's EP as 2311 before fighting the Gremlin, putting her at level 10. She only needs 3150 to reach level 11. Beating Pog would take her up to 3011, so you'd only need a couple random encounters to get to 11, or possibly one fight that was more optimized than I remember it being >_>. That might be faster than hunting down defensive equipment in advance, since that was what I ended up having to do to give her the stamina to survive that fight (though in a SS run, you may want to do both).

Also, if you use ATK-Up on Ryu in the first round and heal very little, it is possible to get the 120% EP bonus from fighting Pog. This would put Nina at 3151 EP ;). For it to work, though, you need fairly good luck with that fight and the Bowman/Lancer fight preceding it. I don't know if you could plan on doing that in a SS run.

Actually, you don't get the chance to heal or equip anyone between the Bowman+2 Lancer fight and the General fight, regardless of whether Pog's in the middle or not.  All of the between-battle space is filled up by the General/fake chief's dialogue.  I'm not sure from where the idea that skipping Pog made the fight harder came, unless Bo gets different equipment or something. :|

I did notice one potential use for fighting Pog, however.  My spreadsheet estimates Nina's EP as 2311 before fighting the Gremlin, putting her at level 10.  She only needs 3150 to reach level 11.  Beating Pog would take her up to 3011, so you'd only need a couple random encounters to get to 11, or possibly one fight that was more optimized than I remember it being >_>.  That might be faster than hunting down defensive equipment in advance, since that was what I ended up having to do to give her the stamina to survive that fight (though in a SS run, you may want to do both).

Also, if you use ATK-Up on Ryu in the first round and heal very little, it is possible to get the 120% EP bonus from fighting Pog.  This would put Nina at 3151 EP ;).  For it to work, though, you need fairly good luck with that fight and the Bowman/Lancer fight preceding it.  I don't know if you could plan on doing that in a SS run.

2009-05-21 08:09:56 am

There's a word for that

Beating Pog at that speed sounds faster than grinding, if you can manage it. I'm not sure how much of a difference one level on Nina will make (she does learn Hold though... bet it never works on anything useful), but then it will probably make a difference further down the track too. And yeah Nina takes a load of EP to level up early on, it's a weird contrast to when she hits about Lv30+... if you even get that high Tongue

2009-05-21 08:16:28 am

So here's what happened for me.

Skipping Pog is clearly faster, using all mrbl3's. Getting the same xp from random encounters is much longer, I'd estimate. However, I had a scenario doing the general where both Ryu and Bo died, allowing Nina to soak up all that juicy xp. And yes, I got 1443 as well. I guess someone needs to correct their monster guide.

Anyways, by skipping pog, I'd estimate that you can be back in Tantar in 7-8 minutes with death abuse. Also, normally Nina would only be level 8 with this strategy, but I saved with her being level 9 due to the other players dying. I think I'll either figure something out to make sure she's level 9 at this point, or I'll just do the pog fight in SS to ensure the level gain.

And I only did it once, so I still have a small data set, but I'm pretty sure the General just hits harder. It's not much, like 4-5 points. But again, that's just data from one set of fights to compare.

And yes, you can't get healed in between any of the fights, unless you do it during the battles. And there's no way that can happen in the bow/lancer fight. You need all 4 attacks to kill them.

Anyways, I didn't time it, but I walked through the robot destroying the dam, and the state of the art cutscene. Heh. I used mrbl3's the whole way. The agua fight took a little longer than expected, and I had to buy some acorns for Bo. Also, do you plan on collecting all the armor from that dungeon? I collected most of it, if not all. I'm not sure if the gear is mandatory for that encounter, and some of it is out of the way. I had no problems with the general fight inside the robot.

And I'm assuming agua is your second death abuse. Smiley

That one is a no brainer. And that will be a pretty long segment too.

I ran out of mrbl3's so I didn't bother going any farther. I had stopped in Winlan to buy some initially. Guess I need to buy a lot more.

And FYI, I'm 'hoping' Ryu will only have to be in the mid to high 20's to win. That's just a guess at this point.

So here's what happened for me.

Skipping Pog is clearly faster, using all mrbl3's.  Getting the same xp from random encounters is much longer, I'd estimate.  However, I had a scenario doing the general where both Ryu and Bo died, allowing Nina to soak up all that juicy xp.  And yes, I got 1443 as well.  I guess someone needs to correct their monster guide.

Anyways, by skipping pog, I'd estimate that you can be back in Tantar in 7-8 minutes with death abuse.  Also, normally Nina would only be level 8 with this strategy, but I saved with her being level 9 due to the other players dying.  I think I'll either figure something out to make sure she's level 9 at this point, or I'll just do the pog fight in SS to ensure the level gain.

And I only did it once, so I still have a small data set, but I'm pretty sure the General just hits harder.  It's not much, like 4-5 points.  But again, that's just data from one set of fights to compare.

And yes, you can't get healed in between any of the fights, unless you do it during the battles.  And there's no way that can happen in the bow/lancer fight.  You need all 4 attacks to kill them.

Anyways, I didn't time it, but I walked through the robot destroying the dam, and the state of the art cutscene.  Heh.  I used mrbl3's the whole way.  The agua fight took a little longer than expected, and I had to buy some acorns for Bo.  Also, do you plan on collecting all the armor from that dungeon?  I collected most of it, if not all.  I'm not sure if the gear is mandatory for that encounter, and some of it is out of the way.  I had no problems with the general fight inside the robot.

And I'm assuming agua is your second death abuse.  :)  That one is a no brainer.  And that will be a pretty long segment too.

I ran out of mrbl3's so I didn't bother going any farther.  I had stopped in Winlan to buy some initially.  Guess I need to buy a lot more.

And FYI, I'm 'hoping' Ryu will only have to be in the mid to high 20's to win.  That's just a guess at this point.

Edit history:

__sdfg: 2009-05-21 10:37:28 pm

2009-05-21 07:57:49 pm

D:

Yikes, big post time.

Quote from DoubleThink:

Beating Pog at that speed sounds faster than grinding, if you can manage it. I'm not sure how much of a difference one level on Nina will make (she does learn Hold though... bet it never works on anything useful), but then it will probably make a difference further down the track too. And yeah Nina takes a load of EP to level up early on, it's a weird contrast to when she hits about Lv30+... if you even get that high Tongue

I think you're right about Hold. The main reason for wanting that one level, actually, was just to give her another ~10 HP for fighting Gremlin. In the second half of the fight, he attacks the full party on every turn. Things go much more smoothly if Nina can withstand two attacks without dying, so she can alternate between healing herself and healing someone else.

And yeah, the level cutoffs for this game are bizarre, now that I look at them more closely. Maybe the developers really didn't want anyone learning Warp early on.

Quote from Abazaba:

So here's what happened for me.

Skipping Pog is clearly faster, using all mrbl3's. Getting the same xp from random encounters is much longer, I'd estimate. However, I had a scenario doing the general where both Ryu and Bo died, allowing Nina to soak up all that juicy xp. And yes, I got 1443 as well. I guess someone needs to correct their monster guide.

Huh. Good news for Nina.

The experience given in the Novalia Sprit monster guide (which is what I've been using) is correct, BTW. The base experience for the General is 1200 EP. However, if you win in 5 or 6 turns, you get a 20.3125% bonus, which takes it up to 1443.75.

Quote:

Anyways, by skipping pog, I'd estimate that you can be back in Tantar in 7-8 minutes with death abuse. Also, normally Nina would only be level 8 with this strategy, but I saved with her being level 9 due to the other players dying. I think I'll either figure something out to make sure she's level 9 at this point, or I'll just do the pog fight in SS to ensure the level gain.

I think the experience you're getting there is consistent with what I saw. I really should get around to timing stuff one of these days...

Quote:

And I only did it once, so I still have a small data set, but I'm pretty sure the General just hits harder. It's not much, like 4-5 points. But again, that's just data from one set of fights to compare.

Huh :|. Well, I think we can agree that it doesn't really affect the battle, at least.

Quote:

Anyways, I didn't time it, but I walked through the robot destroying the dam, and the state of the art cutscene. Heh. I used mrbl3's the whole way. The agua fight took a little longer than expected, and I had to buy some acorns for Bo. Also, do you plan on collecting all the armor from that dungeon? I collected most of it, if not all. I'm not sure if the gear is mandatory for that encounter, and some of it is out of the way. I had no problems with the general fight inside the robot.

Yeah, Wisp has a lot of HP, and Bo's your closest thing to a heavy-hitter if you haven't leveled much.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that gear. I actually picked up everything, but tried to play without equipping anything other than the HuntCL, to see what it would be like if I skipped most of it (the HuntCL is a big boost and isn't too far out of the way). I think I eventually equipped most of it when I got to the Gremlin, though, just because he kept kicking my ass. That was why I was interested in getting Nina another level, to see if it would be faster to level her up or to collect more armor. Unfortunately, I don't remember how much of my gear for the Gremlin fight came from Agua (where it's pretty easy to get) and how much of it came from the lake cave (which takes a bit more walking). I'll have to (try to) go back and check on that later tonight.

EDIT: In terms of funky gear, I had the SunHT on Bo, the ThiefCL/Wrist/BronzHT on Ryu, and the SkySH/HairBand on Nina. The Wrist is in the Forest of Despair, the BronzHT came from the Stone Robot, the SkySH came from the lake cave, and the rest were from Agua. I don't think any of them were particularly challenging to get. The ThiefCL was the only one that made a big difference... going back to more easily obtainable gear on Nina and Bo meant I took 5 HP more damage or so.

There are a couple things worth noting, however. First, I had to use Fort on Nina and Bo to survive the fight, which was kind of crummy. Still faster than grabbing items, though. The second thing was that Nina apparently had died before one of the previous battles, because she was only level 8, and I would've expected her to be level 9. So... maybe she'll ordinarily have enough HP that she doesn't need the extra gear.

Quote:

And I'm assuming agua is your second death abuse. Smiley

That one is a no brainer. And that will be a pretty long segment too.

You know, I honestly hadn't thought about it, but you're right, that one is a no-brainer (so I guess I have negative brains >_>). I think I was planning on saving after the spring just so I wouldn't have to redo it if I messed up the Wisp fight, but I probably would be better off abusing back to Ta/untar. I should probably get used to doing long segments anyway, given that I'll very likely want to abuse my way out of the Krypt later on.

Quote:

I ran out of mrbl3's so I didn't bother going any farther. I had stopped in Winlan to buy some initially. Guess I need to buy a lot more.

Correct. The next convenient opportunity to buy Mrbl3s is when Nina can Warp you back to Drogen, or when you get to Prima. It takes ~1.5 buttloads of Mrbl3s to reach either objective.

I ran out around where you did, and then went back to get more, and then ran out again a while later. :/

Quote:

And FYI, I'm 'hoping' Ryu will only have to be in the mid to high 20's to win. That's just a guess at this point.

My mandatory-fights-only spreadsheet currently has him at 17 or 18 after fighting Jade, so yeah, I hope so, too. I'm going to be relying heavily on Agni...

Yikes, big post time.

[quote="DoubleThink"]
Beating Pog at that speed sounds faster than grinding, if you can manage it. I'm not sure how much of a difference one level on Nina will make (she does learn Hold though... bet it never works on anything useful), but then it will probably make a difference further down the track too. And yeah Nina takes a load of EP to level up early on, it's a weird contrast to when she hits about Lv30+... if you even get that high :P
[/quote]

I think you're right about Hold.  The main reason for wanting that one level, actually, was just to give her another ~10 HP for fighting Gremlin.  In the second half of the fight, he attacks the full party on every turn.  Things go much more smoothly if Nina can withstand two attacks without dying, so she can alternate between healing herself and healing someone else.

And yeah, the level cutoffs for this game are bizarre, now that I look at them more closely.  Maybe the developers really didn't want anyone learning Warp early on.

[quote="Abazaba"]
So here's what happened for me.

Skipping Pog is clearly faster, using all mrbl3's.  Getting the same xp from random encounters is much longer, I'd estimate.  However, I had a scenario doing the general where both Ryu and Bo died, allowing Nina to soak up all that juicy xp.  And yes, I got 1443 as well.  I guess someone needs to correct their monster guide.[/quote]

Huh.  Good news for Nina.

The experience given in the Novalia Sprit monster guide (which is what I've been using) is correct, BTW.  The base experience for the General is 1200 EP.  However, if you win in 5 or 6 turns, you get a 20.3125% bonus, which takes it up to 1443.75.

[quote]Anyways, by skipping pog, I'd estimate that you can be back in Tantar in 7-8 minutes with death abuse.  Also, normally Nina would only be level 8 with this strategy, but I saved with her being level 9 due to the other players dying.  I think I'll either figure something out to make sure she's level 9 at this point, or I'll just do the pog fight in SS to ensure the level gain.[/quote]

I think the experience you're getting there is consistent with what I saw.  I really should get around to timing stuff one of these days...

[quote]And I only did it once, so I still have a small data set, but I'm pretty sure the General just hits harder.  It's not much, like 4-5 points.  But again, that's just data from one set of fights to compare.[/quote]

Huh :|.  Well, I think we can agree that it doesn't really affect the battle, at least.

[quote]Anyways, I didn't time it, but I walked through the robot destroying the dam, and the state of the art cutscene.  Heh.  I used mrbl3's the whole way.  The agua fight took a little longer than expected, and I had to buy some acorns for Bo.  Also, do you plan on collecting all the armor from that dungeon?  I collected most of it, if not all.  I'm not sure if the gear is mandatory for that encounter, and some of it is out of the way.  I had no problems with the general fight inside the robot.[/quote]

Yeah, Wisp has a lot of HP, and Bo's your closest thing to a heavy-hitter if you haven't leveled much.

To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that gear.  I actually picked up everything, but tried to play without equipping anything other than the HuntCL, to see what it would be like if I skipped most of it (the HuntCL is a big boost and isn't too far out of the way).  I think I eventually equipped most of it when I got to the Gremlin, though, just because he kept kicking my ass.  That was why I was interested in getting Nina another level, to see if it would be faster to level her up or to collect more armor.  Unfortunately, I don't remember how much of my gear for the Gremlin fight came from Agua (where it's pretty easy to get) and how much of it came from the lake cave (which takes a bit more walking).  I'll have to (try to) go back and check on that later tonight.

EDIT: In terms of funky gear, I had the SunHT on Bo, the ThiefCL/Wrist/BronzHT on Ryu, and the SkySH/HairBand on Nina.  The Wrist is in the Forest of Despair, the BronzHT came from the Stone Robot, the SkySH came from the lake cave, and the rest were from Agua.  I don't think any of them were particularly challenging to get.  The ThiefCL was the only one that made a big difference... going back to more easily obtainable gear on Nina and Bo meant I took 5 HP more damage or so.

There are a couple things worth noting, however.  First, I had to use Fort on Nina and Bo to survive the fight, which was kind of crummy.  Still faster than grabbing items, though.  The second thing was that Nina apparently had died before one of the previous battles, because she was only level 8, and I would've expected her to be level 9.  So... maybe she'll ordinarily have enough HP that she doesn't need the extra gear.

[quote]And I'm assuming agua is your second death abuse.  :)  That one is a no brainer.  And that will be a pretty long segment too.[/quote]

You know, I honestly hadn't thought about it, but you're right, that one is a no-brainer (so I guess I have negative brains >_>).  I think I was planning on saving after the spring just so I wouldn't have to redo it if I messed up the Wisp fight, but I probably would be better off abusing back to Ta/untar.  I should probably get used to doing long segments anyway, given that I'll very likely want to abuse my way out of the Krypt later on.

[quote]I ran out of mrbl3's so I didn't bother going any farther.  I had stopped in Winlan to buy some initially.  Guess I need to buy a lot more.[/quote]

Correct.  The next convenient opportunity to buy Mrbl3s is when Nina can Warp you back to Drogen, or when you get to Prima.  It takes ~1.5 buttloads of Mrbl3s to reach either objective.

I ran out around where you did, and then went back to get more, and then ran out again a while later. :/

[quote]And FYI, I'm 'hoping' Ryu will only have to be in the mid to high 20's to win.  That's just a guess at this point.[/quote]

My mandatory-fights-only spreadsheet currently has him at 17 or 18 after fighting Jade, so yeah, I hope so, too.  I'm going to be relying heavily on Agni...

2009-05-21 11:41:06 pm

Late night posting! Woo!

Okay, what to report first?

So, the part I did last night, from first arrival in tantar to post giant stone robot part 1, I'd estimate it could be done in 20 minutes, maybe less depending on how the fights go, and how soon you can die after the agua fight.

I did Gremlin a couple times, with some different gear setups. Because of my lucky nina save state, I actually had Ryu at 11, Nina at 10, and Bo at 9 for every attempt. I'll also go ahead and admit that in my first trip to Winlan, I spent all my money on chainmail for Ryu, so I have Bo wear that once I get thief cloak. I find the Gremlin fight to be easy, but only when Bo takes his turn BEFORE Ryu. This allows Bo to use two frys, and then have Ryu just fill him up with acorns. And yes, I still had to have nina cast fort on everyone and heal like crazy. And I have 2 life2's at that point, and I could actually pick up a third if I really thought I needed it. During phase 2, I actually found it optimal to just let Bo die at one point, and then use a life2 on him. This allowed me to get a few more ekeys in and speed things up. It can definitely be done without the life2, but it's not a bad spot to use them there.

I actually found the Talon fight to be really annoying. It's not a difficult fight, just really boring and tedious.

Wow, I'm feeling pretty good. I got to see my good friend Karn sleeping in the jail like a little baby. Haha. Oh boy... I need some sleep too.

I'll be tearing this UP on the weekend. Getting pretty stoked about this run. Sometime during the weekend, I'm going to try and time a run from the beginning through Gremlin and see what happens.

Late night posting!  Woo!

Okay, what to report first?

So, the part I did last night, from first arrival in tantar to post giant stone robot part 1, I'd estimate it could be done in 20 minutes, maybe less depending on how the fights go, and how soon you can die after the agua fight.

I did Gremlin a couple times, with some different gear setups.  Because of my lucky nina save state, I actually had Ryu at 11, Nina at 10, and Bo at 9 for every attempt.  I'll also go ahead and admit that in my first trip to Winlan, I spent all my money on chainmail for Ryu, so I have Bo wear that once I get thief cloak.  I find the Gremlin fight to be easy, but only when Bo takes his turn BEFORE Ryu.  This allows Bo to use two frys, and then have Ryu just fill him up with acorns.  And yes, I still had to have nina cast fort on everyone and heal like crazy.  And I have 2 life2's at that point, and I could actually pick up a third if I really thought I needed it.  During phase 2, I actually found it optimal to just let Bo die at one point, and then use a life2 on him.  This allowed me to get a few more ekeys in and speed things up.  It can definitely be done without the life2, but it's not a bad spot to use them there.

I actually found the Talon fight to be really annoying.  It's not a difficult fight, just really boring and tedious.

Wow, I'm feeling pretty good.  I got to see my good friend Karn sleeping in the jail like a little baby.  Haha.  Oh boy... I need some sleep too.

I'll be tearing this UP on the weekend.  Getting pretty stoked about this run.  Sometime during the weekend, I'm going to try and time a run from the beginning through Gremlin and see what happens.

Edit history:

DoubleThink: 2009-05-23 01:21:45 am

2009-05-21 11:45:07 pm

There's a word for that

Quote from __sdfg:

My mandatory-fights-only spreadsheet currently has him at 17 or 18 after fighting Jade, so yeah, I hope so, too. I'm going to be relying heavily on Agni...

Hahahaha wow O_O I didn't think your levels would be quite that low... I think Angi's stats are set, or at least partially so (its damage certainly is), so I don't think that will be the issue. I was more worried about the fights before getting Angi. I mean at that rate you're fighting things like Mote and HornToad at level what, 15? Guess it's a good thing that later characters join at 'higher' levels...

Edit, while I'm at it: Yeah never mind what I said about Ryu's dragon forms being weak, I forgot that their 'magic' could go critical >_> There's a bit of grey area, but only once Ryu gets the DragonSD or something similar, because a sword attack is a couple of seconds faster than a dragon attack. Speaking of which...
Mote. Physical attacks are needed in this fight full-stop, so Bleu won't be much use, if she's even used at all. Ditto for Nina but that's true most of the time <_< On the plus side, it means that there's a fight where Mogu could actually be useful Cheesy

He also has some nasty Fire magic, especially once his visible health bar gets knocked down and he starts using the single-target 150 damage spell EVERY TURN. I don't know if anyone aside from Ox or Bleu will even have that much HP, but there is a bunch of equipment that reduces Fire damage by 25%, a lot of which is conveniently available shortly before Mare World.

There's also a bunch of interesting stuff in this old thread which could prove useful. And here's the exp listing, if you didn't have that already. Also, in regards to the Pog/General thing: Ha!

Also, I don't know if you've tried to hunt anything, but there's a bug where an animal (or maybe just a deer) will get 'stuck' trying to run away from you if it hits the edge of the land, spin around several times and then explode. Free antlers! A W.Ant is needed to make Nina's Tonic, but there are also a bunch of them sitting around in places.

Edit again: Yeah I know how Mote works ._. And wow, dying in this game doesn't halve your cash like it does in most others. That makes things a bunch simpler...

[quote="__sdfg"]
My mandatory-fights-only spreadsheet currently has him at 17 or 18 after fighting Jade, so yeah, I hope so, too.  I'm going to be relying heavily on Agni...
[/quote]Hahahaha wow O_O I didn't think your levels would be quite that low... I think Angi's stats are set, or at least partially so (its damage certainly is), so I don't think that will be the issue. I was more worried about the fights before getting Angi. I mean at that rate you're fighting things like Mote and HornToad at level what, 15? Guess it's a good thing that later characters join at 'higher' levels...

Edit, while I'm at it: Yeah never mind what I said about Ryu's dragon forms being weak, I forgot that their 'magic' could go critical >_> There's a bit of grey area, but only once Ryu gets the DragonSD or something similar, because a sword attack is a couple of seconds faster than a dragon attack. Speaking of which...
Mote. Physical attacks are needed in this fight full-stop, so Bleu won't be much use, if she's even used at all. Ditto for Nina but that's true most of the time <_< On the plus side, it means that there's a fight where Mogu could actually be useful :D He also has some nasty Fire magic, especially once his visible health bar gets knocked down and he starts using the single-target 150 damage spell EVERY TURN. I don't know if anyone aside from Ox or Bleu will even [i]have[/i] that much HP, but there is a bunch of equipment that reduces Fire damage by 25%, a lot of which is conveniently available shortly before Mare World.

There's also a bunch of interesting stuff in [url=http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=563529&topic=40557304]this old thread[/url] which could prove useful. And here's the [url=http://novaliaspirit.99k.org/bof/file/bof_experience.txt]exp listing,[/url] if you didn't have that already. Also, in regards to the Pog/General thing: [url=http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=563529&topic=46111804]Ha![/url]

Also, I don't know if you've tried to hunt anything, but there's a bug where an animal (or maybe just a deer) will get 'stuck' trying to run away from you if it hits the edge of the land, spin around several times and then explode. Free antlers! A W.Ant is needed to make Nina's Tonic, but there are also a bunch of them sitting around in places.

Edit again: Yeah I know how Mote works ._. And wow, dying in this game doesn't halve your cash like it does in most others. That makes things a bunch simpler...

Axel Ryman

2009-05-22 10:38:50 pm

We all scream for Eyes Cream

The Mote fight is actually dependent on how he looks. If Mote looks blurry, then Physical attacks are the way to go, as magic will barely do any damage. If he's clearly visible, then physical attacks will barely do any damage. Magic is the way to go right there. So you'll at least need someone to do a strong magic based attack when he's visible. If Hero's dragon spell is doing more than Bleu's magic then yeah Bleu will definitely be useless here, but since Bleu is one of the slowest, it means 2-3 Physical hits then 1 spell, which gets the maximum amount of damage or so.

I also believe there is an armor Nina and Bleu can have at this point that absorbs the fire element attacks, but I believe you get it from the store with Gobi. *goes to check*

Edit: Turns out its the Earth Robe and can be equipped on just about anyone. Any elemental spell hitting the person wearing it is absorbed, and easily found in Gant under a heavy crate. Definitely worth getting.

2009-05-25 11:22:54 am

D:

I'm leaving Gust right now. Ryu somehow has 6000-7000 more EP than I expected him to have. Good news, I guess, except that I don't know how it happened. Undecided

Perhaps his level will be in the mid-20s at the end of the game after all.

Quote from Abazaba:

I find the Gremlin fight to be easy, but only when Bo takes his turn BEFORE Ryu. This allows Bo to use two frys, and then have Ryu just fill him up with acorns.

That was the same strategy that I adopted for both Wisp and Gremlin. Fry is the strongest thing you've got at that stage of the game and it's best to use it as often as possible.

Quote from DoubleThink:

Edit, while I'm at it: Yeah never mind what I said about Ryu's dragon forms being weak, I forgot that their 'magic' could go critical >_> There's a bit of grey area, but only once Ryu gets the DragonSD or something similar, because a sword attack is a couple of seconds faster than a dragon attack.

There isn't as much of a grey area as you'd think, actually. From what I've seen, most bosses have a sufficiently high defense that Ryu with the DragonSD is still inferior to his second-level transformations (e.g. BltDgn). I guess he might be better off than the first-level transformations, though.

Quote:

And wow, dying in this game doesn't halve your cash like it does in most others. That makes things a bunch simpler...

I know.

I'm leaving Gust right now.  Ryu somehow has 6000-7000 more EP than I expected him to have.  Good news, I guess, except that I don't know how it happened. :-\  Perhaps his level will be in the mid-20s at the end of the game after all.

[quote="Abazaba"]
I find the Gremlin fight to be easy, but only when Bo takes his turn BEFORE Ryu.  This allows Bo to use two frys, and then have Ryu just fill him up with acorns.[/quote]

That was the same strategy that I adopted for both Wisp and Gremlin.  Fry is the strongest thing you've got at that stage of the game and it's best to use it as often as possible.

[quote="DoubleThink"]Edit, while I'm at it: Yeah never mind what I said about Ryu's dragon forms being weak, I forgot that their 'magic' could go critical >_> There's a bit of grey area, but only once Ryu gets the DragonSD or something similar, because a sword attack is a couple of seconds faster than a dragon attack.[/quote]

There isn't as much of a grey area as you'd think, actually.  From what I've seen, most bosses have a sufficiently high defense that Ryu with the DragonSD is still inferior to his second-level transformations (e.g. BltDgn).  I guess he might be better off than the first-level transformations, though.

[quote]And wow, dying in this game doesn't halve your cash like it does in most others. That makes things a bunch simpler...[/quote]

I know. :D

2009-06-04 06:28:30 am

D:

Double-posting with some trivia so it doesn't look like I completely gave up on this:

Apparently, in the GBA version, the shops continue to sell Mrbl3s late into the game. This is not so in the SNES version, as I discovered when I realized I'd been relying on a GBA-oriented FAQ to plan my future shopping trips. I'm going to have to buy ~20 Mrbl3s in Drogen, ~50 in Winlan, and ~80 in Prima.
Agni + EarthRB + Putting Ryu in the back row = A retardedly easy round of boss fights. After getting Agni, I used one Cure, period (halfway through the final Goddess fight). Unfortunately, I still haven't verified that getting Agni is worth the extra time it takes, other than the fact that it makes the game so much easier.
I did force myself to do a little timing in Nanai. All of the extra work needed to buy the LongSD add a little over two minutes to the run (or at least it does in the way I'm doing it). Going from level 6 to level 7 adds at least a minute and half (my halfass attempts bottomed out at 2:00, so this seems more than fair). If you get good enough luck that the Knight doesn't T.Bolt you to death, you pack some extra Herbs, and you come in with all of the available Stns, I think the fastest overall strategy is to fight him at level 6 with the BronzSD. This adds <1:30 relative to using the LongSD at level 7. It's an ugly fight, but I'm segmenting this, so I can get away with it. I'm not sure what the best strategy would be for a single-segment run.

I think that's all I've got for now.

Double-posting with some trivia so it doesn't look like I completely gave up on this:

[list]
[li]Apparently, in the GBA version, the shops continue to sell Mrbl3s late into the game.  This is not so in the SNES version, as I discovered when I realized I'd been relying on a GBA-oriented FAQ to plan my future shopping trips.  I'm going to have to buy ~20 Mrbl3s in Drogen, ~50 in Winlan, and ~80 in Prima.[/li]
[li]Agni + EarthRB + Putting Ryu in the back row = A [i]retardedly[/i] easy round of boss fights.  After getting Agni, I used one Cure, period (halfway through the final Goddess fight).  Unfortunately, I still haven't verified that getting Agni is worth the extra time it takes, other than the fact that it makes the game so much easier.[/li]
[li]I did force myself to do a little timing in Nanai.  All of the extra work needed to buy the LongSD add a little over two minutes to the run (or at least it does in the way I'm doing it).  Going from level 6 to level 7 adds at least a minute and half (my halfass attempts bottomed out at 2:00, so this seems more than fair).  If you get good enough luck that the Knight doesn't T.Bolt you to death, you pack some extra Herbs, and you come in with all of the available Stns, I think the fastest overall strategy is to fight him at level 6 with the BronzSD.  This adds <1:30 relative to using the LongSD at level 7.  It's an ugly fight, but I'm segmenting this, so I can get away with it.  I'm not sure what the best strategy would be for a single-segment run.[/li]
[/list]

I think that's all I've got for now.

2009-06-04 09:41:37 pm

There's a word for that

Some of the later fights, in particular Jade and the 'regular' Goddess, take a very long time without Agni. At a rough guess I would say getting the EarthRB takes about a minute or so, and that seems like it'd just about make up for itself. Also, if you didn't know, it's possible to use Agni as soon as the first battle with the goddess starts; you don't have to whack her a bit and then have Sara appear. And yeah taking on Knight at Lv6 sounds like the best plan, especially if you get the F.Stn from Frog. Kinda sucks about the Mrbl3's though Sad

2009-06-04 10:17:22 pm

D:

Speaking of Tyr, since I don't know how obvious the answer would be to everyone else (it stumped me more than it should have... maybe you guys are smarter), the Goddess transformation led to an interesting puzzler. Using Agni is by far the fastest way to end the first part of the battle. However, at level 18, it expends just about all of Ryu's AP. This makes it necessary to recover Ryu's AP during the second part, and have everyone alive for the next turn.

The solution I found was to load Ryu up with the best equipment available (which is necessary to beat Avian anyway), and have him use the WtrJr'. He becomes durable and slow enough that he can survive Tyr's first attack, recover his own AP, and resurrect whomever got killed.

2009-06-09 10:59:02 am

I really don't see the lngsd being a good choice, not only in time management, but also in use of funds. Other than that ONE fight, you'll never use the lngsd again. I've been spending that money on chainmail in winlan, so I don't have to get extra armor later for Bo/Ryu.

As far as being level 6 as opposed to 7, here's the problem. I think after level 3, the leveling stats are random. If you don't have enough ACT, then you won't be ahead of knight, making for a near impossible fight. I don't have my notes with me, but I think the number is 20? 19? Or I might be thinking of a different encounter. There are only two times pre-gremlin where it matters. Anyways, just make sure you are above the magic number. I've actually leveled all the way to 7 sometimes, and have still been behind him. Horrendous.

2009-06-09 05:33:50 pm

D:

It's not impossible if you take all of the equipment out of the Camlon castle, and you shift Ryu to the back row. Not having the initiative makes the battle a little riskier, but I'm planning on segmenting, so that's a non-issue. The bigger problem, actually, is that you have fewer HP at level 6. This forces you to heal more often, which makes the battle take a little longer.

What I'm currently planning on doing with the extra money, actually, is putting it toward the G.Bar in Auria. I've figured out that if you pick up the easy-to-grab Cures along the way (I counted four of them, by the way), and you get the two M.Drops in Karma, you can sell the lot of them for 18200G at the Auria item shop. With this, a few of the chests along the way, and the sale of some leftover equipment, you can skip the sidequest with the fairies. I don't have specifics on exactly how much time is saved because when I was building my save states, I forgot to stop by the woods on my way into Auria (>_<), but just walking to the woods from Auria ate up 1:15. Multiplying this by two and figuring that you're going to waste at least a minute on dialogue, the 20000G reward becomes worse per-minute than most other sources of income.

Also, the Knight's ACT is 18, according to this.

It's not impossible if you take all of the equipment out of the Camlon castle, and you shift Ryu to the back row.  Not having the initiative makes the battle a little riskier, but I'm planning on segmenting, so that's a non-issue.  The bigger problem, actually, is that you have fewer HP at level 6.  This forces you to heal more often, which makes the battle take a little longer.

What I'm currently planning on doing with the extra money, actually, is putting it toward the G.Bar in Auria.  I've figured out that if you pick up the easy-to-grab Cures along the way (I counted four of them, by the way), and you get the two M.Drops in Karma, you can sell the lot of them for 18200G at the Auria item shop.  With this, a few of the chests along the way, and the sale of some leftover equipment, you can skip the sidequest with the fairies.  I don't have specifics on exactly how much time is saved because when I was building my save states, I forgot to stop by the woods on my way into Auria (>_<), but just walking to the woods from Auria ate up 1:15.  Multiplying this by two and figuring that you're going to waste at least a minute on dialogue, the 20000G reward becomes worse per-minute than most other sources of income.

Also, the Knight's ACT is 18, according to [url=http://novaliaspirit.99k.org/bof/file/bof_monster_statistics_guide.txt]this[/url].

Chromium

2009-06-10 01:48:41 pm

A bit off topic, but is the 999,999 gp glitch allowed? That would serve to save time and effort I would imagine.

Edit history:

__sdfg: 2009-06-10 05:49:31 pm

2009-06-10 05:03:09 pm

D:

Does that work in the SNES version? I wasn't familiar with it, so I gave it a quick test just now and I still had 0G after declining the trade. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. :|

Edit: The SNES version and the GBA version are just different enough that they should count as separate runs, in my opinion, which is why I asked (different difficulty, different shops, etc.).

Chromium

2009-06-11 11:40:43 am

No I am pretty sure it works in the SNES version. First, deposit all of your money. What you have to do is make sure that someone in your party has an item worth -more- than the -most expensive- item in any store. Try to trade your person's item for a cheaper one, then when it asks you if the trade is ok, say no. It should put you right up to 999,999 gold. I haven't played in a very long time though, so if i'm wrong please someone correct me. It is a very useful trick - imagine buying all your mrbl3's from the beginning, not having to earn cash for a g. bar, getting the best equipment in every town, etc.

2009-06-11 04:53:28 pm

D:

What you said is basically the same as what I read elsewhere. It doesn't work for me on the SNES ROM. Unfortunately, I'm living a couple hundred miles away from my SNES right now, and I won't be back until mid-August, so it's going to be a little while before I can test this definitively on the cartridge.

2009-06-12 07:51:26 am

I've got the SNES copy. When is the earliest you can do this?

mikwuyma

2009-06-12 07:54:19 am

My feelings on The Demon Rush

Quote from __sdfg:

Edit: The SNES version and the GBA version are just different enough that they should count as separate runs, in my opinion, which is why I asked (different difficulty, different shops, etc.).

If that's true then they're separate categories.